re failure and politics

quote:

Labour Successful

Labour were successful in that they won, however they did lose a lot of MP's and there are many others in the parliamentary new tory party who fear for their comfy Westminster livelyhood come the next general election.

I think a lot of MP's were shocked in the level of anti-b.liar vitriol received on the doorstep and were pretty thankful that the tories weren't seen as a viable alternative.

Most parties would view a majority of 60+ as workable however given it is the labour party we're talking about (and at least some of their MP's actually still believe it should be a socialist party) it's going to be difficult for the liar to push through anything radical like id cards or any further restrictions on civil liberties, given how close to defeat the party have been when they've had a much larger majority.

The labour percentage of the vote (36-37%) is also pretty low, as low as they got on losing elections in the Neil Kinnock era. I personally think there is something seriously wrong with an electoral system that allows a party a significant majority in parliament on such a low share of the vote. The tories only had 3% less of the votes cast, but received not much more than half the number of seats.

Which goes to show that your lies are more readily accepted if you are conservative[read Liberal in Australia] than Labour.
Here and in America the liars were returned with bigger margins.
Poor Tony should be crying foul.

Tony is a conservative, in all but name.

quote:

The tories only had 3% less of the votes cast, but received not much more than half the number of seats.

More people voted Conservative than Labour in England.

Paul

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Ranson:

More people voted Conservative than Labour in England.

Paul

Which makes me thankful we have a 'United kingdom'

Bloody hell - me & UKIP - the world has gone mad.


Stephen

From an island of social democracy in a sea of blue.

quote:

More people voted Conservative than Labour in England.

Paul,

where did you get your info,
I am not questioning the accuracy, would just like further reading,

John.

I think I saw it in the Sunday Times. It's in the Telegraph too http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/07/ntory507.xml

Paul

The BBC website also confirmed that more Conservative votes were cast in England than Labour votes.....

Interesting stats (Source : Guardian Online)

Party Seats Gained Lost Held
Labour 356 1 46 355
Conservative 197 38 3 159
Lib Dem 62 15 7 47
Others 30 9 7 21

Party Share of vote % Swing %
Labour 35.3 -5.4
Conservative 32.4 +0.6
Liberal Democrat 22.0 +3.8
Others 10.3 +1.0


So, looking at this - what would PR bring ? Certainly a lot of sucking up to the Lib Dems.

quote:

Originally posted by long-time-dead:
So, looking at this - what would PR bring ? Certainly a lot of sucking up to the Lib Dems.

Certainly in Scotland the Lib-Dems haven't covered themselves in glory in their power-share with the new tories, however I for one would prefer a Lib-Dem coalition to the liar having absolute power.

The point about England voting Tory and the rest of Britain voting labour is an interesting one, and explains why the labour party are in general against the idea of an independent Scotland as it would make it very unlikely that they'd be voted into power in England alone. The next time we have a tory uk government will be interesting as, with a labour led Scottish parliament, we could well see a push towards independence at that time.

At the moment the Scottish parliament does little of use, however it'd be a lot more entertaining if its up against a Tory government.

I heard a Scottish labour MP on the radio this morning describe the Lib-Dems as a "thoroughly bad lot" which did make me wonder why the interviewer didn't follow up by asking then his own party were happy to be in coalition government with them in Scotland.

There are also rumblings from the Lib-Dem party in Scotland that they're not all entirely happy being the labour parties lackies up here because of the problems it brings (e.g. opposing variable tuition fees down south but then supporting and defending them in the Scottish parliament). I'd be quite keen to see a minority goverment in Scotland rather than a coalition one as I'd be interested to see how that works out in reality.