Hmm - not sure what the purpose of this thread was. Was it an honest question? It seems to have degenerated into a critique of the British voting system. I can't ever remember passing comment on the US system, or any of the candidates.
I was completely correct in my prediction. As readers of this board will have noticed, I'm always right in threads started by Toad. It's really very simple. I knew in June 2001 that Labour would win last night. There's no way a majority of 160+ would be overturned, although I saw some incredible swings away from Lab to LibDem - more than 9% in some cases. And WTG George Galloway - in Bethnal Green - LOL! Yeah, it's muslim round there, and Bengali - some fantastic curry restaurants around Spittalfields and Brick Lane.
I don't believe the overall result has that much to do with there not being a credible opposition. It has everything to do with the Lab. majority in 2001. I did some canvassing for the tories (I'm not ashamed to admit) and my Con. candidate almost doubled her majority last night (5.8% swing to Con.). The other area I was involved in was Newbury, where the LD guy was defeated by a tory who won by about 3400. The tories will come back!
As for the
size of the majority, I was right about that too. Labour needed 324 seats to win. So far they have 353 but with about 20 seats still to declare. At the time of writing Con. is on 196, LD on 60. There are what - 657 seats in the House of Commons. With Labour holding 353 of them, that gives them an
overall majority (over all the other parties put together) of 49. I predicted between 5 and 50. The BBC prediction was 66. But the final result is not yet known.
What can I say? I
wanted to be wrong, but I just can't do it.
:p
My one word answer to the result - a sort of muted
"woohoo". Let's hope it wipes that freaking smirk of Tony Blair's face. One thing's for sure: He's going to have to start
listening to his lowly electorate from now on. No more railroading through of legislation like the ban on foxhunting, and using the Parliament Act to do it. No more using his Scottish members to railroad through an unpopular vote which does not affect Scotland - student top up fees.
OK, here's my next prediction: This govt. won't run full term. The worm is turning. The economy might be strong, but you can only rob Middle England once. We have an ever growing public sector with an ever shrinking private sector to pay for it. There are going to be BIG tax increases (sorry Wipass), possibly within the next few weeks. The increasing tax burden will have to be met by a shrinking private sector. It's a snowball rolling downhill, getting bigger and faster as it goes. Labour is trapped in the tax spiral.
Don't believe this Gordon Brown guff about successful management of the economy. He
inherited a strong economy in 1997. Interest rates have
not come down by half, but only by a quarter.