So, a few weeks ago a book was published, under the title of Left Out. It was written by Graham Pogrund and Patrick Maguire and purported to tell the tale of Corbyn's leadership from its zenith in June 2017 to the disaster of December 2019.
I hadn't been terribly interested in reading it, frankly, because of some of the immediate media coverage had suggested it was going to be something of a Corbyn bash. Hell, the Daily Mail got into a lather about it, though I won't link to their write ups.
Then I happened upon Pogrund's twitter account and I thought, "Well, he might work for Rupert Murdoch, but that doesn't sound too bad." So I acquired a electronic copy of it and will now treat you - my riveted readers - an occasional chapter-by-chapter summary of it.
So now ...
THE PROLOGUE
This is very interesting. Obviously, I am pro-Corbyn and am mostly interested in things that show him to be the luckless victim of the 'centrists' in Labout who thought they new better than the leader of the party and the membership who elected him (twice.) But I'll try to be honest and reflect the opinions of the writers.
I am glad to report the opening pages offer plenty of rick pickings.
It opens - almost inevitably - at the moment of neesis, as the exit poll is announced on the 12th of December, 2019, and whatever hopes Labour supporters had of a repetition of the miracle of 2017 were dashed. I was there, I remember how it felt. The authors note - without comment - that Corbyn was viewing the exit poll at the offices of a charity called Freedom From Torture. Perhaps, after the travails of the past few years, that was appropriate.
The authors note that Corbyn's inner circle had been aware they were up against it for sometime - that the grim, static polls in the run up to the election were reflecting what their own polling was showing (if anything, Labour outperformed their private polling, which indicated the party would win fewer than 180 seats.) Never-the-less, the sense of shock and misery is well described in these opening pages, and rendered sympathetically.
The prologue quickly defines the fault line at the top of the party - between Corbyn's inner circle (McDonnell, Milne, Murphy and a few others) and those who opposed him, implacably, from the start. Here the authors do not hold back, describing the latter as "the seditious officials at party HQ." Dwell on that word for a few moments - "seditious." That isn't all of it. A few lines later, they quote an email from Corbyn complaining about "self-absorbed disloyalty" following the leaking of the party's campaign grid. Think on that - someone had opted to divulge information they were trusted with relating to the conduct of the election campaign. This isn't small stuff. I'm nervous of throwing words like 'treachery' around, but sabotaging your party's camapign ... what else do you call it? Let's foll the lead of Pogrund and Maguire and call it sedition.
Later on, they hark back to the happier result of 2017, commenting how that apparent high point really marked the beginning of the decline. Though "the Project" had earned the authority to try things its way, in the face of "two years of bitter resistance from its internal opponents" it would really be all down hill from June 2017 - "the hostility of MPs and party officials did not abate" the authors note, referring to the leaked report on anti-Semitism, cataloguing the "toxic, distrustful and openly mutinous culture of Southside".
It isn't effusively pro-Corbyn, however. The authors do note, even ain these aearly pages, that Corbyn and his inner circle aren't blameless in their undoing and offer some wanings of what may come, commenting on the issue of anti-Semitism in ambivalent wording, "Corbyn's own stances on anti-Semitism and foreign affairs came to wreak such damage on the Project."
The attempts to sabotage Corbyn's leadership seems likely to do more damage than Corbyn supposedly ever could have done, even if all the stories about him were true:
I was reluctant to say anything but this is too important, the full story needs to be told.
Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything different: without the actions of some Labour Party staff we would have won in 2017. #LabourLeakshttps://t.co/8OazhNBELz
So, yeah, six months down the line, I'm still raging about this. And bear in mind, gentle reader, I'm far, far removed from all this. British politics has almost no relevance to me (though it does affect directly many of my friends and family.) So if I am incandescent about this, think how angry people intimately involved in Labour - members and those who worked in 2017 and 2019 towards victory, not against it - must be.
Ryle's account is fascinating and depressing - how juvenile were these people, nicking off with computers and leaving offices untidy? It almost makes you wonder if the sort of people capable of such petty spiteful acts are capable of the grander allegations against them - the alleged diversion of funds which is identified as possible fraud alleged by Corbyn and key members of his team, which even the Guardian has felt compelled to report on.
And the frankly bizarre story of the Facebook ads and promos that were prepared just for Corbyn's team to see:
Perhaps the most kafkaesque example is the bizarre story of party officials designing Facebook adverts to be seen by only Corbyn’s team. A party official helpfully explained the strategy to the Sunday Times:
“They wanted us to spend a fortune on some schemes like the one they had to encourage voter registration,
but we only had to spend about £5,000 to make sure Jeremy’s people, some journalists and bloggers saw it was there on Facebook. And if it was there for them, they thought it must be there for everyone. It wasn’t.”
This souns like something from the latter days of the Soviet Union, with the Great Leader being assured by his self serving toadies and placeholders that everything is being done, everything is just right and the new tractor production statistics are most impresive, as the nation collapses all around them. Or, more pertinently, the bonkers press appearances of Donald Trump citing - apparently with complete conviction - misleading Covid data offered up by his staffers. Only, of course, Trump wants to be told everything is awesome and rejects anything that suggests otherwise - he's a willing participant in his own deception; Corbyn and his team wanted the truth, but were being lied to by people they should have been able to trust.
If accounts like Ryle's - and the allegations in the leaked report - are true, people behind this grim farceshould be expunged from the party. Their work contributed to the Conservatives winning a further five years in power, with the prospect of another them beyond that.
Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian has penned a column which chastises the left wing of the Labour party for daring to retain principles and ideals, qualities - it seems - that should be jettisoned in pursuit of power.
Never mind that Freedland was an ardent Remainer, that is to say, one of the people who fundamentally didn't get it and argued vociferously for the Labour Part to commit ever more public acts of self-mutilation. Now he's on the job and about his usual business of telling the little people what's best for them to think.
He ends it with a paragraph of blatant self-justifying, it-weren't-my-fault-guv blame shifting:
But the first step is to accept its importance, to recognise that winning power is the sine qua non of politics, literally the thing without which there is nothing. Labour deputy leadership candidate Richard Burgon might worry that party members will panic and “just reach out for whatever is most conventionally electable”, rather than opting for the most “radical” wishlist of promises, but there is a ready response to that. Labour’s experiment with the not “conventionally electable” ended in a conventional crushing two months ago – and there is nothing socialist or radical about that. Its only achievement was to grant the Tories five more years – and the power to reshape the world around them.
