The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[Tetchytyke]

Corbyn is not a communist but he is a clueless, guileless idiot lacking in even the most basic political antennae!

Absolutely. A great backbencher. A leader? Not so much.

His leadership of the labour party was a disaster for the party and the nation resulting in him being comprehensively rejected, twice, by the electorate. ( but he got a bigger share of the vot.......... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

It's a fair point, though. More people voted for Corbyn's Labour than voted for Starmer's Labour.

The issue was that Corbyn's Labour stacked up the votes in areas he'd already comfortably won. Starmer's Labour spread the votes out. Although it's worth noting that the people who voters who left the Tories didn't vote Labour, they either voted LibDem or they voted Reform.

I do believe that the first-past-the-post electoral system is now becoming the reason why politics is so unstable. FPTP always used to be justified by giving us stable politics. Not any more. Relatively small swings in votes are causing huge swings in governments.

The Tories in 2019 had a mandate which was a mile wide and an inch deep. This was shown in 2025, when Labour increased their vote share by only 1.6 percentage points but won an additional 211 seats from that vote share increase. Labour now also have a mandate which is a mile wide and an inch deep. If Labour lose vote share by 2-3 percentage points it will wipe them out in 2029. Rinse and repeat in 2034.

 

[DarloRich]

It's a fair point, though. More people voted for Corbyn's Labour than voted for Starmer's Labour.

it doesn't matter and it is quite tiresome. "We had 75% possession but lost 3-0". Goals/seats win matches/elections!

I do believe that the first-past-the-post electoral system is now becoming the reason why politics is so unstable. FPTP always used to be justified by giving us stable politics. Not any more. Relatively small swings in votes are causing huge swings in governments.

Agreed.

 

[J663738]

There is no way that Jeremy Corbyn's politics can be described as dogmatic leftism.

Really? maybe he is just a misunderstood Liberal Democrat!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2025 ==

Maybe I mix in different circles but everyone I know regarded Corbyn as a complete left wing nutter.
Several people I know registered and voted for him in the leadership election, knowing that with him as leader, there could be no way Labour would ever get into power. Most inside the Labour party sadly knew this as well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Really? maybe he is just a misunderstood Liberal Democrat!

The difference between the Lib Dems and Labour in left-wing terms is that the former doesn't come encumbered with the Unions. I have no issue with Unions per-se, I think they are very important and that their rights should be protected - but I don't think they should be part of Government, indeed I think they are far better as totally independent organisations.

 

[Tetchytyke]

t doesn't matter and it is quite tiresome. "We had 75% possession but lost 3-0". Goals/seats win matches/elections!

It's important to provide context, though. Corbyn's Labour weren't annihilated any more than Starmer's Labour swept to power on a tide of unbridled joy. Small swings in vote share have outsized impacts on electoral outcomes. We'll see that in 2029 when Starmer's Labour lose two percentage points and get wiped out in a tide of Reform.

Again, comes down to our electoral system. It needs to change.

I have no issue with Unions per-se, I think they are very important - but I don't think they should be part of Government.

Unions themselves are not part of government.

Some trade unions have influence in the Labour Party because they provide a significant amount of funding to the party.

But that influence, and the funding, are transparent. Worth noting that union members also have a legal right to object to the political fund element of their subs. This used to be on an opt out basis, now you have to opt in to the political fund. So you can be in the union and not pay the political donations. I opted out when I was in Unison.

As for funding, I have less of an issue with trade unions funding political parties than I do with high net worth individuals funding political parties.

 

[Thirteen]

The difference between the Lib Dems and Labour in left-wing terms is that the former doesn't come encumbered with the Unions. I have no issue with Unions per-se, I think they are very important and that their rights should be protected - but I don't think they should be part of Government, indeed I think they are far better as totally independent organisations.

People have too many bad memories of the 1970s when the unions had a lot of power.

 

[Magdalia]

People have too many bad memories of the 1970s when the unions had a lot of power.

A large part of the electorate are not old enough to remember the 1970s, lots of them hadn't been born yet.

