Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Counterfactual: Dave would not have become PM if in May 201
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Counterfactual: Dave would not have become PM if in May 2010 he’d pressed for a minority government rather than coalition
On Friday I took part in a conference panel with Paul Staines and the respected city analyst, David Buik. He made a statement which we’ve heard before from Conservative supporters that Cameron’s big mistake was making his offer to the Lib Dems on the day after the last general election.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Gut feel is they would be squeezed and punished for proping up Labour.
Oct 2010 would likely have led to NOC with Labour largest party. Suspect 2015 will be the same.
A government nobody voted for, in a system that is supposed to provide a decisive result.
If you believe they did it for the countries intrest,and not their own personal position for power and presitge, then you are deluded.
Brown was keen to resign since, whoever formed the government, there was no future for him in it and if Labour & the Lib Dems had cobbled a deal together he would have faced an uncomfortable few months as a caretaker PM, rejected by his coalition partner as much as he had been rejected by the electorate, "in office but not in power" as Lord Lamont might say. The idea that his party might benefit from this arrangement electorally after having lost 80 seats appears, on the face of it, ludicrous. Fortunately Brown realised that not only for the sake of his own dignity and self-respect but also for that of his party and the country a clean break was required.
So on the evening of 12 May it was Mr Brown who was urging haste and Mr Cameron who was temporising, not knowing if the Lib Dems would approve a deal or not (it still had to be sanctioned by their Parliamentary Party which had yet to assemble) so, like Churchill in 1940 he went to the Palace not knowing whether he could form a coalition or not but also knowing that, as the leader of the largest party in the Commons he was legitimately entitled to form a single-party government by constitutional precedent. This was not the case with Mr Brown.
In the end the biggest argument against a deal between Labour and the Lib Dems, as with the Liberals and the Heath Government in March 1974, was not political it was arithmetical. It simply would not have delivered a sustainable government whereas a deal with the Conservatives would. As Jeremy Thorpe said after rejecting Ted Heath's offer of coalition in 1974, "the electorate may not have voted for Mr Wilson but they certainly voted against Mr Heath." The same was true of the incumbent PM in 2010.
I wonder what the country would now be like if alternative arrangements had succeeded, either the (very unlikely) rainbow coalition or a supply and confidence arrangement, both followed by another election within six months.
Would we be in a better place now?
We wish....
Ed has gone from being a bad choice to a bad dream.
He's losing his marbles.
The last two years of Brown should have taught him the PR disaster of looking like he's following Tory plans. Labour might have saved the 2010 election if it wasn't for the insane decision to chase Osborne's IHT promise. It made Osborne look like a chancellor and Cameron look like a leader.
My advice; Get rid of him before it's too late
"After a shocking report in 2007 about hundreds of deaths in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospital Trust, special advisers to Labour ministers briefed newspapers that Alan Johnson, then health secretary, was angry and accused the HCC of “standing by while people died”, he said.
Mr Davidson said he believed the comments were a way of “deflecting the blame from the government”.
When a damning report by the CQC about failings at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals Foundation Trust was published in November 2009, Mr Burnham, then health secretary, wrote to the chairman, then Baroness Young, a Labour peer, suggesting that the true role of the regulator was to “restore patient confidence” in the NHS.
On the day of publication, his special adviser, Katie Myler, wrote to Mr Davidson saying she was “disgusted” to see the story on television news before the CQC had briefed ministers about it.
Mr Davidson said that although the trust had been warned in May that year that inspectors were concerned at what they had found, the CQC was “reluctant” to publish the findings and was in “a state of indecision” for months. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10137029/Speaking-out-cost-NHS-whistleblower-his-job.html
YouGov
Thinking about grammar schools and schools
that select pupils by ability, which of the
following best reflects your views?
The government should encourage more schools to
select by academic ability and build more grammar
schools: 43
The government should retain the existing grammar
schools, but should not allow more selective
schools or new grammar schools to be built: 19
The government should stop schools selecting by
academic ability and the existing grammar schools
should be opened to children of all abilities: 20
Not sure: 18
YouGov
How do you think the financial situation of your
household will change over the next 12 months?
Better: 14 (+2)
Worse: 44 (-3)
To what extent, if at all, do you trust the NHS to
be open and honest about its services and
standards of care?
Trust: 32(-9)
Do Not Trust: 58 (+7)
Thinking about recent stories of NHS trusts and
regulators covering up poor performance, how
confident are you that rules will be put in place
to prevent cover-ups in the future?
Confident: 26
Not Confident: 65
If NHS or regulator staff are found to have
covered up errors in hospital performance do
you think they should...
Be sacked from their jobs?
Should: 88
Should not; 4
Be Stripped of Pension Rights:
Should: 54
Should Not: 27
Face Criminal Prosecution
Should: 71
Should Not 11
" My motivation for joining the CQC was a conversation I had with the campaigner Julie Bailey during the Mid Staffordshire inquiry. Julie described sitting there every day and watching a series of regulators, agencies and royal colleges admit that they had given those hellish wards a clean bill of health. The thought of all these highly paid suits failing to do their jobs just enraged me. I could not get it out of my head. Now, of course, we know that what went wrong at the Mid Staffordshire and Morecambe Bay NHS trusts was even worse than incompetence: it was incompetence compounded by deceit.
Morecambe Bay is the NHS’s Hillsborough. It changes everything. It shows that the NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson was quite wrong to claim that the tragedies at Mid Staffordshire were “singular” — unique to Stafford Hospital. It seems more likely that there is systemic failure in many hospitals. And the report into Morecambe Bay suggests an alarming collusion between the NHS and other institutions. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/CamillaCavendish/article1277176.ece
Labour should leave the economy. It's a dead duck. The more they talk about it the more they'll lose the trust Brown's early years had built up.
They need to concentrate on education and health.
Health; Tories trying to run the NHS into the ground with scare stories so they can privatise.
Education; Gove trying to turn the clock back to the 50's where only the rich got an education.
Both should resonate because there's more than a germ of truth
Health. No possible problems for Labour there...
@Toryhealth
After admitting #Morecambe "may have come up" in talks with CQC, @andyburnhammp must be clearer about what he knew.
Its the economy that matters, if that improves as it would seem to have started to do, everything else is a sideshow.
Carl Hendrickson, whose wife Nittaya and son Chester died in ‘horrific’ circumstances at Furness General Hospital in Cumbria, was visited twice at home by Tony Halsall, the local trust chief executive, and told that he should take the money and move out of the area, 'so that we can all move on with our lives'.
Friends of Mr Hendrickson – who worked as a £13,500-a-year cleaner at the hospital – said he was shocked and insulted by the offer, which he considered to be a ‘bribe’ to stop his awkward questions. He has since started legal action against the trust for clinical negligence.
MPs said that the visits raised serious questions about a potential cover-up at the trust, which is the subject of a botched review by watchdogs at the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Mr Hendrickson told friends the offer came when Mr Halsall made the second visit to his Ulverston home in May 2011.
The friend said: ‘Halsall said to Carl, “Can we have a grown-up conversation? We don’t want to be sat here in two years’ time and you’ve lost your case. So why don’t I give you £3,000, [we] will find you a job in Preston, you can move from the area, and we can all move on with our lives?” Carl was pretty insulted. He thought it was a bribe – hush money to drop the clinical negligence case.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346554/NHS-chief-offered-bribe-hush-death-baby-Fathers-shock-scandal-hit-bosss-3-000-cash-deal.html#ixzz2X1NYpQ5L
I do agree that a Conservative minority or Lab-Lib coalition would've been unstable enough to prompt a second election shortly after the first. As to the result, that depends on lots of things.
What would Labour actually have done regarding the economy? Made no cuts at all on the basis that it'd cause immediate pain/bad headlines for a probable late 2010 election? What would a Conservative minority have done? The backbenchers have hardly been the pinnacle of self-discipline during the Coalition (although Cameron also deserves censure for poor party management).
On Betfair he's second favourite after Boris to succeed Dave. Loopy.
Sad.
