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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Britain’s brittle stalemate
Interpreting by-election results is very much in the eye of the beholder. Some, it’s true, are unambiguous in their outcome for one party or another. Lewisham East is not one such.
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It's becoming less a matter of policy than one of identity
The only way out of it is Brexit and time..
O/T
"Angela Merkel has 48 hours to save coalition from collapse"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/merkel-coalition-at-risk-of-collapse-in-immigration-row-zjx2jzgtl
The voters seem to have shelves unstocked of snake oil.
Good analysis. Issues for all parties. For "kitchen sink" read twelve pieces of general literature delivered to every house, in a relatively short campaign.
Broadly agree with Mr. Herdson's view.
Mr. Observer, it can, but if both main parties were viewed equally negatively that'd help the Lib Dems/SNP.
These Euroloons clearly don't carry much of the electorate with them, witness the lack of support for the LibDems.
Centre-left and centre-right are broadly EU-ambivalent, with clearly more of a lean against to the right of centre and a lean in favour to the left of centre. It is only when you reach the more radical left and right that full-on anti-EU sentiment comes to the fore. For different reasons, yes, but a unity of purpose.
All of this wibble shows that we currently need a different political axis. One that has Lord Adonis and Anna Soubry at one end, with the Moggster and Dennis Skinner at the other.
However, Lewisham East has shown that they are improving their situation. Labour were lucky to have chosen, against the wishes of the leadership, a very pro-EU candidate. That must have spiked the LibDems guns and saved Labour from a worse result.
However, in order to achieve the 'different political axis', I guess you'd be in favour of PR?
The Conservative Party name will exist, but will it be the same party?
EDIT - of course, I know exactly why we don’t.
*Probably two or three different left of centre parties under PR.
It is amazing that they are still screaming about PR.
We are leaving Europe because of a phenomenally successful party, UKIP. It drew its energy and resources from PR.
It is PR that took the ugly, straggling baby of UKIP and let it grow to an ugly, strapping giant.
PR for the European elections provided UKIP with money, a platform, elected MEPs -- the base from which Brexit was planned.
If we introduced PR, the LibDems would not benefit (except marginally).
But we would have a new populist party on 30 per cent within a few months.
Then we have the party of the big unions and organised labour wanting a return to the nationalisation and closed shops of the '70s represented by about half the Parliamentary Labour Party and most of its members.
Finally we have an assortment of centrist parties who though probably representing the views of most voters are now electorally irrelevant.
This is all the result of giving the country a secret ballot where they could choose the xenophobic option without showing their neigbours their true colours.
The first ballot where we've scratched the surface and shown what an unattractive country we really are.
The Tories continually re-invent themselves as you suggest.
Splits and mergers are discouraged by FPTP, change tends to be jerky and come about by internal changes within parties.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44453310
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1007714095716556800
29% of Britons are concerned about it. Only Hungary, Spain and Portugal have lower numbers.
I think specifically the LibDems are wrong to think PR will benefit them.
Look at the Welsh Assembly -- just one LibDem left.
FPTP cements the Tories and Labour as top two, but it also cemented the LibDems as third.
The LibDems benefited from being the third party throughout the 1990s, as protest voters automatically chose them.
The use of PR in Euro elections, Scotland and Wales gradually allowed a range of parties to grow and become stronger, and so provided a much greater choice of credible third party.
I am personally in favour of PR, but I don't think it will produce a 25 per cent vote for the LibDems.
I think it'd be healthier if we had half a dozen significant parties frankly espousing what they actually think, rather than effectively saying "vote for us because the others are even worse".
It is just a great irony for the LibDems that Brexit is a consequence of PR.
And I don't think the LibDems will be a beneficiary under PR. Being a LibDem is like being fond of jazz. Most people in the country aren't.
I liked the argument about FPTP producing "a sour negative tone" in politics. But, I don't believe it ! There is sourness and negativity throughout politics in the West.
I blame the weather.
Our referendum was on leaving or remaining in the EU. Immigration is seen as a pressing issue in 21/28 current EU members, and only three of them have lower ratings of concern than the UK.
You're being a silly sausage, clinging to your beliefs in the face of evidence and reason.
The tweet that we were debating last week which announced that the split was happening turns out to have been from a satirical periodical as a joke. The AfD deputy leader has attracted some derision for taking it up in the Bundestag:
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik/fauxpas-im-bundestag-afd-vize-von-storch-faellt-auf-satire-tweet-rein-30627032
Whilst pb.com had a number of very enthusiastic Leavers canvassing, I can only really remember rottenborough mentioning he was canvassing for Remain (& he was subsequently pessimistic that Remain would win, if memory serves).
Most of the prominent grief-stricken Remainers on pb.com seem to have assumed the result was in the bag, and were too busy counting their money or their houses to do anything for the campaign.
Now they find what was done cannot be undone ... and wonder guiltily if they perhaps should have done more.
