UK election May 6th (?) : more Labour or back to Tories?
March 27, 2010 - 11:09am
normally, after 10 years or so, a west European party wears out its welcome, and left majority shifts right, or vice versa
but Gordon Brown has had a modest bounce since the recent budget and bookies hedging bets:
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Old Labour / New Labour split a lively debate:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/26/absurd-fear-old-left-killing-labour
For Labour, unfortunately, the biggest problem remains the party's dysfunctional relationship with its past. Today, Gordon Brown will reveal the five pledges intended to define Labour's campaign, but given his ingrained fear of anything that might be construed as a return to a lurch back to the left, they look likely to be devoid of both a coherent narrative, and any convincing political oomph. Meanwhile, Alistair Darling agrees with the idea that spending cuts will have to exceed even the pain of the Thatcher years - so in the absence of much primary-coloured policy, why anyone should enthusiastically go out and vote Labour on 6 May is once again clouded in mystery.
In and around the party, there is a surprisingly lively conversation about how - even in the midst of such crushing fiscal arithmetic - Labour might just about rediscover its sense of purpose. But for fear of somehow reviving the ghoulish menace known as "Old Labour", too few people want to listen.
yes, it's May 6th:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/05/gordon-brown-election-labour-manifesto
Election Prediction Project for UK 2010 Election
EPP is so 1997.
Cute ad. Too bad it has to make people wonder what Labour were up to all this time - and then they'll remember.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCO-KwYpH0M
surprise: Brown came off as human in 3-man debate
but Liberal Clegg looks to be image-award winner;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/15/leaders-debate-nick-clegg-tv
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/clegg-smashes-through-twoparty-system-1946273.html
Nick Clegg broke the duopoly in British politics with a strong performance in last night's historic first televised election debate between the three main party leaders.
The Liberal Democrat leader seized the moment by matching Gordon Brown and David Cameron blow for blow during 90 minutes of lively exchanges which confounded expectations that the 76 strict rules of engagement would produce a sterile discussion.
Let's hope someone in Jack Layton's office has taken notes. This is a great line worth stealing:
It'll be interesting to see what impact this has in polling. Given that it's a new thing for the UK more people may have been paying attention than here.
Let's hope someone in Jack Layton's office has taken notes. This is a great line worth stealing:
Not that similar lines/approaches haven't been used before (BC Liberals 1991; Manitoba Liberals 1988)
That said, I've long felt that the key to any "potential minority parliament" situation here: the Lib Dems already went into this in a far stronger position, seatwise, than in any previous election which wasn't a simple Labour landslide--we're not talking about a 20-seat party anymore. (Perhaps that's a little like the NDP now vs Audrey/Alexa era...)
Clegg still the guy to get:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/22/election-debate-nick-clegg-storm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-and-brown-get-tough-but-clegg-stands-firm-1951727.html
Panic stations in the British right-wing press:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/22/cleggmania-nick-clegg-new...
Completely predictable, and highly amusing.
BBC Election Seat Calculator
Panic stations in the British right-wing press:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/22/cleggmania-nick-clegg-new...
Completely predictable, and highly amusing.
Indeed. It was just assumed that the Conservatives would win easily this time, for the good reason that things are not well with the UK at the moment and Labour is going to wear that.
Gee, I wonder why the Tories never promoted this idea when they made John Major their leader.
Unelected PMs must call poll within 6 months - Cameronhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8641552.stm
Tory claims that hung parliament would cause meltdown are dismissed
Credit rating agency rejects warning that Britain would be plunged into financial crisis if election result is inconclusive
Analysis by The Independent suggests that of the 16 countries worldwide who currently have the top triple-A financial stability rating, 10 are run by coalition governments. The majority of nations that have taken the toughest action in recent decades to tackle their debts
were also governed at the time by coalitions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-claims-that-hung-parl...
Liberal-Tory coalition the talk of the Sunday papers:
It seems to me that, distilled to their essentials, the polls in aggregate reveal four basic truths about the mood of the British public in late April 2010. First, disgusted by the expenses scandal and the financial crisis, the voters are hungry for change. Second, as a consequence, they no longer want Gordon Brown to be Prime Minister. Third, they lean towards David Cameron PM but have reservations about him, and the prospect of an undilutedly Tory government. Fourth, they have found in Nick Clegg a telegenic tribune, who articulates the nation's grievances better than anyone else and incarnates the dynamism and freshness they yearn for.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7628928/A-Lib-Con-deal-is-...
Exactly - are you listening Canada?
Election 2010: Nick Clegg warns Labour over third-place finish
Liberal Democrat leader says Gordon Brown will not be PM if Labour get fewer votes than his party and Conservatives, and insists electoral reform unavoidable whatever the result
Clegg said voting reform would be a price of any deal with either party.
"It is just preposterous the idea that if a party comes third in the number of votes, it still has somehow the right to carry on squatting in No 10," he said. "I think a party which has come third - and so millions of people have decided to abandon them - has lost the election spectacularly [and] cannot then lay claim to providing the prime minister of this country."
The latest opinions polls show the Lib Dems are holding on to increased support after two televised leaders' debates, and could deprive the Tories of an outright majority.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/25/nick-clegg-labour-elector...
The Lib-Dems have been very clear and consistant on that point and it's helped them earn a loyal and growing base to whom it's obvious that British democracy is broken. That kind of clarity and consistancy from a Canadian political party would have paid off here as well but unfortunately cynicism and apathy seem to be growing instead.
On the Sceptred Isle, Immigration Is an Issue Fit for Whispers
By JOHN F. BURNS
LONDON - In a general election where the unexpected surge of the Liberal Democrats has put all the usual calculations about the contest between Labour and the Conservatives in flux, there has been a morbid familiarity to the campaign of one party that cannot hope to be part of the jockeying for power many pundits foresee after the ballots are cast on May 6.