Mr Freedland should have spent the last four years writing columns like this reminding the right wing of the Labour party that winning power was far more important than undermining and besmirching the reputation of the Labour leader.
Instead, as I recall, he and his ilk in the allegedly leftwinf media were more than happy to join the Mail, Telegraph and the howling decayed giblets of the Murdoch press in demonising Corbyn. To borrow Freeland's own climactic line, "Its only achievement was to grant the Tories five more years – and the power to reshape the world around them."
But, of course, the same people who gleefully joined in the kicking to death o the Labour party between 2017 and 2019 are the same people busily re-writing history to disguise their culpability in handing Johnson those five years. By repeating the lie that defeat was all down to Corbyn and his radical policy platform they mask their own guilt.
I'm a forgiving chap but the likes of Freedland, Cohn and Toynbee need to acknowledge their own responsibility rather than pointing the finger elsewhere.
I'll overlook the absurd headline - no-one is talking about Labour winning the next election and I assume that Cooper didn't write the headline (she doesn't mention winning the next election anywhere in her piece); I assume it is typically witless work by someone in the Guardian, drawing to much inspiration from the style of clickbait ads. There's enough wrong wirth what Cooper says to set that nonsense aside. She shows a spectacular lack of political self-awareness, attempts to duck all responsibility and implies everything is the fault of Corbyn and the 'narrow hard-left'; effectively continuing the condescending and arrogant attitude towards the membership.
According to Cooper, the party must:
1 Face the scale of defeat with humility. 2 Stop the factional infighting. 3 Be a party for the whole country – not just a liberal-labour party for the cities. 4 Learn to love the achievements of the last Labour government. 5 Be a strong and credible opposition, as well as a radical alternative government. 6 Bring kindness and integrity back into politics. 7 Get involved.
The seven basic points she makes aren't too wide of the mark - though one can't help but think 'trite' and 'obvious'. I mean, would anyone advocate more factional infighting or call for increased unpleasantness and bitterness?
(Actually, plenty have done just that - since the December debacle I've read plenty of people demanding 'Corbynists' and 'Momentum' need to be 'eradicated' and 'driven out' of the party. Cooper's oddly silent on that.
It is the commentary she expands them with that tastes foul. Who else but Yvette Cooper could write Labour must "Stop the factional infighting" and then continue "We cannot be a narrow hard-left party. That doesn’t reflect our values or history. Nor will we win next time if we collapse into polarised factional infighting. Parties are teams. If we can’t compromise with each other, we can’t hold any coalition of voters together"? Remember, this is the person who refused to be part of Corbyn's cabinet - showing a distinct lack of team spirit - and And it is has only bothered to issue this fatwah on the importance of unity after Corbyn has been endured four years of undermining and back-stabbing. Strange she didn't bother to say anything before.
A more honest appraisal would have acknowledged infighting and factionalism originating on right wing of the party contributed massively to the failure of the Corbyn project, and that the party's 'establishment' never accepted the membership's choice of leader and worked to overturn it from the moment Corbyn was elected. She does not even mention the Chicken Coup of 2016, or the rantings of Margaret Hodge and others.
(She then turns the rest of her commentary on that point into a puff piece indicating she isn't going to stand as leader this time, although people have been begging her - literally begging her - to do so. Because she knows this "isn't the time" as "there are many in our party who won’t see me as the person to pull all sides of the party together" - which isn't surprising given the attitude on display here. The implication being that she might stand next time - when the post-Corbyn leader has brought the party back to something like electability, and those pesky leftists (aka members) have been rooted out of the party.)
So not much effort to build bridges and heal there.
Still feeling very kicked in the head. Took some time off over Christmas and New Year to think about stuff, contemplating the unthinkable idea that i might have been ... wrong. But, after a thorough deconstruction of my cerebellum and rigorous self examination, I conclude I was not, am not.
Okay, obviously, I was wrong about the whole Labour-being-the-largest-party and the shy-Labour-voters bit, but I don't think I was wrong in y fundamental diagnosis post-election; that the catastrophe was brought about by the revolt on the right of the party, the sustained, deliberate attempts to undermine the Corbyn project and demonise a decent man.
I have been asked by some to "own" the defeat. I am happy to hold my hands up and say I misread the mood of the country. But I won't apologise for voting for the best candidate in both leadership contests, and then supporting the leader of the Labour party. I won't apologise for campaigning for a Labour government, or for working harder than I've ever worked as Jeremy's spokesperson 2016-2017. With what little profile I actually have, what did the people asking me to apologise want me to do? Did they think me using my platform to attack the leadership of the party would have made a Labour government more likely?
People who have spent the past 4 years undermining the Labour party and the leader are now telling us to "own" this defeat, while we've been campaigning relentlessly -- in some cases for certain hostile Labour MPs who now have the temerity to say to us: "Look what you've done, this is all your fault." None of us, least of all those with a profile or a safe Labour seat, are passive observers in politics. We are all active participants, able to affect change and influence those undecided. If you've spent the past few years attacking the leadership of a political party, it's not exactly endearing to now be having a go at those people who had in the meantime been giving up their time and money to help bring about a Labour government.
He then goes on to suggest that the leadership contest will be between candidates all essentially claiming the 2017 / 19 manifesto policies. Which is interesting as it suggests that even in their moment of triumph, the right of the party are already defeated. The next leader will be elected by the electorate that twice voted - overwhelmingly - for Corbyn. There will be no swing to the right.
Which will then reveal the Great Lie of 2017 and 2019. When the new leader is monstered in the same way that Corbyn was monstered - by the right wing media and by the increasingly bitter right wing of the Labour Party - it won't be possible for them to claim that the problem was Corbyn. We've been hearing that for four years. It was never true. The problem was that Corbyn challenged the hegemony of the Blairites over the party, and the policies that he put out there threatened wealth, power and privilege in Britain as a whole. Only a tiny, tiny bit, but enough to bring down the fires of Hell upon him.
The right wing of the Labour party feared they would never get their party back (they won't) and so they were willing to crash the party and deliver the country over to Boris Johnson. The Establishment didn't like to see their position under threat, so happily connived with them in a project that suited them even more than it suited Tony Blair and his successors.
