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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Extraordinary. The union boss who thinks that losing the election was a price worth paying to get Corbyn
I was completely knocked out by the above Tweet posted last night about comments made by a union boss at the big meeting in Manchester at which Mr Corbyn was speaking at.
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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/
Conservatives in the Republican Party took a massive loss in 1964 but, eventually, they got Reagan and the Bushes, as well as most of the control of the House of Representatives in the last 20 years. Meanwhile the moderate Republicans in charge under Dewey-Eisenhower-Nixon-Ford have been silenced into submission. I think that is a clear example of the extreme beating the moderates, at some short-term cost. I am not saying Corbyn is the right man for this job in his party, or that it is a good thing, but that it is a valid strategy (indeed it is very difficult to see any other strategy if everyone else is coalescing at the centre).
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/
An Osborne/May direct fight? Could be close. Particularly if she coupled it with a negotiated BOO offering..
No change there you might say. But it's becoming increasingly obvious, and desperate.
http://www.newslocker.com/en-uk/news/politics/conservative-mp-johnny-mercer-confronts-protesters-yes-i-am-a-fing-tory-mate-is-that-ok/view/
Far too early for a leadership tip yet, but he should be a strong first lieutenant within 5 years IMHO. And then, post 2025, who knows?
Unfortunately for Labour, a swathe of people running & influencing the party at the moment are in the latter category.
'•In three elections (’45, ’66 and ’97) there was a Labour victory of totally unexpected proportions'
That is not accurate. In both 1966 and 1997 the polls were implying a bigger Labour majority than actually occurred. In the run-up to the March 1966 election the pollsters were consistently giving Labour a lead of between 10 and 20%. The final predictions were of Labour leads of 9% (NOP) - 11% (Gallup) - 17.6% ( Daily Express). The actual result was a Labour lead in GB of 7.3% - and a majority of 97 rather than the circa 150 implied by the polls.
The party of builders !
Actually, thinking about it, Corbyn would probably lower net immigration by making it so nobody wanted to live in Britain (see the late 1970s).
"Charlotte Church - Voice of an angel .. brain of an angel delight."
Chortle ..
Pretty sure that ISN'T the photo he didn't want us to see...
Interesting to read in the Indy that suggests Cameron wants to delay the referendum in order to gain concessions. Well I never.
What a dreadful mob we have governing us and what an even worse lot that are supposedly opposing them.
Politics in the UK is rancid in every respect, I defy anybody to watch QT, Marr, the Daily Politics etc for more than 5 minutes without becoming apoplectic. The BBC stoop as low as Charlotte Church to give the moronic politicians some sort of credibility.
Now your lone is that Cameron is seeking reforms but may take longer so it is all a sham and a disgrace.
Noticing a pattern.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11912765/Scots-to-get-control-over-income-tax-in-18-months.html
Most party members want the Conservatives to be more than just a fiscally dry New Labour.
The problem is that we dance on pins to avoid describing what is good and bad immigration out of fear of political correctness and accusations of racism. Until we can say that we don't want unskilled immigrants, don't want immigrants that don't speak English, don't want arranged marriages and family immigration from people who will never integrate and see themselves as British, then the current situation will continue.
It is almost impossible to win any election without the centre unless the country is in a state of crisis that has diminished the centre by pushing the electorate away from it. Britain isn't there and is nowhere near there right now.
On the example given, is it not possible that the experience of 1964 made primary voters nervous and was was one reason that Reagan came up just short in 1976 and far from enabling his election, delayed it by four years?
God knows the comments here bear this out on a daily basis.
The Labour Party membership wants to be morally good. Everyone else just wants to get by. If the Tories had any sense, they'd re-introduce private prosecutions for treason (or, even simpler, give Paul Staines the gun licence he craves) and let the market forces they pretend to believe in take their natural course.
Of course the party will be bankrupt about then and quite small but gosh will it have the right ideas.
I feel sorry for the Labour moderates up to a point but the candidates they were able to put forward in the leadership campaign and the truly awful campaigns they ran, reluctant to express a view on anything, fight for anything or challenge any of Corbyn's nonsense until it was way too late speaks to their decay. This country needs a rational centre left alternative that will keep the Tories on their toes, make sure the interests of the have nots are remembered and that social cohesion is maintained. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that Labour are capable of fulfilling that role.
I agree that if we had, say, exceptionally high gross immigration and emigration - say, 1 million Brits leaving a year and 1 million foreign arrivals a year - net immigration would be zero and it wouldn't be a helpful target. But then, we'd have a different kind of problem.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34446240
Doesn't it invite the obvious retort? What has she been doing about it for the last five years if it's as bad as she says?
