I have lost some bets in my time. But I'd take every last beating on earth before I ever let The Lanchester Review publish Tony Blair.
Blair's appearance in The Spectator brings to mind the curious fact that he has never had a newspaper column, anywhere in the world. Is it just that no one could possibly afford him?
Still, Blair, with David Cameron, does stand at one of the twin poles of British politics. Jeremy Corbyn, with the ghost of Tony Benn, stands at the other.
At his first electoral test, this time last week, Corbyn increased Ed Miliband's share of the vote. And in May, people voted for Cameron's party precisely because it was not remotely like, most obviously, UKIP.
It had still been too much like that to win outright in 2010. But by 2015, all such ghosts had been exorcised, mostly by means of same-sex marriage, the founding measure of what is essentially the new party that now commands an overall majority in the House of Commons.
A House of Commons that contains half as many UKIP members, all of one, as its predecessor did. The supposedly populist Right represents a position that the British, and perhaps especially its English target electorate, just do not like.
With over half of its members having joined for or under Corbyn, and they are still coming, Labour is also now essentially a new party. As such, it is more popular than it has been in the better part of a decade. Real votes speak for themselves.
The British will vote for a Blair and Cameron, or they will vote for a (Tony) Benn and Corbyn.
They recognise no Third Way. It does not exist.
""The supposedly populist Right represents a position that the British, and perhaps especially its English target electorate, just do not like.""
ReplyDeleteThat's clearly nonsense. Since four million-mostly English-voted UKIP in the General Election.
You keep using the number of seats they have to hide the number of votes they got (a cheap trick not worthy of an ignoramus, since anyone and everyone knows First Past the Post is not representative of vote share, and thus not an indicator of popularity).
As you know, less popular parties than UKIP (such as the SNP, DUP ETC) got more seats than UKIP and the Greens got as many.
Yet UKIP is more popular-because it got far more votes-than all of them combined.
Anyone can see through your trick.
It's just a lie.
The General Election killed it, and the Oldham by-election buried it. That is just reality.
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