This week saw yet more of Labour’s neverending soap opera, which is even more boring now that the party is no longer in power. The soap opera shows a party refusing to challenge either of the oppositional truths of Old and New Labour and unaware of why Labour lost the last general election so emphatically – and what it needs to do to regain power.
The conference demonstrated that Ed Miliband was right when he called Labour party members “slightly strange”, for they seem to be excited and optimistic about the future of the party under a man whose qualities and direction no one, including himself I suspect, knows much about.
This optimism comes despite Labour losing nearly five million votes and over half its membership in thirteen years in government, and comes only six months after being thrown out of power with just 29% of the vote. It’s an optimism that hopes that the electorate will forget Labour’s failings in government as quickly as the party itself has. This optimism, based on Labour’s arrogant and blasé belief in its right to rule, misses a vital dose of realism, which their new leader needs to address.
The electoral bias towards Labour, which has helped them over the last five general elections, will have been removed by the time of the next general election. Because of this alone, it’s difficult to see how Labour will be able to regain enough seats from the Conservatives to form a majority government.
If Ed Miliband wants to become the next Prime Minister, he is going to have to change his party’s culture from monolithic and inward-looking to pluralistic and outward-looking – his problem is that the strongest opponents to such a change would probably be his MPs and their various factions rather than members and activists.
Miliband needs to prove that his call for optimism is more than a weak echo of Obama’s campaign of hope. The series of disingenuous contradictions that made up his conference speech has to be transformed into a coherent understanding of Labour’s failures in government. Rather than fall back on Labour’s tribal instincts, he has the opportunity to usurp Cameron’s attempt to realign the centre of British politics.
He could start by actively supporting the AV referendum; a means of attacking the Conservatives and a way of reconnecting with the Lib Dems in preparation for any future coalition, it would demonstrate that Labour is capable of opening up to a more inclusive political culture.
If not, as is likely, it will be yet another example proving that his father was right all along: that, addicted to an archaic form of parliamentary democracy, Labour is not the agent of social and political change it tells itself it is, but an obstacle to it. If Ed Miliband is to succeed as Labour leader, he needs to prove his father was wrong. The soap opera continues.
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68 Comments
Yet again the perpetuation of the myth that the boundary review will “remove the electoral bias towards Labour”. I suggest you read Anthony Wells’ analysis of this at http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk – only a small part is down to the “unequal size” of constiuencies. On the 2005 boundaries, this gave Labour an advantage of 10 seats, and of course the 2010 boundaries reduced this.
By the way, there seems to be a lot of articles attacking Labour here, when are we going to see some about how the Government is in denial about growth?
An utterly tribal and self-defeating rant.
I’m afraid it makes you appear to be the odd one Matthew. As a former LD member who has now joined Labour, I see no purpose in you throwing a bland series of generalisations, backed up by your own prejudices, at an entire political party.
The right-wing media cabal of the Sun, Guardian + Mail have all been printing reams of “Ed’s got the Tories celebrating”. This sort of random, desperate scribbling seems to suggest just the opposite – that there’s an onset of mild distress that the younger brother got the leadership.
Reading on the bbc news site, it seems that the shadowy people behind Mili-E are actively trying to drag their party back to the 1980’s- bizzare.
“If Ed Miliband wants to become the next Prime Minister, he is going to have to change his party’s culture from monolithic and inward-looking to pluralistic and outward-looking”
For example, using Labour’s “Game Plan” to train community organizers up and down the country to promote the Labour movement’s causes in communities?
“He could start by actively supporting the AV referendum; a means of attacking the Conservatives and a way of reconnecting with the Lib Dems in preparation for any future coalition, it would demonstrate that Labour is capable of opening up to a more inclusive political culture.
If not, as is likely, it will be yet another example proving that his father was right all along: that, addicted to an archaic form of parliamentary democracy, Labour is not the agent of social and political change it tells itself it is, but an obstacle to it. If Ed Miliband is to succeed as Labour leader, he needs to prove his father was wrong. The soap opera continues.”
You’re not on the ball, are you?
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/10572/ed_miliband_will_campaign_with_others_across_the_political_spectrum_for_av.html
From July.
When was this written one of the first things ed did was state support for the av referendum this article was more bias than the Beeb.
I remember Tony Blair’s first speech to the Labour Conference after he was elected leader and how it made anyone interested in politics sit up and take notice that the Labour Party was being transformed into something that middle England could vote for. (Come to that I remember Harold Wilson’s first speech as leader, but let’s not go there!) I can’t stand speeches where a ‘theme’ is battered into submission, whether it’s Ed’s “new generation” and “optimism”, or Osborne’s last year “we are all in this together”. For some reason Ed reminded me of Ian Duncan Smith as leader of the Tories – I think it was the fear in his eyes, and his wooden delivery, both things that he may be able to overcome. But what I didn’t feel was that there was anything being said that would inspire people to elect a Labour government next time. That doesn’t mean they won’t: politics may now have got to a point where the choice is between one lot of managerial centralists and another. What was perhaps more important than the speech was David’s aside: “Why are you clapping? You voted for it,” which along with, “There’s no money left”, is an appropriate epitaph for the last Labour government – though not the Labour Party.
Ed Miliband said he’d vote for AV, still unsure whether he will do any campaigning but then again I feel this is more winnable NOT coming from the top, but coming from the grass roots of all interested parties.
Come on people. Ed Miliband said this on the 2nd of July.
“I strongly support the case for introducing the Alternative Vote, to ensure greater fairness for voters and greater legitimacy for our MPs in Westminster. Whenever the referendum takes place, I will campaign with other supporters across the political spectrum for this important change.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10483841
How can he have been clearer?
@uk_independent: That post is a joke. Hardline socialist? Ed Miliband? It smacks of a post written because you wanted to say that Ed Miliband would deliver the Tories large majorities in the future, not because any analysis supports it.
It’s a post that says nothing original, full of weasel words (“obvious to many”? No. Replacing “I think that” with “it’s obvious to many that” doesn’t give the blog any more credibility). You need to work out your tone- are you going to be trying to sound like “news” or are you seriously going to say things like “deficit denier”?
You’re trying to sound like a universal, non-partisan news source while at the same time posting right-wing opinion. The substance doesn’t fit the tone at all, it just comes off as a mess. It would be better if you presented opinion as opinion, rather than pretending your opinion is objective fact. Look at Iain Dale for example- he blogs right-wing opinion but his tone is appropriate for that, yours isn’t. Or look at the articles on this site- right-wing opinion but the tone is appropriate for opinion pieces.
Sorry to be negative but this article sounds a bit like the author set out to be grumpy about Labour and then stuck in some random complaints in order to fulfill that aim.
I’m no fan of Labour and a staunch defender of our coalition with the Tories, but if we’re serious about fighting for a new politics we have to be as balanced and pluralist as we’d like our opponents to be. Ed’s speech may not have had stellar quality yet, but he sounded moderate, reasonably liberal and not overtly hostile to other parties.
He did criticise some elements of the last government’s record, while (rightly) lauding their successes too. And he made it quite clear he’d be campaigning for AV. Not to mention chiding the journalists’ union for threatening to time their strike so as to black out Cameron’s speech (which even non-political members of the public would probably feel was “not fair play”).
