Fear and a Scottish Rebellion Spark a Conservative Victory!
Posted on May 8, 2015
Here is a line direct from my pre-election post on Tuesday:
“Partly because of greed and partly because of fear created in the press, by Thursday, I guarantee that the electorate will sway to the perceived safety of our masters in the Conservative Party because, by nature, Britain is, in 2015, still addicted to serfdom.”
Sometimes it isn’t so great being right, but I felt that it was always going to end that way and when the news of exit poll buzzed on my phone, it was obvious that Ed Miliband had not done anywhere near enough to bring out the maverick in the British public who are, essentially, Conservative by nature and terrified of change.
Of course, the Tories had some assistance along the way and even Alanis Morrissette would have been able to identify the irony of the SNP assisting their arch enemies to a clear and undisputed route to Number 10; it was for them (the SNP) like beating England 6-0 in a World Cup Semi-Final but letting them go to the final regardless.
To pick the bones out of it all, I am assuming that the SNP were hedging their bets that Labour would perform much better South of the border, thus allowing a hung parliament where they could exert major influence as king makers with their 56 seats. However, as in 1992, the English electorate bottled it and played the card of perceived economic safety.
How the Labour party lick their wounds and recover will be of much interest because, after turning their back on the centre left of politics with the appointment of Ed Miliband, they must begin to calculate whether left wing politics is a dead duck, or whether they picked a leader who was just not particularly palatable to the electorate when push came to shove.
In my opinion, Labour allowed itself to be bullied with regards to its economic history and did not do enough to dispel the myth that the 2008 crash was caused by public waste and not the banking collapse. I am not saying there wasn’t public waste, Governments of all parties are masters of it, but it was not public spending that caused the recession, the economic figures from 1997 to 2008 prove that unequivocally.
To add to that, Labour did not convince the public that the Conservatives are out to systematically sell-off the NHS, with the masses in general, disbelieving that they (the Tories) would dare do such a thing. It doesn’t help that the potential sell-off of swathes of the health service were only really talked about in The Mirror, The Guardian and Private Eye, so public access to the facts were pretty scarce.
You wouldn’t find a single paragraph about NHS sell-offs in The Express, The Mail, The Sun, The Telegraph or The Times, newspaper groups owned by tycoons who benefit hugely from the Tory Government in the form of tax havens, non-domicile status and EU hand-outs for land owners that are defended ferociously by Cameron’s very own Eton Rifles.
It is now apparent that the masses need an exceptionally inspirational and powerful orator to shake them from their subservience and fear of change. Throughout his five years as a leader, Ed Miliband couldn’t grasp that, and as a leader you cannot rely on your core support alone, you need to be a pied piper, gathering up people as you go along. I never saw that with Miliband, I never felt a dramatic change on the horizon.
Miliband: Failed to inspire the masses
It’s difficult where to start with the Lib-Dems whose leader Nick Clegg, before he formed a coalition with the Tories, was a respected politician and polished orator, more comfortable on stage than Cameron or Miliband. Politics is a brutal game and whilst resigning, he carried the look of a broken man carrying the responsibility of all the MP’s in his party who suffered a very public humiliation and are now out of work.
It could be the end for the Lib-Dems as we know them and that is not good news for politics or anyone who thought coalitions were a good idea.
So Labour have to take defeat square on the chin and David Cameron and his team won fair and square, which in some ways is probably better for me as an independent business, as the uncertainty and chaos of hung parliament with both parties scrambling for partnerships often causes people to pull the reins in on spending or placing orders.
However, the working class Conservatives need to be careful what they have wished for, because on the horizon there are going to be draconian measures taking place and the threat to the NHS is not just Labour spin, it is out there and it is very real. The NHS is a fundamental part of post-war Britain and if we let private organisations get their hands on it, we are heading down the road to a two-tier health service that we may never be able to revert back from.
However, I believe the biggest threat to Britain is TTIP. If you have not really heard of it, it is because no-one wants you to, but if you are interested, rather than hear me bleat on about it, read this pretty chilling article here.
For these reasons Britain needs a viable opposition to stand toe to toe with the Tories and face them down when vital public services are under threat. Labour must, for the sake of democracy, elect a strong leader who is capable of launching into apathy and subservience by wrestling the masses from the political illiteracy that serves the Conservatives well.
A strong leader who can remove him/herself from hatred towards the Conservatives and concentrate on the uniting party from within and refusing to be bullied by the media or political opponents. Labour can re-invent itself again, but it is a long journey.
However, whoever it is, they can satisfy themselves that it can’t get much worse and David Cameron, despite the unbridled joy he is feeling now, will know that in two years’ time he will have to deal with the hot potato that is an EU referendum.
A Great British farce that is waiting to happen.
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