Obsolete

Friday, May 13, 2011

A year on.

(This was meant to be yesterday's post, then Blogger died on its arse. Wednesday's post has also disappeared, hopefully only temporarily.)

Ah, those heady days of last May. A widely loathed government given its marching orders, and yet the opposition and supposed natural party of power was still distrusted to such an extent that it failed to win an overall majority. Into the breach stepped housewives favourite Nick 'Cleggmania' Clegg, bravely leading his band of Liberal Democrats into the political no man's land of coalition. Following a whirlwind romance and the equivalent of the drawing up of a pre-nupital agreement, Dave and Nick presented themselves to the public in the rose garden, cracking jokes while staring into the flashbulbs, their worries about what lay ahead at the very backs of their minds.

A year on and that month's marriage of convenience has turned sour for one half and one half only. In spite of losing the power behind the throne, Andy Coulson having to finally resign for a second time over something he knew nothing about, the Conservatives and David Cameron in particular have if anything gained in strength. Last week's local election results showed a party holding on and even in some areas consolidating its seats at the expense of their coalition partner. It was always laughable that Labour could just sit on the sidelines for five years letting the cuts do their work for them, and their meagre gains, again mainly thanks to the Lib Dems, have shown just the size of the task Ed Miliband has to win former supporters back. Add in how certain individuals in the party seem to think that their core supporters are worthy of ridicule or derision, seemingly out of the false belief that they have nowhere else to go, something last week's results in Scotland ought to have disproved, and it's little wonder how relaxed the Tories are about their position at the moment.

They certainly aren't going to rise to Vince Cable calling them "ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal", although most will have taken it as a compliment in any case. They're also not going to give Nick Clegg the pleasure of rushing to the defence of Margaret Thatcher, taken as he has to promising that he won't let the Tories take us back to the 1980s, a palpable fear apparently expressed to him on the doorsteps. Where once we were wondering whether the "disputes" being had inside the cabinet were manufactured, allowing each to appeal to their base supporters, so we have now reached the point where the differences in opinion are real but where the Conservatives no longer care. Sure, Cameron's rejected the view that there is one party moderating the other, as the Liberal Democrats have been desperate to put across, yet it's just the motions being gone through. The only thing he has to worry about is the Lib Dems getting a little too high above their station, and all he has to do is discreetly threaten to disengage and go to the polls, with the inevitable wipeout which would follow to frighten those going too far in their criticisms into quietening down.

Most bewildering of all is just how politically naive the Liberal Democrats have been over the past year. Every single trap they've walked into has been clearly signposted, yet they've careered into them regardless. It was obvious from the beginning that they would be the coalition's fall guys, taking the blame for enabling the Tories to do what they wanted. The new straw to clutch at is the analysis from the BBC that 75% of their manifesto is being implemented through the agreement, while only 60% of the Conservatives' increasingly laughable document is. This would be more of something to be proud of if their policies weren't rendered meaningless by the other changes being introduced: it's all well and good raising the income tax threshold, it's just a shame that the increase in VAT means that any gain for the poorest is wiped out. Similarly self-defeating is the pupil premium: what would be a laudable increase in funds for the poorest is naturally not no money thanks to the cuts, merely redirected from elsewhere within the schools budget. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is never good politics. Nick Clegg wants to make a better job of blowing his own trumpet (oo-er), lauding how the coalition thanks to Liberal Democrat input has ended child detention (it hasn't), while also adding a quarter of a million apprenticeships, strangely without mentioning the abolition of the Future Jobs Fund.

Nowhere is the fundamental dishonesty more heinous than in the fictional, revised account of how the coalition came into being. Nick Clegg in his speech to the Liberal Club yesterday, making reference to Roy Hattersley's categorisation of past coalitions in this country as being either of convenience, conviction or necessity, argued that this was a case of the latter. Rather than his party being dazzled by the prospect of power and temporarily taking leave of most of its senses, rushed into a quick decision by a Conservative party that couldn't believe its luck at how quickly they abandoned so many of their key manifesto promises, so we are now told that those days in May were a "moment of national crisis", the markets ready to swarm should a government not fully dedicated to a deficit reduction programme not be immediately formed. This is a fantasy, and Clegg knows it is. Just as disingenuous is his claim that we are now out of the financial danger zone, as though the last six months which has seen the economy dawdle along at an effective growth rate of 0% means that the worst is now behind us.

It could have been so different. There was nothing inherently ignoble about the Liberal Democrats deciding to share power with the Conservatives, even if Labour would have been a more natural fit. After spending so long in the wilderness, turning it down could have been just as disastrous as at the moment it looks taking up the reins will be. The party's problem has been that from the very beginning they've allowed themselves to be seen as propping the Tories up, rather than acting as a block on their worst excesses. From the moment Clegg and Cameron appeared as an effective double act the die was cast: this wasn't two parties working together in the national interest as they have repeatedly insisted, it was two like-minded politicians delighting in the first flush of what they'd started their careers hoping to achieve. Everything since then has followed the same dismal pattern, Cameron in complete control, Flashman as he is hardly insultingly being referred to, while Clegg is the one held responsible for the destruction left in the prime minister's wake. With 4 years still left to run there's plenty of time for the spell to be broken, for the Liberal Democrats to forge their own path within the coalition, it's just they show no inclination whatsoever of doing so. And they can hardly say they weren't warned.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, 2011 election campaign, a year on, Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Conservatives, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, politics

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5/13/2011 05:58:00 pm | Permalink |

Friday, November 26, 2010

In which I admit getting it wrong twice in two days.

