Looking at the elections in the 80's can produce some worrying facts for both parties. In 1979 the two major parties accounted for 61% of the electorate's votes, in 1983 they accounted for 51% of the vote and in 1987 they accounted for 55% of the vote. Since the start of the 21st Century the collective vote for Labour and Conservative has never exceeded 42% of the electorate's votes. I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped below 40% in 2015.
You're including both spread of support and turnout decline there, of course. It's quite hard to predict spread next time - if UKIP were to go into reverse, it's possible to imagine a very high Con/Lab joint share because of the possible LibDem decline, perhaps linked to high turnout if it's seen as a close race between the arch-rivals. But equally UKIP could remain strong, the LibDems recover some ground and turnout low, in which case you'd be spot on. Not something I'd want to bet on.
Wilson had volunteered for military serice but was redirected into the Civil Service, it seems, and (just for clarity) Callaghan served on the lower deck in the Navy during WW2 before being promoted to Lieut - but during officer training he was diagnosed with TB, I assume caught in the atrocious conditions on the mess decks (TB then being endemic in the Navy with wartime crowding, diet and blackout).
I sometimes wonder if the lack of war experience has any bearing on the decisions taken by Blair's and Cameron's cabinets. At least much of Thatcher's cabinet knew the implications of going to recapture the Falklands.
Corporeal (previous thread) There is no evidence James had the existing armed forces committed to fight for him, indeed at the Battle of Reading his forces were largely composed of Irish Catholics. In any case, since the Civil War it was Parliament, not the monarch, who were established as effectively running the British Government and it was Parliament who invited William over and opposed James, thus there was no invasion.
As for the island point, yes it is an advantage, but the fact remains most of continental Europe has been invaded frequently since 1800, Britain has not been invaded since 1066. The lands we held in France and lost not to mention the British Empire is a whole different debate!
Viewcode (previous thread) But it was not an invasion as William was invited over by the nation's sovereign parliament and only came over with its support. The English Civil War determined that it was Parliament and not the monarchy who were the ultimate rulers of the nation
William was not invited by the nation's sovereign parliament, but by half a dozen or so private individuals (powerful ones to be sure), not any official body or acting in any official capacity.
Nick Palmer I see it as healthy and of a more discerning electorate. If we had PR Westminster votes would become more like European Parliament votes, with Labour and the Tories both barely reaching 30%, UKIP on 20-25% and the Greens and LDs both on about 10-15%
"Profits from shale gas extraction should be put in a state investment fund to ensure they are not squandered, the UK Independence Party has said.
Roger Helmer, the party's energy spokesman, pointed to the example of Norway, which has invested North Sea oil revenues in a sovereign wealth fund for decades, as to how the UK should maximise the benefits of shale gas.
"UKIP is calling for our tax revenues from shale gas to go into a British sovereign wealth fund," he said.
"That way we will ensure that the benefits of this economic windfall will serve the interests of all the people of this country, not only today but for generations to come.""
There's no education policy, nor anything on tax and benefits, but they going to have a sovereign wealth fund.
To demonstrate how economically illiterate this is. Let's assume that the British government extracts $2 / mcf for extracted shale gas. This is pretty aggressive, considering that in Texas the tax rate is around $0.25, and it's very similar in Poland. But let's assume that UKIP can extract ten times more from shale gas extraction than the Americans could, without destroying the economics (or increasing its cost so its uneconomic relative to imported gas).
Now, let's assume that in 2020, the same proportion of Britain's gas usage comes from domestic shale as happens in the US - i.e. about a third.
This would produce a windfall for the government of as much as £20bn ($30bn)/year. That's a lot of money. I mean, that's a seriously large amount of money.
I mean, that would cut the size of our deficit by 20%.
It would not, however, be anywhere near enough to allow us to start thinking about a sovereign wealth fund.
Looking at the elections in the 80's can produce some worrying facts for both parties. In 1979 the two major parties accounted for 61% of the electorate's votes, in 1983 they accounted for 51% of the vote and in 1987 they accounted for 55% of the vote. Since the start of the 21st Century the collective vote for Labour and Conservative has never exceeded 42% of the electorate's votes. I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped below 40% in 2015.
