The General Election Thread

[hilts]

I've felt for some time that the outcome of the next election was far from the procession of a Labour victory that many who follow that party had boldly predicted.

There were a number of reasons for that, but they mainly centre around the economy (stupid) and the Labour Party's enduring capacity to pick leaders who are virtually unelectable. I used to know a restaurant owner who was widely renowned for putting stuff on the menu that she liked, rather than what her customers wanted. She could never understand why no c**t went in there. Labour need to pick a menu that appeals to the electorate - and most specifically those among voters that decide the outcome of general elections. Alan Johnson would do the trick. Not sure about D. Milliband. What I am sure about us that Ed Milliband will be viewed in the same terms as Michael Foot in a generation.

At least Foot had something about him. He had intelligence, charisma and was a great orator. Ed has nothing. Any of the other contenders for the leadership would have been better than him.

Foot's problem was his appearance, should it matter? no, did it? yes

 

[BimboBob]

I've felt for some time that the outcome of the next election was far from the procession of a Labour victory that many who follow that party had boldly predicted.

There were a number of reasons for that, but they mainly centre around the economy (stupid) and the Labour Party's enduring capacity to pick leaders who are virtually unelectable. I used to know a restaurant owner who was widely renowned for putting stuff on the menu that she liked, rather than what her customers wanted. She could never understand why no c**t went in there. Labour need to pick a menu that appeals to the electorate - and most specifically those among voters that decide the outcome of general elections. Alan Johnson would do the trick. Not sure about D. Milliband. What I am sure about us that Ed Milliband will be viewed in the same terms as Michael Foot in a generation.

At least Foot had something about him. He had intelligence, charisma and was a great orator. Ed has nothing. Any of the other contenders for the leadership would have been better than him.

This is Michael Foot we are talking about? THE Michael Foot? Charisma?

 

[hilts]

I've felt for some time that the outcome of the next election was far from the procession of a Labour victory that many who follow that party had boldly predicted.

There were a number of reasons for that, but they mainly centre around the economy (stupid) and the Labour Party's enduring capacity to pick leaders who are virtually unelectable. I used to know a restaurant owner who was widely renowned for putting stuff on the menu that she liked, rather than what her customers wanted. She could never understand why no c**t went in there. Labour need to pick a menu that appeals to the electorate - and most specifically those among voters that decide the outcome of general elections. Alan Johnson would do the trick. Not sure about D. Milliband. What I am sure about us that Ed Milliband will be viewed in the same terms as Michael Foot in a generation.

At least Foot had something about him. He had intelligence, charisma and was a great orator. Ed has nothing. Any of the other contenders for the leadership would have been better than him.

This is Michael Foot we are talking about? THE Michael Foot? Charisma?

People were too busy laughing to hear him, not fair but true, i was only a kid and i thought what an odd unkempt little man he was

 

[mackenzie]

He also looked frail and something from a bygone age. The divisions within the Labour Party at that time needed someone who looked in charge, and sadly Foot wasn't the man to do that

 

[Len Rum]

I've felt for some time that the outcome of the next election was far from the procession of a Labour victory that many who follow that party had boldly predicted.

There were a number of reasons for that, but they mainly centre around the economy (stupid) and the Labour Party's enduring capacity to pick leaders who are virtually unelectable. I used to know a restaurant owner who was widely renowned for putting stuff on the menu that she liked, rather than what her customers wanted. She could never understand why no c**t went in there. Labour need to pick a menu that appeals to the electorate - and most specifically those among voters that decide the outcome of general elections. Alan Johnson would do the trick. Not sure about D. Milliband. What I am sure about us that Ed Milliband will be viewed in the same terms as Michael Foot in a generation.

Bit disingenuous of you to claim unique insight into Labour not winning the next election when the smart money has been on the Tories for a long time now.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I've felt for some time that the outcome of the next election was far from the procession of a Labour victory that many who follow that party had boldly predicted.

