David Cameron: New Labour died on the streets of Crewe and Nantwich

A few minutes ago David Cameron gave a victory speech to Conservative supporters in Crewe and Nantwich.  Here are his key messages (not verbatim):

• The men in top hats are gone!  Labour threw everything at Edward Timpson but they failed.
• Labour fought the most xenophobic, class war-rooted, backward-looking, negative, divisive campaign and it failed.  They showed that they were no longer the party of aspiration.  New Labour died on the streets of Crewe and Nantwich.
• Voters didn't stay at home, didn't vote Labour, didn't vote LibDem - they voted Conservative.
• But we will not give one hint of triumphalism or complacency.  A by-election isn't a General Election.  People have given us trust and we now need to earn it.
• We must build the biggest coalition of change; something different, something bigger.  We must end the era of top-down, bossy, high-taxing and wasting government.

Comments

[Chris Wyremski]

"We must end the era of top-down, bossy, high-taxing and wasting government".

Good idea. But how? with Dave Cameron!?

[EML]

"New Labour died on the streets of Crewe and Nantwich."

Exactly. New Labour were the most impressive electoral coalition this country has seen for a long time. Unfortunately for Labour, Tony Blair didn't really leave behind any significant deep-routed change, either in the country or in his party, and it is showing now as Labour unravel in the face of a disenchanted electorate and revert to type.

Now is a chance for Cameron to built an equally impressive coalition - this time on the centre-right - except this one has to be Built to Last.

[James Burdett]

Watching Cameron's remarks and the PM's interview from the hospital (whoever put that in the schedule is a plank) one can see why Brown cannot beat Cameron. David Cameron did what a PM should, rove widely over the political terrain showing big picture leadership. Brown got asked two or three questions, I can't remember what they were because the answers were almost identical in each case. The guy doesn't get that vision is a broad thing not a narrow technical exercise. I think Liam Fox got it spot on last night with his 'Sat-Nav' comments.

[Tony Makara]

What now are the odds on a 'Traditional Labour' group forming within the Labour party? It will not stave off defeat but would probably save the seats of many Labour MPs in traditional Labour strongholds. This is a strategy the Labour party should now adopt. Labour need to retain significant numbers if they hope to avoid a generation in the political wilderness. The scale of their defeat could be enormous if they don't find a way to reengage their traditional core supporters.

[RichardJ]

"What now are the odds on a 'Traditional Labour' group forming within the Labour party?"

There was some discussion in the chatroom last night that apparently the Unions are planning to start funding another party. That would be the end for Labour and the new party would be too left-wing to obtain power.

[Bob B]

Amidst all these worrying news reports of looming challenges to George Brown's position as New Labour leader and prime minister, is anyone yet mounting a petition to save him?

If so, where can we sign up?

[Bexie]

I suspect that this is rather inevitable for them now since there is a generation of political lightweights and opportunists in the PLP rather than the fiery "fighters for the people" that Dunwoody represented. As such they are unlikely to go back to that until they are firmly kicked into touch

[London Tory]

I recall a prescient article by Matthew Parris some years ago, in The Times I think, just after a Blair landslide. He predicted that such was the sheer unworldleness and oddness of the new generation of Labour MPs, that when their political star eventually waned, the British people would suddenly turn on them and evict them with a real hatred.

The Parliamentary Labour Party has been hoist by its own petard. They cheered Brown's Budget in 2007 which cut the 10p tax rate. They nodded through Brown's non election following the coup against Blair. And now they are stuck with a palpable loser. Just witness Brown's clunking response this morning. The motorist now paying £1.14 a litre gets lectured about a 'world wide economic downturn', a line which the appalling Tasmin Dunwoody risibly resorted to following her defeat. Isn't the ultimate irony that this Party of political geeks, special advisers and Westminster Village bubblers- Ed Balls, the brothers Miliband, Andy Burnham, James Purnell, Liam Byrne, Yvette Cooper...all actually have the temerity to claim to be on the side of [Labour speak coming up here] "hard working families".

They lack empathy with ordinary people, but above all they all lack political class. Speak-your-weight politicians who have never had a real job between them.

