Reasons Why Labour Lost the Election and the Leadership Candidates
ElectionOracle / UK Politics May 23, 2010 - 02:38 AM GMTBy: Nadeem_Walayat
The General Election dust has now settled for better or worse in a ConDem government for at least the next 2 years. The Labour party elite are now engaged in two tasks, first to elect a new leader and secondly to dissect why Labour lost the general election. This article lists the 5 reasons that are the most probable as to why Labour lost and may help in determining which of the 6 candidates announced so far would be best for Labour and Britain.
The Labour Leadership Candidates
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| David Milliband | Ed Milliband | John McDonnell |
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| Andy Burnham | Diane Abbot | Ed Balls |
Five Reasons Why Labour Lost the Election
1. The Economy
Gordon Brown played on the myth of being an economic genius, in actual fact all Gordon Brown did was to bankrupt Britain as Labour went on an out of control public spending spree as they sought to reward traditional Labour voters with cash that continued to accumulate ever greater amounts of debt that now risks bankrupting Britain by handing the ConDem government a scorched Earth economy as I wrote during mid 2009 (31 May 2009 - Labour Governments Bankrupt Scorched Earth UK Economy for the Conservative Government)
In conclusion, the Labour government's primary objective now is to deliver David Cameron's Conservative government a scorched earth economy whilst at the same time engineering a debt fueled economic bounce to maximise the number of seats the party will be able to muster in opposition, therefore current opinion polls and projections of seats at the next election grossly under-estimate the actual number of seats Labour will win.
As far as I am aware all of the candidates have failed to present any new idea or vision with regards the economy.
2. The Iraq War
The Labour government led by Tony Blair who was subsequently named Tory Bliar took Britain into an illegal war based purely on lies. Millions of Labour supporters marched against the war, Labour ignored them. Most of the Labour MP's voted FOR the war that has seen over one hundred thousand Iraqi deaths. The only candidates who did not vote for the war are Diane Abbot and John McDonnell, the Milliband brothers, Andy Burnham and Ed Balls all have blood on their hands and cannot be trusted to do the right thing in the future.
3. Gordon Brown
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were an election winning machine, as Tony was not called Tory Blair for no reason so was able to draw in the middle class vote that would normally have voted for the Conservatives, meanwhile Gordon Brown continued with his mostly behind the scenes job as chancellor which appeared to deliver a robust year on year growth economy. However all that changed in June 2007 when Tony Blair was eventually forced out by Gordon Brown. Unfortunately the voters got what they expected they would get, a bumbling mumbling Prime Minister who bottled out of calling an October 2007 election which sowed the seeds for Labours defeat as I wrote of at the time (06 Oct 2007 - Gordon Brown Panics - NO UK Election in 2007 or 2008!)
The statement clearly indicates that there will be no election during 2007 or 2008, and given the economic circumstances of expectations for sharply lower growth during 2008 and 2009, it is highly likely that Gordon Brown will now postpone an election until the full five year term is over. Which now suggests the next UK general election will be in April or May 2010.
This is highly damaging to Gordon Brown, now not only is the economy against him, but also his competency bubble has now well and truly been burst. This gives a major boost to David Cameron who now also has 2 and half years to prepare for the next election. The tories having seen how promises of tax cuts can change the political landscape so significantly, the expectations are now for many more tax cutting promises from the conservatives regardless of their ability to accurately cost the tax cuts.
As things look today, Gordon Brown appears to have well and truly blown his chances of getting re-elected at the next Election in 2010.
Gordon Brown is GONE ! That is the best outcome of the Leadership election, that no matter who wins, the next leader cannot be any worse than Gordon Brown!
4. MP Expenses
So called socialist Labour MP's were equally found to have their snouts in the expenses trough, just as their tory elite opponents had. This sent a message to Labour voters that there was little difference between the two as neither were in parliament for the best interest of the voters (14 May 2009 - Mealy Mouthed MP's Blasted Over Expenses Abuse on Historic BBC Question Time ).
The item that will run in the media tomorrow will be the audience exchanges with Margaret Becket after the MP attempted to justify the £72,000 that she claimed in expenses, an audience member responded with -
" I am just very Angry Mr Dimbleby,"
"Mrs Becket are you going to pay back the £72,000 that you have taken after your mealy-mouthed answer trying to explain yourself, and Mr Campbell how the hell do you get through £800 a month on food?"
"No I'm Not, because as I pointed out a moment ago...."
The audience boo's, jeers and heckles Margaret Becket's mealy-mouthed excuses.
It remains to be seen if Parliament will be able to get its house in order with regards defrauding the electorate, else expect more hung parliaments.
5. Immigration
The silent issue that no Labour politician would publically touch upon is Immigration. The fact is that Labour's immigration policy was a complete disaster, where instead of the official statistics that stated that there were 50,000 per year of arrivals from the new E.U. accession states, there were in fact as many as 500,000 a year with only Britains Great Depression of 2008 to 2009 reducing the flow of arrivals. Equally on top of this the country saw a million illegal immigrants arrive during the Labour years, against official statistics of as low as 200,000, and the incompetent Home Office remains incapable of handling the huge backlog of asylum cases.
Conclusion
Labour lost the election because they had become corrupted by being in power for far too long, they lied to the electorate at every opportunity on issues such as going to war, they had their snouts in the expenses troughs just as firmly as Tory MP's had, they destroyed the economy and saddled it with an unbridgeable budget deficit and were clueless on how to manage departments such as the Home Office.
Labour Lost Power Because Labour Lost Control
Labour Leadership
Labour needs to take its time to elect the right Leader, anointing King David Milliband would be a huge mistake for he would represent a continuation of "Old" New Labour when what the country needs is "New" New Labour.
Source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article19712.html
By Nadeem Walayat
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Nadeem Walayat has over 20 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis specialises on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and the housing market and he is the author of the NEW Inflation Mega-Trend ebook that can be downloaded for Free. Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. We present in-depth analysis from over 500 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets. Thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk
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