What more do we want from him at this stage?
If Ed Miliband campaigned actively for AV what would prove is that Labour is willing to prevent Liberal Democrats winning Tory seats in order to prop up moribund powerbases in seats it can never win. Surely he has more sense? AV is a terrible system and the Liberal Democrats are set to suffer most under it.
Sorry, I’ll correct my typo: “If Ed Miliband campaigned actively for AV, what that would prove is that Labour…”
The final week of November / first week in December may prove to be a tipping point for the stablility of the so-called Coalition. For that is when the Revenue Support Grant Settlement is announced, and the thousands of Liberal Democrat members and activists involved in local government will have to face up to the swingeing cuts that Cameron and his Tory government is forcing them to make. 25% over four years. Tell me how many potholes are going to be filled, how many grass verges are going to be cut, how many children protected, etc, once those cuts are implemented?
On the AV thing, Mr Ed has said HE will campaign for a YES vote. He didnt say ” I will lead my Party in…..” We already know some Labour figures will fight on both sides but, left to themselves most wont campaign very hard. Its a question of leadership.
On the wider point of the state Labour is in, they have just had their worst result in a GE ever & after those 35,000 new members they have less than a fifth of their 1952 membership. Did the Manchester conference give any sense that Labour have faced the full scale of their problems ?
Paul Barker
It simply wasn’t Labour’s worst GE result ever. Your facts are wrong. Clegg won the LD’s 5 less seats in 2010 than in 2005. Who is having a better time of it? Well, since the GE, looking at all ward seats, there has been a swing of between 6 to 8% back from LD to Labour. That sort of swing would obliterate the LDs nationally if reflected in a GE.
LDs claim 6,000 new members (not ratified or released by the Party) since the GE – 38,000+ (published on LabourList) since May for Labour – and 3,000+ since EdM’s election. Who is having a better time of it?
The scale of the problems for Labour? You lecture other parties on the scale of their problems – when your party is in power due to a ‘shady deal done in a smoky back room’ (According to your boss, Dave Cameron) which could end at any point – and your approval ratings have dropped into negative ratings quicker than any previous administration since such polling was done?
A question of leadership for AV? No it isn’t. Let MPs decide in a free vote if you want democracy.
Cuse, the Lib Dems winning 5 less seats than their best result is in no way equal to Labour’s worst in years. Come 2015, we’ll have had a better record of government than Labour’s last 13 years, and the voters will know it.
Wow, Labour activists really enjoy posting here recently dont they. Are that as many over at Conservative home I wonder?
I posted on the ConservativeHome blogs “Alternatively…” and “RE: Alternatively…” just today if you want to have a look, under the name “Mike (Labour)”. You don’t have to wonder!
Cuse,
No, it wasn’t Labour’s worst general election result ever, it was Labour’s worst general election result since 1983 (and only one percentage point worse than 1983). Not good, is it?
If you think that Labour will ride back to power on the back of an unpopular Tory government, pretending to be champions of the poor and downtrodden, while airbrushing its actual recent record, then there is a sine qua non that you have negelcted to factor in. Since Harold Wilson’s wafer-thin victory of October 1974, Labour has failed to win a single general election without the support of Ruper Murdoch (and the US military-industrial complex and billionaire families who pull his strings). Is Labour going to get that next time, Cuse?
I mean Rupert with a “T”. And “neglected” too.
Thanks for all your comments. If it seemed like a grumpy rant – and it probably is – that’s because it was in reaction to a Labour conference where losing power seemed something to celebrate and which seemed to me to demonstrate a party that still hasn’t figured out what exactly went wrong in the last and previous general elections nor how to remedy it in the future, but refuses to admit so. To an outsider like me – who certainly doesn’t want the Lib Dems to be in permanent coalition with the Tories – it seems a glib attitude. I do hope that Ed Miliband does seriously want to make his party more liberal, and I’m urging him to do so. I have my doubts as to his MPs, however.
As for the AV referendum, I know that Miliband has said he himself will vote yes, but my point was will he and the party actively campaign for a Yes vote? or only take a back seat? If the latter, it seems a missed opportunity. Also, political reformers have been here before with Labour and got nowhere…
And as for local elections over the summer, all three major parties and the Greens have held, lost, and gained seats. I don’t think you can read any national trend into them.
What Ed M said in his speech: ‘ . . So we need to reform our House of Commons and I support changing our voting system and will vote Yes in the referendum on AV.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/28/ed-miliband-labour-conference-speech
This is as far as he can go until the old Shadow Cabinet has been consigned to the dustbin of history and a new Shadow Cabinet has been elected, has met and has agreed to change Labour policy back to supporting their 2010 Manifesto: active support for AV in the referendum. I don’t think we need take any notice of the posts here from Labour activists until then – they don’t know what the new line to take will be.
Sesenco: “Since Harold Wilson’s wafer-thin victory of October 1974, Labour has failed to win a single general election without the support of Ruper Murdoch (and the US military-industrial complex and billionaire families who pull his strings). Is Labour going to get that next time, Cuse?”
If Labour have a healthy poll lead come March 2015, then the answer to that will probably be “yes”, given the Murdoch press’ backing-the-likely-winner-at-the-last-minute policy of the past four elections.
Stuart Mitchell,
How is Labour going to get a healthy poll lead without Murdoch’s support?
Murdoch doesn’t have a policy of backing the likely winner, he has a policy of backing the party that his friends in Washington want to win.
The missing element in this recent Labour leadership election is the hyping of one of the candidates by the media. No Frank Luntz manipulating phoney focus groups, no raving about David Miliband the way they raved about Tony Blair, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Why? Because the US military-industrial complex and billionaire families have no intention of ever letting any of the contenders become Prime Minister.
I’m sorry to be so fatalistic about politics in this country, but there is a chink of light. Murdoch and his American backers strained every sinew to get a majority Tory government elected in May, but they didn’t – quite – succeed.
Labour is powerless to bring this Tory government down, but the Liberal Democrats could pull the plug tomorrow. So it is in your interest to be nice to us.
Just thought I’d throw in my tuppence worth. I’m an ex LP member and am rejoining the party following Ed’s election.
I really believe he has what it takes to win back the British people and I have no doubt that at the next GE he will be elected Prime Minister because he will win the moral argument against the Tories who will be exposed yet again for what they are and what they have always been, by then.
By that time the LibDems will be mortally wounded. A lot of their activists will have joined Labour and, at the end, the biggest betrayal of their increasingly bewildered voters will come when a significant number of LibDem MPs actually join the Tory Party in a desperate attempt to escape political oblivion.
It never ceases to amaze me how easily people can lose their ideals once they have tasted power and decide they want to keep it and the extra money rather than return to the back benches.
This isn’t a far-fetched scenario. It will come to pass. Then we will have a clear fight to determine what kind of society the electorate of this country actually want and it will be a straight choice between the Labour and Tory visions as the LibDem Party will have withered on the vine by that stage and of no relevance to anyone – least of all the Tories.
EcoJohn,
The Oracle of Delphi speaks. Sorry to be facetious, but I do get rather tired of Labour supporters who come on here and offer us homespun prophecies.
