Huge Tory victory in Crewe : Brown to resign

[G4Z]

Well I live in Gateshead, a labour stronghold (they just kept hold of the local council here as well). I can't see my vote making any difference but there is a possibility that the Tory resurgence will mean people here vote for them. This leaves me in a bit of a quandary, I usually vote lib dem because they seem to represent me best out the available options, I was considering voting Tory next election however they way they vote and the recent abortion and hybrid embryo bills they supported have really made me think again.

I am really concerned though that all of the foundations for a police state that Blair and Brown have put in place over the years will not be repealed by the tories, if they were to commit to getting rid of all of it and the National Identity register I could overlook the abortion/embryo thing.

[Saracen]

I'm not sure that that would rescue Brown, Blitzen, though I certainly don't take a Tory win as either inevitable or necessarily a good thing.

Cameron is untested as a leader. Standing there on the sidelines, bitching at those that have to take decisions is easy, compared to being the one in the hotseat. Could Cameron cope? Is he made of the right stuff? Dunno.

Just as the fact that few if any of the old Tory guard are in any real position of power within the Tories means that they can distance themselves from some of the unpopularity of Thatcher, it also means that they have a team with virtually no actual experience of power. Then again, neither did New Labour and it didn't stop them winning. Sometimes, General Elections are as much or more about getting rid of the incumbents than they are about enthusiasm for the replacements. Though if the replacements are personable, smiling, young, smooth-talking charmers, it helps. Thing is .... am I talking about Blair or Cameron?

Cameron said one thing I entirely agree with after Crewe. He CAN'T afford to assume that even the voters of Crewe would necessarily vote the way they did last week in a General Election, and might not necessarily have done so last week if it had been a General Election. Sending a protest is one thing, but voting to elect a government for 5 years is another. A by-election is different, and Cameron can't assume that is heralds a Tory win, even if the General Election were imminent.

Having said that, right now, personally, I'd put money on a Tory win if that election were imminent. But a politician's fortunes, or a party's fortunes can change a LOT in a couple of years ..... if we have to wait that long.

So a Tory win is FAR from assured. But it's also far from certain that Brown could turn it around with the measures you propose. For a start, politicians rarely get any credit for solving problems they created in the first place. So on the 10p tax thing, I doubt Brown would get any kudos at all for undoing half the last budget and reinstating the 10p band. And nor, to be honest, should he, as it was entirely his screw-up to start with. If, just IF as soon as the implications of it became clear, he'd had the balls to stand up, say "Ooops, I screwed the pooch with that one. Sorry, mistake. I'll reverse it", he might have got away virtually unscathed apart from the inevitable fun the opposition and media would have had with him.

But he didn't. First of all, he denied there was a problem. Then he dug himself a deep hole, stood in it and declared there was nothing to be done. Then he dug the hole even deeper by announcing a fix, but trying to pin it on changed circumstances and not on his own cheap, political grandstanding in the first place. And even now, he can barely bring himself to admit that he was wrong, and he tries to dodge the issue and squirm out of any fault.

And people don't like it.

When you look at what's happened on the last few months, it's been Brown's government lurching from calamity to calamity. The electorate have seen them in a VERY different light from the carefully crafted stage lighting New Labour had for years. Brown is seen as a bumbler, uncertain and indecisive, unable even to decide whether to hold an election or not, and eventually deciding not to on what was self-evidently self-serving political grounds, based on his and his party's vested self-interest. Well, any politician (in my view) does that, but Brown got caught by the whole country doing it. And just about everything that followed was seen in that light. Northern Rock? Not his fault? Well, he was responsible for the regulatory system that let it happen. Fuel prices? Sure, they've gone up. And every time they go up, so does the tax the Treasury rake in. And if Brown was so concerned, as he says, about how those rises are hitting the bulk of the population, he'd have cut the astronomical rate of tax on petrol, assuming he could afford to do so. Because,. after all, after his decade of "prudent" Chancellorship, surely there's some money in the kitty put aside for a rainy day? Surely, he has some manoeuvring room? But no, he doesn't. Because our oh-so-prudent (legend in his own words) Chancellor/Prime Minister has spent the country stupid, not kept any reserves and incurred huge levels of debt. And to achieve what? It wouldn't be so bad if we'd seen levels of improvement in public services commensurate with that expenditure, but we haven't. Sure, some tings have improved, but in relation to expenditure?

