As a friend's mum said, “I’m very happy the country is apparently more intelligent than social media makes it seem.”
Quite. The bleating that anyone not supporting unlimited immigration and bread & circuses for all was somehow evil incarnate probably helped swing a few votes at the end - but not they way they wanted them to swing.
When was Miliband ever promoting 'unlimited immigration'? If anything, rather unconvincingly, he was trying to sound 'tough' on the issue. I haven't also ever seen many online actually assert that anyone who didn't support unlimited immigration was evil. I saw more of a reaction against the rhetoric of UKIP - and given that they only have one MP, who has a reduced majority, I'd hardly say they are alone in that. I understand this website vehemently disagrees with the centre-left nature of twitter, but for having a different view to those on the right doesn't suddenly make someone 'unintelligent'. Besides, if you all here hate twitter, you could always try Facebook. Down there, they are very much of a centre-right disposition....
not the facebook I read - any attempt at rational discourse leads to evil tory scum responses - I would be a happy Blairite Labour voter (and was) but I think Labour has allowed itself to move away from the Wilsonian type party I could support to be a mirror image of the froth-mouthed shrieking of the tory right - more Southam Observers and fewer IOSs would help the Labour party a lot
There was some 'research' done, which compared Facebook with Twitter, and said that Facebook likes would result in a Conservative-UKIP coalition.
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
As for the current problems of SLAB, Mr Murphy continues to cling on to his position as leadr -
'Last night a spokesman for Murphy insisted there was no leadership issue and there were rules in place which any challenger would have to abide by.
“There is no vacancy. Jim is not going to resign,” he said. “As Jim said this morning there is a process in place if somebody wants to put their name forward but they won’t be able to do that until the next annual conference.”'
'Murphy said he would stand for election to the Scottish Parliament and insisted that despite losing his seat there are ways he can STILL be First Minister in 2016.
Answering questions from journalists, Murphy said he took full responsibility for the defeat: "The leader carries the can. That's the truth. There's no shirking away from this. Myself and Kez and the leadership team, particularly myself as the leader, there's a responsibility in good times and in bad times as a leader."
Murphy said it would be wrong for him to resign as he had not yet had enough time to transform the party. However, if the results of last night show anything, it is that Murphy has undoubtedly transformed the party.'
Peerages Hague, Cable anyone else who has retired/ lost and not blotted their copybook?
One that immediately springs to mind for a job somewhere in government if not a peerage was the one personal disappointment of an ecstatic night - Esther McVey in Wirral.
She was subjected to a quite horrible and personal campaign against her from some quite horrible people. Cameron himself could really do with a Northern woman in his office, would offer him a usefully different perspective on life.
I hope not: she's got a lot to offer and to make her a peeress would be to condemn her to a sub-optimal role. Find her some position for now, and then get her back into the Commons in the next good by-election.
A majority of 12 against a vastly divided opposition with a hundred seat lead over the next highest party is an emphatically better position than Major had in 1992.
....
And with the implicit backing of DUP/UUP/SF("bankers")/UKIP then the majority looks better. Add in the 'Orange-bookers'; a Labour Party defined by Wales and 'Oop-Norf'; and a totally irrelevant Scottish contingent then - :breathe: - Westminster is safe.
Labour will not support the SNP as they are no longer relevant in Scotland. Instead the SNP will be like Voilet from 'Just William': "Screem, screem until I make myself sick".
What a false-victory for Sturgeon
Er. As any fule kno, it's 'Violet' and 'thcream and thcream' ...
@Aidan_Kerr1: Despite tactical voting the Scottish Conservatives are up 20,000 votes and finish 3rd for the 1st time since 1992.
It doesn't seem to me there is any need for a major rebranding just yet.
There are also many more acts to this play.
The separatists thought they had won last year, and it didn't work out like that.
They thought they would be writing Ed Miliband's first budget, and it didn't work out like that.
Now Cameron is apparently offering FFA giving the Nats Hobson's choice of saying "no, we didn't really want it" or accepting a financial black hole they then have to explain to the Scots. Neither of those options seems on the surface likely to endear them
LOL, only a turnip like you could say that with a straight face , they scrape 1 MP again out of 59 and you think all is well.
Take your head out of your own navel for once. We "scraped" 330 out of 650.
Scott think Tories winning seats in England whilst being also rans going backwards in Scotland is very funny. I care not a jot how many there are in England and Wales, my interest is in Scotland and unlike Scott I do not want reflected glory but local. Tories going backwards in Scotland as ever and lucky to hold on to their single seat.
@Aidan_Kerr1: Despite tactical voting the Scottish Conservatives are up 20,000 votes and finish 3rd for the 1st time since 1992.
It doesn't seem to me there is any need for a major rebranding just yet.
Scottish turnout was up a lot so adding 20,000 votes is moving backwards.
Not in Scott's Tory dreamland though.
330/650 isn't dreamland in your ideas?
Maybe you'd rather 58/650? Yeah that's "winning". Oh no, its not. You'll be sitting on the losers side of the house.
I think Dreamland for the Conservatives is a medium sizes majority, where they aren't held hostage by the right.
Sure it'd be nice to have a great big majority, but that was never on the cards and we never had one to lose. We never even had a majority. To even have a majority is a great success.
Apologies to malcomg though, I mistakenly said you had 58/650 seats. I realise now you actually got 56 out of the 650. Less than the Lib Dems used to have.
It's definitely a great electoral success for the Conservatives to a majority partly because no one expected it, and because they are the governing party. But in the long-term I think having such a small majority could prove problematic for them.
Absolutely we need to be careful. We need to ensure we stick to the centre ground which is how we won the election and not the siren calls of UKIP and the right. But I'd rather deal with a risk in five years from now with a majority between now and then, than be in opposition to a far left alliance of EICIPM+SNP.
Do you really believed that Miliband and the SNP would have be 'far-left' - as it is, I personally don't think such an arrangement would have lasted more than 6 months to a year, due to various disagreements.
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
He resigned because he didn't win South Thanet, didn't he? Thurrock was irrelevant. Anyway he hasn't really resigned - I'm sure he'll be extolling his record when he joins the contest after his summer holiday!
This is the confession of a political journalist. I get paid to know about politics, to explain politics and yes, to predict politics. On this general election, I failed. I got it wrong. I didn’t see this result coming.
Cons got 16.7 % of the vote in 2010, this time they got 14.9% their lowest total ever i think, they got 17.5% in 1997 and they got zero MPs then.
For the Tories on here that counts as a surge
Tory vote share was always going to drop slightly this time with a few misguided tacticals. Now Labour has been purged from Scotland, no need for Tories to vote Labour any more in places like E Renfrewshire.
Dan Jarvis is tumbling in on Betfair, he's shorter than Burnham !
One of his main problems could be that I tipped him a while back ;-)
The longer the leadership election process is the better it is for him. What he lacks is a strong base in the party, though he does seem to be working on that.
Interesting point. It's difficult to see how the party works from outside, do you think that someone like Jarvis can build up enough support for a serious run at it, or will the remains of the party reflect internally and pick another of their own?
He was very active in a number of northern constituencies leading up to and during the GE, and he has the necessary links with the unions there. What he has yet to do, though, is make a real mark nationally. That's why a longer campaign suits him. Policy-wise, he is pretty mainstream, I'd say, but pragmatic in a way that being a soldier in conflict situations for a decade or so makes you pragmatic. For me, he completely changes the terms of Labour's conversation with the electorate.
Insightful, thanks.
I think government and opposition both led by pragmatists could be a force for good in the country, so let's hope for a Jarvis or similar to be elected leader.
The idealists and their absurd magnification of small differences have hopefully had their time, it would be good to have a more adult and mature debate across the country in the coming years.
Peerages Hague, Cable anyone else who has retired/ lost and not blotted their copybook?
One that immediately springs to mind for a job somewhere in government if not a peerage was the one personal disappointment of an ecstatic night - Esther McVey in Wirral.
She was subjected to a quite horrible and personal campaign against her from some quite horrible people. Cameron himself could really do with a Northern woman in his office, would offer him a usefully different perspective on life.
I hope not: she's got a lot to offer and to make her a peeress would be to condemn her to a sub-optimal role. Find her some position for now, and then get her back into the Commons in the next good by-election.
Yes, that was one of the sad outcomes of Friday morning - get her a safe northern seat. Tatton spings to mind :-)
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
He resigned because he didn't win South Thanet, didn't he? Thurrock was irrelevant. Anyway he hasn't really resigned - I'm sure he'll be extolling his record when he joins the contest after his summer holiday!
Is there an element of him seeing if his health problems clear up?
There will surely be another referendum on Scottish independence, as you say, and this time it will surely vote "yes" - Cameron will secure his niche in history as the last PM of the UK. One thing he might do, to pave the way for his English (& Welsh, or maybe not) is to arrange for Northern Ireland to become a Scottish-Irish condominium. It's got nothing to do with England.
As to English regionalism, it's not even in the oven yet, let alone cooked. The only part of England that may want to go it alone is London (there'll surely be a "London First" candidate in the Mayoralty contest next year) and if they have a plausible left-of-centre platform they could even split the vote and let another Tory in!
How do you split the vote in an SV election, unless it's by letting two alternative and disliked candidates into the final round? I wouldn't have thought that would be an issue for the centre-left in London?
Peerages Hague, Cable anyone else who has retired/ lost and not blotted their copybook?
One that immediately springs to mind for a job somewhere in government if not a peerage was the one personal disappointment of an ecstatic night - Esther McVey in Wirral.
She was subjected to a quite horrible and personal campaign against her from some quite horrible people. Cameron himself could really do with a Northern woman in his office, would offer him a usefully different perspective on life.
I hope not: she's got a lot to offer and to make her a peeress would be to condemn her to a sub-optimal role. Find her some position for now, and then get her back into the Commons in the next good by-election.
Good idea about the by-election rather than a peerage.
I'd have her as a Spad in No.10 or DWP for now, then get her back in the Commons ASAP.
There will surely be another referendum on Scottish independence, as you say, and this time it will surely vote "yes" - Cameron will secure his niche in history as the last PM of the UK. One thing he might do, to pave the way for his English (& Welsh, or maybe not) is to arrange for Northern Ireland to become a Scottish-Irish condominium. It's got nothing to do with England.
