Why the Tories Won

gadgetmind

thor wrote: »

the biggest factor in Labour not making any progress

Was Labour.

They pretended to have forgotten what a mess they made of things, but we certainly haven't. When they came to Leeds, and tried to deny over-spending, the noise the audience made was pretty much a death sentence. I'm sure there were a few people from Morley there, and they certainly made their feelings known!

antrobus

padington wrote: »

....3) Should have developed a narrative about the future, present and past other than 'we were wrong about the economy but now we need to protect some benefits'.....

Narrative, schmarrative.

Darling was more to the point; "We did not have an economic policy. "

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/ed-miliband-had-no-economic-policy-and-hes-put-the-labour-party-in-a-worse-position-than-1992--darling-becomes-latest-to-savage-ed-10240452.html

tincans6

[QUOTE=Generali;68360417

Actually if any party can it's the Lib Dems I reckon. They've successfully resolved quite hard left and hard right elements of their party for decades.[/QUOTE]

How many hard right Lib Dems can you think of (for decades) ?

I struggle to think of any really prior to 2004. The party was effectively captured by the 'orange book' wing who were economically more liberal than the rest of the part.
Naturally, however they still campaigned (inc 2010) on relatively left wing values and consistently argued for more state spending on Health and Education (not just tuition fees).

The Lib Dems used to have superb local campaigning, even in strong Labour cities like Liverpool. Our local Lib Dem councillor is one of only 3 left on Liverpool city council.
He got more votes in his ward (4k out of 10k voters on the electoral roll) than the Lib Dem constituency candidate (3k out of 65k on roll).

The problem they have is that the local activists are aging and have been campaigning for 35 years. They have lost influence in local government The younger type interested in left wing politics but not Labour now join the Green party.

gadgetmind

tincans6 wrote: »

The younger type interested in left wing politics but not Labour now join the Green party.

Sadly that's true, which is a shame. There is nothing that prevents capitalism and sustainability from working hand in hand, and the taint of the left scares a lot of people away from the Green party.

antrobus

gadgetmind wrote: »

Sadly that's true, which is a shame. There is nothing that prevents capitalism and sustainability from working hand in hand, and the taint of the left scares a lot of people away from the Green party.

There is much more than a "taint of the left" to the Green Party. Read their extensive policy statements. The Green Party is where the Eurocommunists went to hide after the CPGB crashed.:)

antrobus

antrobus wrote: »

...I believe that the Conservatives fought the ground war and won. And on the battlefields that actually mattered.....

And on that subject I draw everyone's attention with this bit from a Spectator blog entry in June 2014;

Shapps is particularly pleased with a text from the Telegraph’s Dan Hodges, said to be the PM’s favourite columnist, who gets in touch to tell him that Labour figures are baffled by the noticeable beefing up of the Tory ground machine. As chairman, Shapps has staked his reputation on turning around the party’s field operation, which was in poor shape in 2010:

'Team 2015' was launched to some eye rolls in 2013 as a reward-based activist pool designed to target the 40 key seats that the Tories need to hold or gain in order to secure that elusive majority.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/06/grant-shapps-has-built-an-activists-team-to-fight-for-the-tories-in-newark-and-in-2015/

Baffled eh? I bet Labour can see why now.:)

Voltaire7

The English have only just realised that Scotland returns 59 MPs.

For some reason they now seem to think this is 'unfair'. What a ridiculous bunch.

antrobus

An update from the Department of Quite Interesting Facts;

Labour won the 2005 election, when 8,638,282 million people voted Labour in England and Wales

Labour lost the 2015 election, when 8,640,179 million people voted Labour in England and Wales

That's right folks, the same number of people voted Labour in both elections. The difference in the outcome would be the 2.5m extra people that voted Conservative in 2015.

Labour did not lose the election, the Tories won it.

cells

The right only have the tories to vote for

The left have labour SNP Green and the lib dems and imo even UKIP take more traditional left working class votes than they take from right. That splits their votes and ironically means even if there are more left leaning voters the right can win

Also my guess is that of the people who don't vote its probably more left than right by naybe two to one

antrobus

cells wrote: »

The right only have the tories to vote for

The left have labour SNP Green and the lib dems and imo even UKIP take more traditional left working class votes than they take from right. That splits their votes and ironically means even if there are more left leaning voters the right can win

Also my guess is that of the people who don't vote its probably more left than right by naybe two to one

So someone else has been reading the Labour Party Activist Bumper Book of Excuses for Losing an Election - all those people who didn't vote Conservative are really Labour and so our vote was split.:rotfl: