Wow. Latest Hartlepool polling...

TeaCider said:
I don't think Labour would have a cat in hell's chance of ousting Ben Houchen even if they were doing well right now.

He's very popular and it's clear that he's been campaigning on the personal vote and with anti-Labour rhetoric lately rather than linking himself to the Conservatives.
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Incredible that nationalising infrastructure & using government money to support local industry is a popular policy.
 
BoroMart said:
of course some people believed that, however the people at the very head of the brexit campaign were those establishment old etonian, offshore bank account, billionaires. So it was a stupid way to deliver that change.

The establishment did need shaking up, the best way to have done that was right in front of people, to put a proper left wing, anti-tory, anti-wealth transfer, socialist government in place...the Corbyn option. The public bottled it though
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Old Etonian, offshore bank account, billionaire - you mean like David Cameron and his family?

I saw it as a the comfortably off establishment were Remain.

The public did not bottle it, they thought the Labour Party was trying to cancel the 2016 Referendum vote and they didn't have enough confidence in Corbyn/McDonald to deliver enough of their promises. The Labour promises were too many too and not focused on regional regeneration. JC was a good ranter and wanted change, but he had sat on the back benches since 1983 which did not help him appear a man of action. He also had a legacy of supporting what is seen in this country as political extreme overseas causes.

I am not a Labour member, but it looked to me that a core element of the party (particularly the MPs) felt they had to stop Brexit to protect working class people against themselves. Just because someone is blue collar and did not go to University doesn't mean they can't think for themselves. As said previously people in the so called left behind voted predominately for change, they knew it was a risk that may backfire, but they didn't want a steady general lingering decline (that has been happening since 1980) which is felt in many parts of the North East. Many people were shocked by the 2016 result because their world does not go to places like South Bank (on Teesside that is), people are angry with those that have ruled over them including Labour, Conservative and the EU/EEC. They will turn on the Tories if they fail too, but they know the Tories need them, just like the NI parties squeezed Teresa May in 2017 when she needed them.
 
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InglebyUTB said:
They underestimated Brexit in an area that voted 70% to leave:ROFLMAO:

These people should be not be running a political party.
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No, underestimated the fact that many brexiters dont seem to be able to move on now we have left and vote on which candidate is more likely to improve the lives of their constituents.
Take a look at social media comments, its full of cultists
 
SuperStu said:
That's a funny thing to say Lefty. Not my recollection at all. You can claim it wasn't "project fear" and that actually they were all good faith warnings or whatever but odd to say no remainers actually said voting leave would lead to negative outcomes.

Off the top of my head, here's Osborne telling the country we'd need an emergency slash and tax budget just if people voted leave in the referendum, not even when Brexit actually happened. If I remember right, the emergency budget didn't actually happen after the fact so I think it's relatively understandable when people started to write off the threats as project fear. It's a boy who cried wolf thing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36534192
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That is the only example and you have to look at what he actually said, look carefully at the wording and the wording of the reports and studies referred to. It is unfortunate but experts and scientists often us different phrasing to the general public, let alone politicans looking to persuade people to an agenda.

The various predictions have been about right*, but when making predictions there is a range of outcomes given. What then happens is that the extremes can be seized upon.

Osborne remember was an austerity chancellor with an aim to not only balance a budget, but with a target of reducing the deficit by a certain amount.

So, what he was stating, was that if he was still chancellor, if the more dire end of the forecasts come true and if he was going to continue with exactly the same fiscal policy aim as before, in other words to give you a worst case but like for like pre and post brexit scenario, these were the measures that would have to be employed by him alone.

What actually happened was that Mark Carney stepped in and the BofE introduced some measures and Phil Hammond abandoned the rules and criteria Osborne had been using. He had to. The impact needed to be managed, spread out over time, rather than a shock. It took nearly 5 years of nothing much actually changing remember, but 5 years of some businesses being able to make contingency plans.

Then we have a pandemic, so for many sectors, the impact of brexit, which only actually happened 126 days ago, has been disguised.

The one sector which has already been impacted, severely, is the fishing industry. This is the sector that even Remainers thought would benefit, so if that is stuffed, what hope is there for all the others to be unaffected, let alone prosper?

One of the other often cited 'Project Fear' claims was that Cameron predicted World War 3. Take a look at the link. This is a GQ article and the headline just reflects the meme that was going about.

