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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Tuesday is the 54th anniversary the last time a Labour leader other than Tony Blair won a working majority
As we approach the end of the Corbyn era I thought it would be look at what winning the argument actually looks like. This is not meant as an attack on Corbyn or Labour per se because winning a working majority is bloody hard.Prior to Boris Johnson’s victory last December in the last 49 years no Tory had won a working majority other than Margaret Thatcher. It shows the difficulty of Corbyn’s successor, whoever that may be, winning a working majority. Although I wouldn’t rule out Labour taking power at the next election if the result is a hung parliament.
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We need your bar chart, TSE.
It is really bugging me, there was a US show (never think it was on in the UK), only one season before it got canned. I think shown the year after Homeland started. Was about a group of people who worked at a "black site" front company, who actually processing intelligence material. Very slow, but nobody was who they seemed to be and everybody was been spied on.
That as a Cameroon big of you to acknowledge he did not get what is termed a working majority.
Also Well sure, but that just makes me think of a quote I came across recently from Bernard Cornwell on changing details in a historical novel, which boiled down to 'I changed [events] because fictional heroes must be given suitable employment'.
Blair had a reach to middle ground voters it is very hard to see any Labour leader having for at least another generation, that does not mean Starmer cannot win enough seats to become PM next time but hard to see him getting much of a working majority.
And with a predicted daily growth rate of 20 per cent that figure may now stand at 2.8 million people, just three days after the modelling was carried out, reports The Sunday Telegraph.
Edge Health, a UK health care data analysis company, revealed that while the official figure of coronavirus cases stood at 10,000 on March 26, the company's estimated true figure for infections in the UK was 1,614,505."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8164093/More-1-6million-people-England-infected-coronavirus.html
https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/rubicon-now-streaming-amc-recommendation.html
On Netflix, there's hundreds of standup comedy specials, one or two a day definitely help keep the spirits up.
Dave Chapelle, Bill Burr, Trevor Noah, Iliza Schlesenger and Anthony Jeselnik being recent highlights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_stand-up_comedy_specials_distributed_by_Netflix
Also, a lot of the late-night comics in the US are 'working from home', streaming on Youtube their monologues and inviting other comics to join remotely. The politics-free Lights Out With David Spade being the highlight among these.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMi38pytm6Ca2KXc7ftlu_w
I'm not convinced Boris in 2010 could have done what Cameron did, nor Cameron in 2019 done what Boris did. Different leaders for different times.
He’s still the guy that lied to the Queen to destroy Parliamentary scrutiny in this country.
Whilst I said he was likely to fiscally incontinent I won’t hold the measures introduced to combat Covid-19 against him it is things like saying we won’t extend the transition when we all know that’s coming.
His admitted strength is that he realises he is way out of his depth and has delegated government to his medical advisers.
Whether this turns out to be the best policy we shall see.
Have you seen Top Boy?
The big caveat is that, even among deaths recorded, there are different methodologies in use in different countries.
Something I hear a lot (from nice people very often) is, "Ah, but he inspired ME". To which one can only respond, "It's not all about you, mate... if you really believe in it yourself, it's about all those less well off people who have a Conservative Government for the foreseeable future".
Labour used to be packed with pragmatists who wouldn't let the best be the enemy of the good - including some privately hard left folk with the sense to know that their view was not a majority one, and the grace to fall in behind something well short of their ideal in order to get things done.
I'm puzzled as to what constitutes a "working majority" ?
Wilson won a majority in October 1974 as did John Major in 1992 and David Cameron in 2015.
Wilson lost his majority and the Labour Government under Callaghan was ultimately felled by a VoNC in early 1979. Major's Government went pretty much its full term and Cameron's Government could have gon e on until 2020 had the EU referendum not intervened.
May had a majority (except on the not insignificant issue of Brexit) until 2017 when she threw it away.
I'd argue both Major and Cameron won working majorities as well - Wilson arguably not (though in October 1964 he only won by 4).
You are right about Spiral. It was made first. So I take that back.
When Boris Met Dave
Brexit
The Long Walk to Finchley
Churchill's First World War
Italy and Spain's system has crashed. Germany has much more capacity, so they have a much higher ceiling before they will run into problems.
We have to hope that our egg-heads have timed things well enough in regards to the measures put in place and that all the extra capacity being built is in place in time.
Focus need to be on Scotland and working-class northern England.
Landslide majority >99
However, if you diverge from them, then you lose this sizeable group of people who love you because of it and aren't interested in the norms of politics where people try to find a middle way.
https://twitter.com/ST0NEHENGE/status/1243800025555230720?s=09
In fairness people quibble over what constitutes a landslide as well. Some say Boris has, others not, but it's relatively close.
A UK critical care doctor on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fnl0n6/im_a_critical_care_doctor_working_in_a_uk_high/#fla1iq6 wrote a great explanation of their recent about-face on coronavirus strategy.
They say that over the past few years, Britain developed a cutting-edge new strategy for dealing with pandemics by building herd immunity. It was actually really novel and exciting and they were anxious to try it out. When the coronavirus came along, the government plugged its spread rate, death rate, etc into the strategy and got the plan Johnson originally announced. This is why he kept talking about how evidence-based it was and how top scientists said this was the best way to do things.
