All change in British Politics?
Discussion
So with Camron newly ensconced at the Tory party, Kennedy publicly admitting that he's an alcho and in the last few weeks of his leadership ( unless a miracle happens ) and TB for the first time openly referring to Brown as his sucessor ( in a statement in the 'Sun' ) it looks like in the near future all 3 major parties will have newly elected leaders.
Interesting time. Will Labour lean to the left and form a coalition with the Lib Dems so that at the next election there will be virtually no chance of the country ever deviating from it's current path towards central European socialism? Or will Brown prove to be both arrogant and inept, alienating the Lib Dems and the general public at once?
Or will nothing change at all and we'll be 20, 30, 40 years of Labour?
Interesting time. Will Labour lean to the left and form a coalition with the Lib Dems so that at the next election there will be virtually no chance of the country ever deviating from it's current path towards central European socialism? Or will Brown prove to be both arrogant and inept, alienating the Lib Dems and the general public at once?
Or will nothing change at all and we'll be 20, 30, 40 years of Labour?
dick dastardly said:
Or will nothing change at all and we'll be 20, 30, 40 years of Labour?
Go wash your mouth out with soap.
I'm feeling quite confident in Cameron. A lot of people I know who would never vote Tory like him. Fingers crossed.
Perhaps the Tories will win with Cameron.
The more policy pronouncements he makes though the more doubts I have about him.
He has ruled out tax relief on private health care, patient passports and educational vouchers.
I have no doubt things will get better if a Tory party led by him comes into power. But will he be able to implement the radical reforms the country so desperately needs?
But surely even if there were an upsurge in support for the Tory party all Labour need to do is make an alliance with the Lib Dems ( who are if anything more left wing than New Labour ) to ensure that nothing changed anyway.
I have this nasty feeling that no matter what the country is heading on a path towards authoritarian socialism and there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway.
I have this nasty feeling that no matter what the country is heading on a path towards authoritarian socialism and there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway.
i wish things would change.
TB is a spiv and totally convictionless, Cameron is a TB remould and as a conviction tory, i think Cameron will prove equally convictionless. Charlie boy was/is a drunk, yeh, so what.
i think they are all pretty dull. the tories elected the wrong leader, Davis the "bruiser" would have turned out in the long term a much better prospect and matched against GB, a son of the manse (parsons son, for those south of the border) it would provide a very interesting conflict.
the electorate are getting fed up of dull career politicos. the country needs some characters and with Charlie boys imminent demise all i can see is centralist euro style socialists in all parties.
somewhere out there the country has another mrs T, or LLoyd George, we need to find one!
TB is a spiv and totally convictionless, Cameron is a TB remould and as a conviction tory, i think Cameron will prove equally convictionless. Charlie boy was/is a drunk, yeh, so what.
i think they are all pretty dull. the tories elected the wrong leader, Davis the "bruiser" would have turned out in the long term a much better prospect and matched against GB, a son of the manse (parsons son, for those south of the border) it would provide a very interesting conflict.
the electorate are getting fed up of dull career politicos. the country needs some characters and with Charlie boys imminent demise all i can see is centralist euro style socialists in all parties.
somewhere out there the country has another mrs T, or LLoyd George, we need to find one!
Timmy30 said:
But surely even if there were an upsurge in support for the Tory party all Labour need to do is make an alliance with the Lib Dems ( who are if anything more left wing than New Labour ) to ensure that nothing changed anyway.
I have this nasty feeling that no matter what the country is heading on a path towards authoritarian socialism and there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway.
It all depends on what share of the vote the Tories can get, 40% might be sufficient.
Davies, Hague and Johnson are all back in the shadow cabinet - at least they're either intelligent or interesting, and hopefully can advise Mr. Interesting himself on sensible policies, once he's won the next election on the back of his current populist nonsense. I'm taking everything he says with a pinch of salt - what better way to spike New Labour's guns than saying "I agree with your policies?" What ammunition do the Satanic Pursers have now that the drugs smear hasn't worked? Sympathy for a tired Tony? Get real.
Timmy30 said:
TB for the first time openly referring to Brown as his sucessor
Couple of points:
1) TB can't talk of GB has his successor, surely that's down to the Labour Party electing a new leader. I suspecy a "coronation" rather than a fair vote by Labour MP's. How undemocratic is that?
