or right, depending on your point of view of course.
Milliband seemed unable to connect with the ordinary voter, a Hampstead socialist perhaps better suited to policy making behind the scenes – seems he will resign at lunchtime.
Ed Balls could have been Chancellor today, now he’s not even an MP.
At lease George Galloway lost his seat!
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I think you’re right about Miliband failing to connect, I suspect also that every time Nicola Sturgeon talked about “locking David Cameron out of Downing Street” she drove a few more English voters to opt for the Tories.
I also think that to an extent they’ve taken their vote for granted. Locally we had a parachuted in ‘Blair babe’ who has done little more than toe the party line for the past 5 years. The Tories put up a local candidate and campaigned on local issues, they now have an 800 vote majority. It really isn’t rocket science.
I don’t think any other leader could’ve done better. The fact is we live in a country where at least half of the population want those beneath them in the economic pecking order to suffer.
I think it’s slightly different Jim.
I don’t think people want others to suffer, but there is a definite “flight to safety” option in many people that, faced with a pencil and a ballot paper, will choose what they believe is best for them and their loved ones from a predominantly financial point of view. I doubt there’s much of an “us and them” in that thought process, more a belief that everyone would benefit in the same way under a Tory administration. Maybe flawed thought process but that’s how the GBP think.
I disagree. Look at the recent success of poverty shows on the tv. Benefits Street, Skint, Can’t Pay We’ll Take It Away, Benefits Britain – Life On The Dole, and many more.
People love sneering at those worse off than them.
I think you have hit the nail on the head Jim. Personally, I dont think EM did much wrong, but Cameron & his party made a much more compelling case.
We had a bit of a post going bout the election a couple of days ago & I said that I thought it would pan out much like 1992 where people essentially lied to the pollsters, (which of course they are fully entitled to do), & voted Conservative once in the privacy of the ballot box.
I am not in the least bit surprised at the result.
I’ll just paste what I said then, save me typing it out again:
“This election may well turn on how many people vote against what’s best for themselves. If you’ve got more to lose than gain from a rebalancing of the economy it’s always possible that the big talk of support for the less well off won’t survive once you’re in the privacy of the polling booth.
We’ve been spooked, that’s the problem. Too many people preaching economic and social apocalypse. They think that means we’ll rise up and rebel, but in fact what happens is people just do whatever’s best for themselves and their own.”
Some of the pollsters think they asked the ‘right’ questions to the ‘wrong’ people, so got a borked result. Most – if not all of them – factor in a percentage for ‘shy’ voters. Whatever, there’s going to be some interesting conversations going on between the pollsters and their clients!
Seems pretty clear to me: unconvincing Opposition front bench, Miliband a charisma-free zone, Balls complacent and seemingly clueless, despite his academic credentials. Labour seemed to think that the public would forget their mismanagement of the economy during their last tenure – our memories are longer than they might imagine. Regarding the Lib Dems, was anyone really surprised? No-one likes people who betray their principles for a change of power. I’m astonished that Clegg has retained his seat. I doubt if he’ll retain his leadership. Good riddance!
Hi Rufus. Which mismanagement of the economy are you referring to? Do you perhaps have illustrative numbers to show the explosive deficit Labour created (prior to the banking crisis)?
Thanks for asking that question, bob, I was just about to do the same. Come on then, Rufus, explain please.
Here’s an interesting article on the topic.
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/
Yup. That’s not a bad article.
“Greater restraint in government spending may have tempered this financial bubble, but only very marginally. The causes of the financial boom was not really related to government spending on the NHS. It was due to the over-exuberance, de-regulation and booming housing markets. See causes of credit crunch. Even if the UK government had restrained spending, there would still have been a global asset bubble and credit crunch.”
It’s worth noting that the deficit as a % of GDP (excluding the impact of the financial sector aid post-crash) did the following under Labour:
– shrunk to zero by 1998
– went into year-on-year surplus by 2000
– experienced a surge in the mid 2000s, but was still lower than it had been for most of Thatcher’s administration and all of Major’s.
– sank back down to just above 2% in 2007.
It went batshit crazy in 1998, even without the impact of the bank bailouts and nationalisations, because the tax take crashed through the floor, benefit claims went skywards and QE and other stimulus measures had to be used to prevent another Great Depression. The latter is entirely compatible with the Keynesian principles which brought about the end of the original Depression.
