There's no point though.

We've already changed leader once and we have to stick by him until the election at least. If we change leaders twice whilst we're in government we'll look even more incompetent.

And even if we did change leader, the damage has already been done. Better to make the best of a bad situation up to 2010. If we win, then great. If not then we'll rebuild from there.

I hate to tell you, but a YouGov poll from last month which put the Tories 26 points ahead, indicated that Labour's position would not improve with another leader in charge.

Potential successors such as Ed Balls, David Miliband, Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, Andy Burnham, Alan Johnson and James Purnell would all make things worse, the poll suggests.

Lulu - the poor poll position is down to fuel prices. In 2000 when there was an oil spike to $30+ per barrel from $15 per barrel in 1999, Labour went from 15 points ahead of the Tories to 8 points behind them. And this was a period when Tone was still in his honeymoon period.

At the time Labour was rescued by the USA going into recession, which cut demand sharply and sent the oil price plunging back down again....

When this current oil bubble bursts, the public will stop being so cross and grumpy and give us a fair hearing again. But changing the leader will not help (unless he can strike oil in Hampshire!)

Oil is not going to drop because the price is not being driven by US demand but by Chinese demand. Here the price of petrol is about 35p a litre and people are driving around in their hummers, SUVs and whatever can guzzle as much fuel as possible. Rather than taxing fuel the Chinese Government underwrites it so is effectively subsidising petrol at the minute.

I can't think of anyone other than perhaps Charles Clarke who would want the poisoned chalice of leadership before the general election...

But a change of policy could reverse those appalling opinion polls. Look at Jon Cruddas's speech from the Compass conference on 14th June.

Not shown in the abridged version was his listing of some of Labour's most progressive manifesto pledges from 1997 and his well-put argument that they seem far more bold and radical than anything that anyone could imagine the current leadership would propose...

I'm afraid to say we're doomed, and frankly we deserve it, big time. Another comment above says that we have to lose to move forwards and that is quite true. We've just gone too far with a lot of the stuff we've done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I reckon the biggest issue for the electorate is excessive tax and spend, and now the coffers are empty there's no contingency to fall back on other than yet more borrowing and even higher taxation. A line in the sand was crossed some time ago on tax, and the 10p fiasco simply highlighted this, drew it to the attention of the masses. And the car tax issue is an even bigger ticking timebomb and yet those in charge press on regardless despite the dire warnings. £400+ to tax a £400 car? I don't think so. Also we've not been honest about our true motives in fundraising, and the (actually rather intelligent) public have now seen through this. If we portray a tax as "green" then let's have a green tax and overall revenue neutrality. But oh no, we just keep putting taxes up, and with no visible benefits to those who pay. We've spent more on services true, but much of that has just gone on fuelling public sector wage inflation, with little if any service enhancement. Is it any wonder that we're failing in the polls? We frankly deserve to lose. We spend too much, inefficiently, and we don't listen to what the electorate say. There are issues with the EU too - The irish no should mean no, and the constitution (let's be honest about that - calling it another name was a dishonest fudge) should die now, never to be resurrected. And David Davis has now raised the profile of civil liberties issues that many in our own party have been very uneasy about for a long time now.

So...

We tax too much
We spend too much, inefficiently
We don't listen
We are authoritarian
We're dishonest
We're on the make

I'm not entirely sure all this is Gordon's fault - Tony would probably be suffering just as much from many of these issues had he stayed. And he was a hard act to follow, in terms of his charismatic personality, which Gordon clearly doesn't have.  

But frankly we don't deserve to win the next election. The sooner we lose the sooner we can start to rebuild for a subsequent win, so maybe best to accept that, go to the country now and be done with it. If we don't make some very serious changes, we will never recover, and oblivion is Labour's future.

I don't like writing this but it's the way I see it.

Dingbat

But how long are you willing to wait to rebuild, the last time was 18 years. the next could well be longer.

People will not forget what labour has done to them, and the middle class labour likes to court are defecting back to the Tories, Labour are hitting people at the bottom yet will turn back to us to win a vote, sod them.

As I've posted repeatedly, the next election is almost certainly lost for Labour but the manner and extent of the loss is controlable. Gordon is the most unpopular PM since polling began and is unfortunately fundamentally incompetent.  If Labour keep hanging on to him the electorate will not forgive in a hurry. 

At the beginning of this year the Weighted Moving Average of the polls was 40:33:17, it's now 46:26:18 and if things carry on like this Labour will be down to 20% by the end of the year. Assuming, of course, that the Party has not gone bankrupt by then, because people just won't give to a party led by Gordon.

So Lulu is right, there has to be a fresh start. Look what a contested election did for the Tories.  

I agree with Hattersley. When Humble Gordon stepped in last time, he seemed to combine honesty with clever political manouvering. He started co-operating with the Lib Dems, and when they refused, he didn't look bad. He had a GOA(T)T. He looked statesmanlike. He looked like a decisive, principled PM. On the casinos, he made the right move, and his cannabis decision, while I disagreed with it, looked honest, as he lined up his ministers to admit whether they had smoked cannabis.

It wasn't the election decision that disappointed me, though I wanted an early election. It was the smile when Darling announced the IHT plans. That was the moment when the old New Labour style of spin had come back. He didn't just damage social justice, social democracy, and the 'Labour' part of the Labour party with those plans. He mutilated, savaged, tortured, and then executed it.

Then the 10p plan looked like pure political spin. And he had wrongfooted on China, when we had the best oppertunity for a generation, to allow Europe and the US to square up to China about their human rights abuses, and encourage social democracy there. Then the cannabis plan looked desperate. So did 42 days. Then he fumbled his principled gambling plan. He had had a title bestowed upon him, a first in political history, of being an indecisive Stalinist.


