UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Have the Lib Dems in Montgomery any chance of recovering from the Opik debacle?

They got smashed in the Assembly elections (but then they were under another cloud for that election as well; Mick Bates, the retiring incumbent, had a conviction for attacking a paramedic while really, really drunk) despite a decent candidate, which is not a good sign. But they showed some signs of recovery in Newtown in the local elections a year later. It needs to be remembered that LibDem strength in Montgomery owes more to the association of the party label with well-regarded local MPs than genepool loyalty to said party label; a century ago when the Liberal Party dominated Welsh political life, Montgomery was not exactly a stronghold.

[njwes]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

[politicus]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

Not necessarily a bad thing for the far left since it would make it harder to establish a viable Conservative government.

PR is their only chance to influence Labour, they have zero influence on the Labour leadership today.

[Phony Moderate]

Anyway, notice how the Tories seemed to have a learned a lesson from 1997 - there aren't really any cabinet members in even semi-marginal seats.

[You kip if you want to...]

Anyway, notice how the Tories seemed to have a learned a lesson from 1997 - there aren't really any cabinet members in even semi-marginal seats.

Indeed.

The most marginal is Greening in Putney, right?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Cabinet ministers who lost their seats in 1997 and their 1992 majorities...

Michael Forsyth, Secretary of State for Scotland, Stirling (1.5%)
Iain Lang, President of the Board of Trade, Galloway & Upper Nithsdale (5.6%)
Malcolm Rifkind, Foreign Secretary, Edinburgh Pentlands (9.6%)
William Waldegrave, Chief Secretary to the Treasury (11.5%)^*
Roger Freeman, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Kettering (20.0%)
Tony Newton, Lord President of the Council, Braintree (26.6%)
Michael Portillo, Defence Secretary, Enfield Southgate (31.8%)

_{*But 17.5% over the party that he lost to in 1997.}

Basically it's just the Scots, and there were reasons for that. Newton and Portillo had the sort of majorities (when from a competitive election) that ought to be safe even against a very large swing.

[Leftbehind]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

You think we'd wish to stay disenfranchised through worry that opening the voting system might also benefit the far-right? We've already got the governing party trying to appease a hard right party (& a faction within its own ranks), and I think the prevailing consensus only helps to instil the Right's message and increase their support, with them being locked out of parliament no comfort when they're shifting the centre-ground (and the parties hugging it) ever rightwards.

[joevsimp]

Anyway, notice how the Tories seemed to have a learned a lesson from 1997 - there aren't really any cabinet members in even semi-marginal seats.

Indeed.

The most marginal is Greening in Putney, right?

wouldn't exactly call Putney marginal this time around, isn't the MP for Hove in the cabinet? or are they a junior minister?

[politicus]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

You think we'd wish to stay disenfranchised through worry that opening the voting system might also benefit the far-right? We've already got the governing party trying to appease a hard right party (& a faction within its own ranks), and I think the prevailing consensus only helps to instil the Right's message and increase their support, with them being locked out of parliament no comfort when they're shifting the centre-ground (and the parties hugging it) ever rightwards.

Out of curiosity how much do you think a Labour Left party could get if you had PR? Maybe 12-15%?

I suppose it would be closer to the Scandinavian "Socialist Left" parties than Die Linke in Germany or the French left wing. So undogmatic on economics and emphasis on green issues and pacifism.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They wouldn't leave (wouldn't even consider doing so, actually) so the question is moot. The tendency within the Labour Party is to believe that its real soul lies entirely within whatever faction or tendency you happen to align yourself with. And as far as the Left (and the more... er... workerist, I guess, strands of the Right) goes, there's also a massive betrayal complex, which goes back to 1931 and which was further reinforced by 1981.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just to add something else...

I suppose it would be closer to the Scandinavian "Socialist Left" parties than Die Linke in Germany or the French left wing. So undogmatic on economics and emphasis on green issues and pacifism.

The harder Left is not exactly green, for the most part.

[politicus]

Just to add something else...

I suppose it would be closer to the Scandinavian "Socialist Left" parties than Die Linke in Germany or the French left wing. So undogmatic on economics and emphasis on green issues and pacifism.

The harder Left is not exactly green, for the most part.

Okay, so the Arthur Scargill types are still there?

Anyway, I probably presented it the wrong way by calling it "Labour Left". With PR there should be room for a party to the left of Labour,which would not necessarily have to develop from a party split but could also come about with the merger of various smaller groups into an alliance.
 
I just wondered how strong a potential you thought it would have.

EDIT: I tend to have a structural view of party systems were certain niches are - sooner or later - filled. And in a Western European PR system there is going to be a position to the left of the major SD party which will be filled by someone.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Okay, so the Arthur Scargill types are still there?

Well Scargill isn't (though he came from a CPGB background anyway; very different mentality), but, basically, yes.

