Most liked posts in thread: Tracey feckin Brabin

You've got to live and work in places like Bradford to understand how it works.

 

Think one area of concern was that in certain sections of the community they were asked to do postal votes, These were then collected up and filled in and sent back

 

Nice little earner for her as well as the MP salary.

how does she manage to have two full time jobs and do them both

 

Don't hold your breath, that guy will never teach again.

 

He is in full support of Covid passports for people to enter say a pub or cinema. However he is outraged at having to take a piece of ID to prove who you are to vote.

I could literally walk into a polling station give someone elses name and address say off a piece of stolen mail and get to vote for them.

 

He's clearly an intelligent guy but still can't fathom the fact the the majority of the public don't agree with his views. If they did Labour would get into power

 

Nope

 

Owen Jones! What a fine young man.

 

I was hoping for a reaction.

 

Talking of female (can I say that?) politicians and an the subject of Angela Rather it was good to see Boris inject some humour into proceedings in the House when he did his "beware the Lioness" piece. Hard to tell with the masks but I'm sure Kier Starmer and Angela Raynor were smiling at the very least.

 

I keep repeating myself, I say I keep repeating myself!

 

A reaction, what from me very rarely do I have a reaction to a fellow members post .

 

There's undoubtedly some truth in what you say. Unfortunately, however, there is quite a schism between what the 'ordinary working man and woman' in northern ex-industrial towns and southern shire counties think, and what millions of ordinary people living in big cities think. The cities tend to be much more diverse, socially liberal and also have a much higher proportion of younger, university educated residents. There is a strong correlation between higher education and socially liberal views.

In the past, a lot of Labour MPs started out as trades union reps or as local councillors. But the big unionised workplaces have mostly gone and local councils have been neutered by budget cuts and centralised funding. So most Labour MPs now go from university to party workers before becoming candidates for Parliament. The conditions that led to people working in mines, factories, docks and mills becoming MPs have gone. So it's no surprise that the LP has now become the party of the big cities and the younger, university educated section of the population, because that's where its MPs and party members now mostly come from..
The number of votes it takes to get an MP elected in a populous metropolitan constituency is far higher than for MPs in socially conservative shire counties and northern ex- industrial towns with lesser population density. The combination of those two groups therefore produces a disproportionately high number of Tory MPs, giving the false impression that social conservatism is the dominant view of the population. Whereas, the socially liberal metropolitan areas are actually heavily under-represented relative to their populations. The Brexit vote, which was a straight count and largely split on social liberal/conservative lines, produced an almost 50/50 split in the population. That vote much more accurately represents the true picture than our flawed election system with its wasted votes and unequal constituency sizes.
Given those electoral system handicaps, Labour has a massive uphill task in bridging the interests and views of their socially liberal supporters (and party members) in the cities and their waning 20th century support base in the ex-industrial north. Having said all that, there's no doubt that Labour have been very lacklustre since Starmer took over. The pandemic certainly has been a big impediment to being an effective opposition, both in and outside of Parliament. But they badly need to come up with a strong, coherent economic message to sell to the public. Even if they do I think it's virtually impossible for them to win the next GE, unless there is a series of massive own goals by Johnson and co.
Oh, and I didn't type 'twit'.

 

have you got any stats on that?

I know that they tried to balance the size of constituencies previously so they were all + or - 5% of the average size but I didn't realise there was still a major discrepancy.

I recall that Blair one won an election with just a 3% majority in popular vote but it gave him a 150 seat majority or something like that so I thought it was a foible of the system rather than an advantage one way or the other.

 

It was some while ago that I read about this and I couldn't remember where I saw it, so I did some digging.
It seems I misremembered it. As you infer, the issue isn't one of disparate size. It's a phenomenon of first past the post.
In a FPTP system, any majority of more than one effectively produces 'wasted' votes and, of course all those votes cast for losing candidates count for nothing in the overall result. Effectively, only those votes cast for winning candidates, up to a majority of one, actually count for anything.
So the combination of big majorities in metropolitan areas and the anti-Tory/centre and centre left vote being split between Labour, LibDems and Greens produces big Tory majorities even though more people vote against them than for them.
In the Euro elections the Tories used to do less well than in GEs because PR produced results that more accurately represented the electorate. Likewise in mayoral elections. That's why the Tories are planning to make mayoral elections FPTP in future, because they know that the split anti-Tory vote favours them enormously.
So the chances of Labour achieving a big enough swing to beat the Tories at the next election, even if they do get their act together, are very slim, given our system. There needs to be an electoral pact between Labour, LibDems and Greens to stand aside in areas where one party has the best chance of beating the Tories. Can't see that happening though.