And if Corbyn had been as hapless and hopeless as he is portrayed as he would not have been subjected to this - an epic, four year campaign of character assassination, intensifying to an unparalleled degree after 2017 when it looked like he might actually find himself in a position to do the things he said he would do.
Will the next leader be subjected to the same fire and brimstone? Probably not. The Conservatives probably have enough of a majority to make the next election another round of First-Past-The-Post attritional warfare. Labour are in the position the Conservatives enjoyed in 2005 - no prospect of winning, but having to do the groundwork for the next again election. Though a lot can happen in five years.
I think - once the dust settles a bit and the Blairite wing of the party realise that, in spite of everything, they still haven't got their party back - they may realise that they are and were the problem, not Corbyn. They will slowly go through the process of realising that - if they ever want to taste power again - they need to actually accept the judgement of the membership and come to terms with Labour being a left wing party.
Right now they are accusing the left of being in dnial, or going through the stages of grief, or having their heads in the sand. Truth is, it is them doing all these things, and they've been doing them since Corbyn's election in 2015. Time for them to face up to the reality and accept it. Theyre always going on about how to succeed in politics you need to be pragmatic, and be ready to sacrifice principles. Always, this is directed at the 'naive' and 'idealistic' left; while the right don't budge. Well, let's see them doing some sacrificing and compromising.
So, following the catastrophe that overtook the Labour Party last week, blame is inevitably being directed at Corbyn. As pointed out in my last post, there is some dubiour research that supports that conclusion, if you are minded to accpet it at face value.
I think, however, that blaming Corbyn's leadership, or lack there of demonstrates a massive misunderstanding about the situation confronting the Labour Party. Corbyn and his adherents are being demonised and portrayed as something to be crushed and driven out of the party, like fleas or ants. It works on the assumption that once Corbyn and the Corbynistas have been eradicated then everything will be okay again.
I think this is, fundamentally, missing the point.
Corbyn is not the disease, he is the symptom of the disease. His election in 2015 was not some whimsical decision by the membership, a jolly jape they decided on without thought to the consequences.
It was their way of signaling to the 'elite' in charge of the party how utter dissatisfied and disaffected they were, after almost two decades of Blair, and Brown, and Milliband; how neglected, ignored and taken for granted they felt. that's why Corbyn's message resonated and that's why he got elected.
Of course. the aforementioned 'elite' didn't get the hint. If there is one thing they are very bloody good at it is thinking they know best. They viewed the election of Corbyn as a foolish error on the part of the membership, who had to told off, sent to the naughty step and made to elect a proper leader this time; hence the Chicken Coup - only the 'elite' (significantly misnamed; there isn't much elite about them in terms of intelligence or wisdom) were so clueless and craven they put up Angela Eagle and the Owen 'Lacklustre' Smith might be viable alternatives, with fairly predicable results. Corbyn won, and the elite decided that, obviously, the membership were being recalcitrant and really, really needed to be taught a lesson.
At no point, it seems, did anyone bother to ask, "Why DID they vote for Jeremy?" Or if they did, the answers were probably just a load of patronising generalisations and sneers.
Remember what happened with Corbyn as leader (before Friday the 13th, I mean): membership soared to almost half a million and there were genuine signs of a mass movement developing. People becoming re-engaged and excited about being Labour again. 2017 happened, just as much as 2019 did, and can not be ignored. The message resonated and the messenger was not deemed too abhorrent then.
Only, of course, the 'elite' knew better. Corbyn and his rag tag bunch had stepped out of line and had to be put back in their place - for the good of the party, you understand, and especially for th good of the membership, who had let the power Ed Milliband had unwisely gifted them go to their heads and used it unwisely.
They identified real but not Earthshaking issues - the presence of some foolish people in the party who don't think before they tweet, plus some genuine anti-Semites - and started to make Quite A Fuss about it. And they never missed a chance to confide just how awful things were to their friends in the media.
In the meantime, of course, Brexit was rumbling on. They noticed that Corbyn and the Unions weren't too hot on Remain and the 'elite' - who love skiing in the Alps and holidays in Umbria - felt once more they knew better. The 'elite' always knows best and if they have to keep intervening to correct the unruly plebs, well, noblisse oblige. After all, THEY haven't gone to Oxford to do PPE so how could they be expected to know what's best for them?
The proles had voted foolishly - AGAIN, you'd almost think they were doing it on purpose - and once more had to be corrected. A botched compromise was devised and Labour was forced to go into an election offering a fudge that might have been morally principled but only seemed to tell people they were being ignored - again.
So, now that Corbyn is on his way out, the impetus will be to make sure that him and his horrid followers are excluded from the party and never even given a whiff of a shot of getting anywhere near power. It will be very hard for anyone running on anything that even resemblance of a Corbynite ticket to get the nominations to stand as leader. There won't be any more 'widening of the debate' because the elite know they will lose that debate. They will try to force a bland slate of safe, Blairy candidates on the membership. One of them will win, and it will be just like the 2010 leadership election all over again.
The lesson of 2019 is not that Corbynism needs to be crushed but that the 'elite' need to look at why Corbynsim ever happened in the first place, and be honest about why something that was actually working pretty well in 2017 was an abject failure two years later. And acknowledge their own failings and responsibility for the stagnation and failures of the last 20 years.
The survey found the main reasons people did not vote Labour were:
The leadership (43%)
Brexit (17%)
Their economic policies (12%)
They also looked at the reasons given by party vote:
Further polling focused on those who voted Labour in 2017 but not in 2019:
The leadership (37%)
Brexit (21%)
Their economic policies (6%)
On the surface it looks pretty convincing. Clearly, the Blairites were right. The issue is and was Corbyn and his leadership team.
But ... but ... but ... but ... I have some issues with this data.
First of all, 'Leadership' is a very vague category compared to 'Brexit' and 'Economic policy'; a lot comes under than heading so it isn't surprising it is the biggest category. Does it mean the leadership was too leftwing? Was it to do with the alleged failure to address anti-Semitism? The inability to silence the criticism and attacks from within the party? The disunity? Because some of these aren't really criticiss of the leadership per se, but of the behaviour of the MPs and others who have been trying to throw Corbyn since he got into the saddle in 2015.
I'm also disappointed with the lack of geographic detail. I'd be very interested in seeing the result broken down by region - what if 'Brexit' was more of an issue in the Northern constituencies? This was an election where what happened in the north was critical. Traditional Labour heartlands revolted just two years after they had enthusiastically embraced Corbynism. In 2015 Labour polled just under 18,000 votes in Blythe Valley; in 2017, that swelled to just under 24,000; but by 2019, the total was down to just under 17,000, and the seat was in Tory hands. Those are remarkable changes in a couple of years.
The absence of the Brexit Party from the data breakdown by party is unforgivable. The BXP were critical in draining Labour support in a lot of constituencies, allowing the Tories to win on quite modest vote gains. If we looked at that crucial demographic would we see Brexit significantly more prominent? That seems to be the trend from the limited data available - where former Labour voters were more concerned about Brexit, and less so about 'leadership.'
I'd like to see more information about the reasons given for defection. Given the skewing we can see in the data we have, where almost a third of Lab / Con defectors identified Brexit 31% of the time as their reason for switching, I think it nothing much can be deduced without a more detailed picture. At the end, someone switching from Labour to Conservative is likely to be on the right wing of the party, so is likely to be opposed to the leadership anyway; we really need to know what went wrong in those northern seats and where the Brexit Party was decisive.
If we zoomed in on the Northern seats, and then in again on the Labour voters who went to BXP, would we see Labour voters switching to BXP because their old party had not embraced the referendum result? And if we did the same again in other areas, would we see the Labou voters switching to the Lib Dems because Labour was not sufficiently Remain?
Labour to Conservative - 4.72%
Conservative to Lib Dems - 1.34%
Labour to Lib Dems - 6.06%
The impact of the Brexit Party (BXP) on Labour has already been noted - in seat after seat, the BXP absorbed Labour votes and allowed the Tories to take the seat on relatively small gains. In Blyth valley, the Conservative vote went up by about 2,000 - small change. But the Labour vote dropped by 6,000 - 3,000 stayed at home and 3,000 appears to have transferred to the Brexit Party. And this allowed the Tories to take the seat.
(It is a shame the figures don't include the BXP. I imagine the transfer would be small, but critical in a lot of seats.)
But the third figure is also interesting. Labour lost a lot of votes to the Lib Dems, and as a result neither went anywhere. In spite of Swinson being ousted in East Dunbartonshire and ending up a couple of seats down on 2017, they actually increased their vote share substantially by absorbing Labour votes. In 2017 the Lib Dems won a national vote share of 2,371,861, or 7.4% of the vote. In 2017, their vote was 3,696,423, 11.6%. It seems unlikely that the extra illion were people inspired by Swinson's charismatic leadership. It looks like they absorbed a lot of Labour voters.
Perhaps the hidden story here is that Labour lost Leave votes to BXP AND Remain votes to the Lib Dems, with both sides of the argument rejecting Labour's measured, sensible Seocnd Referendum compromise. Be interesting to know - though there is probably no way of telling - how much of this was smart tactical voting, and how much Remainers dumbly rejecting the second referendum.
This time, Labour seems to have been caught between two vote sinks - the Lib Dems taking their votes on one flank, and the BXP giving disaffected Labour voters an option than stopped short of voting Tory. And the result of this mess is that it enabled a Tory government with a massive majority.
Some of it was intentional - Farage's ploy of standing own candidates in Conservative seats was an obvious but effective ploy. And some of it boils down to the continual madness of running two parties competing for the centre left vote. Thatcher's reign in the 80s was enabled by the SDP-Liberal Alliance absorbing 25% of the vote and returning fewer than 5% of the MPs.
It seems we've learned nothing since.
This is not about trying to transfer all the blame onto the Lib dem - another, oft overlooked, reason why Blair's government should be remembered as a failure. They had the opportunity to change things in 1997; but they decided the system was working for them, so they would keep it like it was.
Of course, subsequent incarnations of the Labour Party have failed to embrace electoral reform. Stupid short-termist idiots.
Legendary in my own mind, I mean. All times are NZ, which is an hour
10.00am (NZ) There's about an hour to go until the exit poll is released. At that point, half of the British voting public will devastated, and the other half celebrating wildly. Unless everyone is simply confused.
Turnout seems to have been exceptionally high around the country, which should favour Labour. But the bookies are saying they think a Tory majority is on the cards; we'll see about that. Excitingly, there are rumours that Boris Johnson may be in trouble.
🚨 Tory insiders are telling me Boris Johnson could “genuinely be in trouble in #UxbridgeAndSouthRuislip”.
Exit pollsters think the Lib Dem vote has collapsed there probably due to tactical voting for Labour.🚨@SkyNewsAust
Serves him right for not voting in his own constituency.
10.00am (NZ) Owen Jones has been incredible during the campaign, a dynamo of optimism and energy. And he's still going:
10.34 (NZ) Half an hour to go!
Here's a list of potential Labour gains (not compiled by me - I'm too lazy. I just nicked it from @centrist_phone.)
Milton Keynes North
Milton Keynes South
Chingford and Wood Green
Hendon
Putney
Hastings
Reading West
South Swindon
Norwich North
Vale of Glamorgan
What other seats should we be keeping an eye on?
Workington - Labour may be in trouble here.
Wrexham - Labour may be in trouble here.
Grimsby - Tories are claiming they might have nicked this from Labour.
And of course, Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
10.39 (NZ) Watching t' 'lection on Novara Media, with the awesome Ash Sarkar.
10.53 (NZ) The editor of the Sun is worried:
For what it's worth, I hear canvassing returns today have given Labour an internal projected vote share of 36.2%. Their number crunchers are saying its now 50/50 between a a hung parliament and a small Tory majority.
10.00 (NZ) Tories 368, Labour 191 ... No way. 11.06 (NZ) Either I will be hailed as a genius tomorrow, or John Curtice will be. But we can't both be.
11.16 (NZ) The deflation and pain in the Novara live-stream is awful to behold. I want to give them all a hug. And they've got to spend the next two hours talking about this cold vomit exit poll before the results start coming in. I feel for them.
11.43 (NZ) So I won't be drawing your attention to my earlier prediction that Labour will be the largest party in a hung parliament just yet ...
