Newport West
2010 Results:
Conservative: 12845 (32.34%)
Labour: 16389 (41.26%)
Liberal Democrat: 6587 (16.58%)
Plaid Cymru: 1122 (2.82%)
BNP: 1183 (2.98%)
UKIP: 1144 (2.88%)
Green: 450 (1.13%)
Majority: 3544 (8.92%)
2005 Results:
Labour: 16021 (44.8%)
Conservative: 10563 (29.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 6398 (17.9%)
Plaid Cymru: 1278 (3.6%)
Other: 1472 (4.1%)
Majority: 5458 (15.3%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 9185 (26.2%)
Labour: 18489 (52.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 4095 (11.7%)
Plaid Cymru: 2510 (7.2%)
UKIP: 506 (1.4%)
BNP: 278 (0.8%)
Majority: 9304 (26.5%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 9794 (24.4%)
Labour: 24331 (60.5%)
Liberal Democrat: 3907 (9.7%)
Plaid Cymru: 648 (1.6%)
Referendum: 1199 (3%)
Other: 323 (0.8%)
Majority: 14537 (36.2%)
No Boundary Changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Paul Flynn(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Matthew Williams (Conservative) Paul Flynn(Labour) (more information at They work for you)Veronica German (Liberal Democrat) Jeff Rees (Plaid Cymru) Pippa Bartolotti (Green)Hugh Moelwyn Hughes (UKIP) Timothy Windsor (BNP)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 82731
Male: 48%
Female: 52%
Under 18: 24.5%
Over 60: 20.8%
Born outside UK: 4.6%
White: 95.4%
Black: 0.6%
Asian: 2.2%
Mixed: 1.2%
Other: 0.6%
Christian: 72.8%
Muslim: 2.2%
Full time students: 3.8%
Graduates 16-74: 19.5%
No Qualifications 16-74: 30.6%
Owner-Occupied: 70.7%
Social Housing: 21.6% (Council: 16.4%, Housing Ass.: 5.1%)
Privately Rented: 4.8%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 3.3%
Brede Valley had an electorate of 3,926 in 2010 so unlikely to have caused Amber Rudd’s victory on its own.
Paul Flynn has said that the “opening ceremony was a Trojan horse for socialist values.
Backbencher Paul Flynn praises Danny Boyle for ‘smuggling’ ideas on NHS and pacifism into Olympic show”:
ht tp://t.co/t6dJjySE
Well the Sun liked it as did most mainstream people. Flynn is a bit of a joker at times & I wouldn’t take his views on this seriously, even if they’re meant to be serious. The NHS was created by a Labour government but it hasn’t created a socialist society any more than similar nationalised or part-nationalised healthcare have anywhere else in the Western world.
I’m just reporting what MPs have been saying about it. I’m not trying to imply I agree or disagree with their comments. Of course we could ignore these MPs since they’re not particularly influential in their respective parties.
Paul Flynn is absolutely right, that was precisely what happened.
It was an awful ceremony for an awful Olympics that should not even be being held here in the first place. Let Johnny Foreigner pick up the bill next time.
I heard the BBC luvvies all slapping each other on the back this morning on the Today programme with Tessa Jowell appearing as the Pantomine Dame of the group, going on about the ‘Olympic Family’ and how the IOC “Owns” the Olympics. If they “Own” it, why aren’t they “paying” for it!?
Outside of London, the Olympics is a massive yawn, and even the supporters of the Olympics up here have said that the opening ceremony was ill judged.
It will be interesting to see what the excuses are if London suffers a huge contraction of the economy due to the Olympics despite David Cameron’s telling us it will bring economic growth (which of course is a lie given the record of most other Olympic cities).
I’ll be glad to be secluded in Wales at the end of the week so that I don’t have to listen to any of it. Its bcome the Republican’s Jubilee.
Bah humbug. One of you get a portable TV set & follow Shaun around so he can’t avoid the Games
I thought the ceremony had some nice moments was a bit of a confused mish-mash. This in part derives from the fact that left wingers today are struggling to define a sense of ‘Britishness’ (having denigrated it for so long) and in doing so are reaching for things they can hold on to without feeling guilty about. Hence soap operas, hospitals and minority musical styles. The worst moment by far was the strange choice of olympic flag carriers – that did look overtly political.
No Barnaby please don’t
Its a personal opinion of course, but I really do feel that as the Olympics is panning out, it is doing more to set back Conservatism in this country than any single incident since Black Wednesday.
I know the Cameron crowd are all too busy basking in the glory of international attention to worry about the consequences. And I know that Boris as Mayor of London HAS to be supportive come what may, but I was a little surprised to hear him supporting what is the biggest promotion of Labour interests and values in recent times.