Things can change quickly. They don't often. Indeed, they do rarely. But as the Liberals of the 1920s or Scottish Labour this last decade. Parties that lose their purpose to the public lose their place at the top table if an alternative is ready and able to take it from them.
Bush Jr was elected as a moderate. He campaigned as a Compassionate Conservative and before 9/11 his priority was not international warfare but education and the No Child Left Behind act. 9/11 inevitably changed Bush.
The last two candidates McCain and Romney were both moderates too. The public wasn't ready to elect the GOP to the Presidency then or reject or eject Obama. The irony is that either as nominee would have a much better chance of winning this time.
Eventually the Tories will go too far to the right again brought on by hubris and arrogance and an alternative will arise or be found. But I don't see that happening when Osborne is in charge.
People sometimes struggle to understand that adolescence can change girls' voices as well as boys'. Charlotte Church seems to be such an example. I wouldn't even put her in the top 10 sopranos in Wales at the moment, and that list includes one or two amateurs I have heard who would far surpass her.
If you want a top-quality young British soprano, try Laura Wright.
I expect the next Parliament to be, in round numbers, 400 Tory, 50-odd each to Labour, SNP and UKIP and the odds-and-sods making up the number (600 IIRC). I just haven't worked out how to bet on it (since I don't trust myself on-line) but there is definitely money to be made in those numbers.
Didn't the Swedish Social Democrats have a long run on that basis? Also the SPD in Kaiserreich and Weimar Germany.
I appreciate the latter is not the best of examples!
350 Tory, 150 Labour, 50 SNP (if Scotland keeps the many seats) and NI and odds and sods would be my ballpark.
Edit, the CSU in Bavaria have also governed well.
Against an avowedly left-wing Labour and (hypothetically) a Tory Party also vacating the centre, I'd expect one or more of:
- UKIP eating heavily into the Labour vote, probably under a new leader.
- The Lib Dems finding a new relevance.
- The centre of Labour peeling off again, either in a formal split or in dribs and drabs.
- A second Scottish referendum, quite possibly resulting in a Yes this time.
And in the absence of all that, a new-start populist party polling way beyond what these types usually do, probably established and funded by an extremely rich man to begin with.
Formed by the sylvan Home Counties, Mr Cameron was going to be another Harold Macmillan — the Tory grandee elegantly steering his country to no particular destination. Instead, he is turning out to be a disruptive prime minister. He will probably leave the state substantially smaller than he found it, and so tarnish the idea of increasing expenditure faster than economic growth as to make any re-expansion electorally untenable for some time. Already far fewer people work for the state or receive transfers from it.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/719ccd92-6b49-11e5-aca9-d87542bf8673.html#ixzz3nlcVE3M9
The problem for the LDs is that in terms of seats they do well when Labour do well. There is a strong correlation between Lab gains and LD gains, in part because of tactical voting. This needs to be broken for the LDs to profit from the Lab suicide spiral.
In other news this looks more threatening than the egg throwers:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2015/10/why-are-junior-doctors-going-strike-save-nhs
I wonder what Ed Miliband thinks upon hearing that.
It's not good for the country. We have either Conservatives cruising to repeated triumphs, or a man who won't sing the national anthem but will sing the Red Flag.
That's a high-risk strategy for his future leadership ambitions.
I think that's correct.
My line hasn't changed at all, it's that renegotiation isn't possible and that Cameron is kicking the can down the road, he promised a referendum which is going to ruin his much craved legacy.
If he were to say that he'll campaign for IN regardless I'd have more respect for him but he won't, he's too weak and duplicitous.
And quite frankly, if it wasn't for people like them there would only have been Tory govts since the war. Commentators shouting from the sidelines achieve the sum total of naff all.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to make any sense of what is happening to Labour other than to conclude that if it wasn't for the electoral system there would be two parties of the the left.
The mass house building of the suburbs was the bedrock of that transition. Doing so again may annoy the nimbys but will cement Tory hegemony for decades. MacMillan was also responsible for a lot of building too. Osborne's building meme in this light is an interesting one.
As for May: if she is so bothered by immigration rather than playing to the gallery, why has she done sod all about it in 5 years at the Home Office!
The last six months have been a bit of a hat trick for the Tories: the Lib Dems all but wiped out, UKIP underperforming in seats with a leader who's become a bit of a farce, and now on the fringes, and Labour defeated and going postal.
So who do swing voters go for, rather than just each party peeling off an atomised part of the electorate to which they naturally appeal?
This Conservative hegemony won't last forever. But right now I haven't a clue what the answer is, although structurally it should be Labour.
Indeed, I'd argue the biggest long-term consequence of last two terms is making the current Conservative government seem moderate.
Best post for years on here.