Next leader of the Labour Party should be.....

[blandy]

I think Red Ed is perhaps more in tune with the traditional Labour hardcore than his Bro. Taking his party with him will not be a problem IMO. Winning the centre ground will be the bigger problem, as you suggest. Winning over middle england.

What is this centre ground? It's not a static thing, is it?

Reading the paper on the train yesterday, Mark Steel pointed out that a few years ago disapproval towards bankers would have been considered outrageous and very left wing. Now gay rights and equality stuff is accepted as centre ground. Anti war protests are no longer the preserve of hippy lefties. Socially the centre ground has migrated to the left. Economically it seems to be moving off to the right, perhaps.

[drat01]

With this whole perception thing to back up what Pete was saying there is an element of backlash as we saw at the last election. Cameron who should be so slick he is not allowed near Florida beaches with his media and funny money backing and his marketing background, failed to win over the country and as a result we saw him only win a minority. Maybe just maybe people are actually getting fed up with it?

[Richard]

EDIT. Thought better of this under consideration.

[drat01]

I think Red Ed is perhaps more in tune with the traditional Labour hardcore than his Bro. Taking his party with him will not be a problem IMO. Winning the centre ground will be the bigger problem, as you suggest. Winning over middle england.

What is this centre ground? It's not a static thing, is it?

Reading the paper on the train yesterday, Mark Steel pointed out that a few years ago disapproval towards bankers would have been considered outrageous and very left wing. Now gay rights and equality stuff is accepted as centre ground. Anti war protests are no longer the preserve of hippy lefties. Socially the centre ground has migrated to the left. Economically it seems to be moving off to the right, perhaps.

Exactly Pete and we have seen from the silly comments in the media and from others by trying to attach some sort of immediate label onto him that signifies Communism at worst, is very much old way of thinking.

The whole political spectrum is changing, with things such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and the like giving people a lot of what info they want (and sometimes what they don;t) means that the slick in front of a camera style of Blair, and one that Cameron craves to emulate are becoming less and less important. There is still a fair way to go to get back to a more sensible level, but the direction is certainly that way.

An interesting thing on this thread. There are a lot of what you could call Right Wing Tory voters who have posted on it. Interestingly some of the more vocal ones have said that when analysing what Ed M has said they can actually agree with some of it.

[Risso]

An interesting thing on this thread. There are a lot of what you could call Right Wing Tory voters who have posted on it. Interestingly some of the more vocal ones have said that when analysing what Ed M has said they can actually agree with some of it.

There are a lot of what you would call Right Wing Tory voters!

[tonyh29]

Maybe just maybe people are actually getting fed up with it?

the Tories made their biggest seat gain since 1931 .. only Blairs victory in 1997 has ever managed a bigger swing than that achieved by the Cameron

Which would suggest the country was fed up with someone else :-)

[drat01]

Tony funny you should try and claim this to be a massive victory for the Tory party

In the Telegraph a couple of days back there was an article that basically ripped apart that very argument you are making

David Cameron's Conservatives are mistaken if they believe they won the election

Several months ago, I interviewed a senior member of the Conservative team about the failures of its election campaign. He wondered whether I had failed to note that we were having the conversation in Downing Street: surely it couldn't have been that much of a disaster.

Yet there are few who honestly think the campaign an unalloyed success. In an election in which the Labour vote fell by 6.5 per cent, the Conservative vote went up by just 3.7 per cent. Overall, the party secured its fifth lowest share of the vote since 1922.

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David Cameron taunts Gordon Brown over 'terminal decline'

As the months have passed, three main explanations have been offered. First, that the TV debates derailed the campaign. Second, that it did not have a coherent message. And third, that the Tories were not Right-wing enough. Of these, one is partly right but frequently misunderstood, one is spot-on, and the third is dangerously wrong.

There is no doubt that Cameron's team badly underestimated how important the debates would be. After their first dress rehearsal – in which Jeremy Hunt, playing Nick Clegg, deployed arguments almost identical to those the Lib Dem leader would go on to use – Anita Dunn, one of the party's American advisers, summed up their problem: "Well, I'm voting for Nick Clegg."

Yet despite this early warning, the campaign team did almost nothing in response. "We weren't disciplined enough to work out what to do about it," one of those involved admitted. As a result, David Cameron would go into the first debate with no strategy for dealing with the Clegg problem.

