UK General Election of 1992 and the 'Shy Tory' Factor

[gopconservative78]

@19189073 That would be great combat

[moyneugo8]

yes, where is the next part. Very Compelling. The electorate are going to have major reservations about voting for Ed Miliband as Taoiseach in the same way that they had reservations about Neil Kinnock.

[199019852007]

at 1:117 the labour party got to cocky alreadly claiming the gold before the medals had been handed out

[newshound1000]

Does anyone agree with me that the general election this year is sort of a rehash of the 1992 campaign (besides a stronger LibDem influence).

[vaj99]

Ive got a feeling Browns gonna be around

for a long time!

[kingofpunk1977]

I was out of the country when this rally was held. Kinnock is the most arrogant twit of the 90's

[conostar]

I liked major, he was a good honest man

[charlieiscool1000]

tories better win on May 7th were fed up of failed labour

[markinyo76]

@charlieiscool1000 You'll be fed up of the failed Tories too after a couple of years of Cameron and his clueless spivs.

[abhudson14]

lets hope we dont see this again a troy victory

[splinterbyrd]

does anyone know the name of the documantary tis came from?

[jamesmichael83]

century of the self episode 4 with adam curtis

[kyleovyick]

How much bigger were party conferences back then? Labour's looks huge there.

[sehort]

I was staggered when the tories got back in for a 4th term, the demise of the working class, the poll-tax, & to win again in a recession with intrest rates touching 16%?? - Could'nt believe it!

[Awitsaduck]

@sehort Good. The working class are just those who leech from the middle classe

[ThePAULOPABLO]

@sehort Why has everyone got it in for high interest rates. It encourages high levels of saving. Unlike Labour who prefers everyone to be in mountains of debt. Low interest rates encourages house prices to rise too which is the reason very few people can get onto the property ladder these days. Interest rates are also very high it is only home owners that benefit from low interest rates.

[ThePAULOPABLO]

@sehort John Major promised to get rid of the Poll Tax which he did (It was only introduced due to everyone hating the council tax). It was not the worst recession ever that would be the one we just had and the double dip due soon.

[sehort]

Great if you are fortunate like you obviously are to have savings! As a home owner & millions of others like me we're at the time - it was the first time ever, me & my wife felt what it's like to be really screwed! I've never felt that since! A lot of us have long memories with the tories

[ThePAULOPABLO]

Fortunate if you own a home I can never own a home thanks to people like you. If you ever read the news the average age to get on the property ladder is now 38 this country is a mess and a joke.

[sehort]

I don't own my home or ever will! But thanks to your lot, having to pay £640 a month on a 50k mortgage in 1992, did'nt exactly encourage things from the start

[ThePAULOPABLO]

Well I have little saving's no job and if you want to rent a reasonble one bed flat you have to pay £500. Also you have to pay 18.8% interest on credit cards.. The problem that both parties has failed to address is that house prices are too expensive in the first place.

[Indul1]

@sehort I really think the English are bascially conservative...to have given 14 million votes to a party whose economic management in the late 1980's was beyond incompetent, Poll tax, water privitization, huge growth in poverty and inequality...interest rates double digit and home repossessions...

[charlieiscool1000]

labour are bacisally anti English pro immgrant twats who favour europe and other middle easten countries over there own blair and brown ingored the ppl and look how our once great country has been destoryed the tories actaully want too conserve britian not give it all up or sell it down the river

[markinyo76]

@charlieiscool1000 A stupid, ill informed comment if ever I heard one.

[NatDemUK]

@Indul1 It was not conservative but rather liberal for the Conservative Party to do that since they changed to a new ideology

[Myndir]

Many of the hard facts in UK political history go against the general historical narrative. Wilson won no new votes for Labour in 1964 and was only 13 seats ahead of the supposedly useless Douglas-home, getting only 203,000 more votes. A lot of this had to do with an unsustainable Keynesian "dash for growth" by the Tory chancellor, however. It also goes against common narratives that the two great Keynesian periods/disasters came under the Tories in 1963-1964 and 1971-1973.

