2015 post UK election discussion

[Mrk]

I'm with clint here, the fact that cameron got more votes after a term in office is a hell of an achievment but he's just matched what Thatcher did, he's not surpassed her.

Disagree. I'm with Mehdi Hasan on this one (never thought I'd say that):

 

[roydo]

Disagree. I'm with Mehdi Hasan on this one (never thought I'd say that):

Nichola Sturgeons fault that.

 

[bring the ghost on]

I see Theresa May is already making the Snoopers' Charter her priority now that the Lib Dems are out of the way.

This, coming from the party who apparently advocate less state interference.

The estimated cost to implement the Bill is £1.8 billion. They're cutting £8 billion from Welfare and won't tell anyone how they're going to do it, yet they can find a quarter of this money to spend on a bill enabling them to spy/keeps records of everyone's texts and e-mails.

 

[Mrk]

I see Theresa May is already making the Snoopers' Charter her priority now that the Lib Dems are out of the way.

This, coming from the party who apparently advocate less state interference.

The estimated cost to implement the Bill is £1.8 billion. They're cutting £8 billion from Welfare and won't tell anyone how they're going to do it, yet they can find a quarter of this money to spend on a bill enabling them to spy/keeps records of everyone's texts and e-mails.

Terrible, terrible policy. One reason I'm sad the Lib Dems have been decimated.

 

[Minimeister]

Yes, that kind of thinking might have meant sommat forty or fifty years ago when Britain was replete with a manufacturing base and the shipyards, steel foundries and car plants were employing thousands upon thousands of people and even the most dim witted among us could leave school at 15 and make a life for himself in one of them.

The days when lads started working with proper plumbing companies, electrical contractors or glazing companies and emerged after a five year apprenticeship as an accomplished tradesman who maybe eventually started his own small business.

But your sentiments and your thinking are pure bunkum in this day and age where successive governments made it easy for multi national companies to leave these shores so they could exploit third world labour and render our industrial base devastated.

That is a hand wringing post and you don't even know what you are saying.

The key word is "aspiration".

Every poor kid on the sink estate "aspires" to do better but long gone are the opportunities to lift themselves out of it.

Every homeless person dossing down in a shop doorway "aspires" to having a place to call home.

It us quite disgusting for chaps to smugly imply that the only thing necessary to lift oneself from poverty is the "aspiration" so to do.

No, my friend.

What people really need to rise out of poverty is the "opportunity" to do so.

And there is precious little of that in this once industrial powerhouse of a country.

The best most of these poor kids can hope for is minimum wage Mac Jobs, zero hour contracts or agency jobs with the council or in old people's homes without any kind of job security.

Job security.

That is another old fashioned concept which had gone out the window since Thatcher started her attack on industrial Britain and those people who depended on it to lift themselves out of poverty ......and to "stay" out of it.....and raise a family.

Oscar Wilde once said that we are all in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.

Ponder on that and think of the hopelessness of kids who long to reach for the stars but lack the opportunity to do so.

Brilliant post.

 

[roydo]

I see Theresa May is already making the Snoopers' Charter her priority now that the Lib Dems are out of the way.

This, coming from the party who apparently advocate less state interference.

The estimated cost to implement the Bill is £1.8 billion. They're cutting £8 billion from Welfare and won't tell anyone how they're going to do it, yet they can find a quarter of this money to spend on a bill enabling them to spy/keeps records of everyone's texts and e-mails.

Or giving the security services the tools to do their job in a rapidly changing world of technology. Just for balance. Dont know that much about it if I am honest.

But I am genuinely sorry that the Lib Dems got such a kicking. I would have been perfectly happy to see another coalition.

 

[Khalekan]

Brilliant post.

Thank you

 

[chewee]

My rather long two bobs worth for anyone who is interested (From a Labour perspective)



Just under 48 hours on from the exit poll and I have finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor. At first I refused to believe it's accuracy, every recent major opinion poll could not have got it that wrong? As the results started to trickle through moral dropped and reality set in. Still I sat there waiting for a glimmer of hope that never materialised. Denial quickly turned to anger later depression and finally acceptance. The psychologists reading this will point out I've missed stage 3 of Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grieving out however truth be told once the first marginal reflected the exit poll bargaining went out the window.

