Am I the only one here that thinks Tony Blair actually won the election?

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Also, that Michael Howard lost it?

1) Won by:
Not running away from people that wanted to debate/buttonhole him with questions about Iraq?
Answering various other 'negative' points raised, during?
Being seen with other cabinet people

2) Lost by:
Picking up individual cases, making a big story and presentation, then quietly neglecting/forgetting them,
Not being 'buttonholed' by ANYBODY thanks to big security people
Always being seen on his own

Now, various Lab people calling on TB to 'step down', is this just cause they smell coffee in the air, and think it's meat?

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 9 May 2005 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

You'd have to ask the defeated ex-Labour, ex-Peterborough MP about that.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 9 May 2005 07:47 (twenty-one years ago)

TB was useless at 'not sidestepping' the tough questions. The Big Point he drilled home on Iraq was that a decision had to be made -- and he made it. The fact he called it wrong was somehow a matter of opinion -- everyone is entitled to an opinion, but TB has to Act. So no, I don't think TB won it.

― N_Rq, Monday, 9 May 2005 07:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Howard didn't run that bad a campaign and he's left giving the Torys renewed confidence with some tasty gains from Labour but I think it will be short lived, If Labour can get 4 years of decent economy, get rid of Blair and replace him with decorum, keep the poverty gap closing and avoid following America on anymore illegal wars then they'll be set for a comeback at the next election.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 9 May 2005 08:14 (twenty-one years ago)

"keep the poverty gap closed"
???

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 9 May 2005 08:19 (twenty-one years ago)

closing

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 9 May 2005 08:21 (twenty-one years ago)

A lot of this rhetoric is being dictated by the right wing press. This mornings Times lead story ramping up an impending civil war in the Labour party for example. Nothing they'd like more than to spend the next four years talking about splits between old/new labour allowing the Tories to go about their business quietly and then mop up the disillusioned voters.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Monday, 9 May 2005 08:30 (twenty-one years ago)

According to the Guardian (so pinch of salt perhaps), Howard and strategists are cursing themselves for not being hardline enough on immigration. If they'd pandered enough to win over some BNP supporters they could have won - gasp! - ten more seats.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 9 May 2005 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Pandering to win over some BNP supporters? That's all the Tories did during this election!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 9 May 2005 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

this tory leadership contest is going to totally rock! they're all going to kill each other!! hague's idea of allowing the rank and file to elect the leadership was the most FANTASTICally stupid/genius thing ever. because it will land them with hott vote bait like um nu-IDS david davis. you go4it tory fuX0rz! BUT WAIT! howard wants to rescind this offer to the rank and file! so even before the actual contest there will be civil war over the rules governing the contest!! yes!!!

― N_RQ, Monday, 9 May 2005 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Tony Blair's party won just over a third of votes cast - a resounding victory in my book.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 9 May 2005 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Saying "His days are clearly numbered" after this election is like saying "Clearly the Labour Empire will continue for 1000 years" after 2001.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 9 May 2005 13:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm. I recall Thatcher getting her majority cut in 87, and Major in 92, and no-one at the time said 'In the name of god go' etc - it was all about Labour inability to win under the circumstances. Blair has the 2 best majority in Labour's history; he'll be quaking. It's hardly the 'battering' or 'bloody nose' that's being written about.

I wonder whether they're now bored; no new stories from Blair. They want a change, and the people didn't deliver it, so they'll push it. (See Sven Goran Ericsson for similar tendency).

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 9 May 2005 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, the papers seemed to turn the guy who lunged at him into a 'bloody nose' so unilaterally that I was slightly annoyed to find that he never got near him.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 9 May 2005 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

it's all maths: TB said he's serve a full term but can't literally mean that because to get a new leader they'll need to go through a process, and it would be foolish to do that in the lead-up to the next election. in any case the new leader will need time to establish himself with the public. so he *will* have to go within about 2 years--the '06 party conference ideally.

― N_RQ, Monday, 9 May 2005 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Blair was talking of doing the same thing as Aznar, and staying till the end of the term, but letting someone else fly the flag into the next election.

in doing this he forgets that this consigned Aznar's party to the opposition benches.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 9 May 2005 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

unless they're well fixed, leadership contests can raise all sorts of shit you don't want on the surface during the pre-election period.

― N_RQ, Monday, 9 May 2005 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't remember that during Mick How's one? Dead quiet it was...

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 9 May 2005 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Who else would potentially contest a leadership battle with Gordon Brown, anyway? Charles Clarke? John Reid? Bob Marshall-Andrews? Tony Benn?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 9 May 2005 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Heck, let Jamie Oliver contest the first by-election, then go for it!

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 9 May 2005 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe portillo should contest it!

(assuming the blair-brown war is every bit as real as legend claim, could a junior blairite really reckon to drum up realistic support to challenge brown? as dom says, who has the heft? blair had the "magic personality factor" - that's not inheritable) (the whole blair-brown tension exists bcz the party is so afeared of open competition: ie the need to knuckle down for the4 sake of the party is surely dunned into everyone on all sides of THIS split) (genuine outsiders - like who? robin cook? - would have microscopic support against brown, wouldn't they? bored haedlines aside, why is this not going to be a stitch-up?)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 May 2005 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Is there an Engligh Gvt primer/kiddie site y'all could fwd me to?

― Jimmy Mod, Sultan of Sexxitime (ModJ), Monday, 9 May 2005 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Pandering to win over some BNP supporters? That's all the Tories did during this election!
Sounds like what the GOP's been doing here in the States. What a horrible example to take after.

― That's not cocaine! It's Ian Riese-Moraine! (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 9 May 2005 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

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