Posted on 05/06/2005 5:36:10 AM PDT by MadIvan
Tony Blair may have secured a historic third term for the Labour Party last night but the reduction in the size of his majority will significantly change the way in which he is able to act.
His power and his position in the party have depended almost entirely on the perception since his landslide victory in 1997 that he is a winner. In many parts of the country that has now been undermined.
Last night's result could make it more difficult for the Prime Minister to stay in office for the whole of the next Parliament as he promised to do when he said last year that he intended to stand down.
Mr Blair's allies have been admitting privately for several weeks that he would almost certainly have to resign if the Labour majority fell below 60. In the view of many Blairites, 60 to 70 was a grey area which would leave the party leader severely weakened.
Yesterday, before the result was declared, some ministers close to the Labour leader said he would stay at Number 10 for as long as possible.
Other Blairites, though, have detected a change in the Prime Minister's mood during a difficult campaign.
"I think he'll go in about 18 months," said one loyal minister earlier in the week. "Whatever the outcome of the election, he's been badly damaged by the campaign."
Another Labour strategist admitted that Mr Blair's morale had been badly affected by the criticisms he had received from voters on the stump.
"Tony has been shocked by the level of hostility to him personally in the run-up to polling day. No one can know what effect that will have."
However long Mr Blair decides to stay in Downing Street, the reduction in the size of Labour's parliamentary majority will make it much more difficult for him to do what he wants.
The Government will struggle to get controversial legislation, such as proposals to introduce identity cards, on to the statute book now that the number of Labour MPs has been reduced.
Mr Blair may find it hard to implement "unremittingly New Labour" reforms of the public services with a smaller and potentially more rebellious parliamentary party. This month's Queen's Speech is expected to include around 40 Bills.
These will put forward proposals to increase the role of the private sector in the running of state services, plans to create a points system for immigration, and measures to give parents more power to close down failing schools.
Several of these pieces of proposed legislation will be controversial with Labour backbenchers, who are likely to feel emboldened.
Mr Blair may also find it harder to assert his authority on a number of big policy issues, not dealt with in the Labour manifesto, which are due to come to a head in the next six months.
Adair Turner's review of pensions and Sir Michael Lyons's review of local government funding, both due to report before the end of the year, will provoke wide-ranging discussions about the future of savings and the fate of the council tax.
This summer, Labour intends to initiate a public debate on energy policy, which will consider whether the role of nuclear power stations should be increased.
At the same time the Government will consult voters about proposals to replace the road tax with a road pricing system, which would see motorists charged according to the distance they drive.
Hanging over the whole Parliament, meanwhile, will be the question of whether Labour will have to raise taxes again to fund its plans for the public services. Nobody knows whether the love-in between Mr Blair and the Chancellor will continue once the common goal of victory has gone, but the election result is likely to strengthen Gordon Brown's hand.
Most insiders believe that an understanding has been reached between the two on the future of the Government and of their own careers.
In return for the Chancellor's support, Mr Blair has signalled his intention to endorse Mr Brown to succeed him as Labour leader. The handover may come more quickly now.
Please reconsider and remain with FR.
Great to hear from you Ivan...
Let me just join in and say that you were one of the first posters I noticed after joining, and have always loved reading your posts. You were missed a lot when you where gone for a while, and I was greatly joyed when you returned for Reagens's funeral.
This place would truly be a poorer place without you.
Heck, Norway and Scandinavia has been bashed a lot (often deservingly though :-) ) and I know it gets annoying. I generally just ignore the more riddicolous posts and smile for myself at such posters.
Heck, I have already promised I will have a gin & tonic tonight in honour of her birthday.. I'll have to add a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale for Britain tonight as well. :-)
Cheers,
Euro.
Here's another one who hopes you stick around.
MadIvan, my friend..I have indeed enjoyed our cyber relationship,over the years, and will miss you in the future. I regret your decision, though I fully understand it, and trust it is the right one for you. The only choice ne has here is to completely ignore the cretins..not respond to them..then, like "breathers" on anonymous phone calls, they wil stop calling..for, you see, they "get off" on aggravating you...if you don't respond, they go elsewhere for new fun and games.. What, you and anyone else, has to decide, is whether all the good stuff here on FR outways the inconvenience of ignoring cretins. For me, it still does...
Our system means that even with landslide victories you do not have to have that high percentage of the vote with Margret Thatcher her landslide victories were with only 40 and 44% of the vote (hope this is correct - help Ivan).
Also without Scotland and Wales the Tories would be in power
Look at map of how the seats are made up
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm
Nah, but they were thirsty...
One Scottish MP only for the Conservatives without Scotland the Tories would nearly always be in power
If he had just been running guns, they would have left him alone and we'd all be mellowed out now. :-)
As I recall, weren't you one of those decrying opponents as closet Democrats?
Maybe some folks don't want civility.
