A lesson for all new MPs

Ed T

Fraser, I find it very disappointing that an editor of the Spectator should, within a few days of the appointment of a Conservative Prime Minister, be frequently inciting his backbenchers to rebel.

Furthermore, Graham Brady was a long way off doubling his majority, and the Lab-Con swing in his favour was 4.5%, LESS than the national average. This is at least the second time you've erroneously cited him as a huge electoral success story.

Charlie T

Once again knowingly or not mainstream media and politicians fail to comment on the obvious. Its a fact that people who aren't white vote overwhelmingly for parties of the left. Its the same for Britain as for the USA as for any other country in western Europe.Thats the prosaic truth why the Tories failed to capture the 3 mentioned seats. And its why the Tories will struggle to win in many parts of urban England for the foreseeable future.Bradford,Leicester,Birmingham,Leeds all returned Tory MP`s in the 80`s.I doubt if they ever will again.

Simon Stephenson

Persuasively written, Fraser, at least to those who don't need much persuasion. Like you, I suspect, I would like to see more free expression from MPs, but if I happened to be one, I'd require a lot more evidence than you have given that consituency popularity and contra-Party campaigning go hand in hand.

I'd be worried that what's really being displayed here is the continuing distrust of the Party machines, with the votes for Stuart, Buck and Slaughter being more a protest at the Party than an endorsement of contrarianism, per se. Come the day when people return to voting Labour because they support Labour policy, I wonder whether independent rebels will be treated quite so sympathetically.

Commentator

I have long had a great respect for Gisela Stuart. Likewise Kate Hoey, both of whom have fought courageous and often lonely fights against the kind of goons and control freaks who disfigure the leadership of both our major parties. If I lived in their constituencies, I would happily vote for either of them. Good to see that other voters feel the same. Karen Buck's survival and the defenestration of Joanne Cash was David Cameron's richly-deserved Blaenau Gwent moment.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, this morning I read your weaselly and disingenuous Leader in this week's mag entitled "Victory". It inevitably prompts the question - when are you going to drop the pretence and simply insert the strapline "The House magazine of the David Cameron 'Conservative' Party" on the front cover.

SUSAN HILL

Yes, there times when Ms Stuart, a sound woman,did not seem to be a Labour MP at all and that, of course, is why she did not achieve serious promotion. She was way brighter and more competent than most of the other NuLab women and could have made a good Minister. Strange that.

ollie

I would like to see a breakdown of the percentage of postal votes in those seats you mention, Fraser.

Edgbaston staying red was as fishy a result as I can ever remember.

JohnPage

The piece you reference says she had 5 lessons for new MPs but mentions only one. Even then she does tell them not to pick fights with their own side.

Do you know what the other four were?

Quietzapple

Its positive attitude, we can.

Also they got out and put themselves about.

Communities like attention.

djw2009

Labour is doing well in the polls. Today's poll in the DT has Conservative 38, Labour 33, Libs 21. Plugging these figures into electoralcalculus.co.uk, Labour would be the largest party in an election now with 284 seats.

Tim W

You are right about MPs being best when they refuse to be bullied about. But the problem then is that their chances of becoming a minister are very slim. I suppose its a choice they must make.

As for Ed Miliband - I have never been so bored watching a speech. He and his brother will bore everyone to pieces. Plus his campaign team are in a right pickle. If they use 'Ed for leader' posters like today then when Ed Balls starts up it will be redundant. Also when they make 'Miliband for leader' posters its also useless. He's got to use 'Ed Miliband' everywhere!

Rabyrover

The vast majority of Conservatives gains were in small and medium sized English towns and cities. The swing was less in major Metropolitan areas.

A demographic breakdown will show large concentrations of Labour supplicants in our big cities, e.g. state employees, benefit claimants and immigrants. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Labour did not do as badly in Metropolitan areas as elsewhere.

NicholasV

In the Telegraph poll Labour may be up at LibDem expense but the Tories are up too. 64% (more than the combined Tory-LibDem figures) approve the coalition. Which suggests polls at this stage can mean anything and nothing.