You're including both spread of support and turnout decline there, of course. It's quite hard to predict spread next time - if UKIP were to go into reverse, it's possible to imagine a very high Con/Lab joint share because of the possible LibDem decline, perhaps linked to high turnout if it's seen as a close race between the arch-rivals. But equally UKIP could remain strong, the LibDems recover some ground and turnout low, in which case you'd be spot on. Not something I'd want to bet on.
Fair comment but I don't sense anything so far that will enthuse the electorate about either of the major parties to get their vote out (nobody's going to be singing "Things Can Only Get Better' or somesuch in 2015) and as such I think its possible that the two parties will be unable to raise 21 million votes between them on a lesser turnout.
Corporeal (previous thread) There is no evidence James had the existing armed forces committed to fight for him, indeed at the Battle of Reading his forces were largely composed of Irish Catholics. In any case, since the Civil War it was Parliament, not the monarch, who were established as effectively running the British Government and it was Parliament who invited William over and opposed James, thus there was no invasion.
As for the island point, yes it is an advantage, but the fact remains most of continental Europe has been invaded frequently since 1800, Britain has not been invaded since 1066. The lands we held in France and lost not to mention the British Empire is a whole different debate!
Firstly the Navy was pretty evidently prepared to fight for him, and would have if in position to. Secondly, no conclusive evidence that the army wouldn't have either. Had William landed with a smaller force than he gathered James might have decided to test it.
So Britain held the lands protected by sea, and lost those beyond it? Hmm?
(And beyond that, how many of those other invasions involved some claim of bloodlines etc and so by your count would be civil wars).
Beyond that, the best continental comparison with geographical advantages would be Sweden I'd say, when was the last time they got invaded?
Now, let's assume that in 2020, the same proportion of Britain's gas usage comes from domestic shale as happens in the US - i.e. about a third.
This would produce a windfall for the government of as much as £20bn ($30bn)/year. That's a lot of money. I mean, that's a seriously large amount of money.
I mean, that would cut the size of our deficit by 20%.
Hang on a sec? I thought that Osborne and the OBR were predicting that the budget will be balanced (granted with any energy revenues that have accrued included) by 2020? There will be no deficit?
If the budget is balanced then surely it is fair enough to look to create a sovereign fund with revenues over and above what is need to balance the budget?
Corporeal He was invited by the leading lights of both main parties, Tories and Whig, in Parliament, so even if they did not put it to a vote he had a clear majority of Parliamentary backing. That should also answer Viewcode's point that as Parliament were now the real rulers of the nation the crown forces were simply that, representatives of the existing monarch, not the nation and there was no foreign invasion of the nation, just a deposing of an existing monarch.
Corporeal Whether the army or navy would have fought for James is pure speculation, the fact is they could not be bothered as they realised the real power in the land was with Parliament, not a monarch who thought he could enforce Catholicism against the will of the people as represented in Parliament. They then quite willingly went over to serve William and Mary and oppose subsequent Jacobite rebellions.
Corporeal The Russians occupation of East Germany and Eastern Europe, the Nazis occupation of France, the Netherlands and the Low Countries and Scandinavia, the invasion of Italy by both the allies and the Nazis none of these had anything to do with bloodlines. Nor did the invasion of France in the Franco-Prussian War. Even Napoleon's invasion have tenuous link to bloodlines at best!
"...But it was not an invasion as William was invited over by the nation's sovereign parliament and only came over with its support..."
I am not disputing that William was invited. I am saying that the landing of foreign forces on English soil and battles between those forces and Crown forces on English soil resulting in the installation of a foreign King and the usurping of the existing King can most accurately be categorised as a "successful invasion".
I suspect we will have to agree to disagree, with the crux being whether Parliament's (post-facto?) legitimisation of William's regnal status prevents the warfare being described as an invasion. Otherwise we'll just keep repeating the same points at each other.
