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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » ChangeUK is in danger of running out of steam and it has only
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » ChangeUK is in danger of running out of steam and it has only itself to blame
Having to face two big elections in a very short period of time looks as though it has taken its toll on TIG following what appear to have been a number of strategic mistakes.
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I wonder if they believed many in the press about how everyone really wanted a centrist alternative. People who wanted to push this theory were able to ignore the last election on the basis that people didn't have a decent centrist alternative because the Lib Dems reputation discounted them.
If you believe the majority did want centrism and the only reason the Lib Dems didn't make a big breakthrough is because their reputation held them back then CUKs actions make sense. If you read some newspapers and listened to some journalists you would have assumed that all this would have happened quite easily and CUK MPs would be riding a huge wave of popular support just by not being in Corbyn's Labour or the pro Brexit Tories.
It turns out reality is rather more complicated than some imagine.
Edit: I enjoyed Ians comment, we should ask(force) him to write a whole thread on the subject!
They started only as a parliamentary group - which, by its very nature, doesn't need a proper specific name - hence the lack of thought about what name to adopt.
The only raison d'être of the group was (a) we don't like Corbyn/May (b) we don't like Brexit.
Hence no need for any other policies, and no need for any strategy on how to fight election campaigns.
Now, fighting elections and persuading voters of policies, is something they never intended to do in the first place.
So it seems like a “problem” with Remain voters.
Why do we have party organisations? Surely it's because experience strongly indicates that voters need reminding to get out and actually vote. Doing so is different to answering when someone 'phones you up, or stops you in the street and and asks a question.
And there needs to be a feeling that 'whatever it is' needs to happen.
So Change isn't going to get very far beyond Fleet Street (or Wapping nowadays) without a lot of people actually going out and talking to ordinary folk. And so far as I can see at the moment they're all generals and no foot-soldiers.
Mr. Toms, interesting. According to at least one version of Greek myth, Chaos was the first thing to exist.
I largely agree with the article. Initially, and then with the trio of Conservative defectors, it seemed like they might snowball. Reports at the time suggested they deliberately delayed/put off further potential Conservative defectors to try and avoid looking too blue a shade.
Given the state of the major parties, they might yet get more defectors, but after a strong start, the energetic Tiggers have become rather more lacklustre. And I agree with Mr. Sandpit. Calling yourselves the CUKs is about as smart as forming the Group of Independent Mainstream Progressives. Give yourself a daft name and people will take the piss.
I am honoured to wake up to my own thread
I think many of these creation myths are (logically when one thinks about it) intertwined. For instance
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep...."
But if the two old parties don't sink - or if realignment takes a lot longer than some are expecting - then it is hard to see the current TIG achieving much success. It's possible that, despite a healthy Remain vote in the Euros altogether, TIG itself won't come away with that much. If they happen to fall behind the LibDems it may start to concentrate minds.
A farmer, a soldier and a politician were discussing which one of their professions was the oldest. The farmer said it was his, because God planted the Garden of Eden and nobody could do that but a farmer. The soldier said it was his, because God created order from chaos and only a soldier could hope to do that. The politician disputed both of these, on the grounds that somebody must have created the chaos to sort out, and the only people who could do that...
The earliest versions of Chaos in Greek myth bear a striking resemblance to Nun, the Egyptian waters of chaos out of which the earth and sky were made.
I like the Egyptian myth as the god Atum literally wanked the other gods into existence...
However that period did give the Gang of Four time to do the politics - make the speeches, build the support, stake out their territory - and by the time of launch then had critical mass in many constituencies, with funding and staff ready to go.
I do wonder to what extent the TIG MPs and their personal caseworkers have been dragged immediately into all the admin of founding a new party. For example this weekend TIG says it is interviewing the couple of thousand aspirant MEP candidates (hopefully after some shortlisting!) - how much of a burden is this on the MPs themselves, already tired from the pressure cooker of the Brexit debates. If they aren't making much political impact in the media (and between them they've been appearing on all the usual shows), maybe they are just busy?
I agree with @IanB2 in part, certainly they have failed to outline a policy platform beyond being anti Brexit, and that is not unique enough, being agreed policy for several other parties.
As an aside, CUK seems to be an insult favoured by the sort of Incel who thinks "I wouldn't even consider raping you" to be an acceptable form of satire. A cuckold is someone whose partner has been cheating sexually on them, and is a rather curious one for the modern age. It implies that the cuckold cannot control his woman, who is his property, so the term carries a lot of misogynistic baggage. In enlightened times, do we really think that a cuckold is a weak person, or that a real man has such sexual power that adultery by his partner reflects badly on him? Indeed we usually regard such a person as a wronged innocent party, and show sympathy.
Well deserved Ian. Captures my changing thoughts about TIG very nicely. I was excited at first that the realignment was happening, had lots of time for the individuals involved, and even wondered whether I'd want to join them.
Now fed up by their tribalism, lack of platform, already lost momentum and feel that they offer precious little that's actually new. Maybe they have more in the tank but I can't see it right now, and I wonder how long till they come begging to join the Lib Dems? Would be hilarious if they manage to splinter on something like that.
