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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » At 100/1 or longer Osborne, DMiliband & TBlair for next LD lea
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » At 100/1 or longer Osborne, DMiliband & TBlair for next LD leader – totally daft or might there be something there?
Above is the Ladbrokes market for next Liberal Democrat leader. Clearly this is not something that is going to come to fruition quickly though my guess is that the party will have a different person at the top by the time of the General Election if that happens in 2022. That is still a long way off and a lot of things will have happened by then.
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In fact, I'm surprised they didn't put Henry Bolton's name up there for the LOLs.
As none of the above are Party members (to my knowledge), let alone MPs, best put any spare cash on something running at Lingfield or Catterick. Nick Clegg at 33s is another stupendously silly bet.
Jo Swinson is Britain's Jacinda Ardern except she's having the baby before becoming Prime Minister.
A returning Elvis has more chance.
The problem was after the 2015 election we needed a campaigner to get us back on our feet - someone who would inspire the new members and re-invigorate the activists scarred by the Coalition years and Tim Farron had that quasi-evangelical (and we all knew why) presence.
It's like those who claim the Conservative Party needs a good old-fashioned right-winger or a Thatcher.
The Party got what it wanted and needed in the summer of 2015 with Tim but we got a whole lot of other stuff as well. At the Hustings that summer, both Tim and Norman spoke well but I just felt Tim had more fire and was able to appeal to activists and new members more powerfully than Norman.
https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/955905430588461057
With the Kippers committing hara-kiri there is scope for another NOTA party.
Things will change, they always have and always will. That's one of the wonders of politics - nothing lasts forever.
One of the reasons the Lib Dems sank in the polls was because of the tuition fees increase.
Seven years on making your leader the man who oversaw that increase might be a mistake.
Vince isn't going to be leader for long - we all know Jo Swinson will take over down the track and we'll see what direction she takes us in.
At the moment, their strategy is to make themselves, unapologetically, the party of stop Brexit. The trouble is that almost all the people who feel like that are already voting Labour. So they've snookered themselves a bit.
Once it's over, the voting coalitions amongst the main parties should be subject to review again, but they could easily crowd themselves out again if, say, Labour became a practical party of a very soft-Rejoin, whilst they advocated a full-blooded Rejoin.
It's probably what motivates most of their members and activists (not all) but if I were the LDs I'd be paying more attention to articulating a convincing narrative of 21stC Liberalism, that defines what they're all about, which might give them a USP to 15% of voters.
Osborne though worked well in the Coalition and his son has campaigned for Vince Cable, I would also have thought Chuka Umunna could be thrown into the mix.
That's a brave call.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
Other polls now have over 70% of Tory voters backing Leave.
Plus under FPTP in most seats at parliamentary level the battle is Tory v Labour so the LDs get squeezed which is why they still want PR
It's extraordinarily annoying - I know Ardern leads the NZ Labour Party. No one else felt the need to mention it - you did.
What do you do with your life - can you take a course in professional pedantry?
Unless Swinson joins the Labour Party clearly she won't be
Indeed, it is precisely because Europe is an important secondary issue - and one which cuts across party lines - that it does cause so much trouble.
People join parties primarily because of their economic and social policies, and, even more broadly, about the nature of the society they want to see. Fringe parties might be different but with the big ones, the ones that form governments, it's about values, not policies (though individual policies might easily prompt someone to leave or not join such a party).
Of the three, I agree with Mike that Blair is completely out of UK politics. I don't think that any party would be happy to take him at the moment, including the Lib Dems.
Nor is there any indication that Miliband is keen to return to the fray, though were he to do so, while the Lib Dems might theoretically offer a better home in terms of what he, they and Labour stand for, it'd still be very much a political cul de sac. Why would he want to be a new Roy Jenkins? (And note - Roy Jenkins led his own new party, not a pre-existing one). There's also the complicating matter of how ratting on Labour would affect familial relations.
Osborne, by contrast, while he worked quite well with the Lib Dems in coalition, was and is a Conservative and neither he nor they would be happy in the same party. Were he to return to frontline politics (itself, a dubious proposition), it'd be as a Conservative. That wouldn't preclude him cooperating with the Lib Dems in certain areas but it'd always be on the same transactional basis it was in coalition.