Corporeal He was invited by the leading lights of both main parties, Tories and Whig, in Parliament, so even if they did not put it to a vote he had a clear majority of Parliamentary backing. That should also answer Viewcode's point that as Parliament were now the real rulers of the nation the crown forces were simply that, representatives of the existing monarch, not the nation and there was no foreign invasion of the nation, just a deposing of an existing monarch.
That just isn't true. That kind of parliamentary sovereignty certainly didn't exist prior to 1688 and in realistic terms not until many years after.
William III was a more constitutional monarch (in the style modelled on the Dutch system that emerged from their revolution) but even he wouldn't have stood for the idea that Parliament were the real rulers of the nation.
Jeez, I post a new poll, and none of you want to talk about it.
Sleazy broken Ed Miliband's ratings on the slide.
So top line figures [Yawn] are NC, NC, +1, NC [Yawn]
And otherwise all we know is that Milipede the misfits ratings have dipped. That could mean any sort of fall from 1 to 40 points. Perhaps you should say by how much if you want a reaction
Jeez, I post a new poll, and none of you want to talk about it.
Sleazy broken Ed Miliband's ratings on the slide.
So top line figures [Yawn] are NC, NC, +1, NC [Yawn]
And otherwise all we know is that Milipede the misfits ratings have dipped. That could mean any sort of fall from 1 to 40 points. Perhaps you should say by how much if you want a reaction
On a separate point, the assertion that "...the crown forces were simply that, representatives of the existing monarch, not the nation..." is a misunderstanding. It's not the "Army of the United Kingdom", it's not the "People's Army of the United Kingdom", it's not the "Army of the Government of United Kingdom", it's the "British Army".
Its allegiance is to the Crown. Not the State. Not the People, or even the people. Not the Nation, or even the nations. It's to the Crown.
Jeez, I post a new poll, and none of you want to talk about it.
Sleazy broken Ed Miliband's ratings on the slide.
So top line figures [Yawn] are NC, NC, +1, NC [Yawn]
And otherwise all we know is that Milipede the misfits ratings have dipped. That could mean any sort of fall from 1 to 40 points. Perhaps you should say by how much if you want a reaction
The full leader ratings aren't out yet.
So perhaps we'll have to wait until they are before we express are astonishment at how Miliband's personal ratings have collapsed?
Now, let's assume that in 2020, the same proportion of Britain's gas usage comes from domestic shale as happens in the US - i.e. about a third.
This would produce a windfall for the government of as much as £20bn ($30bn)/year. That's a lot of money. I mean, that's a seriously large amount of money.
I mean, that would cut the size of our deficit by 20%.
Hang on a sec? I thought that Osborne and the OBR were predicting that the budget will be balanced (granted with any energy revenues that have accrued included) by 2020? There will be no deficit?
If the budget is balanced then surely it is fair enough to look to create a sovereign fund with revenues over and above what is need to balance the budget?
Well, first you'd want to pay off the national debt, of course.
Corporeal (previous thread) There is no evidence James had the existing armed forces committed to fight for him, indeed at the Battle of Reading his forces were largely composed of Irish Catholics. In any case, since the Civil War it was Parliament, not the monarch, who were established as effectively running the British Government and it was Parliament who invited William over and opposed James, thus there was no invasion.
As for the island point, yes it is an advantage, but the fact remains most of continental Europe has been invaded frequently since 1800, Britain has not been invaded since 1066. The lands we held in France and lost not to mention the British Empire is a whole different debate!
One could even argue 1066 wasn't an "invasion" in the strictest sense given William's claim to the English throne was stronger than Harold Godwinson's though weaker than that of Edgar. Henry IV came to the throne via invasion and so did Henry VII so regime change via invasion has happened any number of times in England's history though 1688 was the last time. As for that campaign, Reading served only to illustrate the paucity of James II's position and the paucity of quality of leadership on his side.
