The election 2015
- Thread starter trudij
- Start date
trudij
Senior Jockey
Nick clegg has resigned as well, so that's two.... ( feel a bit sorry for him!)
simmo
Senior Jockey
lol. can't count won't count. The arrogance and inherent racism of the English is actually what's guaranteed a Tory win. Something to be proud of while you're flying your Butchers Aprons.
M
marbler
Guest
Great call, Drone.
archie
Senior Jockey
Fair play to those who called a small overall majority. How p*ssed off must Boris be at having to poodle around for the next 5 years because they surely can't give him one of the major jobs. I wonder if he'll do a Heseltine (court conspiritor, inside or outside the tent) or a Prescott (court jester).
Do the fixed term election rules allow Cameron to cut and run in February?
Do the fixed term election rules allow Cameron to cut and run in February?
archie
Senior Jockey
I really don't know but this seems to point to it being more complicated than that.
https://fullfact.org/law/could_next_prime_minister_call_early_election-40203
trudij
Senior Jockey
I don't get why anyone seriously thinks they would call another ?
To increase the majority and make him less dependent on some frankly lunatic fringes. I've just spoken to a friend of mine who knows the party better than I do and suggested there were at least 20 nutters. He laughed and suggested I could at least double that number whilst rattling off the name of a whole host of backbencers who he said were nearer to UKIP than the Tories
Cameron will lose the safety blanket of the liberals now which means he's going to face an exaggerated version of the same problem John Major faced. It's often the case that when the opposition collapses the biggets challenge comes from within your own party. In the run up to this pointless Euro referendum it's going to be very, very difficult for him to govern, and that's before you throw a few by elections into the mix
If he has a giev away budget, and calls an election in February asking for a stronger mandate against a totally unproven Labour leader, he might clear 40-50 seats which means he'll be much better placed. I think he's going to suffer an erosion of his authority now in much the same way Major did. Cameron was involved in the party management for a bit, before disappearing off to Carlton Communication for a sojourn. He'll have watched how the party tore itself apart over Europe, and how Major was reduced to rubble in the cross fire. He can't fail but to realise he's on the same tracjectory at the moment unless he can do something about it
I'm not sure he'd call a quick Election. I think that Cameron will step down if, as is likely, he gets too many problems emanating from his back benches.
My best guess is he'll step down before Summer recess next year and let the leadership fight commence.
My best guess is he'll step down before Summer recess next year and let the leadership fight commence.
Last edited:
I hope so, I've still got some bet floating about on Osborne at 20/1 or 25/1 to be the next PM somewhere.
I couldn't bring myself to bet on a Tory majority in case I found myself supporting it, but having just seen Sky reporting a final majority of 10, I think Paddy Ashdown can eat is hat, and John Curtice can eat my pants! If that is the final majority, then I was spot on to the exact number, which must have been close to 66/1 I'd have thought. Still, I've lost tens of thousands in the unplaced bet, or badly staked bet, and this can just join a queue!
I couldn't bring myself to bet on a Tory majority in case I found myself supporting it, but having just seen Sky reporting a final majority of 10, I think Paddy Ashdown can eat is hat, and John Curtice can eat my pants! If that is the final majority, then I was spot on to the exact number, which must have been close to 66/1 I'd have thought. Still, I've lost tens of thousands in the unplaced bet, or badly staked bet, and this can just join a queue!
trudij
Senior Jockey
Paddy Ashdown refused to eat a hat, they tried that this morning....
Have to say, although JP was uncomfortable, credit to channel 4 for the alternative election program, I caught most of it this morning and it was very good !!
Have to say, although JP was uncomfortable, credit to channel 4 for the alternative election program, I caught most of it this morning and it was very good !!
