Summary: This week my friend James returns to the show to talk about his experience of being a Labour member, Momentum canvasser, and radical marxist during the election. We also discuss our opinions on the fallout from the election, what were the strategic and tactical failings, and a return to Marx’s critique of politics. The articles mentioned are: The Ipsos Data: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-12/general-election-2019-poll-aggregate-v8.pdf The Ashcroft Data: https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/12/how-britain-voted-and-why-my-2019-general-election-post-vote-poll/ The Datapraxis Data: https://www.dataprax.is/tory-landslide-progressives-split LSE Media Analysis: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/bbc-election-night-and-systemic-media-bias/ Loughborough University Centre for Research in Communication & Culture Reports: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/ These two journal articles, both published before the election, are helpful in terms of analysing the longer term sociological and class factors at play and contextualising what happened in the so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats: Brexit and the working class on Teesside: Moving beyond reductionism - Luke Telford, Jonathan Wistow: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309816819873310 The class politics of prejudice: Brexit and the land of no‐hope and glory - Mckenzie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-4446.12329 Edmund Griffiths in three parts - very good stuff: http://www.edmundgriffiths.com/greatleap.html http://www.edmundgriffiths.com/brexitwqwa.html http://www.edmundgriffiths.com/notmentioningwar.html Boffy in three parts - as ever - some keen insights: https://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-labour-lost.html https://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2019/12/healing-no-hope-part-1-of-2.html https://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2019/12/healing-no-hope-part-2-of-2.html The Lewis Baston piece that nuances the narrativised ‘Red Wall’: https://thecritic.co.uk/the-myth-of-the-red-wall/ Interesting analysis from Callum Cant: https://notesfrombelow.org/article/understanding-our-defeat Adam Ramsey in Open Democracy with a good overview: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/dont-blame-corbyn-or-brexit-labour-failed-to-fight-our-broken-politics/ Useful Graund piece from Aditya Chakrabortty: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/14/labour-meltdown-decades-govern-votes Chakrabortty also discussed many of the issues he highlights in his Graund piece at length just prior to the election with the comrades at Desolation Radio: https://soundcloud.com/desolationradio/assessing-corbynism-with-aditya-chakrabortty-chakrabortty Useful reflections from the Doorsteps of Bridgend, a seat that fell: https://medium.com/@DrDanEvans/reflections-from-the-doorstep-e4337513d909 Tietze on his anti-pol beat, as usual - some very perceptive stuff: https://left-flank.org/2019/12/13/anti-politics-the-last-gasp-of-british-labourism/ One of the clearest, most concise, and persuasive pieces articulating this position from Paul O’Connell: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/why-we-lost-how-we-win Phil BC on the working class politics of Brexit: http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-working-class-politics-of-brexit.html Andy Beckett trying to positive spin it in the long view: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/19/left-labour-michael-foot-tony-blair
