We've got brexit, Boris and vaccines, and economic growth forecast at 7.25% for this year. Looks like most of the country is happy with all that. We'll go to the pub, the match, or on holiday only when we're told to! Hartlepool looks like being a car crash, ahead of the result. I'm not sure where Labour go from here.
Labour are done I’m afraid. Brexit has well and truly blown them apart. They have no idea which way to turn now and the infighting will only intensify. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t see any way back from this.
Tbh, I m not reading too much into it. No heed to panic! People are desperate to come out of lockdown and it seems as though that's being delivered. Boris campaigned hard in Hartlepool.
massive tory win in Hartlepool. I struggle to see how people can vote for the conservatives normally, but how they can now change their votes from anyone to Tory. I am just bewildered how people can make this change.....
This is part of the problem when Baron Bombast trots out these mendacious jibes and his acolytes parrot them.
People are voting for change apparently. Maybe they don’t realise the tories have been in power for over a decade and that a labour MP can make zero impact on their lives while in opposition. Staggering but completely expected once brexit party was no longer an option.
Still early days for Starmer but so far in my opinion he's been useless. No vision related to the public. Simply tries to do a 'forensic' job at pmq's. Nothing wrong with that per se but where's the vision there? I don't know what the Labour Party stands for anymore. Not surprising they're being rejected.
Putting a remainer up as a candidate in Hartlepool was always going to be suicide. My mate lives up there and has been calling this for ages. Very sad state of affairs.
I'm not a Labour voter, never have been, but I'm really disappointed to see how many people have gone out and voted Tory after the year we've had. I know we all have different takes on the response to the pandemic - if you're pro lockdown, you could argue it wasn't fast enough, too confusing, error after error... by contrast, if you're a libertarian, it's been a year under house arrest, illegal to sit on a park bench, vaccine passports, being told when you're allowed to hug and destroying livelihoods etc - yet, folk seem to be happy with that. And that's democracy, which is fine. Not surprised by Labour's demise. It seems they can't fool all of the working class into convincing them they're on their side. But I am surprised by the support for these idiots we've got at the moment (I know local elections are different to general elections, but theyre usually a good indicator). Personally, neither party will ever get my vote after this past year.
I think it was irrelevant who they put up to be honest, if there had been no brexit party candidate in 2019, they would have lost the seat then with a sizeable deficit.
Can anyone name a single Labour policy or view on what the party should be standing for? 13 months in and all I have no clue.
Starmer has to go. The Tory candidate got almost double the votes the Labour candidate did. That’s a disaster. What’s happened is 5 years of many Labour MP’s pretty much telling leavers they’re stupid. Even if you think that it’s not a wise strategy. I was a remainer myself but after 2019 the first thing Starmer should have said was ‘we were wrong’ when he took over. Not wrong about Brexit, that will be largely decided later on but wrong about not respecting the people’s vote. He’s completely alienated the left of the party. Abstaining & even voting for bills he should have opposed, suspending Corbyn & sacking Long Bailey whilst Duffield’s still an MP & McNicol’s still a member of the party. Too many MP’s were more opposed to a socialist Labour Party than a Tory party & that’s disgraceful. Jess Phillips been top of the list. We had years of people saying Corbyn was unelectable. The chances of Starmer getting anything close to 12.7m votes or at least the kind of vote number that gets you elected when he hasn’t got the support of the left or leavers are zero.
The turnout was terrible, yet for some reason TU's have to meet a threshold much much higher when voting to strike. Oh well its not like these elections mean anything is it. Boris will probably say something like he won by a landslide and all those who didn't vote actually would have voted for him. Media will accept this line and move on.
It’s not just the defeat though it’s the size of the defeat. I’m certain it wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d put a leave candidate up.
I think they got a benefit from the Jersey fishing protest by the French. Good old Boris sending in the gunboats to help the plucky Brits in peril. The Mail and Express etc gleefully plastered it on their front pages and their brain-dead readers lapped it up. A massive own-goal by the French even if they are in the right on this occasion.