“I really believe he has what it takes to win back the British people”
Mere belief is not enough. Evidence, please.
“and I have no doubt that at the next GE he will be elected Prime Minister”
Are you Isaiah or Elijah? I’m being facetious again. Sorry. My point being that expressing hopes and aspirations as certain events is a useless pastime. It might make you happy, but it doesn’t illuminate.
“he will win the moral argument against the Tories”
Winning moral arguments doesn’t necessarily win elections. You will be up against a media most of whom will be straining every possible sinew to get the Tories reelected. They are more powerful than you, they have bigger voices. They will drown you out.
“A lot of their activists will have joined Labour ”
Really? What leads you to believe that this will be the case? The Liberal Democrats have actually attracted members since the election, not lost them.
“a significant number of LibDem MPs actually join the Tory Party in a desperate attempt to escape political oblivion.”
And who are these? Can you name them?
“It never ceases to amaze me how easily people can lose their ideals once they have tasted power and decide they want to keep it and the extra money rather than return to the back benches.”
Surely, you must be talking about Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson?
“It will come to pass.”
Isaiah and Elijah rolled into one.
“Then we will have a clear fight to determine what kind of society the electorate of this country actually want and it will be a straight choice between the Labour and Tory visions”
What will the Labour vision be? Sooner or later you are going to have to tell us.
EcoJon, I am sorry to have to say it, but your post is a clear illustration of the point that the author of the thread is making – that many, many Labour activists are in denial and are evidently unable to recognise reality.
Who the hell are we to accuse others of denialism?
Though Ed Milliband has made some positive noises with regard to AV and Labour failures opportunism comes to mind though of course we’ll see just what he’s made of in the months ahead and though a more Liberal Labour party would be welcome it’s early days yet. Labor are still in denial about the deficit and we must make the coalition work and shape as many Liberal interests as possible. Interesting that Nick seems to have had an influence in the benefit reforms due to be announced soon while Vince and Michael pushing scotland’s defence interests , even if the outcome remains unclear and of course Trident decisions may well be put back. Contrasting polls this week, latest you gov has down at 11 % again but we’ve also had a Comres 15% and ICM 18% lately.
A rather depressing thread. It’s pointless for anyone to make predictions about the future. One thing that Harold Wilson was right about is that “a week is a long time in politics”.
The Labour Party did have its worst result since 1983, in terms of votes, though not seats (1987 was worse in that respect), but the other parties haven’t really got much to crow about. The Liberal Democrats lost five seats in the election, and it’s taken the Tories thirteen years to climb from 31% to 36% in popular support.
Labour is in buoyant mood, and won’t split as it did after 1979, but it’s not in denial. Ed Miliband’s speech – which ought to have resonated far more than Nick Clegg’s conference speech with many Liberal Democrats – made the party face up to the mistakes it made while in power. Thousands of new members and a swift recovery in the opinion polls have been very heartening. So is the thought that every government since 1983 has lost support once in office, and a mere 25 gains from the Tories would make Labour the largest party again. Will it happen? I’ve just said that making predictions is pointless!
I think that instead of writing and arguing over articles like the leader on this thread, Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters should be building bridges for the AV referendum, and in case we need each other after the next election. As a Labour supporter who has voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats on many occasions, of course I’m sad that they joined a coalition with the Tories. However, I understand the reasons why they did, especially the parliamentary arithmetic, the need to show that coalitions can work, and the danger of another election this year, which only the Tories could have afforded. Things looked disappointing from the moment the novice Osborne was made Chancellor rather than the experienced economist Cable, quickly followed by all the other major portfolios going to Tories rather than Liberal Democrats. I just wish the Liberal Democrats had gained more from the coalition and not given almost free rein to what seems like a right-wing Tory government; I see little evidence of “Cameron’s attempt to realign the centre of British politics”, as Matthew Gaughan put it.
@Bert
pointless????
I made predections that this coaletion was a disaster and well it is not and was not pointless.
firstly the slide in LD vote is going as predicted and is terminal, for thew record my prediction is that by the end of year it will be below 10%, that your party will bewell and truly hammered in the locals in May, both seam certain.
Now you can not do anything about this and it comes back to local issues affected by Tory decisions. for example the fact that in my area an allready elitest selection process for schools is about to be made even worse by giving autonmy to two local secondry schools under the “free” schools scheme. This sort of thing is going to hurt the LD party, as well as a merriadof other issues that will be thrown up in the spending review, the removal of a cover for cummunity police/less hours, funding for schools, cost cutting on refuse etc the list goes on.
As for realigning politics this I do not feel is on the Tory aganda, why would it be??
I say thisbecouse the view of the Tory is that they are the natural home for british politics and well now “new Labour” has gone the middle group of peeps will come back, all they have to do is chant “red Ed”.
I actually do think that the upcoming Tory conference could give your party a way out, these Tory toffs are will let the cat out of the bag (I think) on wqhat an utter shame the coalletion is and how it is that the LD will just get crumbs from the deal whilst they get everything they want and laugh at you……
Sesenco
One of the issues we as Lib Dems have to face up to – irrespective of “we are in Government now” etc, is that despite desperate attempts to rubbish the kind of views expressed by EcoJon (and I agree with you, he is more than a bit sure of his prophecies!) and Cuse, we actually were on the back foot for the business end of the 2010 GE campaign, and who was it with the momentum? No, not the Tories, but Labour. And which party has gained in the opinion polls since? Yes, Labour, with Lib Dems falling back. And, incidentally, the Tories losing local byelections. Next year’s big round of elections in May will give the electorate a chance to pass their opinion on the 3 parties, their cuts etc. It will also be a first ballot on Lib Dems in Government in most people’s living memory. I would like to think EcoJon and the others may be wrong, but I wouldn’t bank on it. We do better in byelections – because we can “focus” our efforts, and there is no counterweight through the press either not mentioning the Lib Dems, or hammering us stupid as they did in the GE Campaign.
So what are we going to do about the control Murdoch and the other big media barons have on our politics (it’s hardly democracy where a small group have so much power). Two approaches – 1)The NuLab approach of cuddle up to them and adapt your policy to the right in as many ways as necessary (I for one would be out of the party if that ever happened – the Lib Dems is a party of principle if nothing else, or 2) Well, what is 2)?
TIm13,
“Yes, Labour, with Lib Dems falling back.”
If my memory serves me right, Labour slumped from 35% to 29%, and the Liberal Democrats went up from 22% to 23%.
“Next year’s big round of elections in May will give the electorate a chance to pass their opinion on the 3 parties, their cuts etc.”
Will it? The Tories will spend a considerable amount of money blaming it all on local Labour and Lib Dem waste and inefficiency. They are likely to say that there would be plenty of money in the reserves to cover the cuts if Labour and Lib Dems hadn’t thrown it all away on overpaid consultants, extravagant projects and political correctness. Absolute codswallop, but if repeated over and over in glossy leaflets and centrally mailed letters, are people not going to believe it? And expect some savage attacks on Labour and Lib Dem councils in the Murdoch press. Obviously I don’t know what will happen in 7 months time, but I do not expect to see a Labour bonanza, rather a mixed picture and a better than expected Tory performance.
