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Behind in the polls
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Why are the Tories only averaging 30% in the opinion polls?
If there were a general election tomorrow and the results of it were based on recent polls, then New Labour would still be the government.
To be the next government the Tories need a swing of 10%, based on the popular vote figures from the 2001 election.
If there were a general election tomorrow and the results of it were based on recent polls, then New Labour would still be the government.
To be the next government the Tories need a swing of 10%, based on the popular vote figures from the 2001 election.
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Comments
Perhaps.
But after SEVEN years of New Labour and considering the fact that Labour aren't that popular then they should be further ahead.
i must admit that i hate labour with a passion but at the end of the day, if i was english and it was election day i'd vote for labour, sorry, the other parties fall way short, labour hasn't done that bad a job, just in the past year really.
I think the NHS is improving. Those drop-in centres are good.
Are all voters of UKIP ex-Tories though? OK, of the three major parties the Conservatives are the most Euro-sceptic but members/MP's of all parties are Euro-sceptic too.
i didn't mention nay in specific for a reason, i mean their whole policy as a party, yeh maybe tories have a great policy for pensioners or something like that but i'm sure if they got into power they'd fuck up public services just as much as labour have, same goes for lib dems, imo, labour have done a good all round job.
What they need is something like Thatchers Monetarism and Union bashing.
I propose a promise to cut taxes extensively, with cuts in spending if need be. That would get a very sizable part of the electorate on their side.
yeh so 1 million upper class twats can profit and leave the rest in the gutter :rolleyes:
I dont want to debate Thatchers ministry in this thread, if you want to do that start one of your own. I must admit I have been guilty of this in the past.
I simply used Thatchers messages as an example. Another would be Blairs promise of everything, including to make Britain a 'younger' country.
The Conservatives cannot regain control because they do not present an ideological alternative, as New Labour has stolen the centre-right of UK politics, and New Labour can convincingly argue that they are better at implementing the centre-right agenda effectively. The Conservatives are not in a position to set the political agenda and offer a real change of idea, and so the incumbent Government is almost always more likely to retain their seats.
New Labour, now they have taken the centre-right, are in the majority because they have the centre-rightists' votes, and also the votes of Scuffer Britain.
Maggie's monetarism never worked! Her governments' abandoned aggressively targetting money supply growth when determining monetary policy.
What further curbing of union activity is necessary?
As for Labour heartlands, well the Conservative 'heartlands' are rural England. How do you think people in Surrey, Kent, Hampshire, Dorset, etc. vote?? I suppose the Labour hearlands are more densely populated (more people live in Liverpool or Manchester than rural Hampshire or Kent).
The Conservatives always attracted the centre-right "stockbroker belt" constituencies, however New Labour has now attracted these votes and has delivered the centre-right agenda more efficiently than the Major administration.
People will get fed up of Labour sooner or later like people eventually got fed up of the Conservatives.
People hated the Tories under Major because of sleaze, the ERM fiasco and primarily because they were seen as incompetent.
I don't detect the same feelings in the electorate today. If anything, Blair isn't liked because of the Iraq war.
This is exactly it. Working class people are very loyal to thier party which is really the labour party. Where as middle and upper class people are more open minded so they will choose parties with better agendas. And the conservatives are doing nothing at the moment.
As someone has already said they need a strong leader like thatcher who is passionate about things so they have a clear agenda.
Corruption is off the agenda of political discourse too, which is helpful for Blair, who is the most corrupt Prime Minister in British history.
The Liberal Democrats are the party who take Conservative votes, they always have been. The Tories and the Lib-Dems have the same voter demographic- middle-class professionals with the upper working class sometimes thrown in- and that is a big problem for the Tories.
I'll be voting whichever party has the strongest chance of beating Blair in 2005 in my constituency.
Being right-wing and pro-conservative aren't necessarily the same thing when it comes to newspapers. Oddly enough, despite the way the S*n reports, it has annouced itself to be, and everything about it's reporting screams, pro-blair.
Of course not. Both main parties are conservative.
Labour isn't the worst. They have helped bring in the round table discussions that eventually lead to the Good Friday Agreement and have launched the Patten proposals (not implemented but still), they have helped the nationalist/republican communities have a voice. Very little was achieved over here under Conservative rule. If it wasn't for the Iraq invasion then Labour would still be a very popular party. Like them or laothe them, noone wants to go back to the Thatcher days