Hi All,
Some light relief as the election campaign comes to an end - Steyn had me laughing out loud as usual...
So who is voting for who?
J
Big ideas? This feels like a local election
Mark Steyn
26/04/2005
Hi All,
Some light relief as the election campaign comes to an end - Steyn had me laughing out loud as usual...
So who is voting for who?
J
Big ideas? This feels like a local election
Mark Steyn
26/04/2005
8 comments:
Well if this comes to pass I'll buy you drink in 2017. hell, I'll buy you one in '13 too.
One question - do you not think it possible that the Tories will go through a similar long and painful process that Labour began in the wake of the defeat in '87? Might there not be a Kinnock/Smith/Blair emerging who forces the party to address the very issues you have raised?
Great stuff, we'll see how you did in a few hours' time.
Some minor counter-predictions.
1. Perhaps Iraq to fade, but the Islamists will be around for a while, sadly.
2. TB on the way in, disastrously (drug-resistant tuberculosis)
3. Don't be so sure about canes not being enough for our national identity. You clearly haven't spent much time in German video shops.
JP
I wondered if recent political events - a newly resurgent Tory party under Cameron & the current disarray of the Lib Dems - had made Wembley revise the Political predictions he gave in this blog last election.
Here are a couple of the predictions I was wondering if Wembley still stands by -
Next election .. 'Brown sweeps into office with a BIGGER majority, back up into the hundreds'.
'Meanwhile' ...'The Tories, now out of power for 16 years and counting, with no clear ideology or agenda, with no emerging leadership talent. Will disappear forever as an effective political force.'
Also, 'GB labour party win again in 2013. Tories fall apart, Lib Dems may even be official opposition by now'.
What a fantastically thorough post and a reminder of how much Wembley is missed when he is absent from this blog. I lack the courage to make predictions, rather blandly believing that (almost) anything's possible. (Though I don't think you can overestimate Labour backbenchers powers of up screwing. Nor should one underestimate the Tories determination to get back in -'Campaign left and govern right' I think is the phrase. We shall see.)
Anyway, one question: wemb rightly points to the importance of a vote to drop clause 4. Is there something similar in the Tory constitution that has the same symbolic value? I suspect there is not. The only equivalent I can imagine is if they actually enshrined a particular principle (e.g. commitment to NHS, or narrowing the gap between rich and poor), but I can't think of anything they could 'drop' that would send the same message as the excision of Clause 4.
Can anyone offer any suggestions?
By the way here are the (current) Conservative beliefs as expressed in Cameronese. It's basically a series of statements that amount to 'we believe in X and not Y'. Cynics might suggest that in some instances X & Y are the same - it's just that X sounds nicer than Y. However, I don't think that would be entirely fair. (And indeed this kind of doublespeak is hardly unique to the Tories.)
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=party.beliefs.page
Not sure it makes any difference to the general argument or the predictions, but Wembley said this:
Cameron is claiming a mandate to lead, but he does not have a mandate to turn the current Tory party (back) into a centre-right one-nation party of social conscience.
Wasn't Blair up against similar opposition to his changes and fought them through on a wave of "sod it, we want power more than anything"? And if so, isn't it possible Cameron will do the same?
On a separate note I agree it would be nice to see some kind of liberal and / or libertarian alternative. These days the Tories are mostly inclined just to let the state grow at a slightly lower rate than Labour would do, hardly a ringing election slogan.
First, just for fun and for what they are worth here are my political predictions - Brown will win the next election but with a smaller majority (similiar in size to John Major's)the cooler economic climate and renewed pressure to stake his position on the centre ground will push him to cut back state spending pushing him further to the 'right'. This will make him unpopular with much of his already rebellious party (NB Labour MPs rebelled more frequently and in greater numbers than MPs of any party since 1945) and he will need to ruthlessly take control to retain order. The outcome of the following election depends on how well Brown manages to contain dissent, if he doesn't the public will not vote Labour into power for that following election. The Lib Dems may well reinvent themselves and repair the damage, if they do I think they will come back renewed and more focused and ambitious to win, rather than being satisfied with second place.
RE Clause Four and the Tories under Cameron.
I agree with alot of what's been said already, but don't feel there is the same need for Camron to pick a fight with his own party as there was with Labour.
Conservatism isn't a project in the same way as Socialism was with it's clear commitments and big ideas. The Conservatives traditionally have a far more sceptical, pragmatic vision of human nature (rooted in Hobbes as well as Adam Smith) than the idealism of Labour's socialism. And the reason they won't have a Clause Four moment is that they have never commited to anything quite as unworkable as Clause Four.
‘To secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange an the best obtainable system of populat administration and control of each industry of service’ - Clause Four
I do agree with Wembley that Cameron is engaged in a similiar reform process to Kinnock (though I don't esteem K as highly as Wembley) - and that's why when the attacks from the right of his party come - as they already are from Tebbit and Widdecombe - he'll welcome them as a way to reposition the party.
Finally, I'm not as sure that Labour has 'won' the arguement - in real terms spending on education has gone up by 45% and the public's impression is that it hasn't improved significantly, likewise NHS spending will almost have doubled by 2007 with much of the money going on staff pensions and pay increases with no significant increase in productivity.
Blair and Brown both recognise the need for radical reform but are at odds with much of their own party because those reforms push them further into what many Labour Mps consider the right's natural territory. Labour really can't afford to be complacent.
A couple of things to add to this on-going debate about the differences between the Tories and Labour.
Firstly, Gordon Brown's appointment of Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the US federal reserve) as adviser to the Treasury reminded me that once you leave aside the national petty prejudices and rivalries between our two main parties, New Labour and the Tories now have alot in common - they both respect, admire and seek to emulate the US's strong free-er market economy.
I'm not saying that the intentions of both parties are the same, but just as Labour recognised that they needed to show they could manage the Economy properly the Conservatives have learnt that they need to avoid the old days of boom and bust. The ideologies and traditions maybe different, but in practice (the way they operate in the real world rather than what they say) there isn't much between them. The question of how to vote for the majority of people then becomes a question of which party they believe is most compentent to manage the country.
This is where Labour are making themselves more and more vunerable. The recent defeat of the religious hatred bill again exposed a certain amount of disunity and disorganisation within the Labour benchs. As the Guardian wrote today - This is 'good for the country' but 'bad for labour.' In nine months 'A government with a majority of 65 has already suffered as many defeats on whipped votes as John Major's Government - which never had a majority larger than 21 - did in the whole of the 1992 - 7 parliament'. 'the number of serial Labour rebels is now in the 20s. With the support of a dozen colleagues on any given issue they can hold government hostage.'
The next election will be decided on which government looks most credible and effective not on ideologies and guiding principles. Gordon Brown's economic record could still clinch it but Labour shouldn't assume victory.
As someone who has only ever voted Labour - and believe that Blair has been a very good Prime Minister on a number of issues - it feels odd to find myself in the position of attacking Labour and defending the Tories. However I think questions of left and right are becoming more and more meaningless and resonate less and less with the voting public.
Niall Ferguson's comment on the Greenspan/Brown alliance. I found it rather glib but feel there's some truth to his observation that in many ways they make uncomfortable bedfellows.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/02/05/do0502.xml
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