An article based on fear.

This has been an election of big surprises. Like everyone else, I never expected the Tories to do any better than the largest party in a hung Parliament and even then, I really expected them to lose ground in the local elections, since that is what normally happens to a governing party even when they are winning the Westminster election. Yet, the Tories have made big advances in the local elections too, which is completely off the wall:

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32671424

With results available for 246 councils, the state of play is:

• The Conservatives have won 4,638 seats, up 485. They control 138 councils, an increase of 25


• Labour have won 2,026 seats, down 161. They control 71 councils, three fewer than before


• The Lib Dems have won 540 seats, down 312. They control three councils, four fewer than before


• UKIP has won 145 seats, boosting its representation by 39


• The Green Party has won 58 seats, a net gain of 12

http://order-order.com/2015/05/08/your-boys-took-one-helluva-beating/#_@/QsolI-Y+ubCcGQ

An article based on Tory policies.

Excellent poster Essan and very funny - but it misses the bit about compulsory baby eating.

Anyhow, on a serious note it is a good move leaving Philip Hammond at the FO - he is a noted eurosceptic and as Foreign Secretary he will take the lead on negotiating a new arrangement with the EU.

I think this is the most fascinating thing about a Conservative victory - it provides a mandate to get real, genuine and significant reforms of our relationship with the EU and the leaders of other EU countries and the EUcrats in Brussels must be made aware of that. If they fail to offer genuine reform, we really could be on the way out of the EU altogether and Angela Merkel in particular does not want that.

Cheers Richard - You beat me to it. I'll add my bit fwiw. I hope that the Conservatives don't squander this opportunity. We don't want a repeat of what happened under John Major in the early 1990s.

The recovery needs to be broadened and deepened and incentives need to be in place to ensure that everyone benefits .

Somewhat tempered by the fact the Indy came out for the same Tories it now tries to belatedly demonise.

Under this bunch of self-serving elitists?

Get real. Of course, they'll peddle the total myth of 'trickle down' politics, cutting taxes for the wealthiest whilst cutting services & benefits for everyone else. But privately they'll be raising toast to the innate ability of ordinary British people to vote for a government that acts completely against their overall interests.

The collapse of the LibDems thinking about it now is normal service resumed.

You look at the Liberals/LibDems since WWII, when the Tories resurge and came back into power, the Liberal vote collapsed as it did in 1951, 1970 and 1979. 

The aberration was 2010 when the Tories resurged but the LibDems vote held up infact it increased. Well the Tories this time managed to form a majority government as the LibDems collapsed.

Every time the Tories formed a new majority government, the Liberals have collapsed.

I would also in addition to the above,very much hope they repeal the climate change act or at least severely dilute it.

Why is it "going back in time?". You can argue against the policies if you disagree with them, but in no way is it "going back in time". There is no time continuum which means that policies can only ever go in one direction.

Quite. I'll never pay money for that paper again. To be fair, most of the staff were as unhappy as most of the readers.

I've been reading the rawk election post-mortem, and it's surprisingly very good analysis.

One poster was critical of Labour's overall presentation of its electoral offering. The manifesto & political positioning of the party is what it is. The right-wing media from the moment he was elected portrayed Milliband as leftist. He never was, and nor was his manifesto. Let's also remember that Labour under Bliar introduced the minimum wage, Tax Credits, etc.

Milliband was never able to counter this 'dark arts' propaganda war by the media or the Tory Party, because Labour never presented a coherent counter.

Over a year ago, worried about Labour's electoral prospects, Mandy remarked, “Having policies without those being drawn into a convincing and vivid narrative, a story about who you are, what you stand for, what you’re going to do for people and the country, is not enough.”

He's correct. Labour's campaign was all over the place, with gimmicks (the tombstone) & on-the-hoof new policy announcements being thrown into the fray. But no big central narrative, about how their key policies benefit the majority.

Perhaps you've not heard the phrase 'going back in time' used as a metaphor? I mean, if we do as you hope, we'd end up with laws and the UK as they were at some point in the past - at least out of the EU proper and perhaps simply out of the EU (1970's), not part of the European human rights area (along with Belarus - so that's good!) - 1950's, cut public spending, as a proportion,  to the levels of the...1930s?

I don't think they will, unless they are willing to risk an avalanche of protest!