As to English regionalism, it's not even in the oven yet, let alone cooked. The only part of England that may want to go it alone is London (there'll surely be a "London First" candidate in the Mayoralty contest next year) and if they have a plausible left-of-centre platform they could even split the vote and let another Tory in!
the inevitable triumph of nats is about as inevitable as the inevitable triumph of communism
in both cases the economic numbers don't stack up.
Alan, you are not following the game, trying to say the team that is 3 goals behind has the best players does not change the result. They will not be scared a second time. If Cameron does not bite the bullet and get federal it will happen.
malc I've been on we'll go federal since 2011. And actually agree we ought to.
but I don't agree we'll end up with Indy as by the time anew vote comes round oil will be on it's last gasp and the Nats have no plan for what will replace it. So how do you pay your bills ?
Cue someone spouting bollocks from GERS from 10 years ago.
Alan, we almost agree. I have said that they need to go federal for a few years now. Time is running out though and finances will be irrelevant. If not done properly this time then it will be independence for sure , no-one will give a hoot about squeals on finance.
Disclaimer: I have no party loyalties and voted for two different parties in the elections on Thursday
I heard John Humphries interviewing some Labour chappie on Radio 4 and he asked how Labour needs to reinvent itself. The Labour man started babbling about all sorts of irrelevant stuff such as a better process for choosing The Leader and such like.
Wrong! I could not care how you elect your leader. You can throw darts at a list of names or draw coloured balls from a bag or use the most complicated bureaucratic system known to man. Once your leader is in place I will decide if he knows the difference between his ar*e and his elbow.
Do not focus on internal, factional arguments. Focus on what you can offer me as a voter. What I, and what millions like me want, is economic stability and security because everything else flows from that. With no economy there is no money for the NHS or schools or armies or navies or child support or legal systems. Equality will not happen in an economic wasteland. NOr can you lift anyone up if we are all at the bottom.
Marx (or somebody) once said that the capitalist system could not be reformed, it had to be destroyed and then replaced with a better system. Maybe you need to apply that to your existing policies and goals. Do not improve them - change them completely.
Change the motto of your party to "It's the economy stupid!" and you will be on a better path to electoral success. Stick with "Ideology before the economy" and you will be doing yourselves no favours.
A majority of 12 against a vastly divided opposition with a hundred seat lead over the next highest party is an emphatically better position than Major had in 1992.
....
And with the implicit backing of DUP/UUP/SF("bankers")/UKIP then the majority looks better. Add in the 'Orange-bookers'; a Labour Party defined by Wales and 'Oop-Norf'; and a totally irrelevant Scottish contingent then - :breathe: - Westminster is safe.
Labour will not support the SNP as they are no longer relevant in Scotland. Instead the SNP will be like Voilet from 'Just William': "Screem, screem until I make myself sick".
What a false-victory for Sturgeon
Er. As any fule kno, it's 'Violet' and 'thcream and thcream' ...
@Aidan_Kerr1: Despite tactical voting the Scottish Conservatives are up 20,000 votes and finish 3rd for the 1st time since 1992.
It doesn't seem to me there is any need for a major rebranding just yet.
Scottish turnout was up a lot so adding 20,000 votes is moving backwards.
Not in Scott's Tory dreamland though.
Turnout in Scotland was up 7.3 percentage points, the Con vote was down 1.8 points.
It was up about 4 % on actual votes, which given the electorate increase can't be spun as anything other than poor.
Not going to argue whether it was a poor performance or not, but it wasn't exactly a 'normal' increase in turnout, was it? It was driven by increased voter engagement generated by the referendum, but the standard view is that Tories benefit least from high voter engagement, because most of their voters are usually pretty engaged anyway. Don't know if Scotland is different in this respect. Surely their vote share was also harmed by a degree of anti-Nat tactical voting as well?
On the future labour leaders, Jarvis is the most interesting, as he's 'mostly' an unknown, with an interesting back story.
The others are all knowns, and come with baggage, I can't see how Burnham or Cooper will transform the party, and are just more of the same old Brown/Blair continuity.
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
He resigned because he didn't win South Thanet, didn't he? Thurrock was irrelevant. Anyway he hasn't really resigned - I'm sure he'll be extolling his record when he joins the contest after his summer holiday!
Hope so
I mention Thurrock only because it was a more likely Ukip seat than South Thanet, which didn't even make it in the list as a good one without Farage as candidate. Hypothetically if he won that and we got 7% I would say he did a worse job than the state of play
Reading between the lines I reckon he thought he couldn't be leader if Ukip had 4-5 MPs and he wasn't one of them... But as we only have one, nothing's changed other than 3.8m people voted for us. He should stand again win easily and carry on the good work.
I bet the other parties hope he is no longer Ukip leader
On the polling debacle - lots of people talking about "shy Tories" on the Media. But surely it's not "shy Tories", it's the adjustments that pollsters put in place post 1992 to account for "don't knows/shy tories". If actual shy Tories was an issue, why were the Exit Polls so much better? (people forget that the Exit Polls were also a failure in 1992).
Because they interviewed 20,000 people in 180 constituencies.
I think pollsters are going to have to think seriously about regional polling rather than national. And possibly even F2F!
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
Its a tough call that actually, I think Farage maybe made a mistake in saying he'd resign if he failed in South Thanet - it certainly motivated his opposition to beat him there. I suspect South Thanet and Morley & Outwood got a disproportionate amount of support and targeting.
But having said he'd resign if he failed to win his seat, he'd have been a lying politician to not then resign.
Unfortunately for Farage/UKIP and Clegg/Lib Dems we don't have a system that's kind to third parties - and neither the electorate nor the two main parties will be in any hurry to change that. I think coming from no seats, UKIP would be lucky to get as many seats as Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals did. In fact with the Lib Dems down to single figures, we may see a true return to two party politics in England especially.
There will surely be another referendum on Scottish independence, as you say, and this time it will surely vote "yes" - Cameron will secure his niche in history as the last PM of the UK. One thing he might do, to pave the way for his English (& Welsh, or maybe not) is to arrange for Northern Ireland to become a Scottish-Irish condominium. It's got nothing to do with England.
As to English regionalism, it's not even in the oven yet, let alone cooked. The only part of England that may want to go it alone is London (there'll surely be a "London First" candidate in the Mayoralty contest next year) and if they have a plausible left-of-centre platform they could even split the vote and let another Tory in!
the inevitable triumph of nats is about as inevitable as the inevitable triumph of communism
in both cases the economic numbers don't stack up.
Alan, you are not following the game, trying to say the team that is 3 goals behind has the best players does not change the result. They will not be scared a second time. If Cameron does not bite the bullet and get federal it will happen.
malc I've been on we'll go federal since 2011. And actually agree we ought to.
but I don't agree we'll end up with Indy as by the time anew vote comes round oil will be on it's last gasp and the Nats have no plan for what will replace it. So how do you pay your bills ?
Cue someone spouting bollocks from GERS from 10 years ago.
Alan, we almost agree. I have said that they need to go federal for a few years now. Time is running out though and finances will be irrelevant. If not done properly this time then it will be independence for sure , no-one will give a hoot about squeals on finance.
sorry malc, a trend rarely goes to it's logical conclusion and it will be the same with Indy.
I'd leave Farron as a Party President sort - he's a campaigning not a leader IMO. Not that it matters but he sets off my gadar/but is missing at key votes.
If he is gay, surely the LDs wouldn't mind at all?
Farron? He does not impress me much. I know that the LibDems have little to work with but surely they can do better than him?
I have no idea about his preferences and do not care, not even remotely. I judge him in how I see him react and respond to moderate questioning and he "weasels" more than the average politician. I have seen him prevaricate, mis-answer questions, throw blinders and look very uncomfortable and mildly annoyed whilst doing it. To me, his body language is not one of a confident person who believes in what they are saying.
A majority of 12 against a vastly divided opposition with a hundred seat lead over the next highest party is an emphatically better position than Major had in 1992. Also as has been pointed out his majority was a substantial drop, Cameron's is a rise with prospect of increases in future to come. And Major had ERM to come which destroyed him.
Also whilst "the right" of the party will be an issue in the sense of their ability to deny him votes, surely they are not such an issue in the sense of force of electoral argument? UKIP have just polled over 10% of the vote and the damage to the Conservatives was arguably zero. This will undoubtedly embolden Cameron to face down his critics on the right, and he will have the evidence to justify it.
Major's majority may have been a substantial 'drop', but nonetheless like Cameron he was in the position not being expected to win a majority government - in that sense, both over-achieved. Labour are roughly 20 or so seats off their 1992 total; and while the SNP, Labour, and Plaid disagree on many things, I wouldn't be surprised to see them work together to undermine the Conservatives. Fundamentally, they are still all centre-left parties - so the extent of the 'division' of the opposition is somewhat mitigated by that. I'd also disagree that Cameron has future increases to come; he has to now implement austerity - 'real' austerity, which could prove very unpopular - it's going to effect far more groups that just the poor, but even the middle classes who voted for him. There is also the issue of the EU referendum, and how Europe once again affects the Conservative party. Then, there is also Scotland, and how that's handled. If anything, after this celebration of a victory for the Tories, it gets tough from here on. In the early 1990s, Major's moderate tone arguably gave him a mandate to face down his internal critics - but that hardly came to fruition.
I bet the other parties hope he is no longer Ukip leader
Not sure about that. I think Cameron and Lynton Crosby have been rather chuffed with how UKIP have played out - which I'm sure most would have though ludicrous a week ago.
Where to begin in rejecting you comments on the SNP 56?? I will restrict myself to a couple of areas in which I think you are well wide of the mark.
"Probably contrary to prevailing opinion, but I think this whole situation could go very sour for the SNP very quickly. First of all, the obvious point to make is that their main slogan in the election was "vote for us and lock the Tories out". Well there's no doubt Scotland voted for them and,...er, didn't really work, did it? Some explaining to do."
Going "sour very quickly" is what SLAB believed after Holyrood 2007 when the SNP led Labour 47-46. It just will not happen.
As to the SNP having to explain failing to lock the Tories out. They will just point out that it was Labour's failure outwith Scotland that caused that. This has the advantage of being patently true.