He can become principled again. He needs 3-5 social-democratic causes that he can really sink his teeth into over the next 2 years. I think they should be care for the elderly and pensions, childcare and making education truely comprehensive, public transport and the environment, poverty and tackling the super-rich, and tackling international inequality (starting with Iraq).

Speaking from an apolitical general member of the public point of view your best bet is to get a new boss call a general and try and minimise your losses another 2 years of the great leader and the lib dems will be the official opposition. Personally  don't think the tories will do much better but I hope someone can

I am the Labour core vote . I am 50,  a worker - I earn £14.7K gross per annum for a SKILLED job.  I was 18 in 1976.  I voted Labour at every turn until the Iraq war.  I will never vote Labour ever again until there are major major changes.

It was with trepidation that I voted for Blair in 1997.  My mother - a senior union official in the old NALGO - remarked when he was first elevated to leader that "He'll win a couple maybe 3 elections,  but he'll destroy the party doing it,  and the sheep in the party will follow him because he'll quench their thirst for power.  He's a false prophet.".  I thought otherwise.  I voted Labour at the following election but by then I already had my doubts.  Come the third time, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, to vote Labopur would have been pure hypocracy.

So, accept reality,  you are going to lose the next election (see,  I'm now that distanced I no longer say 'we', I say 'you').  In fact,  you are going to lose it very very badly.  It would make not one jot of difference if Brown was leader or not and it would make not a jot of difference if oil dropped to one dollar a barrel tomorrow.  You are a busted flush, you are out.

First of all, personalities.

Harriet Harmann - an arrogant gobsh*te.
Hazel Blears - An irritating, not very believable clown.
Ed Balls - Sulky, arrogant, slimey
Hilary Benn - Bureaucratic, emotionless
The Millibands - Smarmy, smug
Jack Straw - Increasing befuddled and clueless looking.
Do you want me to go on?

Next, your identity.  You have failed and betrayed your core support.  You have not delivered things that have major impacts on their lives.  Where are the NHS dentists?  The situation is now worse than it was in 1997.  A social policy where Thatcher delivered better than you do.     Council Housing.  This country needs a massive council house building programme.  Not housing assosciations - council housing - on a scale not seen since the 1950's.   Even with Housing Assosciations taken into consideration,  year on year since 1997 you have never built more than Thatcher built in her WORST year.   That is an absolute disgrace for a so-called 'Labour' Government.

You made promises to the union movement in the Warwick agreement.  You have partially delivered one and reneged on all the rest and then wring your hands about the Trades Union movement threatening to reduce your funding.  Get something through your heads - You are the property of the Trades Union movement - you are it's political wing,  if you don't like it then get out of the party.  If you take our money,  deliver our policies otherwise exactly what is the point of you.

Then there's the soundbites - remeber 'British Jobs For British People'?  Shall I tell you how that has panned out in my area?  the 2 largest local employers - one of which is Tesco's - advertised it's latest vacancies through and agency in Poland.  They were't advertised here yet we have above average employment.   They arranged B & B accommodation for these EU workers.  Triuble is,  now they are here living in B & B,  once they've been here 56 days they then become priority needs for social housing.

British Jobs For British People my backside.  A totally blatant lie.  OIt was a lie when he said it and it's a lie in reality.  We have a Labour MP - a Brownite.  What do you think he's said when this was raised with him.  How about 'There's nothing I can do'.

The sooner you lose and are dismantled and reclaimed the better.  Hopefully,  you'll go bankrupt and the TUC can form it's own party before the BNP - who are more Labour than you are at the moment and that's a disgraceful truth - get a proper foothold.

As you are at the moment you are just dead men walking and you have no reason to exist. 

5th behind the greens and the BNP never mind time to start shapening those knives before the liberals become the official opposition and labour go the way of the SDP.

I'll be open right at the start that I am a Conservative voter, but I am interested in politics across the board.

Sometimes, winning a General Election is not the best result for a political party.

Look at the Conservative in 1992. There’s a reasonable consensus that we would have been better off losing the 92 election by a small to medium majority. By winning, and being seen to hang on for another five years of tired government, we put ourselves out of office for over a decade. (There is also the interesting question of whether Black Wednesday would still have happened, but to Neil Kinnock instead of John Major – remember that Labour were pro-ERM at the time? But that’s a side question, interesting though it is).

I wonder if people see a parallel here? Leave aside the party political disagreements for the time being please, just think about it from the point of view that no Party should be in power for too long.

I firmly believe that it will be better for Labour (as a Party) to lose the next election. If you don’t, I think that five years later you will look tireder and more out of touch, and you will be out for longer subsequently than if you lose in 2010 and have the opportunity to choose a new leader, reshuffle the front bench, and regain the radical thinking that opposition can bring.

Also, think about it from the point of view of the next generation of leadership (be that Milliband or Purnell or whoever).

For Brown to limp to victory in 2010 then apparently stand done around 2012 (as has been reported) – the thrusting new leader is really going to have his work cut out. History alone (leave aside party politics) suggests that Labour are unlikely to be an energetic government ready to push on for another decade, after some 15 years in Government.

Far better for the next generation of leadership to take over in opposition in 2011 and rebuild in opposition. Easier to reorganise people, to junk policies that need junking, to review others and to go through a real period of renewal (that was never really going to be possible in Government). Then whenever the Party next comes to power, it will (by definition) do so with a fresh wave of new MPS (ie new talent).