Tory`s win Hartlepool by 6940 votes.

[SuperStu]

No it's called tactics, obviously lost on yourself.

There is absolutely zero chance of winning any of their votes now, trying to would look pathetic and desperate. Just wait, it will be easy next year (and won't look desperate).

If step one of your master plan is getting absolutely hammered in local elections all over the country to avoid looking pathetic and desperate.... get back to the drawing board.

Andy is Peter Mandelson where do I claim my £5.

So long as he isn't Warnock... On the off chance any boro players like to have a look in on FMTTM can I reassure you nobody will think you're pathetic or desperate if you try and beat Wycombe tomorrow!

 

[Andy_W]

Andy it was a Parliamentary byelection. Absolutely no need to sway brexit back.

Labour have won the seat twice since the Brexit referendum. Twice.

Yes, I know, it's not possible to win it now. It's basically taking one for the team, but this 2021 vote was lost when we voted out in 2016, and when ukip or whoever hung around to see it finally happen.

It was only won because of the split vote. Labour have always been outnumbered by brexiteers, and that's not going to change 4 months after brexit was delivered (and most of it's problems have not come to light, or have been masked).

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

You seriously think it's a good idea to be attacking the Tories during pandemic,

Yes, that's a lame excuse. His performance during the pandemic has clearly been not just very poor but extremely corrupt. Trump lost an election during a pandemic.

 

[Andy_W]

If step one of your master plan is getting absolutely hammered in local elections all over the country to avoid looking pathetic and desperate.... get back to the drawing board.

They've been hammered since the recession, and they were hammered in 2017 and then again in 2019, when they had all the ammo in the world against the tories that were even trying to blow themselves up.

Going after them now when they've delivered two massive positives (brexit and vaccine) to their voters isn't going to get them back is it? What else can you attack them for, which is anywhere near that magnitude?

Brexit will turn into a problem, the cost of poor pandemic handling will cause a problem, the vaccine advance benefit will be nil at the end of the year. These are all things that will manifest and hurt the tories.

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

Labour have won the seat twice since the Brexit referendum. Twice.

The second time after promising a People's Vote within 6 months and Corbyn's Labour still held the seat. Now Brexit is done but Starmer lost the seat.

 

[SuperStu]

Yes, that's a lame excuse. His performance during the pandemic has clearly been not just very poor but extremely corrupt. Trump lost an election during a pandemic.

He's skipped meetings, wasted PPE money on his idiot mates rather than using companies that actually make the stuff needed, tried to pull the wool over everyones eyes double counting gloves etc, took way too long to introduce the first lockdown and the one after christmas - to the point the premier league clubs had started doing their own lockdown before Boris acted, send a load of covid patients in to old peoples homes, and ultimately he's let 150k die.

How much of the above is being forgotten about already? There's probably plenty of other blunders I've forgotten myself.

If you wait until 2023 to start going over the rights and wrongs of the Pandemic people will have moved on.

 

[TeaCider]

If the Brexit Party hadn't stood candidates, Hartlepool and Stockton North would likely both have had Conservative MPs from 2019.

The problems with Labour precede Starmer, though he's not doing a good job right now.
They even precede Corbyn, though I think he was the final straw for many voters who switched Conservative around here.

Hartlepool specifically has had a strong UKIP vote for years, that's finally collapsed and they look to have shifted to the Tories.

 

[Andy_W]

Yes, that's a lame excuse. His performance during the pandemic has clearly been not just very poor but extremely corrupt. Trump lost an election during a pandemic.

Boris and the tories have been a disaster I agree, but it was the wrong time to go at them all guns blazing frm kier. The "lost" voters love the "lets all pull together" horse crap. It's not me kier needs to convince, or you, it's the ones labour lost to the tories. When they start crawling back you might join sides tactically too (assuming you left to greens or whatever).

Trump lost because he said it wasn't real, for a lot longer than BJ the clown did, he lied even more than BJ and was denying science.

BJ is really bad, but not on Trump's level.

 

[SuperStu]

What else can you attack them for, which is anywhere near that magnitude?

150k dead. But you have to criticise it while it's happening. You can't just say "we support whatever the government do" and wait, wait, wait, wait and hope people remember the details and draw their own conclusions.

Brexit will turn into a problem

If/when it does there'll be Labour figures saying not to politicise it and to wait until the problems are solved before criticising!

 

[r00fie1]

View attachment 18303

Very much appreciated.
I`m sure we all feel more enlightened following your considered opinion.

 

[SuperStu]

If the Brexit Party hadn't stood candidates, Hartlepool and Stockton North would likely both have had Conservative MPs from 2019.

The problems with Labour precede Starmer, though he's not doing a good job right now.
They even precede Corbyn, though I think he was the final straw for many voters who switched Conservative around here.

If UKIP hadn't stood in 2015 maybe all their voters would have gone tory and they'd have won it then.

If the Lib Dems hadn't stood in 2010 maybe all their voters would have gone tory they'd have won it then.

What's the point in going back to old elections and imagining up these counterfactuals?

If the Brexit Party hadn't stood candidates in 2019, Corbyn's Labour would only have needed to win over about 1 in 4 Brexit Party voters to hold the seat. I don't think it's the foregone conclusion some are making it out to be that the tories would have automatically gained it. They certainly wouldn't have smashed the pants off it and have a 7000 vote majority.

 

[TeaCider]

If UKIP hadn't stood in 2015 maybe all their voters would have gone tory and they'd have won it then.

If the Lib Dems hadn't stood in 2010 maybe all their voters would have gone tory they'd have won it then.

What's the point in going back to old elections and imagining up these counterfactuals?