I’ll say no more about it.
“I really do feel that as the Olympics is panning out, it is doing more to set back Conservatism in this country than any single incident since Black Wednesday”.
Jeez Shaun, judging by your comments on this site over the past year or so you seem to have entirely mislaid your sense of proportion. You recently, absurdly, wrote of the current government as a “Lib Dem led” one, you have called for Cameron to quit for reasons so obscure that I can’t even remember them, and now this. The Olympics will in all likelihood have no effect on the next GE, but as an article in another place said recently, recent history suggests that if anything governments that preside over an Olympic games have a better than average chance of getting re elected.
I love the Olympics because I love sport, but I am usually extremely indifferent towards big set piece ceremonies such as that which took place on Friday night. However, with one exception I found the thing really enjoyable, and simply do not recognise its portrayal by some as a lefty propaganda fest.
The ethnic composition of those taking part in the ceremony was, I thought, entirely in keeping with the fact that the event was taking place in east London. Much of the criticism of that aspect comes across to me as a mirror image of those Guardian types who look at the audience at The Proms or Glyndebourne, or the faces of a group of people wandering around a museum and think that something terrible must have gone wrong if they are all white. Clearly for many on the right as well as on the left being genuinely colour blind proves problematic.
I took the Windrush section to be a single example representing the whole tradition of groups migrating to the London in search of a better life; a tradition going back to Huguenots and Sephardic Jews in the 17th century, through black loyalist refugees from the American War of Independence to more recent influxes. As such I thought it entirely acceptable to celebrate the fact that so many people over a period of centuries have seen London as a place they want to come and live. This is notwithstanding the fact that the question of whether the unprecedented numbers who have migrated here since WW2 have been more than the country can cope with is legitimate.
The use of the CND logo I also felt was legitimate. I felt it was used as a symbol of the whole hippy, “give peace a chance”, flower power phenomenon; something that is part of the history of Britain’s youth culture. It was notably succeeded though by a nod towards punk; a reaction against and repudiation of everything the hippy stood for.
Indeed I’ve always thought that the stripped down, individualistic, do it yourself, anti authority ideas behind punk have much in common with some strains of conservative thought. The late Johnny Ramone did after all once remark that “punk is right wing”.
My only problem with the programme was the part where we invited to worship at the alter of the NHS. I’ve never had much patience with all the “envy of the world” bollocks spouted about the UK’s particular system of delivering healthcare. If it were that good is it really beyond the wit of any of the wealthy nations of the world to copy it? The fact that none have should alert us to the fact that the system has its limitations.
“You recently, absurdly, wrote of the current government as a “Lib Dem led” one”
It is. Any fool can see that. David Cameron is a Liberal Democrat and he has a plan to destroy the Conservative Party and submerge it into a newly merged Lib Dem led party. How’s that for proportion?
“you have called for Cameron to quit for reasons so obscure that I can’t even remember them”
Too many to list actually. But the summing up basically is that Cameron is a political illiterate who is unfit and incompetant in general.
“The Olympics will in all likelihood have no effect on the next GE”
And neither did I say it would. I said that it is part of a general trend.
It is a symptom, not an end in itself but rather just another example that the Conservative Party is well and truly finished now unless something were to be done to stop the rot. The future of British politics is clear at the moment-a Labour AND Conservative Party competing for the same left of center ground.
The rest of the comment was just a justification of the decision to turn the opening ceremony into a left wing love fest.
That’s fine. That’s your preference and that’s Cameron’s preference. Once again, it is a symptom of what is going wrong.
If you take the last Tory manifesto and look at what policies are being implemented by the current administration, and do the same with the Lib Dem manifesto, you will see that most of the Conservative manifesto and a small part of the Lib Dem manifesto form the government’s legislative programme. What’s more the Lib Dem policies that are being implemented are ones, such as raising the income tax threshold, that many Tories are sympathetic to.
Note also that the top rate of tax is being cut; something that would never happen under a “Lib Dem led” government.
Exactly. Which is why most Tory voters still back the Coalition, whereas nearly half of LibDems will vote Labour
Some may feel that at times I am overly inclined to praise Shaun’s contributions to this site (we do have a habit of agreeing more often than one would expect). After that rant, I have to say more power to his elbow – if his vision of Conservatism as expostulated there were to become a dominant strain, it would do far more to set back the cause of Conservatism than Mr Cameron could possibly achieve and there would be a very long period of unbroken Labour government.
Well, quite!
I think you’re wrong. Let’s give it a go and see shall we.
Of course people like Kieran agree. But Kieran only joined the party since Cameron became leader. I’m sure he’s a Tory through and through, but the fact is that most of Cameron’s supporters are not in fact Conservative voters but Lib Dem one’s who have no interest in the future success of the party.
