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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks looking ahead to the GE2020
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks looking ahead to the GE2020
We’ve been here before. We languish under a Conservative government with a tiny majority, distracted by a frenzied and incomprehensible internal argument being conducted in raised voices over the EU (a subject about which the public largely do not care), staggering from wholly avoidable crisis to wholly avoidable crisis. The public rightly see the Conservative party as horribly divided. Di…
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As in, 'Stalin was not overfond of kulaks.'
If you're a wuss like me, cover Cruz too - he is fair value, but Trump is good Value
Other Tories, possibly the same ones, expect or hope things will quiet down after June, but like Mr Meeks I doubt that - as he notes, the number of irreconcilables does not need to be high to cause major trouble throughout the parliament, and that will only add further fuel to the leadership troubles.
Boundary changes? I can see it being a flashpoint, but I'm so sick of that issue I must say - the boundaries need to be updated, just f---ing get on with it already.
Tory complacency remains very high. That does not worry me so long as Labour improve and offer a credible alternative - credible as far as I'm concerned at any rate - but with Corbyn looking solid off the back of a mayoral win to come and a local election campaign his team have managed expectations on, that doesn't look likely any time soon. And yet if the Tories are crap enough even Corbynite Labour may seem attractive, particularly as the economic accomplishments of the Tories will probably not look so grand come 2020, given failures to date.
So yes, the Tories are not bombproof. We can only hope whoever replaces Cameron this year or next is able to keep them vaguely credible, so we have at least one such option. Voting without even one of those will not be easy.
Tory civil war worsening is nailed on, but other than that, who knows?
The medium-term outlook doesn't look good for the tories - evens on NOM would probably be generous and I wouldn't back Con Maj below 2/1.
Realistically though, no serious punters are involved in the betfair market so the prices are artificial and liquidity poor. I'm not sure the bookies even care if they price up a 4/6 shot at 6/4 when the default settlement date is 4 years away.
The odds will be out of line for a while.
In Islam and the Labour Party there is a struggle going on, and in both cases Khan – whatever his real views – is pandering to the extremists. I don’t want him running our capital.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/10/we-cant-let--the-corbynistas-plant-the-red-flag-back-on-top-of-c/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Then they were led by John Smith (succeeded by St. Tone) and Labour were not too far away in seats, facing an exhausted government. They were clearly a government-in-waiting that held no fears for the voters.
Now the alternative presented is Corbyn (or some hard-left successor) propped up by the SNP...
Middle England would rather stick pins in its eyes than risk that.
GOP
Trump 48
Kasich 22
Cruz 20
Dems
Clinton 49
Sanders 38
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/10/fox-news-poll-trump-holds-huge-lead-in-pennsylvania-clinton-up-over-sanders.html?intcmp=hpbt2
GOP
Trump 54
Kasich 22
Cruz 15
Dems
Clinton 53
Sanders 37
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/10/fox-news-poll-trump-clinton-rule-empire-state.html?intcmp=hpbt2
The Brexit headbutting is only the warm up to bloodletting over other issues. IDS is not alone.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/10/labour-heartland-doesnt-exist-voters
The utube equivalent of the script kiddy virus has arrived.
http://tinyurl.com/z6a2kqr
(the guy who did Putin may need an upgrade to a teapot by Geiger inc .)
We are barely 11 months into a 60 month electoral cycle so thinking about the endgame now ignores the vast amount of water to flow under the bridge.
I do think it's not just a case of Governments losing elections - Oppositions have to win them too and both Feb 1974 and May 2010 are prime examples of the former happening but not necessarily the latter though said Oppositions found their way to Government in the end.
Sometimes you can have a perfectly good Opposition but the Government is simply better and of course there are times when the Government is the only game in town (1966, 1983, 2001 all being good examples).
I'd argue that apart from 1979 (and 1945), most changes in Government have been more about changes in management - that the electorate wanted the same things done but managed by someone else (1964, 1970, 1997) who would do them "better" which translates as kinder, fairer, more efficiently or whatever you like.
The challenges of governing in the 2020s are going to be considerable - simply doing what we did in the 2010s may not be enough - and the Party which offers a positive and credible vision for the provision of that Government is going to be the one that gets the job.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_republican_nomination_map.html
But an ace the incumbents hold is a judiciously-timed change of leader.
And if the Tories pick well, they'll be given the benefit of the doubt by the electorate in 2020...
Rallings & Thrasher estimated the other day that the Tories would only lead Labour by 1% in the vote in the locals; it doesn't seem inconceivable now with the recent turmoil that Labour could sneak a small lead. If that happens, it will spell trouble for the Tories -- if a party loses in the local elections in the first year of the electoral cycle, they usually go on to lose the next General Election (the Tories won the 2011 locals by 1%).
And they have form!
With Cameron, it won't be so easy. It'll either look as though nothing has changed or the replacement won't have the same rapport with the electorate as Cameron has enjoyed (except for Boris perhaps).
Corbyn is a throwback to the grey, petty politics of the 70's. If there was a leadership election tomorrow, apart from the usual head banging cheerleaders, I doubt he would make anything like the inroads he did last year.
Apart from that he is a winner.
Labour under some other leader.
If the SNP can gain 50 seats in essentially half a year, the Conservatives can lose 25 to all comers in a parliament.
Corbyn is repulsive and I don't even care about his links to terrorism. Once in a lifetime you come across someone who you just know will be repellent to voters and I speak as someone who liked Michael Foot
'Jeremy Corbyn has only two flaws, everything he says and everything he does, but apart from that he could be a very effective leader for Labour'
The Tories are experts in sensing the electorate's mood, and will most likely get it right.
Well, not all of them...
@sammacrory: "No. Big no" - @Nigel_Farage on whether he'd publish his tax returns @BBCWestminHour
UKIP are not. The Greens are not. The Liberals are not.
Can you even imagine the headbangers who could be leading the government after the referendum?
He has a brittle personality too, on display again this week. He doesn't like being doorstepped. "These people are bothering me." / "Don't point that phone at me."
WTF? A leader has to accept this goes with the job, and not be deeply uncool about it in front of the cameras...
My wife has given up her membership to the Labour party because she despises Corbyn. Most of my Labour buddies are desperate with the situation.
And, the ones who I know that support Corbyn, seem to hate any electable name in the Labour party- David Miliband, Chuka, Dan Jarvis more than the far right. There is actually no point discussing anything with them.
Fanboys care about the former. Punters care about the latter.
Good politics.
In 1984, 1988, 1998 and 2011, the sitting government beat the Opposition in the locals, and duly went on to win the next General Election. The examples since 1983 of a government not winning the locals in the first year are 1993, 2002 and 2006: in two of those examples, the government went onto lose badly at the next GE. Labour narrowly lost the 2002 locals by 1%, and did go onto win the GE in 2005, although only by 3% (would that be enough for the Tories to get a majority in 2020??).
Farages braying face and the message "imagine him in charge"
I think the big flaw in his analysis is the statement that 'Conservative divisions aren’t going away'. It really doesn't look like that within the party, at least as far as I can see. We shouldn't give too much salience to current issues. Everything will look different on June 24th.