A Tory landslide looks increasingly likely

mitch

It cant happen soon enough, we need fresh ideas not this rerun of the 70s but with added borrowing.

DW

As long as they win Brown's seat too...

Chris

>the torrent of bad economic news and Obama’s inauguration

Disjunctive? Why?

strapworld

Dangerous talk.

Let David Cameron show real strength and de select those MP's who wanted a behind the scenes agreement on MP's expenses. THEY HAVE TO GO!

Then let us all know just what they will do. Promise, as Boris promised and delivered, a full audit of all the books and publish them so that Brown and co cannot find any hiding place.

Give a copper bottomed promise to hold a referendum on the EU Lisbon treaty!

Promise to bring local democracy back to the people.

DO NOT GET COMPLACENT!

Joe Mooney

I bet Brown is regretting that he did not call an election during his recent bounce. He bottled it again. I for one will be glad to see the back of him. I am just browned off with Brown.

Tiberius

Not for the first time, the Tories will be charged with saving the country from the definitively flawed policies of the British Labour Party. Since it pulled children out of the mines, it has had no raison d'etre, and so has spent its time infecting British society with aimless initiatives.

Cameron faces a bigger challenge than any previous Tory PM in picking up the pieces. It won't be much consolation for him to know that the Labour party will have finally gone the way of all redundant organizations.

A Tory Government of all the talents is desirable in a scenario that is already assuming frightening proportions. There would, of course, be a crucial difference from Brown's Goats; Cameron would be trying to save the country while Brown was merely trying to save his skin.

Those outside interests (and consequent skills) which the Tories are often criticized for, may suddenly become very valuable.

Andy Leeds

God I hope so.

Mark

Was it only 5 weeks ago that you were speculating on an early general election? No, it was 4!

The new outbreak of anger against the banks might lift Labour a bit in the short term, but anyone who is not entirely partisan who heard Gordon "not me, guv" Brown on the Today programme on Friday knows he's lost the plot.

And please acknowledge that the Tory lead is despite the alleged shortcomings of Osborne and without the benefit of the supposedly brilliant Cable.

How long before your buddy Mandelson gets behind Gordon with his weapon?

TGF UKIP

"And you sense that the Tories could be on course for huge, possibly three figure majority." Well, Rah, Rah, Rah James, of course they should against the worst ever British Government by a country mile.

The trouble is that, IF (and it remains "if") they do win it will, on current performance, be by default. By no stretch of even the feverish imagination of the fanzine's hacks can they be said to have galvanized or be galvanizing the UK's voters, despite being offered open goal after open goal by Gordon & Co.

I live in one of the most Tory ares of the country (my local district council comprises 39 Tories, 3 Independents, 2 LibDems and 0 Labour) and whenever national politics is discussed the words which are inevitably applied to the Cameron Tories are either "hopeless" or "useless."

As this economic crisis scaringly deepens and widens by the day, Dave has a huge political opportunity to gain massive traction with the voters by some straight talking on the levels of public and private expenditure and debt and the absolute and unavoidable need for severe retraction.

Will Dave step up, is Dave even capable of stepping up? Certainly not if his recent performance on Marr was anything to go by. But, who knows, maybe Dave will surprise us all and me most of all.

Fergus Pickering

Sorry, when did the Labour Party pull children out of the mines? I musthave missed that. I thoughtit was Lord Shaftesbury.

Verity

No, TGI UKIP, I will take the prize for being the most surprised, if you please, if David Cameron "steps up".

He has character flaws that would militate against his being a strong Conservative leader. One is that he is a drawing room liberal, and we've all seen the damage those smug cliques have done in Britain and the US over the 20th Century.

Two, he just doesn't inspire. He's insipid. Except when grandstanding, as in when he bigged himself up by sacking a military man, Patrick Mercer, on a trumped up charge - and by cellphone yet!

I get the feeling that he's not collegiate. Bossy. He doesn't have a vision - or at least, he doesn't have a vision that he cares to share with the electorate. Probably because he truly is, as he claimed, the heir to Blair.

Yes, the Tories will probably get in at the next election, and very, very little will change. There will be the same obeissance to the diktats of the EUSSR. The same "gender equality" agenda, that has not been requested by women and that is destroying the patchwork quilt of families across society. The same acceptance of the insane EHRA - most generously interpreted in Britain. There will not, repeat not be a referendum on the Lisbon "Treaty".

He will manage toe to hang on to his horrible A-list.

He will continue to surround himself with OEs and Bullingdon Boys, because he is not comfortable with people outside that group. Unlike Prince Harry, who really does take people as they are.

Will David Cameron restore our unelected second chamber - formerly the most neutral and effective second chamber in the world and now the most neutred? I should cocoa!

Francis

What is the point? Cameron won't change anything except the economy where there will be very painful restructuring because of Socialist folly. A few years down the line the electorate will have forgotten and no longer facing economic armagenddon will vote the socialists back in where they wreck the economy again making the pain in achieving recovery pointless and wreck everything else in the country that they havent wrecked this time. Democracy in Britain has failed.

Herbert Thornton

So the Tories will replace Labour? What a prospect. Out of the frying pan into the fire. Are the electorate completely daft?

Under a Tory government submission to Europe will continue and Britain will be dragged still further towards submission to Islam.

Surely it's becoming ever more clear that only party that can stop the rush to national suicide is the BNP?

JohnAnt

Fergus, yes, it was Shaftesbury who headed the 1842 Children's Employment Commission that stopped children working in the mines, acting in concert with the Tory government of Robert Peel, in whose administration he was a minister (he had also been in the Tory administration of Lord Wellington.)

Hysteria

what worries me is what would Dave do with a landslide? -more centrist, statist programs to try to put the wheels back on the truck.? Or a radical approach and a re-invention of Conservative values?

