Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Be patient. Corbyn is not Labour's only problem, just their most prominent current problem. As a thought experiment, think of how well or badly an Andy Burnham lead Party would now be doing - not as badly, but still badly. There is a vacuum waiting to be filled. It will be filled. Perhaps by something that is still called "The labour party" . But I think something else.
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
Having seen what's happened to UKIP - would SNP even want to win a referendum?
Much more fun just to keep agitating for one, and blaming the English Tories for everything.
If Labour's vote holds up (200 seats+) and he resigns after the election, he can leave with a bit of dignity. He can say he tried a different approach which just didn't work.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Be patient. Corbyn is not Labour's only problem, just their most prominent current problem. As a thought experiment, think of how well or badly an Andy Burnham lead Party would now be doing - not as badly, but still badly. There is a vacuum waiting to be filled. It will be filled. Perhaps by something that is still called "The labour party" . But I think something else.
History will judge him as the modern day Hannibal Barca.
Won a few early battles against rubbish opponents, then received the mother of all shellackings that lost the war.
He is not Hannibal he is Henry VI - quiet mad and unfit to govern and propped up by a circle of acolytes and courtiers. Diane Abbot is Margaret of Anjou and Mcdonnell is the Duke of Somerset.
Excellent. Mr. Shepard, a much better analogy. Mind you Henry VI did, if memory serves, found a couple of university colleges and a school so he did some good.
How about Charles VI of France, who was bonkers and presided over catastrophic defeats at English hands?
I would go for Fancisco Solano Lopez, who led Paraguay into the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance, 1864 to 1870. He had fanatically devoted troops, but finished his war devastating his country, losing large tracts of territory and 80% of his male adult population.
Salmond thought he was a man of destiny but wasn't. He can't handle it.
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
No the man that did was that laughed at English Eton educated buffoon, Boris Johnson.
Of course worth remembering the tide will always turn, but in the short and probably medium things looking very rosy for the Tories.
Hubris was the greatest enemy ahead of June 8th, I don't know what iron self control will prevent it, but it should hardly matter.
I spoke to a Leaver Tory today, he said funny as it might seem now, but the pendulum will swing, because it always does, so in the next 20 years we'll have an electable Labour party, or some other centre-left party will win a general election, and in their manifesto it might well include a manifesto pledge to take us back into the single market, custom union, and freedom of movement.
Agreement will last 99 years with the EU and will have an early exit fee of £3 trillion pounds.
I've said that on here, myself, before, and your Tory is right. At some point a social democratic party will take us back into a new form of the Single Market, possibly quite soon - with a tweaked Swiss style agreement on FoM. It is too beneficial to the rEU and to us, for this not to happen.
But I very much doubt we will ever rejoin the political project that is the EU.
The pendulum doesn't always swing on all issues - there are plenty of issues where a party can only return from the wilderness when they accept the new concensus and cease trying to change it (nationalising the means of production, minimum wage).
Depending on the next few years maintaining Brexit will either be an ongoing battle or the settled mainstream view and part of the minimum offering for a party to be a credible government.
I'm talking about a fudged Single Market relationship, which the EU and UK will call something else, to save face on both sides. Economics will demand it. By then the EU will have gotten over its paranoia and anger, by then the UK will feel comfortable enough to accept a closer deal.
10-15 years away. Rough guess.
Given your past posting on China it'll be interesting to see how much the Economics will demand it in 15 years time given currently trends.
Of course worth remembering the tide will always turn, but in the short and probably medium things looking very rosy for the Tories.
Hubris was the greatest enemy ahead of June 8th, I don't know what iron self control will prevent it, but it should hardly matter.
I spoke to a Leaver Tory today, he said funny as it might seem now, but the pendulum will swing, because it always does, so in the next 20 years we'll have an electable Labour party, or some other centre-left party will win a general election, and in their manifesto it might well include a manifesto pledge to take us back into the single market, custom union, and freedom of movement.
Agreement will last 99 years with the EU and will have an early exit fee of £3 trillion pounds.
I've said that on here, myself, before, and your Tory is right. At some point a social democratic party will take us back into a new form of the Single Market, possibly quite soon - with a tweaked Swiss style agreement on FoM. It is too beneficial to the rEU and to us, for this not to happen.
