All of the major parties (including the Tories) are kind of centrist (from a US point of view).
Presumably the election was sort of a referendum on Labour’s leadership, and they lost. From the viewpoint of getting the support of the voters, it makes sense that the party who earned the largest number of seats is trying to form the government.
The old position was that Labour were on the socialist Left and the Liberals were perhaps just left of Centre.
Tony Blair (and some extent Neil Kinnock before him) moved Labour right-wards (or centre-wards, if you prefer) and there is now less ideological difference between the Big Three parties than for many years past. Things like nationalisation of industries and the redistribution of wealth were abandoned; everyone’s a privatizer now.
I disagree. The Tories are more or less the Democrats, some on the right, some on the left. Cameron is a Dripping Wet conservative and is probably rather to the left of Obama. The Liberal Democrats and Labour would be the Shrieking Left Wing of the Democrats at very best, with most of them being in the ‘Godless commie bastard’ category.
It’s interesting to compare Obama and Cameron further: both got the nod because of electrifying speeches, but whereas Obama has shown that he’s a leader and a man of substance, Cameron has shown that he’s not a leader and has yet to show substance.
Until someone else can form a government, Brown remains PM.
Question:
Brown is now caretaker PM and no longer Labour leader (my goof).
With whom would the Lib-Dems be negotiating their fall back coalition with Labour if they can’t agree with the Tories?
How long will it take until Labour’s new leader is installed, and would they have expectations of being PM in a Lab/Lib-Dem coalition, should that eventuate?
Correct.
He’s still the Labour leader until another is elected.
Good question. I don’t think we’ll have long to wait, though, for an new Labour leader.
It’s all Brown’s masterplan to stay in power as long as possible.
Except Brown has announced he won’t be running in any election for Labour leadership again. If he permanently resigns as Labour leader, he’s resigning as prime minister.
He also remains Labour leader until another one is elected. The point is, it’s not just flat out “incorrect” to say he has resigned as prime minister, because de facto that’s what he’s done, and calling someone out on it like you did without also providing them that context is just going to confuse them.
It would appear to indicate that the Liberals have refused to serve under Brown.
Labour has a rather ponderous selection process for leader which it imposed on itself in the 1980s and it could take them several weeks/months to fix on someone (unless it was a one horse race like Brown’s superseding Blair. But I doubt the party activists would stand for that again). Presumably Brown expects to carry on while that happens.
Tony Blair was a shrieking left wing politician? Huh.
The new leader will likely be picked at the conference in September.
In American terms, he’d be well on the left of the Democratic Party. To be fair, TB was on the right wing of the Labour Party. These are people who were seriously calling each other ‘comrades’ not that long ago. People like Dennis Skinner and John Prescott (TB’s Deputy PM) would have Mr McCarthy rising from the grave.
Brown has tendered his resignation to the Queen and ‘advised’ her to send for Cameron.
And Cameron is now PM. Good speeches all round, I thought.
So Brown will be Leader of the Opposition until September? :eek:
And if the whole thing goes tits up and Cameron calls an early election in say July the Labour Party goes to the polls without a leader?
You’re kidding me?
Actually, I think I am. I’m looking at this further, and Brown’s comments were that he wanted to see a new leader by the time of the Conference in September. The NEC has announced they’ll set a timetable for the new leadership election later this month, so it’s a matter of waiting on them.
Ok, Cameron is PM, Clegg is deputy PM, Lib Dems get 5 Cabinet positions. Lib-Dems agree to get rid of plans for the mansion tax, a cap on immigration, and an agreement not to join the Euro for the duration of the Parliament. Conservatives agree not to raise the inheritance tax threshold, They’re still going to cancel the planned rise in National Insurance, but have agreed that some of that money will go to reducing income tax thresholds for lower earners.
Liam Fox is defence secretary, Andrew Lansley gets Health, Danny Alexander gets Scotland.
Brown stood down as leader of the Labour Party, with immediate effect, during the visit he made to the party HQ in Victoria Street after leaving the Palace this evening. Harriet Harmen, the existing deputy leader, takes over as acting leader until they can do a leadership election.
Part of the Cameron-Clegg agreement seems to be that Cameron won’t be able to call such a snap election (to avoid him shafting the Lib Dems admittedly). Given the sort of arrangement they appear to have hammered out, an election this year for any other reason would be a catastrophic outcome for both of them.
I’m getting the impression again of something I’d thought was hinted at when watching things about British politics. Does Brown as Labour leader have an officially recognized position? My point is that while the Speaker of the House of course is a very prominent position, it often happens that a senator of many years is seen as the most powerful person in the party, especially if the president is of the other party. While Daniel Inouye of Hawaii has served 46 years, I’m sure the most powerful Democrat title is probably due to a combination of committee chairmanships, sway with the president, energetic and ruthless staff, an the size of the state, able to deliver big votes to the next presidential candidate.
Is the shadow government in fact an official org? Does the Queen recognize Brown now as something more than “the defacto leader of the current losers”, as it essentially is in America?
Also, what was all that shouting during Cameron’s first speech?