Will a coronation play badly in Gordon Street?
November 5th, 2006-
What happens if the ratings aren’t turned round?
How are voters going to react to what is looking increasingly inevitable by the day - that Gordon Brown will assume the Labour leadership and become Prime Minister without a cabinet level challenge?
In a main editorial this weekend the Guardian considered the implications of what’s likely to happen under the headline “Sleepwalking towards succession” and argued strongly that “the party could gain by using the transition to consider and test its future, just as the Conservatives managed so well, and so unexpectedly, last year.”.
The editorial concluded: “Bottling up discontent runs risks for Labour and for Mr Brown, not least when some from Labour’s moderate modern parts were so open so recently about what they see as his weaknesses. Charles Clarke may have changed his tune from calling the chancellor “deluded” two months ago to backing him for the succession this week. But people who have moaned privately about Mr Brown will surely start to do so again once he is in office. A contest that produces a big win for Mr Brown would give him a mandate to silence the carping. A coronation, especially if it was followed by difficult times as well as good ones, would simply encourage it. It seems extraordinary that after a decade in power no serious Labour figure other than Mr Brown wants to step forward with ideas of his or her own. The deputy contest has become a surrogate, but hardly a sufficient one. If the obstacle is that the threshold of support needed to stand is too high, it should be lowered. If it is fear of doing badly, candidates should be more bold. Mr Brown may well be the best candidate and the winner. But it would be no bad thing if he was given a chance to prove it.”
Looking back twelve months the Tories have a lot to thank David Davies for. It will be recalled that he had been the odds-on front runner for months and then suffered when Cameron came on the scene at the Blackpool conference. In the ballot of MPs to decide the short-list of two to go to the membership Davis came second to Cameron. At that stage Davis was miles behind in the members’ polls and must have been tempted to pull out.
David didn’t and stayed in the race for a further six weeks. In doing so he did himself a lot of good and the party benefited. It made the eventual outcome seem more legitimate and probably helped with the Tory post-election poll boost.
If Gordon does get it without a contest then, no doubt, there will be contrasts with the last time Labour had to find a new leader while in Government in 1976.
Then the party had an amazing array of talent to choose from. Six candidates put themselves forward - Employment Secretary Michael Foot; Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan; Home Secretary Roy Jenkins; the Chancellor Denis Healey; Tony Benn, the Energy Secretary and Tony Crosland the Environment Secretary. Where are today’s “big beasts?” you can here being asked.
Somehow, as the Guardian says, a Deputy Leadership race with maybe five or six candidates will not be a substitute.
My guess is that the expected Gordon Brown poll bounce for Labour will be smaller and last for a shorter period if there is no proper challenge. What happens if the Tories continue to maintain a lead and look set to win most seats? The could put early pressure on the new Prime Minister.
In the leadership betting Gordon is at 0.29/1.
Mike Smithson
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TINA: There is no alternative. After nine years of Blair running foreign policy and gimmicks, and Brown running most of the rest of domestic policy, who else can there be? Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett, perhaps. The other political heavyweights have either died, like Dewar and Cook, or seen their reputations implode, like Blunkett, Prescott, Clarke and Mandelson.
I agree that cook vs brown would have been an amazing contest, alas it wasn’t meant to be. i would be amazed if their wasn’t a contest what will happen in my opinion is that you will end up with a smith/gould result. 91% - 8% if i remember correctly. because of the electoral college that would be unlikely but i still think a sacrificial lamb would be put forward somehow.
Would a contest be expensive? Presumably not since there will be one for the deputy position, but it won’t be free either.
Any competitor to Brown risks career-ending humiliation so unless Gordon’s wheels come off in the next couple of months, it is hard to see a meaningful contest.
pb.com is still ten minutes slow by the way.
re 2. There has been a change in the rules since 1992 when the Smith-Gould contest took place. Then the unions had 40% of the electoral college and the decisions were not in the hands of individual union members. This time there will be mass ballots both amongst the party membership and amongst those trade union members who pay the political levy and the union proportion of the electoral college is 33%
My guess is that McDonnell, if he manages to get enough support to run, would do reasonably well in both ballots. Maybe 20-25% overall would be an achievable target. You could get the situation where every body “knew” that Gordon was a certainty that a McDonnell vote was a way of registering a protest against the party establishment. So a McDonnell vote would appear to be risk-free and a way of asserting “traditional Labour values”
The very strong anti-Iraq position that McDonnell is taking opens up the possibility of him making his candidature into a party referendum on the war.
What could be damaging for Gordon is a largish, 25% plus maybe, vote for McDonnell which people would compare with the Smith-Gould result.
5. I agree Mike that a McDonnell candidacy makes sense from just about every point of view but maybe I’m just a bit biased by that warm ante post voucher I have in my pocket.
While I agree with Mike that I don’t think another cabinet minister will put themselves forward, they are surely missing out on an opportunity.
John Redwood was never likely to win in 1995, but by challenging John Major (and picking up a respectable score), he emerged as a figure who eclipsed Portillo on the right and cemented his place in cabinet. Were someone like Hilary Benn to stand and collect a similar proportion of the vote - around a third - losing would not be a setback in any way to his career.
But the appeal of Gordon Brown is that he is not Blairite. He may be on the right of the party but he is a party man. Iraq is not held against him. I can’t see McDonnell getting into double figures.
7 - did Redwood not leave the Cabinet after the 1995 election?
He cemented his place in the post-election Shadow Cabinet, but that is not quite the same thing.
GB’s biggest problem is obvious. Forget analysing his macro success verrsus his micro economic failures. Put aside his personal chacteristics.
Look at the political talent around him. As PM, he won’t be able to send in people like ‘Red Dawn’ to bat for him.
Is he the sort of man who would like a contest, which might help somebody ‘grow’ into a political force? It might take some of the pressure off GB later on as a cabinet heavyweight, but its not where he is.