The British National Party, inheritor of the ideological mantle of Oswald Mosley's Union of Fascists in the 1930s, can realistically hope to win only one London-area constituency among the 650 House of Commons seats - if even that. But opinion polls suggest that the party will attract significantly more of the popular vote than the seven-tenths of 1 percent it won in 2005.
The party's rise, such as it may be, can be traced to the same issue - the rapid increase in nonwhite immigration, particularly from the Muslim world - that has recently empowered far-right parties across Europe, notably in France. Britain's counterpart to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the demagogic French politician who reached a runoff for the presidency in 2002, is Nick Griffin, a soberly suited, 51-year-old Cambridge-educated graduate in history and law.
Mr. Griffin is a fringe politician. But in this election, more than in any other in memory, popular anxiety about the rapid rise in immigration in the 13 years of Labour rule is the ghost at the banquet. It is a political reality strong enough, according to opinion polls, to influence votes in dozens of constituencies, but one that the major parties can afford to address only in the most modulated of keys, and then, usually, only when others raise it on the campaign trail.
To understand that, it is enough to recall Enoch Powell. Forty-two years ago, Mr. Powell, a prominent Conservative, made a speech saying Britain "had to be mad" to admit 50,000 immigrants a year, mostly then from British islands in the Caribbean. He likened the consequences to the "tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic," the 1968 race riots in America. A classicist, he indulged his passion for ancient history. "I am filled with foreboding," he said. "Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.' "
Mr. Powell was promptly sacked from the Conservatives' shadow cabinet; he left the party and wandered in the political shadows until his death in 1998. His "rivers of blood" speech has stood ever since as a warning to mainstream politicians of the fate of those who raise the immigration issue with overwrought language, particularly with a racist tinge. In 2005, many people thought Michael Howard, then the Conservative leader, crossed the line with his tough language on immigration, further dooming his party to its third straight loss to Labour.
Small wonder, then, that the prime ministerial contenders trod warily when a nonwhite woman in the audience raised the issue at the second of three televised election debates on Thursday.
To nobody's surprise, each of the three emphasized the need to curb migrant inflows. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat, urged an amnesty for the million or so illegal immigrants estimated to have lived in Britain for 10 years or more, to "get them out of the hands of criminal gangs," balanced by stricter border controls; Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for Labour, said new identity cards for foreign residents and a points system for immigration applicants had begun to cut the numbers; David Cameron, the Conservative, advocated a cap on entrants from outside the European Union, "to get it down radically."
But their competing policies were less notable than the care the three took to avoid any shade of prejudice. "The first thing to say," Mr. Cameron said, "is that we have benefited from immigration; and people who come here and live legally, we should be incredibly warm and welcoming and hospitable and build a strong and integrated country. I think it's really important to say that, first up."
One party leader not invited to the debates was Mr. Griffin, though he wrenched the debate back down to street level on Friday when he unveiled the B.N.P.'s election manifesto. It called for "absolutely no further immigration from any Muslim countries, as it presents one of the most deadly threats to the survival of our nation." Mr. Griffin said Britain was "full up," and it was time to "close the doors."
What has given the issue new political weight is the scale of immigration during Labour rule. Extrapolations from government figures suggest that looser regulations adopted in Tony Blair's early years as prime minister have led to a net inward migration of about two million people since 1997, with a peak of 330,000 in 2007. Many new arrivals have come legally from East European nations in the European Union, notably Poland. But by far the most non-Europeans have been Muslims, who historically have been slower to assimilate than other immigrants.
The numbers may seem modest to Americans, who saw Congress struggle during the George W. Bush years - and fail - to agree on a plan to deal with a backlog of 12 million undocumented immigrants. But by the measure of available space, Britain's two million new immigrants pose a challenge of at least comparable scale. Britain, with 62 million people, is already one of the most heavily populated countries in the developed world; new settlers put pressure on schools, hospitals, public housing and a welfare system that are bending under the strain.
Drawn by Europe's most generous welfare system, and by the status of English as the global lingua franca, illegal immigrants have shown inexhaustible resourcefulness in breaching the border controls of an island nation that Shakespeare vaunted as an oceanbound redoubt - "This sceptred isle ...This other Eden ...This fortress built by nature for herself ...This happy breed of men, this little world,/ This precious stone, set in the silver sea."
One of the country's most powerful newspapers, The Daily Mail, has made a staple of the system's failures - of Afghans and Albanians and Iraqis and others stowing away in trucks and astride the wheel assemblies of freight trains shuttling through the Channel tunnel; of tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers who evade deportation for years; of illegal migrants who murder and rape, then emerge from prison and win court orders that let them stay in Britain because their wives and children live here.
All this has left advocates of keeping Britain's doors open with a hard sell. The official estimate of the foreign-born population - 11 percent - contrasts with the 1 percent historians give as the average for 1,000 years before major immigration from the Caribbean began in the 1950s.
To people like Mr. Griffin, all this is grist to the mill. As he presented his election manifesto, his aides warned that the failure to curb Muslim immigration would lead, perhaps as early as midcentury, to a Britain that is an Islamic republic.
While only a small minority appear to believe that, many think the country has begun a historic transformation that will make the Britain of the future profoundly different than it has been up to now. If that, too, was a specter raised by Mr. Powell back in 1968, he must be given some responsibility for making it a prospect too thorny, at least in this election, for the mainstream politicians of our age to engage.
It's looking more and more likely that David Cameron will be going to Buckingham Palace to kiss hands on May 7:
Nick Clegg goes public on coalition - and looks to Conservatives
The Liberal Democrat leader also made it explicit for the first time thatelectoral reform would be an unavoidable precondition of any coalition government as he insisted that Labour will have forfeited the right to govern if it comes third.
