The Tories are not only victorious at the general election but also at the local elections.

They did well in 2011 but this time even better.

So far 528 extra council seats and 30 extra councils.

 

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Tony says the route to the summit is through the centre. And he is right.

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Having gone through Almaty/Astana and Tashkent first.

Oh.........hang on.....that dodgy gravy comes afterwards.

Why on earth besides choosing Douglas Alexander as election coordinator did they choose Lucy Powell as vice chair to the election campaign?

She was absolutely hopeless. 

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Winning a by-election on the lowest turnout since WWII?

Hmmm, on second thoughts, that probably reinforces your point.

That's what Anne Gloag is good at. She (and her brother) spotted the opportunity when Thatcher sold off the bus companies, which were making a loss. Mrs Gloag bought the bus companies so as to sell off all the bus station properties for development that she could - profit for her, a wait in the rain for everyone else as roadside termini became the norm.

Gloag business methods reviewed in

http://www.savemanstonairport.org.uk/Docs/Gloag,%20Souter,%20Bradley,%20Stagecoach%20and%20the%20never%20ending%20merrigoround.pdf

 

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I think this is the problem with our politicians today. They come into parliament and within 5 minutes they are promoted to this and that.

Ed Miliband was only elected as MP, 10 years ago and now he's already an ex leader. Maybe politically finished.

Where are these people serving their time in parliament? How can you judge if they have got talent, got nous? 

This didn't happen 20 years ago.

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Being from Moss Side doesn't help her either

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More evidence that you have no understanding of leftism/socialism

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It's got me perplexed as well. 

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It was reported that smoke bombs, bottles, cans and even a bicycle were hurled at police officers during this afternoon's disturbances

At one point a bicycle was hurled at police.

 I wondered where my bike had gone. 

I do fear for the future of British society. Not something the Conservatives and their supporters especially think about as they are so much driven by what is best for themselves or their families, not the wider society. I do understand that the UK is in huge debt and that is not a good thing. However, the majority of the population are 10% poorer than they were pre GFC. So the economics do not match up.
It's such a huge issue that I don't have time to go into detail at this time, but will continue in the Economics thread at another time. However, I will say the only thing that the Conservatives did in the last 5 years was see a major increase of inequality, another ridiculous house price bubble in London, and as a result huge social cleansing. Reduced wages for the majority of people and therefore the question is where is future economic growth going to come from without incurring more debt. I hate the short termism of right wing politics.

Anyone what a £30000 menhir? Going cheap on eBay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EdStone-Original-8ft-Limestone-Tablet-now-in-pieces-/331550067619?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4d31ec8ba3

 

 

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Tony gets it - the problem is that three quarters of his party don't get it, in particular the activists. Labour also has the problem that their former Celtic heartlands don't get it at all (hence one of the routes back to power for Labour is to make their Scottish and Welsh parties completely separate and independent entities).

If Labour became a totally Blairite party with a good dose of genuine liberalism thrown in, even I might consider voting for it under the right circumstances. That means giving up the politics of envy, it means not seeing the wealth creators as the enemy and it means not wanting to punish those who earn high incomes, but instead to simply make sure they pay the right amount of tax.

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I'd vote for him as PM  ........... If I hadn't already experienced him as PM

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Perhaps some of them will up sticks and move to the People's Republic of Scotland. Seeing Sturgeon on the news yesterday rammed home the message that the UK has never been more divided in this way. The picture of her apparently giving Cameron an icy stare was more striking than anything and memorable than the EdStone or anything from the election campaign. 

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I would say the country is running on a 'trickle out' model rather than 'trickle down' due to its London centric nature. People of my age group who own their own property around here are doing very well. Also, despite the mass immigration from eastern Europe competent local tradesmen (e.g. painters and decorators, general builders) who I know are still earning a packet around here because demand for them is so high. There are big problems with the economy but to simply ascribe them to 'trickle down' is IMO too simplistic.

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Interesting piece in The Telegraph here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11594861/David-Cameron-is-a-winner-now-and-his-Eurosceptic-backbenchers-know-it.html

Seems the EUcrats are wetting themselves over the Conservative victory - they wrote off Cameron's prospects months ago and assumed they would be dealing with an EU sell-out monkey in Number Ten at this stage, presiding over a weak and unstable coalition.

Now they have to deal with a Conservative majority government and a mildly eurosceptic PM at the peak of his power. Cameron is not the forgiving type and all those snubs and slights he has had to endure at the hands of EU officials and other EU leaders will be fresh in his mind.

Interesting times.

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But...what is the point of a political party if all it does is copy the policies of another party?

The Labour Party was created as the political wing of the labour movement, which itself had the aim of redressing the imbalance of power held by the owners of capital, through the use of solidarity & collectivism.

The imbalance of power held by the owners of capital still prevails - as does the need for a political movement to fight this. Indeed, after years of progress, since the 1980's the balance has swung back toward the owners of capital. Not all of it is government policy; much has to do with globalisation & the increased mobility of labour. But the Labour Party long gave up any pretence that it fights for better equalisation of power & redistribution of wealth.

