New "One nation" Labour catchphrase

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I wonder how Alex Salmond feels when he hears this phrase ?

 

[Greenback]

I can't speak for Mr Salmond, but the slogan does nothing for me!

 

[kylemore]

He'll be quaking in his boots about this, just as was about the "Olympics effect" which lasted about all of 10 minutes up here!

I think the longer "millipede" stays in the job the happier Eck will be.

 

[Jatos]

Millipede, going to have to repeat that one!

- Jamie

 

[NSEFAN]

"Milibean" is a variant used in a certain satircal publication.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm staunchly pro-UK and that phrase does nothing for me.

 

[michael769]

I can only conclude that Labour policy is to see the break up of the Union. It will have made Smug 'Eck's day that one!

 

[Greenback]

As someone who favours more indpendence for Wales, I have to say that my main dislike for the phras eis that it is such a transparent and obvious attempt to pick up COnservative voters.

 

[michael769]

When I heard the phrase I immediately thought of the Tories. The last thing you want is for a Scot to link you with the Tories.......

It is spectacularly ill judged.

 

[Ivo]

As someone who favours more indpendence for Wales, I have to say that my main dislike for the phrase is that it is such a transparent and obvious attempt to pick up Conservative voters.

What Labour scheme isn't a plan to "pick up Conservative voters"?

If they have the nerve to come up with a phrase of "One Nation", then either (a) they have given up on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, or (b) they have given up altogether. Whilst I personally would hope that it is (b), because I'm biased, if it is (a) they will only succeed in alienating millions around the UK anyway. Maybe they are concentrating their resources one the 2019 (?) election...

 

[Jatos]

I would quite agree. I am very much a fan of devolution and for that matter, more localised government, with Westminster focusing on more specific national issues.

I am no fan of centralising the majority of the power at all. Far to open to abuse, rather I just prefer to see more and better cooperation.

- Jamie

 

[Trog]

I would quite agree. I am very much a fan of devolution and for that matter, more localised government, with Westminster focusing on more specific national issues.

I am no fan of centralising the majority of the power at all. Far to open to abuse, rather I just prefer to see more and better cooperation.

- Jamie

Anything that means more politicians with there snouts in the trough is a bad thing.

 

[kylemore]

Anything that means more politicians with there snouts in the trough is a bad thing.

Exactly - it just depends on which particular snouts should be removed from which particular trough first - Westminster or Holyrood.

Purely in terms of efficiency for Scots it might be argued it should be Westminster as that trough is a lot bigger and with more snouts attached!

 

[SS4]

What Labour scheme isn't a plan to "pick up Conservative voters"?

If they have the nerve to come up with a phrase of "One Nation", then either (a) they have given up on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, or (b) they have given up altogether. Whilst I personally would hope that it is (b), because I'm biased, if it is (a) they will only succeed in alienating millions around the UK anyway. Maybe they are concentrating their resources one the 2019 (?) election...

Pretty much. Now the Lib Dem's true colours have been shown they pretty much pick up disaffected voters and students of the left by default. Really though Labour's current best bet is to hope UKIP muscle in on core Conservative territory.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I know it is not really fair to bring charisma into the political arena....despite Tony Blair wringing every last drop of benefit from this aspect of his image, but look at two recent "less-than-charismatic" Labour politicians in high office...

Ken Livingstone.....Who surely had more the look of a leader of the former East Germany...rather than Mayor of London.

Gordon Brown.......'Nuff said...You just couldn't make such an unattractive image like this if you tried.

Ed Milliband must really do something about his image problem....otherwise we will see him gradually turning into the next reincarnation of Michael Foot.

 

[Greenback]

What Labour scheme isn't a plan to "pick up Conservative voters"?

None, but this one is particularly transparent! We all know that the main political parties are desperately trying to woo voters from the others, particularly those who have no fixed ideological views, but this is such an obvious attempt to portray themselves as Tories it sickens me.

I would much prefer some serious and obvious differnetials between Labour and COnservative. At the moment, there are more similarites, as can be seen with the complaints from the left that Labour are too far to the right, and complaints from the right that the Conservatives are too far to the left!

If they have the nerve to come up with a phrase of "One Nation", then either (a) they have given up on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, or (b) they have given up altogether. Whilst I personally would hope that it is (b), because I'm biased, if it is (a) they will only succeed in alienating millions around the UK anyway. Maybe they are concentrating their resources one the 2019 (?) election...

As Labour are traditionally stronger in Wales and Scotland than the Tories, perhaps they are merely concentrating on 'Middle England' with their latest wheeze?

To be honest, though, I don't really care if they have given up on Wales as I have given up on Labour and am now solidly supporting Plaid Cymru!

Now the Lib Dem's true colours have been shown they pretty much pick up disaffected voters and students of the left by default. Really though Labour's current best bet is to hope UKIP muscle in on core Conservative territory.

