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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » James Chapman’s Democrats notion is a doomed distraction
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » James Chapman’s Democrats notion is a doomed distraction
James Chapman is not a name that many people will have been aware of before this week. Some will remember him as the Political Editor of the Daily Mail; a few might recall that he became George Osborne’s Director of Communications after the 2015 election; fewer still will have known that he was briefly Chief of Staff at David Davis’ Brexit Department. He has, however, now burst back onto the political scene with what is for now still very much a one-man crusade for a new party – The Democrats – to save Britain from herself and from Brexit.
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UKIP's first MP was Bob Spink in Castle Point in 2008.
He looks very silly anyway, regardless of whether it happens.
(Obviously, Spink had been elected but not under UKIP's banner. Nor would he be).
That this is being given any attention at all is a sign of the times we live in; after all we are in the middle of the Silly Season (it would be more logical and relevant to have a thread about the potential electoral prospects of a Silly Party under the leadership of Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel) and it's not as if we're only a few days away from a nuclear war or anything.
The possible outcomes for Brexit are:
1. It's a success. The consensus of opinion is happy to be out. Sceptics are won over.
2. It's a failure. The consensus is that Brexit was a mistake, including people who previously supported it (similar to the Iraq war). There are serious attempts to rejoin the EU, or near equivalent.
3. It is compromised. In an attempt to avoid failure, Brexit is mitigated and watered down to the extent there is no real point to it. There is no serious attempt to rejoin the EU.
4. Brexit is stopped.
The first three require Brexit to happen. (2) will see mainstream parties oppose Brexit so there is no need for Chapman Democrats. Political operators who want (1) may push for (3) to avoid (2). Personally I think a compromised Brexit is the most likely outcome, but that is because I don't think a successful Brexit is particularly likely. I don't think a stopped Brexit is likely either. A failed Brexit is a definite possibility.
To avoid caricature as pro-European monomaniacs, and to let their restless energies roam, the people involved aspire to stand for something broad: political moderation in an age of extremes. This requires them to have policies, or at least first principles, across the full spectrum of government business. But each time a putative party settles its view on, say, fiscal policy or healthcare, it will alienate some of its original and potential supporters. It also loses definition. Before the project has a single achievement to its name, it is bogged down in matters of internal theology. It becomes a paradox: a fissiparous political party with no MPs.
https://www.ft.com/content/230972b6-7b87-11e7-ab01-a13271d1ee9c?emailId=598952a442a3ee000463febb
What UKIP had going for it was a single idea 'Out of the EU' - implicit in its name (with a hefty dose of stop immigration thrown in) and a single charismatic spokesman - Farage.
What do the 'Democrats' have going for them? An idea arguably based on a rejection of a democratic decision, and no charismatic spokesperson.....
Chapman would look pretty silly if after all his tweeting......
That bridge was crossed several dozen tweets ago.....
Just like the Democrats will be in the opinion polls in six months' time!
Today it is the people dragging politicians towards the extremes, whether a more radical challenge to austerity from the left or replacing economic prudence with the radicalism of Brexit on the right, leaving a vacuum in the centre. Sadly the lesson of history is that things have actually to go badly wrong as a consequence of extremism before there is any renewed demand for the moderate centre. Meanwhile the 'Democrats' would appear to be a product without a customer base, and with an existing struggling competitor for the same market.
We just have to wait for the inevitable disaster, and are fortunate (in the Chinese sense) to have so many potential scenarios to chose from.
Interesting prediction, Mr. Herdson. Brave to make them in the current political climate
It is a tough contest to call though.
Yer actual 'voters', not so much.....
His party is a non starter, but also shows the folly of having Cable as LD leader. He is too associated with the past coalition to be able to pick up anti Brexit votes.
Meanwhile it does seem that the difficulties of Brexit are dawning on the cabinet.
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you!
https://reaction.life/worried-james-chapman/
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/if-uk-leaves-customs-union-a-customs-border-is-inevitable-1.3180460
The problem for them right now is that most people do not expect catastrophe, therefore see no need to avoid it.
Any number of Titanic analogies spring to mind...
£1.7tr government debt and an unbalanced economy
Uncontrolled immigration and stagnant wages
Unaffordable housing and falling home ownership
Student tuition fees and intergenerational inequality
Iraq and general Middle Eastern warmongering
Would the 'Democrats' have any ideas as to how to clear up the mess they caused or is their message nothing more than 'Privilege before people' ?
lower approval than Hollande at this point
http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2017/08/11/01002-20170811ARTFIG00190-cent-jours-apres-macron-confronte-au-scepticisme-des-francais.php
TSE has 'met him', and assured us that a former right-hand man of Osborne could never be so.
Is the decline because he's abandoning electoral promises or because he's keeping them?
A fall in support itself isn't surprising given he won based on who he was not, rather than who he was. Not wholly dissimilar to the situation here, although with a largely binary choice rather than having the quartet the French presidential race had.
My sense is that Chapman is both full of hot air - and not as bright or insightful as he thinks he is - and was encouraged to unleash himself and grab the airwaves by George Osborne.
But, aside from boosting the morale of ultra-Remainers and providing them with entertainment, nothing will come of it and it will be quickly overtaken by events.
but they still outwitted Remain
how do you explain that ?
As to forecasting events perhaps we could look at some of the comments that came from you ahead of 2200 in June 8th.
You should get out more.
I can't see a space that needs filling by a new centre party.
The Leave campaign was led and controlled by top Tories as well. They had the advantage that they knew the duffers that they were up against.
They then indulged in their usual strategy of resorting to lies, thus outwitting the Remain Tories.
It wasn`t difficult.
