Byers: what was he thinking of?
August 26th, 2006
One of the bigger political stories in last Sunday’s press was Blairite former cabinet minister Stephen Byers’s call in the Sunday Telegraph for Labour to abolish inheritance tax as “a penalty for hard work, thrift and enterprise”.
Perhaps predictably, this didn’t go down well with Brownites; the Guardian reported Alastair Darling and other allies of the Chancellor as “stamping on” the idea, before, after or perhaps simultaneous with giving it a “blistering riposte”. In fact, almost no one at all in the Labour party seems to have much time for the idea.
So what was the thinking behind the article? It’s hardly advanced the cause of any Blairite contender for the leadership. Perhaps it was intended to scare Labour MPs representing middle-class marginals (many of the seats they won in 1997, for example) of Brown’s supposed lack of appeal for their constituents. But the Brownite quoted in the Guardian seems to have it about right: “I don’t think Stephen Byers actually believes a word of this nonsense. He’s probably just trying to get a bit of attention or stir up some division in the party, but even the most hardcore Blairite MPs think he’s lost the plot this time.”
The betting markets have paid little attention, with Brown at 0.46/1 to be the next Labour leader.
It would be genuinely interesting to hear contributors’ angles or knowledge on this. All are welcome to comment, and for our readers in SW1, there’s no need to use your real name…
Philip Grant
Guest editor
Mike Smithson returns on 10th September.
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“Academics, students, and college servants were all overwhelmingly Conservative in their sympathies, and Conservatives dominated the City Council. Sadly, that has all changed.”
Not sad for me Sean. I live in Oxford and love living in a Tory free zone. Elections here a wonderful experience- all green, orange and red. Not a blue in sight. Makes you think better of the world, that human beings are not just self interested, and the world really is progressing.
And it gets better-I live in north, central Oxford, where a 2 bed terrace costs £500k. But going to the newsagents is truly an enlightening experience, as you walk past houses with stop the war posters, advertising for literature and art classes, you reach the shop to find a huge pile of Guardians, and a couple of Mails and Torygraphs- and at the end of the day all the Guardians are gone, the Tory rags are still there. Wonderful to live amongst like minded folk.
Also, Sean when you writing your leader- did you make the link between intellegentsia, intelligence and political allegiance because I certainly did. Intelligent people do not do the Tories (apart from ideolgues who get hooked in the right wing zealotry of it all- rather like Jehovahs). The fine contributions of Roger, snowfake5, and red flag and others- all brimming with intelligence. The decent, pragmatic Tories like our friend Benedict- well meaning, nice chap, but not quite with the grey matter.
Sorry Philip to mention the thread today so late- Byers is an idiot. Simple as that. Nothing more to read into it. Inheritance tax represents a fundamental plank of social justice- should be extended and widened. Byers is increasingly starting to appear that he is in the wrong party.
The Blair/Brown spat is fizzling out- it has served its purpose for many years by focussing news headlines on the party- but now Labour are going to start spinning a new record.
Gosh- I got the first post in- and what a moderate, thoughtful, objective and excellent piece it was too.
And ukPaul- thought your Michael Owen comparison was great.
Have a nice weekend folks. Byers is still an idiot!!
I like Stephen but I disagree with him on this, as do I think most Labour MPs, whatever their leadership preferences, and, through gritted teeth, most Tory MPs too - actually abolishing IHT is simply not on their agenda either. I think he’s building a reputation for himself as a man who thinks for himself and comers up with original ideas, like Frank Field, and writing this article is part of that. In William Hague’s famous line about Frank: “They asked him to think the unthinkable, so he thought it, and they said, ‘That’s unthinkable!’” But not everything that’s unthinkable is in fact a good idea.
Looking at last night’s posts about the YouGov poll, I must say I agree the Telegraph has spun it in an oddly anti-Tory way. That said, I don’t think people have really got a firm view on the Brown-Cameron prospect - the don’t know segment is huge - and predicting anything even a year from now is very difficult. I think the Telegraph is correct that the Brown bounce will be bigger than many here think, and that many Tories have talked themselves into thinking otherwise because they don’t like him.
Good post Tyson. It made me smile! How nice it must be to live in a Tory free zone. I remember when the country-London in particular-overnight became Thatcherite. ME ME ME ME ME. The relief people felt in ‘97 had nothing to do with the hapless Major but everything to do with the lady before him.
For those not old enough to remember it missed something significant. The country got it’s conscience back and it knew it. People walked around with a smile for quite a while. It felt like the first day of spring…….
Blairs lost it now. The man who once negotiated the Northern Ireland agreement thought it OK to blow a country to pieces to teach terrorists a lesson. But at least it finished him. The party’s had enough of being led by Dr Strangelove’s assistant and he’s going.
Fortunately the Tories are going nowhere. 38% is derisory for the main opposition party against a BLAIR led government. They are going nowhere. Changing their cycle shorts will not be enough. They need to change their ethos and this they can’t do. And there are still too many around who remember that day in 97′
I think the Brown bounce will be sizeable but evaporate very quickly indeed, by which I mean less than a month.
The post-Blair analysis of Blair will contrast him favourably to Brown.
Re: IHT: ConHome reported that the abolition of the death tax is indeed on the Conservative agenda.
Roger- the heady days of May 1997. It wasn’t just the realisation that the Tories were out, it was the growing awakening in the country that they were finished as a party. Nothing has changed from then.
The Telegraph is right. The Tory opinion poll lead is derisory, pathetic in this political hostile age, especially when incumbency is considered. Merkel and Prodi- both with 20% leads in pre election opinion polls, scraping in with a whisker. The US Democrats, most unpopular US president in modern history (more so than Nixon), double didget leads, expected to fall short at the mid terms. France- Chirac, unpopularity akin to Bush, but the Gaullists will probably prevail at the next election with Sakosy.
The Tories do not have the proverbial hope in.. Cameron is a sticking plaster for a party that is ideologically split, fundamentally unpopular, and irrelevant. Once he fails, the implosion will happen, the Tories will be consigned to history, and the long needed realignment in centre right politics will take place. Should have happened in 2005 but for Govt anti war unpopularity, the LD leadership, and the UKIP post Kilroy recriminations- the Tories could have well and truly be put out of their misery.
One thing is for certain- the British public do not want the Tories back in government, not now, not ever, and when the penny finally drops we will see the political realigment take place.
