What Will Change If David Cameron Gets In?

my gf commented last night on how similar to each other and how young David Cameron and George Osborne looked.

(mind you she should be used to politicians looking similar)

This is a tempting bet:
"Which Year Will Gordon Brown Leave Office Of Prime Minister"
http://www.willhill.com/iibs/EN/buildcoupon.asp?couponchoice=PO1726712

If he does call an election this year then 2011 @ 12/1 looks a good shout, or 2012 @ 14/1

Strange that 2007 is favourite - I assume that means the punters are convinced this is a guaranteed election year.

How many Labour seats would the Tories need to win to keep Cameron his job? 30? 50? 70?

And with Cameron gone, they really are screwed. Next permanent leader of the Tories odds:

W Hague 2/1
D Davis 5/1
A Duncan 7/1
A Lansley 10/1
L Fox 12/1

Zombie Enoch Powell 8/1

OK, I didn't put that well. He was saying, I think, that the money the government are going to spend on ID cards could be put to better use elsewhere.

-- Daniel Giraffe, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 15:48

i heard they were going to spend the money on more prisons.

The least bad one, Liam Fox, has the longest odds
I always get David Davis mixed up with Peter Lilley
If Hague did come back would it be the first time that a Tory leader has been sacked then reappointed?

Robert Mugabe 11/4

"least bad one" Albert Speer 25/1

Robert Kilroy-Silk 12/1

David Mitchell 4/5 fav

darraghmac 5/2

Tony Blair 4/6

darraghmac wins on promises to curb those bully-boy unions and bring back hanging for Dutch former Spurs managers.

it's tough for the tories, cuz they are basically running against their clones.

Liam Fox least bad? He's shit! I thought Osborne was next in line?

If Hague did come back would it be the first time that a Tory leader has been sacked then reappointed?

No, Bonar-Law was.

Hang on I don't know if he was sacked - possibly took a break through ill health.

Was dropped for sounding like he was called Boner.

Brought back in when Ronald Felch took over as Liberal party leader.

Bonar-Law is the only British PM to be born outside of the UK. That's it, that's all I've got.

nothing but excuses

i think hague would be next up. they were mad putting him up in 1997-2001. have they even BEEN to soviet russia?

i heard they were going to spend the money on more prisons.

-- max r, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 4:26 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

on the one hand: oh snap those awful tories huh!!!1!!

on the other: labour so loves locking people up they keep them in police cells when they run out of prison space!!!!1!!

I can see why the idea of a snap election terrifies the Torys so much (Cameron's bring-it-on message had an air of desperation to it). If Cameron loses and goes, they really don't have a plausable replacement. David Davies is a nasty unelectable little fuck, Hague's lost his ambition, and Osbourne is the most inept politician on all three front benches.

i think they'd lay off loads of public sector workers.

International Development debate going down a storm:
http://timesnews.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/10/02/newtories_385x185_215145a.jpg

The one on the left doesn't see what's so wrong with the Pisa tower.

My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time...

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/10_01/NewTereMayES_468x790.jpg

Hot cocoa has just ejected itself, through my nostrils, all over my keyboard.

okay the guardian is calling it for 1 november. (the independent has 'CRUELTY' + pic of dolphin.)

What, the dolphin's tipped to be next Tory leader?

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/01/Hague1101DM_228x347.jpg http://www.westernhigh.org/projects/worldproject/indianocean/piolt.jpg

Quite uncanny really.

The one on the right is the lead singer with the Sensibles, who had a hit with "I'm not in love with Margaret Thatcher"

OMGZ Teresa May's white woman's overbite...

How many Labour seats would the Tories need to win to keep Cameron his job? 30? 50? 70?

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 15:23 (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

Hey, remember when the Labour party weren't totally fucked? Happy days.

I found myself thinking about how the earlier 2010s - say, the Coalition period - is quite remote now. Some things are very similar (maybe even wages for instance), some very different.

I think the distinction I am trying to grasp is between the era of 'Coalition austerity', which was somewhat stable, but bad, and the post-2015 era (still going ?) of unpredictability and new crises erupting all the time.

It would be plausible to say that the 2014 Scottish referendum began that era.

An example of the remoteness of the former era is the cliché of the 'FBPE Type' being nostalgic for 2012, and forgetting that lots in 2012 was bad.

Another example is that 'the Left' then meant Ed Miliband, and people like ... Josie Long?

The answer to this => the decrease in life expectancy.