11.46 (NZ) Of course Corbyn has to go if the exit poll is validated. The question is ... who replaces him? None of the usual candidates inspire me in the slightest. Though as a left winger in New Zealand, my desires may not be the ones the party needs to consider.
11.55 (NZ) At least Chukka Umunna might not win a seat. The exit poll is a big ass dark and stormy cloud, but I can discern that much of a silver lining.
12.15 (NZ) Initial vote share puts Labour on 32% ... 'Dismal' according to my schedule, above. Maybe if there is something after the decimal point it will sneak into the 'Poor.' Tories being given a 'Better than Blair' 46%. Hard to fathom.
12.20 (NZ) First result was supposed to by Blyth Valley, which had a 7K majority in 2017. Apparently it has been delayed for a recount, which is stunning.
I think Labour is going to get thrashed in Leave areas, which indicates the people who insisted that the party had to be more Remainy were wrong.
12.25 (NZ) Socialism is essentially about feeling empathy and sympathy for your fellow human creatures; I guess I'm getting a taste of how Conservative supporters must have felt in 2017.
12.30 (NZ) First result in:
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE CENTRAL
Lab Hold - Majority 12278
Swing 3.5% from Lab to Con
Lab 21568
Con 9290
LibDem 2709
BRX 2542
Grn 1365
A swing of 3.5% doesn't seem too bad, under the circumstances.
12.31(NZ) Oh, wait a minute ... Houghton and Sunderland South in. Labour hold but vote down by 18%. Staggering. 12.41 (NZ) Blyth Valley turns blue for the first time in its history. The Brexit Party took over 3000 votes, primarily from Labour, I suspect. Labour's policy was morally right but politically unpalatable, it seems. Farage standing against Labour but not against the Tories probably hurt Labour critically in places like Blyth. It gave the voters somewhere they could waste there vote by voting for Brexit without endorsing the Tories. 12.56 (NZ) It looks like the Lib Dems are going to be eradicated in Scotland (bye, PM Jo!) and may suffer elsewhere. Perhaps they need to consider - seriously - whether they should continue. Unlike some, I don't hate the Lib Dems. I voted for them in 1992, in my very first election. But I can't see a place for them as long as we have FPTP. All they've done since the 1980s is enabling Conservative governments, either directly or indirectly.
13.12 (NZ) Sunderland Central duly reports for Labour, but with its majority cut by 6,000. The Brexit Party took 5000 votes. Anyone with a majority of under 7K could be in danger tonight. Anyone in Labour, I mean. 14.51 (NZ) Sorry, had to pause the live blog to look for my son's missing glasses. Which remain undiscovered. Not that there seems to be much of a purpose in continuing as the exit poll seems to have been proved heinously correct. I always wondered what 1997 felt like from a Tories' point of view. Might have a bit of an idea now.
Wither now for Labour? THe narrative that will be driven is that it is all the problems lie with Corbyn. He'll have to go - he's had two shots and gone backwards - but I don't think it is fair or true to blame this disaster on Corbynism. Yeah, he had a history that made it easy for the media to portray him as a monster. But any Labour leader would have been thoroughly monstered; they always are. Even Blair got the treatment. And Corbyn's history didn't seem to be a problem in 2017.
Given the loss in Labour's vote share are pretty much matched by the BXP gains and the seats being lost are leave areas, it sees to be the poison of Brexit is still potent. 15.00 (NZ) I don't think there will be many of these tonight so let's celebrate the Great Victory in Putney.
15.03 (NZ) But at the same time, Andy Burnham's old seat of Leigh goes blue - and again the BXP vote share equals the difference between the Conservative and Labour candidates. 15.26 (NZ) The knives will be out for Corbyn (who will go), Corbynism and Momentum in a big way. But here's a think - Jeremy Corbyn is not the leader of the Lib Dems, yet they look likely to have as bad a night as Labour, and it looks likely Jo Swinson is going to lose her seat.
Brexit was a massive factor in this disaster. 15.38 (NZ) Tim Farron holds his seat to get the Lib Dems on the board! So at least they can have a leader once the dust settles. 15.53 (NZ) Dan Jarvis holds on in Barnsley Central, but his majority is shredded. Corbyn and Corbynism was not poison in 2017. The only significant change has been the party's shift towards a more Remain aligned policy. That opened the door for Labour Leavers to ... um ... leave. The BXP got 11,000 votes in Barnsley. It isn't down to them not liking Corbyn or the manifesto. They liked him well enough in 2017 - Labour had a majority of 15,000 then. What is the message they are sending? They voted for the Brexit Party because they were sick of Brexit and (stupidly) wanted it done.
Labour compromised and offered an opening which the Conservatives and BXP exploited ruthlessly - "Get Brexit done," repeated endlessly. 16.05 (NZ) Labour lose in Heywood and Middleton, and again the BXP vote is the difference between a Labour win and a Tory win.
16.15 (NZ) This chart, produced by Professor Will Jennings, shows the correlation between tendency to support Leave in the referendum and increases in Conservative support.
Change in the Conservative vote seems to have been highly correlated with support for Brexit. pic.twitter.com/34qJHpHMvQ
This was about Brexit. 16.18 (NZ) The Lib Dems take Richmond Park, rendering Zac Goldsmith unemployed. That's good.
And it means the Lib Dems can have a proper leadership contest, instead of just having to give Tim Farron his old job back. 17.30 (NZ) Tories reclaim Kensington, the constituency where the Grenfell Tower fire took place. They won by 150 votes from Labour, with the Lib Dems in third place, hogging over 9,000 votes. I think that is a suitable symbolic point to end this dispiriting live blog, with the Lib Dems handing the Tories a victory in the shadow of Grenfell.
That's a bit of a "Dunno why we bothered" sort of poll.
"Phillip, I'm afraid I've been a bit of an ass and forgot to do any polling for the eve of election poll. I was so high on coke it completely slipped my mind!"
"Don't worry Niles. There's an old industry trick for this. Tell Monica to stick up the same figures from last time and change a minor party's result by a tiny amount. We'll get away with it. People only pay attention to polls that show something interesting happening."
Regardless of how they arrived at their conclusions, I think they are wrong. Not enough younger voters, not expecting enough younger voters to turn out, failure to pick up on impact of the last few days to filtering through - some of the data was collected before Johnson's recent blunders.
