Tagged with Elections 2016

It’s time for Labour to pull together

workers unitedThe outcome of the local elections last month saw Labour’s tally fall just 18 short of the number of seats won in 2012. That was a remarkable achievement given the run-up to the elections could hardly have been any worse.

Labour’s internal arguments inevitably dominated the headlines as prominent malcontents seemed determined to systematically sabotage the party’s election campaign. The worst, but by no means the only, offender was John Mann, whose stage-managed outburst against Ken Livingstone gave the hostile newspapers the perfect excuse to focus on Labour’s travails. These Labour renegades are small in number, but big in terms of their connections in the media. Continue reading →

Report of Scottish Labour’s May executive

Inside Labour ScotlandThe May meeting of the Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) inevitably focused on the election post-mortem.

General Secretary, Brian Roy set out his analysis of the voting and the party’s own polling. The numbers can be found in the SPICe report, for those in need of further depressing reading.

The party’s mid-campaign polling was better than the final result and this appears to be the basis for the suggestion that the anti-Semitism row had an impact on the result. While it was certainly unhelpful and may have had an impact in one or two areas, most SEC members were sceptical that it had much of a wider impact. Continue reading →

Labour would have done better without a campaign to undermine Jeremy

Jeremy Corbyn, in the cross hairsHow many successful elections has Jeremy Corbyn got to preside over before his critics concede he may have something going for him? And when are they going to run out of excuses to explain away his results?

Last summer, as people flocked to join his campaign in their tens of thousands, packing out his meetings and mobbing him in the streets, I was repeatedly told that he was unelectable and would be a disaster as leader. This was after we were told he couldn’t get on the ballot paper and were then told he couldn’t win even if he did get on the ballot paper.

When the Oldham by-election was announced, political pundits and irreconcilable Blairite MPs were united in their prophecies of doom — Labour would do badly under “toxic” Corbyn and might well lose the seat. When we increased our share of the vote, we were told that there was a good local candidate (true) who had won “in spite” of Jeremy. Continue reading →

London: credit where credit Is due

PrintAfter a tough few months of juggling work, looking after my sister, doing the CLP website and social media for Sadiq’s campaign and of course door-knocking plus observing the most boring count ever – I took off the weekend to relax. But as a self-confessed Twitter addict, I could not resist to have a quick peek in the evening only to find almost everyone on my timeline was engaged in an argument of who was responsible for Labour’s success in London. Was it Sadiq? Was it Corbyn?

Was this debate for real? Absent in this debate were two important factors that I feel is where credit needs to be attributed for what Labour achieved in London. Continue reading →

So how will Labour do when the votes are counted?

RosetteManaging expectations have become a political football in the interminable (and boring) tussle in the Labour Party. With forecasting subject to factional agendas, can we cut through the crap and think about what would constitute an advance and a reverse for the party and its leader? I’m going to have a try.

The key election for Labour – sorry everywhere else – is London. In the capital, Sadiq Khan and the Labour campaign have faced a barrage every bit as unpleasant as the one targeting Ed Miliband last year. The Tories and their helpful media friends have branded Sadiq an ally of terrorists because, wink, wink, he’s a Muslim. And this is a deliberate strategy pushed right from the very top to secure the mayoralty for the terminally useless Zac Goldsmith. Continue reading →