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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Meanwhile in that other party leadership contest…Stodge on the Lib Dem race
Next Wednesday I’m intending to attend the Hustings for the Liberal Democrat leadership election in London. As in 2007, I go to the event undecided between the two candidates and will listen with interest to what they have to say and how they see the future of the Party.
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Given the number of Lib Dems could this not be a 3 legged race?
Farron looks like the love child of Ken Livingstone and Tucker Jenkins out of Grange Hill.
If he won, every time I saw him I would go "Flippin' 'eck!"
Labour's problem now is that any putative new leader in 2 or 3 years' time is going to be one of the losers from the current donkey derby. This problem is structural because Labour chooses MPs on sexist and racist grounds and thus has quota nodding donkeys where others have talent. The PLP of 230-odd Labour MPs possibly comprises only half that many that are any good, the others being there for other reasons.
https://twitter.com/TheDappy/status/598849481942179840
The Lib Dems are very fortunate in having two excellent candidates to choose between. Both of them are head and shoulders above the candidates that Labour has to choose from.
Anyway, it's all academic. The LibDems don't need a leader; they need an undertaker.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/06/gordon-brown-has-a-brass-neck-to-blame-the-tories-for-tearing-apart-the-union/
With followers like Dappy the L/Dems are well entrenched at the bottom.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/12/ruth-davidson-scottish-conservative-leader-interview?CMP=share_btn_tw
Or there could be evidence emerge (from within the trade unions, maybe?) that he's been a scheming little shit all along - in which case two election defeats can rightly be laid at his door.
I see that the massed ranks of Tory posters have appeared on this thread, to sneer, as is their custom, at any politician who is not a Tory. A good thing that they do, of course. It reminds me why I could never vote Tory.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7857879.stm
In 2009 "Simpson named Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, younger brother of Foreign Secretary David Miliband, as the man to take the reins."
He comes across well, but I agree with the consensus opinion he's not the right man atm.
It may work, however when the LDs made their last crawl back from virtual oblivion in 1970, there were only two other main parties. - Now there is at least four others, better placed, better define as to what they stand for and each has their own tried and tested street fighters.
Nature abhors a vacuum. If the LibDems don't fill the "opposition to the Tories in x" box, then someone else will. And I suspect in the leafy, middle class, not particularly Eurosceptic parts of South East England, that role will fall to the LibDems - unless, of course, Ms Kendall is elected, in which case it's all a bit different.
https://politicalhyndsight.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/bbcqt-derby.jpg
With the Tories probably in disarray during and after the referendum and with Labour having an uninspiring choice for leader it could be that the LibDems are back winning by-elections within two years (if there are any to win) and that could be good betting news.
Obviously, we have FPTP and that makes it harder for small parties, but the idea that you can't carve out a 10% to 15% niche for you and your party, whether it is Green, UKIP or LibDem, seems a huge fallacy.
If that is the target vote, Lamb will probably be better than Farron. The question is what is the type of voter that the LDs desperately need to attract? Last time I checked the South West has most 2nd places (at a GE) for the LDs than other regions (stand to be corrected), but there is a strong eurosceptic vote in many seats of the south west and many of the seats have an older than average age of voter.
Says he won't accept charity nominations
In retrospect, it's hard even to see how we all could've expected the LDs to hold onto even as many as 20 seats. It simply was never going to happen unless the Tories also suffered a sharp fall in their vote, which would've lowered the winning post in a lot of the Con/LD marginals.
The Labour Party was tired in Liverpool, and it had been a one party state, and for no obvious reason opposition coalesced around the LibDems for a while.
The same process will happen in various places. The local council in Little Whittering will become unpopular, and maybe it'll be the LibDems that benefit, maybe it'll be Labour, maybe it'll be UKIP, and maybe it'll be the Greens.
Look: of course the LibDems could die. Nothing, not even the Conservative Party or the United Kingdom, is forever. But the suggestion that we're going to have almost everything south of the Wash as a one party state as opposition to the Conservatives fragments seems absurd.
They may - or may not - rebuild their local councillor base a little between now and 2020. I suspect they will make gains in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Would you like a small wager?
At some point opposition will unite under one force - when people get sick of a government, and want them out that's what tends to happen.
It was the LDs that broke for the Tories that really killed them.
- will UKIP manage to consolidate and successfully run a number of councils?
- will the LibDems stage any kind of recovery in their traditional areas of strength?
Ciao
I actually don’t think, in the longer term, Westminster saying ‘No you cannae’ will play well in Scotland, and I think that it would damage the unionist cause.”
Do you disagree with her analysis?
Clegg is more capable than either candidate, but of course it would have been impossible for him to carry on. Sadly, we will be seeing a lot less of Miriam on our TV screens.
Those reading the last rites to the Lib Dems may be premature. Everything cycles, and the tide is far far out but it rarely stays that way. However the party will change from the Westminster insiders of coalition to the street-fighting outsiders; and they've always been far stronger in that role.
3 existential risks though:
1 - the Greens driving forward. Roughly half of Green voters in GE2015 were previous Lib Dems, we have to be the alternative to the big 2 and can't afford to be shedding support for more radical alternatives.
2 - further scandal. With a distrusted party with 8 MPs, the journey back to being seen as the honest alternative seems far off - which is why Alistair Carmichael's actions are so unhelpful.
3 - Liz Kendall
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/06/12/july-17-imagery-mod-comparison/
I am reminded of Samuel Johnson's "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea." Sorry to be unkind - but I fear that's about the size of it....