Is it really regretfulness at themselves that is at the heart of all this screaming about "Xenophobia" ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saL3fHsKCrQ
Aberdeenshire
Perthshire
Fife
Nottinghamshire
Staffordshire
Herefordshire
Somerset
Surrey
Kent
The nine being a gain of three since Thursday with the return of Perthshire, fife and Nottinghamshire.
It was a remarkable collection of rogues and deviants and criminals for such a tiny party.
Not least, because you would expect rogues and criminals to be attracted to a party which has some realistic chance of power !
Under Clegg, the Liberal Democrats seemed to lose that relentless focus on holding what they had and targeting what they could win that Kennedy managed so successfully, and the coalition forced them to make choices - some of them very poor choices (tuition fees). For a third party, with hindsight, he was not a good leader.
As we know the NHS always features near the top when the 'most important issue in Britain' questions are asked.
Now look at the combined score of the three top UK answers - only Romania has a lower one.
That suggests that other European countries have not created a fake religion from their health care systems.
Has this turned out to be more successful than a formal Tory/Kipper coalition?. It is at the very least arguable. In practice a large part of the Brexit problem comes down to that uncomfortable internal Tory coalition.
You also make the rash assumption that people would have voted the same way, if we had a different electoral system.
Personally I rather like the hybrid system of constituencies and party lists in use in Scotland.
Does the same hold true for other small parties -- like the Frees in Germany or Plaid Cymru or the SNP (prior to 2015) ?
I think the Liberals in the 1970s were petty unique in the criminality of their MPs.
It is an issue of globalisation, rather than one of the EU. Indeed in almost all of the countries mentioned, it is the Non-EU immigration that is the issue.
We need to get the numbers up to the hundreds.
That said I think I would prefer a version of the Scottish/Welsh hybrid system to go national ( as long as majorities were achievable in really strong years like 83,87,97,01).
Blair getting a big majority on 36% of the vote and a lead under 3% ( and coming second in votes in England if I recall), was nuts, and ultimately bad for the country. A bit of Vince tugging at Brown’s wallet opening tendencies might’ve served us well in 2005-8. Might’ve even got a referendum on Lisbon, and the world would be very different......
"an actual liberal party (I know technically it still exists) that was pro-business, socially liberal, pro-free speech and sceptical of the EU would be in a very good position to try and make gains. "
Sign me up.
Isn't that the real problem? We have to concentrate on which ones we dislike most, and the LDs thrived on the NOTAs. Now they are extremist with respect to Europe, so that pool has reduced by 52% .
' An East Yorkshire factory has won a £1.5bn contract to build new Tube trains for London Underground.
Transport for London (TfL) said the 94 trains will be designed and built by Siemens Mobility at its planned £200m facility in Goole.
The new trains are expected to start running on the Piccadilly Line from 2023.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-44496526
A common myth.
People are sick of the Liberal Elite version of Politics IMO
Hence biggest increase in vote share in 60 yrs for the Messiah
And he's not the Jezziah, he's a very naughty boy.
That said, they're at the level where for some forms of PR, their share is so low that they would still be substantially under-represented (as in Wales, mentioned earlier).
Corruption is probably more common in local than in national government, where planning and construction projects offer considerable opportunities for money-making. Doncaster Council had an appalling reputation in the Nineties. 21 councillors, including two council leaders, were convicted of a variety of offences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens
The Blair for 2022 would be no fan of the EU, but very critical of the way Brexit has been implemented by the Tories and how it has affected "my constituents".
He would be very critical of globalisation and of the global elite. He would be outspoken on corporate tax avoiders -- maybe he'd have another windfall tax to fund the NHS on tax avoiding companies.
He would be against second-home owners & mansion-owners such as expatriate oligarchs. He would find obvious & visible targets to scapegoat without causing any real change in the inequalities of the housing market, or worry the owners of London homes that they might have to pay more.
He would have a softer side on refugees. He would have words like "my country has a long history of helping people in trouble" -- but in practice he would be swiftly on with the bovver boots (much like dear old Emmanuel Macron).
His softer side would be visible on welfare, he would be railing against the "distress caused to my constituents" by Universal Credit, but it would be nicely balanced with warnings against chisellers and fraudsters.
Maybe we wouldn't fall for it all again -- but I expect we would.
But we have had control over that type of immigration. It was the fact that too many in our political class did not want to exercise those controls and when, belatedly, they did were ineffective at it, which led voters to pull the only lever left to them - by voting against FoM. That and Merkel’s stupid decision in 2015.
If in the period post 1997 - when immigration shot up - governments had done something effective about using all the controls they did have and kept immigration to more manageable levels and limited those coming from very different societies and cultures, then FoM would not have been turned into the bogeyman it has become. In truth FoM within the EU is on the whole a good thing. But only if the external borders are secure and only if countries don’t simultaneously open up their borders to all and sundry as Britain did post-1997.