“or 2) Well, what is 2)?”
I don’t know. The big mistake was the Labour government in 1969 allowing Murdoch to buy the “News of the World” and start up the “Sun”. Murdoch promised Harold Wilson that those newspapers would support Labour, but he immediately reneged on his undertaking by making them neutral in 1970 and pro-Tory in February 1974 (“Vote for Ted’s Tories!” thundered the “Sun”). Long, long ago we should have had a law preventing foreigners owning media outlets in this country, as they have in the USA and France. And it gets worse. Jim Callaghan allowed Murdoch to buy the “Times” (Tony Benn’s suggestion that the BBC should take it over was not as daft as it was painted at the time). Then Richard Desmond gave Labour £500,000, and in return his purchase of Express Newspapers was not referred to the Monopolies & Mergers Commission. It’s all about big money and taking on’e orders from the Americans. The US military-industrial complex and billionaire families control politics in this country, and Murdoch is one of the mechanisms through which they do it. (Incidentally, why is the so-called “United Kingdom Independence Party” not creating a stink about this foreign control of our country?)
Propaganda can be very effective. Even the crude, amateurish variety pumped out by Labour trolls on this site has persuaded Tim13 that Labour is in an unstoppable ascendency.
I see I am being censored. That’s what you get for defeding your own party!
Try reposting, Sesenco – I for one would like to see what you have to say.
Sesenco: Why assume censorship? Have you never had an IT problem that means something hasn’t worked properly? Or never seen a message go into a spam folder by mistake? If both of those are true, and your experience of IT is 100% flawless, then I think the rest of us envy you rather 🙂 But if they aren’t both true, then why leap to the assumption of censorship?
(Which, as it happens, is wrong; your message got wrongly trapped by our filters and I’ve now restored it.)
Sesenco: “How is Labour going to get a healthy poll lead without Murdoch’s support?”
Same way they did in 1997.
“Murdoch doesn’t have a policy of backing the likely winner”
Again, see 1997 – the Murdoch press was printing anti-Blair articles right up to a few weeks before the election. Then when they realised the writing was on the wall, they changed horses. Do you really think the result would have been much different had The Sun stuck with the Tories?
I don’t deny that Murdoch has huge influence, and almost certainly has the power to tip the balance in a close election (which raises very worrying questions for our democracy), but 1997 proved that Labour can achieve an unbeatable position without his support – and the circulation of The Sun is 50% less now than what it was then.
tony. If you read my posting again, you will see that I’m a Labour supporter who has been comfortable voting tactically for the Liberal Democrats on many occasions in the past. I just don’t see the need for animosity between Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters. Ed Miliband’s speech must have been music to the ears of many Liberal Democrats, some of whom are probably switching to Labour, if the polling evidence is anything to go by. However, the Liberal Democrats will not disappear, never underestimate their resilience and the tenacity with which they fight to hold on to their council and parliamentary seats.
The two parties should work together on AV and may have to work together after the next election. The only people who gain from any friction are the Tories. As Charlie Kennedy famously said: “Labour are our rivals, the Tories are our enemy”. The politics of the hour suggested that the Liberal Democrats needed to sleep with the enemy, but the affair is unlikely to last for ever.
Correction: I should have said that The Sun’s circulation is about 33% less now than it was in 1997 (about 3m compared with 4.5m).
Mark Pack,
By sincere apologies.
Mark Pack,
My sincere apologies (without the typo).
The point I made, Sesenco, was not, as you rightly said, that Labour went from 35% in 2005 to 29% in 2010 and a slight rise for the Lib Dems. It was that after the euphoria of Cleggmania, our campaign lost support, and Labour’s gained it. It was my argument that they were the party with the momentum on May 6th and to an extent they retain it. What I did not say, and am not sure of is that Labour are in “an unstoppable ascendancy”. Sorry, it will stop some time, and that may well be as you describe, when the people are taken in by Tory propaganda, directly and via the press, do relatively well next May. It is our job, as usual, of course, to counter that stuff.
The deeper point I was trying to make was that Murdoch et al will attack us hard when there appears a real chance of a breakthrough, and how do we overcome that without changing policy to accommodate their prejudices and giving in to their supporting vested interests? One LD myth I think 2010 showed up was that we have to look at things nationally from now on – our next breakthrough won’t be about the gradualism of huge efforts in target seats. The national messages and rebuttals have to be honed very carefully.
Stewart Mitchell,
I 1970, Labour had an unassailable opinion poll lead of 12.5%, but that didn’t survive “we will reduce the rise in prices at a stroke” and “do you want another devaluation?” Opinion polls don’t matter. Actual elections do.
Murdoch toned down the anti-Labour rhetoric from 1994 onwards and explicitly switched sides when told to do so by his American backers. The “Times” was all over Blair right from the very start. Newbury and Christchurch incidated to the Americans that continued Tory hegemony was at risk, so they talent-spotted Blair as their puppet substitute). Thatcher, Major, Blair, Cameron. Four US marionettes in a row, all of them put in office by the mechanism of Murdoch.
Do I think Murdoch could have stopped Labour winning the 1997 general election? Possibly not. But he might have slashed the majority. But why would he have wanted to do that? The Blair government was a Tory government by another name. It delivered on virtually everything demanded of it, from allowing American corporations to take over our economy to the Iraq war.
Now, if I had a really suspicious mind, I would be wondering if the Americans were behind the militant trade unionists who brought down the Callaghan government and ushered in 18 years of Tory rule. But I don’t and I’m not. I think they were a bunch of boneheaded Spartist lunatics acting entirely out of their own juvenile delusions that they were fighting for revolutionary socialism.
The “Sun” readership might have fallen, but there is also BSkyB. Labour has the “Mirror”, and that’s about it.
This is an excellent post, and it’s nice to see Sesenco turning his fire on the Labour trolls – I understand LD concerns about the coalition government, but in so many ways it is light years ahead not just of what Labour did in power, but how they are behaving in opposition.
“As a former LD member who has now joined Labour” – sorry to see you go, but honestly, you have to ask yourself whether you really believed in liberalism at all if you can join a party like Labour.
Tim13,
“It was that after the euphoria of Cleggmania, our campaign lost support, and Labour’s gained it.”
But you are relying on opinion polls here. See my point (above) about the opinion polls taken during the 1970 general election campaign. All but one showed a Labour lead. Similarly, 1992. Do you really think the so-called Cleggmania polls were a genuine reflection of how people were going to vote?
No, I stand corrected. The “unstoppable ascendancy” is my (ever so slightly sarcastic) take on what the Labour prophets are predicting, into which I thought you were buying.
I am not counselling complacency. I think we need to be putting across our distinctive message much more vigorously and sticking the boot in to get some better policies out of the coalition. And we have to have an exit strategy and use it.
Sesenco
Perhaps I should have made it clearer that I may be a Labour voter but I most certainly have a lot of respect for Liberal Party members and their party, particularly in Scotland where the influence of the SDP is less. The Liberals have a long principled campaiging tradition on issues of social justice which I applaud.
