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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » EdM might just be susceptible to a decapitation strategy in Doncaster N
This time next week, we’ll have the results from the local elections, though not yet the Euros. As a whole, they’ll tell us a lot about how the land lies going into the last year of the parliament. One set of contests worth keeping an eye on is that in Ed Miliband’s back yard.
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If he stood Davies would be in with a shout.
Your suggestion David is highly plausible and would certainly get the backing of the Dan Hodges if this world!
By contrast, what I've seen of Beijing is worthy but solemn, Seoul frankly dour, Singapore pleasant but almost too old-fashioned British and Hong Kong, which others here have said they think fantastic, a bit of a specialised taste (you need to REALLY like crowded street markets and tiny shops selling mostly trashy tourist stuff).
But Vietnam is deeply freaked out by the Chinese oil well in disputed waters - it comes up in casual conversation repeatedly, and the press is now having to dampen down feeling after riots at miscellaneous foreign factories believed to be Chinese started to spook foreign investors.
This thread presents an interesting scenario but it seems rather unlikely that Miliband could be unseated. If Labour looks like regaining power then I suspect that the prestige of seeing the town represented in parliament by a Prime Minister would win out over any desire to cause an upset.
That's not to say that it's impossible though - especially if the Conservatives pull ahead nationally. Certainly such a contest could hamper Labour's overall GE performance if they find their leader rather tied down in his own backyard.
I'd like to participate further in this thread but I can't as I have a train to catch - I'll be changing in Doncaster actually...
Normal politicians are measured in single Bands.
The greats who can think clearly and communicate well score in the tens of Bands (Bojo maybe?), the truly greats score in the Kiloband range (Churchill, Reagan, Blair?).
The truly dimwitted and unpersuasive score I units of only 0.1 Bands (Prescott for example).
The most catastrophically dim and offputting score in the Milliband range (Brown). I’m not sure Ed is even this good however – so from now on I shell be calling him Microband. Maybe the voters in Doncaster will too.
Balls, almost wobbled in Morely in 2010, would be funny if both Eds lost their seats.
“Put simply, Doncaster is not Primrose Hill and Ed Miliband is not a particularly natural fit for the seat.”
The woman who torpedoed Gordon Brown's re-election 'that bigoted women' Gillian Duffy says as much in the Telegraph today - ‘Labour needs a straight-talking, pint-drinking man’ if the party is to reconnect with working class voters and reverse its slide in the polls,
"Gillian Duffy said that Mr Miliband is a "privileged" career politician who lacks the authenticity of Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader."
Has the 'working class' at last found their leader in Farage? - interesting times.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10837206/Labour-needs-a-straight-talking-pint-drinking-man-says-Gillian-Duffy.html
In terms of the bigger parties, two Liberal leaders in a row lost their seats in 1935 and 1945. Of the top two, Arthur Henderson is the most recent to be defeated, in 1931 and before that, Asquith lost in 1918. Both of those were, however, unusual elections (that said, were UKIP to go from 3% to the sort of score they'd need to unseat Miliband, this next one would be unusual too). Arthur Balfour losing in 1906 is perhaps the last time a leader of the two main parties lost their seat in a conventional election. I don't know the last time a leader lost his seat as his party moved from opposition to government (if ever) but it did happen to Gladstone - who was not then quite party leader - in 1865.
By the time of the GE we'll be talking about a lot more than immigration and UKIP will have released a manifesto outlining its views on a number of policy areas. Given the party's neo-liberal economic tastes and its oft-stated claims to the Thatcherite inheritance, I'd be surprised if UKIP got close. But second looks realistic, perhaps at the same time as Labour's vote share climbs back above 50%.
Put it this way, if EdM loses Doncaster North Labour will be facing its worst GE defeat in living memory and will probably be finished forever as a political force.
1) the public don't usually co-operate with decapitation strategies, as you note.
2) UKIP is fissiparous rather than unifying, as we can see with Alan Sked, Mike Nattrass, Nikki Sinclair and others.
3) There is likely to be a swing to rather than away from Labour
As far as I can see, there's no market on this seat. I guess that Peter Davies would be marginally more likely than Bez or White Dee to win a seat. Maybe a 40/1 shot?