Electoral reform has become the #1 issue in the election. Some Conservatives are even saying that they should oppose electoral reform even if it prevents them from taking power. That alone shows how important electoral reform is.
Nick Clegg: I could work with Labour, just not Gordon Brown
• Liberal Democrat surge has not faltered, ICM poll finds
Three days before the final TV debate, today's polls showed there had been no crumbling of Lib Dem support, which surged after the first broadcast. A Guardian/ICM poll put the Tories on 33%, the Lib Dems on 30% and Labour on 28% - the same as a week ago. A ComRes poll for ITN showed the Tories on 32%, down two, the Lib Dems on 31, up two, and Labour on 28, unchanged. Both polls suggest Labour could end up with more seats than either of the other two parties.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/26/nick-clegg-hung-parliamen...
I wonder how much of this is discontent with the UK warring in Iraq & Afghanistan.
Guardian/ICM poll: Labour support could fall below 20%Gordon Brown's party could end up in third place as the latest poll suggests support has not yet hit bedrock
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/26/labour-support-fall-icm
Tories switch target to attack Nick Clegg
Labour turned its guns on Mr Clegg as a poll showed the three parties separated by only four points. The ComRes poll for The Independent put the Tories on 32 per cent, with the Lib Dems on 31 per cent and Labour on 28 per cent.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7108997.ece
Oh my God, shades of Canada!
The end of the world is coming - a hung Parliament.
As Clegg's popularity grows, so his demands begin to spook rivals
At the start of the campaign, the Liberal Democrat leader was treated with deference. Not any more
Labour and Conservative attacks on the Liberal Democrats
have failed to burst Nick Clegg's bubble and his party is now just one point behind the Tories in a remarkably close three-way race.
The latest ComRes survey for The Independent and ITV News puts the Tories on 32 per cent (down two points since the weekend), the Liberal Democrats on 31 per cent (up two), Labour on 28 per cent (unchanged) and others on nine per cent (unchanged). It is the Liberal Democrats' highest rating since ComRes began polling in 2004.
The figures would make Labour the largest party in a hung parliament with 268 MPs even though it is third in the share of the vote. The Tories would win 238 seats and the Liberal Democrats 112, leaving Labour 58 seats short of an overall majority.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/as-cleggs-popularity-grows...
Labour to warn rivals' spending cuts will hit children
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8645508.stm
Who will lead the opposition?
A hung parliament doesn't just change the nature of government - it changes almost everything about the workings of parliament
Just suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the Conservatives come first in both votes and seats next week, the Liberal Democrats come second in votes but third in seats, and Labour comes last in votes but second in seats. David Cameron duly forms a minority government with some sort of parliamentary understanding about the government's programme - though not a full-blown coalition - with the Lib Dems. Right now, indeed, this looks quite a likely outcome. It's the way a number of polls are pointing.
In this scenario, though, which party gets to be the main opposition? Both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party would have claims - the one based on votes, the other based on seats. Convention - and the law in the shape of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937, as amended by the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 - assumes that the Labour claim is superior. Since party power in the Commons is based on the number of seats each party has, there is not much doubt that Gordon Brown or his successor would lay claim to be leader of the opposition.
But there's a problem - and it's the same very important problem that is currently being vigourously debated in relation to other aspects of power in a hung parliament. If more people voted for the Lib Dems than for Labour, why should Nick Clegg not claim the leader's title instead?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/26/hung-parliament-oppo...
David Cameron accused over school policies by father of disabled boy
David Cameron was accused today of seeking to segregate disabled children in the education system by the father of a boy with spina bifida who tackled him as he left a General Election campaign speech.
Jonathan Bartley, who confronted the Conservative leader with his wheelchair-bound son as he left the event in south London, voiced his concern about Tory plans to "end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-accused-over...
Flirt with Clegg, get Pickles, says Mandelson
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7109311.ece
I wsih they would stop referring to the likely outcome of the UK election as a "hung parliament". It has such a negative connotation and either makes me think of a hung jury of of someone being led to the gallows. Why can't they just call it a "minority parliament".
Because a 'hung parliament' sounds more dramatic and allows for photo ops, such as Big Ben in a noose.
It must be quite a job keeping a muzzle on all these Tory yahoos. This one got loose!
Conservatives suspend Scottish candidate over homophobic remarksPhilip Lardner, candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, said homosexuality was 'not normal behaviour'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/27/conservatives-suspend-can...
"Conservatives suspend Scottish candidate over homophobic remarks
Philip Lardner, candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, said homosexuality was 'not normal behaviour'"
Neither is voting Tory in Scotland.
I wsih they would stop referring to the likely outcome of the UK election as a "hung parliament". It has such a negative connotation and either makes me think of a hung jury of of someone being led to the gallows. Why can't they just call it a "minority parliament".
I try to think of it as meaning the other sort of hung.
It's interesting that so little time has been spent by the UK parties discussing the big black cloud hanging over the election - that is, the desperate condition of public finances.
The IFS report suggests that by 2014-15, the Tories will need to find £64bn a year cuts in their unprotected areas, but the Conservatives have only detailed less than a fifth of the cuts that they would need. Labour needs to find cuts of £51bn, but has identified only an eighth. The Liberal Democrats need to identify almost £47bn cuts, and have identified a quarter.
The different cuts required by each party reflects the degree to which each party plans to make tax rises, as opposed to spending cuts, take the strain of reducing the deficit, as well as the speed with which they want to cut the deficit.
Why don't they just raise taxes on the rich, raise corporate taxes, and bring in a 10% inheritance tax on everyone if they don't already have one.
Nick Clegg: I want to be Prime Ministerhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7110002.ece
It's interesting that so little time has been spent by the UK parties discussing the big black cloud hanging over the election - that is, the desperate condition of public finances.
