Tracey feckin Brabin

Actress!

 

Owen Jones! What a fine young man.

 

A deluded 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.

 

Good points about Andy Burnham and the Labour Party getting its act together but I'm not holding my breath. I don't think the electorate voted for Boris and his crew because they are posh public school twits. It was more to do with their stance on the EU and their policies in general. The problem with Labour in the last 10 years is that along with their party infighting they campaign on what THEY think the public should want instead of listening to what they are saying. It's a crazy situation when the Tories appeal to ordinary working man and woman. The Champagne Socialists tag is a perception that Labour should be ashamed of because it isn't far from the truth.

 

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.

 

I know you didn't type twit, I'm afraid I'm getting on a bit and I only read through what you had to say once.
I've just read through your reply (twice) and agree with all you have to say regarding the vote share and how under the present system Labour will struggle to win a General Election. There are other issues as well. Some people think it will take a couple of generations for the older voters who maybe favour the Tories to die off. Personally I find that view disappointing to say the least, I would rather the Labour sought to broaden their appeal. I haven't got much time for Tony Blair these days but prior to 1997 Labour were almost unelectable but he found away to change that, I'm not sure Starmer can do that because the far left have too much influence at the moment. I'm no lover of the Tories but one thing they've cottoned on to is the fact that the party faithful, Tory or Labour, don't get you elected, it's the floaters who flip flop. Some also think we have a right wing media who influence the vote, I certainly don't see that. The biggest media outlet in the country is the BBC and they are very anti Tory and their stance against Brexit was embarrassingly bias.
Another problem that Labour have is the "red wall" vote. The Tories haven't got a good record on keeping promises but if they do follow up on rewarding that vote they may win those areas over for future elections as they obviously feel ignored by Labour. There is no one answer to these issues in the near future.

 

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.

 

I don't see the system as favoring one party, it just means that you're better off winning a lot of seats by a small margin than few seats by a large margin but I don't see that as being an advantage.

As I mentioned, Labour getting a 157 majority despite only getting 2.8% more of the vote back in 2005 shows that it works both ways. In comparison the Conservatives having a 163 majority for a 11.5% difference in the vote seems massively fair!

But you're right that having 3 parties who are pretty aligned is detrimental to Labour. Although they can't agree within their own party let alone try to try to agree with others!

 

Clearly the system does favour the Tories. The Blair result in 2005 was an isolated aberration from the general trend.
A good example is 1951. "The highest share of the vote received by Labour in a general election was 48.8% in 1951, when the Conservatives won the most seats despite polling fewer votes". This was the hugely popular Atlee government which created the NHS and powerhoused the WW2 recovery by building council houses and other infrastructure - slung out on its ear despite the highest Labour vote in history because of how our voting system works.

The article below explains it better than I can.

Three particular points stand out for me:

1."out of the last 20 elections since 1950, 19 have had a majority of voters choosing parties to the left of the Tories, yet the Conservatives have seized power two-thirds of the time."

2. "Counting votes by constituency helps the more geographically dispersed Tories, as Labour votes are concentrated increasingly in urban areas, denying a national democratic result. That’s why it took 50,835 votes to elect a Labour MP, but only 38,264 to elect a Tory, 336,038 for a Liberal Democrat and a shocking 865,697 for a Green."

3."Boris Johnson won his 80-seat majority on a just 1.3% increase in vote share over Theresa May’s lost majority in 2017".

This last quote in particular, illustrates the point I was trying to make to @1975citygent .

The impression is given in the media and on these pages that the socially liberal views of most LP MPs, members and supporters are wildly out of step with the mood of 'the country' and that the vast majority of 'ordinary working people' don't support those views. But this is clearly incorrect. Despite a hugely unpopular and inept opposition leader, a terrible election campaign by Labour, the Labour Brexit fiasco and overwhelmingly favourable media support, Johnson only increased the Tory vote by 1.3%. And more people voted against the Tories than for them!
The apparent massive popularity of Johnson's Tories is actually a simple quirk of our electoral system. In reality, the country is split very closely down the middle between social liberals and social conservatives, but FPTP creates large majorities out of paper thin victories.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/labour-electoral-system-priti-patel-mayoral-elections

 

It is all about borders, You may have a Labour seat next to a Conservative seat, But by moving the border by only a few hundred feet would produce either 2 Labour or two Conservative seats depending on the make up.

 

Yes, but 'any other party' don't keep getting elected into government time after time, despite being supported by a minority of the electorate. But the Tories do, because of how our electoral system works. You like it, because it produces the result you want, but it's totally undemocratic to have governments elected by a minority of the electorate time and time again.

 

That's part of it, but only a small part. It's much more about the concentration of Labour voters in metropolitan areas, chopping the overall vote into constituencies and FPTP producing millions of votes that count for nothing.

 

No, it isn't.
Which is why most other civilised democracies don't use FPTP.