 

[J663738]

There was a Council By-Election in Cardiff yesterday and these were the results

1. Reform 39.6%
2. LibDem 23.6%
3. Labour 21.3%
4. Plaid Cymru 7.7%
5. Conservative 3.1%
6. Green Party 2.3%

The By-Election came about by the resignation of the sitting Labour Councillor. I don't think people outside Wales understand how it has become a place where Voting Labour has gone out of fashion.

Source Cardiff Council
Trowbridge - results

Election Candidate	Party	Votes	%	Outcome
Edward Topham	Reform UK	1142	40%	Elected
Chris Cogger	Welsh Liberal Democrats / Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol Cymru	681	24%	Not elected
Gary Bowen-Thomson	Welsh Labour / Llafur Cymru	615	21%	Not elected
Carol Falcon	Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales	223	8%	Not elected
Joe Roberts	Welsh Conservative Party Candidate / Ymgeisydd Plaid Geidwadol Cymru	90	3%	Not elected
Jessica Ryan	Wales Green Party / Plaid Werdd Cymru	67	2%	Not elected
Leanne Lennox	Propel: Stand Up for Cardiff	63	2%	Not elected

Election results for Trowbridge, 18 September 2025 : Cardiff Council

 

[Cloud Strife]

Basically social democracy worked and neoliberalism doesn't.

I would argue that social democracy (even as a committed social democrat) has some issues however. The main issue is that it largely relies on some degree of exploitation of people, either by massively subsidising their workplaces or by reducing the choice of individuals. Coal is such a great example of this: it was never going to make sense against cheaper coal imports, and the 1970s should have been used to retrain people away from coal mining. But how do you do that when people know that the coal mine is a great source of jobs and income, especially when the alternatives are much more difficult to comprehend? Many people will say that the coal should have been bought by the government regardless, but then you get into the situation that you keep coal power plants (and coal for heating) when it was clear by the 1970s that it had to go.
Of course, you need to take a longer term view of a situation. Coal mines being the bedrock of a community was fine in the 1950s, but we already knew then that it was a terrible and dangerous profession on many levels. But it's very hard to break the "my grandad was a miner, my dad is a miner, and I'm going to be a miner" mentality, and it could have only realistically been done in the 60s and 70s by investing in education and high tech industries in those towns. But then, what do you do if there's a strong rejection of this by communities? You then need to apply a neoliberal approach by simply not replacing miners as they retire, but then you've got mining towns in uproar for many years.

I don't think people outside Wales understand how it has become a place where Voting Labour has gone out of fashion.

Same thing happened in Scotland. The absolute collapse of Labour between 2007 and 2011 in Scotland was remarkable to say the least, and it looks like Plaid are benefiting from the same thing, where Labour simply became electorally toxic to many moderate voters. Then there's the other aspect: the only way to defend Wales against the very English Reform is to go with the nationalists, rather than soft unionists.

As far as I'm aware the polling information we have suggests that Labour to Reform switchers are actually quite rare perhaps a fifth of those leaving the Labour party are going to Reform the rest are going to "Don't Know" or Green/Plaid/SNP/Lib Dem.

Indeed, you can see this in both Scotland and Wales. Plaid are benefiting enormously from Labour's collapse, and the SNP are currently sitting with a 20% lead because of (English) Labour's policies. In Scotland, there's a very real chance that the SNP will clean up in the constituency vote if the 'mainstream' Unionist parties don't put forward a single challenger against the SNP and Reform, as there's no real alternative for nationalist voters, whereas unionists will have four options.

 

[WelshBluebird]

There was a Council By-Election in Cardiff yesterday and these were the results

1. Reform 39.6%
2. LibDem 23.6%
3. Labour 21.3%
4. Plaid Cymru 7.7%
5. Conservative 3.1%
6. Green Party 2.3%

The By-Election came about by the resignation of the sitting Labour Councillor. I don't think people outside Wales understand how it has become a place where Voting Labour has gone out of fashion.

