Tuesday, 2 June 2015

The Lanchester Review: A Tale of Two Referendums

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12 comments:

  1. Anonymous2 June 2015 at 23:52

    There are very few moments in today's British politics (when the Big Three parties are indistinguishable) that are truly life-changing. The EU referendum is one such. That really is the moment we either declare independence for the first time since before many of us were born. Or we will be, as Jean-Claude Juncker bragged this week "docked in the EU permanently".

    If-as Frank Field has predicted-the three mainstream parties form a cross-party Yes campaign and engage in a rerun of 1975 (when the Government rigged the referendum with a fake renegotiation that won nothing, sending out two Yes pamphlets and just one No pamphlet and outspending the No campaign tenfold as Peter Hitchens recalled this week) then we're completely finished forever.

    If that happens, then we will come to rue the day that UKIP did not win the 80+ seats it's vote share deserved, and we were left with no Parliamentary Opposition to the Lib-Lab-Con selling Britain down the river.


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    1. David Lindsay2 June 2015 at 23:54

      Not even that would make anyone rue the day that there were not 80 UKIP MPs. One of them is proving trouble enough for UKIP itself. It could not have begun to have coped with 80.

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    2. Anonymous3 June 2015 at 00:05

      You must be the last person in the world who still takes Peter Hitchens seriously. How did the prediction that Vince Cable would split up the coalition before the end of the last Parliament and become Deputy Prime Minister in a new one with Labour work out? Ukip ran on the full Hitchens agenda and fell from two seats to one. People could vote for his beloved grammar schools in every seat and 649 out of 650 rejected the idea.

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    3. Anonymous3 June 2015 at 00:33

      Andy Burnham has ruled out a cross-party campaign, Labour's referendum campaign will be Labour's own and nobody else's.

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    4. David Lindsay3 June 2015 at 00:47

      Be fair, Anonymous 00:05. UKIP does not support renationalising the railways and the utilities, as Peter Hitchens does. Or a return to coal. Or council housing. Or the cancellation of Trident. But it is in favour of legalising drugs, which is very unlike Hitchens indeed. An important point about education policy, though.

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    5. Anonymous3 June 2015 at 01:02

      Kipper types regard the Labour defeat in 1983 as the last word on nuclear weapons but not on leaving the EU. So the Kipper massacre in 2015 will be deemed to prove nothing about the popularity or otherwise of Ukip policies.

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  2. Anonymous2 June 2015 at 23:58

    Frank Field noted this week on Andrew Neil-the parallel between today's Yes campaign and 1975-with Harold Wilson's fake renegotiation, when Field recalled he didn't name his terms, came back with absolutely nothing and campaigned for a Yes vote anyway (while heavily outspending the No campaign and sending two Yes pamphlets to every household for just one No pamphlet).

    The purpose and effect of that referendum was to lock us in for the next 40 years.

    Juncker has already boasted publicly this week that this one will keep Britain "docked in the EU permanently".

    It is our last chance.

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  3. Anonymous3 June 2015 at 00:17

    Important point that the Tories are trying to change the rules (even though they won under the current ones) so it is not sore losing to propose an alternative change.

    What you suggest would have delivered 90 Ukip MPs this time but there is never going to be another 2015 Election and Ukip will barely exist by 2020. Your scheme would greatly benefit the left, the real left not the Greens or SNP, with left candidates filling many sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth seats in more populous areas.

    At the same time the guarantee of a Labour MP and Labour Senator everywhere, and the selection method you propose for those candidates, would give our rural people their voice in Parliament and the party.

    Exactly 1000 words. Not 999, not 1001. You old pro.

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    1. David Lindsay3 June 2015 at 00:48

      We aim to please.

      And thank you. Your comment is very interesting.

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  4. Anonymous3 June 2015 at 00:46

    If Anon (above) thinks people didn't vote UKIP because of grammar schools then he's never read the polls-which show overwhelming support for their reintroduction-or doesn't understand FPTP which is built for a two party system and thus puts people off voting for any other parties for precisely the reason that UKIP's 4 million votes returned one MP.

    It doesn't seem worth it under this system.

    That's why Peter Hitchens alone has consistently made the point that we cannot both preserve FPTP and ensure the people of this country actually get parties that represent them until the Big Two collapse, allowing representative parties to take their place.

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    1. David Lindsay3 June 2015 at 00:50

      Ah, yes, the collapse of the Big Two. How is that coming along? They seemed to take an awful lot of votes, if they were so "unrepresentative". And it was hardly as if the alternatives were either absent or, at least on the Right, starved of publicity.

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