I'd hardly call it "great" Marble: firstly if I'd waited until polling day I could have got ~22/1, and secondly I was wholly wrong about 'shy labour' voters abandoning their pollster pledge to vote SNP when in the polling booth itself. Not great from my own political standpoint either; but, as in horse betting, there's no place for sentiment in political betting if you spot a value bet
However, and I never thought I'd say it, give me a Conservative standalone majority government to a Labour minority government held to ransom by that ghastly SNP bunch anyday
On my reading of the results in England it would appear that the majority of defectors to UKIP were from erstwhile Labour voters, not Conservative; which isn't too surprising really given that the perceived threat from cheap foreign labour is to those employed in cheap British labour
Glad the dismally non-commital no-mark Ed Balls has gone, sorry that the nasty buffoon Boris Johnson has arrived
An interesting, if economically brutal five years awaits
simmo
Senior Jockey
Only if it's racist to call a racist a racist.
I'd imagine Clegg is pretty fed up he won his seat now! Five years as an inconsequential backbench opposition MP is going to feel like an empty hole in his life for a man whose tasted Downing Street and is still young enough to harbour ambition. What does he do now? Well his media career is on hold for such time as he has to be an MP. I wouldn't completely rule out defection to the Tories (think it's unlikely, but not impossible). The party is going to drift away from him now as I suspect Tim Farron will be the next leader and he'll more likely align the Liberals with Labour which was always a closer reflection on their rank and file membership and core vote. Clegg is going to look like the man who broke the party and one suspects he's going to feel more and more uncomfortable hanging around it.
I suspect he could easily resign in the next two years and pursue other interests. Clears the way for Cameron to give him his knighthood, or a 'commission' to chair or Qango to run
I think the ingredients are there though for us to see a very, very, nasty conservative party as it's going to have closet UKIPer's pulling Cameron's strings. It'll be a real trial of Cameron now as this could degenerate into something worse than Thatcher yet.
Last edited:
simmo
Senior Jockey
Surprised that there has been no mention of Bobby Sands old seat changing hands. Anyone in NI got the lowdown on what went on there? Have the Unionists been doing some Israeli style settlement building?
It seems to me that the English are now regarding the population of Scotland (or at least the 50% of them that support the SNP) in the same way that they regard Romanians or Latvians.
I don't think wer're nexessarily going to see the Conservatives descend into a Major type Government. They have come from coalition to majority and didnt expect to do so. Psychologically that buys Cameron time. The hard right will be careful and it's more likely they will come under attack themselves if they make any latent moves.
He also has the gift of handing out new senior roles, and I'm sure he will choose carefully with half an eye on the right of the party.
My immediate thoughts were similar to your own that the slender majority will be tougher to hold down than the Liberal coalition but on reflection I'm not so sure. He'll work hard to get the DUP onside and that'll give him 20 seats to play with, that being so it would probably need an orchestrated leadership challenge to depose him, and given the nature of the victory that would be unlikely during the first half of the term.
On the other hand the other Party's have leadership challenges of their own which will also buy time.
His single biggest issue is Scotland not the economy. There will clearly be a second push from SNP and the moves he makes in the next six months will be pivotal. He will offer a form Of devolution, they'll reject it and push for a second referendum. If Scotland goes, he goes, and the SNP will push anti-Tory feeling as a reason to vote yes.
Simmo's post are reflective of the feeling of much of Scotland which scares me. Despite the assertion of many in Scotland, the majority down here are English and British and are proud of the Union. And most are definitely not racist as is suggested. He points towards a loud minority and assumes its a majority. Surely most Scots must realise that is precisely the feeling the SNP has built its campaign on. They've stirred up a proud nationalistic emotion based largely on a lie. The problem is the genie is out of the bottle and people now buy into it as is clearly evidenced by the SNP landslide result in Scotland.
If the people of Scotland allow the SNP to break up the Union, which has served the home nations well for centuries shame on them. But economically it'll be no disadvantage to the rest of the Union, and it's Scotland that will feel the financial pressures, and will need to raise considerable extra taxes to pay to stand alone. I'm certain it's the classic case of be careful of what you wish for.