It is worth giving context that this vastly bucks the polling so far in terms of plaid being 4th (with Labour significantly still ahead of them) and that the area is one of the more deprived parts of Cardiff - some parts scoring similar to the most deprived parts of the valleys.

 

[J663738]

It is worth giving context that this vastly bucks the polling so far in terms of plaid being 4th (with Labour significantly still ahead of them) and that the area is one of the more deprived parts of Cardiff - some parts scoring similar to the most deprived parts of the valleys.

And it came to light during the election campaign that the Plaid Candidate was a former member of Reform!
Does no one do proper vetting anymore?

 

[brad465]

There was a Council By-Election in Cardiff yesterday and these were the results

1. Reform 39.6%
2. LibDem 23.6%
3. Labour 21.3%
4. Plaid Cymru 7.7%
5. Conservative 3.1%
6. Green Party 2.3%

The By-Election came about by the resignation of the sitting Labour Councillor. I don't think people outside Wales understand how it has become a place where Voting Labour has gone out of fashion.

I don't deny Labour are struggling in Wales, but you are doing here what so many like to do: cherry-picking individual stats/minor events to suit your agenda. Council by-elections especially are miniscule events, except maybe where control of the council changes as a result. Even Westminster by-elections have this issue, albeit they have more impact as there are more voters involved and more press coverage.

 

[TravelDream]

It is worth giving context that this vastly bucks the polling so far in terms of plaid being 4th (with Labour significantly still ahead of them) and that the area is one of the more deprived parts of Cardiff - some parts scoring similar to the most deprived parts of the valleys.

You can't extrapolate a single by election result to national polling.

Local by-elections by their very nature tend to be local.

As Jantra above pointed out, in this one the Plaid Cymru candidate was a member of Reform earlier this year (candidates in Wales have to declare political party memberships within the last 12 months unlike in England).
And Plaid and the Greens ran on a joint ticket last time.


But what you can do is look at a variety of local by-elections and try to see the direction of travel.

Clearly Reform in Wales are doing well and Labour aren't.

I don't deny Labour are struggling in Wales, but you are doing here what so many like to do: cherry-picking individual stats/minor events to suit your agenda. Council by-elections especially are miniscule events, except maybe where control of the council changes as a result. Even Westminster by-elections have this issue, albeit they have more impact as there are more voters involved and more press coverage.

Just saw this after I posted. Totally agree.

 

[Richard Scott]

Absolutely. A great backbencher. A leader? Not so much.

It's a fair point, though. More people voted for Corbyn's Labour than voted for Starmer's Labour.

The issue was that Corbyn's Labour stacked up the votes in areas he'd already comfortably won. Starmer's Labour spread the votes out. Although it's worth noting that the people who voters who left the Tories didn't vote Labour, they either voted LibDem or they voted Reform.

I do believe that the first-past-the-post electoral system is now becoming the reason why politics is so unstable. FPTP always used to be justified by giving us stable politics. Not any more. Relatively small swings in votes are causing huge swings in governments.

The Tories in 2019 had a mandate which was a mile wide and an inch deep. This was shown in 2025, when Labour increased their vote share by only 1.6 percentage points but won an additional 211 seats from that vote share increase. Labour now also have a mandate which is a mile wide and an inch deep. If Labour lose vote share by 2-3 percentage points it will wipe them out in 2029. Rinse and repeat in 2034.

We seem to be getting people voting for a different party to that in power as they don't want the current government, not because they feel the policies of the opposition are for them.
In my eyes this is why we have current government, not because people wanted them but because they weren't the Tories. If politicians don't get a backbone and a vision I fear this bouncing backwards and forwards every 5 years is what will happen.

 

[edwin_m]

We seem to be getting people voting for a different party to that in power as they don't want the current government, not because they feel the policies of the opposition are for them.
In my eyes this is why we have current government, not because people wanted them but because they weren't the Tories. If politicians don't get a backbone and a vision I fear this bouncing backwards and forwards every 5 years is what will happen.

