Are the Conservatives doomed?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The tories were never, in a million years, going to do much in Hartlepool. However they need to worry about the fact that the UKIP is eating away crucial chunks of their vote.

If they swing to the right, they risk re-opening their internal splits over Europe, which will drag them back further and could split the party. Labour and the LibDems would gain from that.

Respect have some ground to gain in cities, but not the rural areas. It'll be at Labour's expense, and that'll boost the LibDems who aren't losing much to Galloway.

With the exception of the Iraq issue, Labour are pretty unified. Most of their problem is the direct attacks on the Blairs individually. My money is on Labour winning the general election with a majority of around 30-40 seats.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Sandman
He's an odious git, but the charge that he had oil deals with Saddam was proven to be completely untrue.

Link

That proves he didn't accept money from Saddam, it doesn't prove he didn't pay Saddam for oil, which was shown when they uncovered Iraqi documentation, IIRC.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Respect have some ground to gain in cities, but not the rural areas. It'll be at Labour's expense, and that'll boost the LibDems who aren't losing much to Galloway.

Are you sure on this? I'd have thought with Respect being to the left of the Lib Dems and with more vehemenant anti-war credentials they may pull votes from them. Or at least, the anti-war votes being lost by Labour would go to Respect rather than the Lib Dems. Without Respect, the Lib Dems would pick up more anti-war votes, IMHO.

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
With the exception of the Iraq issue, Labour are pretty unified. Most of their problem is the direct attacks on the Blairs individually. My money is on Labour winning the general election with a majority of around 30-40 seats.

Probably quite accurate. I can't see them losing the 3rd term, but they probably won't get much more than that. I'd love to see them not quite getting a majority and having to go to the Lib Dems to get the extra seats they need

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Drogue

That proves he didn't accept money from Saddam, it doesn't prove he didn't pay Saddam for oil, which was shown when they uncovered Iraqi documentation, IIRC.

It hasn't been shown, it's been alleged. One of the newspapers accusing him (the Christian Science Monitor) has admitted that the documents it used were almost certainly fake. Meanwhile, Galloway's libel case against the Telegraph is due to start in November, so we'll see if their claim has any credibility.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by reds4ever
IMHO the major problem that the Tories have is that so many voters in my 'demographic' remember what uncaring sh!ts they were in the 80's and will never vote for them in a General Election, no matter how bad Labour are percieved to be.

This is true. From my perspective, I think this disillusionment will mean a very low voter turnout at the next general election, but now I think that Labour will still win a third term in office. They may as well appoint Blair life-long dictator and have done with that - I said that years ago.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Drogue

Are you sure on this? I'd have thought with Respect being to the left of the Lib Dems and with more vehemenant anti-war credentials they may pull votes from them. Or at least, the anti-war votes being lost by Labour would go to Respect rather than the Lib Dems. Without Respect, the Lib Dems would pick up more anti-war votes, IMHO.

The LibDems are anti-war, so I don't think that being pitched against a "more anti-war" party will hurt them much. Respect are a one-trick pony aimed squarely at Labour.

Take Hartlepool as an example. It wasn't Respect that strongly threatened a Labour safe seat- it was the Lib Dems. Even if not one wavering Labour voter switches to LibDem over war concerns and they all go to Respect instead, the LibDems will gain significantly by the Labour vote being split in marginal seats.

[Provost Harrison]

And then there is the fact that, in reality, the Tories are just irrelevent. People haven't forgotten the Thatcherite reign, and they just bring nothing new and have nothing in common with the normal person in this country.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


The LibDems are anti-war, so I don't think that being pitched against a "more anti-war" party will hurt them much. Respect are a one-trick pony aimed squarely at Labour.

Take Hartlepool as an example. It wasn't Respect that strongly threatened a Labour safe seat- it was the Lib Dems. Even if not one wavering Labour voter switches to LibDem over war concerns and they all go to Respect instead, the LibDems will gain significantly by the Labour vote being split in marginal seats.

True, but without Respect, the Lib Dems get all the anti-war votes. Having 2 anti-war parties splits the vote, even though they take more away from labour, so there's more votes to be split. Respect hurts Labour far more than the Lib Dems, but like Nader does in the US to the Democrats, it also takes votes that without Respect would probably go to the Lib Dems.

[Zulu Elephant]

True, but without Respect, the Lib Dems get all the anti-war votes. Having 2 anti-war parties splits the vote, even though they take more away from labour, so there's more votes to be split. Respect hurts Labour far more than the Lib Dems, but like Nader does in the US to the Democrats, it also takes votes that without Respect would probably go to the Lib Dems.