"And finally, do they all want to be there? Many will have chosen to stand to give them experience of campaigning with an eye to moving through the party in Holyrood (and hopefully, later, an independent Scotland). Being in Westminster was not part of the plan. But they now need a plan for Westminster. "
That is actually complete and utter nonsense. All the candidates were selected by the SNP after the Referendum, so that they would be clear whether they were there for a short time just before independence, or for a long time after a referendum defeat.
Given the opinion polls, the vast majority of the candidates thought that they had a great chance of being elected, and sought their adoptions on that basis. It is completely wrong to believe that "being in Westminster" was not part of the plan.
Precisely because the plan was to become Westminster MPs, the quality of the SNP MPs is high as time will prove. If that were not the case, the individual attacks by the MSM etc. on these candidates would have occurred en masses. As it was, the only successful attack allowed Ian Murray to hold the one SLAB seat-even that attack was not wholly true.
Fair point putting me right on the Westminster selection process. I didn't realise the selections were done so late.
I don't think the comparison with Holyrood in 2007 is at all relevant though. The basic thrust of my argument is that the SNP at Westminster have no actual power. No ability to do, or even try to do, anything beyond oppose. And opposition without the power to prevent. It is from that starting point that most of my imagined problems follow.
The difference is that unlike Labour the 56 SNP's will be seen to be voting against Tory cuts back in Scotland. They will be seen putting Scotland's interests first and it will show clearly that we just get sh** upon. So will be the exact opposite of what you believe.
Morning all. An excellent article by David as usual. I agree with his main point about the separate identities for Scottish parties, but the problem faced by Labour is much bigger than that faced by the Tories, or even the LibDems. The reason is very simple: Labour badly needs a large cohort of Scottish MPs if it is to have a decent chance in Westminster. It's hard to see how they could rely on a genuinely separate Scottish Labour party, pursuing a significantly different agenda, as a core part of their electoral arithmetic.
On a separate matter, can I echo the point MarqueeMark made upthread about how Labour were underestimating the scale, focus and determination of the Conservative ground operation? I was baffled by the suggestion, often seen here, that Labour were hugely out-gunning the Conservatives. It certainly didn't look that way to me - the whole Tory campaign was much better run than 2010, and they made good use of telephone canvassing and very well-targeted letters. Although I had no knowledge of what was happening in Broxtowe, I simply couldn't believe Nick's comments that Anna Soubry's team wasn't doing much. Looks like I was probably right.
Never underestimate your opponent, or assume that just because you can't see what they are doing, they aren't doing anything.
If UKIP is seriously aiming to take on Labour it needs to shift its centre of gravity well to the left. That means a philosophical journey, not just a few lefty sounding policies like getting rid of the bedroom tax. Whether a party led by Thatcherites can do that is open to question.
What many right wing posters on here fail to grasp is that white working class people do not all drive white vans and fly England flags at every opportunity. In fact, the vast majority don't. They have a range of views and outlooks, many of which are anathema to the right. The WWC Labour is said to have abandoned - with some justification - was and is patriotic, but was also very strongly grounded in trade unionism, nationalisation, belief in a strong, cradle to grave welfare state, and very high marginal top rate tax rates.
Put it this way, the two most prominent working class figures in English politics over recent years have been Bob Crow and Len McCluskey.
What I still find totally mystifying is that Labour did have oodles of policy review teams and every variety of [insert colour]Labour potential strategies - and EdM chose to go back to the 70s.
BlueLabour was such a blindlingly obvious good way to go and Maurice Glasman got a Lordship for it, then was dumped immediately afterwards because he suggested that *immigration* was an issue.
Well he was right wasn't he given all those Labour voters who went Kipper.
The self-harm Labour indulged in under EdM was a wonder to behold.
That's funny! The left-wing press will be something to behold in the coming days and weeks, as they try and work out what the hell just happened!
One thing missing from all their analysis will be that Labour lost because they have forgotten their roots as the party of the working man and become too dominated by the metropolitan elite - the elite that includes all the journalists and their total lack of self-awareness!
The SNP's feeble 56 will have nothing to occupy themselves with over the next half decade except gross eating, drinking and troughing. This already unhealthy looking cohort could well experience astronomical levels of morbidity and mortality. So there should be quite a number of by elections to mark the Nationalists' decline.
And thanks once again Mr Herdson, for your thoughts. – Not sure if setting ‘Scottish parties free’ at this point would achieve a great deal quite honestly, apart from hastening an entirely independent Scotland, although I appreciate the concept. – The trouble surely would be that if affiliation with a mother party was actively discouraged, or broken entirely for the sake of nationalistic integrity, time and natural evolution would morph it into something else entirely.
That would be the whole point. The Scottish parties - but the Scottish Conservatives particularly - have a need for a rebranding exercise that is meaningful. And to be meaningful, that *has* to evolve it into something else. This is not a bad thing; indeed, it's a democratic one.
If there is something like symmetric devolution then differing policies on health, education, transport and the like really won't matter, and to the extent that there's a clash, there can always be negotiation. It would be helpful if UK-wide policies on Europe, foreign affairs and defence were in sync but given the shared ideological inheritance, that's fairly likely and again, if not, it should firstly give both sides pause for thought and secondly, opportunity to talk.
David, why do you not move to Scotland and breathe some life into the moribund Scottish sub regional going nowhere Tory party. You could get rid of the backward looking dinosaurs that are ensuring the Tories are on a continual downward trajectory.
A majority of 12 against a vastly divided opposition with a hundred seat lead over the next highest party is an emphatically better position than Major had in 1992. Also as has been pointed out his majority was a substantial drop, Cameron's is a rise with prospect of increases in future to come. And Major had ERM to come which destroyed him.
Also whilst "the right" of the party will be an issue in the sense of their ability to deny him votes, surely they are not such an issue in the sense of force of electoral argument? UKIP have just polled over 10% of the vote and the damage to the Conservatives was arguably zero. This will undoubtedly embolden Cameron to face down his critics on the right, and he will have the evidence to justify it.
Major's majority may have been a substantial 'drop', but nonetheless like Cameron he was in the position not being expected to win a majority government - in that sense, both over-achieved. Labour are roughly 20 or so seats off their 1992 total; .
40 seats. Maybe you are thinking of the number they took into the 1997 election?
I don't buy shy Tories for a minute. The Tory vote was well within the MOE of most final polls and was also accurately forecast by some phone polls earlier in the campaign. It's the Labour vote share they got wrong. And I'd say that's down to weighting issues with turnout and, maybe, registration. Also, within England maybe more thought needs to be given to regionalisation. UKIP is clearly more popular in the East, Labour in big cities, the Tories in the smaller cities and towns, etc.
So on Day 2 the Independent has a story about the DWP planning to cut an access to work fund for the disabled... One Nation, anyone?
How about you donate some time or money to these folks instead of whinging about the Government. They've been through our diligence process, and my head of grants is personally mentoring their CEO, so you should have some certainty that your contribution will be well used.
Enabled Works Ltd was formed in October 2012, in response to the closure of Leeds and Pontefract Remploy Factories; and is a private company limited by shares, set up as a not for personal profit Workers Co-operative, owned and run by its own disabled workforce. The current business premises in Morley Leeds comprises of a suite of offices above a 11000 square foot factory workspace area which ideally lends itself to three very different income streams.
There is one little thing that will drive the nails further in Labour coffin.
Chilcot
When it is released, I hope that details are given as to who delayed its publication by querying things, and the order in which these were sorted out. Even if we do not get details of the queries themselves.
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
Its a tough call that actually, I think Farage maybe made a mistake in saying he'd resign if he failed in South Thanet - it certainly motivated his opposition to beat him there. I suspect South Thanet and Morley & Outwood got a disproportionate amount of support and targeting.
But having said he'd resign if he failed to win his seat, he'd have been a lying politician to not then resign.
Unfortunately for Farage/UKIP and Clegg/Lib Dems we don't have a system that's kind to third parties - and neither the electorate nor the two main parties will be in any hurry to change that. I think coming from no seats, UKIP would be lucky to get as many seats as Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals did. In fact with the Lib Dems down to single figures, we may see a true return to two party politics in England especially.
Well he has resigned. But if he stands again and is re elected if be v happy
It's like Ronald koeman quitting Southampton for only finishing 6th. Fair enough if wenger or van gaal quit for not achieving 4th place but this isn't the same
Anyway we'll see.. I don't see anyone in Ukip able to do a better job, although I am 200/1 w LADBROKES
Morning all. An excellent article by David as usual. I agree with his main point about the separate identities for Scottish parties, but the problem faced by Labour is much bigger than that faced by the Tories, or even the LibDems. The reason is very simple: Labour badly needs a large cohort of Scottish MPs if it is to have a decent chance in Westminster. It's hard to see how they could rely on a genuinely separate Scottish Labour party, pursuing a significantly different agenda, as a core part of their electoral arithmetic.
Never underestimate your opponent, or assume that just because you can't see what they are doing, they aren't doing anything.
I think you're spot on, it's a toughie for Labour.
With the Nats now squarely plonked on Labour's lawn they will be hard to shift.
I could see it might be better for Labour to do a deal with the Nats as the lefties NOTB and some of English Labour might prefer that after Brown ! However that always leaves them open to the Nats telling the rest of us what to do argument.
Conservative scaremongering on Ed never scared me for a second, but Salmond at Westminster nearly made me vote blue on Thursday.
The difference is that unlike Labour the 56 SNP's will be seen to be voting against Tory cuts back in Scotland. They will be seen putting Scotland's interests first and it will show clearly that we just get sh** upon. So will be the exact opposite of what you believe.
Whether its 56 SNP opposition MPs voting no while the country says yes, or 56 Labour MPs voting no while the country says yes - what difference do you think that will make?
Labour voted against every cut last time too, but are still in opposition in Westminster as much as you are.
What I still find totally mystifying is that Labour did have oodles of policy review teams and every variety of [insert colour]Labour potential strategies - and EdM chose to go back to the 70s.
BlueLabour was such a blindlingly obvious good way to go and Maurice Glasman got a Lordship for it, then was dumped immediately afterwards because he suggested that *immigration* was an issue.
Well he was right wasn't he given all those Labour voters who went Kipper.
