I am starting to think that right-wing Labour MPs are giving up. I would like them to join the LDs, who need their brains and skills, but it is hard to walk from a movement one has put decades into.
The Labour Party has done its job, really. Whom does it represent any more? Union membership has halved since 1980. Public sector lower-paid workers, I suppose. New Labour was its last hurrah. It will form a rump, but I cannot see it forming a Government.
The Tories will get 400 seats at the next GE. We are effectively a one-party state now and that is very bad for democracy.
Yes but no but yes.
One thing that I learned from the Gang of Four and the whole SDP experiment was that you cannot create an electable new centrist party in the UK - not even with the likes of Michael Foot and Derek Hatton on the loose in the Labour Party.
The only way to break Conservative rule is to have a John Smith in charge of the Labour Party. From there you can have a Blair or a Brown.
I live in Australia where the leaders (and policies) of the Labour Party and our equivalent of the Conservatives are 100% interchangeable. It's lovely. And the country develops and goes forward because it is under never-ending centrist rule.
But that's not going to happen in the UK. And as I argued at the time, Ed Miliband's downfall was making the stupid commitment not to go into coalition with the SNP.
The only political future I see in the UK is a decade of Conservative austerity, ultimately driven by a post-Brexit low-tax, low-services model.
And then we will become America, with 20% of female university students supporting themselves by prostitution, and working class single parents working 2 full-time jobs and in doing so neglecting their kids who will do drugs and crime by night.
At that time a moderate Labour leader - my money is on Andy Burnham - will form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in about 2025. But by then Scotland will have gone, and the north will be seriously considering whether it prefers a future with Scotland rather than the southeast.
I saw in the Scotland thread that [MENTION=1842]James[/MENTION] has never really contemplated a choice for the north between union with southern England or Scotland.
But I think by 2025 there will be two parallel nations operating something like this:
Scotland: high taxes, universal free education and healthcare, median wage around 22,000 pounds in 2017 money. High taxes will mean very few BMW or Mercedes cars on the road because disposable income for the middle class and above will be limited.
England: low taxes, user-pays for education and healthcare, median wage around 30,000 pounds in 2017 money. Lots of conspicuous wealth, abolition of minimum wage will mean introduction of maids for the upper middle classes and above, but widespread poverty too, with many people working 2 full-time jobs like in the USA and rapid expansion of drug gangs in poor areas.
If you ask a teacher or a nurse or a policeman in Sheffield which model suits them better, they will not pick the low-tax, low-services one.
