I think it is worth bearing in mind that this is no great vindication of Cameron. Against rubbish opposition he has a majority in single figures. In 1983, also against rubbish opposition Maggie got a majority of 144 (IIRC).
– Patrick Crozier
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Keep this in mind Tories…May 8th, 2015 |
 25 comments to Keep this in mind Tories… |
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Cameron’s victory was won for him by Red Ed and the Scottish National Socialist party. It is no vindication of him or his BluLab antics. The alternative was worse that’s all. And the lesser of 2 evils ….
Different era, and nonsense anyway. Miliband is a proto-Marxist, but compared to Foot (and later Kinnock) he’d actually be a viable PM, and he had some comparitively half decent people behind him. In no way was this more rubbish opposition, even discounting the scottish collapse which was due to circumstance, Miliband still got more seats than either of them. Back then Labour were infested and rotten with militant, union bully boys and anti-nuke hippies, Miliband may have been an amateur economist, but at least he knew what to wear in public.
Yes but there are mitigating circumstances. Firstly the electoral system was less biased against the Tories then, its generally considered that an Electoral Boundary reorganisation would give them another 20 seats for identical votes. Secondly 1983 was the SDP election – the Labour party had just literally split in two. With the SDP-Liberal Alliance hoovering up leftist votes in a way that UKIP have for Tory votes this time around, its no surprise Mrs T got 144 seats. Labour got 27%, SDP/Liberals 25%. Add in only half of UKIP’s votes yesterday to the Tories and they’d be on 43% of the vote, which is pretty much what Mrs T got in 1983.
Cameron’s vote didn’t move at all.
The LD Party (formerly Liberal Democrats, but not Lost Deposits) were routed by the SNP in Scotland and a massive swing away from the LD’s to anyone other than them.
Labour were ousted by the SNP and benefited from the LD wipe-out elsewhere, but otherwise did nothing.
This isn’t a Tory victory, it is just the result of an SNP landslide and the annihilation of the LD’s.
This is a secondary effect, not a cause.
. . . and you, Mr. Cameron, are no Margaret Thatcher.
Are we not overlooking Sierraman, or Mondeoman or what ever he was called back in the hallowed days of St Margaret of Finchley? He was the Labour voter who switched to Torys ‘coz he liked the cut of her handbag strap. I’m doubting many Labour votes came to Cameron this time. They look more to have gone to Nigel. Meanwhile, UKIP weakened on its right flank as supporters pealed off & safety voted Tory to defeat the Ed Menace.
Just been talking to Cuz who was wearing holes in his socks in Nigel’s interest in Thanet. He reckons 80% of the 500 homes he canvassed were UKIP friendly. Having done canvassing, I can imagine what he got. They’re friendly because they’ve no objection to you. But it doesn’t mean they’re going to vote for you. You look for the ones want to set the dog on you. They’re the ones be voting for the opposite candidate. So Nige failed because some support trickled across because the vision of Militwat was so horrifying. ( I’m never sure about fine detail tactical voting. I don’t think most people care enough to be aware of how numbers in individual seats can count. They think nationally)
So what I’m taking away from this is an enormous move, in England, away from the current Labour flavour of socialism towards the right. But in no way do I see any Cameron victory. This time round, I think people were thinking policies not personalities. Cameron’s just the tosser who benefited.
BiS. I would like to hope that today at Buckingham Palace, a Footman announced to HM: ‘…Your Majesty, following the return of Honourable and Right Honourable Members to the Commons, an audience is requested by the tosser who benefited….’.
I think that is entirely correct. And face it, the notion of a Militwat, or even worse, Militwat/Scottish Brownshirt coalition *is* a true nightmare. I lived through the 1970’s the first time, and fuck that for a game of soldiers. Much as I loath Cameron, the least worse option won.
Indeed and even so, more than 12% voted UKIP, which is more than LibDems or SNP. If Cameron was not such a pillock, he would have had a good old chunk of those people.
The Conservative, SNP Coalition
There seems to be a deal of myopia about the results of the election caused by a characteristic, and understandable, tendency to try and understand the present through the lens of the past. The comparison of the 2015 Conservative victory to John Major’s election in 1992 is obvious, and many commentators have used it as the basis for their predictions of a troubled premiership for Mr Cameron. A small Conservative majority will be the basis for unending trouble from the right-wing of his party, the ‘Bastards,’ who place their obsession with European policy over party unity.