Therefore, it's already lost much of its raison d'etre. It's tried to reshape itself as a party that's 'not as c*ntish as the Tories', which is better than the alternative - but it's lost a very substantial chunk of its support through doing so. Bliar managed to initially retain most Labour support to add to the swathes of new Labour voters - but that was more because people on the left just wanted any change from the nightmare of two decades of Tory rule. In successive elections, NuLabour lost votes from the left.

Labour's issue now is being able to attract votes from the Tories/Lib Dems (and back from UKIP, although I think UKIP have had their peak), whilst not alienating voters from the other end (the left).

With a coherent narrative to pull policy together, a less EU-slavish stance, keeping more contentious policy out of the headlights & short of detail (read the Tories' £12bn welfare cuts, which the media allowed them to keep off the agenda & undetailed), and a good leader-deputy leader broad appeal, they could recapture the sort of support of those people who vote Tory but whilst holding their nose and ignoring their conscience.

 

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Beats opposition?

But where might we be in 2020?

A lot of UK politics is now 'Don't do what they down/up there do'. So, if Scotland is pro EU and lot of people down here will be anti. I wouldn't bet either way on the EU referendum - I think my part of this country is quite capable of an act of mass madness.

So, by 2020 two countries? One a leftish Scotland in the EU, so England goes the other way, out of the EU and more tory? It flipping solid tory as it is...

Writing today, in 2015, I can't see how a party of the left can win the first English General Election. Later on maybe but not 2020.

England, 2020 England, isn't going to be won over by people who can be characterised. Sandel wearers, note leavers, 'stupid feminists', 'stupid cows', tax raisers, 'scary', 'limpdums', 'limp whatever', 'socialists',  etc etc....

 

But what is the point in being in government if all you're going to do is implement the same broad agenda & policies as the other guys?

Look, I've been there, back in around 1992, pondering if Labour needed to be more like the Tories to win power. Then NuLabour was spawned, I came to the above conclusion, and abandoned the party I'd supported since being politically aware & had been a member of.

I still see Labour as one of those old friends you were really pally with when you were kids, but who then goes in a life direction totally at odds with yours, so you drift apart & end up with nothing in common.

 

I'll add that it's incredibly difficult being on 'the left'. It's a broad church that attracts some real f*cking imbeciles and loony ideas. The nature of socialism means that everyone makes an effort to be inclusive, and it's this which has 1) diluted the left's message, as crackers side-issues (equal rights for one-legged lesbian Muslim basket weavers) get adopted; and 2) allowed opponents of the left an open goal to denigrate & ridicule the whole principle of leftism.

The left needs to refocus on core beliefs - addressing extreme wealth inequality, improving rights for workers, providing strong & well-funded public services, etc - and, more importantly, putting forward a coherent, simple narrative to present as the argument against the corporate-capitalist message.

 

 

 

 

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Because it beats the impotency of opposition? Labour 1997-2010 wasn't great but the tories would have been a whole lot different.

We're both left of centre. If we were right of centre we'd both be Conservatives. We'd have just 'won' this election. As it is the difference between my more world view and yours shouldn't be enough for us to be in different parties - should it? At least not when the one instrument of change in this country is elections held using ykw, that most blunt, unsophisticated, unrepresentative of systems.

I've been sitting here today wondering what to do. Join the LD's? Join Labour? Give up on politics and help, I dunno, the RSPB to preseve what's left of our wildlife cos there is nowt I can do for it's people by politics? I wonder if a extraparliamentry force for good might develop as left wing views are extinguished from having any influence in England?

And all that, all that will happen because the left can't do what it has to do to get elected? I don't care if it's not very left, look at the enemy (its the Cons) not the Popular Front, Peoples Front, Judean Peoples etc etc etc

Indeed, these are very difficult times to be of a more left wing persuasion. I have given up on mainstream politics and have joined an organisation that is helping spread the message of climate change and ecological issues here in Australia in our community. It's not difficult to give up on mainstream politics, Our prime minister here in Australia as an example sent the new baby princess a lump of coal with the message ' the future of mankind'. I actually feel a bit sorry for Tony Abbott he's a bit like a fossil himself, I can see how he would get on with Prince Phillip. 

Having done some of this community work and got out there and spoke to people it's absolutely fascinating. Some of our communities most supposedly successful people, in money terms are without doubt the most selfish and self centred. Money is their World to a scary level. They have not even thought about their children's future living on this Planet. Infact they don't seem to have the capacity to have any possible thoughts about the future past their death. Welcome to short termist thinking, a huge failure of western society. 

Tony Abbott is brilliant! I only wish we had a politician of his stature in mainland Europe:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-boats-in-100-days-tony-abbott-claims-victory-20140329-35pvp.html

"After 100 days without the arrival of an asylum seeker boat on Australian shores, the Prime Minister claimed victory on Saturday: He had stopped the boats.

"We can say to all of the people who scoffed, we can say to all of the people who said it couldn’t be done … that it was just a simple slogan - that it can be done," Tony Abbott said."

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i suspect most of them drowned on route, it's a bit further from Indonesia to Northern Australia than say North Africa to Sicily. Or, Abbott actually made them think they would rather be persecuted in their own countries than have Tony fossilised Abbott sticking them in a camp being looked after by Serco.