Add in the bailouts, and there’s your “mess”. Anyone who tells you the state of Britain’s public finances is Labour’s fault is either lying to you, or has been lied to and not looked at the evidence themselves.
By the way – here’s a useful diagram to put public spending into perspective next to the enormous theft perpetrated on us by the banks.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/11/27/1259330070359/billion_pound.png
Sorry, “It went batshit crazy in 1998” should’ve read “It went batshit crazy in 2008”.
Just a couple of additional points:
The coalition spent more than all of the previous Labour governments. Only in the last year have they got down to Labour levels. They will say they have had to pay interest on the debt but, even taking that into account, public expenditure remained high. Where was this austerity, then? Not in places that the coalition chose to put it.
Most economists say that Labour inherited an economy back in balance after some years of turmoil. Brown was ‘Prudence’ for a while following the Tory expenditure plan, hence the zero 1998 score. The perception (and politics is all about perception) is that Labour inherited balance and left in crisis. Refuting that has proved impossible.
The neo-cons/thatcherite types worship at the altar of the pure unadulterated free market but when the shit hits the fan they always fall back on the Keynesian approach cos’ it works. Extremists like Hayek deplore such failures of nerve but then they don’t have to take the decisions in the face of potential catastrophe.
“No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the general public.” – P.T. Barnum.
“No one ever went broke underestimating the selfish nastiness of the general public.” – Me.
Ain’t that the truth? 50% of voters backing Conservative or UKIP.
Actually I dare say a fair few did and have gone broke on that score, and many more now to follow…..
Small crumb of comfort – expenses fiddler David Laws booted out. Civilians could have gone down for what he did. I expect he and many of his LD chums will soon be Lords, though.
Well, I agree about Galloway; a loathsome individual and expect to see him again in Tower Hamlets jumping on the ‘anti racist’ bandwagon.
Like Jack, I suspected all along about this being like 1992 though I didn’t expect that Labour would have such a shocking night. The Liberal Democrats don’t interest me and they have paid for Clegg’s ambition in calling himself a deputy pm, but without any power.
Labour’s problem, as I see it, is that they have to really think about what they believe in and develop a political philosophy that appeals to the country as it is now. It is no good loftily declaring that the people don’t know what’s good for them and can’t they see that we’re the party that cares. They have to both understand that the economy matters to people (whether they like it or not they are seen as having messed up the economy and they do have previous form for this), and develop a sound political philosophy, their form of ‘one nation tories’ or their form of Thatcherism. They have to grow up politically. The last time they had a deep think about this they came up with a brilliant way of winning elections but little idea about what to do with it once they got there. As soon as the nation wearied of Blair’s charisma, there was nothing left. I believe there is a place for a strong left of centre party which isn’t wedded in the past, Labour have to prove that they can be that party.
The Tories can enjoy their moment today, but Cameron has a lot of problems stacking up and I’m not sure that he is all that capable of managing them. By his statement that he wants the party to be one nation Tories suggests either that he is aware that they have been too harsh and wants to change or else could just be an empty phrase along with Thatcher’s “may we bring harmony” statement back in ’79. I hope he stands up to the UKIP wannabe nutters on his backbenches, realises the importance of having a mandate & the responsibilities this brings otherwise we are in trouble.
There has been a lot of wailing & rending of garments on this site, and I have seen a lot of elections & don’t think it means we care less and we’re all greedy, unfeeling bastards as a result. I still have hope, but then I’m an optimist.
Labour had an essentially negative campaign – biffing some obvious baddies, wittering on about hard working families, “bedroom tax”, soaking the rich, kicking business. Negative and divisive. Compare and contract with Sturgeon or Blair – presenting a positive message and an alternative vision which people can sign up to, even if it is slightly fairy tale based. Why not – it’s a vision. All the Tories have to do is say “we will carry on doing what we’re doing, and look at those idiots” and inertia does the rest. Ed being so unappealing didn’t help either, though he had a better campaign than, it’s expected, but it’s too little, too late. Ed never satisfactorily dealt with his legacy and as Gordon Brown’s bag carrier along with the other Ed he chose to ignore it. He should have done an early mea culpa for the economy and then reminded everyone of the good things that government did. It almost doesn’t matter whether Labour made the recession worse – if everyone thinks they did, you can’t ignore it.
I don’t agree with Jim though. I think most people, including many who probably voted Tory, are uncomfortable with the way society has become increasingly unfair. I refuse to believe half the country want the other half to be miserable. But when push comes to shove Labour didn’t offer a positive vision of a fairer society which people could sign up to – they offered a vision of kicking people their core vote would like to see kicked. Milliband message v Sturgeon message? No contest.
