An interesting By Election

[Kaz]

She is everything that is wrong with New Labour

[Suff]

That she may be. But I'm still trying to find out why everyone thinks this is patronising???

The tweet was "‘Image from Rochester". It is correct in every single word. Nothing is wrong, there is no spin.

Unless there is a thread before and after giving this context, then people need to get their "offense antenna" wound right back in.

I don't like Labour, I don't like most of their people, but this is totally out of control. Because this kind of thing can be used against anyone and I won't hand tools to bigots to beat me with. Debate requires input. If we can't debate this, then we're too dumb to deserve the vote.

[pederito1]

You re right there Suff, there are a lot of people who are too dumb to deserve a vote, like my mother`s char who made the classic utterance "But I have to vote labour because my husband is a labourer".

[Kaz]

She meant it as a joke, to be patronising, and it backfired spectacularly - I think most could see that it might The working man, with a terrace, a white van and a love of footie/the flag of St George has been the backbone of Labour for a very long time (despite Nu Labour having been run by North London Intelligensia for the past couple of decades) and she mocked it. Political suicide.......

Pedrito I expect your mother's 'char' had other, very good, reasons too!

[Kaz]

Oh and I have never voted Labour, just to be clear. I can just see where this was coming from..........

[Workingman]

Suff, that is exactly what I was getting at in my thread about being offended.

When anybody says something nowadays it is pored over by these self-appointed "professionally offended" brigades who then become very vocal about how offended they are.

Labour is now trying to use the Rochester tweet to its own ends. Miliband said that he was "furious" when the tweet came out and that he gave Thornbury a dressing down leading to her resignation because the tweet "offended" the working class. He is now using the situation in an attempt to reassert that Labour is the party of the working class.

The problem he has there is that large numbers of the working class do not see Labour as their ally any more, for various reasons. It has seen its share of the vote more than halved in Clacton, It saw UKIP come within a whisker of taking a safe seat in Middleton and Heywood. And it has seen its vote collapse in Rochester. It all comes at a time when upper class Miliband has the lowest poll of any leader and is also seen as out of touch, incompetent and a bit of a twit.

I am working class and the tweet is one of the least of my worries regarding Labour.

[Kaz]

I think many working class Tories - and there are, or were, many in the South East - have also 'defected' to UKIP.

[medsec222]

Whatever she meant, there was definitely a sneer behind it. Maybe she thought the householder was a member of the National Front, with his white van and red flag. In any case, she has paid the price.

[Aggers]

Oh and I have never voted Labour, just to be clear...

I voted Labour all my working life, because I believed it was the party more in line with Christian principles.
But my support for them vanished when New Labour was introduced. I could throttle Blair.

Now I will vote for UKIP, if only to give the other political parties bloody noses.

[Kaz]

I always voted Lib Dem, but never again