Wednesday 7 November 2012

On The Subject Of Elections ...

A little while ago I sought expert input on the UK boundary-changes debacle, discovering that the Conservatives have screwed up the only political issue that mattered in their coalition dealings.

And so it comes to pass, according to Brogan in the DTel.  He reckons the LibDem manoeuvering  might bring down the coalition, which I suppose could have its advantages.

But I wonder.  Cameron is one of those types whose sense of honour includes putting friendship above most other considerations.  It's this, of course, that will be end of his credibility when the ludicrous Brooks thing plays out.  In the meantime, his little friend Clegg will probably get a measure of top-cover for his plotting, where he ought already to have been taken to one side and had his fortune read for him

That's the trouble with Etonians: when you've got it all, at the end of the day, you don't have enough at stake.

What a shambles.

ND

13 comments:

CityUnslicker said...

Agree wtih that Nikc. i t reminds me of another saying, if you gamble with money you can afford to lose, you will lose it.

If you gamble with money you can;t afford to lose you won't.

Everything is determined by how much skin you have in the game. I agree too many of the current cabinet have not enough.

Sadly the benches opposite are no better.

BE said...

Wholeheartedly agree. The boundary reform was IMHO the second-most important thing after education for the Tories to tackle. Thank God For Gove.

Like education, the boundary reforms are about thirty or forty years overdue.

Cameron is a fool when it comes to this stuff. He manages not to be nice enough to win over the centre-left and not ruthless enough to get anything done from his side either.

He should have taken AV in return for boundary reform without a referendum.

I can't help wondering if we shouldn't have re-elected Brown so he could bring the whole house down so we could start again from scratch. Maybe we need a nice war to clear out the cobwebs.

Dick said...

Quite agree - although, in some regards we should be in some ways content that they're running a sort of benign administration. Unlike the last lot, these guys really haven't done anything at all. They're trying to roll back from the austerity narrative because it's dated and has now become pervasisve even though it never happened.

What has surprised me is the effectiveness of the opposition - they've done very well.

That Cameron & Osborne have no strategic vision, that they were bounced into the NHS review and have fundamentally failed in balancing constituencies kind of just highlights how little ambition they had - all they wanted was to lead the Tories but never understood how to run an administration. I guess Brown did the same - plot, scheme and triangulate until whatever was there to start with has vanished.

It's a bit of a shame but fuck 'em - sympathy can't be popped in the bank.

andrew said...


Sort of disagree.
I still go for the scots leaving the English parliament in '14 (or realistically at some point after that)
This guarantees a Con majority in England forever. No need to rejig any boundary - just get rid of the bit where the oil is starting to run out.

Not that that is a good thing.

Blue Eyes said...

I hypothetical independent would see it as a matter of basic constitutional fairness that constituencies should be roughly the same size. Many parliamentary nations have regulations about it.

Having said that I don't know why the Tories (formerly known as the greatest election-winning machine in history) don't try and win some of the rotten boroughs.

Why don't they try to appeal to the North, for example? A bit of Heseltine-esque regional regeneration policy would go down a treat in the depressed bits of the North-East I imagine. Some new roads and enterprise areas might shift the image that the Tories are for Surrey commuters and nobody else.

Then they might not need electoral reform to win a majority?

Sebastian Weetabix said...

@Dick: "what has surprised me is the effectiveness of the opposition"

Labour is absolutely brilliant at being the opposition, and always has been. They're full of moral fervour and fizzing with energy, can see the mote in the other fellows eye but never the beam in their own and are burning with the righteousness of their cause. Sadly they're no fucking good at governing because they always run out of other people's money. And they're just as liable to stick their snouts in the trough. Nothing but the best for the workers, etc.

Budgie said...

Andrew said: "This guarantees a Con majority in England forever."

No. it doesn't. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with Cameron (and boy George), mainly over his europhilia and the lack of government cuts in the management, rather than services. (Examples: cut 99% of quangoes; cut the MoD by 80%; scrap subsidies to greenies; sell the BBC).

Without Brown to motivate a Tory vote, Cameron has stuffed the Tories for another decade.

CityUnslicker said...

Let's be honest. Even Brown, comfortably the worst Prime Minister since the war, got 30% of the vote.

The Tories are in a deep hole for many of the reasons commented herein.

The ONLY way to help was to at least try an re-adjust the imbalance in the voting system so that they had a fair shout. But left-leaning Lib Dems would always have found an excuse.

Whoever won the last election would lose the next one due to the austerity - Obama has won becuase he has done a Brown and put it off.

Ed M gets two terms in my view from here right now.

Dick said...

@CU - geez, that's a sobering conclusion. The metrics for Miliband being a blethering lightweight disrespected by any floating voter for having the gravitas of a fart in a lift will be vaguely interesting to measure, but yeah, 1 term definately, 2 terms - well, get shut of Cameron & Osborne and I guess it's game on.

It seems with politics these days, it's a choice between who you're gonna be lied to by again.

Demetrius said...

So the USA has 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. We have 650 MP's and over 1000 peers. Their boundaries are clearly marked and comprehensible,ours now no longer make any sense. The change needed is really very radical indeed if we are to call ourselves a "democracy". Bring back The Eastern Association.

Electro-Kevin said...

Conservatism is dying in the west.

Cultural & sexual change as much as boundary changes. Nowt from now on but soft options, mediocrity and corruption.

Gerry Mandering said...

Agree about leaving the jocks to sort their own mess which gives an automatic win for the Conservatives.

But I do have a worry though. It used to be said you could fit the LibDem MPs in a taxi. North of the border you can fit Conservative MPs on a unicycle so poor was their strategic vision.

Agence communication said...

"" And so it comes to pass, according to Brogan in the DTel. He reckons the LibDem manoeuvering might bring down the coalition, which I suppose could have its advantages.

But I wonder. Cameron is one of those types whose sense of honour includes putting friendship above most other considerations. It's this, of course, that will be end of his credibility when the ludicrous Brooks thing plays out. In the meantime, his little friend Clegg will probably get a measure of top-cover for his plotting, where he ought already to have been taken to one side and had his fortune read for him

That's the trouble with Etonians: when you've got it all, at the end of the day, you don't have enough at stake.

What a shambles.

ND""