Politics, The Election May 2015

[Bijou Bob]

Milliband senior couldn't command the union block vote last time around and as a New Labour Blairite, probably wouldn't stand a chance this time. What the unions can't or won't accept is that this is no longer the 1970's. The electorate are far more engaged and have clearly rejected socialism. Centre left, New Labour politics is as far to the left as the majority are comfortable with and until Unison et al learn that lesson, the Labour party will remain on the Fri ges.

When Ed M was selected, read imposed, on the PLP, you could almost hear the laughter from Tory central office. I see no one on the lists above who would cause them any real concern, which is a tragedy for democratic politics.

[Lord Kangana]

If that were really the case, there would have been no Blair (and remember, it was Mandelson et al who behind the scenes did the deed). Its been done more than once, it will happen again. Parties in power always grow hubristic and overblown. They cause their own downfall generally. They then go through a period of soul searching The Tories always face the same conflicts within their own party between right and centre. 15 years ago they were a joke, today they're in office. Its just the nature of politics.

[thebish]

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.

I'm not really sure I agree - intuitively it might LOOK that way - but the truth is that well over 3.7million of those UKIP voters voted locally and were fairly and democratically involved, but their local candidate didn't win... simple enough - they ARE represented by the person who was entirely democratically elected in the place where they vote - their candidates were simply not persuasive enough to get themselves elected.

thing is - unless you only allow two parties to compete - then it is virtually inevitable that most voters won't get the candidates that they voted for. which SOUNDS undemocratic - but really is just the basic maths of the system we have.

is it fecked? well - not if you want local people to vote for local representation...

strictly speaking, we don't vote for the Prime Minsiter or the makeup of the House of Commons - we vote for a local candidate. I think people STILL emotionally like the idea of voting for a local representative.

the system has always been messed up in the sense that we vote for a local candidate who in reality has no real say over how our lives are locally - s/he has no local power and only "represents" us in the most tenuous of ways...

the REAL local power sits with local councils - but far fewer people can be arsed voting for those...

yest - as the recent referendum on the voting system showed - folk don't seem inclined to abandon voting for their own local MP just yet - and if that is the case - how on earth could we impose a "fair" tariff of UKIP MPs on consituencies that democratically voted for another candidate?

it's not as simple as folk (not you Bruce, in this instance) seem to be saying...

[Bijou Bob]

Blair was the exception. Labour went for the only realistic choice at the time and New Labour politics appealed to the centre ground. Another centre left leader would be electable. Anyone to the left if that wouldn't, no matter how bad the Tories were to some. Kinnock learned that lesson the hard way, as did Foot. Milliband is just the latest casualty in the same battle.

[Worthy4England]

Blair was the exception. Labour went for the only realistic choice at the time and New Labour politics appealed to the centre ground. Another centre left leader would be electable. Anyone to the left if that wouldn't, no matter how bad the Tories were to some. Kinnock learned that lesson the hard way, as did Foot. Milliband is just the latest casualty in the same battle.

Fair comments, one and all. I had Blair down as centre right. I'm not convinced Milliband was exceptionally left, just think he was a very poor choice on voter appeal. Not sure whether people got as far as policy...

[Bruce Rioja]

Blair was the exception. Labour went for the only realistic choice at the time and New Labour politics appealed to the centre ground. Another centre left leader would be electable. Anyone to the left if that wouldn't, no matter how bad the Tories were to some. Kinnock learned that lesson the hard way, as did Foot. Milliband is just the latest casualty in the same battle.

Fair comments, one and all. I had Blair down as centre right. I'm not convinced Milliband was exceptionally left, just think he was a very poor choice on voter appeal. Not sure whether people got as far as policy...

See, other than for stuff like staring into the camera (which I just found creepy) I thought that Milliband fought a very decent fight; certainly made a considerably better fist of it than I thought he might. I also thought it an excellent move by Labour's PR department to keep Ed Balls well out of public campaigning.

[Worthy4England]

He certainly did better than expected, but the bar was so low, it'd have been tough not to improve slightly. Clegg probably bagged 20 seats for the LDs in 2010 based on his leadership debate performance. Sturgeon certainly nailed it this time around. Truth is that Lab actually improved their share of the vote marginally more than the Tories (who improved theirs too). Just in all the unimportant places for Labour. Adding 10% on in Sunderland North, helps them, not one whit.

