So - who does everyone think is likely to be the next Labour leader?

[LittleFluffyMoo]

I'm watching Tristram Hunt. Fairly new, so a rank outsider, but seems to handle himself well (apart from the nun thing a few weeks back, but it may well be a one off). Or possibly (more likely) Yvette Cooper.

Any thoughts?

[claig]

I haven't got the figures but my guess is that Cameron's detoxification (which was not really necessary as it was just a BBC concocted progressive trick) has lost the Tories votes, many of whch have gone to UKIP and will never return.

If you read the comments sections in the Spectator, the Daily Mail and Conservative Woman, you will find lots of support for UKIP and not that much for Cameron. That is bad news if the electoral system were ever to change.

After 13 years of New Labour and the prospect of biometric ID cards and DNA databases and due to the financial crash, the country was ready for change and I don't think that detoxification had much to do with it. The UKIP vote is what the BBC would call "toxic" but it is only likely to grow.

This is from Kathy Gyngell, co-editor of Conservative Woman.

"Kathy Gyngell: Farage is a hero for our times. It will be a national tragedy if he loses"
...
"Isn’t it high time this increasingly non-conservative political party paid the price itself, and was left to implode? Who, after all, but the Conservatives themselves have been responsible for their profoundly misguided policy of appeasement, in which they moved further to the Left each time they lost an election or failed to get a majority (1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010)?"

conservativewoman.co.uk/kathy-gyngell-farage-is-a-hero-for-our-times-it-will-be-a-national-tragedy-if-he-loses/

I think it is only the FPTP electoral system keeping both Labour and Conservative together.

[claig]

It is worh reading the comments under that Conservative Woma article. I don't think there is one negative comment about Farage, and the comments are from educated (not left behind) Tories. They all feel let down by the Conservative party which appears to be Conservative in name only.

Labour voters feel let down by Labour (because it is in the centre), Tory voters feel let down by the Tories (because, like Labour, they are in the centre). Under a truly representative PR voting system, I think we would see an earthquake as people voted fo what they believed in and the BBC would not know what to do to control it.

[prh47bridge]

my guess is that Cameron's detoxification (which was not really necessary as it was just a BBC concocted progressive trick) has lost the Tories votes

I have got the figures. It helped to gain the Conservatives a net 2 million votes. The departure of some of the more right wing members to UKIP has helped the Conservatives to gain a further 500,000 votes.

many of which have gone to UKIP and will never return

The evidence available simply does not support that assertion. Following the European election we heard from many UKIP supporters that their voters would never return to the Conservatives. A substantial proportion of them did return for the General Election. I suspect many of them will drift back to UKIP over the next 2-3 years and then return to the Conservatives for the 2020 election. That is the normal pattern with "none of the above" parties.

I'm afraid you are one of those I mentioned previously who thought that the Conservative party was losing elections because it wasn't right wing enough. You are wrong. Even Margaret Thatcher had to move to the centre to win elections.

[claig]

'The evidence available simply does not support that assertion. Following the European election we heard from many UKIP supporters that their voters would never return to the Conservatives. A substantial proportion of them did return for the General Election. I suspect many of them will drift back to UKIP over the next 2-3 years and then return to the Conservatives for the 2020 election.'

Good point, that did happen, but I think it is only because of our FPTP system. Under FPTP, a centre position gathers enough of the left and right to be able to form a coalition. This election pitted a weak opposition, with an Edstone, against an OK incumbent. But in a future multiparty environment with a strong opposition, the centre, as aimed at by an "increasingly non-conservative political party" as described by Kathy Gyngell, won't be able to win enough votes.

Politics has changed dramatically since Thatcher's time. People have increasingly lost faith in Establishment parties. If PR voting eventually comes in, which I think is likely to occur over the next 30 years, then it will be a whole new ball game.

'It helped to gain the Conservatives a net 2 million votes. The departure of some of the more right wing members to UKIP has helped the Conservatives to gain a further 500,000 votes.'

But these votes are probably due to the collapse of the LibDems. The LibDems may come back one day or those votes may go elsewhere in the future. The LibDem collapse is probably a one-off piece of fortune that coincided with a weak Labour opposition whose only message was NHS and benefits.

[prh47bridge]

But in a future multiparty environment with a strong opposition, the centre... won't be able to win enough votes.

I am not convinced by that. If you ask voters to position themselves on the political spectrum most will put themselves near the centre. If you ask them to position the major parties they will generally put the Conservative party to the right of their position and Labour to the left. This is a far more reliable predictor of elections than the normal voting intention polls. Whichever party leader is seen by voters as closest to their own position in the centre of the political spectrum is likely to win the general election unless their party is seen as a lot further away from the centre than their opponents.

If we are heading for a future where the Conservative and Labour parties cease to be broad coalitions and instead coalesce around a single position on the political spectrum I would agree that such parties would not be able to win enough votes, but neither would a party that occupies any other point on the spectrum. If we really are heading for a multi-party future in the way Gyngell and the like predicted any government would need to be a coalition of a number of parties. However, that prediction was based on a belief that we were going to get another hung parliament. That didn't happen. It may still happen but I am rather cynical about such predictions, having seen them several times in the last 40 years.

But these votes are probably due to the collapse of the LibDems

The 500,000 in the 2015 election may be partly for that reason. I haven't yet seen an analysis of where those votes came from. The 2 million was in the 2010 election - nothing to do with the LibDems collapsing as they didn't!

