Re: The UK General Election Thread (II)

[JKLever]

Bloody hell, Paddy Ashdown - defence secretary

Scrap that, it's Liam Fox. Sky jumped the gun.

Just watching Camerons statement again. Looking very 'DATA' from Star Trek TNG...

[Allan D]

Think the rumour was started by the BBC - obviously the wish being father to the thought in their case. If Cameron had appointed a former member of CND, who only this morning had condemned the Tories' "rabid anti-Europeanism" on the radio, I would have wanted Gordy back. It seems he and Menzies Campbell were the biggest obstacles to a deal with Cameron and forced the pantomime negotiations with Labour yesterday. Campbell may become Speaker though when Parliament meets in a fortnight.

[Zat]

To the sad and uninformed Zattie - Boulton is a rank and file pinko, so it's not too hard to discern that it were not me in the Sky clip, unless it's wishful thinking on your part !

It was more a comment on his style, harangue, and harangue, and harangue, and harangue, and never admit that there could be any other way but his, and then harangue some more. In other words, sook more than Shane Watson on a bad day.

The Beeb reports:

The Conservatives have offered the Lib Dems a referendum on changing the voting system from the existing "first past the post" system to the alternative vote system (AV).

Under AV, voters rank candidates in a constituency. If no-one gets 50% of votes the candidate finishing last gets eliminated and their second preferences are awarded to the remaining candidates. This continues until one candidates passes the 50% mark.

I guess that although the offer of the referendum has been made it will be left to the LDs to champion it. Because I would guess both your major parties will oppose it, privately because it would most likely result in them both losing substantial numbers of seats where the LDs came second, but publicly because 'it's too complicated a system'. Given that I've had to explain how it works to a several first-time voters in Australia, and they (as Gen-Y brain-dead teenagers) got it, it would be funny if this was the angle taken.

[Allan D]

Cameron, at one month short of 9 years, has also achieved the fastest rise from first becoming an MP to entering No.10 since William Pitt the Younger in 1783, beating the 11 years it took John Major to reach the top in 1990.

This compares to 24 years for Gordon Brown, 14 years for Tony Blair, 20 years for Mrs Thatcher and 31 years for Jim Callaghan.

Pitt the Younger (PM 1783-1801, 1804-6) holds the record for the fastest rise to the Premiership at 2 years 11 months, Lord Palmerston (PM 1855-8, 1859-65) the record for the slowest at 47 years 8 months. Both died in office.

[Zat]

What's the record for shortest time between becoming an MP, winning the PMs job, then losing the PM's job?

[Gary 111]

Cameron, at one month short of 9 years, has also achieved the fastest rise from first becoming an MP to entering No.10 since William Pitt the Younger in 1783, beating the 11 years it took John Major to reach the top in 1990.

This compares to 24 years for Gordon Brown, 14 years for Tony Blair, 20 years for Mrs Thatcher and 31 years for Jim Callaghan.

Pitt the Younger (PM 1783-1801, 1804-6) holds the record for the fastest rise to the Premiership at 2 years 11 months, Lord Palmerston (PM 1855-8, 1859-65) the record for the slowest at 47 years 8 months. Both died in office.

That can't be right, what about Pitt the Even Younger?

[Zat]

And how could he still have been Pitt the Younger when he won his second term as PM in 1804, when he was - quite clearly - older than when he did it in 1783?

[Gary 111]

Pitt the Slightly Older?

[Zat]

20 years? I'd suggest Pitt the Middle Aged

[Growler]

I'll give credit where it's due to a few of the Labour MPs / ex ministers, Dr Reid, Jack Straw, Andy Burnham and Liam Byrne among them for urging Gordon Brown not to try and cling to power at all costs with the LibDems and others. They urged him to accept electoral defeat with grace in the interests of the country.

Good to see them ripping into Campbell & Mandelson. Those two, along with Blair - must be among the most mendacious, venal, slimy individuals ever to be associated with British politics. None of them would recognise honour and dignity if it walked up & booted them hard in the gonads.

[skully]

So I haven't heard the latest. Have those LibDem qunts made up their minds yet and stopped holding Pomgolia to ransom?

[skully]

Nevermind, I see David Cameron has been appointed PM. Well done him.