1) Rile up the base in furious indignation about everything the government does.
2) Make some gestures aimed at various sub-groups and demographics that you'd lost.
3) Decide which of the things you got the base riled up at in (1) you aren't going to fight an election on, either because you'd alienate swing voters or because you don't have an alternative that would survive the heat of a campaign, and quietly bury them.
4) Focus on the key messages where you have both a good attack and a plausible alternative, and keep repeating them until the election.
Labour are now at stage (3), which the base aren't going to like very much, but it's necessary to avoid getting blown off course at stage (4).
'Surely it's better not to post at all on subjects you clearly know nothing about.
A theory you tested to destruction with your election forecasts last time around'
Oh Oh dear - a bit tetchy this morning are we - surprising really really, you aren't full of Miliband's speech of the decade.
@George_Osborne
Today I will be on @MarrShow talking about the spending round and how we'll deliver extra savings next Wednesday
1) Clegg admitted he was basically bullshitting about cuts being unnecessary during the election
2) The Conservatives would never, ever have gone for it
In Evesham this weekend?
http://www.nationalmorrisweekend.co.uk/index.php
"This sounds depressingly believable."
Another stupid Mail story. There is not the slightest evidence that incompetence had anything to do with the woman's death as it says in the article for those prepared to read.
The Mail must thank their lucky stars that they have so many readers who can't get beyond a headline or it would have no circulation at all.
Labours weak numerical position mitigated against even a supply side deal with the LibDems and whilst Brown may have and indeed did go to the palace there is no constitutional certainty that the Queen would have agreed to a dissolution especially with the Tories waiting far more strongly in the wings just as Wilson was in February 74.
No deal with the LibDems with either side would have led to a minority Conservative government under Cameron.
[I need to get more work done. Been a bit lax over the last few days].
""There are People's Assembly movements building up in towns and cities right across the country so this is the start of something, not the end of it."
Also present were Labour MPs, film director Ken Loach and columnist Owen Jones."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23016076
Hmm. Don't we have Parliament for this sort of thing?
"3) Decide which of the things you got the base riled up at in (1) you aren't going to fight an election on, either because you'd alienate swing voters or because you don't have an alternative that would survive the heat of a campaign, and quietly bury them."
So there is method in their madness? I wish I was as convinced......
Why then did Twigg appear to endorse Gove's education plans? Gove is one of the few politicians who is so dislikable and with ideas so gross that he could win the election for Labour on his own.
Interesting plurarity of support in YouGov for academic selection across all groups apart from...Labour supporters
And why is Russell Brand on programmes like Question Time and Not Andrew Marr Show? Mad!
On topic - Cameron saw his chance of power for 5 years and took it - its what politician do.....
Sources close to Mr Miliband have told The Mail on Sunday that the US employers of a Labour candidate were threatened with losing lucrative work with the party unless they told him to quit the race in favour of a pro-union rival.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346708/Miliband-caught-blackmail-storm-dirty-tricks-safe-Labour-seat-employer-anti-union-candidate-told-Withdraw-lose-contracts.html#ixzz2X1dpXBO9
Not nailed on but pritt sticked down.
Ed Balls determined not to provide clear quote, but his #marr i/v today confirms Labour prepared to borrow more than Cons from 15/16
Ed Balls says Labour would stick to the Coalition's spending plans for first year if win next election but admits could borrow more #marr
Tory Treasury
Ed Miliband's speech lasts one day as Ed Balls confirms that Labour will borrow more #sameoldlabour
Iain
Whoops Ed leaves an open goal for the Tories: Raworth "you could borrow more" Balls "yes of course" #Marrshow
PoliticsHome @politicshome 19s
.@EdBallsMP: "Because of George Osborne’s failure, I’m going to have to clear up George Osborne’s economic mess." #marr
Ed Balls: "Not everyone is going to agree with what I'm saying. I'm being very straight, honest and clear with people."
