The more I have to endure of Gordon Brown grinning all over the media, the more I want him to call a General Election and get it over with.
Contrary to what you may read in the newspapers, not all conservatives are panicking at the prospect of an Autumn election. This one is not. In fact, if the Conservative Party were to be defeated in a General Election, I would prefer it to be now. The party has done badly all summer, and an election defeat will most likely not be anywhere near as bad as many predict. For one thing, it may send the clearest possible signal to the party’s leaders about what the public really do think of them and their policies. Then, having got the defeat out of the way, the party can begin to prepare seriously for the next elections.
Another reason why I wouldn’t mind the Conservative Party losing a General Election now is that the consequences of Gordon Brown’s ten-year stewardship of the economy will be becoming more apparent in the next few years. I would like him to be in place to carry the can when all this happens, so that there will be no excuses. Then when he is defeated at the elections after that, it will be a thorough defeat, a wholesale rejection of all that he and his party have stood for over the decade. In other words, the sort of rejection the Conservative Party have become used to, and which they have been trying, with some success, to overcome.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Bel this would be a disaster . It will allow people like you to rush off an claim that had we stuck to our guns all would have been well ( Like the undefeated German Army) . Or at least better; thus consigning the Conservative Party to yet more torturous years of squabbling. You claim to dislike Cameron but I am somewhat mystified as to why and , with the greatest respect , it seems to me , that my views are in many ways somewhat to the right of yours.
You want him to do more on tax ? Europe ? Immigration ? I do not understand and to actually prefer to lose an election.Once that sort of attitude takes hold it doen`t matter what happens next. Noone will vote for a Party so obviously lacking in discipline and a sens eof reality and the centre ground is the only place to win
You might like to have look back at the sort of things Margaret Thatcher was saying before she was elected.. You imagine there will be a Majpr style pay back but we are ina diferent age . By then Brown will have taken us deep into Europe continued to populate the South with immigrants employed another few million into the state and moved to a form of PR that will shut out anything but a Liberal Labour progressive alliance . This is what they are dreaming of and a good Brown victory will give then the opportunity to do it without appearing opportunistic.
It is essential that there us no such mandate and contrarianism is not fit for purpose right now .
Anyway I have nagged you enough , its not just you of course but rthe Party across the board who shown themselves unelectable and I fear there is little to be done about it now. I wonder if there is the need for an alliance of admittedly differing groups in an alliance cooperting over seats .
September 24th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Bel
I am surprised at your defeatism. You seem to be saying that Labour will win the next election regardless of when it is held and so the sooner the better. If it is true that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning I would have thought that you are better hanging in there and waiting for Labour to fall.
Advice fromm a left-winger: don’t give up; don’t wish for your party’s early defeat; fight to minimise Labour’s lead and wait for the fall from grace.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
CalumCarr, not defeatist at all. If anything, I am thinking more in terms of a longterm, enduring Conservative victory.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
newmania, I hear what you are saying, but please answer me this question: are you truly satisfied with the performance to date of the Conservative party leadership?
September 24th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Bel said “.. not defeatist at all.” OK, if you say so but you had me fooled.
September 24th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
There have been signs of inexperience but also signs of idealism talent and hope for the future . Perhaps , as the Guardian says today he should have gone to the Party first and then addressed himself to those outside but this was not apparent until the suprising Brown bounce ( like the amazing Major bounce).Cameron`s vision , for me, connects enviromentalism with stewardship and conserving, he has relocated the family at the heart of social policy, said what he can on taxation and gone a very long way on Europe.His education team were brave in admitting that reintroducing secodary moderns was never going to happen and , in my view, took the only possible road to re connecting Conservative thought with the real problems of Blair`s location location ,location. Now what do we have , Brown quietly dropping acedemies while appearing to multiply them they are just ” called” academies now
There is much to be said on this but Brown is a statist Socialist who means to destroy all opposition by any means. He has already told a pack of lies and was personally responsible for just about everything I really hate about this government. I am not impressed with his overtures to Paul Dacre at the Mail and the purring of La Toynbee and the Unions ( more or less), tells me all I need to know about the direction we are going in. He has thus far not even been obliged to give any commitment on taxes which he will continue to raise and above all I fear he is urging us into the post Democratic age …for god`s sake look at these stupid show trial juries.
People seem to resent that Cameron went to Eton well I do not subscribe to such resentments personally .A united Party can fight him every inch of the way.Borwn`s dead eyed storm troopers cannot remain unfractured for long and disappointment is already setting in.David cameron`s Britain will be a Conservative one the future under Brown is a country I want little to do with.The consequences of a landslide are unthinkable.
Sorry to go on at you Bel….I suppose the right to differ is something important too but confronted with such an implacable enemy….
XXX
September 24th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Labour have gone up in the polls lately- and this coincides with Brown keeping is stupid mug off the television.
In the last few days, he’s been making more appearances and winding me up just as I’d forgotten about him.
Maybe that’s the key.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Are the constituencies ready for an election? The Cons Party don’t have regional press officers working with candidates and there has been no news about them in my regional papers. I’m afraid I agree with Bel, that Brown seems to have the advantage right now after a summer of disastrous headlines. I wish that was not the case.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Thanks Ellee. You offer a more realistic view of the Conservative Party’s prospects than most other commentators I have read.
Calum, it is not defeatist to realise one’s weaknesses and draw from them in order to succeed at a later time. I know that this age of spin ushered in by the Labour Party discourages such honest self-examination, but there is still a place for it in today’s politics.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
If there is an autumn election, and Labour win, will the Tories ditch their leader (again)?
I’m no big fan of Cameron (or of the Conservative Party, for that matter) but there comes a point where the continual “if only we get a new our leader, the voters will like us again” descends into farce.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Too right, Phillip, I agree.
I’m all for leaders being given a second chance, but I suppose it’s difficult where a leader stakes his/her reputation and credibility on an election result. Take the case of Cameron, he has tied up his image with that of the party, that it is difficult to see how a resounding defeat for the party can be interpreted as other than a rejection of Cameron. Perhaps if the party loses by a small majority, or there is a hung parliament, then the question of a change of leadership wouldn’t arise.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
I think you will get your wish Bel. Gordon Brown’s speech at the Labour Party conference came across as a pre-election speech. You would think it was Churchill addressing the nation going through the Blitz during World War II. I was going to fisk it, but it lacked real substance and was as full of holes as a waffle. But, it will win the next General Election. Which is just around the corner. People have got used to buying packaging with very little content. For me what is important is democracy, and yet he did not mention the word once.
September 27th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
What I reckon will happen is that Brown will be as risk averse as he always is (except with the economy, public finances etc), i.e. his cronies’ coup against Blair was pathetic and weak. He has left it too late - he should have gone to the country earlier this month when the weather was nice. If he leaves it till November, as it’s getting cold and maybe we will have snow, his supporters will not be bothered getting out of bed and he will be stuffed.
So he will leave it till next May (or later) when the economy and housing market will be in trouble - or maybe later - and he will be the one who is in serious trouble then.
I don’t believe he’s got the guts to go for an election. After all, it took him 10 years to get to number ten (or 13 if you consider he was after the Labour leadership when John Smith died).