From a personal point of view I have always been a bit unhappy with community politics which promise different things to different people in different areas. Nothing wrong with community politics but I happen to believe that this has to be done within a national ‘manifesto’ framework to be credible and responsible.
I take issue with Sesenco that belief is not enough – belief is everything and without it no political party can successfully carry out its programme.
I believe that the right Milliband choice has been made – Originally I thought David would have been a better choice in terms of electability but I feel sure that Ed has the titanium backbone required to make it to Prime Minister.
I started delivering political leaflets when I was 9 and have been politically involved for over 50 years as a member of more than one political party with friends in various political parties who also truly believes in social justice and democracy.
As to media influence, yes it is immense but as a journalist of 40 years plus I believe I an in a position to make certain judgements based on my experience and not as the prophetic Olympian deity Apollo, who used the Oracle of Delphi as his eartly channel of communications. Interestingly the ‘ravings’ of the various oracles were tidied up and rationalised by a committee of the priestesses of the Oracle before being issued publicly to the masses – a job done today by spin doctors and the media lol.
But to go back to Sesenco’s criticism of my home-spun philosophy and prophecies I have to reject the chide that ‘hopes and aspirations as certain events is a useless pastime’. Sesenco, hope and aspiration are two of the major foundation stones of human ‘belief’ and it appears to me that without them we are left with machine-politics which to me is sterile and useless.
As to the LibDems membership figures – well who knows the truth and this is the case for any party. From memory the figures given at the LibDem conference talked of new members and didn’t talk about lost members or overall membership. It should be remembered that many members who leave a party don’t actually formally resign – they stop being active and don’t renew their membership.
I know LibDems who have left their party and some have already joined Labour some may not and that is a loss because they may be lost to politics in general. Some are waiting to see where the coalition goes and many worry about the affect of cuts on vulnerable sections of society. It is no surprise that this is a burning issue for many Liberal members as it is for most LP members.
Being in government brings financial and staus rewards to individuals and I am totally convinced that some LibDem MPs will jump the dyke at the next GE as I fimly believe they will become adicted to the heady intoxication brought about by power and I certainly don’t think that it takes the Oracle at Delphi to predict the backlash to come once the cuts are fully implemented. There is also the real possibility that a lot of Liberals will decide to stand and fight for the soul of their party and actually win and have no wish to retain some of their erstwhile ‘leaders’.
Yes Sesenco – these are prophecies based on my political and life experiences and observations and time will tell and the Labour Movement will always be there fighting for its beliefs. One thing I have never been guilty of is self-denial – I have made political mistakes especially when I was younger and didn’t actually comprehend that power without belief in social justice and equality is a real danger to our democracy and society.
Yes, I do think that the opinion poll percentages would have converted. BUT, there are always “events” between polls and elections. In the case of the Alliance’s 51% (or whatever) in 1982 and the 1983 GE it was the Falklands War (mainly – not arguing that there weren’t other less important factors). In 2010 it was primarily Gordon Brown arguing much more powerfully in the second and third TV debate, AND especially, Murdoch et al putting the boot in. Nick Clegg surprised everyone – including many of us Lib Dems – by putting in an uncharacteristically strong performance in the first debate, but then unfortunately reverted to type. Because the TV debates were a complete novelty this time, they seemed to be very influential.
Tim13,
The 51% was in 1981, immediately after Crosby. The Falklands was did help the Tories immensely, but the Tory opinion poll rating was edging upwards before the war started (and had begun to do so prior to Hillhead).
What were the events in 1970? Was it Ted Heath promising to “reduce the rise in prices at a stroke”? Or were the polls simply wrong, as the canvassing of all the parties suggested? The polls in February 1974 were wrong, but not by much. All but one of them failed to predict the Labour win on a minority vote. In October 1974, the polls suggested a comfortable Labour win, but in the event Labour won only by a whisker, though the poll lead did fall during the campaign. In 1992, the polls were way out, as they were in 2010. Sorry, I don’t think the Liberal Democrats were ever on 31% at any point in the campaign. I believe the polls were nonsense, and I think the campaign was wrong (1) to put too much focus on Clegg and (2) to um and er about the key issue of a hung Parliament.
remember that pontious pilate washed his hands of any guilt about the crucifixion, well transpose cameron washing his hands of any guilt also – he can do so easily because all the cuts are announced by the lib dems – the country is in fear and anxiety – this tends to stick to the parties who caused it. And how come even when ed milliband comes out for av lib dems are never satisfied – you may need labour to help you survive – remember that when you insist on supporting the tories in yaboo politics
@Chris Squire: “This is as far as he can go until the old Shadow Cabinet has been consigned to the dustbin of history and a new Shadow Cabinet has been elected, has met and has agreed to change Labour policy back to supporting their 2010 Manifesto: active support for AV in the referendum. I don’t think we need take any notice of the posts here from Labour activists until then – they don’t know what the new line to take will be.”
If you had read the posts by Labour activists you might have noticed that I’ve posted twice a direct quote from Ed Miliband saying that he will campaign for AV. Wish you lot would read rather than zoning out when you realise I’m not on your side.
EcoJohn,
“I take issue with Sesenco that belief is not enough – belief is everything and without it no political party can successfully carry out its programme.”
You have misrepresented my words. What I said is that belief is an insufficient basis for predicting future events. Evidence is required. I have never said that politicians shouldn’t have beliefs. Obviously they do, and should.
“I feel sure that Ed has the titanium backbone required to make it to Prime Minister.”
What makes you feel sure? Again, you are expressing a motivated belief, but you are not backing it up with evidence.
“But to go back to Sesenco’s criticism of my home-spun philosophy and prophecies I have to reject the chide that ‘hopes and aspirations as certain events is a useless pastime’.”
Again, you are misrepresenting my words. I said nothing of the sort. The useless pastime is presenting hopes and aspirations AS CERTAIN EVENTS. This activity is sometimes known as “wishful thinking”, and also “daydreaming”. It is also deployed as a rhetorical device by saloon-bar pontificators to stifle genuine analysis.
“Sesenco, hope and aspiration are two of the major foundation stones of human ‘belief’ and it appears to me that without them we are left with machine-politics which to me is sterile and useless.”
Here we go. You career off into a lofty admonition based on something I didn’t say.
Now, before we go any further, perhaps you would care to tell us what the hopes and aspirations of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson were. Abject subservience to US foreign policy? Pursuit of the control agenda? Widening the gap between rich and poor? Being incredibly relaxed about people getting filthy rich? That is the real Labour Party that governed the country for 13 years, not the selfless, crusading socialist taskforce conjured up by Labour trolls.
“It should be remembered that many members who leave a party don’t actually formally resign – they stop being active and don’t renew their membership.”
It also should be remembered that very many Liberal Democrats pay their subscriptions by direct debit and have to cancel those direct debits if they wish to leave the party.
The number of people leaving the Liberal Democrats since the general election has been remarkably few. We lost far more people at the time of the merger, and we also lost members and voters by the barrowload when Blair became Labour leader. Nothing comparable has happened in 2010.
Your barb against the SDP is based on ignorance. The three Lib Dem MPs most critical of the coalition are Charles Kennedy, Mike Hancock and Bob Russell, all former SDP memebrs (as I am).