[MagicAldo]

London Tory, much as I want to agree with you, please note that "political geeks, special advisers and Westminster Village bubblers" is a good description of the Parliamentary Conservative Party also, and that "hard working families" could equally come out of David Cameron's mouth.

[Tanuki]

No doubt Labour's apparatchiks are right now polishing their backstabbing-daggers....
I wonder if Gordon Brown is wearing his stab-proof vest.

Question is though, will a general election be forced or will Labour tough it out to the end?

[Bob B]

Tough it out, most likely. Personally, I was absolutely amazed that hunting with dogs wasn't pulled out of the cupboard and "revisited" for the umpteenth time.

"For those who don't know the figures, by the way, more than 700 hours of parliamentary time were devoted to the hunting ban, as against seven hours spent on the decision to invade Iraq, a comparison that sums up the way we are governed."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1412158,00.html

[Mark Williams]

It want't just New Labour. Less obvious, but the Lib Dems should have been the recipients of some disaffected Labour votes, yet their vote share went down by 4%. The were beaten in the "Potholes & Pavements" game, out-leafletted and out-campaigned.

[Tony Makara]

This from a heartbroken Labour supporter on The Times comments section:

"Gordon for gods sake make the tories go away!"

I think whoever wrote that had better get used to seeing more Tories from this point on!

[Oberon]

Interesting thread on Labourhome.org analysing the fallout from all this.

What caught my eye most that the amount of disillusionment with Labour’s Record in office. Even the support is questioning the record of this Labour Government.

http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/5/23/12754/6149

[Yogi]

NuLab has always been triumph of style over substance. There has never been any substance to it - no principled position on anything but run by focus groups, presented to the gullible electorate by the vacuous but very slick Blair. Blair's speeches were without verbs and targeted the PowerPoint generation. In 1997, Britain was at peace with itself, with the treasury in good shape and thanks to a few rotten apples, we looked shifty.

NuLab then spent its way to two more victories, using up all the money and yet more by borrowing recklessly.

When the style started to fade and the brand got damaged, NuLab ditched the salesman and then there was nothing, except void.

Brown and his men know that their game is up and they will go on scorched earth policy for Cameron to pick up the pieces.

We are in for a rough ride.

[Rob]

Is it not now time to consider a motion of no confidence in this Government?

A serious tactic which ordinarily should not be used, I assume, unless you have a chance of winning, but it would capture the mood of the country and there may be some Labour MPs now willing to put a hole in the side of Brown's ship. Not enough to win the vote, I'd guess, but maybe enough to wound him enough to set the wheels in motion.

I don't think the country can stand for two more years of this, nor should it.

[Libertarian]

It was "Old Labour" that died on the streets of Crewe & Nantwich. Brown's policies and campaign messages are Old Labour. That's what the voters rejected. Brown is hated just like Foot and Kinnock.

There is a generation of Blairite MPs who are fearing the loss of their seats. They will be looking for the new Blair to save them. Step forward Alan Milburn.

[Henry Cook]

The untold story of this by election is how dismally the Lib Dems have done. If we put as much effort into Henley as we did into Crewe and Nantwich, and win big, then the Lib Dems will be in a lot of trouble... Who knows, maybe that symbolic defection we've been looking for is only just around the corner!

[Sally Roberts]

Let's celebrate today - goodness knows we deserve it - but we cannot and MUST not be complacent! On to Henley next which is going to be a rather more tricky proposition against the Little Orange Peril! I am sure we will triumph again but must beware hubris!

[Sally Roberts]

"Brown and his men know that their game is up and they will go on scorched earth policy for Cameron to pick up the pieces.

We are in for a rough ride."

I suspect you're right, Yogi, but more fool them!!

[Philip]

David Cameron said We must end the era of top-down, bossy, high-taxing and wasting government.
But I think it was Ed Miliband on BBC R4 at 1pm worrying that the Tories "still believe" in Government "withdrawing", while Labour believes in Government involvement. This might be the message they use to try to fight back - try to make people feel 'secure' under the care of Labour’s supposedly benevolent Big State, and paint a bleak picture of life without it. Of course we can point out the utter failure of state-based solutions as evidenced by increasing brokenness in society and rising violent crime and anti-social behaviour...Better to encourage marriage to build family, and the independent voluntary sector to play a role etc. And of course there's the ongoing decline in public services (ward and A&E closure, declining education standards...) after all the extra tax we pay..