Perhaps the LibDems best strategy is to move more to the left to take over the space vacated by Labour. By the time the next election comes around it may be impossible to find any difference between Labour and Conservative!

UKIP may well pick up disaffected right wingers, while the LD's pick up disaffected left wingers. It does seem likely that coalition governments may become more common.

 

[scandal]

UKIP may well pick up disaffected right wingers, while the LD's pick up disaffected left wingers.

I don't know of anyone who swings to the left who would ever vote for a party that would get into bed with the Conservatives and especially one that has consistently broken promises when in power. The influx of the 'orange bookers' into the Liberal Democrats has by-in-large swung the party back away from the SDP principles which under Kennedy and Campbell saw the party gain support at the expense of those unsatisfied with New Labour and I for one can not see them gaining anywhere near as many seats as they did at 2010 (which despite the whole 'I agree with Nick' fanfare was actually a reduction from the 2005 seats). There has been a large influx of members to the Labour Party from the Liberal Democrats where, with Ed Miliband in charge the brand of New Labour has finally been abandoned and having lost near 5 million votes since 1997 the party is finally starting to rebrand following policy reviews. There is still a lot of work to do after 16 years of Third Way politics to make Labour a party for the time and Ed has started doing that.

 

[Greenback]

I don't know of anyone who swings to the left who would ever vote for a party that would get into bed with the Conservatives and especially one that has consistently broken promises when in power.

All parties break promises. It's more noticeable that the LD's have done so as they have never been in power!

The influx of the 'orange bookers' into the Liberal Democrats has by-in-large swung the party back away from the SDP principles which under Kennedy and Campbell saw the party gain support at the expense of those unsatisfied with New Labour and I for one can not see them gaining anywhere near as many seats as they did at 2010 (which despite the whole 'I agree with Nick' fanfare was actually a reduction from the 2005 seats).

I agree with a lot of that. But Milliband's movement of the party away from New Labour seems to have lost momentum, if not stalled altogether.

What interests me though, is the prospect of the Tories moving further to the right to counter UKIP, with Labour trying tot ake the centre ground again, and the LD's with new leadership moving leftwards!

 

[ainsworth74]

All parties break promises. It's more noticeable that the LD's have done so as they have never been in power!

And whilst they've 'broken' pre-election promises, they of course didn't win the outright majority that would enable them to even try and enact the polices they stood for. So I wonder if it wouldn't be more instructive to look at how many of their coalition agreement policies they've backed out of?

 

[Butts]

"One Nation".....my arse as a famous scouser may have commented.

"No Notion" would be more appropriate

Talking of Labour moving to the left did anyone see the article in "The Independent" yesterday about the row between the NUM and Arthur Scargill over his London Pad at the Barbican.

Apparently Arthur secured a good deal whereby the NUM cough the £34,000 rent every year. This was quite manageable when they had hundreds of thousands of members but now they have 2,000 it's not quite so easy

With regard to Milliband harping on about the budget being one for millionaires he should be quite happy as he lives in a £1.4 Million London residence. I notice he dodged the question when asked if he was a millionaire. In essence he is from the same class a most Tory MP's , so why try and pretend he's from a sink estate in Tower Hamlets or somewhere like that.

I doubt he can relate to the "man in the street" anymore than Cameron or Clegg.

Viscount Stansgate anyone - there was a "man of the people"

 

[Oswyntail]

All parties break promises......

It's not really that - unless voters are so naive that they believe a manifesto is anything more than a vague wishlist. Once a party is in government, they come crashing up against the real world - in the present situation, a real world where the previous tenants had spent the last few years sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "LALALA" - and have to be flexible and pragmatic, rather than rigid and dogmatic.
However, there is some good struggling to emerge. The coalition approach has started to get some politicians (not party activists, sadly) to realise that there is really no such creature as a voter who supports each and every one of their policies. So we might, just, put behind us the aberrations of the last century, where party dictated what was to be done, usually with disastrous consequences, and start to see policies formulated through co-operation and agreement. And, perhaps, we can confine the "smash the rich" bigots to the same circle of hell as the "hang 'em and flog 'em" brigade, and keep warm in teh heat generated.

 

[Sox]

I can only conclude that Labour policy is to see the break up of the Union. It will have made Smug 'Eck's day that one!

The effect of Scottish independence, and the associated loss of the Scottish MPs sitting in Westminster, would mean that there would be 41 less Labour (and 1 less Conservative) MPs elected to the House of Commons.

Also, by certain projections, if the 2010 election had been re-run with the proposed English boundary changes then Labour would have netted 14 fewer seats, the Liberal Democrats 10 fewer, while the Conservatives, who dominate England, might have lost just six seats (remember there is planned to be an overall reduction in seats).

Add these two factors together and it would be very difficult for Labour to gain an overall majority.