Of course Nicola will be delighted with the result. She wanted to wipe out Labour and see a Tory government she can fulminate about in the run in to the Scottish Parliament elections.
If they don’t want the poorest to suffer, then they shouldn’t have voted Tory, because that is what has been happening for the last five years, and its only going to get worse.
Twang I entirely agree with you about Labour’s negative and lacklustre campaign, but I think Cameron’s trump card was playing on people’s fear of the SNP holding Labour and the rest of the country to ransom. Dissatisfaction with the Lib Dems and a fear of UKIP both played their part in the English conservative vote. Like it or lump it, we’ve ended up with a nation polarised in 2 seemingly incompatible camps, and the implications of that for the future are profound indeed.
Yes that’s true. But had Milli had a better vision and message and communicated it in Scotland rather than ignore it things might have turned out differently. Out of interest I googled “how left wing is the SNP” and this article from the New Statesman (hardly a right wing Tory rag) is instructive. Not very is the short version.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/if-you-think-snp-are-left-wing-force-think-again
Good article. The nats are, in many ways, a caricature of ‘New Labour’ right down to Nicola Sturgeon’s current theme of combining ‘social justice’ with ‘economic efficiency’, which is pretty much the definition of the Blair/Clinton ‘Third way’.
Some very good points Twang. I have some Tory friends/relatives and they do not like inequality and an unfair society, and they are not fans of the Bullingdon mafia either. Labour didn’t, for them, present anything other than a Tory lite agenda or any real positive alternative, so they grudgingly chose to stick with it.
Even Tory lite is better than Tory. Although I except there isn’t a huge gap between New Labour and the Tories, it’s a gap in which people are dying.
Well I agree with you of course Jim. That’s what I was hoping for too. I’m just making the point that I don’t agree with the hard left attitude that being a Conservative makes you inherently cruel, greedy and sociopathic, which is often ludricously trotted out.
It’s indicative of the clueless grip the left have on the electorate and how they think about them. I’m not having a go at you BTW Jim, it’s a very common line. Labour should have had a campaign called “We can be better” or similar with a focus on fairness and aspiration whilst being fiscally responsible. No negative messages. The moment the unions inflicted Ed on them they were shafted though.
The ‘unions’ didn’t elect Ed Miliband. There is no block vote. The millions of members of affiliated trade unions who opt to pay the political levy all have individual votes. It’s the nearest thing to a US primary. I mention it because it is often forgotten.
trade union *members*
Handsome is as handsome does. It’s very easy to hand out the nasty medicine to others knowing full well that none of it will be sliding down your throat.
That’s where having a conscience comes in handy. A moral compass set to compassionate not one eyed selfishness. Sadly a few too many one eyed folk around.
Handsome is as handsome does.
To be fair, a I think that’s a bit sweeping. Tories I know aren’t exactly handing out the medicine with no moral compass. There’s a lot they don’t agree with and that also effects them too to varying degrees, if not as harshly. It’s just that they don’t align themselves with the economic philosophies of the Left/Socialism. Hence Cameron’s bullshit about compassionate conservatism. If only. That’s what many on the right would actually like to see.
Spot on Pencilsqueezer.
From my own financial viewpoint I have been better off under the Tories. However there was no second thought about voting for anyone other than Labour yesterday. I didn’t vote for myself I voted for the country. That is what angers me the most- the ‘I am only in it for what I can get out of it’ attitude which is so short sighted.
If the country at large benefits, we all benefit. So many people fail to see this.
People are on the whole selfish. That selfishness has been encouraged for decades. Many may say publicly that they fervently want a fairer society and they probably do but not if they have to give up a little to achieve it.
That attitude has won out again. It always will. The Tories know this. Labour don’t.
What Labour need to do is find some way of convincing enough people that their individual prosperity is inextricably allied to the collective wellbeing of the many and not to the further enrichment of the few.
Personally I don’t think they have a cat in hell’s chance of achieving that because Jim is correct.
While it is difficult not to feel despair this morning if you are a left leaning voter, all is not lost. You only have to look to Greece and Spain to find signs of a new and progressive left. If any kind of economic tsunami hits the UK in the next five years (interest rates, house prices etc) then people might be willing to take a fresh look at some radical alternatives. Ed Miliband was the wrong man in a party lacking a firm identity. The New Labour ‘project’ (yuck) is dead, as far as I can see. But maybe this will turn out to be the rude awakening that Labour so desperately needed.
