9.30am BST Yes, Labour’s 60-65 majority was achieved with only 36% of the vote – an all-time low for a winning party in Britain. That reflects an election in which the traditional party labels didn’t quite capture the real divisions in the electorate. Nonetheless, I’d say it’s worse news for the Tories – not just because it’s an unprecedented third consecutive loss for the party but because such recovery as there was was so pathetic. In the days before the election, a lot of Tories told me that the real measure of their success was whether and by how much they’d break the 200-seat barrier. And even that was a conscious effort to lower expectations. The Conservatives are presently on 195 seats. That would have been regarded as a disaster for Thatcher, Major or even William Hague, and swift resignation would have followed. The Tory leadership’s ability to spin this as a great “improvement” is confirmation of just how shrivelled the modern British Conservative Party really is.
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Samizdata quote of the dayMay 6th, 2005 |
 23 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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…leaving a big gap for a new party perhaps? We can only hope. So, anyone fancy starting one – the Samizdata party (have to think of a better name)? All we need are 50 candidates, so we can get our TV broadcast slot, willing to pony up £500 each.
Looks like Mr Howard as done the right thing and pomised to throw himself on his blade (once he’s guarenteed he gets the successor he wants).
As for the name why not do something strange and call the party what it actually are instead of the exact opposite.
Maybe the Freedom alliance then it can be advertised as FA goverment after election victory
So, Brit wonks, what are the odds that Blair gets booted by his party sooner rather than later?
And if so, who is lined up as his replacement, and does his replacement have any redeeming qualities whatsoever?
Yes.
High. He’ll be out at the time of the UK referendum on the EU constitution. If he wins it, he secures the legacy he wants. If he loses it, he goes in failure (and don’t they say all political careers end in failure?). If there is no referendum (e.g. if France rejects it), he’ll be out in 18 months, citing time to let his successor have a good run up to the election but also because the economy is likely to be a bit sluggish by then & he can escape most of the blame.
Brown is the only obvious candidate at present.
Brown is a socialist, but he’s also an Atlanticist.
EG
Not even a party led by Mark Steyn would have a better chance of beating Labour at the next election than do the Conservatives. A libertarian platform might suit me better but I don’t believe that the people whose votes actually decide elections would feel the same.
Libertarianism will always be an important strand within Conservatism, but it is not the only one, and if you are seriously interested in power you have to build on broader foundations.
Labour learned that ideological purity was too much of a luxury while you are starved of power and we must learn the same lesson.
I’m not so sure 36% of the vote is actually as bad as you make out. Remember that this is a 3-horse race, not the 2-horse race it used to be, so anything above 1/3 – 33% – is good.
Quentin
It is only a three horse race because most people are too stupid to think who to vote for.
The Libdems are small enough to present themselves as we are the party for you wherever you are.
Tory stronghold, we are slightly less right wing than the tories but not left wing, and people are daft enough toswallow this and disaffected tories vote for the most left wing party
The Conservatives still haven’t broken through the 200-seat barrier but there are a few places left to declare. It’s disappointing.
Say what you will about the Conservatives not having made much progress but I hope you will at least concede that their latest campaign was run much more effectively, and perhaps somewhat more ruthlessly, than the disasterous 2001 campaign – and Labour majorities have been heavily slashed in a number of places. I think the Conservatives look more credible now than they did a few years ago and that’s got to be worth something to the party.
There was a lot less mocking of the Conservatives this time round than in the past and once the exit polls suggested a majority of only around 66 for Labour the BBC surely felt somewhat deprived of an evening of Tory-bashing.
“…if you are seriously interested in power you have to build on broader foundations”
Agreed but I’m more interested in ideas and there’s no sign that the Conservative party is going to come up with any truly interesting ones in the near future. They’ve received just enough of a boost this time round to believe that a little tinkering around the edges can squeeze them into power next time.
There are interesting individual Conservative candidates (As there are interesting individual Labour and LibDem candidates) with interesting ideas but they are all so worried about the media’s simplicity-filter that they’ll never express those ideas except in the most roundabout way. And if they enter parliament the chances of them representing those ideas or their constituents’ interests are minimal and subordinated to the pressure to represent only their party.
50 candidates is an effective vehicle for ideas, some of which might just percolate through to the electorate and be taken up by the mainstream. Personally I’d be willing to chance £500 for that prize.
I agree Stephen, and I do think Michael Howard deserves some credit for working so hard in opposition when other stars in the party drifted away to write books or concentrate on business interests. I hope that Howard stays until the referendum on the EU constitution is out of the way (and defeated).
The Tories got a bigger share of the vote in England than Labour did. Therefore if we [England] had a devolved parliament and PR, as Labour offered (and gave) to Scotland and Wales – we would have a very different government.
Consequently Labour have no mandate to legislate for England on all policy areas devolved to Scotland – Housing, planning, transport, health, education, sport, culture, police etc
Is there a British party that would support minimal public intrusion into private life: lower taxes, allow personal protection (i.e., personal firearms), require more personal responsibility for one’s actions?
Theoretically, the Conservatives would be the appropriate one. But, British Conservatives seem content to mimic Labour. That’s a recipe for living in the political wilderness.
Is there a British party that would support minimal public intrusion into private life: lower taxes, allow personal protection (i.e., personal firearms), require more personal responsibility for one’s actions?
Britain has no libertarian or classical liberal party.
– Josh
I just read a comment by some disappointed Conservative MP who said Michael Howard gave the impression that the Tories were “still the nasty party”. Hello? Addressing the concerns of the British voter may not please the chatterati in Notting Hill and Holland Park, but who gives a crap about them? How amazing that some little Tory twerp still thinks the opinions of his vapid metropolitan friends are of even notional interest to sentient beings in Princes Risborough, Swansea, Kendall, Carlisle et al.
