Is there anything the Labour Party can do to win the next election?

Important point in 2014, if 2012 Olympics are big success then the (Tory) government will take the credit for it. If it's a mess than that will be blamed on current administration.

Nah Labour got the blame for the Dome despite the fact that a lot of it was Heseltine's work.

How much of a factor does everyone think the Olympics will actually have?

Also am I right in saying the tories could actually hold off calling as late as 2015?

Feelgood factor innit? If the economy is going well in 2012 it could be encapsulate New Swinging London again or whatever nonsense.

Of course, Euro 96 didn't help Major but that's not such a flagship event.

Then again if the economy's going well then Britain won't unseat Cameron and Osborne anyway.

Yes but 2012 itself is unlikely to be an election year unless things have gone really messed up somewhere down the line? and by even the next year surely the olympics will have been more or less forgotten

as for feelgood factor this might be more prevalent but I think 2012 is prob a bit early for all that swinging london business again

economy may well be doing its 'green shoots of recovery' bit by then but doubt it will be to such an extent that we'll be all swinging london puff pieces in the supplements again

Also when/once the economy does start moving again surely the question that has to be asked is what sector is actually going to be driving it? esp when you look at the big 3 of the 00s

Finance?
Consumer Spending on debt?
Housing/Construction?

Or maybe a return of industry? but what industry?

woah 18% swing 8000 maj

How long as Crewe & Nantwich been Labour for? Am I right in thinking as a Labour seats it survived even the Thatcher landslides during the 80s?

Well it's only been a seat since 1983. Crewe was Labour before that, Nantwich's always been tory.

So, yes.

Next election seat spread average:

Conservative Party: 350
Labour Party: 231
Liberal Democrats: 46

Adults Worldwide Say - Tax the Rich!

Jon Cruddas on British politics in the New Statesmen
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/09/labour-social-conservatives

Cruddas gets his second New Statesman OTM Award of the last few months. It's what I've been saying for ages, Cameron has outflanked Labour on both sides by being all "look at the enormous fucking mess you are making" and balancing that by doing the touchy-feely stuff better as well. This should by all rights be relatively easy to argue against but the decade-old policy and communication priorities of New Labour prevent them from doing it.

The left needs to recover its ethical socialism and commitment to equality. It needs the political will to reject the easy option of marketisation and realise ideas for democratising public services and building an accountable, redistributive state. Power needs to be devolved to local government. There has to be a renewed argument for constitutional and electoral reform and the protection and extension of individual civil liberties. The conditions for trade unionism have to be improved and a new internationalism established. Perhaps most of all, and most difficult, the left needs an ecologically sustainable, pro-social political economy capable of generating both wealth and equitable development. The future is for the left to lose.

OK. Seems easy enough, let's do it.

Do Labour really want to win the next election?

http://i.treehugger.com/images/2007/10/24/brown-gordon-cp-2961417.jpg

"There's a taste in my mouth, as desperation takes hold"

Jon Cruddas tipped for promotion though. But, yeah, Mandy seems like an insane choice.

So yeah, Brown to lose the election, Cruddas to challenge Miliband and, I dunno, Jack Straw or someone for the leadership?

Johnson/Cruddas is probably the only sensible option right now for a future Labour leader/deputy partnership, with Purnell as, I dunno, shadow home secretary or something.

That arselicker John Hutton moves to Defence, Colin Newman lookalike Geoff Hoon goes to Transport. I hate those two weasels.

Cameron and Osbourne react to Mandy's return...

surprised that osbourne likes mandelson that much

Labour really need to learn from the Tories' mistakes and purge members of this government from the Shadow Cabinet as quickly as possible. Miliband in opposition will just be more of the same from Labour and that's the last thing they need.

Also, the monkey thing. Where did that come from?

"Monkey thing"? Is that a reference to Mandelson being MP for Hartlepool?

I'm talking about various cartoonists that have already started caricaturing Miliband as a monkey, although that seems to have started within the last couple of weeks.

He reminds me of the guy who did the Professor sketches in Vision On (ask your dad etc.).

Mandelson and Hoon back? Come on, this is ridiculous. I guess this is what happens when you only promote yes-men for 10 years - all the new voices get marginalised.

That's presupposing the existence of new voices.

I know, but there has to be some, surely? That's what's so disheartening about the LP at the moment - who could run it better than it is at the moment? And there's nobody of any talent in the wings.

Candidacy only went to yes men in the first place. I doubt there are many inspirational new voices in (Labour) Parliament at all.

PROFESSOR PAT PENDING?

(looks nowt like him, but)

Really they're all just going into politics now as a career option rather than anything to do with conviction. Behave nicely, don't talk out of turn and you might get to be a PPS in 30 years' time laddie. They've got mortgages, student loans and credit cards to pay off so they're not in a position to argue, not that the notion of arguing would ever occur to them.

The ballot box will wipe a lot of them out anyway - Labour could be forced into a callow shadow cabinet with the occasional big hitter.

http://www.its-prof-again.co.uk/

Is there anything in this world that *doesn't* have it's own website?

Sydney Devine.

A callow cabinet?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1545000/images/_1549964_callow150.jpg

With Mandy and Draper back beating the drum for Labour it's full steam ahead to a fourth term!

...for the Tories within the last three decades...

Yeah, but Mandelson has previous experience at the DTI and in that capacity was surprisingly well thought of, both inside and outside the department.

(At least according to my partner, who was receiving a lot of DTI assistance while starting up his biotech business at the time. There was no small amount of dismay at the policy vacuum following PM's resignation, as he was providing strong tactical leadership on "knowledge-based economy" initiatives.)

Mandy spoke well to Paxman on the Econocalypse the other night.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/17/davidcameron-politicalnews

let's hope this economic thingy can do for brown what it has done for obama

I hate David Cameron.

So do I.

Can you vote, in the UK?

I don't think so, but maybe if I'm here a little longer. I hate most the way he's talked of as having some kind of common touch that Brown lacks, yet they never put him in any situations where he might prove this. The one time I saw him speaking to "ordinary people" was on a BBC Newsbeat video where young people asked him questions, and he seemed completely aloof and freakish next to them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/18/davidcameron-conservatives

Holy crap, who saw this coming?

Crikey, this is getting dangerously close to socialism.

We won't be getting Tom Jones or Phil Collins back then.

50 quid on Campbell in car crash/outed as paedo/polonium milkshake before 2009.