Labour could need a 13% lead in 2020 to get a majority

By the way, with the Tories unilateral approach to boundary changes, enfranchising expatriates and nobbling trade union funding, they really better hope Labour never gets back into power because if we do, we're going to ban all political donations and introduce public funding of elections.

That's what happens when you break the traditional convention of obtaining bipartisan consensus for changes to party funding and fundamental electoral matters.

Reply 22

Original post by skeptical_john

Yup. It's the sort of thing you can do in power.

And as I said, they better hope they never lose an election to Labour ever again because if they do, we're going to legislate away their funding base with a cap on individual donations and a ban on all corporate donations.

That's what happens when a single party goes ahead and breaks the traditional convention of bipartisan consensus on party funding and electoral matters.

Reply 23

Bupdeeboowah

Original post by Rakas21

I'm honestly not sure, partly because for all his weaknesses i consider Cameron better than all 3..

Osbourne - Ideologically i think he'd be great in that he's pragmatic and socially liberal while believing in a small state but not been nutty about it. I also think he's got the best grip on strategy of the 3 (northern powerhouse ect..) and is least likely to simply try sure up the vote. However, he's a Corbyn at public speaking. He can say the words, he has the training to emphasise ect.. but he lacks charisma and for non-Tories his austerity may have made him too toxic.

Boris - He's a populist which is neither good nor bad, just undesirable but despite being a blatant toff, he disarms people by being himself and is reasonably charismatic and good at public speaking. My concerns here are whether he has that much appeal outside traditional Tory seats and also that I've never seen evidence of strategy from him.

May - She's perceived as strong and effective and the media will paint her as Thatcher 2.0 which is actually a good thing when you look at polls of the public. She's reasonable enough at public speaking (little dry for my tastes but i think some people do like a serious politician who's not going to risk gaffes). My concern other than strategy is that she's ideologically a Kipper and i think the mean voter in England is a Blairite if you take welfare and immigration away. Of the three, she's most likely to lose votes i think.

I like Gove myself but if those 3 are running ahead when all nominations are in then i'll have to decide.

In any case, it seems that Osborne has clearly set his sights on winning the 2020 election as PM, with all his recent Labour party sabotages. The rest (Boris and May) seem to be much more quiet about their aspirations.

Reply 24

Original post by SignFromDog

Boris Johnson's bumbling toff act doesn't really play as well north of the Watford Gap.

Any evidence for that?

In fact, odds on that Johnson won't even become party leader; Osborne increasingly likely to run away with the main prize.

I didn't actyally say anything about him becoming the next party leader, but I think you'd be a fool to believe Osborne will have a chance in hell of beating him when it comes to them actually speaking in hustings and debates together. BoJo will wipe the floor with him by force of sheer cunning and charisma. In the unlikely event that Osborne does beat him, that wouldn't preclude him from becoming leader altogether which anyone with half a brain can see is a foregone conclusion

Reply 25

TheGuyReturns

16

Original post by a noble chance

The Tories' best electoral asset won't be David Cameron at that point, it will be Boris Johnson, and as long as he is at the helm his party will not lose a single general election.

Delusional. The man is hated by Tories outside the M25.

Reply 26

Original post by TheGuyReturns

Delusional. The man is hated by Tories outside the M25.

Your evidence?

It's certainly not the impression I've gotten while living in Canterbury and the South-West

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 27

pol pot noodles

19

Original post by SignFromDog

You may be confused about how the boundary changes work. The Conservatives used legislation to prescribe the boundary considerations the commission had to take into account. Specifically, they changed the way constituencies are drawn up from one where the commission does it based on population, to one where it's based on registered voters.

This means that there will be a significant redistribution of seats away from poorer areas, which will have seats taken away, to more affluent areas. That has nothing to do with the distribution of votes and everything to do with a transparently corrupt way of gerrymandering the political system in favour of population segments and geographical areas that favour the Conservatives.

