Re: The UK General Election Thread

[taipan]

So who will win?

[Basil]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

[LeFromage]

We'll all lose no matter what.

[taipan]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

[Basil]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

[taipan]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

Even by UK standards isn't 13 years long?

[Allan D]

If Cameron falls short of a majority but has the largest number of seats all he need do is form a minority government, follow the example of Wilson in 1964 and Major after he took over from Thatcher in 1990 and show he is a competent PM, push through popular parts of the Tory programme such as scrapping the NI rise and ID cards, call an election some time next year and he will probably get a reasonable majority.

[Shoeshine]

If Cameron falls short of a majority but has the largest number of seats all he need do is form a minority government, follow the example of Wilson in 1964 and Major after he took over from Thatcher in 1990 and show he is a competent PM, push through popular parts of the Tory programme such as scrapping the NI rise and ID cards, call an election some time next year and he will probably get a reasonable majority.

More likely later this year, if 1974 is anything to go by.

However, I don't subscribe to the line being put out by the media about the swing being so incredibly difficult to overturn. Not these days. My suspicion remains that the opinion polls are underplaying the Tory lead, and that they'll win with a workable majority of around 40 or so.

[Basil]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

Even by UK standards isn't 13 years long?

1945-51 Labour
1951-64 Tories
1964-70 Labour
1970-74 Tories
1974-79 Labour
1979-97 Tories
1997-2010 Labour

Not all that unusual.

[Allan D]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

Yes but the reasons Major won in 1992 (with the largest vote for any single party beating Labour's record in 1951) were:

1) The Tories got rid of Thatcher in 1990 which gave the appearance of a change of government.

2) Major got rid of the poll tax which was the Tories' biggest electoral handicap.

3) The Welsh Windbag remained as Labour Leader which was Labour's biggest electoral handicap (see clips above).

Things only went south for the Tories after 'Black Wednesday' in September 1992 - 5 months after the election - when we forced out of the ERM and the Tories lost all credibility for economic competence despite any subsequent economic improvement. That has already happened to Labour in October 2008.

[taipan]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

Even by UK standards isn't 13 years long?

1945-51 Labour
1951-64 Tories
1964-70 Labour
1970-74 Tories
1974-79 Labour
1979-97 Tories
1997-2010 Labour

Not all that unusual.

Fair comment, but until Maggie got in there seemed to be fairly frequent changes. I seem to think there were frequent changes between the 2 WWs

[Basil]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

Even by UK standards isn't 13 years long?

1945-51 Labour
1951-64 Tories
1964-70 Labour
1970-74 Tories
1974-79 Labour
1979-97 Tories
1997-2010 Labour

Not all that unusual.

Fair comment, but until Maggie got in there seemed to be fairly frequent changes. I seem to think there were frequent changes between the 2 WWs

Yes there were - mainly due to the Liberals being replaced by Labour as the main alternative to the Tories. The first Labour Government in 1924, for example, only lasted eight months.

[Shoeshine]

You had chunks of National Government (coalition) in there too, which skews the record somewhat.

[Allan D]

So who will win?

It's probable that the Tories will end up with most seats, but quite possible they will fall short of an outright majority.

That was my take. Time for a change?

That's what they keep banging on about. I think 13 years is the natural shelf life for government by one party in the UK. Major's Tories from 92 to 97 were dead men walking.

Even by UK standards isn't 13 years long?

1945-51 Labour
1951-64 Tories
1964-70 Labour
1970-74 Tories
1974-79 Labour
1979-97 Tories
1997-2010 Labour

Not all that unusual.

Quite true, you can see even longer cycles than that:

1886-1905 - Conservatives in power (ex. brief Liberal Government 1892-5)
1905-22 - Liberals in power (either alone or in coalition)
1922-40 - Conservatives in power (either alone or in coalition ex. 2 brief minority Labour Governments 1924 & 1929-31)
1940-51 - Labour in power (1945 Labour Government extended wartime controls including rationing and state ownership).
1951-64 - Conservatives
1964-79 - Labour (ex. Heath Government 1970-74 which largely implemented Labour policies such as devaluation ["floating proud"], nationalisation [Rolls-Royce & UCS] & statutory incomes policies)
1979-97 - Conservative
1997- ? - Labour.

On the basis of the above Labour have more or less reached their sell-by date. This also presumes that if there is a change of government it will last for another 15 years or so by which time New Labour will have merged with the LibDems to become the Progressive Democrats or some such appellation and shed its last vestiges of socialism and thus we shall return to the two-party system of the 19th century when, in the words of W.S.Gilbert:

Every boy and every gal that's born alive
Is either a little Lib-er-al or else a little Conserv-a-tive

[Basil]

You had chunks of National Government (coalition) in there too, which skews the record somewhat.

After the 31(?) election it may have been nominally a coalition, but it was in effect, a Tory administration.

