I was playing around with electoralcalculus.uk, and it looks like with some very small shifts in the popular vote, Cameron could have actually gotten a small majority in 2015. How would British politics change if this had happened?
I doubt anyone from the left would have got the necessary nominations. Loads of key voters thought Miliband was far too left, why would Labour swing even further left because he lost?Ed Miliband goes, probably, and there is a leadership election to replace him. My money is on Chuka Umunna to win that, though I don't think I'd have given him my first preference - that would probably have gone to whoever the left put up in that situation (if their candidate gets the nominations they need, obviously, which isn't inevitable by any means).
We'd have had an EU referendum by now (or, at least, soon), too. Not sure how that would have gone.
What about Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader? He is a really cool guy, especially when he challenged Ed Miliband last month over trident. I love his ideas on getting rid of austerity.
Shame only 8 MP's supported him...
Less likely that UKIP would have won those by-elections in Oldham and Sheffield and would have gained far less than 600 council seats. They also wouldn't be polling anything like the 25%ish that they are now.
Yeah. Corbyn getting elected leader is, quite frankly, pretty damn implausible and nearly ASB in my opinionThat ain't happening in any world. Nobody had even heard of him before the Trident debacle, and even then, it's not like he's leading the charge from the left now.
As Cevolian rightly said, the left hasn't got a chance.
It would be Osborne vs Boris Johnson. People would have said Cameron had abandoned traditional Tory principles, and want a rightist Eurosceptic like Johnson, although admittedly he can be rather inconsistent on Europe and has his enemies too. Maybe a return for IDS?Who would Cameron's successor be in about 2019 when he said he would resign? Osbourne would have a good chance, but Theresa May would be 63 in 2019, and might be considered too old.
It would be Osborne vs Boris Johnson. People would have said Cameron had abandoned traditional Tory principles, and want a rightist Eurosceptic like Johnson, although admittedly he can be rather inconsistent on Europe and has his enemies too. Maybe a return for IDS?![]()
Agreed. One positive of A Tory victory would be we'd see far fewer hackish analogue TLs with Jeremy Corbyn as Amess...Johnson is far from a right-wing Eurosceptic. He's very much a liberal Tory, but he's fairly hated amongst the Parliamentary Conservative Party (just see how Amess and Bone have kept Johnson out of the Shadow Cabinet, preferring to fill it with their right-wing cronies).