Sri Lanka explosions: 50 killed as churches and hotels targeted
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48001720
Not everything is about leadership, there's also the fact the Remain voters are motivated by more than just Remain.
An alternative approach for them would have been to explicitly establish as the "Remain Party" - the mirror to Farage's Brexit Party. It would give them a clear identity, might have helped them overshadow the LibDems, and the polarity between the Brexit Party and Remain Party would create an interesting dynamic for the media, each gaining publicity on the back of the other, and ensured more coverage as the Euro elections approached.
The trouble with that branding is that it is obviously temporary - just as for Farage, when Brexit is either done or abandoned, the imperative goes away. But, firstly, TIG/CUK doesn't appear to offer the basis for a lasting Uk political party, so is surely temporary anyway and secondly, an explicitly temporary vehicle would have paved the way to fold themselves into the LibDems somewhere down the line, once time had put distance between the defectors and their origins; an eventual outcome that already looks the most likely end to this story.
Which is where we are now but it's far too early to declare a knock out. The 'breakaways' don't have to do much other than be there and wait for Corbyn and May to revert to type at which point another gaping hole will appear for them to walk into.
Hopefully by then someone with experience of corporate identities will have grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and sorted out their logos and names
I am however sceptical that this gap really exists. Despite the freebooting economics of Farage, UKIP as a party was pretty interventionist in its policy and certainly not economically libertarian.
And, further, were it not for Brexit I think May's intention was to move the Tories toward this space. ConHome is full of moans about the Conservatives' Milibandish approach, and policies such as the fuel price cap or the potential changes to tenancy arrangements are hardly right wing economics.
Except possibly for Farage (and surely his incentive will be to say as little about non-Brexit policy as possible, for the time being?), no-one at all is offering economic liberalism right now. It appears to have gone out of fashion.
It is the LDs who should have grabbed this lifeline for all it was worth. Whilst they have the remnants of a party organisation, they have no political personalities nor policies able to cut through. They should have made a bold move.
I suppose we shall see some formerly large parties shringing to a similar size to improve their internal discipline
I couldn't think of two more totally disconnected political issues if I tried, but I've really confused several of them by my support for both propositions and made another err.. quite cross.
Best avoided until they reform and regroup. Hence TIG was a lost opportunity.
I'd say disillusioned Blarities, personally.
Live and let live, I say. As long as the middle-class know-it-alls bugger up London amd stay there, they can do what they want.
Which means voting either Labour or Tory isn't sending a clear message (except in the Tory case the impossible scenario of a thumping Tory vote would I guess at least give May's deal a following wind. With Labour, the same result would simply be a vote of confidence for sitting on the fence).
Despite their own policy, I don't think Green will be seen as primarily Remain vote. So remainers are left with TIG v LibDem, and it will be interesting to see if the polls start to clarify which of them is out front.
Well Labour "achieved " an illegal war, the ramifications of which are still being felt, and a 156 billion deficit.. best to keep Labour out of power.. Labour always end up with higher unemployment that when they take office. You know it doesn't make sense to vote Labour.
Tests of soundness aren't new, of course, and political activists on left and right love identifying totemic issues such as these that allow a shortcut to working out whether someone is "one of us" or not.
Labour coming top of the Euros is very possible, even probable, and sets up a very different post election narrative.
In the locals, LD all the way, though as I am working both this weekend and next, delivering Focus leaflets is probably as active as I can get.
The media is the epitome of middle-class know-it-alls, so it's hardly like to ignore itself. I wouldn't be surprised if most of their kids are on gap-years promoting the cause.
It's become a fashion accessory rather then a cause. The new quinoa.
It wasn't £156b.
It was £167 billion.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2010/03/24/DeficitMountain2.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/18/change-uk-internet-politics-european-elections-party-logo
But I'm getting old and grumpy.
Not to mention, there's rising solar and geothermal energy. (Wind too, though wind is stupid). The idea there's no move to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is fictional. The protesters are bleating because it's not happening right now and so they're stamping their feet.
If they actually want to point fingers, they should head over to China. The kid glove response of the Met is unlikely to be reproduced in Beijing, though...
No reason will be coherent to you. That's called a subjective view. We all have them.
I'm coherent, you're confused, he's barmy.
That's politics.
And of course high speed rail matters more to continental Europe because they have a very different heavy rail network to ours; theirs being built around infrequent long distance services where the U.K. being smaller and having little in the way of external connections is more like a national metro. There’s a reason we aren’t like Europe.
I'm amused by both Mogg and Francois. So am I not allowed to be amused by a seventeen-year-old know-it-all?
Politics needs to grow up. If you eat burgers 24/7 you will eventually die early from it, even if an individual burger doesn’t kill you.
You'd better watch your Emma Thompson tendencies there Dura they can get out of hand if left unchecked.
But convenient if you want to twat about in the centre of London and annoy law-abiding people just trying to make a living and go about their business.
Well said. Scepticism is good.
Lord Kelvin said in around 1900, that the task of Physics was finished. All that was needed now was more and more accuracy - the decimal points. Within the next decade, quantum mechanics and relativity appeared.
Carbon dioxide has the potential to warm the atmosphere and may well do so. How much and to what extent depends on many confounding factors. That's why predicting accurately is not yet possible. Those perky unknown unknowns.