Despite relatively few seats changing hands in May, more than a fifth of Conservative MPs – 74 in total – were not in the last Parliament. They will have a big influence on the dynamics of the Conservative party in government. What do they look like? Well, here they are:
Comments
I have missed prior episodes.. is there a similar one on new Labour MPs?
I think England are doing well considering they were 30/4. If they can knock Australia over for 120 they might have an outside chance.
1. Out regardless
2. Out, but can be persuaded by a great renegotiation
3. In, assuming we get a reasonable renegotiation
4. In regardless
Given the actions of the Eurozone over the last week, I think a lot of conservatives have moved up a group. People that were leaning out have made up their minds, and people that were leaning in are now leaning out. I imagine the split has moved from something like 20/30/40/10 to 40/30/20/10. If Cameron can not get a good negotiation together, he may need to recommend out to keep the party together.
http://www.rollonfriday.com/TheNews/EuropeNews/tabid/58/Id/3934/fromTab/58/currentIndex/84/Default.aspx
Then I go blank.
I wonder how the other half live?
Tim Farron
Norman Lamb
Tom Brake
Greg Mulholland
Alastair Carmichael
Nick Clegg
John Pugh
Mark Williams
There, not too difficult. It will obviously be a much longer list after 2020.
Well, an interesting summary though as Antifrank points out, the key elements going forward might be a) where they stand on Europe and b) who they might support once David Cameron decides to call it a day.
It remains to be seen how they will respond when (because it's a when, not an if) things don't go so well for the Government or the Party. Mid-term (and there will be one) will be a test for them all especially if local results go badly against the party.
Sorry for any offence - I was just fooling around (This forum can get a bit intense sometimes).
Perhaps Farron will outperform expectations. Perhaps Labour will elect Corbyn. Perhaps the Conservatives will tear themselves apart. But there's nothing obvious about a Liberal Democrat recovery.
I read this, scrolled up five posts, tried again and still only got Plato's four again.
It'd take a lot of effort and dedication to give a toss about who they once were.
Disraeli....Pugh Pugh Barney McGrew etc.... smile.
Stodge.... Go on chuckle.
Arf - I like the sound of them already.
Clegg and Lamb have definitely earned it. Farron's decision not to contribute to the Coalition is a big negative. The others have made no impression on me one way or the other - which suggests they aren't worth of particular respect.
I don’t know how I'll cope.
Golly.
Females 0
BME 0
Under forty years old 0
LGBT 0
Unmarried 0
Childless 0
Why? There will probably be at least 3 standing down, Pugh, Lamb and Clegg.
We need a murder suspect or something to balance things up.
"Labour may never win back its former supporters who jumped ship to the Conservatives on 7 May and robbed it of any chance of victory, according to the most detailed investigation into why people deserted the party at the election.
This is one of many devastating conclusions reached by two former Labour election directors who have conducted a series of focus-group interviews with previously firm Labour backers, all of whom voted Labour in 2010 but switched to the Tories this year.
In a report summarising their findings from five key marginal seats, Alan Barnard and John Braggins say disillusion with Labour among such voters is now so profound and deep-seated that it is unclear whether Labour will even be a relevant force at the next election."
She's called Andrex
Catching up on the earlier thread re the BBC, putting the BBC to one side, I think what's becoming very clear is that us SKY users all seem to be shelling out £50 - £100 a month. I can almost hear the phone call in 10 years time - "Were you a SKY subscriber in 2000 to 2025 ?"
I came across a person the other day, £100 a month he spends. It's a lot, but he loves his sport, and to him its his entertainment. Of course he also gets his telephone and broadband for that.
Just how evil are they?
On a 1-10 scale, surely there can't be any less than an 8, can there?
Exclusive: Margaret Beckett backing Andy Burnham despite nominating Jeremy Corbyn.
Ma Beckett sings: Non, je ne regrette rien. Scary picture removed from link out of respect.