Boris Johnson's exasperated media minder swore on live TV today as the PM refused to speak to Good Morning Britain before trotting into a fridge as he started an early milkround in Yorkshire.
Piers Morgan was visibly shocked and Susanna Reid had her head in her hands as Mr Johnson's press secretary Robert Oxley declared 'for f***s sake' and blocked the path of GMB's roving reporter Jonathan Swain.
The Tory leader, who was delivering milk in the marginal seat of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, this morning, has repeatedly refused to appear on the ITV1 show.
Mr Swain confronted Boris as he put milk crates in a van and said: 'Morning Prime Minister will you come on Good Morning Britain? Will you deliver on your promise to speak to Piers and Susanna?'.
A tired-looking Mr Oxley loudly muttered: 'For f***s sake' as his boss ignored the calls and wandered into a large walk-in chiller as Mr Morgan exclaimed: 'He's gone into the fridge'.
I mean, FFS. what is going on? This campaign is getting genuinely surreal. This is how dadaists do politics.
Johnson looks utterly dazed, like he has no idea what he is doing or what is going on. it's like he's being wheeled around the country, being forced to perform for the cameras, but barely holding it together. Certainly not together enough to speak to journalists.
I'm pretty sure a few weeks ago he'd have cheerfully engaged in a bit of buffoonery, fobbed them off with a bit of whiff-waff. But he can't, Just like he couldn't respond adequately when a journalist waved a mobile phone at him.
He's broken, a hollowed out shell.
And look at this clip of Johnson delivering the milk to some 'lucky' voter:
From the .."it's this one" ...to the hand picked lucky recipient of Johnson's early morning call exclamation of......"I didn't know there would be so many people". This sort of staging should not be allowed before a General Election. #GeneralElection19#Johnsonpic.twitter.com/bCubtTwQK4
This is a rip off of the Love Actually bit where PM Hugh Grant knocks on doors pretending he's just wishing people Merry Christmas.
Following on from their 'Brexit, Actually' toe-curler.
Their campaign is actually just ripped off from a feckin' rubbish twee rom-com?!
Predictably, the Sun somehow managed to cut the sweary words and the Napoleonic retreat into the freezer from their video version of the story, gushingly entitled "Boris Johnson stuns family as he delivers milk on last day of general election campaign":
What does it feel like to have less journalistic interity than the Mail, I wonder?
In previous elections pollsters have bemoaned the 'shy Tory' - the respondent who is so fearful of being judged as a cruel and heartless bastard by an anonymous pollster, or their spouses, workmates and friends, that they lie about their intention of voting Conservative, skewing the poll figures in Labour's favour. But in the privacy of the polling booth, these scruples vanish and with Satanic glee, legions of voters up and down the country put a monstrous X beside the name of the Conservative candidate, thus winning the election for that party.
Of so the pollsters would have it. I've never really bought into the idea, myself. But I am wondering if - given the stubborn refusal of the polls to do what I think they should be doing and narrow, damnit, narrow - if we are seeing the opposite phenomenon. Or opposite phenomena, as rough beast shambles into view in two forms.
On the one hand, the brazen Brexiteer. The years since the referendum have embolden and validated some Conservative voters. People who would once have kept their admiration for Nigel Farage and hankering for blue passports very quiet because it was not considered smart or respectable no longer care a cuss. They are out and proud, strutting down the high street in their Union Jack suits, brandishing their copies of the Daily Mail and proclaiming anyone different a traitor or - worse - an elitist.
The only shy Tories these days are the One Nation Conservatives, who are feeling a bit excluded from their own parties and toying with the idea of casting a vote for nice Jo Swinson.
On the otherhand, I think the mantle of shyness has been passed to potential Labour voters. Given potential they are being told they are voting for an anti-Semitic, Marxist, sandwich stealing, terrorist loving, Cenotaph dancing, incorrect bowing, national anthem not singing security risk ex-spy vegetarian who wants to nationalise sausages and sell all our nukes to Russia (only this last is not something that has actually been alleged about Corbyn and / or Labour) I would not be surprised if they just muttered "I haven't made up my mind yet" when asked.
Is this a thing or just another straw that I am clutching at? We'll know soon enough ...
So, You Gov's MRP poll - the weird one that tries to reflect what will happen at a constituency level and which pretty much nailed the hung parliament in 2017 - is not looking too good for Labour:
None-the-less I am feeling pretty confident the actual gap will be less than polls are showing.
Maybe it is my Scottish second sight, or my equally Scottish refusal to acknowledge the cause is lost, or something.
I think:
a) Labour clearly have the momentum (intentional, et cetera and will still make some progress in the final 24 hours;
b) the polls have always tended to overestimate the Tory support;
c) the polls are underestimating youth vote and turnout;
d) the last couple of days will have cost the Conservatives a lot of potential votes;
e) especially undecideds, who will have looked at Johnson's dithering over JustLookAtTheBloodyPhotoOiGiveMeMyPhoneBackYouThievingDickGate and decided they certainly can't be voting for that.
f) Labour will have a terrific Get Out the Vote campaign.
On the down side, the Tories have the mirage of getting Brexit done, the splitting of the anti-Conservative vote and the slight advantage that a third of the voting population have been conditioned to hate.
And before you say anything about "If only they'd switched leader ..." that goes for every Labour leader. Even Tony Blair got it a bit in 1997 - though perhaps they went easy on him, and it was only 25% of the electorate that got the 1984 style 'Two Minutes Hate' style conditioning.
My earlier prediction of Labour finishing as the largest party feels wildly optimistic, but I think I said that at the time, and I'm going to stick with it because, you know, Scottish, refusal to acknowledge and all that.
The other big story concerning Leeds Hospital is Boris Johnson's bizzare behaviour at Leeds Hospital, where he was confronted by a journalist and challenged about a four year old boy with suspected pneumonia who was left sleeping on the floor, rather than getting abed like a sick kid would in a decently funded heath system.
Johnson refused to engage with the journalist and refused to look at a photo of the child and then - bizarrely - tried to steal the journalist's phone to head off further challenges.
On Dan Hodge's Twitter feed (Hodges is a 'commentator' for the Daily Mail) that narrative is challenged:
So, a clear GOTCHA. Johnson is looking at the image. The Guardian is full of hysterical FAKE NEWS bullshit. A picture is worth a thousand words, eh, Dan?
