@anneapplebaum on @jeremycorbyn

https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/630393902843985920/photo/1

Who do the London newspapers vote for?

Source: Newspaper support in UK general elections | News | The Guardian

Source: The political affiliations of the UK’s national newspapers have shifted, but there is again a heavy Tory predominance | British Politics and Policy at LS

@TheGreenParty Open minded, a little unstable @NZGreens

https://twitter.com/LSEpoliticsblog/status/636528821211123712/photo/1

The large differences in personality types between Green voters and Labour voters is one of the first explanations I have seen as to why someone joins and votes for one over the other given both are left-wing parties with fewer and fewer differences in policy.

Is this how @jeremycorbyn will win the middle-class vote?

US and UK Real Housing Price Index, 1975 – 2015

image

Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed

Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator.

@jeremycorbyn @UKLabour has a long history of picking losers as leaders

Burnham Mocks Corbyn 

Source: Burnham Mocks Corbyn | Guido Fawkes

#JFK on @jeremycorbyn #toriesforcorbyn

Inside the mindset of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters

@jeremycorbyn in a nutshell #torysforcorbyn

image

@nzlabour @NZGreens There just isn’t no missing million out there hanging out for that hard-left clarion call @rsalmond

Rob Salmond has written a great blog this week on the ideological spectrum of New Zealand voters based on the New Zealand Election Study.

In the course of his blog he drove a tremendously big stake through the heart of the old left fantasy that if Labour or Greens goes left, a large block of voters not voting for them now or not voting at all (the missing million voters) will shake lose its false consciousness and follow you:

But “pulling the centre back towards the left” is massively, massively hard.

You win those people over by being relevant to them as they are, not by telling them they’re worldview needs a rethink. It is just basic psychology. Tell people they were right all along; they like you. Tell people they were wrong all along; they don’t.

And if you win a majority of centrists, you win. The New Zealand Election Study series records six MMP elections in New Zealand – the three where Labour did best among centrists were the three Labour won.

That’s another message from the academic study I quoted above – in Germany, Sweden, and the UK, the elections where the left did best among centrists were the elections where they took power. As their popularity among centrists declined, so did their seat share.

What is more disturbing for the old left fantasy of the missing million is voting for the Labour Party or Greens is correlated with ignorance rather than knowledge.

Furthermore, the more people know about economics, the less likely they are to vote for the left as Eric Crampton explains:

When they get to the polls, the ignorant are significantly more likely to support the Labour Party (4% increase in predicted probability for a standard deviation increase in ignorance) and significantly less likely to support the Green party (1% decrease in predicted probability) and United Future (0.5% decrease in predicted probability).

Understanding economics strongly predicted supporting National in 2005, which comes as little surprise: the National Party leader was former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. A standard deviation increase in our “economic thinking” index correlates with a 5.7% increased probability of voting National, a 1.5% decreased probability of voting NZ First, and a slight decrease in the probability of voting United Future and Maori.

To make matters worse, Crampton found that joining political organisations does little to cure ignorance of politics or otherwise lead to a political awakening. Sometimes active political affiliation reduces ignorance, other times such organisational membership intensifies ignorance.

via Salmond on the centre | Kiwiblog and StephenFranks.co.nz » Blog Archive » Why the left wants everyone to vote.

Why did @jeremycorbyn never split from @UKLabour despite 30 years on the outer? #torysforcorbyn

Jeremy Corbyn had 30 years to split from the Labour Party, which he voted against 25% of the time, establish his own party and receive the same reception presumably he would have got without needing to have to run for leader of the Labour Party.

The reasoning Corbyn never split from the Labour Party, and the reason why the left never splits from the Labour Party, is the left knows that it would get far fewer votes on its own rather than piggybacking on the right wing of that party.

The right split from the British Labour Party in the early 1980s to form the Social Democratic party. The right-wing split from the Australian Labor Party at least four times over its history.

The left is never split from the New Zealand Labour Party because it knows that it could never get anywhere even under proportional representation without the image of being part of the traditional Labour Party, centre-left, social democratic, not socialist. Jeremy Corbyn and the rest of the left of British Labour are practising mild mannered entryism. By stealing the brand of the Labour Party, the left obtains far more power than it ever could standing on its own two feet as true believers.

The working hypothesis of the far left everywhere is if the Labour Party were to adopt hard left policies is many more votes.

Labour would win many more votes because the offer of a genuine socialist alternative would shake voters loose of their false consciousness.

The left of the Labour Party never went out on its own to test that hypothesis because they knew in their hearts be lucky to not to lose their deposits.

This is despite the strong rise in third parties in British politics despite first past the post.

The remnants of the communist parties do well at elections in countries such as France, Germany (Linke or Left Party) and Japan and are in government in Greece.

  • 53 communist and anti-capitalist parties have been elected worldwide to freely elected parliament in 39 countries.
  • The Trots regularly get 4% in French presidential elections while the British SWP is still in the same league as the monster raving loony party.

The right wing of the Labour Party was willing to take its chances under first past the post voting in the House of Commons because it knew that a large part the electorate would vote for it in preference to the remnant of a left-wing run Labour Party.

image

The combination of these splitters from the British Labour Party and the Liberal party won 25% of the vote, two percentage points behind the British Labour Party.

46% of Tory MPs don’t understand politics #ToriesForCorbyn @jeremycorbyn

https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/631585303631921152

https://twitter.com/TheBigBlueBear6/status/633743084430344192

Won’t be a sober Tory in the Palace of Westminster on the night @jeremycorbyn wins

https://twitter.com/WikiGuido/status/630851446234316800/photo/1

What happened the last time a Labour PM was elected before Blair

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