' Farron's approach to the coalition was self-serving and cynical throughout and for that (a) he deserves to lose and (b) he will win.'
Farron was virtually the only Lib Dem not to get a job in the coalition,was that of his own choosing or it was felt he was not competent ?
I can think of a fourth existential risk you have not flagged: where is the money going to come from? To be in the game, you need big money. With Short money reduced, and the tithe from councillors drastically less than it was five years ago, what donor in their right mind is going to plug the funding gap? Because there's only so many jumble sales you can hold...
"Union leaders and staff at BBC Scotland are considering industrial action in a dispute over the handling of grievance and bullying allegations against one of its most senior executives.
Union leaders are meeting BBC management on Friday to press for urgent action after the daughter of one of Scotland’s most famous politicians, the late Margo MacDonald, successfully made a complaint of bullying against BBC Scotland’s head of news and current affairs, John Boothman, the Guardian can reveal.
Now that conquered territory has been comprehensively lost, and they are going to have to fight for every inch of ground all over again to get some of it back. Seats which had become safe for the LibDems - such as Eastleigh - now look safe for their opponents. Scotland is of course a disaster area all of its own.
It's going to be a hell of a tough task to recover.
Looking in my database (which has not been independently checked), in the South West...
Lab has 4 seats (Con Runner up in 3, Greens runner up in 1)
Cons has 51 seats (Lab Runner up in 19, LD Runner up in 20, UKIP Runner up in 12)
In Con/LD seats
Smallest swing needed to win a seat is 1.54%
9 seats would need on a 10+% swing
Only 5 seats would fall on a 5% swing
Union leaders are meeting BBC management on Friday to press for urgent action after the daughter of one of Scotland’s most famous politicians, the late Margo MacDonald, successfully made a complaint of bullying against BBC Scotland’s head of news and current affairs, John Boothman, the Guardian can reveal.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/12/bbc-scotland-staff-consider-industrial-action-in-dispute-over-bullying-claims
Thank you. I just wanted to make as many people as possible aware of the entanglement of BBC Scotland with SLAB and how much more significant that is than "cybernat" tweets.
I don't think they would necessarily have spotted that aspect based on your alternative approach.
I am not generally guilty of long posts, I am sure you will concede.
To repeat my point. Much nastier real consequential political events appear to be happening in Scotland at the hands of unionism than the reverse e.g. of MacDonald:
"She took the incident to a grievance hearing which found against Boothman in early May, and has since been on long-term leave for stress. Boothman this week gave MacDonald a “fulsome” apology, BBC sources disclosed.
Her predictions for SW London in particular were very profitable.
Hunt and Soubry should take turns in perpetuity: probably start seeing 15% Tory leads in the polls
Thanks for the kind words and comments and thanks also to OGH for allowing me to clog up his website with my verbal ramblings.
I don't disagree with much of what has been said - immediately after the election I thought the entire chapter of Liberal and Lib Dem history from the instigation of community politics in 1970 had ended but I now think the Party has reverted to its pre-1997 state.
Even when it was supposedly flying high, there were vast areas of the country which neither heard nor saw anything from the party apart from isolated pockets. It's also no coincidence the electoral success of 1997 was primarily in areas of local Government strength hence the Conservative desire (as mentioned in the Spectator piece yesterday or the day before) to wipe out any LD Councillor presence in Conservative seats.
As others have said, however, nature abhors a vacuum and while some thoughtful Conservatives may understand thatthe usual old partisans seem incomprehending of mid-term and the fact that their current popularity won't last forever.
Imagine being a Conservative activist in July 1970 or June 1992 and being told where your Party would be three yerars down the road...I'm not saying it will happen but we are already seeing on both the EU Refrendum and on welfare cuts a sense that some think the Government is already over-playing its hand.
The problem is some Conservatives believe everyone who voted Conservative is a Conservative and is fully signed up to Conservative policies. I would suggest that apart from those tribal Tories who would have voted Conservative had the manifesto consited of Samantha Cameron's shopping list, many who voted Conservative did so either because they were voting for that "nice Mr Cameron" or because they didn't want a Miliband minority Government propped up by the SNP.
'It's funny: I was by far the most pessimistic person on the site on the LDs chances in 2015. I now seem to be by far the most optimistic (12-15 seats) on 2020.'
I would have thought a good result for them in 2020 would be to hold their existing 8 seats.
Do you disagree with her analysis?
Her analysis is spot on, Both on how well Indy would have to be pollnig before Sturgeon would risk it, in the above quote and on the button that a second loss on a soonish referendum would kill Indy dead.
I think Sturgeon has adopted a defensive, counter punch, like status on IndyRef2 - it will go into the 2016 manifesto but only if it is triggered by a Westminster/UK move. Like the much mooted UK-Out Sotland-In result in the EuroRef.
I personally think that puts the SNP in a corner which they will find it difficult to move out from. The SNP has a lot of motivated ground campaigners who have gained, and will gain further, canvassing experience - something that was really badly missing during the IndyRef - I don't know anyone who was door-to-door or even phone canvassed during IndyRef. It would be a criminal waste of resources if they were to let them melt away as the prospect of IndyRef2 faded away.
People keep saying IndyRef was like Quebec '95. I think it was more Quebec '80 and I think the lesson is not to wait 15 years before a second bite at the cherry.
Orrrrrrr.
The rebels shot down MH17. Like they claimed they did before deleting their posts.