If the Brexit Party hadn't stood candidates in 2019, Corbyn's Labour would only have needed to win over about 1 in 4 Brexit Party voters to hold the seat. I don't think it's the foregone conclusion some are making it out to be that the tories would have automatically gained it. They certainly wouldn't have smashed the pants off it and have a 7000 vote majority.

I never said they'd smash it, I said they'd have won it, and I think they would have.

I've only mentioned previous elections because you keep bringing them up.
Labour won in 2019 because of vote splitting, not because of Corbyn.

The Brexit Party is gone and the Conservatives got more votes yesterday than Labour got in 2019, despite a significantly lower turnout.

 

[Andy_W]

150k dead. But you have to criticise it while it's happening. You can't just say "we support whatever the government do" and wait, wait, wait, wait and hope people remember the details and draw their own conclusions.



If/when it does there'll be Labour figures saying not to politicise it and to wait until the problems are solved before criticising!

Kier was criticising, were you not watching? Advised for the circuit breaker too, and then not having cribmo etc. They didn't ride around with it on a bus though, I'll give you that.

They don't have to support, it's keeping a temporary low profile, of being against, but not making a massive noise about it, as it will rile those that have recently left.

I would wait until after summer, once the vaccines are sorted and th EU has caught up and everyone has seen their mates. Then it will be back to normal, and back to normal tory austerity, then there will be hell on, and all of the "good things" that the tories are riding on now, will be long gone.

Anyway, had enough now. Lets just see where we're at in year.

 

[NoMushroom]

Its quite simple really, people don’t like being made fools of...... Labour went into the 2017 election with a promise to uphold the 2016 referendum, they lied and tried to overturn it with a confirmation vote in the 2019 election.

Its been payback ever since.... all across the country

I don't trust labour with the economy

I don't trust Labour with business

I don't trust Labour to deliver - infrastructure, redevelopment or Apprenticeships.

I don't trust that Labour will listen to me.

Labour are finished in England

and BY THE WAY my Grandad was a Miner ... and even he doesn't like Labour these days

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

They've been hammered since the recession, and they were hammered in 2017 and then again in 2019, when they had all the ammo in the world against the tories that were even trying to blow themselves up.

Going after them now when they've delivered two massive positives (brexit and vaccine) to their voters isn't going to get them back is it? What else can you attack them for, which is anywhere near that magnitude?

Brexit will turn into a problem, the cost of poor pandemic handling will cause a problem, the vaccine advance benefit will be nil at the end of the year. These are all things that will manifest and hurt the tories.

The 'ammo' is still there and we all know about it. The lying and corruption has been reported, everyone knows what's going on but a section of the population see it as now being acceptable as long as they can pick up a few crumbs, or in the case around here, promises of a few crumbs.

 

[Andy_W]

If the Brexit Party hadn't stood candidates in 2019, Corbyn's Labour would only have needed to win over about 1 in 4 Brexit Party voters to hold the seat. I don't think it's the foregone conclusion some are making it out to be that the tories would have automatically gained it. They certainly wouldn't have smashed the pants off it and have a 7000 vote majority.

For 100% of that brexit party vote, 100% of them only gave $hit about brexit, thinking labour could have got 1 in 4 of those is a pipe dream.

Brexit party was closer to brexit, than cons, then not voting, then labour. To get to labour, those votes needed to ignore the tories being up for brexit, then get passed not voting, and then vote for labour (actually against what they want, I think, albeit not crystal clear), and then vote for JC (which is about as far from the tories/ brexit party as you can get).

You might have got 1 in 20 at best, about the same number of labour mp's who voted leave.

 

[Andy_W]

The 'ammo' is still there and we all know about it. The lying and corruption has been reported, everyone knows what's going on but a section of the population see it as now being acceptable as long as they can pick up a few crumbs, or in the case around here, promises of a few crumbs.

This is the tories/ Brexit voters peak in my eyes (to their voters anyway), or maybe summer, after that they're heading down the mountain, and will gain momentum.

The only way this won't happen is if brexit is a success or we have economic gains etc, I would welcome those but they're unlikely.

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

Its quite simple really, people don’t like being made fools of...... Labour went into the 2017 election with a promise to uphold the 2016 referendum, they lied and tried to overturn it with a confirmation vote in the 2019 election.

Its been payback ever since.... all across the country

I don't trust labour with the economy

I don't trust Labour with business

I don't trust Labour to deliver - infrastructure, redevelopment or Apprenticeships.

I don't trust that Labour will listen to me.

Labour are finished in England

You're too busy to think about anything other than your four Ltd Co empire, let's be honest.

You haven't a clue about the economy, the Tories since the 70s have done more damage to our standard of living, with standards falling way behind other nations over the same time period.

The wealth gap is widening, funneling wealth into a smaller circle is catastrophic for any economy.

What do you want Labour to hear from you?

 

[delgrapos]

I've read this sentiment quite a lot over the past few weeks but can anyone tell me what the people who have decided to vote Conservative rather than Labour actually want? What is it that has made apparently 'dyed-in-the-wool' voters of a traditionally left-leaning party move to the right of politics? They can't have done it to protest that the Labour Party has moved too far right for them because that wouldn't make any sense, so what is it? Is it purely Brexit? Is it a protest against anyone even remotely left being viewed as soft, metropolitan, liberal, woke on TV and in papers and almost everywhere? If people are protesting about a lack of opposition then is the best way to do that to vote for the government? I can't get my head around that.

I would love to know the reasons why people are switching to the Tories after more than a decade of Conservative-led, ideologically-driven austerity.

I would hazard a guess at the main stream media being a big factor.

 

[NoMushroom]

The wealth gap is widening, funneling wealth into a smaller circle is catastrophic for any economy.

The wealth gap only widens for the people who don't want to work - for those of us who do want to work, it's been a good time with the Tories in power