[Merlin]

I'll give credit where it's due to a few of the Labour MPs / ex ministers, Dr Reid, Jack Straw, Andy Burnham and Liam Byrne among them for urging Gordon Brown not to try and cling to power at all costs with the LibDems and others. They urged him to accept electoral defeat with grace in the interests of the country.

Good to see them ripping into Campbell & Mandelson. Those two, along with Blair - must be among the most mendacious, venal, slimy individuals ever to be associated with British politics. None of them would recognise honour and dignity if it walked up & booted them hard in the gonads.

Yep, I'd go along with that.
Reid was generous in his praise and genuinely wished the new government well - as did Burnham and Straw (though I just can't bring myself to trust Straw with his silky smoothness) ...there were several other OldLabour backbenchers too, who did the honourable thing by going on various TV interviews to acknowledge a fair loss ... so fair play to them.

The three imbeciles named - viz Campbell, Mandy and Blair - were, however, a subtler version of the Mugabe regime.
Criticizing them meant permanent removal (or "suicide" in the case of Dr David Kelly) ; voicing opinions alien to their cause, invited ridicule on TV by the rottweiller Campbell; BUT ... attempting to knowingly and fraudulently secure a large amount of money from the Halifax Building Society, meant removal to the Northern Ireland office not a prison sentence ... (before returning to Westminster triumphantly after a year in exile) and then .... once again, when on the verge of yet more criminal proceedings, again abruptly removed from Westminster, this time to the EU as eventual overlord, before finally being given a peerage! Sounds familiar ? Yep ...Queen Mandy has certainly led a charmed life ... Funny that, innit !
Blair has never once apologised (for the war) to dead soldiers families - whereas Brown has on three occasions.
Compared to that lot, Margaret Thatcher was a positive Bernadette of Lourdes ... however, some would point to the "milk deprivation" and claim otherwise!! yet again, funny that, innit !

At last, no more open border policy; no more free distribution of tax payers hard earned money into the sponge that is the Public Sector; no more quangos; no more excessive funding of ethnic minority causes to the detriment of more needier cases like the aged, the gurkhas and the war wounded; no more 50,000 wholly unnecessary "Thou Shall Not" Laws passed ; no ID cards ; no more nanny state cosseting of the work-shy ... the list is endless.

Utopia Britain is no more ... party's over ... sleaze done and dusted ... time now to get sorted !
Dave and Nick are the new Sheriffs .... !
Get used to it ....

[Hass]

It looks like the Brits are just copying Australia's political system.

First there's going to be a referendum on preferential voting (AV) for the Commons.

Now it seems the deal includes a fully elected House of Lords using PR.

I always suspected this offer was on the table. AV by itself wasn't much of an offer as far as the Lib Dems were concerned. But PR in the Lords is a very good compromise indeed.

[JKLever]

The Lords was always inevitably going to end up an elected chamber. Difficult to lecture others on Democracy when we have a house full of jobs for life for the boys

[Allan D]

And how could he still have been Pitt the Younger when he won his second term as PM in 1804, when he was - quite clearly - older than when he did it in 1783?

The soubriquet had nothing to do with Pitt's age, although he became an MP at 21, Chancellor of the Exchequer at 23 and Prime Minister at 24, but to differentiate him from his father, also William Pitt, known as Pitt the Elder (although that title was never used during the Elder Pitt's lifetime as their careers never overlapped, the Elder Pitt dying when his son was still a 19yo Cambridge undergraduate), the first of Britain's great war leaders who effectively ran Britain's war effort during most of the Seven Years' War (1756-63) although the Duke of Newcastle headed the government.

The Younger Pitt also led the government for most of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars against France (1793-1815) although he was less temperamentally suited to being a war leader. Unlike his father, who had 5 children, Pitt was one of 3 bachelor PMs (the others being A.J.Balfour and Edward Heath although Lord Rosebery, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Ramsay Macdonald were also widowers).