If Scotland goes it'll also put to an end to the immediate outlook of hung parliaments and coalition Governments which are no good for the country whatsoever. Ironically despite their disastrous showing I suspect the Libs will come back strongly next time, and Labour, if they choose their next Leader wisely will be a shoe in At the next Election after the Conservatives eat themselves in the second half of their term.
He also has the gift of handing out new senior roles, and I'm sure he will choose carefully with half an eye on the right of the party.
My immediate thoughts were similar to your own that the slender majority will be tougher to hold down than the Liberal coalition but on reflection I'm not so sure. He'll work hard to get the DUP onside and that'll give him 20 seats to play with, that being so it would probably need an orchestrated leadership challenge to depose him, and given the nature of the victory that would be unlikely during the first half of the term.
On the other hand the other Party's have leadership challenges of their own which will also buy time.
His single biggest issue is Scotland not the economy. There will clearly be a second push from SNP and the moves he makes in the next six months will be pivotal. He will offer a form Of devolution, they'll reject it and push for a second referendum. If Scotland goes, he goes, and the SNP will push anti-Tory feeling as a reason to vote yes.
Simmo's post are reflective of the feeling of much of Scotland which scares me. Despite the assertion of many in Scotland, the majority down here are English and British and are proud of the Union. And most are definitely not racist as is suggested. He points towards a loud minority and assumes its a majority. Surely most Scots must realise that is precisely the feeling the SNP has built its campaign on. They've stirred up a proud nationalistic emotion based largely on a lie. The problem is the genie is out of the bottle and people now buy into it as is clearly evidenced by the SNP landslide result in Scotland.
If the people of Scotland allow the SNP to break up the Union, which has served the home nations well for centuries shame on them. But economically it'll be no disadvantage to the rest of the Union, and it's Scotland that will feel the financial pressures, and will need to raise considerable extra taxes to pay to stand alone. I'm certain it's the classic case of be careful of what you wish for.
If Scotland goes it'll also put to an end to the immediate outlook of hung parliaments and coalition Governments which are no good for the country whatsoever. Ironically despite their disastrous showing I suspect the Libs will come back strongly next time, and Labour, if they choose their next Leader wisely will be a shoe in At the next Election after the Conservatives eat themselves in the second half of their term.
I wouldn't expect the rabid right wing to start on him straight away either. We'll almost certainly see a period of shadow boxing, but there are some hard core loonies in there with little ministerial prospects, and in the case of the likes of Zac Goldsmith, enough personal wealth for them not to be easily threatened. For these folks politics is a play thing and for the hard core their whole entry into it is predominantly aimed at their anti Europe mission.
Today Europe is more fragile than it was at Maastricht. We have seen the advance of UKIP of course which has leant sceptism legitimacy, as well as a soverign debt crisis which doesn't look like subsiding on this watch. Greece might prove to be little more than the first domino yet
Cameron will go away and negotiate. It's becoming apparent to me at least that the EU has pre-empted some of this, and worked out what concessions they'll make. Like any bureaucracy (private or public) there is always waste and inefficency running in it, and 'reform' is an on going process anyway. I suspect that a majority of what Cameron extracts will be intended reforms brought forward, or little more than tit bits. The Germans have already told him to forget any thoughts he holds on border control. He simply hasn't got the clout or leverage to face down Merkel. When Osborne negotiated the rebate (I laugh as I type that) he might have succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of the electorate, but he won't be able to pull same stunt with his own more savvy parliamentary party. It was afterall a very unclever manipulation of payment schedules with no net gain
In parliament he could go to the DUP for help, but he's playing with fire if they're seen to be influencing government policy. John Major did it once, and they extracted a price for it too. Ironically, if it involves substantive issues he might find he can garner support from the official opposition parties, although both Labour and the SNP would be unreliable. I certainyl think the 8 Liberals will support the government though.
