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David Cameron
Here’s something I found en route to looking up something else:
David Cameron is under fresh pressure after a poll put the [UK Conservative or "Tory"] party on just 27% – one of its lowest ratings of recent years.
According to the Opinium research for the Observer, Ukip is just 10 points behind on 17% after luring voters away from the Tories and Labour.
It also found the Prime Minister’s personal rating dropped 8% in a fortnight to 18%.
The latest study comes after a poll of marginal constituencies on Saturday suggested Labour would scoop 93 seats from the Conservatives and take the keys to No 10 if a general election was held on Monday.
Even worse news for the Tories — it was one of their own polls that broke the bad news for them:
Labour would gain 93 seats from the Conservatives to become the next government if a general election were held now, according to a poll of marginal constituencies.
Labour would gain 109 seats in total, taking them to 367 MPs and giving them a majority of 84, the research found.
The survey, carried out by the Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft, found there would be an 8% swing to the opposition in the most closely contested seats.
It comes amid claims that a canvass of Tory activists found just 7% believed the prime minister, David Cameron, will secure victory in 2015 and is likely to increase unease among already unsettled party members.
Wow. Less than three years after a narrow Tory victory in the 2010 elections — so narrow that the Tories’ banker friends had to threaten to downgrade the UK’s credit rating to keep Clegg and the LibDems from forming a government with Labour — the Tories are now spiraling into the dirt. Yet even though the Tory win was much ballyhooed by the US media and pointed to by them as a bellwether for the 2010 midterm elections in the US, there’s been nothing so far in the US press about the Tories’ rapid fall from grace.
Funny how that works.
Granted, the 2015 elections are still two years away. But Cameron’s continued embrace of highly unpopular austerity measures is not exactly a recipe for guaranteeing electoral popularity for his party.
Just remember: If the morning of May 8, 2015 finds Labour in control of the UK once more, if you’re an American you will likely have heard it here first.
27 Comments
I’m not surprised. After all, why should the British people embrace a lower standard of living for themselves so the financiers can accrue even more wealth any more than the Spanish or the Greeks or the Italians.
The question is: Would Labour really do anything differently? They’re about as bought as the American Democrats if Tony Blair is any indication. Maybe they would be now, I don’t know. At least English leaders know their people are perfectly capable of beheading them if they get sufficiently pissed.
I’d welcome a true English perspective here. Recc’d, BTW, PW, for bringing this to our attention.
Isn’t that funny? There are many US stories I’d Never Know About if I Relied Solely on US Big Media
They (UK) instituted a 1% chained cpi for social programs and this in the face of rising fuel, food and housing costs, so I am not surprised that they are despised.
It couldn’t happen to a better party…unless it was the Republican Party, and they have their problems too.
Let’s hope that this is a world wide trend to roll back neo libralism. The corporate media will downplay it, but people are fed up with selfishness and greed and governments total disregard for the people in favor of the corporate world.
I say bravo to this news!
Crush the corporate insect that feeds on the blood of the workers…..:^))
58% in UK poll oppose austerity in an opinion poll.
Exactly. Such as the fact that the deficit has been shrinking.
Well, of course they’re not reporting something like that…it gets in the way of the “JEB! will save us all” meme that the MSM started pushing this morning.
Of course we Americans won’t here of Cameron’s troubles. If international news in America were a clothing item they’d be pre-faded denim jeans. To, too many times through the spin cycle to acheive that faux ” common man ” look. Probably sells well in Washington,D.C. where you want to make people think you actually do your own laundry. And, really heavy lifting, too.
I hope this is a trend overall.
That the Repugs received less votes than Dems in the last House elections hopefully is a harbinger of things to come. Unfortunately, since the 2000 and 2004 U.S. coup de tau, the people need a super majority just to seat anyone but a Repug.
Well, of course it’s always been true that if you wanted to know what was going on politically, economically, or socially in any foreign country, you had to have access to non-corporate-American news sources. Fortunately, it’s much easier to get access to information now that we have the internet, In the 70s one had to subscribe to niche publications.