Labour doesn't deserve her vote. It's lazy, it's parochial, it's backward looking, it's poorly led, but Farage liking fags and a few pints will not in the end disguise the fact that UKIP is essentially a party in which most right wing Tory MPs would feel pretty much at home.
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/core-cities-labours-reservoir.html
On topic, however much of a woodentop Miliband appears, he will still have that "bloke off the telly!" appeal that the British seem peculiarly drawn towards. After all, this is a nation that took Jade Goody to its hearts. Ed will be back next time....
Just not as Prime Minister.
Reading Mr Farage's "Flying Free" book, I was surprised to discover that at one point Rowan Atkinson's brother was vying for control of UKIP.
"An average of 71% of Ukip voters agree with five leftwing ideological statements, far above the Conservatives (43%) or even the Liberal Democrats (65%). They are only a little behind Labour (81%)."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/16/ukip-divided-left-right-cut-labour-support
!!!!!
It is the incumbent of Morley and Outwood I hope to see experience a "Portillo moment" next year. Then he could be kept by his wife or follow his ex-boss and do the American circuit.
It would be funny to see Ed lose his seat given that even Michael Foot failed to achieve that in 1983.
Are there any Shadow Cabinet ministers at risk next year.
A Fantasy Herdson Saturday Thread
I'd rate the chance of Ed being unseated in the same range as OGH representing UK in the Eurovision Song Contest dressed in a gold coloured figure hugging dress and sporting long hair of his own, beard and singing "Rise Like A LibDem Phoenix."
Apart from Labour enjoying a small swing at the election it's highly likely that Ed Miliband will also enjoy the traditional first term bounce as party leader The historical evidence for this phenomenon is clear.
The electorate tend to take pride in having as their MP a party leader with the attendant exposure it brings to the constituency. Accordingly :
Ed Miliband Will Never Be Removed As MP For Doncaster in 2015.
There's also another "Ed Miliband Will Never" sentence but the ending escapes me ....
Good call – A Yorkshire man, drinks pint, enjoys a puff (sp?) - but, lacks the prerequisite 'intellectual self-confidence' so essential in every Labour leader.
There is a strong possibility that Labour will be 3rd in the Euro elections and if that happens at a time when it should be way ahead of the government and when the council election cycle is in Labour territory, it would suggest May next year is going to be bloody for the reds.
Doncaster North
1/100 Labour
16/1 Any Other Candidate
As mentioned previously, UKIP is a right-wing Tory splinter about whom "left school at 15" types have leftuous fantasies. This a recipe for a bubble that will burst, of course.
Meanwhile, I want to know: which is taller: Cameron or Miliband? Doesn't the taller leader usually get the keys to Number Ten?
will try again to see if I can change my spots.
2. We are local; Labour is carpet-bagging.
3. Europe has taken your jobs - where are all the new trains made (yes, I know there's more to it than that but election campaigning isn't an impartial dissertation).
4. Doncaster Council.
5. The candidate's own populist pitch, which may or may not chime with national UKIP policy. Minor party candidates can have it both ways. Unpopular national policies only matter if people think they'll be implemented. I suspect UKIP would be happier to play up the social Thatcherite inheritance than any economic one. I don't think we should be distracted too much by national swings here. If Labour does lose, it'll be in part because of tactical Tory switching - there may well be a notional Con to Lab swing in the seat. The point is that there are specific local factors in play which make Miliband potentially vulnerable if UKIP's cards fall right and if they then play them well. It is not inconceivable that Labour could gain seats overall and lose their leader, both of which could be the consequence of a very strong (15%+) UKIP vote.
Bojo tries his hand at poetry. - it's really rather good.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10819900/Boris-Johnson-an-ode-to-Ed-Miliband-Chris-Huhne-and-the-French.html#disqus_thread
For example, Harriet Harman is 66/1 to be next prime minister but I'm not tempted: a Miliband loss would make a Con-led government much more likely in the former case, and Labour might not pick her as PM candidate in the latter.
Not that either scenario is looking likely, imho.
Ref 1 - no, they don't usually but it can happen if the public has no strong attachment to the local MP. One reason the Lib Dem efforts didn't work that well is that most of the Tory opponents they targeted did work their constituency.
