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Posts Tagged ‘General Election’

Reforming the Lords is always a “biggie” for the Left simply because they are called “Lords” but the reality is that today they are just the “Village Elders” in a very peculiar and British way. Broadly speaking and in an advisory capacity with no real powers, they do a good job as a revising chamber.

There have been calls for over 100 years to abolish or radically to reform the Lords but all attempts have come to nought largely. In fact the most radical thing to have happened apart from reducing their powers to delaying legislation only, was the Blair Government banishing most of the hereditary Peers from sitting in the House of Lords. As things currently stand there is no case for reform of the Lords, it would be a retrograde step in terms of governance.

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I was quite struck by a couple of pieces in The Telegraph by Benedict Brogan. In the first of which he was giving his “take” on the tactics being employed by David Cameron to remain in power after the 2015 General Election.http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100134556/why-wont-ministers-speak-up-for-david-cameron/

Whilst I found his article interesting and in a sense, “timely”, I am not too sure that I agree with it all in the sense that whilst for now, that may be an ‘intelligent guess’, reality means that as it is as all such things, a moving target or a “World in Motion…”, and how the game plays out over the next 3 years, may well be very different…

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The often repeated “common wisdom” concerning the Tories getting booted out of Office in 1997 was that following the ERM débâcle, they had lost their one trump card in the mind of the public even if those people normally voted Labour that the “Tories were good on the economy…”

Personally I never bought into this, Major had a tiny majority and a group of troublesome anti-EU MPs, I suspect that this disunity which made this Country look stupid plus they had been in power for a long time led to people wanting a complete change and a fresh start. A house divided will always fall and myopic politicians constantly riding their hobby horses are never an attractive sight…

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Yesterday on a reader’s comments section of one of the papers, a chap who claimed that he was a Tory wrote that in his opinion, Labour were “odds on” to win the next Election and it made me stop and ponder the possibility, my conclusion was that whilst all results are possible, Labour “odds on ?” I really can’t imagine that under pretty much any circumstances.

The economic situation will get considerably worse and it will lead to the greatest fall in real living standards for the vast majority of the UK population within living memory with the poorest taking the biggest ‘hit’ but that will just reflect what happens globally. In theory this should lead to lots of waving and singing of the “Red Flag” but it still won’t lead to the current Labour Party getting elected, the British public is far too sophisticated for that…

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In a sense, the Labour Party Annual Conference that runs through this week, is likely the most pointless exercise that anyone could imagine this year. Just how does any Party Leader following 13 years in power that resulted in abject failure, “Rally His or Her Troops” ? The answer of course is that you can’t except lead them off into some cloud cuckoo land where they feel ‘comfortable’.

Ed Miliband was voted in by the Unions quite cynically, they knew that any “next leader” would be a political space filler, rather like the Tories electing IDS as their leader so, why waste any effort on them, “make ‘em nice, human and we will dump them as soon as favourable opportunities arise…” It is called ‘politics’. The funniest thing that will be on view this week is Ed Miliband knowing the score, trying to make headway and upset all expectations…

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This week sees the publication of Alistair Darling’s memoirs covering the period that he was Chancellor when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. Along with previously published tomes of the like from those who were intimately involved with the “New Labour” Government, it does not make for good reading.

That Gordon Brown was/is a dysfunctional creature with a far greater opinion of his own abilities than the facts demonstrate is by now a “given” and from that arises perhaps the most interesting question of the lot, the one raised by John Rentoul writing in The Independent on Sunday: “Why wasn’t he stopped ? http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-why-did-nobody-stop-gordon-brown-2348855.html

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The latest bit of scandal that has fallen into the hands of the Daily Telegraph concerns leaked papers from the “Desk of Ed Balls” that chronicle his involvement in the coup/negotiations to remove Blair and replace him with Brown after the 2005 Election. These papers include hand written notes by Brown commentating on Blair’s written proposals in a highly derogatory manner.

When approached by the media, Balls was his usual simpering, denying self, a pose we have seen before. Of course there was no plot, these were just part of the normal political negotiations between two people who disliked each other, I was just helping… Yes Pinocchio and what is this really about ?

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It is interesting just how many on the Tory Right have muttered complaints that “…If only Cameron had been more right wing, we would have won a majority…” Oddly, it is matched on the Labour Party side by those that feel that their ‘salvation’ lies in being ever more “Leftie” but of these two extremes, the Labour one is more threatening to it than the right wing Tories are to Cameron.

In the end and as Blair that ultimate “Champagne Socialist” showed, success at the ballot box and jobs for Labour boys and girls, trumps supposed “party principles” every time !

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On John Rentoul’s blog, he includes a couple of BBC video clips which are quite interesting. Essentially his view is that a Labour Party led by Ed Miliband will not get elected and frankly, I totally agree with him and it is not being “Anti-Labour” to say so.

Amusingly, the BBC sent him to an “Ed’s Diner”, a wonderful retro American style burger bar, to film a piece, great fun ! http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/01/17/order-to-go-at-eds-diner/ However and although easy to joke about, when we look at the Labour Party today, we are looking at a whole lost generation of Labour politicians.

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I am not and never have been a fan of David Miliband, he has always seemed rather arrogant and aloof added to which, he lacked the courage or determination to seize the “Crown” from Brown on several occasions and that was foolish for both him, his party and the Country at large. If he had put his boot up Gordon’s ample bum, who knows, we might still have had a Labour Government !

Come to think of it and on that basis, maybe I do like him a little, I for one could not have stood another 5 years of Labour, Harmon, Straw, Balls and the rest of the gang. But that said, I do think that David Miliband has made the right decision in not running for a Cabinet post under his brother, it would have been a disaster all round.

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