UK General Election - May 7th 2015 (The Official Campaign Thread)

[Joe Republic]

Question:  Does today's Conservative Party still like to talk about the days of Thatcher with misty eyes, a la the Republicans with Reagan?

[Phony Moderate]

Question:  Does today's Conservative Party still like to talk about the days of Thatcher with misty eyes, a la the Republicans with Reagan?

No; Thatcher is a much more controversial figure here than Reagan is over there. Cameron has described himself as "a fan of Thatcher, but not a Thatcherite."

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Question:  Does today's Conservative Party still like to talk about the days of Thatcher with misty eyes, a la the Republicans with Reagan?

The ones that enjoy being in power don't. The ones that like to be in perpetual opposition do - last year a bunch of backbenchers proposed renaming a Bank Holiday as 'Thatcher Day'. I swear, that party ain't right.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If these are accurate...

They aren't. Polling companies are not good at demographic fine detail* and the ABCDE system is notoriously poor as a measurement of class (or any other social division for that matter). The Tories had some strikingly good results in some middle class areas in 2010 (particularly in the Home Counties) and also some rather unimpressive ones in some other places.

_{*And have only got worse since they started to mess around with sample data to get the 'right' results.}

[King of Kensington]

"ABC1" is a quite heterogeneous social category.   Since the 70s women entered the labor force en masse.  It would be interesting to see it split by gender, given the leftward shift of women over the past few decades.  In the heyday of Fordist mass industries and heavier class voting (and fewer women working), women were less left-wing than men, but now they are quite a bit more so.

[jaichind]

Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hull West and Hessle, Mike Whitehead, leaves the party to join UKIP, leader Nigel Farage says in Tweet.

[Torie]

If these are accurate...

They aren't. Polling companies are not good at demographic fine detail* and the ABCDE system is notoriously poor as a measurement of class (or any other social division for that matter). The Tories had some strikingly good results in some middle class areas in 2010 (particularly in the Home Counties) and also some rather unimpressive ones in some other places.

_{*And have only got worse since they started to mess around with sample data to get the 'right' results.}

Accurate or not, it would not surprise me if class based voting in Britain is declining. It certainly has in the US. I mean, after all, both Labor and the Dems focus most of their efforts on appealing to the middle class, no?  Marx is dead.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

A UK not based around class differences is unfathomable.

[King of Kensington]

Accurate or not, it would not surprise me if class based voting in Britain is declining. It certainly has in the US. I mean, after all, both Labor and the Dems focus most of their efforts on appealing to the middle class, no?

"Middle class" has a different meaning in the US and UK.  In the US, pretty much everybody who isn't Bill Gates or homeless is considered "middle class." 

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The British Labour Party, unlike the socialist parties of the continent, was never Marxist.  But I guess to you Fabianism and Marxism are indistinguishable. 

[Silent Hunter]

Exactly. Worth remembering British nuke development began under Labour.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Accurate or not, it would not surprise me if class based voting in Britain is declining.

We've been told that it must be for decades, and yet the fundamental patterns of support for the parties most associated with class politics not only remain but show no sign of disappearing.

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Labour certainly don't; Labour campaigns are usually based on protecting public services and living standards (and more loudly so at present than for a while). Even under Blair it was only really the votes of certain sorts of middle class people that were aggressively sought after. Class, of course, is a more complicated thing than it used to be, but an understanding of it is as essential to understanding British elections as it was in David Butler's heyday.

[Torie]

Accurate or not, it would not surprise me if class based voting in Britain is declining. It certainly has in the US. I mean, after all, both Labor and the Dems focus most of their efforts on appealing to the middle class, no?

"Middle class" has a different meaning in the US and UK.  In the US, pretty much everybody who isn't Bill Gates or homeless is considered "middle class." 

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The British Labour Party, unlike the socialist parties of the continent, was never Marxist.  But I guess to you Fabianism and Marxism are indistinguishable. 

Well I understand the Labor party believes (believed) in free and fair elections, and not some dictatorship of the working class. I just meant viewing the world through a working class lens, and having a special affiliation with them. It was not meant to be a precise analytical statement. It was a suggestion that the Labor Party has become more bourgeoise in its perspectives - more attuned to the liberal gentry.

[136or142]

Labour like nearly all 'socialist' parties in Europe are actually liberal parties in that I believe they have all repudiated their support of nationalizing key sectors of the economy.

For instance, here in Canada, the right leaning MacLean's Magazine as well as Andrew Coyne has said they can see no difference between 'Red' Liberals and the NDP. Obviously there are differences between 'blue' Liberals and New Democrats, however the 'Red' Liberals likely make up a fairly substantial majority of all Liberals, except perhaps for when they're in government.

Even in Australia and, I believe, New Zealand as well, the Labor Party has both a separate left wing and a right wing.

[Phony Moderate]

Labour like nearly all 'socialist' parties in Europe are actually liberal parties in that I believe they have all repudiated their support of nationalizing key sectors of the economy.

For instance, here in Canada, the right leaning MacLean's Magazine as well as Andrew Coyne has said they can see no difference between 'Red' Liberals and the NDP. Obviously there are differences between 'blue' Liberals and New Democrats, however the 'Red' Liberals likely make up a fairly substantial majority of all Liberals, except perhaps for when they're in government.

Even in Australia and, I believe, New Zealand as well, the Labor Party has both a separate left wing and a right wing.

I wouldn't call it 'liberal' but they have adopted a modern, reformed socialism that is more compatible with the technology age.

