UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Don Vito Corleone]

Yes, I agree with the last post. Blair in his heydey was bigger than Jesus. I mean, just look at this. Granted, it is an internal poll (though I must say I don't know too much about the dynamics of internal polling accuracy in Britain), but it's worth something. If that's not enough, consider that Labour consistently polled near 50% during that 97-01 Parliament.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Yes, I agree with the last post. Blair in his heydey was bigger than Jesus. I mean, just look at this. Granted, it is an internal poll (though I must say I don't know too much about the dynamics of internal polling accuracy in Britain), but it's worth something. If that's not enough, consider that Labour consistently polled near 50% during that 97-01 Parliament.

That was in the wake of his Diana response which was as close to an American style 'rally-around-the-flag' moment as we've ever come. He was freakishly popular in his early years but that was definitely an outlier.

For sure, but my point was more that Blair was very very popular in his early years before Iraq and I cannot see Howard having done much better in 2001 than the Tories ended up doing under Hague (not that it really matters but that's my thoughts on it).

[Don Vito Corleone]

This also got me thinking again about Gordon Brown’s encounter with the “bigoted woman”. I view it as a truly tragic moment in British politics, not because of how it may or may not have affected that general election, but because cemented it being taboo to dismiss concerns about “mass immigration” as being scapegoating not grounded in economic reality.

Honestly my perception is that this moment has become much more important in hindsight (past few years) than it was considered at the time.

It's often forgotten that Rochdale was a Labour gain in 2010, so it didn't even have an impact locally. The mythologising of the incident really got going as part of the 2010 Labour leadership election, for reasons that in retrospect had little to do with national electoral politics.

Was this due to changing boundaries? Otherwise I'd be really curious as to how they picked up that seat in a year they were losing nearly 100 seats.

[Don Vito Corleone]

This also got me thinking again about Gordon Brown’s encounter with the “bigoted woman”. I view it as a truly tragic moment in British politics, not because of how it may or may not have affected that general election, but because cemented it being taboo to dismiss concerns about “mass immigration” as being scapegoating not grounded in economic reality.

Honestly my perception is that this moment has become much more important in hindsight (past few years) than it was considered at the time.

It's often forgotten that Rochdale was a Labour gain in 2010, so it didn't even have an impact locally. The mythologising of the incident really got going as part of the 2010 Labour leadership election, for reasons that in retrospect had little to do with national electoral politics.

Was this due to changing boundaries? Otherwise I'd be really curious as to how they picked up that seat in a year they were losing nearly 100 seats.

Well they gained it from a Lib Dem who had only won by 400 votes in 2005, so it’s not hard to see why they might have won it, especially as the Lib Dems also lost seats in 2010 and their performances are often based on highly localised factors. The boundary changes did result in a notional Labour seat under 2005 numbers, but this wasn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all of it.

Ah, makes sense.