GQ WW3

Read the text of what he actually said. He doesn't say anything of the sort. He is making some very reasonable points in fact. What happened was Leave had a very effective propaganda campaign where misinformation was amplified and spread. The debate became a heated one, deliberately so because it suited Leave to have emotional rather than calm analysis. Psychologically people tend to believe their opponents position is more extreme than it is. The angrier you are, the less charitable you become and the more susceptible to hate you get.

So what we had was Leave Campaigner after Leave campaigner making speech after speech 'they say Leaving the EU will destroy the economy, that we will go immediately into depression, that it will lead to World War 3...'

What was actually predicted was that we might go into recession, but really it was about the opportunity cost, the impact and drag on growth. We would be worse off than if we had stayed in . It's quite different and it is the sort of thing that we will only really probably appreciate when we look at a graph ten years from now showing economic growth trajectory leading up to the referendum and since and compared to other similar EU nations. We know there has already been an impact and we know the gravity model of trade is robust and will illustrate we harmed ourselves. The question is, what will we have gained in exchange? I like sovereignty as much as the next man, I just think it should be used to make us more prosperous, not less, more secure, not less, more respected, not less.


* The outlier being, you've guessed it, the Economists for Brexit, who were badly wrong.
 
TeaCider said:
I don't know anything about the West Midlands Mayor, but I don't think Labour would have a cat in hell's chance of ousting Ben Houchen even if they were doing well right now.

He's very popular and it's clear that he's been campaigning on the personal vote and with anti-Labour rhetoric lately rather than linking himself to the Conservatives.

But there is absolutely no way that losing Hartlepool can be spun as anything but a colossal failure by Labour.
They obviously only held it last time because of vote splitting, but it doesn't make it any less of a failure to lose it this time.
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No, it actually very much does.
InglebyUTB said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1389532963206017025
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Copeland in 2017? After 2 years not one, no pandemic. Why didn't Corbyn quit after that?
 
jam69 said:
No, underestimated the fact that many brexiters dont seem to be able to move on now we have left and vote on which candidate is more likely to improve the lives of their constituents.
Take a look at social media comments, its full of cultists
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I'm sure calling them cultists is going to win them back.

The local CLP warned Starmer and the central party about having someone forced on them who wasn't local, didn't speak like them and didn't support Hartlepool's decision to leave.

They were ignored.
 
Lefty said:
Copeland in 2017? After 2 years not one, no pandemic. Why didn't Corbyn quit after that?
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Your first year is the year when you have the most goodwill, when people have the patience to allow you to find your feet and display your capabilities. If you aren't popular in the first year you have a fight on your hands. Is Hartlepool a test of Starmer's ability?
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
Your first year is the year when you have the most goodwill, when people have the patience to allow you to find your feet and display your capabilities. If you aren't popular in the first year you have a fight on your hands. Is Hartlepool a test of Starmer's ability?
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You think the last year has been normal?
 
It's going to be a bad night for Starmer and the Tories are going to love it, but the left of centre fighting amongst themselves again isn't going to help anyone....least of all the people of Hartlepool. Starmer might not in the end prove to better for labour than Corbyn, but at least let him have a general election before we get the knives out! I think his mistake so far has been to ditch the popular parts of Corbynism as well as the unpopular parts, he's probably been too influenced by the focus groups, but it's been a difficult time in which to take over as leader of the opposition, especially now the vaccine has changed the narrative round the pandemic.
 
Lefty said:
You think the last year has been normal?
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No, but someone has to win this election; either the party of sleaze, corruption and cronyism who have handed multi-million pound contracts to startup companies with links to the party whilst shunning firms already established in the field, and whose overall mishandling of the pandemic has lead to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths, or Labour.
If Corbyn was under threat prior to Oldham, imagine if he was in charge now.
 
newusername said:
Incredible that nationalising infrastructure & using government money to support local industry is a popular policy.
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Strange comment: the Tory government(s) have constantly franchised then Nationalised the East Coast Main Line.
They`ve also Nationalised Northern Rail.
They`ve subsidised franchises by billions every year since the railways were handed out to foreign state-owned railway companies and private global corporations.
Cant beat the Tory`s to hand out favours to their mates and subsidise their ideological failures with our money (y)
 
Bookies giving terrible odds.

Hartlepool... conservative win 1/12

Tees Mayor.... Ben Houchen 1/50
 
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