Another example is that 'the Left' then meant Ed Miliband, and people like ... Josie Long?

Hmm, not sure what you mean by this - that it's strange that in 2012 the left was sufficiently depleted that a not hugely popular stand up comedian would be one of the first names to come to mind? I guess so, obviously Corbyn raised the profile of a lot of left politicians, inspired others and set the stage for a revival of left media in general...but even then, ppl like Diane Abbott or (lol) Paul Mason were reasonably well known, no?

If it's more about seeing Milliband and Long as somewhat of the same stripe, I'd disagree - Long is one of the very very few pop culture figures to have been consistently pro-Corbyn through the years. Last time I saw her live she got heckled twice, once for shitting on Keir Starmer, the other for wishing bodily harm on Suella Braverman. I certainly still think of her when I think of "the left" in entertainment.

her short cuts program on r4 has been good when I've caught it, thankfully it was comedy-free

so that is Josie Long and Alexei Sayle from the world of comedy who've both publicly disparaged Kieth. Not heard of anyone else.

Are many younger people even being allowed to break through in comedy?

I am not saying that Josie Long is not on the Left. Nor criticising her. If she is attacking KS, good for her.

I was just saying that the Left in the UK was so marginal as a ... political and cultural presence, c.10 years ago, compared to now. To the extent that it was literally difficult to visualise it or realise what it could be.

One thing that was a bit notable then was 'the People's Assembly'. Worthy I believe. Also the TUSC party (who I still see on ballot papers).

re Diane Abbott, I did not see her as very much of a leftist figure at that time because eg: she was on TV being polite with Michael Portillo every week. I daresay one would have to look at her specific history of voting and campaigning over decades, to know the detail of her politics.

re Paul Mason, he was still on Newsnight c.10 years ago, so he was not allowed to be openly partisan.

Owen Jones was near the start of his public career, was an important beginning, but an outlier. And I even suspect that the things that OJ said 10 or so years ago were more 'moderate' than he might say now (unsure of this), because he too was operating within different norms.

The Left may seem marginal and powerless in certain ways now, but the window of what and who is Left, what can be thought and said, has moved, since 2015.

In 1983 it was clear that there was a political and cultural Left (from Tony Benn to pop music and tons of community and grassroots projects).

In 2023 it is clear that there is a political and cultural Left - from, say, JC, to Novara, to musical artists I've never heard of, and loads of people publishing things online.

In 1993, 2003, and 2013, I am not sure that this was true in the same way.

This is not to say that the Lefts of 1983 and 2023 are actually effective or will achieve what they want. Nonetheless, I think they exist, and have intellectual ambition, or just visibility, to a degree that they didn't in the intervening period.

I can just about remember in 1983 that in the run up to the election almost every house had a Vote Labour poster in the window, just the odd rare bit of blue or a "Christ Is Risen" poster interrupting the rows of red.

re Diane Abbott, I did not see her as very much of a leftist figure at that time because eg: she was on TV being polite with Michael Portillo every week.

Basically being a punching bag for Portillo and Andrew Neil tbh.

That seems inarguably true to me, the period you cited dovetailing with End of History/neoliberal hegemony as well. I do remember finding the UK left quite lively when I moved here in 2012, but to be fair I was spending a lot of my time going to debates and protests and such. The difference I felt between Portugal and here was probably mostly to do with either larger resources (making it possible for very leftist positions to be discussed in say academic lectures) or previously established traditions (mutual aid, anti raids network and such). My generation was radicalized by the 2008 crisis but didn't have access to those kinds of things yet.

I suppose the fear is that the 2023 left, absent an objective like corbynism, will quickly dwindle back down to the 2013 left.

Also though I don't think this is all entirely an internal issue - the left has become more visible and energized within the period you describe not just in the UK but also in the US, most of the "western" world and beyond it.

xposts

Agree with the parallel, at least partial, with the US - where my impression (perhaps Americans would disagree) was that Occupy was a key catalyst.

In UK, student fee protests (2011?) and UK UNCUT was it? - in similar period.

secret key to left revival? this very thread! born from the same 2000s blogosphere vapours of the old nemesis of ilx "kpunk" the spectre still haunting the tribune crew!

This is a good point. I have often thought that my own lurking on ILX during this period is an oft ignored contributing factor to the ascendance of the left.

we could have socialism by now if only the left had been less mean to russell brand

the vampire castle is actually pretty cool, as anyone who's played castlevania can attest