Clegg absent from PM`s questions

[Filo]

Claiming his presence would be a distraction!

Why would anyone be distracted by a spineless insignificant no body who will be redundant at the next general election?

[BillyStubbsTears]

I used to ask myself the same question every time I saw a defender lining up to mark Lewis Guy.

[Mr1Croft]

I predict that the Lib Dems will knife him with around 18 months to go and put him back in Europe, he has never been comfortable at Westminster. The Lib-Dems sit in the middle of the two extremes in handling their Leaders, the Tories stab their leaders in the back when they have seen enough (Thatcher, IDS, and Heath are to name a few), whereas Labour stick with their poor leaders untill it is no longer possible (Brown, Foot).

I don't personally think that the Coalition is on verge on collapse, Cameron had to make the choice of his backbenchers over his Coaltition partners, had he gone with the latter he wouldn't have lasted the weekend as PM. What's worse is that the mass decline of the Lib-Dems support has seen Labour and Conservatives make the gain, which means a sucessive hung Parliament looks likely, the Lib-Dems will suffer, but they will survive and perhaps look for another Coalition with the Tories.

[The Red Baron]

They stabbed the last two in the back pretty effectively- Charlie Kennedy (too pissed) and Ming Campbell (too old).

Clegg has obviously never heard of the phrase \"collective responsibility.\" He needed a bloody good excuse to absent himself yesterday and to say that his presence would be a distraction was pathetic. Then he goes on the radio and makes it clear he doesn't agree with the decision. If he feels that way he should resign as DPM.

It's odd, because I thought the deal was that Clegg would step down as Lib Dem leader before the next election, be given a peerage and go off to be an EU commissioner. Maybe that's at the root of his petulance- he thinks he won't get that job now having been part of a Government that wouldn't dance to Merkozy's tune.

[Filo]

Regardless of which side of the fence you`re on, Clegg as deputy PM should have been there when an important speech like this was being delivered to the house, instead it appears he`s locked himself away sucking his thumb, while Cameron carries on humouring him and his pathetic party into thinking they have some kind of say in the decision making. the Lib Dems won`t bring the coalition down, because they know damn well they are finished at the next General election, at this moment in time the Lib Dems are not representing Britain or their own voters, they are representing themselves as individuals. I hope the voters of Sheffield Hallam do the decent thing and throw Clegg out of work!


I think the Daily Mirror sums it up well!

NICK Clegg looked a political pygmy last night after his decision to dodge David Cameron's Commons statement on the European Union.

The Deputy Prime Minister had made clear his disagreement with the Prime Minister - so to hide away, instead of facing the music, left the Lib Dem a political laughing stock.


Mr Clegg's lack of backbone unintentionally revealed how his party is mere window dressing for Mr Cameron, a spent force reduced to trooping through the lobby to vote for the Tory leader who calls all of the shots.

When it comes to the big decisions, they're made by Mr Cameron. His deputy is a walking rubber stamp. Yesterday's Parliamentary farce hammered another nail in the Lib Dem coffin.

Mr Clegg should stand tall, instead of hiding away, if he is to be taken seriously again

[Mr1Croft]

As much as I encouraged this coalition to merge, I still thought Clegg as DPM was poor negotiating, given how Cameron didn't plan for a Deputy, I would rather Vince Cable be chancellor than Clegg bieng in an office which sounds no more important than it is.

[CusworthRovers]

Get Jeremy Thorpe back in the political liberal window. I'm sure he'd make Cammo and Gidders have it

[ditch_drfc]

I guarantee that if the next general election is in 2015, the Lib Dems will retain a similar vote share and number of MPs that they had at the last general election.

People said Thatcher was finished after the miners strike, then the Conservatives wouldn't get back in after the Poll Tax. And lets not forget the most controversial decision of all - the invasion of Iraq. Labour cruised to their third successive election victory just two years after that.

[Mr1Croft]

I guarantee that if the next general election is in 2015, the Lib Dems will retain a similar vote share and number of MPs that they had at the last general election.

People said Thatcher was finished after the miners strike, then the Conservatives wouldn't get back in after the Poll Tax. And lets not forget the most controversial decision of all - the invasion of Iraq. Labour cruised to their third successive election victory just two years after that.