I agree with the article, and suspect GB would too - there is no organised stop-Gordon movement so a challenger would just be on his or her own merits, and if they fought ‘above the belt’ then it would do nothing but good. The most likely would be a second-tier Minister, I think, since as David Herdson says they would have little to lose and everything to gain by getting a decent showing: whoever it was could say explicitly that they weren’t running against Gordon but for a positive debate and choice. Michael Meacher might be a good possibility - despite his odd views on 9/11 he has a green constituency that extends beyond the hard left, and a selection that reinforced Labour focus on green issues wouldn’t be a bad thing.
PS Why is Royal suddenly sliding in the French odds and Sarkozy accelerating into the lead? Is there a new poll?
9. He resigned from the cabinet before the election in order to be able to stand, so that’s right about the two year gap, but that was because he had to challenge a sitting prime minister in the contest. That won’t be the case this time as Brown’s not in the job at the moment and it’s legitimate for another cabinet colleague to have a go.
Dissenters must speak up now, or simply let Brown get on with it says Matthew Parris. He is spot on with his final paragraph:
And so a plea. If Mr Brown does climb into No 10’s official Jag without serious challenge, and when he does end up in the ditch, would friends of the present Prime Minister kindly spare us their crowing about how they told us so? If any of them know just cause or impediment why Gordon Brown should not be leader, let them now declare it, or for ever hold their peace.
DC having a difficult patch at the moment. Sunday Times editorial less than complimentary. May all change next week, might not.
No one is counting how many migrants come to Britain, how long they stay, or how many are here illegally, says a report published by the Home Office.
17. Well done Peter the Punter for tipping Invasor to win last night’s Breeders Cup Classic. Respect.
Let’s stand back and look at this. We are in completely uncharted waters. No governing party has ever changed leaders except by ballot of MPs (or “emergence”) - all previous membership ballots have been undertaken by parties in Opposition. It’s at least arguable that the membership ballot is simply inappropriate for a Party in government - muddle & drift, etc etc (although I suspect that in their heart of hearts even the most loyal Labourite suspects they’ve got that anyhow…)
There are Blairites in high (and not so high) places who know that their careers end when his does. Their opposition to Brown is simply a projection of this fact - in a word, petulance - and says doodley-squat about Brown himself one way or the other. If Cameron is half the politician the Tories here crack him up to be he ought to be able to engineer at least a couple of defections from amongst them.
Our parties (and yes, I do intend to bang on about this) are all in crisis: none of them any longer occupy any clear ideological space and perhaps only a third of voters identify at all strongly with any of them. Lacking the kind of rules the Cousins have to keep a political duopoly, our system has drifted (without anyone’s wishing it to) to that of the French, where political parties represent not so much interests in societies as glee-clubs for this personality or that - de Gaulle, Giscard, Mitterrand and Chirac all invented or re-invented a party for that purpose (only Pompidou inherited one ready-made in the British manner).
This discussion really comes about because John McDonnell has so little support - not in Parliament, but in the Party in the country. Union bosses will be reluctant to twist arms on behalf of a man who can’t get at least a third of the constituency votes, and he can’t - people who would have voted for him have pretty much all left the Labour Party.
The kind of challenge Nick Palmer speculates about won’t happen - why should Meacher (who was 67 on Friday) get more votes in the constituencies than McDonnell? Labour have willed the means (quite possibly in their sleep), now they must will the end. Come the next election, the fact that Brown was elected unopposed will not be an issue.
[18] Couple of errors… in para 3, line 5, “interests in societies” was meant to be “interests in society” and Meacher’s birthday was yesterday…
17. LOL and thank you stjohn.
You are most kind. It would however be dishonest of me not to reveal my source. Like so many of my better betting ideas, it was prompted by the eminent racing journalist Nick Mordin, who writes a very readable page in the Racing Post Weekender each Wednesday.
If you are interested in betting seriously, his highly acclaimed book Betting For A Living is a must-read, which I leaned on heavily for the two Guest Pieces I did here.
Respect to Nick.
Interesting article.
I can’t see a way of Gordon getting the leadership with out some one being bitter but then that is also true of any leadership contest. The question is who and how many.
A non leadership race will be bad for the party. I wonder if arms have not been twisted or bribes offered to keep out cabinet level challengers.
Interesting take above on McDonnel protest vote. We have to remember that people voted for Hamas in the Palestinian territories as a protest vote as they would never win, but that would send a clear message.
Re 15: yes, the S Times editorial is interesting, since they have always been much the most pro-Tory of the Murdoch papers. It’s here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2438182,00.html
However, they also have a piece by Portillo which suggests policy ideas for Cameron in a positive sort of way. I think quite a bit of the press bar the ultras like the Express are going to be hedging their bets for a while, probably more often by being unpleasant about each party in turn.
RE 22, Nick Palmer, personaly i would prefer a press who commented on parties and politics without being on one side or the other. An Independent news paper if you will. Alas I don’t think we have one.
re 22. Given that the Populus survey for November should be in its final day of fieldwork today it will be interesting to see if this week of very good news for Gordon has been reflected in the polls. It would be surprising if we saw party shares similar to that which ICM and YouGov had the week before last.
With the Murdoch press almost united in its hostility to Cameron over the past few days and the BBC being fairly unfriendly then it’s hard to see this not having an impact.
Also the Populus weightings are the most friendly to Labour which is why the pollster usually shows the party in a much better position. Given that Populus had Labour just one point behind last month might we see the parties neck and neck or even a Labour lead?
John Reid as usual very sure footed in answering all questions from interviewers once again this morning with Marr.
Says its upto Labour to decide, wo`nt be discourteous to the PM.
Also on his relationship to Brown, should not be portrayed as the media want to do,as they hate each other, or senior cabinet ministers just cave in.
But a working relationship,in the middle of both extremes.