"I discovered that chairman Dame Jo Williams had written to then Health Secretary Andrew Lansley asking him to remove me from my position."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2346594/I-bullied-branded-mentally-ill--exposing-lies-care-inspectors-The-astonishing-story-courageous-CQC-whistleblower--words.html#ixzz2X1f9NKqp
That would be Labour appointee Dame Jo Williams.....
The Guardian covered this in 2011:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/29/care-quality-commission-leaders
And Williams had to resign because of her smearing of the whistle blower:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/former-care-chief-sorry-for-attack-on-whistleblower-8126148.html
Guido Fawkes
Mail doesn't name "senior Labour figure" trying to rig the Falkirk selection for Karie Murphy. Its Tom Watson. http://dailym.ai/11TqpNB
As I've said all along, Lansley does have some questions to answer. But those are minor compared to the questions that Labour has to answer over a whole series of messes.
And at least the coalition are trying to fix these things. Parts of the NHS under Labour just brushed them under the carpet and let more people die.
Remind me, how many times did Burnham reject a public inquiry into Stafford?
The NHS appears to be fundamentally broken. I'm not saying that coalition policies are going to fix it, or even that they won't make matters worse. It's just than Labour's claims on the NHS from before the election can be seen as being so much horsesh*t.
Clearly this is very bad news for Andrew Lansley...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10137029/Speaking-out-cost-NHS-whistleblower-his-job.html
On topic I don't recall any enthusiasm from Brown at all to leave Downing Street. I recall him having to be prised out by the Coalition agreement. In the interim Darling, for example, went to an EU Finance Ministers meeting and committed this country to contributing to a bail out. They were still acting as a government.
I think once it had become clear that a deal was done he was keen to act immediately rather than allow time for the details being hammered out but this was simply more bad loser stuff.
I agree with OGH on this one. The only way for Cameron to seize control was to have an indisputable majority in the Commons. That is what he needed and that is what he got. I also agree with Tim that at least on social policy Cameron, Osborne, Gove at least were probably more comfortable with that than with some of their own backbenchers.
I also think these other scenarios ignore something even more important. The previous government had brought the country to the edge of absolute ruin. They had enormously aggravated the situation by denying it for 2 years and failing to address the need to control government spending. In fact they tried to buy the election and called it Keynesian.
Had this country not got a goverment with a secure majority and a plan back to sanity I think our economy would have collapsed with an uncontrollable run on the pound and a surge in bond rates which would have put us in the same negative spiral the med countries found themselves in within months.
A Coalition may well have been in their interests but it was undoubtedly in the national interest too.
One thing is entirely clear: whatever happened to Davidson he has continued to hold a high-profile, well-paid job in the NHS. He has certainly not been victimised.
But it turns out that he really did say this - about the postwar Labour government
"This is a government that banned the import of sardines because they were worried about the balance of payments. It shows a government can be remembered in difficult times for doing great things."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/21/labour-radical-change-austerity-ed-miliband
I'm unsure quite what this signifies, but I think it should be noted.
'I'm going to have to clear up George Osborne's mess and that will be hard', shadow chancellor Ed Balls says on Marr programme
Wow, normally people don't start relying on that reasoning until they actually get into office. Now we have GO saying things are tough because he's sorting out GB's (and EB's') mess, and EB saying things will be tough because he has to sort out GO's, which according to GO is also EB's'. Confusing overlap.
"When a damning report by the CQC about failings at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals Foundation Trust was published in November 2009, Mr Burnham, then health secretary, wrote to the chairman, then Baroness Young, a Labour peer, suggesting that the true role of the regulator was to “restore patient confidence” in the NHS."
And it looks like there is plenty of ammunition....
None of the Tory posters here have pretended that the NHS under the Tories is 'better' or 'safer' than under Labour - the difference is we want to see its failings exposed, so they can be learned from, while demonstrably, some in Labour would rather they were hushed up.
I am a little puzzled. Yesterday EdM said he would stick to spending plans, not borrow more. Today Ed Balls says he would borrow more. Who to believe?
The last government refused to have a spending review because that would have involved them making choices and acknowledging consequences thereby potentially upsetting some of their potential supporters. The really depressing thing is that it almost worked.