How many Americans could name the British Prime Minister without prompting? This has been a failure of the corporate news media since the very beginning. But if you want to know the odds of a party’s winning the next election, just go to Intrade. They currently quote odds of 65% that Labour will win the next election, and 35% for the Tories. They also give odds of 47% that Labour will win a majority of seats, but only 16.5% for the Tories and 37% that no party has a majority.
Since you don’t hear anything here about German politics, either, you’ll probably be surprised to know that the right is a 4-1 favorite to retain power after the elections this fall.
Here’s The Economists answer
It’s The Economy, stupid (just like The Economist).
After the current corporatist power structure comes crashing down, nobody now in power will claim that they ever supported it! And that will be in the surprisingly near future. The really big story the media isn’t telling is how fragile is the edifice of the current, undemocratic governing system. It is really very recent in origin, coming into bloom only after the 2000 U. S. election and 9/11. It has never laid down roots beyond the small power elite which keeps it in place. It is supported by an oligarchic economy which, despite all of the massive bail out efforts, is living on borrowed time. And it is almost universally unpopular among almost all of the people, both left and right (that’s another media myth, that only the left is against what is going on now).
Is there a looming issue that might force a vote of confidence upon Cameron?
Spiegel has the CDU polling at 40%, SPD 27%, Greens 15%, Left 8% and FDP 4%, meaning the Center Left/Left has more support than the Right, but it’s fractured.
Cameron is doing his job which, as someone observed recently in these precincts, is to put the working class in what he regards as its place. He did not expect personal popularity and he certainly did not intend to promote the public good. Neither do his counterparts on the Continent or in the US. The collective job of these governments is to redistibute wealth upward and to concentrate power.
Of course it sucks. It was supposed to suck.
Yes, but how long can they get away with it, especially in Europe?
“Every French leader lives under the shadow of the guillotine.”
–Clemenceau
Doesn’t Cameron remember what happened to Charles I? Perhaps not. The English are not stupid, nor are they pushovers.
Silly capitalists.
Sydney St.
UK Labour Party is now just Capital Party B. It became too obvious to ignore under Blair. There is no UK Labour Party.
Thank you for that! I’d never heard of it. Figures Churchill was a bit over the top, considering Gallipoli a few years later.
I keep wondering why the Lib Dems want to go down with the Conservative ship, or is it too late for the Lib Dems to regain support and they’re just holding on to their seats as long as possible?
Surely, if they broke, or just back benchers broke, the government would fall and elections would have to held, right?
How much support have the LibDems ever really had? At least in our lifetimes. Now, maybe we know why they’ve had so little. They sure look like comfortable, latte’ liberals to me. Bourgeois to the core.
I despise them more than I do Republicans or libertarians or Conservatives. And that’s sayin’ a LOT.
The question is: Is Labour any better? Tony Blair says “No.”
Are the British people better? Yeah, I think they are. Hey! They’re my cousins. Gotta have a little faith, you know?
Tony Blair was not like the Labor Leaders who went before. They were socialists.
The current UK Labor Party is a long way from its Working Class roots.
Requires a prostitute or two.
Labor? Socialist? Well, we have different definitions of the term, it seems. At least since the Seventies. Or maybe not. Allow me to elucidate.
As I understand it, the Labor Party was long divided between Social Democratic and Socialist wings. Maggie Thatcher beat them both down in the hoopla over the Falklands War. What subsequently emerged as the Labor Party was neither Socialist nor Social Democratic; more like Democratic in the American sense, which should disgust any true British Labor partisan. Their leader was Tony Blair.
“The current UK Labor Party is a long way from its Working Class roots.”
Well, maybe we aren’t so far apart, after all. Just like the American Democratic Party of the New Deal and the Great Society ceased to exist after the 1984 election and the advent of the Democratic Leadership Council.
Attlee, Wilson, Callahan. They were socialists. Kinnock and then Blair Moved the Labor to the “Center.”
IMO Blair was a Tory.
Wow, that was bracing, Ohio. I needed that jolt of optimism!
Oh for sure. Blair was a Tory just as O is a Republican.