The 1992 scenario, which many of you will already have heard of, goes like this: Labour are ahead in the polls, slightly. The right-wing press have thrown everything at them, but still the Tories cannot get a lead. A Labour government looms. Until polling day comes and, low and behold, the Tories have somehow ended […]
Archives for April 2015
Given how successful the SNP have been in Scotland, here’s what their next move should be: franchise themselves across the UK
One thing everyone agrees is going to happen on May 7th, if nothing else: the SNP are going to do bloody ace. Even if they fare much worse than predicted, say 30 seats, that would still mean they’ve quintupled their Westminster representation. Whatever you think of their weird brand of nationalism, their Tartan Toryism wrapped […]
The Conservative Party of the United Kingdom used to be the most formidable election winning machine in the entire world – where did it all go wrong?
Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph printed a letter, supposedly signed by 5,000 people from the commercial world, saying that a Labour government would be bad for business. Problems with the whole move quickly emerged, however. Turns out the letter had been on the members’ section of the Tories’ own website for weeks, so the idea that […]
If Ed Miliband becomes prime minister after the election, this is what he needs to do as a matter of priority
This weekend past, Miliband ruled out doing any sort of a deal with the SNP, even confidence and supply. This places the Labour Party in a rather precarious position. If Labour are the largest party in a hung parliament and Miliband becomes prime minister with less than 35% of the vote, without a parliamentary majority […]
The general election as seen through the prism of “House of Cards” (the Kevin Spacey American version, I mean)
Having already looked at the impending general election through the lens of one television series full of bloody, political intrigue inspired me to take a look at it through another. House of Cards, as we all know, was originally a British mini-series about a psychopathic, murderous Tory MP who through various manipulations becomes prime minister. […]
If Cameron is so worried about the SNP having power in Westminster, why doesn’t he do the following?
David Cameron and the Tories continue to “bang on” about the Scottish National Party. Just this past week alone, we’ve had an England only manifesto, in which English Votes for English Laws, or the humorously acronymed EVEL, featured prominently. We had more from Dave and Boris about a “looming constitutional crisis” should the SNP be […]
Imagine if there was a Cameron-Miliband debate coming up – regret now from the Tories for ducking it?
Many, myself included, thought Cameron played a blinder when he managed to bully the networks into running the “debate” schedule he wanted, i.e. one without a head to head with just he and Miliband being involved. The idea at the time ran that since Miliband would be coming into the whole thing with such low […]
Did Labour just forget about this glaring problem for them when they wrote their manifesto?
I take you back to 2012, when the plans to reform the House of Lords were shelved. Nick Clegg announced that as a result of this, the Lib Dems would vote against the boundary changes as proposed by the Tories. However, this only amounted to a temporary delay: the new boundaries, equalising the constituency sizes […]
The Grant Shapps Wiki-scandal: the substance free election campaign rolls on
Yesterday, the story of the moment was an allegation that Grant Shapps has been doctoring various Wikipedia pages; those of other Tory MPs he’s not all that find of, i.e. most of them, apparently. Shapps vigorously denies any involvement and says he’s the victim of a smear campaign. But on the story goes. Mostly because, […]
The general election as seen through the prism of “Game of Thrones”
Some time back I wrote an article comparing the current state of British politics to the original Star Wars trilogy. In response, I received many a request to give Westminster the Game of Thrones treatment. Problem was, I didn’t really see how it all fit; I just couldn’t puzzle out how all of those murderous […]