Were Thursday's results just mid-term blues? Of course that's possible. But I don't think so.
Parties that reached the low Labour did in 2010 don't recover that quickly on the basis of mid-term blues.
And parties that see their support collapse as badly as the Lib Dems did aren't seeing a mild shift - it's seismic.
The rejection of the Tories in so many Cities - Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and Norwich have no Tory councillors at all all - is not chance. People have realised by just how much the Tories threaten their well-being.
The idea that people like coalitions is shattered.
The idea that the Lib Dems could gain by being in government has gone.
Any remaining belief that people think Cameron charming or Osborne competent can be laid aside.
People want Labour (and Greens - as the London election showed) to set the agenda, unless they're frightened when they turned to UKIP, worryingly.
And Labour has no choice but respond. It can't overyurn cuts from local authorities. Most of the councils that were elected have very limited powers, let's be honest. But they could do three things.
First they could shout about NHS reform and the decline in social services. This will be in thei remits - and they have to make maximum, coordinated noise.
Second, they can deliver a Green New Deal - and if any want to know how to start look to the example my colleague Colin Hines has been working on in Birmingham.
Third, and I think most important, they can tackle the issue of social housing. They have to act individually and collectively to address the massive shortage in social housing, without action in which the lives of millions will still be blighted. We need to build housing where people need it - in towns, cities and as importantly, villages. These authorities need to demand the right to raise the money to build this housing and to do so, now.
Do this and these Labour authorities can show they can make a difference.
Don't do this and people will wonder why they voted for them.
If Labour is not different it has no point. Will it rise to the challenge?
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Unlikely.
There is no labour party. They have bought the pliutocratic agenda and if you do that you cannot implement the policies you advocate.
In the second place, like all other institutions which formerly had a power base which could be used to mitigate the effect of plutocracy, they have been shorn of the means and the legal power to do it. While talking about localism etc power and money have been centralised to the point that there is very little any institution which represents people can actually do legally. See also the trades unions.
I think that people know this and that it accounts for the very low turn out
Which is why I am saying Labour must act or it’s over
I am not sure it will
But I can hope
People want Labour (and Greens — as the London election showed) to set the agenda, unless they’re frightened when they turned to UKIP, worryingly.
What’s your feeling about Bradford? Is it a sideshow – or could the left be split in the longer term?
I do not think a left split impossible
In fact if Labour does nothing I think it likely
The government won’t allow them the money to do it. Money is a weapon and we aren’t allowed our own versions it just as we aren’t allowed guns. Here’s the BofE on the subject The councils will have to develop their own currencies, at first just to keep money circulating in their area and stop it being leeched out to tax havens a la Tesco but later they’ll have to actively break the law and develop alternative local currencies by creating new monies, not by substituting a UK pound for a LocalPound as is currently the case in Lewes, Bristol etc. When the law is so clearly in the pocket of the charlatans in goverment (look how quickly they’ve moved to get themselves legal representation at Queen’s Council level to face Leveson while banning even legal advice regarding welfare reform), the law, I’m afraid, has to be ignored for the common good. Very unpleasant times ahead.
Those are issues I suspect only a Green council would address – and not maybe then either
We face laws made with no mandate. Are they then proper laws? I’d say not.
Labour does have it’s golden opportunity to reform itself into what it’s original idea was all about, the people’s party. Here’s hoping.
Something that they really need to do is simple. Listen and observe. If they act smartly they can remind themselves and the people that once elected, in any position, they are OUR employees, not vice versa. The same goes for civil servants, too often whitehall mandarins become “Sir Humphries”, giving advice that maintains the status quo with big business.
I didn’t vote for Vodafone, etc, although I do have a subscription with them. Big business has a potential market of over 60m people of affluence(by international standards) that is too big to ignore, within this country. Big business will not drop us if we change the goal posts a bit as they know that their competitors will adapt and thrive. Blighty is STILL an important market for any global player.
There are several crises waiting in the wings to ruin everything in our not-so-fair and pleasant land, housing is one of the larger ones that needs to be addressed, and can be quite easily. Bring back housing corporations, and cut out the ‘middlemen’ of the large building companies.
I have personal experience of this from my time in the building trade, working for agencies. On one site I was employed at the job had been ‘subbed out’ through 5 different companies, each taking a cut, until you got to the agency that employed me. Quite obviously this is not the cheapest nor most efficient way of dealing with things.
Labour, get your arse in gear and you can rule here!
Not with Milliband E in charge.
He has the stage presence of a wet lettuce leaf.
Listening to him talk is tantamount to a large helping of sedatives.
In a head-to-head with Cameron D, Miliband E hasn’t a hope.
Actually the building trade is a good comparison to politics: many have no idea who they are working for: nobody really knows where the money is going: nobody cares as long as they get paid.
The local elections usually go against the party in power, this time is the same (just a bit more so…disguised by a big kicking for the lib-dems).
Come a general election and the Wet Lettuce Leaf problem will reveal itself. Rather like Kinnock N: nice guy, but another wet Lettuce Leaf.
A lot of people vote for a party line. But that is influenced by the leader. In the last general election Brown G didn’t lose, but also didn’t win. But…Blair T may well have done….
Personalities matter.
More. The press and media matter.
I’ll vote Labour. I vote party. A large amount of people vote person. Most won’t vote Milliband (most would vote Milliband D though….his face fits and he sounds better…..but he didn’t make the sounds unions like. Shame.
This is absolutely laughable. Ed Miliband regularly destroys Dave Cameron at PMQs and if there are leader debates in the next general election campaign (far from a foregone conclusion) Ed will probably come out best from those as well. Don’t forget that Cameron was upstaged by the relatively slender talents of Nick Clegg in at least 2 out of the 3 debates last time.
Ed’s personal ratings are poor, it’s true, but then so (now) are Cameron’s. The idea that David Miliband would be a better alternative is (IMHO) crazy. His policy platform for the leadership was to complete the Blairite project of making Labour an exact clone of the Tories, which would have given people no reason to vote for him. I think Labour made the right choice with Ed.
Hmmm.
PMQ is rarely broadcast, and rarely published.
He’d better start broadcasting himself a LOT better to the people who vote and not the ones who tell him how good he is.
I do not think the London election that relevant, to elections !
A turn-out of 38% is hardly a message of anything other than apathy.
And Jenny only managed 1.7%, 0.1% better than Mr Paddick (LD)
To be frank about it, I’m more interested in London because of the possibility of the olympic remains being sold to the highest bidder and the low-paid/no-paid being bussed away to Luton or Stoke-on-Trent (etc)
And the missiles being nicked of course.
http://newsthump.com/2012/05/07/no-dave-the-message-was-piss-off-electorate-tells-prime-minister/