Only, if you read the piece in the Guardian that Hodges sneers at, some of the words indicating Johnson did not look at the image are direct quotes from Boris Johnson:
Johnson refused to look at the photo and, out of camera shot, eventually took the phone from the reporter and put it in his own pocket.
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, responded by tweeting a video of the exchange with the message: “He just doesn’t care.”
First asked if he had seen the photographs, Johnson said he had not. The ITV reporter, Joe Pike, then showed the prime minister the photograph on his phone, describing what it portrayed.
Johnson declined to look at the picture, saying: “I understand. And obviously, we have every possible sympathy for everybody who has a bad experience in the NHS.”
He went on to discuss investment in the NHS and Brexit.
Pike pressed the prime minister: “I’m talking about this boy, prime minister. How do you feel, looking at that photo?”
Johnson replied: “Of course. And let me tell you … I haven’t had a chance to look at it.”
Pike asked: “Why don’t you look at it now, prime minister?” Johnson, still not looking at the photo, replied: “I’ll study it later.”
Pressed again, he said: “If you don’t mind, I’ll give you an interview now. What we are doing is we are taking this country forward, and we are investing in the NHS.”
Sorry, Dan, but if Boris Johnson is saying he hasn't had the chance to look at the image, either he hasn't had a chance to look at it (and thus your photo with its squiggly yellow lines is worthless) or he's a serial liar who was trying to bluster his way out of having to address the issue.
Obviously, Dan Hodges thinks that latter. And if Dan Hodges wasn't running cheap propaganda for the Conservatives - he also ran with the 'protester punched a SPAD' lie for a short while - he'd be tweeting about how Johnson is a dishonest liar who will bluster and lie to avoid having to address the reality of austerity.
So, for a brief period of history, it was alleged that a protester had punched Matt Hancock's SPAD (not a euphemism; special adviser) when Hancock visited Leeds Hospital.
This was reported by the likes of Robert Peston and Laura Keunssberg, as well as the less credible Guido Fawkes. It also quickly made it into the Mail, the Sun and the Express.
Video quickly emerged proving it didn't exactly 'go down' as had been claimed - a protester was gesturing, and the SPAD walked into his (unclenched) hand.
Keunssberg and Peston, eventually acknowledged they were spreading false information and apologised:
Happy to apologiSe for earlier confusion about the punch that wasn’t a punch outside Leeds General - 2 sources suggested it had happened but clear from video that was wrong
It is completely clear from video footage that @MattHancock's adviser was not whacked by a protestor, as I was told by senior Tories, but that he inadvertently walked into a protestor's hand. I apologise for getting this wrong.
But note that lines: "2 sources suggested" and "I was told by senior Tories" - who the Hell fed them the misinformation? And why are they protecting them?
The real story isn't that a protestor didn't punch someone. The real story is that 'senior Tories' are feeding lies via respected journalists and those journalists are diligently repeating those lies. And - even when they are caught - the journalists are so cravenly, sycophantically aligned with the 'senior Tories' they will cover up who is trying to feed falsehoods into the election campaign.
Like I've said many times, I don't trust pollsters to get vote shares right; some of these polls are still showing outlandishly high Conservative leads. But I do expect them to be able to pick up indications movement. Which is what we're seeing.
I still think there is likely more movement than they are detecting, and things are much closer than they are showing.
So here's a song for Boris Johnson, which captures his arrogant sense of entitlement ("I tell all the girls they can kiss my heinie"), his sexual incontinence and his current polling:
Frank Zappa - predicting everything about Boris Johnson before anyone else knew Boris Johnson needed to be predicted.
Within quick succession, Countdown maths wizard and twitterer Rachel Riley, alleged comedian David Baddiel and prominent lawyer Andrew Julius have all expressed very similar opinions / ideas:
These #3billboards are going round London today, organised by ex-Labour people, horrified by what their party has become. Their principles haven’t changed, they’re the best of Labour’s anti-racist past. They speak loudly and strongly, it’s their only option.#VoteLabourVoteRacismpic.twitter.com/xeROGzTqDv
Riley has been a ferocious critic of Corbyn for a while. Notably, she recently alter a well know image of him being arrested at an anti-Apartheid rally in the 80s to call Corbyn a racist.
Classy.
It is worth noting that Riley is echoing the sentiments promoted by the billboards on the trucks shown in her tweet. And those billboards would have had to be prepared well in advance. They were commissioned by a group called The Community United against Labour Party anti-Semitism (CULPA) who have carried out similar stunts in the past. I remember doing some vague digging about them and finding ... something ... that I thought was interesting but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.
(EDIT - I actually blogged on the earlier parade of billboards at the time. I'm pretty sharp, I am. Today's news, yesterday! It's associated with a character called Jonathan Hoffman, a politicised pensioner who has somehow reconciled his Jewish identity and the racist politics of the English Defence League. It seems Hoffman has learned something from buddying up with the EDL - in June he was found guilty of a public order offence after threatening a speaker at a demonstration.)
Then Baddiel:
One last time. Corbyn is not actively anti-Semitic. He is - and certainly has been in the past - tolerant of statements (and people) most Jews would consider anti-Semitic because he thinks other things are more important. However: most Jews would call that anti-Semitism.
This in response to the surreal debate about whether Corbyn's pronunciation of Jeffrey Epstein's name is some sort of anti-Semitic act.
Baddiel is saying (as explained earlier and drawing on two different comments he made as proof) that he thinks Corbyn is passively / subconsciously anti-Semitic. As you said, it is right there. The word "actively" is the give away.
He isn't accusing Corbyn of wanting to beat up Jews, or shout abuse at them; he is saying Corbyn consistently disregards, minimizes or trivializes Jewish concerns about some of his associations and endorsements; and (important bit) this consistent pattern of behaviour is something that most Jews would consider anti-Semitic.
So passive / unconsious anti-Semitism, not the active, goose-stepping Horst Wessel Song singing sort. But still - in Baddiel's opinion, or at least that of "most Jews" - anti-Semitism.