For instance, one of the pledges New Labour made was about improving the affordability of public travel. My mother-in-law came to stay for a few days a couple of weeks ago. She got a quote for a rail ticket for a journey of less than 100 miles by train ..... for £100. Well, £99.??. I don't remember the pence. I could drive to collect her and bring her home, then take her back again, three times, for that. So much for making public transport cost-effective. And that's a fair for a lady in her 70s, travelling off-peak, let alone a commuter.

No, a Tory win certainly isn't inevitable at the next General Election. but right now, I wouldn't bet against it. If that Crewe swing were replicated, the Tories would outnumber ALL the other parties in Westminster put together by more than three to one. A national swing of less than half that of Crewe, which is a Labour stronghold, remember, and had never in it's history been anything but Labour, would still see a small but working Tory majority at Westminster.

I think what we've seen recently is a mood swing. It's more than just dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. I think it's a fundamental shift in the public's views of the positions of the parties. In 1997, there was a huge shift. It started slowly and built. It started with the poll tax, it ran through various peaks and troughs caused by unpopular policies (whether right or not) and it culminated in a mood that the country needed a change, that the Tories were arrogant and out of touch, and in power too long.

And we saw a huge shift to a glib, slick marketing operation. What we're seeing now, in my opinion, is that a large number of the people that shifted are shifting back. They've realised that New Labour was not the glorious new era they thought it was, and that in fact, it was business as usual at Westminster. Many people that had been Tory voters and shifted because they were disillusioned with the Tories are now disillusioned with Labour and have shifted back.

And, on top of that, there's a large number of traditional Labour voters that, over the 10p tax thing in particular, have had their noses rubbed in the fact that New Labour (be it Blair or Brown) is not about what they thought Labour was about. If it had been, Brown would have held his hands up over the 10p tax and rectified it, instead of pretending it wasn't a problem, then trying to pretend it wasn't his doing.

People no longer trust Brown to be either competent or straight with them.

And while you can build a reputation at medium speed, you can lose it VERY fast (and Brown already has), and it's a glacial process to rebuild it.

So, Labour now have a problem. Brown is damaged, holed below the waterline and taking on water. The only question is ... how fast is he taking on water? How badly holed? Can they patch him up? Personally, I rather doubt it.

See, it seems to me that a large part of his problem is that he'd just not fundamentally suited to the big job. He's a control freak, and a detail-fetishist. He seems to be unable to think on his feet, integrate all sorts of issues and cope with it, unable to inspire confidence. His often drab performances at PMQs don't help, and neither do the sparks of pique or anger he let's slip, even if now usually only in body language.He lets Cameron get to him .... which is why Cameron does it, of course. But it's more than that. His indecision of whether to have an election or not, and his Maccavity act over the treaty signing, the debacle with the Olympic torch, his treatment of the Dalai Lama and so on all point to a basic insecurity that he seems to be having trouble overcoming.

And he's not only done a McCavity recently. He's been doing it for years. Whenever there was political trouble for the government and Blair had to take in on the chin, Brown did a McCavity and mysteriously wasn't there. He's alienated large numbers of his own colleagues, and at a VERY senior level. Even now, my reading is that those that are standing by him are doing so because they don't see anyone credible who can take from him.

One Labour MP summed it up nicely ...

There is no appetite for a change of leader because there is no other option. There is nobody we can go to who can turn this around.

And that is the current fundamental problem for Labour. A large part of the Labour party now see Brown as a liability at the next election. Yes, he might be able to pull off a miracle resurrection, but a lot of Labour MPs don't want to bet their Parliamentary seat on it.

Their problem, however, is "what to do?"

If they stick by Brown and he doesn't pull off the miracle, they see themselves losing the next election, and based on recent events and Brown' ham-fisted management style of months of disasters, they have reason to fear losing.

