did this government really not see the defeats coming?

[ThatVikRinA22]

if so im gobsmacked. truly.

lib dems have the lowest number of seats since the party was formed.
ha bloody ha.
there were no elections here but had there been i would have relished voting these bastards out

Both major parties are out of touch with normal people outside of London.

I think you are right, JosephineCD. They don't listen to them. They are above all that - in their intellectual, metropolitan elite, 'wind turbine', ivory towers.

I think the Lib dem conference this autumn will be very interesting. The smell of desperation is most definately in the air.

They are too busy spinning at speed, just like the blades on their 'wind turbines' on their wind farms which the population doesn't want or believe in, to stop to listen to the voice of the people.

It's only at election times, that the spinning has to stop, in order to listen to the public's decision. But can they draw the lesson or are they so dizzy with spinning in the wind that they have lost all sense of direction?

Will they come back down to earth and read the opinion of the Tory Daily Mail or will they follow the flights of fancy in the Guardian, which will lead them inevitably to fail?

I think it can all be truned round. But, it is fascinating, that it will all depend on just how 'out of touch' they are. It is the 'out of touchness' that will ultimately determine whether they have kicked the next election prize out of touch.

Surely after such a ropey budget and a series of other clangers, they should have done much worse?

Good point. Labour only increased their vote by 1% apparently. The low turnout shows that the public has little enthusiasm for any of them.

I think the Tories will turn this around at the next election IF by some minor miracle the economy picks up. "It's all about the Economy stupid".

I'm with Aitch on Miliband (and he was my preferred candidate), charmless, doesn't come across as at all genuine. What I wouldn't give to dig Robin Cook up, unusual looking man, magnificent brain.

IMO there's no credible leader in the Labour Party able for Camerons creepiness smoothness. Yvette Cooper?Thatcher in nicer underwear.

I like Ed Miliband, because I think he is genuine and the opposite of smooth. He is not arrogant, he takes a hell of a lot of criticism without getting uptight. He seems genuine and by the time of the next election, the public may not want smooth or arrogant or charm, they may just want someone genuine.

The public voted for Boris - he is certainly not smooth. The public like the fact that he speaks his mind, even if they disagree with him.

As much as I dislike Tony Blair, with the political own goal the Tories have presented with in the last few weeks/months, he would have been all over David Cameron at PMQ's. Sorry but Ed's cack handed. Like a comedian who can't quite deliver the punchline.

At least you all had the chance to vote - for reasons that I don't even really understand, Angleseys chance to vote has been 'postponed' till next year

It's always been a Labour strong hold though, with Plaid Cymru coming a clsoe second. I wouldn't have known who to vote for as I wouldn't have wanted to vote for any of the big parties because I don't believe in them. I may well have voted pLaid, for all the good it would do.

Yes you are right about Tony Blair at PMQ. But, in reality, most voters don't watch and aren't interested in PMQs. That is for the politicos. Tony Blair said he was a 'straight kinda guy', but the public soon tired of his style, which many thought was not genuine.

Ed Miliband is not as good a performer or 'thespian' as Blair, but that is why he has more durability, because the public can't see through him because he is being genuine. And teh more criticisms he gets and even when he was egged by an idiot yesterday, the more the public will have sympathy for him, because he is likeable and genuine.

Even the way Miliband handled the egging, was commendable. He took his jacket off and said something like "not a fan".

God knows what Prescott would have done.

I'm all for likeable, but where is the policy? I'm interested in politics, but I couldn't tell you a major policy from Labour at the moment. Ed and Yvette are waiting in the wings like a pair of vultures, quite distasteful IMO.

Politics needs big,brave ideas at the moment. Nobodies talking about wholesale banking reform or anything major for that matter.

But then, I like Prescott too, because I think Prescott is also genuine and the opposite of smooth.

You're right. They are all short on policy, because no one wants to upset the markets or the media by saying anything that will put their backs up. They are all trying to court popularity - which is why they court the media's and the intellectual elite's favour by playing the card of wind turbines, bicycle lanes and sustainability.

As Max Hastings says about the Tories; they treat their own voters with contempt, but that matters to them little as long as they are applauded by the media and intellectual elite.

Brown also did not treat some of his core voters, such as Mrs Duffy, with enough respect. But that always happens when teh elite grow out of touch with the people. The problem the Tories have is that they are a public school Etonian type elite and so through no fault of their own are already out of touch with mnany of the people right from the start, and that out of touchness may even increase over time as always happens to those in power.

It's disheartening, i just see politics becoming fractured, the electorate protest voting, and an in out cycle of Government. No agreement on major issues : just polarisation. And the ever louder clamour to be the media's latest 'hotty'.

Maybe it's the times in which we live. Depressed myself now. I am both morbidly drawn to, and repulsed by politics in the UK at the moment.

Hastings is very perceptive when he says that Cameron has no self-made people to keep in touch with teh public mood - people like a Heseltine or Tebbit.

'In the absence of such people, the PM relies for counsel on old friends, most of whom he met at Eton or Oxford. Many are clever, in the sense that they have passed lots of exams. But almost none possesses the precious gift of wisdom, of which every successful government needs a spoonful.'

That is where the 'out of touchness' stems from, and it all started and all became really evident with the first of their fiascos - the workfare issues.

A handful of Socialist Worker Party activists began the opposition to workfare and the Etonians were so out of touch that they couldn't see it coming and didn't realise that they would lose the public's sympathy. The Etonians, with all their degrees and costly education, ended up with egg on their face due to a handful of Socialist Workers.

Brown was a very intellectual politician. Low on emotional intelligence, I think he found interaction with people outside politics painful. That rictus grin and having to answer awful banal questions, totally beyond his comfort zone.

ThePathan, you're the same as the majority of citizens. They didn't bother voting, they don't feel represented and they think all parties are the same.
And it's not just like that in this country, it's the same all over Europe. 1 in 5 of teh French voted for Marine Le Pen as President. It was a protest vote and two fingers to the system that doesn't listen and offers no policies.

Which was why I liked Gordon Brown. He came across as if he knew what he was doing. Unlike Ed Miliband who seems like some kid on a work placement from school. I suppose it comes down to trust. I didn't trust Blair, he was a smiling knife. I don't trust Cameron or Clegg and Miliband is just not credible as a leader. But Brown, I did trust, and that's not something that happens very often with me.