And Nick P, Byers may be a decent guy, but he is a maverick, much like Frank field, Blair and that fox hunting loving clown of a sports minister you had. All in the wrong party.
Anyway will now retire for the weekend.
OT. Some interesting news about 2 of the leading Derby defectors.
Mohammed Peeno failed to be selected for the Normanton Ward last wednesday and Bdul Majeed failed to be selected in Arboretum Ward last tuesday.
http://fairdealphil.blogspot.com/2006/08/labour-defectors-what-tv-doesnt-tell.html
A Brown bounce. Quite a fascinating picture that would make, would it be accompanied by a picture with him and his eldest child in a Bouncing Castle.
Who says he will win the contest, I fancy many will be looking for a new face, a change, if he does not come first in the first round of voting, Harriet may then come into play, she would have his support.
Talking to some Labour members I know they want GB to break with current policies in many areas, many think he cannot do that for a variety of reasons, not least to keep the “Blairites” on board.
However another question. Will TB go, I do not think so, neither do these Labour supporters.
Byers was right to at least question inheritance tax.
I shouldnt be abolished , but at least it should be moved beyond 285 to 300 k level.
As this is too low in many parts of the country,as the main residence of a simple semi- detached comes into play.
Surely New Labour is about winning elections, and this comes into play in close marginals.
8 - the first round of voting?
On inheritance tax, perhaps Byers was thinking of the over 65 group who fret about this tax even though they don’t pay it (and the majority tend to vote Tory). The solution there would be to raise the threshold to £400k and put the tax up by 1% on estates over that, to pay for increasing the threshold. His solution: abolish and put it all on green taxes, is a straight amalgamation of the Tory/Lib Dem position, which is strange. If Byers is trying to be “original”, then jumping on bandwagons isn’t the way to do it. Labour voters are pragmatists - they arn’t that much interested in the environment other than they want govt to continue to put pressure on businesses. They would take a jaundiced view of high environmental taxes that hit them personally in their pocket. I think that a Mori poll at the last election showed only Lib Dem voters citing environment as a key priority for them. Given such a small proportion of the population is into the environment, I think we should leave them to the Tories and lib Dems and offer people who arn’t that religious about the environment a home with Labour.
Re this poll, 13% others is strange, no? I understand that Labour would be low, as voters seem desperate to see the back of Blair. But where are the votes going?
9. dez, I think the chancellor has said that the IHT threshold will rise to 325 by 2010. But perhaps it needs to be higher than that.
7 Andrea - seem like sour grapes on not being selected and I suppose Labour are glad to get rid of them. Pity the Lib Dems who seem to take anyone in.
Ken Livingstone once made the point that the party is apt to set what are effectively wealth taxes at too low a level for (the aspirations of) voters in south-east England.
I suspect the real import of Byers’s speech (or at least his intended real import) was that he said anything at all about tax which for years has been off-limits to anyone who isn’t Gordon Brown.
You do parody very well Tyson.
I can’t really believe that you are as smug, blinkered, patronising, and arrogrant as you portray yourself in your first post.
8.”if he does not come first in the first round of voting, ”
I don’t think there’s a first, second, third,… round of voting in the Lab leadership contests.
Re: Byers. The talk from Blair’s people from the Guardian is “It is now clear … that concerns around security, immigration and community cohesion are issues that the public demand politicians put to the top of their in-trays.”
Nothing about IHT and other issues. So it looks like Byers was doing his own thing.
Regarding the Telegraph I agree with Mike Smithson’s view on the other thread that they are increasingly anti-Cameron. Will they add the purple colour to their mast head? Or did Hefferlump write the Leader column?
13. Marcia, I think that among the high profile ones there were also other reasons. For ordinary members, it may be different.
17. I might be remembering wrong, but didn’t the Telegraph and other newspapers also campaign against Hague modernising, till he abandoned the project and went back to high Torydom?
Is this the first YouGov poll to put the Tories ahead on the economy?
Snowflake5 @ 11 — the 11% others is a sign of the failure of Ming and policy-free Cameron to attract disaffected ex-Labour voters. Assuming they are put off mainly by Blair, that is where your Brown bounce will come from.
More subtly, a high proportion of “others” suggests that, since for many people “others” parties are beyond the pale (BNP etc) and so the Tories are a reluctant choice, the Tory lead may be extremely fragile: this is where the rest of the Brown bounce will come from.
I am still on my French train now running a staggering 8 hours late having boarded in Calais at 6 pm last night.
There’s no water left to flush the loos.
At least there’s the comfort of knowing that the trains here are nationalised.
Mike Smithson
15 Sean - but he re-confirms it with his post at 6.
I really do fear for Tyson’s sanity. His grip on reality seems awfully tenuous indeed.
YouGov most notable voting intention changes from the GE to now for the Tories: +5 in Wales and +4 in North East as well as +10 in London. Women +6.
20. I think so, they were level pegging in June and Labour 1% ahead in July.
24. Mike, blame this man! :Wink:
http://www.perben.com/
6. If that’s what you think, then will you be taking the odds-against currently on offer for Labour at the next GE?
However: “the heady days of May 1997. It wasn’t just the realisation that the Tories were out, it was the growing awakening in the country that they were finished as a party. Nothing has changed from then.”
Oh yes it has, as well you know. After the election in 1997, the Conservatives were the third party in local government, in the mid-20s in the polls, way behind in the popularity of the respective leaders, with a declining and aging membership and unsure how to deal with being in opposition. Every single one of those positions has reversed. Labour supporters who keep repeating the mantra ‘it will all be OK, they hate the Tories’ to themselves might convince themselves of it, but it has no impact on the electorate at large.
22. “There’s no water left to flush the loos. At least there’s the comfort of knowing that the trains here are nationalised.”
Personally, I prefer the comfort of comfort.
Jim Naughtie gleefully quoted The Telegraph’s headline, “Opposition becalmed….” this morning on the Today programme. This on a poll showing the Tories gaining two points from July to 7% now. The headline bears comparison with Tim Montgomerie’s “Lib Surge”.
There must be many Tories like me who no longer read The Telegraph or ConHome. Camero gets a better coverage now in The Guardian.