And David Cameron said Labour fought the most xenophobic, class war-rooted, backward-looking, negative, divisive campaign and it failed. They showed that they were no longer the party of aspiration.

Indeed we are the future, rather than nasty, high-tax, Labour

[RobD]

Dave is right to paint this as a loss for Labour. The risk is that if we go in too hard for Brown alone they will get rid of him and allow the spinners to paint the next PM as some kind of New New Labour leader. The fact is that while Brown is a disasterous figurehead, the failures we are seeing today are Labours failures due to 11 years of bad management by the party as a whole, not just Brown.

[David Lindsay]

If there is a real story at all in the Tories' winning a marginal seat in Cheshire two years before a General Election, then it is that Cameron can win without having to please the Tory base in the least, and indeed while defining himself against it for the amusement of the BBC/Fleet Street dinner party circuit.

So, all you tax-cutters and benefit-cutters, and people who inexplicably define themselves as Tories despite being Eurosceptics, family values believers, or tough on crime (were you asleep, or just out of the country, when the Tories were in office?), you can forget it. Cameron has proved that he can be as vicious as he likes to you and still win.

You have no hope either way in 2010. The economic rightists among you, and those of you still insisting against all the evidence that there is somehow something "Thatcherite" about patriotism or social conservatism, should all abstain, so that the consequent collapse of the Tories even after all the hype can lead to the emergence of one or more parties speaking for you instead.

After all, according to the next Tory Leader, George "Children Don't Need Fathers" Osborne, mentioning immigration (at least to the lower orders, who are most affected by it) is "dog-whistle politics", and any party that does it is "the nasty party".

Remember that one.

[Sean Fear]

Does anyone understand what David Lindsay is trying to say?

[David Lindsay]

How about this, then, Sean Fear?

Unlike Angela Watkinson, Cameron signed the Select Committee report that recommended downgrading cannabis.

Unlike much of his party, Cameron voted in favour of the Sexual Orientation Regulations.

Unlike most of his party, Cameron voted in favour of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Cameron whipped his party to support the Government Bill that banned the creation of any more grammar schools.

And so forth.

Now, after the mere capture of a marginal seat in Cheshire two years before a General Election, this approach is being held up as a triumph, so that there can, and will, be no departure from it either before or (if the Tories win) after the next General Election.

So New Labour might have died last night, but it rose again instantly as the Mod Cons. If you vote for them, then that is what you are voting for.

But stay at home (because it won't make any political difference who wins), and their consequent collapse should ensure that you have someone to vote for the next time.

[Sean Fear]

Very selective. Cameron (like the vast majority of his party) voted for a reduction in time limits for abortion, and against the provision for removal of the need for a father; the Conservatives have promised to up the IHT limit to £1m, and introduce tax reductions for married couples; they oppose early release for prisoners; they oppose the Lisbon treaty; they are in favour of cutting immigration from non-EU countries from present levels.

So, it's a bit disingenuous to claim that Crewe is some sort of vindication of ignoring Conservative issues.

[David Lindsay]

"Cameron (like the vast majority of his party) voted for a reduction in time limits for abortion"

Nadine Dorries has suggested that the time limit for abortion would come down if the Tories won the next General Election.

The American Republican Party has been keeping itself in existence like that for forty years: promising to ban or at least restrict abortion, but never doing the slightest thing about it, because those on whose votes it has come to depend would then declare "Mission Accomplished" and go home to the Democratic Party, whence they came and where their economic interest actually lies.

But the Tories could never pull off that trick here. Just as by far the most socialised sector would still never vote Labour in a million years, so the Catholics and the black-majority churches would never vote Tory in a million years. That's just the way it is.

"against the provision for removal of the need for a father"

George Osborne wants to be Tory Leader after David Cameron. He probably will be. This week, he voted with the eighty-two per cent of Labour MPs who believe that children have no right to a father and that birth certificates should feature the absurdity of two women listed as the child's parents. Need I say more?

