tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6815814678708073564..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Local Council By-Elections March 2022Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-16762668872398476022022-04-02T11:17:41.613+01:002022-04-02T11:17:41.613+01:00Re: uncontested elections, superficially the attit...Re: uncontested elections, superficially the attitude is "We've never won here so why bother?", but that doesn't really explain it - anyone motivated enough to join Labour in a non-Labour area is at the very least a politics hobbyist, and you'd think they'd welcome the chance to get out and fly the flag for the party. There's also an element of defensiveness, of not wanting to rock the boat - people might ask awkward questions, awkward new people might join the party. That "bird in the hand" attitude - the preference for hanging on to what you've got, even if all you've got is a few officer posts in a low-membership local party - runs right through the Labour Right, and it's slowly killing the party.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-24586805488677940692022-04-02T09:45:15.935+01:002022-04-02T09:45:15.935+01:00I forgot to add my comment to the quotation taken ...I forgot to add my comment to the quotation taken from your article (at the end). It was that the long-term decline of the LP's organization - number of members, their commitment and activity (reversed in the Corbyn years) - is remorseless. The right wing have no wish to reverse this but will suffer as well. Given the loss o Scotland, and wide areas of the English north and midlands, the LP may well be in terminal decline. As a force for social change it is much damaged too. Paul Smithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-53319293430243444822022-04-02T09:35:09.051+01:002022-04-02T09:35:09.051+01:00'And this is a problem - it makes it more diff...'And this is a problem - it makes it more difficult for Labour to build up local profiles, and effectively means writing off swathes of the country as not worth bothering with. Even though campaigns, where they don't win, can succeed in recruiting new members, sourcing new donors, and identifying where its support is. But as Keir Starmer isn't fussed with any of this, by-elections are another sign organisational decay and decrepitude is setting back in.'Paul Smithnoreply@blogger.com