Why the Tories Won

ruggedtoast

Unfortunately Labour have looked at their campaign and decided that the reason they lost was that Ed was too left wing.

After the leaders' debate Nicola Sturgeon fearlessly promoted a socialist vision. She had no reticence to take aim at the banks or the inequality of the 1%. All Milliband managed was a lot of on message sound-bites about fairness. Labour are too frightened of upsetting the middle classes to now suggest that they do anything meaningful, or be made to.

The next day a lot of people in England woke up wishing they could vote for the SNP.

But all Labour have taken from this is that their leader, who at his most extreme moment is very marginally left of Nick Clegg, is too left wing.

Ergo, I presume Labour will spend the next 5 years shovelling up The ghost of Tony Blair and remaking themselves into a Conservative party that we already have.

Moby

One of my fears is that the Conservatives in office with the SNP rampant north of the border is the worst possible scenario for Britain’s exit from the European Union and Scotland’s exit from Britain.
To me Jim Murphy came out with a lot of credit. He had a thankless task there.
Also seeing Doug Alexander get turfed out by a naive 20 year old student. I know politics is a rough game but that was brutal!
Tip.....Watch out for Dan Jarvis.

Thrugelmir

kabayiri wrote: »

They are fighting for the middle ground, yet Labour have to pretend that their hearts are with the left. *Busted*

Labour moved off the middle ground. Nu Labour under Blair was an attempt to change the old party and make it reflective of the society of the 20th century rather than the 19th. Under ED Labour have gone no where in the past 5 years. If anything backwards. As have relied on soundbites and policy on the hoof in reaction to events rather than formulating sound long term policy.

Non doms, banks, energy companies, NHS, Minimum Wage, 50p top rate are tax are all vote winners. They'll appeal to people without the inclination to fully understand all aspects before making an informed decision.

michaels

Moby wrote: »

Tip.....Watch out for Dan Jarvis.

Why, is he the unions' candidate?

michaels

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

But they can't do that without losing votes in the middle.

Which is why they lost this time.....

Whilst I agree with this analysis I think it may turn out that part of the reason that the polls were wrong was that the Tory vote turned out and Labour didn't, the evidence for this is that the polls that predicted neck and neck also predicted 70% turnout whereas actually turn out was 67%.

I think the tories turned out because they were scared that labour+snp would spend and borrow all the way to Greece whereas labour were too ambivalent about whether they were 'radical left' or tories-lite and thus didn't fire up their base.

tberry6686

I can't say about the rest of Britain but where I live it was easy to see why Labour lost. During the run up to the election we had 1 knock on the door (SNP) and 3 leaflets through the door (SNP, Cons, Lib Dem). Around the area there were posters for all of the three parties mentioned. I have yet to see or hear anything mentioning Labour. That is why Labour lost in my neck of the woods, they didn't even try.

kabayiri

Moby wrote: »

Very strange thing to say imo. Socialism may be about many things depending on your world view but 'short term' is not part of it simply because Socialists are about changing society and the way it works and |I don't think that can be described as a short term project.

Society hasn't changed in the way it works though.

It's an interesting point. If we look back at those scifi movies in the 60s, there was an utopian vision where people walked around in similar uniforms and the need for money was dispensed with.

The reality is that we haven't changed that much.

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

Why, is he the unions' candidate?

I don't think so.:) I think he's the Barnsley guy. Ex para. Won the by-election that was necessary due to the previous incumbent's rather flexible approach to expense claims.

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

Whilst I agree with this analysis I think it may turn out that part of the reason that the polls were wrong was that the Tory vote turned out and Labour didn't, the evidence for this is that the polls that predicted neck and neck also predicted 70% turnout whereas actually turn out was 67%.

I think the tories turned out because they were scared that labour+snp would spend and borrow all the way to Greece whereas labour were too ambivalent about whether they were 'radical left' or tories-lite and thus didn't fire up their base.

"In some places we had more Labour ‘promises’ going into the polling booth than actually voted Labour, suggesting our promises were being taken to the polling booths by Labour only to vote Tory,” said one insider."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/labour-party-election-horror-soul-searching

Perceptions of what actually constitutes the Labour vote are frequently inaccurate.:)

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Whilst I agree with this analysis I think it may turn out that part of the reason that the polls were wrong was that the Tory vote turned out and Labour didn't, the evidence for this is that the polls that predicted neck and neck also predicted 70% turnout whereas actually turn out was 67%.

I think the tories turned out because they were scared that labour+snp would spend and borrow all the way to Greece whereas labour were too ambivalent about whether they were 'radical left' or tories-lite and thus didn't fire up their base.

I agree that your graph is the psephological grail, it ain't necessarily so.

Thatcher most definitely and avowedly didn't look to take the centre in 1979 nor did Atlee in 1945.

Syriza aren't centrists. Hitler and Mussolini weren't either (Hitler could be described as an exception but old testes gob wasn't an exception).

Putin doesn't hold the centre ground and I don't think Burlusconi ever did either.

I suspect the middle ground theory is rather like the economics idea of the wholly rational 'homo economicus'. A great simplifying idea that is, as we economists like to say, "utter bollix".