I agree, and I suggest FPTP is an important part of the reason.

 

[Harpo]

We seem to be getting people voting for a different party to that in power as they don't want the current government, not because they feel the policies of the opposition are for them.
In my eyes this is why we have current government, not because people wanted them but because they weren't the Tories. If politicians don't get a backbone and a vision I fear this bouncing backwards and forwards every 5 years is what will happen.

Hence why a party that won only four seats, continually bleats about having only won four seats but isn’t shouting about reforming the electoral system, only looking to exploit its weakness.

 

[edwin_m]

Hence why a party that won only four seats, continually bleats about having only won four seats but isn’t shouting about reforming the electoral system, only looking to exploit its weakness.

Reform were in favour of PR when their seats under-represented their vote share. Not so much now for some reason.

FPTP tends to create a tipping point situation where parties with a low vote share are under-represented and those with a relatively large vote share are over-represented.

 

[TravelDream]

Reform were in favour of PR when their seats under-represented their vote share. Not so much now for some reason.

FPTP tends to create a tipping point situation where parties with a low vote share are under-represented and those with a relatively large vote share are over-represented.

Narrow self-interest of course.

You'd expect nothing else from Reform, but it's no different to Labour or the Tories.

It's one of the things I respect the Lib Dems on. For many elections, they were massively underrepresented by FPTP. In 2024, their vote became concentrated enough that they now almost have the same share of MPs as their vote. Yet they still support PR.

Strength in particular areas, rather than general support across the country, is something that can give a significant number of seats above your share of the vote - yet another quirk of FPTP.
The SNP won 8.6% of seats with 4.7% of the vote in 2015. The same election where the Lib Dems won 1.2% of seats on 7.9% of the vote.

This worked against Reform (0.8% of the seats on 14.3% of the vote) massively in 2024 as their vote is fairly spread out and not heavily concentrated - but, eventually, there's a tipping point where the seats start piling up which polls suggest we'll see in 2029 (They could easily get a majority on 30% of the vote if the opposition is sufficiently split).
In such a scenario, why would they want rid of FPTP?

 

[317 forever]

Now she is out of Labour she is likely to lose her Coventry South seat next time round. It is studenty with lots of undergrads for Warwick and Coventry unis. A top target for the Greens who are much more likely to be organised than whatever hard/looney left shambles Corbyn and his new mates come up with.

Green membership has even increased, not just with Zack Polanski becoming leader but with "Your party" starting to implode.

 

[TravelDream]

Green membership has even increased, not just with Zack Polanski becoming leader but with "Your party" starting to implode.

The problem the left in this country have is that they are like a group of bald men all squabbling and fighting over a comb and they are totally obsessed over incredibly narrow 'intersectionality' which has no place in real people's lives.

It's why I always thought Starmer didn't have to worry greatly over your party/ Corbyn's party/ Sultana's party/ the various other factions than have appeared or whatever mess ends up standing come 2029.

There's still the issue of marrying things like trans rights/ pronouns/ ultra-liberal women's rights etc. with conservative Islamic values many which still hasn't come up.

There'll certainly be some on the left who will stand and win.
No matter what anyone thinks of Corbyn or the the other independents elected in 2024, but they stood as independents under their own name and they made it.


For the Greens, they are currently polling incredibly well. Though we'll have to see how that translates in any election.

 

[AlterEgo]

The problem the left in this country have is that they are like a group of bald men all squabbling and fighting over a comb and they are totally obsessed over incredibly narrow 'intersectionality' which has no place in real people's lives.

Are they? I can't recall any party talking much about intersectionality. And why wouldn't that have a place in real people's lives?

 

[TravelDream]

Are they? I can't recall any party talking much about intersectionality. And why wouldn't that have a place in real people's lives?

The idea that nobody gets discriminated against and that everyone is treated equally is, thankfully I should add, very widely supported in the Britain.

Left wing style intersectionality is a very quick way to turn people off something.

There's a reason normal parties don't talk about it.

