Well, the Warrington North Constituency Labour Party preferred Helen Jones to Cooper as their candidate in 1997 when Hoyle went up to the Lords. I'm not sure who this says more about.

Interesting point but under my vision we would still end up with 2 major parties but they would be genuinely philosophically opposed rather than the current liberal consensus - so more of a realignment.

So we'd have a party in favour of pulling out of the EU, smaller welfare state and grammar schools (to pick 3 policies) with a mix of capitalist and state controlled economic approaches. Along the lines of Burkean conservatism.

You'd then have a more metropolitan liberal party - totally capitalist, socially liberal (including law and order), and in favour of comprehensive education. Whiggish type party. (I know Burke was a whig but he lead the conservative strand).



There may then be other strands but I don't see full on socialists winning much electoral approval and the far right has never done anything at a national level. The Labour and Conservative parties would just be a rump with a few seats in strongholds, UKIP would be rendered redundant and that particular bunch of oddities would disappear.

Agree with the point Re:Bill Clinton - and similarities between Bill and Ed Balls are minute. Balls is indeed going to be long tarred with his part in the Brown Govt, but suprisingly he does seem to be rather astute and someone who really rattles David Cameron in PMQ's as he did again on Wednesday. And as you said Osborne is being hidden from public view by Tory Towers, and Balls is relishing this scenario. He may be a bit bafoonish but I'd sum up Ed Balls as a ruthless politician and debater.



As for Ed Miliband - I just don't think we can judge his leadership and chances of winning an election until we are at least another year down the line. And any key Labour figures with leadership ambitions must be careful not to 'rock the boat' too much or risk damaging their reputation within the Parliamentary Party.



For the record - my voting for the Leadership was as follows: 1) Andy Burnham 2) Ed Balls 3) David Miliband 4) Ed Miliband. And Diane Abbott wasn't worthy of a vote.

It's tough to imagine where the Labour Party would be if one of the other candidates was the Leader, but I don't think it'd be drastically different.



Going to be a tough Winter for Cameron and the Tories, and Miliband needs to capitalise.

Andy Burnham? Jesus wept. Please don't tell me you voted for him because he's almost from Warrington

Ha Not quite - known him well for a number of years. Sat near him at Everton and was taught by his brother at Birchwood High School and thought he had some good ideas, but I think his biggest asset was his affability. Someone who the general British public could relate to well: Football fan, normal background, like Music, Loves the NHS and so on.



Tough to imagine he'll get another chance in the near future.

The facts are that if we like it or not we are in the best of a bad position at the moment. If labour had got back in we would be in the same position as Greece now as the labour plan was to keep spending our way out of recession. The Euro problem will cause all our problems over the next 24 months and nobody saw that.

This Government has not gone forward in any way however given the world some confidence that we are at least trying to stop the spending.

Worse it about to come especially in the Public sector where we will have major problems bringing in pension reform which is long overdue to be honest.



So are we better off under the Tories ...but if it was labour we would have been an Ireland/ Spain / Greece now. Look at history over the years labour overspends and the Tories mop it up.



Hard times ahead folks the European situation is on the brink of disaster.

The Tories mop it up?



Have you neglected to remember the way Thatcher and Major had the economy? We keep seeing records broken (highest % of population out of work, most young people out of work etc), records which were generaly from 1992. The country Blair invested in 1997 wasn't in good order and he rode the boom he created, just failed to prepare and regulate against a bust.

Those Labour budgets up till the Lehmann brothers crash in 2008 that set off the world recession were pretty much identical in deficit terms to the Conservative budgets under John Major's government.



Borrowing spiked as a result of the recession because of the lost output and lost taxation revenues. Labour only ran really high deficits for two years. The Tories have run a really high deficit for one.

Sal seeing as you have your finger on the pulse of politics how do you feel this country would have gone if it hadn't been a coalition government? No, better still how would we be if



A) The Tories had been in power

B) Labour

C) Lib dems

D) UKIP

E) Greens

F) BNP



Would it have changed for the better or worse with those in charged, obviously i'd like to think a lot worse with a certain party, but seriously without your usually sarcastic look on life and basing it on their election manifesto how do think it could have gone.

These figures don't take into account the spending Brown hid through devices such as PFI. If they're included then the figures are far worse.

The other issue is that the spending was predominantly on the public sector whilst the private sector as a percentage shrunk. We kept spending but not on projects that would provide us with a long-term benefit as a country e.g. rebuilding the branch railway network. Alot of the hospital and school building projects were funded through PFI so they're not in these figures. Much of the spending was on (activate Daily Mail mode)non-jobs that were essentially unproductive to the overall economy.

PFIs aren't 'hidden' in one financial year, they are paid back over 25 years. It was quite a simple option; continue with the total lack of investment in schools and hospitals pre-1997 or find a viable payment vehicle that made the hospital and schoool build progamme affordable. Let us not forget, PFI was the brainchild of John Major's government.



I would change your reference material from the Daily Mail.

Supporters of PFI - the Conservatives, Tony Blair and New Labourites



Opponents of PFI - Unions, Labour backbenchers, the Guardian



Now it seems the Conservatives have converted to being opponents of PFI and are saying the same things the lefties were saying ten years ago about it 'mortgaging the country's future'. Funny that.