But I very much doubt we will ever rejoin the political project that is the EU.
The pendulum doesn't always swing on all issues - there are plenty of issues where a party can only return from the wilderness when they accept the new concensus and cease trying to change it (nationalising the means of production, minimum wage).
Depending on the next few years maintaining Brexit will either be an ongoing battle or the settled mainstream view and part of the minimum offering for a party to be a credible government.
I'm talking about a fudged Single Market relationship, which the EU and UK will call something else, to save face on both sides. Economics will demand it. By then the EU will have gotten over its paranoia and anger, by then the UK will feel comfortable enough to accept a closer deal.
10-15 years away. Rough guess.
Surely a fudged single market relationship is the definition of a successful Brexit? Anything other than that and we'd be looking at a period of bad times followed by rejoining and having to sign up to the whole shebang.
@JasonFarrellSky: Corbyn says Burnham was absent from his speech because he's got straight to work for the people of Manchester. pic.twitter.com/uPYGYzEJiM
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
History will judge him as the modern day Hannibal Barca.
Won a few early battles against rubbish opponents, then received the mother of all shellackings that lost the war.
He is not Hannibal he is Henry VI - quiet mad and unfit to govern and propped up by a circle of acolytes and courtiers. Diane Abbot is Margaret of Anjou and Mcdonnell is the Duke of Somerset.
Excellent. Mr. Shepard, a much better analogy. Mind you Henry VI did, if memory serves, found a couple of university colleges and a school so he did some good.
How about Charles VI of France, who was bonkers and presided over catastrophic defeats at English hands?
I would go for Fancisco Solano Lopez, who led Paraguay into the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance, 1864 to 1870. He had fanatically devoted troops, but finished his war devastating his country, losing large tracts of territory and 80% of his male adult population.
If Labour's vote holds up (200 seats+) and he resigns after the election, he can leave with a bit of dignity. He can say he tried a different approach which just didn't work.
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
Having seen what's happened to UKIP - would SNP even want to win a referendum?
Much more fun just to keep agitating for one, and blaming the English Tories for everything.
The difference is that the SNP are the party of government.
Post Brexit the Tories who have long had a major sceptical wing have in office taken on the mantle of getting on with Brexit.
If Scotland had voted Yes which party in Holyrood would be the party of government getting on with independence? The SNP. Had the SNP won in 2014 they'd have had an equally successful 2015 for the same reason the Tories are doing well now.
Salmond thought he was a man of destiny but wasn't. He can't handle it.
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
No the man that did was that laughed at English Eton educated buffoon, Boris Johnson.
History will judge him as the modern day Hannibal Barca.
Won a few early battles against rubbish opponents, then received the mother of all shellackings that lost the war.
He is not Hannibal he is Henry VI - quiet mad and unfit to govern and propped up by a circle of acolytes and courtiers. Diane Abbot is Margaret of Anjou and Mcdonnell is the Duke of Somerset.
Excellent. Mr. Shepard, a much better analogy. Mind you Henry VI did, if memory serves, found a couple of university colleges and a school so he did some good.
How about Charles VI of France, who was bonkers and presided over catastrophic defeats at English hands?
I would go for Fancisco Solano Lopez, who led Paraguay into the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance, 1864 to 1870. He had fanatically devoted troops, but finished his war devastating his country, losing large tracts of territory and 80% of his male adult population.
@Crow60715338: Now the SNP have won we should be magnanimous and say well done to the BBC and STV on their hard-fought campaign on behalf of the tories.
Of course worth remembering the tide will always turn, but in the short and probably medium things looking very rosy for the Tories.
Hubris was the greatest enemy ahead of June 8th, I don't know what iron self control will prevent it, but it should hardly matter.
I spoke to a Leaver Tory today, he said funny as it might seem now, but the pendulum will swing, because it always does, so in the next 20 years we'll have an electable Labour party, or some other centre-left party will win a general election, and in their manifesto it might well include a manifesto pledge to take us back into the single market, custom union, and freedom of movement.
