Sara Pascoe wrote:Mad Dog wrote:Btw, something that might be of interest:
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/
The Tory lead is now down to a prediction of a 26 seat majority. I'm predicting a hung parliament at the next election which could make things very interesting.
I'd like to see a hung parliament for once, unfortunately I foresee the events of yesterday and the now obvious split in the Labour Party as taking the election away from a possible broad, centre-left coalition victory to a Tory majority of around 40. It would be nice to see a leadership election within Labour within the next few weeks, GB clearly needs to go for the good of the party and the country, I'd like to see him replaced by Jon Cruddas or maybe Ed Miliband, someone that can lead a progressive social democratic coalition with the Lib Dems.
Completely surprising move when it seemed like things had bedded down enough at least to postpone that type of thing until the general election had taken place. That said, Hoon and Hewitt, although high profile, are really minor players now. Had it been one of the current ministers, it might have had more of an effect.
Not sure about Miliband. He did seem like a possible future PM when Blair stepped down back in 2007. However during his time as foreign secretary, he's not been popular with foreign governments and is too associated with the current regime to make that much of a difference.
I think the best thing is to ride out the current storm for Labour. A leadership election would be seized upon by the media and would probably trigger a civil war between the Blarites and the left wing of the Labour party, hardly ideal preparation for a general election campaign.
rudolph_hucker wrote:Sara Pascoe wrote: The people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath elected GORDON BROWN in 2005 ergo he was elected to be PM as were all 356 other Labour MPs because all could've decided to run for the leadership in 2007.
All that is true enough BUT, it was Tony Blairs (bullxxx/confidence) that got Labour voted in in the first place. Do you really believe that the country would have voted for a labour government if GB was leading the party at election time?
Hard to really say, in 1997 I think the country had had enough of 18 years of Tory rule (which we are still feeling the ill effects even now) and it is possible that Brown could have pulled off an election victory, although not to the same extent. Blair was able to do it by reaching out to the middle class voters and floaters, whether it could have been done by any other Labour leader is up to debate. Brown wouldn’t have taken Labour as far to the right as Blair did, I don’t believe.
That said, had he called for one about a month after becoming leader in 2007, he probably would have won it. Labour went up in the polls after Blair left and this increased when Brown was cast as showing leadership during the attack on Glasgow Airport and the discovery of the car bombs in London.
Of course he didn’t which to me has proved to be a millstone around his neck ever since.
However, as has been said, certainly the Prime Minister is the Head of Government but the public do not vote for their Prime Minister, it is usually the leader of the largest party appointed by the Queen. They don’t even have to be an elected MP, they could be appointed from the House of Lords although the modern day media would have a field day if this happened
. The point should be can they and more importantly their party from which the government is formed govern this country effectively? If not, can the opposition as a whole do so? Are they credible enough to do so?
The last part is up for debate for this upcoming election but I would assess all the parties before casting a vote.