The self-harm Labour indulged in under EdM was a wonder to behold.
That's funny! The left-wing press will be something to behold in the coming days and weeks, as they try and work out what the hell just happened!
One thing missing from all their analysis will be that Labour lost because they have forgotten their roots as the party of the working man and become too dominated by the metropolitan elite - the elite that includes all the journalists and their total lack of self-awareness!
It's perfectly clear that labour, even 5 years after the 'blank piece of paper' have no idea what they are:
They have 3 main choices
Tax 'n' Spend social democrats backed up by unions/Blue labour Public sector union pressure group Urban progressive multicultural cheerleaders
They've done a bit of all three, but it's just turned into 'mush', they set-up and attend sex-segrated british asain meetings, and then say they 'share the concerns' of immigration.
Until they work out what they are, they won't get anywhere
Are they the party of Blair, the party of Beven or the party of Owen Jones?
The party with the major problem in Scotland is Labour who really suffered under the SNP branch office taunts and the way that Johann Lamont was treated. They have to rebuild from scratch and try to find a reason to exist when a centre left SNP has already taken over nearly all of their territory both physical and political.
We have a situation where our two largest parties in Scotland think public spending is the answer to all problems, that the job of the state is to regulate and control any private sector that remains into the ground and that those who are skilful and able enough to survive such hostility are simply a resource to be plucked to feed the voracious state. It seems inconsistent with such a mindset that there should be two parties like that.
For the tories I think having an independent party would be a waste of time. For the Lib Dems this election may well prove to be an extinction event. I really don't see them playing a major role in Scottish politics again for a very long time, if ever. To personalise again a Ruth Davidson led Tory party gives them very little room to operate in. The above mindset also surely creates some opportunities. The 2016 election will be interesting.
The difficulty we will have on PB for the next few months is that it is dominated by the victors Tories and Nats both of whom will re-write history as is their privilege. More interesting is when the losers drift back on and tell us how it looks from their side and what comes next.
Since you're in the odd position of being a winner\loser ( Tory but Scotland ) I'd be interested in how you see the position in Scotland develop for the blues. Is it hunker down and wait for the tide to turn against the Nats when the hubris wears off or is there something now the Tories should be doing ?
For me the big disappointment of the night was not getting Berwickshire, 2 seats and bigger than SLAB would have been tremendous.
What comes round goes around.
Alan, the Tory problem is they are resistant to seeing the issue. They do not want to change and seem happy to be irrelevant for the future. Bit like keeping hitting your head off a wall and wondering why it still hurts, unless they change big style the SNP have little to fear from the Tories. As a natural Tory ( with a heart ) I would not touch them with a bargepole.
The SNP's feeble 56 will have nothing to occupy themselves with over the next half decade except gross eating, drinking and troughing. This already unhealthy looking cohort could well experience astronomical levels of morbidity and mortality. So there should be quite a number of by elections to mark the Nationalists' decline.
is there a collective term for a group of eunnuchs ?
The basic thrust of my argument is that the SNP at Westminster have no actual power. No ability to do, or even try to do, anything beyond oppose. And opposition without the power to prevent. It is from that starting point that most of my imagined problems follow.
Surely you listened to the PB brains trust several weeks ago stating unequivocally that EICIPM and this would be really bad for the EssEnPee as they would be stuck propping up Labour without any influence. What the SNP really wanted was 5 more years of the Tories in charge to push against in Scotland.
Of course I can understand any confusion as many of the same brains are now saying 56 SNP mps and the Tories in power is, wait for it, really bad for the EssEnPee.
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
UKIP as a political force is finished by the end of this parliament, by the time we get to the next election the EU issue will have been resolved for all time, also one way or the other the uncontrolled immigration issue will have been dealt with either through treaty change/negotiation or BREXIT. The two main reasons for UKIP's existence. In five years its game over for UKIP.
Those left in Labour need to remember that only Blair won an election for them in the last 40 years. He gave the impression of being on the side of those who wanted to make their lives better, Ed and the 2015 Labour party give the impression of being on the side of the not-working, the immigrant and those who hold segregated meetings.
That's exactly what Alan Johnson said on the radio this morning: Labour had forgotten about aspiration John Humphries was so surprised that he had to ask what Johnson meant!
It would be weird for the Scottish Conservatives to have two separate parties considering they are the most unionist bunch.
It would be interesting for Scotland to have FFA so they actually have responsibility for raising taxes rather than just spend spend spend
But...what is FFA? To the Nats, it requires them to have all the oil taxation revenues.... Until they get that, they will say they don't have true Scottish FFA. And giving them oil taxation revenues only happens when they get full independence, not fiscal autonomy.
FFA means all our revenues, not the kid on pocket money ones that Westminster allocate to us. It is every penny that is raised in Scotland for all taxes , oil , etc , etc. Given we have subsidised England for 30 years it is time we got our own money to spend as we wish.
Oil is in British waters, there's no such thing as Scottish waters in international law. If you want that, go independent. But you don't.
All revenues and expenditures in Scotland, that's fair enough.
So the city of London is in British land , we will take our share of that as well then. Doh !!
You get more than your fair share of the City already - through Barnett....
@Aidan_Kerr1: Despite tactical voting the Scottish Conservatives are up 20,000 votes and finish 3rd for the 1st time since 1992.
It doesn't seem to me there is any need for a major rebranding just yet.
There are also many more acts to this play.
The separatists thought they had won last year, and it didn't work out like that.
They thought they would be writing Ed Miliband's first budget, and it didn't work out like that.
Now Cameron is apparently offering FFA giving the Nats Hobson's choice of saying "no, we didn't really want it" or accepting a financial black hole they then have to explain to the Scots. Neither of those options seems on the surface likely to endear them
LOL, only a turnip like you could say that with a straight face , they scrape 1 MP again out of 59 and you think all is well.
Take your head out of your own navel for once. We "scraped" 330 out of 650.
errr you're at the same level you were in 1992 when 23 years with no majority stood in front of you. Maybe you should be thinking about how you go forward rather than slip back.
In 1992 we fell to that level, in 2015 we rose to this level. The direction of travel is very positive as well as the result.
Still I'd rather be a supporter of the party that won the election with 330/650 seats than a losing party like malcomg's teeny tiny 58/650. 58/650 lost, lost, lost
You really are a silly billy. I bet you support football teams hundreds if not thousands of miles away so that you can say your team won. Time to "Get a life" I think.
Morning all. An excellent article by David as usual. I agree with his main point about the separate identities for Scottish parties, but the problem faced by Labour is much bigger than that faced by the Tories, or even the LibDems. The reason is very simple: Labour badly needs a large cohort of Scottish MPs if it is to have a decent chance in Westminster. It's hard to see how they could rely on a genuinely separate Scottish Labour party, pursuing a significantly different agenda, as a core part of their electoral arithmetic.
On a separate matter, can I echo the point MarqueeMark made upthread about how Labour were underestimating the scale, focus and determination of the Conservative ground operation? I was baffled by the suggestion, often seen here, that Labour were hugely out-gunning the Conservatives. It certainly didn't look that way to me - the whole Tory campaign was much better run than 2010, and they made good use of telephone canvassing and very well-targeted letters. Although I had no knowledge of what was happening in Broxtowe, I simply couldn't believe Nick's comments that Anna Soubry's team wasn't doing much. Looks like I was probably right.
Never underestimate your opponent, or assume that just because you can't see what they are doing, they aren't doing anything.
Nick's posts about the campaign on here and elsewhere (e.g. about Soubry giving up) strayed well out of the put-an-optimistic-face-on territory and into the land of tell-an-outright-lie.
This is why the next Labour leader must NOT be any member of Gordo's cabinet (Sorry Andy), and their very first statement as leader must be "Yes, we spent way too much money"
Have Labour fixed the rules so the sensible choice for leader can't be undone by Len McLuskey?
This post sponsored by ToriesForBurnham™ and brought to you by NewsSense™ Inc.
There will surely be another referendum on Scottish independence, as you say, and this time it will surely vote "yes" - Cameron will secure his niche in history as the last PM of the UK. One thing he might do, to pave the way for his English (& Welsh, or maybe not) is to arrange for Northern Ireland to become a Scottish-Irish condominium. It's got nothing to do with England.
As to English regionalism, it's not even in the oven yet, let alone cooked. The only part of England that may want to go it alone is London (there'll surely be a "London First" candidate in the Mayoralty contest next year) and if they have a plausible left-of-centre platform they could even split the vote and let another Tory in!
How do you split the vote in an SV election, unless it's by letting two alternative and disliked candidates into the final round? I wouldn't have thought that would be an issue for the centre-left in London?
The problem with SV is that the voter has to correctly judge which candidates will be in the final two - otherwise their second vote is wasted. It's one of a small number of electoral systems that are worse than AV.
So on Day 2 the Independent has a story about the DWP planning to cut an access to work fund for the disabled... One Nation, anyone?
How about you donate some time or money to these folks instead of whinging about the Government. They've been through our diligence process, and my head of grants is personally mentoring their CEO, so you should have some certainty that your contribution will be well used.
Enabled Works Ltd was formed in October 2012, in response to the closure of Leeds and Pontefract Remploy Factories; and is a private company limited by shares, set up as a not for personal profit Workers Co-operative, owned and run by its own disabled workforce. The current business premises in Morley Leeds comprises of a suite of offices above a 11000 square foot factory workspace area which ideally lends itself to three very different income streams.
Hearing of organisations like this reminds me of what David Cameron meant when he spoke about the Big Society. The idea was stillborn as a political construct but the thinking behind the soundbite seems to have traction.
Hopefully we can see more of this sort of thing encouraged in whatever way they can by the new government. Ironically I think the same about food banks, would the critics of them prefer to let the temporarily disadvantaged starve?
The basic thrust of my argument is that the SNP at Westminster have no actual power. No ability to do, or even try to do, anything beyond oppose. And opposition without the power to prevent. It is from that starting point that most of my imagined problems follow.
Surely you listened to the PB brains trust several weeks ago stating unequivocally that EICIPM and this would be really bad for the EssEnPee as they would be stuck propping up Labour without any influence. What the SNP really wanted was 5 more years of the Tories in charge to push against in Scotland.
