Comments on: Labour, polls and the stories we tell ourselves

By: raincoatoptimism

raincoatoptimism — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:58:52 +0000

Democracy is democratic, so we don’t have to be. Hate to sound like broken record, but leftwards shift will not harm electability.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:32:58 +0000

Hadleigh @1
Ah, I see Dave beat me to it. All I had in mind to say was that, quite aside from the wider function of the Labour party, you seem to be saying that leftwing parties are not electable, and to refer you to my recent post here (‘Are the Labour left losers?’) on the electoral successes of the Labour left. Just because the Labour right is fond of saying that only they can make Labour electable, that doesn’t make it true.

By: Dave Semple

Dave Semple — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:01:54 +0000

What rubbish. If Labour genuinely had to be pulled to the centre to be electable, then there’d be no point in having a Labour Party. Both the Liberals and the Tories do admirable job in ensuring the centre of the political spectrum is well represented.

But of course your remarks are a pointless truism which has always been in vogue among those who figure on the paltry elections we do have as the final word in democracy. They are not – and if Labour is not simply to another ‘centrist’ party, then it is time to change the stakes.

As a point of fact, all Labour has done for twelve years is plough itself deep into a centrist furrow. So the thesis of electability still doesn’t stand up.

By: Hadleigh Roberts

Hadleigh Roberts — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:55:16 +0000

Labour always has to tread a file line between being left wing enough to interest its members and right wing enough to be electable.

Though come to think of it, with Brown as leader we’re neither left wing nor electable.