I'm well aware that the Conservatives have prescribed the criteria that must be taken into account. The criteria are not unreasonable, and are still ruled on by an independent body. An area with an extremely large youth population would have a low electoral population. Boundaries based on voter registration is more evenly distributed, since voters are the one deciding the election. Frankly people who don't register only have themselves to blame for not being including in the result, but I have no doubt you'd find a Tory conspiracy to shaft the poor in a train timetable.

Reply 28

Original post by pol pot noodles

The criteria are not unreasonable, and are still ruled on by an independent body

What a queer statement. The fact that it is independent has no actual bearing on the consideration of the validity of the change because the commission has no remit to assess it or offer an opinion on its desirability or appropriateness.

If they did, no doubt they would point out that Britain is the only developed democracy that has abandoned calculating constituency sizes based on population and adopted a calculation based on the population of registered voters. The idea that some areas of the country might have two MPs for every one MP another similarly-populated area might have has no justification except for "It benefits my party, and I'm so corrupt I don't really care what anyone thinks".

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it now opens the doors for each party to legislate to gerrymander the system when it is in power, justifying it on the basis the other side did it previously. Where will it end how bad might itget? As I said, the Tories better hope Labour never gets back into government, ever, because Labour will then cut off the Tories funding from donations, reverse the boundary changes and then introduce boundary changes favourable to itself. That kind of state of affairs is utterly repulsive to anyone imbued with a traditional English attachment to fair play, sensible evolutionary change, and the like.

It doesn't turn us into a banana republic, but the pendulum has swung ever so faintly in that direction.

An area with an extremely large youth population would have a low electoral population.

The logical corollary of that position is that non-voters are irrelevant, and that MPs have no moral imperative to look to the interests of all their constituents. It seems pretty revolting to me.

but I have no doubt you'd find a Tory conspiracy to shaft the poor in a train timetable.

Oh don't be such a crybaby. I'm constantly being told by the far left that I'm not angry enough, that I don't despise Tories enough, that I hunt with the hounds and run with the hares. If I'm being criticised by the far left and the hard right, I'm probably doing something right.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 29

Original post by pol pot noodles

I'm well aware that the Conservatives have prescribed the criteria that must be taken into account. The criteria are not unreasonable, and are still ruled on by an independent body. An area with an extremely large youth population would have a low electoral population. Boundaries based on voter registration is more evenly distributed, since voters are the one deciding the election. Frankly people who don't register only have themselves to blame for not being including in the result, but I have no doubt you'd find a Tory conspiracy to shaft the poor in a train timetable.

I would add to that, I had a great conversation at the bar of the Travellers a couple of weeks ago. A family friend who is a lawyer and whose father is a Conservative Peer. He said he hates the direction the Tories are taking the country, that they have lost any sense of genuine One Nation Toryism that the party had under MacMillan, when the party had a genuine feeling of obligation toward their tenants, to the people who lived on the place or worked in the factory.

That's all gone now, in favour of prostrating before Saudi billionaires and Russian oligarchs. He said his son, who is a trainee at a decent firm, can't really afford to buy a house in a decent part of London. When even comfortably upper-middle class people don't feel like it's working for them anymore, the system is stuffed.

There's a sense of cheap opportunism that pervades the senior ranks of the Conservative Party, the trade union "reforms" being one example. The Tory Party used to be led by the cream of the upper-class; now it's managed by the dregs of the middle class.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 30

Original post by SignFromDog

The Tory Party used to be led by the cream of the upper-class; now it's managed by the dregs of the middle class.

Probably not the best idea to attack a party both for social elitism and for being managed by members of the middle rather than the upper class

Reply 31

Original post by a noble chance

Probably not the best idea to attack a party both for social elitism and for being managed by members of the middle rather than the upper class

When did I attack it for social elitism?

Reply 32

Gears265

5

Original post by a noble chance

The Tories' best electoral asset won't be David Cameron at that point, it will be Boris Johnson, and as long as he is at the helm his party will not lose a single general election.