But if they do ditch Brown, they will have to go through the disruption of a party putsch, a back-knifing, and that looks bad to the electorate. Then, they have to get some new leader's feet under the desk, and more importantly, establish his credibility with the electorate, and that takes time. It's not just credibility, though. Perhaps more importantly for a new leader is familiarity. Labour have a cabinet consisting of a bunch of people even whose names are largely unfamiliar to a lot of people, as proven by research that goes out into the street and asks who, for instance, Jacqui Smith is. A lot of people in that research were astonished to find out she was Home Secretary.

Of course, the Tories suffer from that lack of name awareness to a degree too .... but that's more forgiveable from an opposition than it is from a government.

So Labour MPs see themselves as having something of a dilemma on their hands. There are those that believe their best chance is to ditch Brown, and those that believe their best chance is to stick with him and hope.

But even those that plan to 'stick and hope' have a problem., and that is Brown's repeated claims about his competence over the economy. Will it have improved sufficiently
by the time of the election for the electorate to not still be suffering, and further, to have 'forgotten' about the bad times? And you can bet your boots the Tories will be reminding people that the economy hit the rocks under Brown's leadership, either of the economy as Chancellor or of the country, as PM.

And personally, I rat the chances of the economy having recovered that far, that fast, as negligible. Even if the worst of, for example, the credit crunch is over and we're bottoming out (and there are signs that that might be, but it's far from certain), a lot of the tangible signs of recent troubles have yet to hit the high street or wage packets. These things can, and usually do, take a least a few months to work through.

And Labour/Brown have, at most, a tad under 2 years. Typically, PMs don't want top leave it right under the deadline to have an election, because if someone unexpected (like the economy) causes problems, it's removed their scope for delaying until a better moment. Already, Labour may have lost that option. The stats suggest that turnout is going to be critical, and Labour have to get their vote out to win. Holding the election late in the year works against that, since foul whether keeps a good few people at home. So he probably won't want an Autumn election. If he wants the benefit of good, pleasant warm weather, May works best, but that implies May 2009 or May 2010. If he goes for 2009, he only has a year left, and it doesn't give much time for the economy to visibly recover and people to "forget". If he waits for May 2010, he has no leeway at all to defer if things are bad.

No, a Tory victory is not assured. Not by a margin. Things could go wrong for them. But it's getting to the point where Labour almost have to hope the Tories screw up, because they're fast running out of time to either revive faith in Mr Clown, or dump him and root about for a replacement.

And that's why another Labour MP was quoted as saying

It's all down hill to the General Election. ....... Gordon Brown is a loser.

Tory victory a given? Nope. But getting likelier by the week.

And one thing that it's already too late for Labour to do anything about - a resurgent Tory party is already looking like a credible winner. That boat has sailed for Labour. It's looking like the Tories can win elections. Not just the fact of recent results (Locals, London Mayor and Crewe) but the size of them. The one thing the Tories MUST achieve to win a General is to look like they can. If not, even their own diehards don't necessarily turn out. Cameron has already achieved that target - he looks like he can win elections, because three times in a few weeks, he has .... and how!

[Blitzen]

Saracen.
Just to pick up on a couple of your points

Cameron said one thing I entirely agree with after Crewe. He CAN'T afford to assume that even the voters of Crewe would necessarily vote the way they did last week in a General Election, and might not necessarily have done so last week if it had been a General Election. Sending a protest is one thing, but voting to elect a government for 5 years is another.

This is THE issue. Alot of the by-elections seem like people making a stand and airing dissatisfaction. Would they vote Tory in a General Election.....im not so sure.
Better the devil you know may just be the outcome.

But it's also far from certain that Brown could turn it around with the measures you propose.

I really cant see Brown being in charge of the country come the next General Election. Although his 'generals' have stood together and supported him over the last 48 hours, i wouldve thought they were very veiled promises. @Keep your enemies closer' and all that.

See, it seems to me that a large part of his problem is that he'd just not fundamentally suited to the big job. He's a control freak, and a detail-fetishist. He seems to be unable to think on his feet

Yep...100% agree. This is the MAIN issue as far as im concerened.
Blair couldve made the exact same mistakes as Brown but wouldve gotten away with it with far more credibility intact owing o the sheer fact he was good in front of a camera.

Lastly, i dont think that quoting manifesto promises is a way to point to any party (as you did with your mums train fare).
ALL the parties make promises they never keep.

