Quote Originally Posted by KerrAvon View Post
Those are interesting articles, ranting.

It’s important to bear in mind that the sample sizes used in polls can be fairly low – perhaps a couple of thousand people – because it gets expensive to use large samples. It’s also important to bear in mind that opinion polls can be skewed to give the answer that the body commissioning them wants to hear. It’s generally a good idea to root around in the sample size and methodology used.

Setting the above aside, however, and accepting that the polls are accurate, they must be a huge cause of concern for you.

A few weeks after the poll reported in the Independent article, a very large opinion poll was held across the UK, in the form of a General Election. The sample size was in excess of 32 million and on the question ‘would you like a Labour government’, the answer appears to have been ‘not really’ (in fairness, they said the same about the Tories, but less emphatically).

So if the polices are right, there has to be another obstacle to Labour winning as opposed to not being trounced, doesn’t there? And I would suggest that the only reasonable explanation is that large numbers of people neither like nor trust the London Labour Party cabal who are currently at the top table (I appreciate that at this point, disparaging comments about the mainstream media generally appear – those pesky newspapers keep actually reporting things that The Great Leader has said and done over the years).

As I mentioned above, if success for you is Labour not getting wiped out as opposed to winning, you have nothing to be concerned about. Close those curtains, rock that carriage and maybe get the lads and lassess from the grime clubs to make train noises.

I have already explained why Labour came up in the polls. The Tories made the error of trying to fight the election on personalities alone with the ridiculous ‘strong and stable’ strap line. That was always risky (particularly as they must have known from the outset that May would decline to take part in televised debates etc.) They should have switched to policy as soon as that strategy started to unravel.

It seems nothing will change your mind from the comforting delusion that Labour only gained from the Tories poor campaign, and with the rather rabid fear you have of Corbyn, I can understand that you have to think that way to stop yourself twitching.

But leaving Corbyn the personality aside for the moment, I and the thousands of other Labour members were out speaking to folk on the doorsteps in the run up to the last election, and what surprised me was how little people knew about the manifesto at the outset of the campaign and how popular they were as we spoke to them about the policies.

The YouGov findings in the article is pretty accurate as of my discussions with people, both Labour and Conservative:

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics...ive-2017-gener

Now whilst we'll all agree that Labour came from miles behind and didn't quite win, something very notable was happening that is important for us on the Left going forward.

Look at the key findings:

1. As may people voted Labour because of Corbyn as voted against because of Corbyn (citing him personality as the reason for the vote/non vote)

2. The biggest factor when casting the vote: 28% of people voting Labour gave the reason primarily as being because of their manifesto policies. Whereas the biggest reason people voted Tories was because of...Brexit.

This is pretty much exactly what I heard at the door.

So, what does this mean going forward? WEll, assuming that Labour keeps the same direction with policies that it puts into it's next manifesto, what is likely to be the next Conservative hook? Brexit, at best (if it gets a kind of deal) will be in the past, so little of the pull over from the UKIPs and ex-Labour voters that swung away due to recent years of referendum fun and at worst (highly likely) a huge pool of voters who will feel betrayed at the conservative's inability to deliver a satisfactory deal (in the eyes of their Bexit focused voters).

I'm up for a change of leader, but contrary to your views here, I think that we'd be foolish to move away from the policies of the last election.

I'd say that on this evidence, the future looks pretty bleak for the conservatives, and with the hundreds of thousands of members at the doorsteps next time around, I think we just need to keep that sharp pole heading right for your divvied derriere!