Westminstenders: Election Special 3

[RedToothBrush]

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Choma
Why did Blair get in ?
Because everybody was sick of Tory sleaze
Blair was young and fresh and centrist
Alistair Campbell was brilliant at spin
Peter Mandelson was brilliant at arm twisting
then sadly they came to believe their own hype and Blair started a bromance with Dubya >> Iraq

Peterborough definitely isn't Posh (spot the pun!!) and it is disaffected. It should be BXP central because of influx of Polish speakers to overcrowded schools, which was indeed quite an issue. But it's definitely not the kind of working class the Tories are now courting and fawning over. It's sort of solidly ordinary. I'd be interested to see, eg , earnings data and employment stats.

I am actually struggling to think of the most solidly traditional working class place in East Anglia.

Yes, Smith's death helped Blair. Combination of circumstances. Was there even a vote for Blair because of what Smith might have been? Don't know.

Most Tory voters will return to the fold at GEs, even if they express their anger at local (and formerly EP) elections
They prioritise being in power and keeping out Labour, more than any particular policies

In contrast, the new Labour leader has to figure out policies that will enthuse the 3 political tribes to which their core voters belong,
because if any of the tribes soft / hard / traditional left feel that Labour is not representing their interests, then a significant chunk of that vote is lost, along with the GE

At the time, Blair seemed very JFK-ish, but without the drugs and the women. The first PM born after WW2, he was young, optimistic, passionate about social justice and at the head of a great team: Cook, Brown, Dewar, Mowlem. And right up until he went over to the Bush ranch and the CIA put something in his toothpaste, he was the dog's proverbials.

I was a kid when Blair was elected, but I dimly recall the whole 'cool Brittania' thing. Even as a nipper, it felt like an exciting prospect.

This is merely a musing but it does tie in with the whole 'make Britain great again' sort of vibe.

I think part of the success of the leave campaign was that it managed to paint us as servants and rule takers to Europe, rather than influential members of one of the most powerful groups in the world.

(And I know we have a horrific colonial past and were wankers for huge chunks of history. Not least to Ireland and Scotland. But people want to take pride in their country, not feel ashamed of it. And at the end of the day, it's people who chose who is in power.)

Ugh. I feel like I may have just made a populist argument. And not even one I fully agree with.

Blair was fine when he concentrated on being the UK PM

What destroyed him - and imo effectively wrecked his party with self-flagellation - was choosing to be a US poodle

He absolutely didn't need to do that:

Harold Wilson received great credit for being "the prime minister that kept us out of Viet Nam"
President LBJ was absolutely furious with him - but Wilson put the interests of his country above any personal wish for photo ops with a POTUS

Blairite has been a dirty word for many Labour supporters.

Now it’s time to think about what’s terrible about Corbyn and Momentum, it’ll never win an election.

LBJ begged Wilson to send a highland pipe band, just for show, but yer darlin arrold was having none of it because he knew it would split his party.

The problem with Blair was his lack of political education. He was too busy with the Ugly Rumours to get involved with student politics, and came out with an English degree, (please take one, as it says above every loo roll in every student union in the land. or ought to. )

When he started talking about going into Iraq, Robin Cook said be careful, remember Mossadeq. Blair said, Who's Mossadeq?

.

Before the 1997 GE, newspapers reported that Labour organised a week-long course, in how govt works,
for all the prospective ministers,
since it had been so long since they were in govt that they had almost no ministerial experience at even the most junior level

..... except we were told that Blair "didn't need" to attend the course
since apparently being made leader filled him naturally with this missing knowledge

Firstly, there's nowt wrong with English degrees!

Secondly, I don't think he has an English degree!!

...Just Jack Cunnigham and Margaret Beckett, I think, who had been junior ministers under Callaghan, plus a lord or two.

The serious problem was the failure of cabinet govt. He undermined it at every turn and when he pulled a fast one with the legal advice, only Cook and Short dissented, whilst obsequious reptiles like Straw and Hoon just rolled over.

...At the start of the war, Hoon did a press conference where he stated that British forces were in action at Umm Qasr, which was a port much like Southampton. A Royal Marine under fire on the edge of Umm Qasr picked this up on the World Service, and pronounced:

"There's no beer. There's no prostitutes. People are shooting at me. It's nothing like Southampton. It's more like Portsmouth."

Blair did law and was a lawyer before a politician

Blair: He graduated from Oxford at the age of 22 in 1975 with a second-class Honours B.A. in Jurisprudence.[22][23]

Hammond and other Tory moderates complained bitterly that Cummings is not even a member of the Tory party,
but has been changing it massively

Cummings' very long-winded blog is nihilistic incoherence, all about tearing down almost all British institutions in order to build some other kind of country,
which would then somehow be able to talk on equal terms with US tech giants,
to carry out some fantasy projects that Cummings wants

I'm greatly in favour of e.g. investing in space exploration, to tap some of the potentially vast resources
However, it is completely unnecessary to burn down the Uk to do so.

OK, had to get that old joke in.

@JustAnotherPoster00 I do hope you will be ok💐
Crikey some very talented names in that post Mockers
Yy I think the huge difference in 1997 labour finally got some newspapers on side, made a huge difference.
The first prime minister I have a memory of was Harold Wilson a very very astute politician I believe.

Mockers
It was true about Pompey and Soton then, its still true today

Maybe if Blair had done that college course with his prospective ministers, he'd have leaned about "first among equals" and Cabinet government

The idea of a strong presidential leader is often (falsely) tempting for those authoritarians on the left or right who can't be bothered with debate and consensus

However, it usually ends in tears.

I'm on a roll, so I'll tell my Harold Wilson joke, True Story:

As the very young President of the Board of Trade, it fell to Wilson in 1950 to announce to the HoC that because of the Korean War there would be a need for new uniforms for the army which meant the end of clothes rationing had to be postponed.

Up stands the very formidable battleaxe Dr Edith Somerskill.

"Am I to undertsand," she asked, "That the ladies dresses now be held up until all the military are satisfied."

Hansard reports the house became restless at that point.

Yep, Blair was a qualified lawyer

His Mrs was a better one, but they realised he has the charm and she the brains,
hence he went into politics, while she concenztrated on her legal career

bylinetimes.com/2019/12/13/general-election-2019-byline-times-four-pillars-of-dont-panic/?fbclid=IwAR2WS7Q1FMlG-Oqbt59PBstkG09vPhqDGxh0Y-HDqmx7XCV2EMWdi9egXSM

😂 I hadn't heard that Summerskill one

Reportedly civil servants enjoyed the discussion about how to refer to her:
they used to refer to their ministers as their "masters", but had a good old chortle that they could hardly refer to her as their "mistress"
A discussion that might not have amused the lifelong militant feminist Summerskill

The first prime minister I really remember was Edward Heath
Thatcher formed my political viewpoint
I was gutted in 1992
delighted in 1997
deeply disappointed by Iraq
was very very disillusioned by 2010
liked the concept of a coalition
and am very sad at the way things are going