And it proves nothing about the country`s future relationship with the EU.
https://twitter.com/jameschappers/status/896011985028091906
I would suggest that's unanswerable evidence that he's at least possessed of appalling judgement.
I kept an open mind.
Oh, and that it shows people up for their real, often flawed selves.
In the 2010 leader debates, it was interesting that despite the abuse heaped on the idea, the moment Cameron got his highest approval from watchers was when putting forward his £1 million IHT threshold. His lowest was when he was pointing out that Brown had left us grossly over borrowed when the crisis hit.
It is unfortunately a lesson May failed to learn, although Macron did. Of course doesn't make much difference in practice to what happens next, but it would surely have made a difference to the result if May had offered pay and tax reform for those under 25.
(It might be noted here that Cameron's free nursery place for every child, which appears to have been crucial in changing the momentum in 2015, has now practically bankrupted the nursery sector because there is insufficient money to fund the guaranteed places.)
Mr. Smithson, as an aside, would you say that apparent outliers in polling are likelier to be correct than taking an average of polls? I think that was the case for both 2015 and 2017.
Doesn't mean they are right
Maybe that's the plan.
No idea what the purpose of this is, other than the hope that people will rally to something just because it is new.
It became important because of course it wasn't true, but then advertisers got away with murder on a regular basis at that time. I once read some numbers of the Railway Gazette from 1911, which advertised 'X's Universal Nostrum'. This was not only guaranteed to cure all ills but had an apparent testimonium from somebody who had been clinically dead before taking it. How that went down with the chapel-going readers of the Gazette I don't know, but it caused me considerable pain and inconvenience trying to suppress hysterical laughter so I wouldn't be thrown out of Warwick University Library.
A few days ago he was tweeting that the plan was to set up the Democrats and force through a new referendum in 2019 which would reverse Brexit.
Yesterday the plan was for the MP's of the new Democrats party to block Brexit in Parliament, thus we wouldn't need a second referendum.
There is no "plan". He's just making this all up as he goes along.
The tweet to Stewert Jackson's wife asking how her husband was getting on in *his* (£115k) job reveals what this is really all about IMO...
'Anyone who votes for Leave is a dirty racist.'
And the motto of the Democrats can be. 'The people have voted and they're wrong.'
The two guilty people of this whole saga are Cameron for agreeing to the referendum and TMay. They are the ones should be blamed for making us all poorer and taking away some of our freedoms.
Do you mean Chapman? Or is there some other twitterati called Shipman helping him along?
Addendum: Because if it's just Chapman, whether he has insider knowledge or not, whether he's right or not, the sheer ludicrousness of his tweets on the subject mean he will be ignored when he isn't laughed at. He's coming across as a sort of centrist Piers Morgan at the moment.
I spend a lot of my time reminding children that the errors you make on the internet are there for all time and can be incredibly damaging. About the only positive of this meltdown is it's given me lots of material I can use.
On topic, why do Remoaners think predicting catastrophe is going to work this time - when it failed to last time and the predicted catastrophe failed to materialise. Voters were aware there was an economic downside risk when they voted to leave.......
The truly guilty people are those who refused us a referendum on Maastricht or the Euro or the Constitution or Lisbon. Had we had a referendum on any of those, we would have been able to say no to the Project without taking the nuclear option of Leaving.
Cameron deserves opprobrium not for calling the referendum (democracy is not a bad thing, Mike MSmithson) but for doing so without a plan for a Leave vote. Theresa TMay is just doing what she was told to do by the people.
I'm much better off that I was 18 months ago and so are probably most other people with a defined contributions pension plan.
I'm not aware of these freedoms you say I've lost either.
There was of course one ship even before the Titanic that survived a series of disastrous accidents including the breaking of its rudder during a major storm and the tearing of a gash 85 feet long and about 8-9 feet wide in its side, partly because it was double hulled. If not unsinkable, it certainly proved to be damned hard to sink, and indeed when it was broken up it took something like two years to scrap. It is quite stunning to reflect this was not even compulsory on oil tankers, let alone other ships, until 1992.
To be honest, his new party idea this morning looks like it is in ruins. £480 raised on a crowdfunding website he is promoting.
There is scant evidence of any real interest in this plan outside media/political circles. And, as other people have pointed out, why would he be the person to lead it? The publicity it is getting around the world is wholly disproportionate to the fact that 'remainers' aren't for the most part interested in this. It is only vaguely interesting because of his background and former position in DEXEU.
On the other hand, the defection of a handful of tory MP's to a pro EU centist party could be a disaster for Mrs May, at the moment.
I think David's header is mostly wise too, but I can't go with My guess will be that they do: Chapman would look pretty silly if after all his tweeting (including about the Democrats forming governments: talk about hubris!), nothing at all came of it.
Why would he look silly? Does anybody seriously expect a PR man and ex-journalist to make serious waves as a shiny new leader on the UK political scene? He's stirred things up, which could well be his main aim here. Maybe prompted others, especially fidgety Remainers, to think their options over a little. He's making the most of the silly season for a brief spell in the spotlight - albeit his wife may feel that it's probably not the most use of their holiday...
After all this he goes back to work at Bell - Pottinger being paid massive wads of money to defend many of the world's indefensibly brutal, horrific and murderous dictatorships, or for a change of pace, some shady corrupt child-labour-employing "businessman" or another. Multinational corporations can't defend themselves, you know. He's just done a brilliant piece of promotional work gratis for a cause he clearly cares passionately about. It won't "save the country" from the catastrophe he fears, but it might salve his conscience about his day job.
With an itheberg.
Chapman is right on this count.
I have to go shopping. Have a good morning!