Agreement will last 99 years with the EU and will have an early exit fee of £3 trillion pounds.
I don't know about that, but a centre left party will surely win again.
Why? What physical law is there that says that must be true? Lots of people on this site say that it is bad for democracy for their not to be a viable opposition, again I keep asking myself why. What happens if there is not a viable opposition? Are there perhaps countries where the rule of law, personal freedoms and continually high living standards have been produced without there being such an opposition party, where one party has been dominant for decades?
Singapore springs to mind. One party has been in power for nearly fifty years during which the GDP per capita has grown from less than half that of the UK to nearly double it and by all accounts it is a pretty nice place to live. Not my cup of tea, I grant you; I like rather more space around me. However as a society it seems to work well enough.
Then we could look closer to home, in Europe. Quite a few European countries seem to function on versions of PR which have the effect of producing coalitions which last for donkey's years. Is there in those countries a viable opposition as we would understand it?
That there has traditionally been a two party system in the UK with power alternating between them, often after long intervals, does not, I think, mean that such a system is set in stone or is in itself a good thing.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Of course worth remembering the tide will always turn, but in the short and probably medium things looking very rosy for the Tories.
Hubris was the greatest enemy ahead of June 8th, I don't know what iron self control will prevent it, but it should hardly matter.
I spoke to a Leaver Tory today, he said funny as it might seem now, but the pendulum will swing, because it always does, so in the next 20 years we'll have an electable Labour party, or some other centre-left party will win a general election, and in their manifesto it might well include a manifesto pledge to take us back into the single market, custom union, and freedom of movement.
Agreement will last 99 years with the EU and will have an early exit fee of £3 trillion pounds.
I've said that on here, myself, before, and your Tory is right. At some point a social democratic party will take us back into a new form of the Single Market, possibly quite soon - with a tweaked Swiss style agreement on FoM. It is too beneficial to the rEU and to us, for this not to happen.
But I very much doubt we will ever rejoin the political project that is the EU.
The pendulum doesn't always swing on all issues - there are plenty of issues where a party can oaintaining Brexit will either be an ongoing battle or the settled mainstream view and part of the minimum offering for a party to be a credible government.
10-15 years away. Rough guess.
Given your past posting on China it'll be interesting to see how much the Economics will demand it in 15 years time given currently trends.
I was right about China.
All I'm saying is that economics in the West will tend towards destroying trade barriers - technology will make them irrelevant. At the same time, Free Movement of People will become ever more troublesome, so the EU itself - I predict- will reform on this.
Bingo. A meeting of minds. We can join the SM, the EU won't demand FoM. Semantics will disguise the hypocrisy on both sides
But single market membership would erect trade barriers - unless you just mean we'll do a trade deal with the EU, but not be forced to apply the common external tariff, in which case it's not really rejoining at all, just doing a trade deal like we'll already have done with all the growing parts of the world by then.
Just for Morris Dancer- Today has been March 28 1461 and May's army has secured an important bridge during a small skirmish between the two forces. Thus setting the scene for the bloodiest battle the English have ever fought.
Towton?
Yep. When the rivers ran red with red rose blood.
But within a generation, it was irrelevant as the losers eventually triumphed iirc.
The last of the losers - the Earl of Richmond - married the daughter of the winner to become a 'unity' candidate for the throne.
I do not think such a result would be remotely possible between the Tories and Labour. Stoke Field and Perkin Warbeck would be a teddy bears' picnic by comparison to what would follow.
History will judge him as the modern day Hannibal Barca.
Won a few early battles against rubbish opponents, then received the mother of all shellackings that lost the war.
He is not Hannibal he is Henry VI - quiet mad and unfit to govern and propped up by a circle of acolytes and courtiers. Diane Abbot is Margaret of Anjou and Mcdonnell is the Duke of Somerset.
Henry VI founded seats of learning and was a faithful husband.
Margaret d'Anjou was vicious but sane and highly intelligent.
The Duke of Somerset was venal and as thick as two short planks but was brave and has a high sense of duty.
Your comments are grossly unfair to the Lancastrians.
You cannot, ever be grossly unfair to Lancastrians. They got the crap side of the Pennines.
