Britannist

Lots of people (mostly Labour supporters and their friends in the media) thought Labour opposition leader Neil Kinnock was going to win the following General Election in the period 1983 - 1987 - but he lost heavily on the night. Despite having built up big opinion poll leads against the Conservative Government.

And many on the political left thought he was assured of victory after winning Parliamentary By-Elections and getting enormous opinion poll leads over the Governing Conservatives in the period 1987 - 1992. Europhile Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet colleagues were so confident of a Labour victory that they were preparing for Government and some were even said to be deciding what colour curtains they wanted for their Ministerial offices.

But when the 1992 General Election was held Kinnock/Labour lost yet again as the Conservatives got the largest share of the national vote any party has ever managed.

To get an overall majority of one at the next General Election, the pro-EU Cameron-Conservatives need the largest swing that the Conservative Party will have ever secured in the modern era. Larger than that which brought Lady Thatcher from opposition into Government in 1979 when inflation and industrial strife were higher than they are now.

mkpdavies

We'll see, won't we.

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Britannist

As we know, the next General Election could be over two years away.

The EU Elections (June 2009) may well come before the next General Election and Gordon Brown/Labour will be hoping to do better in those than in last week's poll (many strong Labour-voting areas - including the populous Labour stronghold of Glasgow/Clyde - did not have elections last week).

By the time the next General Election is held the Government could have delivered two more budgets and Gordon Brown may not even be Prime Minister/Labour leader (although it is assumed by most that he will be).

The press are concentrating on Gordon Brown's position as Prime Minister at this time after local election defeats for his party last week: but what about committed europhile Clegg - leader of that political arm of the EU in the UK who call themselves the Liberal 'Democrats'?

Under Clegg's so-called leadership his party last week got 1% less of the national projected vote than his party secured a year earlier under the leadership of Sir Menzies Campbell (who was removed for not leading his party to election successes). The Liberal 'Democrats' got their worst local election results vote share for a decade on 1.5.2008 with Clegg as their leader.

Labour had an excuse for not doing well last in last week's local/London elections: they are in power and have made many mistakes (not that they are admitting that they have caused the problems voters are rightly complaining about).

But what is europhile Clegg's excuse for his party's worst local election performance in 10 years?

Baron von Lotsov

There is a problem for them even if they were all 100% eurosceptic. This country has become so socialist in the last ten years that millions of people's prosperity rely on useless jobs, often doing not much more than promoting political correctness and the 'benefits of Europe'. £167 billion's worth of quangos, even larger than the NHS at £110 billion. How much of this is wasted though? I suspect at least half of it but that means mass unemployment for people too useless to do anything beneficial for this country. They can't just go and get trained because the teachers are too useless now as well. It seems we rely on 'financial services' to keep our country profitable, mainly in the City of London that makes money out of global monopoly business like ICI and BP and that sort of thing.

So we are in a right mess and what could a eurosceptic Conservative possibly do? You may say join the UKIP but the UKIP will not get the Marxist europhile Labour out of office on a 2% share of the vote. Maybe they should take a leaf out of Lady Thatcher's book. She made the British entrepreneurial spirit trendy. People got a taste of independence and responsibility for their own lot. Pleasing all the people all of the time, except of course for those socialists. It became a dirty word and synonymous with very long queues and poverty, which is exactly what it really stands for.

If Cameron goes into the next election as a hardened eurosceptic I think he will actually loose. If he goes in as someone who does not want further EU expansion and a cautious approach over Europe he will not be such a target and might win. This would be the strategy of a real eurosceptic, to firstly get the popular vote and then steer it once they have office. You don't want to make too many changes at once; its better to use a gradual approach and Cameron seems to be achieving this. The vote is very fragile though and it swings all over the place so it's much a matter of luck and keeping out of trouble until that day. Stil though he does make mistakes, e.g those idiotic green taxes and not promising to reintroduce the 10p tax rate. Mind you he seems like a good personality from a PR point of view. That probably buys them at least another 5% of the vote and possibly much more in these dumbed down times.

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"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have..."

Britannist

Well, so far David Cameron has:

1. Banned anti-EU Conservative MPs from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet (although pro-EU MPs can become members of it and are in it)

2. Insulted anti-EU UKIP in comments he made in April 2006 - he chose UKIP as his first target for public criticism of another political party

3. Praised EU leaders on his visit to Brussels where he met Barroso (EU boss) and, where he allegedly met europhile Mandelson too.