[claig]

'The 2 million was in the 2010 election'

But aren't those just votes won be default because of Labour being in power for 13 years and arrogantly wishiing to curtail civil liberties with DNA databases etc and because of the financial crash?

The Conservatives were the only real opposition capable of toppling Labour so people had no choice but to vote Cameron.

[Isitmebut]

"People have increasingly lost faith in Establishment parties."

Scores on the 2015 party doors.

UKIP -3.881 million

Main 3 Establishment - 23.095 million

Yup, yup,yup, pretty close there

UKIP was the 20105 protest vote, in 2020 it will largely be the Lib Dems, as Farage disappears up his own self-important rear end.

[prh47bridge]

But aren't those just votes won be default

Some of them possibly. But the information available suggests that a significant proportion of them would have stayed at home rather than vote Conservative but for Cameron's detoxification efforts. Some of what Cameron did turned out to be a mistake - promising to match Labour's spending plans, for instance, designed to deal with the charge that the Conservatives would slash services but not a good thing to say when Labour were overspending hugely. But much of it helped to position the Conservatives closer to the centre and himself as closer to the centre than his party in voters minds. Historically a party that fails to take up that position is unlikely to win an election.

[Isitmebut]

UKIP halved its Westminster seats (I love saying that) as similar to Labour, UKIP keep talking about 'change', but never seems to be able to specify what it actually means - so none of the disingenuously obtained 2nds, became 1sts - other than the re-election of a previously sitting Conservative MP, Stuart Wheeler bought earlier.

To-date, UKIP have NEVER had a home reared/smoked U-kipper win a Westminster seat in what, a few thousand attempts over 3-4 general elections now? Spooky.

[claig]

The Tory High Command were worried about the election campaign. They had tried to call UKIP toxic and Cameron begged UKIP voters to "come home" and yet the polls were not budging. Tory donors started getting angry and Cameron was told to get "lively" and show some "passion". He rolled his sleevs up and started talking ten to the dozen, much faster than usual

"taking a risk, having a go, having a punt"

while Farage was calmness personified, having a pint.

What really swung the election was the Tory tactic of using fear about the SNP. This wasn't detoxification, this was good old-fashioned Tory scare tactics. Voters looked at Miliband eating a bacon sandwich and heard Sturgeon cry how she was going to "lock the Tories out" and they thought, much as we prefer Farage, we better get out, hold our nose and vote Tory to save the country.

Without hard-nosed Lynton Crosby, Cameron would have probably lost it. His modernisers were all at sea, clueless about how to counter the People's Army and Miliband.

Here is the Daily Mail's Rrichard Littlejohn

"You can stop holding your noses now. We’ve dodged the bullet. Yesterday was VE Day and not just at the Cenotaph.

The outcome of the General Election was a Victory for England. Chesterton’s ‘secret people’ have spoken.

As I predicted on Tuesday, voters simply couldn’t countenance the terrifying prospect of an extreme Left-wing Labour government propped up by a gang of marauding Scottish Stalinists.
...
And while we’re on the subject of Europe, spare a thought for Nigel Farage, who deserved but failed to get elected in Thanet.

His 15-year crusade to secure a vote on Europe has been heroic, in the face of concerted and often violent intimidation.
...
we can thank the sensible voters of Middle England, however reluctant many of us may have felt when voting Tory.

Time to stop holding our noses and breathe a deep sigh of relief."


www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3074274/Scottish-Stalinists-Dave-s-lucky-bunny-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-gives-view-Cameron-s-narrow-victory.html


Here is Farage on South Thanet

"I knew the result yesterday [Thursday]. I could see the wards in Broadstairs were 80% turnouts and people queuing to vote. I spoke to people and they were saying "look Nigel, we love you, but we can't have Nicola Sturgeon running the country."

//www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/13/thanet-south-fraud-nigel-farage-_n_7274172.html


The Tories may not be so lucky next time. So far they are doing the right thing and trying to be a blue-collar workers' party, but their modernisers haven't gone away and are champing at the bit to do some more modernisation and detoxification, and if they do that, then they will face a whole new ball game in 2020.

[claig]

Good lines by Liz Kendall. Labour have to try and make this message believable.

“We win when we offer hope and opportunity, not merely sympathy and grievance.

“And we win when we set out a clear direction for our country, not just a collection of causes and criticisms.”

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/12965761.UKIP_could_defeat_Labour_in_the_North__warns_leadership_candidate_Kendall/

[Isitmebut]

Claig .... re "What really swung the election was the Tory tactic of using fear about the SNP." - the SNP fear was real as Sturgeon, Salmond and others statements confirmed it was real, on top of a Labour Party only seeming to care about the jobs of the very low paid - yet their polices could have easily reduced the numbers of those jobs.

UKIP for years both pretended and obtained many MEP and MP votes intimating that UKIP could bring the UK out of the EU and control immigration,which as MEP's are powerless to change British law to come out of the EU and UKIP would need a Westminster majority of 326 seats to even think about it, they were blatant lies.

UKIP for years have stated that the Conservatives/Cameron would never offer the UK an EU Referendum, despite the issue dividing the Conservative Party for decades and needed to be resolved, which was another blatant lie and designed to increase UKIPs vote.

Those two policies on our EU membership and immigration were UKIP's core policies, they stood for feck all else, but it was a mass deception by UKIP on the British electorate before every EU and General Election for over a decade - so UKIP are in no position to question how any other party got its votes.