And the Zoomers on my timeline are going completely Radio Rental
How?
The SNP have to be in permanent revolution against the evils of Unionism, otherwise they are just a political party and not a movement. They have hit a really high watermark, and started to recede a small amount which has put a little fear into some peoples worlds that perhaps, just perhaps they are not gods chosen party but a party like any other. Ahead of them is the day to day slog of running councils and a country, something they are trying to avoid in some cases.
Of course worth remembering the tide will always turn, but in the short and probably medium things looking very rosy for the Tories.
Hubris was the greatest enemy ahead of June 8th, I don't know what iron self control will prevent it, but it should hardly matter.
I spoke to a Leaver Tory today, he said funny as it might seem now, but the pendulum will swing, because it always does, so in the next 20 years we'll have an electable Labour party, or some other centre-left party will win a general election, and in their manifesto it might well include a manifesto pledge to take us back into the single market, custom union, and freedom of movement.
Agreement will last 99 years with the EU and will have an early exit fee of £3 trillion pounds.
I don't know about that, but a centre left party will surely win again.
Why? What physical law is there that says that must be true? Lots of people on this site say that it is bad for democracy for their not to be a viable opposition, again I keep asking myself why. What happens if there is not a viable opposition? Are there perhaps countries where the rule of law, personal freedoms and continually high living standards have been produced without there being such an opposition party, where one party has been dominant for decades?
Singapore springs to mind. One party has been in power for nearly fifty years during which the GDP per capita has grown from less than half that of the UK to nearly double it and by all accounts it is a pretty nice place to live. Not my cup of tea, I grant you; I like rather more space around me. However as a society it seems to work well enough.
Then we could look closer to home, in Europe. Quite a few European countries seem to function on versions of PR which have the effect of producing coalitions which last for donkey's years. Is there in those countries a viable opposition as we would understand it?
That there has traditionally been a two party system in the UK with power alternating between them, often after long intervals, does not, I think, mean that such a system is set in stone or is in itself a good thing.
Just a thought. Those single party states - did they have internal opposition? They would need some sort of opposition to keep them on their toes and stop them abusing power. Japan also had one party in power for ages, the Liberal Democratic Party I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan)
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
I think that fits nicely the excellent analysis either Jay Cost or Sean Trende did of the US elections.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Deprived areas like Glasgow Shettleston?
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
The big puzzlement to me, which was symptomatic of his leadership, was why Corbyn didn't insist on the vote of no confidence in the Tory Government route without which the PM could not have proceeded with a dissolution of Parliament. A truly bizarre decision and I just wonder whether it resulted from his being sick and tired of the whole damn business and that he just wanted out asap. I wonder whether we'll ever know?
History will judge him as the modern day Hannibal Barca.
Won a few early battles against rubbish opponents, then received the mother of all shellackings that lost the war.
Its not like you to describe Cameron and Osborne as rubbish.
Done it before.
But much like Hannibal defeating the Romans in the early part of The Second Punic War, Cameron may have won some battles but ultimately lost the war (to stop the Tories banging on about Europe.)
Andy Burnham is avoiding Corbyn, Pushkin blames Corbyn for his loss. Yet labour are going into the General Election asking us, the voting public, to vote labour with the potential that Jezza actually becomes Prime Minister. Have they actually given up?
The big puzzlement to me, which was symptomatic of his leadership, was why he didn't insist on the vote of no confidence in the Tory Government route without which the PM could not have proceeded with a dissolution of Parliament. A truly bizarre decision and I just wonder whether it resulted from his being sick and tired of the whole damn business and that he just wanted out asap. I wonder whether we'll ever know?
Because he would have looked like an even bigger joke than he does now if he did that.
After spending months calling for an election since May became PM, to turn one down would have been fatal.
History will judge him as the modern day Hannibal Barca.
Won a few early battles against rubbish opponents, then received the mother of all shellackings that lost the war.
Its not like you to describe Cameron and Osborne as rubbish.
Done it before.
But much like Hannibal defeating the Romans in the early part of The Second Punic War, Cameron may have won some battles but ultimately lost the war (to stop the Tories banging on about Europe.)
