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LeftishBrit

(41,209 posts) Mon Jul 13, 2015, 02:41 AM Jul 2015

Anger after Harriet Harman says Labour will not vote against welfare bill

Labour will not vote against the government’s welfare bill and should not oppose limiting child tax credits to two children, the party’s interim leader, Harriet Harman, has said, provoking a storm of criticism including from some leadership candidates.

She said Labour should also not oppose certain conditions in the planned cap on household welfare benefits.

The party simply could not tell the public they were wrong after two general election defeats in a row, she said, adding it had been defeated because it had not been trusted on the economy or benefits.

In what was clearly designed as a watershed interview on the BBC’s Sunday Politics show, Harman seemed intent on shaking the party out of what she fears is a reversion to its comfort zone after election defeat. “We cannot simply say to the public you were wrong at the election,” she said. “We’ve got to wake up and recognise that this was not a blip; we’ve had a serious defeat and we must listen to why.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/12/harman-labour-not-vote-against-welfare-bill-limit-child-tax-credits

Yes, a party loses 40 seats to a more left-wing party and 8 to a more right-wing party, and it must be because it's too left-wing...

10 replies

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Anger after Harriet Harman says Labour will not vote against welfare bill (Original Post) LeftishBrit Jul 2015 OP

Harriet Harman 'happy to be overruled' on tax credit cuts T_i_B Jul 2015 #1

Could someone explain to me what the post-Miliband Labour Party is supposed to be for? non sociopath skin Jul 2015 #2

I was asking that question well before Miliband became leader T_i_B Jul 2015 #3

I think they see themselves as looking for the votes of certain in vogue demographics muriel_volestrangler Jul 2015 #4

Labour is just alienating all & sundry right now T_i_B Jul 2015 #5

What sort of demographic is "Worcester Woman" supposed to be? Ken Burch Aug 2015 #8

Well.... T_i_B Aug 2015 #9

While in general that would be a good idea (including for the politicians!) LeftishBrit Aug 2015 #10

One would have thought... LeftishBrit Jul 2015 #7

She and Kendall are burbling on as if these questions were ever clearly put to the electorate. Denzil_DC Jul 2015 #6

T_i_B

(14,746 posts)

1. Harriet Harman 'happy to be overruled' on tax credit cuts

Reply to LeftishBrit (Original post)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 06:43 AM

Jul 2015

Difficult to see any way to put a positive spin on the way this has been mishandled by Harman

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33503188

Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman is "perfectly happy" for her backing of tax credit cuts to be reversed, the BBC understands.
A source close to Ms Harman told BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith she had been setting out "an attitude" not a final policy.
Ms Harman faced a Labour backlash after saying the party would not oppose Budget plans to limit child tax credits to the first two children.
She will address Labour MPs later.

non sociopath skin

(4,972 posts)

2. Could someone explain to me what the post-Miliband Labour Party is supposed to be for?

Reply to LeftishBrit (Original post)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 06:47 AM

Jul 2015

The Skin

T_i_B

(14,746 posts)

3. I was asking that question well before Miliband became leader

Reply to non sociopath skin (Reply #2)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 06:57 AM

Jul 2015

..although admittedly the drift of the Miliband years has not helped.

I really don't know what the top brass of the Labour party are thinking if they are daft enough to think they can stop the rot by acting like a weaker, more careerist version of the Tories.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,355 posts)

4. I think they see themselves as looking for the votes of certain in vogue demographics

Reply to T_i_B (Reply #3)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 07:17 AM

Jul 2015

'Mondeo Man', 'Worcester Woman' and so on. Which leaves them at the mercy of the whims of PR and polling companies.

T_i_B

(14,746 posts)

5. Labour is just alienating all & sundry right now

Reply to muriel_volestrangler (Reply #4)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 07:22 AM

Jul 2015

That approach clearly failed in key marginals last time around and caused the collapse of the party in Scotland. If you ask me, Labour would be better off engaging with voters in real life rather than constructing computer models and theories of voters.

Even groups such as disaffected Lib Dems often seemed to be taken for granted.

Looking at the situation locally to me, I live in a seat that's been Labour since 1935, but their majority is now wafter thin and unless something drastic happens to halt the decline, I can see North East Derbyshire going Tory in 2020.

Ken Burch

(50,254 posts)

8. What sort of demographic is "Worcester Woman" supposed to be?

Reply to muriel_volestrangler (Reply #4)

Thu Aug 6, 2015, 01:06 AM

Aug 2015

Aspirational, tough on crime, and addicted to anchovy-based steak sauce?

(Oh wait...that would be "Worcestershire Woman&quot .

T_i_B

(14,746 posts)

9. Well....

Reply to Ken Burch (Reply #8)

Thu Aug 6, 2015, 03:05 AM

Aug 2015

I could point you towards this description...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_woman

Or alternatively I would suggest taking the train to Worcester and talking to the people who live there rather than relying on dodgy theories and databases.

LeftishBrit

(41,209 posts)

10. While in general that would be a good idea (including for the politicians!)

Reply to T_i_B (Reply #9)

Thu Aug 6, 2015, 12:58 PM

Aug 2015

I believe that Ken Burch lives in Alaska, so that taking a train to Worcester might not be very feasible for him....

On a more serious note, where do the politicians and their advisers come up with all these stereotypes?! It would be considered nowadays as wrong and rather bigoted for political leaders' official documents to contain brief stereotyped accounts of 'Chinese man' or 'French woman'; yet it seems to be the normal practice to do so with British places.

LeftishBrit

(41,209 posts)

7. One would have thought...

Reply to T_i_B (Reply #3)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 11:36 AM

Jul 2015

that the fate of the LibDems in the last election would have demonstrated that 'acting like a weaker, more careerist version of the Tories' is not a sure path to electoral triumph.

Denzil_DC

(7,255 posts)

6. She and Kendall are burbling on as if these questions were ever clearly put to the electorate.

Reply to LeftishBrit (Original post)

Mon Jul 13, 2015, 09:34 AM

Jul 2015

Here's the now-gone Ed Balls in March about a previous Tory budget:

Ed Balls wouldn't reverse anything from Osborne's Budget
Those hoping that a Labour government would look very different from the current Conservative-led government are likely to be disappointed.

Asked by the Today programme what he would reverse from Osborne's Budget yesterday, Ed Balls replied that there was nothing.

"From yesterday to be honest… there's nothing I'm saying to you from yesterday I would reverse," he said.

How can this be? Under Osborne's plans, there will be an additional £20 billion of cuts to welfare, tax credits and public sector pensions, with overall cuts set to be far larger than anything we have seen over the past five years.

He confined himself to griping about details and tinkering at the margins. Just about the only unique policy that gained any traction - and that by no means generally positive - was Miliband's ill thought-out "Mansion Tax."

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