Why did it go so badly for the Conservatives?

First topic message reminder :

So the election is over and what was predicted to be an easy election just 8 weeks ago where the tories had a 20 point lead which would have resulted in a 100 seat majority has in fact turned into a horrible night for the tories where they actually LOST their majority.

So what went wrong? Was it the election debates that May appeared on? Was it May refusing to debate Corbyn 1v1? was it the dementia tax? or the U-turns? What was it that made her lose a 20 point lead in the space of 7 weeks?


Or was it just that Corbyn ran a better campaign?

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Pointing out Corbyn voted for the GFA...

Means you're a fan apparently...You can't win debates by hitting and running.

Navy and Hammer take note.

I voted Green..

But..."Teresa May can find a billion to keep herself in a job but she can't find a billion to keep nurses in theirs"..

#Touchdown/Gameover

GFA?? Ghana Football Association?? Global Furniture Alliance? Try not to use 3-letter acronyms if you want people to stay with you.

You voted Green? I voted LibDem. And?....

As for the quote, how is it that an extra £1billion would "keep nurses" in their jobs? Are you suggesting that they'd leave without that? Or is that meant to relate to funding extra nursing posts? It reads as if the former, which is debatable.

There's a flag on the play I'm afraid...

Good Friday Agreement fella

navyblueshorts wrote:

Pr4wn wrote:A fair and balanced piece

And the problem with it is? Is it true or not re. Corbyn's position on Kosovo? It doesn't play to your preferred view, which is fine, but it suggests that he isn't the saint he's painted to be. Pretty much like every other politician. Wipe the scales from your eyes why don't you?

Samo wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

Pr4wn wrote:I live in Canada and I'm not from the UK, so I don't.

Also, for the record, Corbyn's voting history, especially when compared to that of his Tory counterparts, is immaculate. He actually believes in his policies.

Might be difficult for you to get your head around, with you being a Tory voter.

Ah yes, Corbyn the :

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/corbyns-woeful-record-on-defence

For every negative (albeit incredibly biased) article about Corbyn I can drag up atleast 10 about the Conservatives. Just this week David Cameron has said that reducing the cap on public sector wages would be selfish. How can anyone justify that? Especially given the state the countries been in and the job they've done in the past 3 months.

Do you have some sort of whataboutery qualification? The Tories and their current policies are neither here nor there when discussing Corbyn's position on Kosovo and Milosovic etc.

Corbyn is being painted as some sort of whiter-than-white saint. I'm not even a Tory, but I'm fed up with this increasing narrative that Corbyn has somehow descended from Heaven.  He hasn't. Get over it.

You're right, he hasnt. And hes far from perfect and theres a few things he's voted against that Im for and vice versa, however you cant fault people for being overly-optimistic when someone comes along who offers a real palpable change in the form of proper left wing politics instead of the right, hard right and right of centre politics we've been dealing with for the past 40 odd years.

GSC wrote:Good Friday Agreement fella

Ta .

Samo wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

Pr4wn wrote:A fair and balanced piece

And the problem with it is? Is it true or not re. Corbyn's position on Kosovo? It doesn't play to your preferred view, which is fine, but it suggests that he isn't the saint he's painted to be. Pretty much like every other politician. Wipe the scales from your eyes why don't you?

Samo wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

Pr4wn wrote:I live in Canada and I'm not from the UK, so I don't.

Also, for the record, Corbyn's voting history, especially when compared to that of his Tory counterparts, is immaculate. He actually believes in his policies.

Might be difficult for you to get your head around, with you being a Tory voter.

Ah yes, Corbyn the :

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/corbyns-woeful-record-on-defence

For every negative (albeit incredibly biased) article about Corbyn I can drag up atleast 10 about the Conservatives. Just this week David Cameron has said that reducing the cap on public sector wages would be selfish. How can anyone justify that? Especially given the state the countries been in and the job they've done in the past 3 months.

Do you have some sort of whataboutery qualification? The Tories and their current policies are neither here nor there when discussing Corbyn's position on Kosovo and Milosovic etc.

Corbyn is being painted as some sort of whiter-than-white saint. I'm not even a Tory, but I'm fed up with this increasing narrative that Corbyn has somehow descended from Heaven.  He hasn't. Get over it.

You're right, he hasnt. And hes far from perfect and theres a few things he's voted against that Im for and vice versa, however you cant fault people for being overly-optimistic when someone comes along who offers a real palpable change in the form of proper left wing politics instead of the right, hard right and right of centre politics we've been dealing with for the past 40 odd years.

Agreed. Although be wary of that - I can well remember Blair's 'coronation' in '97 and look what happened there...

Two landslides and three terms.....

Minimum wage
Hospital waiting lists shortened....
Low mortgage rates
More nurses and police..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Two landslides and three terms.....

Minimum wage
Hospital waiting lists shortened....
Low mortgage rates
More nurses and police..

Major financial crash (OK, not entirely the fault of New Labour)
Lumbering future governments with the on-going costs of PFI / PPP developments for school and hospital buildings. Smart politics in the short term, but it has seriously hamstrung the Tories over the last few years.
Something about not being straight with the country about the reasons for war in Iraq...

Blair was many things: some good, some bad.

dummy_half wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Two landslides and three terms.....

Minimum wage
Hospital waiting lists shortened....
Low mortgage rates
More nurses and police..

Major financial crash (OK, not entirely the fault of New Labour)
Lumbering future governments with the on-going costs of PFI / PPP developments for school and hospital buildings. Smart politics in the short term, but it has seriously hamstrung the Tories over the last few years.
Something about not being straight with the country about the reasons for war in Iraq...

