Are the Tories going to tear themselves apart?

mwpt

kinger101 wrote: »

That chart doesn't show public spending, only the portion we need to borrow. There series of charts I posted did. You have to get absolute spending down in real terms if you ever want to achieve a surplus. I don't see a surplus likely in that one.

That was the problem of the last Labour administration. The bars should have crossed the x-axis in 2005-2008.

I'd argue that the point is that the amount we need to borrow needs to be reduced below GDP growth, and my chart shows this.

Your charts show our debt and how much we're borrowing but you'd expect this to be increasing as long as we run a deficit.

kinger101

mwpt wrote: »

I'd argue that the point is that the amount we need to borrow needs to be reduced below GDP growth, and my chart shows this.

Your charts show our debt and how much we're borrowing but you'd expect this to be increasing as long as we run a deficit.

Actually, they mostly show public spending. Only one of them is debt. None of them show how much we're borrowing (unless you subtract values from the borrowing chart).

vivatifosi

Newspapers this morning saying Tories now experiencing biggest split since the days of John Major.David Cameron due to make statement later this morning. I wonder what he will say.

Moby

Cameron made a huge mistake in calling for the referendum imo. Neither result being good for them overall.

If Brexit happens the short term economic outlook will be poor and will result in the Tories losing their claim of economic competence. Osborne's political capital regarding his economic competence seems to be draining away anyway!

If on the other hand Bremain happens, we can already see how the Daily Mail has started attacking Cameron. There could be a huge shift to UKIP as the Tories would have betrayed some of their core and die hard voters. To me the idea that a vote to remain, (especially if the vote is close) would mean that the EU poison will have been drawn was always naive.

IDS has his covert backers, namely the six ministers on team Brexit and of course Boris at their head. It looks like their plan is to stage a leadership challenge regardless of how the vote goes - Cameron and his anointed successor will be none too popular with the tory grassroots after he spends months campaigning against them. Remember the tory grassroots are Brexit by a large margin. Its also clear many tories don't like the Cameron/Osborne control over policy and want to break open the govmt again to other views. This was clearly a reason why IDS resigned, he saw he was ineffective because of Osborne's control of the purse strings. Cameron's claim to be compassionate and a 'moderniser' now looks decidedly hollow....you can't impose welfare cuts while reducing taxes for the better off......even IDS has seen that! My dislike of Cameron and Osborne is because of more than the fact they are tories! I hate them because they don't believe in anything. Osborne's budgets for instance have been purely designed to promote the interests in society that will maximise his power. IDS exposed that when he said that the govmt should be helping people who in all probability will never vote for them. I respect him for that because the job of govmt is to rise above party interest. Cameron and Osborne have shown themselves to be incapable of this. More damning than that is the fact that Cameron has imposed a referendum he clearly didn't want himself because of internal party reasons and this country imo could be irreparably damaged should we Brexit as a result!

Pull up comfy chairs everyone, this civil war is only just beginning and with Cameron announcing his early departure this administration may begin to resemble the govmt of John Major between 1992-7. In their favour they don't have a bright young Blair on the opposition benches to expose them, as clearly Corbyn lacks the agility to do so. The only real card Corbyn has is his authenticity and integrity. He needs to carry on concentrating on exposing the nasty party for what they are while suffering the abuse from the tory headbangers. It'll be interesting how this will be seen by Joe public. Clearly Labour is unlikely to win again anytime soon but as events have shown over recent days....a week is a long time in politics and perhaps Labours current predicament needn't be permanent or terminal!

I'm starting to believe the most competent system leading to the greatest fairness is proportional representation. Blair/Brown factionalism and the current spats wouldnt happen imo. Merkel has lost seats but in Germany they seem to be negotiating a deal which reflects the electoral map....it just seems a more stable form of govmt to me. The idealogues and power seekers are reigned in and forced to compromise.

Mistermeaner

Why are the Tories in your view the nasty party?

Tromking

Moby wrote: »

I'm starting to believe the most competent system leading to the greatest fairness is proportional representation. Blair/Brown factionalism and the current spats wouldnt happen imo. Merkel has lost seats but in Germany they seem to be negotiating a deal which reflects the electoral map....it just seems a more stable form of govmt to me. The idealogues and power seekers are reigned in and forced to compromise.

Agree wholeheartedly.
FPTP is supposed to give us stable governments with a firewall against extremists.We now have parties within parties and as you say factionalism in both main parties. Nothing intrinsically bad in that as it reflects the will of the electorate, but it does make the business of governing difficult.
PR within a federal system of a Government solves many of our problems.

Moby

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Why are the Tories in your view the nasty party?

What motivates many of them (bottom line and with the caveat good and bad in all parties etc) is self interest not the best interests of all society. They cynically want power for the trappings of power itself. Look who Cameron chooses to surround himself with....people like him! Privileged products from Eton etc, news magnates, look up the 'Chipping Norton set' for more examples. Look at my example above regarding the motivation behind Osborne's budgets!

