Blair Joins The Tories

[samildanach]

I've been musing about a hypotherical situation where by some confluence of unhappy circumstances Tony Blair is ousted from leadership. Enraged by his parties betrayal he subsequently crosses the floor and joins the Tories. He then finds himself leader as a result of another set improbable events. Do the Tories win the next general election?

My opinion is that they do. New Labour back benchers seems to have forgotten how important he is to their ballot box success IMO. He is the guy that carries the load and New Labour to victory regardless of what some moonbat (RMSharpism ) media pundits claim. There seems to be a view which is commonly held by moonbats that Blair is an electoral liability. I just don't see it. What do CFCers think? Is Blair a liability or an asset at the ballot box? Feel free to give your reasons as well.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

I'm no expert on British politics, but wouldn't this require the Conservatives to recant years and years of absolutely horrid vituperation about Blair?

 

[nonconformist]

I don't think it would be possible for a few reasons:

-Blair is a tad too (shock) left for the Tories
-The Tories probably wouldn't have him
-Gordon Brown stands the best chance
-If the tories had sense, they'd run Boris Johnson.

 

[zulu9812]

Tony Blair isn't as important as some Labour party members think. If you think back to 1997, who else was going to win that election? The Tories were, and still are, utterly unelectable.

 

[EdwardTking]

Tony Blair isn't as important as some Labour party members think. If you think back to 1997, who else was going to win that election? The Tories were, and still are, utterly unelectable.

Quite

1974: Labour (Harold Wilson) won because Conservatives (Ted Heath) messed up economy and unions.

1979: Conservatives (Maggie Thatcher) won because Labour (Jim Callaghan) messed up with unions.

1983: Conservatives (Maggie Thatcher) won because Labour (in civil war; split with SDP, put up unilateralist quasi christian pacifist Neville Chamberlain socialist candidate Michael Foot).

1987: Conservatives (Maggie Thatcher) won election at economic phoney boom and Labour (still split).

1993: Conservatives (John Major) won because new face given benefit of doubt, electoral irregularities, media supported Conservatives and Tony Kinnock screwed up Labour campaign through over confidence.

1997: Labour (Tony Blair) won because nation concluded that the only thing conservatives cared about were money and power and they were not even competent at these; having messed up the economy and surrendered power to international speculative bankers and to the EU at Maastrict. Frankly it would not have mattered who the Labour Leader had been.

2001: Labour (Tony Blair) won because conservatives had failed to learn from their mistakes and offered no new approach and no new policies so that the implementation of devolution and minimum wage were sufficient to establish labour credibility. Frankly it would not have mattered if Tony Blair had been struck by lightning and replaced by Tony Brown or not.

2004/5: Labour (Tony Blair) will win because conservatives have still failed to learn from their mistakes and are offering no new approach and no new policies. Frankly it won't matter who the Conservative or Labour leaders are.
The only question is the extent of the Labour majority. I doubt that Michael Howard (Conservative leader) can dent that much.

Elections are won and lost by parties. The evidence is that a bad leader
can screw up a campaign, but that being a good leader is insufficient to
win if the party is not up to it. For instance Ian Haig was a very strong conservative leader, but people just didn't want his party back in.

I can not see Tony Blair joining the Tories. They simply would not tolerate such a massive ego. However if he is re-elected with only a small majority and there are dissident Labour MPs, he may rely upon the Tories for parliamentary votes.

Difficult to tell who is most stupid here in Britain: politicians taking 10 years to realise electors don't like their policies or the modern day electors taking 10 years to decide that they don't like their politicians policies.

Remember Anthony Eden (Conservatives) screwed up very badly (dishonesty and foolishness leading to failure and economic dislocation) at Suez in 1956 but the Conservatives remained in power until 1964.

 

[Iggy]

-If the tories had sense, they'd run Boris Johnson.

More like run him over.

 

[CheekyRich]

I think that if you look at a lot of Blair's policies they are quite more to the right of centre than left. Remember it's the tories who want to re-introduce the more socialist policy of doing away with tuition fees for university students.

Labour has driftted more and to the right in order to hold the middle ground and woo voters. Labour will win becuase the Tories are no good and no one ever thinks of voting Lib Dem becuase they never really think of them.

In my opinion the best result at the next general election would be a hung parliment. Though I think Labour will win again with a slighlty reduced majority due to poorly placed protest votes and voters being dreadfully informed.

 

[CheekyRich]

Though I do seem to remember Neil Kinnock falling over at the seaside not really helping him...

(If you've seen the footage, followed by what he says really happened, it's dead funny)

 

[Iggy]

Though I think Labour will win again with a slighlty reduced majority due to poorly placed protest votes and voters being dreadfully informed.

Correct. I can see no other result. (Perhaps not just because the voters are dreadfully informed, more because they are not inspired by the choices).

 

[CheekyRich]

OK I think you've got me there!
But Boris Johnson though, would have made a great PM!!!

 

[Iggy]

I think Boris is great. I would love to be stuck in a pub with the bloke.
The problem is that he is seen as an upper class twit who acts like a buffoon. The idea of him being PM would terrify me, as I believe he actually is an upper class twit who is a buffoon.

 

[Scuffer]

Correct. I can see no other result. (Perhaps not just because the voters are dreadfully informed, more because they are not inspired by the choices).

Agree with this entirely. After that thread with that Britannia bloke in it, I was inspired to go and actually go find out what our political parties reckon might convince me to vote for them.

It was dismal. Whoever's vote they are chasing, it certainly wasn't mine. Absolutely nothing I read inspired me in the slightest to get off my backside and vote. Well fine, they aren't interested in me, and I'm not interested in them. I'm going to sit here and pout until I've got 4 kids or am old, then they'll care.

 

[Suppersalmon]

Labour may lose some seats but i would very much doubt they would lose the election as some labour backbenchers would see this as a chance to change the direction of the party also Tony Blair can be seen as a man with so much history which the voters will remember such as the unpopular Iraq war and top up fees

if the torries do want to be back in focus with the voters they would push Boris Johnson forward as he is one of the only torries most of the public know

 

[samildanach]

The problem is that he is seen as an upper class twit who acts like a buffoon. The idea of him being PM would terrify me, as I believe he actually is an upper class twit who is a buffoon.

Classic!!

I like Boris but his name really puts me off him. The name Boris I associate with communists. The first time I heard of him I thought he must be a labour party member with hardcore, old skool views to have a name like Boris. Then he turned out to be a Tory . I still can't shake my first impressions of him. I've now decided he is a Russian spy!!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Nah. He's a Czarist exile hellbent on making Britain invade Russia to restore the monarchy.