What this fails to consider is that the effective Conservative majority in 2015 is not 12, it is 68. The SNP parliamentary party has a long-established policy of abstaining on votes on English matters, and with the undertakings already in place for the transfer of powers – including tax-raising – to the Scottish Parliament this means that on all issues of contention, e.g. the NHS, education, etc. the government majority is as great as that of Tony Blair in 2005.
It is already a Conservative manifesto commitment to resolve the ‘Midlothian Question,’ by removing from Scottish MPs the right to vote on Enlish matters, and this will veto any attempt by the SNP to coalese with other parties to support any Tory backbench rebellion on the majority of issues likely to lead to such a revolt.
The commitment to a European membership referendum obviates the need for Cameron to allow Europe to become a party-splitting issue. He will simply make the referendum a cross-party issue, allowing Party Members to campaign as they wish in precisely the same way that Harold Wilson did in the ‘70s, instead concentrating on controlling the issue of the question placed before the voters; an issue in which he can count on the support of the opposition – including the SNP – whose position is pro-Europe.
Cameron will also finally be able to enable the boundary changes which will effectively ensure a Conservative majority in England in perpetuity, changes to which the Labour party agreed when they believed that their own stranglehold on Scottish politics provided them with an adequate counter-weight.
We live in interseting times, but they aren’t the 90s.
@Mr. Ed
‘…Your Majesty, following the return of Honourable and Right Honourable Members to the Commons, an audience is requested by the tosser who benefited….’.
You owe me a new keyboard for that.
Nah. However small the margin, any win in a democracy is now ‘a mandate’. The freedom granted by shamelessness is a wonderful thing.
Jim Keenan: BlueLab forever eh? However Cammie is still a leftist parasite albeit not as bad as Milliboy. His cosy prospects will be disrupted by oncoming economic collapse –not just here but in the US and the EU and Japan. All of them are practically broke and very very fond of economic meddling. The world system of corporate socialism pretending to be free markets is in a lot of trouble and this country can’t duck it.
” However small the margin, any win in a democracy is now ‘a mandate’.” Not for Cameron it won’t be.
Cameron’s not a socialist. He’s a First Rate Public School Tosser. I imagine his audiences with Brenda discuss the difficulty of finding decent footmen. He likes suitably deferential whilst appreciative of the privilege of being in his presence. From the footmen, also. He’ll waffle through 5 years & lose bitterly to the resurgent Reds. Who’ll take up, not where they left off, but with the gains he’s let them take during the 5 years.
We really should have got more of these clowns shot on the Somme. I blame the generals. Incompetent lack of profligacy with subalterns under machine gun fire.
What’s need is some comprehensive school boxing tactics. Block from view whilst pummeling your opponent in the nuts. Start a program of cutting off the left from all its power bases, meanwhile smiling sweetly at the voter. Particularly the potential Labour voter. Harrow the quangos. The scatter a few coins from the savings to the masses. Cut the BBC back to a couple channels & a radio station. With particular emphasis on the parts the lefties revel in. That way, you get all manner of shrill shroud waving but the ordinary punter can’t see what the fuss is about. Just a smaller, transitional license fee. Then privatise. Hit the charities the same way. Abolish the Commission, then recreate exactly the same thing with a different name & your own people. And teeth. No more public money for campaigning.
I could go on. And on. But. They’re all tossers.
Bloke, d’accord.
Being on the other side of the world I’ve already had a chance to sleep on the result. Yesterday I was devastated at the loss of Farrage, today I see the web is full of sobbing lefties and I rejoice!
Gove back to education ASAP, please.
Completely agree. Why he was hidden away during the election I don’t know. Presumably the Cameronites were worried about him frightening the horses.
Gove was wasted as Chief Whip and a different approach to whipping is required for a small majority government anyway. Best use of Gove is back at Education.
There is talk of having Graham Brady as Chief Whip, but I think that would conflict with his role as Chairman of the 1922 Committee – can’t have union reps in management can we? 🙂
In recognition of this frabjous day I shall briefly return to my former appearance. 😉
I confess that the defeat of Ed Balls and the end of Ed Miliband’s dreams has cost me personally, but only £7.99 for a bottle of prosecco last night.
Yes, RlJ, I noticed how much you’ve … changed …. 🙂
I opposed the Reds in the 1983 General Election – and I opposed them in this one. I have fought them all my life.