On present form I think I know the answer....

Archie

But what is a Cameron government actually going to do? Unless I hear some agreeable proposals my vote is going to a minority party!

alan

Brown bottled the election simply because Alex Salmond was going to stand against him.
New Labour might have scraped in again, but not with Gordon.

CCTV

Sorry, when did the Labour Party pull children out of the mines?

In the case of Bevin Boys it put children down the mines !

Roy simpson

TGF UKIP. "The trouble is that, IF (and it remains "if") they do win it will, on current performance, be by default".

Oppositions do not win elections - governments lose them.

drakes drum

After the Sunday Times Labour Sleeze report, I believe Cameron should grab the moment and announce that a Tory Government will bring in a wholly elected second chamber The Lords within the lifetime of the first Parliament.

He should keep calling the story Labour Sleeze and remind the Labour Party how they operated when the tories were accused of sleeze!

as for TGF UKIP he is obviously a Tory supporter who is trapped in the cul de sac of Europe. I was in that position once. But soon realised that whilst the people outside the executive are decent people, the ones running the party are not honourable people, in my opinion. I left quickly.

It will be very interesting to see how Ukip fare this time in the EU elections, against the threat from the BNP! So many people I met within Ukip had links to the BNP.

RobertD

The only problem with this analysis is that half the country is not feeling the pain, nor are they likely to. For those in government funded work with minimal risk of redundancy, no pay cuts and assured pensions, or on index linked benefits, what they are actually seeing is lower mortgage payments and declining prices in the shops. Not much pain there. All the adjustment is being borne by the other half of the population who are losing jobs, business, homes and savings. ZanuLab has built such a large client state that it is not impossible that enough people feel grateful, and fearful of what will need to be done by an incoming government to sort out the mess, that they will stick with the devil who has delivered the largesse to them.

Newmania

My feeling is that , like Blair , Cameron will do the hard things first( by hard I mean hard for the Party to take ).From there he will start to change the country in a direction I like.
All of this will be subject to the problem of inheriting a bankrupt country. He wants ten years but may have no choice but to slash taxes and services and risk a Thatcher styule back lash
(How nice to see Verity as sulphurous as ever. EUSSR , like it .)

Jenny

Verity - Boring. Change the record PLEASE

Denis Cooper

Has a general election landslide ever been good for the country?

It seems to me that whichever party won it, the people have invariably lost out from it because the new government then had something close to absolute power - and as we know, "power tends to corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

If the Tories win a landslide in the spring of 2010 - it's unlikely that it would be earlier, because at all costs Brown must avoid letting them into office before the second Irish referendum in October - and follow that up with a second win in 2014, with a similar majority, and with a good chance of winning a third time around 2018, still with an overwhelming majority, then that would give them far too long a period of near absolute power.

JONNY

No Landslide in sight.
Half the dear old hopeless Tory Party are still engaged in either mocking Cameron or stabbing him in the back.
Their only real wish is somehow to defy the laws of Biology by carting back Maggie in a wheelchair to No 10.
With friends like these it's a dead cert on 5 more years of Brown.

Anan

Is there some problem with the comments system again?

Balticboy

Ken Clarke made a very good point this morning. Whilst Obama can focus all his attention on rescuing the American economy, Brown's sole focus will be on his own survival between now and the election. David Cameron needs to show that he passionately believes in setting a new direction for our country and in bringing growth and stability back into the economy. He must start behaving like a serious Prime Minister-in waiting – Drop the puns and soundbites in PMQ’s and start going for the jugular, with serious policy alternatives. The Conservatives need to be elected into power because people really believe in them, not solely because they hate Gordon Brown. This way they will then earn the country’s respect and will stand a good chance of wiping the Labour Government off the political map for a generation.

Verity

Tiberius says, "Not for the first time, the Tories will be charged with saving the country ...".

But if Dave gets in, we won't have a Conservative Government. LabourLite Lite. We will have a lo-fat socialist government.

Drake's Drum - I believe you're new around here. TGI UKIP is not trapped "in the cul de sac" (or, as the French say, "impasse") of Europe. He or she posts on a wide range of critical issues. This individual just wants an effective government for the independent minded citizen which means conservately minded people. In addition, as has been mentioned a few times, TGI UKIP is not a member of UKIP.

Newmania, how nice to see you! Welcome to these parts.

Jenny and her lumbering ilk who wish to shut other people up, as socialists always do, here's handy hint for you. When you see my name, scroll down at speed. At the same time, if I have managed to bore a Labourite, I count that as a feather in my cap. What do I have to do to actually bore you to death?

Jonny - "With friends like these it's a dead cert on 5 more years of Brown." This is what I am counting on. If the Labourites win, after two more years of socialism/Gramsci-ism, there will be a virtual massacre. The Tories will have exchanged their current leader for a Conservative, and they will come storming in for the next 20 years. Meanwhile, the entire Labour movement will be dead and buried.

Tiberius

Re: pulling children out of the mines - guys, it was only meant as figurative remark.

But, seeing as you mention it, what then has the Labour Party ever done for us? (An anti-Python sketch beckons).

JONNY

So you have a Cunning Plan Verity. Lose now. Win later.
Oh.
But since we're on Burns Night let me remind you:
'the best laid plans of mice and men gang awry'
Not that you personally come into either of these 2 categories.

Archie

Off topic somewhat, but has anyone else heard that the BNP almost trounced the Tories in the Bexley by-election? Can't see it anywhere in the blogs.

Archie

Verity: I strongly suspect that the reason Prince Harry is at ease with people is because of his time in the armed forces. Would have done "Dave" no end of good. As it is, there is no way in this world that he would get my vote!

Steven Kuci

Got that one right then, muppets.