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    #26
    Originally posted by wingco View Post
    Hartlepool has its distinctive particular ecology but this piece hints at a broader, deeper problem suggested by Nef too - alienation of the campaigning base, as well as a financial crisis as Corbyn's small donors withdraw in disgust. https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ool-byelection
    David Evans showing his masterful understanding of strategy that helped bankrupt Croydon Council


    morale among some full-time activists has been subdued in part because many are being let go by the party after polling day.

    It is understood that about 90 members of staff are due to leave the party after the elections. Most of those leaving are on two-year trainee contracts but they are the clipboard-carrying organisers that are crucial during election campaigns.

    One Labour fixer said that about half of the Hartlepool ground team was due to leave following Thursday’s votes as a cost-saving measure. “It’s not great for morale,” she said. “We would’ve made money at party conference to pay for these elections but of course they were cancelled. We haven’t got the small donors that Corbyn brought and haven’t got the big donors that [Tony] Blair had. We’re trapped between the two worlds.”

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      #27
      https://twitter.com/leowatkins91/status/1389625111456718851?s=20

      this guy makes a couple of good points I think

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        #28
        I know it's "only" by-election and a I understand that the reasons quoted on this thread and others show that the Labour Party doesn't look good at this precise moment but, but, but how the hell can the Tories gain another MP in the North East?

        I've tried and tried to compute this, or "deal with it", but it baffles me beyond words.

        40 years ago they provided a political outlook that helped to decimate the area's economy and tear its social fabric further. Since 2010 they've provided callous policies, displayed an indifference to employment sectors that became less secure and undertook a deeply illogical brexit process that's done little more than spread antagonism. Now there's present shower with their16 month back catalogue.

        "OMG!" as they say on the Banter Bus.

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          #29
          Oh I get it suddenly, nobody cares what's going on at no.10 in the real country and you can't blame politicians for making tough tough decisions when they had to blah blah blah.

          Silly me for a momentary lack of clarity

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            #30
            https://twitter.com/imbadatlife/status/1389611191685763076?s=20

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              #31
              Originally posted by Kowalski View Post
              I know it's "only" by-election and a I understand that the reasons quoted on this thread and others show that the Labour Party doesn't look good at this precise moment but, but, but how the hell can the Tories gain another MP in the North East?

              I've tried and tried to compute this, or "deal with it", but it baffles me beyond words.

              40 years ago they provided a political outlook that helped to decimate the area's economy and tear its social fabric further. Since 2010 they've provided callous policies, displayed an indifference to employment sectors that became less secure and undertook a deeply illogical brexit process that's done little more than spread antagonism. Now there's present shower with their16 month back catalogue.

              "OMG!" as they say on the Banter Bus.
              the Tories offer culture war, Labour under Starmer offer nothing.

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                #32
                The guardian queuing up to make moronically bad faith analyses

                https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1389563236761149441?s=21

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                  #33
                  He doesn’t work fir them any more apparently

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                    #34
                    This bollocks about a dismal GE campaign. Dismal it may have been but 13,636,684 turned out to vote for the Conservatives in 2017 compared with 11,334,226 in 2015.

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                      #35
                      Well they've got to find excuses for shitting on the priorities of the voters, shitting on their core supporters, shitting on their activist base and topping it off by fixing in one of the most unsuitable candidates they could possibly have found in what must have been a piece of Performance Trolling Art.

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                        #36
                        Originally posted by Flynnie View Post

                        the Tories offer culture war, Labour under Starmer offer nothing.
                        As far as I can remember there's always been an element of "Forget our mistakes, what about Labour?" in Tory rhetoric.

                        I still don't quite understand how the cynical nihilism of 2021's culture war trumps the lived reality of people. How does a culture war rewrite history to such an extent that people forget that one of political parties standing in a election once had an utterly despised leader that went a crusade against the striking workers of their area?

                        People in the north east will know their area. They'll know that it's now almost free of the sort of heavy industry that once employed so many. They'll know that even though Middlesboough play in an area synonymous with heavy industry they had to import steel to build the Riverside Stadium. They'll know their jobs are insecure.


