If Labour and the Conservatives are now tied nationally, then so what? Labour is still 14 points ahead in the key marginal seats contested between the two parties. Lord Ashcroft is to address the Fabian Society during next week's Labour Party Conference. Give that a moment to sink in.
Even on top of that, the Labour and Conservative Conferences will do Labour no end of good and the Conservatives no end of harm. Middle-middle-class people in the suburbs and the provinces will hear voices like their own at the Labour one.
But then, at the Conservative one, they will be brayed at in boorishly male versions of the accent employed by Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, which is no more natural in her case than was the one that she employed in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. In their cases, however, it is.
They should be tied. They are both as downright useless as each other.
ReplyDeleteJust like in 2010, no matter how unpopular the governing party is, it doesn't translate into a surge of support for the other one.
We ought, immediately, to adopt Peter Hitchens idea-if 30% of people in any seat vote 'None Of The Below'-then nobody wins the seat.
Normal people just don't like Labour and the Tories.
Neither of them can or will ever get anything close to a majority of the eligible vote.
That option already exists.
ReplyDeleteIt is called the Lib Dems.
We should make another rule-that if neither party wins at least 40% of the votes cast (which is still only about half of the actual eligible vote) then nobody wins the election.
ReplyDeleteThat would boot our Parliament into gear.
As Mr Hitchens says "Parliament would get alot smaller and MP's would get alot more interested in what we think".
I am not sure how to break this to you, but I do not think that in this case he had expected to be taken with such pedantic literalness.
ReplyDeleteHave you abandoned Labour now and gone back to the Lib Dems?
ReplyDeleteJust curious.
I have never been a Lib Dem in my life. Wash your mouth out.
ReplyDeleteHave to agree with the above contributor.
ReplyDeleteSince you seem to have abandoned moral and social conservatism and fastened yourself to the likes of Owen Jones and the Labour Party, I can't see what you'd object to about the Lib Dems.
Heck, even they probably have more than 12 MP's against gay marriage.
What on Earth has happened to Labour?
The Lib Dems had four. At least two of whom, 50 per cent, are retiring.
ReplyDeleteThe attempt to blame Labour for this, like the attempt to blame Labour (by those who feel any need to do so) for the boundaries, is utterly bizarre. Do you know what "Opposition" means? That it's not the same as being in office?
And this is UKIP policy again, by the way. Whereas it has never been Labour Party policy.