Which may add a potential unfortunate new dimension to any drawn parallels btw/the rise of Clegg and Ontario's 1990 NDP victory...
If Clegg then jumps ship to Labour a few years later, then Dippers and LibDems can down a few drinks in solidarity.
strikeout for Labour? 300 seats for Tories?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/27/nate-silver-labour-swing
The baseball nerd who used his genius for statistics to make startlingly accurate predictions in the 2008 US presidential race has weighed into the British election - and his conclusions make chilling reading for Labour.
Nate Silver, who correctly predicted the result between Barack Obama and John McCain in 49 out of America's 50 states, argues that the most popular method for translating opinion poll results into numbers of seats in parliament greatly overstates how well Labour will perform, giving the false impression that the party "has a fairly large buffer zone before facing total Armageddon".
The concept of uniform swing assumes that the projected national swing to or away from any given party will be manifested in identical vote swings in every constituency. If an opinion poll suggests that the Conservatives are up six points on 2005, for example, the assumption is that they will do six points better in each constituency. The method has long been criticised as flawed, especially in elections with strong third parties. But on his blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver goes one step further, presenting his own alternative methodology that suggests a disastrous 6 May performance for Labour.
Silver's method breaks up the monolithic uniform swing and instead assigns specific percentages of the parties' votes in 2005 to other parties in 2010. Using a recent polling average of the three main parties - with the Conservatives on 34%, the Lib Dems on 29.1%, and Labour on 26.9% - the differences between the two methods become stark. Using uniform swing, those percentages translate into 253 Labour MPs, 271 Conservatives, and 93 Lib Dems.
Using Silver's method, Labour ends up with just 214, with the Conservatives surging to 304, and the Lib Dems on 101.
Political disaster for Gordon Brown -- Thinking his mic was off, he called longtime Labour supporter a "bigoted woman"
Gordon Brown has said he is "mortified" after being caught on microphone describing a voter he had just spoken to in Rochdale as a "bigoted woman".
Gillian Duffy, 65, had challenged him on issues including immigration.
As he got into his car, he was still wearing a broadcast microphone and was heard to say "that was a disaster".
Mr Brown later spent more than half an hour at Mrs Duffy's house, apologising to her before telling waiting reporters he had misunderstood what she had said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8649853.stmThis is why I wouldn't be good at being a politician either. I'd probably do the same thing at some point.
It's obvious it's over for Labour, and they could well end up in 3rd place.
Good gosh but Mrs. Duffy looks like me mum, and has the same brass. Must be something in the Greater Manchester air.
I'm not exactly sure what Duffy was getting at with her remark about Eastern Europeans, whether it was in fact a remark based in bigotry, or something relating to the whole E.U. arrangement. But it's interesting that Brown siezed upon that and ran with it, so he could dismiss her as a bigot.
A woman that is more labour than Mr. Brown ever was or will be.
the gaffe that will not die:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/28/general-election-201...
The "is this the face of a prime minister?" moment of the election? Though given the structure of British politics, Labour's still more likely to have 200 than 2 seats--then again, who knows if the Lib Dems'll beat them in seat totals at this rate...
If they don't, it will likely create, for the first time, a mass base of support for electoral reform.
In a perfect world, Brown's blunder would also create space for the small, left-of-Labour parties to make some gains. Don't see THAT happening, but it should.
In the end the "bigot" flap will have little impact - there has already been an instant poll that shows that only 9% of all voters say that the incident made them "less likely to vote Labour" and virtually all of those people were already hardcore Tory or LibDem voters. Tonight is the final leaders debate and that will supersede this story. In any case, there have already been all kinds of stories about Bfrown being a bit of an asshole and being abusive to people around him. Labour is already down to its core vote (i.e. the equivalent of the 26% of Canadians who voted Liberal last time despite the horror of Dion). There is also starting to be an assumption that no matter what Brown will be gone after the election - unless he gets a majority - which will not happen. The speculation is that if there were to be a post-election deal between Labour and the LibDems - part of the deal will involve Brown being replaced by someone else from the Labour party.
UK debate live right now:
no knockouts, the usual party lines, everyone wants tax cuts, credits, economic regeneration, manufacturing jobs, cuts in bank bonuses, more lending, etc etc
pretty much a draw, middle of the 2nd period
compared to Habs-Caps game 7, fewer shots on goal, a defensive game, waiting for breakout and/or a memorable highlight-reel game-winner ...
oops, into overtime;
immigration suddenly the topic.... "let's bring immigration down to a more reasonable level": David Cameron
The 'bigot' comment reopened the Pandora's box of immigration. There is a serious gulf between what the political elites think about immigration and what ordinary citizens think.
People in Britain are angry over the very large intake of immigration, under Labour. Labour, much like Canada's NDP, tossed aside its union/working-class base, in favor of business and ethnic donors/voters. Yet, whenever someone raises concerns over this taboo topic, they get dismissed as 'bigots'. Brown's 'oopsie' merely confirmed people's suspicions that politicians have nothing but utter contempt for their voters. This is dangerous, as it is pushing frustrated British voters--the majority of whom do think there are too many immigrants--into BNP protest votes.
The situation in Arizona closely mirrors what's going on in Britain. 70% of Arizona's residents support 1070, over the objections of the political class. Even most Republicans (e.g., McCain) weren't in favor of the bill, but ended up supporting it out of fears of a massive voter backlash. Even in Canada, which took in nearly half a million people during the last recession, politicians aren't listening to the majority of citizens on the immigration issue.
uh, boy....this is NOT going to go to a good place...
Ken Burch,
Right. Throw the European debt meltdown into the mix, and this is going to get ugly. (The subprime crash was probably a preview of coming attractions.) This is starting to look frighteningly like the 1930s. If you haven't read Nikolai Kondratiev's 'long wave' theory, now would be a good time.
