Tory bastards

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don_quixote said:
i dont remember 97 since i was 11, but how comparable is nowadays?
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Not very. The thing in 97 was that Labour were inevitably going to win, it was just a matter of how much they were going to win by. So there was a sense of an era coming to an end. Blair did look like the future, whereas Cameron really does not.

And, yeah, we all now how that worked out etc but a lot of that is to do with the betrayal of the hopes Blair had been entrusted with. Nobody, not even Tories, has that kind of hope for Cameron. Because of Blair, really. So 2010 is not like 1997 because of 1997.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I just find it funny that the Tories are selling themselves as the party of "change"...

Wiktionary said:
conservative

(noun) 1. A person who favors maintenance of the status quo or reversion to some earlier status.
..........
(adjective) 1. Tending to resist change.
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B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
IdleRich said:
The leadership debate? Think you missed an "n" out.


Yes, very true, Cameron on telly today saying "If you vote for Labour (or Lib Dem) you face the prospect of another four years like the last" - in other words, the best he can come up with is "We're different people, why not try us?".
On the other hand, Labour are unpopular enough for that tactic to (conceivably) work. If it does it will hardly give them the mandate that they claim to want but they won't care about that if they win.
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they're unpopular for a reason. Lots of good ones.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"they're unpopular for a reason. Lots of good ones."
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I don't dispute that, I just think it's pretty poor that Super Dave is so reliant on that fact. Their campaign is ultimately dependent on the amount of hate that people feel for Lab rather than love they feel for them.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Mr. Tea said:
I just find it funny that the Tories are selling themselves as the party of "change"...
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"Change" is just a buzzword after Obama used it in '08. Most of these words are just interchangable free-floating signifiers. Blair was keen on this: "Belief. Community. Family. Hope. Change. Education. Innovation. Enterprise. Blah. Blah. Blah."

Regarding Clegg's recent surge in popularity, this can only be a good thing if it results in a Lib/Lab hung parliment. A Tory win is by no means inevitable now, thank god.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
IdleRich said:
I don't dispute that, I just think it's pretty poor that Super Dave is so reliant on that fact. Their campaign is ultimately dependent on the amount of hate that people feel for Lab rather than love they feel for them.
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That and this very Blair/NLP-with-a-bit-of-Obama way of promoting themselves, talking in slogans, and really not listening to frustrated audiences who have repeatedly ( well, on QT at least ) said that all they want is facts, not spin. It's very refreshing and heartening to see people not falling for it.

I'm coming through all of this this thinking that Mandelson is an evil genius Machiavelli - if it's been him running the Labour campaign, and I reckon it is - and am frankly finding it very exciting. The prospect of politics radically altering in this country seems almost glimpsable.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
swears said:
Regarding Clegg's recent surge in popularity, this can only be a good thing if it results in a Lib/Lab hung parliment. A Tory win is by no means inevitable now, thank god.
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Yah, but that's a big if. There seems to be this assumption (probably cos so many Lib voters are disgruntled (ugh) progressives) that Labour and Liberal will fall into each other's arms in a hung parliament. I think people are gonna be disappointed,at last in the short-term – long-term, their price of coalition with whoever should be electoral reform, which is long overdue and would allow parties t be honest about what they stood for, instead of all crowding the centre ground.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
swears said:
Regarding Clegg's recent surge in popularity, this can only be a good thing if it results in a Lib/Lab hung parliment. A Tory win is by no means inevitable now, thank god.
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Yah, but that's a big if. There seems to be this assumption (probably cos so many Lib voters are disgruntled (ugh) progressives) that Labour and Liberal will fall into each other's arms in a hung parliament. I think people are gonna be disappointed,at last in the short-term – long-term, their price of coalition with whoever should be electoral reform, which is long overdue and would allow parties t be honest about what they stood for, instead of all crowding the centre ground.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm hoping that a three horse race could cause the sides to seek harder to differentiate themselves and ultimately precipitate electoral reform. It will probably just end with three parties trying to occupy the middle ground.
Electoral reform is really important to me. My vote basically doesn't matter because I'm in a safe Labour seat, that can't be right. I get to make this ineffectual vote every four years from the age of 18 until I'm dead which is gonna be about sixteen times if I'm lucky.
How did we come down to this system where your vote is only important if you're in a marginal constituency? What is the reason for constituencies at all? Is it so that you have a local mp? Doesn't really work like that does it though 'cause returning an MP is ultimately a vote for the head of his party and also, if he's a big shot, he won't be doing anything local anyway. There's an obvious conflict between national and local there.
I always assumed that the system we have is kind of a hangover from when it would have been impossible to count votes nationallly and so it was easier to do it piecemeal, is there any truth in that?
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
I get to make this ineffectual vote every four years from the age of 18 until I'm dead which is gonna be about sixteen times if I'm lucky

