Christabel Cooper

Though I think (I hope!) in an election campaign it may well serve to demonstrate to voters who are only attracted to Reform because they think everyone else has failed, that Farage is an extremist.

I am just not convinced that this is all that much of a surprise to anyone. My (currently unevidenced) suspicion is that many right-leaning Jewish people would have avoided voting for Farage anyway because of their understandable suspicion of the hard right.

Partly the problem is "party people already suspect might be racist is led by someone suspected of racism" is less of a story than "party which tells everyone else not to be racist doesn't deal with racism in its own ranks". Left wing parties are inevitably going to be held to a higher standard.

Am so tired of the assertion that Trump "is able to make breakthroughs that no one else would have been able to make" - when he is incapable of understanding the motives of any of the actors in these conflicts - both Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Gaza and therefore what might bring permanent resolution.

Yes, because I guess he can't understand why Putin wouldn't just take the territory, and that this war is about something far deeper than that, which both Russians and Ukrainians are prepared to die for.

And that they can be ended by him making those weaknesses clear to them. But that's not the way to a stable peace, which can only come about by grappling with the issues underlying the conflict. Which he has neither the interest nor the patience for.

Because he has no principles himself, he can't begin to understand that people might feel so strongly about something that they might go on fighting for it, even when in a weak position. I suspect Trump thinks wars are a result of weaker parties simply not understanding how bad their position is.

I think the reason Trump is so bad at peace making is he can't understand why people fight wars - because he can't comprehend why people are willing to die for a cause greater than themselves. He doesn't get why an (apparently) weaker party (eg Ukraine) won't just concede (eg give up the Donbas).

Yesterday, we put out a report on the most important issues to voters.

We know that immigration now tops the traditional most important issues question (see below from @yougov.co.uk).

But that doesn't tell the full story.

Here is a rundown of the experiments we did to test this out (A THREAD):

This statement not acceptable and I suspect not sustainable. Large majority of public support principle of asylum, support letting people stay permanently. Majority for that among Labour and other progressive parties’ voters is overwhelming. The Reform voters this is aimed at will never vote Labour

Exactly this. Public opinion should be a guide as to how to get to a destination, not what the destination should be.

It's as yet unknown whether Reform's failings will lead to a better debate about how to fund social care. Or whether the public will simply blame just another set of incompetent politicians.

This misunderstanding makes it difficult to have an informed democratic debate about what we do about social care. It meant Reform councils could claim they would cut spending dramatically through cutting bureaucracy, when admin is only responsible for a small part of council budgets.

Council spending and the Jay delusion Exclusive polling by Labour Together reveals the public have no idea how councils spend money

There is little public understanding about what local authorities spend their money on (ie principally adult social care). Labour Together's polling finds people think it takes up 13% of council spending, in fact it's 39%. And they overestimate admin costs.
www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Further thought on Caerphilly: it's a grim result for Labour because it has been replaced as the progressive party most likely to beat Reform in Wales. But the *scale* of the collapse of Labour's vote is a much bigger problem for Reform, because it shows the level of tactical voting against them.

Not in very many seats. Even the most catastrophic MRPs for Labour have the Lib Dems and Greens picking up few seats.

In Wales and Scotland, they may not be seen as the main opponents to Reform, but in England, in most seats, they will be.

Particularly notable that Reform was beaten in a high turnout election. At May's locals they seem to have benefitted from turning out people who did not vote in 2024 - looks like we're now seeing a similar turnout among more progressive voters, motivated to beat them.

One year into a Parliamentary term, we can't regard MRPs as a prediction, but it is still striking that so many of Labour's core seats - which even in a disastrous defeat, the party would hold - are in London. And most of the others are in other major cities or in commutable areas around them.

Enjoyed doing this podcast with @davehillonlondon.bsky.social. I made the point that Labour can't afford to lose its support in London. Right now 14% of the seats it won in 2024 are in the capital. But in the latest @yougov.co.uk MRP this rises to over a third of the 144 seats Labour keeps.

Oh yes I know! I've been a delegate enough times. It was looking at the audience in the fringe events, which seemed proportionately less full of ordinary members than usual, which led to my initial observation.

Got to say this time around it felt more like lobbyists talking to other lobbyists plus some journos, rather than an event centered around activist engagement.

That is fairly terrifying, if true. Given the stakes.

They don't seem to have moved (enough) onto the "Reform's economic policies are batshit" part. Which would be a crucial part of that plan.

Genuinely, what *do* they do about the haemorrhage to Reform?

I accept that even the Tories can't out-Reform Reform on immigration, but is it a totally crazy pitch for them to say to Con/Ref considerers "sure, we aren't as hard line on immigration as Reform, but we are pretty tough, and importantly we are not completely batshit on the the economy."

Interesting that Reform, which is currently 10+ points ahead in the polls, has accused Starmer of "scholastic terrorism" apparently without being worried that it is labelling the Labour/Reform considerers it needs to attract as supporters of terrorism.

A major point here, is that older working class people are by and large *not* in the poorest half of society. They tend to have good pensions and own their own houses outright and consequently are economically (as well as culturally) right wing and therefore have little interest in voting Labour.

Interestingly it *is* very much working people, if you define them as "people of working age who draw their income from employment". Even Corbyn in 2019 won the plurality of people of working age. In 2024 more people of working age with an income over £100k voted Labour than Tory.

Though... Anecdotally, there are some on the far right, who are happy to admit they are racist, but vehemently reject the label "far right" - presumably because they want to believe that racism is mainstream.

And it will definitely not be popular among the subset of voters who are likely to ever consider voting Labour. Unlike the Tories, Labour doesn't have to win over the minority with *extremely* hard-line views, just those who want a system that feels fairer and under control.