How long has Cameron got?

[alchresearch]

Next year Labour will be coming back from a low

 

What makes you think that? People's opinion of the Labour leaders is not very good.

 

Miliband is weak, he's no statesman and has his own battles with the unions.

 

Balls - well his name says what he'll do to the economy.

 

Then you've got Yvette Cooper, who wants to fill the country with Syrian refugees - far more than has been globally agreed.

 

Until the Labour party get in some strong characters, they'll going to muddle on. There's nobody in the sidelines.

[WeX]

If the Tories couldn't win in 2010 then that just showed the nation didn't have much confidence in them even after Gordon Brown's record of incompetence. Next year Labour will be coming back from a low and the Tories will be saddled with having been in government. If you look at your figures you'll see every government since 1979 has lost support at the subsequent election and there's no reason to believe Cameron won't do the same.

 

The clincher for me will be the economic reputations of the Tories and Labour. Will people be ready to forgive Labour so quickly? Will people give the Tories another chance despite salaries losing their spending power?

 

You seem obsessed with the win aspect. They don't have to win, all they have to do is form a government. Tony Blair won the 2005 general election with less votes then the Torys received losing the 1997 election!

 

I think you are right. The next election will and always was going to be fought on the economy. Labour are trying desperately to move peoples gaze away from growth to cost of living, which is not working. At present the Tory party is winning this fight, but we have a long time until the election so things could change.

 

And that was the last time the Tories got a majority - over 20 years ago.

 

I'm not sure what you mean here as just because the Tory party was in opposition that doesn't mean they cant be in power, otherwise Labour should never have one the 1997 election given your logic. Labour were out of power for 18 years prior top their 1997 election win.

[LeMaquis]

What makes you think that? People's opinion of the Labour leaders is not very good.

 

Miliband is weak, he's no statesman and has his own battles with the unions.

 

Until the Labour party get in some strong characters, they'll going to muddle on. There's nobody in the sidelines.

 

Labour are ahead in the polls and won't all be down to personalities. People will vote for policies just as much. And who do the Tories have on their sidelines? Gove is a weirdo. Osborne is completely out of touch. Their backbenches are rebelling against the leadership. For everything you can say about Labour you can say the same about the Tories.

 

---------- Post added 05-02-2014 at 13:03 ----------

 

They don't have to win, all they have to do is form a government.

 

The Tories have to get more seats than Labour and then hope the Lib-Dems will do another deal. At the moment that's not looking likely. The constituency boundaries are against the Tories. If they'd stuck to their deal with the Lib-Dems to reform the Lords and constituency boundaries they would have given themselves a better chance. But their backbenchers shot the party in the foot.

[truman]

Labour are ahead in the polls and won't all be down to personalities. People will vote for policies just as much. And who do the Tories have on their sidelines? Gove is a weirdo. Osborne is completely out of touch. Their backbenches are rebelling against the leadership. For everything you can say about Labour you can say the same about the Tories.

 

By about 5 points...wouldn't you expect them to be further ahead at this point?

[LeMaquis]

I'm not sure what you mean here ....

 

I mean it's over 20 years since the Tories got a majority. That doesn't tell me that they have a lot of public support. They have an uphill battle. Even with Brown as PM Cameron couldn't get a majority. It won't get easier.

 

---------- Post added 05-02-2014 at 13:07 ----------

 

By about 5 points...wouldn't you expect them to be further ahead at this point?

 

No. Not after 2008 to 2010 as a lot of people haven't forgiven them. But they can still be the largest party in 2015 especially with the electoral system in their favour.

[Bob England]

How long has Cameron got? Because he has Savagely and Severely attacked and Oppressed the Majority of this Country just like Thatcher did, NOT LONG.

 

Thatcher won three elections on the trot, most trade unionists voted for Thatcher. The electorate never threw her out, her own treacherous MPs did that.

[Manlinose]

The clincher for me will be the economic reputations of the Tories and Labour. Will people be ready to forgive Labour so quickly? Will people give the Tories another chance despite salaries losing their spending power?

 

that's the clincher for me too - it isn't so much the statistical position of how much growth there is, how low inflation and unemployment is, but how much better off people are, or feel they are, and how much they trust any of the parties to improve things for them personally

 

labour's legacy is their biggest problem - has enough time passed for people to forgive? can they convince enough of the electorate that they won't reverse the slow improvements gradually being made?

 

the conservative's problem is that the economy has not yet grown by more than it shrank, and although the indicators are getting better, many people still don't see the improvements filtering down to their real lives - or will people think they should be given the opportunity to finish the job

 

miliband may not be mr personality 2014, but he is a vast improvement, electorally at least, on gordon brown and miliband is not the electoral liability that brown was

 

labour need to convince their traditional supporters that they can win and that they deserve to be given another go

 

the conservatives need to convince their non-traditional supporters that they will be better off under the conservatives

 

i don't know who has the harder task

[Bob England]

that's the clincher for me too - it isn't so much the statistical position of how much growth there is, how low inflation and unemployment is, but how much better off people are, or feel they are, and how much they trust any of the parties to improve things for them personally

 

labour's legacy is their biggest problem - has enough time passed for people to forgive? can they convince enough of the electorate that they won't reverse the slow improvements gradually being made?

 

the conservative's problem is that the economy has not yet grown by more than it shrank, and although the indicators are getting better, many people still don't see the improvements filtering down to their real lives - or will people think they should be given the opportunity to finish the job

 

miliband may not be mr personality 2014, but he is a vast improvement, electorally at least, on gordon brown and miliband is not the electoral liability that brown was

 

labour need to convince their traditional supporters that they can win and that they deserve to be given another go

 

the conservatives need to convince their non-traditional supporters that they will be better off under the conservatives

 

i don't know who has the harder task

 

I think yours is a very well thought through statement. Personally I cannot see the public voting in Milliband. He just does not have what it takes. Even Major had more charisma.

 

The clincher could come with the increase in Minimum Wage, if, as he has indicated he might, Osborne increases the NMW to say, £7.20 he will release a torrent of spending. He will have to watch inflation but could address that with interest rate hikes after the election was won.

 

For me I see, difficult as it will be, a Tory majority.

[alchresearch]

By about 5 points...wouldn't you expect them to be further ahead at this point?

 

A gap that's been getting continually closer for some time.

[WeX]

The Tories have to get more seats than Labour and then hope the Lib-Dems will do another deal. At the moment that's not looking likely. The constituency boundaries are against the Tories. If they'd stuck to their deal with the Lib-Dems to reform the Lords and constituency boundaries they would have given themselves a better chance. But their backbenchers shot the party in the foot.

 

Not technically true. After the 2010 election the Queen would have offered the Labour party the first opportunity to form a government. They were trying but when the Lib Dems said they would not go into a coalition with the party that came second this left it open to the Tory's to form the next government which they did.

 

As long as no other party gains a majority, the Tory party will be offered to form the next government, even if they came 2nd after Labour. It would be short lived, but its happened in the past. Labour under Harold Wilson came 2nd in the February 1974 election but formed a minority government which lasted 8 months.

 

---------- Post added 05-02-2014 at 14:36 ----------

 

labour need to convince their traditional supporters that they can win and that they deserve to be given another go

 

the conservatives need to convince their non-traditional supporters that they will be better off under the conservatives

 

I disagree with this part of your comments as I remember years ago when studying political science that elections are not won by who goes to the ballet box, its by those that do not.

 

If Labour can invigorate their support this is only half of the battle, they need to demoralise the Tory support in order to win and this aspect is not what is happening right now.