Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
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The parties old "core voters" are dying off.
most of the working population dont remember the 70's, even an old sod like me was only born half way though them.
Yes sure, people say I'm a young person in politics, but at work I am certainly an old sod (Im not quite 40, but its true)
However, there are still certain sections of the electorate that a traditional right-wing or left-wing campaign is believed to appeal to, and Miliband fought that kind of campaign. It wasn't quite as simple as Blair's words, "A traditional right-wing party competes with a traditional left-wing party with the traditional result" but it was pretty close to that. And it didn't work for them, and more than an equivalent strategy worked for William Hague or IDS.
I knew the majority would have gone for "damage limitation" it was just a question of numbers. UKIP made it easier by making themselves unelectable. But still it was always the niggling thaought that some people will buy into the snp/lab thing. again it came down to numbers. I always knew this was no tory landslide, but my number crunching paid off in the end.
Sadly I dont have the same faith in the referendum, the "OUT" campaign is too fragmented. I don't hold out much hope right now. But I am nothing if not intellectually honest.