My problem is that I am a Conservative Party loyalist and want the party to do well. I see the damage that Cameron is doing and recognise that it has to be stopped.
The reason that Kieran is more disloyal than me, is because he doesn’t care at all about the future of the party, only about supporting the leader TODAY, whoever that may be, whatever they do and whatever mess they make.
If so many Conservatives continue to support Cameron, why is membership falling towards 100,000 for the first time? Why is the Conservative Party actually DYING under Cameron? Why will the party fall to third place behind UKIP at the EU electons next year and why will it most likely suffer a huge defeat come the general election as Tory activists sit on their hands and refuse to campaign in marginal seats?
What will Kieran’s reason be if and when Cameron is revealed naked before us as a strategic buffoon who leads the party to the worst defeat of the century? Will it be because of all the right wing policies that Barnaby has talked about?
I understand Barnaby’s position. The thought of really Conservative policies being introduced must be horrifying to him. Of course he wants to dissuade us from pursuing that path, and his elitist friends in the BBC and the media will no doubt work hard putting the case that such policies are extreme and must be defeated by any right-minded person. Of course they will.
But I’ll never understand people like Kierasn who claim to be Conservative but who seem to be so concerned with neutralising Conservative values and embracing left of center values that they belieive are the only way for the Conservatives to win.
Don’t take offence at this question, but If that’s what you believe then…erm…why are you a Conservative? What is the point of your Conservative government?
‘My problem is that I am a Conservative Party loyalist and want the party to do well. I see the damage that Cameron is doing and recognise that it has to be stopped.’
People from your wing of the party shaun have done far more damage to the Conservative brand in the mind of voters in the last 20-30 years than Cameron ever could
To be fair to Shaun he has been extremely consistant in his views, he knows what he knows and he doesn’t back down. I don’t agree with his stance on Cameron as I think without Cameron we wouldn’t have been anywhere near No.10 at all but I do agree with him about looking beyond now and into the future of the Conservative Party. My worry is that while some Lib Dems may come over to us in 2015, many true blue Tories may desert us for UKIP.
I personally do not agree with much the government does, I think they have a PR problem and seem out of touch sometimes, even when the content of what they are saying is spot on. I would never vote for another party even though I would like to see more right wing policies, more tough action on lax judges, crime, immigration etc from Cam and Co.
The Olympic opening ceremony was a show put on for the world. It was by no means supposed to be a 100% accurate representation of Britain, but I do think it was a good show.
The big problem for the Conservatives is that Shaun and Tim are both right.
Whole swathes of voters share Tim’s view of the Conservatives, and without a relentless long-term focus on shedding the deep-rooted image problems the Conservatives have with ethnic minorities, looking after the NHS, banging on about Europe, being the party of the rich etc etc, virtually none of these people will vote Conservative. With the collapse of the Lib Dem vote, most will vote Labour. The trouble is that the Tories need quite a few of these centre voters to have any hope of winning a general election outright.
Shaun is also right that the right-wing Tory core vote feels betrayed, and after some years of being taken for granted because “they’ve got nowhere else to go”, they have indeed started to go somewhere else. Certainly the membership figures indicate they’re leaving the Tory party, and if they abstain or vote UKIP in large numbers at a general election it will serve to heighten the Tories’ problems.
The Tories face a double whammy of both repelling the centrist voters and losing big chunks of their core vote at the same time. It’s a bit like Labour’s 1983. I wonder what the odds are on the Tory vote being below 30% in 2015?
Welcome to the coming era of the 1980s in reverse – a shrunken and hopelessly split right, with a near permanent Labour government.
Tim, I’m sure you see the irony that you make that comment in support of the ‘great’ David Cameron just after I pointed out that “the fact is that most of Cameron’s supporters are not in fact Conservative voters but Lib Dem one’s who have no interest in the future success of the party.”
You really couldn’t have timed that any better.
Case closed.
But still nobody has any answers to the substance of the points I have made, and only LBernard seems to have at least admitted that there is a potential for problem, even if he has not yet come round to the view that that problem is David Cameron.
It is a FACT that the Conservative Party has less members today than at any time in its history. Fewer even than in those dark dark days immediately before 1997.
And its not good enough just to say that ‘all parties are suffering’ or that ‘in government it’s to be expected’. David Cameron presided over an unprecedented loss of members in OPPOSITION!
In many parts of the country-marginal seats-the party grassroots is dwindling to nothing. Its not just in cities like Stoke and anchester and Liverpool, its in the places that matter as well. How on earth can the Conservatives hope to hold onto marginal seats when hey don’t have bodies in the constituencies doing the work?
