Ed Miliband seems not to have noticed that, whereas most of his Conference speech was rapturously received, great swathes of the hall declined to applaud this little surprise, which he had sprung out of nowhere.
Does he not remember what it was like to be a politically active Sixth Former? It is not an experience that I shall ever forget.
Based on it, I know with absolutely certainty, as I cannot believe that he does not, that next to no one in that age bracket would vote, and in fact that people who were known to do so would have an even rougher and tougher time than people like that have had since time immemorial.
Would most of those who did vote, vote Labour? What if they did? Their number would always be too small to make any difference, and the trends guaranteeing semi-permanent, if not permanent, Labour government from 2015 onwards have been building up since 1955, which was around the time that some of the present generation of 16-year-olds' grandparents were being born.
In the second half or so of John Major's Premiership, the unemployment figures and other favourable economic indicators were universally assumed to works of pure, politicised fabrication, such that they eventually came to have no electoral impact whatever in the Conservatives' favour. The same is true now.
But then as now, we were made to wait for five years, rather than four, in order to get rid of what we were then innocent enough to believe was the worst Government imaginable.
If Miliband wants to do something in this vein, then he ought to promise to repeal the provision for fixed-term Parliaments, the effect of which is that the present Government cannot think of anything to put into a Queen's Speech, while even the legislative business that has already been announced has all but ground to a halt.
Yet there are still 16 more wretched months of this left to go.
Yet there are still 16 more wretched months of this left to go.
I have never heard so seen any evidence that the Conservative Government, between 1994 and 97, fabricated economic data, nor that a significant number of people assumed they had done so. The 1997 election was not about economics- infact the national and global recovery & boom was perceived to have been so strong, and the new social-liberal consensus with it, that a Social Democratic New Labour government could do it no harm. I seem to remember 1997 campaign was fought over other issues such as sleaze, devolution, minimum wage, gay rights, NHS funding,the Euro, and basic managerial competence.
ReplyDeleteI wont deny that Labour might get back in power in 2015, or that some of the things they do might be a good idea, but to claim the country as a whole is trending in their favour is absurd. It has trended against both parties, just moreso the conservatives (though oddly at 31% they have a higher GE floor than Labour at 27 and 29%). As far back as 1970 Labour lost badly with 43% of the vote, in 2015 they'll be lucky to get won't even get 41%.
And even if you were right, any future skin of the teeth Neoliberal/Neocon/Progressivist-Left government opposed to Paleocons and Socialism would inevitably bring in a very stong variant of Proportional Representation to make the trend impotent and raise the bar for any(even just a dozen seats) majority government to about 47% of the vote, which no party will ever receive again anyway.
You just can't remember it. It was universal 20 years ago that the unemployment figures, in particular, were a lie.
ReplyDeleteThey weren't. But everyone believed that they were. And politically, that was what mattered.
Speaking of which, the voting figures are the voting figures. As they have been for 60 years. The process is almost complete.
Your contributor is right .
ReplyDeleteIt was precisely because the economy was so strong in 97 that people finally (after 18 years) felt able to take the risk of changing government and electing the party that had required IMF bailouts last time it was in power.
Voters are generally risk-averse and conservative in the voting booth during economic downturns.
They only feel safe ousting one government when the economy is buoyant enough to give them confidence to do so.
This is universally understood by pollsters and political scientists.
It bloody well isn't.
ReplyDeleteYou are beyond tragic. We were so much more mature politically at you age. I sometimes wonder what happened.
I remember the 90s, as you do. Everyone was convinced there was a terrible recession right up to the day of 97 Election, still is convinced of that. Everyone is convinced of the same thing now, always will remember these years like that.
ReplyDeleteThe IMF? In an extremely unusual expression of such a view about a G8 country, it openly wants Ed Balls to replace George Osborne. If/when Osborne calls in the IMF, its first requirement will be Balls as Chancellor.
None of you could have been there in 97.
ReplyDeleteThere was never any talk of " recession "-the economy wasn't even an issue in that election.
Why else did Blair win that election on a specific , deliberate promise of matching Tory spending plans for the first two years and not raising tax?
The whole election revolved around the NHS, sleaze and scandal. Oh and. " education,education ",
The economy didn't come into it.
Jaw-dropping.
ReplyDeleteWhere you even born? Apparently not.
Indeed, Peter Hitchens recalls in the Abolition of Britsin, trying to drag serious issues into the 1997 election .
ReplyDeleteBut he couldn't. All the media would talk about was "sleaze" and. " incompetence" (as if Labour were amy less sleazy or incompetent ).
They weren't interested in real issues in. 1997.
Murdochs Sun's ridiculous adulation of Labour and endless sleaze stories on the Tories only further helped Blair to power-as they meant it to.
This article from four days ago ( obviously penned by someone who actually remembers 1997) notes that:
ReplyDelete""Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown successfully neutralised attacks on their tax and spend policies before the 1997 election...by announcing they would match the then Tory governments spending plans for the first two years of a Labour Government ".
Now the economy is again booming, Miliband is doing the same.
"He has taken a leaf out if his predecessor Tony Blair's book, by matching David Canerons commitment to eliminating the deficit in the next Parliament".
There you go. When the economy is good, the opposition can only win by vowing not to change the Governments economic policies-as in 1997.
http://m.ibtimes.co.uk/ed-miliband-matches-tories-deficit-elimination-plan-backs-consumer-power-1432923
No one believes that the economy is doing well, and that fact is precisely why Labour is going to romp home. People remember that it was doing quite well up to May 2010.
ReplyDeleteAs for your earlier comment, since it was all obviously before your time, you might consider reading more than one book.
And as for the economy before 2010.
ReplyDeleteWe had the worst recession since records began in. 2008.
The worst recession of any g8 country.
People remember that .
We were not in it by the General Election. We have not had comparable growth on any day since then. And people feel that fact.
ReplyDeleteThey flatly refuse to believe talk of recovery, which bears no resemblance to their own experience. In any case, recovery from what? There was no recession on the day of the last General Election.