The latest ComRes poll shows a Labour lead. A one-point Labour lead, but even so. The Liberal Democrats are down three, to a piffling 16 points. If Remain is such a popular position, then why are they not 30 points ahead? When will they dump their unelectable Leader, Jo Swinson? After all, they and she have been in Government far more recently than Labour has, and Jeremy Corbyn himself has never been in Government. But of course everything is still firmly in hung Parliament territory. That is what Britain now looks like. That is what even England on its own now looks like.
Neither main Party Leader has much political background in his own party, and each is surrounded by people with little or none, who actively hate the historically, socially and culturally complex party as the main obstacle to the pristine purity of The Project. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair were similar figures with similar courts, but this is the first time that both parties have been led like that simultaneously.
As part of that, this is the first time that both parties have been controlled simultaneously by people who viewed the middle middle classes of physical and cultural suburbia with political indifference and with outright social hostility. Labour and the Conservatives alike, each knowing that it is guaranteed well over 200 seats simply for existing, would openly rather lose, than win on the votes of people like that. The Conservatives are perfectly happy to lose between 30 and 50 seats to the Lib Dems, plus 10 or so to the SNP, with no hope of picking up that number from anyone else.
Another hung Parliament is coming, therefore, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
Another hung Parliament is coming, therefore, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
Peter Oborne’s analysis of the Brecon and Beaconsfield by-election is correct. It shows that the Brexit vote was the majority, and the Tories must now be the Hard Brexit Party.
ReplyDeleteOborne observes: “The Lib Dems only won because anti-Brexit parties worked together to form a ‘Remainer Alliance’. The Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, the Green Party and Change UK all stood aside, allowing Lib Dem candidate Jane Dodds a clear run as the only representative of the Remain vote against the incumbent Tory. Many Labour voters followed suit, abandoning their own candidate to rally behind the Lib Dems, with the result that Dodds won with 13,826 votes and Labour came a humiliating fourth.
Nor was this all. Most significantly, the pro-Brexit vote was split between the Conservatives, who got 12,401 votes, and the Brexit Party, with 3,331 votes. In crude terms, the total vote was 50 per cent pro-Brexit and 49 per cent pro-Remain. In other words, the Lib Dems would probably not have won if pro-Brexit voters had all coalesced behind the Tory candidate, as Remainers did behind the Lib Dems.”
Tough. The Conservative line will always be, "If you don't want a Lib Dem, then vote Tory." Unless the Brexit Party is simply prepared to dissolve itself and go away, then the answer is always going to be, "Tough. You should have voted Tory, then."
DeleteThe mere existence of the Brexit Party will now give 30, 40, maybe 50 seats to the Lib Dems and cancelling Brexit will be the first item in the coalition agreement. That will be Nigel Farage's fault.
ReplyDelete