I think that most of the banging on about Europe is done now in the Conservative party. The disease has spread though, in particular to the Liberal Democrats and SNP (and parts of Labour)
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
Having seen what's happened to UKIP - would SNP even want to win a referendum?
Much more fun just to keep agitating for one, and blaming the English Tories for everything.
Believe me, as a paid up Kipper, destruction is fine as long as we leave the EU. Party politics is for mugs!
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Deprived areas like Glasgow Shettleston?
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
If Labour's becoming a party of champagne socialists, will it win Hampstead and lose seats like Erdington?
Andy Burnham is avoiding Corbyn, Pushkin blames Corbyn for his loss. Yet labour are going into the General Election asking us, the voting public, to vote labour with the potential that Jezza actually becomes Prime Minister. Have they actually given up?
My understanding is that Andy Burnham wasn't invited.
Those who the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
Precisely what the Tories must have been hoping and praying for ..... time to bring out the big guns against Corbyn's evident and even more extreme leftist successor. After all, the evidence of his past is all there.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Deprived areas like Glasgow Shettleston?
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
If Labour's becoming a party of champagne socialists, will it win Hampstead and lose seats like Erdington?
On a practical note, what does this do to Labour and LibDem morale for the general election ?
Labour morale surely takes another hit. Last year they outperformed expectations, this year they have underperformed them.
LDs also I'd think disappointed, but they were still only targeting a few key areas intensely, and though even the signs was not universally good, they can still hope a deteriorating Labour situation and still fired up membership sees them hold their seats or even gain a few.
But getting above 10 may prove a bigger challenge than thought.
I'm not sure I'll bother voting for them even for the minute contribution to the national % as encouragement.
Of course worth remembering the tide will always turn, but in the short and probably medium things looking very rosy for the Tories.
Hubris was the greatest enemy ahead of June 8th, I don't know what iron self control will prevent it, but it should hardly matter.
I spoke to a Leaver Tory today, he said funny as it might seem now, but the pendulum will swing, because it always does, so in the next 20 years we'll have an electable Labour party, or some other centre-left party will win a general election, and in their manifesto it might well include a manifesto pledge to take us back into the single market, custom union, and freedom of movement.
Agreement will last 99 years with the EU and will have an early exit fee of £3 trillion pounds.
I don't know about that, but a centre left party will surely win again.
Why? What physical law is there that says that must be true? Lots of people on this site say that it is bad for democracy for their not to be a viable opposition, again I keep asking myself why. What happens if there is not a viable opposition? Are there perhaps countries where the rule of law, personal freedoms and continually high living standards have been produced without there being such an opposition party, where one party has been dominant for decades?
Singapore springs to mind. One party has been in power for nearly fifty years during which the GDP per capita has grown from less than half that of the UK to nearly double it and by all accounts it is a pretty nice place to live. Not my cup of tea, I grant you; I like rather more space around me. However as a society it seems to work well enough.
Then we could look closer to home, in Europe. Quite a few European countries seem to function on versions of PR which have the effect of producing coalitions which last for donkey's years. Is there in those countries a viable opposition as we would understand it?
That there has traditionally been a two party system in the UK with power alternating between them, often after long intervals, does not, I think, mean that such a system is set in stone or is in itself a good thing.
Just a thought. Those single party states - did they have internal opposition? They would need some sort of opposition to keep them on their toes and stop them abusing power. Japan also had one party in power for ages, the Liberal Democratic Party I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan)
There has to be some sort of internal discussion about policy, which I suppose you could class as internal opposition. More than that I do not know.
On a practical note, what does this do to Labour and LibDem morale for the general election ?
Labour morale surely takes another hit. Last year they outperformed expectations, this year they have underperformed them.
LDs also I'd think disappointed, but they were still only targeting a few key areas intensely, and though even the signs was not universally good, they can still hope a deteriorating Labour situation and still fired up membership sees them hold their seats or even gain a few.
But getting above 10 may prove a bigger challenge than thought.
I'm not sure I'll bother voting for them even for the minute contribution to the national % as encouragement.
We focus on the positives (of which there are some genuine ones) and park the introspection until June 9th. There's enough to build on here to keep morale up, and we don't need much of an excuse to pound pavements anyway.
