This image says it all, courtesy of ConservativeHome. Click on it to enlarge.**********************************************************************
ADAM Boulton will be hosting a CoverItLive blog discussion at 12.30pm on the
fallout from Crewe & Nantwich
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1. Guido agrees with me about the disastrous Kevin Maguire strategy.
2. Michael White says it's all over for Brown - without actually saying it.
3. James Forsyth on whether Brown will be dumped.
4. Iain Martin says the result gets Cameron a step closer to Number Ten.
5. LibDem Voice has, er, the result and that's it. But do read the comments...
6. PoliticalBetting.com calls the next election for the Conservatives.
7. Red Box on Labour's new low.
8. Andrew Porter reckons it was Lord Ashcroft wot won it.
9. LabourHome asks: Where do we go from here? I respond: Is it down to the lake I fear...
10. Nick Robinson believes Crewe may be a tipping point.
11. James Graham tries to find some comfort in the result for the LibDems. He struggles.
12. And Kevin Maguire says, well, nothing. Nada. Not a jot. Wonder why. UPDATE: He's now written a blogpost on Brown's Crewe Cut.
25 comments:
How much can Brown take? Aren't his family going to step in out of compassion and tell him to resign? The entire country has turned against him in a way that even John Major couldn't imagine.
Not every commentator thought Brown would disappear today, but he HAS! And for the rest of the weekend, by the looks of it. And in other news, Bears have been found in the woods...
I am not a Tory but well done anyway to Mr Timpson.
The "Toff" smear campaign would be more at home in Harare than in Crewe. It's clear that this had the tacit consent of Bogieman Brown. What a shallow, hatefilled little man he must be. Coupled with his cowardice and his refusal to be accountable at the ballot box, I think we have reached an all time low in the political cycle.
My fear is that even now, they will pursue a scorched earth policy of opening the doors to terrorists, promoting the tyranny of more minority interests under the guise of "equality", raising taxes under the guise of being "green", destroying parental rights in education and religion and throwing ever larger - obscene - sums of money - on trying to prop up their putrid administration.
General Election. Now! Bring it on!
242 ... minutes before LabourHome got round to posting something on the result.
I have discovered a new form of sex its called...
"DEEP GLOAT"
geddit
Never mind you being mistaken for the Tories election guru - it seems to me Adam Boulton is doing his best to win a Pickles lookalike contest.
A couple of things which have gob-smacked me.
One was how quick and how competently the Tories were out of the traps in this election with their letter to Dunwoody. A perfect start. Labours start was of course hopeless and went down hill.
Second was how well Tory spokesmen seem to be doing in the talking head stakes. I am no great fan of Liam Fox but he has done well when I have seen him over the last few weeks. Indeed this culminated in an explosion of disgust with the unhappy labour spokesman on BBC TV last night. He was trying to explain away the pathetic leaflet that Fox had produced and I think Fox threw out something like 'oh shut up' in exasperation. (maybe you can find the clip - about 1.30am)
Fox's words were a replica of what the Crewe electorate were saying to Brown.
The Cameron Crewe and Nantswitch Blair Project was a huge success. This new Tory policy vacuum sucks up votes!
Brown has been shown on SKY at St Thomas' Hospital. Not talking in public (actually has given a brief gibberish interview in there) but reduced to kissing babies as he left.
We should all start looking very carefully at the economy. This report thinks oil will come back and that remember is a headline indicator.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/22/ccoil122.xml
But Labour desperately needs the the economy to recover. But what policies can it introduce to speed that process? Its borrowing and spending is out of control. Just how can it safely get the economy moving again? Based on his brief interview I would say Brown does not have a clue.
The toff smear campaign was pioneered by Gordon Brown. He was itching to unleash it as soon as Cameron was elected leader but Blair restrained him. As soon as Brown was in charge the Bullingdon boys stuff really started to hit the newspapers. Remember that Sunday Times front page published just about when Brown got to No.10? Make no mistake the toff campaigning is pure Brown. It's yet more evidence just how warped his personality is and just how utterly out of touch with the electorate he is. It's old time Scottish class warfare from old Mr HasBeen.
'Toffo' Maguire is STILL referring in his blog to 'Toff Cameron'. When will these guys ever learn?
And Kevin Maguire says, well, nothing. Nada. Not a jot.
Except for where he says this:
The result is terrible for the Government just three weeks after the worst local election drubbing for 40 years, confirming opinion polls tracking a big Con lead are accurate.
If the result were repeated nationally, around 176 Labour seats would be lost (listed on my page).
There will be an awful lot of Labour MPs doing the figures this morning and seriously thinking about personal survival options. When it comes down to Sauve qui peut it's clear the game's up.
Smithson qualifies his GE call slightly in the wording of his post.