I dont think Respect is really hurting anyone at the moment. They've gained votes in areas with large Muslim populations but remember that Muslims are concentrated in certain (often very pro-Labour) constituencies and not, generally) in middle class marginals that Labour took from the Tories in 1997.

Respect is very much a Socialist Workers Party type organisation and many of their votes are coming from the oldschool 80s style socialists who, lets face it, wouldn't be voting New Labour anyway.

The only party taking Labour votes in any number are the Lib Dems (The Tories haven't moved the polls for months - The loss in Labour points is going to the Lib Dems)

When it comes to the crunch, a lot (although certainly not all) voters will switch back to Labour from the Lib Dems come a general election, if only to stop a Conservative winning in the constituency they're voting in. The people switching to the Lib Dems are centre-left, intelligent types, not fundamentalist, who are smart enough to realise that a not-so-perfect Labour government is preferable to the Conservatives - Labour hasn't pissed them off that much, especially since the new manifesto is looking like its going to contain a nice bunch of social democratic policies.

[Dauphin]

Where I live there are lots of people who vote LibDem and say "I want to vote right of centre, but I look at the Tories and think, God no! They're evil, slimy people" . The Tory majority over LibDems was 269 in 2001, will be interesting next general election which way it goes.

[Zulu Elephant]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Where I live there are lots of people who vote LibDem and say "I want to vote right of centre, but I look at the Tories and think, God no! They're evil, slimy people" . The Tory majority over LibDems was 269 in 2001, will be interesting next general election which way it goes.

The Lib Dems will certainly pick up a lot of seats from the Tories at the next election, but they won't become the main opposition in the next 20 years.

The way the seats and votters are distributed benefits Labour most, then the Tories and the Lib Dems least. A percentage draw between Labour and the Conservatives at the next general election would still leave Labour with a majority somewhere between workable and thumping (not my phrase). With this in mind, it would take a swing of unimaginable proportions to put the Liberals anywhere near second place (in terms of number of MPs), let alone power.

[*End Is Forever*]

Good god, where to start on this thread...

[Zulu Elephant]

He's going to claim the English-Scottish Act of settlement is some kind of socialist conspiricy to stop the Conservatives getting in and that there are millions of Tories unwilling to admit to voting Conservative who will come out of the woodwork at the next general election (As Major said before 1997)

[*End Is Forever*]

Let's start with Laz, seeing as he was injecting reason to an extent rather than letting his colours show.

The tories were never, in a million years, going to do much in Hartlepool. However they need to worry about the fact that the UKIP is eating away crucial chunks of their vote.

First sentence, agreed. Second, not.

I think the collapse in the Conservative vote was towards the Liberal Democrats on a "get Labour out" ticket; each Conservative pledge in Hartlepool, I assume, as with Leicester South and Brent East, would have got about four pieces of paper through their door in the 24 hours prior to polling telling them that "the Conservatives can't win here". It's superb campaigning but it tells us nothing about what might happen in a General Election where they have neither the resources nor the credibility to pull off such a message.

I think the UKIP vote came largely from Labour voters. People forget that a nationalistic, anti-EU, anti-immigrant stance actually plays well in areas considered to be strongly Labour (don't see the BNP making gains in well-to-do areas!).

If they swing to the right, they risk re-opening their internal splits over Europe, which will drag them back further and could split the party. Labour and the LibDems would gain from that.

Agreed entirely. This is the potential disaster with this result - the fact the Conservatives came fourth will, ultimately, be fairly irrelevent.

Respect have some ground to gain in cities, but not the rural areas. It'll be at Labour's expense, and that'll boost the LibDems who aren't losing much to Galloway.

RESPECT are a dead-loss in the country. In the cities, their gains are very much at the expense of Labour - often benefitting the Liberal Democrats but not always - look for a strong Tory campaign in Bethnal Green & Bow come 2005.

[*End Is Forever*]

Boshko,

How long is it going to take for the Tories to get a shot at power if, when Labor is hemorrhaging voters, the Tories don't seem to be able to pick up any of them and are actually doing worse than before

The Conservative Party was never going to win Hartlepool. The voters Labour lost in Hartlepool were core Labour voters - they'll never vote Conservative, but they will consider (in a by-election at least) the Liberal Democrats and (to an extent) UKIP.

Yes, Hartlepool is a bad result for the Tories, but in the greater scheme of things it's about as relevent for us as Labour losing their deposits in the Christchurch and Romsey by-elections was for them.