Here is an interesting piece of news - Labour's woes continue:

Nigel Farage may have failed to capture the parliamentary seat of South Thanet, but his party has scored a historic victory locally nonetheless, capturing its first council, Thanet in Kent, from Labour.

Everyone goes on as if the Conservatives have won big and are popular - but they're still simply the least unpopular minority party. We're there crowds in the streets celebrating? Hardly a soul? In my part of the world several seats fell to the Conservatives (many seats in fact) but their share of the vote a hardly changed and less than 1% increase across the UK.

The Conservatives are a teeny weeny bit more popular than they were.

The big news is the LibDems are a lot less popular - that's really what swung the election. People say they're irrelevant (and they may be now) but they have played a big role in several post war elections.

Now, it could be argued Labour should have advanced more - and I think they could have. How much? With a charismatic leader, policies closer to the 'aspiring', the 'centre left' maybe the 5% that went missing in the polling booths? But maybe not. The economy isn't in recession and the LDs (dur) have been sewerage engineers for the Conservative. That waste plumbing has gone now - if they understand they need to look decent 2020 could be theirs too.

The beast is stirring. Interesting piece in The Telegraph here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11594812/David-Cameron-launches-charm-offensive-to-head-off-Right-wing-rebel-Tory-MPs.html

Significant comments:

"David Davis, former Europe Minister, estimated that most of the 332 Tory MPs wanted Parliament to have a veto or “opt-out” power to stop individual EU laws from applying to Britain. Up to 60 MPs would feel so strongly that they could rebel on the issue alone, he said. "

But “a significant fraction of the Conservative party” wants “a parliamentary opt-out on anything” from the EU.

“What ordinary members of the public want to see are an ‘emergency brake’ on immigration, which the Swiss have got. They probably want to see some changes to things like the European arrest warrant, rather less regulatory meddling,” he said.

...

"Nigel Mills, the Tory MP who led a rebellion over EU migration 18 months ago, said he wanted Mr Cameron to restore the “national sovereignty” of Parliament “so our national parliament’s decisions have to be respected.

“If we as a parliament decide to do something that conflicts with an EU treaty, we have to have the final say,” Mr Mills said. “After that, anything else you can fix. The other thing we really need to get to grips on is the immigration issue.”"

I would be more than happy if we could achieve the above, since it would re-establish the primacy of the UK Parliament as the repository of the sovereign will of the British people.

Plus, I have always hated the European Arrest Warrant, since it treats the judicial systems of all EU countries as equivalent.

What a load of old bollox. Sovereign will of 36.9% of us more like. Sheesh the Conservatives can be arrogant. You don't speak for most of us!

That's likely to be as much to do with the previous council being utterly incompetent when it came to the handling of Manston as it is to do with liking UKIP!

(For those who weren't aware, Manston was a historic airport in Thanet, used for cargo flights, training (BA used it for their A380), aircraft dismantling and occasional passenger flights - several airlines have come and gone over the years, most recently KLM. It also served as an emergency base for pilots in trouble nearby.

Anyway, some businesswoman called Anne Gloag bought it for a pound. A US consortium offered to buy the place for several million pounds, operating primarily as a cargo airport with a sideline in dismantling old aircraft - essentially a continuation of its old role, with more focus on cargo. They came back with several offers as each was turned down by Gloag.

A few months later Gloag said the airport would never be viable and sold it to some housing developers (just what's needed, loads more houses in an area with few jobs). Understandably this caused anger from lots of people who thought that Gloag had no intention to actually run the place as an airport, but was just wanting to asset-strip the place and make money from selling it to propery developers.

The local council proved hopeless, faffing about with regards to pursuing a compulsory purchase order. In the end after a lot of flapping around they decided not to go for it. This ruffled feathers in government (after all, there's allegedly a shortage of air capacity in the SE, so moving some cargo away from Heathrow and Gatwick would free up some slots) and the arguments continue to go on.

UKIP had a very strong local campaign in favour of pursuing a CPO and re-opening the airport.

It's no wonder they got in. I'd have swallowed my pride and voted UKIP for the local council if I lived in Thanet. As an aside, we have a UKIP and Tory councillor now in East Sheppey - what's interesting is the Tory who didn't get elected is one of those anti-infrastructure people who opposes everything and who wants 20 limits on rural main roads. I, along with others, voted tactically to get her removed and it seems to have worked! I voted for the other Tory and a Labour candidate.)