There were a number of reasons for that, but they mainly centre around the economy (stupid) and the Labour Party's enduring capacity to pick leaders who are virtually unelectable. I used to know a restaurant owner who was widely renowned for putting stuff on the menu that she liked, rather than what her customers wanted. She could never understand why no c**t went in there. Labour need to pick a menu that appeals to the electorate - and most specifically those among voters that decide the outcome of general elections. Alan Johnson would do the trick. Not sure about D. Milliband. What I am sure about us that Ed Milliband will be viewed in the same terms as Michael Foot in a generation.

Bit disingenuous of you to claim unique insight into Labour not winning the next election when the smart money has been on the Tories for a long time now.

Where did I claim unique insight, or anything even resembling it?

 

[Len Rum]

I've felt for some time that the outcome of the next election was far from the procession of a Labour victory that many who follow that party had boldly predicted.

There were a number of reasons for that, but they mainly centre around the economy (stupid) and the Labour Party's enduring capacity to pick leaders who are virtually unelectable. I used to know a restaurant owner who was widely renowned for putting stuff on the menu that she liked, rather than what her customers wanted. She could never understand why no c**t went in there. Labour need to pick a menu that appeals to the electorate - and most specifically those among voters that decide the outcome of general elections. Alan Johnson would do the trick. Not sure about D. Milliband. What I am sure about us that Ed Milliband will be viewed in the same terms as Michael Foot in a generation.

Bit disingenuous of you to claim unique insight into Labour not winning the next election when the smart money has been on the Tories for a long time now.

Where did I claim unique insight, or anything even resembling it?

Let's not quibble over semantics.
Anyway I've filed your post along with Hugh McIlvanney's article in the Sunday Times last March- 'City the great underachievers'.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Bit disingenuous of you to claim unique insight into Labour not winning the next election when the smart money has been on the Tories for a long time now.

Where did I claim unique insight, or anything even resembling it?

Let's not quibble over semantics.
Anyway I've filed your post along with Hugh McIlvanney's article in the Sunday Times last March- 'City the great underachievers'.

It was your choice and form of words, not mine.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Nice generalisation that[/

It was an honest opinion though and probably the main reason I could never vote for them.

If I vote I'll probably vote Lib Dem.

I vote Lib Dem in the the locals because they hold the seat and the councillor is better than most.

I voted Lib Dem / SDP in the 80's and 92. I prbably should vote Lib Dem as my politics are roughly equidistant between the current Labour and Tory parties.

But the problem is, they're crap.

I'm traditionally a Labour voter but they are fast turning into a shambles.

And if an intelligent person like you, or me, loses faith in the main parties then what can we realistically do?

You say "... if I vote..." for which my late grandfather would have given you a piece of his mind. Your vote, along with the right to peaceful protest, are the only weapons you have in a democratic society to influence events.

I (should I vote UKIP) will be using that weapon to let those mainstream parties know that I'm fed up with their complacency and lack of ideas. I accept that UKIP may be no better than those parties but I feel that unless I give the political establishment a fright, they will carry on ignoring the will of the people.

 

[mackenzie]

I vote Lib Dem in the the locals because they hold the seat and the councillor is better than most.

I voted Lib Dem / SDP in the 80's and 92. I prbably should vote Lib Dem as my politics are roughly equidistant between the current Labour and Tory parties.

But the problem is, they're crap.

I'm traditionally a Labour voter but they are fast turning into a shambles.

And if an intelligent person like you, or me, loses faith in the main parties then what can we realistically do?

You say "... if I vote..." for which my late grandfather would have given you a piece of his mind. Your vote, along with the right to peaceful protest, are the only weapons you have in a democratic society to influence events.

I (should I vote UKIP) will be using that weapon to let those mainstream parties know that I'm fed up with their complacency and lack of ideas. I accept that UKIP may be no better than those parties but I feel that unless I give the political establishment a fright, they will carry on ignoring the will of the people.

I can't vote tactically though; if I put my cross against someone's name then I want to believe in what I'm voting for.

