Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 12:51 pm  

Kosh wrote:

Quite. I think there is now no doubt whatsoever that they made a colossal mistake in appointing the wrong Milliband brother. Ed seems to think that if he just keeps his head down and does nothing controversial the next election will win itself. I think he'll find that he's deeply mistaken.

This is my worry. I'm no fan of 'style over substance' politics, but Ed seems to have neither. I reckon David would have made far more headway as leader by now, but I suspect at the time he was seen as being too close to Blair.

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:29 pm  

I read earlier that if the swings were repeated across the country, Labour would return with a 66 seat majority.


Farage's solution to the economy? "stop paying the EU and halt all overseas aid." Sounds like a well thought out plan

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:37 pm  

rover49 wrote:

Spot on, look at the depths they go to for putting someone up for Question Time, Neil Hamilton for christ's sake, a proven liar. Mind you Labour did itself no favours with Ms Eagles, she looked out of her depth and seemed to be thinking of things to say to fill in the time.

To be fair, she was second best panellist after Loach. He hit the nail on the head by saying that the Unions should not give funds to Labour because they don't represent their members nor anyone in particular.

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:39 pm  

Mintball wrote:

The question is how you build such a party.

As Ken Loach said - the Unions should fund one.

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:45 pm  

Things got a bit awkward last night when Hamilton opened up his answer to the GropeGate affair by stating he was probably the only one of the panellists to have been charged with rape. The guy is a grade one pillock.

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:53 pm  

Farage summed it up nicely by saying that if the Tories hadn't split the UKIP vote, UKIP would have won!

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:53 pm  

Dally wrote:

To be fair, she was second best panellist after Loach. He hit the nail on the head by saying that the Unions should not give funds to Labour because they don't represent their members nor anyone in particular.

Thought she was poor to be honest. She should have livened it up a bit by nutting that Tory cow next to her, what a sanctimonious piece of work she was.

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:53 pm  

Keith wrote:

Can't help but think that the political landscape needs a new substantial left wing party, leaving existing labour and tory parties as the major centre left and centre right parties with the more right wing tories gravitating towards UKIP. That would leave us with four main parties and probably more coalition governments. No place for the lib dems, but as first past the post would probably need replacing too, their legacy would be that albeit indirectly they'd have helped bring about electoral reform. Be interested to see what more knowleagable political types think!

Completely unelectable - the demand for government to tell you how to live your life is low also do we really want all the higher personal taxes we would pay to be spent on inefficient public services and increased benefits?

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:57 pm  

Rock God X wrote:

No chance. They're a lunatic fringe party and I doubt they'll ever hold more than a seat or two in parliament, if that.

I don't think they are as nutty as you think they are.
The leader keeping himself out of the firing line and focusing on the MEP votes is a smart move.
I can honestly see them being the biggest MEP's party and in doing so costing Cameron his job and possibly forcing a referendum faster than they want in the fear of UKIP in the general.

I think we can all see how a referendum would end up so UKIP win anyway.

Re: Eastleigh : Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:36 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Remember the early Thatcher years when the SDP broke away?
Unless you want to hand a whopping majority to Cameron, I wouldn't split the left vote right now.

Indeed.

And the problem is, any such party needs to be centerist/populist enough to gain votes from a broader spectrum of political opinion than would occur with having, say, an out and out, old-fashioned socialist party. You only need to see that UKIP is splitting the Tory vote to realise the problems of having a party that appeals to what could be described as a more extreme version of the most mainstream.