My claim is that they went from traditionally left to centre right under Blair. I don't think that's a particularly controversial or outlandish claim to make certainly not absurd.

...yeah 'k. *walks away shaking head while sighing*

That was not your claim, at least try and be intellectually honest when all one has to do is scroll up to see your goal post shift.

You said Labour moved the centre, not that Labour moved to the centre.

Again in your own words:

Try and keep up with your own statements.

Sorry for not making myself clearer, but to clarify & fwiw I meant that Labour under Blair moved from traditionally left to centre right. Which they did. I never proactively mentioned the centre but joined in an exchange between you & Chezlaw (I think) where the centre was mentioned. But I mean they moved from left to centre right & again my bad for not making myself clearer.

And I get you disagree that they went from left to centre right. It's why I said we'll have to agree to disagree. And my "yeah 'k" comment was in response to your own statement that NL were actually centre left if you went through a line by line analysis.

People have short memories and forget the context that brought NL into being.

Labour lost the 92 election. Unemployment was rising, interest rates were a nose bleeding 10% and the house market had collapsed. The Tories had been in power since 89 for three terms and their leader was lol Major.

People arguing that Labour won in 96 by moving the centre to the right are being simply absurd. They had to move to that centre, they did not move it as the 92 result shows the centre was still well to the right of an relatively more centrist Kinnock labour.

I recall it from the time. I've also mentioned the triumph of thatcherism before but it's rare to see such explicit capitulation. You're basically admitting defeat by saying if labour didn't move to the right then they couldn't win.

It's tragic. Labour were electable pre-thatcher and remained electable post thatcher. So much is down to events dear boy (Falkland war, JS dying for examples) but what we can control is to keep on arguing and voting for the policies we actually believe in rather than being seduced by the blairs of this world

I dont know what saying you recall it from the time achieves. I am probably older than you.

However you can recall it is sad in terms of how little you are able to learn from it. If Labour were electable post Thatcher, e.g. under Major, how did they lose in 92 when events were all massively in their favour?

It's also worth pointing out John Smith was 20-odd point ahead of the Tories when he died, and would most probably have won in '97.

Labour should have this kind of gap today, as the current Tory position is significantly weaker than Major's government.

Kinnock

Wasn't there a classic sun front page for this one?

Will the last one out turn out the lights. Something like that anyway - I'm plenty old enough (sadly)

There's a difference between being electable and being elected. Mistakes, competence, events, luck etc etc make all the difference

edit: oh you mean the sun was what won it.

There was also the Sheffield rally. Fun thing is that we never know how it could have been different even though we know it could have been different.

So your saying that Labour lost an election in 92 which they should have won handily because the right wing media were able to do a hatchet job on the Labour leader.

Sounds familiar.

May's mess is extraordinary but Major's mess wasn't far off. Small majority, the brexit bastards, crashing out the ERM, scandals, etc etc

One big difference is JS was building on many years of work. JC has had to start from scratch in the face of resistance from the New Labour camp who still have most of the bigger beast, MPs.

With the advantage of hindsight possibly not as big as the failure of the broad left to mobilise its majority of voters against the Tories in '79, '83 and '87, a failure that got us in to the mess we're in now.

It shouldn't need pointing out because it's so obvious even without it that the blairite, New Labour, shift to the right was not remotely required to make labour electable.

I was thinking about the turn out the lights front page.

I may be confusing this with a different event but there was a no-confidence vote lost by Callahan's government that was lost because the whips wouldn't drag in some ill labour MP(s) to vote. That led to the 1979 election being held when the tories wanted it.

If I am thinking of the right event then one of the whips described it as a huge, deeply regrettable mistake.

I'm not so sure Labour were electable under Callaghan in 79 without some sort of electoral pact with the Liberals. But then the Lib/Lab pact of the 70's had been widely derided and perhaps people were looking for stronger government.

There was the whole "Winter Of Discontent" and "Crisis, What Crisis?" palavers (no not the terrible Supertramp album) milked by the tabloids and leading to the broad sense that many voters felt the unions had become too strong and needed some stern discipline from the "Iron Lady" to bring them back into line.

Caveat: These statements are mainly based on my recollection of the times as a reasonably politically-aware (as most of us were then) teenager, not research since then.

I remember it mostly that way too.

