andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker
What I expect to happen over the next few UK electoral cycles

Basically, the same as what happened over the first few elections under Blair's Labour:
  • Election 1 (1997) - Labour staggeringly popular, largely due to replacing a Conservative government mired in sleaze, corruption, and incompetence.
  • Next few elections - Labour less popular, as the people who had put their differences to one side to Get The Tories Out are disenchanted, Labour reverts back to authoritarian type, and things don't improve as much as you'd hope as Labour continue fiddling round the edges of the economy to try to avoid annoying anyone.
  • Eventually (2010) - Someone who can talk like an actual human takes over running the Conservative Party just as the Labour Party try to ram through some unpleasant nonsense, and they get a big enough swing back to persuade people that *this* time nobody will have to be nailed to anything.
(And then begins the opposite side of the cycle, where the Conservatives promise people they can make the world better with trickle down economics/austerity/whatever other nonsense means their base can pay less tax, until that all falls apart and they get less competent at hiding their corruption.)

That's the medium ground.

The worse world is the one where rather than having vaguely likeable and on the less awful end of the party (like Cameron) a proper populist persuades enough people to their cause and we end up with a mini-Trump/Farage/etc. in charge.

The better world is one where we finally get a hung parliament with the smaller parties insisting on fixing the electoral system so that a small swing doesn't take you from a massive majority for one of the big two to a massive majority of the other one, and people have to learn how to compromise.

Date: 2024-05-28 11:55 am (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
From: [personal profile] rmc28

One would like to think the smaller party in any future coalition would have absorbed the necessary lesson about reforming the electoral system from the 2010-2015 coalition.

Date: 2024-05-28 12:15 pm (UTC)
danieldwilliam: (Default)
From: [personal profile] danieldwilliam
If they have any sense it will be item number one but I fear smaller parties are likely to be seduced by the lure of actual government power too easily.

Date: 2024-05-28 04:15 pm (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel speaking at a lectern with microphone and part of the slogan "Stronger Economy Fairer Society" in shot (libdem)
From: [personal profile] rmc28

Just like, there is a very clear example RIGHT THERE of what happens if you don't make it item number one. And definitely don't accept putting it to a referendum.

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