[Saracen]

Saracen.
Just to pick up on a couple of your points


This is THE issue. Alot of the by-elections seem like people making a stand and airing dissatisfaction. Would they vote Tory in a General Election.....im not so sure.
Better the devil you know may just be the outcome.

Maybe. Maybe not. Only a General Election will answer that one.

One thing is sure though. Cameron is right not to take anything for granted. He said, and I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the exact quote, "The electors of Crewe haven't given us their vote - they've lent it to us. We now have to justify that to keep it".

One of the things that has irked a lot of people I've spoken to is that, over quite a long period, and by deed as well as word, Labour have assumed they've been given the vote. Yes. the Tories were in a mess, and on many grounds, deserved to get booted out. But time after time, Labour ministers have referred to the state of the Tory party with a really smug self-satisfaction, and assumed that as they were popular and the Tories weren't, right then that it was a given it would stay that way. They took their role in power for granted.

And personally, I think a lot of the things they've done, and said they're going to do, absolutely reek of that smugness. There's a stench of complacency and arrogance about Labour, as if they think that their place in power is nothing less than their right and due.

Well, three times now the electorate have sent them a stark reminder that nobody loves a smart-....... alec. If you take the electorate for granted, you pay the price. And Labour has been taking the electorate for granted for years. After all, they got us into Iraq .... and over what? It's not worth rehashing all that here, but suffice it to say that even those that supported the war, by and large, are now of the opinion that were were at best mislead, if not outright lied to, as to the reasons for that war. Even if it isn't the current hot issue, it's still there, festering away. It destroyed Blair's image as the Golden Boy once and for all, and took a large part of New Labour credibility with it. It's been downhill since then. And yes, I know they won an election after that, but with a much reduced lead, and in the face of a less than credible opposition. Now, we have a credible-looking opposition.

And there have been a whole string of those "arrogance" issues since then, not least, ID cards. And, I wonder how many people realise that the basic ID card enabling legislation is ALREADY law? It's on the statute books, and has been since 2006. Most of it hasn't come into force yet, but it's activated merely by an order of the Home Secretary. See Identity Cards Act 2006, s.44 .....except for the bits (s.36 and 38) that are already in force.

I really cant see Brown being in charge of the country come the next General Election. Although his 'generals' have stood together and supported him over the last 48 hours, i wouldve thought they were very veiled promises. @Keep your enemies closer' and all that.

Again, maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't like to call it. If Labour felt they had a decent alternative, or more time to play with, I feel sure they'd dump him. I also doubt, as you seem to, that the "support" from senior ministers means much. They're quite capable of reversing that between breakfast and elevenses if they think it's in their interests. After all, they've politicians.

And I'm a firm believer in a principle espoused by "Yes Minister". Never believe anything until it's been officially denied. The same logic can often imply that "We have complete faith in ...." suggests you need armour plate between your shoulder bladed to deflect the knife that's in-bound.

If those same ministers see a viable and more plausible-looking alternative, they'll drop brown like a red-hot iron ingot. Currently, though, my reading of it is that they don't see an alternative. Or to put that another way, nobody credible is stupid enough to even indicate they might pick up the poison chalice. We all saw what happened to William Hague, Michael Howard and 'Ming' Campbell. Taking the top job at the wrong moment can be a kiss of death on a political career.

Yep...100% agree. This is the MAIN issue as far as im concerened.
Blair couldve made the exact same mistakes as Brown but wouldve gotten away with it with far more credibility intact owing o the sheer fact he was good in front of a camera.

To a point, yes. A smarmy smile and a glib presentation can work wonders .... but only up to a point and only for so long. BNrown, and his arrogance with the 10p thing have FINALLY shone a light on what Brown's principles, and competence, appear to actually be, rather than what they can be spun as being. Once that light has been shone into the shadows and crevices, and the electorate have had a good look at what lurks there, I'm not sure it can be ever be unshone.

Labour have shown all the signs of doing what the Tories did, and reaching the point that the Tories reached. They've just done it faster, perhaps because the people are a little more wise and a little more cynical second time around.The Tories reached a point whether there was pretty much nothing they could say or do that would have made any difference to the next election result. Labour might have reached that point now. It certainly seems that Brown's tax bribe a week or so didn't help him in Crewe, and it may well be that it hurt. If people see that kind of thing as a cynical bribe, it could backfire. That's why I'm not sure your 'popular' moves by Brown will help him. People don't like to feel bribed, or taken for guarded, or regarded as so stupid that they'll be bought quite that easily. Oh they'll take the money, but they may well still vote the briber out.