I am a coalition sceptic and I don’t have a particularly high regard for Nick Clegg, but I am a Liberal Democrat and a Liberal Democrat I will remain. There are plenty of others like me, and once we have had enough, we will let the leadership know. All Labour trolls do (apart from annoy people) is strengthen Clegg’s position.
“Being in government brings financial and staus rewards to individuals and I am totally convinced that some LibDem MPs will jump the dyke at the next GE as I fimly believe they will become adicted to the heady intoxication brought about by power”
Any evidence? Thought not.
What you forget is that we have been here before. During the last Parliament, Iain Dale was bragging that five or six Lib Dem MPs were about the join the Tories. None did.
“There is also the real possibility that a lot of Liberals will decide to stand and fight for the soul of their party and actually win and have no wish to retain some of their erstwhile ‘leaders’.”
Can you name any of them? As far as I know, not a single party member has threatened to do this.
“and the Labour Movement will always be there fighting for its beliefs.”
Or for the US military-industrial complex and billionaire families, which is what it did when Blair/Mandelson was in power.
“I have made political mistakes especially when I was younger and didn’t actually comprehend that power without belief in social justice and equality is a real danger to our democracy and society.”
Was supporting Blair/Mandelson one of those mistakes?
Sesenco:
“Opinion polls don’t matter. Actual elections do.”
Of course – but elections like 1970 and 1992 are the exception, not the rule. Five times out of six, the party in the lead at the start of the campaign hangs on to it till the end, and the opinion pollsters have a very good track record of predicting the result.
1970 was decided by a genuine and unusual late swing, for reasons that are well known. This swing was accurately charted by the polls, which showed the Labour lead narrowing and then turning into a small Tory lead the day before polling day. Nothing too remarkable there, especially as that was an era of close two-party elections.
1992 was of course the year the pollsters were flummoxed by the “Shy Tory Factor” – or as I prefer to call it, the “Ashamed Tory Factor”.
“Murdoch toned down the anti-Labour rhetoric from 1994 onwards and explicitly switched sides when told to do so by his American backers… Newbury and Christchurch incidated to the Americans that continued Tory hegemony was at risk, so they talent-spotted Blair as their puppet substitute).”
Which is pretty much what I said in the first place when I pointed out that Murdoch simply jumped on the unstoppable Blair bandwagon in Spring 1997!! So I’m not sure why you disagreed with me.
Stewart Mitchell,
The polls got it wrong in 1970 (only one poll put the Tories in the lead), in February 1974 (only one poll put Labour in the lead), in 1992 and in 2010 (where not a single poll in in the final week got the Lib Dem share right). If that’s a good record, then I don’t know what a bad one looks like.
Murdoch didn’t jump on an unstoppable bandwagon. He simply played his part in the game plan set in Washington. If he had wanted to bring Blair down, he very likely could have done. But why would he? Why would he attack Washington’s golden boy?
I don’t think the Americans predicted the extent to which Labour members and activists would tolerate the right-wing, pro- ultra-rich, pro- US foreign policy nature of the Labour government they got. I guess they were pleasantly surprised by it.
If the Labour Party had wished to lurch to the left and remain inward looking it would have overwhelmingly elected Dianne Abbott. It did not: it elected a leader who is about to move the party to a position slightly left of centre and away from its failed experiment with Social Democracy. That’s why so many members of the party feel that they have at last got their party back. When are the Liberal Democrats going to be able to claim that they have reclaimed their party from the damaging grip of the Orange Tories?
Some people have argued that England’s 3-2 defeat by West Germany in the 1970 World Cup, just four days before the general election and after throwing away a 2-0 lead, was the reason that voters decided to give Wilson’s government a kicking!
The opinion polls have been getting it right in recent elections, as Anthony Wells will explain if you visit ‘UK Polling Report’. What you have to allow for is that some people don’t make up their minds until election day or the day before, and you can’t blame the pollsters for that. It’s ironic that the scaremongering by Cameron about ‘hung parliaments’ in the days leading up to this election probably caused a swing back to the two largest parties and reduced the representation of his future coalition partners.
I found this article a short on any meaningful comment what so ever . i am finding this perpetual Labour bashing (without really saying why) rather desperate and embarssing ….as a Liberal democrat member.
Here, here, John. It is bad enough hearing George Osborne whining on about it, on behalf of “our” government, without Lib Dems joining in. The most embarrassing manifestation being Chris Huhne and Sayeeda Warsi’s joint press conference headed “Labour’s failures” or something similar. It makes it more embarrassing for us when compared with the pre-election position of slower cuts / and probably a higher tax element.
Sorry, Sesenco – you seem to have the wrong idea about what a poll is “for”! Opinion changes, and that is why we need to measure it regularly – a poll a few days out will not quite often give you the actual election result, or anything very close. In fact, regarding 2010, that is the crux of my argument – that we had a huge squeeze exerted on our vote over the last 10 days. It may be your VIEW that we didn’t reach 31%, and it may be your VIEW that the polls got it wrong, but viewed in some lights that looks like a desperate clutching at straws. Polls are merely “a snapshot” of opinion at the time of the fieldwork.
1992 was another case in point – those of us who were canvassing could FEEL the vote ebbing away in the last week. We were lucky, we actually gained a seat from the Tories, but the majority turned out to be less than 2000, whereas our figures were showing 5 – 6000 ten days out! Now no-one in their right mind would offer the current YouGov daily tracker as a prediction for likely outcomes at the next GE – everyone knows / assumes no election is imminent, so the “If there were a GE tomorrow…… ” question is pretty meaningless. However you could extrapolate that, knowing we have lost a lot of “Labour tactical votes” since May, there will not be the traditional adding back in of those votes as the election nears.
Sesenco:
“The polls got it wrong in 1970 (only one poll put the Tories in the lead)”
You gloss over the fact that that one poll was the very last one, published the day before the election. So if there was a genuine late swing (which everybody who has studied that election believes there was) then the polls were actually spot on. The pollsters are not clairvoyant – they can only give us a snapshot of the present, not predict the future! This seems obvious enough.
“…February 1974 (only one poll put Labour in the lead)”
Then the polls were right. The Tories won the popular vote in February 1974, exactly as the polls predicted they would. The fact that Labour won more seats is irrelevant – the polls only measure popular support, and they got it right!
The fact is that since 1945 the polls have got it right 16 elections out of 18. It’s a good record by any normal standards.
“, in 1992 and in 2010 (where not a single poll in in the final week got the Lib Dem share right).”
Not true – YouGov on 3-4 May were spot on with 24%. Half the final week polls were within about 3% of the eventual vote (which was 23.6%), hardly the massive discrepancy you describe.
I won’t get in to the conspiracy theory stuff.
Stuart Mitchell,
“So if there was a genuine late swing (which everybody who has studied that election believes there was) then the polls were actually spot on.”
Who is “everybody who has studied that election”?
You gloss over the fact that that one poll (which was one of several final [polls) underestimated the scale fo the Tory victory. I do not recall a poll that got the final tallies right.
“The Tories won the popular vote in February 1974, exactly as the polls predicted they would.”
