Alright. Anzar is ousted. Can someone enlighten me when Blair is up?

[matcom]

aren't the British elections being held before ours? when is it?

oh what a HUGE blow to chimpy if BOTH Spain and England upset his 'coalition' of the lying!

any DUers know when this takes place?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

1. Are the Lib Dems against the war?

Somehow I can't bring myself to consider a Tory victory a good thing.

[Vladimir]

12. A Lib Dem victory would hardly be any better

The Lib Dems have a proven track record of governing from the right in local government. This is because most of their swing seats are contested with the Tories, so the Lib Dems have to move to the right to attract disaffected Tory voters. They would be no better than Labour.

V

[truthspeaker]

14. Lib Dems have been against the war from the get-go

[keithyboy]

29. Don't worry about Blair. Worry about Bush!

Bush is the main threat to world peace, security, and prosperity.

[burythehatchet]

2. Problem is he's labor

the party would need to oust a twice elected PM

[ithacan]

11. it happened to Thatcher..

if the Labourites think that sticking with Blair will drag the party down the tubes, they are likely to dump him the way the Conservatives dumped Thatcher when she became a liability.

[Oggy]

3. Sometime May 2006

or before. The current Government chooses the date, but the maximum length of time between elections is 5 Years.

[burythehatchet]

4. what are the chances of Blair being dumped?

[Spentastic]

8. Slim to none

Blair may resign. But he's a messianic nutter so it's unlikely.

[Kellanved]

5. The sad thing about Blair is: Labour is supposed to be the good guys

A Tory PM would be far worse than Blair.



The real question is: will there be a new candidate in the 2006 Elections.

PS: The next Elections in the UK are scheduled for spring 2006.

[ulysses]

9. New Labour is the equivalent of the New Dems, isn't it?

If we're ever able to break free of the corrosive effects of the "third way" track, maybe the Brits will too.

[Spentastic]

6. Sorry to piss on everybody's bonfire here.

Blair is pretty much as safe as houses.

There is no effective oppositon in the U.K. If you want the Tories back in power, you're madder than a bag of spiders. There is no effective oppostion within the Labour Party. Only Brown could challenge and it looks like the IMF will pay him to stay out of Tony's way. The liberal democrats unfortunately do not appeal to the masses. They are a growing force but as yet unelectable.

Even if there were a major terrorist attack on the U.K I do not believe that the British populace would react in the same way as the Spanish. There is a rabidly nationalistic centre that would probably support the nuking of a brown country to assuage the pain.

[AP]

10. I want to elaborate on the last paragraph:

This is SO true. The UK is one of the most institutionally conservative countries in the world.

Sometimes I can't believe they have a labor government at all. In fact the only reason they do, in my opinion, is because the right wing took such shocking liberties during the Thatcher-Major years, they pushed things too far. But they wouldn't have acted with such impugnity unless they felt safe doing so within a society so deeply conservative.

I also wonder if the Tories are secretly happy that Blair is PM now not because they approve of his policies, but because (like Clinton did for Bush) he's building up a lot of wealth in the middle class, and a lot of social wealth, which will give the Tories something to steal (and shift to the top) next time they are in power.

[Spentastic]

13. Ooops

Don't confuse nationalistic and Conservative. They share traits but are not identical.

The reason we have a Labour government is that Thatcher essentially went mad and then subsequent Tory leaders just started looting with impunity. I think we just agreed.

What I don't see is Tony creating middle class wealth. He's futhering the policies of his rwing predecessors. Privatisation and selling out to big business. He sounds nice, but there are no redistributive policies in place.

Watch the housing market to see how people are "increasing" their wealth. It's a bubble, people are borrowing against money they do not have. The only people who will benefit from Blair's economy are the banks.

[AP]

17. Someone (murielV?) posted a link to a study on wealth distribution in the

UK since Blair took over.

I believe it showed the greatest percentage growth in wealth in the bottom two quintiles, and growing wealth in all quintiles.

The banks benefit the most when everyone is living off an overdraft. I believe that salaries are going up, which means the opportunity to reduce debt has increased.

We've had this debate before. I think you're absolutely right. As wealth increases, private industry tries to find ways to tap into it. But that's not excuse not to pursue policies that increase middle and working class wealth. The battle to protect people from those with hands in their pockets is a separate battle which requires just as much vigilance as the battle to increase the value of labor.

If you have nothing, all you have to sell is your labor, and Blair, through 30 year record-low unemployment, and increasing salaries, has managed to increase wealth the most in the lowest two quntiles (if memory serves) by increasing the amount of money those quintiles make from selling their labor.

It totally sucks that housing prices are shooting up, and that consumerism is increasing. However, power is spreading down and out.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Yes and no

This may be the March 2003 report (PDF) from the independent IFS. It shows a lot of growth in inequality under Thatcher (no surprise there); a decrease in inequality under Major (the economy did badly, but the richer you were, the worse you did); and a fairly level growth under Blair. The Gini coefficient has slightly increased under Blair.

I don't have too much of a problem with Blair's (or Brown's?) handling of the economy overall (but it's not exactly radical Labour, so I see why traditional Labour supporters are disappointed), apart from the enrichment of the public-private partnership companies; it's the foreign policy I object to above all.

[Spentastic]

20. My problem

With the economy is that plenty of it is phantom growth. Too much borrowing, not enough producing. Someone will pay, likely the next generation.

As for foreign policy, we don't have one. Well we do, but it's defined by GW Bush.