Yes, it very well could. A genuine alternative. I hope so.
I’d like to think that a Podemos / Syriza-type movement might happen here, but I doubt it. The housing market in the country is so over inflated now by low interest rates that any significant rises would cripple both individuals and the government – we’re all in it together in this respect at least. @fauxgeordie can talk about this far better than I can. Podemos has a very interesting structure and way of going about things. Just the sort of thing illiberal governments need ‘Snoopers’ Charters’ for. There was an interesting rumour last night reported by The Spectator that a minority Labour government might have offered devo-max to Scotland and Wales and NI, along with massive reform to government, building a progressive ‘big tent’ with the SNP and LDs inside. Ain’t gonna happen. Tories will think its business as usual, even as they get torn apart by the EU in-out referendum.
House reposessions in Spain have been extraordinary. Banks and mortgage lenders are sitting on over a million empty homes, while the previous owners still carry all the debt. This is the environment in which Podemos has been able to build. In the US, where I was living during the crash, many states have laws that effectively force banks to pick up the tab on negative equity in so-called short sales. My wife and I bought a house there in 2006 that had lost over 40% of its value by the time we came to sell six years later. We didn’t have to cover that loss in value; the banks did. As far as I’m aware, no system like that exists in the UK right now, so a housing crash is more likely to head in the Spanish direction.
I don’t think a healthy economy and society is compatible with the kind of housing market we have now. So something’s got to give.
A rise in interest rates towards ‘normal’ levels here is going to see a lot of buy-to-letters massively overextended. Noone can afford a housing crash, but it might take one to change the system. Depressing.
QUESTION:
I’m not very clued up about the machinations of Parliament, but how difficult will it be for them running such a small majority government ? Will they be able to push things through easily, or can they be vetoed on issues by the other parties coming together against them, especially Labour /SNP. I’m just hoping that they don’t get it all their own way.
There’s 650 seats in parliament, Rob, so 326 means you can do whatever you like – provided all your own team vote with you. Some MPs put their responsibility to their constituents above their party, but more often than not they are ‘whipped’ to tow the line. So the answer is, yes, they can pretty much do what they want, in the early years of the term at least, before their own backbenchers start to get a bit braver.
So there can no accountability or opposition whatsoever ? Just steam rolling regardless ? So all this SNP stuff about opposing austerity is just hot air ? Fuck.
Well, the tory party is a fractious alliance including slightly-right-of-centre liberals and full-on Blukippers, so there’s always a chance that the government won’t get full support from their own side of the House – Europe being the obvious example. But of course, if any do rebel it’s only effective if the opposition parties stand united against the government as well.
I’ve read comments saying that the EU question could blow them apart. I’ve no idea how likely that really is.
Cameron and Osborne believe (in my view correctly) that the UK is best off within the EU. Half his cabinet passionately disagree and want to leave. Cameron has promised a renegotiation that regardless of what he gets will not satisfy that half of his cabinet/MPs/party. So either way opposes half his party, and the question is does he put party or country first (the answer is party btw)? Of course the problems that would arise from leaving the EU, and the likely breakup of the UK, would not actually occur on his watch as it would take a year or two to actually disentangle and then a year or two for the consequences to accrue (for good or ill). Just in time for Call me Dave to retire.
It certainly has the potential to do so. Remember Major and his bastards (1992 – 97) which led to the Tories being out of power for 13 years ? Don’t underestimate the problems the Tories have to face. For a start they didn’t have to worry too much about the back-benchers and could shrug off the few UKIP defectors. Not the case now.
Europe has the potential to split the Tories in two.
The bastards and their successors won’t accept a vote in favour of staying in. Nothing short of leaving will satisfy them. No wonder Cameron has said no third term – he’ll be gone the day after the EU referendum, whatever the vote. Booted upstairs with a fistful of directorships.
Yes, that is about the size of it. SNP can oppose all they like, but actually achieve nothing. The only opposition will be internal opposition within the Conservative party.
The line “vote SNP, get Tory” was actually correct – but in the end it did not matter thanks to the LibDem collapse and so once again the Scottish MPs did not influence the government of the UK. Which Sturgeon will no doubt use as another argument for independence.