The Tories only just won the popular vote. The polls indicated a bigger margin.
“Not true – YouGov on 3-4 May were spot on with 24%.”
24% was higher than the actual share. I cannot recall a single poll taken subsequent to the first televised debate that had the Lib Dem share as low as 23%.
So the polls are rubbish. They are wildly unreliable, and dangerous, because people take them seriously and use them as a basis for deciding how to vote.
“I won’t get in to the conspiracy theory stuff.”
Those who do get into the conspiracy theory stuff (and socialism itself in a conspiracy theory of a kind) might conclude that you work for the market research industry and have an axe to grind that you are not letting on about.
Stuart Mitchell,
“1970 was decided by a genuine and unusual late swing, for reasons that are well known.”
Well known? Really? Well known by whom?
Stuart Mitchell,
“I won’t get in to the conspiracy theory stuff.”
I urge every visitor to this thread to read what Stuart Mitchell has written here.
He is using the “conspiracy” smear to avoid issues that he feels uncomfortable having to address.
Readers, watch out for this gambit, and recognise it when you see it.
Clearly, there is discomfort is certain NuLab circles about discussion of Rupert Murdoch, given Labour’s shameful record of grovelling.
Sesenco: “He is using the ‘conspiracy’ smear to avoid issues that he feels uncomfortable having to address.”
Go on then, I’ll bite. I’ve already made it clear what I think about the Murdoch thing (that is afterall why I joined in this thread in the first place). I simply don’t believe in your scenario of Murdoch, directed by mysterious “backers” in Washington, being able singlehandedly to decide every British election result of the past 40 years. No, hang on, you conceded that Rupe didn’t *quite* get his way in 1974, but he’s had a pretty good winning streak since.
I don’t dispute that Murdoch wields huge influence, and there may even be occasions when it is decisive. In 1992 he did a highly successful job of scaring the bejesus out of would-be Labour voters by showing them endless pictures of Neil Kinnock. This unquestionably hurt Labour, though probably not enough in itself to account for the huge defeat.
Five years later, and despite printing anti-Blair articles right up to Spring 1997, Murdoch knew the game was up and decided that if he couldn’t beat them, he’d join them. At least he didn’t have the cheek to claim the credit for it as he had in 1992.
I entirely share your disgust at the political influence Murdoch wields, always have. Between 1997 and 2005 I guess there was a vicarious thrill in seeing his papers backing Labour, much like the vicarious thrill some Lib Dems seem to be experiencing at the moment when they contemplate slashing benefits and increasing VAT. But we all knew it wouldn’t last. Labour certainly didn’t need him in 1997 or 2001 so quite frankly I couldn’t give a monkeys about it.
Is Murdoch the puppet of sinister forces in Washington? I neither know nor care. Is he the de facto sole elector in British general elections, as you claim? Nope.
Sesenco:
There have been many reasons mooted for the 1970 turnaround: bad balance of payments figures, the Powell effect, even the World Cup. Some of the other reasons you have alluded to yourself. The point here is that the polls were entirely consistent with a genuine swing during the campaign, right up to the final poll which rightly predicted a Tory win.
Let’s stop beating about the bush. What exactly are your criteria for judging the reliability of polls? Simply getting the eventual winner right obviously isn’t enough for you, so what would be? You seem to be saying that you expect *no margin of error at all*, which is just a tad unrealistic.
In 15 out of 18 post-war elections, the polls accurately predicted the order of the parties in the popular vote. In 1970 they (arguably) charted accurately a swing from Labour to the Tories, right up to polling day. According to http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn096.pdf the polls were generally accurate to within 2% between 1945 and 1987, and I would guess you could say the same for 1997-2010.
But still you insist that getting the result right at least five times out of six, to an accuracy of about 2%, is worthless!
Every election, I look at the polls, take about 2% off Labour and redistribute it to the Tories, and almost every single time the result is exactly what I expect it to be.
Stuart Mitchell,
At least you have conceded that you don’t know why Labour lost the 1970 general election, even though earlier on today you claimed the reason is “well known”. That’s a start.
On opinion polls in general, I believe they are dangerous, because they influence behaviour – not just of voters, but of the media, too. Do you think the daily fusilade of abuse to which the Liberal Democrats were subjected during the recent election would have been fired with such intensity had there not been opinion polls showing the party on 31%? Those polls (which I did not believe for one fleeting moment) also had the effect of defocusing the party’s election campaign, and in particular its target strategy. 2% can make a big difference in a UK election. I would be inclined to go with the French and ban them in the final week of the campaign. Exit polls, now they’re a different kettle of fish, because people are asked how they actually did vote, not how they intend to vote, and they are not usually published until the voting is over.
“directed by mysterious “backers” in Washington”
Here we go. If in doubt, wheel out the “conspiracy” smear, and add a little spice by distorting the wording and adding in a little haughty chuckle. What is mysterious about the US military, and the corporations who supply it with weapons systems? What is mysterious about the big oil companies, banks, insurance companies, etc? The histories of these corporations and the families who run them are well documented and the subject of thousands of books and articles, as is their influence on politics, both domestic and international. But then you know that, don’t you?
“Five years later, and despite printing anti-Blair articles right up to Spring 1997”
How many of these “anti-Blair” articles were there, and what did they say? Are you telling me that the Murdoch redtops never once joined in the collective Blair worship that gripped the entire length of what used to be called Fleet Street from 1994 to 1997?
“Is Murdoch the puppet of sinister forces in Washington?”
Not a puppet, more a willing, calculating propagandist (as Michael Heseltine pointed out while Deputy Prime Minister). If you really don’t care, then I think that is highly irresponsible of you, and casts doubt on your claim to entirely share my disgust.
“Is he the de facto sole elector in British general elections, as you claim?”
Sorry, Mr Mitchell, I don’t claim that. Not once have I said anything of the sort. You and your fellow Labourites who post on this site are very useful people to have at harvest festivals – you’ve built enough straw men to fill a cathedral!
Sesenco
I have made certain statements based on what I believe could happen nearer to the next GE – I may be wrong and I accept that, I am also very open-minded and accept that it is possible that the LibDem Party may emerge stronger after that election because of its coalition ‘experience’. I have to say that that I think that unlikely and I believe that position if not supported by a significant number of LibDem members is most definitely in their thoughts.
You keep demanding ‘evidence’ to back-up my comments – It’s quite simple I’ll either be right or wrong and the evidence will be clear at the time. Obviously I have less faith in some people than you do.
I also find it rather childish to hold me personally accountable for the actions of Blair and Mandelson.
I stated: “I have made political mistakes especially when I was younger and didn’t actually comprehend that power without belief in social justice and equality is a real danger to our democracy and society.”
You asked: ‘Was supporting Blair/Mandelson one of those mistakes?’ I really fail to see the connection and should explain that my ‘conversion’ was more to understanding the importance of the Labour Movement as a whole rather than narrower party goals and it predated New Labour by some time. However, for the record, I left the LP when Blair became Leader as I didn not share his vision.
Interestingly you state that the LibDems: ‘lost members and voters by the barrowload when Blair became Labour leader.’ I can only assume that Blair’s LP was the beneficiary of a membership boost from these decamping members. So perhaps the LibDems were more culpable re Blair and Mandelson than I.
