Ok, I guess this question is more aimed at people who live in the UK......

If, as I'm assuming, Tony Blair doesn't run for Prime Minister in the coming election, who do you think will win? Do you think that another Labour MP will take over and win, or do you think any of the other Parties will have a chance? Who do you think could do a better job?

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the Liberal Democrats have a go.........conservatives and the Labour party have proved that they are both inadequate...

Not so much inadequate as identical. The problem is both parties are the same. Labour have forgotten what they stand for, and the conservatives never stood for anything in the first place. If the people of this country want change, the only thing they can do short of revolution is vote for the Lib Dems...no other parties are strong enough. To be honest though, I can't see anyone other than Labour winning. The masses are just too ignorant in Britain.

Blair probably will stand again, but if he resigns, I would have thought Gordon Brown would take over.

Phew......for a minute there I thought no one cared! I agree, Labour are quickly sliding to the right, and the conservatives are sitting there waiting for them... But like you say, the public are too ignorant to vote for anyone else. I'd guess that most people are only voting for whoever their parents / peers are.......

"New Labour" has done no good for our country, I'd go as far as to say they are destructive, but because they say they are the "Working Class Party" most of the ignorant people will vote for them on that statement alone......

For some reason, Labour are the "Goodies", Conservatives are the "Baddies", and anyone else who stands are just stupid for trying......this is the general view in the UK, and it's sad....Ignorance at it's worst!

Very true...

You'd probably be right in assuming nobody cared, it's because we're stuck with the mediocrity of two identical parties bickering with each other. People can't see the difference, and they're too lazy/pessemistic to find an alternative, and so they vote for either New Improved Labour ( Now with 100% less socialism! ), or don't bother to vote at all.

LabourLite stand for nothing, and there are no Working Class parties who are taken seriously in this country, but because of tradition, and loyalty, working people still vote for Labour, in whatever form they take. Even though the party has changed, the people don't, and they refuse to try anything new which might change the way Britain is run.

The Conservatives will now, I think, continue to fall into obscurity, and they might aswell, because Labour are becoming more like them all the time.

Like it or not, we're stuck with LabourLite for a while yet

Still, things will eventually change...maybe the obscure left wing parties will stand together and be an effective opposition.

[Edited on 25-7-2003 by CiderGood_HeadacheBad]

Cider

The same problem with the 'identical' nature of the major political players is true in other countries as well.

Parties adopt a centrist-right approach (whether their roots are in reform or egalitarianism or not) to buy votes and sit there, pushing their right wing opponents further right into irrelevance as they have nowhere left to move.

Eventually, it come unstuck as a result of muck-raking and scandals, not policy differentiation.

I can't picture socialist parties in opposition to a combined Labour/Tory machine. It doesn't sound right.

To get effective representation of major interests into Parliament, there needs to be electoral reform, along the lines of the more successful models that bring in parties who capture 5% or more of the national vote.

That is achieved in progressive countries, but I think it would be even harder to get it underway in the UK than it would in the US.


[Edited on 25-7-2003 by MaskedAvatar]

MA, basically, we're screwed....

The problem is that VERY few people would want any kind of political reform......as long as someone is giving them money and fighting wars for them, they couldn't care less........