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Basically I don't think Blair is any better than the Tories; they are all as bad as each other. But at least under the Tories they didn't have their hand in the till, with the exception of Aitken; and even when he did have his hand in the till, at least the Prime Minister wasn't directly implicated in the horrendous corruption.
Nice theory but it did not work that way in practice. Until Blair arrived, the anti-Tory voters had no real alternative to the socialist left wing old Labour Party and stayed away from the polling stations. New Labour offered an opportunity to move away from 'tax and spend' but still be socially aware which encouraged people to vote again.
A slight misrepresentation of the facts.
Not one person lost their right to vote as a result of the "Poll Tax". Some people thought that if they failed to register then they would not be charged. Others thought that they would not be traced, or that the local Councils wouldn't know that they existsed.
Unfortunately the Electoral Role had no part to play in the levy of the Poll Tax. It didn't matter if your were registered or not, once you hit 18 you were liable to pay.
The remedy for failure to pay was baliffs or imprisonment. Removal from the electoral roll was not an option.
In a previous life, I administered the tax.
I am a reformed character now
Agreed, it was the final nail in her coffin.
The reason she had previously been re-elected was in part due to Falklands, and the second time because Labour (like the Tories recently) were a complete wash-out.
What the Poll Tax, and the war in Iraq prove, is that a huge majority for any single party is not good for British politics. It means that policies which are actually unpopular with the public can be implmented without their "permission" or support.
Had Thatcher or Blair had lower majorities, I don't think that either would have happened in the way that it did.
And what do you base that on, eh? :rolleyes:
She moves in BNP and C18 circles (probably).
It's more than that; it is entirely to do with the problems of FPTP. The winner of the election could feasibly have significantly fewer votes than the second-placed party, and the last government elected on a majority was in 1950.
The electoral spread is significant too- in about 450 of the 600-odd constituencies, unless you support the dominant party (Conservative in the stockbroker belt, or in rural Devon and Cumbria; Labour in the industrial north and Scotland) then you might as well not bother voting. The election is decided on about 150 seats that are "marginal"; I'm fortunate enough to live in one, Shipley, but most aren't. If a section of the population "hijack" these seats, then one government is elected over another. Sod the rest of the country, and their needs and wants- and that works for Conservative voters under Labour just as much as Labour voters under the Conservatives.
To say Thatcher winning the election means that she has a mandate is simplistic in the extreme; it's the same with Bliar, Major, whoever.