In contrast you can say whatever you want about Corbyn, weak, ineffectual etc but at least he believes in something!

michaels

Moby wrote: »

Cameron made a huge mistake in calling for the referendum imo. Neither result being good for them overall.

If Brexit happens the short term economic outlook will be poor and will result in the Tories losing their claim of economic competence. Osborne's political capital regarding his economic competence seems to be draining away anyway!

If on the other hand Bremain happens, we can already see how the Daily Mail has started attacking Cameron. There could be a huge shift to UKIP as the Tories would have betrayed some of their core and die hard voters. To me the idea that a vote to remain, (especially if the vote is close) would mean that the EU poison will have been drawn was always naive.

IDS has his covert backers, namely the six ministers on team Brexit and of course Boris at their head. It looks like their plan is to stage a leadership challenge regardless of how the vote goes - Cameron and his anointed successor will be none too popular with the tory grassroots after he spends months campaigning against them. Remember the tory grassroots are Brexit by a large margin. Its also clear many tories don't like the Cameron/Osborne control over policy and want to break open the govmt again to other views. This was clearly a reason why IDS resigned, he saw he was ineffective because of Osborne's control of the purse strings. Cameron's claim to be compassionate and a 'moderniser' now looks decidedly hollow....you can't impose welfare cuts while reducing taxes for the better off......even IDS has seen that! My dislike of Cameron and Osborne is because of more than the fact they are tories! I hate them because they don't believe in anything. Osborne's budgets for instance have been purely designed to promote the interests in society that will maximise his power. IDS exposed that when he said that the govmt should be helping people who in all probability will never vote for them. I respect him for that because the job of govmt is to rise above party interest. Cameron and Osborne have shown themselves to be incapable of this. More damning than that is the fact that Cameron has imposed a referendum he clearly didn't want himself because of internal party reasons and this country imo could be irreplibly damaged should we Brexit as a result!

Pull up comfy chairs everyone, this civil war is only just beginning and with Cameron announcing his early departure this administration may begin to resemble the govmt of John Major between 1992-7. In their favour they don't have a bright young Blair on the opposition benches to expose them, as clearly Corbyn lacks the agility to do so. The only real card Corbyn has is his authenticity and integrity. He needs to carry on concentrating on exposing the nasty party for what they are while suffering the abuse from the tory headbangers. It'll be interesting how this will be seen by Joe public. Clearly Labour is unlikely to win again anytime soon but as events have shown over recent days....a week is a long time in politics and perhaps Labours current predicament needn't be permanent or terminal!

I'm starting to believe the most competent system leading to the greatest fairness is proportional representation. Blair/Brown factionalism and the current spats wouldnt happen imo. Merkel has lost seats but in Germany they seem to be negotiating a deal which reflects the electoral map....it just seems a more stable form of govmt to me. The idealogues and power seekers are reigned in and forced to compromise.

Hmmm - should we vote for Brexit (unlikely) it will express the democratic will of the people. I find it very frightening that people can openly state that they wish their was less democracy as the alternatives (such as Pinochet's Chile) would hardly seem to be models we should aspire to.

Moby

michaels wrote: »

Hmmm - should we vote for Brexit (unlikely) it will express the democratic will of the people. I find it very frightening that people can openly state that they wish their was less democracy as the alternatives (such as Pinochet's Chile) would hardly seem to be models we should aspire to.

How many referendums should we pencil in regarding Europe. Should we have one every ten years? Imo you vote in a govmt to make decisions such as this....that's the democracy bit! As I said Cameron didn't impose a referendum because he cared about the British people having a say....he was worried about UKIP's effect on his own power base!

HornetSaver

Moby wrote: »

In contrast you can say whatever you want about Corbyn, weak, ineffectual etc but at least he believes in something!

Agree with every word. Though of course, you need a balance between compassion, credibility and competence (lefties generally ranking those three characteristics from left to right, righties from right to left, and those in the middle will usually simply go for the person they perceive as being less likely to screw up). That doesn't necessarily mean a red-blue divide - Blair was seen as the more competent in 1997 and 2001. Cameron managed to come across as somewhat compassionate in 2010 simply by attacking Labour on the deficit, as a result of Brown's insistence that he had done a good job in weathering the economic storm. Whether he did or not is besides the point, those he was trying to convince felt the economic pain, and therefore the harder Brown insisted he had done the right things, the more heartless he appeared.

But on your earlier comment about a Tory leadership challenge between Leave and Remain regardless of the result. In the event of a leave vote Cameron's position is completely untenable, and while Osborne would be a tenable candidate he would not win. In the event of Remain, the only way a leadership challenge could feasibly go ahead would be if several backbenchers felt strongly enough that they were willing to resign the party whip (knowing that they would not regain it and would most likely lose their seats by 2020 if a Remain supporter were elected as Cameron's successor). Cameron would then have no choice but to do exactly what John Major did when in a similar situation, and tell those who opposed his leadership to put up or shut up. A gamble that would greatly benefit Osborne further down the road if it succeeded, and probably spare Cameron 18 months of utter misery dealing with his backbenchers if he were to lose.