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>> I never understood why Miliband didn't win the 2015 election. Huh that is very easy to understand. There were two main reasons: 1. Labour had left the gove

>> I never understood why Miliband didn't win the 2015 election. Huh that is very easy to understand. There were two main reasons: 1. Labour had left the government essentially bankrupt, literally leaving the coalition a note that said "there's no money anywhere" iirc. The new government had come in and discovered the finances of the state had been utterly ruined. The numbers were stark and voters had accepted the argument that budget cutbacks were necessary to try and right the ship. Labour had sort of accepted that this situation was true, but failed to take it seriously. Miliband supposedly had a minor meltdown after he tried to give a long speech without notes, and then realized only afterwards that he'd forgotten the entire section about the deficit. That was the number one issue in British politics at the time! 2. The EU had been building as a bigger and bigger problem over time. Voters were increasingly upset that their concerns on major policy areas like immigration were being systematically ignored by all the major parties, except for the eurosceptic wing of the Tories. Neither Labour nor the mainline Tories nor the Lib Dems wanted to tackle this problem. UKIP came along and started hoovering up votes from both left and right by promising a referendum on the EU. Cameron saw what was happening and decided he could end UKIP, win the election and also crush the eurosceptics by promising an EU referendum he was convinced he could win. That caused a whole lot of voters to abandon UKIP and vote Tory in the correct belief that Cameron would honor his promise. The rest is history.

jemmyw 4y ago
Point 1 was pretty dumb if people believed that. The UK government wasn't in a unique position after the 2008 monetary crisis, but they were pretty much the only government that could have borrowed and spent out of it and didn't. The results seem to speak for themselves. I didn't know there was a building EU resentment (beyond the stupid stuff I'd heard growing up in the UK). I was living in Europe at the time. It all seems so bizarre.
- revelio 4y ago
  The issue for (1) was that the government had already been borrowing and spending a great deal. Blair was fairly restrained but after Brown came in, he opened the taps and government spending and borrowing skyrocketed. Then the financial crisis came in on top of that too. At any rate, regardless of what you think the right solution was, the population agreed that spending at such high levels above tax revenue wasn't sustainable and some cutbacks were needed. And again, remember, Labour accepted this argument! They didn't try to claim it was wrong. They just didn't seem to take it seriously and often forgot about it. So the Conservatives argued that Labour couldn't be trusted with the finances now Blair was gone and they'd create a re-run of the 70s, and voters agreed with that argument. Resentment against the EU had been building for years due partly to the totally incorrect initial claims made about immigration levels, and then the lack of interest/ability in controlling it. Even voters who weren't that affected by it saw that there were now real issues that affected local people which had effectively been removed from democracy and felt that was wrong. So there was a broad coalition being built by Farage, both the people who cared primarily about immigration levels and wage suppression of the working classes, and also those who cared about the constitutional issue it was exposing.
  - Lolaccount 4y ago
    "Blair was fairly restrained but after Brown came in, he opened the taps and government spending and borrowing skyrocketed. " That's an odd framing of events considering Brown came in midway through 2007. Just before the 2008 GFC. You make it sound like he went Brown went on a spending spree on a whim ... that isn't what happened. Any increased spending that took place when he became PM was easily within the scope of the UK economy. And considering National Debt was well managed until then (during a time when Brown was Chancellor), your recollection of what happened is wrong. https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/ https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-nationa...
    - revelio 4y ago
      Your own graph shows that during Brown's time debt went from 35% of GDP to 70% of GDP, and yet Labour had nothing to say on the topic of reducing government spending to slow down that skyrocketing rise. It was only after 2010 that the rate of growth slowed and eventually reached zero before lockdowns (a policy demanded by hard left academics) pushed it up to 100% of GDP. And that is exactly the point being made. Brown was in charge when the economy entered a crisis and yet was too left wing to slam the brakes on government spending in response. Voters reacted accordingly.
      - Lolaccount 4y ago
        I'm borderline incredulous at your interpretation ... were you around in 2008? Do you not remember bailing out the banks? Emergency stimuli to keep the economy going from recession to depression? Decreasing tax revenue as the economy entered recession? And yet, you say Brown was too left wing to slam on the brakes on government spending? ... we would be finished as a nation if you were in charge. It's just me and you. I'm sure no one else is reading this. So I'll just say. I'm quite confident you have no idea what you're talking about. Either you were too young at the time, no idea how the economy works (especially during a crisis) or ... let's leave it at that.
        4y ago

jemmyw 4y ago

Point 1 was pretty dumb if people believed that. The UK government wasn't in a unique position after the 2008 monetary crisis, but they were pretty much the only government that could have borrowed and spent out of it and didn't. The results seem to speak for themselves. I didn't know there was a building EU resentment (beyond the stupid stuff I'd heard growing up in the UK). I was living in Europe at the time. It all seems so bizarre.

revelio 4y ago
The issue for (1) was that the government had already been borrowing and spending a great deal. Blair was fairly restrained but after Brown came in, he opened the taps and government spending and borrowing skyrocketed. Then the financial crisis came in on top of that too. At any rate, regardless of what you think the right solution was, the population agreed that spending at such high levels above tax revenue wasn't sustainable and some cutbacks were needed. And again, remember, Labour accepted this argument! They didn't try to claim it was wrong. They just didn't seem to take it seriously and often forgot about it. So the Conservatives argued that Labour couldn't be trusted with the finances now Blair was gone and they'd create a re-run of the 70s, and voters agreed with that argument. Resentment against the EU had been building for years due partly to the totally incorrect initial claims made about immigration levels, and then the lack of interest/ability in controlling it. Even voters who weren't that affected by it saw that there were now real issues that affected local people which had effectively been removed from democracy and felt that was wrong. So there was a broad coalition being built by Farage, both the people who cared primarily about immigration levels and wage suppression of the working classes, and also those who cared about the constitutional issue it was exposing.
- Lolaccount 4y ago
  "Blair was fairly restrained but after Brown came in, he opened the taps and government spending and borrowing skyrocketed. " That's an odd framing of events considering Brown came in midway through 2007. Just before the 2008 GFC. You make it sound like he went Brown went on a spending spree on a whim ... that isn't what happened. Any increased spending that took place when he became PM was easily within the scope of the UK economy. And considering National Debt was well managed until then (during a time when Brown was Chancellor), your recollection of what happened is wrong. https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/ https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-nationa...
  - revelio 4y ago
    Your own graph shows that during Brown's time debt went from 35% of GDP to 70% of GDP, and yet Labour had nothing to say on the topic of reducing government spending to slow down that skyrocketing rise. It was only after 2010 that the rate of growth slowed and eventually reached zero before lockdowns (a policy demanded by hard left academics) pushed it up to 100% of GDP. And that is exactly the point being made. Brown was in charge when the economy entered a crisis and yet was too left wing to slam the brakes on government spending in response. Voters reacted accordingly.
    - Lolaccount 4y ago
      I'm borderline incredulous at your interpretation ... were you around in 2008? Do you not remember bailing out the banks? Emergency stimuli to keep the economy going from recession to depression? Decreasing tax revenue as the economy entered recession? And yet, you say Brown was too left wing to slam on the brakes on government spending? ... we would be finished as a nation if you were in charge. It's just me and you. I'm sure no one else is reading this. So I'll just say. I'm quite confident you have no idea what you're talking about. Either you were too young at the time, no idea how the economy works (especially during a crisis) or ... let's leave it at that.
      - 4y ago