Wednesday 9 February 2011

Second Preference

The right-wing blogosphere thinks that the unpopularity of the Lib Dems might lead to a No vote on AV, and that that would be a good thing. From their own point of view, really?

The Coalition would collapse, there would be a General Election, Labour would win handsomely, David Cameron would have been Prime Minister for less time than Gordon Brown was, and the pattern would be set in perpetuity: three terms of Labour, all of one year of Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, repeat to fade.

3 comments:

  1. Or it gets through and the coalition engagement becomes a coalition marriage and they start doing each others campaigning… I can see the leaflets now “vote tory 1 and lib dem 2” Oh dear.

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  2. I think David's prediction of the immediate result of a No vote is spot-on (I'm not quite so convinced by his prophecy of repeat to fade!)

    So, a Labour government. How, from a right-wing perspective (which I share), or a conservative perspective (ditto), would that be worse than a Cameron government? The few good things, from our point of view, in the coalition's programme are bound to be sold out when political pressure comes along. Meanwhile the claim to be the economic saviours of the nation are all very well, but they never tire of telling us that Labour would have had to make similar cuts anyway. In which case, how have we of the right gained from this government?

    Despite David (Lindsay)'s best efforts any hope for conservatism lies on the right, but not while the likes of Cameron are still seen as winners. A nice humilitating loss for him, with an almost identical centrist party ready to take over, seems like a win-win situation for me. I am just not optimistic enough to believe it will happen.

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  3. The Right, as you put it, is now almost entirely hopeless in its attachment to the most anti-conservative economic system imaginable, in its support for the most anti-conservative foreign policy agenda imaginable, in its veneration of the most anti-conservative Prime Minister imaginable, and in its affiliation to a party set up specifically in order to neutralise Toryism by conning or compelling its adherents into voting for successive waves of Liberals. Still, there is always electoral reform.

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