Talk Elections

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One of the most, at any rate. It's mostly useless comparing situations in different countries though.

Define 'succesfull'. If you mean electorally succesfull, than yes, at that point in history New Labour was probably the left's biggest succes, altough Canada's Liberals had been in office longer and with bigger majority's and had yet another minority government to come. Likewise if you mean influential. But in terms of realizations, I wouldn't know. Schröder did realize some pretty important things, and there are others out there who might have a claim to that throne.

Personally, I feel the purple governments in the Bene(lux) also were rather succesfull, even if the 2002-2004 period was the point when they started to wane. (The Netherlands: 2002 election and Fortuyn, Belgium: 2004 regional elections, just a year after the epic 2003 federal elections :( )

I agree. 13 years in office is some achievement.

A slightly odd comment given that, if his autobiography is anything to go by, he's actually lukewarm (at best!) about the actual achievements of his government (devolution especially). I mean, he's not exactly wrong, but I wonder whether it's for the wrong reasons.

They were without any doubt very successful. The"left-wing" part is open to debates, though.

Rhetoric aside, no different to any other social democrat-led government of that time then. Of course he said 'centre-left'; I don't think you'd ever catch him going any further ;D

But I wonder what he actually meant, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

That's the rhetoric indeed : didn't he say himself "there is no right-wing or left-wing policies, there are policies that work and policies that don't work" ? Of course most of the left-wing governments of that time weren't really different indeed. And for the post-Thatcher British political spectrum, no doubt he should be considered left.

As I've said before....I would have voted Labour at least in 1997 and 2001, maybe 2005.

That's probably not a good sign for left-wing supporters like Antonio about the party :)

The Blair Government was centre-right.

Probably the most successful in recent times anyway.

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Do center-left govts regularly restrict the freedom to assemble, the internet, religion, movement and the press?  Are they controlled by (virtually) one political party?  The PRC is in no way center-left.

New piece of trolling from our beloved Libertas Kid.

Most political spectra in circulation only really apply well to developed Western democracies. In the PRC everything is flipped on its head. Just as in the Russian Federation, people who have "conservative" attitudes tend to be socialist or communist whereas the "liberal" people tend to fancy liberal democracy or at least a shift away from state dominance over the economy. The CPC has internal divides - there are correspondingly "right" and "left" factions within the party that seem backwards from what we are accustomed to.

It is comparing apples to oranges, but I would venture at least in terms of political-economy China does not have a far left government. It never really even had a workers' democracy in the first place, the means of production are not collectively owned, and policies are mixed to the extent that the PRC is not truly socialist. China is still left of centre in some respects, and the current government could be considered successful using certain metrics... still, this would be a pretty tenuous, debatable stretch. So ends my muddled over-analysis of the trollage. O.o

As for Blair, I consider him a centrist like other Third Way types. From what little I know about British government it also seems Labour is not nearly so left-leaning as it once was. I lack sufficient knowledge about the government to rate its alignment or degree of success.

Tony continues to be one of my favorite closet right wingers.

Given my general distate for vacuous bags of smug, I can´t say I have a high opinion of Blair. Though he doesn´t look so bad compared what has followed...

Vacuous bags of smug, evidentally, sum up modern government in today's United Kingdom.

Gordon Brown was many things (and has been called plenty of others) but vacuous he certainly wasn't...

When I said "what followed" I wasn´t referring to Gordon Brown.

Nooooo, we meant this:


The heir to Blair and well... that one once said that he believes "it's time for promises to be kept".

the most succesful centre-left government was Felipe Gonzalez's. he was president for 14 years, and even with that corruption case, spanish people still like him. and his"ministro" alfredo perez rubalcaba, become vicepresident under zapatero's government and will be the next president of Spain. Also, he was the man who discovered javier solana ^^

I still believe Romano Prodi was almost a saint...had to manage a coalition going from demochristians to hardcore communists,did so succesfully for a few years and managed to get us in the Eurozone.
And,of course,beat Berlusconi twice out of two general elections.

I believe the Swedish Social Democratic Goverment from 1994 to 2006 at least deserves an hounerable mention in this thread. Sure it didn't bring much left-wing reform, but then at that point Sweden was already so left-wing there was no place to go but right. Still they managed an impressive 12 years in office.

So, everybody nominates their own local left-wing government of the 90s instead? How shocking. But I certainly won't nominate Jospin's government on my part.

He had the potential to be very successful, had the parties (and the voter) given him a true chance to act.



I will do it for you. Jospin was great. :D

You could nominate Chretien :P

Chretien was centre-right, and some would argue to the right of Mulroney (at least in economic policy) :)

No one gonna chime in with "BOB HAWKE!"?

No, but Brian Cowen was until a few days ago.

I know you like to practice irony but here I really need to bed sure. You... are... joking... right ? ???

No. Though only if the tactical purpose and gauge of success of centre-left governments is to be succeeded by slightly more leftwing governments. ;D

I am far from saying Prodi's was most succesful center-left gov't in the world...just thought it deserved at least one mention.

()

Zapatero really needs to do something about those Devil-like eyebrows. Maybe he can work on them after he loses the next General election.

It doesn't. It only appears as if it did when compared to Berlusconi's do nothing (but party and self-protect) administrations.

LOL, successful center left governments in the 1990s were a dime a dozen. Show me one today outside of Latin America and I might be impressed.

Spain has the busiest coat of arms.  So much going on there.  And they stuck the thing on the flag.  Who puts their coat of arms on the flag?

Prodi came to power both times when Italy's conditions were disastrous,so putting things into perspective,I believe he made crucial policies in order to save (temporarily,of course) Italy from complete decline.
Just try to think about us with lire instead of euros...

Ah, yes, a sense of a national identity. Imagine that.  ;)  Way better looking bills, too.

The national identity part isn't important. I don't particularly care if my currency is called "Deutsche Mark" or "Euro".

I do care about having to bail out everyone else. And the worst part about the Euro is there really is no alternative. :(

I truly believe Sweden's best and brightest electoral moment was "Euro YES; 42,0% NO 55,9%" Sometimes even Sweden manages to make the right decission at the ballot box.

As for successful left-wing goverments today... Stoltenberg in Norway appears to be doing fine despite some of the facist-lite left-wing reforms he's pushed through during his six years in power. But then when you're strongest political opponents are the actual facists...

It looks cool. Castila, Leon, Aragon, Navarra, Granada with the Bourbon arms at the middle. It looked even cooler under Franco when there was a huge eagle behind and there was the 'Espana, una, grande y libre' slogan.

Yeah,and our economy would have probably collapsed like Argentina's by now ;)
We haven't developed a true sense of national identity in 150 years,it's not like having lire would make much difference.

You mean it's possible to be any worse?

Look at it this way: at least it isn't the DR Congo. ^^

Don't be naive.

I think you mean "don't be sarcastic."  ;)

I thought you were serious...

Thinking about this, but was he actually riffing off the Carlsberg adverts?