15, 23, Read Tyson’s postings again and then compare with George and Weedon Grossmith’s incomparable “Diary of a Nobody”:
http://www.authorama.com/diary-of-a-nobody-1.html
Tyson is truly a 21 Century Mr. Pooter. I wonder if he has a son called Lupin.
Snowflake5 - “Labour voters are pragmatists - they arn’t that much interested in the environment other than they want govt to continue to put pressure on businesses. They would take a jaundiced view of high environmental taxes that hit them personally in their pocket”
How does that fit with Tony’s greatest problem the world faces rhetoric (and also Milliband his masters voice for the Environment)?If its ever to be more than rhetoric then Labour must face up to need to cut emmissions from power generation, domestic use & transport?
On thread - Byer’s comments show that Labour has no real ideas or focus other than its internal struggle over when leadership changes and who gets the plum jobs or can be stopped from doing so. He poked a sharp stick into Brown and the man in the Fife version of Colombey-les-deux-Eglises only response was to sneak out a picture of his new family (curious leaked leaked to all the media). He left it to his acolytes and job-seekers rubbish Byers.
Robin, yes I thought the degree of self-delusion shown in post 6 vanished with the capture of the Berlin Bunker in May 1945.
21 - John L
“More subtly, a high proportion of “others” suggests that, since for many people “others” parties are beyond the pale (BNP etc) and so the Tories are a reluctant choice, the Tory lead may be extremely fragile: this is where the rest of the Brown bounce will come from.”
Are you suggesting that the “Brown Bounce” will come from BNP voters?
29
:-) 
Pooter was similarly disengaged from the reality surrounding him…
I don’t agree Snowflake, that voters in a General Election vote for selfish reasons. I believe voters treat them as a once in five years chance to be altruistic and do what they think is best for the country.
Remember the media waiting with baited breath for Howard’s Tories to find out who would benefit from their £20 billion give-away? And the two fingers the electorate gave him when they found out? And Hague’s offer of 3p off a litre of petrol which got him nothing but contempt?
Which is why I believe the party that offers the fairest society will always win as long as they are also competent.
Thatcher changed the rules for a while. At first she stayed in office because Labour weren’t competent but then she broke the rule by giving council houses away and voters shamfacedly succumbed to her bribe. 1997 was their apology.
If it the first vote to put the conservatives ahead on the economy.
This should tell you something about the past 14 years.
I think today’s Telegraph leader has hit the nail pretty much on the head.
The circumstances are right for double digit opposition leads, and whilst I am happy to have hit 40% and for Labour to be at their lowest poll rating for 19 years, I want more. I suspect that there is a degree of tactics to this in that a) the longer we maintain Blair in office (by not going for the jugular) the better it is for us as voters come to habitually despise Labour as well as Blair; and b) there is much sense in keeping our powder dry (ie key policy announcements, real viceral attacks on the govt) until the new leader is in place. I have no doubt that Team Cameron have a robust plan for when that moment comes. The cuurent mood-musioc is just softening up voters and making them receptive to listening to us, ready for the real battle ahead.
Tp paraphrase “Much done, much still to do”
34 - lol
Re Tyson, at 1. “The decent, pragmatic Tories like our friend Benedict- well meaning, nice chap, but not quite with the grey matter”
The key problem with “intelectuals” is that they boil things down to a logical ideology, much like religion is, but without the thousands of years debate religion gets, so end up with some very silly ideas.
As for your comments on inheritance tax, it seems clear that you regard tax as a way of redistributing wealth rather than creating income for the treasury. It is the same strain of thinking that got Labour into trouble in the 1970’s, with super tax.
We haven’t had a competent government in this country for over 15 years.
The way the Byers move was just squashed after gathering no support from anyone is a good pointer to the mood within the Labour Party. There is no desire for wild Blairite ideas, just a desire for the quiet sure-footed Government that Gordon will bring.
Not long to wait now.
40 - “Not long to wait now”.
You mean that French train is beginning to finally get moving
Extraordinary how hostile the Tory posters become when someone from another persuasion spells out an alternative! I don’t remember Sean Fear making a personal attack before. And JohnO watchers will know that he saves his best work for posters who are effective. Yesterday it was Snowflakes to-day it’s Tyson!
35 Dez.
“If it the first vote to put the conservatives ahead on the economy.
This should tell you something about the past 14 years.”
It tells me, that despite the profound economic reforms of the 80’s (consistently opposed by Blair & Brown at the time) and the work of Ken Clarke in the mid 90’s that led to the most benign set of ecomnic indicators for an incoming Chancellor for 80 years (both of which are the foundation of much of today’s dynamic economic successes - that despite these things, it takes 14 years for voters to forget the disaster that was Black Wednesday, Norman Lamont and the global recession at the same time.
I think it took even longer for voters to forget the repeated disasters of Labour economic policy in the 60s and 70’s. IMF bailout and Three day week, anyone?
31 Sean Fear Wasn’t there a rally in Leeds in 1992 that topped it. Tyson is at least up to that ‘We’re alllllllriiiiggggghhhhhttttt!’ level, if not beyond it.
44. I think it was Sheffield, but maybe they’ve done one in Leeds too.
42 - Roger.
I must have missed something. Can’t see any alternative spellt out by Tyson today.
Just two silly and deluded rants at 1 and 6.
45 Sheffield it was, you are right. The place fades but the horrific images of a flag bedecked platform with the chief windbag in full hype, is burnt into my memory.
It did us Tories a lot of good at the election a couple of days later.
(Robin-the three day week was under a Tory government. Most ecconomic disasters have been)
30. Ted, Labour believes that environmental concerns are best dealt with by international agreements. eg Kyoto. And hopefully Son of Kyoto. Our voters accept things like carbon trading, regulation of business, building codes on houses that improve engergy efficiency. But as I said, our voters will take a very jaundiced view of punitive taxes that hurt them personally - hence the reason that Labour has frozen the petrol duty tax since 2003 (and tax as a % of the petrol price has been consistently falling since 2000).
We won’t be doing what the Lib Dems seem to be advocating (no one knows what the Tory position is beyond spin) - unilateral punitive green taxes. They accomplish nothing apart from cheese off people. Even if everyone in Britain stopped driving tomorrow, the CO2 saved would be used up by China in a week. Therefore international agreements are the only way to go. Similarly airline fuel taxes need to be agreed on an EU level - no sense us putting the tax on unilaterally - it would just put us at a comparative disadvantage vis-a-vis other countries.
