[aa3]

A lot of elections is inspiring your own support base to get down to the voting booth and cast their vote.

Labour has that, the 8.3 million public sector workers are going to be at the voting booth come election day casting their vote for the party that will give them raises.

The Tories don't have that. They got into power and raised taxes on their core support bases like small businessmen.


I remember in the dying days of Gordon Brown's government.. in the last few months he added 300,000 new government jobs. Everything from change agents, to diversity inspectors, to CCTV camera repairmen.

[tinker]

aa3, on 05 May 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

A lot of elections is inspiring your own support base to get down to the voting booth and cast their vote.

Labour has that, the 8.3 million public sector workers are going to be at the voting booth come election day casting their vote for the party that will give them raises.

The Tories don't have that. They got into power and raised taxes on their core support bases like small businessmen.

I remember in the dying days of Gordon Brown's government.. in the last few months he added 300,000 new government jobs. Everything from change agents, to diversity inspectors, to CCTV camera repairmen.

I think Labour are very good at perception cues and triggers. Their election machine is a sight to behold. Sleek, ruthless, persistent. They are also good at ligging onto community groups. Quite a disingenuous and nasty campaign chez moi - a particularly distasteful leaflet to take the 'independent' out. Yet one got in with just 13% of the potential vote, the other 15% - it's all it takes.

As for Gordon Brown, just pure scorched earth - promise stuff and make commitments that cannot be delivered, dress it up in fairness and hard working families and vacuous shite like that and people swallow it. Avoid blame. Others foot the bill and have to deal with the mess. Nasty, tribal, self-absorbed politics.

This post has been edited by tinker: 05 May 2012 - 08:36 PM

[bobthebuilder]

tinker, on 05 May 2012 - 08:33 PM, said:

I think Labour are very good at perception cues and triggers. Their election machine is a sight to behold. Sleek, ruthless, persistent. They are also good at ligging onto community groups. Quite a disingenuous and nasty campaign chez moi - a particularly distasteful leaflet to take the 'independent' out. Yet one got in with just 13% of the potential vote, the other 15% - it's all it takes.

As for Gordon Brown, just pure scorched earth - promise stuff and make commitments that cannot be delivered, dress it up in fairness and hard working families and vacuous shite like that and people swallow it. Avoid blame. Others foot the bill and have to deal with the mess. Nasty, tribal, self-absorbed politics.

Territorial pissings,

"left wing , right wing, you can sod the lot, boring f******g politics that will get us all shot"

meanwhile your getting poorer.

[thecrashingisles]

bobthebuilder, on 05 May 2012 - 09:11 PM, said:

meanwhile your getting poorer.

My getting poorer what?

[Ash4781]

JonnyTomes, on 04 May 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

Naaah 2015 is the big one. 5 years of coalition austerity lies with continued, endless ZIRP and QE - markets somehow believe the bullsh*t 'cause all they ever see on the BBC24 is endless drivel about cuts 'destroying the British way of life'. Come 2015 however they'll wake up to a boggle-eyed rubber fetish doll ranting about borrowing for 'growth' - surrounded by crowds of cheering ponzi zombies desperate to get their hands on more and more money from the ever-shrinking productive sector of the economy. Given that we'll have flat or 'negative' growth (have to love that one from old Gord) from now until then - despite printing 5-10% of GDP per year - the UK should finally be ready for a pretty final crash. Who better than Labour to take us down?

I would expect them to promise the world, and then get in and stick with the Tory economic policies.

I don't know what the effect of an independent Scotland might be.

[Timak]

aa3, on 05 May 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

Labour has that, the 8.3 million public sector workers are going to be at the voting booth come election day casting their vote for the party that will give them raises.

The oft repeated idea that all 8.5m public sector workers vote en bloc for Labour is ridiculous.

"Come the 2010 election and public sector voting for Labour had shrunk to 34% - only slightly higher than among the public as a whole (30%). Almost three-fifths (57%) of public sector workers voted for the Conservatives or Lib Dems: 1.9m votes and 6% of the total votes cast in Britain. David Cameron and Nick Clegg will need to keep much of this support if they want to be confident of a second term in government. As the real impact of cuts starts to be felt this isn’t going to be easy."

http://www.ipsos-mor...or-Workers.aspx

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

Labour were shite because they were neoliberal, bankster-loving, hard-right warmongers.