Things were not helped by the fact that he began rehearsals later than either of the other two parties, and did not prepare rigorously enough. In the first debate in Manchester, Cameron struggled to look straight down the camera, as Clegg did, and as he had meant to. The problem was the politician's instinct to work the room; unlike the Lib Dems, the Conservatives had not rehearsed enough to repress it.

However, there are plenty at the centre of the campaign who argue that the debates benefited the party: George Osborne points out that the relentless media attention pushed policy discussion off the agenda, protecting the Tories from "weeks of heavy Labour pounding over issues like tax credits", which had derailed the campaigns of 2001 and 2005. Indeed, the party most frustrated by the debates was Labour, whose strategists felt that they failed to land any blows until the final, debate-free week.

More straightforward is the party's lack of any coherent election strategy. The Conservative campaign involved a long-running argument between those who wanted to remain positive about the Tory brand and those who felt that they should be attacking the Government more. The former believed that the public had enough reasons not to vote Labour; what they needed were reasons to vote Tory. The latter wanted to keep their foot "on Gordon Brown's neck", as his record was the biggest asset the Conservatives had.

Both approaches had their merits, but the problem was that there was no agreement as to which to follow. The result was frequent confusion: witness the repeated changes in the tone of Tory posters, alternating almost every time between a positive and a negative message. Partly, this was because the campaign was a tripartite operation, with George Osborne, Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton all having their own views of the way ahead, and their own interests – the economy, the news cycle, and the big picture. Some complained of a lack of clear direction, as exercised by the Australian strategist Lynton Crosby in 2005, or strong party chairmen in previous years.

Finally – and most importantly, in terms of the debate about the party's future – there is the claim that the campaign was not Right-wing enough. Look at the votes that leaked to Ukip, say some of those who wanted a more muscular approach: it enjoyed the best ever performance by a fourth party.

It is here that critics of the Cameron approach are in danger of misreading the public. For sure, Ukip cost the Tories votes. But minor parties are now part of political life, and hurt the other parties as well.

Much more significantly, the party's own polling found a lingering distrust of the Conservatives among the public. When those who had considered voting Tory were asked why they had not eventually done so, the most common answers involved concerns that the party was still for the rich rather than for ordinary people, or about spending cuts and the removal of benefits such as tax credits.

The marginal constituencies where the Conservative failed to break through, and which they needed to win an overall majority, were those in Scotland or with large numbers of ethnic minority voters or public-sector workers, or all three.. It is difficult to argue that the best way to appeal to them in future will be to move the party back to the Right.

Philip Cowley is professor of parliamentary government at the University of Nottingham, and author (with Dennis Kavanagh) of 'The British General Election of 2010' (Palgrave), to be published tomorrow

As it says Labour lost 6.5 % of the vote but the Tory increase was only 3.7%. They are in a coallition nit because Cameron likes Clegg from his says in the Tory party, its because they did not win enough of the vote. Cameron's Tory party got its 5th lowest share of the vote since 1922 is a damning stat and one that you cannot ignore

The whole TV debate is an interesting one, especially as we have now seen what liars Cameron and Clegg were during the last set. Will the people be so forgiving in the future, especially when they will be reminded all of the time of these lies?

[Jon]

What is this centre ground? It's not a static thing, is it?

Reading the paper on the train yesterday, Mark Steel pointed out that a few years ago disapproval towards bankers would have been considered outrageous and very left wing. Now gay rights and equality stuff is accepted as centre ground. Anti war protests are no longer the preserve of hippy lefties. Socially the centre ground has migrated to the left. Economically it seems to be moving off to the right, perhaps.

One can only hope that all of this is indeed happening Pete, and that this drift continues.

No, the "centre ground/middle England", whatever it is called, is not a static entity, and I for one certainly hope that it has drifted to the left somewhat over the last 15 years or so. I think it has to a degree, in a similar way to which it drifted to the right during the 80s.

maybe Ed's got a slightly easier landscape than his predecessors had?

[tonyh29]

try and claim this to be a massive victory for the Tory party

Oh I see so Labour won really silly me ..Is that why Gordon tried to stay on as PM ?

and can you highlight my use of the word "massive " in my original post for everyone ... ooops

[Chindie]

Did anyone else perceive David Milliband as I did, that is a slightly slimy untrustworthy individual who always appeared to be just on the edge of losing his temper in an extremely overblown way? Whenever he was in a debate he flipped from slightly disconcertingly smarmy and sometimes verging on a slightly seedy, to really quite snide and snipped comments that suggested he was going to get very angry shortly and wasfighting to stop himself flipping completely?

[drat01]

the Tories made their biggest seat gain since 1931 .. only Blairs victory in 1997 has ever managed a bigger swing than that achieved by the Cameron

and can you highlight my use of the word "massive " in my original post for everyone ... ooops

Massive = biggest? - Oh dear oops

See Tony no one has claimed that Labour won it either - so more oops. The facts are there though as one of its biggest media supporters show that the Tory party actually "didn't win the election", and as the article goes on to say some of the areas that people are seemingly thinking are key to becoming a PM are in fact not the case. Don't forget without Cuckold Clegg the position of this Gvmt would be even weaker and more of its ineptitude would be shown up on a daily basis - at least at the moment they have the luxury of passing the blame.

[tonyh29]

He described his run in with HH as raising a wry eyebrow at her .. but he clearly snapped by that point

is a slightly slimy untrustworthy individual who always appeared to be just on the edge of losing his temper in an extremely overblown way?

remove the word slim and you have Gordon Brown there

[drat01]

:-) -

Much more significantly, the party's own polling found a lingering distrust of the Conservatives among the public. When those who had considered voting Tory were asked why they had not eventually done so, the most common answers involved concerns that the party was still for the rich rather than for ordinary people, or about spending cuts and the removal of benefits such as tax credits.

[Risso]

He described his run in with HH as raising a wry eyebrow at her .. but he clearly snapped by that point

is a slightly slimy untrustworthy individual who always appeared to be just on the edge of losing his temper in an extremely overblown way?

remove the word slim and you have Gordon Brown there

and the words 'slightly' and 'on the edge of' for Brown please.

[jonno_2004]

Has David Miliband married a pensioner?

[tonyh29]

s one of its biggest media supporters

you do know that the article is an opinion piece and not written by a telegraph journalist don't you .. the bloke is an academic and a leftie one at that

more of its ineptitude would be shown up

overlooking the H word for a second , where exactly have they been inept ? ..have they deregulated the banks for example , have they sold off shed loads of gold / ..or have they started working on trying to bring the nations debt down , something which bodies like the IMF recently praised them for ...what exactly have they done since being in power that is so inept

Massive = biggest?

so that will be a No from you then , Ok apology accepted

[Awol]

An interesting thing on this thread. There are a lot of what you could call Right Wing Tory voters who have posted on it. Interestingly some of the more vocal ones have said that when analysing what Ed M has said they can actually agree with some of it.

There are a lot of what you would call Right Wing Tory voters!

Exactly. As Blandy said (correctly in my view) the centre ground is now further to the political left in many areas than it has been for decades. Therefore someone with traditionally centre right views is suddenly classed - by some on the left at least - as a raving far right extremist!

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

And for good reason.

[tonyh29]

the centre ground is now further to the political left in many areas than it has been for decades

and with slogans like British jobs for British workers the left are now the right :confused:

[drat01]

:-) @ Tony - Oh Tony sorry you are really failing on form today

- The Telegraph is a very right wing media outlet. Philip Cowley is reader in parliamentary government at the University of Nottingham and runs revolts.co.uk, is not a "leftie" - do a quick bit of research on him mate he's actually quite an interesting bloke and his website is a good read. The fact that the Telegraph was happy to run with his story shows a bit more of the reality than claiming that the Tory party in somehow scored a massive / big / call it what you want victory in the last election. The facts show otherwise. The article also gives a fairly level headed view as to why with all of the favourable things behind him, like Ashcrofts millions, the bulk of the media and the marketing background of Cameron, they failed to win a majority.

As for the Gvmt being inept - blimey its like a daily occurrence of things they screw up. From the schools debacle, to Cameron and WW2 gaffes, from the MOD leaks and arguments to stupidity over the Forgemasters cancellation and the influence of party backers. A total abandonment of manifesto pledges within seconds of taking the keys to number 10, the gerrymandering and the changes to the constitution, Camerons gaffe over Pakistan, the attacks on front line services etc etc - and those were just the ones that came to mind while typing this.

But this is a thread about the Labour leader and considering that one has been elected now, I'm surprised that it is still showing so much interest