Blair was many things: some good, some bad.

"The minimum wage would be the height of all irresponsibility"...............Michael Howard...(People were paying as little as a £1 an hour)

Thousands of lives saved due to massive investment into the NHS....

Low mortgage rates.........

High employment levels...

I'm not a Blair fan now but his 97-2001 was a wondeful govt.......Granted he has been a knob ever since..

But I remember the country in 97....

Interesting discussion about Blair's early years.  Its also worth thinking back to 1992 and the Major government too.

1992 - the economy was in a terrible state, high unemployment, poor prospects for the young, yet despite this the Conservatives clung on - they ran a v effective campaign, masterminded by Chris Pattern I seem to recall, attacking Labour's tax proposals.

Then 1993 Black Wednesday crashing out of the ERM happened, which the Tories took a long, long time to recover from.  1997 of course was a massive landslide for (New) Labour and there was sense the Tories had completely run out of steam then and even their own friends in tabloid press were attacking them (e.g. the various affairs being linked to the ill-fated 'Back to Basics' campaign).  Yet, despite this, its worth noting that with Ken Clarke as Chancellor, the economy was performing pretty well by the time 1997 came round - its around 1995/1996 that the steep rise in house prices started.  I also think John Major deserves a lot of credit for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, which Blair continued successfully.

In some respects the Blair government of 1997-2001 was pretty bold - its easily forgotten how much of a big thing the Scottish and Welsh devolution proposals were at the time.  The minimum wage was also a big bold move, criticised by many on right at the time but now accepted by Conservatives.  In some respects though the Blair 1997-2001 government was pretty timid.  Firstly they stuck to the Conservatives' spending plans for 1st 2 years of their term - this was done for symbolic political reasons to show how responsible Labour were (the start of the Iron Chancellor moniker for Gordon Brown and his famed 'fiscal prudence), but in terms of investment in services meant that by the time Labour were investing in health and education they were playing catch up.

On the whole, whilst New Labour did achieve a fair amount, I do think there were a lot of opportunities wasted, and some of the market driven reforms in health (e.g. foundation hospitals, PFI) and education made it easier for the subsequent privatisations which have taken place in NHS and in education (e.g. academies and free schools).  Also on housing, whilst they spent a lot on regeneration, and much of the social housing stock improved, the housing associations they pushed at the time have subsequently become more aggressive and market-oriented, and Blair/Brown showed more interest in perpetuating the housing bubble than tackling the housing waiting lists.  In years to come I think many historians of a left-wing persuasion will look back in astonishment at how little house-building was done for social housing during the New Labour years.

On Blair himself its quite telling that the one regret he reportedly had from his time in power was the Freedom of Information Act!!

Good piece.. Without a doubt with a 150 majority he could have done more...But judging by his love of Thatcher I'm sure he'd say he did too much..

Took his left wing for granted and Brown paid the price...Why Corbyn needs Cooper types in his Cabinet.

Yougov...Lab 46 - 38 Con

Highest Labour have ever been on Yougov....More to do with May than Corbyn I'd wager..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

dummy_half wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Two landslides and three terms.....

Minimum wage
Hospital waiting lists shortened....
Low mortgage rates
More nurses and police..

Major financial crash (OK, not entirely the fault of New Labour)
Lumbering future governments with the on-going costs of PFI / PPP developments for school and hospital buildings. Smart politics in the short term, but it has seriously hamstrung the Tories over the last few years.
Something about not being straight with the country about the reasons for war in Iraq...

Blair was many things: some good, some bad.

"The minimum wage would be the height of all irresponsibility"...............Michael Howard...(People were paying as little as a £1 an hour)

Thousands of lives saved due to massive investment into the NHS....

Low mortgage rates.........

High employment levels...

I'm not a Blair fan now but his 97-2001 was a wondeful govt.......Granted he has been a knob ever since..

But I remember the country in 97....

the only 2 major things I disagree with Blair over was the war on Iraq and increasing income tax from 10% to 20% for the lowest earners.

However he did a lot of positive things such as minimum wage, EMA, getting more people into university, peace in northern Ireland with the good Friday agreement, devolution for Scotland and wales, Human rights act, gay rights such as civil partnerships, freedom of information act, banning fox hunting, and peace in Kosovo.

Helluva conversion for Corbyn...A 24 percent no hoper to Cult figure that has women pulled off him at huge rallies..

Seems the leader of the opposition is becoming a larger than life figure..

Also has a voting bracket that replenishes by the day....My wallet hates it but as I've never grown up..

More of me loves it..

I am very wary of Corbyn. Behind the holier than thou thing (and a very good display of campaigning) there are some very questionable things. All the 'are you with us or against us' thing, the threats to deselect MP's who dare to not follow the Corbyn line.

I also think he's made to look good by the complete incompetence of the tory party

lostinwales wrote:I am very wary of Corbyn. Behind the holier than thou thing (and a very good display of campaigning) there are some very questionable things. All the 'are you with us or against us' thing, the threats to deselect MP's who dare to not follow the Corbyn line.

I also think he's made to look good by the complete incompetence of the tory party

This is about as bog standard as politics in the UK gets.

Yep.. Blair and Brown had mps deselected...Cameron used the expenses scandal to get rid of awkward types like the Wintertons etc..

Corbyn has a +9 Favorability rating..Whilst he has been helped with Tory incompetence...Hasn't been a leader with that Favorability since Blair....

Perhaps lost in Wales is new to politics...