Tony Blair - Winner
Discussion
jmn said:
scottyp123 said:
The only reason blair won was because his manifesto was a copy and paste job from the tory one and Major was a known 
, at the time no-one knew how much of a blair was.
Nowadays we've got the tories trying their utmost to pass themselves off as the commies.
I do seem to remember that before the 1997 election Blair did promise to stick to Conservative spending plans for at least the first two years if he was elected. Brown promised not to increase either basic or top rate Income Tax for the life of the Parliament., at the time no-one knew how much of a blair was.Nowadays we've got the tories trying their utmost to pass themselves off as the commies.
) & pension fund they could get their grubby mits on.They deliberately framed it as "We will not raise taxes" & in that they deliberately deceived and misled ( to put it politely).
Brown was the point man on the thing but Blair approved it. Never was one for much transparency and honesty from day one IMO.
rdjohn said:
I worry that if Sturgeon takes Scotland out of the UK, then England and Wales will likely become a one-party state. And it won't be Labour.
While i am not a Labour voter, i do think that democracies need a vibrant opposition to work well.
FWIW I thought Blair did well at the beginning, but lost the plot in the end. Macron has followed his example in France. They tend to start believing that what they say must be correct and so acceptable to the majority of people.
I said this in the Starmer thread- Scotland is the key for Labour and they seem to be ignoring it. I think this is why the perpetual Tory/Nat rivalry is being dragged out TBH, it benefits both.While i am not a Labour voter, i do think that democracies need a vibrant opposition to work well.
FWIW I thought Blair did well at the beginning, but lost the plot in the end. Macron has followed his example in France. They tend to start believing that what they say must be correct and so acceptable to the majority of people.
The Snp win by screaming TORYS! at everything and whinging in Westminster every time it rains, making it look like they're doing something, the Conservatives win by keeping Labour in a perpetual wilderness and stuck to a metropolitan voter base.
In the New Labour years there was a Scottish Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Chancellor, Health Secretary, Transport Secretary, Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary, Scotland had no shortage of (real, not soundbite) representation in Westminster and Labour had a voter base the Conservatives would always struggle in. Now the Conservatives are the protest vote that the SNP once were!
rdjohn said:
While i am not a Labour voter, i do think that democracies need a vibrant opposition to work well.
That they do but there is a difference between "vibrant opposition" based on policy & principle and opposition targeted to do no more than cause political damage whilst not actually explaining what alternative is really on offer. Worse still hiding the alternative because they know its actually fairly unpalatable to a large number of the electorate & so they are going to need to mug them off to get over the finish line.
Guess which version we invariably get from Labour? (John smith being the possible exception)
rdjohn said:
I worry that if Sturgeon takes Scotland out of the UK, then England and Wales will likely become a one-party state. And it won't be Labour.
While i am not a Labour voter, i do think that democracies need a vibrant opposition to work well.
FWIW I thought Blair did well at the beginning, but lost the plot in the end. Macron has followed his example in France. They tend to start believing that what they say must be correct and so acceptable to the majority of people.
Scotland's politics for the last decade or so have had no bearing on the number of parties south of the border - Scotland is hardly keeping Labour in business.While i am not a Labour voter, i do think that democracies need a vibrant opposition to work well.
FWIW I thought Blair did well at the beginning, but lost the plot in the end. Macron has followed his example in France. They tend to start believing that what they say must be correct and so acceptable to the majority of people.
One bi-product of the EU ref might have been for both big UK parties to split in two. At one point this looked like it might happen (to me at least - when May was in the middle of her disaster). It may have been a positive outcome in many respects.
irc said:
rdjohn said:
I worry that if Sturgeon takes Scotland out of the UK, then England and Wales will likely become a one-party state. And it won't be Labour..
Why would it? Tony Blair would still have had his 3 majorities without Scotland.https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/20...
All Labour needs is a competent electable leader and acceptable policies.
Devolution turned the SNP from loony-left to freedom-fighters
Rapid enlargement of the EU towards the east probably spawned Brexit
PFI and not fixing the roof before it rained, ruined their economic credentials
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with dodgy dossiers rendered them unfit to govern.
It could well be another 20-years before the electorate forget all that.
Murph7355 said:
Scotland's politics for the last decade or so have had no bearing on the number of parties south of the border - Scotland is hardly keeping Labour in business.
One bi-product of the EU ref might have been for both big UK parties to split in two. At one point this looked like it might happen (to me at least - when May was in the middle of her disaster). It may have been a positive outcome in many respects.
It kind of did with Change UK and they got nowhere. FPTP seems to mean 2 parties is the norm, with other parties only gaining ground when they target a specific cause or local issue.One bi-product of the EU ref might have been for both big UK parties to split in two. At one point this looked like it might happen (to me at least - when May was in the middle of her disaster). It may have been a positive outcome in many respects.
Looking at the state of parliament versus the country I think the striking imbalance is that the globalist, corporatist, cosmopolitan outlook is over represented and the serious reservations much of the public have about this only really gets aired by a few Tory back benchers.
If Labour are going to win back the northern seats they lost they need to reflect this, not just promise more money for everything and do what the London centric leadership wants.
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