4. Failed to pull the UK Conservative group of MEPs out of the pro-euro and pro-EU Superstate EPP group in Brussels (he promised in his Autumn 2005 campaign for the Conservative leadership that he would pull UK Conservatives out of the EPP group in the EU 'Parliament' "in months not years")

5. Dropped the Conservative Party pledge - backed by his three predecessors - to pull the UK out of the costly and damaging EU Common Fisheries Policy (angering the Scottish Conservative Party in doing so - some in it allegedly claimed that there was no consultation about the change of policy)

Baron von Lotsov

Yes and he has lost support over all of this. I'm not saying he is perfect but I'd rate him a better bet than europhile Major. When he went for it over the referendum though he gained a lot of credibility and that was the last we really heard from him over the EU. I think the eurosceptics have put some pressure on him to do so. My MP David Heathcoat Amory was one of those who were involved with petitions and such like. He actually voted for Cameron and said he thought he was a good person to have as leader. He would not say that if he thought he was likely to do what Major did and help Blair to get elected.

So I think both parties should attack Labour and like they managed to get Livingstone out of office they should now focus their efforts on getting Labour out. Some people will opt to vote UKIP and some Conservative but as long as it is not for Labour it will be a wise choice. Another common ground is the Liberal Democrats. Expose their duplicity over Europe and many middle England votes should pass them by. I just see it as pointless creating divisions in the right wing parties and this is exactly the socialist's secret weapon. They would have far less votes if it weren't for the BNP. They always use the Nazi card and bitter infighting can just make it seem all the more plausible. Its essential to be seen as moderate to get Labour out. If they win again we can say goodbye to democracy in this country. We wont have an England anymore; we will have an EU regional sector instead.

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"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have..."

Britannist

David Cameron insulted UKIP in comments made in April 2006 on an independent radio station in London. The remarks were widely quoted by the national media. He made a mistake in criticising UKIP and he may have lost the support of many anti-EU people (including in target marginal seats he wants his party to win next time) by doing so.

Labour do not openly criticise the Greens because they know that they need the votes of Greens in highly marginal constituencies at General Elections.

If there were any people in UKIP who had hoped for co-operation with the Cameron-Conservatives and who had been working to try to achieve that - their case was damaged by David Cameron's criticisms of UKIP.

As a result of David Cameron's hostile approach to UKIP the two parties (UKIP and the Conservatives) are now further apart than ever before.

The Conservative Party has not won a General Election since the formation of UKIP.

Baron von Lotsov

I agree it was a stupid thing to do especially since he was supposed to heal the Europe split in his party. I can accept him being cautious over the EU for the reason he wants to gain power but that looked to me like deliberate provocation. However I’m just trying to look at things in a practical way, and for the UKIP to respond in a similar way is probably just what the Europhiles want. In my mind it is better just to keep on building strong, sensible and moderate looking arguments to explain to Joe Public why the EU is ripping them off. I think the Lib Dems are fair game to attack because it’s hypocrisy at its finest. How can you possibly say you are a democrat and hand away your country’s democratic power to something that is intrinsically undemocratic. That’s the meat of the argument and a lot of middle England people think they are smart to vote for the Lib Dems! So it’s a case of who informs them of this, if the Conservatives carry on battering the UKIP when it comes out with sensible policy then they will be battering themselves and they will appear to be the extreme ones.

The UKIP does one very useful function in all of this and that is that Cameron can’t assume anyone right of the Marxist Labour party is going to look to them. It means he has to keep his eurosceptic credentials in his party or voters will just shift to the UKIP. Ironically the worse the UKIP does the healthier is the general spread of parties regarding Europe. If they were all totally Europhile the UKIP would see a big protest vote.

The UKIP can still wield political power though if it keeps good relations with the eurosceptic side of the Conservatives. They won’t be much taken in by Cameron’s silly comments and naturally they need support to build a stronger eurosceptic faction within the party. It’s one of those things that is so important that the differences don’t matter so much. They would rather be out of the EU as well but naturally there is a variety of opinions as to the best way to achieve it. They must be a bit worried that Cameron will just start to fill the party with young europhiles and the older ones, many from the Thatcher era will retire. With the UKIP though they have a bit of an insurance policy. Dr Spink made that point very clear. Indeed I would like to see eurosceptics in all the parties and the Lib Dems have aquired some now as well, so things are looking up all in all.

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"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have..."