This seems like any working environment to me, when difficult decisions are been taken.
You dont have to be great friends outside work,to do a job successfully.
Oh my gawd !!! …… Andrea’s on the England for his dream job !!!
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=involved.job.page&obj_id=133080
23: Benedict, on that one you speak entirely for me - wouldn’t it be wonderful?
Failing that I’d settle for a press that covered the news neutrally and expressed itself on the editorial page.
Failing that I’d settle for a BBC that covered the news neutrally without seeing a mission to rubbish everyone.
Ah, don’t get me started!
I see Portillo continuing his bizarre feud with Hague today. Why do these guys hate each other so much? Reminds you of the Short/Cook feud where it was suggested no matter the merits of a case if one had already taken a position, the other could be relied on to oppose it no matter the circumstances involved.
It seems even Adam Boulton’s patience was exhausted this morning with Hazel Blears, after repeatedly trying to get her to answer any of his questions,he finally cut her off.
Maybe a technique that should be employed for PMQ’s.
Dez interestingly Reid, like his boss Tony, would not endorse Brown. Warm words but no accolade.
All this stuff about being discourteous to the Prime Minister is soft soap when the PM has himself said he is quitting.
The Blairites just cannot bring themselves to say the words. Why not? What is the big secret? i don’t buy (Bally Eric’s view?) that it is just schoolyard jealousies. Or are these people indeed so petty?
I gave up on reading newspapers a long time ago. Newspapers, of all colours, are simply propaganda sheets aimed at mugs who can’t think for themselves. It baffles me as to why anyone stills buys them. I find the internet to be a far more balanced and reliable source for news, in almost all cases.
28. I don’t understand why anyone bothers to read anything Portillo writes. He is so intellectually lazy, having disappeared up his own rear so long ago. Stylistically his prose is pretty unattractive, too.
30,
Blue2win it is intresting no actual endorsement.
I won`t be popular with Liberals on here, but I would like a safe pair of hands like Reid in a crisis.
Just as Howard and Cameron possibly arent the best of friends with David Davies personally, they need him in much the same way.
He also comes across well in times off great problems for the country.
I can’t imagine Brown the Clown as Prime Minister
“With its dodgy accounting and false promises, the entire New Labour Project looks increasingly like a political version of Enron: temporary prosperity, built on an illusion.” (Telegraph, 6th September 2006)
32. I disagree. He can be interesting, but all to often clear personal animus towards people like Hague shine through, and you wonder whether it political analysis or vindictivness towards the people or or persons he dislikes that guides what he is writing.
22. I don’t think we can know what Murdoch will do while Blair is there. Right now he has been by turns hostile to Brown, high tax grumbles, hostile to Cameron not enough hang em and flog em etc. Once Blair is gone the key decisions for his newspaper editors will have to be takenbut not before then. Meantime he’ll try and put a few shots across both Cameron and Brown’s bows I would guess.
I never realised the MP for Monmouth was such a big player in Tory circles.
This You Tube entry is for Nick Palmer who sees the whole West Lothian thing as a rather Tory scam? One Labour supporter (not on this site) told me it was racist to raise the issue.
Tell that to this English student. Good bit of production, too.
GORDON BROWN MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Gordon,
I am writing to express my concern regarding the Government’s proposal of a pay award of just 1.5% across the public sector and with particular regard to workers in the NHS and civil service. With inflation nearing 4% (as set out in evidence given to the Pay Review Body), this can only be construed as a pay cut for millions of workers, adding fuel to the growing concern of NHS Staff Unions, civil servants, public sector workers and the general public over this government’s handling of public services.
As I am sure you will agree, public sector workers have very demanding jobs and work hard to provide high quality public services. The imposition of such a pay cut will have a highly detrimental effect on the morale of these dedicated public servants and instead of rewarding them for their professionalism and expertise undermines their work, achievement and potential. Combined with the Government’s ongoing plans to introduce the private sector into the NHS and other public services, such a policy critically threatens the quality of health and public services we are able to provide.
Additionally, in a period when, as I am sure you are only too well aware, it is essential that the Government reconnects with our core supporters, the provision of publicly funded and efficient public services is a key priority for our members, supporters and the electorate in general. The polls this week suggest that the party’s rating is at its lowest level in over 20 years. This programme of public sector cuts is already causing considerable anger throughout the movement and can only alienate hundreds of thousands more of our natural supporters.
Many now fear that the Government seems to have launched itself on an electoral suicide mission in advance of the local, Scottish and Welsh elections. The Government appears to be sleepwalking into a spring of discontent with possible industrial action being provoked across the public sector early in the New Year. I urgently appeal to you to fully reconsider these plans before any further resentment is allowed to grow, and the party and Government are seriously damaged as a result.
Yours sincerely
John McDonnell MP
Member of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington
BTW 36 Hesin the article above as well.
24 Populus is only slightly better than Mori. ICM and YouGov are the ones, all else is fog.
Jack - requirements for Dinky’s research assistant:
• Excellent analytical and research skills.
• Ability to write concisely, fluently and accurately.
• Excellent oral communication skills.
• A highly developed understanding of the British political landscape and a thorough knowledge of current affairs.
A shoe in as you suggest
“But the appeal of Gordon Brown is that he is not Blairite. He may be on the right of the party but he is a party man. Iraq is not held against him. ”
Yes it is. Anyone in the government who has not spoken out against the Blairite neo-con line is to blame. As for what has happened in Iraq today it means nothing, probably an increase in the violence will ensue but it’s already anarchy in many areas.
“Sunday Times editorial less than complimentary. ”
It’s a Murdoch rag, anything liberal is despised, we all know that. It’s a very poorly written leader by the way, like one of those exercises where you have to yoke together two apparently unrelated points, journalism by numbers. On the political front, beyond Simon jenkins and Andrew Sullivan, there’s not much going for the Sunday Times. The arts coverage is second to none, however, and that’s why I read it.