So there you have the essential difference on the environment between Labour and Lib Dems/Tories. Labour’s position is that this should be solved through international agreement. The Lib Dem/Tory position is that this shoudl be solved by punitive taxes on Brits.
Snowflake, I agree most Labour voters are pragmatists- but some in the party are still unreconstructed marxists prefering glorious opposition, rather than the grind of governing.
Brown has helped people earn the respect to work, and making this achievable, is Labours strength.
These small changes in the scheme of things, like lowering considerably youth employment are what families care about.
However this might have been forgotten, but the blight of mass unemployment, I will never forget.
48 - sorry, my mistake, you’re right. But it was the NUM’s work to rule policy that sparked it off, and Ted Heath trying to conserve fuel stcoks that led to the 2 month imposition of the 3-day week over the wionter of 73/74.
Perhaps best to ignore the student union trio of Roger, snowflake and the ever-entertaining Tyson today, and stick the boot into inheritance tax, a favourite hobby horse of mine - and a truly despicable act of theft by an already greedy state. It’s almost impossible to believe we’re in the 21st century yet governments still award themselves the power to take from the dead. Ghoulish.
42 - Roger, you will always be my brimming-with-intelligence chicadee.
I reckon Stephen Byers made a list of all the things he could do to remind the public he was still alive. He probably dismissed the method chosen by the Hamilton’s of making himself the country’s laughing stock and instead chose something so politically outrageous for a Labour MP that it was bound to be talked about. How was he to know that Blair would trump him with Lebanon?
RE 15, Sean Fear, I can believe that Tyson is that smug arrogant and patronising.
I am always amused by predictions of the end of the Conservative party. Given how long it has existed and how it has adapted I can’t see its demise anytime soon. The only reason Labour were electable is because they adopted Conservative policies and adapted the same way we have in the past.
42. roger, I was just going to write that it seemed to be “bash Tyson day”.
Re on your other point about selfishness and unselfishness. Voters are not quite as altruistic as you assume. The reason that they always say they prefer to pay 1% tax to help the NHS, is that they know this is the cheaper option compared to private care (esp as private premiums are set on a yearly basis and they are aware that they go up with age).
And the reason Howard’s policies were given short shrift was because they didn’t add up - you can’t keep public spending the same and have tax cuts. I assume that most voters assumed public services would be cut and the benefit from the tax cut was less than the loss of benefit of a good nHS.
Don’t underestimate how shrewd the voting public can be. That is partly the reason why Labour got re-elected last year despite Iraq. (We need to publicise our economic achievements more - eg we’ve allowed Tories to go round saying that the economy is slowing, when in actuality it is speeding up. Such falsehoods should be corrected, and when Alistair Campbell was in charge, they were, we need to tighten up).
Re 28 Chet, Whilst I agree with your sentiments, I can’t stand the Grauniad nor do I wish to pay Polly Toynbee’s wages.
54. Roger, he was probably jelous that Clare was getting attention sounding bitter toward Tony, so he decided to get it sounding bitter toward Gordon.
Once-bitten @ 32 — if you don’t want to be bitten, don’t put your tongue in your cheek.
That former Labour support has scattered rather than transferring en bloc to a single opposition party suggests that the primary factor is disaffection with Labour rather than support for any of the alternatives, in which case it will likely return when the cause of that disaffection goes away. Hence, the Brown bounce.
56 - So Alastair Campbell (do try and spell his name correctly) is now part of the truth solution
Weird, weird, weid…..
How very Tory to describe an inheritance tax as a ‘tax on the dead’. Sounds very American.
1 - Tyson, your post made me smile.
Interesting anecdote re the thread a few days ago on Cameron’s weaknesses. I’m staying with my in-laws in Lytham, a mostly white, middle-aged, died-in-the-wool Northern Tory stronghold. At the newsagent this morning, the Guardian and Indy were on the bottom shelf, in desultorily tiny piles, whereas the Mail was stacked up to the rafters.
I was wathcing the news with my M-in-L’s partner last night. He’s what I regard as a bell-weather traditional Tory voter: we don’t really agree (to put it mildly) on issues like immigration, crime and Europe. Born into modest circumstances, ran his own business, worked hard, did well, recently retired. Solid Tory core voter.
I’ve often seen him ranting at Blair, Brown et al. He has no love for Labour. But I’ve never seen him when Cameron has been on the television before. His reaction?
“And there’s no way I’m voting for that pillock!”
That really did surprise me, as it was completely unprompted. My Conservative-inclined M-in-Law also said, separately, that she found Cameron too polished and perfect, “even worse than Blair in that respect”.
Yes, yes, yes … one person in many, etc etc. But it is indicative to me (and supported by today’s Yougov poll) that Cameron might play well-ish to Southern middle-class types, and the Tories look well set to perform in and around London. But in the North it looks like they just don’t “get” him. Will they ever? Who knows, but again, as the Telegraph commentary indicates, there’s a lot for them to do.
RE 42, Roger, I just want to be clear on this. It is OK to describe Conservatives as “Intelligent people do not do the Tories (apart from ideolgues who get hooked in the right wing zealotry of it all- rather like Jehovahs).” or “The decent, pragmatic Tories like our friend Benedict- well meaning, nice chap, but not quite with the grey matter.” but not OK to point out that those comments are patronising and ignorant?
Blue2win @ 47 — it was more likely the premature end to Labour’s campaigning that gifted the Tories the election, rather than the rally or the shadow budget (which are the two things most commonly blamed).
Snowflake - “Labour’s position is that this should be solved through international agreement. The Lib Dem/Tory position is that this shoudl be solved by punitive taxes on Brits.”
Hmm … this sounds very like someone else’s position on the environment. George W Bush.
59 - John L
My tongue was not in my cheek. Your post genuinely had me puzzled. I’ve since re-read it several times, and I think I now understand what you are trying to argue.
As it happens, I think you have got it completely wrong. I’ve spoken to a number of disillusioned Labour activists, and they are unhappy with the whole New Labour experiment. Blair is the current focus of their anger, but the sole origin of it.
It may be that Brown can re-engage with them, but it didn’t seem likely from the way they spoke. They seemed more like the Tories who wandered away during the Major years. I.e. disillusioned with politics in general. They had a multi-term Labour government with massive majorities, and it turned sour. They are decent people who don’t like toffs who line their pockets, start wars against other countries, or arrest 80-year-old Labour activists under anti-terror laws. That is how they see Labour these days.