And the solution to a 1930's scenario is to embrace 'ethnic nationalism' I suppose?
Ken Burch,
Right. Throw the European debt meltdown into the mix, and this is going to get ugly. (The subprime crash was probably a preview of coming attractions.) This is starting to look frighteningly like the 1930s. If you haven't read Nikolai Kondratiev's 'long wave' theory, now would be a good time.
UH, no. I meant your fearmongering about immigrants(and for some reason it's only Hispanic or otherwise non-Northern European immigrants that you are fearmongering about).
I'll be boycotting Arizona until it returns to being a state of equal justice for all.
Cueball,
The elites created this mess. Britain already was a very densely-populated country and millions of immigrants (including illegal ones) should never have been allowed into the country. The technocrats ignored people's legitimate fears about the European Union eroding national sovereignty. There always has been 'ethnic nationalism' (and there always will be), but it needn't take on ugly, violent, or racist forms--just look at the World Cup. The problem is that the elites (Tory and Labour) in Britain have been telling people that concern for the state of their nation is 'racist' and that they should embrace 'diversity', even when it comes at the expense of national customs and mores, or their economic and physical well-being. An example is the rash of infills of gardens for immigrant housing, migrants squatting in people's yards, and the relentless destruction of greenspace in the UK, as the population swells. Yet the response of politicians such as Gordon Brown has been to sweep such concerns under the rug, as so much 'biggoted' rubbish. At some point, the people say "enough!" and embrace extremist movements that promise to address these taboo issues.
The solution is to start listening to what ordinary people think--and doing what they want done--whether political and business elites like it, or not. Otherwise, somebody else will take up the populist mantle.
So your solution, were you running for Chancellor of Germany in 1933, would be to embrace the ethnic nationalism of the majority as a means of achieving power in the cause of defending what you call "national customs and mores", "economic and physical well-being" and "greenspace"?
Ahhh, the one blood, one Reich, and plenty of Lebensraum approach. Seem to recall encountering themes of this nature in a publication that was originally titled Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.
Certainly not Lebensraum? I think that would be Grünraum no?
More like braun werden.
So your solution, were you running for Chancellor of Germany in 1933, would be to embrace the ethnic nationalism of the majority as a means of achieving power in the cause of defending what you call "national customs and mores", "economic and physical well-being" and "greenspace"?
You just Zig Zieglered yourself....
So, how about you? For ethnic nationalism or against? In the context of an era looking "like the 1930s," as outlined by Cactus. Got any "straight talk"?
Personally, I think this reading of incipient 1930sness is overwrought--and it puts the BNP on far more of a pedestal than they merit.
But to return to the election proper--hate to sound like Augustus here, but I wonder if we're heading for a situation where the Tories might well bluff into a majority, esp. if we're going by whatever rough 35-25-25 polling numbers out there...
So, how about you? For ethnic nationalism or against? In the context of an era looking "like the 1930s," as outlined by Cactus. Got any "straight talk"?
I think there are few stops on the road from questioning immigration policy of a democratic country to NAZI ethnic policies of the 1930's...Perhaps I'm just too practical...
I don't think Cactus was saying he supported NAZI policies either.What he said,and he can correct me if I missed his point,was that some people have a question about certain levels of immigration.And that business and political elites use the "bigot" canard as cover to avoid a serious subject.And sadly,the only recourse for these people are to turn to nationalist (Fascist) parties.The shame of it is that the subject is never discussed in a pragmatic,adult fashion,and unfortunately, usually devolves into someone claimng someone is a bigot simply for bringing up the subject!
The only thing I would disagree with Cactus is on his analogy to soccer...It's not only because I hate that game with a passion,but because it's the last place I would use as an example for an ethnic "Kumbaya" moment.Many riots around the "beautiful game"(it's only beautiful if you like sleeping and your lawn trampled),are based in ethnic bigotry.
Personally, I think this reading of incipient 1930sness is overwrought--and it puts the BNP on far more of a pedestal than they merit.
But to return to the election proper--hate to sound like Augustus here, but I wonder if we're heading for a situation where the Tories might well bluff into a majority, esp. if we're going by whatever rough 35-25-25 polling numbers out there...
I think that might be the case.Most of the Labour support that was on the fence is probably going to bleed off to the Tories.The Lib Dem's and Labour will probably saw it off down the middle and the Tories will come up through the middle...
Most of the Labour support that was on the fence is probably going to bleed off to the Tories.The Lib Dem's and Labour will probably saw it off down the middle and the Tories will come up through the middle...
Why do you think soft Labour support would bleed to the Tories rather than the LibDems?
By '1930s', I was thinking more in terms of an economic meltdown and fracturing trade links. The European Union and Euro, I mean, I really don't see anything as ghastly as what the Nazis and Imperial Japan did ever happening again, in Europe, or East Asia. However, no-longer working/no-longer guests on the Continent and Britain will probably be asked to leave. I doubt if even the most hardcore racists in Britain would ever resort to Serb-style ethnic cleansing; however, exclusion from social benefits and even cash incentives (the Greeks have been kicking this idea around) and effectively closing the borders will probably happen. A growing foreign population isn't tenable in a tanking economy.
The real danger is a 'Buy American'-style protectionism spree. Also, if there is a WW III, it will probably involve India, Pakistan, China as belligerants, not Europe, Japan, or North America.
So, how about you? For ethnic nationalism or against? In the context of an era looking "like the 1930s," as outlined by Cactus. Got any "straight talk"?
I think there are few stops on the road from questioning immigration policy of a democratic country to NAZI ethnic policies of the 1930's...Perhaps I'm just too practical...
