Westminster Politics

The coup against Theresa Moyes conveniently got the march out of the main headlines...
 
SteveJ said:
The coup against Theresa Moyes conveniently got the march out of the main headlines...
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Or possibly it was the march that made people act to oust her... Most things in politics are interconnected in some way or another
Plus the march was the main story all day... It was the evening the potential coup got talked up more
 
Doubt the coup rumours are related to the march. Hasn't really worked if that is the case.
This is about scaring the ERG into voting for her shit deal.
 
Only thing if Gove takes over is it’ll guarantee a Labour victory in the next GE as no right-minded civil servant would vote for Gove.
 
SteveJ said:
The coup against Theresa Moyes conveniently got the march out of the main headlines...
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Theresa Moyes:lol:
"David Cameron would have struggled with this Brexit"
"Corbyn's cabinet is the cabinet we aspire to be"
"I don't know what we have to do to win"
"We'll try and make it difficult for the EU"
 
The Independent Group become a political party called Change UK

 
esmufc07 said:
I wonder how many moderate Labour MPs would be prepared to switch.
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Depends very much on Tom Watson I think. He's become much more high profile in recent weeks, being particularly critical of the Labour machinery, and has started this centre left peer group of MPs. That's an obvious group of MPs who may jump ship if they're unhappy, and this fact means that Tom Watson now has more political clout than before, since he's the pied piper in some respects. For as long as Tom Watson can continue being the voice of that group, I dont think there'll be any more defections. If he gets the proverbial knife in the back somehow, you can expect a large number defecting all at once.
 
Let’s not forget that even that 5 point lead would translate to Labour not being able to command a majority. Because our democratic system is really well balanced..
 
PMQ's is going to be strange today
Corbyn and May blaming each other before going into a meeting about working together...
will be interesting to see how the ERG react to May as it must also be in labours mind to call a confidence motion if the ERG are angry enough
 
The crisis-hit line, which should have been opened by the Queen last December, is already £2.8 billion over budget and at least a year behind schedule.

The Commons public accounts committee today said it was “not convinced” the trains would run under central London next year as hoped, or that the extra funds would be enough to finish it.
............................

The 73-mile route will link Reading and Heathrow with Shenfield and Abbey Wood but has been delayed by a series of catastrophic construction, train and signalling problems.


Nine new stations that should have been finished in 2016 are incomplete, a £1 billion fleet of new trains cannot be fully tested and London businesses and fare payers are having to pay extra to foot the £17.6 billion total cost.
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tra...-it-may-not-be-finished-by-2020-a4107891.html
 
Labour and Tories both lose vote share in Newport West, but a swing to Tories overall. UKIP hoovers up all the leave votes, remainers split between four or five.
 
Ubik said:
Labour and Tories both lose vote share in Newport West, but a swing to Tories overall. UKIP hoovers up all the leave votes, remainers split between four or five.
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turnout down by half too.
 
Sweet Square said:
why the tories are..................fecked


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Was literally about to post this, makes for some fun reading. Generally speaking the young have always been a lot more left-leaning than the old but as was remarked upon in 2017 the disparity is growing.

If the Tories do at any point split - unlikely as it may seem - then it may be as the divide increases between the hardliners who want to retain a form of social conservatism and modernisers who try to dress up their right-wing economics in a more cuddly form of social liberalism. Essentially what Change UK are attempting at the moment.
 
Cheesy said:
Was literally about to post this, makes for some fun reading. Generally speaking the young have always been a lot more left-leaning than the old but as was remarked upon in 2017 the disparity is growing.

If the Tories do at any point split - unlikely as it may seem - then it may be as the divide increases between the hardliners who want to retain a form of social conservatism and modernisers who try to dress up their right-wing economics in a more cuddly form of social liberalism. Essentially what Change UK are attempting at the moment.
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The even better news is that between cuk, the lib dems and any potential tory split they'll completely feck that part of the electorate and roll out a red carpet for Corbyn
 
And yet a recent poll shows approval among 18-34 year olds as -22 for May and -19 for Corbyn. It's not a secure group of support for them quite yet.
 
Ubik said:
And yet a recent poll shows approval among 18-34 year olds as -22 for May and -19 for Corbyn. It's not a secure group of support for them quite yet.
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There could be room for a more centrist party that's properly socially liberal to pick up plenty of votes if people are unhappy with Corbyn and are willing to prioritise social views over economic views. Other than that, might see a move back to disaffection again with lots of young people not voting at all. It's certainly a goldmine for any Labour leader able to inspire confidence though.
 
Corbyns appeal is the economic policies not the social policies. When the next election comes around why would these groups pass the chance of rent controls in favour of a party with identical social policies that won't even try to make life affordable.
 
Silva said:
Corbyns appeal is the economic policies not the social policies. When the next election comes around why would these groups pass the chance of rent controls in favour of a party with identical social policies that won't even try to make life affordable.
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Pretty much this. Even if they think he's shite they are still going to vote for policies that will improve their actual lives.

Also Corbyn polling will just go up in the election campaign.
 