[Allan D]

You had chunks of National Government (coalition) in there too, which skews the record somewhat.

The National Government was from 1931-40 which was effectively a Conservative-Liberal coalition with a small splinter group of Labour MPs, most of whom, including the PM, Ramsay Macdonald, lost their seats in 1935 (though he was found a safe seat as MP for the Scottish Universities despite not having a degree and being largely self-educated). Most of the Liberals left the coalition in September 1932 after Baldwin, the Conservative leader, signed imperial preference agreements with the Dominion states in Canada (effectively ending almost a century of Free Trade and substituting Protectionism). A small rump of Liberals were left who styled themselves 'National' Liberals who later merged with the Conservative Party.

Interestingly, a similar phenomenon occurred in Australia almost simultaneously.

[Shoeshine]

1940-51 - Labour in power (1945 Labour Government extended wartime controls including rationing and state ownership).

The wartime government was not a Labour one.

[Basil]

1940-51 - Labour in power (1945 Labour Government extended wartime controls including rationing and state ownership).

The wartime government was not a Labour one.

Indeed, Atlee and Bevin were cabinet members, but not in the inner war cabinet IIRC.

[Shoeshine]

1940-51 - Labour in power (1945 Labour Government extended wartime controls including rationing and state ownership).

The wartime government was not a Labour one.

Indeed, Atlee and Bevin were cabinet members, but not in the inner war cabinet IIRC.

Er, well Attlee was Deputy PM, so I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Did a very fine job too, as Churchill was good enough to acknowledge (though not in the '45 election).

[Allan D]

Absolutely, as this picture, taken around December 1940 shows:



The figure standing at the back on the extreme left is Arthur Greenwood, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who left the government in 1942 (he had a drink problem and kleft the Labour Governmment after 2 years also) and became Leader of the Opposition as the senior privy counsellor not in the government. Other Labour figures who were later to join the War Cabinet were Herbert Morrison - Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security - Hugh Dalton - President of the Board of Trade and Minister of Economic Warfare who was responsible for Churchill's 'secret army', SOE - Stafford Cripps who returned from being Ambassador to Moscow in 1942 to become Lord Privy Seal and later Minister of Aircraft Production (he had been expelled from the Labour Party in 1939 for supporting political cooperation with the Liberals and the Communist Party in opposition to Chamberlain's foreign policy but he was readmitted before the end of the war and served as President of the Board of Trade and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the post-war Labour Government and presided over the policy known as "austerity"). In addition, A.V.Alexander, the Labour Co-Operative Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough, succeeded Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty after Churchill became PM and remained in post for the duration.

Churchill always had great respect for Attlee, not always reciprocated, and particularly Bevin whom he regarded as almost a working-class version of himself. Churchill took Bevin to watch the embarkation of troops before D-Day (Bevin's duties as Minister of Labour included running the conscription programme). Both men were in tears as they returned to their car.

After the war when the apocryphal remark about Attlee wrongly ascribed to him reached Churchill's ears:

An empty taxi drew up and Attlee got out

he firmly told his private secretary:

Mr Attlee is an honourable and gallant gentleman, and a faithful colleague who served his country well at the time of her greatest need. I should be obliged if you would make it clear whenever an occasion arises that I would never make such a remark about him, and that I strongly disapprove of anybody who does.

[Merlin]

My God, they were an ugly looking bunch of thugs !
They'd slit yer throat before they ventured an 'ello, I reckon!

The only one smiling is Atlee .. and even he looks like Lenin in the pic !

[Shoeshine]

My God, they were an ugly looking bunch of thugs !
They'd slit yer throat before they ventured an 'ello, I reckon!

They are the group who ordered the destruction of the French navy at Mers-El-Kebir. Ruthless removal of an ally's naval power because of the fear that it might fall into German hands. It was the moment that convinced the Americans that the British really meant it when they said they'd never give in. And the French are still angry about it.

[Basil]

My God, they were an ugly looking bunch of thugs !
They'd slit yer throat before they ventured an 'ello, I reckon!

They are the group who ordered the destruction of the French navy at Mers-El-Kebir. Ruthless removal of an ally's naval power because of the fear that it might fall into German hands. It was the moment that convinced the Americans that the British really meant it when they said they'd never give in. And the French are still angry about it.

Shouldn't have fought like a bunch of old tarts in 1940 then

[Merlin]

For Shoey -

I'm warming to them already (dead as they may be) ... I mean, let's be frank, any one or any thing that pisses off the Frogs sits very comfortably with me!

[Shoeshine]

For Shoey -

I'm warming to them already (dead as they may be) ... I mean, let's be frank, any one or any thing that pisses off the Frogs sits very comfortably with me!

And to be fair, it's not every day you get a chance to sink the French fleet is it? Why pass up the opportunity?

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