But other pandemics don’t require ventilators nearly as often as coronavirus does. So the model, which was originally built around flu, didn’t include a term for ventilator shortages. Once someone added that in, the herd immunity strategy went from clever idea to total disaster, and the UK had to perform a disastrous about-face. Something something technocratic hubris vs. complexity of the real world."
https://slatestarcodex.com/
The blog of a liberal US psychiatrist (but not particularly psychiatry focused) with a genius for scraping interesting links off the internet. My TIL today from him is that the technique of giving yourself a tiny bit of virus to make yourself just a little bit ill is called variolation.
It’s not that all things stand still and stay the same. All the while we stand and we watch the Phoenix boil in her own blood, it slowly changes us tick by tock, slice by slice careful not to betray the journey. To keep and to cultivate all that is good, we need awareness of change, and we need to act.
The Labour voteshare in 2019, though poor was still higher than Kinnock got in 1987 though less than Kinnock got in 1992.
Spain and France both have ~4000 cases in ICU at present, of whom many might need ventilation I guess. At present, we're told we have 8000 ventilators across the UK with more coming. If we, at our maximum, have 4000-5000 cases needing ventilation would we be able to cope?
I'd say Major had a working majority in 1992 (gradually eroded and eliminated by by-elections) in that he could be confident of getting the vast majority of his business through, and winning confidence votes, without making deals outside his party (although Maastricht was plainly at considerable effort). Wilson was always shakier from 1974 and, of course, Callaghan had to enter a Lib-Lab pact in 1977.
Equally, "landslide" is a movable feast. I'd credit Johnson with a landslide in November. Whilst "only" 80 seats, it's very hard to see him really struggling on aspects of his agenda (maybe there will be a shock somewhere, but being a whip will be a pretty easy life). This is partly because the margin over the main opposition is very big. Arguably, Blair won a landslide in 2005 with a 66 seat majority - it didn't feel like one in that he was losing quite a few seats, but it was still a big enough majority that he didn't really need to lose too much sleep before votes.
"No thank you," said the British public. "Here, have 30% of the vote."
That explains some of it.
Also, if the media insist on presenting a Labour leader like Ed Miliband as "Red Ed", and his policies as "Marxist", it begs an obvious question -
Why not give them the real thing?
There is an argument it would be better for the Tories to narrowly lose the next election and be a strong opposition than narrowly win it and be trounced the time after as in 1997 and be a weak opposition out of power for a generation.
I do not necessarily agree with it but it is there
Most companies I know are banking on severe recession, reduced demand for the remainder of the year, and greatly slimmed down operations.
The three month furlough will not be nearly enough to save jobs and by June, people will be screaming to get back to work.
A lot of people in formerly comfortable 40-50k office jobs with big mortgages, kids etc will be looking at how much jobseeker's allowance is and will be quietly crapping their pants. People who work in media or who have friends in media. Then the narrative will change. This is "worth it" only so long as it's someone else's livelihood on the line.
Even after the crash I still have significant savings and investments but many people I know who lead apparently wealkthy lifestlyes actually live hand to mouth, have huge debts, and will soon face reality with no money coming in.
Instinctively, Starmer feels like Howard to me. Not particularly likable, but competent and serious. Probably not the one, but very possibly the one before the one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6439aOtzEWs
In short, constant testing is the only way we can get back to something like normal, absent a vaccine, I believe.
There will be an almighty row about those mistakes once this is all done because it delayed the necessary prep-work that could have been done in February. But for now the focus should be on the next battle.
In spite of the rather pompous name, the Institute for Government is just a think tank.
They have the population of China, without the might of a massive authoritarian machine that is ruthless and can be extremely efficient in directing the machinery of the state / business to do as required at the drop of a hat.
The one thing the Conservatives have in their favour is that their changes in leader, especially from May to Johnson, have resulted in very different-looking Governments. Re-invention while in office isn't easy but the Conservatives have probably accomplished it.
Indeed, it seemed to this observer Johnson spent much of the GE campaigning against his own Government in the sense of presenting his incoming administration as something "new". and different from that which had gone before (especially from 2017).
We've had Cameron Coalition, Cameron Majority, May majority, May minority, Johnson minority and now Johnson Majority so that's six different forms of Govenrment with three different Prime Ministers in a decade whereas Thatcher governed continuously for eleven and a half years so her departure was much more of a break in continuity and enabled Major to present himself as "new".
So on that basis Major's majority wasn't a working majority.
I'd like to say German media don't especially have an ax to grind in terms of British politics, traditionally they are quite pro-British it seems to me, but the UK's reputation has taken a big dive in recent years. And Johnson in particular is, understandably, widely despised. So there might be an element of unwillingness to give the UK government the benefit of the doubt in the way it's been reported.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/29/michael-gove-appears-to-blame-china-over-lack-of-uk-coronavirus-testing
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8164853/Ford-Airbus-Rolls-Royce-help-build-10-000-Covid-19-ventilators-NHS.html
That's great and all...so we get the 30,000, but when? We are going to at peak in 2-3 weeks.
Utopia (2 seasons) Maybe on Channel 4 catchup?
Carnivale (2 seasons)
Kinabalu still hasn't come to terms with the fact that Ed was literally laughed at when he claimed Labour didn't overspend. Rather than learn the lesson, they went for Corbyn and claimed to win the argument! Labour need a leader more moderate than Red Ed.
If we assume doubling every 3 days pre lockdown then we've got 15 days of pre-lockdown lag to deal with on an exponential growth pattern. Say 3 days to double in this phase, that's 5 "doublings" past 100,000.
100 -> 200 -> 400 -> 800 -> 1.6 million infected pre-lockdown. Then 6 days of slower growth % wise to get to 2.3 million.