 

[AlterEgo]

The idea that nobody gets discriminated against and that everyone is treated equally is, thankfully I should add, very widely supported in the Britain.

Well, it is, as a platitude. It's a thing that people say publicly because they realise it is a Good Opinion. Regardless, I am not sure you understand what intersectionality is, nor that the mark of a good and tolerant society is not equal treatment but equitable treatment according to circumstance.

Left wing style intersectionality is a very quick way to turn people off something.

Intersectionality isn't a left wing idea. Like, you can be English, white, and working class. That is an intersectional identity which is absolutely being played out as identity politics on a large scale at the moment.

There's a reason normal parties don't talk about it.

Which parties are talking about it? Like, who is doing this, and who is being turned off by it?

 

[KevinBrum12]

Green membership has even increased, not just with Zack Polanski becoming leader but with "Your party" starting to implode.

If Zarah wants to try and keep her seat she will defect to the Greens. I cannot see her becoming part of "Your Party" after the events of the last week.

if she holds out as an independent she is facing a squeeze from the Greens, Labour, Reform and whichever nitwit with a CV postcode Corbyn and his lads pick.

 

[BAFRA77]

Another departure from the top team at Number 10 - but McSweeney remains untouchable:

Starmer’s head of communications Steph Driver quits in latest No 10 exit

Exclusive: Departure of key figure comes little over a week after that of director of political strategy

www.theguardian.com

Keir Starmer’s head of communications, Steph Driver, has announced she is leaving Downing Street, the latest in a series of trusted aides to the prime minister who have quit No 10 in recent months.

The departure of Driver, who spent five years at Starmer’s side as communications chief when he was opposition leader, before becoming deputy director and then director of communications at Downing Street, comes little more than a week after another key figure, Paul Ovendon, quit as the PM’s director of political strategy.


Also this month, James Lyons, who was the No 10 director of communications for strategy – Driver focused on day-to-day matters – left after only a year in the job.

A subsequent reshuffle of the comms operation led Starmer to bring in Tim Allan, an adviser to Tony Blair in No 10 who went on to fund the PR firm Portland, as executive director of government communications. While Driver and Lyons had equal status, Allan’s job made him more senior.

 

[J663738]

No.10 seem to be trying to move the news agenda on.

Keir Starmer to announce plans for digital ID scheme

The prime minister believes a new scheme would help crack down on illegal working in the UK.

www.bbc.co.uk

To be fair, ID cards should have been introduced years ago.

 

[ainsworth74]

And I think this is when I pop up as Moderator to remind everyone we have a dedicated thread for ID card discussion which can be found here:

Should we have a universal ID card?

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/where-are-the-ticket-inspectors.288883/ Like with universal ID I can continue to dream...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[J663738]

Just looking at the Andy Burnham's coverage on the news tonight and his many interviews during the day, the other half who is a Doctor said, he obviously has a drink problem, judging by the amount of make-up on his nose in every interview. Really I thought? I just went on Google and typed Andy Burnham Drink, auto fill came up with Driving Conviction.
So I presume he does have some proclivity to to the odd tipple?

 

[WesternLancer]

Just looking at the Andy Burnham's coverage on the news tonight and his many interviews during the day, the other half who is a Doctor said, he obviously has a drink problem, judging by the amount of make-up on his nose in every interview. Really I thought? I just went on Google and typed Andy Burnham Drink, auto fill came up with Driving Conviction.
So I presume he does have some proclivity to the odd tipple?

I thought his driving conviction was for speeding on a section of motorway with a temp speed restriction of 40mph in force.

 

[AlterEgo]

Just looking at the Andy Burnham's coverage on the news tonight and his many interviews during the day, the other half who is a Doctor said, he obviously has a drink problem, judging by the amount of make-up on his nose in every interview. Really I thought? I just went on Google and typed Andy Burnham Drink, auto fill came up with Driving Conviction.
So I presume he does have some proclivity to the odd tipple?

You think because other people are searching for something on the Internet it makes it true?

Incidentally that is not what autofill comes up with for me.