And given that David Cameron has been so great and successful DESPITE his status as Conservative Leader (as Tim says and as I suspect Barnaby and others would be happy to concede). The WHY did he singularly fail to win a majority against the most unpopular leader of recent times, and why is his government now looking as though its going to lose the next lection to one of the least impressive Labour leaders of recent times?
Its all the fault of people like me is it?
And if Conservatives such as Kieran reallly really believe that the Conservative Party can only be electable by abandoning Conservative values and adopting left of center one’s as Cameron has made the core of his strategy, what is the difference between Conservatives and the alternatives, what is the point of voting for a Conservative government rather than New Labour and why are they Conservatives at all anyway?
They’re all very very good questions. But answers come there none. We just keep getting the same old lines about how Cameron ‘detoxified the party’ (whatever that actually means) how he was the ONLY one who could have won the election, about how there is no other credible alternative.
Ignore the facts as much as you like. Just don’t be surprised if there is no Conservative Party to get back into government in decades to come and don’t be surprised if Cameron is the last Prime Minister purporting to be a Conservative.
Shaun, I don’t actually think your main concern is future of the Conservative Party. Rather it is the preservation and furthering of your particular brand of conservatism. Your strategy in arguing your case seems to be to portray any more liberal strand of conservatism as being not really Conservative at all, and part of some plot by non Conservatives to take over and destroy the party.
The party does not belong to one single faction within it, with that faction having the right to decide what does and does not constitute “real Conservative values”. Similarly no one strand of opinion has a monopoly of knowledge as to what the party needs to do to be electorally successful.
And for what it’s worth, I think that H.Hemmelig is right in his comment above-for the most part.
Where I think he overeggs the problems slightly is in the implication that there is no easy answer for the Conservatives.
NONE of us on the right of the party have a major problem with appealing to ethnic minority voters. Most of them come from a naturally Conservative background anyway, and the paradox has been discussed at length on this site. For the record, failure to appeal to ethnic voters is not an exclusively British right problem, it is a trend for right of centre parties around the world. I’m not sure what can be done about it, but the answer is not necessarily to sound more left wing to attract them, there is no evidenc that that even works.
Neither is the NHS a major point of divison. Most Conservatives could come to a happy compromise on the matter, and nobody really complains about Cameronneutralising the disadvantage the party has faced on the issue. The public have a traditional distrust of Conservatives on the NHS, but it is not overwhelmingly important, the distrust is dissapearing as it becomes clear that no party has answers on the NHS question and the issue is dissapearing.
Being the party of the rich is a problem that Cameron has singurlarly FAILED to counter, indeed he has played into the hands of those prejudices. Certain sections of the electorate will always hild such ideas about Conservatives, but you can’t win every vote can you, and on the whole they live in areas the Conservatives don’t need to win anyway.
Banging on about Europe may be annoying for the pro-EU H.Hemmelig and Tories of his persuasion (I have to say though, an endangered species in the party) but the fact is that Europe is one of the very few issues that the Conservative values are actually in tune with the British public. I agree that we don’t need to keep talking about it, and so long as the leadership of the party followed the party line (and the public line) on EU matters, it would not be as big an issue. Its only when th leadership betrays the anti-EU feeling of the country and sells out that problems arise.
So NONE of the issues H.Hemmelig has raised as problems actually necessarily need to be problems.
The point is that the right rejects the barmy notion that by taking strange positions on gay marriage and climate change and the like, we somehow appeal to voters who would not usually vote Conservative. Show us the evidence, because there doesn’t actually seem to be very much of it.
You CAN achieve a center ground of concensus with wide appeal in the country. For goodness sake, the Conservative Party were past masters at it. We had our greatest successes under the policies of Thatcher-who too many Cameronites now label as somehow ‘extreme’ and ‘irrelevant’ to thepresent day.
Even Tony Blair managed it in his own way.
But it needs a competant leader, it needs a leader who is in touch with ALL the country from all backgrounds, and a leader that compromises with the right as well as with the left. Unfortunately, arrogant, out of touch, bungling David Cameron is not that leader.
We CAN unite behind a center programme that unites both myself and people like H.Hemmelig and Kieran. And that programme CAN win and make Labour’s out of date jealousy and class hatred utterly irrelevant. But it needs the right leader.
The only way in which we will suffer the 80s in reverse as H.Hemmelig has theorised, would be if the right continues to be ignored and we all go away and stop campaigning for Conservative victory. Because like it or not, call us irrelvant to the party’s success if you choose-we are the backbone of this party in the country! Alienate and remove that backbone, and you will have no prospect of a Conservative victory. Keep hitting us and telling us we are irrelevant to modern Britain, and you should not be surprised if we leave in big numbers.