While it's always worth thinking these things through, I don't see any value at all in any of the options, not least because for any of the three (Miliband, most likely), to end up leading those currently in the Lib Dems, it'd probably take a full-scale political realignment and that would mean that the party or movement he ended up leading wasn't in fact the Lib Dems, so the bet would be at best void.
If net immigration target for Non-EU migrants is to be met, then surely it is a good thing, particularly if it forces up salaries for indiginous British staff. If it is good for plasterers, then surely it is good for psychiatrists too?
Farron was harshly treated, I rather took to him at the Hustings, but still voted Lamb.
Do we need to tell you before we try to be humourous - perhaps a codeword or an emoji to help you out ?
I'd like there to be a contest next time. Jo will start as favourite I'm sure but Layla would be an interesting contender. I suppose if the Conservatives aren't bothered about a Home Secretary with a 346 majority, the LDs shouldn't be bothered about a leader with an 816 majority.
*** Warning for HYUFD - there is an analogy coming ****
Perhaps Layla will be our version of Jacinda Ardern rather than Jo and do things in the same order as Jacinda. It might be interesting for the LDs to have a younger leader (after Vince we'll be skipping two generations, not one) and a contrast to May and Corbyn..
https://twitter.com/allierenison/status/956104086616772608
What was Farron's appeal other than ultra-Europeanism, that Corbyn couldn't trump? He was outcampaigned across the board, nearly losing his own constituency into the bargain (and almost certainly would have done but for Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill).
There is an enormous gaping gap in the centre and centre-left for someone to fill. When Labour last went wildly leftwards, the Alliance had heavyweight hitters to the extent that they briefly polled 50% and maintained 20%+ through most of the 1980s. It's a measure of their fall that in similar (not identical, I grant), circumstances, they can't even reach double-figures.
Most of the new LD members are strongly rejectionist over Brexit, so Lamb would almost certainly have lost, but it would have been useful to have that debate.
That said, if they want him, they are welcome to him.
http://www.snappytv.com/tc/6906042
I did feel a small urge to go back to him the day after and just stand there with a raised eyebrow.
Separate to that, the Labour candidate was a strong one, as well. I was knocking up in south Abingdon and ran into a counterpart knocking up for the Tories. We had a quick, friendly chat, and he told me it was looking a lot closer than they'd ever thought it was (he was right), but he felt they were going to hang on by the skin of their teeth simply because the Labour candidate was strong enough to resist the squeeze better than we'd hope. But that he'd put £20 on Layla at 5-1 simply so he was covered either way - he'd feel happy if they held the seat, but if they lost, he'd have £100 profit to cushion the blow.
Farron at 100/1 is not riduculous though.
I do like watching Davis in committee, he's generally so relaxed and hand wavey that I can only assume he's got a stash of the good stuff hidden away somewhere.
I await general hysteria among the nuttier Brexiteers at the prospect of being a vassal state
David Davis jokingly uses the well used quote attributed to a US Senator.
I would give Peace a chance but if i was betting would reluctantly have to go for Ms Bailey.
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It is sort of the right assessment but from the wrong angle (in my occasionally incorrect opinion), the shift this time is politically in the opposite direction. The Conservatives are going right just as the country is beginning to go left, surely the opportunity lies more on the centre and centre right with the Blairites and Cameroons, who I think actually make up a far smaller percentage of the voting population than they are given credit for, they certainly have a large media presence.
A fairly heartbreaking interview with Tessa Jowell on the brain cancer that she's fighting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-42786413/former-labour-minister-opens-up-about-being-diagnosed-with-brain-cancer
She raises some interesting issues.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/956118684648525824
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/956120804428779520
Also the promise to rip up human rights and the general tone of the conservatives seemed more authoritarian and socially conservative.
May promising to put workers on boards and price caps on energy barely swing it more left wing overall to my mind.
Trying to appeal to a certain section of Labour leave /UKIP voters does not equal left wing, or at least not to my mind although I can imagine some on the right see it that way. I guess some of this comes down to what is seen as left wing or right wing.
Although as much as I dislike the Tories they have done much what Labour have done, dropped a small but very noisy and influential set of voters for much larger groups who had been on the sidelines of politics.