Several of them are councillors who have told me that they are unlikely to stand again. In 1997, it was all so bright and shiny; now it just looks so sordid and sad.
Tabman @ 62 - Cameron sometimes reminds me of Peter Tatchell who campaigned for Bermondsey in tee shirt, donkey jacket and what were then known as bovver boots, presumably to emphasise he was the same as the working class voters.
It misses the point that people want their MP to be wear a suit and tie, to be respectable and most of all, to be effective. If Tatchell hadn’t got the wit to get himself out of a council flat, what use was he to his constituents?
More so for the Prime Minister. We want the Prime Minister to make us safe and prosperous. We aren’t interested in his holiday snaps.
The Conservative strategists buggered up Hague’s chances in the same way: baseball caps and rollercoaster rides. Time for a rethink, chaps.
The temperature is running very high on here today - most odd for a Saturday…
I’m just curious - am I the only “member of the general public” who’s bothering to read this?
I don’t mean that in an offensive way - it’s just that everyone else here seems to be either:
a) a member of a political party
b) a serious political activist
c) an elected politician
d) someone has lots of friends/family who are either a), b) or c)
e) all of the above
It’s all very interesting to read political types sniping at each other, but surely it’s ordinary people like me who you all need to convince - you’re never going to persuade each other are you?
67 - having pointed this out, rather like DC, I think I should shut up. The Tory rebranding effort is doing fine, fellas.
Time for Operation Cameron Short of Majority / Campbell Gets PR!
68 - reading PBC is a bit like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: you can either be a member of the general public, or a politically obsessive. Reading PBC collapses the political wave-function and transforms you into a political obsessive
If there’s a hung parliament you will simply see another election shortly afterwards, IMO.
70 - I should add, “it happened to me”
Phil, re Byers. I can’t really follow it. The only thing I can think of is, as you point out, its desigend to nudge Brown into raising the IHT threshold in order to assist in the middle class marginals.
1/4- Tyson/Roger. What drivel. Oxford sounds like a dire sad place if your describtion is true. They say birds of a feather flock together…
71 - I disagree. Given the parlous finances of all parties, and the truism that the electorate don’t likle to be shaken out of their armchairs too often, I can’t see one for at least 18 months. Plenty of time for a referendum … and more importantly for the key players to test the wind.
73 - Darren, I agree with you, but for different reasons
69. Hey!…
71/4 - A Conservative minority govt could probably govern for 18 months or so without too much trouble or doing much controversial. Enough time for Labour to completely implode and them to build sufficient funds to fight another election.
77 - and for Labour to realise that, as well as saving some of their skins, PR might be good for the country too.
john L You must have been in a different 1992 election. The Windbag was suspect and proved why he was at that rally. It made all our ‘Labour’s Double Whammy’ and ‘Tax Bombshell’ much more decisive and focused minds nicely in the last 48 hours.
John Major on his soap box looked far more normal and trustworthy, and that image was a significant support for the negatives about Labour. Something that Campbell and Mandelson took on board. Thus the ice creams with ‘Gordon’ and the family pic on the mug etc etc etc.
78. But saving which skins and at the expense of whom? If there’s a minority administration after the next election, it’s likely that that party won between 300 and 325 seats on about 37-38% of the vote for the Conservatives or 35-36% for Labour. In a parliament of 650, introducing PR would give Labour about 230 seats on that share - a figure close to their 1983 disaster and not much above the Tory low point. Effectively, at least 70 MPs would be voting themselves out of a job.
80 - that’s on the basis of a Tory largest party scenario, which would focus Labour minds far greater. I agree that in some senses if Labour is the largest party it mght make things less likely, but OTOH they might look back to 1997 and what happens when the electorate want a government out at any cost - and make the calculation that 230 seats is better than 160.
81 -and I should have added - and 400 Tory seats and 15 years out of power.
77 - Alex
If there were a hung parliament, with the Tories as the biggest Party, I would expect them to form a minority government. Governing for 18 months as a minority would not be difficult. The interesting question is whose Party discipline would hold up. All three major Parties contain feuding wings.
The Tories have had 15 years of internal warfare, but (surprisingly) it seems to be dying down. The Hefferlump keeps trying to rally the Cornerstone troops, but it isn’t happening. So far, they have been the dog that didn’t bark. Even the EPP U-turn was met by stoney-silence, albeit through gritted teeth.
Labour’s internal wars ended in the mid-90’s, but losing power will remove most of the power of the Whips. Blair will have gone, and Brown will have failed. There will be no single dominant figure, and the different factions will have little to restrain them. It could turn nasty.
The Libdems will fancy their chances. They have been hoping for a hung parliament, and assume that it will lead to a coalition, and subsequently, Nirvana (i.e. PR!) Whether they start internal fueding will depend on two things: firstly whether they lose many seats, and secondly whether Ming steps down. If either of these happens, the Orange Bookers could start blaming the Left for their failure to do better. (CF. they did very well in 2005, yet because it wasn’t “well enough”, they turned on their most successful Leader in 80 years.) They have now tasted blood.
11 - “Labour voters are pragmatists ”
Untrue - labour voters are mainly idealists, lose the ideal and lose the vote. This is where you are going wrong. Keep going…..
81/2. That’s true, but it’s a very big call to make off the back of 12 years in power, including eight with monster majorities. My gut instinct - because I don’t have any real evidence for it - is that there are enough people in the Labour Party, including in parliament, who view Cameron as too insubstantial to win big and would want their own second chance at an overall majority to put PR off the agenda after only one hung parliament. A second in a row might make things interesting though. Even so, it still requires a lot of Labour MPs to fall on their swords (even more if they’re the largest party).
I think the maths would be difficult whoever is the largest party - the Lib Dems would be 100% in favour and the Tories pretty much 100% against, the nationalist parties would be likely to line up with the Lib Dems, but how the NI Unionists of all shades would vote and how many Labour rebels there’d be would be crucial: it wouldn’t take many rebels to stop progress.
84 - I disagree. In all those inner city seats the Labour vote is based around “Labour is our party”; but for the reason that it “looks after us”. That is pragamatic.