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Oh, I'm sure that there would be such a party, or at least attempts to form one. But hardly anyone would actually vote for it. The basic problem the far-left has - beyond the lack of any tradition of that type of thing outside the various Little Moscow's - is that they use words that now mean nothing and don't seem to realise that that's what they do.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Which matters because it means that there's no connection between people's grumblings, discontents and fears, and whatever it is that insert-far-left-candidate-here happens to be spouting. The only real exception - George Galloway and Respect are something different - to that would be Tommy Sheridan before his own personal Fall, and I wonder how much of that was just personality cult politics (c.f. the occasional Midlands oddball - Dave Nellist, those weirdos in Walsall and the like - who can still sometimes win a seat on the local council) writ large.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Let's not forget the hilarious intra-hard-left sectarianism. I believe it is SLP policy to run in constituencies where another hard left candidate is running. So yeah... (Is this more evidence of the "Scargill was MI6" theory? It is quite suggestive)

But more seriously, hasn't that been the case since... well, the 1950s at least? While the hard left certainly had a lot of influence in the unions and sections of the labour party, independent leftists did not... err, fare so well in elections without those structures (since the decline of CPGB anyway). Or am I missing a part of the story?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, it's been the case since the Soviet Union decided to point nukes in the general direction of Great Britain. The CPGB's subsequent electoral collapse in the Little Moscow's in 1950 was pretty spectacular; the same also being true for Denis Pritt (who might as well have been a member) and the rest of the 'Labour Independent' group of fellow travellers.

[afleitch]

PR, or rather limited PR systems in the UK don't really help the hard left because the hard left don't work well with each other. The success story of the first Holyrood election should have been Socialist Labour (at least that was the perceived wisdom prior to the election) who polled over 55,000 votes, more than the SSP. However Tommy Sheridan ran a personal campaign in Glasgow and squeezed out a seat there. That basically catapulted him into national prominence. While in office by himself he actually voted against the Labour-Lib Dem coalition more than he voted with it (and as a result voted with the Tories more than he voted with Labour). The SSP breakthrough (and the Greens) was in part due to an abysmal campaign by the SNP combined with post-Iraq anger at Labour (Labour lost more seats in 2003 than it did in 2007)

The SSP polled nearly 7% of the list vote in Scotland in 2003 (and 15% in Glasgow more than the Tories and the Lib Dems combined)

In late 2004 Tommy Sheridan resigned and the party imploded around sexual shenanigans who knew what etc. Sheridan went off to found the Judean Popular Front Solidarity Party. The 2007 campaign for the hard left basically became a Solidarity v SSP mud fest (which led to a few funny personal encounters while out canvassing that year) Both parties collapsed.

One thing to note is that such escapades on the left traditionally tend to make the news than those on the right because they are more fun. Scottish People's Alliance anyone?

[Leftbehind]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

You think we'd wish to stay disenfranchised through worry that opening the voting system might also benefit the far-right? We've already got the governing party trying to appease a hard right party (& a faction within its own ranks), and I think the prevailing consensus only helps to instil the Right's message and increase their support, with them being locked out of parliament no comfort when they're shifting the centre-ground (and the parties hugging it) ever rightwards.

Out of curiosity how much do you think a Labour Left party could get if you had PR? Maybe 12-15%?

I suppose it would be closer to the Scandinavian "Socialist Left" parties than Die Linke in Germany or the French left wing. So undogmatic on economics and emphasis on green issues and pacifism.

It's difficult to know, really. It all depends on what form it takes, what the organisation is like etc. I think there are a significant amount of voters to the left of Labour, who haven't really been given the opportunity to express it.

I think it'd follow a German model, personally - an explicitly socialist movement led by someone like Nellist, who would probably attract about 5%+ and the social democratic Greens getting about the same initially, and whenever Labour follows SPD lines of 'centrism' disillusioning more to each respective pool. A conservative estimate, as I don't believe PR will deliver us socialism, but on the other hand it'd undoubtedly bring us representation and influence to extend our message and there's a significant vote out there that wants to reverse the neoliberal consensus beyond that 10% (perhaps even a majority). 

In the last Euro's (the last election to have PR) Greens got 8% and Socialists, collectively, 2% - but this was with shoddy turnout and falls down at the same way cataloguing far-left failures does under FPTP: their profile is non-existent and won't be until PR grants them that through influence relevant to their vote. Part of the reason the Left lives and dies by a handful of big personalities is it's hard enough to be taken seriously in FPTP without even a recognisable face for the voter.

[minionofmidas]

Which matters because it means that there's no connection between people's grumblings, discontents and fears, and whatever it is that insert-far-left-candidate-here happens to be spouting. The only real exception - George Galloway and Respect are something different - to that would be Tommy Sheridan before his own personal Fall, and I wonder how much of that was just personality cult politics (c.f. the occasional Midlands oddball - Dave Nellist, those weirdos in Walsall and the like - who can still sometimes win a seat on the local council) writ large.

Given all that Labour has done in government over the past 40 years, I think the weirdos of the left are those still inside Labour.

[batmacumba]

The only movement since last time seems to be UKIP countinuous growth. And it also seems to have been taking Labour support, lately.

[Insula Dei]

Total random question, but is West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine a potential Scottish pick-up for the Tories, even if they lose the general election?

[freefair]

Total random question, but is West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine a potential Scottish pick-up for the Tories, even if they lose the general election?

It's possible, if there's a huge vote split- but it's more likely the SNP would leap to a winning percentage- all I can say for certain is that it' one of Scottish Labour's "impossibles"

[You kip if you want to...]

Total random question, but is West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine a potential Scottish pick-up for the Tories, even if they lose the general election?

It's possible, if there's a huge vote split- but it's more likely the SNP would leap to a winning percentage- all I can say for certain is that it' one of Scottish Labour's "impossibles"

Even though the boundaries are different, the SNP got a massive swing in 2011.

[You kip if you want to...]

Michael Ignatieff (yes, that one) saying he expects Labour to win almost by default on Daily Politics today. Kiss of death?

[Mallory]

Michael Ignatieff (yes, that one) saying he expects Labour to win almost by default on Daily Politics today. Kiss of death?

Hope so. I mean, MI was pretty optimistic about his own chances, and well, he... er... didn't do that well. So to say.