Of course our Labour Party has more or less conceded that there needs to be some form of austerity. That is the depressing thing (for me) about this election; the Tories have set the narrative and it is being fought on that - heartless austerity vs. austerity with compassion is the choice that is being presented here. Still, Labour set the narrative from 1997 until the recession so it is inevitable that it will swing from time to time. Isn't it amazing now to think that as recently as 2005 the Tory leadership was in the midst of a witchhunt against PPCs who disagreed with the pledge to match Labour's levels of spending?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Forgive my ignorance as a Canadian about UK politics. What is the Liberal Dem platform about ? Are they a more left wing socialist party than Labour ? Or are they moderate heroes ?

[Joe Republic]

Forgive my ignorance as a Canadian about UK politics. What is the Liberal Dem platform about ? Are they a more left wing socialist party than Labour ? Or are they moderate heroes ?

That's been my understanding.  The party was born out of a merger between a splinter party of right-wing Labourites and the (classical liberal) Liberals.  Their voter base today appears to still be spiritually inherited from both of those.

Other than constitutional and electoral reform (which is mostly self-serving) and being firmly pro-EU (which I don't know if that's a modern thing, or another policy going all the way back to the pre-SDP and Liberal days), I really have no idea what else they stand for.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Accurate or not, it would not surprise me if class based voting in Britain is declining. It certainly has in the US. I mean, after all, both Labor and the Dems focus most of their efforts on appealing to the middle class, no?

"Middle class" has a different meaning in the US and UK.  In the US, pretty much everybody who isn't Bill Gates or homeless is considered "middle class." 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The British Labour Party, unlike the socialist parties of the continent, was never Marxist.  But I guess to you Fabianism and Marxism are indistinguishable. 

Well I understand the Labor party believes (believed) in free and fair elections, and not some dictatorship of the working class. I just meant viewing the world through a working class lens, and having a special affiliation with them. It was not meant to be a precise analytical statement. It was a suggestion that the Labor Party has become more bourgeoise in its perspectives - more attuned to the liberal gentry.

Stop reading Joel Kotkin, he's not even a good troll. Stop reading him.

[136or142]

Isn't that Madchen Amick in the first picture?  From Twin Peaks?

[ObserverIE]

Forgive my ignorance as a Canadian about UK politics. What is the Liberal Dem platform about ? Are they a more left wing socialist party than Labour ? Or are they moderate heroes ?

That's been my understanding.  The party was born out of a merger between a splinter group of right-wing Labourites and the (classical liberal) Liberals.  Their voter base today appears to still be spiritually inherited from both of those.

Other than constitutional reform (which is mostly self-serving) and being firmly pro-EU (which I don't know if that's a modern thing, or another policy going all the way back to the pre-SDP and Liberal days), I really have no idea what else they stand for.

The pre-merger Liberals were not notably classical - much more a social liberal party with a tradition of grassroots activism and a Greenish tinge avant la lettre.

The Lib Dems would traditionally have been moderate heroes (at a time when Labour were anti-European and the Tories Thatcherite) but gradually ended up during the Blair years occupying a "functionally left of Labour" niche due to Labour policies on civil liberties, Iraq and student tuition fees, which resulted in them winning a number of public-sector middle class/student constituencies in 2005 and 2010, while still holding the "moderate hero" vote. They also benefited as a surrogate for Labour in seats in the rural south-west of England and rural Scotland and Wales.

The party then turned round after May 2010 and enabled a Conservative government pursuing doctrinaire classical liberal policies (with the support of a rump around the Clegg leadership who were themselves sympathetic to classical liberalism, but had strangely failed to communicate this sympathy to their voters). The result is that the various slices of support painstakingly acquired over the previous thirty-five years have jumped ship and the party is back to its support levels of the 1960s and early 1970s.

[Joe Republic]

^ Makes sense.

So tell me, is there still any SDP ancestry left in the Lib Dems' voter base?

And is their support for the EU a recent thing?  Or could you trace that back to the pre-Alliance days as well?

[Gary J]

The pre-merger Liberal Party was more consistently pro-EEC/European Union than either the Labour or Conservative party were.

[Lurker]

If these are accurate...

They aren't. Polling companies are not good at demographic fine detail* and the ABCDE system is notoriously poor as a measurement of class (or any other social division for that matter). The Tories had some strikingly good results in some middle class areas in 2010 (particularly in the Home Counties) and also some rather unimpressive ones in some other places.

_{*And have only got worse since they started to mess around with sample data to get the 'right' results.}

Accurate or not, it would not surprise me if class based voting in Britain is declining. It certainly has in the US. I mean, after all, both Labor and the Dems focus most of their efforts on appealing to the middle class, no?  Marx is dead.

Actually, class-based voting was never as prevalent in Britain as one might have expected in such a society (though I guess there were significant regional variations). It never reached the same extent as class-based voting in the Scandinavian countries during the 50s and 60s, for instance (according to Stein Rokkan, who specialised in comparative politics). I don't remember the reasons for this, though.

Of course, this doesn't say much about the situation today, though.

[Phony Moderate]

Good news for both the Greens and the Lib Dems today, I'd say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32198938

[adma]

In Canadian terms, what the LibDems had built them selves up to by 2010 roughly parallels what the Canadian Liberals had been reduced to by 2011: campus towns a la Guelph/Kingston and the Maritimey "Celtic fringe"...

[Angel of Death]

Surely another hung parliament must mean the end of FPTP?