Labour's Future

[ludwig]

Can they ever again expect to form a majority government, or is the best they can hope for from now on a coalition with the SNP?

[tonyav]

I think Tom Watson knows what went wrong for labour !.


“From 2005 we’ve been losing blue collar, working class voters.

“We didn’t sufficiently convince people we are the party of working class people as we have been.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/05/08/tom-watson-considering-running-for-labour-deputy-leader/

[DaisyNonna]

Mystified by the term working class
What does it really mean?

[jno]

I don't know how far the demographics bear that out, tonyav. The thinking was that such voters, if they abandoned Labour, would go to Ukip rather than the Tories. Perhaps this happened and the resulting split in the working-class vote meant the seats went to the Tories.. I'd like to see a proper analysis of all this.

I read another Labourite lamenting that Labour was losing the rugby league towns, which I suppose is the same thing.

[tonyav]

Daisy, Blue collar = factory worker ( manual labour ) if I remember rightly.
jno, I agree with what Tom Watson say's, doubt if he would admit it but imo labour lost the plot when they put Blair in charge and changed labour to 'New Labour'.

[anneasquith]

such a pity labour have lost their way, where they once were the voice of the working class,and disadvantaged in the country, there is no difference between them and tory. labour have been in power for generations in Scotland really quite sad, but only themselves to blame.

[DaisyNonna]

But most of us have spent our lives working
How are women working at bringing up a family and therefore unwaged classified?

[tonyav]

I have no idea, Daisy.
Good question to ask a politician though. Don't expect a straight answer though.

[Graudian]

Labour's future is dire.

Consider that the Conservatives will implement the boundary
changes they are committed to, they could add 30 more seats

[shoota]

Surely Labour are an anachronistic irrelevance today, and have been for some time.
No policies, no personalities, no place the 21st century.

Sure we need opposition parties but the old ones are worn out and incapable of being revived.

[ludwig]

I understand what people are saying about parties suffering worse defeats in the past and bouncing back, and whilst I can see Labour winning back every seat they've lost in England (and more) at some point, the difference I see here is Scotland.

I don't see them regaining those seats any time soon. As I saw some Scots bloke say in a vox pop on the news earlier - 'Labour have outlived their usefulness'. Now that they have someone to vote for that represents Scotland's interests alone, why would they want to vote for anyone else?

[jno]

ludwig, you may well be right. The Tories didn't gain that many more seats than Labour - 38 to 23 - but they lost far fewer, 10 to 48; and most of those 48 went to the SNP.

However, the SNP still have to do something with them; it's not impossible that any Scots voters who don't like what they do (which is inevitable), will switch back. And it's possible that squabbling over Europe will lose the Tories some of their seats. It won't give Labour a majority but it might put them into a good bargaining position with other parties - as long as they can hang on to the voters they already have, and that isn't a given eithr.