To compare the hopeless campaign they ran then with the (very professional) campaign they ran this time, is absurd.
As for Mr Cameron.
Would Mr Cameron have done better if he had presented himself as like Paul Marks?
Eager to cut government spending and roll back the state.
I would love to say “yes – Mr Cameron would now have a majority of a 100 or more”.
However, the truth is that if Mr David Cameron had presented himself in this way he would have LOST the election.
Most people do not yet see the need for real (and big) cuts in government spending.
Hopefully the Greek default (and the international financial crises it will set off) will wake people up to what needs to be done.
In reality, New Labour won again. That’s 5 elections in a row now (6 if you count John Major’s 1992 government, which has some claim to being the first New Labour government).
Paul,
my objection to the New Conservatives is that they treat Labour as political colleagues to be worked with rather than collectivist scum to be defeated. However, Cameron has correctly judged the mood of the electorate and is to be congratulated. I fear he will now attempt to give us five years of “steady as she goes” which will not work. “Events, dear boy” will derail it.
Cal,
I suspect the majority do actually want “Swedish Model” socialism, and as long as it doesn’t ruin the country, that’s democracy.
As I predicted I lost.
I can blame sabotage if I want – rubbish leaflets and so on.
And, of course, the socialists ran the sort of disgraceful campaign I expect of them. Lots of getting “communities” to vote – rather than individuals.
However, the basic truth is that people want stuff and do not want to pay for it.
The one true element of the Labour campaign was that I was a “hatchet man” – and it worked because it had the ring of truth to it (it actually is true).
Labour tried the same with Mr Cameron and the national Conservative Party – but most people just laughed.
David Cameron a hard man on government spending cuts? Pull the other one – it has got bells on.
Whatever Patrick (or me) would like to be the truth, the actual truth is that this election IS a triumph for Mr David Cameron.
The British people want the sort of message that Mr David Cameron produces.
They do not want the sort of message that Paul Marks produces.
The people want “public services” – and they want them without paying higher taxes.
Magic spells (such as “public investment”) will square the circle.
Labour went overboard – nationally their promises were so demented that only a total fool would believe them (look how many millions of fools there were – not a majority, but lots and lots of people).
However, the people do NOT want a smaller state – they do not want cuts.
If they did want less government spending – I would just have won.
David Cameron won.
Paul Marks lost.
That is the bottom line in politics.
If you want to succeed in politics (or in life generally), be like David Cameron.
Do NOT be like Paul Marks.
In some ways the Tories triumph here is more impressive than in 1983. Labour were a much sorrier shower back then compared to now. UKIP were not around back then (admittedly it looks like UKIP ended up harming Labour a lot more overall than the Tories). The SDP-Liberals helped split the left-wing vote in 1983 but in 2015 their Lib Dem successors collapsed (and Labour had long been relying on being the main beneficiary of this collapse). No Falklands war victory or equivalent in 2015 either.
Bravo Mr Cameron.
Not really. Ed Miliband was a comically bad candidate, a Wallace without a Gromit. Cameron won because Labour did all the heavy lifting for him. Indeed the Tories won because Miliband told the truth about what Labour wanted to do, and thus scared the crap out of so many people. I know several folks who were aching to vote UKIP but because they were in marginals, they voted Tory and practically puked on the ballot paper. Not so much “shy Tory” as “nauseated Tory” or perhaps “terrified Tory”… people who very rationally who saw the possibility of a return to the fucking 1970’s as just too dire to even contemplate.
As Paul says, he is not the face of the Tory party because the face of the ‘Conservatives’ is that spoon faced pillock Cameron, who likes the EU and a Real Big State and and NHS and who has no discernible ideology beyond what Guy Herbert calls “governmentalism”. BlueLabour’s Dave Cameron won because unlike that RedTory Tony Blair, who was a marketing genius, Ed Miliband is just Red and moreover was honest about what his Really Bad Ideas were (and had far far worse ones than Blair).
Moreover the nightmare scenario of a Labour/SNP coalition looked very plausible (it was indeed the outcome Antoine Clarke & I were expecting), which would have taken us back to the era of Harold Wilson, with the added frisson of a bunch of Scottish Brownshirts also having power over England too.
No, the only thing I would say bravo to Cameron for is not being David Miliband (i.e having a rival in the party who could knife him) 😀
Everybody gets a Swedish model? Count me in.
(Sorry)