 

[hilts]

I vote Lib Dem in the the locals because they hold the seat and the councillor is better than most.

I voted Lib Dem / SDP in the 80's and 92. I prbably should vote Lib Dem as my politics are roughly equidistant between the current Labour and Tory parties.

But the problem is, they're crap.

I'm traditionally a Labour voter but they are fast turning into a shambles.

And if an intelligent person like you, or me, loses faith in the main parties then what can we realistically do?

You say "... if I vote..." for which my late grandfather would have given you a piece of his mind. Your vote, along with the right to peaceful protest, are the only weapons you have in a democratic society to influence events.

I (should I vote UKIP) will be using that weapon to let those mainstream parties know that I'm fed up with their complacency and lack of ideas. I accept that UKIP may be no better than those parties but I feel that unless I give the political establishment a fright, they will carry on ignoring the will of the people.

I have been saying this for hours but some see a vote for UKIP as a slight on ones character

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Interesting article by Owen Gibson in The Guardian:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/12/parties-ukip-british-politics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... h-politics</a>

Has there ever been such a brazen set of political con artists, so sophisticated at manipulating genuine grievances for their own ends? A few months ago Ukip compiled a document titled: “Who are the Times journalists trying so desperately to undermine Ukip?” It was a determined effort to burnish the party’s anti-establishment credentials: Daniel Finkelstein was described as the “privately educated former senior official at Conservative Central office”; Hugo Rifkind the “privately educated son of pro-EU Tory former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind”, and so on.

Satire is left redundant by the audacity of Ukip. Just look at the leading lights of this “anti-establishment” insurgency. Their leader is that rare breed in British politics, a privately educated ex-City broker. Their deputy chairman is Neil Hamilton, the disgraced arch-Thatcherite and one-time minister, booted from the House of Commons in ignominy. Their recent byelection victor is Douglas Carswell, an ex-Tory MP who used to work in asset management.

Their next byelection candidate is Mark Reckless, yet another public school ex-Tory whose previous career – like Nigel Farage – was in the City. They are bankrolled by ex-Tory multimillionaires like hedge-fund supremo Christopher Mills and insurance tycoon Arron Banks. Ukip talks of breaking the “political cartel” while peddling policies the entire political elite agree on, quibbling only on scale and detail: tax cuts for the rich, privatisation, slash-and-burn austerity, curtailing workers’ rights. They are the lone critics of immigration – leaving aside, of course, the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Times, the Tories and, oh, the Labour leadership too.

But fair play to Ukip. Britain’s political elite has fuelled more than enough disillusionment for enterprising charlatans to exploit. Yes, there are honourable exceptions, but it has been abundantly clear what the political elite has been becoming for quite some time. Technocratic, rootless, soulless; a professionalised morass of time-servers who see ministerial posts as springboards to nice little earners on corporate boards; manoeuvring constantly not on the basis of political principle but for shameless self-advancement.

How did we end up here? It seems almost unimaginable now, but Britain's political elite once had deep roots. The Tories may have always functioned as the political wing of the well-to-do, but the dramatic expansion of the franchise in the 19th century compelled them to seek legitimacy among the masses. At its height early last century, the Primrose League – built to foster popular Conservatism, to “embrace all classes and all creeds except atheists and enemies of the British empire” – achieved a membership of 2 million. Even in the early 1950s, the Conservative party could claim a membership of nearly 3 million. In 1955, most Scots voted for the Tory sister party, the Unionists; Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester were all northern cities that boasted a strong Tory presence.

Then there’s Labour, founded to give working people a voice. Sustained by a trade union movement that, at its peak, represented about half the workforce, the party itself was once a million-strong. Local government and unions gave aspiring working-class politicians resources, education and know-how. The Labour leadership encompassed a spectrum of views and backgrounds, including the likes of Tony Crosland, Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, John Silkin, Peter Shore and Richard Crossman.