If they'd come in, nationalised customer-shafting utilities and public transport, built loads of council homes and started running the welfare state with the ruthless efficiency of the Scandinavians, they'd have been the most loved government you could imagine.

Sadly the only left-wing policies they introduced were 'no borders immigration' (which happened to be a big biz policy too), throwing cash at the NHS wastefully, and expenditure on various social engineering projects - none of which your traditional working class voter really cared for, only leftist elites.

[oracle]

CrashedOutAndBurned, on 06 May 2012 - 11:49 AM, said:

Labour were shite because they were neoliberal, bankster-loving, hard-right warmongers.

If they'd come in, nationalised customer-shafting utilities and public transport, built loads of council homes and started running the welfare state with the ruthless efficiency of the Scandinavians, they'd have been the most loved government you could imagine.

Sadly the only left-wing policies they introduced were 'no borders immigration' (which happened to be a big biz policy too), throwing cash at the NHS wastefully, and expenditure on various social engineering projects - none of which your traditional working class voter really cared for, only leftist elites.

but labour governments always do social engineering...and fail miserably.
they take what are in essence theoretically quite good ideas and consistently f*** them up.(but this time is different...this time around WAS an act of spite and malevolence...not ineptitude)


the men with the andrex touch.

This post has been edited by oracle: 09 May 2012 - 09:36 PM

[Big Orange]

CrashedOutAndBurned, on 06 May 2012 - 11:49 AM, said:

Labour were shite because they were neoliberal, bankster-loving, hard-right warmongers.

And where were the Tories in the early to mid 2000s, when Blue Labour were inflating the short-sighted, mismanaged economic bubble and throwing this country whole heartedly into Neocon world conquest? All I can remember was the ghastly Michael Howard.

And according to this article (socialist, I know) the turnout was generally rather low, especially within the inner city areas (as low as 10% in certain places). The inner city areas are supposed to be Labour strongholds and full of young folks, right? It's not as if the impressionable sheeple are flocking back to their old masters.

[porca misèria]

SarahBell, on 04 May 2012 - 07:51 AM, said:

years or IQ points?


I see the new mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson says he's going to build houses and bring jobs to the people of Liverpool. Is that in his remit?

Um, it's surely in his remit to remove gratuitous obstacles to those providing jobs and houses. Maybe he'll do so.

[porca misèria]

winkie, on 04 May 2012 - 04:38 PM, said:

I agree the only difference between labour and conservative is public spending.....the conservatives would have let the banks do exactly as labour let them do, extend easy credit to anyone that had an income to cover it.....

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Thatcher would've allowed credit expansion. But she understood the importance of money supply, so the kind of credit expansion we saw in about 2000-2007 would've pushed interest rates up: that's a fundamental principle of monetarism. The bubble becomes self-limiting.

[porca misèria]

Chuffy Chuffnell, on 04 May 2012 - 11:22 AM, said:

I can see Labour winning the general election in 2015.

The sheeple never learn do they.

Not in 2015. Balls will see to that: he needs another election loss to trigger another leadership contest.

[porca misèria]

Bruce Banner, on 04 May 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:

It's the voters that are still at school and influenced by our left leaning education system that tend to vote labour for idealogical reasons. When they leave school and get into the real world they start to realise that socialism doesn't work. 'Twas always thus.

Nah, depends on the politics of your formative years. Those of us who were teenagers in the 1970s saw the true horror of union rule and supported Mrs T when we got the chance.

The younger generation might think this a caricature. It isn't: it's sadly true (and it's pretty evenhanded: just as merciless on management when they get the upper hand later on). Worth a listen if you have a bit of time to educate and amuse.

[okaycuckoo]

Dorkins, on 04 May 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

You are consistently one of the most ageist posters on here.

Maybe we should put the voting age down to 21. It would get rid of the cynicism of the aged and the indebted.