He died at the age of 46, after attending Nelson's state funeral at St Paul's in January 1806, necessitating another state funeral shortly afterwards (the Pitts are the only father and son to have both received state funerals and one of two fathers and sons to have been Prime Minister - the other being George and William Grenville). Although father and son were totally different characters (the Elder Pitt was voluble, quick-tempered and extrovert whilst his son was reserved and more introverted) it was said of the Younger Pitt with reference to his father that:

He was not so much a chip off the old block as the old block himself

Had Pitt's two terms been continuous he would have broken Walpole's record of 21 years, 10 months (April 1721-February 1742) for the longest continuous period in office by any Prime Minister. However he resigned in 1801 after George III refused to agree to his proposal for Catholic Emancipation (i.e. allowing Catholics to vote) following the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland in which the Dublin Parliament was amalgamated with that of Westminster. The failure to implement this measure at the time (which had to wait until the Duke of Wellington pushed it through in 1829) had dire consequences for British politics for the next 120 years. Pitt handed the reins of power over to Henry Addington, then the Speaker of the Commons (only the 2nd speaker to become PM and the only one to move directly from the Speaker's Chair to No.10) and went into semi-retirement.

He was recalled to the Premiership when the truce with France broke down and Napoleon resumed the war with Britain. He was noted for the introduction of the window tax, the wig tax (which resulted in wigs becoming unfashionable) and income tax (although subsequently abolished at the end of the war it was reintroduced in peacetime by Sir Robert Peel in 1842 and has remained with us ever since) as well as prohibiting trade unions. He was the first Prime Minister to attempt to seriously reduce the National Debt although his efforts were largely frustrated by the war with France.

He was a friend of William Wilberforce, who led the movement for the abolition of slavery, and the subject of a recent biography by William Hague, the new Foreign Secretary. Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania was named after his father after it was captured from the French during the Seven Years' War. Yesterday was also the 232nd anniversary of his father's death. The Elder Pitt collapsed in the House of Lords (despite being known as "The Great Commoner" he accepted the title of Earl of Chatham and was PM, in his own right, from 1766-8 and was one of two PMs - the other being Earl Grey, of Reform Act fame, in 1834 - who have resigned due to the disabling effects of severe gout) in the middle of delivering a speech defending the then rebelling American colonists in 1778.

He is thus one of two PMs, the other being Spencer Perceval who was fatally shot in the Central Lobby as outlined above 34 years later, who have shuffled off this mortal coil on 11 May, the day on which Gordon Brown's political career finally ground to a halt, although with less finite consequences for the man himself than for either Pitt or Perceval.

[JKLever]

From the Torygraph, obviously bitter at not getting a majority

10 reasons to be cheerful at the Coalition of the Unwilling

1. It will all be over soon.

2. Lib Dem voters hate it even more than we do. (Rather surprisingly given that they’re never going to see this much power for at least the next seven millennia).

3. When David Miliband becomes prime minister on the back of this disaster at least it won’t be quite as bad as if we were ruled by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot or Mugabe.

4. Or Ed Miliband.

5. If you work for a bloated management team in the NHS there’s no need to cancel that holiday in the Maldives.

6. If you are the ghost of Ted Heath, rejoice! In a stroke you have been made to look like a Conservative leader of towering integrity, statesmanship, achievement and robust Tory values.

7. Chris Huhne as Environment/Climate Change secretary: ah, what the hell – a functioning industrial economy and countryside unspoilt by wind farms are sooo overrated, anyway.

8. There’s always the chance that Europe implodes so badly that suddenly our government looks a model of efficiency and competence.

9. Radio 4 comedians will double their audiences now that even Tories will laugh in bitter sympathy with their “God how we hate the Tories” jokes.

10. No need to toy any more with those exciting plans to seek a better life in New Zealand/Albania/Burkina Faso. Seize the moment! With Cameron and Clegg in charge you know it has never made more sense.

[Merlin]

The Lords was always inevitably going to end up an elected chamber. Difficult to lecture others on Democracy when we have a house full of jobs for life for the boys

There is an argument (which, incidentally I don't particularly subscribe to yet find interesting - before I'm branded a BNP card holder by the pinko's on here) which goes thus :

It could be argued that those of the landed gentry, aligned to no particular political party, who have inherited titles and peerages and bishopdoms and who sit quietly dozing in the House of Lord's whose forefathers were born, bred, lived, fought wars for and worked the land in this country over several millenia genuinely do have a sense of regard (albeit perhaps selfish) for the general welfare of the land of their forefathers...... and that the inclusion, from off the street, of party pets and favourites and grace and favour recipients who have been shuffled into the Lord's (sometimes hastily so as to restore the party balance) unelected just like the original gentry - to do the bidding of their benefactors, party whips and parliamentary bullies, whether or not in the interest of the country, providing it toes the party line.
Basically, they are unelected toadies, an extension of their Commons overlords, doing what's right for the party!.