So ironically, for very different political reasons, both Miliband and Cameron are in reported agreement over the issue of Scottish independence.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I'll be honest, I really don't think it matters what what Ed says, I think he will be the next PM - as much as I despise the Labour Party I can't deny that Cameron or Clegg are any better than those who they churned out. It's always going to happen, after Thatcher the Tories were massively unpopular yet 13 years later they returned to power, the same will happen with the Coalition, people's memories seem to disappear when a new government comes in and they realise that nothing's going to change (to quote The Who - 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss'), and they revert back to the party they once thought would never rule again. It's just a massive circle.

That said, I can't see the Lib Dems being the number 3 party after the next election, as much as I feel for them (not sympathy for their ideologies, but for the betrayal I'm sure some hardcore members feel), I think whist the Tories and Labour continue to merge into the same thing it will be UKIP in third (as a UKIP supporter myself though that's fine by me! ), and until the Conservatives get a leader who isn't rather liberal and whom has a backbone (unlike Cameron), I think their popularity will continue to grow. I do wonder though that if Cameron gives the vote on the EU I'm sure he promised (though that'll never happen with Clegg as his partner) how much the Tories' popularity would soar overnight...

On the subject of UKIP, this was asked by someone in my Politics class yesterday - 'UKIP? Aren't they a posh BNP?' :roll:

 

[valenta]

As much as "one nation" is a Tory like catchphrase, it's certainly not one they could use considering some of their policies!

 

[Ivo]

Two posts from two politics thread - this one, and the US Presidential Election one...

I do wonder though that if Cameron gives the vote on the EU I'm sure he promised (though that'll never happen with Clegg as his partner) how much the Tories' popularity would soar overnight...

That's not to say Obama hasn't done a spectacular job ... [but the] Republican majority in Congress have blocked pretty much everything Obama has tried solely because Obama is a democrat

Anyone else spot the similarities? Along the lines of, "If [x] allows [y] to do everything he wishes, he looks better"?

On the subject of UKIP, this was asked by someone in my Politics class yesterday - 'UKIP? Aren't they a posh BNP?' :roll:

I remember you criticising other students in your college before now. I take it their brains haven't developed any further than before then? :roll:

 

[Butts]

The effect of Scottish independence, and the associated loss of the Scottish MPs sitting in Westminster, would mean that there would be 41 less Labour (and 1 less Conservative) MPs elected to the House of Commons.

Also, by certain projections, if the 2010 election had been re-run with the proposed English boundary changes then Labour would have netted 14 fewer seats, the Liberal Democrats 10 fewer, while the Conservatives, who dominate England, might have lost just six seats (remember there is planned to be an overall reduction in seats).

Add these two factors together and it would be very difficult for Labour to gain an overall majority.

So ironically, for very different political reasons, both Miliband and Cameron are in reported agreement over the issue of Scottish independence.

Plus the loss of 11 Scottish Lib Dem MP's - fewer coalition possibilities

 

[Ferret]

When I heard the 'One Nation' gibber, all I could think of was how similar it sounded to 'we're all in it together'. Need I say more? As much as I'm not a Cameron fan, I hate the idea of Miliband as PM....at least, the Miliband that's currently leader of the opposition. Frankly, I'm dying for Ed to crash and burn so the other one gets a shot at an election.

 

[Johnuk123]

On the subject of UKIP, this was asked by someone in my Politics class yesterday - 'UKIP? Aren't they a posh BNP?' :roll:

Obviously a very ignorant person then.

 

[Drsatan]

Obviously a very ignorant person then.

Obvious differences between the two parties:

• UKIP's technically a libertarian party - if you read their manifesto it proposes that a flat tax should be introduced, and current benefits (JSA, Income Support etc) should be whittled down drastically
• The BNP are, as I'd like to call them, 'socialists with added racism'. Their manifesto proposes nationalisation of most British industries, import tariffs, and a drive towards autarky
• UKIP want to halt all further immigration, increase the size of the UK border force, deport illegal immigrants and restrict access to benefits to UK citizens.
• The BNP, on the other hand, believes that non-White Britons ought to be 'voluntarily' repatriated. Conversely, UKIP has fielded a few non-white candidates at by-elections and general elections

As you can see there's a considerable difference between the two parties. While I'm no fan of UKIP having skim-read their economic policies (although I do think the UK border force ought to be drastically expanded in order to adequately screen arrivals from outside the EU, and to deport illegal immigrants), you can't compare the two parties.

 

[Jonny]

Or, Scotland votes for independence and the way that changes the electoral situation in England, Wales & NI - never able to muster a labour majority again. I don't like any of the three main ones in Britain, the fringe parties are even worse IMO.

If anyone thinks socialism can get us out of this mess, take a trip to France. It's even more screwed up now that it has a socialist president. François who?