“The party does not belong to one single faction within it, with that faction having the right to decide what does and does not constitute “real Conservative values”. Similarly no one strand of opinion has a monopoly of knowledge as to what the party needs to do to be electorally successful.”
I agree. Read that paragraph back to yourself Kieran. Winning is about compromise on BOTH sides of the spectrum. Why should the right of the party (representing the majority of opinion within the party still) be the only people never to be pandered to?
David Cameron says he wants to be the Conservative version of Tony Blair. Excellent idea except for one major problem: he’s copied all the superficial but unpopular elements of Blairism and FAILED to recognise what really made Blair popular.
Blair would NEVER have spent his entire time hitting the Labour Party core supporters. He would NEVER have based his whole electoral appeal on concentrating on gay marriage, climate change and pro-EU policies. Yes he supported them, but he didn’t talk about them, they were played down and emained off the agenda.
He’d NEVER have surrounded himself with people exactly like him and from his own background, there was always Prescott in a senior role and one or two others like Ian McCartney who appealed to parts of the party that Blair himself couldn’t.
And as a result, Blair managed to retain hard-left ‘traditional’ Labour supporters for most of his time in office.
Compare and contrast to Mr Cameron and tell me that he’s the modern Tony Blair.
The point is not that Blair didn’t probably believe the same sort of things as Cameron, but that he did it much better and was able to compromise on BOTH sides of the spectrum. As a result he built an unbeatable electoral coalition that appealed to Conservative voters in their droves. If the next election were between Blair and Cameron, I think I might be tempted by Blair-and I’m a hard rightwing Conservative!
So it can be done. Nobody disputes that. But Cameron isn’t and can’t do it.
Thatcher seemed to know how to blend
the unashamedly right policies
with those which were actually very moderate/centre stuff.
I do wish the public wouldn’t buy all the emotional blackmail about the NHS but it seems you can’t do very much with it.
I fear the current bill is the worst of all worlds – not for the lack of trying – but the confusing array of concessions now blur and get in the way of it’s advantages.
“Neither is the NHS a major point of divison. Most Conservatives could come to a happy compromise on the matter”
Probably true. But to get rid of the deep-rooted image of the Tories as wanting to get rid of the NHS, which dates back to the early Thatcher years, they first need their spokesmen to stop continuing to feed this image by regularly attacking the NHS. For example, those people moaning about the inclusion of the “left wing” NHS in the olympic ceremony, or Dan Hanna going on CNN telling the Americans that the British NHS is a disaster.
Ditto your point about ethnic minority voters. Such voters who are middle class and family-values oriented should be fertile ground for the Tories. But they never will be when people like Aiden Burley regularly stoke up the image of Tories disliking non-white people and believing them to be second class citizens who don’t belong here. This image is even older than the anti-NHS one, going back to Enoch Powell.
And at the same time they have to keep their core vote on side, many of whom agree with these kind of views.
So I don’t think there are any easy answers, as there seldom are for parties on the wrong end of long-term political realignments.
Blair was a huge success in 1997
as would any Labour leader have been
but
in 2005 Labour polled 4 million votes fewer
unlike Thatcher in 1987 or Major in 1992
which recorded the highest Conservative votes ever recorded.
The core Labour voters – they walked away.
Some of them returned in 2010 though
and probably cost the Tories a majority in
the seats that mattered.
‘Tim, I’m sure you see the irony that you make that comment in support of the ‘great’ David Cameron just after I pointed out that “the fact is that most of Cameron’s supporters are not in fact Conservative voters but Lib Dem one’s who have no interest in the future success of the party.’
You’re wrong Shaun because I’m not a Cameron supporter.
I prefer him to the three hapless leaders that preceeded him but that’s not exactly hard, and agree with L Bernard that Cameron made the Conservatives electable after eight years in the political wilderness, and to be honest I would vey narrowly prefer him as PM than Ed Milliband, but I agree with most of L Bernards criticisms
He’s completely out of touch, hasn’t the faintest idea how to appeal to the common man – as the likes of Thatcher and Tebbitt could – but to me he’s the best of a pretty mediocre bunch
Keiran hits the nail of the head – it’s not so much the Conservative Partry you seem concerned about, but your particular brand of in-your-face, unkind, Republican-esque Conservatism – which the likes of Hague and Howard went to the country with and which were emphatically rejected
The Tories are at their best when they are a broad church and your attempt to portray moderate Tories as Lib Dems in disguise will do nothing but alienate many of those people the Tories need to have the faintest hope of winning a majority again
And people hailing Thatcher as the most ekectable Tory ever forget two things: 1) Neither she nor her government were anywhere but as Right wing and she and he supporters now cintend and 2) She had a hopelessly divided and unelectable Labour Party in opposition throughout her time in office
“it needs a leader who is in touch with ALL the country from all backgrounds, and a leader that compromises with the right as well as with the left”
This is what made Thatcher so electorally successful. She was a woman from humble beginnings with a traditional outlook She managed to appeal to a wide section of society and said the things people wanted to hear. She also believed in the power of Britain and had that determination not to cave in under pressure. I think Norman Tebbit had recently said that Thatcher would not have gone into Libya or Syria as it would not be in Britains interest.