[AP]

23. Increasing employment and wages isn't phantom growth.

Like I said, you have two battles you have to fight on the left:

(1) You have to get political economic and cultural power down to people in the middle and on the bottom. You do that by educating them, getting them jobs, and putting money in their pockets. Blair is doing this extremely well.

(2) You have to fend off the people who try to steal that power once the people on the bottom have a little wealth and power. This is where the institutional conservativism in Britain, and the advatages people on the top already have, make Blair's job harder. The banks have always been too powerful in the UK. It's hard to fight to keep their hands out of peoples' pockets.

Look at what happened in the US viz #2: Clinton passed tons of power to the middle class (however, people at the top increased their power at a much higher rate than people in the middle). When Bush took power, it was incredibly easy to take all that power amassed in the middle and shift it to the top.

How'd they do it? Through an incredibly compromised congress which passed tax bills and appropriations bills which satisfied their corporate sponsors. Through a war which the public hates. Through neoliberalism. And it was easy for people at the top to get these things because, as I said, even Clinton allowed them to amass power at greater rates than people in the middle and at the bottom. They were much more powerful than everyone else when they started.

That's why Blair's trying to increase the wealth and power of the bottom two quintiles the most. It's supposed to be a bullwark against fascism next time the Tories take over.

[AP]

21. Correct me if I'm wrong: largest growth in bottom quintile?

Seond greatest growth in second lowest quintile?

It's not radical Labour, but British society -- so insitutionally conservative -- could never tolerate radical labourism.

Still, absolutely remarkable (and not accidental) that life got bettter at the greatest rate for people on the bottom since Blair took over.

To me, that's the definition of progress and liberalism: flowing political, economic and cultural power downwards and outwards, rather than narrowly upwards.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. As you can see from the chart

largest in second lowest quintile, then lowest quintile, then highest, then middle, then second highest.

The IFS also has a spreadsheet giving details of income, both before and after housing costs, by decile, at http://www.ifs.org.uk/inequality/bn19figs.xls

What this shows is that housing costs hit the poor more.

share of national income
BHC = before housing costs; AHC = after housing costs

decile   1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     10
BHC    0.029 0.047 0.056 0.066 0.076 0.087 0.100 0.117 0.145 0.278
AHC    0.018 0.041 0.052 0.064 0.075 0.087 0.101 0.119 0.148 0.294

This started to happen during the 80s (ie Thatcher), and we've never got back (probably the lack of council-owned housing is to blame). Back in 1979, the share of the bottom 10% was 0.042 BHC and 0.040 AHC - more than twice the share now. By 1990, it was 0.029 & 0.021.

[Vladimir]

27. Quick note on the housing

housing prices are rising because there is a huge shortage of houses as much as anything. Gordon Brown is actually becoming quite desperate to solve this praticular problem.

V

[AP]

18. RE confusing naitonalistic and conservative, what I was saying is that

the UK is institutionally conservative in that there is so much looking backwards that is deeply ingrained. Not only does it help keep Tories in power on issues like hating change, loving the pound, hating immigration, etc, it encourages a streak of nationalism that would result in the desire to bomb a brown country.

[rman]

22. couldn't the Brittish people call for Blair to step down

and for labor to choose another (not-Tory-in-disguise) leader?

[Dead_Parrot]

7. As soon as...

...we get the chance to kick his worthless ass out of there :grr:

[truthspeaker]

15. Would it be possible to force a confidence vote

by voting down the 3rd reading of the student top-up fees bill? It would take a lot of balls, but back-benchers could issue an ultimatum: replace Blair with Cook or we're switching to Lib Dem or Socialist.

[burythehatchet]

16. Oh what wonderful theatre that would make.

A very pleasant thought

[T_i_B]

24. Blair ain't going

He does not have to call an election before June 2006, although it is generally thought thatb he will call it in 2005. he has a massive landslide majority, and the biggest opposition party is the tories, who are in no shape to challenge Blair and even then, they are as bad as he is if not worse. Blair is in an unassailable position electorally, which is a lot of the reason why "new" labour has allowed itself to become so arrogant and out of touch.

The Spainish election result is a blow to Blair as Aznar was a big ally of his, but Blair will get over this I'm sure.

[Cleita]

26. You beat me to it.

If the Brits get Blair out, then we might have a Europe united against us. Good going Dumbya, turning our traditioanl allies against us. If he gets re-selected in November, I don't think the rest of the industrialized Democratic nations of the world are going to sit this one out again. The rise of world terrorism won't let them not take some action this time. How they will put the squeeze on our fascist federal government? I hope whatever it is, that these Repigs end up in prison where they belong.

[sweetheart]

28. Italy and France

These 2 states are more likely to change government before Tony
Blair.

Mr Blair knows 1 thing. Most of his term is over. This means he
is already slightly, and every day more so, a lame duck to his heir
appearant.

Labour will not lose power. The conservatives are duffers.

Blair's england is "core" to the alliance, and is not worth attacking
from the al queda point of view. Better to waste military action
on places where it WILL have an impact in polarizing against the
USA. They are picking fringe alliance members. Italy and france
should be on alert, as the non-polarized fringe of the EU is what
is exposed. Even Chriraq is pro-bush, being himself a republican
neocon, just a french one.

The news censorship is rife in britain, and no truth is out. Blair
has deballed the BBC. There is no open debate about the drugs war,
as all opposing opinion is censored (internet aside). A few
letters to the editor are let through, but no coherent arguments
are presented in public for a change to the status quo. Blair is
using media censorship to keep his adgenda on track, which is,
similar to bush, to do great neoliberal things abroad whilst
repressing his own people and sticking it to his minorities and
filling his prisons with nonviolent drugs offenders.