Silva said:
Corbyns appeal is the economic policies not the social policies. When the next election comes around why would these groups pass the chance of rent controls in favour of a party with identical social policies that won't even try to make life affordable.
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Prospective anger over Brexit would be a big one. I think he'll stand in good stead but as @Ubik points out he's not exactly universally popular among younger people even if it's his strongest support base. Although a similarly strong campaign to 2017 would probably help him out massively in that regard.
 
sun_tzu said:
Wouldn't be so sure... Assuming the conservatives are rid of may and don't have the debacle of a campaign they had before.

I think a lot could depend on any live debate as I doubt the next conservative leader would duck it like may did
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Possibly but I tend to think the reason the tories campaign was so awful last time is down to a deeper problem in the tory party

Sweet Square said:
The reason why the tories were so ''bad''(They did get 40% of the vote) last time is not down to Theresa May well being Theresa May, you could replace May with any other Tory and the outcome would have been the same. The issue is a electoral and economic one.

  • Dying Voter Base - The Thatcherite goon Heseltine mentioned this after the election result, 2 percent of the older electorate which is about 70 percent Conservative voting die and another 2 percent join(No surprise who this group is voting for). Their fecked in the long term which its why they are starting to push stuff like ID cards for voting.

  • The Trouble With Capitalism Is That You Eventually Run Out Of Things To Privatise - The Tories are really hitting the acceptable line of just how much they privatise and cut without facing backlash from the public. We saw this in the last election with the whole dementia tax and offering nothing for anyone under 50 years old. The Tory Party really haven't much change since Thatcher, its financial capital above all else, squeeze the welfare state and attack trade unions. Well they've done that, there's no trade union power any more, the welfare state has been destroyed and financial capital shate its pants in 2008, what next ?

  • The Further Right Wing Of The Tory Party - Johnston, Davids and one who looks like he went into a David Cronenberg transmitter pod holding a 19th Century panting haven't came up with any sort of alternative model that could win over support in the same way Thatcher could. Just on their social views alone they would struggle to get pass todays Britain(People underestimate the amount of bad will the tories got for trying to being back fox hunting).
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Hypothetical question:

If the Lib Dems had never made their tuition fee pledge, but had still served in the coalition, would they be in the same or a similar state to the one they are in now?

Put another way, which factor is more responsible for the complete irrelevance of the Lib Dem party? Selling out their voters with this U Turn, or getting into bed with the Tories?

Could either one of these things on their own have caused all the damage, or did it take both?
 
Adebesi said:
Hypothetical question:

If the Lib Dems had never made their tuition fee pledge, but had still served in the coalition, would they be in the same or a similar state to the one they are in now?

Put another way, which factor is more responsible for the complete irrelevance of the Lib Dem party? Selling out their voters with this U Turn, or getting into bed with the Tories?

Could either one of these things on their own have caused all the damage, or did it take both?
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I think it's an intriguing question. There's probably a solid line of argument that the Lib Dems were at least partially fecking themselves over the moment they got into government, but then I don't think they ever helped themselves. And I mean that in a way that goes far beyond tuition fees.

For what it's worth, even as a staunch anti-Tory person, I don't think the Lib Dems were necessarily wrong to go into the coalition on principle. They were kingmakers and ultimately the Tories were the only major party they could work with. From a pragmatic POV, being able to neuter their worst aspects while implementing progressive policies isn't a bad goal.

But the problem is, it's difficult to see what they implemented that was particularly substantive. There were a lot of decent minor policies, but ultimately any party of government is judged on their flagship policies and on certain key moments. The Lib Dems were, for the most part, fairly keen on Tory austerity, and only wanted to water it down slightly.

They should've demanded voting reform of some kind. This is one of their proper flagship policies that sets them apart from the big two, and would've been a way to guarantee continuing influence. The referendum shouldn't have been on whether or not we implemented AV - it should've been on what kind of voting reform we were implementing. Or they should've pushed further to demand outright PR from the start. This should've been something they were willing to sink the government over. They weren't a tiny junior partner like the DUP propping up a party just short of a majority - they garnered over 20% of the vote (around 2/3 of what the Tories got) and had around 1/6 of the coalition's seats, if I remember correctly. They should've demanded one of the big four offices of state - Cameron and Osborne kind of came as a package, so they should've insisted upon one of FS or HS. Tories may have spit the dummy out of the pram but it'd have exposed the myth of Cameron and his party being a reformed moderate Tory party, and would've again demonstrated the Lib Dems had red lines they would stick by. In the end all they got was the fairly meaningless Deputy PM position. The Tories took them for an absolute ride.

So, yeah, a lot was going against the Lib Dems, but they didn't do themselves any favours. And their branding was dreadful. In 2015 I can't remember them really promoting anything they'd done all that successfully. And their arguments about neutering the Tories seem fairly laughable in retrospect when you see what's happened since.

But I arguably think 2017 was an even bigger missed opportunity for them. They were never going to get to 50+ seats again, but a better campaign would've perhaps gotten them 10-15% of the vote, and maybe 20-30 seats. Instead they allowed themselves to be outflanked on gay marriage by Theresa fecking May, when they're meant to typically be more socially progressive than Labour.
 
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