I tend to agree with that, and with Ed Miliband a very very poor leader, everyone has gone down in the opinion polls (only UKIP are increasing) so in terms of seats it looks likely that there won't be many changes for either of the three mainstream parties, which is why I expect a second coalition, especially as Osbourne's plan for recovery is lasting 6 years longer than the parliamentary term, which tells us even the Conservative's expect that.

As for Blair, Howard never planned to win the Election in 05, his plan was to reduce Blair's 150 strong majority, and he did that which set up for the 'next generation' of Tory leaders, which he suspected would be Osbourne or Cameron.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Watch UKIP drop now that the Tories stood up to Europe.  Many of them are disenfranchised Tories and if the Tories are more hardline on Europe don't be surprised to see many of them switching back.

Labour should be doing really well but I just get the feeling people won't want Ed as PM he just isn't strong enough.  Their performance in the last week on Europe has been very poor in reality.  They have no policy at all apart from saying they'd talk a bit more.  Recent years suggest they'd probably have given in and I think that's the perception that's been created of them whether they would or not.  Europe could be a key votewinner for the Tories, rightly or wrongly a lot of British people aren't fond of Europe.  Cameron isn't, Clegg is and so is Milliband.  On the basis of public opinion only one of them stands up on that issue as the most popular, as todays polls have suggestted.

But give it a week and it'll all have blown over.

[Filo]

I guarantee that if the next general election is in 2015, the Lib Dems will retain a similar vote share and number of MPs that they had at the last general election.

People said Thatcher was finished after the miners strike, then the Conservatives wouldn't get back in after the Poll Tax. And lets not forget the most controversial decision of all - the invasion of Iraq. Labour cruised to their third successive election victory just two years after that.

I`ll take that bet!

What odds are you offering?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Never mind betting. I'll tell you how confident I am.

If the Lib Dems get over 20% in 2015, and more than 50 seats, I'll dig up the putrified corpse of Clarrie Jordan and perform an unnatural act on it.

I'm not sure if it's sunk in to many people yet, but something very important has happened in our politics since 2010. The Lib Dems have been seen for 30 years as a cuddly, nice, soft version of the Labour party. Vaguely left-supporting people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Labour, but who would certainly never vote Tory used to think that voting LD was a nice, safe alternative.

They've learned now.

For my entire adult life, the left wing vote has been split between the Labour Party and the left wing if the LDs. Not any more. The left wing of the LDs no longer exists. According to the opinion polls, 2million people who voted LD in 10 now say they will vote Labour in 15. It was obvious that this would happen and it HAS happened. The LDs have been found to stand for nothing. And the vaguely left-ish people who used to support them now have nowhere to go but to Labour. And those 2million will never, ever vote LD again.

That transforms the situation. Thatcher didn't win in 83 and 87 because she was phenomenally popular. She win because the left vote was split. Ditto Major in 92. Cameron couldn't even win  in 10 with the biggest split in the left vote ever.  But the left vote is no longer split. Any anti-Tory now knows that voting LD is pointless - you get the Tories anyway. So, if you don't want the Tories, you now have no choice but to vote Labour.   So Cameron will have to do phenomenally well to win in 15.

[The Red Baron]

BST- I agree with the basic thrust of your argument. I think the Lib Dems will do well to get 10% of the vote overall at the next election. Three other things to consider though:

1. The boundary changes/ reduction in the number of MPs will favour the Tories. You can see this as gerrymandering or as changing an imbalance in the voting system which currently allows Labour to win an overall majority on a significantly smaller %age of the vote than the Tories.

2. Labour will not win unless they change their leader. The Tory bounce in the polls this week may be due to the fact that Euroscepticism is now mainstream, but it is probably more to do with the fact that Cameron looks like a strong leader and Miliband and Clegg don't.

3. You won't have to wait till 2015 for a General Election, because there's no way the coalition pantomime horse will last until then. In fact, if it wasn't for the conditions I've described in 1. above, there would probably be one next Spring. My money's on Autumn 2013, by the way.

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB.

Good points.

1) There's no gerrymandering afoot I don't think - the Electoral Commission have done the work. Changes were needed, no doubt. And I agree that it'll favour the Tories.