David Cameron is extremely posh, that he cannot help, but if I were his advisor I would advise him to distance himself from Osbourne slightly to avoid Dorries like comparisons and surround himself with more in tune MPs such as David Davis and John Redwood (to an extent). Even Peter Bone seems more in tune with Joe public than Cameron does at times.
Politically I am generally pretty right wing but I understand that having both William Hague and IDS as leaders in the recent past didnt bring us much electoral success so I don’t think it would be a good move for the Tories to get rid of Cameron and put in someone more to the right. He just needs to start saying the right things which chime with the public and he will win support, but saying that he doesn’t want Britain to leave the EU when most of the country, whatever their politics, seem to be in favour of leaving seems clumsy and slightly arrogant.
He needs to have a serious discussion with his ministers about immigration problems, again an issue that many people across the board are worried about. Ditch the talk about wind farms, gay marriage, House of Lords reform etc….those topics should be discussed when the rest of the house is in order and we have an economy on a sound footing again.
He is doing himself no favours by ditiching traditional Conservative ideas but then I understand that we do not have an outright Tory government so I expect Tory policies to be watered down, even if I don’t like it.
In terms of ethnic minorities I would be tempted to reuse the 1983 election approach to try and attract such voters ‘Labour see you as black, We see you as British’ something like that has the potential to work well today even if it didnt 30 years ago.
Who would be your preferred leader Shaun?
I agree with pretty much all Lbernard has said. I think GO has it spot on intellectually but he is just so so bad for PR, DC cant keep on carrying him. I’m sad to say he just has to go for the greater good.
We need the policy set to appeal to WWC voters as well as our core.
We need to accept that some seats we arent going to win again but we need to target seats that we havent been seen in, im convinced we have a change in places like County Durham and even South Yorkshire.
Combining policies like an EU referendum or even better set party policy to leave the EU, immigration quotas, with protecting the NHS (which I would do with gritted teeth) and reducing taxes that hit the lowly paid (namely VAT if you ask me) would hit the spot.
Im not convinced that DC is aware of his mistakes and Im going to vote UKIP for the first time in 2013 (though there is no chance I am voting anything but Con in the general election)
“In terms of ethnic minorities I would be tempted to reuse the 1983 election approach to try and attract such voters ‘Labour see you as black, We see you as British’ something like that has the potential to work well today even if it didnt 30 years ago.”
It sounds OK in theory, and basically it is a fair statement of how Conservatives view things.
The problem is it would start a big debate/controversy and, egged on by media interrogation, every oddball in the party would be pressed for comment and inevitably a Burley or a Bone would say something stupid and “racist”.
I think their only chance is to just “move on” from the race issue – don’t mention it for 10 or 20 years and gradually folk memories will fade and communities will integrate.
The problem is though that race and immigration are so closely linked – and immigration is such a hot issue – that there’s no chance of this happening in today’s political environment.
“Combining policies like an EU referendum or even better set party policy to leave the EU, immigration quotas, with protecting the NHS (which I would do with gritted teeth) and reducing taxes that hit the lowly paid (namely VAT if you ask me) would hit the spot.”
Oh dear Joe. Can’t you see that you have proved my point for me? You absolutely can’t bring yourself to say that you would protect the NHS without also saying that you would do so through gritted teeth. That’s the view of many other Tories too. Do you think that with 24 hour news coverage – and oddballs like Hannan, Burleys and Bone never off the TV – that the Tories would be able to hide from the electorate that they were pledging this through gritted
teeth?
And the government already has “immigration quotas”…and is missing them by miles. Do you not think it might be because in a globalised world the government can’t really do much to limit immigration?
And life’s too short to go through all that Europe stuff again. But it would be a brave Tory who would bank on an in/out referendum producing a majority in favour of withdrawl. That would leave the Tories like the Lib Dems after the AV referendum….in a worse position than before, stuck in a position they hate but now unable to change it for decades after a fresh referendum mandate.
If I were in a position of power I would say it without saying any further asides. I make no apology for being anti-NHS. I accept its an extremely unpopular policy position.
Im certainly no Bone or Burley (though perhaps a Daniel Hannan)
Perhaps we could offer UKIP (behind closed doors) the referendum on europe in return for them withdrawing from the GE?
What we have to get across is that those who use emotional blackmail about it are defending
something that is not working –
the likes of Staffordshire Hospital etc.
We want to improve the service.
It has to be handled with care though – perhaps 80% of the time it does an excellent job
but not always
and we are on the side of those who need help to make sure it does.
UKIP say they are not just about Europe any more.
I think they’ll get about 23% in the 2014 Euro elections
but only add about 1% against 2010 in the GE
“The problem is it would start a big debate/controversy and, egged on by media interrogation, every oddball in the party would be pressed for comment and inevitably a Burley or a Bone would say something stupid and “racist”
I could see that happening HH but as you say it’s hard to not link race and immigration.
“And life’s too short to go through all that Europe stuff again. But it would be a brave Tory who would bank on an in/out referendum producing a majority in favour of withdrawl”
The only way to avoid this issue reoccuring would be to have a referendum. However, Cameron could just say no to many of the barmy rules of the EU like many other countries. He could start by throwing out Quatada rather than wasting millions of taxpayers money in keeping him here. The same goes for foriegn criminals. Send them back as soon as they are released. For petty crimes don’t bother sending them to a UK jail, just deport them. It’s far cheaper. Look at the boost it gave him when he used the veto last December, he needs to show Europe that Britain is not going to continue to bow down.
As for the NHS. I am proud of the system but I think it needs to be managed more effectively. I would also make the NHS more open to school leavers and graduates who want to start their careers so we do not have to rely so heavily on migrant workers at the lower end of the NHS hierarchy.
“We need to accept that some seats we arent going to win again but we need to target seats that we havent been seen in, im convinced we have a change in places like County Durham and even South Yorkshire”
Precisely Joe.
‘Im certainly no Bone or Burley (though perhaps a Daniel Hannan)’
He’s worst than the other two – far, far worst – which is some achievement
Whilst the Tories should always aim to be a broad church – from those from the centre to the Right – I do fear that allowing such extremists into their party only alienates those people Cameron and others have worked so hard to keep on board
Like the Republicans being represented by the likes of Palin, Bachman and Duke
‘As for the NHS. I am proud of the system but I think it needs to be managed more effectively.’
I don’t think anyone would disagree with that (about from those like Burley, Bone and Hannan) – although I harbour serious doubts about whether Lansley’s Cameron-backed refdorms are the right way to go about it
As HH wrote earlier, Cameron is managing to alienate a fair number of his core supporters without any compensating support from centrist/liberal voters who still don’t trust the Tories on the issues they care about. As things stand the most likely outcome of the next election is a Lab/LD coalition.
Shaun I was goading you, so fair enough, you have had a little bit of a goad back. I must say I’m rather amused by the picture you paint of my “elitist friends in the BBC & media” & wondering who you might mean. The idea that I’m in some way indirectly responsible for controlling the media – especially the BBC – is totally laughable. My views are very left-wing ones, and they’re not in any way represented in the BBC, and not in most newspapers either, except to a degree in the articles of certain Guardian columnists (my acquaintance Seumas Milne for example). I do have one friend who is dead important but she isn’t in the media at all. I realise that you mean “friend” in terms of “political bedfellows” but I absolutely assure you Shaun that my views are not those usually expressed on the BBC or in most newspapers. Naturally I would want to fight to prevent your policies from being enacted but I find those of the present government quite right-wing enough for me thank you, and worthy of trenchant, implacable opposition.
Having drifted into here to see what was being said about Newport I find that every body is talking in corners about subjects which could even should be put to the test on the main pages of this blog.
It would be interesting to see how many people think this government is as Lib Dem lead as some of you seem to think.
For me the attacks on the poor and the disadvantaged and attempts to weeaken organised labour along with the introduction of the private sector into yet more of the state makes this a very Tory Government doing things even Thatcher could not dream of> All this hidden under a lib Dem cloud.
It is the right wing nature of the government policy which ide driving voters away from the Lib Dems and into the arms of Labour as the only left of centre party across the whole of GB.
I agree Dave. Perhaps Anthony could think about having a general thread for this sort of discussion so that the constituency threads do not become cluttered.
I know that sounds odd given that I started this really. Apologies.
Barnaby, a clarification: obviously I wasn’t accusing you of being a close friend of senior BBC bods. I was speaking generally about your ‘liberal elite’ colleagues such as those at the BBC.
Never mind, I’m going off on a much needed holiday later. I don’t want to bore you all be going over the same ground again. Apologies once again if that is the case.