To purge the party of anti-Semitism will be the work of a generation. The evidence that the political will exists to undertake this task is not compelling: members are not yet ashamed enough of their party’s anti-Semitism. The driving out of leading Jewish (and non-Jewish) politicians from the party, who cited its anti-Semitism, did not have a substantial impact on party morale, still less commit its officials and elected members to decisive action. We cannot leave the work to the party itself. Supporters have to lend a hand. Depriving the party of a vote is a start.
Three diverse sources all with essentially the same message - that a vote for Labour is a de facto racist act, and that voting Labour is endorsing and accepting the anti-Semitism Riley, Baddiel and Julius claim infests the party.
Julius is the most interesting case. He is a prominent legal practitioner well known for his involvement in the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial. He is also - according to Wikipedia - "an advisory editor at the current affairs journal Fathom" - which has published negative pieces about anti-Semitism in Labour - and "a founding member of both Engage and the Euston Manifesto" - the latter linking him to another fervent Corbyn critic, Nick Cohen - and "From 2011 to 2014 he was chairman of the board of The Jewish Chronicle" - which brings in Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle since 2008, another trenchant opponent of Jeremy Corbyn.
The tactic seems to be persuading Labour supporters that - if they prioritise social justice (or free cricket and broadband) over confronting anti-Semitism (and thus, perforce, accepting it exists, as defined by Juius et al) - they are akin to Corbyn tolerating his dodgy mates, which means "most Jews" would consider them anti-Semitic. Most people don't want to be thought of as racists or anti-Semites, so will be deterred.
What does all this mean? I have no idea. I do know, if I was inclined to buy into anti-Semitic tropes, I'd be having a field day with all these media tie-ins. I really don't want to go down THAT road. David Irving might revoke my honourable standing as a "Traditional enemy of truth." But there is something going on, some of it clearly deliberate and orchestrated, and some possibly coincidental (I struggle to think why anyone trying to hatch a conspiracy would include the tiresome David Baddiel); but, either way, the previously discussed cynical weaponization of anti-Semitism seems to being deployed once again.
So, there have been a bunch of bad polls out for Labour, and even the Leftie's friend, Survation, have recently given the Conservatives a rip-snorting 11% lead. You Gov's much vaunted MRP poll - which pretty much nailed the result in 2015 - is currently predicting a comfortable majority for the Conservatives.
People have such touching faith in the opinion polls. I think the polls are wildly incorrect, on a 2017+ scale.
They may be right, they may be wrong. Usually, they are wrong, often significantly so. Remember, most pollsters had the conservatives winning a comfortable majority in 2017 ... and said there would be a hung parliament in 2015 ... and the Tories would win decisively in 2010. Not forgetting the Brexit referendum and the Soccish independence referendum (which pollsters were predicting would be close).
In 2017 I had trust in Survation; this year I've lost faith in them. It's a bit like atheism - they say Christian's don't believe in 99.99% of all gods that have historically been worshipped, atheists feel the same, but add one more to the list.
My hunch / hope is that Survation have messed up the BXP redistribution. Since the BXP pulled out of contesting Conservative seats, Survation have started showing large Conservative leads.
The bottom line is - I'm finding it hard to believe that Boris Johnson is as popular as Blair in his heyday.
I can not comprehend widescale enthusiasm for a blustering fool, liar, cheat and blowhard who gets booed wherever he goes. (But that's enough about me ...)
Nor can I imagine Labour's exciting and ambitious manifesto not catching on.
So inspite of the polls I'm feeling pretty cocky at the moment. At the start of the election I predicted Labour would finish as largest party with about 290 seats. Obviously, the opinion polls are saying that isn't going to happen, but we know they are bollocks. I may have been a bit optimistic, but we'll see. I think another stalemate - perhaps even staler than the last one - is a distinct possibility. And Labour finishing ahead is not out of the question.
Lesson 1 of 2015 is that it’s no use having more data if you’re data is biased. Back then, inspired by the cult of Nate Silver & his state-by-state stuff, we had loads of constituency polls and seat-by-seat projections that turned out to be tosh
I think Labour will rally, and the Conservatives will sink, as people realise how insipid their manifesto is and Johnson continues to come across as an over-promoted dolt. It will be like a crapper version of 2019, with neither side managing to whip up the enthusiasm of two years ago.
I think the final result will be:
37% Con 35% Lab 13% Lib Dem 5% BXP 4% SNP 2.5% GRN 2% Irish 0.5% PC 1% Others
And with numbers like that (depending on how they translate into seats) it is hard to see how Johnson can get into Downing Street.
But I am worried about people feeling demoralised and despairing, which may make the polls self-fulfilling
The Conservative government had already planned to increase day-to-day spending on public services by £11.7 billion next year with some further increases for schools and the NHS in subsequent years. Their manifesto adds just £2.9 billion to current plans in 2023–24. This is a very modest increase indeed – it would boost spending in that year by less than one-third of one per cent of what was already planned.
The manifesto pledges appear to leave little scope for spending increases beyond next year outside of those planned for health and schools. Even in 2023–24 day-to-day spending on public services outside of health would still be almost 15 per cent lower in real terms that it was at the start of the 2010s.
That's some serious bad shit right there. Vote Tory for FIFTEEN years of austerity.
This, of course, doesn't look good. Labour have been chucking big, headline grabbing policies left, right and centre ... Well, maybe not right. Left, left and centre left, perhaps.
But then again, Opinium have always tended to show big Tory leads. The 16% there isn't too outlandish for them. Every single one of their last ten polls has given the Tories a double digit lead. And 5 out of that 10 have given it as 15% or 16%.
Another interesting (for me) feature of Opinium's polling is that they seem to have recently started including the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales - and this seems to have coincided with the ballooning of the Conservative lead.
What could this mean?
1 - The Tories became wildly popular at that time and it is just a coincidence.
2 - Everyone in Scotland who supported SNP but didn't have the option said they'd vote Labour instead, and that was a lot of people; one they got the option of saying they'd vote SNP instead they did so, and Labour's vote collapsed.
3 - Opinium made some big methodological changes at the time and now their polling is completely bonkers.
Looking back at Opinium's polling pedigree, I find more reasons to be sceptical. In 2017, their polls in the month leading up to the election gave leads of 15%, 13%, 10%, 6% and 7% - so they did detect a narrowing of the Conservative lead, but seem to have consistently underestimated how tight the race was.
So if Opinium say the lead is 16% it is probably 8%.