Looks like Samantha Cameron is doing her bit to preserve the Union by wearing what appears to be the new Rangers kit for next season.
Truth is that the Tories are 2 or 3 by elections away from losing a majority. Then it will be minority government unless labour and the snp cuddle up and the libdems don’t want to play.
For all the talk of a stunning victory (well it was certainly a surprise) the days of the landslide win (Blair and Thatcher) seem a long way off.
I would not be surprised to see enthusiasm for the SNP cool a little. I still think large parts of Scotland may still be in referendum mode, and the support for the SNP yesterday is pretty similar to what they had in the referendum. It will become clear that the SNP do not speak for the majority of Scots.
Vim -The Tories are a couple of by-elections away from having to seek support from the Northern Irish Unionists, which is not quite the same thing.
Looking at the numbers alone there were 3 things at play. The UKIP votes, the SNP votes and the Tories taking the Lib Dem seats.
If Labour had held Scotland they still wouldn’t have been able to win.
A huge chunk of those Lib Dem seats were in the South West, which Labour stood no chance of winning.
And elsewhere they may have taken Tory seats, if they’d worked hard at it, but in those areas the UKIP vote probably came from disillusioned Labour supporters.
I reckon UKIP will move further left, Labour will flounder for a while and possibly even divide. I suspect there’ll be a more Centrist version, perhaps featuring ex Lib Dems, and a more left leaning thing.
I voted for Labour, but I also saw a number of friends reach yesterday and in the end refuse to vote for them. Some blamed Ed, some blamed the austerity direction. Some saw Nicola Sturgeon and wanted to be Scottish…..
Labour really need to work out what they are for, before electing a new leader.
First, what went wrong? Well the symbiotic relationship between the Nats and the Tories was unanticipated (and that the relationship between the Tories and Lib Dems would turn out to be not symbiotic but pathogenic). By me, at least – though not by Rupert Murdoch. Labour were having to fight on two contradictory fronts – a pseudo-left one and an economic competency one and the two just could be reconciled. Unfair, in many ways, but that’s just the way it is.
But what next? in almost any other post-war election this result would have been considered a disaster for a governing party. A wafer-thin majority almost certain to be eroded over the course of the parliament and open to blackmail by arsy back-benchers. And with a divisive, blood-on-the-floor referendum campaign to follow. So it’s not quite the triumph it’s currently painted, I think.
However the fact that Labour are weakened by their Scottish losses does offer a way to make this better for the Tories. If I was Cameron, I’d offer Salmond (who must be glad to be let out into the fresh air again) Full Fiscal Autonomy. At a stroke, this could remove the Nats from a whole range of votes which would no longer relevant to them, as no ‘Barnett consequentials’, thereby giving the Tories a large majority. Something like that will happen, I think, though don’t expect it to be transparent.
Lastly, the people have spoken etc. and time to move on. Before we do though, may I just record my abiding sense of shame (yes, shame) that my country’s MPs are led by a man who can say “The Scottish lion has roared!” without being drowned out by gales of mocking laughter. Such is nationalism. This too shall pass.
Good points @lando-cakes
Your comment about “the Scottish lion has roared” – were you watching the Channel 4 coverage in the early hours? (Paxman, David Mitchell & Richard Osman – it was very good). Eck mentioned this phrase a few times in interviews, and someone on the panel asked “do you even get lions in Scotland? Why’s it a Scottish *lion*?”
They then wondered aloud if Salmon should have used an animal which is actually found in Scotland, for instance “the Scottish panda has roared”. Mitchell observed that Eck had had to do a lot of sucking up to the Chinese to get those pandas, and that that was why he hadn’t met the Dalai Lama. Osman replied “What about the Scottish llama then?”
Osman also made my single favourite comment of the whole election: “If you’d told me a few years ago that Scotland would have as many Wimbledon winners as Labour MPs …”
Ah, no. After the Nuneaton result at about 2am, I recognised that I was feeling exactly the same as I did after the Basildon result in 1992, put the crisps and dips away and went to bed. Sensible move, I think.
“Shame” is not too strong a word Cakes. I’m taking some small consolation in looking forward to the tortured justifications from Scotland’s “social democratic” commentariat for supporting a populist nationalism that will go badly tits up within the next 5 years.
Simple and probably small of me I know, but we have to get our political jollies where we can these days,
It all began to go wrong when Labour failed to select this as their campaign anthem:
http://youtu.be/B0PqENOFQ2c
Hopefully lessons will be learned.