What you tend to end up with though is a running narrative of a leader under siege as one crisis after another piles up on him. It tends to be corrosive with a series of jabs and body shots rather than a haymaker. Major was also undone by a creeping barrage of scandals as well of course
Today Europe is more fragile than it was at Maastricht. We have seen the advance of UKIP of course which has leant sceptism legitimacy, as well as a soverign debt crisis which doesn't look like subsiding on this watch. Greece might prove to be little more than the first domino yet
Cameron will go away and negotiate. It's becoming apparent to me at least that the EU has pre-empted some of this, and worked out what concessions they'll make. Like any bureaucracy (private or public) there is always waste and inefficency running in it, and 'reform' is an on going process anyway. I suspect that a majority of what Cameron extracts will be intended reforms brought forward, or little more than tit bits. The Germans have already told him to forget any thoughts he holds on border control. He simply hasn't got the clout or leverage to face down Merkel. When Osborne negotiated the rebate (I laugh as I type that) he might have succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of the electorate, but he won't be able to pull same stunt with his own more savvy parliamentary party. It was afterall a very unclever manipulation of payment schedules with no net gain
In parliament he could go to the DUP for help, but he's playing with fire if they're seen to be influencing government policy. John Major did it once, and they extracted a price for it too. Ironically, if it involves substantive issues he might find he can garner support from the official opposition parties, although both Labour and the SNP would be unreliable. I certainyl think the 8 Liberals will support the government though.
What you tend to end up with though is a running narrative of a leader under siege as one crisis after another piles up on him. It tends to be corrosive with a series of jabs and body shots rather than a haymaker. Major was also undone by a creeping barrage of scandals as well of course
I think Scotland is probably perilously close to the point of no return now, assuming that they haven't already passed it.
Alex Salmond certainly succeeded in stirring up a cohort, predomionantly in the central belt, and encouraging them to believe that the reasons for their economic woes were nationalist, and with that, a national socialist solution exists (beware the lessons of history). OK, there's a grain of truth in the way UK regional policy has worked, and the name of Margaret Thatcher would loom large in any post mortem as being the single biggest contributor. I remember living in Devon at the time of the Devonport/ Rosyth dispute and realising the the Scots had legitimate grievance. In there was a perfect microcosm of precisely why they should leave the union as Thatcher/ Major, shamelessly sought to punish Scotland and shore up some of their own vote in Plymouth. It's often difficult to do so, but personalities need to be set aside when you're dealing with such long temperol horizons though, politicians are temporary, independence is permanent.
I couldn't accuse the Scots of sleep walking into this though. Far from it. If anything they're overloaded with the arguments for and against, in much the same way as we will be come the Euro referendum, and incapable of makign an informed judgement with so much contrary data and supposition being fired at us. Simmo comes across as being naive in thinking that the Westminster politicians wouldn't tell lies. Of course they will. I don't see that there is any reason though to commit the same mistake twice, as one thing I'll promise you, the SNP will also do the same. There are very, very, few political parties that don't ultimately descend into self-serving corruption. The SNP will likely be no different. Parties with more noble liberation crusades than Scottish nationalism, such as the ANC, have walked this tight rope less then convincingly. The question you need to ask is whether they stay within the bounds of acceptable corruption. If people vote against the Westminster parties because they're dishonest, they're likely to get a rude awakening a few years later when they discover that their own creation is the same.
If however you take the view that you want independence for reasons other than delivering a misplaced sense of temporary punishment (England will easily recover, always has done, and always will do) then that's different.
I suspect Scotland could function as a separate state, but it will involve higher taxes and a struggle. I can certainly see that a romantic notion that wraps itself around ideas of justice and equality has an appeal, certainly beyond one which wraps itself round a flag, but its very rare that you stride imperiously into some sunny socialist paradise. It normally involves struggle and sacrifice, and the 700 staff at Visit Scotland should be worrying if they think that employment structure is sustainable!
simmo
Senior Jockey
A few points for me - Warbler says he thinks I am naive for thinking that Westminster wouldn't lie. I did not believe this - my reaction at the time was "yeah right, this lot will say anything to keep Scotland in the Union". But hundreds of thousands of others did. And that made the difference. SNP activists across the country reported an enormous surge in membership, AFTER the vote from people who had voted NO expecting Westminster to keep their promises. Like it or not, that is the main reason for such a huge turnaround. The SNP received 1.45m votes - even if every one of the 45ers had voted (which is incredulous), they'd have got 1.35m votes. The lies of Westminster politicians caused hundreds of thousands of people to change their opinion about the SNP.