“this week of very good news for Gordon ”
Has anyone seen him? I can’t think of anything that relates specifically to Brown from this week, anyone help me?
Re McDonnell letter - does this 1.5% apply to MPs as well?
28, 32, and 35 - psychologically, Portillo provides enough material for a conference. *Something* made him extremely bitter towards Hague and Howard specifically, and the Conservative Party generally. It must surely be more than just losing the leadership contest.
41,
The Sterne report that came out this week was commisioned by GB, I believe.
Did him no harm and probably some good.
44 - But Brown is seen as dragging his heels over environmentalism and as having been pushed into it, that may not be fair but it’s the common perception.
So what else was there? I suppose he has nearly seen off all challengers but that’s merely an internal matter, nothing to do with the way he is perceived by voters. That’s the area he really needs to improve on.
The greatest trick Gordon Brown ever made was to convince a great deal of people that they were getting richer as they slid further and further into debt..
43. He is vain and conceited, two traits which over time have come to obscure his talents almost entirely.
43 No politician has an ego small enough for them to easily see themselves as others do.
Potty lost his seat, had a Damascene conversion, found a new seat and was probably astonished, once back in parliament, that his colleagues were wary of him in his new guise ( he of He Who Dares Wins fame). It would appear that he didn’t have the political skill to quite pull off that most difficult of tricks and it looks as if he has smarted for it ever since.
In those circumstances it is not uncommon for someone to focus on an object on which to project their ire and frustration, and often that is someone who took the prize, lover or role that the disappointed one wanted. In this case Hague and Howard? Both leaders, both had the role Potty wanted. the recognition,the status.
The least easy thing any of our egos will do is allow us to accept we are the ones to blame for our own fortunes. For a politician…
45,
I would disagree realism is my perception.
Many would see Camerons conversion, as lets wait and see what he actually proposes to effect change.
The media might be pre-occupied with this at the moment, but if normal working families are priced out many activities, the mood could change.
In my opinion much more advancement on technoligical change, by big business and governments will be the eventual answer.
46. The perfect assessment of 10 years of Gordon Brown in No11.
26&40. A glowing reference from PB.com might help!
OT but saw its 25 years since Robert Maxwell was found dead floating off the Canary Is. Once he was gone the whole Pergammon/Mirror con unravelled and the secrets exposed. Wondered if we’ll see similar once Blair has left the stage or will Gordon manage to get away with a clean break?
I cannot imagine Gordon wants an Iraq enquiry dominating his first few months in office which would be the case if the Govt had agreed with the Tories for an enquiry late next year but will he be able to get away with “its time to move on?” The problem with a coronation is that it is a seamless transition and the mistakes of the previous PM stay to haunt the new.
15. There have been some very odd and revealing Murdoch editorials on Cameron in recent days - in The Sun, the Times and now the Sunday Times.
The ostensible reason they are so down on Cameron is because, they say, Cameron is shifting the Tories into the anti-war camp. This, they claim, is ‘opportunism’.
Derr? Cameron is just responding to the situation as it is, to a war that has gone embarrassingly, humiliatingly and catastrophically wrong. Any sentient politician would do the same.
So why are these pro-war papers behaving so oddly? I think there is a Freudian dynamic at work. The strange, bullying, splenetic tone of the editorials shows sublimation at work. The real anger of the liberal pro-war elite is aimed at Blair, at the people behind the war, the thinkers who came up with it, the Labour ministers and their media supporters - in other words their real anger is aimed at themselves, it’s self hatred.
You can see it in the tortured faces of Labour MPs standing up in the Commons shrieking at the Tories during the Inquiry debate: so much anger, so much grief, so much weird and anguished denial. They know they have made a terrible tragic error that will forever blight their careers and their souls, but they can’t quite admit this, they cannot yet permit such damage to the psyche, so they turn on the person who seems to be benefiting from their misery: Cameron.
It’s all in Freud. The externalised violence of self loathing.
Icarus: MPs’ pay is currently automatically linked to senior civil servants. This year’s increase was 1% in spring and another 1% in autumn, though that was lower than the Civil Service rise because the Government docked MPs to pay for extra pension rights that backbenchers voted through against Ministerial advice. Because of the changes to the Civil Service with bits being farmed out etc., the Senior Salaries Review Board is brooding on possible alternatives.
Brown took the lead on the Stern report - jointly launched with TB, but Gordon did most of the press conference and subsequent interviews. Since the measures needed are (a) partly Treasury and (b) stretching years ahead it’s obviously reasonable for him to take the lead on it.
I do get the impression that the political climate is slightly better for Labour than a few weeks back, but I’m not sure we’ll improve on the last Populus, which IIRC was also taken at a relatively good moment. I’d guess we’ll see a 4% Tory lead, something like that. Slightly more significant is shifts in activist morale - our people are distinctly more cheerful than for some time.
b2W correctly summarises my view of the WLQ!
53 - God forbid that Cameron should want an inquiry into Blair’s wars. No wonder the Murdock papers join the fascists in attacking those that want the truth. They know that the truth would destroy those that have peddled lies for so long. They put their lies above their own pride and their own careers. That people have sufferred and have been killed as a consequence does not matter to them.
54.
The political climate should get better, Brown looks like the next PM.
Therefore many in the Labour Party will feel one of their own is now in charge.
However this might not resonate to far down south, but the searchlight will be moving next year to what Cameron actually proposes, the hard choices of government, at least an outline will have to be set out.
Then the compare and contrast will really begin.
….Meanwhile, punters are queuing up to take the 9-1 ON being offered on the Democrats taking the House.
The Republicans remain clear favourites to take the Senate however.
43. Of the two it seems Hague is the one he really guns for. He takes a few swipes at Howard, but occasionally acknowledges his work in preventing the total disintegration of the Tory Party in 2003. Why Hague though? They weren’t big rivals in the Major years. Can’t make it out.
Re 27, Nick Palmer there was such a newspaper once called the Independent. Unfortunately it is no longer published and we now have the LibDemograph.
Shame really.
I agree news should be nuetral and comment totaly seperate as comment in the editorial section.
There will always be some bias in choice of story to cover when there is limited space and resource as there always is, but it would be better if that were the only bias.
58. Could it be simply jealousy? Portillo and Hague come from similar ideological backgrounds - rightwing, eurosceptic, libertarian, Thatcherite - yet Hague is a younger man than Portillo, Hague is also more articulate, wittier, a better Commons performer, and has managed to keep a political career going - to the extent aht Hague has a good shot at being a Foreign Sec or even PM (one day) in a future Tory government.
While Portillo will probably be doing documentaries for BBC4 on Catalonian nose flutes.
We sometimes overlook the role of sheer basic envy in politics, when seeking a more complex and labyrinthine rationale.
test
bizarre. Rephrasing again. I am trying to post on the united states elections, there has been a large improvement in their position in the g e neric polls
I can’t post the link, and trying to comment about it normally has eaten three comments in a row, but they are up eight points in the latest abc poll
If people are having problems posting please send me an email with a copy of the message.
Our spam filters have had to be strengthened and this might be the reason.
Re Hague and Portillo: ‘Hell hath no fury like an old Queen scorned.’ Allegedly.
The Labour Party is locked onto a course of self-destruction. Gordon Brown has nil electoral appeal. He’s got where he is by hanging on to Blair’s apron strings, and biting everyone else around til they let go. He’s achieved near total dominance of the Party machine by taking out all his rivals, Mandelson, Campbell, Cook and now he’s hunting the biggest head - that of Blair. He’s the deadliest poison pill that British politics has ever had the misfortune to encounter, turning the NuLab years into economic and cultural catastrophy.
He will if he can poison what’s left of his Party, which is so fearful of Brown that no one dares even stand - and then, if he gets into power he’ll poison the country’s future, condemning us to a vicious cycle of Brownian nihilism and its resulting sectarianism. He’s talking of completely overhauling Britain’s method of government. What does he mean? Accelerated regionalisation, proportional representation and a truly terrifying panoply of State powers with Brown the next Lord Protectorate - devoid of military or indeed any genius. He will break the Labour Party, and terminate what’s left of British democracy.
Only John McDonnell stands between a future worthy of the name, and oblivion. Are labour MP’s so afraid that they dare not give McDonnell his 44 votes? Britain is finished as a democracy.
65. Really? LOL. Miaow!
Cpldstone, you are the naughty, naughty person today.
SeanT, I don’t think that there was any love lost between Hague and Portillo throughout Hague’s leadership of the party. IIRC Portillo was given the job of shadow chancellor (keep your friends close but your enemies even closer?) I don’t think that Portillos agreed with the conservative strategy at the time. On the night of the GE defeat, didn’t Portillo disappear off to prepare for a leadership challenge while other’s were left trying to stop Hague resigning? And even recently Ann Widdecombe was quite honest about the unparliamentary language she used to describe Portillo’s actions that night.
15. All Murdoch Press has taken up against Cameron. Murdoch is very sensitive about the war, and doesn’t want an enquiry which might expose the role Murdoch played in pushing Britain into Iraq.
Cameron has not paid Murdoch court, and Murdoch’s getting angrier about it by the month. Cameron getting bad press in any Times, Sun or News of the Screws is a sign that Cameron’s not corruptible, and he should be congratulated, not doubted for it.
I suspect that much of it does boil down to jealousy. If Portillo had not lost Enfield Southgate in 1997 it is very likely that he would have become Leader of the Conservative Party after Major’s resignation rather than William Hague.
Lets not gossip like maids at the market ala Coldstone at 65.
30,33 — perhaps too much can be read into Reid not endorsing Brown. It is probably only Reid is keeping his powder dry just in case anything dramatic happens between now and Blair’s departure.
An entirely sensible precaution perhaps exacerbated by the sudden turnaround in the Tory leadership election which did not go unnoticed in Labour circles. As Jim Hacker once reminded us, the crucial thing is to have been seen to have supported the winner.
A H Matlock @ 71 — ironically that leader would have been the unreconstructed looney right headbanger Portillo, not the soft, cuddly incarnation that emerged post-defeat.
Portillo was also constantly plotting against and undermining Hague’s leadership throughout his time as Shadow Chancellor. I suspect this goes someway as to why both of them have little time for each other (which is putting it mildly to say the least).
70. Tapestry, I have wondered if just maybe this blitz on Cameron this week is designed to help bolster Gordon Brown’s poll ratings at a time when a coronation is looking more likely? It might calm a few nervous non Brownites?
SeanT, reminding me about the Hague/Portillo rivalry is quite interesting. A leader and chancellor who dislike each other, while the chancellor covets the leader’s job!
I was never a Portillo fan but I lost all respect for him when he did not even hang around to support the leader or the shadow cabinet on the night of their GE defeat. That is maybe why I dislike Gordon Brown so much, his personal ambition has never allowed him to be a real cabinet team player when the going gets tough. His instinct to disappear and allow other’s to take the heat
has been noticeable.
73 - Possibly. I doubt that you know any more than I do what motivated his conversion, so it is rather difficult to speculate on that.
Portillo has a reputation for using people. When he needs someone he’s all there for them, but once he’s gone past and above them, they get the cold shoulder. He doesn’t build trust with those who’ve helped him, and he is always disloyal to those above him - Major, Hague, IDS.
From his ST column he attacked Michael Howard, and often arracks Cameron. But the people he despises the most are ordinary Conservative constituents. He does not disguise the way he feels about them. They booted him out of Enfield, and threatened him with deslection at Kensington & Chelsea for his open disloyalty to IDS. Portillo’s disloyalty is only matched by his supreme arrogance. Lovely man.
