UK - Election 2015

[megaresp]

Even better time to be an SNP candidate, I would think.

Heh, you're right!

I bet plenty of scenarios are being discussed in a variety of "smoke-filled rooms" in England and Scotland.

 

[Francesca R]

I think Ed Miliband is fine as "PM material" as I have said before. Effective in an understated way.

(Now I am wondering if he measures up better among female voters than male . . . No idea)

 

[megaresp]

This is suggested, as far as Glasgow is concerned at least, by the outcome of the referendum. According to wiki Yet the majority of voters in every Glasgow constituency voted Yes for independence in the Referendum. The correlation between Yes votes and Lab voters switching to SNP won't be perfect. But if I was a Labour MP that would worry me a lot, given the vehemence with which Labour opposed independence, chumming up with the Tories to make the Vow; and Jim Murphy going about speechifying in favour of the Union at street corners, mounted on his Irn Bru crate.

Glasgow constituencies are going to be well worth watching on election night. It would be amazing (to me, anyway) if Glasgow abandoned Labour in May. Imagine the size of the swings required for that to happen?

 

[anglolawyer]

I think Ed Miliband is fine as "PM material" as I have said before. Effective in an understated way.

(Now I am wondering if he measures up better among female voters than male . . . No idea)

I bet David would have been more appealing to everybody, except the left, who would vote Labour anyway. Labour may now pay the price for choosing the less electable brother.

 

[megaresp]

I think Ed Miliband is fine as "PM material" as I have said before. Effective in an understated way.

(Now I am wondering if he measures up better among female voters than male . . . No idea)

I was sufficiently interested to see if there was any readily available data. This shows a tiny preference for Ed over David in the recent leader's debate, But not enough to make any sort of difference...

For the two major leaders – Ed Miliband and David Cameron – there was no significant gender gap in judgments about their performance.

If you scroll down the article a bit further, you'll find a clearer gender difference. A greater percentage of women intend to vote Labour, and the reverse for Conservative.

An interesting conclusion from the article...

The performance of the women party leaders (Bennett, Wood and Sturgeon) connected more favourably with women voters, and this was not simply the product of existing gender gaps in party support. By contrast, men greatly favored the performance of Farange, and the gender gap here was larger than in voting support for UKIP.

In short, in British politics today, the survey evidence indicates that sex matters for political leadership.

Thinking about the above, it tends to suggest that Labour would be doing better right now if they had a female leader. Having said that, presumably she would have to have similar attributes to those demonstrated by Bennett, Wood and Sturgeon.

ETA: I'd be really interested to know if Thatcher generated an increase in the female vote for Conservative while leader.

 

[MikeG]

Meanwhile.........

The Greens have managed to undermine their manifesto launch by getting hung up on whether or not they would ban the Grand National (on animal cruelty grounds). Dealing with the country's most pressing issues head-on.

 

[anglolawyer]

Meanwhile.........

The Greens have managed to undermine their manifesto launch by getting hung up on whether or not they would ban the Grand National (on animal cruelty grounds). Dealing with the country's most pressing issues head-on.

Oh dear. They should not be coming across as a bunch of weirdos when there are such serious concerns to tap into, like the recent London smog, or extreme climate events such as the 2013 floods, or global warming etc etc. It would be better to express concern about the poor horses but disclaim any intent to ban anything without first seeking to persuade the British people by means of public information etc.

 

[The Don]

Listening to the radio on the way to London, I note that the Conservatives are extending the "right to buy" to housing association tenants and are requiring councils to sell off their highest value properties to pay for building low cost units to replace the houses sold off.

So they're bribing the electorate but getting local councils to pay for the bribes. Never mind the time lag between selling off properties and building the new ones (if they ever get built that is), more grist to the mill for private landlords.

I think that this may be a popular policy but it may have lasting damage when it comes to providing affordable housing.

 

[MikeG]

.......I think that this may be a popular policy but it may have lasting damage when it comes to providing affordable housing.

I'm not sure why. I fundamentally agree with the notion that the state or its organs shouldn't be involved in providing housing, and that owning your own house is aspirational. Anything which extends home ownership is a good thing in my book.

 

[Information Analyst]

Listening to the radio on the way to London, I note that the Conservatives are extending the "right to buy" to housing association tenants and are requiring councils to sell off their highest value properties to pay for building low cost units to replace the houses sold off.

So they're bribing the electorate but getting local councils to pay for the bribes. Never mind the time lag between selling off properties and building the new ones (if they ever get built that is), more grist to the mill for private landlords.

I think that this may be a popular policy but it may have lasting damage when it comes to providing affordable housing.

Funny how "right to buy" never extends to the properties owned by private landlords....