On Fraser Nelson's main argument: until the integrity of the British electoral process is restored, especially in the inner cities, I am not wholly convinced by general extrapolations based on these results.

Victor Southern

djw2009

Plug the figures in when 2015 arrives - they may then be of some relevance. At the moment they are only wet logs on the fire of your Cameron hatred.

Fergus Pickering

But djw, what is the point of those electoral calculations? That particular skewed election will never happen again because Cameron will redraw the boundaries of the seats, and with 38% of the poll he would have a very fat majority. So what exactly is your point?

RMH

You forgot Charles Clarke.

DavidDP

You don't like coalition governments, Fraser. We get that. The real world however doesn't always let us operate in total purity.

The public are always willing to love one or two dissident MPs, but they quickly punish a party that clearly lacks unity.

2trueblue

The best thing that new MPs can do is realise that we are watching.

djw2009

Victor Southern, I wouldn't call it "hatred"; more "contempt".

WASHBROOK

Coffee House should be changed to Politics House.
Do we ever get anything different.

Tom FD

The Tories failed to win Birmingham Edgbaston because while the Labour candidate successfully presented herself as outside of the machine, the Tory one presented herself as a councillor on the unpopular Tory-led City Council (a prime example of why formalising the coalition is probably a wiser political maneuver than the messier options).

Given the party received 18,000 votes in that constituency in 1997, and didn't actually need to gain all that many over last time (when they fielded the same candidate, who only managed to pick up 500 new votes despite Stuart losing over 2000) to overtake Stuart, there is clearly an internal problem...

canonalberic

I went abroad immediately after the election and have been in contact with events only ocasionally.

One thing that stands out is the impact of the right. The clowns in UKIP abetted by the tories very own (and equally unelectable) right wing commentariat (implying over the years that he and Osborne are unprincipled lightweights) cost Cameron this election; as much as the deeply dodgy postal votes ("Game ON" I hope this is being invetsigated) laboursocket borough hinterland serfs, and the frankly de haut en bas tone of the big society silly idea.

Even though peole eventually saw through Clegg they still got him the culmination of Lord Peters stratagems in part underway during the excruciating Parliamentarian of the Year award when you and other useful idiots fawned in front of him to his delight and your immense discredit.

I used to buy the magazine you edit, because it was very well edited and consistently loyal to the only hope of strong tory government.

I know there are those who think you are Adam Smith come again amongst us in the guise of a NOWT Columnist but I think you are a disloyal person with a grudge against Cameron. More a thinking persons James Delingpole than a trenchant but partisan critic like the excellent Lord Tebbit - who also has the virtue of having done a few real jobs, many of them in actual politics not writing about it for Andrew Neill.

I dont take kindly to being told by you what "The Spectator" will stand for; I hate the decline in standard of the magazines critical and political writing (not to mention its hideous covers) and my subscription has just been cancelled.

Your silly treacherous article in the NOWT today was the last straw.

Snowman

Fraser, the three candidates should have been a hint to Cameron and his crew before the polling date. If only they had followed what the three were saying the Tories would be sitting pretty, on their own.

alexsandr

I think the failure to get a decent tranche of independant MP's in this parliament is sad. But it is the moving to making the elections more presidential in style. We need to destroy the medias agenda to make elections presidential, so people vote for their MP, not the leader.

Jeremy

The Conservative Party in Britain has this curious ability to periodically throw up great national leaders who also tend to be unusual and highly idiosyncratic individuals. Think Disraeli, think Churchill, think Thatcher and now think David Cameron - for he is one such. A great national leader who has arrived by the skin of his teeth and just in the nick of time. I watched him on the Andrew Marr Show this morning and I can see the greatness in him. Perhaps, being an artist, one is more sensitive and quicker to see this quality - the quality of greatness - than other people. David Cameron has it. If he can hold this coalition together - and for that he will need the support not only of Nick Clegg but also of people of goodwill from across the political spectrum - then our country is indeed destined for better things and for better days under his stewardship. And yes, inequality in modern Britain is a serious issue which needs to be addressed by this Liberal Conservative government - for the benefit and wellbeing of the country as a whole. Unless, that is, we wish to go the same way as Thailand...