Blue2Win @ 79 re the 1992 election — yours is the official account of Labour’s election defeat: Sheffield and the proposed tax rises in the shadow budget, everyone agrees this is what happened. I just cannot reconcile it with the polls which shifted too early for one and too late for the other.
In the last week Labour just stopped campaigning. Instead we had Democracy Day and other fatuous gimmicks. Tory charges could not be countered because to do so would mean the Conservatives were “setting the agenda”. In short, Mandelson, Gould & Co threw it away; not Smith or Kinnock.
John Smith cast out the New Labour image makers. We never saw him paddling on the beaches of Monklands East. Smith was on the right of the party but was of the party, like Brown but unlike Blair. Nonetheless, he was personally popular and Labour led in the polls.
Once Blair brought Mandelson back, the idea that he was right all along was spun to gullible lobby hacks who lapped it up, as, crucially, did the Conservatives. It ruined Hague, and imo will dish Cameron.
Hello all.
Two points in response to the blizzard of opinions above:
1) Roger says: “Which is why I believe the party that offers the fairest society will always win as long as they are also competent. ”
I think this is possibly true. However, ‘fair’ is a very subjective term. To some it means that everyone should have the same; to others it means that everyone should be ale to keep all they earn. There are other examples outside the realm of tax-and-spend. I think we all aspire to ‘fairness’, we just have different ideas of what ‘fairness’ is. I would put Thatcher’s victory in the eighties down to the fact that people thought that corporatism had resulted in the country being run in a rather unfair way with producer interests at heart, and that Labour was proposing more of this.
2) I obviously can’t speak for all Tories here, but I don’t believe the stereotype Tyson portrays of Tories being purely self-interested is fair. My earnings - as with the bulk of the population - aren’t enough to be materially affected by the tinkering with taxation that any party proposes. And I don’t have a family, so am in line for none of the goodies that the state dishes out. I vote Conservative because I think the future of the nation would be best served by a small-state approach. And pretty much everyone I’ve discussed politics with - from all backgrounds - takes this approach.
I honestly think very few people are motivated purely by self-interest. You could start a party with the policy that only those whose names came from the back half of the alphabet should be taxed - a majority would benefit, but do you think more than a tiny, tiny sliver would vote for it? I don’t.
Various left-ish posters on here complain of being attacked when they come out with staements they might genuinely mean - but I can’t help taking it a little personally when I’m told that Tory voters are selfish, stupid, small-minded or just evil. I’m sure Labour or Lib Dem voters would feel the same if I started hurling pejorative generalisations at them, and I would be unsurprised to be abused in return. So I’m entirely happy for you to criticise Conservative policy, but please accept that we Conservative voters have no less claim to the moral high ground than you.
Sorry to go all whingey again.
68 - Steven W, I fit none of those categories either.
Andrea at 16. Think there is, remember Margerat Beckett dropping out when in third place, and certainly happened in the famous Healey/Benn Deputy leader race.
John L - I think had Sheffield not happened, people would have found some other reason not to vote Labour. Although people in 1992 didn’t like the Conservatives - disliked them quite strongly in fact - once the spectre of a Labour government became a real possibility, people realised that, far though Labour had travelled, they were still scarily left-wing.
(I’ve actually nicked this opinion from John O’Farrell. But I agree with it.)
That said, the Sheffield rally was one of British politics less edifying moments.
One point on a Cameron minority government - unlike all previous Tory PMs, he wouldn’t have a majority in the Lords, which might prove a problem (but only if he ever finds any policies…)
On the question of inheritance tax, this is arguably a consequence of Brown’s low interest rates which have pushed house prices through the roof. We are reaching a situation where only children stand to be significantly better off than those with siblings, which is not, so far as I know, a policy goal on anyone’s agenda.
Benedict at 63. I wasn’t too keen on or in agreement with what he said about you and I was going to say so but my post would have been too long. Any non Tory who lived through the Tory-particularly the Thatcher years-would have been silently cheering Tyson’s first post. The arrogance made non-believers want to scream. Best written about in John O’Farrels book
65. Except we are actually signing international agreements on this. We backed the EU’s carbon trading scheme, we’ve signed an agreement with the state of California (which on it’s own is as big as our economy). We introduced the climate-change levy. We’re pushing for a new international agreement that includes India and China.
Think about it like this: if the whole globe reduces CO2 emmisisons by 5%, then tangible progress is made. If the 60 million Brits reduce CO2 by 100% but the 1.3 billion Chinese increase their emmissions by 5%, then overall emmisisons go up and we’ll have flogged our people for nothing. Unilateralism doesn’t work, it just invites the other party to free-ride.
Also, Lib Dems have a particular obsession with the car - but cars are one area where emmisisons are under control, thanks to 30 years of taxes and continuous improvements in car technology. It’s other areas that need tackling, like airlines, and because airlines fly from country to country, they can only be tackled effectively via international agreements, otherwise too easy to get round one country’s restrictions. eg if Britain had punitive airline taxes but Netherlands did not, instead of long-haul flights using Heathrow for a stop-over, they’d use Schipol. You’d gain nothing in terms of emissions reductions, but hurt UK business. Lib Dem policies have hair-shirt appeal for those who feel virtuous being punished for modern living (and as your voters go for that sort of thing, I quite understand why you push it - not sure why the Tories are trying to go down this route). Beyond that, they don’t achieve much.
Afternoon all :). A few good polls and all the Tory activists on here have already got Mrs Cameron measuring up the curtains at No.10 or No.11 Downing Street.
There are other possibilities - let’s take one. Labour loses 50 seats, the Tories gain 60, the Lib Dems lose 10. Not inconceivable at all. Labour would still be the largest party in the Commons. Indeed, it might be that while Labour could form a majority with the LDs or others, the Conservatives plus the LDs wouldn’t.
Gordon Brown (presumably) is invited to form a Government. There is no call to Menzies and Brown carries on as the Prime Minister of a minority Labour Government. The Conservatives might want to vote the Queen’s Speech down and force a second election but the LDs and others don’t and abstain. Cameron is helpless while Brown carries on in office.
What then ? In theory, this scenario could continue for two or three years by which time Brown could go back to the country and get a full mandate. Will the Conservatives stick with Cameron who will, when all’s said and done, have lost the election ?