In the back of our minds some doubts are raised about our prospects in June, but not enough to out us off much. Even the disappointing bits of today aren't bad enough to change our hope/expectation of moving in the right direction - albeit perhaps not as quickly as we hoped.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Deprived areas like Glasgow Shettleston?
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
I don't know how the Conservatives won 8 seats in Glasgow.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Deprived areas like Glasgow Shettleston?
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
If Labour's becoming a party of champagne socialists, will it win Hampstead and lose seats like Erdington?
I don't think it's becoming the party of champagne socialists at all. That was the line when Blair was going down well on the dinner party circuit. Corbyn's Labour has much more of a hipster socialist vibe.
Andy Burnham is avoiding Corbyn, Pushkin blames Corbyn for his loss. Yet labour are going into the General Election asking us, the voting public, to vote labour with the potential that Jezza actually becomes Prime Minister. Have they actually given up?
My understanding is that Andy Burnham wasn't invited.
So unable to organise a victory rally with the victor in attendance but want to run the country?
Salmond thought he was a man of destiny but wasn't. He can't handle it.
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
No the man that did was that laughed at English Eton educated buffoon, Boris Johnson.
So are we now blaming Brexit on Henry VI?
Well, if he hadn't lost France we would have been able to rule it and there would have been a proper US of Europe based on London rather than some rubbishy French construct based on Brussels.
The big puzzlement to me, which was symptomatic of his leadership, was why he didn't insist on the vote of no confidence in the Tory Government route without which the PM could not have proceeded with a dissolution of Parliament. A truly bizarre decision and I just wonder whether it resulted from his being sick and tired of the whole damn business and that he just wanted out asap. I wonder whether we'll ever know?
Because he would have looked like an even bigger joke than he does now if he did that.
After spending months calling for an election since May became PM, to turn one down would have been fatal.
But that's the whole point, he wouldn't have been turning down a GE, instead he would have been seen, for once, as calling the shots. After all just about everyone on PB.com from OGH downwards had long been telling us that it was virtually impossible for the Tories to engineer an election prior to 2020 and here was Corbyn's golden chance to show just for once that he was in charge of events, which he most assuredly was, or at least could have been.
Corbyn is, unwittingly, God's instrument. Britain needs a popular leftish party, with an "ordinary people" bias. Labour is not suitable. Corbyn is making room for Labour to be replaced.
But he isn't, as LDs and UKIP aren't filling the voice, and if he does stand down post June they won't even split.
Politics in the next couple of decades is going to be fascinating. Do the Tories preside over a realignment that casts them as a party similar in coalition to the US Republicans?
Fortunately, we have nothing like the USA's racial divisions, but all right wing parties are becoming parties of the countryside, average towns and small cities, while left wing parties are becoming parties of big cities, universities, and very deprived areas.
Deprived areas like Glasgow Shettleston?
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
I don't know how the Conservatives won 8 seats in Glasgow.
Perhaps the east end of Glasgow expect us to govern for the many not the few? It's time to work out how to make Conservative policy to work in Glasgow. I was stunned.
Andy Burnham is avoiding Corbyn, Pushkin blames Corbyn for his loss. Yet labour are going into the General Election asking us, the voting public, to vote labour with the potential that Jezza actually becomes Prime Minister. Have they actually given up?
My understanding is that Andy Burnham wasn't invited.
So unable to organise a victory rally with the victor in attendance but want to run the country?
A banana skin that's fallen out of the dustbin of history.
Got a bone to pick with you. "I'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world" got seriously close to getting a rendention in Edinburgh Sheriff Court today. Would have made the case marginally more surreal than it was already.
Salmond thought he was a man of destiny but wasn't. He can't handle it.
He even had the helicopter booked, ready to fly him from his constituency to Stirling Castle. lol.
To be fair that has got to hurt, he really thought - the private polls were telling him - that he was going to pull off the most astonishing win in modern British history. In the end, the man that did that was the loathsome English stockbroker, Nigel Farage.
Ouch.
No the man that did was that laughed at English Eton educated buffoon, Boris Johnson.
