Reality check

I didn't post today's "quote of the day" because I necessarily entirely agree with it or am 100% comfortable with the words Sir Michael Caine used even where I do agree with hum.

I posted that quote as a reminder to myself and any other politically interested person reading this with an open mind that voters with views not a million miles away from Caine's are the people you need to appeal to if you want to win elections.

David Cameron is Prime Minister because he understands that. Ed Miliband isn't Prime Minister because he was the first Labour party leader for three decades who didn't.

Britain has only had one Prime Minister since World War II who was not always careful to appeal to the centre - and even Margaret Thatcher was far more pragmatic and centrist in government than she has been presented as being after leaving office, both by New Labour propagandists keen to blame her for everything and by her own acolytes keen to present her as keeper of the true blue faith.

Maggie was also perceived as closer to the centre in all three of the elections she won than her opposition at the time. James Callaghan, though a moderate man himself, had just presided over a disastrous "winter of discontent" and the Labour left was seen as pervading his government, Michael Foot fought the 1983 "missile election" on an unashamedly left-wing and unilateralist programme, and Neil Kinnock in 1987 had barely begun the long march to the centre which was eventually to produce New Labour.

Elections in Britain are won from the centre. Both those on the right of the Conservative party who think David Cameron is a soggy leftie, and those in the Corbyn wing of the Labour party who want everyone from Hilary Benn rightwards to JOIN THE TORIES, would do well to take a reality check.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

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
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more