90. David(s). I think Blair won over 50% immediately, so no need to drop out for Becket. And anyway I think they all vote in the same ballot (like with the Libdems). They don’t send all ballot papers again to all members again if no-one is above 50% on first preferences.
the Healey/Benn Deputy leader race used another system (not the OMOV)
94 - Snowflake, has it ever occurred to you that the Chinese and Indians say, quite reasonably “you’ve had 200 years to pollute the atmosphere - we won’t take lectures form you about reducing carbon emissions unless you practice what you preach?”
And secondly, that stimulus to new technology is accellerated by an appropriate tax regime?
Remarkable how Brown’s integrity has remained intact through nine years as the principle minister in the cabinet. No one has laid a glove on him personally or professionally. And plenty have tried. I don’t know what he will do to Labour Party policy but no one will any more talk about privileged backgrounds or free holidays. If anyone will make Cameron look lightweight it is Prime Minister Brown
97. They have said that, but recent indications are that they are changing their minds. The Chinese have discovered that if you factor in the costs of environmental polution and the clean-up, they’ve been making a loss on the goods they’ve been producing i.e. they’ve been had by international business. International agreements are the only way to go, because it eliminates such things as business getting round the rules by relocating factories to places with weak rules.
Re the airlines, the govt is trying to get through an EU-wide agreement, I think the French and others are quite keen too, so there may be progress on this in the next year.
Re my other point on the atractiveness of green taxes, I think we can agree that Lib Dem voters go for them, and Labour voters do not. Why do you think the Tories are going down this route? I haven’t met a single genuine Tory who is interested in the environment, or who woudld welcome the green taxes. Is Cameron just trying to make Lib Dems vote Tory, and is he succeeding in your opinion?
61 - “tax on the dead”
In America, renaming the estate tax the “death tax” was a key part of the strategy used by the anti-IHT lobby in their (successful) attempt to get it repealed in 2001.
There’s a fascinating book on this by Graetz and Shapiro - “Death by a thousand cuts”. Good review here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/runc01_.html
68. We’d be interested in what you think, “as a member of the general public”!
Roger, I’m not sure what other response Tyson deserved. Had he not chosen to abuse another poster here, I probably would have ignored his silly comments, but I think some sort of response was in order.
Cookie, don’t be so nice to the Lefties. In the main they are vain, preening, silly, adolescent egotists who can’t be bothered to think things through - so they just buy their Opinions by the yard from Sainsbury’s for Dullards.
All they really care about is that they look good in the moral mirror. That they appear to occupy what they think is the moral highground. The fact that this supposed moral highground, occupied by the Modern British Left, is actually a festering compost heap of received opinions, that only stands out because it is surrounded by the flat and toxic Dead Marshes, rotten with the corpses of people killed in the name of socialism, doesn’t seem to bother them.
I’m going to have another coffee now.
98 - There have been a few cock-ups, Roger - selling gold for Euros* springs to mind, and the annual tax credit fiasco - but you have to admire his longevity. And ‘lightweight’ is certainly not a crticism you could throw at him.
On the other hand, if Labour’s weakness is that it is being seen as arrogant, aloof or out-of-touch, Gordon Brown’s public image (I’m sure he’s quite different in private) is hardly going to dispel that.
*Odd episode, that. Do you remember Gordno Brown posing on the front cover of the Sun with all the gold he was selling off? Most unlike him - he’s rarely one to court pulicity. And what’s happened to that photo? I can’t find any trace of it on the internet. Is someone stockpiling it for when he becomes PM?
104. He paid off debt with the proceeds of the gold sale. It needed to be done as when we took power we were spending more on interest payments than on schools, thanks to John Major doubling the national debt in five years.
99- Snowflake5. ” Haven’t met a single genuine Tory who is interested in the environment”.
You should try and meet people who don’t share your narrow outlook and then you would meet plenty!
98- Roger. Brown is the worst prime minister we have never had. He is as overated as he is untested outside of the role of chancellor. If he is your great white hope, then you are in for a big disapointment. White elephant is more likely…
I can readily understand the umbrage that Cookie takes at the nonsense that Roger, Tyson and Snowflake propagate here today, but I would quite frankly find it more disconcerting and worrying if people like them had nice things to say about the Conservative Party.
It’s interesting, what Tyson said at the top. He seems to be an intelligent chap, probably a nice bloke, who’d be good to chat with over a pint. Yet - if his post wasn’t entirely a wind-up, and I don’t think it was - he genuinly thinks ALL rightwing people are stupid and selfish etc etc.
The same goes for my side. Whenever I hear a liberal-left argument, whether Blairite or Bennite, I immediately presume Here is a Moron.
Furthermore, I think ALL leftwing people are, at best, well-meaning retards; I think a fair chunk of leftish acitivists ae downright wicked: morally selfish, intensely narcissistic, intellectually vapid, people who turn their personal inadequacies and sexual frustrations into a Politics of Spite and Envy.
Yet some of my best friends are on the left. I wonder what Tyson thinks about this.
Also, leftwing people tend to be ugly and extremely boring, in my experience. Just a final thought.
100 - I don’t disagree that international agreements are required, but hitherto they’ve been quite toothless, and local agreements can have impacts on local environment (particualtes in London; congestion for example).
You’re also making the mistake of considering environmental taxation in isolation. Our approach is to put more money in people’s pockets by reducing income tax, and then saying to them “We’d rather you spent the money in less damaging ways, and our taxation policy reflects that.” Ultimately, though, if environmental taxation is successful it will modify behaviour (great), which means that you ahve to reassess overall tax take, make green taxes more punitive, or change the balance. Fine - it would be good to be in that position.
Some people will believe that its their birthright to drive a BMW 20 litre 4×4 Kill-wagen regardless of anyone else, but I guess they’re unlikely to ever vote Lib Dem
Part of the reason why Labour won’t touch greent axes is the fear that they will punish “their” voters. This assumes you can’t rebalance taxation as above, and also ignores things like taxing aircraft rather than passengers which isn’t as punitive on package travellers as it is on half empty business flights.
Cameron’s relentless spin is having the effect of making people take a second look at the Tories (a dog walking on its hind legs?
). But - substance over form, and also he runs a big risk with his core, especially outside the metroplitan orbit (see my post above). At the end of the day the Lib Dems have a track record of championing the environment. It all comes down to whether people believe the Tories on this.
105. Yes, those gold sales were indeed essential - the cash raised amounted to a massive 0.5% of total gross government debt. With that huge chunk of debt retired, the schools budget suddenly had room for massive expansion.