2) You might well be right about Miliband. He's got a reputation that will be hard to shake off. Even when he gets the better of Cameron (as he does at PMQ on a reasonable number of occasions) he still doesn't have that easy charm. Not that the choice of PM should be on easy charm of course, but that is the world that we're living in. His position reminds me of Hague. He used to regularly take Blair a ta-ta at the dispatch box, but he looked like a geriatric teenager so every TV appearance simply pushed his ratings further down.

3) Not sure how that can happen. It's now law that 66% of MPs have to vote for a dissolution, or a confidence vote has to be lost with no other Govt able to carry a confidence vote within 14 days. There's no way the Lib Dems will vote with either Labour or the Tories to dissolve Parliament given their current position. So, unless Labour and the Tories agree to dissolve Parliament, we're stuck with this lot until 2015. Which quite serves Clegg right. I trust that he will be wracked with self-loathing for the entire duration.

[ditch_drfc]

Never mind betting. I'll tell you how confident I am.

If the Lib Dems get over 20% in 2015, and more than 50 seats, I'll dig up the putrified corpse of Clarrie Jordan and perform an unnatural act on it.

I'm not sure if it's sunk in to many people yet, but something very important has happened in our politics since 2010. The Lib Dems have been seen for 30 years as a cuddly, nice, soft version of the Labour party. Vaguely left-supporting people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Labour, but who would certainly never vote Tory used to think that voting LD was a nice, safe alternative.

They've learned now.

For my entire adult life, the left wing vote has been split between the Labour Party and the left wing if the LDs. Not any more. The left wing of the LDs no longer exists. According to the opinion polls, 2million people who voted LD in 10 now say they will vote Labour in 15. It was obvious that this would happen and it HAS happened. The LDs have been found to stand for nothing. And the vaguely left-ish people who used to support them now have nowhere to go but to Labour. And those 2million will never, ever vote LD again.

That transforms the situation. Thatcher didn't win in 83 and 87 because she was phenomenally popular. She win because the left vote was split. Ditto Major in 92. Cameron couldn't even win  in 10 with the biggest split in the left vote ever.  But the left vote is no longer split. Any anti-Tory now knows that voting LD is pointless - you get the Tories anyway. So, if you don't want the Tories, you now have no choice but to vote Labour.   So Cameron will have to do phenomenally well to win in 15.

Not too sure about that mate. People tend to forget that Major had the biggest ever mandate in terms of popular vote.

Anyhow, I think the problem with assessing the level of support for the LibDems is that they're more of a local party- they've tended to campaign on local issues on an ad hoc basis. So it's meant that in some areas they are quite right-wing in fending off Labour, and in other areas they are very left-wing in fighting the Conservatives.

I just have the feeling that support for them will be reasonably maintained. All this talk in the media of a wipeout is an overreaction. I can't see them losing more than 10-15 seats worst case scenario.

The problem as I see it for Labour voters in LibDem/Con marginals will be tactical voting. Historically, they've voted for the LDs. But if they don't this time around, who will it favour? The Conservatives. Tactical voters are far too canny to let that happen.

[Mr1Croft]

TRB.

Good points.

1) There's no gerrymandering afoot I don't think - the Electoral Commission have done the work. Changes were needed, no doubt. And I agree that it'll favour the Tories.

2) You might well be right about Miliband. He's got a reputation that will be hard to shake off. Even when he gets the better of Cameron (as he does at PMQ on a reasonable number of occasions) he still doesn't have that easy charm. Not that the choice of PM should be on easy charm of course, but that is the world that we're living in. His position reminds me of Hague. He used to regularly take Blair a ta-ta at the dispatch box, but he looked like a geriatric teenager so every TV appearance simply pushed his ratings further down.

3) Not sure how that can happen. It's now law that 66% of MPs have to vote for a dissolution, or a confidence vote has to be lost with no other Govt able to carry a confidence vote within 14 days. There's no way the Lib Dems will vote with either Labour or the Tories to dissolve Parliament given their current position. So, unless Labour and the Tories agree to dissolve Parliament, we're stuck with this lot until 2015. Which quite serves Clegg right. I trust that he will be wracked with self-loathing for the entire duration.

Today he was poor in a week Cameron will soon want to forget, some of the comments against him sent in by the public on \"The Record\" were probably hurtful but true.

