A politician out of their depth means nothing, most of them are. It really is pointless selecting a party based on incompetence when all of them are basically just winging it. Look at some of Liz Truss’s absolute hilarious clangers on YouTube and she’s Tory Minister for Justice. Very few of them from any side know what they are doing.
I’m not defending Abbot here particularly, because she should have written down her figures, but she also gave other interviews earlier on the same morning and got her figures correct. I’m much more interested in the story of Theresa May’s team locking Cornwall live journalists in a cupboard so they couldn’t film her at a Helston factory, but I suppose Dianne Abbot being a retard is more newsworthy.
It makes her look like she’s losing her grip to you, and me I hasten to add. I wish I was as confident as you that it would play that way across the board. I think a lot of people will eat it up because it fits nicely into their narrative.
This one claim may be enough to swing a percentage of UKIP support which will be up for grabs this time.
People will believe a “strong leader” is the most important thing for Brexit so those pesky Euros don’t try anything sneaky. It strengthens her case as the right wing statesman and casts doubt on every other leader.
“For Theresa May to use the backdrop of Downing Street to make such preposterous, paranoid and xenophobic claims is ill-befitting the office of Prime Minister.”
“She talks about strong and stable leadership, but at the first sign of difficulty in her talks with Brussels, she is wobbling and lashing out like some hybrid of Richard Nixon and Cersei Lannister.”
I agree that Abbott is probably no worse than some Tory cabinet members but she is one of Labour’s most senior MP’s, and should know any slip will be pounced on by the right wing media, and Abbott is easy for them to ridicule because her views are sometimes hypocritical.
It’s far easier being a Tory MP because they don’t have to worry about being seen as greedy or uncaring because the media normally doesn’t report it, and for most Tory voters, these are seen as admirable qualities, whereas Labour are seen as a high taxing, high spending, politically correct party, that is against enterprise and entrepreneurism.
I obviously don’t agree with those views but sometimes when I watch people like Abbot and Corbyn, I cringe because some of the things they say are just fodder for the right wing media.
This is why Blair and New Labour were so successful, because they identified the problems with the Tories, which were that they were uncaring, arrogant and stale, but they also knew that previous leaders of the Labour party like Foot and Kinnock were far too easy to criticise.
So Blair made Labour electable by shifting them away from the perceived left wing, working class party, to a modern party that was more central and, consequently, more electable.
I think this will have to happen again if Labour are ever going to come close to winning an election.
Like I said yesterday, Labour are unelectable.
If they can’t do better than this in the Local Elections, which are normally a protest at whoever is in government, then they have no chance in a general election.
Labour have to get a new leader with a bit of charisma to appeal to the general public.
All Corbyn does is appeal to the the hard core Labour voters who wouldn’t vote for anyone else anyway.
The Tories don’t need any more help.
In the South of England most voters would vote for a hatstand if it had a blue rosette on it.
Council elections prove how Labour have fucked themselves on the biggest constitutional issues in both Scotland and England - independence and Brexit.
They have been outflanked.
In scotland: independence vote is now the SNP’s. The pro-uk vote has now been consolidated by the Tories.
In England: they are not a viable option for the remainers or leavers really, with their flip flop stance. Remainers are with the Lib Dems and the UKIP leave vote has now gone home to the tories.
Edit: Wales: see England, as with everything else.
All this means is that Labour right now, are FUCKED.
I think on most issues, bar the NHS, people don’t know where the labour party stand. Their message is too diffuse and incoherent.
The council results just confirm much of the existing polling data; Conservatives taking seats from labour that was previously unthinkable, UKIP vote abandoning the party and going to the tories, and that the revival of the Lib Dems has been overstated.
Why are people deserting Labour? In short it’s two things: a desire to leave the EU, and immigration. Labour have no choice but to straddle both sides of the EU debate, otherwise the outcome would be even worse, and on immigration they can’t shift away from open borders either for the same reason. Labour is caught in a really difficult bind, and on the back of the SNP surge. Those that don’t vote Labour out of dislike of Corbyn are a tiny fraction of the overall Labour vote.
Why would a Brexiter in Wales or Northern England, or an SNP voter, suddenly vote for a more charismatic Blairite? If Remain had beaten Brexit I think Labour would be doing just fine.
It’s not the Labour vote that is in question because most of them would never vote Tory.
What they need is to get back the floating voters and the middle ground, because if they don’t, they are going to be even further behind.
I was no big fan of Blair’s, after he had proven to be no more than a watered down Tory, but he was electable and at least was an antidote to the years of Thatcher.
He was not much different to Major but he was what the country needed and did a pretty good job.
But in a strange way this is correct, because UKIP are already in power. The Tories are UKIP. Theresa May, basically a Remain supporting centrist, is entirely their hostage. It’s a staggering coup by UKIP really.