Mike A

Fraser - H&F Council has not abolished secure tenancy and to read this allegation in your article is quite incredible.

Andy Slaughter and the local Labour Party conducted a totally disreputable campaign full of similar scare tactics which unfortunately did have an effect on the Hammersmith parliamentary result, although the Conservative Council administration was re-elected with an emphatic majority, against the trend in west London.

Cllr Mike Adam

FaustiesBlog Libertarian

It seems that nobody got the government they voted for.

It is clear that David Cameron is a Liberal - he said so himself. So now, the centre-right is unrepresented.

There is trouble ahead, and I suspect that the centre-right will rebel determinedly, or even splinter off and form a new party. Surely, business leaders will be tempted to back such a new party.

Richard of York

Change the name from "Coffee House" to "Cameron boy Fanzine".
As for Shameron being a great leader....wot after 5 days...perrrleeease!
Lets see how he deals with the 55% issue. Hedge funds, Iran, Tory right wing and the unemployment figures to come,
Middleclass backlash ref tax credits and the poor waiting for their £750 quid will make for interesting times.
Real hardship and people driven to despair will be the headline news ahead in the next five years.

Sue Jennings

This is great news for democracy - the electorate is engaged and principled. It has been really exciting to watch learn more about our new MPs. Dods just released a fascinating press release about them: http://www.pressport.co.uk/pressrelease/Dods-Research-reveals-new-Parliament-dominated-by-primarily-one-generation-Generation-Jones-9958.aspx It's the usual high standard of the chroniclers of Parliament who have been around forever. Anyway, it shows a generational breakdown of the new Parliament, with the striking discovery that almost half of the MPs in the new Parliament are all from just one generation: the generation between the Boomers and Xers which is called Generation Jones. I’ve seen several articles this week about how Cameron and Clegg are both members of Generation Jones, as is over half of the new cabinet. We’ve gone from a Boomer-dominated government to a Joneser-dominate government. Generational transitions like this are rare and important.

Verity

Canon Alberic: "The clowns in UKIP abetted by the tories very own (and equally unelectable) right wing commentariat (implying over the years that he and Osborne are unprincipled lightweights) cost Cameron this election."

The UKIP are not clowns. They are principled conservative patriots. Thank God they stopped the greedy, not over-bright, but overly-ambitious, given his mental wattage, Cameron from getting a mandate. The people who stood for UKIP are heroes, as are Lord Pearson and Nigel Farage.

Your second point in your rather flaccidly argued sentence above: "... abetted by the tories very own (and equally unelectable) right wing commentariat ...". Err, I hadn't realised that the right wing commentariat were standing for election. Do you feel you have a firm grasp of the British electoral process?

"... implying over the years that he and Osborne are unprincipled lightweights...".

Implying? Implying Most of us were downright Anglo-Saxon in our expressions of disapproval of Cameron and wossname.

I do take your point about the vapidity of the mag's cover illustrations, though. Dire.

Simon Stephenson

Jeremy : 10.54am

I'm sorry if this is a rather rude awakening for you, but if this country isn't taken by the scruff of the neck and forced to restrict its consumption broadly to the value of its production, then in a few years it will be wrecked for evermore, and you will be able to kiss goodbye to social welfare, equality and all the other delights of Liberal Conservatism over which you seem to be salivating.

just Louise

Watching the installation of Bercow as Speaker yesterday was a surreal and woesome experience - Tapsell and Rifkind delivering encomiums to this Flip-Flop-Flipper and Call Me Dave having the cheek to proclaim that it was a "new" House of Commons. New? When the nakedly ambitious little man (who didn't even have the decency to pretend to be dragged to the Speaker's Chair - he was hauling his "dragger" there!)is as tainted by the expenses scandal as the duckhouse and moat MPs who were given their marching orders by Dave?

Puh-leese.