UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[TheTide]

A fun legacy of Mr Tony terrifying the Conservative party and Gordon imploding in 2007 is that the Conservatives believe that only Mr Blair (or someone performing a weird cosplay) cam beat them.

I've sometimes wondered whether or not a similar point was made about Mr Wilson in the mid-1990s or so (at which point no Labour leader other than Wilson had won a general election in almost half a century).   

[TheTide]

A fun legacy of Mr Tony terrifying the Conservative party and Gordon imploding in 2007 is that the Conservatives believe that only Mr Blair (or someone performing a weird cosplay) cam beat them.

I've sometimes wondered whether or not a similar point was made about Mr Wilson in the mid-1990s or so (at which point no Labour leader other than Wilson had won a general election in almost half a century).  

Actually no, Wilson's reputation was very low in the 1980s and 90s. He was widely seen - throughout the political spectrum - as an unprincipled schemer who had squandered the electoral opportunities presented to him and allowed his party to be invaded by extremists. Of course his getting dementia, apart from being a personal tragedy, meant he was unable to put his own case as past PMs often are - so when he died in 1995, Blair's "tribute" was lukewarm to the point of actual embarrassment (and I also recall the late Hugo Young writing an absolute excoriation for the ages in the Guardian)

It was sometime in that decade that things began to turn, however. There had already been the first signs with sympathetic "revisionist" biographies by Ben Pimlott and Philip Ziegler, but it took seeing Labour back in power for things to really change. Blair's trauma over Iraq made his keeping us out of Vietnam look much more impressive, for instance - and some current Labour "modernisers" see him as a kindred spirit, in marked contrast to a generation ago.

I mostly know about his reputation until those biographies, but it's not as if Blair's reputation is all that great either. Maybe it's improved a bit recently, but I seem to remember the "only Labour leader to win a general election in so and so amount of time" point being made during the leadership of Ed Miliband. I'm sure this is just a wild theory on my part, but I'd say the reason why that bit of electoral trivia wasn't brought up about Wilson and is brought up about Blair is because of some rather misguided interpretations of both of them (i.e. Wilson was as per the description above and Blair was a Tory-In-All-But-Name). 

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If Russell Brand hadn't recklessly thrown his cards onto the table during the 2015 general election campaign, then he would have likely been a high-profile Corbynista (for better or worse) during the years that followed. As it was, he rather faded into obscurity after that election, at least as a supposed political commentator.

Incidentally, he is the third household name broadcasting/showbiz British personality to be accused of sexual misdemeanors this year, after Schofield and Edwards. It almost feels like 2012 again, and not in the Jubilee or Olympic sense.  

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Remember that Sunak is of the 2015 intake. As an MP, he's known little else but party infighting and leadership crises. He's seen a change of leader/Prime Minister on average once every two years since he was first elected to Parliament, which is about the amount of time he will have been in office by the time of the next general election. I suspect his recent actions are done with the aim of propping up his position until the said general election, and perhaps also of giving the government some sense of policy direction (which has been lacking since at least 2016). Whether they will be successful in those is another matter.

[TheTide]

To follow up on that - there’s a number of pundits (from the Times lot, to Emily Maitlis) who have noticed that Labour need to reclaim more seats to win a majority of one, than the number Blair won from the Tories in 1997.

So that becomes the framing on a quiet news day, when they want a horse-race story - irrespective of polling, by-elections and local election results, etc. As Devout Centrist noted, it’s  an easy excuse for some hung Parliament chatter - and the go-to intro for a piece about the Lib Dems or SNP at Westminster (I think it’s now illegal to write an editorial about Ed Davey that doesn’t include the word *kingmaker*).

It’s either that, or “there’s no great enthusiasm for Keir Starmer, so Labour’s lead is soft”.

It would be interesting to know what the private views of those in the Tory hierarchy are regarding what the election result might be. Michael Heseltine, then Deputy PM, was said to have predicted a Tory majority of 40 just prior to the 1997 election.

[TheTide]

To follow up on that - there’s a number of pundits (from the Times lot, to Emily Maitlis) who have noticed that Labour need to reclaim more seats to win a majority of one, than the number Blair won from the Tories in 1997.

So that becomes the framing on a quiet news day, when they want a horse-race story - irrespective of polling, by-elections and local election results, etc. As Devout Centrist noted, it’s  an easy excuse for some hung Parliament chatter - and the go-to intro for a piece about the Lib Dems or SNP at Westminster (I think it’s now illegal to write an editorial about Ed Davey that doesn’t include the word *kingmaker*).

It’s either that, or “there’s no great enthusiasm for Keir Starmer, so Labour’s lead is soft”.

It would be interesting to know what the private views of those in the Tory hierarchy are regarding what the election result might be. Michael Heseltine, then Deputy PM, was said to have predicted a Tory majority of 40 just prior to the 1997 election.

I'm sure I remember Hezza sayng a bit later he privately knew it was baloney, and was perfectly aware that the Tories were headed for a big defeat.

But how else to motivate at least some of the troops? You have to suspend disbelief a bit in elections where it is pretty obvious that you are going to lose.

There were a few people - more in their media supporters than the party, admittedly - who really did think the Tories might pull it off again, however. They claimed stuff like Labour's poll lead being "soft" and Blair actually being widely disliked by the voters (sound familiar, any of this?)