I don't think Cactus was saying he supported NAZI policies either.What he said,and he can correct me if I missed his point,was that some people have a question about certain levels of immigration.And that business and political elites use the "bigot" canard as cover to avoid a serious subject.And sadly,the only recourse for these people are to turn to nationalist (Fascist) parties.The shame of it is that the subject is never discussed in a pragmatic,adult fashion,and unfortunately, usually devolves into someone claimng someone is a bigot simply for bringing up the subject!
Bollocks. What he said is that the left should appeal to ethnic prejudice. You just can't seem to see the woods from the trees when someone is dressing up prejudice as "immigration" polciy:
The technocrats ignored people's legitimate fears about the European Union eroding national sovereignty. There always has been 'ethnic nationalism' (and there always will be), but it needn't take on ugly, violent, or racist forms--just look at the World Cup. The problem is that the elites (Tory and Labour) in Britain have been telling people that concern for the state of their nation is 'racist' and that they should embrace 'diversity', even when it comes at the expense of national customs and mores, or their economic and physical well-being.
He even topped it off with his wild little spiel about about the state of England's precious gardens, on top of a nice dollop of vague conspiracy theories about shadowy "elites".
Embracing "diversity" is a bad thing "when it comes at the expense of national customs and mores"? How much more xenophobic can you get?
Pulease.
Why do you think soft Labour support would bleed to the Tories rather than the LibDems?
Soft New Labour (i.e. Blairite) support, perhaps?
England's 'precious gardens'? So, you're saying greenspace isn't an issue? After the fact, Gordon Brown admitted that there are too many people in Britain, particularilly Southern England, and even floated the idea of a population cap below 70M. The fact is that the UK doesn't have the land to absorb high levels of population growth without the loss of both agricultural and non-agricultural greenspace. People have literally had to evict squatters from their backyards and watched corrupt local planning authorities give the nod to infill housing on small residential yards. It was irresponsible for the Blair government to allow this, in both environmental and socio-economic terms.
As for 'xenophobia', some of the ethnic groups in Britain are simply not integrating into British society, and becoming emboldened by the government's hands-off approach to radicalism. Islam4UK is one notorious example--real xenophobia and bigotry, for you. Tower Hamlets (East London) is in the thrall of radical Islamist elements, who have coerced moderate South Asian Muslims into following their agenda, and have essentially bought and bullied the borough's Labour politicians. The idiotic 'Hijab Arches' plan (I'm not making this up) infuriated people with its combination of pandering and porkbarrel largesse. Thanks to Britain's liberal assylum policies, criminals such as Zulfar Hussain (a serial pedophile) can't be deported. Yet everytime people complain about things like this, the 'B'-word gets tossed about.
The 'elites' in Britain, who engineered the New Labour agenda, are the business and real estate lobbies that benefitted from a huge growth in population, after 1997. To some extent, the Tories tinkered with this as well, when they eliminated exit visas. The Andrew Neather revelations, confirmed by a freedom of information request, really brought this home to people: the British government wanted to massively increase immigration, even over the objections of their working-class voters...and Labour was willing to call naysayers 'racists'. What came out of Gordon Brown's mouth wasn't a surprise: Labour thinks its voters are racist idiots. The look on Gillian Duffy's face, when that reporter told her what Brown had said, probably registered on millions of faces in the country. The look the PM had on his face, after the recording was played back to him, more or less sums up the future of his party.
I'd wager either a Tory, or Liberal Democrat government, with maybe one BNP seat...and a complete Labour meltdown. I mean, a meltdown of Kim Campbell PC proportions. And while there won't ever be 'rivers of blood', the era of New Labour-style immigration is probably over.
As for 'xenophobia', some of the ethnic groups in Britain are simply not integrating into British society, and becoming emboldened by the government's hands-off approach to radicalism. Islam4UK is one notorious example--real xenophobia and bigotry, for you. Tower Hamlets (East London) is in the thrall of radical Islamist elements, who have coerced moderate South Asian Muslims into following their agenda, and have essentially bought and bullied the borough's Labour politicians. The idiotic 'Hijab Arches' plan (I'm not making this up) infuriated people with its combination of pandering and porkbarrel largesse. Thanks to Britain's liberal assylum policies, criminals such as Zulfar Hussain (a serial pedophile) can't be deported. Yet everytime people complain about things like this, the 'B'-word gets tossed about.
"Islamists!" "South Asians" and "pedophiles", all in one paragraph. Amazing!
It really didn't take you long to start frothing at the mouth about Muslims, did you? I notice by the way how you have adroitly stepped beyond Brown's gaff regarding the woman complaining about "eastern europeans", and are now using it as a launching pad for attacks on South Asians.
Kudo's to you for being so upfront. I really thought you might be intelligent enough to keep the overt bigotry under wraps so that you could soft sell your ideas about "immigration". But then, racists are rarely smart.
Notice I put 'moderate' and 'South Asians' in one sentence. Most of the British Muslim population (Ismailis and others) were well integrated. However, the recent influx of Saudi-influenced radicals has put a great deal of pressure on East London's secular Muslim population to conform...or else. For example, Ismaili women wouldn't be caught dead in hijabs, but niqabs are becoming very common. Hate-mongers like Islam4UK's Anjem "Shari'a is the solution!" Choudary, and copies of Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Islamic bookstores in London are symptomatic of this dangerous radicalism.
That paedophile isn't causing so much anger because of his ethnicity. After all, there are enough native Britons into diddling little girls. At issue is the fact that the government can't deport him, out of concern for his 'rights'. Like that rancher shot by the 'coyote' in Arizona, or the Jackie Tran case, these things really infuriate people. And, more than immigration policy, the 'Eastern European' issue illustrates the extent to which Britain has lost its sovereignty, since these are European migrants that the UK can't keep out. ('Race', or 'Islamophobia' has nothing to do with it, since these people are as 'white' as snow, as well as predominantly Christians.) Throw the Greek (and Portugese, Spanish...) bailout into the mix, and Britons are losing their enthusiasm for the EU.