Maruco's point, therefore, that those voting SNP are a loud minority, is simply no longer absolutely true.
Another piece of information that hasn't been discussed is the resignation of Johan Lamont and her deputy, saying that they felt that Scottish Labour was being treated like a "branch office". That is reflective of the way in which Scotland has been treated by England for years - Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have **** all to do with it - they don't need to tell us, we already feel it in our day to day lives. Which is why it has been so easy for them gather support up here.
Finally - Maruco and Frankel have both stated that they believed votes were cast not due to racism, but due to a desire to keep the union together. In their individual cases, I don't think we can legitimately say anything that disagrees with them. However, in the case of the country as a whole it should be remembered that the Labour party is also a Unionist party as are the Lib Dems? So what made the people of England vote Tory in such huge numbers? The economy? Don't make me laugh - the Tory approach to growth has been a ******* joke.
The reason the country voted Tory in such huge numbers was due to the fear which the Conservatives put about that the Scots would be "pinching" "your" money. Their campaign in England focused on ensuring that the population would enter the election in a state of paranoia that sweaty Jocks were coming down to pilfer "your" coffers. The adverts didn't say - vote Tory to keep Britain together - they said vote Tory to keep those Jocks hands out of the till.
And the racist nation responded in droves, driven by fear, not of a breakup of the Union, but a fear that Scotland might have a strong voice - and we all know the English won't permit their subjects to have a strong voice.
Maruco's point, therefore, that those voting SNP are a loud minority, is simply no longer absolutely true.
Another piece of information that hasn't been discussed is the resignation of Johan Lamont and her deputy, saying that they felt that Scottish Labour was being treated like a "branch office". That is reflective of the way in which Scotland has been treated by England for years - Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have **** all to do with it - they don't need to tell us, we already feel it in our day to day lives. Which is why it has been so easy for them gather support up here.
Finally - Maruco and Frankel have both stated that they believed votes were cast not due to racism, but due to a desire to keep the union together. In their individual cases, I don't think we can legitimately say anything that disagrees with them. However, in the case of the country as a whole it should be remembered that the Labour party is also a Unionist party as are the Lib Dems? So what made the people of England vote Tory in such huge numbers? The economy? Don't make me laugh - the Tory approach to growth has been a ******* joke.
The reason the country voted Tory in such huge numbers was due to the fear which the Conservatives put about that the Scots would be "pinching" "your" money. Their campaign in England focused on ensuring that the population would enter the election in a state of paranoia that sweaty Jocks were coming down to pilfer "your" coffers. The adverts didn't say - vote Tory to keep Britain together - they said vote Tory to keep those Jocks hands out of the till.
And the racist nation responded in droves, driven by fear, not of a breakup of the Union, but a fear that Scotland might have a strong voice - and we all know the English won't permit their subjects to have a strong voice.
I'm very confused with regards to Scotland at the moment as there only appears to be[almost] one party which doesn't [imo] make it very democratic. Or am I missing something? As for Labour losing so many votes; they chose the wrong leader I'm afraid.
The extension of that logic would make Afghanistan where they have about 300 parties the most democratic country in the world then
I'm not aware of any definition of democracy that goes onto specify that X numnber of parties must have Y number of votes in order to qualify to be democracy (Ok there is a legacy of this qualification that is a hangover from western propoganda against Soviet democracy, but it's a feeble argument)
I'm sure the Scots would quickly point out too, that participation and political awareness is much greater there than it is in England
Sorry, but that's a crazy argument.
Last edited: