“THE scale of the Scottish Tories’ 2005 general election defeat was laid bare yesterday as it emerged that the party spent £1.3 million on a campaign which yielded only one MP and left it with the lowest vote share in its history.”
Archive: UK General Election 2005
Top UK election spenders revealed: “…Labour spent £1.90 for every vote it won, compared with £2.03 for the Tories. The Lib Dems got the best value at 72p per vote, although they spent more per seat won than Labour.”
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Peter Snow hangs up swingometer. Gah! Elections will never be the same. Who else could possibly present absurd computer graphics with authority? (Via.)
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Hmm, well one person has decided to get all party political with the proportional representation debate.
Forgetting the arguments about PR versus FPTP, which are well rehearsed on both sides, what interests me is the Lib Dem obsession with PR. It tells you everything you need to know about them. They don’t believe they have the policies, the calibre of staff, or a leader that’s good enough to be voted into government. Nor apparently do they ever expect they will. That’s why they put all their hopes for gaining real political power into a change of political system.
The thing about FPTP, though, isn’t just that it makes it difficult for smaller parties to gain power. It also makes it difficult for equally-sized parties to gain power. The current system is shamelessly biased towards Labour.
Scribbler continues:
Such a lack of ambition and conviction is embarrassing. If they don’t have the confidence to believe they can ever form a government on their own merit, then why should anybody else?
That’s nothing. The real embarassment is that Labour need to cling on to such an antiquated system in order to remain in government. A majority of 66, but with just 35% of the votes! Genius!
Looking into PR was a Labour manifesto commitment in 1997. Sure enough, they commissioned the Jenkins Report. And then ignored the report’s recommendations.
Mind you, I don’t suppose we can expect too much from Labour. They aren’t exactly the most democratic of parties.
Police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang’s re-entry…
Now hecklers can be terrorists aswell! Brilliant! Before long, everybody will be able to join in!
They’ve still not learned, according to “a leading Highlands Tory” no less. Sorry to quote such a large chunk of it, but he hits the nail pretty much on the head in my view.
Robbie Rowantree… also claimed his party was complacent on race relations, riven by homophobia and stuck in a time warp…
He said his own candidacy in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey was not helped by the Tories “wittering on about nonsense†during the April campaign…
Rowantree says the party’s attempt to win votes, led by leader David McLetchie and chairman Peter Duncan, made no impact on ordinary Scots: “They just don’t seem to be able to articulate the needs of a right-of-centre party that is aspirational for Scotland. Who are these strange old people talking about foreigners, gays and criminals?â€
…he believes the recent appointment as interim deputy chairman of Jackson Carlaw, who was caught cracking racist jokes during the election campaign, indicates that the Tories are unwilling to change.
“Everybody thinks the Tories are a shower of racist xenophobes anyway. All you do is reinforce the stereotypes by doing stupid things like that. The mind boggles.â€
He also said that instead of clamping down on immigration, an inclusive Tory party should welcome foreign workers with “open armsâ€.
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