tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post7980115287445636993..comments2024-03-29T09:14:53.583+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Are the Tories in Terminal Decline?Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-47253743879453771512017-06-14T00:48:08.629+01:002017-06-14T00:48:08.629+01:00Anonymous
The more people like you join, the less...Anonymous<br /><br />The more people like you join, the less influence people like the above poster will have. Think of it that way ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-61419942613487923082017-06-13T23:33:39.233+01:002017-06-13T23:33:39.233+01:00Phil,
Just looking at the age profiles of Labour ...Phil,<br /><br />Just looking at the age profiles of Labour and Conservative voters suggests the decline thesis: Osborne tried to delay it with a combination of bribing the old and voter suppression of the young; May's strategy was to try to absorb the UKIP vote and not alienate the rest of the base. Arguably the whole election gamble was in the hope that one big win now would reduce Labour in terms of size and send it off to start squabbling again for another five-ten years. That's one way of looking at Nick Timothy's inflammatory language about "crushing" Labour, etc.<br /><br />I've tried to analyse some of this through looking at the recomposition of labour in the "post-industrial" economy, the experience of labour, and the way it expresses itself -- using a bit of "sociological imagination". I think we're seeing new forms of class construction, but that this is overlooked because it doesn't have so much formal representation through unions etc. There's a link to the paper here: https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/the-new-politics-of-place/ I'd be delighted to discuss it with you at some point, since your political writing here is some of the better stuff I read. (Andrew Curry)Andrew Curryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05593851567827102782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-15204560372088145042017-06-13T21:02:20.453+01:002017-06-13T21:02:20.453+01:00I am not a member of the Labour party. I voted ent...I am not a member of the Labour party. I voted enthusiastically for Labour at the election. I consider joining. But when I read Mark Livingston I think that it would be just too unpleasant. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-81860200381433770642017-06-12T10:46:57.606+01:002017-06-12T10:46:57.606+01:00Don't know about the Tories, but the Blairites...Don't know about the Tories, but the Blairites are in terminal decline. How delicious it was to see those repellent, snivelling, self-serving careerist bastards grovelling for jobs over the weekend. They were practically crawling all over each other. Even the Labour Uncut Blair cultists have accepted defeat and are now plaintively appealing for some sort of representation on the front bench. <br /><br />Members should show them no mercy. None whatsoever.Shai Masothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00452453462950704943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-76274435556564481102017-06-12T09:20:42.694+01:002017-06-12T09:20:42.694+01:00"Despite losing seats and falling into chaos,..."Despite losing seats and falling into chaos, the result appears to challenge the declinist thesis: the Tory vote is the highest any party has polled since John Major's post-war record of 14m in 1992. May managed to win more votes than Blair in 1997, and she presided over a vote increase of 5.5% on 2015's tally. This was well over anything Dave pulled off in confrontations with Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. On her watch, the Tories made aggressive inroads into SNP-held seats, and UKIP completely melted away with large numbers of its voters switching to the Tories."<br /><br />After 3 Labour defeats in 7 years, Phil makes good points but I disagree with Phil's final and familiar thesis - 'the Tories are in long-term decline' - whilst I agree with much of the substance:<br /><br />"If the Tories are to win again, their model is the boring, plodding but dependable and uncontroversial small c conservatism of an Angela Merkel married to the seductive a-place-for-everybody inclusivity of one nation Toryism. There are Tories who see their Conservatism in this way, but getting there would require the party undergo a full body transplant, of it becoming something else. That said, no one should underestimate the British Conservative Party's capacity to do whatever it take to grab power, even when it is seemingly boxed into an impossible political situation."<br /><br />Indeed. Since the 1820s it has been predicted that the Tories will 'fade away.' Wishful thinking. There will always be people that lean to the right and vote Tory, for that team to gain/regain power it will ultimately depend on the behaviour and performance of whichever party is in power. If the govt of any colour manage the economy and are able to convince most people that they are running the country effectively they will be re-elected. If not the Opposition will get in. <br /><br />At present the Tories have comprehensively demonstrated that they are utterly incompetent. By their own hand they have lost a majority they had no need to place in jeopardy. They have aligned themselves with an unsavoury sect of Irish proto-terrorist sympathisers. Their manifesto is doomed and their leader is the walking dead. Their Project Fear did not work in England this time (though it did work in Scotland, stewarded by Ruth Davidson). They have forced Labour to stop infighting and forge itself into an effective Opposition. An early election, maybe in October, is pretty much a certainty. Labour has a good chance of winning that one.<br /><br />BUT the Tories are plotters and assassins par excellence. May will soon be gone, maybe within 3 months. In 2018 the boundary review revisions come into effect so that if they delay the next election 18 months Labour will have a harder struggle to get a majority. Their main problem will be to get a new leader who is unafraid of the public, debates effectively on TV and can attract support from Brexiteers and Remainers amongst Tory MPs and potential Tory supporters. That's not Bojo the clown. But David Davis might fit the bill. <br /><br />That's my opinion anyway but this article was certainly worth a read!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-22538074935417248602017-06-11T23:48:05.036+01:002017-06-11T23:48:05.036+01:00Your piece above has emboldened me to put down in ...Your piece above has emboldened me to put down in writing a huge fear that is slowly nibbling around the edges of my soul.<br /><br />The Tories didn't want Brexit to happen, but since it has come up they're going to use the economic shock of Brexit - expected to break after 2020 - to force through a new austerity even deeper than the one we've just had post-2008. <br /><br />This notion lines up with Naomi Klein's thesis that capitalists capitalise on disasters (actually, this doesn't seem such a revelation when you put it so simply).<br /><br />This would explain why the press barons have been salivating for May to lead Brexit and why they have now dropped her like half a handful of cooling feces. And it would simultaneously explain May's (otherwise paradoxical) enthusiasm for a hard Brexit and her reticence about spelling out what that entails.<br /><br />In this reading, the 'dementia tax' was May's trial balloon for the sort of austerity she envisioned for a post-EU Britain. The voters shot it down, and she instantly lost what little nerve for the fight she ever had.<br /><br />(This reading also leaves the door open for some genuine "Thatcher II" in a decade or two to scapegoat May's "U-turn" for Britain's failure to confront the left (as Thatcher herself did to Heath). But that's far more speculative.)<br /><br />As I say, this rather dark perspective on current events actively troubles me. Perhaps writing it down is a form of exorcism. I don't know. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com