Ref 2 - true, and something to be considered. Like I say, it's entirely plausible that Davies wouldn't take the nomination were it offered on a silver plate, and perhaps even more likely that UKIP wouldn't offer it. But on the other hand, they might.
Ref 3 - As I mentioned in my reply to SO, I don't think that'll be too much of an issue. Indeed, there's precious little evidence of a swing to Labour at all in positive terms except from 2010 Lib Dems; the public is unenthused by any of the main three parties. In this case, I think we need to look at the big picture outside the three-party prism.
"I'd rate the chance of Ed being unseated in the same range as OGH representing UK in the Eurovision Song Contest dressed in a gold coloured figure hugging dress and sporting long hair of his own, beard and singing "Rise Like A LibDem Phoenix."
--------------------
At least he'd be beardless: I would love to see it with Roger on the Moog.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10823000/EU-elections-2014-Why-Planet-EU-is-stranger-than-fiction.html
I'm doubtful that a precedent from Canada 90 years earlier, would pass muster with the public or media. For one thing, there are plenty of other conventions that require the PM to address parliament. While it may be possible to find procedural ways of doing so, it'd look (and be) contrived. Besides, as you note, Mackenzie King was the sitting PM, not the pre-election Leader of the Opposition.
In the UK, there is the Patrick Gordon Walker precedent, whereby the ex-MP in question be given time to fight an immediate by-election. However, Gordon Walker lost in 1964-5 and it'd be a huge risk to gamble the government on a by-election (though of course, the Tories did just that a year earlier when Douglas-Home was appointed PM). Would it really be credible for Harman, say, as Leader of the House, to introduce the Queen's Speech with Miliband looking on from the Gallery?
This is probably one area of the constitution that remains so as to be able to cater for exceptional circumstances but which is, in any other time, defunct.
@jameschappers: Opinium for Mail: One in four non-Labour voters more likely to switch if party dumps Miliband, only 8pc less likely http://t.co/sXltBz3m23
http://news.opinium.co.uk/opinium-blog/eu-neutrals-err-side-leaving
Yawn, Cameron lies all the time and does not care a jot for Scotland other than keeping the flow of money going south. Another dummy up to tell us we are all stupid cowering nomarks like Scott, unable to think or look after ourselves.
I think more importantly - these polls are happening. 3 months ago Ed was nailed on due to LD switch hitters.
As soon as the AWS was announced and she expressed an interest, it became a forgone conclusion....but they usually find some no-hopers to make up the numbers getting less than 10 votes in the final tally
Obviously for about the last 50 years there has been a convention that the PM sits in the Commons not the Lords, but is there actually a reason why - say - BoJo couldn't serve as PM (assuming he could command a majority in the house of commons) without actually being an MP?
Just askin'
*innocent face*
"If Doncaster North is Miliband-land, it doesn’t feel much like it. The Labour vote here collapsed from 34,000 in 1992 to 19,000 in 2010. In Doncaster's three seats, Labour has lost 40,000 votes since 1992.
Graham is nearing retirement age and has “always been Labour”. No longer. “I don't vote for them any more – I think they've let us down.” All politicians “p*ss in the same pot – they’re all being tarred now by the same brush because they've been fiddling bucks. They’re just getting an 11 per cent pay rise? I’ve had a four per cent pay rise in five years and I work 55 hours a week.”
In this year’s European elections, Graham will cast his ballot for Ukip. “I’m not Conservative – I couldn’t vote Conservative – and they’re the only party left.” Anti-Tory feeling – a quarter of all Northerners don’t know anyone who votes Conservatives – has extended to the Liberal Democrats as a result of the Coalition and cuts. This leaves Ukip ready to pounce on those who are fed up with Labour.
Graham wants “to send a message” about immigration. “They've just got to stop them at the border. Even the lads I know who are Polish, they’re worried about Romanians coming in, they don't like them.”