The referendum campaign theme song for the Staying In side has already been revealed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Xae9jsqxU
My tuppeneth?
Those gleefully kicking the Lib Dems actually benefitted the Tories most. I’m not sure all those giving the kicking were aware of that or will continue to feel as gleeful in 6 months.
The UKIP vote wavered to Tory at the last minute. They achieved 12% but that was at the lower end of the range in the polls right up to Election Day (some had them as high as 16%). Maybe, the waverers felt safer with the Tories to counteract a Lab/SNP threat but the EU referendum promise was pretty convincing.
Labour failed to win enough seats in England, especially in seats where they were up against Tory. It may well have been the economy. I must have missed how they were going to encourage business and increase employment, apart from something flimsy about apprentices. Most people are not on welfare and most of those not on welfare seemed to think the last five years could have been a lot worse. That is the middle ground. For all their talk of ‘hard-working families’, they didn’t seem able to actually talk to them. Labour couldn’t shake off the impression they had caused the crash. Ed Balls had a much worse campaign than Miliband.
Scotland is truly another country. Two weeks ago, Andy Burnham was asked how he felt about the election. He was brimming with confidence. He said ‘we’ are better organised than the Tories and it’s people on the ground knocking on doors that will count. He was then asked about compensating for the loss of seats in Scotland. It was as though he hadn’t even considered it.
We had our chance to change the first past the post system four years ago. The referendum was absolutely decisive, two thirds of the voters laughing off the possibility. No use bleating about it now.
On more serious matters: I did not like Jeremy Vine’s shirt, the holograms freaked me out as they seemed more human than the actual politicians, Andrew Neil is the worst interviewer I have witnessed, Jeremy Paxman is not funny reading a ‘funny’ script and satire does not work when real events are beyond satire.
A couple of thoughts. Firstly, Labour MP Jamie Reed wisely commented that Labour has become distant from much of its working class support in the non metropolitan towns. To paraphrase, even though Labour might ( arguably) represent their economic intereats, many former spotters feel alienated culturally. If you doubt this, ask yourself how Labour managed to win Hove from but lose Southampton Itchen and Plymouth Moor Vale to the Tories.
Secondly, Labour benefited very little from collapse in the Lib Dem vote. As a crude generalisation, for every 10,000 votes the Lib Dems lost, UKIP picked up 6,000 plus, the Greens 2 -3,000 and and Labour 1-2,000. I don’t for one minute imagine that many former Lib Dem voters switched to UKIP. But for every one that voted Labour, it seems one former Labour voter switched to UKIP.
Speaking as a lad of Cornish descent who grew up in Plymouth, but who left those sceptred hills a while back now, when I saw the blue swathes across my home turf I was staggered. St. Austell? Tory? Plymouth Moor Vale? Tory?
It beggars belief. I cannot imagine what political analysis leads the voters in these constituencies to even contemplate for a minute the notion that the Conservative & Unionist party could ever be their natural representatives in Her Majesty’s Government: the only interest the tories have in the region is how much their holiday home is worth, and whether or not the locals will set fire to it in the middle of winter while they are in Klosters.
And for your area, over to…..
Well, it ain’t all bad!
Where I work, OK but have no vote, Brum remains, yay, yay and thrice yay, a labour held council AND has kept ALL its seats at Westminster of the same hue, gaining the previously only non labour seat from odious cat-bothering Lib-Demmer John Hemming. Even Edgbaston held back the blue tide, (Sutton Coldfield isn’t really in Birmingham as far as I see it, included occasionally by accident,)
I admitted to not casting my democratic right in Lichfield, allowing Mickey Fab to increase his con majority, with which I can live, ashes’ a good fella, even if I can’t vote for him. I think it is about his 6th successively increased majority, his going up even in the tory doldrums.
And, as the SNP candidate in my school elections of 1972 (in Eastbourne), coming then last, honour is at last mine.
There may be no end to the Galloway Prescense* – he has intimated that he may stand for London Mayor
* TMFTL
He is looking at his database of towns in the UK where there are high concentrations of Muslims, so that he can turn up there with his inimitable catchphrase “Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Stone that woman, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq”
GCU Grey Area reminded further up the thread that Cameron has said he won’t seek a third term.
2015-16 will be spent on the referendum and all it involves, after that everybody will be consumed with the question of who is going to be the next Tory leader.
How much governing is he actually planning to do I wonder?
