whoremasters, boozers etc in shock victory

OK a party leader resigns due to alcoholism. His would-be successors find their sex lives plastered over the News of the Screws. They have positions in areas like crime, civil liberties and foreign warmaking that conventional wisdom holds to be hopelessly effete, irrelevant or unpopular and they stand in a by election in a red ribbon on a donkey seat…which they win on a not bad turnout by a fairly healthy majority.

Local issues are supposed to have played a part here – something to do with tolls over the Forth bridge. That may be an annoyance, but I would have thought it would have taken something like a local bylaw to strangle the firstborn to bring down council tax to change voting habits that drastically in the Scottish red belt.

It does seem to confirm something that was clear in the last election, namely that people who are most willing to change their vote to Lib Dem are people who previously voted Labour, and in numbers that extend beyond the antiwar middle class cliché. This doesn’t appear to please the Lib Dems much, and a lot of what motivates the Orange Book tendency seems to be social snobbery: we want votes off nice people, not horrible smelly Labour types. I can’t think how else you can entertain the barmy idea that you’re going to replace the party of the settled conservative interest in this country. Maybe that was a possibility in the days when the Tories looked like they might decay into a hard right English nationalist party, but they don’t seem so ready to oblige now. Not that that did them any good last night.

Whatever. I’d like to indulge the notion for a moment that it was at least in some respects a vote against crude populism, tabloid values and reflexive authoritarianism, or at least a demonstration that these qualities don’t go down too well in the country at large.

Comments

[Simon]

Primarily, it's a healthy reminder to the national press that Mr Blair is really quite unpopular in the Labour heartlands these days (let alone outside them), and that he ought to pack himself off to the US lecture circuit sharpish. Unfortunately they seem to have decided it's actually a combination of the aforementioned 'local issues' and Gordon Brown.

Are there not enough anti-Blairistas in the media to get a 'doesn't he look tired' campaign going? They mention his weariness occasionally, but the public mood is that he should have retired gracefully at least three years ago, and they don't seem to be picking up on it. See also after the general election, where a couple of competent speeches on 7/7 and Europe respectively convinced the nation's commentators that he was 'revitalised' and 'still the best available Prime Minister' and 'definitely not a lame duck'. Oh well.

[jamie]

I think one point about Blair is that he's "of" the wider commentariat where previous prime ministers were of the autonomous culture of their own parties and movements. I think this holds true to a certain extent whether they're in favour of him or not. When he goes, they lose status.

It was interesting after 7/7 that there was a general attempt to mount a rallying round effort across the media, but that the country as a whole wasn't particularly interested.

[dsquared]

180 results, I was surprised

[jamie]

There's an amusing paradox here. You can get bruschetta and Rioja at Asda these days. the fact that the government think that it's limited to a small group of Elizabeth David cultists just shows how out of touch it is. And them being such supermarket groupies too...

[MatGB]

I had a bruchetta for lunch yesterday. In a cheap beachfront cafe in Bude. Rather nice. Us poor people can afford snobby food now.

And we're voting LibDem a lot, at least down here in t' Westcountry.

It does seem to confirm something that was clear in the last election, namely that people who are most willing to change their vote to Lib Dem are people who previously voted Labour, and in numbers that extend beyond the antiwar middle class cliché.
That should be obvious to anyone that can study psephology anyway. Why are they strong in the Westcountry outside the cities? Labour could never make headway, so the 'lower classes' voted LibDem instead.

That it's hapenning wherever they're now in second place is a good thing, just hope they recognise it properly to take advantage.