Labour do not get rid of their bad leaders though, Foot lead them to their worst performance in a General Election since overtaking the Liberals as the second mainstream party and that will be the underlying factor on why in 2015 we will get a hung Parliament again and probably a Con-Lib coalition, because Miliband will still be leader.

As for the Lib Dem losing their votes, not all is as it seems, here is a graph showing their vote percentage against their seat percentage:



As you can see here they normally do well in vote percentage, capturing around 20%, the Lib Dems will know they will lose votes, which is why they will probably only have around 200 candidates and focus on 40-50 of them being sucessful, rather than having more than 500 candidates and stretching their campaign thinly. However Cleggmainia is finished, I think they will knife him just before the Election in an attempt to poll the swinging voters.

One interesting point is that for the last 30 years the Liberal Democrat party have been the party of consistency, it's rare they make any changes to their policies, on issues such as the economy, Europe and our defence. The lesson we are waiting to learn here is not how the Liberal Democrats will change Government (as we will soon see), but how Government will change the Liberal Democrats.

[Glyn_Wigley]

3) Not sure how that can happen. It's now law that 66% of MPs have to vote for a dissolution, or a confidence vote has to be lost with no other Govt able to carry a confidence vote within 14 days. There's no way the Lib Dems will vote with either Labour or the Tories to dissolve Parliament given their current position. So, unless Labour and the Tories agree to dissolve Parliament, we're stuck with this lot until 2015. Which quite serves Clegg right. I trust that he will be wracked with self-loathing for the entire duration.

I think the whole confidence vote is a red herring. Sure, it can trigger an automatic election if one is lost, but the new rules don't really mean anything if what becomes a minority government can't get anything through Parliament - especially the Finance Bill.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Not too sure about that mate. People tend to forget that Major had the biggest ever mandate in terms of popular vote.

Because he was the recipient of the highest percentage turnout for years. Only the first 1974 election had a higher turnout since the 1950s.

Kinnock got a bigger popular vote in that election than Cameron got last year...

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nice analysis Mr Croft, but I have a totally different conclusion from you.

The LDs and their predecessors existed as a protest \"We're neither Labour nor the Tories\" party. Blair's great triumph was to move the Labour party so far to the right that many of those LD supporters felt that Labour was a nice, safe centrist party. Hence, the LD vote collapsed in 97 and Labour came home with a landslide (helped by an utterly inept and unelectable Tory party).

Thereafter, the LD party tacked leftwards, and on many issues (Human rights, Iraq, many economic issues) was to the left of the Labour party. They attracted a lot of soft left supporters, especially middle class \"liberal outlook\" types. It is precisely those people who have had their illusions of the LDs as a left-ist party totally shattered in the last 18 months. It is precisely those people (2 million or so according to the polls) who will never again vote LD. But if they are left-leaning in their views, who CAN they vote for but Labour, even if they think Miliband is a damp squib?

As for the LDs not changing their policies, don't make me laugh. They are in Government, implementing on a daily basis policies which are 180 degrees opposite from the ones that they campaigned on. From Austerity, to Tuition Fees, to Europe. It's no good saying, \"Ah, yes, we are implementing these policies, but we don;t actually agree with them.\" Collective responsibility in Government means that these policies are THEIR policies.

I've said this about the LDs for 30 years. Their nightmare scenario was actually getting into a coalition and being forced to finally come off the fence on one side or the other. the moment they did that, LD voters who naturally tend towards the other wing of politics would desert them. Forever. That is what has happened over the last 18 months, and it has totally transformed the political landscape.

I very much doubt that the LDs will field fewer candidates on 15. And I doubt whether that would help them anyway. They won their seats by deception - promising all things to all people. They have been rumbled and no amount of tactical manoeuvring can change that. Voting for them is now seen for what it is - a non-vote. You don;t vote for them because you fervently believe in what they stand for. If they are holding the balance of power, what they stand for is determined by who they go into coalition with. So why bother with the middle man? If you're vaguely left, vote Labour. if you're vaguely right, vote Tory. If you're vaguely left, why on earth vote LD and run the risk of getting a Tory Govt with gushing LD support?

