Labour party

Labour is doing its share of soul searching this morning following its disastrous defeat in the Copeland by-election. There are many reasons being put forward for why the Tories were able to snatch the seat from Labour. But Emily Thornberry thinks she knows exactly why Labour lost: fake news. Lady Nugee suggested that the ‘big worry’ about the future of the Sellafield nuclear power plant was the decisive factor in voters abandoning Labour.

Never in recent years has a party deserved to lose an election, to be demolished by people’s ballots and fury, as much as Labour does in Stoke. The way Labour has treated this northern constituency is a microcosm of the metropolitan contempt it now feels for all the rough-handed, gruff-voiced non-Londoners who once made up its support base but who now irritate the hell out of it by doing stupid things like voting for Brexit and believing in democracy. Were Labour to receive a bloody nose from the people of Stoke it would be a wonderful day for British politics, and, who knows, possibly a wake-up call for a left made lazy by its misplaced virtue and self-satisfaction.

We're told that the story of Stoke and other similar working-class constituencies is the advance of Ukip; yet more important is the advance of ‘none of the above’. Turnout in by-elections is notoriously low, and Thursday will be no exception, but even at the last general election fewer than half the electorate voted in Stoke. This was not always the case. Turnout in Stoke was barely six per cent below the national average in 1987, yet in 2015 it was 16 per cent lower. This is just a weak reflection of the growing divide in political participation among people in different social classes. While differences in turnout between rich and poor were fairly minimal 30 years ago, today the middle classes are much more likely to vote than the working class.

In normal times, by-elections are bad for governing parties and good for oppositions. But it is an indicator of how much trouble Labour is in, as I say in The Sun this morning, that they are the ones who are nervous ahead of Thursday’s by-elections. Some in the Labour machine seem almost resigned to losing Copeland to the Tories and are concentrating on trying to hold off Ukip in Stoke. Given that Labour is polling as low as 24% and Jeremy Corbyn’s ratings are worse than Michael Foot’s were at this point in his leadership, and the epic defeat Foot led Labour to in 1983 paved the way for 14 more years of Tory government, you might think that defeat in either contest would be the end of Corbyn’s leadership. But it won’t be.

Just as it seems that Labour has reached the bottom of the abyss, Jeremy Corbyn and his party somehow manage to find a new low. The latest nationwide poll puts them at 24 per cent, trailing the Tories by 16 points. No wonder Labour MPs look so boot-faced around Parliament, and an increasing number are hunting for jobs elsewhere. If a general election were called now, the Conservatives would win a huge majority. Labour would be further than ever from power, arguably even finished as a major parliamentary force. Polls are not rock-solid indicators of future electoral success or failure, but Labour’s ratings are so abysmal as to suggest a party facing an existential crisis.

Modern British history is largely a history of Tory rule and misrule. The Tories governed Britain from 1886 until 1905 with only the Gladstone/Rosebery minority administration of 1892 to 1895 breaking their dominance. They were in power every year from 1916 until 1945, either on their own or in coalition, except for 11 months in 1924 and from 1929 to 1931, when minority Labour governments clung to office. The Tories governed on their own from 1951 to 1964, and from 1979 to 1997. They governed first in coalition and then on their own from 2010 until…Well, think of a number then double it. Opponents who know that the Conservatives are not only a party of privilege but are perfectly capable of betraying the best interests of every class in the nation ought to fear them.

Oh dear. It's safe to say that Labour's candidate for the Stoke-on-Central by-election has not had a good day. After Guido published tweets in which Gareth Snell called a variety of women 'sour-faced' and 'annoying', the Sun revealed that he had said Deirdre from Coronation Street deserved a slap. Meanwhile, Mr S notes that Snell also found time to tweet an expletive-laden message telling Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight book series, 'f--- you very much'. So, what does Snell make of today's female politicians and his potential colleagues?