Are you people serious? That man and corbyn are a disaster waiting to happen.

Reply 33

Original post by SignFromDog

When did I attack it for social elitism?

A couple of examples from this page:

SignFromDog

He said he hates the direction the Tories are taking the country, that they have lost any sense of genuine One Nation Toryism that the party had under MacMillan, when the party had a genuine feeling of obligation toward their tenants, to the people who lived on the place or worked in the factory. That's all gone now, in favour of prostrating before Saudi billionaires and Russian oligarchs.

Original post by SignFromDog

By the way, with the Tories unilateral approach to boundary changes, enfranchising expatriates and nobbling trade union funding, they really better hope Labour never gets back into power because if we do, we're going to ban all political donations and introduce public funding of elections.

That's what happens when you break the traditional convention of obtaining bipartisan consensus for changes to party funding and fundamental electoral matters.

I also remain unconvinced that you are in any position to be acting as a spokesman for Labour party policy.

Reply 34

Original post by a noble chance

A couple of examples from this page:

Pretty weak sauce, no? I am to some degree an elitist, and I'm entirely comfortable with that. It looks pretty obvious that you thought I was a typical "Rah rah, I hate old Etonians" socialist, and now you're struggling to actually find any evidence of that.

Instead of saying, "Yeah, I dun goofed", all you can point to is my disinclination to see the capital overrun with Russian crooks and loud, garish Saudi billionaires. If that's all you have, I'm afraid you've hit rather wide of the mark.

I also remain unconvinced that you are in any position to be acting as a spokesman for Labour party policy.

I don't claim to be a spokesman for the Labour Party. I'm simply telling you what's going to happen when we get back into power.

Reply 35

Original post by SignFromDog

Pretty weak sauce, no?

Stronger than jalapenos. You took the time to type out another person's opinion that the Tories have become socially elitist by becoming unconcerned with the condition of workers and by prioritising 'Saudi billionaires and Russian oligarchs' over ordinary people. You explicitly agreed with the conclusions in the emboldened text and implicitly in the fact that you were relaying these opinions of the Tories at all in thw context of what you were saying, weven going so far as to testify to their credibility by having come from the mouth of the son of a Tory peer.

Now that it has made a fool of you, you are attempting to slither away from it in weasel words.

I am to some degree an elitist, and I'm entirely comfortable with that.

And I wish you all the best. I was simply pointing out that it could end up being quite embarrassing if you were to continue to espouse elitist opinions while also attacking others for being elitist.

It looks pretty obvious that you thought I was a typical "Rah rah, I hate old Etonians" socialist, and now you're struggling to actually find any evidence of that.

That isn't obvious at all. I said that you had almost simultaneously criticised social elitism while espousing it yourself, which certainly is 'pretty obvious' above.

Instead of saying, "Yeah, I dun goofed", all you can point to is my disinclination to see the capital overrun with Russian crooks and loud, garish Saudi billionaires.

Slippery, slippery. You ignore half of the text. You then admit here that you were agreeing with the included half of the opinions in the text I have cited. You are now attempting to avoid embarrassment by suggesting that your problem with the courting of Saudi billionaires and Russian oligarchs was more to do with their ethnic origin, standard of ethics and extrovert personalities when this is patently not what was originally being said. In the context of the rest of the quoted text, the main issue you and your supposed friend were taking was socio-economical.

If that's all you have, I'm afraid you've hit rather wide of the mark.

It's not all I have. You have simply cut and misrepresented the text I was quoting. Have you considered that it is in fact you that has 'dun goofed', but that you are far too stubborn to admit it? You don't seem capable from your pompous posts of believing that you are ever wrong. Rather, being seen to 'win' the argument and to have the last word is more important than reaching an accurate and honest conclusion.

I don't claim to be a spokesman for the Labour Party. I'm simply telling you what's going to happen when we get back into power.

...and you're doing so without any basis whatsoever.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 36