After Hagues’s resignation, the Beeb were doing a voxpop on the leadership contest. They where interviewing members of the West Sussex Branch, the look of horror on their faces at the mention of Portillo becoming leader was something to behold. This was of course after revelations about his private life had become public.
Portillo’s rejection by first the electorate, then by the Coservative Party has made him more than a little bitter, but then he’s not alone in that.
re 65, um it was a joke, honest, but I can be a little bit of an old maid, now and again can’t I?
Tapestry at 70: “Cameron has not paid Murdoch court, and Murdoch’s getting angrier about it by the month. Cameron getting bad press in any Times, Sun or News of the Screws is a sign that Cameron’s not corruptible, and he should be congratulated, not doubted for it.”
So you condemn Cameron for writing an article for the Sun yesterday? Do try to keep up! - it’s no good giving us Friday’s line when it changed on Saturday.
Commentator, the word g e neric is likely to be filtered because it refers to a type of product sold on the web.
78 - Of course you can, dear.
75. maybe. but Murdoch has never made a nice remark about Cameron since saying he doesn’t think much of him on US TV many months ago. Murdoch is furiously licking Brown’s arse, I would agree, as deals have obviously been done, and the EU are happy for Brown to succeed, and push through the regionalisation of Britain, and Proportional Representation.
But Murdoch does not want the story of the Iraq War gone over in any detail, as he knows he played a big part in pushing Blair into it.
79. When the editorials of all Murdoch dailies set about Cameron’s policies in unison on the same day and then again today in the ST editorial, it’s a fair assumption that it is not totally coincidence, I think you would agree.
It might just possibly have something to do with the views of the proprietor…and his view seems to be ‘please don’t look too closely at the Iraq War’. Murdoch is obviously a little exercised by Cameron tickling this topic, and is prepared to fire a few heavy broadsides at Cameron to try to stop him talking about Iraq.
Cameron should use any organ available to get his message out there, even pornopapers like The Sun. It’s Murdoch who’s got the problem, not David Cameron.
Murdoch is irredeemably short-termist in his views, he’s stuck there because he has the mindset of someone who lives hand to mouth by selling daily papers.
This makes any views that he holds useless if you’re looking to make the country better. All he desires and gets from those who follow him (Blair and Brown for example) are nice announcements (the quick fix) and statements designed to appeal to the unthinking reactionary.
For this reason alone, anyone who ignores such media outlets is to be commended. If they actively condemned them for their adverse effect on the state of this country they would be deserving of even higher praise.
Murdoch, we shouldn’t forget was originally an Australian. Murdoch belongs to that type of Australian that doesn’t like us very much. The sort of Australian that believes that in WW1 we used Australian troops in a cavalier manner on the western front and of course in Gallipoli, (I was almost physically attacked by an Australian when I pointed out that there were British troops in Gallipoli as well, he wouldn’t accept it). The second world war increased this dislike by Australians of us POMS. On the 27th of December 1941, John Curtin the Australian PM made the following statement, ‘I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom’. Curtin then ordered the three Australian Divisions serving in the ME home. Churchill tried to delay their departure, (Churchill was of course still hated in OZ because of Gallipoli) he also tried to divert the divisions to protect India. . The Australian government went ballistic, all of that coupled with the fact that British commanders blamed the indiscipline of Australian troops for much of the debacle in Malaya, sent British/Australian relationship plummeting.
When Australia and New Zealand after the war signed the ANZUS agreement, Ernie Bevin was less than pleased. When he complained that he felt they OZ and NZ government could have a least mentioned it to the British government, the Australian High Commissioner gave this reply, ‘Minister every four years we send over a cricket team, we slaughter you, then every 20 years we send over an Army, you get them slaughtered, thinks it time we got back to cricket, dont you’? Murdoch only like us Brits, when we are a reliable ally of the US. Of course it would have been nice of some of the Tory posters, who are now wringing their hands over the Dirty Digger, if they had been as critical of him, when he was such a close friend of Mrs T, and his papers were running vicious campaigns against those on the left: still that would have been asking too much!
79. Just read the article in the Sun by David Cameron and he just backs up what he actually said originally.
Well I’ve criticised Murdoch since the year dot and will continue to do so until he’s safely departed.
Don’t forget, also, that he is an American citizen and his first allegiance is to their interests not British ones.
5
“Traditional Labour values”
Do they include praise for teh IRA. If the Labour party had any sense of decency the scumbag McDonnell wouldn’t even be allowed in it, let alone standing for leader.
84 - The difference between Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair/Gordon Brown in terms of their relationship with Murdoch (as somebody pointed out here in the last few days) is that Mrs Thatcher was the dominant personality in that situation - she didn’t kowtow to him as the current lot do. Everything seems to operate on Murdoch’s terms now.
Nick Palmer You are a card! Any politician will use a newspaper to spread his views by placing his articles in it, including the Daily Digger, as politics is the art of compromise, is it not. that is not paying court to Murdoch, its using all his opportunities to spread his message.
Mind you I agree that Blair Brown can’t see such a difference. They just suck up to the Digger regardless. See the Diggers own snide remarks about having to have tea with both of them when he is in London. He is in heaven with those two.
When the franchises on Breakfast Tele were re-negotiated, Murdoch’s lot lost! Mrs Thatcher went to see Bruce Gingell, who was Murdoch’s representative in the UK, and boy was she apologetic! Mrs T was just as guilty as any other politician of fawning around Murdoch.
84. It was Murdoch’s father Keith who created the myth of Gallipoli being where the British sent ANZ heros to die pointlessly, writing in the Australian Press. The same Keith Murdoch, once he was in alliance with Lloyd George, having helped to unseat Asquith, cheered on while far more Aussie ‘heroes’ went to their deaths on the Western Front. That’s where the Murdoch’s learned the family business. Back politician’s during wars and other struggles, and they’ll hand you their media. Bush and Blair are Murdoch’s latest clients.