The Coalition inherited a situation with a tremendous upward pressure on government spending from a ludicrously high base. Managed expenditure was always going to increase dramatically at a time of increasing unemployment and falling real wages. Their cuts in departmental expenditure have off set that by and large, at least in real terms. Labour had no such plans in place because they would not have a spending review. Absolutely pathetic, bordering on criminal neglect in the circumstances.
Balls' hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Fair enough SO, but consider the difference in political capital here. The NHS is almost Labour's raison d'etre. They staked their reputation and a huge amount of taxpayer on the issue of health. Remember 24 hours to save the NHS??
If they can't deliver a successful service after 12 years in government and a huge amount of money and effort, it looks very, very bad.
The party clearly knew that.
Possibly, but that's not the point. The NHS is labour's reason for existing. They couldn't deliver, and when that became obvious they covered up the failures.
For the petrolheads out there, the BTCC is showing on ITV 4 between 11.15 and 17.00 from Croft in Yorkshire, featuring the three main touring car races and plenty of support races.
Can Harry Woodhead make it an amazing 10 wins out of 10 races in the Ginetta Junior championship?
Do you think the CQC cover up would have been exposed if Andy Burnham was Health Secretary?
I know that it is cheaper for OGH and Junior to run their nursery off someone else's framework but would it not be better to move from a simple, web-server based solution and onto an application-server unique solution? Instead of a failed filter/dblookup [to trap spam] a more efficient entity-based criteria could be employed instead.
Ofcourse this would make it more "difficult" for some of our more "challenged" posters: Instead of 'copy-n-paste' they may have to engage both of their remaining brain-cells prior to "contributing". That said it would cut-down bandwidth costs for all patrons of this site; that would be a big plus, no...?
Do you think we would have had the Francis Report, or exposure of the CQC cover up if Andy Burnham was still in charge?
We know the answer to the first one.....
But phrases such as "how many dead babies on Labour's watch" indicate that others are much more focused on seeking to blame Labour for events that can and do happen in every kind of health service under every kind of government. And there is a third group - let's call them "the envy of thr worlders" - who are opposed to the NHS on ideological grounds, hate the fact that enjoys such widespread support and will do all they can to undermine it.
He's blooming good, and there are strong rumours that he has some very strong backing from a certain manufacturer. He has eight wins out of eight so far this year, plus the winter championship. All at the tender age of 15.
I also believe he's also been significantly bloodied, and came back from injury stronger and faster. I really, really rate him, and that's not something I say lightly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Ginetta_Junior_Championship_season
Give the BTCC a try - I think teh first race is off around midday. It's exciting stuff. The schedule can be found at http://www.btcc.net/pdf/ci_5.pdf
Firstly:
"Mortgages are off-the-books": Like HBoS* Voyager, NHS(England), "Building-for-Skools" etc.? I am neutral on the Osborne plan for "first-time buyers" but your arguments are based on anything but sound (other then your relentless hammering-of-keyboard) points. If Brown wasted £50+ billion on PFI-mortgages you should be the first to condemn him and his useless boss, no...?
* "The Boss" found out it was HBoS not RBS. Gormless's fingerprints are everywhere....
Main point:
You are aware that any expansion in the money-supply (Badger's "QE") is likely to result in price-inflation, albeit eighteen to twenty-four months down the line? Once the taps are opened then it becomes more difficult to close them (as inflation will have knock-on effects to exchange-rates and real-incomes), no...?
So you will also be aware that - all-things-equal - nominal prices will effect nominal expenditure; so no rocket-science there? All that needs to occur is for real government-expenditure (as a per-centage of GDP) to fall to disprove your point: How is that going..?
:report-to-master-avery-for-remedial-homework:
By 12 May Brown wanted to go - but only because he knew that he wasn't going to be PM. The election was a week earlier: in the intervening 7 days he did everything he could to hang on to office.
I don't think the LibDems would have gone with him - it would have looked terrible and the maths didn't stack up - but they used the fear of a Labour-led government as a pretty effective negotiating tactic.