Of course I can understand any confusion as many of the same brains are now saying 56 SNP mps and the Tories in power is, wait for it, really bad for the EssEnPee.
The other point, of course, is that highlighting the presence, in the patient, of being-in-bed-with-an-elephant-syndrome is in itself a potent diagnosis of the problem ...
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
I think I had 2 bets with you (the 4x LD/UKIP seats and a£10 charity bet the other day). Can you PM me the details [can't put my hands on them right now] and we can settle up. Ta
Very good article, and I think essentially correct. One lession of recent years is that Scotland has a distinctive political culture - for instance, the "magic money tree" accusation doesn't stick - and attempting to sell Westminster attitudes doesn't work. Although separate parties would develop their own cultures in response to this, it wouldn't prevent governments forming, in the same way that the CSU in Bavaria is seen as well right of the CDU but sitll a natural coalition partner.
On ground games, one lesson of the election is that the "human wave" approach to winning seats doesn't work - most marginals had masses of Labour activists (although, amusingly, UNITE refused to send me any towards the end of the campaign because I was against Trident - too left-wing for Len McCluskey!) and we buried the voters in leaflets, but the Tory leaflets were better quality (physically, with better pictures and a nicer look) and as Marquee Mark says more effectively targeted. Richard Nabavi pointed out my problem early on (it seemed unwise to concede it at the time although I knew he was right, since I was trying to discourage a major Tory effort) - a third of the electorate had changed since 2010, and in my absence not much had been done to contact them, so the personal vote in 2010 was not only discounted but also diminishing. I got the result that both Ms Soubry and I expected in 2010 (a comfortable Tory majority), when an intense personal vote effort got us close: 5 years later with a partly different electorate, that was much weaker.
Cheers for your comments Nick.
Ref Broxtowe, on a personal level, I'm sorry you didn't win and had you been standing in a safe Labour seat, I'd have been happy to see you back in the Commons. You're clearly a decent, thoughtful, chap and would make a valued contribution. However, as you were fighting a marginal, business is business. Still, all the best for the future: I'm sure you'll make a significant impact with your campaigning work and I hope you'll be giving us the benefit of your views on the upcoming Labour leadership elections, amongst much else.
I'd take issue with some of your observations on campaigning but would agree with your central point that quality does indeed trump quantity, whether in literature, activists or campaign strategy. That said, the two go together. The Conservative Morley & Outwood campaign scored high on both and without the relentless pressure over 2+ years, I'm sure Andrea wouldn't have won (that said, Balls spending the election running round the country rather than in his own constituency did him no favours).
I thought the Greenies giving canvassing advice about how far to stand back from the front door and actually listening to what the voter was saying was just so gobsmackingly obvious - but it needed saying.
From my experience on Thursday - most LD tellers were far too keen to grab the voters polling card number without explanation and were regularly rebuffed/made them uncomfortable.
They ended up following my lead as it was in both our interests to get as many as possible since we were sharing them anyway!
The Conservative campaign worked well. The proof of the pudding was in the eating with Shapps, Cameron, Messina and Crosby.
The professionalism of what MM describes below is really quite impressive for the 40/40 strategy. Crosby worked out what the dealbreakers were for swing voters and split them away from LD, UKIP and Lab.
Tony Blair one said "the Labour party will only have really changed when it has learnt to love Peter Mandleson". There is a lot of truth in this. Despite the enmity with Brown he masterminded the 2010 campaign and turned a defeat into a hung parliament. Labour needs to recover that sense of hunger to win.
UKIP have improved in their campaigning but have a long way to go. Farage still seems to think a campaign looks rather like a pub crawl. UKIP were strongest in rural Southern England and East Anglia and Northern post industrial cities, yet didn't seem to recognise that themselves. Candidate selection and vetting continue to be major problems. Both Great Grimsby and Boston had ridiculous candidates in winnable seats and the fiasco with Bird and Kerry Smith et al spoke volumes about internal feuding.
When Labour learns to love its centrists most of its activists will quit to join the Greens. That is the dilemma for its next leader and why it may not even come second in 2020.
Is it the number of activists or their quality that matters?
Being doorstepped by DavidL, NickP or isam could be a pleasant experience that changed my opinion. Being harangued by Victoria Ayling or Owen Jones on the doorstep could easily push my opinion the other way.
For Lab I did some canvassing in 1997 in Loughborough and Leics NW (both marginal seats at the time) but some of the people who were canvassing with me were probably doing the party harm! I remember one Millie Tant lookalike festooned with CND badges not letting voters have a say herself. Wellington supposedly said of his troops once: "I don't know if they frighten the enemy, but by God they terrify me"
The basic thrust of my argument is that the SNP at Westminster have no actual power. No ability to do, or even try to do, anything beyond oppose. And opposition without the power to prevent. It is from that starting point that most of my imagined problems follow.
Surely you listened to the PB brains trust several weeks ago stating unequivocally that EICIPM and this would be really bad for the EssEnPee as they would be stuck propping up Labour without any influence. What the SNP really wanted was 5 more years of the Tories in charge to push against in Scotland.
Of course I can understand any confusion as many of the same brains are now saying 56 SNP mps and the Tories in power is, wait for it, really bad for the EssEnPee.
So all the people who don't like the SNP think all outcomes are bad for the SNP, and all independence/SNP supporters think all outcomes are... good for the SNP! That's tribalism for you
Still think the SNP MPs are going to get rapidly bored/disillusioned. To have a role which basically amounts to lobby fodder opposing the Tories, to bolster the SNP govt in Holyrood isn't particularly inspiring.
The reason for the seat gap is that the Tory vote share went up a little and became more efficient, while the Labour vote also went up, but became far less efficient. The Tories will get another small boost with the new boundaries. In a multi-party, FPTP system, though, relatively small voting shifts can make big differences in seat returns - as this election has shown. On that basis, a 99 seat difference may not actually be that hard to overcome - or to build on - in 2020. What happens to the UKIP vote post-referendum, for example?
Peerages Hague, Cable anyone else who has retired/ lost and not blotted their copybook?
One that immediately springs to mind for a job somewhere in government if not a peerage was the one personal disappointment of an ecstatic night - Esther McVey in Wirral.
She was subjected to a quite horrible and personal campaign against her from some quite horrible people. Cameron himself could really do with a Northern woman in his office, would offer him a usefully different perspective on life.
I hope not: she's got a lot to offer and to make her a peeress would be to condemn her to a sub-optimal role. Find her some position for now, and then get her back into the Commons in the next good by-election.
Yes, that was one of the sad outcomes of Friday morning - get her a safe northern seat. Tatton spings to mind :-)
George got over 50% of the vote though.
Are you saying a majority of your neighbours are nutters?
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
UKIP as a political force is finished by the end of this parliament, by the time we get to the next election the EU issue will have been resolved for all time, also one way or the other the uncontrolled immigration issue will have been dealt with either through treaty change/negotiation or BREXIT. The two main reasons for UKIP's existence. In five years its game over for UKIP.
Agree. Despite their protestations, the last thing UKIP want is a referendum that settles Europe for another generation.
UKIP does not give off the message it is a party for the aspirational. It is a party for those disappointed with their lot in life. It needs to promote a broader reason to exist than is currently drawn.
There hasn't been any profound change since the referendum, and no there won't be another referendum.
The SNP won 49.97% of the vote in Thursday's election, on a turnout of 71%. They literally won 95% of the Scottish seats at Westminster on less than 50% of the votes.
System stacked against them? Yeah right. They'll probably keep whinging to that effect though.
Let's not underestimate the role played by naive young voters who vote SNP because of something to do with not having English people tell them what to do. Politics isn't about the intellect.
YES won 45% of the vote in the referendum, on a turnout of 85%. The gap between 45% and 49.97% is small, and it's explicable by more NO people staying at home on Thursday than YES people, which itself is explained by the fact that more YES people are still fired up from the referendum that they lost.
There isn't a story here. If the SNP manage to get a majority at Holyrood next time - which I doubt - that will be because of an even lower turnout.
They have no leverage to make another referendum more likely. All they can do is give people the impression that because they have so many MPs at Westminster, that means there's a big majority in favour of independence.
There isn't. And any serious poll will show that there isn't.
If either the Tory or the Labour leaderships, either at a Scottish or a British level, had any serious leadership calibre, they would come up with a visionary plan for improving the Union. Not FFA or wonk stuff. Vision.
I'm aware of a very small knot of people who've got a visionary plan for improving the Union up their collective sleeve. They may go public later in the year. Whether they'll get anywhere with it is open to doubt, to say the least.
Don't expect the SNP to show any vision for the Union whatsoever. First, the Union isn't their thing. Second, all they're interested in is money.
I don't buy shy Tories for a minute. The Tory vote was well within the MOE of most final polls and was also accurately forecast by some phone polls earlier in the campaign. It's the Labour vote share they got wrong. And I'd say that's down to weighting issues with turnout and, maybe, registration. Also, within England maybe more thought needs to be given to regionalisation. UKIP is clearly more popular in the East, Labour in big cities, the Tories in the smaller cities and towns, etc.
If you refuse to buy into the "Shy Tory" theory, how about the Russell Brand factor -
I mean he's the ultimate Marmite personality.As a result of his carefully stage-managed chat with E Miliband a few days before the GE, how many voters would have been definitely persuaded to vote Labour, compared with those for whom doing so would subsequently be absolutely out of the question (answers to the nearest hundred thousand please). I can't help but think that whilst cosying up to Delia may be one thing, becoming best mates with the charming Russell is quite another!
Mr. Observer, be interesting to see how 2020 plays out. Labour might say "Only we can win" but minor parties (if the Conservatives look weak) might argue a vote for them would lead to a coalition, and that *might* appeal.
"Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing."
It's cruel world ... four million votes and one MP.
I think two things stopped a real breakthrough. Nicola, bless her cotton socks, became a recruiting agent for the Tories,and took a some Kippers back. And the apparent closeness of the election worried a few others - the certainty of a referendum and the fear of Ed overcame the attraction of a party they wanted to vote for. And to be fair to Cameron, he belatedly saw the threat and edged closer to them.
Boston stayed Blue by 4,000 votes (down from 12,000) courtesy of a Tory candidate more kippery than Farage. Simon Danczuk and a few other Labourites also saw the danger early.