Maybe Labour can turn it around. But it's like a supertanker ...... it takes sufficiently long to stop or change direction that once you get past a certain point, a collision is inevitable. I'm not sure if Labour are past that point or not .... or even if Brown understands he has to turn. He still seems to think all he has to do is to get his message across, and it hasn't dawned on him that people heard the message and increasingly don't like it. And if he hasn't heard that, or doesn't hear it VERY soon, then I think the next election may well already be decided.

Lastly, i dont think that quoting manifesto promises is a way to point to any party (as you did with your mums train fare).
ALL the parties make promises they never keep.

Mum-in-law. But yes.

However, it's hard for anyone other than the government to break much in the way of election promises, because they're the only ones with any real power. And I'd say that things like Labour's pledge to make public transport more affordable were more than a mere pledge - they were a fundamental plank of principle. You can perhaps get away with breaking a pledge, like Labour's commitment over a referendum on the European constitution) by pretending the issue has changed, and that the new treaty is significantly different from the old constitution. Funny, though, how the only people that think that seem to be the pro-European constitution in this country. But breaking a major point of principle is far more important than even that.

Often, it's little things that do the damage. For instance, the business over police pay. That has really annoyed police officers. I've not seen them this angry over something since .... well, never, really. And it's not the amount. The amount is relatively small. The point is in the principle. And imagine how police officers feel when they compare the government's attitude to police pay to their own attitude towards expenses, and what some of them, including Brown, have been claiming for. We've only just started to see the detail of that in the last day or two, but I'm expecting some rather stark political capital to be made of minister's apparent divergence in attitude over the use of public money when it comes to funding their own creature comforts at taxpayer's expense.

[Blitzen]

I agree with almost all you have written regards of whether i am in favour of the Tories or not.

Shame about the 'Iraq' point though.
I have been there twice in the fighting capacity and its still so irritating hearing people that have zero experience of it, throwing it up.

Thats a different story though.

And there have been a whole string of those "arrogance" issues since then, not least, ID cards. And, I wonder how many people realise that the basic ID card enabling legislation is ALREADY law? It's on the statute books, and has been since 2006. Most of it hasn't come into force yet, but it's activated merely by an order of the Home Secretary. See Identity Cards Act 2006, s.44 .....except for the bits (s.36 and 38) that are already in force.

I did know yes. Isnt it only certain sections of the community that its beig rolled out to first though?

[Saracen]

Shame about the 'Iraq' point though.
I have been there twice in the fighting capacity and its still so irritating hearing people that have zero experience of it, throwing it up.

Thats a different story though.

Hmm, Iraq. Let me clarify. Personally, I fully support our forces when they're out risking their butts doing the job we, the country, asked them to do. I was a guest of 42 Commando (Royal Marines) recently. I'll say nothing to you about that that I wouldn't say to them, to their faces .... which is, in relation to our troops and the job they do .... RESPECT! (in capitals, with bells on).

My issue is with the politics of it. Whether we, as a country should have gone there in the first place, and the way the notion was sold to the country. I also draw a distinction, politically, between Iraq and Afghanistan. It's not, for me, about the job the troops are doing, or have done, which (with the exception of a few regrettable and highly publicised incidents) is exemplary. It's the whole "dodgy dossier" thing.

I did know yes. Isnt it only certain sections of the community that its being rolled out to first though?

As I understand it, yes. And the implications for the rest of us are being eased in. It will, it seems, be compulsory to have a card (and therefore a database record), but not compulsory to carry, or produce, the card. That, of course, means that it's almost entirely useless for the purposes for which it was claimed to be useful. So personally, I'm forced to the conclusion that the whole thing is merely the thin end of the wedge, and that at some point, sooner or later (and probably sooner) carrying and production will become compulsory. They're just introducing it slice by moderately palatable slice. And strictly speaking, I suppose, it's not even so much the ID card that worries me (though it does) but the backend database. And that will certainly be the really expensive bit.