2) My view is that TB will continue for a while yet. Reason being, even if Labour manage to cock things up for a year or two (and they will), and then GB becomes PM, it will be marketed to the electorate something like: "GB's only been in office for a year or so, and it's only reasonable that he should be given more time to prove himself". As such, Labour will win another term in office! You see if I'm right!
Actually I’ve strongly come to wonder weather what’s needed in the UK is perhaps a version of MMP which supports a truly representative voting system. The only problem is those that are currently in power would gain least from introducing a representative voting system so they are unlikely to implement it.
srebbe64 said:
TB for the first time openly referring to Brown as his sucessor
Couple of points:
1) TB can't talk of GB has his successor, surely that's down to the Labour Party electing a new leader. I suspecy a "coronation" rather than a fair vote by Labour MP's. How undemocratic is that?
Good god what on earth do you think democracy has to do with it? Or course TB can and will name GB as his sucessor. He just has in an interview in that magificient 'paper' read by the core Labour voters the Sun.
I think TB will want to hand the poisoned challace that is the UK economy and Iraq war over to Brown sooner rather than later. I presume his new enthusiasm for a change means that his cave in over the EU rebate has opened the door for him in the European Commission.
Timmy30 said:
TB for the first time openly referring to Brown as his sucessor
Couple of points:
1) TB can't talk of GB has his successor, surely that's down to the Labour Party electing a new leader. I suspecy a "coronation" rather than a fair vote by Labour MP's. How undemocratic is that?
Good god what on earth do you think democracy has to do with it? Or course TB can and will name GB as his sucessor. He just has in an interview in that magificient 'paper' read by the core Labour voters the Sun.
I think TB will want to hand the poisoned challace that is the UK economy and Iraq war over to Brown sooner rather than later. I presume his new enthusiasm for a change means that his cave in over the EU rebate has opened the door for him in the European Commission.
I have to say that I've heard lots of people saying TB will get a high paid job working for the EU. Utter tosh in my view. Mandelson's, in a top EU job, is earning about £200k pa (I seem to recall). TB could a hell of a lot more than that in the private sector (probably ten times that) working as a non-exec Director for half a dozen large corporates looking to influence Government policy in one way or another. As such, TB's currently near the bottom of his salary ladder at the moment.
>> Edited by srebbe64 on Friday 6th January 11:35
Jaglover said:
Perhaps the Tories will win with Cameron.
The more policy pronouncements he makes though the more doubts I have about him.
He has ruled out tax relief on private health care, patient passports and educational vouchers.
I have no doubt things will get better if a Tory party led by him comes into power. But will he be able to implement the radical reforms the country so desperately needs?
I think it's a smart move. There is a large number of voters who see that stuff as preserve of the "middle classes" & it may help gain their vote. Just for being not TB, he will also attract a lot of people who have been p'd off by the current govt.
IMO the key thing is to kick out the current lot & go from there.
A few "traditional Conservatives" I ahve spoken to have been moaning about DC, but it's been repeatedly proven that the old policies weren't attracting enough voters, so time for the revamp we are seeing.
bga said:Sell the essence of your political views for a few more votes? I would rather vote for a party that stood by its views in a largely un-compromised fashion, at least you know what your getting (err on the side of caution?).
A few "traditional Conservatives" I ahve spoken to have been moaning about DC, but it's been repeatedly proven that the old policies weren't attracting enough voters, so time for the revamp we are seeing.
bga said:
A few "traditional Conservatives" I ahve spoken to have been moaning about DC, but it's been repeatedly proven that the old policies weren't attracting enough voters, so time for the revamp we are seeing.
Radical reform of the health and education service is hardly the same 'old' policies.
My worry is that by ruling too many things out, we will be stuck with the same nationalised monolithic structure we have now.
It is not really a question of 'left' or 'right', many European countries which are more left wing than us, arrange things far more efficiently.
ian d said:
somewhere out there the country has another mrs T, or LLoyd George, we need to find one!
Any right minded politician today would not want to be one of those. Political correctness and a desire to please as many people as possible (while actually not doing) for popularity and votes means they try to be as BLiar like as possible.
I have no hope whoever gets in. They all seem to want the same things. Whoever isn't in argues against it, then as soon as they are in, they do what they said they wouldn't. It's just like a good cop, bad cop scenario with role reversal every 4 or 8 years...
About time we had a reason to vote. I voted in the last election and wish I hadn't now. By voting for the one I thought was the best of the bunch I actually put across the point I *wanted* to vote...
All the bloody same.
Dave
I predict a riot...