Personally I thought Miliband had a decent campaign and surpassed expectations. It is easy with hindsight to point fingers but prior to Thursdays exit poll the general consensus was that Labour had the better campaign of the main two main parties. The positive nature it was ran with coupled with a heavy focus on the future ironically may have been its biggest weakness. Time and again the Tories hammered away at Labour's lack of economic competence without reply. No mention of George Osborne's pre crash pledge to match Labour's spending in 2007 or no pointing out of historical context each time Cameron pulled out the 'joke' no money left note (It refers to a play on Maulding note to Callaghan in 1964: "Good luck, old cock, Sorry to leave it in such a mess."). When you are on the ropes under attack you've got to come out fighting, otherwise eventually the body blows take their toll. Labour HQ continued to play a good guy / bad guy strategy refusing to be drawn into a slandering match however the continued lack of credible reply made them look weak and sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of the electorate. They stood firm and gambled on manifesto pledges of economic 'locks' to convince voters. Opinion polls suggested it was working and the belief was up until Thursday night Ed had done enough to make it into Number 10 however that belief quickly unraveled. Going forward less emphasis should be placed on polls and more on gut instinct, during an election at times you have to go for the jugular, something which Labour just did not do enough of.

And so the inquest begins, the vultures have already circled, Miliband has gone. Parts of the core Labour support along with the unions have immediately called for a further lurch left. This would be suicidal for the party, we need to regroup, asses what went wrong and carefully plot our next move. The party has to be outward looking and realise in order to get back in to government there needs to be an appeal to 'Middle England' along with a more business friendly approach. How we convince Scottish voters to return home and appeal to the demographic I mentioned in England is tricky, almost impossible some would argue. Left wingers draw inspiration from the rapid increase in popularity of the SNP and their anti austerity message however Scotland has always been left leaning, a further shift left is a far easier sell north of the border. England politically is a different animal which has for 3 decades been positioned on the right. I was still in nappies when Thatcher left office however there is no doubt the shadow of Thatcherism still looms large. Since 1979 Foot, Kinnock (2) and now Miliband have all ran campaigns with some sort of left wing manifesto and have failed to convince the electorate. To reject the view in 2015 such policy was at least partially responsible for Labour's defeat would be burying your head in the sand. Lessons need to be learned so mistakes are not repeated again. I am not saying we should abandon our values and what we stand for, instead marry the idea of a fairer and just society with the recognition that business needs to flourish for Britain to flourish.

Those that know me will vouch for how big of a critic I was of Blair however the fact remains that he won 3 general elections in a row. In January this year he warned of the dangers going in to a 'right vs left' ideological battle, insisting there would only ever be one winner, instead of heeding this advice we poured scorn on it. Fast forward 4 months and his concerns were proved to be right with roughly 2 million more voters marking their ballot paper in favour of the Tories. The traditional left may not like it but the reality is that we need to dominate the centre ground in order to win the 2020 election, failure to do so could lead to us being cast into the wilderness for a further 5 years. Given the mandate they had sure 'New Labour' could have done more and Blair will forever be synonymous with Iraq but there was also plenty of good done in that period domestically. Would a centre ground Labour government be so cruel on the poor, sick and disabled? More to the point would it's member and affiliates allow it? Of course they wouldn't. A Labour government regardless of how left or centrist it may be perceived as being can be pressured and shaped from within, the same can not be said about a Conservative government (unless you are a multi millionaire donor or press baron of course).
Labour need a long term plan. The next 5 years should be about building trust and creating a credible alternative. The 2020 election will be hard slog to turnaround 100 odd seats but not impossible, run a steady campaign which doesn't upset too many people in positions of influence. Once in office demonstrate we can govern and handle the economy properly for 5 years, earn the trust of the electorate then in 2025 be more radical. Attack press barons and non doms from a position of power rather than like they did this year from a weak base.

Election night was a bitter blow but the fightback starts now. Their majority is a weak one and let's not forget David Cameron faces the unenviable task of trying to unite a party split down the middle on Europe with a EU referendum looming. History has a funny way of repeating itself as we found out on Thursday, 1992 all over again? If that's the case then I'll look forward to a sustained period of Tory infighting whilst quietly preparing for a landslide victory in 2020!

 

[roydo]

Thank you

It was good, I have to say. Didnt agree with all of it, but was superbly constructed, and from the heart.

 

[davek]

We have a media that are biased towards centre-right causes because people buy newspapers that are biased towards centre right causes. The readership of centre-left newspapers is minuscule in comparison - there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that stops people buying the Mirror or the Guardian instead of buying the Sun or the Mail - people buy newspapers that they want to buy.

