Re: [A-List] Michael Howard/ Galloway

["Chalmers, Douglas" <D.Chalmers@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting times in several ways


On Friday, October 31, 2003, at 09:13  am, Michael Keaney wrote:

> Absolutely incredible, isn't it? This guy plunged into deserved
> obscurity
> once William Hague took over the reins. IDS plucked him back in order
> to get
> rid of Portillista Francis Maude. He symbolised everything that was
> widely
> regarded as wrong with the Major administration. Even Major himself
> counted
> Howard among the "bastards" in the cabinet.
>
> All that Howard is got going for him is credibility in the nasty
> stakes. IDS
> may have been Tebbit's anointed successor, but he never had the
> charisma to
> play the role of attack dog convincingly. Howard can certainly do
> that, but
> at the cost of further dehumanising the image of the party.

Interestingly so far, the majority of Tory MPs seem to back him,
including pro-europeans such as Portillo, who is really the only
sensible future leader of the Tories, in terms of winning any public
opinion.  On e way of reading this is that the Tories are going to lose
the next election ( so there is little reason for Portillo to attempt
to win leadership at the moment). Howard is about 64 year old, so
presumably he'll take them through the defeat of the next election,
personally damaging Blair on the way - I think he's one of the few
speakers Blair does not handle well at all at question time.

Following the defeat at the next election, Portillo will then have good
leverage to push for himself to replace Howard. He said as much on the
late night politics show yesterday evening - saying the end of a
Parliament's life is not when you start modernising a party ( ie the
tories), rather it should happen at the start of a Parliamentary
session.

>
> Barring any mortal wounds (self)inflicted upon New Labour (as opposed
> to
> Blair himself, who is expendible), the state party will continue in
> office
> while the Liberal Democrats supplant the Conservatives as official
> opposition, thus shifting the centre of gravity in British politics
> towards
> Europe and away from the US. Of course running counter to that is the
> right
> wing of New Labour, in a bizarre alliance with the left of Old Labour,
> united in their Atlanticist social chauvinism, but the left is dying
> (Galloway's expulsion a clear demonstration)

The first views of my colleagues (who have been generally supportive of
Galloway) on this, are that he's made a mistake by saying he will
personally challenge labour/ Blair by contesting every seat in the
European elections in England on an anti war ticket. The consensus
seems to be that this undermines his credibility with Euro electors,
who will vote to have someone represent them in the Euro Parliament,
rather than voting in the Euro Elections as a protest. Centre left
voters (unless very committed) may say that his commitment to fighting
all seats on a principle weakes his commitment to any individual seat -
which many voters will want.

The additional fact that he has not chosen to resign his own
Westminster seat immediately, and force a by-election, but rather will
retain it, and fight the General election in the new Central seat -
contesting against Britain's only Muslim MP (Labour), I fear will
weaken his chances considerably.

Douglas




> and the right wing is seriously
> weakened by the negative impact of the Bush administration with
> respect to
> British public opinion, which is remarkably in tune with the rest of
> Europe
> in its perceptions of the neocons, despite the best efforts of Rupert
> Murdoch and Conrad Black.
>
> Speaking of which, Anne wrote a while back that the neocons would soon
> be
> courting the Dums as their Republican support base began to fragment.
> True
> to form, a lead author in the latest issue of Black's neocon vanity
> publication, "The National Interest", is Joe Lieberman.
>
> see http://www.nationalinterest.org/
>
> Michael
>
>
>
Dr. Douglas Chalmers
Division of Economics and Enterprise
Glasgow Caledonian University
70 Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 OBA
Scotland

Tel 	0141 331 3350
Fax 	0141 331 3293

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