What if it was David Miliband ? What if UKIP didn't exist ?

What if David was running Labour ? would Labour easily win ?

What if UKIP didn't exist ? Would Conservatives regain 15% of the vote ?

Reply 1

username878267

15

If David ran the Labour party we'd be far worse off. The country was fed up of New Labour.
New Labour had it's day, it had it's moment but it had become increasingly right wing and lost it's way. It no longer felt like the Labour party.

We needed a change, to shift leftwards and to start again. Tories would be miles ahead if it was David Milliband.

If UKIP didn't exist?
Well, I feel like a lot of the people who vote for them wouldn't vote for anyone else tbh.
I also feel their declining support is equally as good for Labour as it is for Tory.

Reply 2

democracyforum

OP

4

Original post by Bornblue

If David ran the Labour party we'd be far worse off. The country was fed up of New Labour.
New Labour had it's day, it had it's moment but it had become increasingly right wing and lost it's way. It no longer felt like the Labour party.

We needed a change, to shift leftwards and to start again. Tories would be miles ahead if it was David Milliband.

If UKIP didn't exist?
Well, I feel like a lot of the people who vote for them wouldn't vote for anyone else tbh.
I also feel their declining support is equally as good for Labour as it is for Tory.

Really ? why was David Miliband right wing ?

Reply 3

username878267

15

Original post by democracyforum

Really ? why was David Miliband right wing ?

Of course he was, Up to his eyeballs over Iraq and strongly New Labour.

Reply 4

username878267

15

On the UKIP question, no Conservatives would not regain 15% of the vote. A lot of their vote comes from former Labour voters and a lot from people who would otherwise not vote.

Reply 5

username1221160

19

I agree about the New Labour slant. The Conservatives did not win the last election, Labour lost it by being so unpopular including within their own ranks. David Miliband would have been a continuation of that. They needed change, not that Ed is doing a great job. Guess he is kind of the David Moyes of politics.

Reply 6

illegaltobepoor

19

Ed Millband is the first politician in Britain to say he got things wrong. He humbled himself on national television.

Reply 7

Rakas21

21

Original post by democracyforum

What if David was running Labour ? would Labour easily win ?

What if UKIP didn't exist ? Would Conservatives regain 15% of the vote ?

Well to answer that question we can look at polling.

If we take the average for each year in ICM polls..

2011: 36%
2012: 35%
2013: 31%
2014: 30%

2011: 37%
2012: 39%
2013: 37%
2014: 34%

We see here that the Tories pre-Ukip were holding their vote but that Ed's first full calender year (2012) saw him average 39% (solid majority territory) before the negative perception began to weigh him down. So taking Ed and Ukip out of the equation i think that it would be similar to 2011 or 2012 since the Tories would still be seen as toffs and Labour still economically inept.

Reply 8

Llamageddon

18

David Miliband is not the panacea for all labour's ills

Reply 9

democracyforum

OP

4

he was a much better speaker though

Reply 10

Farage is a hero

6

I guess the Millipede brothers never buried the hatchet, or David M would have have come out in support for his brother during the campaign. I thought they would save it until the last week, but I guess David wants Ed to fail.

Reply 11

thesabbath

2

You'd see this photo a lot more:

The Conservatives would be indistinguishable from a Labour/Green coalition without UKIP holding their feet to the fire. If UKIP didn't exist, we'd have to invent them.

Reply 12

ozzyoscy

21

David is more charismatic and, don't ask me how, incredibly popular with the girls. It's managed to rub off on Ed in that he's got a little bit of adoration from girls, but David was on a whole other level. Girls, for whatever reason, wanted to ride this guy into the ground. No, I can't explain this phenomena.

Anyway, in short, that means he would've got more votes, so Labour would indeed be doing much better off.

Reply 13

scrotgrot

16

Labour would win comfortably but the last thing you want is a large majority with a Blairite leader as well as a Blairite cabinet.

UKIP basically can't not exist in the sense you are talking about, i.e. they can't just magically not get popular since the recession/2010 which is what you imply by saying 15% of the Tory vote. (Btw, according to Ashcroft only half of them voted Tory in 2010 and only a fifth are considering "coming home" in 2015.)

You could potentially keep them at Referendum Party/Alan Sked levels if you go back a bit. It would require Portillo to survive in 1997, become leader, win in ~02, keep us out of the euro and respond suitably Eurosceptically to the 2004 treaty change. That way all the Eurosceptic money stays with the Tories and none for UKIP. BNP bigger but nowhere near as big as UKIP. Probably Tory re-election in ~2006 if prior to crash, Labour ~2010 possibly with Lib Dems. But no Lib Dem-Tory coalition yet so they retain more of their cachet as the protest party instead of UKIP - plus they get wet Tory votes instead of how today UKIP get backbench loon votes

What if it was David Miliband ? What if UKIP didn't exist ?

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