That is them. I was talking about you.
You started in a discussion based in comments made in the context of "white as snow" European "Christians" and adroitly moved that over to a discussion of how "some of the ethnic groups in Britain are simply not integrating into British society", and then launched into a traditional Islamophobic rant. We can assume that when you were talking about "some" ethnic groups not 'intergrating", you did not mean "white as snow" European Christians, since you likely would have mentioned their inability to "integrate" in the context of a discussion about a woman complaining about "Eastern Europeans." But no. Not them. You flipped over to Muslims South Asians and deemed them "undesirable" as a discrete ethnic population that has failed to "integrate" because (according to you) the entire population of "moderate" Muslim South Asians is "in the thrall" of radical Islamic nationalists.
The rest of your post is just dissembling to make it appear like you were talking about something else, gardening, and so on.
Cueball,
It's a fact that there is a growing stratum of radical (mostly young, male) Muslims in Britain. 7/7 and other incidents (some thwarted by the authorities) provide brutal proof of that fact. It is also true that religious extremism, of the Wahhabi-cum-Salafi variety, is spreading in communities like Tower Hamlets. And I never wrote anything to the effect that "the entire population" of British South Asians has gone 'radical Islamic nationalis[t]'. By mentioning the European Migrants issue, I meant to illustrate the fact that opposition to large-scale immigration isn't the 'race' issue that Labourites paint it to be. (In this case, it's an EU and border-sovereignty issue.) You are twisting everything into a 'race' issue and resorting to name-calling...including Gordon Brown's favorite, the 'B'-word.
granted, Cactus botched his whole intervention above and ended up tripping all over himself with contradictory assertions,
but then Cueball races in from the other side of the debate and reiterates firmly the core PC conviction:
regular voters cannot be trusted to make sensible judgements about immigration, and in fact any evocation of "problems with immigration" means ... you guessed it, the 1930s! all over again!
so party leaders can discuss agriculture policy, education policy, economic policy, housing policy, etc etc., but any mention of immigration policy (too much? too little?) in the normal course of a national election debate is, well .... the 1930s! all over again!
ie, when Schengen was extended to eastern Europe and the initial government projection was that 13,000 Polish workers would join the British labour force, then in fact the influx was about 30 times that level, are British labourers, esp those at the low end of the wage scale, allowed to raise that issue during a national election? or not?
My reading of Cueball's heated reply is: No.
Too bad, because a national election might be a good forum to point out that, after a large wave of immigration, Poles for example are now returning in high numbers to start their own businesses in Poland; the outflux is quite remarkable. Worth noting, no?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/29/polish-immigration-to-uk-...
Immigration is a complex issue. But it can be discussed without the ad hitlerum stuff that is so easy to invoke.
Cueball,
It's a fact that there is a growing stratum of radical (mostly young, male) Muslims in Britain. 7/7 and other incidents (some thwarted by the authorities) provide brutal proof of that fact. It is also true that religious extremism, of the Wahhabi-cum-Salafi variety, is spreading in communities like Tower Hamlets. And I never wrote anything to the effect that "the entire population" of British South Asians has gone 'radical Islamic nationalis[t]'. By mentioning the European Migrants issue, I meant to illustrate the fact that opposition to large-scale immigration isn't the 'race' issue that Labourites paint it to be. (In this case, it's an EU and border-sovereignty issue.) You are twisting everything into a 'race' issue and resorting to name-calling...including Gordon Brown's favorite, the 'B'-word.
Again. We aren't talking about "them". we are talking about you. It was you who dropped kicked the discussion about the EU, Eastern Europeans and so on into an Islamophobic field goal, with your pointed example of "some of the ethnic groups in Britain are simply not integrating into British society".
Among all this trash talk about Niqab's, Hijabs and the international conspiracy of Leftists, Muslims and Saudi oil Sheiks to undermine the "culture and mores" of English society, you have yet once to mention the looming threat of the well armed extremist eastern European mafioso Chritstian Orthodox criminal gangsters. No mention of their failure to "integrate".
Too bad, because a national election might be a good forum to point out that, after a large wave of immigration, Poles for example are now returning in high numbers to start their own businesses in Poland; the outflux is quite remarkable. Worth noting, no?
Immigration is a complex issue. But it can be discussed without the ad hitlerum stuff that is so easy to invoke.
Not at all, the whole excersize has completely stripped this fellow of any appearances of carrying on some kind of objective discussion about immigration policy. It is completely possible to have an discussion about immigration without once every talking about ethnicity. This fellow here just can't manage that. He wants to talk about conspiracies of elitest leftist, muslims and rich Saudi oil shieks. His whole assertion, including the allusion to the 1930s begged the question about the issue of ethnic nationalism.
Sorry, it is actually ok to talk about race and racism, and mention Hitler and the origins of national socialism and its appeal to 'ethnic nationalism", especially when someone starts talking about ethnic nationalism it in the context of the 1930s. What do you want us to do? Forget about it?
Have you seen the latest polls? Labour is in free-fall. At this point, my money is on a slight Tory majority, Lib-Dem opposition and a total Labour wipeout.
The latest YouGov daily tracking survey that came out an hour ago says Cons (34% (no change from yesterday), Labour 28% (up 1), LDs (28% unchanged). Is that your definition of "freefall"? if so its quite odd.
You wouldn't still advise voting Labour, would you Stocks? It's obviously impossible for them to catch Cameron and they're never ever going to break from Blairism. Why shouldn't all left-of-center voters in the UK repudiate them?