As an aside, it's often forgotten that in 1066 England was the most prosperous economy in western Europe (don't get Avery started!!). Two generations of relative peace had increased the country's wealth and English silver functioned as a reserve currency while the wool trade with Flanders (the sister of the Count of Flanders was Matilda, the wife of Duke William of Normandy) was hugely lucrative. The Norman invasion was less the resolution of a dynastic dispute than an economic and territorial raid which dispossessed the Saxon aristocracy and enriched a small group of Normans, Bretons and other French. The plunder of the country by the invaders resulted in acute poverty and the destruction of the English economy.
Corporeal Whether the army or navy would have fought for James is pure speculation, the fact is they could not be bothered as they realised the real power in the land was with Parliament, not a monarch who thought he could enforce Catholicism against the will of the people as represented in Parliament. They then quite willingly went over to serve William and Mary and oppose subsequent Jacobite rebellions.
Corporeal The Russians occupation of East Germany and Eastern Europe, the Nazis occupation of France, the Netherlands and the Low Countries and Scandinavia, the invasion of Italy by both the allies and the Nazis none of these had anything to do with bloodlines. Nor did the invasion of France in the Franco-Prussian War. Even Napoleon's invasion have tenuous link to bloodlines at best!
The Navy would almost certainly have had weather permitted, there's just no good evidence to suggest they wouldn't have.
As to the army, there were certainly rumblings around them, but they were marching to James' orders while he was there. A lot of armies will lose enthusiasm when their commander in chief tries to run away and is promptly captured, especially when faced with a larger army and a suggestion that they don't have to fight and die.
Are we excluding the channel islands in this version of Britain? (And I thought I'd convinced you to move it up to Louis VIII at least)
Corporeal Cromwell only got his position because he led the Parliamentary forces to victory over those of the Crown. Yes, he became more dictatorial as time went on, but he never took the Crown for himself as he said himself he had not overthrown one monarch to out another in his place.
Comments
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/10537770/Could-Sir-Alec-Douglas-Home-be-the-Queens-friend-in-a-plaster-cast.html
Wilson had volunteered for military serice but was redirected into the Civil Service, it seems, and (just for clarity) Callaghan served on the lower deck in the Navy during WW2 before being promoted to Lieut - but during officer training he was diagnosed with TB, I assume caught in the atrocious conditions on the mess decks (TB then being endemic in the Navy with wartime crowding, diet and blackout).
I sometimes wonder if the lack of war experience has any bearing on the decisions taken by Blair's and Cameron's cabinets. At least much of Thatcher's cabinet knew the implications of going to recapture the Falklands.
As for the island point, yes it is an advantage, but the fact remains most of continental Europe has been invaded frequently since 1800, Britain has not been invaded since 1066. The lands we held in France and lost not to mention the British Empire is a whole different debate!
"Profits from shale gas extraction should be put in a state investment fund to ensure they are not squandered, the UK Independence Party has said.
Roger Helmer, the party's energy spokesman, pointed to the example of Norway, which has invested North Sea oil revenues in a sovereign wealth fund for decades, as to how the UK should maximise the benefits of shale gas.
"UKIP is calling for our tax revenues from shale gas to go into a British sovereign wealth fund," he said.
"That way we will ensure that the benefits of this economic windfall will serve the interests of all the people of this country, not only today but for generations to come.""
There's no education policy, nor anything on tax and benefits, but they going to have a sovereign wealth fund.
To demonstrate how economically illiterate this is. Let's assume that the British government extracts $2 / mcf for extracted shale gas. This is pretty aggressive, considering that in Texas the tax rate is around $0.25, and it's very similar in Poland. But let's assume that UKIP can extract ten times more from shale gas extraction than the Americans could, without destroying the economics (or increasing its cost so its uneconomic relative to imported gas).
Now, let's assume that in 2020, the same proportion of Britain's gas usage comes from domestic shale as happens in the US - i.e. about a third.
This would produce a windfall for the government of as much as £20bn ($30bn)/year. That's a lot of money. I mean, that's a seriously large amount of money.
I mean, that would cut the size of our deficit by 20%.
It would not, however, be anywhere near enough to allow us to start thinking about a sovereign wealth fund.
I have, for one.:)
Labour lead still at 7% in latest Opinium/Obs poll. Lab 37 n/c. Tories 30 n/c, Ukip 17 +1. LDs 8% n/c. Mili ratings dip, Cam's steady.