"Flippin' Londoners, Chelsea finally wins the Premiership and suddenly they're too good for the rest of us."
And I do hope you know I'm just having you on.
Seriously, I'm sorry to see you go. I've enjoyed, and looked forward to, your posts over the years. But, I can recognize the dynamic you've described and understand your decision.
Besides, why not leave while you're on top? By this time next year, if the purchase goes through, we Yanks will finally have ManU straightened out. And if you think you're getting cheek now....
Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. - Churchill
In short, Illegitimis non carborundum, my FRiend.
I watched those debates in the House of Commons very closely and I saw more genuine support coming from Tories than Labour. In fact, a coalition passed the bill not either Party.This is factually wrong. A majority of Labour MP's and a majority of MP's as a whole voted for the war.
The facts you assert do not disprove the statements you contest.If there is any opposition at all, it's not enough for a bare majority of a ruling party to support an action; if the oppositon doesn't favor that action a mere majority of the ruling party cannot carry the day. Indeed, it is routine for at least a few members of any majority party to dissent on any given issue - if not, the extent of the party's majority wouldn't matter. Whereas in fact Labour is apparently somewhat chastened by its losses in this election, its retention of the majority notwithstanding.
Politics sometimes contains frustrating roadblocks. The conservative majority in the US existed long before it became effective - for the historical reason that the conservative South, now the linchpin of the Republican majority, had been antipathetic to the Republican Party since its founding. When the opposing party to which the South was traditionally joined became anticonservative, southern conservatism was neutered until southerners could bring themselves to vote Republican. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?" Maybe not, at least in the "short run" of a generation or two.
According to F.A. Hayek Why I am not a Conservative, the American who calls himself a "conservative" today is typically more of an "old Whig." The American Whig party lost its way later on, got bogged in public works do-goodism rather than fighting big government tendencies, and - until the advent of socialism - the Whigs' older points were pretty much uncontested in America. So I guess in that sense the Whigs succeeded into irrelevance, as contemporaneous political debate went into other issues.
Today the Whig sentiments of James Madison's Constitution are on the defensive in our newspapers and in the courts - and in the filibuster efforts of a strong minority in the Senate. And so in Britain, you have Labour - the traditional party of socialism in Britain - and the Tories, a.k.a. Conservatives. It's not exactly edifying to an American to see the British hold elections in which one party is socialist and the other is, at least in name, the party which the Whigs defeated militarily in the American Revolution.
Do Britons even have a party which is close to the American Republican Party? (Of course you might ask me as a New Yorker if New York has a Republican Party, too . . .
I would be interested to know what trends you don't like?
Yeah, we could have had a bitchin' 2nd Amendment thread afterwards - that tends to get freepers to forget past disagreements, seeing that we're all right-wing gun nuts at heart.
Ivan, I wish you would reconsider. I had some of the same feelings when I got involved with the drug threads dominated by libertarians. They, in their own way, insult the patriotism of those who believe stopping the scourge of drugs is a good thing by claiming their position is the constitutional one and that anyone who disagrees must be a nanny-state liberal.
I learned FR is a very big place and I'm not going to agree with everyone here. I've learned to stop arguing with those whose minds will never change. I will state my case for the neutral observers who have stumbled in but then I will let it go rather than be sucked into a flame war, which is what some people want.
Great Britain, of course, has been a fantastic ally over the years and yet they have a powerful leftist contingent just as America does - one that dominates the media point of view. It is easy to assume from them that "all" British think this way, just as many misperceive America based on what the media says about us.
I've always enjoyed your opinions (particularly your snipes at Clinton) and believe FR would be a lesser place without you. I know you took a long break awhile ago and I was very happy to see you return.
If you must leave, let it be that you've found more rewarding pursuits than posting at FR. I would rather you not feel "run off" by a vocal few. I suspect, too, that the emotions of a national campaign has probably frayed your nerves just as ours do over here. Don't sound like those ninny Democrats do after Bush stomps them yet again.
Take a break, clear your mind and come back when the fog has lifted, old chap.
Please reconsider. You mentioned trends. Trends, by their nature, change. I hope you can weather the valleys, so you can enjoy the view from the mountains.
"my butt, u joined in WWII 2 years after it started"
*ahem* you should at least count the Eagle Squadrons in England and the AVG in China among Americans who fought and died proudly side by side in the early days.
without scotland england would have nobody to fight its wars
Background: because of time zones and the different government systems in 1941 Australia declared war on the Japanese Empire about 2 hours before the United States.
I once, slightly provocatively, thanked the US for joining us, and noted although we would have won anyway, the US helped some.
I got 1 or 2 Ugly American responses who missed my meaning, but also one which simply said "Always glad to help the just"
It's those posters who make it worth staying around.
(But as an Australian, I'm required to add:
"Bloody Hell, another Pommy whinge ":^)
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