Stockholm,
Sorry, I missed that one--I was talking about the post-debate poll. Like all politics, personality plays a part, and Brown is as charismatic a BSer as John Major...just prickly. I still bet there will be a Labour wipeout...possibly with Gordon Brown punching somebody.
Ken Burch,
'Labour', like the NDP under Jack Layton, abandoned social-democracy and working class advocacy long ago. Now, they're another...um...'grape' party: red on the outside and green (as in corporate/business money) on the inside. Actually, the Tories and Lib-Dems aren't that different, either. The Labour/Liberal/Conservative policies on immigration and the EU really aren't that different. Whatever the Brits get, they'll end up with New Labour Lite, anyhow.
I agree that a lof ot the center-left parties have abandoned social democracy, let alone socialism. It would NOT, however, be more social democratic and would not help the restoration of social democratic or socialist values anywhere for the center-left parties to be anti-immigration, since that would be a right-wing position and compromise those parties' obligation to oppose racism and discrimination in all forms. The NDP would not be MORE social-democratic if it transformed itself into the Canadian version of the BNP.
The answer lies in a break with the "Third Way" embrace of the idea that the market should control life...not the scapegoating of immigrants.
It should also be tied to a solidaristic commitment to help working people in ALL countries transform the places where they live into democratic and egalitarian societies.
Historically, anti-immigration types don't feel any solidarity towards workers in other countries, and often in the past were the biggest "anticommunist" types, that is, the people who let fear of "The Soviet/Chinese/Cuban/Venezuelan/on a crazier day Vancouver/Threat" and support for a military response to said "threat" come before any real commitment to global worker emancipation.
It's about helping each other up-not keeping each other out.
And there's no reason that immigrants from Muslim countries should be seen in any different light than immigrants from anywhere else.
"If the Guardian had a vote it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come
That'd be like the Toronto Star endorsing Jack Layton.
@ adma:
Polly 'clothespeg' Toynbee won't be too happy about that. Apparently Labour cannot commit a crime heinous enough for her to stop voting for them, and encouraging others to do likewise.
If I was a voter interested in a progressive-minded party that wants to scrap Trident and save upwards of 65 billion pounds, and I was so fortunate as to be in Scotland, I'd vote for the SNP.
Scotland actually has several good left-wing choices. In addition to the SNP, there's also the Greens(who are stronger there than in England)the Scottish Socialists, and even the Labour Party there still has some actual Labour MP's.
And in Wales, Plaid Cymru(the Welsh sovereigntist party)is electable in a number of areas and has an antinuclear position and economic policies to Labour's left.
I'm guessing a lot of people will vote LibDem throughout the UK this time in the hopes that PR will be brought in(the LibDems will insist on it as their price for supporting a minority Labour or Tory government)thus making real electoral choices possible in the future.
PR would also give Labour's remaining leftists an increased voice, since they could argue(after its implementation)that non-Blairite Labour voters would have, for the first time "somewhere else to go" and can therefore no longer be treated with utter contempt by the party leadership.
The last time I checked, the NDP still isn't on the take from Bay Street, like the two old line parties have been for the last one-hundred years.
Fidel, fyi, "Cactus" appears to have dried up and blown away.
As much as people DON'T want to discuss this, immigration is the single big issue in the UK election:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/04/immigration_b...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270210/How-uncle-Azad-master-fo...
Why do you think soft Labour support would bleed to the Tories rather than the LibDems?
Soft New Labour (i.e. Blairite) support, perhaps?
That's it...
Uh..."Cactus"? do you understand what "banned" means?
And you'd have been slightly LESS obvious if you hadn't just switched desert flora.
Labour , Brown going down fighting:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7663021/General-Election-2...
traditionally pro-Labour paper Guardian goes Liberal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-h...
I'm not getting too excited about the Guardian saying it supports the Lib Dems. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Re the possibility of the Tories actually salvaging a majority out of this: keep in mind the 1992 precedent where a whole slew of pollsters were calling it a hung parliament if not a Kinnock victory, yet John Major enjoyed a surprisingly solid reelection...
And was wracked by scandals and sleaze, a wafer-thin majority that threatened to crumble at any moment, and deals with the DUP and UUP to keep it in power. It's not too difficult to see that happening again. The SNP's MPs could be crucial in extracting a referendum on Scottish independence in return for votes in the HoC. Plus, since the Tories have little presence in Scotland, any attempt for Scotland to leave would come at minimal cost. It might be difficult to spin that referendum, but ignore calls for one on UK's membership of the EU.
Do newspaper endorsements actually matter at all?
They matter for the newspapers. They get to pretend they have a large influence on what happens. Whereas their influence is marginal, at best.
Hilarious. Someone who insists on hardline immigration policies in order to protect the "culture and mores" of western civilization, seems completely unable to restrain himself from border jumping, even though he has been evicted from babbleland numerous times. He expects Mexicans to respect the laws he promotes, but exempts himself from following his own principle: that principle applies only to others.
Please understand: You failed the immigration exam. You are not wanted here. In fact you are a repeat offender.
I'm not getting too excited about the Guardian saying it supports the Lib Dems. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Would it have made a difference if they'd posted a photo of the Guardian editorial board EATING pudding next to the editorial?
lol, Cueball. We know what to do with snake oil salesmen around here.
The right wing (i.e., business interests) are afraid ... of a coalition! lol. Sound familliar?
They're basically threatening capital flight if the election doesn't produce a Tory majority.
I've now started a continuation thread, here, since this is at 100(first-past-the)posts:
http://rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/uk-election-thre...
You all might laugh, but Labour still has a very serious chance of retaining government after the next election. In terms of seats, the Conservatives and Labour are running neck-and-neck, and the Conservatives don't have a natural ally in parliament (outside of N.I. Unionists) the same way Labour does in the Liberals.