“Tory revival” – who is this Howard, the leader who replaced Ian Duncan Smith? (And I only know about Smith because there was a GD thread on him a few weeks ago.) owl says it’s “too close to the next election” for a Tory comeback. But I thought the next British general election wasn’t until 2006. Seems like plenty of time to me – plenty of time for practically anything to happen, in politics. (Remember, Bush Sr. looked unbeatable in 1991.) How slow do things move over there?
“Chirac visit” – did the president of France visit the UK recently? And why would that provoke any controversy? And what does that have to do with the EU?
“Blair/Brown rift” – who is this Brown? I’ve heard of a rift within Labour between the moderate wing (Blair) and the left wing (Ken Livingstone) – is that what you’re talking about?
“West Lothian question” – what are “Foundation hospitals” and what have Scottish MP’s got to do with it? And what’s the difference between Welsh and Scottish autonomy? Looking at your system from the outside, what I can see is that the UK consists of twelve parts – Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the nine regions of England. Why shouldn’t they all have exactly the same degree of autonomy and exactly the same relationship to the national government, as with American states?
“What to do with the Lords” – my understanding is, the House of Lords was stripped of most of its power decades ago and is now mostly an advisory body to the Commons, with a temporary delaying power on legislation. And Blair cut the House down to about 30 or so lords, right? So it seems now to be a harmless holdover from the past, like the monarchy. Why do anything to change this arrangement? Unless you’re prepared to go the whole distance and abolish the monarchy, the lords, and the Established Church.
The one British political issue in which I am personally passionately interested is proportional representation – mainly because I’m hoping the UK will adopt it and set an example for the US. The problem with PR over here isn’t that the people are against it, it’s that almost nobody knows what it is, and explaining takes more words than you can fit on a bumper sticker. But if the Mother Country puts through a radical change to its constitution, the American media will at least have to explain to the people what this is all about. Having said that – where do things stand with PR? Blair promised a referendum on it when he was campaigning in 1997. When is it going to happen? If I were a LibDem I’d be really pissed at the delay.
Correct, but 2006 is not fixed. The Labour government will probably call an election in spring 2005.
He visited. They talked. Europe is controversial here. I am as pro-US of Europe as owl is anti. I am the minority.
Girdon Brown is Chancellor of the Exchequer, the second most important job after PM. Brown is mderately left of Blair politically, but the clash is more personality-based.
The question was named after Tam Dalyell, an MP who pointed out that if devolution ever came to Scotland, Scottish MP’s could vote on English matters but not the other way around. This was demonstrated recently over a policy whereby “successful” hospitals are treated differently by the government. Scotland and Wales have devolved government, England (nor its regions) do not.
The House of Lords is the second chamber (cf. Senate/Representatives), which moderates any Act of Parliament. Parliament does have the final say, but it is very rare for it to say so the necessary three times. There are 600+ members, none of them elected.
PR might be “fairer” but leads to unstable government since it is so difficult to get a useful majority (cf. Italy). It is unlikely to come about here on its merits. However, I wouldn’t put it past the present government to instal it before an election they looked like losing.
“Tory revival” – who is this Howard, the leader who replaced Ian Duncan Smith? (And I only know about Smith because there was a GD thread on him a few weeks ago.) owl says it’s “too close to the next election” for a Tory comeback. But I thought the next British general election wasn’t until 2006. Seems like plenty of time to me – plenty of time for practically anything to happen, in politics. (Remember, Bush Sr. looked unbeatable in 1991.) How slow do things move over there?
Michael Howard took control of the Tory partry from Duncan Smith (“IDS”) in a bloodless coup. He is a more formidible politician than IDS (not difficult) but may be fatally hampered by association with the last Tory regime.
The Prime minister can call an election whenever they like - which is of course a huge advantage. THere is a maximum term of five years, but within that the PM has room to manoeuvre.
The Tory party is starting from such a low level that even a huge improvement will probably not be enough to deliver power (from memory I think its about a 10% swing that’s required - which is unheard of)
“Chirac visit” – did the president of France visit the UK recently? And why would that provoke any controversy? And what does that have to do with the EU?
He’s still here. THis article from the (pro-europe) left wing Guardian tells the story quite well. The telegraph is, of course, better, but it’s a registration site.
“Blair/Brown rift” – who is this Brown? I’ve heard of a rift within Labour between the moderate wing (Blair) and the left wing (Ken Livingstone) – is that what you’re talking about?
Gordon Brown is the Chancellor Of the Exchequer - and very much the number two in the labour administration.
He is seen as “old labour” ie more leftwing than blair and in favour of state control of many things eg heath and education.
There has long been a rumour that Blair agreed to cede power to Brown in the second term (ie now) in exchange for Brown giving him a free run at the leadership. Only two men know the truth, but the level of credence that the story attracts gives an indication of the perception of the relationship of the two men.
I’ll off-the-top-of-my-head the ones that owlstretchingtime hasn’t yet addressed (someone correct me if I go wrong):
A. West Lothian Question: since Scotland has an elected assembly, but England doesn’t, and Scottish MPs sit in Westminster, this means that a hypothetical MP from West Lothian, Scotland, can vote on issues that directly affect English people, but English MPs can’t vote on issues that affect West Lothian.
B. Foundation hospitals: proposed NHS hospitals that can privately control their own funds and fundraising. It’s a Labour proposition, but one that many decry as a ‘slippery slope’ towards a private healthcare system. They would, however, be free to the public at the point of delivery.
C. Autonomy: don’t forget the nationhood of Wales and Scotland (and semi-nationhood of N.I.) - these issues are stronger than mere English regionalism.