"Unless there is a dramatic change in the political environment, such as a might just happen with a different Labour leader, I cannot see any other result than a Conservative overall majority."
The labour party lost a far larger proportion of the vote in the 2004 by election in Hartelepool in 2004 where under a good canaidate we lost 18.9 % of our vote. In 2008 in Crewe we have lost 18.2 % of our vote. In 2005 we won the election as this after this we will improve out share on 2005.
I wonder if this result is good enough for Michael Portillo?
The Lib Dem result in Crewe says as much about Lib Dem prospects as the Tory result in Sedgefield ten months ago said about Tory prospects.
Interesting to see Lady Tamsin's comments the previous time she lost an election
http://www.thisispembrokeshire.net/mostpopular.var.1376160.0.massive_victory_for_preseli_pembs_conservatives.php
Not exactly gracious in defeat - and complaining of a dirty tricks campaign. Her excuse is also surprisingly similar to now. Vote held up but blame it upon the higher turnout
What Mike White actually said was: "All is not doom for Gordon Brown. It can be turned around."
Andrew Porter's article and Michael White's are both particularly good and worth reading.
Going through them, I start to feel that we are in for a very bad time under Brown. The Supreme Leader knows he is for the chop. He is also a very vindictive and vengeful man. So my theory is that he will deliberately set out to screw the economy up as hard as he can, so as to leave a mess for the Tories to inherit.
Just like the Roman emperors used to do for their successors.
Another speculation: will Edward & Mrs Timpson retain Crewe and Nantwich at the next GE? I doubt it. Is anyone taking bets?
Labour supporters needn't panic. Polly Toynbee has the answer in CIF today:
"The post-Crewe hubbub will focus on the leadership: more important will be the policies that might win back Labour followers - the poor bloody footsoldiers systematically ejected from Labour's big tent. To repair the damage of that 10p outrage, Labour needs to find the radicalism it has lacked. In a crisis of identity, it should confront the boardrooms by adopting the German plan to deny tax relief to any company paying an individual over €1m a year. What will it take to scare this bloodless party into boldness?"
Should do the trick, don't you think?
Trev said...
"One was how quick and how competently the Tories were out of the traps in this election with their letter to Dunwoody. A perfect start. Labours start was of course hopeless and went down hill."
Most competent Labour people walked out on the nulab scum years ago. Now they are left with the likes of Tamsin and Chris Paul.
Anon, you really made me laugh with your remark "Is this result good enough for Michael Portillo".
Compared with Michael Portillo, Narcissus had a bad body image. M.P. was on Andrew Neill's show last night - he has a whole new career waiting for him (turning milk sour) - and he said that the reaction in Crewe against the toffs strategy wouldn't last. YOU DON'T SAY.
I also laughed like mad at Gordon Brown's speech after the Crewe by-election. "We are taking on board the public's message that they want us to deal with prices, they want us to deal with the economy..."
This has to be the worst case of wishful thinking EVER.
What the election result was really saying was "DUDE! YOU SUCK! Go, for the love of God!"
The problems labour face over 10p would have been a problem in Crewe no matter who had been prime minister, that was as a result of Browns last Budget.
A left wing Labour MP is complaining about £10 billion is city bonuses - he forgets that means 5 billion in taxes. Labour it seems are hankering after price controls and good old fashioned leftyism
great.
Trev, are you having a laugh? People like that don't pay tax. The very idea!
Anyway, if there is a real story at all in the Tories' winning a marginal seat in Cheshire two years before a General Election, then it is that Cameron can win without having to please the Tory base in the least, and indeed while defining himself against it for the amusement of the BBC/Fleet Street dinner party circuit.
So, all you tax-cutters and benefit-cutters, and people who inexplicably define themselves as Tories despite being Eurosceptics, family values believers, or tough on crime (were you asleep, or just out of the country, when the Tories were in office?), you can forget it. Cameron has proved that he can be as vicious as he likes to you and still win.
You have no hope either way in 2010. The economic rightists among you, and those of you still insisting against all the evidence that there is somehow something "Thatcherite" about patriotism or social conservatism, should all abstain, so that the consequent collapse of the Tories even after all the hype can lead to the emergence of one or more parties speaking for you instead.
After all, according to the next Tory Leader, George "Children Don't Need Fathers" Osborne, mentioning immigration (at least to the lower orders, who are most affected by it) is "dog-whistle politics", and any party that does it is "the nasty party".
Remember that one.
18.2 % the biggest swing from labiour for a massive 4 years since Leicester South where labour lost to the Lib Dems by a swing of 29%.
On that nice image that goes with this post - does the picture of the swingometer actually imply a swing to Labour? Either me or the picture have got it the wrong way around!
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