I had to chuckle at your comment: ‘I have never said that politicians shouldn’t have beliefs. Obviously they do.’ I agree with you Sesenco – the problem is they often change those declared beliefs and indeed manifesto commitements.
You stated: ‘During the last Parliament, Iain Dale was bragging that five or six Lib Dem MPs were about the join the Tories. None did.’ True, now every LibDem MP has joined the Tory Government coalition to keep it in power.
You appear to be interested in the minutiae of poll results and I will make another prophecy that the LibDem coalition experience will most certainly have a significant result on the polls at the next GE. No doubt I will again have the rejoinder of where’s the evidence – just have patience Sesenco, it’s coming.
You state Sesenco: ‘There are plenty of others like me, and once we have had enough, we will let the leadership know.’ And what will you do Sesenco when you are ignored or the appeal goes out for party unity. Will you end up like the many good people in the LP who couldn’t defeat Blair but who stayed on and tried to fight their corner and who turned out in their hundreds of thousands all over the UK to protest against the Iraq Invasion along with good people from many other parties and from none.
But I’m afraid that I have to take your vow with a large pinch of salt because of your reaction to my statement: ‘“There is also the real possibility that a lot of Liberals will decide to stand and fight for the soul of their party and actually win and have no wish to retain some of their erstwhile ‘leaders’.”
My statement was clearly talking about the time-frame of the next GE and you responded: ‘Can you name any of them? As far as I know, not a single party member has threatened to do this.’ I doubt, from what you have said, if you will fight for the soul of your party but I do have faith in the majority of decent party members to wage that fight if necessary. Of course your leadership may well surprise me and actually cease to stop supporting the Tories once they see the damage that is being done to the weaker members of our society as the cuts start to really bite. Everything appears to be getting gambled on an upsurge in employment through an economic upsurge.
What appears to be getting lost in all the conference rhetoric and posturing is that Labour caused all of our economic woes. Any impartial observer knows this was an international economic collapse which certainly hit us hard because of the way our economy is structured. It would do well to remember this as even if the coalition get everything right in UK economic terms they may well be blown off course by external factors. No, I don’t have any evidence Sesenco but that doesn’t preclude the possibility that I could be correct.
I stated: “and the Labour Movement will always be there fighting for its beliefs.”
And you countered Sesenco: ‘Or for the US military-industrial complex and billionaire families, which is what it did when Blair/Mandelson was in power.’ Perhaps I should have made it clearer that when I talk about the Labour Movement that I don’t just refer to the UK but the international aspect so I hope that clears that up for you. Although Sesenco your assertion really is a slur on the many members of the Labour Movement in the UK – many of whom are Liberal party members and party supporters – who fight for international justice and oppose US economic imperialism where it raises its head.
I think I have said enough Sesenco and I feel there is little point in debating with you as you appear hell-bent on attacking what I say or feel purely on the basis that I support the LP. Personally, I could never ever trust the LibDem Party ever again but that doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for a lot of its members as I also have for Tory Party members on an in dividual basis.
Sesenco:
“At least you have conceded that you don’t know why Labour lost the 1970 general election”
Huh? I said no such thing. I told you the reasons (note plural) were well known and proceeded to list some of them.
“What is mysterious about the US military…”
I did not disagree with you about the malevolent power of the US MIC and big business and all the rest of it. I just think you massively over-estimate their power to swing UK elections. In 1997 there was a genuine sea change in the mood of the British people; they were sick of the Tories and wanted Blair instead. Murdoch and his chums were powerless to stop it, which was why they adopted the next best strategy – adopt him as one of their own.
“Are you telling me that the Murdoch redtops never once joined in the collective Blair worship that gripped the
entire length of what used to be called Fleet Street from 1994 to 1997?”
I’m not a big enough expert on The Sun. Fact is The Sun did not back Blair for PM until 18th March 1997. As for your other comment, you exaggerate; what about the Mail? the Telegraph? the Express? Even The Times stopped short of backing Labour in 1997 – which is a pretty major hole in your “Murdoch-put-Blair-in-power” argument.
“they were sick of the Tories and wanted Blair instead.”
That’s an over-simplification, to put it mildly.
Blair didn’t become Labour Leader until 1994. Conservative opinion-poll ratings went negative in September 1992 and never recovered. In May 1993, the Liberal Democrats won the Newbury byelection with a 22,000 vote majority, and the Tories lost control of Surrey County Council (for the first time ever) on the same night. The Americans realised that the Major government was in trouble and might not be able to recover. What did they do? They ensured that the Labour Party was led by people willing to do their bidding, and that an unpopular conservative government was replaced by a popular one. They also succeeded in freezing out the Liberal Democrats, who were in a very strong position prior to Blair.
Blair was a media creation, nothing mroe, nothing less. Blair worship was whipped up and sustained by the media, and almost all of them contributed to it in one way or another.
As for the 1970 General Election, and the unpersuasive “reasons” advanced to explain away the failure of the opinion polls. Has it not occurred to you that the Wilson government had been deeply unpopular (according to real elections) right up until a few weeks before the election was called (the GLC results were not as good for Labour as was claimed at the time)? Might it not be the case that Labour continued to be unpopular right up until election day, and that the polls were simply wrong?
Oh, BTW. I have never said that Murdoch always determines who wins general elections, though it is obviously useful for you to pretend that I have done. I have, in this very thread, pointed to the fact that Murdoch failed to achieve a majority Conservative government in May, though he nearly got away with it.
You have still to tell us if you work for the Market research industry.
Sesenco: “You have still to tell us if you work for the Market research industry.”
No, I work in the education sector.
This thread started with the heading ‘PARTY IN DENIAL’ with reference to the LP.
I am wondering whether the LibDems may become a party in denial following Vince Cable’s scrapping of the graduate tax proposal and the move to a ‘progessive’ increase in tuition fees to fund universities.
I find it hard to believe that this will be generally acceptable to the LibDem rank and file but it will be the actions of the party MPs which will be most interesting and in particular those who hold coalition government posts. I realise that some have taken exception to my Delphic utterances but let’s issue another prophecy.
LibDem MPs will be allowed to vote against and the postholders will be able to abstain – to retain the already crumbling facade of the coalition which is built on sand.
If this comes to pass then the electorate won’t forget. It might be OK for the LibDems to pass the parcel in opposition but it’s another matter when they are the government – Abstaining against increased fees effectively supports the increase and displays either cowardice or the desire to cling-on to power and the financial and/or egotistical rewards it can bring.
I remember watching the shame-faced way that some LibDem MPs – most of whom had signed the Equitable Life pledge – reacted to the con-trick compensation announcemernt in Parliament, which falls far short of the pledge, by tring to appear enthusiastic. And yes the Labour Government also handled the whole affair shockingly and I should express a personal interest having lost a lot of AVC money in the debacle..
Didn’t everyone sign a pledge opposing increased tuition fees before the GE – yea it’s easy to promise the world in opposition but much harder to deliver when in power and I think this is going to be the first of many hard-knocks to be faced by a Liberal Party which will tear itself asunder over the next five years – oops another prediction 🙂