Such feelings are common in Doncaster. In Mr Miliband’s seat in 2010, 16.3 per cent of voters supported anti-European, anti-immigration parties – Ukip, the BNP or the English Democrats. With the BNP and English Democrats having collapsed since, Ukip should expect to mop up those voters disgusted with the “LibLabCon”."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100254439/why-labour-should-be-terrified-of-ukip-2/
To answer your question: in theory, no; in practice, yes. Unless justified by exceptional circumstances, political dynamics and pressure mean that all PM's now have to sit in the Commons, or at least, aspire to do so in the immediate future.
But the absolutely likelihood of me voting Labour...?
This is supported by polls that show a lot more people think that immigration is a problem in general than think it is a problem in their locality.
"The problem for Labour is that these voters no longer think about politics in general, or Labour in particular, in economic terms. Labour has encouraged this: New Labour played down traditional leftwing ideology in favour of social liberalism and pragmatic centrism. Now many voters with longstanding "old left" economic values associate Labour more with "new left" social liberalism: feminism, multiculturalism and support for immigration.
Ukip's rise has exposed this division on the left and made it harder to heal. Many of the "new left" voters attracted to Labour by its social liberalism cannot stomach Ukip voters' strong opposition to immigration, which they regard as an expression of ignorance and prejudice, and so refuse to engage with "old left" voters on the economic issues where the two groups share common ground.
Conversely, "old left" voters retain a strong distrust of Labour's middle-class elites, after decades of feeling ignored and marginalised as New Labour chased the middle-class swing vote, and cannot abide lectures from privileged "new left" activists about the virtues of immigration and diversity.
Tony Blair's winning recipe in 1997 was to bury the traditional "old left" Labour ideology, gambling that he could expand Labour's coalition without losing traditional support, as the voters who endorsed it had nowhere else to go. Nigel Farage's rise has made this Blairite balancing act impossible. Ukip has divided the left, splitting the old from the new, and cutting Labour off from struggling voters it seeks to champion."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/16/ukip-divided-left-right-cut-labour-support
Ed Miliband MP: To help realise Disraeli’s One Nation vision, you should vote Labour next week
I doubt the average Joe Public even has a clue what he's rattling on about, talking about Disraeli's One nation vision. I think Ed has massive delusions of grandeur, and is so far stuck up his own **** that common sense and reality have slipped him by.
Surely the British people wont vote for this twerp
yes it is see : http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/oct/02/ed-miliband-one-nation-speech1
PS. I suppose I could be the exception to your rule but doubt it.
Edit: I had simply assumed Mr M had no sense of historical irony with his 'One nation' theme as I could not believe that he was specifically referring to Benjamin Disraeli.
The business of government has to continue, and however awkward it would be, Miliband would have to be invited to form one, in Herders' scenario.
Its the type of place which has previously only had tiny numbers of immigrants - and then often as Asian medical professionals and ethnic restauranters - but has had tens of thousands during the last decade.
These Eastern European immigrants are in themselves admirable - hard working and law abiding - but when its your employment prospects, pay rises, housing costs and public services being affected then it raises strong feelings among the local people.
This experience is being repeated in old industrial areas around the country and is why Labour has been losing working class votes for a decade.
That Guardian article is accurate.
I suspect Tony was left wing socially and was comfortable ditching the left-wing economics to get elected and bring in his new social order on the basis that once it became familiar, it would be become accepted. And to be fair, it had already started anyway
To some extent it has worked. As in America, the "progressives" have become the normal, and those left behind are the bigots. It's unfortunate that Ed and Labour are tempted to walk before they can run. If they leave behind too many of the "bigots" and push ahead with more lefty economic issues, they risk falling between two stools. The are only so many lefty. middle class, metropolitan types, and the LDs are also eying them..
"eying" should be "eyeing". Slaps self on metaphorical wrist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inglehart_Values_Map2.svg
The people that originally lived there and dont like it, move, those who do like it, or cant afford to move, remain..
That is a big factor for immigration being a problem for the country but not for me personally. You only need to look at the areas where "White British" are in the majority in London and look at which parties do well there to see that.
http://politicalbookie.wordpress.com/
Richard nabavi and others have claimed I've over-reacted to these tory HMRC tax grab stories, but this issue is definitely NOT going away.
Giving this ovver weening over powerful state organisation more power to pillage the accounts of ordinary people with no checks a month before a general election is potentially lethal to the conservatives chances. |Lethal. And they would deserve it.