Not stripped of power: the HoL is still the effective Supreme Court, and it bears the power of veto as well as containing only appointees, bishops and some remaining hereditary peers (that’s the “30 or so” of which you speak). It’s an unelected chamber with these powers, and also contains a religious element. Highly undemocratic and in need of serious reform, IMO.
It ain’t going to happen anytime soon while the Tories and Labour are still the top two parties. It would gouge a hell of a lot of their respective MPs from the house, and they wouldn’t like that. It’s also a tough one to sell to the electorate because there is no single method of doing it, no single fair method, and the more fair the method, the more ridiculously complicated it becomes (cf. the Republic of Ireland).
I agree with SentientMeat on Howard’s future. He’s a temporary measure to stop the bleeding. The Conservative Party will not have healed internal rifts over Europe and key social issues in time for the next election. Howard represents a more stable era in the Party’s history and has sufficient gravitas to halt, or at least slow, the rot.
I presume that in the long term the hope is that a shining saviour will miraculously appear before the next election after that. Failing that, maybe the Party grandees are hoping that the bitterest enemies in the current organisation will have retired. I can’t see the arguments fading myself.
God I wish John Smith hadn’t died his untimely death. I wonder where the UK would be now … I think things would be rather different, though maybe that’s just wishfull thinking.
On a vaguely related note, has anyone else read Jeremy Paxman’s The Political Animal? It’s quite interesting - a study of what motivates British politicians and how their behaviour is moulded by the British political system.
The problem is that right now, to all intents and purposes, we have a one-party state, because there is no credible opposition to King Tony. And the choice is between Tony’s sanctimonious, arrogant, manipulative government, with its obsession with form over substance, misguided social engineering ambitions (remember New Britain and The People’s Everything? I never met any of these “People” that Tony always went on about) and frighteningly repressive and authoritarian practices, and a bunch of right-wing squabbling clowns who can’t agree on what they’re for. Right now, since Howard took over, David Davis and David Blunkett are engaged in a game of “I’m more right wing than you”.
So you can vote for whoever you like unlike as they have no coherent programme and are right-of-centre. God only knows why the Lib Dems haven’t managed to thrive in this environment. They could really have made something of their anti-war stance if they had had some guts and a little flair. But they went out like a damp firework.
**What exactly are these “internal rifts” in the Conservative Party? **
From my perspective as a non-Conservative the Tories have always represented the traditional right wing position in the UK. Strong patriotism mixed with right wing business/capitolism. They now have an internal split between the stongly patriotic ( anti US 0f E ) types and the pro-business ( pro US of E ) types. I don’t think this problem is going to go away for them …
Just my POV of course and probably a masive oversimplification but …
In my observation, and very simplistically, it’s a centrist/rightist split - half of the party wants to be a caring, sharing party that is inclusive to minority groups, upholds the ‘socialistic’ policies of the UK like the NHS and e.g. a nationalised rail network (but with somewhat more fiscal conservatism than the Labour party) and be integrated with Europe; the other half is more allied with US conservatism, wants to privatise health and the BBC, get out of Europe, form transatlantic trade talks and bolster the military.
If my analysis is vaguely correct, you can see that there’s a serious ideological schism in the party.
GLA = Greater London Assembly - Ken Livngstone’s body.
“Tory Rifts” - No worse than any party and certainly not as bad as Disarmament and Clause 4 were for the Labour party.
The main one is - Europe. The tory party is quite a broad church and does include some people who would be perfectly happy in Blair’s government (the reverse is also true). Many of these have pro erope and especially pro-Euro (the currency) views. As I have already demonstrated this is far from the majority opinion within the party.
I don’t think its such a huge rift anymore - especially as the chance of us joining at present is very remote. I also think that as the years go by the position will harden to a more firmly anti-euro (both senses) position and by that time the party will have united by natural wastage (ie the more pro euros will leave).
Needless to say there are differences over all policies as there are in all healthy parties.
The Tories are in the age-old political quandary. In order to become electable, they must gravitate towards the “centre ground”. Unfortunately, this requires a shift away from what the grass roots membership believe are the core values of the party.
There are some issues regarding homosexuality, “affirmative action”, fox-hunting and the like, but the overwhelming majority of arguments and dissent is over Europe. The rank and file want to bellow a NO!, Paisley-like, at further integration with Europe including monetary union. However, the wait-and-see attitude of the present government is arguably the more reasonable and “centrist” approach, and hence to do so would not present the Tories as the “natural party of government” (a phrase which has strong resonance with the electorate here).
At the last Tory leadership vote, I phrased it thus: Do you want a conservative government which joins the Euro, or a conservative opposition which won’t?
Part of the Conservative Party’s problem - one which Labour successfully addressed in the late 1990s - is that it’s torn between a core “historical” membership, and appealing to those who will form the great glutinous mass of voters at the next couple of elections.
Labout was transformed into the party of youth, representing “Cool Britannia” (how we cringe now!) and somehow managing to portray pragmatism as modern, flexible and even slightly dynamic. British political parties usually eye the terms “pragmatic” and “flexible” with distaste, believing it means a willingness to abandon all principles at the drop of a pollster’s hat. Labour managed to tread that line just carefully enough (its current reputation is another story altogether, lest anyone think I’m gawping with admiration).
The current Conservative core vote is aging, and I believe the party is unsure about how to handle the transition to appealing to a new generation of voters. How far does it give in to policies that appeared to bring Labour wider appeal and success, which may alienate the current voting veterans?
Interesting. It’s a phrase we never use in American politics. What exactly does it mean?
Where do the LibDems fit in all this? Where do they stand on Europe? On national health care? Re-nationalizing the railroads? Regional devolution? What distinguishes them from Labour and the Tories?