As for Major's 92 success, as I said before, he didn't win because he was popular. Total absolute vote is irrelevant in terms of historical popularity. what matters if you are going to compare like with like is voting share. And the 41% he got in 92 would have led to a cataclysmic defeat in any post-war election prior to 1974. Ted Heath got 42% in 1966 and was 110 seats behind Labour. Wilson got 43% in 1970 and was 50 seats behind Heath.

Major's 41% in 92 gave him a majority because the Left vote was split between Labour and the LDs. The same goes for Maggie in 83 and 87.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

I suppose though it works both ways.  Labour have moved more the left again under Millband and whilst they could pick up LD voters (and I don't actually believe they will pick up as many as you think) they could equally lose those more towards the centre who could see them as a bit too much to the left.  But in reality, it's not the left/right who decide elections, it's your average joe in the centre who will decide the outcome.

I think for the LD they'll improve as they move towards the next election, as time goes by they'll start to move away from coalition and it's likely that come 2014 it'll break up for the last 9-12 months, that's what I expect will happen with the aim of LD getting their points accross much more loudly.  I still think coalition as it is was the right thing to do.  But I'm not sure that Labour are in a great place right now and Milliband has a big job on his hands getting his point accross because a lot of people do have the opinion that he's lacking policies, something that in fairness was previously labelled at Cameron.  Milliband won't be judged until people find out what his proposals are because in reality many of us don't have a clue where he stands on a lot of things, that includes Europe of late.  He seems to have adopted this position that they'd negotiated further which implies that the hours and time Cameron spent doing just that didn't exist.  He knows the facts on proposals on where they're at, why won't he give an answer on what he would have done?  It's difficult for him I think.  He's more pro europe, large amounts of voters are not and he doesn't want to get himself in a position where his view vastly differs from the voting public.  In some ways you could say he's being clever by not committing as stating his position would probably put him in a worse position.

I think at this stage talking about future election is probably a little daft, the world will look very very different in 3 years time when it's approaching but I think after this week Cameron did himself no harm whilst Ed never really got himself in a position to argue and it was clearly tough for him.  What is clear is Cameron won't be isolated I expect in Europe.  I expect a few other countries to not sign up to the proposals aswell.

[ditch_drfc]

BST I think you find it very difficult to accept that the Conservative Party or their leaders could ever be popular. According to you, there's always another reason why Conservatives win. It couldn't possibly  be as simplistic as people like the party and their policies.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Nice analysis Mr Croft, but I have a totally different conclusion from you.

The LDs and their predecessors existed as a protest \"We're neither Labour nor the Tories\" party. Blair's great triumph was to move the Labour party so far to the right that many of those LD supporters felt that Labour was a nice, safe centrist party. Hence, the LD vote collapsed in 97 and Labour came home with a landslide (helped by an utterly inept and unelectable Tory party).

I don't think you can say the LD vote collapsed in 1997 at all. They only had a 1% swing against in the face of a Labour landslide, and the number of seats they won went up by 28.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nice analysis Mr Croft, but I have a totally different conclusion from you.

The LDs and their predecessors existed as a protest \"We're neither Labour nor the Tories\" party. Blair's great triumph was to move the Labour party so far to the right that many of those LD supporters felt that Labour was a nice, safe centrist party. Hence, the LD vote collapsed in 97 and Labour came home with a landslide (helped by an utterly inept and unelectable Tory party).

I don't think you can say the LD vote collapsed in 1997 at all. They only had a 1% swing against in the face of a Labour landslide, and the number of seats they won went up by 28.

Glyn.

You're right of course - simplistic comment from me. What I should have said was that Labour took votes away from the LD, SDLP or Lib/SDP right the way from the 1983 election as Labour slowly de-toxified itself in the eyes of the voters. Labour spent 15 years making itself less scary to the centre-to-centre-left voters over that period and the LD vote faded.

Ditch.

What is the point of that comment? I've set out a series of facts, not political opinions. The simple fact is that the Tory vote in 83, 87 and 92 would have led to huge defeats in the elections of 45-70. FACT.

The fact is that Thatcher won historic landslides in 83 and 87, despite getting vote share that was low by historical standards. Had the centre-left vote not been split between Labour and the various guises of the SDP-Libs, she would have lost in 83, or at least not had effectively unfettered power. There's not much question of that.