Today, both parties are husks of what they once were. The Tories are in long-term decline, less popular than most strains of bacteria in much of the north, leaving Ukip (perversely) as a less toxic rightwing choice. There is no one simple reason: a general fragmentation in society and the triumph of individualism; the disappearance of industries that once sustained cohesive communities; the smothering of local government and unions; a political convergence that has left parties quibbling over nuances. These are reasons, of course, not excuses. But they help explain how parties have become the playthings of careerists inspired by their own ambitions and little else. The figures on the professionalisation of politics speak for themselves.

In 1979, 21 MPs previously worked in politics, but in 2010, the figure had reached 90. One in eight MPs elected in 2010 previously worked as private consultants, a jump from one in 25 in 1997. No wonder the Tory and Labour parliamentary parties are so stuffed full of people who can’t even do a rough impression of speaking like a human being. Universal suffrage – fought for at such great cost by our forebears – is silently, stealthily unwinding: a huge gap in turnout now separates middle-class professionals and unskilled workers.

Yes, there was the expenses scandal, the Iraq war, the Lib Dems’ decision to trash what little faith young people had in democracy – all have helped fuel disillusionment with political elites who were never, after all, loved. But for a generation, politicians have surrendered democratic power to the market. In postwar Britain, the promise was that citizens would be provided with a secure job, an affordable home and publicly owned services and utilities to support them. What is left for politicians to promise but the odd tinker here and there, as well as cuts and yet more surrendering of power?

And so we end up with a Labour leadership unable to offer anything resembling a coherent, inspiring alternative expressed in a language people can relate to. No – unable to offer a bit of hope, a sense that politics can be a vehicle for improving your lot, your family’s, your community’s, your country’s. Wages falling, work ever more insecure, an affordable house a fantastical dream for many. With politics unable to satisfy basic needs and aspirations, and in the absence of a convincing message of hope, anger is directed at anyone but the powerful: immigrants, unemployed people, public-sector workers. And now Ed Miliband seeks to defuse the Ukip threat by pledging further crackdowns on immigration. How has that worked out for David Cameron’s Tories, exactly?

Enough. Ukip was 600 votes away from taking a working-class Labour seat last week. A discredited political elite that unleashed the beast of rightwing populism is not going to defeat it. For those of us who think politics should be about hope, about satisfying people’s needs and aspirations: well, it’s soul-searching time.

 

[Aphex]

It's quite obvious wherever you put your vote it's status ends up the same... ebb and flow, nature, it's easy to predict the order. A generation of so called growth and then loss. It's scientific, and it'll always be the same. It's one of the rules.

 

[Anonymous]

Lifted from elsewhere however....

 

[Ducado]

Lifted from elsewhere however....

To be fair Eric disliked both extreams (like myself)

 

[malg]

Farage has been invited to take part in one of the televised debates. There will be 3 debates in all:

First - Conservative and Labour leaders.
Second - as the first, but with Lib Dem leader.
Third - as second, but with Farage.

 

[aguero93:20]

Farage has been invited to take part in one of the televised debates. There will be 3 debates in all:

First - Conservative and Labour leaders.
Second - as the first, but with Lib Dem leader.
Third - as second, but with Farage.

Not a fan of that, the two main parties getting 3 times the airtime anyone else gets. Still, could work against them.

 

[whp.blue]

When bright people are considering voting for UKIP i really do fear for the future of this country

Not as bad as 37% or so of voters saying they will vote for those millionaire socialists that is the labour party. any clown who votes for that twat Milliband should be stabbed in the face

Ah! Debating skills of the far right. Stab someone in the face for having a political opinion thats of the left.

Nice touch pal.

The far right is no worse than the far left you advocate. Socialism is a failed doctrine it cannot work as the people making the decisions become just the same as the far right leaders when they are making the decisions. money and power corrupt

Miliband bangs on about social justice and yet he is a millionaire and he will only become richer I don't see him standing up and saying he and other MPs are paid too much.