I have voted in every possible election (national, local, european) since 1985 and have yet to vote for anyone who has actually won - electoral reform is essential.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
jenks said:
I get to make this ineffectual vote every four years from the age of 18 until I'm dead which is gonna be about sixteen times if I'm lucky

I have voted in every possible election (national, local, european) since 1985 and have yet to vote for anyone who has actually won - electoral reform is essential.
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Ha, the first westminster election where my vote didn't go to the winner was the last one (yet another reason to hate George Galloway!)

I always assumed that the system we have is kind of a hangover from when it would have been impossible to count votes nationallly and so it was easier to do it piecemeal, is there any truth in that?
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There's a lot to be said for locally elected MPs. Unfortunately most of it depends on them not being party placemats and demonstrating more independence. Most MPs (or too many, at least - I'm not doing the math) go straight from a researcher's job into parliament.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
i think the wider problem is in assuming that voting is the supreme political act, and in the whole idea of purely representative democracy. What people do in their own lives for four years between elections, will ultimately matter more politically than the single vote they cast, esp. given the centrist location of all the major parties.

electorla reform, in the shape of PR, would undoubtedly make people's vote mean a bit more, but I dont' think it will change the general malaise around this (and most other) and most other liberal democratic systems.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
IdleRich said:
I don't dispute that, I just think it's pretty poor that Super Dave is so reliant on that fact. Their campaign is ultimately dependent on the amount of hate that people feel for Lab rather than love they feel for them.
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isn't every political party dependent upon slagging off the other as the major part of its strategy (in my lifetime that's been true afaics)? i can say for myself that mostly i vote on strength of hate for the tories rather than the merits of anyone else- sad but true.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I have voted in every possible election (national, local, european) since 1985 and have yet to vote for anyone who has actually won - electoral reform is essential."
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I know that's not what you're saying but I read that at first as meaning that it has be be reformed into a system where your vote wins more often.

"There's a lot to be said for locally elected MPs. Unfortunately most of it depends on them not being party placemats and demonstrating more independence."
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Well the role is curiously inspecific isn't it, I mean, you are voting for someone who is local but your vote will affect who runs the whole country, what if you love your local MP but hate the rest of what the BNP (or whoever he happens to be) stand for?

"isn't every political party dependent upon slagging off the other as the major part of its strategy (in my lifetime that's been true afaics)?"
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Maybe, except possibly in 97 and, at least at one point, the Tories thought that this was going to be their 97 - although I accept your points re the differences.

In general, the annoying thing about selecting one party is that you are stuck with the policies that you didn't want as well as those you did - is PR more likely to mean that you can and choose policies or am I being unrealistic?
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
In general, the annoying thing about selecting one party is that you are stuck with the policies that you didn't want as well as those you did - is PR more likely to mean that you can and choose policies or am I being unrealistic?
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Yes, it means you're much less likely to get the policies you (at least in theory) voted for cos of all the horsetrading.

The real benefit of PR is that you can vote for who you want, rather than who you think has a chance of winning where you live.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
BareBones said:
a new 'election special' daily mail headline generator where every one is about clegg -

http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/

COULD NICK CLEGG HAVE SEX WITH BRITISH JUSTICE?
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the red tops have actually gone mad today

the Mirror says the Tory campaign is cracking up, while the Star actually has ~Brown: I Quit, above a story quoting him sayng he'd leave if he "couldn't make a difference". Fuck nose what's inside The Sun - I'm scared to look
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
crackerjack said:
the red tops have actually gone mad today

the Mirror says the Tory campaign is cracking up, while the Star actually has ~Brown: I Quit, above a story quoting him sayng he'd leave if he "couldn't make a difference". Fuck nose what's inside The Sun - I'm scared to look
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Today's Metro features a "photo" of Brown and Clegg toasting each other's health with champagne...some very small print underneath admits that it's a photomash rather than a real shot. :slanted:
 
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