The odd thing is that it continued to some extent after the exit poll results. Michael Portillo was unwilling to acknowledge Labour's victory at the start of the night when he was interviewed by Paxman. Contrast this with John McDonnell's interview with Andrew Neil on election night 2019. He pretty much verbally acknowledged that Labour had suffered a catastrophic defeat, and it was certainly evident in his body language.

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Aye. The comparison for Braverman I can’t shake is John Redwood circa 1997 - ie, figurehead for the right when they have power, but ignored in favour of new blood (typically with a better sense of humour, Widdecombe excluded)  once they’re in opposition.

I wonder what the likes of Gove and Hunt (if they keep their seats) will do in opposition. Will they try the Kenneth Clarke route and have multiple attempts at the leadership, or will they do what various New Labour cabinet ministers did after 2010 and quietly hang around until the next general election?

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It's a YouGov subsample and so comes with lots of health warnings, but still LOL:

https://twitter.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1707375642856010080

Full Tory shares from the poll by age subsample:
65+ 46%
50-64 27%
25-49 12%
18-24 1%

Inevitably, many people on Twitter/X are taking it seriously, despite there being almost simultaneously a 'proper' poll of this age group showing the Tories on a much more believable 15%.

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I was still in school in the 2015 election and a good number of people I knew voted Tory, but of them & the ones I knew at Uni I can’t think of any who are still Tories that don’t have careers somehow connected to the party.

I have a similar experience (uni rather than school) and some are now not only not-Tory but quite fanatically left-wing (more so than I am, as someone who voted Labour in that and subsequent general elections). Enthusiastic convert syndrome, buyer's remorse, or whatever I suppose.

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https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1717138831365792250?s=20

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I suppose the inevitable question here is - trick or treat, and for whom?

A treat for psephological types I suppose, given the timing.

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This must be the worst psephological account on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/PollingReportUK

Maybe I should ignore it but it comes up too often on my feed. Basically applies uniform swing to every constituency (on previous boundaries), implies that various MPs who are standing down will stand again and knows that most of the people it reaches aren't as up on psephology as those on this site (for example) are. It also deviously shares its name with a fairly respectable (and now defunct?) psephology website.

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If she really wants to be sacked then just publicly call Sunak a 'useless ****'. It would endear her further to her targeted constituency within the Tory Party and also happens to be a sentiment that the majority of the general electorate share.

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https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1722585392531034578?s=20

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I note that Nigel Farage is going on "I'm a Celebrity". Previous contestants include Matt Hancock and Nadine Dorries.

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I love how 'Bernard Jenkin' the Bernard Jenkin message is.

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1723044762649797049?s=20

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Being briefed that Suella wants Sunak to call an election if the Rwanda policy is struck down.

And even said it should be a 'who governs Britain election' like Ted Heath did in 1974.

Surely they know how that ended up?

I've only seen it mentioned by Dan Hodges, who perhaps isn't always the most reliable of sources.

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This is random, but I seem to recall Galloway taking part in some kind of discussion about the somewhat less contentious matter of fox hunting quite a few years ago. He stated that he supported the banning of it, but noted that he didn't like foxes as he once came back from a holiday to find a fox residing in his house. He (and others) spent several hours chasing it around the house. One of the funniest bits of mental imagery I've ever had.

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The Prime Ministers (current and former) standing together at the Cenotaph yesterday. It wouldn't be *that* much of an exaggeration to say that they all despise each other - particularly those from the same party! This has also been the case at other points in time. Forty years ago, for example, it would have been Thatcher, Heath, Wilson, Douglas-Home, Macmillan and Callaghan.

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James Cleverly in No.10 via the front door - expectation he’s being sent to the Home Office to replace Braverman.

Of course he holds a not-exactly-unimportant position at the present time. Hunt to Foreign Office, and a more palatable (to the right of the party) figure at the Treasury?

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David Cameron is in Downing Street.

Surely they’re not sending him to the Lords, right now? FCDO from the Lords?

That could actually lead to enough right-wingers (both on the current frontbench and on the backbenches) voting against the government in a confidence motion to bring it down. Seriously.

It's actually kind of like Starmer appointing Reeves as Shadow Chancellor - in terms of being toxic to a certain section of the party. The problem is that the hard left of the Labour Party was much less powerful (even then) than the hard right of the Tory Party is now. Sunak being too clever by half if this is what is happening.

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Kay Burley on Sky News is practically gushing about Cameron's return. Some might recall when she was gushing over him during a televised leaders' debate in 2015, and taking a rather different attitude to Ed Miliband.

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David Cameron is in Downing Street.

Surely they’re not sending him to the Lords, right now? FCDO from the Lords?

Big Mandelson 2009 energy

I feel like it's even more bizarre than Mandelson joining the Cabinet. It'd be like if Major appointed Thatcher in 1996. How often does an ex-PM become a Cabinet minister, let alone one that isn't even in the Commons? I don't think I've heard of something like that anywhere in the world, at least not in the Anglosphere.

Last time this happened here was Alex Douglas-Home (coincidentally I mentioned him in an earlier post!) in 1970. He was pretty much a stop-gap PM though.

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This pretty much confirms Cameron at the FCO, surely.

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He was the last PM to be any good at the dispatch box. Of course he won't be able to do any of that.