And that is not to say that EVERY single Liberal and SDP voter was an ex-Labour voter, but it is based on a detailed analysis of how the Labour vote generally went down as the Lib-SDP vote went up and vice versa. So, had the SDP-Libs not taken 10-12% of the potential Labour voters, Thatcher would have been defeated or reined in.

Now, that is not to put the blame on the Libs-SDP solely. Labour's divisions resulted in that split. The blame can be shared equally between the egomaniacs on both sides of the party, from Benn to Owen.

By the way, the conclusion on the elections outcomes from 83-92 comes from looking at the numbers, not from a basic political argument. You don't like the conclusion, then argue with the numbers instead of spitting your dummy out.

[ditch_drfc]

BST, nobody's spitting their dummy out. We could all go on about facts that aren't really facts at all. Just because you put it in big bold caps lock, it doesn't give it more gravitas.

I just think it's unfair that you seem to give the Conservatives zero credit for their general election victories.

Anyhow, change of subject. What was your doctoral thesis on?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thing is Ditch, those facts actually ARE facts. Provable, checkable ones. Independent of any political bias or interpretation.

Now, instead of looking silly for claiming that particular, easily checkable facts actually AREN'T facts, you could instead have used the same argument that I used to point out that Labour un 97, 01 and 05 were also not particularly popular by historical standards of post War Election winners. That observation would also have been a fact. Personally, I find all those facts deeply dispiriting - our system gives ridiculous levels of authority to parties which are really not very popular by historical standards.

As for the use of the word FACT, I take it the irony was lost on you.

As for my doctoral thesis, why does that interest you?

[ditch_drfc]

Mate, you seem to be particularly looking for a fight tonight!

I just think saying things like \"The simple fact is that the Tory vote in 83, 87 and 92 would have led to huge defeats in the elections of 45-70. FACT.\" are questionable. It's so hard to compare. It's too blunt to just transfer a level of support to a different time period.

There's reasons that political party got that level of support at that specific time. And then there's other factors; turnout etc.  They aren't necessarily transferable, hence why I think it's difficult to compare that simply. Do you get where I'm coming from?

And the reason I asked about your thesis was because I'm going to be starting mine shortly. Just general interest. It wasn't to poke fun, or to trip you up in anyway - no need to be so defensive!

[Mr1Croft]

I think it is worthwhile to point out that most General Election victories are more because of the opposition's failures than the winners sucess.

Look at Clement Attlee, the first PM of a majority Labour Government, the first 3 years were by far the most left radical of all the Labour Governments. He (with Nye Bevan at his side) brought us the welfare state; the NHS, NI. Nationalisation, arguably one of the best post war PM's, and yet when they went to the General Election of 1950, they hung onto to Power but only just, that would last a year before Churchill came to power, (as good as it was for Attlee, rationing bread in particular and refusal to build homes probably ended it).

No one considered the Attlee Government 1945-51 a disaster, it was anything but. Yet Labour would remain opposition for 13 years, these 13 years saw Churchill hidden from public due to his health, and then came along Anthony Eden, by far the greatest Foreign Secretary of the day, he seemed like the man made for PM, and when he did he made the worst mistake of any Prime Minister, ever. The Suez crisis. MacMillan came along and his cabinet mishap in 1962 was nicknamed the \"night of the long knives\", it was only when Douglas-Home was chosen as PM Labour finally came back to power under Wilson in 64.

(just a small note: Douglas-Home was the last private educated 'posh' bloke the Tories would elect as leader untill Cameron, and he was one of the worst PM's).

Why did the Tories stay in power despite not being greatly popular, because Labour was split between the Bevanittes and the Gaitskellites, so much distress that it was seen as less stable a party than ever.

1979 when Thatcher came to power, 3 years in and it looked like she wouldn't last much longer, the fact that she stayed in office was a cmobination of luck, she was lucky in her not just her enemies but her choices. The Faulklands in particular was crucial, whether she wanted to go to war was irrelevant, had she not done so she would have been ousted by her own party. Taking 'Scotland's Oil', and the left very much split, she took a landslide in 83 and this allowed her to take on her next rival; Scargill.