Don’t be too nasty to me whilst I’m gone. I will be checking from time to ime
Have a good holiday Shaun wherever you’re going. I’m looking forward to a trip to the Norwegian fjords & Bergen soon but there are far more parrots (well, parakeets) here in Richmond than there will be there.
Your explanation of what you mean still doesn’t ring true. I’m not part of any elite except inasmuch as my parents occupy a position fairly well up in socio-economic terms & attained exalted positions in the law (not the media though). I am fighting for a totally different society and don’t see the media as my political bedfellows in any way; the people who are running this country at the moment aren’t the people I want to be running it. Sure I live in a nice area but I don’t earn much, work outside the media in a very basic C1 job and the only arguably elitist thing about me is that I am involved in what you might call the liberal arts. The newspapers want to see a maintenance of some form of capitalist society (although in certain cases maybe at times with a Labour-led government), I don’t. The idea that the media is somehow dominated with what you might call pinkos & Marxists is delusional – I wish it had more truth in it!
When I talk about liberal elite, I am talking about views rather than background. Clearly as a Conservative, your background is not of any relevance to me, its about where you’re going, not where you have come from.
But when I refer to liberal elite I am being generic.
Thanks though Barnaby.
Its not quite as exciting as the Norwegian fjords and Bergen. I will be in North Wales, at a little town called Abegele. I will probably be visiting the David Lloyd-George Museum near Criccieth whilst I’m there and I have been tempted by the William Gladstone Exhibition at Hawarden.
Odd that Barnaby,
I am off to Bergen on Friday, giving a talk on Wednesday (midly terrified :p)
I lived in Norway for 3 years.
The egalitarianism of the country means that no-one is afraid to interrupt a speech or presentation with a tricky question. My forecast is that you will be lucky to make it through the first sentence before someone butts in!
But it’s a lovely country, especially at this time of year.
Luckily its European wide so largely not an Norwegian audience!
Surprisingly, western Norway (Bergen and Stavanger) are much more international and foreigner-friendly than the capital city Oslo.
It is because the many Brits and Americans in the oil industry are located in those cities. Stavanger is I think 20% Americans.
Thanks HH – it’s good that Bergen is more welcoming than Oslo, since we’re not going to Oslo!
Shaun please stop lumping me in with people I don’t belong with. I am a socialist and not any kind of liberal.
“If I were in a position of power I would say it without saying any further asides. I make no apology for being anti-NHS. I accept its an extremely unpopular policy position.
Im certainly no Bone or Burley (though perhaps a Daniel Hannan)”
The NHS is one of those issue where people automatically rush to the extremes of left or right to defend their arguments. This puts people like me at a significant disadvantage. I’m a big admirer of the Australian Medicare system (a public-private partnership which I wholeheartedly believe would work in the UK if people understood the benefits and gave it a chance).
The problem is that if you express any view that is seen as being even moderately anti-NHS the left go into irrational ultra-socialist mode and accuse you of being an inhuman money grabbing capitalist who has no concept of humanity, human dignity or the needs of the poor.
This is one of things I hate most about British politics is how there are certain issues where people are bared from having sensible, civilized debates about important subject matters because of the irrationality of others.
And I also don’t like how most people form their views on the NHS simply through believing all the left wing hysteria that there is no alternative except to go for the health care model promoted by the tea party movement in America.
I’m generally in favour of the principle of publicly funded healthcare, but I formed my views through doing a bit of background research into how healthcare systems work in other countries and weighing up the relative pros and cons of each system.
Mass hysteria does nothing but limit debate and stop people who put forward some relatively moderate policy proposals from being taken seriously. This does nothing to help democracy or society in general.
Barnaby
Enjoy your trip. The fjords are majestic.
Given your politics, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that you will really appreciate Norway. As opposed to pretty much anywhere else in the world, they have a system of socialism that actually works. The key is a particularly Scandinavian combination of a complete lack of selfishness and very strong nationalism, making it hard to replicate this winning formula elsewhere in the world.
On a more practical note, expect to pay a fortune for alcohol and eating out.
Adam
I 100% agree with what you say – exactly my views
but better put.
Yes, the NHS does an excellent job in many cases – particularly when there is a serious problem –
but it falls down on the hinterland too often – or sometimes not the hinterland.
And if we believe it needs reform, better to think it through and stick to it,
rather than make messy concessions which blur all the advantages of the changes.
Personally I think we should challenge that kind of hysteria.
Back around April time, I thought Andrew Lansley did a pretty good job on a Newsnight audience discussion painstakingly winning over health professionals
and
isolating the BMA man who was just talking Bob Crow style rubbish
without much logic.
But even Mrs Thatcher, with a large majority, decided it wasn’t an issue to take very far – but I think we have a duty to deal with it now as it’s creaking.