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Mark: "Which will split the party"; quite possible, certainly too
many Tories are too far gone to listen to Heseltine's eminently
sensible comments as quoted by David.
"The more feral element will combine ..."; yes, exactly, I predicted
this privately a while back. You can begin to imagine a third party
(as in several mainland European countries; Austria's Freedom Party
was one such to begin with) where the more extreme side of Toryism
joins up with UKIP and BNP attitudes. Meanwhile the Heseltine /
Clarke wing might join up with ... who? Moderate Labour or the less
socialistic Lib Dems? Maybe both; certainly I think there will be
more Woodwards, Nicholsons and Temple-Morrises.
"angrily grudging": that's my mother's support for Labour now, and
she's voted for them every election these last 35 years. I think
you're right that the left-of-Labour movement will get more
organised; the Green Party's impressive string of saved deposits
(relative to their previous record: hadn't they only saved one
deposit and that in the 1989 by-election in Vauxhall?) proves that
there *is* a growing counter-movement.
"a spate of single-issue candidates": true, the result of the
breakdown in stable, consensual attachment to one particular party (a
wholly good thing because it makes voters far less uncritically
accepting) itself related to the decline of communitarianism
mentioned by David in the other thread. Noticeably the Lib Dems
stood aside in Wyre Forest, doubtless aware that Dr Richard Taylor's
cause was *symbolically* greater than theirs (they had many other
seats to win, he obviously just the one).
"Nothing kicks like betrayal": true, why I think left-of-Labour
parties (but not the old Scargillian hardline) will be *the* boom
area over the next 4/5 years (and that includes both the Lib Dems and
the "fringe" movements).
― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
DavidM: "(Peter Hitchens) desperately, pathetically, angrily yearns
for a pastoral 50s Englandshire that never existed anyway. And he's
getting more and more pissed off that the rest of the population
wants to move on"; well, obviously, and that's what makes his columns
so sad to read in a way (even for someone like me who hates him). I
feel very sorry for him in a way, in that he so obviously can't come
to terms with anything about the modern world (and is also wracked
with guilt about his youthful liberalism).
― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
six years pass...
Yes but before that happens they will be forced to reinvent themselves as a more socially liberal, centrist party (as Heseltine said on Thursday night - elections in the UK are won on the centre ground). Admittedly it might take another defeat for them to finally realise this. But even then, don't assume that Labour can automatically expect a third term - they've been fortunate with the state of the economy so far, and have been given the benefit of the doubt on improving public services (arguably an impossibility).
-- David, Sunday, June 10, 2001 12:00 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Link
Surely not THE David?
― Ned Trifle II, Sunday, 17 June 2007 20:16 (sixteen years ago) link
two months pass...