So are we now blaming Brexit on Henry VI?
Well, if he hadn't lost France we would have been able to rule it and there would have been a proper US of Europe based on London rather than some rubbishy French construct based on Brussels.
So obviously it must be his fault.
Actually, I think it was a fortunate defeat. I think if the Plantagenets had won France, England would have become a backwater. The Court would have been in Paris.
Not fit to lace Michael Foots boots. A political pygmy next to Ed Miliband. Makes the Sheffield rally look like greatest triumph since the Normandy landings
On a practical note, what does this do to Labour and LibDem morale for the general election ?
Labour morale surely takes another hit. Last year they outperformed expectations, this year they have underperformed them.
LDs also I'd think disappointed, but they were still only targeting a few key areas intensely, and though even the signs was not universally good, they can still hope a deteriorating Labour situation and still fired up membership sees them hold their seats or even gain a few.
But getting above 10 may prove a bigger challenge than thought.
I'm not sure I'll bother voting for them even for the minute contribution to the national % as encouragement.
We focus on the positives (of which there are some genuine ones) and park the introspection until June 9th. There's enough to build on here to keep morale up, and we don't need much of an excuse to pound pavements anyway.
In the back of our minds some doubts are raised about our prospects in June, but not enough to out us off much. Even the disappointing bits of today aren't bad enough to change our hope/expectation of moving in the right direction - albeit perhaps not as quickly as we hoped.
(EDIT: 'We' is the LDs.)
The LDs have the advantage, if such it can be called, that they faced a wipeout only two years ago and decided to keep trying, as well as being the successor to a party that was just as reduced decades ago and kept going. Disappointing local results are easier to handle in that context I imagine.
The big puzzlement to me, which was symptomatic of his leadership, was why he didn't insist on the vote of no confidence in the Tory Government route without which the PM could not have proceeded with a dissolution of Parliament. A truly bizarre decision and I just wonder whether it resulted from his being sick and tired of the whole damn business and that he just wanted out asap. I wonder whether we'll ever know?
Because he would have looked like an even bigger joke than he does now if he did that.
After spending months calling for an election since May became PM, to turn one down would have been fatal.
But that's the whole point, he wouldn't have been turning down a GE, instead he would have been seen, for once, as calling the shots. After all just about everyone on PB.com from OGH downwards had long been telling us that it was virtually impossible for the Tories to engineer an election prior to 2020 and here was Corbyn's golden chance to show just for once that he was in charge of events, which he most assuredly was, or at least could have been.
I think that's optimistic.
It certainly would have neutered his chances of opposing for the next 3 years, as the inevitable reply to any opposition would have been "let's ask the people, let's have an election".
I think there were a couple of 30% plus swings in Wrexham, Mr. Star.
Hard Luck on losing by the way, though a bit of a relief in some ways from this end at least we will not have to call you Cllr Sultan, or His Royal Highness Cllr Archduke or whatever in the next PB diplomacy game.
On a practical note, what does this do to Labour and LibDem morale for the general election ?
Labour morale surely takes another hit. Last year they outperformed expectations, this year they have underperformed them.
LDs also I'd think disappointed, but they were still only targeting a few key areas intensely, and though even the signs was not universally good, they can still hope a deteriorating Labour situation and still fired up membership sees them hold their seats or even gain a few.
But getting above 10 may prove a bigger challenge than thought.
I'm not sure I'll bother voting for them even for the minute contribution to the national % as encouragement.
The LDs need to concentrate their efforts over only about 20 seats though, the eight they've got and a dozen more they want - treat them like 20 Brexit-themed by-elections in Richmond, it's their best chance of getting anywhere in June.
Comments
Corbyn is not Labour's only problem, just their most prominent current problem. As a thought experiment, think of how well or badly an Andy Burnham lead Party would now be doing - not as badly, but still badly. There is a vacuum waiting to be filled. It will be filled. Perhaps by something that is still called "The labour party" . But I think something else.
Having seen what's happened to UKIP - would SNP even want to win a referendum?
Much more fun just to keep agitating for one, and blaming the English Tories for everything.
