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Post by Adam in Stroud on Sept 21, 2016 9:32:27 GMT
Congratulations to the Lib Dems on this and other recent successes. I wonder to what extent this is down to Labour's leadership strife. Yesterday at conference, Farron indicated his strategy was going to be to target the Blairite wing of the Labour Party (as well as Remainers). As yet, however, the opinion polls are showing no sign of a revival (if anything, it's slightly worse than at the general election). The yellow team need a parliamentary by-election opportunity for things to really take off for them, I think. EDIT: I'm not thinking of Witney... There are as many recent successes against the Conservatives as against Labour . The raw data for opinion polls do in fact show a small uptick on the last GE but this vanishes after weighting and other adjustments . The last Ipsos Mori poll for example had 10% LD and 6% UKIP in its raw data which after weighting became 6% LD and 9% UKIP in the final Headline VI figures . The two things are not mutually exclusive. The first thing to do if you want to win a seat off the Tories is to squeeze the Labour and Green votes. But given the size of the Tory majorities even in places we used to hold, we need to take votes off the Tories, and lots of them. Farron's pitch to "Blairites" is sound in that he is not appealing to Labour MPs or members who signed up to the whole New Labour deal of PFI and creeping privatisation, let alone Iraq; it is to swing voters who voted for Blair because he promised (and largely delivered) TLC for public services and a little re-distribution (tax credits, minimum wage) combined with economic competence (fiscal prudence and no war on entrepeneurs). Most of those voters are currently voting Tory because they think Labour has reneged on the economic competence part of the bargain (and that goes back to Brown's premiership, not just Milliband, let alone Corbyn) We need to simultaneously take votes off Labour - tricky, since they are down to their core support, but possible in places where they don't think they can win, if we can convince them we can; and possibly also strong Labour Remainers if they are sufficiently hacked off with Corbyn - and from the Tories. The latter could be swing-voters who voted Labour under Blair, and one-nation pro-Europeans feeling unloved by a Tory party which is more Eurosceptic and right-wing both in quality and in quantity. If I was a swing voter in 2015 I'd not have seen anything to really frighten me in either Labour or Tories and it would have come down to Cameron vs Milliband for PM, with only one winner possible. In opinion polls now it is Corbyn vs May (and maybe there is something to frighten me in Labour now) so the result will be the same. The massive challenge for the LDs is to even get onto the ballot paper for these voters. Local elections and parliamentary by-elections are easier as the premiership is not at issue. We have three years to use that to drag ourselves back into public consciousness. We also have to hope that by 2020 the public are not scared into voting for May to keep Corbyn out - either through her really really screwing up, or him being replaced by someone less scary. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 21, 2016 9:37:50 GMT
You're not going to get many Blairites if all your party keep using that hackneyed, stupid, meaningless phrase "illegal war" and sing songs telling Tony Blair to "fuck off and die".
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,952
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Post by The Bishop on Sept 21, 2016 9:48:32 GMT
New to the LibDems, pal?
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Sept 21, 2016 10:28:13 GMT
You're not going to get many Blairites if all your party keep using that hackneyed, stupid, meaningless phrase "illegal war" and sing songs telling Tony Blair to "fuck off and die". Is that a thing? I rarely get enough LDs together to make an effective choir and most of them are of a generation that would blench at those words applied to anyone much. It sounds childish, so yes, unlikely to win many friends of any description. I don't really give a toss as to whether or not the Iraq war was illegal, whatever that may mean, but I stick to the point that it was a bloody stupid idea badly executed, and that T Blair was largely responsible for our involvement in the whole shambles. But to re-iterate, the aim is not to attract "Blairites", it is to attract the electorate who voted for him. |
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 21, 2016 10:34:39 GMT
You're not going to get many Blairites if all your party keep using that hackneyed, stupid, meaningless phrase "illegal war" and sing songs telling Tony Blair to "fuck off and die".That's how we start every constituency meeting. Seriously, who and when? |
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,952
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Post by The Bishop on Sept 21, 2016 10:38:48 GMT
Filmed at your conference glee club, apparently. I know that is a fun occasion and everything, but still.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 21, 2016 10:40:17 GMT
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Sept 21, 2016 11:06:37 GMT
Funnily enough, when I'm trying to follow what goes on at Conference, "news" tends to mean policy debates and similar, rather than what people sing when p*ssed. But I'll agree it is puerile, needlessly offensive and should be cut out. On Iraq, I think you're picking nits. We all know LDs opposed it, as did many in Labour, and that Tony Blair is identified with it. There are genuine questions about legality and UN mandates for those who care about such things - I don't much, but a bit of work there might have helped keep people onside and would have been well within Labour traditions. Are you really going to nail your colours to the mast of HMS I don't really agree with the Iraq war but at least it wasn't technically illegal so please stop saying it was? There are much better parts of Blair's legacy to defend, as Farron rightly acknowledged, which sadly are getting forgotten (as much in the Labour party as anywhere else.) |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 21, 2016 11:17:46 GMT
I think the liberation of Iraq from Baathist tyranny was a perfectly justifiable policy. If international law had said it was wrong, then international law was on the wrong side.
As it happens I had concerns at the time because I thought it more likely that Saddam would fight to every last street in Baghdad. As it turned out he was a big coward and ran away to hide in a hole instead.
The only reason Iraq went wrong was because the US administration didn't do any post-conflict planning. Not really down to the UK government at all. Everyone tries to imply that the decision in 2003 was whether to invade Iraq; it was actually whether the invasion of Iraq would be done by the USA only.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 21, 2016 11:26:10 GMT
No need to be nasty DB. Funnily enough I don't follow politicshome and have never been to Glee Club. Shouldn't have happened - suspect the demon drink was involved. Wouldn't have sung it myself. End of. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 21, 2016 11:50:43 GMT
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 21, 2016 12:02:28 GMT
Not up to me old chap. But if it was, it wouldn't. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Sept 21, 2016 12:09:50 GMT
I think the liberation of Iraq from Baathist tyranny was a perfectly justifiable policy. If international law had said it was wrong, then international law was on the wrong side. As it happens I had concerns at the time because I thought it more likely that Saddam would fight to every last street in Baghdad. As it turned out he was a big coward and ran away to hide in a hole instead. The only reason Iraq went wrong was because the US administration didn't do any post-conflict planning. Not really down to the UK government at all. Everyone tries to imply that the decision in 2003 was whether to invade Iraq; it was actually whether the invasion of Iraq would be done by the USA only. Yours is an entirely honourable position, though on the psephological point I don't think the Blair-liking swing voters I'm talking about will care enough about the issue to analyse it in that depth. It doesn't get Blair off the hook for me. Firstly he had a duty to British service personnel and for the future of British foreign policy to make damn sure the US did have adequate post-conflict planning; he should have insisted on it as the price of providing a British fig-leaf to US unilateralism. Failure to do so put British lives at risk and depleted our foreign policy capital. It doesn't make him a criminal, as the sanctimonious would have it, but it was culpable negligence. Secondly, the geo-politics of Iraq make it highly questionable that there was any post-conflict plan that would have worked. Its about trying to produce an Iraqi government that can govern by means not involving repression, torture and sectariansim. The failure of generations of iraqis to produce anything that met the bill should have set alarm bells ringing. A failure of post-conflict planning is not just a minor detail that can be attended to after the war is over, it is the whole basis of the decision to go to war in the first place. You ought to know where you are trying to get to before you set out, unless you are escaping a fire - and Iraq wasn't on fire, it was stumbling on just as it had for years. (A parallel analogy with certain other political events springs to mind, but enough about that already.) |
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Merseymike
Independent
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Post by Merseymike on Sept 21, 2016 12:26:57 GMT
You're not going to get many Blairites if all your party keep using that hackneyed, stupid, meaningless phrase "illegal war" and sing songs telling Tony Blair to "fuck off and die". I know the LibDem councillor who wrote the song about Owen Smith. He said he's happy for Liberals within any party to join but doesn't welcome Blairites |
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Post by finsobruce on Sept 21, 2016 12:34:09 GMT
I think the liberation of Iraq from Baathist tyranny was a perfectly justifiable policy. If international law had said it was wrong, then international law was on the wrong side. As it happens I had concerns at the time because I thought it more likely that Saddam would fight to every last street in Baghdad. As it turned out he was a big coward and ran away to hide in a hole instead. The only reason Iraq went wrong was because the US administration didn't do any post-conflict planning. Not really down to the UK government at all. Everyone tries to imply that the decision in 2003 was whether to invade Iraq; it was actually whether the invasion of Iraq would be done by the USA only. Yours is an entirely honourable position, though on the psephological point I don't think the Blair-liking swing voters I'm talking about will care enough about the issue to analyse it in that depth. It doesn't get Blair off the hook for me. Firstly he had a duty to British service personnel and for the future of British foreign policy to make damn sure the US did have adequate post-conflict planning; he should have insisted on it as the price of providing a British fig-leaf to US unilateralism. Failure to do so put British lives at risk and depleted our foreign policy capital. It doesn't make him a criminal, as the sanctimonious would have it, but it was culpable negligence. Secondly, the geo-politics of Iraq make it highly questionable that there was any post-conflict plan that would have worked. Its about trying to produce an Iraqi government that can govern by means not involving repression, torture and sectariansim. The failure of generations of iraqis to produce anything that met the bill should have set alarm bells ringing. A failure of post-conflict planning is not just a minor detail that can be attended to after the war is over, it is the whole basis of the decision to go to war in the first place. You ought to know where you are trying to get to before you set out, unless you are escaping a fire - and Iraq wasn't on fire, it was stumbling on just as it had for years. (A parallel analogy with certain other political events springs to mind, but enough about that already.) Although I suspect given the knowledge we have of subsequent events, along with Libya it would have been on fire as soon as Saddam /Gadaffi were toppled. |
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
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Post by The Bishop on Sept 21, 2016 12:37:19 GMT
I thought at the time, and still do now, that there was more of a case for toppling SH in 1991 than in 2003.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
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Post by Khunanup on Sept 21, 2016 12:54:34 GMT
I note no mention yourself or by other correspondents of the self flagellating ditties that exist in the songbook too. As with everything, the songs are liberal in their targets both within and without the party. I think ultimately it's down to a bit of jealousy that The Land sung in full voice puts the Internationale to shame...  |
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Post by MeirionGwril on Sept 21, 2016 13:49:34 GMT
funny to see the poor sensitive flowers in labour worried about a libdem song - whut!!
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Post by La Fontaine on Sept 21, 2016 16:38:55 GMT
I think the liberation of Iraq from Baathist tyranny was a perfectly justifiable policy. If international law had said it was wrong, then international law was on the wrong side. As it happens I had concerns at the time because I thought it more likely that Saddam would fight to every last street in Baghdad. As it turned out he was a big coward and ran away to hide in a hole instead. The only reason Iraq went wrong was because the US administration didn't do any post-conflict planning. Not really down to the UK government at all. Everyone tries to imply that the decision in 2003 was whether to invade Iraq; it was actually whether the invasion of Iraq would be done by the USA only. There were and are dozens of countries we could save from tyranny. And this was not the reason given at the time. Indeed it was specifically denied. Nor was it the real reason, which was to curry favour with the appalling George W Bush. And it was illegal. And your last point would have got us involved in Vietnam. Fortunately we had Harold Wilson then. Your whole argument is ... well I can't say what I think on a family forum. Wars kill people. |
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Sept 21, 2016 17:51:47 GMT
I'm not sure you'd need to add -shire, given that sæt is used perfectly normally as a county name - think of Dorset and Somerset, where Dorchester and Somerton seem to take their names from the local subdivision, whereas in most other cases the shires are named after whichever town was the most important military staging post in the early 10th century. Mercia would become March, incidentally, as it's the exact same word. Out of interest, how did you Wychshire compare with the vanished county of Winchcombeshire? You're right about "shire", I was just following the slightly old-fashioned practice that you find on old maps, where, e.g. Devon and Dorset become Devonshire and Dorsetshire respectively. But it is not redundant - "shire" seems to mean a division, a shearing off as it were, whereas "saete" means dwellers/occupants and has the same root as "settler" - I suspect you knew that! So Dorsetshire is "the government division of the dwellers in the land of the Durotriges". And, that is indeed the point about "March". It slightly niggles me that of all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, historians have given Mercia a Latinised name (presumably most of the sources are in Latin, unlike the AS Chronicle for Wessex) which just doesn't sound authentic to me. Indeed. The official motto of Somerset (appearing on the county arms) for the past 105 years has been "Sumorsǣte ealle" which explicity refers to all the people of Somerset, rather than the land. "March" I find rather too generic. Besides, most people think of it as a month of the year when it begins with a capital letter nowadays. Interesting that you mention Latin, as there's a modern Italian region with the equally unimaginative name of "Marche". Then again, that whole area along the English/Welsh border is still often referred to informally as "The Marches" (of which the DJ Tom Ravenscroft's older brother William is of course the 2nd Markgraf). |
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