BTW The Germans believed the Australian were the best troops they encountered in all of the war. They played a key role at Alamein. They can be proud of their military past, but could they do something about their media tycoons please? We’e had a bellyful.
88. David Cameron seems determined to set his own agenda rather than that of Mr Murdoch and his newspaper’s. What is interesting is that despite the lack of warmth/attacks from the Murdoch media empire the conservatives continue to sustain a lead over the Labour party in the polls.
I hope that David Cameron maintains a healthy distance from Murdoch, and the conservative party decides it own policies rather than chasing the latest headline in the Sun. We have had that type of policy development for 10 years under Labour and it has been a disaster, with so many initiatives ditched as quickly as the newspaper headline disappears.
90 - Fly on the wall, were you?
91 - Perhaps we should have a citizenship requirement in the UK for ownership of a major media franchise as they do in the United States (which is undoubtedly why Murdoch became a US citizen). That would put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?
91 As the son of a ‘Desert Rat’ I fully endorse what you say. However the relationship between Australia and GB during both WW’s was a sticky one to say the least. May I recommend the ‘Oxford Companion to the Second World War’ for further reading on matters relating to WW2.
The Republicans are finishing very strongly.
Very.
I am optimistic.
90 Nah, she went to give him a good hand-bagging for being cheeky.
96 He was never the same again, they say.
It’ll be the death of the republicans if they win so we have every reason to be optimistic if that’s the case. The sooner the neo-cons and religious right are consigned to the dustbin of politics the better for all of us.
When are the US going to get rid of those machines by the way? I’d like to have an election that I could trust for a change, one that I could safely bet on without thinking I was being conned.
93 for u
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/916058.stm
sorry it was spelt Bruce Gyngell
90 - wrong Oz media baron - TV AM was Kerry Packer. Bruce Gyngell was an altogether better broadcaster than any of Murdoch’s tribe.
99 - And how does a sympathising letter prove your point that Mrs Thatcher was a guilty of fawning over Murdoch as Blair/Brown are? If that were to happen now, I suspect there would be been (covert) intervention from Downing Street to alter the decision.
95 Commentator
Can you be more specific?
It’s not being reflected in the markets.
100 - Right you are! Let us see how coldstone accounts for that….
102 - Realclearpolitics shifting things around a little, saying that Maryland is a tossup and Rhode Island less strong for the Dems in the senate. House looks similar though. Maybe it’s a hope that Saddam’s sentencing is seen as a good thing rather than an ‘is that what we’ve wasted so many lives and a whole country for?’ moment.
The sentence means nothing (same as Zarqawi or anything else that was supposed to be a watershed) but you know what people are like…….
You are probably right what Mrs T wrote was, ‘Glad you lost, now piss off to Wogga Wogga and take all those other Australian media barons, what I let take over the whole of Fleet Street along with the whole of satellite TV with you,’ bet she said something like that. There is no point in moaning about Murdoch now, the damage has been done, nothing is going to remove his curse from our media. Despite everything you are posting now, even his death isn’t going to remove Thatcher’s legacy to us all.
P the P It seems to be generalised polling as well as GOP internals. See
http://www.polipundit.com/
Read Andrew Sullivan in today’s Times, he very clearly sets out why the best result for the Republicans is to lose and to lose badly. If, somehow, they manage to scrape both the house and the senate I would be instantly betting on a Democrat president next time (if I was going to bet).
106/107 - The Republicans do seem to be closing quite strongly. Corker in Tennessee now seems to be comfortably ahead of Ford and Burns in Montana seems to have pulled slightly ahead of Tester after having trailed for months. Lincoln Chafee is also now ahead by 1% in a poll reported by NBC today. Missouri is a draw, but if the Republicans have as good a knocking up organisation as they claim to have there, then that should be enough to salvage the seat for them. Dems still seem certain to win OH, PA, and Virginia could go either way. Based on these numbers, I think that the prospect of Democratic control of the US Senate is quickly receding into the darkness. They should be able to win control of the House though.
I think it is wishfull thinking on Commentator’s part based on 1 Congress poll by ABC which is out of line with the other 2 nationwide polls out to day .
109 - Nationwide polls are meaningless for Congressional elections, Mark. Battles are fought on a state-by-state basis. As I just said, where the Senate is concerned, it is the Republicans who seem to have the late momentum.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2437911,00.html
That’s the Sullivan article, for those who couldn’t find it.
“If the Republicans somehow manage to defy expectations and retain control of House and Senate, this dangerous denial will be empowered and enhanced. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will be all the more convinced that they are right and all the more determined to pursue their manic dream of remaking the world. They will be like Nixon, the last to realise that their own fantasy has ended — but, unlike Nixon, with a Congress of their own party they will be able to drag the entire country with them. If that happens, the centre in America will not hold. And we will be facing severe strife within America itself — as well as a potential disaster in the Middle East. “
108 The latest Montana poll has Tester in front by 2 .
110 I agree which is why I think Commentator is too optimistic .
112 - Depends which polls you read, old man.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15547023/
The word G E N ERIC gets wiped by the spam filters, so let me say; these polls were indictig Dems +5 on the eve of the Republican wave of ‘94.
114 The Rasmussen poll was conducted 2-4 days later than the one you refer too .
Never really understood the apparently knee jerk approach that says Conservatives should always want and celebrate victories for the rightist party in other countries (ditto for Labour/leftist). The Republicans really seem to have very little in common with the Conservative Party, and this administration especially so.
I am a McCain Republican. Whatever distaste I may have for the Rs, it is as nothing compared to the odious extremist tax n’ spend liberals that comprise Pelosi & co.
It may be the lesser of two evils, but the Rs are very markedly the lesser evil. Therefore I wholeheartedly endorse them against their opponents.