Well, come election time, I reckon the Lib Dems will have very little support at all. The party was apparently all ready to stab Kennedy in the back before his press announcement last night and the media had enough 'evidence' to condemn him to a life in the priory. In retrospect he was barely able to run a political party.
However, his recognition factor was one of the highest and best in British politics. People voted Lib Dem because they'd seen him on Have I Got News For You etc and liked him. His veneer has crumbled overnight and there is no-one even remotely charismatic enough in the party, with the possible exception of Lembit Opik, (who won't stand for leadership) to take over.
Brown will be more successful, mainly because a lot of people are actually satisfied with Labour. Still, there's no avoiding the fact that he doesn't command Blair's presence and he's made a mess of the economy recently. IMO Brown will have to admit to the mistakes he's made and it will make Kennedy's problem look like a stubbed toe. He might become Prime Minister and lead the country for a while, but it wouldn't be long before his grip on the economy began to collapse, inflation suddenly rose faster than it did in '87 and a vote of confidence is called.
Cameron has all the right ingredients for success (save for, as Steve Bell has brilliantly chariacatured, that silver spoon up his nose
), but his biggest stumbling block might be his own party - he might represent this new, bright, positive Conservatism but he's still got a load of old Thatcherite cronies sitting behind him that people would rather drown than vote for.
In short, I think the next election is going to be one of the closest. It will also mark a period of serious decline for the Liberal Democrats, who will end up getting ledd by a faceless idealistic nobody who reminds everyone of Rik from The Young Ones.
The Cameron-Brown era will be a close call, back to the pre-landslide days of the '50s, '60s and early '70s, I reckon.
Well, come election time, I reckon the Lib Dems will have very little support at all. The party was apparently all ready to stab Kennedy in the back before his press announcement last night and the media had enough 'evidence' to condemn him to a life in the priory. In retrospect he was barely able to run a political party.
However, his recognition factor was one of the highest and best in British politics. People voted Lib Dem because they'd seen him on Have I Got News For You etc and liked him. His veneer has crumbled overnight and there is no-one even remotely charismatic enough in the party, with the possible exception of Lembit Opik, (who won't stand for leadership) to take over.
Brown will be more successful, mainly because a lot of people are actually satisfied with Labour. Still, there's no avoiding the fact that he doesn't command Blair's presence and he's made a mess of the economy recently. IMO Brown will have to admit to the mistakes he's made and it will make Kennedy's problem look like a stubbed toe. He might become Prime Minister and lead the country for a while, but it wouldn't be long before his grip on the economy began to collapse, inflation suddenly rose faster than it did in '87 and a vote of confidence is called.
Cameron has all the right ingredients for success (save for, as Steve Bell has brilliantly chariacatured, that silver spoon up his nose
), but his biggest stumbling block might be his own party - he might represent this new, bright, positive Conservatism but he's still got a load of old Thatcherite cronies sitting behind him that people would rather drown than vote for. In short, I think the next election is going to be one of the closest. It will also mark a period of serious decline for the Liberal Democrats, who will end up getting ledd by a faceless idealistic nobody who reminds everyone of Rik from The Young Ones.
The Cameron-Brown era will be a close call, back to the pre-landslide days of the '50s, '60s and early '70s, I reckon.
speedy_thrills said:
A few "traditional Conservatives" I ahve spoken to have been moaning about DC, but it's been repeatedly proven that the old policies weren't attracting enough voters, so time for the revamp we are seeing.
I'm not talking about flogging principles for votes, rather being smart about how you apply them & present them in a way in which you have a better chance of being able to exercise them.
Jaglover said:
A few "traditional Conservatives" I ahve spoken to have been moaning about DC, but it's been repeatedly proven that the old policies weren't attracting enough voters, so time for the revamp we are seeing.
Radical reform of the health and education service is hardly the same 'old' policies.
My worry is that by ruling too many things out, we will be stuck with the same nationalised monolithic structure we have now.
It is not really a question of 'left' or 'right', many European countries which are more left wing than us, arrange things far more efficiently.
What I meant was the policies espoused by the party in the last 2 lost elections. As someone who has little more than a moderate interst in politics, it was only a couple of years ago that the Tories have been doing much to try and reverse the battering they have takin in the last 10 years. It seems now to (hopefully) coming to fruition.
To win an election they have to play a slick PR game. While is sickens me that it has come to this, if they don't, I will have Comrade bga on my compulsory ID card
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