                        Last edited by Kowalski; 04-05-2021, 22:15.

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                          #37
                          I must admit I wrote all that more in hope than logical certainty.

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                            #38
                            And they know that the current Labour Party hate them. Because they voted for the last guy in huge numbers and saw what the current people did to him.

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                              #39
                              There's a generation, or two, between the workers who were absolutely fucked by Thatcher's government and now. One of the consolations of my dad dying in 2019 is that he didn't see Wrexham elect a conservative MP. He knew a swathe of people left bereft when Brymbo Steelworks closed. That they, or their children, would vote Tory would have rendered him desolate.

                              But people forget. Or don't think it's important compared to whatever the populist slogan is that they just about understand. And, Christ, there are a lot of fuckwits about. And they all get a vote.

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                                #40
                                Originally posted by Kowalski View Post
                                People in the north east will know their area. They'll know that it's now almost free of the sort of heavy industry that once employed so many.
                                Bit of an overstatement, there's still plenty of heavy industry in the North East. 60% of the UK chemical industry is here (second biggest cluster of chemical companies in Europe I believe), not to mention the multiple plants making cars, trains, wind turbines etc. It's not what it was but it's not dead either.

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                                  #41
                                  As for why people in Hartlepool would vote Tory, again I'll point out that in recent months the Tories have showered their newly-gained seats in Teesside, Co Durham and Northumberland with investment and jobs that make good headlines on the local news, while pointedly doing nothing for the solidly Labour Tyne & Wear. It doesn't take much of a leap to think that the only way to get anything for the area is to have a Tory MP, especially in a by-election which is guaranteed not to change the balance of power (combination of bribes and blackmail, basically)

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                                    #42
                                    And one of the only areas of the UK that is still a net exporter of goods as a result

                                    I haven't needed to know this for years, but the order used to be Antwerp, Teeside and Porto Maghera (south of Venice)

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                                      #43
                                      Ah thanks, I had been wondering what the top one was. I'd have guessed Rotterdam as I misremembered where that big BASF plant is (it's indeed in Antwerp)

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                                        #44
                                        And they know that the current Labour Party hate them. Because they voted for the last guy in huge numbers and saw what the current people did to him.
                                        It's a stretch to say that people in Hartlepool voted for Corbyn's Labour in huge numbers. The decline in Labour's strength in the area has been going on for a couple of decades, spanning leaders of different stripes.

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                                          #45
                                          He doesn’t work fir them any more apparently
                                          He never has. I've just done a search for him on the Guardian archives and he's written the sum total of two pieces for them. On gang violence, in 2012.

                                          Can people stop seeing Guardian anti-left conspiracies in everything please?

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                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post

                                            He never has. I've just done a search for him on the Guardian archives and he's written the sum total of two pieces for them. On gang violence, in 2012.

                                            Can people stop seeing Guardian anti-left conspiracies in everything please?
                                            Apologies. His bio suggests he did some further editing work but you're right.

                                            I will only see Guardian anti-left conspiracies in The Guardian in future.

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                                              #47
                                              Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post

                                              It's a stretch to say that people in Hartlepool voted for Corbyn's Labour in huge numbers. The decline in Labour's strength in the area has been going on for a couple of decades, spanning leaders of different stripes.
                                              2017 was an exceptiion agreed but Labour got over 52 percent of the vote

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                                                #48
                                                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                And one of the only areas of the UK that is still a net exporter of goods as a result

                                                I haven't needed to know this for years, but the order used to be Antwerp, Teeside and Porto Maghera (south of Venice)
                                                Careful now. The Middlesborough set can get touchy about this sort of thing.

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                                                  #49
                                                  I thought the guardian was the anti-left conspiracy, no?

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                                                    #50
                                                    There is huge hype based on a crucial misunderstanding about 'sons of striking workers voting Tory' 'Blyth now full of Tories' etc type arguments- crucially the next generations in many working class families up here are not voting. For anyone.

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