Posts by Ben Austin
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Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to izogi,
Well I guess we'll see if my friend is a reliable source / analyst in a week!
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Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to izogi,
I've been told by a friend that the phonebanking reception for Labour is still very positive for O-Belmont, fwiw
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It would be interesting to see the results from Labour's canvassing returns in and around Auckland, although obviously that would be QUITE SECRET
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Bit of a shame really, Little was the first leader of the Labour Party in recent years that I actually genuinely liked. If just that he seemed like he had the parliamentary party under control whilst also seeming like he had some empathy.
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One party rule change I would propose is asking all candidates to confirm that they have not paid or otherwise obtained consultancy services in order to assist or otherwise obtain selection as a candidate. I don't ever want to vote for a candidate who has felt it necessary to pay people to game party selection rules.
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Think most of what the original post said is still acceptable - so far as criticisms of Corbyn are concerned anyway. However the victory of Labour and Corbyn especially in beating the extremely low expectations we all had is certainly not foreseen here.
It's a bit like Trump in some ways - Corbyn's style of campaigning actually works in some situations and GE2017 was one of those situations. It's not the kind of campaigning that UK is used to (outside of his leadership campaigns) or indeed NZ, so that makes it very hard for people to understand or accept that it might be effective.
The post also didn't know the Labour Manifesto and therefore couldn't appreciate how well received quite radical offers were with large parts of the electorate (e.g. the £10 minimum wage and no student fees).
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One interesting anecdote I heard from a Leave area this year was that UKIP made special effort to visit the kind of pubs where people start drinking the moment the doors open in the morning. Not to campaign so much as to encourage the patrons to register to vote, although I'm sure they did a bit of campaigning too. Which does sort of support the fact that Leave did mobilise traditional non voters rather well.
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Hard News: Interesting Britain!, in reply to NoFace,
facile
I don't believe so. There has been loads of analysis of Labour vote/ Ref vote up to now and it does seem that a strong majority of people who actually vote Labour voted Remain. This is quite different from people who belong to groups/class/areas that usually or used to vote Labour.
It also ignores fact that large parts of the so called white working classes have long voted Conservative or swung back and forth.
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Well the UKIP vote, circa 2015, were just as divided as any other group of voters. Would Welsh Kippers have much in common with those in Kent, or Hull? Probably not
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Hard News: Interesting Britain!, in reply to NoFace,
If you are referring to Labour, I don't think they were riven on the issue before the Referendum. If Labour had ended up with any of the other 3 candidates that stood with Corbyn in 2015 we would have seen a full throated pro Remain case. The party activists and MPs were decidedly pro Remain, nearly everywhere. They largely still are. Even the younger Corbyn supporters tend to be strongly pro EU (older ones tend to be more mixed, in my experience as they often share his scepticism).