Secondly, you do embarrass yourself sometimes, which is a shame because occasionally you make good points, because as for me 'squealing like a stuck pig', I've posted my thoughts on our newspapers before and I'm no fan whatsoever of the Mail, or the Sun, or the Express. I don't find them interesting and they represent about 1% of my views on the world. So on that count, you're wrong. I'll leave the squealing like pigs to the far-left and far-right.

Pretty limited appraisal there. People buy those rags because often they have superior sports/entertainment/society coverage, NOT because they identify with the market worshipping philosophy of their editors/columnists.

And those rags dont reflect dominant social attitudes either and then mirror it to audiences. Social surveys often find that the attitude of the public to a range of issues are more often what could be described as 'anti-market or 'anti-neo liberal' on the spectrum.

So basically we are left with the reality of a newspaper industry mostly owned by billionaires domestic and foreign (or else by wealthy shareholders) and those turkeys dont for Christmas. TV has moved in line with this bias in recent years...again, owned by the rich or else controlled through financing by the British government - an institution also now in thrall to the market.

 

[Khalekan]

It was good, I have to say. Didnt agree with all of it, but was superbly constructed, and from the heart.

Cheers, Roydo

 

[roydo]

My rather long two bobs worth for anyone who is interested (From a Labour perspective)



Just under 48 hours on from the exit poll and I have finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor. At first I refused to believe it's accuracy, every recent major opinion poll could not have got it that wrong? As the results started to trickle through moral dropped and reality set in. Still I sat there waiting for a glimmer of hope that never materialised. Denial quickly turned to anger later depression and finally acceptance. The psychologists reading this will point out I've missed stage 3 of Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grieving out however truth be told once the first marginal reflected the exit poll bargaining went out the window.

Personally I thought Miliband had a decent campaign and surpassed expectations. It is easy with hindsight to point fingers but prior to Thursdays exit poll the general consensus was that Labour had the better campaign of the main two main parties. The positive nature it was ran with coupled with a heavy focus on the future ironically may have been its biggest weakness. Time and again the Tories hammered away at Labour's lack of economic competence without reply. No mention of George Osborne's pre crash pledge to match Labour's spending in 2007 or no pointing out of historical context each time Cameron pulled out the 'joke' no money left note (It refers to a play on Maulding note to Callaghan in 1964: "Good luck, old cock, Sorry to leave it in such a mess."). When you are on the ropes under attack you've got to come out fighting, otherwise eventually the body blows take their toll. Labour HQ continued to play a good guy / bad guy strategy refusing to be drawn into a slandering match however the continued lack of credible reply made them look weak and sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of the electorate. They stood firm and gambled on manifesto pledges of economic 'locks' to convince voters. Opinion polls suggested it was working and the belief was up until Thursday night Ed had done enough to make it into Number 10 however that belief quickly unraveled. Going forward less emphasis should be placed on polls and more on gut instinct, during an election at times you have to go for the jugular, something which Labour just did not do enough of.

And so the inquest begins, the vultures have already circled, Miliband has gone. Parts of the core Labour support along with the unions have immediately called for a further lurch left. This would be suicidal for the party, we need to regroup, asses what went wrong and carefully plot our next move. The party has to be outward looking and realise in order to get back in to government there needs to be an appeal to 'Middle England' along with a more business friendly approach. How we convince Scottish voters to return home and appeal to the demographic I mentioned in England is tricky, almost impossible some would argue. Left wingers draw inspiration from the rapid increase in popularity of the SNP and their anti austerity message however Scotland has always been left leaning, a further shift left is a far easier sell north of the border. England politically is a different animal which has for 3 decades been positioned on the right. I was still in nappies when Thatcher left office however there is no doubt the shadow of Thatcherism still looms large. Since 1979 Foot, Kinnock (2) and now Miliband have all ran campaigns with some sort of left wing manifesto and have failed to convince the electorate. To reject the view in 2015 such policy was at least partially responsible for Labour's defeat would be burying your head in the sand. Lessons need to be learned so mistakes are not repeated again. I am not saying we should abandon our values and what we stand for, instead marry the idea of a fairer and just society with the recognition that business needs to flourish for Britain to flourish.