Interesting thought then .... who really has Britains welfare at heart ?

[Growler]

Very true Merls

Obviously, nobody would set up a government today with a hereditary second chamber - but I defy anyone to prove conclusively that it harmed the counrty.

Quite the contrary, it served us well for many years, curbing the more stupid ideas of governments of all political shades ..... for the simple reason that - as you rightly point out - they weren't beholden to the PM who sent them there, in any way shape or form.

[JKLever]

Gotta love Journos.

Joint press conference....

'Prime Minister... do you recall when asked what one of your favourite jokes was you replied 'Nick Clegg''

[Allan D]

When Pitt the Younger was appointed Prime Minister on 19 December 1783 his government was dubbed "the mince-pie ministry" as few expected it to survive the Christmas festivities. In the event it lasted 17 years (see above). I think we should be cautious before proclaiming the obsequies on the new government.

The 'National' Government that was formed in August 1931, primarily of Conservatives and Liberals, in similar circumstances, survived the first naval mutiny since the time of Nelson, the devaluation of sterling, the departure of most (but not all) of the Liberals, an unemployment rate that scaled 20% at one point and swingeing cuts in public expenditure to be elected twice with overwhelming majorities in terms of both Commons seats and the popular vote. It was only Adolf Hitler and the Wehrmacht that brought about the end of the government in 1940 in favour of a broader coalition.

Labour, who went into opposition in 1931, came close to extinction (although the Conservatives and Liberals had an electoral pact in 1931 which seems will not apply under the present arrangements) and was only ultimately rehabilitated by being brought into the wartime Coalition in 1940.

In recent times the British electorate has been reluctant to remove incumbent governments. The Conservative government elected in 1979 lasted 18 years, the Labour government which succeeded it lasted 13 years so Labour should not expect a swift return to office.

Labour got through 4 leaders before electing Tony Blair, the Conservatives 4 before electing Cameron and both were elected to Parliament subsequent to their party being defeated in government. I cannot see either David Miliband or Ed Balls, therefore, as the next Labour Prime Minister who may well be working for some PR firm or even sitting his final exams currently.

The main pressure on the government I see comes from Lib Dem activists who will respond to the state of the Lib Dem vote. If the Lib Dem vote drops, either because LibDem voters switch to the Conservatives because they approve of the government or switch to Labour because they don't (or conceivably both) there will be great pressure placed on Clegg by party activists to withdraw. It was this that caused Steel to pull out of the Lib-Lab Pact in 1978 and for the Liberals (except those who split to form a new party) to withdraw from the National Government in 1932.

If, on the other hand, participation in government causes Lib Dem support to rise Clegg will have an easy ride. It will be interesting to see the result of the Thirsk & Malton election on the 27th (postponed from the 6th, because of the death of the UKIP candidate, and not a bye-election, as was wrongly stated in the Cameron-Clegg news conference this afternoon) which should be a safe Tory win but where the Lib Dems would expect to finish in 2nd place with Labour nowhere. This will be the first officially recorded public reaction to the formation of the new government.

[LeFromage]

Labour should sack Brown immediately. And as they can't install a new party leader without an internal election, offer the Libs a coalition - with their own leader given the position at the head of the table.

Clegg's ego wouldn't allow him to turn down the opportunity to be PM, even if it was PM with a massive asterisk and about as much credibility as Cameron's love of "the Radiohead".

It'd be a cluster-f*ck, everyone would hate it, but amusing nevertheless.

Remember when I was, not particularly seriously, floating this idea the other day?

Crikey. Turns out they only needed to offer him Deputy PM...

[Merlin]

Cleggie's easily pleased ... and he knows which side to back when the alligators start nipping at his arse.

[Allan D]

HM The Queen gives new PM first audience:

[Basil]

I would have thought that the Tories would have ditched this as part of the price for the coalition - we can but hope anyway.

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