"DJC" wrote in message news
On 24/04/17 12:18, Tim Watts wrote:
On 24/04/17 10:14, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
On 23/04/17 21:47, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Bod writes:
From what I've read and heard, most Labour voters ARE like sheep. I
hear it all of the time "I vote labour because all my family have
always
voted for Labour".

I think there's been a lot of truth in that, but a lot of people
who had always voted Labour for decades have abandoned the party
in last couple of years for two different reasons, Brexit, and the
party's recent move towards the far left (popular with Labour
members, but less so with the bulk of voters they need to attract).

Both Conservative and Labour voters were split on Brexit - it
wasn't a hard left/right issue. Now the Conservatives have come
out heavily for Brexit, they've pulled in lots of Labour Brexiters,
and I think they'll pull in all 5M UKIP voters (UKIP will be dead
in 8 weeks). Conservatives will lose some Remainers to Lib/Dems, but
that will be small compared with their gains from Labour and UKIP.

I think the most significant thing historically will be the number
of traditional left wing voters who've moved well to the right just
to ensure Brexit goes through. They'll probably move back a few
years after Brexit, but for now, they regard Brexit as more important
than left/right politics.

Labour hasn't been a party of the working class - the white working
class for two decades or more. Not since Thatcher really.
Its the party of the nouveau rich middle class, you know 'me grandad
were a milkman but I am a sound engineer at the beeb, and own me own
house' sort.

Working class are way right of Labour.

I see where you're coming from, but I tend to think of it slightly
differently. Prior to Thatcher, there was a large working class in
the UK. The 1980's saw phenominal growth and improvement in living
standards, and enabled a large number of working class to move into
the middle class, with the middle class outnumbering the working
class by 1990.

However, in spite of this, there wasn't a significant political
party for the middle class. They ended up voting for whichever left
or right party was nearer the centre, and they had become large
enough to carry the swing vote. It wasn't until Labour realised this
that they got back into power, and then served their longest term
ever.

Interesting idea...

The lower middle class do suffer from a lot of the same problems as the
old working class. Whilst heath and safety is massively improved, we
still have people working on dodgy contracts doing excessive numbers of
hours trying to make ends meet under virtually feudal levels of control
by their employers.

Another section of the middle class would be all the small business
owners who are buried under red tape and an out of control tax system.

No one is representing either. Labour ought to be representing the
former and in principle, the tories were supposed to be supporting the
latter.

But neither seem to be much good at helping either group.

There will always be a place for a conservative party, that is one for
people who reckon, all things considered, that they will be best served by
things remaining much as they are.

Yes, but in practice there arent enough of those to form govt anymore.

Affluence and the decline of large labour intensive industries has taken
away much of the old labour vote, but replaced it with a new labour vote
in the public sector.

The public sector and all its encumbrances is now so large

Thats overstated, the public sector isnt really all that large.

that it also represents a vote for things the way they are.

Not really.

There is no libertarian party, no small-business and mind your own
business party, just two maintain the unsustainable status quo parties.

There are a lot more than just two partys and neither of them is
unsustainable.