 

[Information Analyst]

I'm not sure why. I fundamentally agree with the notion that the state or its organs shouldn't be involved in providing housing, and that owning your own house is aspirational/

Unless you live in London, of course.

Anything which extends home ownership is a good thing in my book.

Why?

 

[Francesca R]

Parties are "bribing" voters? Heavens to Betsy. Never seen that happen before.

 

[Craig B]

Parties are "bribing" voters? Heavens to Betsy. Never seen that happen before.

Bribing individuals resident in social housing, using accumulated social housing capital assets as the source of the bribe.

That's a particularly nasty operation.

 

[jimbob]

You might be confusing statesmanship and political stewardship. The examples you're citing are failings of the latter (though good spin-doctoring has more or less neutralised them). The former - statesmanship - is a far more intangible quality. It has to do with whether a person looks, sounds and acts like a leader.

At a very base (and somewhat reductive) level, imagine a typical British person sitting with a friend from another country (US or Germany, say), when the British Prime Minister comes on TV to make a statement after (say) a terrorist attack. Thatcher, Blair, Brown and Cameron all, intangibly, feel/felt "right" to be the person standing there at that point. Major and Callahan arguably did not feel "right". Ed Miliband almost unarguably does not feel "right".

I wasn't really.

Cameron's negotiating tactics within Europe failed on its own aims. That is not a test of stewardship that is a test of statesmanship.

I guess that Labour don't want to play on the "character question" as staying aloof is probably good, but Cameron did demonstrate particularly poor judgement with some of his close advisors. Coulson being the most obvious, and where people had warned Cameron of his potential for embarrassment.

As far as I can see, as soon as you get away from policy, Cameron's been pretty poor, compared to say John Major (for example). His policies are a different issue.

 

[Francesca R]

Bribing individuals resident in social housing, using accumulated social housing capital assets as the source of the bribe.

What about bribing undergraduates to study degrees using tax raised from non-graduates who will on average be significantly poorer than the future graduates.

Or are you still going to claim you "don't understand" Scotland's regressive policy.

 

[Craig B]

What about bribing undergraduates to study degrees using tax raised from non-graduates who will on average be significantly poorer than the future graduates.

Or are you still going to claim you "don't understand" Scotland's regressive policy.

Is that the best you can do? It doesn't look as if it has anything to do with my point in either of the objectionable features I refer to, and is simply a diversion anyway.

Tax is raised from graduates and non graduates alike, and goes to all, in this case, who obtain a higher education. It ought to be levied as a function of the resources at the disposal of the taxpayer.

ETA However, your response usefully does indicate enthusiastic support on your part for the selling off of social rented housing, which is no surprise. How are you on flat rate capitation taxes like the ill-fated Community Charge? Less "regressive" than wicked taxes on income I suppose.

 

[Francesca R]

Is that the best you can do?

Seems to be all that is required to show that you will toss around labels like bribe and nasty as code for not liked by yourself. Quit with the faux principles which are not fooling.

 

[MikeG]

I.......ETA However, your response usefully does indicate enthusiastic support on your part for the selling off of social rented housing, which is no surprise........

So, you think that government should be involved in providing subsidised housing. Interesting. You do this in the knowledge that it produces perverse incentives, distorts markets, increases all other new housing costs (thus decreasing supply), and helps trap another generation into a culture of dependency on the state. Curious that anyone would see this as positive.

 

[LondonJohn]

So, you think that government should be involved in providing subsidised housing. Interesting. You do this in the knowledge that it produces perverse incentives, distorts markets, increases all other new housing costs (thus decreasing supply), and helps trap another generation into a culture of dependency on the state. Curious that anyone would see this as positive.

That's socialism, comrade


It would appear that a critical quality necessary to be a socialist in 2015 is a total ability to either ignore or rationalise the blinding fact that it's a proven failure as a political and societal organisation methodology. On housing policy specifically, most enlightened social-democratic parties across Europe have long since realised that state intervention in housing - other than as a genuine safety net - is a Very Bad Thing, for the many reasons that Mike outlined above. Heck, even the lauded "Nordic Model" of social liberalism has undergone a massive so-called "retrenchment phase" in state housing policy over the past 20 years or so.

Basically, only political ingenues, die-hard socialist ideologues or those with a specific vote-catching agenda support the idea of widespread state housing. And, thankfully, none of those sorts of people are likely to be running the part of the UK where I live any time soon. They're welcome to well and truly mess up Scotland if they like though

 

[Craig B]

So, you think that government should be involved in providing subsidised housing. Interesting. You do this in the knowledge that it produces perverse incentives, distorts markets, increases all other new housing costs (thus decreasing supply), and helps trap another generation into a culture of dependency on the state. Curious that anyone would see this as positive.

Yet they do. I wonder why. Francesca - any ideas on this?

ETA We can start here if you want.