108/9. I think you have just waved a red flag to a bull there Sean…
SeanT - I think we have an interesting left/right paradox here. Individually many Tories are fine, but collectively repellent. The opposite is true for lefties?
Looking at the regional breakdown changes in the Yougov/Telegraph poll , some of the changes look very suspect . Take Scotland for example Con +1 Lab -4 LibDem -3 SNP N/C . Who can possibly be up 6 with SSP collapsed . Greens may well be up 2/3 but there is noone else in the frame to gain 4-6%
Stephen W: very true. But highly-motivated people who stand as candidates etc. tend to find it difficult to avoid pitching in with their opinions of the world and each other. those of us who’ve been doing it for a long time find it easier than those who haven’t, and personally I wish people here would stop slagging each other off.
One really can’t usefully generalise as some of the posts do about the *whole* of any group, whether Labour ex-activists or Labour or Tory voters. Having said which, it’s a slow day, so I’ll have a go.
A proportion of Labour ex-activists are very left-wing (that’s why they became active), and they have become progressively disillusioned for obvious reasons. They are simply being rational: if you want to repeal all anti-union laws, nationalise key industries, return top rate tax to 70%, etc., you are bound to be disappointed by any prospective Labour (or other) government, and the only reason to vote for them would be that you thought the alternative was worse. Another chunk are tribal, and simply want to keep winning.
The main group, though, are unhappy about several things but would like a good reason to return to the colours and stop the Tories getting back, and I expect most of these to feel that the arrival of GB as leader counts as a good reason.
As for the wider public, I think that Labour has a large idealist vote which has been struggling to come to terms with Iraq and other controversies, and a large tribal vote which simply feels Labour looks after them better: this is most of the 30+% core. If GB (whose record on overseas aid in particular impresses the idealist voters) can bring back a fair number of the former, we will be back in a modest lead. That leaves the floating vote, which goes largely with what they think about the economy. At the moment they think it’s bad: IMO that will change.
As for the Tories, of course they aren’t all selfish and greedy. I think there are a number like Matthew Parris who would like the state to be generous and fully understand the impulse but believe it does no good (MP is basically a fatalist). Others can be extremely kind and generous personally but perhaps a little unimaginative: they haven’t experienced life at the rough end and underestimate how difficult it is. My mother was like that - if she read about something unfair she would be totally unyielding in her opposition to it (e.g. she would never, ever, touch an item of South African goods), but the concept of the whole of society being unfair was something she rejected as exaggerated.
There is a third strand, the Thatcherite ‘I want a country that helps me get rich’ type, and there is a racist group too, who dislike immigration and many other aspects of modern Britain. Like many non-Tories I think both groups utterly alien and their continuing presence in the Tory ranks is why voting Tory remains hard to conceive for many GMW voters, and why Cameron is probably chasing a chimera when he woos the Guardian.
113. That’s an interesting paradox. Yes it’s possibly true - taken individually, lefties are usually boring, self-absorbed, juvenile and ugly, and surprisingly stupid, yet their politics has a kind of moral appeal. I think its a shallow appeal! - but I would.
Tories are individually much more interesting, humorous, thoughtful, attractive, well-rounded, but if you are of a peevish disposition I suppose you could construe their politics as less immediately appetising.
I shall have to think about this more.
Seant
Shame all your best friends are ugly and boring.
Hows about any centrists you know?
117. No, I think I have luckily found the 1% of lefties who are nice and interesting and fun and personable - to be friends with. The rest are indeed an ineffably dreary bunch of creeps, just look at the Labour side of the Commons.
On the whole I think centrists tend to be pleasant - and gay. At least, I have two close friends who are Lib Dems - and one is gay and one is out-and-out transsexual. A theme here, no?
116 - the Public School Paradox? Charming individually or in small groups, comments yesterday passim, but insufferable in large braying groups and when exercising the “divine right to rule”?
OTOH - the ernest leftie paradox; you know you ought to be doing more about this or that but its insufferable to be told so by some humourless Trotskyist …
Now I know why I’m a Liberal
118 - well … I can’t offer marriage and children as a defence. Look at Oscar. And there are the Judy Garland records …
120. who’s Oscar?
118,
You could be on to something,
Has anyone ever tried to poll how the gay votes fall between the main parties?
122.”Has anyone ever tried to poll how the gay votes fall between the main parties? ”
usually not reliable, because of self selcting samples and some people not so willing to tell their sexuality to a pollster. “Mori interviewer: we’re from MORI. We’re doing a political poll. Excuse me, are you gay?”
Nick Palmer and there is a racist (Tory) group too, who dislike immigration That is a prejudicial statement itself, as you are smearing everyone with an opinion you don’t like with a nastiness you cannot possibly prove.
Such prejudice is as abhorrent as that you imagine you see.
119. Perhaps we have found the Political Betting Law of Inverse Personability!
Tories are fun, interesting, attractive, humorous people, but can be off-putting en masse; Lefties are stupid, humourless, juvenile, creepy, boring inadequates, who try to put on a good show when they are together.
Have we found common ground? Can we all agree on this, left and right? I hope so.
I’m off now to see the shrine of the virgin of Guadalupe. Well, it’s something to do with the day, as Mike Nesmith said in ‘Rio’.
125.”Lefties are stupid, humourless, juvenile, creepy, boring inadequates, who try to put on a good show when they are together. ”
I protest. As a lefties, I’ve never been called “inadequate” in all my life!
126. Don’t they have a Lib Dem party in Italy?
I think ’stupid, homourless, juvenile, creepy, boring inadequate’ sums up Romano Prodi quite well. Then again, it sums up Silvio too, perhaps minus the ‘boring’ bit.
Whoops, he’s my boss. Sorry Silvio.
Geoff Hoon on the Tories:
“There are a whole range of issues that lead people to think that, perhaps after a long period in government, there might be an alternative.
“There is no doubt that the Conservative Party looks very different than the one, say, Michael Howard led.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5288418.stm
The Europe Minister admitting “Blair voters are turning to Cameron” BBC headline.
Tessa Jowell also chiming in:
“She said: “There is undoubtedly a sense of uncertainty and a sense of focus on this issue of the leadership.
“This is very much fed within the Westminster village but it is by no means the overriding issue in the Labour Party.”