The referendum may well disappoint, there are many vested interests, but a one-sided argument may also reanimate the Kipper bandwagon.
There are a few loons in Ukip but there are in the other parties too. Carswell could be a good spokesman in the Commons and there is plenty of potential elsewhere.
The SNP have a mixture of differing opinions with a common grievance and that trumps the differences. Southam is right, I think, the future could be bright for you but the big danger is this disappointment leads to apathy. Just think how depressed the Labour party is at the moment.
A majority of 12 against a vastly divided opposition with a hundred seat lead over the next highest party is an emphatically better position than Major had in 1992. Also as has been pointed out his majority was a substantial drop, Cameron's is a rise with prospect of increases in future to come. And Major had ERM to come which destroyed him.
Also whilst "the right" of the party will be an issue in the sense of their ability to deny him votes, surely they are not such an issue in the sense of force of electoral argument? UKIP have just polled over 10% of the vote and the damage to the Conservatives was arguably zero. This will undoubtedly embolden Cameron to face down his critics on the right, and he will have the evidence to justify it.
Major's majority may have been a substantial 'drop', but nonetheless like Cameron he was in the position not being expected to win a majority government - in that sense, both over-achieved. Labour are roughly 20 or so seats off their 1992 total; .
40 seats. Maybe you are thinking of the number they took into the 1997 election?
I was thinking they got something roughly around 250ish in 1992, I wasn't thinking of 97'. As it was I've just checked on wiki, they got 271 in 92. Still, the other points stand.
The reason for the seat gap is that the Tory vote share went up a little and became more efficient, while the Labour vote also went up, but became far less efficient.
Some of us had for months been making that point to Our Genial "Tories need to be 11% ahead in England" Host!
@SouthamObserver SLab have a clear way back. It's Holyrood and providing effective opposition there.
Except since 2007 they haven't.
If I take our Nats at face value the only ones they mention giving them a run for their money have been Annabel Goldie and Ruth Davidson.
Alan, They are rank rotten in Holyrood as were the Lib Dems, Davidson at least can string a sentence together even if she picks crap topics for her questions.
coming from you malc, I'll take that as she's doing a cracking job !
Alan, Despite personally thinking she is crap , I was being objective. The questions they put every week are just pathetic. They do not seem to understand what matters in Scotland, completely out of touch with reality.
I don't buy shy Tories for a minute. The Tory vote was well within the MOE of most final polls and was also accurately forecast by some phone polls earlier in the campaign. It's the Labour vote share they got wrong. And I'd say that's down to weighting issues with turnout and, maybe, registration. Also, within England maybe more thought needs to be given to regionalisation. UKIP is clearly more popular in the East, Labour in big cities, the Tories in the smaller cities and towns, etc.
If you refuse to buy into the "Shy Tory" theory, how about the Russell Brand factor -
I mean he's the ultimate Marmite personality.As a result of his carefully stage-managed chat with E Miliband a few days before the GE, how many voters would have been definitely persuaded to vote Labour, compared with those for whom doing so would subsequently be absolutely out of the question (answers to the nearest hundred thousand please). I can't help but think that whilst cosying up to Delia may be one thing, becoming best mates with the charming Russell is quite another!
No, I don't think anything much changed. Labour was never going to get the actual votes the polls indicated.
So on Day 2 the Independent has a story about the DWP planning to cut an access to work fund for the disabled... One Nation, anyone?
How about you donate some time or money to these folks instead of whinging about the Government. They've been through our diligence process, and my head of grants is personally mentoring their CEO, so you should have some certainty that your contribution will be well used.
Enabled Works Ltd was formed in October 2012, in response to the closure of Leeds and Pontefract Remploy Factories; and is a private company limited by shares, set up as a not for personal profit Workers Co-operative, owned and run by its own disabled workforce. The current business premises in Morley Leeds comprises of a suite of offices above a 11000 square foot factory workspace area which ideally lends itself to three very different income streams.
For the tories I think having an independent party would be a waste of time. For the Lib Dems this election may well prove to be an extinction event. I really don't see them playing a major role in Scottish politics again for a very long time, if ever. To personalise again a Ruth Davidson led Tory party gives them very little room to operate in. The above mindset also surely creates some opportunities. The 2016 election will be interesting.
For me the big disappointment of the night was not getting Berwickshire, 2 seats and bigger than SLAB would have been tremendous.
Now you're being greedy......
A majority, Vince Cable, Ed Balls, three party leader out and Berwickshire?.....it was only 328 votes out....but I think the gods decided we were having enough fun for one evening......
What I still find totally mystifying is that Labour did have oodles of policy review teams and every variety of [insert colour]Labour potential strategies - and EdM chose to go back to the 70s.
BlueLabour was such a blindlingly obvious good way to go and Maurice Glasman got a Lordship for it, then was dumped immediately afterwards because he suggested that *immigration* was an issue.
Well he was right wasn't he given all those Labour voters who went Kipper.
The self-harm Labour indulged in under EdM was a wonder to behold.
That's funny! The left-wing press will be something to behold in the coming days and weeks, as they try and work out what the hell just happened!
One thing missing from all their analysis will be that Labour lost because they have forgotten their roots as the party of the working man and become too dominated by the metropolitan elite - the elite that includes all the journalists and their total lack of self-awareness!
It's perfectly clear that labour, even 5 years after the 'blank piece of paper' have no idea what they are:
They have 3 main choices
Tax 'n' Spend social democrats backed up by unions/Blue labour Public sector union pressure group Urban progressive multicultural cheerleaders
They've done a bit of all three, but it's just turned into 'mush', they set-up and attend sex-segrated british asain meetings, and then say they 'share the concerns' of immigration.
Until they work out what they are, they won't get anywhere
Are they the party of Blair, the party of Beven or the party of Owen Jones?
I think that's a false choice for Labour. They need to find something new which transcends those separate groups and will bring them together under one banner. Being anti-Tories isn't enough.
There is one little thing that will drive the nails further in Labour coffin.
Chilcot
When it is released, I hope that details are given as to who delayed its publication by querying things, and the order in which these were sorted out. Even if we do not get details of the queries themselves.
Quite so on both points. It's an important enquiry so it should be published as soon as ready however it has to be presumed given the fall out it will be released with some timing advantage in mind. Of course those they delay this report after this amount of time should be mentioned. Given the outcome of GE 2015 I am wondering if this was issued a few months ago the majority may have been larger for the Tories if out rightly critical of Labour. All Supposition of course but still.
I still can't believe how poorly Labour did especially considering the Lib Dem collapse. Use the excellent BBC website to search constituencies across the country, you will find many marginals where Labour have basically stood still and most of the movement is from the Lib Dems to Ukip and, to a lesser extent, to the Tories depending on the seat.
I am an Orange booker rather than a Fallonite, but even so I will be voting for Fallon as LD Leader.
Fallon was always arms length from the coalition so can win back a lot of those former LD voters gone to kippers and Tories. His northern roots and social conservatism make him ideal for this, and he is a good tub thumper to rouse the rather battered troops. Despite being a strong Christian he voted for repeal of blasphemy laws.
No way will the LDs merge with Labour; though I think there is some merit in a joint ticket in Scotland with the Conservatives in the style of the National Liberals for Westminster elections.
The LDs and Labour may not need to merge, but they certainly need to remember that bashing seven bells out of each other only work in the Tories favour. Unless something radical happens; the LDs have the power to reach the parts of the country Labour can't and vice versa.
Shame SLAB couldn't remember bashing the hell out of the Tories only helps the SNP.
Maybe it really started the re-launch of Scottish nationalism when Scots Labour, Scots Lib Dems joined with the SNP against the "Westminster Govt" of John Major. This anti-UK alliance led us to where we are today. Independence for Scotland is inevitable. Just a matter of time now, after all is said, the Scottish anthem is "to be a nation again". Bedding that into the minds of each generation as a goal, will ensure that the goal is met.
Federalism is inevitable Independence isn't.
Federalism could only work if Scotland and Wales are self funding. May be only supported out of the English overseas aid budget?
The reason for the seat gap is that the Tory vote share went up a little and became more efficient, while the Labour vote also went up, but became far less efficient. The Tories will get another small boost with the new boundaries. In a multi-party, FPTP system, though, relatively small voting shifts can make big differences in seat returns - as this election has shown. On that basis, a 99 seat difference may not actually be that hard to overcome - or to build on - in 2020. What happens to the UKIP vote post-referendum, for example?
Agreed, and I also don't see UKIP doing well in 2020 - the main reasons for their existence would have been pretty much resolved one way or another after 2017.
A good article until I got to the line about Jim Murphy, who on all possible measures has been a complete and utter failure, as predicted by most Scots on this site. If SLAB are to revive their fortunes before Holyrood 2016, they need to dump Jim Murphy, McTernan and McDougall - these guys and their MSM buddies managed to lose Scotland. My sense is that unless these guys go voluntarily the Labour party will leave them in place and they will then walk SLAB into the path of the SNP juggernaut in 2016.
I think the SNP surge will continue to grow, I would not be surprised if by May 2016 SNP membership surpasses that of Labour i.e. over 200,000. The SNP will likely win most of the Holyrood constituency seats, leaving SLAB, SLID and SCUP fighting for regional list seats. Unfortunately they will be caught in a pincer movement by the SNP, Greens and even UKIP.
I don't buy shy Tories for a minute. The Tory vote was well within the MOE of most final polls and was also accurately forecast by some phone polls earlier in the campaign. It's the Labour vote share they got wrong. And I'd say that's down to weighting issues with turnout and, maybe, registration. Also, within England maybe more thought needs to be given to regionalisation. UKIP is clearly more popular in the East, Labour in big cities, the Tories in the smaller cities and towns, etc.
If you refuse to buy into the "Shy Tory" theory, how about the Russell Brand factor -
I mean he's the ultimate Marmite personality.As a result of his carefully stage-managed chat with E Miliband a few days before the GE, how many voters would have been definitely persuaded to vote Labour, compared with those for whom doing so would subsequently be absolutely out of the question (answers to the nearest hundred thousand please). I can't help but think that whilst cosying up to Delia may be one thing, becoming best mates with the charming Russell is quite another!