Those that know me will vouch for how big of a critic I was of Blair however the fact remains that he won 3 general elections in a row. In January this year he warned of the dangers going in to a 'right vs left' ideological battle, insisting there would only ever be one winner, instead of heeding this advice we poured scorn on it. Fast forward 4 months and his concerns were proved to be right with roughly 2 million more voters marking their ballot paper in favour of the Tories. The traditional left may not like it but the reality is that we need to dominate the centre ground in order to win the 2020 election, failure to do so could lead to us being cast into the wilderness for a further 5 years. Given the mandate they had sure 'New Labour' could have done more and Blair will forever be synonymous with Iraq but there was also plenty of good done in that period domestically. Would a centre ground Labour government be so cruel on the poor, sick and disabled? More to the point would it's member and affiliates allow it? Of course they wouldn't. A Labour government regardless of how left or centrist it may be perceived as being can be pressured and shaped from within, the same can not be said about a Conservative government (unless you are a multi millionaire donor or press baron of course).
Labour need a long term plan. The next 5 years should be about building trust and creating a credible alternative. The 2020 election will be hard slog to turnaround 100 odd seats but not impossible, run a steady campaign which doesn't upset too many people in positions of influence. Once in office demonstrate we can govern and handle the economy properly for 5 years, earn the trust of the electorate then in 2025 be more radical. Attack press barons and non doms from a position of power rather than like they did this year from a weak base.

Election night was a bitter blow but the fightback starts now. Their majority is a weak one and let's not forget David Cameron faces the unenviable task of trying to unite a party split down the middle on Europe with a EU referendum looming. History has a funny way of repeating itself as we found out on Thursday, 1992 all over again? If that's the case then I'll look forward to a sustained period of Tory infighting whilst quietly preparing for a landslide victory in 2020!

Or, in a nutshell, you should stop trying to reinvent a long forgotten and almost irrelevant class war, and understand that the majority of the electorate, in England, less so in Scotland, do not like a left wing, "we know better", government.

Like you say, Blair got it. And ironically, Ed was there when Blair won.

I can tell you, as someone in Middle, (well, southwest) England, it was nothing to do with bacon sarnies or selfies or engraved pledges. It was that Labour/Ed just did not give me/us much reason to vote for them/him. Lob in the SNP factor, and that was that.

But a great post nevertheless.

 

[davek]

I see Theresa May is already making the Snoopers' Charter her priority now that the Lib Dems are out of the way.

This, coming from the party who apparently advocate less state interference.

The estimated cost to implement the Bill is £1.8 billion. They're cutting £8 billion from Welfare and won't tell anyone how they're going to do it, yet they can find a quarter of this money to spend on a bill enabling them to spy/keeps records of everyone's texts and e-mails.

Snoopers charter, abolishing the Human Rights Act, pressing ahead with the boundary reform of constituencies.

Choo choo, all aboard the runaway Tory train crushing everything in its path.

Well in Tory voters. Keep looking in the mirror for as long as you can.

 

[Seanjd]

Or, in a nutshell, you should stop trying to reinvent a long forgotten and almost irrelevant class war, and understand that the majority of the electorate, in England, less so in Scotland, do not like a left wing, "we know better", government.

Like you say, Blair got it. And ironically, Ed was there when Blair won.

I can tell you, as someone in Middle, (well, southwest) England, it was nothing to do with bacon sarnies or selfies or engraved pledges. It was that Labour/Ed just did not give me/us much reason to vote for them/him. Lob in the SNP factor, and that was that.

But a great post nevertheless.

Thing is, I don't even think Miliband's labour was particularly left wing. It was pretty much centre.

 

[Mrk]

My rather long two bobs worth for anyone who is interested (From a Labour perspective)



Just under 48 hours on from the exit poll and I have finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor. At first I refused to believe it's accuracy, every recent major opinion poll could not have got it that wrong? As the results started to trickle through moral dropped and reality set in. Still I sat there waiting for a glimmer of hope that never materialised. Denial quickly turned to anger later depression and finally acceptance. The psychologists reading this will point out I've missed stage 3 of Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grieving out however truth be told once the first marginal reflected the exit poll bargaining went out the window.