He will say or do anything to gain power however at the moment he and is party are not picking up the mood of the masses.
whether you like it or not people can be patriotic without being a fascist or a racist and the looney left just don't get that and that in itself is enough to ensure they will not be in power for a long time to come.

The left have damaged modern English society and they paid the price for that at the last election. Normal working class people have had enough and would sooner vote for a right wing party than the nut jobs who run the Labour party, who in the past were their party of choice.

The left wing bang on about the right but they should look at their own poor policies and crap Mp's, who have gone way over the top placating minorities in order to get elected in areas like Blackburn and Bradford, as the main reason the right is in the ascendancy.

the lib dems have blow it and the labour party is about to do the same if they fail to accept the working classes have had enough of open door policies on immigration, you may think that isn't very PC but as the Electorate are proving it is reality.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Tristram Hunt
Appropriate rhyming slang

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!

However I won't vote for a party that advocates flat rate tax, privatising the NHS and allows rich benefactors to buy a cabinet position.

Ukip are a joke.

Are those UKIP policies? Just looked on its site and that doesn't seem to be the case, and does it have cabinet positions? Where did you see this?

Jesus wept!
Flat rate tax is one of their few definite policies.

As for buying positions this is a cut and paste of the Times of Oct 10th.
Can't put the link cos it's a pay site.

Ukip members have accused the party of allowing donors to buy their way into top positions after the latest businessman to donate money was awarded a parliamentary seat to fight.
Since Arron Banks pledged to give £1 million to Ukip last week, after a dramatic switch of his allegiance from the Conservatives, it has emerged that the insurance tycoon intends to contest a Westminster seat next May.
This week, another donor, Paul Sykes, the Yorkshire businessman who has donated more than £4 million to the party, was made Ukip’s chairman of campaigns. His appointment to the influential post has caused consternation among party members.
A senior Ukip party figure, who asked not to be named, said: “Why on earth has Paul Sykes been appointed to run campaigns? What does he know about campaigning? One stint in 1997 for Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum party isn’t good enough.”
A third donor, Alan Bown, who has donated more than £1.3 million in cash and services to the party since 2003, also wields substantial influence in the party, sitting on its national executive committee.
Mr Bown, a retired bookmaker and businessman, has conducted polling for the party and been an integral figure in developing Ukip’s campaign strategy.
Caven Vines, a Ukip councillor in Rotherham and the party’s parliamentary candidate for Wentworth and Dearne, said: “If you’ve got a big enough chequebook, anyone listens to you. It’s not right,” he said, but added “life’s not right”. When he travels to London this week, he said, “I dare say I’ll be asking a few questions” about the issue.
Another parliamentary candidate for Ukip, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s really not good that donors can just rise up in the party because they give money. And it makes you wonder. We’re campaigning along one line, but then it seems we’re becoming just like the rest of them.”
Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, told The Times yesterday that Mr Banks had “been in touch a lot” since his announcement of a £1 million donation last week.
Mr Farage said: “He wants to go ahead as a candidate but he also wants to talk about fundraising for us. He’s very interested in political polling and issues like that but things have been rather busy lately and we haven’t had time to discuss that.”
At last week’s press conference, Mr Banks said that, like other donors, he would be stipulating where his money went. “I think it will be directly to the party but it will be for specific purposes — the election campaign.”
Asked about the idea that he could get involved with directing certain aspects of the election campaign, such as market research, he said: “There’s a whole package of things we might do for Ukip and that might be one of them.”

 

[whp.blue]

Tristram Hunt
Appropriate rhyming slang

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!

However I won't vote for a party that advocates flat rate tax, privatising the NHS and allows rich benefactors to buy a cabinet position.

Ukip are a joke.

Are those UKIP policies? Just looked on its site and that doesn't seem to be the case, and does it have cabinet positions? Where did you see this?

Jesus wept!
Flat rate tax is one of their few definite policies.

Always thought that was a communist policy not just a right wing one
surely there is something to be said for everyone being treated equal and paying the same tax no matter what they earn after all we all aspire to earn more so why should people be penalized for being successful?