Thread of Griping and Such Things

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And the ALP are being decimated on the state level and in the state opinion polls.

But don't the Australians basically hate Gillard and Abbott though? Is there a leadership spill in sight for either party? I still say they should've stuck with Rudd.

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Election is still in two years, no ? Well, I know Gillard has only a two seat majority, but I've not heard about the possibility of a dissolution so far.

I hope we'll be spared from crazy Abbott.

Cameron, Key, Harper and Abbott would be like an Anglosphere of Doom.

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Election is still in two years, no ? Well, I know Gillard has only a two seat majority, but I've not heard about the possibility of a dissolution so far.

I hope we'll be spared from crazy Abbott.

Cameron, Key, Harper and Abbott would be like an Anglosphere of Doom.

Seriously? John Key has been a wonderful Prime Minister in New Zealand.

Fair enough, he is the best of the four PMs mentioned.

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No love for Enda Kenny?

Was thinking in terms of the Westminster System, but he hasn't been Taoiseach long enough to know much.

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No incumbant leader is ever done two years before an election. We never saw a PM Roy Jenkins after all, or PM Mona Sahlin.

 

...President Strauss-Kahn

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France is almost certain to go socialist next year. Germany is swinging left as well these days.

France is the exception, not the rule. And Germany is swinging towards the non-traditional left (The Greens, not the SPD).

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France is almost certain to go socialist next year and Ireland has swung strongly to the left. Germany is swinging left as well these days.

France actually seems to be swinging towards the far right with the success Marine LePen is having. The Socialists are probably going to blow another presidential election seeing as they have already lost their strongest candidate in a sex scandal. Whether or not LePen is elected president is another story, but who would have thought five years ago that the Front National, True Finns, Danish People's Party, and PVV would actually be having a decent shot at government.

Most the the rise of the far-right is from the blatent failure of the European Socialist/SOcial Democratic Parties. The only countries with a centre-left "on the up" are France, Greece, Denmark and Germany. If the left win in Spain or Portugal, it'll be a major coup.

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Also to note, a lot of Le Pen's support is due to her associating the usual xenophobe anti-immigration rhetoric, to a kind of left-wing populist position (anti-globalization, anti-corporations, etc...). It's certainly playing a "the left has betrayed the working class" game, which works well in France since the 1980. So, in some way, a lot of her voters can be considered "left-wing".

This is an interesting realignment and one that could cause issues for the traditional left going forward.  There are some synergies between the xenophobic right and the populist left, much to the consternation of the philosophical/elite lefties.  Seems to be cropping up elsewhere: Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008 dabbled at the edges of that, in opposition to Obama's more esoteric/urbane leftism.  Some of the Democratic Party's anti-China rhetoric seems to go in that direction as well, and lines up with some of the trade policies they espouse (e.g., pro-labor rules).

Certainly not trying to compare Hillary to Marine, but there's a common thread in there somewhere.  It'll be curious to see how the parties migrate over the next decade.

It's because of the general rightward lurch that many centre-left parties took in the 1990s (Clinton's Third Way, New Labour, etc.). As these parties left office throughout the 2000s, under waves of unpopularity (in Europe anyway) and the perception that they sold out their old core voters in an attempt to break the centre-right, the traditional left-wing, "Socialist" voters became heavily disillusioned. It also didn't help that these same centre-left governments got quite lax on immigration, an easy scapegoat for the Daily Mail, Sun, Star (and their international equivalents) reading working class.

I think France's excuse, quite different from the rest, is just that Le Parti Socialiste is just so incompetent at running itself.

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Most the the rise of the far-right is from the blatent failure of the European Socialist/SOcial Democratic Parties. The only countries with a centre-left "on the up" are France, Greece, Denmark and Germany. If the left win in Spain or Portugal, it'll be a major coup.

Agreed with regards to the failure of the Left; the biggest problem for me is Right has all the populism and thus the key to reaching voters; the Left has completely emasculated themselves by accepting and then playing apologist for right-wing economics. Just look at the amazing wealth of populism that could've been capitalised upon (no pun intended) with regards to bankers, and yet our 'democratic socialist' party has at times looked even softer on them than the Tories! Populism, like it or not, is a massive vote-winner (and paper seller - just compare the broadsheets to populist tabloid circulation figures here) and the mainstream left has in recent times lost it all.

The centre-left, in Britain anyway, is too scared to venture outside their post-Thatcherite comfort zone. Terrified by the fates of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock in 1983 (for sliding left) and 1992 (for not trying hard enough).

You can still be left-wing and not a socialist, without wearing Tory clothes, Labour just don't seem to have picked up on that quite yet. It doesn't help that Labour's stuck with a leader who seems unwilling and unable to try and halt this "mess we inheritied from the previous lot" narrative. Obama was definately right to tell Ed to stop being all doom and gloom.

And as we all should know, this is infact the "mess" that Labour left behind.

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The centre-left, in Britain anyway, is too scared to venture outside their post-Thatcherite comfort zone. Terrified by the fates of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock in 1983 (for sliding left) and 1992 (for not trying hard enough).

You can still be left-wing and not a socialist, without wearing Tory clothes, Labour just don't seem to have picked up on that quite yet.

Yep; those defeats were due to a split left and now it's united again. Labour's task is to keep it united, and ironically the one thing that'll ensure it isn't is if they're still Tory-lite. Hopefully the policy review will start the ball rolling on that - as well as a promise to reverse some of the more harmful coalition policies.

I agree. If anything, the LibDems unraveling of their left-wing vote calls for Labour to take a more dominant left-wing stance. It's easy to forget that, although they maybe far from being an election winning party, they're up atleast 8%-10% on the general election from former Liberals alone. Not many oppositions (Labour after 1992 excluded, for obvious reasons) have been able to boast a post-election bounce like that. None of the swings in the by-elections of this parliament have had Labour outside of majority government territory.

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Haha, I say that and ComRes release a poll showing the parties tied...

Exactly. Over-confidence, lack of media presence and an "uncool" leader is a massive problem for Labour. They haven't had all 3 of them since 1994.

Last month's Scottish election needs to be a massive, unmissable, unavoidable warning to them.

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Exactly. Over-confidence, lack of media presence and an "uncool" leader is a massive problem for Labour.

I know another big Social Democratic Party who was brought down on those very three things not even a year ago. Although their leader was worse than uncool.

That's exactly the danger Labour has.

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Roy Morgan released a poll, the Coalition ahead 58-42, over 50 on primary votes, if anyone cares.