Leadership and Europe and a thin majority. He might as well shag Edwina Currie and have done with it.
Arf! Thanks – needed a chuckle!
This article seems highly pertinent for this thread:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/10-delusions-about-labour-defeat-watch-out
Cameron has already stated that he wont look for a third term, which leaves the road clear for Boris fekin Johnson, then we will be in the shit ! Can you imagine the hare brained schemes he has up his sleeve.
Whiff-Whaff to be part of the national curriculum
A giant toupee to be manufactured to cover the hole in the ozone layer
Nelsons column to be converted into a giant helter skelter
Blonde bouffant wigs free on the NHS
and thats just day one
Bumbling buffoon he may be (certainly that is the public face), but I reckon he actually knows what he is on about, has an element of integrity about him, and may well prove to be a fine leader
as does this article from last November from the same magazine about Milliband, which hits the nail on the head of Labour’s problems in this election
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/ed-miliband-s-problem-not-policy-tone-and-increasingly-he-seems-trapped
Vulpes. You may have seen me mentioning Jamie Reed’s theory. He draws an analogy with the white working class in the American South and their distrust of Northern Democrats. An imperfect comparison, but I get his drift about a cultural fracture. The metropolitan image may play well in Hove, but seemingly less so in Plymouth, part of Southampton, Essex, Telford ( continued on page 94).
Interesting parallel. One wonders how many times a voter has to be shafted, and to feel shafted, as they work another 12 hour shift in the 7-11 on the north edge of Delabole on a wet February Wednesday, taking seven pounds forty pence all evening (plus four Calor Gas returns) before they ask themselves if they are getting a fair crack of the whip. Perhaps they can continue to put it down to an indistinct feeling of “distrust”. As they walk home in the dark (there is no bus) to their rented flat through the horizontal Atlantic rain, will they glance through the gap in the curtains and catch a brief glance of a family from London or the Cotswolds, down for the weekend to their second home, and wonder if their own cultural heritage has perhaps in any way been compromised? Home rule for Cornwall? Now there’s a thought. If the Scots can do it….
Excellent example Vulpes, and nowhere in Ed’s garbled gibberish about hard working families and bashing energy companies did I hear a clear, compelling vision of how a fairer, socially inclusive society could work. Articulating everything in negative terms with a subtext of “people who have done well need to lose a bit, possibly more than a bit if they’re rich bastards, so people who haven’t can gain a bit” is never going to play well, because the inconvenient truth is that most people in this country are fairly comfortable (but probably a bit anxious) and fear things heading south. They need to articulate a vision where everyone can do well. This is why I don’t accept the view that half the country don’t care if the other half suffers. A more nuanced message ought to be that there can be a win win scenario where everyone wins.
Trouble is, the London second home owner your man or woman in Delabole might encounter are just as likely to be a metropolitan Labour supporter.
The other issue is the ongoing suspicion of everyday country folk that Labour won’t ever prioritise rural or semi-rural areas. In this they are probably correct.
Bloody democracy eh?
Also I would add that historical truth is often too nuanced and complex to get through to the electorate at large. What we think of as historical fact is so often false. The reality being too difficult to get to grips with. Easier just to say the deficit was Labour’s fault due to incompetence, end of. People can grasp that notion more readily. Labour’s failure was to not challenge that received wisdom hard enough. Once they let the lie stick they would always be on the back foot. Their approach has been a muddled, contradictory combination of going along with what the Tories are saying on the one hand while attempting to project a clear alternative. Some good policy ideas but generally not being tough enough about confronting and taking on the coalition’s failings and the Tories true intentions.
One comment on the OP: Ed Miliband a *socialist*?? Do me a bleedin’ favour!
Where did it all go wrong? We had these people on our side.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d125/botlblonds/demo-09_3298512b.jpg
I wouldn’t wish the blitzkrieg on anybody. Except the cunt who sprayed that.
What sort of arse would do that? We did not, needless to say, have these bell-ends on our side at all. They’re, you know, starting a revolution and that.
Did anyone see the programme about Al Murray’s campaign on behalf of FUKP? He may only have won 318 votes but I think he did for Farage. Clearly, The Pub Landlord was ridiculous but, after a while, it was impossible to tell the difference between him and Farage. I reckon people looked at the two of them, then decided to stick to the Tory.
“Tomorrow Is The Future” was the best political slogan and Free Dogs the best policy (“What do you mean? Are you going to set the dogs free or are you giving them out for free?”)