No, I don't think anything much changed. Labour was never going to get the actual votes the polls indicated.
Only a couple of days ago you described the Tory position as " unsustainable ", when do you think this unsustainability will make itself manifest ?
The reason for the seat gap is that the Tory vote share went up a little and became more efficient, while the Labour vote also went up, but became far less efficient.
Some of us had for months been making that point to Our Genial "Tories need to be 11% ahead in England" Host!
To be fair they weren't far off (although i know he was making the argument to oppose Con most seats, not Con majority). They won by 9.4% in England which was always going to blow his pollbased betting positions out of the water.
The basic thrust of my argument is that the SNP at Westminster have no actual power. No ability to do, or even try to do, anything beyond oppose. And opposition without the power to prevent. It is from that starting point that most of my imagined problems follow.
Surely you listened to the PB brains trust several weeks ago stating unequivocally that EICIPM and this would be really bad for the EssEnPee as they would be stuck propping up Labour without any influence. What the SNP really wanted was 5 more years of the Tories in charge to push against in Scotland.
Of course I can understand any confusion as many of the same brains are now saying 56 SNP mps and the Tories in power is, wait for it, really bad for the EssEnPee.
So all the people who don't like the SNP think all outcomes are bad for the SNP, and all independence/SNP supporters think all outcomes are... good for the SNP! That's tribalism for you
Still think the SNP MPs are going to get rapidly bored/disillusioned. To have a role which basically amounts to lobby fodder opposing the Tories, to bolster the SNP govt in Holyrood isn't particularly inspiring.
Mebbes, but as this is a predominantly Unionist, rightwing and English forum, the SNP supporters on here that remain unbanned aren't around to be part of the tribe.
One can only hope that the new SNP contingent will be inspired by the engaged, idealistic and virtuous example of their Tory, Lab and LD colleagues.
More practically, I think after the initial euphoria, I think the 56 MPs are not going to find it at all easy. There are no ready made induction/support networks for SNP MPs at Westminster which are going to have to be put in place very quickly. The sensible ones might try and form personal links with MPs from other parties, but for many I imagine that will require a different mindset from the default. Especially from a party who's mandate is to oppose/change the way Westminster operates - "slotting in" will, for many, not be an option.
Then there is the issue of what they are all going to do. There will obviously be
Will they do pairing? How will the whipping work? How will day to day party management work and who will be in charge? I'm quite certain we will find all the controversial/close votes, especially ones on arguably "English" matters will be scheduled for Thursday evenings. The enthusiasm for sticking around in Westminster for those may quickly die away.
Add to that that Scotland is the remotest area from Westminster. Maintaining constituent contact is harder than anywhere else. There may be turf wars with MSPs on the same patch.
Holyrood election may be interesting and unexpected.
And finally, do they all want to be there? Many will have chosen to stand to give
LOL, I am sure they are really as stupid as you think and have never given it a thought. What planet are you on.
Where did I say they hadn't given it a thought? I'm sure they have, and will more so now. Although I don't think they were expecting to be facing a Tory majority Government. I think the possible problems outlined will still exist though. The question is how well they will be overcome.
I think they may have considered the chance that the Tories would win , you seem to think they are some stupid country bumpkins blundering along just hoping things will be all right. Any sensible person will know that they will have looked at what the options and possibilities could be, planned for it and would be very clear that it was likely to be a Tory win as much as Labour. In my humble opinion it is better that Tories won , the SNP will get more kudos fighting the big nasty Tory party than they would from being Labour's little helpers. Just look at Labour's reward for being Tory puppets in the referendum campaign.
The reason for the seat gap is that the Tory vote share went up a little and became more efficient, while the Labour vote also went up, but became far less efficient.
Some of us had for months been making that point to Our Genial "Tories need to be 11% ahead in England" Host!
Yep - it became apparent a while ago that UNS was dead and buried, and that vote shares in and of themselves would only be half the story. Most Red LDs live in Labour seats or safe Tory ones. That's why they voted LD in 2010 - it was a risk free thing to do. I know, I was one.
What was a surprise, even though it should not have been, was the intensity of the feeling against incumbent LD MPs defending against Tories. I thought they'd still get an anti-Tory vote.
2015 saw the end the anti-Tory voting coalition in England. Five years of Tory majority government may see it reassemble, or may end it forever. That is something to look out for.
I assume that we are all exhausted - through illness or over-inspection of the election - so why not chill-out and relax. Here is a classic from the 'Eighties....
At a personal level, retiring from front-line politics (which I'm doing, unless something unexpected turns up) feels very, very odd. I'm used to a daily routine: Check out YouGov's entrails, post on PB, answer 50 emails, draft a leaflet, maybe write a local blog, juggle priorities. None of that is necessary now, and at 65 it actually makes sense to scale back to two jobs (animal welfare and translation) and have some free time to do...er...something.
There's a liberating effect - I no longer need to even try to be interested in local issues that engage maybe 100 potential voters (Should disused chapel X be refurbished partly or more expensively? Should former police station Y get a conservation order?): I can cheerfully think, or even say, that I don't give a toss. And I do have some other interests which it'll be nice to have more time for (board games, poker, big DVD series like Homeland) as well as things that I'm aware that "normal" people enjoy and I've never taken the time for - e.g. looking round all these foreign cities that my work takes me to.
But it feels odd, and slightly pointless. No doubt I'll get used to it.
Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing.
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
UKIP as a political force is finished by the end of this parliament, by the time we get to the next election the EU issue will have been resolved for all time, also one way or the other the uncontrolled immigration issue will have been dealt with either through treaty change/negotiation or BREXIT. The two main reasons for UKIP's existence. In five years its game over for UKIP.
Agree with most of your sentiments #isam, however the days when the party depended on Farage for it's existence is over. That the party is now strong enough to stand on it's own two feet without him is his best legacy. I have a feeling that after a long needed break, Nigel will throw his hat in the ring at the leader elections in the Autumn.
You know nothing #kjohnw UKIP is now a major party with e range of policies of it's own. Grappling with the EU problem is now just one of it's many tasks. You will find that this Tory election victory will prove pyrrhic.
And now I have two betting debts to pay............
Comments
There was some 'research' done, which compared Facebook with Twitter, and said that Facebook likes would result in a Conservative-UKIP coalition.
http://www.mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/170473201-if-likes-were-seats-facebook-users-predict-ukiptory-coalition-general-election
But what can you do? Get a big vote share and hope they concentrate enough in a few seats. That didn't quite happen. I'd compare it to backing a tennis player to win a match and they lose 7-6 7-6 6-4.. Fine margins but you're on the right track
IMO though I think Farage is making a big mistake by resigning... Clegg and Miliband have failed in terms of moving their party forward in the last 5 years, Farage has turned Ukip from nobodies into the 3rd most popular party in the UK. I think it's lazy thinking to assume he has taken the party as far as he can, many voters in dagenham talked of him in such glowing terms as their only hope!
The spectacular SNP results have put Ukip in the shade but that doesn't mean Ukip need to press panic buttons, strip it down and start again a la lib dem and labour. The situations sre completely different, and if anything i feel let down that Farage is standing aside
If Ukip had polled 7% and he had stood and won Thurrock so we had 2 MPs, he would have done a much worse job and stayed. As it is he has done a great job and quit. A mistake methinks
'Last night a spokesman for Murphy insisted there was no leadership issue and there were rules in place which any challenger would have to abide by.
“There is no vacancy. Jim is not going to resign,” he said. “As Jim said this morning there is a process in place if somebody wants to put their name forward but they won’t be able to do that until the next annual conference.”'
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/jim-murphy-scottish-labour-still-needs-me.2781
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/labour-on-brink-of-bloodbath-as-murphy-sits-tight-despite-wipeout.2788
'Murphy said he would stand for election to the Scottish Parliament and insisted that despite losing his seat there are ways he can STILL be First Minister in 2016.
Answering questions from journalists, Murphy said he took full responsibility for the defeat: "The leader carries the can. That's the truth. There's no shirking away from this. Myself and Kez and the leadership team, particularly myself as the leader, there's a responsibility in good times and in bad times as a leader."
Murphy said it would be wrong for him to resign as he had not yet had enough time to transform the party. However, if the results of last night show anything, it is that Murphy has undoubtedly transformed the party.'
Tories going backwards in Scotland as ever and lucky to hold on to their single seat.
Just realised I'll have to remove my #saveEd twibbon on my twitter avatar
Mercedes still not signed Hamilton, which seems slightly odd.
It was up about 4 % on actual votes, which given the electorate increase can't be spun as anything other than poor.
I think government and opposition both led by pragmatists could be a force for good in the country, so let's hope for a Jarvis or similar to be elected leader.
The idealists and their absurd magnification of small differences have hopefully had their time, it would be good to have a more adult and mature debate across the country in the coming years.
I'd have her as a Spad in No.10 or DWP for now, then get her back in the Commons ASAP.
Disclaimer: I have no party loyalties and voted for two different parties in the elections on Thursday
I heard John Humphries interviewing some Labour chappie on Radio 4 and he asked how Labour needs to reinvent itself. The Labour man started babbling about all sorts of irrelevant stuff such as a better process for choosing The Leader and such like.
Wrong! I could not care how you elect your leader. You can throw darts at a list of names or draw coloured balls from a bag or use the most complicated bureaucratic system known to man. Once your leader is in place I will decide if he knows the difference between his ar*e and his elbow.
Do not focus on internal, factional arguments. Focus on what you can offer me as a voter. What I, and what millions like me want, is economic stability and security because everything else flows from that. With no economy there is no money for the NHS or schools or armies or navies or child support or legal systems. Equality will not happen in an economic wasteland. NOr can you lift anyone up if we are all at the bottom.
Marx (or somebody) once said that the capitalist system could not be reformed, it had to be destroyed and then replaced with a better system. Maybe you need to apply that to your existing policies and goals. Do not improve them - change them completely.
Change the motto of your party to "It's the economy stupid!" and you will be on a better path to electoral success. Stick with "Ideology before the economy" and you will be doing yourselves no favours.
The others are all knowns, and come with baggage, I can't see how Burnham or Cooper will transform the party, and are just more of the same old Brown/Blair continuity.
