Politics, The Election May 2015

[thebish]

currently:

Andy Burnham 5/2
Chuka Umunna - 5/2
Yvette Cooper - 7/2
Dan Jarvis - 5/1
Liz Kendall - 12/1
Tristram Hunt - 12/1
Stella Creasy - 20/1
Harriet Harman - 20/1
David Miliband - 20/1

[Zulus Thousand of em]

Met Liz Kendall last Friday in Leicester. Very good outsider imho.

[a1]

currently:

Andy Burnham 5/2
Chuka Umunna - 5/2
Yvette Cooper - 7/2
Dan Jarvis - 5/1
Liz Kendall - 12/1
Tristram Hunt - 12/1
Stella Creasy - 20/1
Harriet Harman - 20/1
David Miliband - 20/1

jesus christ, i can see even more 'silent tories' evading pollsters in 2019 (?) over some of them.

for instance - i carnt imagine the TV browbeatings andy burnham giving the viewers being a vote winner.

i also cannot believe the ukip vote being that big.

[Prufrock]

Any system in which the SDLP get 3 seats from a total of 98 thousand votes, and UKIP get 1 from 3.8m is utterly f*cked.

[Hoboh]

Am I allowed to call farage "yesterday's man" yet?

positives... farage gone (yesterday's man)
balls and miliband gone - both of them were toxic to labour's cause

so - when does this renegotiation with Europe start?

Gotta say, I'm looking round and I'm not seeing any shoe-ins. After seeing the campaigns for the last couple of weeks, I think they need to pick someone who is photogenic and says really nice things whilst not doing any debates and pats babies nicely on the head.

yeah... though, the other mimliband might now be weighing up his options... he's kept his powder very dry for quite some time now...

Balls was always gonna be toxic - stained (rightly or wrongly - it doesn't matter) with his association with Brown and the stories told about labour's handling of the economy (again - rightly or wrongly...)

also - he always looks smug.

I think labour should head-hunt Sturgeon...

Oh I'd have her head okay, rolling round the floor of the tower!

[Hoboh]

Andy Burnham 5/2
Chuka Umunna - 5/2
Yvette Cooper - 7/2
Tristram Hunt - 12/1
Harriet Harman - 20/1
David Miliband - 20/1

Any of the above and we might as well not even think about bothering to turn out to vote Labour!
I honestly think apart from a few trade union dinosaurs and the odd extreme lefty that socialism is finished in main stream politics and we are heading for US style parties with not enough distance between them to insert a fag paper.
I suppose before they get too pissed it will live on in the student bars but why worry about them? They couldn't get rid of Clegg and he crapped all over them
Btw Pru, Harman will be heading to obscurity on the back benches, if that wench cannot get any publicity she is to all intense and purpose finished!
Oh before I forget, a plague on South Thanet and the Tory bar stewards that live there.

[Lord Kangana]

Claptrap. People swallow these media-fed ideas without ever engaging their brains. There has never been a great deal between our parties in government.

In '87 Kinnock ended up with roughly the same number of seats as Labour have now. 10 years later, Blair ends up with 420 - a larger share than Saint Margaret of Grantham ever managed. John Major actually garnered more votes than any other post war PM... which includes the total landslides that Attlee, Thatcher and Blair managed.

And I don't seem to recall in '97 anyone reporting on the "death of conservatism as we know it" when the Tories had 70-odd fewer seats than Labour have now.

You wait and see - when the inevitable deep cuts come, when its shown that the SNP aren't Fungus the Bogeyman at all, areas like the southwest will turn back to Liberalism, the SNP will lose some seats in Scotland, and once the in-fighting starts within the tory party over the European referendum all bets will be off.

[thebish]

I'd be disappointed with Burnham/Umuna or Cooper...

it's time for a new face - one not associated so heavily with past failure

Blair was that - relatively unscathed by office - as was Cameron...

and - while we're at it - a bit of totty at the top of labour wouldn't harm - it's about time Labour had a woman leader... Kendall or Creasy - either will do - depends if you're into blonds or brunettes... I'm a brunette kind of guy - so, Kendall...

bring on the yoof...

