Politics Today

[arthur]

However, we do need a green revolution and all that entails. The question is if the powers that be have the determination to go through with it and if the public and Rupert Murdoch will support it

I fear it will be the next front in the culture war. The usual suspects are mobilising the less well off to resist the elite telling them to give up their cars and foreign holidays...

 

[tavyred]

Enjoyed Marr last night, especially the bit about the metropolitan elite imposing all sorts of liberal measures on a reluctant nation - abolition of the death penalty; legalising abortion, decriminalising homosexuality, race relations act - and the spirited resistance of Mary Whitehouse and her provincial backlash. I've never thought of Tavy as a Shropshire schoolteacher in horn-rimmed glasses before, I have to admit

I’m glad to see that although you’ve come a tad late to the party art, you finally get what I and others have been wobbling on about for years.

 

[arthur]

I’m glad to see that although you’ve come a tad late to the party art, you finally get what I and others have been wobbling on about for years.

Au contaire my dear friend. I've always known what you were on about - I just thought you were going down a cul de sac and this rather makes the point.

 

[Mr Jinx]

LD's are a joke. Utterly failed to move on from Swinson. Not offering anything distinctive, just asking for even more money to be spent than Labour are. They even tore into the 'Green Agenda' published the other week and said it wasn't green enough - when most sage commentators said it was far too ambitious, costly and some of it was pipe dreams.

They should be making real headway with Tory anger in the South and Labour's unerring Metropolitan bias. They are often less than the Farage mob, that don't formally exist any more!

I think that's a bit harsh. Swinson, for all her faults, increased the Dems share of the vote by quite a bit. Her problem was that it wasn't as much as was expected (or hoped). It didn't help either that she lost her seat, which was always a distinct possibility.

The problems the LDs face is that after a stint careering leftwards, Labour are now veering back towards the centre ground and parking their tanks firmly on the Dems' lawn. Because of this Davey has obviously taken the decision to look to the flanks, ie let's be more green, more left, etc. I don't blame him, but it's up an uphill battle for both him and Starmer. Scotland has done them both over.

 

[Alistair20000]

I think that's a bit harsh. Swinson, for all her faults, increased the Dems share of the vote by quite a bit. Her problem was that it wasn't as much as was expected (or hoped). It didn't help either that she lost her seat, which was always a distinct possibility.

The problems the LDs face is that after a stint careering leftwards, Labour are now veering back towards the centre ground and parking their tanks firmly on the Dems' lawn. Because of this Davey has obviously taken the decision to look to the flanks, ie let's be more green, more left, etc. I don't blame him, but it's up an uphill battle for both him and Starmer. Scotland has done them both over.

Agreed. The substantial increase in LD votes in 2019 did not translate into seats. The classic problem for a third party trying to break the two party grip. See also UKIP and TBP.

Charles Kennedy successfully repositioned the Lib Dems left of Labour when he was leader to counter the support the Rev Blair had won on the centre ground. Will it work this time though ?

 

[jimbo-gould]

Agreed. The substantial increase in LD votes in 2019 did not translate into seats. The classic problem for a third party trying to break the two party grip. See also UKIP and TBP.

Charles Kennedy successfully repositioned the Lib Dems left of Labour when he was leader to counter the support the Rev Blair had won on the centre ground. Will it work this time though ?

There’s talk of Labour pledging to back proportional voting going forward after the next GE.

 

[DB9]

There’s talk of Labour pledging to back proportional voting going forward after the next GE.

Really? Can't see that happening

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

There’s talk of Labour pledging to back proportional voting going forward after the next GE.

They won’t if they win the next election.

 

[arthur]

They won’t if they win the next election.

They won't win the next election if by win you mean an overall majority. Although Blair did win England in 1997.

They'd be idiots not to back some form of PR - there is an anti Tory majority in this country, though you wouldn't know it looking at the election results. Thatcher's vote share was highest in 1979, it declined at every election thereafter.

 

[arthur]

I think that's a bit harsh. Swinson, for all her faults, increased the Dems share of the vote by quite a bit.

Sorry, I disagree. Swinson was far and away the worst leader the Lib Dems have had in my lifetime. She increased the vote share because memories of the coalition were fading and the electorate had come to despise Corbyn with a passion, so those who were prepared to give him a chance in 2017 (and vote tactically to reduce the size of May's likely thumping majority) switched to the Lib Dems in 2019.

She was politically inept and suffered from delusions of grandeur - "all the Remainers will vote for us because Corbyn's so awful and I'll be Prime Minister". She and Corbyn were the midwives of Brexit - Johnson's WA had just past its second reading and could have been amended in all sorts of constructive ways (including asking The People if they liked it or not - very undemocratic apparently), but she believed all her own hype, set Johnson free and lost her seat into the bargain. In the process she ensured the hardest of Brexits while at the same time almost totally destroying her own party. What a triumph...