[Hoboh]

The problem for Labour as I see it is the rag tag bands of one interest groups are far too vocal, the unions are no way going to cede anymore control of the party than they already have and TBH there is no one in the party that would look the business to the majority of the electorate. Blair and Mandleson got that bit stitched up, Blair came across as in control silencing the rag tags and appearing to crush the union power, but that ain't going to happen again soon.

[Lord Kangana]

I also thought it an excellent move by Labour's PR department to keep Ed Balls well out of public campaigning.

You sound like my dad!

Every time Balls appears on the tellybox, he turns into some strange hybrid of Father Jack Hackett and Alf Garnett shouting incoherently at him - as if he can bloody hear him.

[Beefheart]

He certainly did better than expected, but the bar was so low, it'd have been tough not to improve slightly. Clegg probably bagged 20 seats for the LDs in 2010 based on his leadership debate performance. Sturgeon certainly nailed it this time around. Truth is that Lab actually improved their share of the vote marginally more than the Tories (who improved theirs too). Just in all the unimportant places for Labour. Adding 10% on in Sunderland North, helps them, not one whit.

Strangely, though their vote was in higher in 2010 than 2005 their number of seats fell. Stupid fecking electoral system.

[Worthy4England]

He certainly did better than expected, but the bar was so low, it'd have been tough not to improve slightly. Clegg probably bagged 20 seats for the LDs in 2010 based on his leadership debate performance. Sturgeon certainly nailed it this time around. Truth is that Lab actually improved their share of the vote marginally more than the Tories (who improved theirs too). Just in all the unimportant places for Labour. Adding 10% on in Sunderland North, helps them, not one whit.

Strangely, though their vote was in higher in 2010 than 2005 their number of seats fell. Stupid fecking electoral system.

To end up with more seats than the Tories, there would have needed to be a 50 seat swing from Con --> Lab. If you look at the marginals between the two in 2010, that equates to persuading 92,138 folks, to vote the other way (they would of course have had to have lost none to anyone else as well.)

[Worthy4England]

Actually, bad maths. They'd have needed half that number +50, so about 46k votes.

[Beefheart]

Actually, bad maths. They'd have needed half that number +50, so about 46k votes.

Apologies, I was talking about the Lib Dems.

[Hoboh]

I know some think I hold right wing views but to be honest I could feel at home with Labour under the right circumstances.
I hold my hands up and admit to voting for Blair first time round but not too long after found myself feeling 'this guy is getting a little too close to the last lot', then when the smugness and I know best started to appear, that did it for me, probably the same reason Cameron leaves a bad taste in my mouth (as well as his lies).

[Bruce Rioja]

I also thought it an excellent move by Labour's PR department to keep Ed Balls well out of public campaigning.

You sound like my dad!

Every time Balls appears on the tellybox, he turns into some strange hybrid of Father Jack Hackett and Alf Garnett shouting incoherently at him - as if he can bloody hear him.

I have news for you, Son.

[Bruce Rioja]

I see that a bunch of wankers that seem unable to comprehend/accept the democratic process decided to march on Downing Street, like DC's going to step out of No. 10 and say "Oh, OK, we'll feck off then"

But more than that, one of them found it acceptable to carry this out. There are no words!

[Worthy4England]

^^ Agree entirely on the second part about defacing the memorial.

As to the first part, they are of course in the democratic minority group of 63% who didn't vote for DC. Just for some balance, that's a smaller didn't vote for you percentage than the 64% who didn't vote for Blair in 2005.

[thebish]

to be fair - the percentage of the electorate who didn't vote for cameron would actually be somewhere in the very high 99% plus range... the same for Blair...

not even Bobo (who won't see this cos he doesn't come on this thread) voted for Cameron...

[thebish]

to see it mapped out like this makes what we all know instintively, quite stark!

[Bruce Rioja]

That's as maybe, but what exactly are these people hoping to achieve by marching on Downing Street? The people have voted - that's the end of it.