[CrazyHorse]

I don't believe that socialism is finished but Hobes has a point. The way folk've turned on Labour; particularly the jocks is telling.
I'm sure if they go away and reinvent themselves a-la Blair they'll bounce back.

Though it'd probably be a good idea if this time the reinvention didn't include causing the worst financial crisis ever seen. Or y'know, shamelessly sending troops to their death in a pointless war.

[thebish]

I don't believe that socialism is finished but Hobes has a point. The way folk've turned on Labour; particularly the jocks is telling.
I'm sure if they go away and reinvent themselves a-la Blair they'll bounce back.

Though it'd probably be a good idea if this time the reinvention didn't include causing the worst financial crisis ever seen. Or y'know, shamelessly sending troops to their death in a pointless war.

apart from the fact that Labour didn't "cause" the financial crisis
and the fact that it wasn't the "worst financial crisis ever"

then - the rest is spot on!

[CrazyHorse]

Aye.

[Prufrock]

Where they lost it IMO, letting the Tories keep saying that. The American election wasn't fought on the basis of getting America out of a recession because Labour overspent. Nor was Japan's because Gordon Brown sold off the gold.

The bankers caused the financial crisis. The Labour government didn't do enough to stop them, but the Tories criticised them for not being lax enough at the time. Whoever was holding the ball at the time was always going to be f*cked.

[CrazyHorse]

Aye.

[jaffka]

Labour have been tainted with it and done nothing to try and remove that taint. They are in the shit and don't have an obvious leader that will be popular.

As for the Tories getting in I can imagine public sector being delighted another 5 years of being f**ked over coming without the libs this time being able to moderate them a little.

[Bruce Rioja]

The system's a fecking nonsense anyway. UKIP get 3.8m votes and one MP. The Greens get 1.1m votes and one MP. Wee Jimmy's lot get 1.5m votes yet have 56 MP's.

[TANGODANCER]

Hope Mrs Cranky knows the end of the William Wallace story.

[Harry Genshaw]

Where they lost it IMO, letting the Tories keep saying that. The American election wasn't fought on the basis of getting America out of a recession because Labour overspent. Nor was Japan's because Gordon Brown sold off the gold.

The bankers caused the financial crisis. The Labour government didn't do enough to stop them, but the Tories criticised them for not being lax enough at the time. Whoever was holding the ball at the time was always going to be f*cked.

This was Labour's biggest failing for me. Folk I know who aren't remotely interested in politics repeat the mantra "Well Labour caused this financial mess that the coalition inherited". I don't recall hearing a single robust defence by a Labour minister of that charge. Milliband had the opportunity last week on QT when that small business woman harangued him but failed miserably.

[a1]

the ukip 's big vote in a first wins system is one i can live with (not coz i'm anti or pro them, just i can live with that system, its 'probably' the best one).

but its next time (or whenever).

how many people voted labour under thatcher ? , then boom, labour for ages (was it 10-14? years).

cannot imagine the doom-mongery of the blogosphere if a ukip or whatever get kinda big, its bad enough listening to sons of trade unionists going on about the conservatives like theyre the fecking total war nazis.

slightly off-topic -
that stella creasy got caught up in that "twitter rape threats" thing over the ten (maybe the five) pound note. now from what i remember they took elizabeth fry off it but wanted winston churcill on the ten. that lead to various male chauvanism accusations and whatever. but the comment that kicked it off was summat like "[sarcasm]winston churchill ? great ! another white man [/sarcasm]" . which seemed like a 'loaded comment' to me. not to mention possibly ignorant and disrespectful.

so i just thought 'aye, whatever' when she was after breaking the internet twitter with stupid filters, its no wonder folk lie to pollsters.

eventually opinion'll go the way that going "omg did you see that on tv last night?" went.

[Bijou Bob]

I can't see Burnham having any credibility either with the party faithful or the press. It matters little however. The unions will again choose their prize fool and the PLP will just have to make do with whomever they choose.

[Lord Kangana]

Labour would be better served putting an interim leader in place for a year or two - an Alan Johnston type who knows its not a permanent thing, and then banging their collective heads together, sort their shit out, then get someone like David Miliband back from America just in time for when people are starting to get sick of Cameron and Osborne.