Personally I thought Miliband had a decent campaign and surpassed expectations. It is easy with hindsight to point fingers but prior to Thursdays exit poll the general consensus was that Labour had the better campaign of the main two main parties. The positive nature it was ran with coupled with a heavy focus on the future ironically may have been its biggest weakness. Time and again the Tories hammered away at Labour's lack of economic competence without reply. No mention of George Osborne's pre crash pledge to match Labour's spending in 2007 or no pointing out of historical context each time Cameron pulled out the 'joke' no money left note (It refers to a play on Maulding note to Callaghan in 1964: "Good luck, old cock, Sorry to leave it in such a mess."). When you are on the ropes under attack you've got to come out fighting, otherwise eventually the body blows take their toll. Labour HQ continued to play a good guy / bad guy strategy refusing to be drawn into a slandering match however the continued lack of credible reply made them look weak and sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of the electorate. They stood firm and gambled on manifesto pledges of economic 'locks' to convince voters. Opinion polls suggested it was working and the belief was up until Thursday night Ed had done enough to make it into Number 10 however that belief quickly unraveled. Going forward less emphasis should be placed on polls and more on gut instinct, during an election at times you have to go for the jugular, something which Labour just did not do enough of.

And so the inquest begins, the vultures have already circled, Miliband has gone. Parts of the core Labour support along with the unions have immediately called for a further lurch left. This would be suicidal for the party, we need to regroup, asses what went wrong and carefully plot our next move. The party has to be outward looking and realise in order to get back in to government there needs to be an appeal to 'Middle England' along with a more business friendly approach. How we convince Scottish voters to return home and appeal to the demographic I mentioned in England is tricky, almost impossible some would argue. Left wingers draw inspiration from the rapid increase in popularity of the SNP and their anti austerity message however Scotland has always been left leaning, a further shift left is a far easier sell north of the border. England politically is a different animal which has for 3 decades been positioned on the right. I was still in nappies when Thatcher left office however there is no doubt the shadow of Thatcherism still looms large. Since 1979 Foot, Kinnock (2) and now Miliband have all ran campaigns with some sort of left wing manifesto and have failed to convince the electorate. To reject the view in 2015 such policy was at least partially responsible for Labour's defeat would be burying your head in the sand. Lessons need to be learned so mistakes are not repeated again. I am not saying we should abandon our values and what we stand for, instead marry the idea of a fairer and just society with the recognition that business needs to flourish for Britain to flourish.

Those that know me will vouch for how big of a critic I was of Blair however the fact remains that he won 3 general elections in a row. In January this year he warned of the dangers going in to a 'right vs left' ideological battle, insisting there would only ever be one winner, instead of heeding this advice we poured scorn on it. Fast forward 4 months and his concerns were proved to be right with roughly 2 million more voters marking their ballot paper in favour of the Tories. The traditional left may not like it but the reality is that we need to dominate the centre ground in order to win the 2020 election, failure to do so could lead to us being cast into the wilderness for a further 5 years. Given the mandate they had sure 'New Labour' could have done more and Blair will forever be synonymous with Iraq but there was also plenty of good done in that period domestically. Would a centre ground Labour government be so cruel on the poor, sick and disabled? More to the point would it's member and affiliates allow it? Of course they wouldn't. A Labour government regardless of how left or centrist it may be perceived as being can be pressured and shaped from within, the same can not be said about a Conservative government (unless you are a multi millionaire donor or press baron of course).
Labour need a long term plan. The next 5 years should be about building trust and creating a credible alternative. The 2020 election will be hard slog to turnaround 100 odd seats but not impossible, run a steady campaign which doesn't upset too many people in positions of influence. Once in office demonstrate we can govern and handle the economy properly for 5 years, earn the trust of the electorate then in 2025 be more radical. Attack press barons and non doms from a position of power rather than like they did this year from a weak base.

Election night was a bitter blow but the fightback starts now. Their majority is a weak one and let's not forget David Cameron faces the unenviable task of trying to unite a party split down the middle on Europe with a EU referendum looming. History has a funny way of repeating itself as we found out on Thursday, 1992 all over again? If that's the case then I'll look forward to a sustained period of Tory infighting whilst quietly preparing for a landslide victory in 2020!

Genuinely fantastic post. I disagree with some of your views, but I can't doubt the reasoning behind them.

As for calls for Labour to lurch to the left - I do have a strong suspicion that the far-left of the Labour party and many of the Unions are playing some long-game in favour of the Tories, because pretty much every time they open their mouthes, it is to call for something that will only make Labour more unelectable.

They need to realise that a party standing on left-wing polices has not won a majority in the UK since 1974. Yes, Nineteen Seventy Four. Over 40 years ago.

The further left Labour get dragged, the more the Tories celebrate. If that doesn't tell Labour something, I don't know what will.