Easy to confuse symptom with cause.
http://warofthetriplealliance.com
Corbyn organising a victory party, shunned by the victor. He is that toxic
Awesome
@MrHarryCole: Nope. He was drinking champagne at @TheRefugeMcr according to @helenpidd twitter.com/jasonfarrellsk…
60mph limits on motorways*...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4477108/Diesel-drivers-paid-scrap-cars-tackle-air-polluiton.html
* Selected stretches
Post Brexit the Tories who have long had a major sceptical wing have in office taken on the mantle of getting on with Brexit.
If Scotland had voted Yes which party in Holyrood would be the party of government getting on with independence? The SNP. Had the SNP won in 2014 they'd have had an equally successful 2015 for the same reason the Tories are doing well now.
@Crow60715338: Now the SNP have won we should be magnanimous and say well done to the BBC and STV on their hard-fought campaign on behalf of the tories.
Singapore springs to mind. One party has been in power for nearly fifty years during which the GDP per capita has grown from less than half that of the UK to nearly double it and by all accounts it is a pretty nice place to live. Not my cup of tea, I grant you; I like rather more space around me. However as a society it seems to work well enough.
Then we could look closer to home, in Europe. Quite a few European countries seem to function on versions of PR which have the effect of producing coalitions which last for donkey's years. Is there in those countries a viable opposition as we would understand it?
That there has traditionally been a two party system in the UK with power alternating between them, often after long intervals, does not, I think, mean that such a system is set in stone or is in itself a good thing.
Ahead of them is the day to day slog of running councils and a country, something they are trying to avoid in some cases.
More own goals than a Neasden FC game. Cont. p. 94.
Japan also had one party in power for ages, the Liberal Democratic Party I believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/05/john-mcdonnell-gets-bigger-labour-role-after-local-election-failures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Crosby must be pissing himself with laughter.
All they had to do was compare the opinion polls of now with those of four (England) and five (Scotland and Wales) years ago.
Instead some people prefer to overanalyse things in order to reach a result which they think should be 'right'.
Hearing that result brought a tear to my eye. A remarkable result.
A truly bizarre decision and I just wonder whether it resulted from his being sick and tired of the whole damn business and that he just wanted out asap. I wonder whether we'll ever know?
But much like Hannibal defeating the Romans in the early part of The Second Punic War, Cameron may have won some battles but ultimately lost the war (to stop the Tories banging on about Europe.)
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/07/24/wiping-out-the-lib-dems-might-have-been-camerons-greatest-strategic-mistake-as-pm/
Anyone got a bigger one ?
After spending months calling for an election since May became PM, to turn one down would have been fatal.
Oopsie.
Spoofing the labour PPB...Miss miss my dad says a terrorist sympathizing marxist entrist is leading the labour campaign for the GE. What's an entrist?
LDs also I'd think disappointed, but they were still only targeting a few key areas intensely, and though even the signs was not universally good, they can still hope a deteriorating Labour situation and still fired up membership sees them hold their seats or even gain a few.
But getting above 10 may prove a bigger challenge than thought.
I'm not sure I'll bother voting for them even for the minute contribution to the national % as encouragement.
Where did the LD get all these votes ?
Remain is indeed more than Leave since all Brexiters are voting Tory. Only the Remain vote is split.
https://youtu.be/6YMPAH67f4o
In the back of our minds some doubts are raised about our prospects in June, but not enough to out us off much. Even the disappointing bits of today aren't bad enough to change our hope/expectation of moving in the right direction - albeit perhaps not as quickly as we hoped.
(EDIT: 'We' is the LDs.)
So obviously it must be his fault.
Not fit to lace Michael Foots boots. A political pygmy next to Ed Miliband. Makes the Sheffield rally look like greatest triumph since the Normandy landings
It certainly would have neutered his chances of opposing for the next 3 years, as the inevitable reply to any opposition would have been "let's ask the people, let's have an election".
Hard Luck on losing by the way, though a bit of a relief in some ways from this end at least we will not have to call you Cllr Sultan, or His Royal Highness Cllr Archduke or whatever in the next PB diplomacy game.
Prudhoe N was 21%
Prudhoe S was 19%
and quite a few others in Northumberland alone IIRC.