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lightblue
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L'Boro, UK
Oct 2001
time: 05:22
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I think the Lib Dems can become the 2nd party by the next elections, they seem to be making massive inroads, especially in the cities. The Tories have suffered massivel from a/ electing a Thatcherite like Howard as their leader and b/ supporting the war in Iraq.
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the_ceebs
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quote:
Also is there any chance of the UKIP poaching the Tories' core votes and grabbing a few seats and really Conservative areas? They don't seem to be quite as bat **** crazy as the other right wing minor parties. |
Well if you think living in a fantasy world that is stuck in the 1950's isn't quite as crazy. it dosent stop the delusional idiots from being mad. (They may take a couple of seats but not many)
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I think the Lib Dems can become the 2nd party by the next elections, they seem to be making massive inroads, especially in the cities. The Tories have suffered massivel from a/ electing a Thatcherite like Howard as their leader and b/ supporting the war in Iraq. |
The problem is that apart from in the south west, they are spread to evenly throughout the country. Labour are concentrated in the cities and the north. Tories in the countryside and the south west. so although the libdem's have increased their vote they need to increase it disproportionately to become the second party.
If the tories collapse again at the next general election, their may be a disintigration of an infighting party and this might lead to the lib dems becoming the second party
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Zulu Elephant
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True, but without Respect, the Lib Dems get all the anti-war votes. Having 2 anti-war parties splits the vote, even though they take more away from labour, so there's more votes to be split. Respect hurts Labour far more than the Lib Dems, but like Nader does in the US to the Democrats, it also takes votes that without Respect would probably go to the Lib Dems. |
I dont think Respect is really hurting anyone at the moment. They've gained votes in areas with large Muslim populations but remember that Muslims are concentrated in certain (often very pro-Labour) constituencies and not, generally) in middle class marginals that Labour took from the Tories in 1997.
Respect is very much a Socialist Workers Party type organisation and many of their votes are coming from the oldschool 80s style socialists who, lets face it, wouldn't be voting New Labour anyway.
The only party taking Labour votes in any number are the Lib Dems (The Tories haven't moved the polls for months - The loss in Labour points is going to the Lib Dems)
When it comes to the crunch, a lot (although certainly not all) voters will switch back to Labour from the Lib Dems come a general election, if only to stop a Conservative winning in the constituency they're voting in. The people switching to the Lib Dems are centre-left, intelligent types, not fundamentalist, who are smart enough to realise that a not-so-perfect Labour government is preferable to the Conservatives - Labour hasn't pissed them off that much, especially since the new manifesto is looking like its going to contain a nice bunch of social democratic policies.
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Zulu Elephant
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quote:
Originally posted by Dauphin
Where I live there are lots of people who vote LibDem and say "I want to vote right of centre, but I look at the Tories and think, God no! They're evil, slimy people" . The Tory majority over LibDems was 269 in 2001, will be interesting next general election which way it goes. |
The Lib Dems will certainly pick up a lot of seats from the Tories at the next election, but they won't become the main opposition in the next 20 years.
The way the seats and votters are distributed benefits Labour most, then the Tories and the Lib Dems least. A percentage draw between Labour and the Conservatives at the next general election would still leave Labour with a majority somewhere between workable and thumping (not my phrase). With this in mind, it would take a swing of unimaginable proportions to put the Liberals anywhere near second place (in terms of number of MPs), let alone power.
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Zulu Elephant
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He's going to claim the English-Scottish Act of settlement is some kind of socialist conspiricy to stop the Conservatives getting in and that there are millions of Tories unwilling to admit to voting Conservative who will come out of the woodwork at the next general election (As Major said before 1997)
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*End Is Forever*
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Salford, UK
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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Let's start with Laz, seeing as he was injecting reason to an extent rather than letting his colours show. 
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The tories were never, in a million years, going to do much in Hartlepool. However they need to worry about the fact that the UKIP is eating away crucial chunks of their vote. |
First sentence, agreed. Second, not.
I think the collapse in the Conservative vote was towards the Liberal Democrats on a "get Labour out" ticket; each Conservative pledge in Hartlepool, I assume, as with Leicester South and Brent East, would have got about four pieces of paper through their door in the 24 hours prior to polling telling them that "the Conservatives can't win here". It's superb campaigning but it tells us nothing about what might happen in a General Election where they have neither the resources nor the credibility to pull off such a message.
I think the UKIP vote came largely from Labour voters. People forget that a nationalistic, anti-EU, anti-immigrant stance actually plays well in areas considered to be strongly Labour (don't see the BNP making gains in well-to-do areas!).
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If they swing to the right, they risk re-opening their internal splits over Europe, which will drag them back further and could split the party. Labour and the LibDems would gain from that. |
Agreed entirely. This is the potential disaster with this result - the fact the Conservatives came fourth will, ultimately, be fairly irrelevent.
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Respect have some ground to gain in cities, but not the rural areas. It'll be at Labour's expense, and that'll boost the LibDems who aren't losing much to Galloway. |
RESPECT are a dead-loss in the country. In the cities, their gains are very much at the expense of Labour - often benefitting the Liberal Democrats but not always - look for a strong Tory campaign in Bethnal Green & Bow come 2005.
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01-10-2004 12:37
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