The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] do. The formation of the SDP ensured that Mrs Thatcher won the 1983 election: forming a new centre-left party in 1981 was bound to split the anti-Conservative vote at the general election which followed. The question is: was it formed with that purpose in mind? On this the evidence is mixed. Three of the […]

The Brexit impasse

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: […] By 2015, however, its strength was also growing at the national level. In that year’s General Election it secured 3.8 million votes (12.6 per cent of the vote) and replaced the Liberal Democrats as Britain’s third party. Despite the UKIP success, the Tories did win a majority in 2015. The 2017 General Election result, […]

Wilson, MI5 and the rise of Thatcher

Lobster Issue 11 (April 1986)

[PDF file]: […] would be that the “unknown subscriber” was the British tax-payer. We think Stewart-Smith was being funded in these ventures by MI5, probably using money from “the secret vote’.) The anti-Liberal pamphlet was distributed in seats where the Liberals were thought likely to do well. (21) Among the themes being promoted by MI5 against the […]

Gordon Brown: in the country of the blind…

Lobster Issue 60 (Winter 2010)

[PDF file]: […] experience on her part, Mattinson lacks a certain perspective while making many of her otherwise correct points. The role of the SDP in disastrously splitting the anti-Conservative vote in 1983 and 1987 is not mentioned at all; nor are the very real difficulties for any major political party, led by even the most gifted […]

Brexit Revisited: Europe Didn’t Work, and, Brexit Unfolded

Lobster Issue 84 (Winter 2022)

[PDF file]: […] EU in practice are dismal. This has actually swayed voters in various parts of the EU to reject steps for ever greater unity and integration and to vote for a narrow nationalistic set of parties to represent their interests. Economic growth has been limp in comparison with other parts of the globe. More of […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021)

[PDF file]: […] was the result of the SDP’s formation: they received 25% of the votes cast, most of which came from people who were previously Labour voters. The Conservative vote stayed much as it had been in 1979. There was a ‘Falklands bounce’ for the The Gow memorandum of 12/8/82 can be read at or . […]

Code of Conduct: Why We Need to Fix Parliament – and How to Do It by Chris Bryant

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] And he quotes a Tory MP complaining ‘of people going through the division lobbies reeking of booze She added that she has seen colleagues miss votes or vote the wrong way because of alcohol’. The situation today, however, is far better than it used to be, but even so he has seen ‘Older male […]

Newsinger Bryant copy

Lobster Issue

[…] And he quotes a Tory MP complaining ‘of people going through the division lobbies reeking of booze She added that she has seen colleagues miss votes or vote the wrong way because of alcohol’. The situation today, however, is far better than it used to be, but even so he has seen ‘Older male […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] The Realist and Steamshovel. The lobby On 29 October, the day that the general election was announced, the Spectator ran a piece by a Stephen Daisley, ‘A vote for Labour is a vote for 20 Valentine’s book on this subject is reviewed in Lobster 73 at . 21 22 See . 23 At or […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 78 (Winter 2019)

[PDF file]: […] institutional and political interests.’25 The lobby On 29 October, the day that the general election was announced, the Spectator ran a piece by a Stephen Daisley, ‘A vote for Labour is a vote for anti-Semitism’.26 Daisley describes Labour as ‘the largest and most successful anti-Semitic political party in Western Europe’ and Jeremy Corbyn as […]

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