Anyhoo there's the Ashcroft polling out at 10pm.
Secondly, no conclusive evidence that the army wouldn't have either. Had William landed with a smaller force than he gathered James might have decided to test it.
So Britain held the lands protected by sea, and lost those beyond it? Hmm?
(And beyond that, how many of those other invasions involved some claim of bloodlines etc and so by your count would be civil wars).
Beyond that, the best continental comparison with geographical advantages would be Sweden I'd say, when was the last time they got invaded?
This would produce a windfall for the government of as much as £20bn ($30bn)/year. That's a lot of money. I mean, that's a seriously large amount of money.
I mean, that would cut the size of our deficit by 20%.
Hang on a sec? I thought that Osborne and the OBR were predicting that the budget will be balanced (granted with any energy revenues that have accrued included) by 2020? There will be no deficit?
If the budget is balanced then surely it is fair enough to look to create a sovereign fund with revenues over and above what is need to balance the budget?
Sleazy broken Ed Miliband's ratings on the slide.
Corporeal Whether the army or navy would have fought for James is pure speculation, the fact is they could not be bothered as they realised the real power in the land was with Parliament, not a monarch who thought he could enforce Catholicism against the will of the people as represented in Parliament. They then quite willingly went over to serve William and Mary and oppose subsequent Jacobite rebellions.
Corporeal The Russians occupation of East Germany and Eastern Europe, the Nazis occupation of France, the Netherlands and the Low Countries and Scandinavia, the invasion of Italy by both the allies and the Nazis none of these had anything to do with bloodlines. Nor did the invasion of France in the Franco-Prussian War. Even Napoleon's invasion have tenuous link to bloodlines at best!
"...But it was not an invasion as William was invited over by the nation's sovereign parliament and only came over with its support..."
I am not disputing that William was invited. I am saying that the landing of foreign forces on English soil and battles between those forces and Crown forces on English soil resulting in the installation of a foreign King and the usurping of the existing King can most accurately be categorised as a "successful invasion".
I suspect we will have to agree to disagree, with the crux being whether Parliament's (post-facto?) legitimisation of William's regnal status prevents the warfare being described as an invasion. Otherwise we'll just keep repeating the same points at each other.
William III was a more constitutional monarch (in the style modelled on the Dutch system that emerged from their revolution) but even he wouldn't have stood for the idea that Parliament were the real rulers of the nation.
And otherwise all we know is that Milipede the misfits ratings have dipped. That could mean any sort of fall from 1 to 40 points. Perhaps you should say by how much if you want a reaction
Its allegiance is to the Crown. Not the State. Not the People, or even the people. Not the Nation, or even the nations. It's to the Crown.
That would only take 114 years at that rate.
As an aside, it's often forgotten that in 1066 England was the most prosperous economy in western Europe (don't get Avery started!!). Two generations of relative peace had increased the country's wealth and English silver functioned as a reserve currency while the wool trade with Flanders (the sister of the Count of Flanders was Matilda, the wife of Duke William of Normandy) was hugely lucrative. The Norman invasion was less the resolution of a dynastic dispute than an economic and territorial raid which dispossessed the Saxon aristocracy and enriched a small group of Normans, Bretons and other French. The plunder of the country by the invaders resulted in acute poverty and the destruction of the English economy.
As to the army, there were certainly rumblings around them, but they were marching to James' orders while he was there. A lot of armies will lose enthusiasm when their commander in chief tries to run away and is promptly captured, especially when faced with a larger army and a suggestion that they don't have to fight and die.
Are we excluding the channel islands in this version of Britain? (And I thought I'd convinced you to move it up to Louis VIII at least)
Anything into Sweden (outside WWII I guess).
Sorry, what were we talking about? Swings? UKIP?
As ever, depends on Lab=>LD=>Lab=>?-ers (apols missed that thread would have liked to have had time to read it).
UKIP will dissolve to irritation not to say they might not spoil things.
Centuries sure, but not in the 17th century.