Thatcher's Government isn't remembered as a disaster either, but more of a radical government that rivals Attlees, to say Major did a poor job is also a myth. Every poll worth looking at predicted a hung Parliament with Kinnock's Labour the largest Party, but Major went on to get the most votes for any party in the UK ever recorded. Yet after Blair won in 1997 the Tories had to wait 13 years, they struggled under Hague and IDS failed to make them 'Cuddly Conservatives'. Howard was probably the most noteworthy of leaders, resulting in knocking down Blairs majoirty before stepping down as leader.

Going back to the Lib Dems, if we went to the polling box tomorrow, on the current polls (CON: 41 LAB: 29 LIB: 10) Labour would win by one seat, according to this if you want a play; Election Seat Calculator

But tne Lib Dem vote does flucuate, as early as 9 days ago that 10% in polls was 14%, and something like that close to the election will set us up for a hung Parliament. Although the Lib Dems are suffering at the moment, as far as the Tories are concerned so is Labour as the left vote can't make up it's mind, I still predict another coalition in 2015, but we wil have to wait till 2013 before we can have a clear indication of what will probably happen.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Ditch

Yep, I've been a tad on the abrasive side. Been dealing with a t**t of a client all week who wouldn't recognise a fact if it kicked him in the knackers. No excuse for being a t**t in here mind.

Of course you're right about the different circumstances. Doesn't change the fact though that Thatcher, Major and Blair all won on historically poor vote shares. I get on my high horse about it because it seems to me to be a deeply undemocratic and corrosive aspect of our politics. And I think it gives the lie to the hagiography that claims that Thatcher and Blair were superbly popular leaders. They weren't.

There's a very strong relationship between Lab and LD votes by the way. Over the last 50 years and 13 General Elections, the Labour vote has always been given by X-LD Vote, where X=50 to 60 (50 when the Tories are doing particularly well, eg1970, 60 when they are doing very badly eg 1997) There is no reason whatsoever to believe that this relationship won't apply in 15 - it certainly did in 10, with X=54. That makes the LD collapse since 2010 very important. If they din't recover (and frankly, I don't see how they can) then Labour will have to f**k up badly to get much less than 40% in 2015. Which means that Cameron will have to do significantly better than he managed to do in 2010 in just about the best circumstances he could have wished for.

As for PhD study, I strongly recommend it. Especially if your supervisor knows his arse from his elbow. If you do it properly, you'll have 3 or 4 years of utter hell, sleepless nights and borderline depression, but you'll be unrecognisable as a thinker at the end of it. If you don't do it right, it'll be three years of an easy doss and a waste of time. My own work was on experimental and theoretical solid mechanics, which is an unforgiving opponent - you set up an argument and if it's not the right one, the experiment will show you to be wrong - no arguments over nuances. Kind of teaches you to marshall your facts and separate facts from conjectures.


Mr Croft.

That comment about election winners winning because of poor opponents is a very perceptive one. Arguably, it has held in every election bar 1 in the last 40 years (the one arguably being 1979 where Callaghan simply got his tactics wrong- he would probably have won if he'd called the election in 78 as he should have done).

[Glyn_Wigley]

(just a small note: Douglas-Home was the last private educated 'posh' bloke the Tories would elect as leader untill Cameron, and he was one of the worst PM's).

Just another small note: Douglas-Home wasn't elected leader. The Tories didn't vote for their leaders at that time - Heath was the first leader to come about as a result of a vote, in 1965. As was the practice at the time, Home 'emerged' as leader. (smoke-filled rooms, etc. etc.)

[Mr1Croft]

Mr Croft.

That comment about election winners winning because of poor opponents is a very perceptive one. Arguably, it has held in every election bar 1 in the last 40 years (the one arguably being 1979 where Callaghan simply got his tactics wrong- he would probably have won if he'd called the election in 78 as he should have done).

But Callaghan isn't any different from the rest, political figures are made by their decisions, luck plays a very good part (as Thatcher knows) and Callaghan didn't get any luck and he is made out to be one of the worst leaders, (although at a Seminar at University someone claimed Heath was the worst leader because he got us into the Euro )

But as for putting off the election in 78' the same could be said about Brown, he should have gone to the Palace in 09 and called an election as opposed to 10, and it might have turned out differently.

Glyn, As for Alec Douglas-Home, although he wasn't offically 'elected' as leader, I'm aware that the Queen's advisor (or statesman may be more politcally correct) asked many senior Conservative members (indluding MacMillan) on who they think should be asked to form the Government.