Both are different skills, after all.
I like mine with a side salad. And Caesar dressing.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/peers
Some gobsmacking names on the list - soon to be joined by Lord Handy of C**k, Lord Alexander etc - I'd keep an eye on Lord H if I were a LibDem whip (person not object !!).
The new fibre is nice, 30 megabits/sec or so.
I pay £60/mth for TV & broadband right now.
Cue bun fighting.
It's very healthy to mock your own side.
The difference between the Tories and Labour is stark. IIRC the Labour list was completely dominated by the public/third sectors once the SPADs etc were removed. Both parties have them of course but the difference with the Tories is remarkable.
It seems inevitable that 2 visions of the UK will persist. One small state, enterprise driven and individualistic. One large state, socially focussed and communitarian. By their past employment you will know them.
Not just newly minted, but in total?
The previous occupation of each MP as a thread subject would make great food for thought.
Daily Telegraph - Jeremy Corbyn backers abandon ship and call Labour grandees to intervene
Looking at the new Cons, it would seem about half of them won against sitting opposition rather than replacing a former Con. Also notice that they are mainly in their 30s and 40s with a few in their 20s and 50s and one in his 60s. Most of the ladies seem to enter politics after they have raised or are raising an established family. In general they appear to be quite a formidable bunch with diverse skill sets and experiences.
4 struck me as a surprisingly large number of newbies given the relatively tiny size of our armed forces these days. I suspect it is one public service to another that drives it.
Do you have any figures?
http://www.conservativehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Military-MPs.jpg
It may be that we over analyse these things - we probably do. People will sadly die as well. The other point of course is that people move through the 7 ages of life and voting patterns constantly change. I do wonder on the subject of 'bribes' - which all politicians are susceptible to offer and of course which all voters are prone to accept - I do wonder if once the child benefit is limited to 2, well is there scope for it to be raised with a little generosity?
In fact statistically you'd have had to go to some considerable effort to achieve this level of underachievement.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
Edited due to stupid spelchucker.
As for being underestimated, I was one of those who thought Labour should have gone harder as anti-austerity, not because I think it is a good idea - I didn't and don't, the cutting back on cutting back, as it were, is something of a failure of GO in my view - but because I thought the wider public would be amenable to that message.
I was, however, wrong. Maybe the public don't care as much about restricting spending like the Tories claim to want to do, so an anti-austerity message might work to some extent, but a significant proportion also seem to, contradictorily, regard a failure to at least make those kind of noises as signalling a lack of economic credibility.
Finally, I do not see how one can claim that Corbyn is attuned to the majority attitude - if he was, why has his faction within Labour not been preeminent and won elections, or even come close? Parties do their best to reflect what the public want, or else they cannot win, and so if Corbyn's views were anything close to what the public want he'd not have spent all this time on the backbenches.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
Ergo, we hear a lot of complaints about our bland, cautious, identikit, party automaton, professional, youngish politicians - they're all the same, they have no experience outside politics, they speak in focus group language, etc etc - and I share in a lot of that, but a lot of the time it seems if we get prominent MPs who are older, or atypical. things don't often go as well for them in terms of aiming for the top jobs. People like the more individualistic, unfiltered MPs more, but for party leaders who will appeal as widely as possible, Mr and Mrs Blandy seem to be the order of the day in present times.
Maybe that will begin to change, people will react against the prevailing type at some point and maybe we are seeing signs of it, but really, the politicians were just giving us what we wanted - safe and nonthreatening.
Personally I think Osborne could have gone further and earlier and it would probably have needed tax rises (though I guess there was an election and all that entails). But I'm confident that if things go wrong in the next few years, it will be because we haven't got rid of the deficit.
In theory that should leave Labour with nowhere to go as they have been, in my opinion, living in cloud cuckoo land with respect to the deficit. But then again the Tories weren't exactly shouting from the rooftops that Brown was spending too much and it didn't stop them from winning in 2010.