115 And now they are indicating 15-16% Dem lead . Where is Baxter to put in the figures and calculate the effect of a universal swing LOL
117 - I’ve heard a bizarre new term being used recently - the anglosphere - meant to show how the (white) English speaking nations are as one. It appears to be some way of suggesting that the tories need to be like Howard and Bush.
Err, didn’t they try that and fail for three elections?
116 - And what is Rasmussen’s track record as far as accuracy goes?
117 - I haven’t expressed any preference that I am cognisant of, Alex. I am simply reading the polls and drawing the conclusions that seem logical to me. As it happens, I don’t think divided government in the United States would necessarily be a bad thing, either for Britain or indeed for the Republican Party in 2008. I certainly agree that this particular administration’s ‘conservative’ credentials are very suspect on a number of fronts.
Is it usual for these US polls to have such a small sample size (500-600)? Surely the MoE is pretty vast?
121 Sullivan speaks for a lot of conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic when he says “As they spend and spend and borrow and borrow and throw the American military against a brick wall like a broken toy, they have forgotten even the most basic principles of conservatism: competence, accountability, limited government, and prudence in foreign policy.” add in “guns, gays and God” and the prospect of a GOP loss doesn’t seem too bad…until you look at the other lot.
117 alex 100% right
There is very little in common with political parties of different countries. The idea that someone on the British Left has much in common with say the French Left is absurd: ditto the right.
I agree with all the other Conservatives here about the US Republicans. I’ve no time for the “big government Conservatives (sic)” , or the old-style Country Club Republicans, or the Cheney - Bush- Rumsfeld Axis of Incompetence.
OTOH I have a lot of time for the Western Republicans, who actually believe in small government - Reagan, Goldwater, and McCain.
Pelosi and Co. are loathsome.
123 - Indeed, he’s spot on. The problem, as you say, is that it is difficult to see the other lot being any better; and with people like this Nancy Pelosi in charge, a considerable risk that they will be even worse.
I agree also about divided government. IMO, the USA was rather well-governed when power was split between Clinton and the Republicans.
122 - Size of the voting population relative to sample size has no effect on MoE.
125 - Sure Sean, but then presumably (i admit i’m guessing here) there are several “Democrats” with whom you might share similar thoughts.
That’s a fair point Alex. There are certainly a number of reasonably right wing Democrats, who I’d be happy to vote for.
The great thing about the US system is that the party system is only a mechanism to government. The national party does not so often define the candidate, and importantly the public’s views of the candidate, as it does in the UK.
128 - But a sample of 500 is surely much less trustworthy than our own regular poils of between one or two thousand? Anyone understand the maths of this?
131 - Aside from YouGov do we have regular polls of 1-2000?
60 Seant - I think you’ve nailed it there Sean.
Having gone from heir apparent to nowhere, couldn’t have been easy.
Goes to show (as in any walk of life) that you’ve not only got to sieze the moment whilst you can, but you need the balls to do so.
Great shame in many respects, setting aside Flood Street and all that, in his days as the Tank topping ” Brussels - stop telling us what to do” Commander of the Right apparent he had the world at his feet.
MORI usually poll about 2000, Populus about 1500 and ICM 1000.
What’s the point of sampling 500 to 600 unless you want polls to weave all over the place (which given the headlines it creates probably answers my question…)
54-Nick Palmer
How can the additional benefits that MP’s voted through for themselves last week be possibly justified i.e the new additional £10,000 so called communications allowance plus an even longer holidays in the summer by scraping September sittings?
Having just received the figures that MP’s expenses and allowances bill had increased a further 11% last year it really seems a case of them never knowing when to take their snouts out of the trough.
Meanwhile, everyone else in the country has to work within budgets and only get their expenses reimbursed against fully supported documentation.Is it just a case of the political elite not having to follow any rules or just sheer greed by MP’s.
aargh, why can I not post this hilarious link?
36 - Use tinyurl.
http://tinyurl.com/
Mike, emailing you. Cannot see why the new filter won’t let this inoffensive and very topical link through. Or are you now banning all links?
OK, testing
http://tinyurl.com/y6o3a4
Many thanks UK Paul, what an amazing utility.
The problem with the apparent trend towards GOP senatorial candidates is that,historically at least, incumbents who are much below 50% this late tend to lose because late breakers tend to vote against them by 2 to 1. This is because voters know them well and it’s likely that those who are undecided this late basically are disenchanted with the status quo. That’s why it looks tough for messrs Burns, Talent, Allen and Chafee. It’s much easier for Corker in Tennesse to have a strong finish in an open seat and that’s just what appears to be happening. I still think Michael Steele in Maryland has the best chance of an upset. Everything depends on black turnout which may well be depressed because their champion Kwasi Mfume lost the primary. Getting them out to vote for a dull white machine politician will be no easy task although Obama was out trying a couple of days ago. All in all because of the number of close races the GOP must be slight favourites to hold on with say 50-51 seats but I wouldn’t put a lot of money on it.By the way Chafee doesn’t matter unless it’s the difference between 50 and 49. He will vote for GOP chairmanships to be maintained; otherwise he’s well to the left of many democratic senators. I think the House has gone; keeping losses down to 14 will be extraordinarily hard with a good few seats at severe risk from various scandals. What price a write in victory for the double-barreled Sekulla-Gibbs? Can Negron the GOP candidate get people to vote for the disgraced Tom Foley so he gets elected? Punch Foley for Negron is a good try, though. What of the GOP congressman accused of trying to throttle his former mistress or the 911 call from the wife of another which may or may not indicate spousal abuse or the other whose daughter’s lobbying activities are under criminal investigation. There are others. Add up a few like this and you don’t need much of an anti GOP wind to blow away the GOP. I think 20-25 losses look on the cards. I wouldn’t be astonished at a few more. Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove are formidable political operators but all they can really do now is limit the damage. Incidentall