[ClockworkVocoder]

"Shy Tory' factor or "Ballot-rigging' factor"?

Read James Long's "Game Ten".

[Myndir]

I looked it up; turns out it comes under the fiction section.

There have been problems with vote-rigging in recent years in the UK, but only since postal voting was introduced. Guess which party has been the culprit in every case...

[ClockworkVocoder]

In a non-fiction author's note, James Long explains the "facts that lie behind this book," and the "statistical oddity" - a probability of 4000-1 - of seven "anamolous seats" beginning with the initial letters A, B, C and two more beginning with S and T....

[ClockworkVocoder]

The journalist Nick Davies: "Earlier this year ['94], the BBCs former economics correspondent...published a novel...in which he explored the fictional possibilities of several eye-catching statistics from the 1992 general election. His first point was that the Governments majority of 21 seats would have been wiped out if they had lost eleven key marginals where the total number of votes on which their victories turned was a mere 1,241.

nickdavies[.]net/1994/10/01/ho­w-to-fiddle-an-election/

[TroyaE117]

Yes, it is called "Send in the Clowns".

[McGeachan]

Does anyone know the tune played at the beginning of Labour's ill-fated Sheffield Rally? Thanks in advance

[Myndir]

The documentary is "The Century of the Self" by Adam Curtis. Curtis tends to be all style and no substance, but he has his moments...

[poossum12345]

I mean just look at the decrepit people who 'will form the next government'

They don't exactly fill you with confidence do they? No one they got destroyed at least in popular vote terms.

[Herodotus99]

"Your next Prime Minister, Neil Kinnock"

LMFAO

[TheWilliamcale]

this is great stuff! thanks so much for posting..old labour was a disaster for Britian and new labour was 75% neo liberal..it bloody well took them nearly 20 years to figure out reality

[Erech01]

New Labour isnt neo-liberal, New Labour is just the Conservatives with a different new, regardless of who wins the next election its the same thing. New Labour or Blue Labour, it doesnt matter.

[TheWilliamcale]

so what are you then? i'm curious..

[Myndir]

People who think that "Labour and the Tories are just the same" ignore the fact that most British people don't go for black-and-white politics, but different-shades-of-grey politics. Most people in this country are moderate liberals who dislike both the far left and the far right.

The reason there are no successful democratic socialist/fascist/social democrat/libertarian parties in the UK is because, at the end of the day, we aren't a radical country.

[madabbafan]

Major only won (just) as Labour were still unelectable.

The pre-election victory rally that Labour held probalby made the election go from the 'hung parliamnet - labour biggest party' prediction to the Conservative majority result overnight.

[Myndir]

"only won (just)"

The Conservatives in 1992 won over 14,000,000 votes (the biggest number of votes ever won in a UK election) and nearly 3,000,000 more than Labour. It was only even vaguely close because the FPTP voting system favours Labour.

People forget: more people voted for John Major's Tories in 1992 than voted for Tony Blair's Labour in 1997. I doubt, given public apathy today, a British Prime Minister will have a bigger mandate than John Major for decades to come.

[madabbafan]

You forget the total number of votes does not matter. It is the number of seats won. If I remember rightly Major only had a majority of around 30 after 1992 down from one of over 100 from the previous election. That is why I said 'just'

[antonjon1]

So Major won more votes in 92 than Thatcher won in 83 or Blair in 97? Thats very surprising...

[Myndir]

People forget how huge the 1992 election was at the time. It was the last time in UK history that an election was about two totally different ideologies and two totally different leaders. It was the last time where one of the possible winners didn't admire Thatcher.

Major won 14,093,007 votes. In 1983 Thatcher won 13,012,316. In 1997 Blair won 13,518,167.

[zebra55]

"It's now time to meet the men and women who WILL form the next government..... the NEXT Prime Minister, Neil Kinnock!"

