Also of note :
Duncan Enright (Lab) - 5,765 (14.99%)
Larry Sanders (Green) - 1,363 (3.54%) (yes, that's Bernie's brother)
Mad Hatter (Loony) - 129 (0.34%)
Lord Toby Jug (Eccentric) - 59 (0.15%) (apparently there was a split in the MRL party)
Turnout - 46.74%
Mr Farron said the Lib Dem resurgence signalled that the party was "back in the political big time" and represented a "return to three-party politics." "This was the 10th safest Tory seat in the country with a massive 25,000 majority, yet the Conservatives were seriously rattled," he said.
Making the absurd but interesting assumptions that we can draw any kind of meaningful inferences from this one data point, the next election is anyone's guess. Unlike the silly
I don't particularly want to vote Labour at the next election because I think the current leader is both dangerous and useless (a rare combination indeed). I can rule out the Tories and UKIP because I'm fundamentally morally opposed to just about everything they stand for. I won't vote for the Greens (if they even have a candidate in CN) or Plaid Cymru because I think they're mad and stupid. That still leaves me with three potential options : Labour, the Lib Dems, or the the Monster Raving Loony Party (https://www.loonyparty.com/5418/5544/the-definitive-welsh-assembly-loony-party-manicfesto-2016/).
Labour still have the best chance of actually winning and supporting policies I approve of. But I don't want to give their leader the time of day because of his despotic Communist tendencies and his ridiculous anti-EU stance. I'm in general a fan of the Lib Dems, and since they're now firmly opposed to Brexit that strikes a big chord with me. I'm mostly ready to forgive them for bedding the Tories... I think. But would my vote really count for anything if (as is likely) they have no chance of winning in my constituency ? It's all very well saying, "vote for whoever you like best", but it's silly to ignore who actually has any chance of winning locally. And it's more subtle than that, because I generally prefer Labour's policies and competence but it's just the fact that voting for them would be an endorsement of Corbyn that would feel like I have soiled myself.
Which leaves the pro-dragon, pro-space policies of the MRL. A protest vote for sure ! Except that lots of people made a protest vote at the
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37719170
As an agnostic I don't really mind where Tim is getting (or thinks he's getting) his advice from so long as that advice seems reasonable. Right now it appears that that is the case. But I do hold them culpable for the tuition fee fiasco. It wasn't merely a party policy, it was there raison d'etre. They should have abstained or rebelled in the vote - or, better, introduced it over a much longer timescale to make it clear that it was actually a replacement of fees with a graduate tax. Might still have lead to a loss of trust, but not on the scale that was witnessed. Then again, that was a while ago, so I'm sort-of mostly willing to believe they've learned from their mistakes. Can't get experience any other way...
ReplyDeleteThe problem with blaming the Lib Dems for the tuition fee thing is that, while admittedly Clegg spectacularly mishandled the whole thing, blaming them is exactly what the Tories want you to do. Downing Street knew it would be a thing people would get upset about and there is no way they didn't fight it as hard as they could to make sure the LDs got ruined by it. What they compromised in order to get tuition fees through we'll never know but in all likelihood it was quite a lot of awful Tory nastiness (that we've been getting for the last few years anyway).
ReplyDeleteWhat I'd actually quite like to see is a LD/Lab/Green/SNP coalition government. I'm really over majority rule, I think coalitions are much better and as I don't trust any party to do things on their own, a coalition of the more sensible (and the SNP) seems like it might work quite well. It's not like most modern countries don't have coalition governments. Imagine, Parliament having to actually discuss and compromise and agree on things like adults to get anything done! Rather than one party and their whips running everything.
I remain faintly hopeful that Labour will install someone like Clive Lewis as their actual leader in the next couple of years. I sort of like Corbyn, on principle (in some regards at least), but he's completely ruined in the public eye already.
The thing I don't like about coalitions is that it gives the government a free hand to negotiate on policies in wholly unpredictable ways. The Lid Dems compromising on tuition fees was previously unthinkable, making all their election pledges meaningless. The, "but we're not the majority in government" excuse could be used to justify anything, so there's no way to know what I'm voting for. Hence a coalition is more representative than a majority party but less democratic. Granted, the British system isn't set up to deal with coalitions, so politicians have no idea how to campaign for the event of a coalition (witness the chronic inability of any party to ever answer any hypothetical questions as to what they'd do in a coalition). Perhaps a better system could be devised to deal with this, though as far as I can tell the only way other countries deal with this is, "badly".
ReplyDeleteMy preferred system of government is, ironically, the one we have now - one party with a small majority. It can get most things it pledged done, so it's directly accountable to the voters, but with enough of the other parties ranged against it plus a small but manageable rebellion, its most unpopular things should be mitigated. It doesn't have an absolute monopoly on power but it won't collapse into chaotic infighting (much as I might like to see the Tory party do just that, this is probably preferable to having voters flock to the more extreme elements).
Unfortunately the situation for the smaller parties is a rather peculiar one right now. I highly approve of most of Labour's policies but I don't trust the leader, and pretty much everyone agrees he doesn't have a chance of winning the election. The Lib Dems might win back lost ground next time but they're currently very small. The SNP are a nationalist party so I'll never be able to vote or have any control over them at all (though I always thought it would be fun if Plaid and the SNP swapped constituencies just to confuse the heck out of people...). Hence it's all a big mess and I don't like it.