Burnt Orange Report
News, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas
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Burnt Orange ReportNews, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas |
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May 06, 2005Final Thoughts On UK Elections (From Me At Least)By Andrew DobbsI don't mean to distract people from the passing of Rep. Moreno, things are sad around here and the Capitol is said to be like a ghost town. I share with everyone else in expressing my sorrow at this loss and I'll be praying for Moreno's family tonight. The elections last night were exciting, interesting and have shook up Westminster in ways that are quite unexpected. Let's run down some of the big implications of last night. First, while the Lib Dems continued in their growth, they are still clearly not going to be a viable government any time in the near future. They did gain 11 seats, giving them their biggest number of seats in the Commons since 1929, but the fact that most of the swing was towards the Conservatives and not the Lib Dems suggest that when people are looking for an alternative to Labour, they look to the Tories and not the Lib Dems. Still, as Kos points out in a Guardian article, they gained four points over 2001, 11 seats and came in second in 160 constituencies, 50 more than in 2001. They are growing, but they are still not the second party that they ought to be. Secondly, this was about the best possible outcome for the Tories. No one expected them to win-- Labour's majority was just too big. Gaining more than 30 seats and cutting Labour's majority by almost 2/3 does suggest that they are back to life. Michael Howard should not be so quick about stepping down as leader, but Tories should hope that this gives them a much-needed shot in the arm and that new leadership will mean fresh ideas for the party. Labour came back when they spelled out a unique, creative and ambitious platform for Britain. New Tory leadership could do the same for their party and turn their resurgence into a government in the next election. Third, Tony Blair will not be PM for much longer. He is likely to hand off power to his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Brown has always looked a bit uncomfortable mouthing the platitudes of "third-way" New Labourism. If he takes a hard tack back to the Left, it could mean jitters in the economic sector and an economic downturn that would give a big opening to the Tories. It would also take the wind out of the Lib Dems' sails. Still, he is very popular with Brits and his current leadership of the Treasury has been very wise-- his granting independence to the Bank of England will be heralded as one of the best moves Britain made domestically in the course of the twentieth century. If he can keep his popularity up and continue on a moderate political course Labour could be the majority for the long-haul. The war was clearly unpopular in England, and Blair's character was called into question. Things have changed in Britain-- Blair received the lowest vote total for a governing majority in decades and for the first time in British parliamentary history the number of qualified voters who stayed at home exceeds the majority won by the governing party. Blair is the lamest of ducks right now and Britain is about to be undergoing some serious soul-seeking. Posted by Andrew Dobbs at May 6, 2005 04:45 PM | TrackBackComments
One thing to keep in mind, was that Labour played spoiler to the Lib Dems more than a few times. I started counting the number of constituencies where the LD+Lab. vote exceeded the Tory vote, and where the LD vote > Labour. I counted a dozen in Southwest England alone, and stopped counting after getting to about twenty (this was just SW and SE). Labour needs to stop bitching about "spoilers" Posted by: Jim D at May 6, 2005 05:19 PMEr, let me add the qualification that those are all Tory-held seats. Put another way, the Conservatives would probably have had fewer seats if the British used some sort of majority vote instead of first-past-the-post. Posted by: Jim D at May 6, 2005 05:26 PMSome attention should be given to the results in Northern Ireland where local parties dominate the scene. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), once the dominant Protestant party there, has imploded. It shrank from from six seats to one. Sinn Fein, usually described as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, picked up one seat, giving it a total of five seats in the upcoming Parliament. The trend, first evident in the last round of local elections in Northern Ireland, is toward support for parties less likely to compromise. The situation in Northern Ireland has not gone unnoticed in London. In a cabinet reshuffle, Tony Blair has chosen Peter Hain, a senior minister in the outgoing government, as the new Northern Ireland secretary. Looking at the Northern Ireland results from a strictly sectarian perspective, Protestant parties hold ten seats while Catholic ones hold eight. That's a pick up of one seat for the Catholics. Post a comment
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