I mention Thurrock only because it was a more likely Ukip seat than South Thanet, which didn't even make it in the list as a good one without Farage as candidate. Hypothetically if he won that and we got 7% I would say he did a worse job than the state of play
Reading between the lines I reckon he thought he couldn't be leader if Ukip had 4-5 MPs and he wasn't one of them... But as we only have one, nothing's changed other than 3.8m people voted for us. He should stand again win easily and carry on the good work.
I bet the other parties hope he is no longer Ukip leader
I think pollsters are going to have to think seriously about regional polling rather than national. And possibly even F2F!
But having said he'd resign if he failed to win his seat, he'd have been a lying politician to not then resign.
Unfortunately for Farage/UKIP and Clegg/Lib Dems we don't have a system that's kind to third parties - and neither the electorate nor the two main parties will be in any hurry to change that. I think coming from no seats, UKIP would be lucky to get as many seats as Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals did. In fact with the Lib Dems down to single figures, we may see a true return to two party politics in England especially.
Simon Reevell 2010-15
Eric Ollerenshaw 2010-15
Angie Bray 2010-15
Nick de Bois 2010-15
Esther McVey 2010-15
Stephen Mosley 2010-15
Lee Scott 2005-15
The 8th Labour gain was in Hove where sitting MP was retiring after 1 term.
I do not trust him.
On a separate matter, can I echo the point MarqueeMark made upthread about how Labour were underestimating the scale, focus and determination of the Conservative ground operation? I was baffled by the suggestion, often seen here, that Labour were hugely out-gunning the Conservatives. It certainly didn't look that way to me - the whole Tory campaign was much better run than 2010, and they made good use of telephone canvassing and very well-targeted letters. Although I had no knowledge of what was happening in Broxtowe, I simply couldn't believe Nick's comments that Anna Soubry's team wasn't doing much. Looks like I was probably right.
Never underestimate your opponent, or assume that just because you can't see what they are doing, they aren't doing anything.
BlueLabour was such a blindlingly obvious good way to go and Maurice Glasman got a Lordship for it, then was dumped immediately afterwards because he suggested that *immigration* was an issue.
Well he was right wasn't he given all those Labour voters who went Kipper.
The self-harm Labour indulged in under EdM was a wonder to behold.
http://www.enabledworks.co.uk/
Enabled Works Ltd was formed in October 2012, in response to the closure of Leeds and Pontefract Remploy Factories; and is a private company limited by shares, set up as a not for personal profit Workers Co-operative, owned and run by its own disabled workforce. The current business premises in Morley Leeds comprises of a suite of offices above a 11000 square foot factory workspace area which ideally lends itself to three very different income streams.
It's like Ronald koeman quitting Southampton for only finishing 6th. Fair enough if wenger or van gaal quit for not achieving 4th place but this isn't the same
Anyway we'll see.. I don't see anyone in Ukip able to do a better job, although I am 200/1 w LADBROKES
With the Nats now squarely plonked on Labour's lawn they will be hard to shift.
I could see it might be better for Labour to do a deal with the Nats as the lefties NOTB and some of English Labour might prefer that after Brown ! However that always leaves them open to the Nats telling the rest of us what to do argument.
Conservative scaremongering on Ed never scared me for a second, but Salmond at Westminster nearly made me vote blue on Thursday.
Labour voted against every cut last time too, but are still in opposition in Westminster as much as you are.
They have 3 main choices
Tax 'n' Spend social democrats backed up by unions/Blue labour
Public sector union pressure group
Urban progressive multicultural cheerleaders
They've done a bit of all three, but it's just turned into 'mush', they set-up and attend sex-segrated british asain meetings, and then say they 'share the concerns' of immigration.
Until they work out what they are, they won't get anywhere
Are they the party of Blair, the party of Beven or the party of Owen Jones?
As a natural Tory ( with a heart ) I would not touch them with a bargepole.
Paul Uppal 2010-15
Mary McLeod 2010-15
10 Lab gains from Con overall...offset by 8 Con gains from Lab (plus Corby)
Of course I can understand any confusion as many of the same brains are now saying 56 SNP mps and the Tories in power is, wait for it, really bad for the EssEnPee.
Worse, it was obvious.
I mean, 'Tick tock' ?
Hopefully we can see more of this sort of thing encouraged in whatever way they can by the new government. Ironically I think the same about food banks, would the critics of them prefer to let the temporarily disadvantaged starve?
Ref Broxtowe, on a personal level, I'm sorry you didn't win and had you been standing in a safe Labour seat, I'd have been happy to see you back in the Commons. You're clearly a decent, thoughtful, chap and would make a valued contribution. However, as you were fighting a marginal, business is business. Still, all the best for the future: I'm sure you'll make a significant impact with your campaigning work and I hope you'll be giving us the benefit of your views on the upcoming Labour leadership elections, amongst much else.
I'd take issue with some of your observations on campaigning but would agree with your central point that quality does indeed trump quantity, whether in literature, activists or campaign strategy. That said, the two go together. The Conservative Morley & Outwood campaign scored high on both and without the relentless pressure over 2+ years, I'm sure Andrea wouldn't have won (that said, Balls spending the election running round the country rather than in his own constituency did him no favours).
From my experience on Thursday - most LD tellers were far too keen to grab the voters polling card number without explanation and were regularly rebuffed/made them uncomfortable.
They ended up following my lead as it was in both our interests to get as many as possible since we were sharing them anyway!
Still think the SNP MPs are going to get rapidly bored/disillusioned. To have a role which basically amounts to lobby fodder opposing the Tories, to bolster the SNP govt in Holyrood isn't particularly inspiring.
Are you saying a majority of your neighbours are nutters?
And thanks for your support in North Warwickshire
UKIP does not give off the message it is a party for the aspirational. It is a party for those disappointed with their lot in life. It needs to promote a broader reason to exist than is currently drawn.
The SNP won 49.97% of the vote in Thursday's election, on a turnout of 71%. They literally won 95% of the Scottish seats at Westminster on less than 50% of the votes.
System stacked against them? Yeah right. They'll probably keep whinging to that effect though.
Let's not underestimate the role played by naive young voters who vote SNP because of something to do with not having English people tell them what to do. Politics isn't about the intellect.
YES won 45% of the vote in the referendum, on a turnout of 85%. The gap between 45% and 49.97% is small, and it's explicable by more NO people staying at home on Thursday than YES people, which itself is explained by the fact that more YES people are still fired up from the referendum that they lost.
There isn't a story here. If the SNP manage to get a majority at Holyrood next time - which I doubt - that will be because of an even lower turnout.
They have no leverage to make another referendum more likely. All they can do is give people the impression that because they have so many MPs at Westminster, that means there's a big majority in favour of independence.
There isn't. And any serious poll will show that there isn't.
If either the Tory or the Labour leaderships, either at a Scottish or a British level, had any serious leadership calibre, they would come up with a visionary plan for improving the Union. Not FFA or wonk stuff. Vision.
I'm aware of a very small knot of people who've got a visionary plan for improving the Union up their collective sleeve. They may go public later in the year. Whether they'll get anywhere with it is open to doubt, to say the least.
Don't expect the SNP to show any vision for the Union whatsoever. First, the Union isn't their thing. Second, all they're interested in is money.
Maybe she has a point. Perhaps Labour might win votes on a platform of extending the franchise to animals?
I mean he's the ultimate Marmite personality.As a result of his carefully stage-managed chat with E Miliband a few days before the GE, how many voters would have been definitely persuaded to vote Labour, compared with those for whom doing so would subsequently be absolutely out of the question (answers to the nearest hundred thousand please). I can't help but think that whilst cosying up to Delia may be one thing, becoming best mates with the charming Russell is quite another!
"Real mixed feelings for me re Ukip... 13% of the vote was at the top end of most peoples expectations.... One seat was really disappointing."
It's cruel world ... four million votes and one MP.
I think two things stopped a real breakthrough. Nicola, bless her cotton socks, became a recruiting agent for the Tories,and took a some Kippers back. And the apparent closeness of the election worried a few others - the certainty of a referendum and the fear of Ed overcame the attraction of a party they wanted to vote for. And to be fair to Cameron, he belatedly saw the threat and edged closer to them.
Boston stayed Blue by 4,000 votes (down from 12,000) courtesy of a Tory candidate more kippery than Farage. Simon Danczuk and a few other Labourites also saw the danger early.
The referendum may well disappoint, there are many vested interests, but a one-sided argument may also reanimate the Kipper bandwagon.
There are a few loons in Ukip but there are in the other parties too. Carswell could be a good spokesman in the Commons and there is plenty of potential elsewhere.
The SNP have a mixture of differing opinions with a common grievance and that trumps the differences. Southam is right, I think, the future could be bright for you but the big danger is this disappointment leads to apathy. Just think how depressed the Labour party is at the moment.
By comparison, you should be optimistic.
Excellent suggestion
And George Galloway
In the 2010 Parliament the select committees chairmanships were 12 Con 10 Lab 2 LibDems
MPs elected Chairs but within candidates of the party assigned to chair said committee
Lynton Crosby paid Russell Brand to chat with and then endorse Ed I suspect.
I think the SNP surge will continue to grow, I would not be surprised if by May 2016 SNP membership surpasses that of Labour i.e. over 200,000. The SNP will likely win most of the Holyrood constituency seats, leaving SLAB, SLID and SCUP fighting for regional list seats. Unfortunately they will be caught in a pincer movement by the SNP, Greens and even UKIP.
One can only hope that the new SNP contingent will be inspired by the engaged, idealistic and virtuous example of their Tory, Lab and LD colleagues.
What was a surprise, even though it should not have been, was the intensity of the feeling against incumbent LD MPs defending against Tories. I thought they'd still get an anti-Tory vote.
2015 saw the end the anti-Tory voting coalition in England. Five years of Tory majority government may see it reassemble, or may end it forever. That is something to look out for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_3TlrZLpQ0
The left must swallow this: It must be a choker...!
It took me about a year!
Good luck with all things quadruped and furry.
You know nothing #kjohnw UKIP is now a major party with e range of policies of it's own. Grappling with the EU problem is now just one of it's many tasks. You will find that this Tory election victory will prove pyrrhic.
And now I have two betting debts to pay............