The Conservatives need to take strong flea spray to Tory candidates of this ilk. They do tremendous damage and I think are one reason Michael Howard didn’t go more for the throat. I think he was well aware of what had to be done but knew he would be hung, drawn and quartered by the metropolitan effete in his own party if he went for it – which is why he’s resigned. What the hell is the point?
To just re-establish a Classical Liberal wing within either the Conservative Party (currently Labour-lite) or even the LibDems (I kid you not… they are FAR better on (some) civil liberties issues than either Con or Lab) would be a *major* improvement. A pre-requisite however is a fairly ruthless clear out of the post-Thatcher culture of stupidity and timidity.
I think the idea of a ‘libertarian’ party is not viable (hell, *I* would not even vote for the US Libertarian Party!) as it is true that full-fat non-diet libertarianism does not yet have enough popular appeal to stand alone. However as a strong faction within ather party, that is quite a different matter. Libertarians/Classical Liberals need to learn to be more subversive.
Don’t you think the Conservative party has suffered enough factionalism already? Do you seriously want to repeat the internecine warfare on Europe over the issue of libertarianism? All that will do is prolong the run of Labour governments.
EG
Perry,
A Classical Liberal wing to the Conservative or Labour Party would draw considerable strength.
In the US, the Libertarian Party is considered a fringe group that serious conservatives avoid, as you say. Conservatives here have found -for now- that the Republicans offer the closest to classical liberalism.
With savvy understanding of the electorate, Republican leaders have removed the wheels from the Democratic Party. Surprisingly, the Dems have decided to veer even further Left on the rims.
Richard Nixon is supposed to have said: “Never try to kill a person committing suicide.”
That is one of the dumbest comments I have read here in quite a while. At the moment the Tory party is a text book example of what happens when a party becomes an ideology-free zone (remember what they did to Howard Flight?). There were no serious internal splits ideologically this time in the Tory ranks because they don’t have an discernable ideology beyond bleeting about how much they will spend to match whatever Labour will spend. And what was the result of this unity? Labour wins a THIRD FUCKING TERM! And you think what the Tories need is MORE UNITY? They need an God damn internal revolution, you fool!
There were a number of, as yet still private, reasons why Howard Flight was asked to resign his constituency, his CWF comment was just the camel’s back-breaking straw. The view as to why the Conservatives did not win the election is very very simple and I would have thought you’d understand it – the electorate, unlike the Conservative Party itself, still remembers their ham-fisted approach to government under John Major and people still see no change from Major’s last cabinet in the opposition front row 8 years on.
The only reason I feel that they won any additional seats, and let’s face it they didn’t win very many seats and those they did win are now very marginal, was due to the displeasure over Labour’s assault on the traditional conservative values and certainly NOT because the Conservative Party has reformed itself. Until we see the ‘old guard’ of Howard, Clarke, Lilley et al retired off the Lords and genuine fresh blood (no Howard pun intended) combined with a plan to counter Blair’s rampant authoritarianism then I, for one, shall continue to treat the Conservative Party with the derision it so richly deserves.
Julian – Very interesting comments. I thought at the time there was more to the Flight affair than was public. The remarks had the air at the time of being the straw that broke the camel’s back.
First, the Conservatives have to accept that people who live in W11 are the loony fringe, even among Conservatives. They do not represent Conservative thought, aren’t relevant and shouldn’t be allowed to mouth off to the press. You are correct when you say the Conservatives presented no alternative to Labour in this election – other than saying we will spend your tax pounds better than the others. Do you think there’s anyone up and coming who represents the real spirit of Conservatism – a small state, independent citizens pretty much left to their own devices and a civil society?
It seems to me they’re all still running scared, which is astounding after eight years. Especially now Blair’s been thrashed and is clearly the paper tiger many of us always thought him. He was always shadowy, nebulous, insubstantial. It was always all done with smoke and mirrors, not substance. The Tories were copying a mirage … Do you think they have grasped that? Any of them?
And what, then, is the ideology that drives Labour? There isn’t one. Or the Liberal Democrats? There isn’t one. Ideology makes for bad politics.
Yes. Divided parties don’t win. United parties do. It can be argued that Labour is divided between the conservative Blair wing and the socialists, but this split is firmly held shut (for now) by the party apparat and in any case is probably not that deep. Thus a show of unity is given, and to be frank the Labour party is at least genuinely united in its desire to remain in office. This could not until recently be said of the Tories, and even yet the people do not seem to be wholly convinced.
Yes, of course they do. A few more years of backstabbing, public argument, factionalism and navel-gazing is just what they need, and just the thing to convince the public that they are an alternative government.
The party has been through all that. That is what lost it power in 1997 and kept it out in 2001. Only now, with a coincidence of a deeply unpopular government and the beginnings of internal discipline is progress being made.
Nothing is to be gained by calling commenters fools. I am not given to responding in kind to such puerile insults, but I feel compelled to say that the average calibre of your own comments pretty clearly demonstrates that the ignorance does not lie on my side – and that you live up to your name.
EG
Euan – There’s nothing wrong with factionalism within political parties; in fact, all parties have different factions. Disunity isn’t necessarily a problem – public disunity is, however, and that’s where the Tories have fallen down in recent years. There can be many differences within the party in the back rooms, as long as a united face is presented to the public. When Snide, Verity and others talk about the need for a strong libertarian faction, they’re not trying to suggest that this faction should come out in public and try to provoke a schism. Nothing so hamfisted. More like behind-the-scenes influence of party policy – the sort that happens in political parties the world over. Disunity within a party is always present and not always a problem. However ill-discipline is and that’s been the Conservative modus operandi of late.