I remember a massive pile of rubbish bags for months on one of the parks near my school cos dustmen were striking. It was revolting.

Unions were being proper dicks

I remember:

strikes - good as it meant no school
power cuts - great fun
inflation you could observe in real time - very bad for those of us on a fixed income. Muum....

Had to get a bit older to realise this was real suffering and hardship for many.

Hah power cuts!

I got stuck in a lift for an hour cos of this. Just had to wait till power came back. I must have been 8

Power cuts were the first time many Brits had pizza, me included. I loved the power cuts of course.

Corroborated more or less by the BBC here
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.b...itics-45196409

The Corbyn/Labour/Israel stuff belongs in the general UK politarding thread.

No remainer self-identifying as British answered.

Marty pointed out that only 27 out of 28 countries are coordinating passport colour. My response is still that if it's just about trade rather than nation-building then why do those 27 countries see that as necessary?

Plexiq responded that I was unfair to imply the EU was not willing to agree to a Canada/Japan type deal because the the UK was geographically close, when the UK had not being asking for something like that until recently - and will probably get it. I took his point, so my questions should be directed at UK remainers rather than the EU specifically, i.e. Why don't the remainers want it?

The answer is pretty clear, and you would get the same response whether from a pro-European like chezlaw or from an anti-European like diebitter - that the EU isn't just about trade, it's about building a political union, i.e. a new country.

That's not the answer I'm interested in though. I want to know what the answer seems to be from the perspective of people who are still in denial about what the EU is, and you seem like a good example.

Why do you personally support the UK's relations with the EU being like those of Denmark and not like those of Canada?

Specifically Canada and Japan are not subject to the following non-exhaustive list of obligations yet are trading freely:

1) allow free movement for anyone who wants to move there
2) sign up to the social chapter
3) accept the supremacy of ECJ in deciding any disputes in the relationship
4) change the colour of their passport
5) give up their seat at the WTO
6) share their fish
7) allow only the EU to negotiate trade deals with other countries on their behalf

- if free trade isn't your motivation for wanting the above for Britain, what is?

You do realize that Canada and Japan are not trading freely at all compared to EU internal markets?

That passport **** got to be trolling right?

I'd love to know how anyone can think it's feasible for 27 countries to perfectly align politically when the one party in power in the UK cannot do that by themselves.

And yeah he's being dishonest over the passports, per usual. Was Maggie's choice to go with red.

It's a trading bloc ffs, not a new country and the same people that have issues over the imaginary political unification of 27 countries have never a word to say about the UK being America's *****. In fact, they're all for it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-45266360

So have Arlene Foster's positions. Do you also consider NI to be an independent country?

Given it looks like we're going to have "no deal" with the EU stopping lorries coming from NI (increasing the round trip costs for anyone trading either way), what do you consider Irish interests to be and how well do you consider them to have been represented?

If "Brexiteers" means the (self-appointed) public face of the leave campaign then whatever, they aren't that impressive in lots of ways. I think very few of the actual voters though would consider Ireland because they wouldn't accept the argument that the GFA (which was not subject to referendum in GB) can override our desire to leave.

The logistical issues in NI (where presumably this was debated a lot) put a dent of only about 8% in the final leave vote (it was 44% there rather than 52% nationally) how much of a dent would we expect these considerations to have on the vote in GB if it's only worth 8% there?

In the case of NI, pretty much nobody in GB cares if they want to leave the UK - though marty says the demographics are moving that way anyway - which suggests it was a matter of time regardless of the referendum.

In the case of Scotland that isn't borne out by comparing polling now and from before the referendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinio...h_independence
As I pointed out ITT before the referendum, creating an EU-grade border between the rUK and Scotland is a harder sell if Scotland is meant to be in the EU. If it's not meant to be in the EU then full independence is a harder sell for a smaller country though the world wouldn't end under that scenario either.

What do you mean by "align politically" here?

Maggie was responsible for a lot of EU integration. What's your point? Why do you think she did it? What were the pros and cons? Do you think having the same colour helps free trade or is it meant to symbolise something. If so what?

Leading Tories generally are being dishonest if they were previously in a position to change it back and then claim they are only able to do it now. Don't vote for them. Ordinary voters didn't get a separate vote on passport colour it was vote for everything or nothing - it's changing now because we voted out.