Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I don't understand why being radically different is commendable for a party who wants to be the next Government? The nature of our system means that one of these two parties will be governing the country and as a result both of them have to gain support from a broad section of the electorate and most of them are centrists - this has been shown time and time again at election time - so to move away from them to appeal to a narrow but motivated minority seems to be nothing but self-indulgent wallowing. Labour are meant to be a party who seek to govern not a pressure group. The fringe parties are better places to promote radical ideas.
What really is the point of Labour if they don't want to win elections? You can talk about finally having a choice but if a party has no chance of winning an election then there isn't really a choice...
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Well, if most of the electorate are centrists, they done a great job of hiding it by the majority (Scotland very much excluded) for the Centre-Right Tories or the Right-Wing UKIP. The main Centre party got destroyed, despite being a successful moderating force in coalition politics. The electorate is much more polarised than the almost homogenised debates we had from 2001 to 2015 especially where policy took second place to who sounded the best at saying the same things.
Taking aim again at the centre may well end with more Tory victories as people get sick of hearing the same things and as long as they don't totally mess up the economy as it stands, the Labour party will not win any credibility by shouting "We disagree, a bit!"
In a democratic system where getting 40% of the vote results in landslide results, a pull to the left can work politically if it gets even 10% of the 33% of the electorate who did not vote in the 2015 election.
Disagree or agree with the guy, to write him off is folly, and Cameron will do well to treat him as a very, very dangerous adversary indeed.