I think Mike is spot on here: Cameron didn't really have an option. Making a "big offer" or whatever it was called forced the LibDems to negotiate. If he had tried to be penny-pinching about the proposal then the deal could have fallen apart very easily. It's exactly the same debate as in Scottish independence discussions (sorry everyone - I'm going to church soon so thought I would fart in the lift first): if you appear grudging in devolution proposals then you satisfy no one and just accelerate the inevitable. If you make a generous proposal that leads to a new constitutional settlement (e.g. a federal state) then possibly you can get enough people to buy into the new model that the desire for independence is fully satisfied.
This abhorrent behaviour should not happen under *any* kind of government. As is often the case, sunlight is the best policy.
But keep your fingers in your ears and scream 'lalala' if you like. It appears to be what parts of the NHS and Labour did.
I'm furious over everything that's happened - remember, I had a family member who was poorly treated at Stafford. It'd be nice if some on the Labour side of the debate got equally furious at what's happened.
I don't know whether Burnham fostered the kind of culture in the NHS which was focused on learning from mistakes. But I am not going to make judgements about him based on agenda-driven reports in the Telegraph, Mail and Sunday Times.
Well if all health services are fallible under whoever, what's the point of making health the giant totemic issue it has been for labour since '45?
Labour's central message is that public services will always be better under them, because they 'care' and are committed to spending vast amounts more. The polls reflect that.
These hospital scandals rock that notion to its very core.
It seems to be that Gove is trying to get normal kids the chance to have a good education rather than be reliant on the LEA-led system which has been proven unsuccessful (and with increasing momentum) over the last 40 years.
"Ten parliamentarians have claimed for more than 100 premium air fares each, with some of the flights worth as much as £850. Over the past three years MPs have spent nearly £500,000 of public money on such tickets."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10136603/MPs-spend-500000-on-business-class-flights.html
Disappointed to see Murphy there - he's one of Miliband's stronger operators....
I personally am furious because what happened at Stafford was not only wicked in itself, but because it also gives those who oppose the NHS on ideological grounds a stick with which to beat it. The managers and frontline staff that did what they did make me sick.
Oh come on southam. The number of whistleblowers who were bribed, intimidated, gagged or moved on is running into the thousands. You telling me the politicians didn't know anything?
Preposterous.
http://rt.com/files/news/1f/86/50/00/screen_shot_2013-06-23_at_12.24.39_pm.jpg
Gove's premise is that all kids, regardless of background and family wealth deserve a great education because it is the sine qua non of life. He then argues that the current system has been proven to fail.
The option are to (1) change the system to a new one that [he believes] works or (2) reform the current system.
I think (1) is more likely to deliver the objective that I presume we both agree on. What's your proposal under (2) given that I assume you reject (1)? The alternative is that you believe the current system works - would be interested to hear your arguments on that.
This was a staggering increase on any terms, a series of decisions that contributed more than any other to this country having a large structural deficit at the time the bust came. Labour supporters and minsters had no doubt this was the right thing to do. But they were also aware that they would be vulnerable if all this money was being spent and the media indicated it was being spent on management, bureaucracy and was not producing the results.
They had 2 options. They could either admit that it would take time to see the improvements and that even such a large increase in resources would inevitably not address all problems, at least in the short term, or they could lie.
Lying in this case meant creating a regulator that was not capable of doing anything other than handing out the gold stars. It meant disastrously failing hospitals being approved for self regulating status. It meant refusing inquires into what went wrong so lessons could be learned. It meant gagging agreements with whistleblowers and persecution of those that would not be bought.
We all know what option they chose and it was shameful.
Though I must say that i struggle to see a ban on imported sardines as a really tough decision facing up to the difficulties of govt in 1947. It was a bizarre statement by Ed M.
You remind me a little of one of those many Russians who maintained that Stalin knew nothing of the gulags, and if he had he would have stopped them immediately. It was all those bungling managers and party aparatchiks.
The gagging occurred so the public wouldn't find out.
But what I want to know is what Labour are going to say at the next election on health.
The usual scare stories about evil tories when its Hunt who's cleaning up the system?
I wonder.