That arrogance probably lost about 1 million votes right there. To make assumptions of the British public in such a tight race was lunacy, I'd be shocked if either side did it now.

[theredraven]

UB, you don't by any chance have the rest of this documentary or the title of it? Seems interesting.

[solidarity4justice]

Yeah but we must remember in the words of the Democrats 1992 Presidential campaign "Its the economy stupid". If John Smith had not died and still lead the Party and still kept the old Labour policy on increasing the Top Rate of income tax no matter what Labour would have won in 1997, with or without Blair because the recession in 1992, high unemployment hit the pockets of British people and made the eletorate feel bitter. Parties don't win elections, governments lose elections!

[barookonana]

omfg wot a fucking goon

[scotstory]

Yay, John Major. Best UK PM ever. Kept us out of the Euro, revived the economy in the mid '90s, defeated Saddam, led for peace in Northern Ireland and abolished the Unfair Community charge. The UK has a lot to thank Major for and we should be more grateful for him. He cleaned up after Thatcher's controversial reign and paved the way for a prosperous Britain. Pity Blair had to ruin those plans and look where we are now.

[DreadLaw2]

Ahh, slightly incorrect. Didn't have any choice about keeping us out of the Euro, but he wanted in, it was he who pressured Thatcher into the ERM, so late it made her look weak and drove her out of the party.He also had no choice in poll tax, annd peace in NI was a long time in the making. The strength in the sterling only went up to pre-ERM standards because we left it and while he kept the country pretty stable, we would be far off worse now if not for Thatcher.

[mellowNdark]

Love how Scotstory cannot reply to you... you who has facts not bullshit!

[Erech01]

Major was the only reason the conservatives were not totally and utterly destroyed in 1997 aswell, Major was still popular, it was the party which people were sick of, riddled with sleaze and corruption. 1997 is comparable to Browns government now, the only difference is Labour WILL be utterly defeated because it has an unpopular, unelected and idiotic leader.

[Myndir]

John Major's problem was the Tory party, which was on a self-destruct mission in the 1990s. No-one can lead a party which lacks discipline.

[shahideurope]

@scotstory He didn't keep us out of the euro, his backbenchers did that, he did not revive the economy, the pound's collapse created an export boom, he did not defeat Saddam - the Americans did that, he did nothing for peace in NI - Labour did that, he abolished the poll tax because it was unenforceable.

[Regalseven]

This is perhaps one of the most awful, embarasing,silliest moments in British politics. This US style rasmatas conference which was put on in a vane attempt to win votes. The presumptious Kinnock & co who's folly was to trust opinion polls leaves one feeling this conference should have been fire bombed to save us from more cringing moments of utter foolishness, " Are you alright!" Well Neil did they ask you that when the results came through. He flew of in his chopper to a political wilderness!

[Svetlanka83]

The rally itself was planned on the assumption that Labour would be either behind or neck and neck, it was intended to enthuse the campaign in the last week, as in 1987 despite an excellent campaign towards the end Labour ran out of ideas and energy, i guess it was unlucky that it seemed to coincide with Labour extending their lead in the polls. Lets face it though one rally doesnt lose an election.

[Myndir]

True. In fact, historical research suggests it wasn't this rally that did Labour in: it was that people didn't trust Labour with the economy. Most people I know at the time thought the Tories were pretty bad, but that at least they knew where they stood with the Tories, while Labour were seen as singing nice songs but dishonest and deceitful.

How things change... Not!

[199019852007]

@Regalseven i agree so much

[chuckmonkey7337]

neil kinnok (sorry can't spell) was such an idiot

[Neltron]

Thanks Mr Curtis. When Major says "on the streets" he means "in the focus groups". He doesn't want to expound on the use of focus groups.

[e304233]

This features John Major vs Neil Kinnock and includes Kinnock's "We're alright" gaff and over-hyphed premature victory rally.

[mts1977]

God, I remember that. I don't care what Kinnock says - that "WE'RE ALLLLLRIIIIIGHT!" business lost him votes. If John Smith had been leader they might have won.