It was, of course, Margaret Thatcher who destroyed the economic base of paternal authority, initially in working-class families and communities, but very rapidly throughout society once that dam had been breached. She also introduced the practice of mothers effectively married to the State, which was unheard of before the 1980s.

"the Conservatives have promised to up the IHT limit to £1m"

But they went around C&N pretending that they would restore the 10p rate, which they have no plans to do. IHT is in any case paid almost exclusively by people who already vote Tory, most of them living in safe Tory seats.

"tax reductions for married couples"

Believe in that when you see it. It was the Tories who abolished the old ones.

"they oppose the Lisbon treaty"

They do no such thing. They just calculated (correctly) that people would assume they did if they kept going on about a referendum, which they knew that they were never going to get. They never said that they would campaign for a No vote, and their record is such that they would undoubtedly have signed up to Lisbon without protest if they had been in office, before mercilessly whipping it through Parliament.

"they oppose early release for prisoners"

They invented it, and merrily implemented in when in office.

"they are in favour of cutting immigration from non-EU countries from present levels"

No, they just let people assume that they are. Well, they did. Now, by mentioning it at all, you are blowing on your dog whistle, and are therefore "nasty". George Osborne says so.

"So, it's a bit disingenuous to claim that Crewe is some sort of vindication of ignoring Conservative issues"

That's how they are already selling it.

[F T P Topcliff]

Wrong David Lindsay. Now the electorate are prepared to listen to us again we stand a chance of influencing it, instead of only having to conform to it. There'll be a gentle leading of public option to the right, which let's face it, where public opinion IS on many issues. Not too far, not too fast, not too far ahead or out of line. And the marginal calls that come up will come our way more and more.

(c) New Labour

[David Lindsay]

On what? Drugs? Embryology? Grammar schools? What?

And that's before Osborne takes over...

[Chad Noble]

"They never said that they would campaign for a No vote,"

David, that is incorrect as Cameron did say he would vote 'no'.

However, that small point aside, I'm convinced that the euro will be adopted during the next parliament whether Cameron or Brown is in power.

[woodentop]

I don't understand what David Lindsay is trying to say either!

[Oscar Miller]

Labour fought the most xenophobic, class war-rooted, backward-looking, negative, divisive campaign and it failed. They showed that they were no longer the party of aspiration.

Have you noticed that the BBC throughout the day has edited out the first part of this statement and broadcast only the last sentences starting with 'they are no longer the party of aspiration' and culminating in saying it's the end of new labour (which has been their headline). So instead of the attack on the way Labour conducted their campaign, intended by Cameron, the BBC are insinuating that he adopted a triumphalist stance, which of course Cameron was at pains to avoid. Typical BBC.

[Oscar Miller]

David Lindsay - you're obviously upset and agitated. I suggest you try to relax and get out more. It will take your mind off your troubles and soothe your fevered imagination.

[LS]

C&N is a marginal seat? Since when???

[David Lindsay]

Since it only had a majority of seven thousand, LS.

Chad Noble, just as it takes a Labour Government to wage wars all over the place while flogging off the hospitals to crooks and the schools to cranks, so it would take a Tory Government to join the Euro, hand over Gibraltar, pull out of Northern Ireland, dissolve the Union with Scotland, and legislate for the monarchy to die with the present Queen.

Expect the Cameroons to do all of these things. If you don't want them, then don't vote Tory. If you don't want to wage wars all over the place while flogging off the hospitals to crooks and the schools to cranks, then don't vote Labour. And don't vote Lib Dem. Just don't.

[DARREN NOBLE]

HOW COME YOUR A MEMBER OF A PARTY THAT STANDS UP FOR FAMILY VALUES? IS IT TRUE YOU HAVNT SPOKE TO YOUR MUM,DAD,SISTER,BROTHER,UNCLES AND COUSINS FOR 20 YEARS? NOT VERY FAMILY ORIENTATED ARE YOU?

[David Lindsay]

Is that addressed to me? If so, then I don't understand it. And some of the people listed are dead, anyway.