Dan @2: Yes, Dan, I purposely left that open last night. The popularity of Kinnock’s decision to expel Militant could, at first sight, explain the increase in the vote.

But I don’t think that stands up. Here’s the names of the 5 MPs who won in Liverpool in 1987: Eric Heffer,Eddie Loyden, Bob Parry, Bob Wareing, Terry Fields. all of these were members of the left who had, to varying degrees, supported Militant, and were recognised as leftwing.

I think all the detailed evidence points towards the 1987 vote being a vote of support for how the Left had fought in Liverpool against the Tories.

Rob @3: You’re right that Liverpool had some specfics that makes its hard to generalise from, and in fact (though I don’t have the figures to hand) I think you could argue that the Manchester Left is better evidence of how the Labour left was electorally successful, especially agaist the Tories and especially in council elections. I think I’m write in saying there is still no Tory councillor in Manchester.

Yes, what militant achieved was a very ‘us vs them’ victory in the 1980s, but I count that as a good thing, based on the success of Militant in getting a class-based message across.

I did say on the OP that Militant had faults, and I think this does account for their failure (or the Labour people who came after them) to cope with the rise of the LibDems, who were able to attack the very housing-focused ‘ultra-municipal socialism’ of Militant quite well, but I think the continued strength at parliamentary time (as evidenced by Brian @1) remains testament to Militant’s success ion more or less driving the Tories out from Liverpool (and Knowsley)

Dave @5: Yes, I agree, and I don’t spend my time hookd to electoral stats. The post was simply about rebutting the Labour right’s assertion that the Labour left is always a electoral liabilty – it’s prime (voiced) reason for wanting to marginalise us. It’s simply not true.

Much more accurate, from the point of view of the Left, is how we’re received on the ground when we go into workplaces to sell agitational newspapers, to support strikes and so on. Remember, we’re not aiming to represent the whole country – no party will ever do that. You can represent labour or capital, you can’t represent both. And you win, ultimately, by having your core supporters so united that capital is stymied and the middling sorts are buoyed towards our demands by a) the benefits it will bring and b) our unity and self confidence.

For which there are much better indicators than elections under a formal-democratic system as the extant one.

I’d also suspect that for every vote Militant won for Labour in Liverpool, several votes were lost in the marginal middle ground that Blair eventually captured in 1997 (this is the fault of the FPTP system, of course). But then perhaps I’m a victim of the popular narrative?

I agree with the general argument (and have a post lined up about what focus groups were actually telling New Labour in the 1990s which supports this case), but the figures that you’ve got for Liverpool local elections show a 9.6% rise in support for Labour after Kinnock denounced the Militant and they were expelled – how does that support the case that the Militant were electorally popular?

No point winning well in Liverpool when we’re losing badly in, for example, Gloucester and Croydon…

PS Louise Ellman (“One of the Blair government’s most loyal cheerleaders”) got 70.4% in Liverpool Riverside in 1997 and 71.4% in 2001…