Among the more puzzling seeming attacks on Elwyn Watkins featured in Phil Woolas's election literature was the one featured on the page containing his personal address to Oldham East and Saddleworth's voters. In what I foolishly imagined to be something approaching a joke, Woolas's pseudo newspaper promised that next week they could read Watkins' plans "to scrap the Geneva convention".

It says something about the battle being joined in the constituency that rather than being an attempt at a light-hearted jibe at their opponent, Watkins in fact did respond when asked that he'd rip up not only the Geneva convention, but also the European Convention on Human Rights if it would mean that he'd be able to deport asylum seekers back to "their oppressive country" if they'd broken the law here. Asked by members of his own party to clarify his views, he finally got around to responding to them today:

Clearly there are other considerations in the case of people who have been granted asylum because it is likely their lives would be seriously endangered if they return to their home country.

Nonetheless, the position of the minority who abuse asylum is a genuine concern for local people, many of whom have raised it repeatedly with politicians of all parties.

It is not good enough to sweep these concerns under the carpet as Labour have done for 13 years. To not discuss these issues openly when they are of genuine concern to many local people allows extremist parties to get a foot in the door, and that’s something none of us want.

I welcome the coalition government’s commitment to a Commission to investigate a British Bill of Rights, with the express intention of clarifying how our commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention and other international agreements best operate within British law and to ‘promote a better understanding of the scope of these obligations and liberties’.

Which, as many will note, is almost exactly what Woolas himself has argued. By not saying that we'll deport asylum seekers back to their home country if they break the law, regardless of concerns for their safety, we'll allow the British National Party to take advantage. Or put another way: unless we adopt the British National Party's policies, we'll lose votes to them.

Watkins' attempt at outdoing Woolas from the right seems sadly to have been unsuccessful first time round, as the Liberal Democrat vote in the constituency fell by almost 300 ballots on their 2005 performance (doubtless they would claim as a result of Labour's dirty tricks), with the Tories and UKIP the main beneficiaries. The BNP share of the vote increased by 0.8%, but it was still way down on what they achieved in 2001, the year of the riots. Quite whether Liberal Democrats will come out and support someone who hasn't retracted his views when (or if) the by-election eventually takes place should be fascinating.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, BNP, Elwyn Watkins, European Convention on Human Rights, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Phil Woolas, politics, racism, smearing

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11/26/2010 10:03:00 pm | Permalink |

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Disgraces and mutinies.

It would be nice to think that there's some sort of principle underlying certain sections of the parliamentary Labour party's support for Phil Woolas. Something approaching fairness, perhaps, one of those values which is meant to be hard-wired into the party's soul. And it's true, there are some making legitimate arguments, even if their case overall is dubious. In their eyes, Woolas has been hung out to dry by the party, not allowed to appeal against a ruling which could have huge implications for the democratic process, summarily suspended and all but told by the party's deputy leader that even if he had the ruling overturned he can't return as a parliamentary candidate.

The problem is that those making such arguments are the minority. Instead, what's really going on is a febrile mixture of pique, loathing for the Liberal Democrats, flagrant disregard as well as contempt for both judges and a system which is enshrined in the Representation of the People Act, and the continuing feeling amongst the older generation of MPs especially that having reached Westminster should give them some sort of protection against the things that everyone else in the country has to endure. The pique is not solely centred at those who are living under the misapprehension that telling lies about your opponent during a general election isn't the done thing, but also at the party's leadership itself, some of the feelings being held over from the hard line taken during the expenses scandal when similar action was taken against miscreants. Add into this how some are still grieving about Ed Miliband winning the party leadership thanks to the unions with his brother being vanquished despite winning the overwhelming support of the parliamentary party, and it's not that surprising that at the first possible opportunity there's been something approaching a mutiny.

More understandable is the feeling that Liberal Democrats have in the past on many occasions played dirty when it's suited them, especially in by-elections, only to now decide to take matters to the courts. Such feelings would be justified if this was just a case of the Liberal Democrats complaining unjustly, yet even a slight knowledge of the campaign which Woolas ran shows just how far he was prepared to take things in a desperate effort to cling on to the seat. It's not just the leaflets distributed on polling day itself which were blatantly misleading and told lies about how extremists wanted Woolas out because he was tough on immigration, it's the extraordinary 8-page newspaper (linked from this post) which his campaign produced which from cover to cover was a tissue of attacks on Elwyn Watkins personally, the vast majority completely unsubstantiated. It was how despite being the immigration minister and representing a constituency hit by riots only 9 years early he was prepared to play the communities off against one another, in his faux-newspaper even claiming that the approval of a mosque which he accepted was needed was a return to the old politics that had stoked the violence. To give a further flavour, in what was probably meant to be a joke, on the page where Woolas set out why he should be re-elected in his own words, beneath the headline was the legend:

Next week we hear from Elwyn Watkins for the Liberal Democrats about his plans to scrap the Geneva Convention.

For Graham Stringer to then decide that he's not in a position to pass judgement is ludicrous - these weren't just white lies and the usual election to and fro, these were actions which should have resulted in Woolas being reprimanded or even suspended at the time for bringing the party into disrepute.

As Justin notes, it's only when MPs or their hangers-on find themselves being investigated or harried by the police that their true colours show. The arrest of Ruth Turner during the loans for peerages scandal resulted in heavy criticism of the Met by some in the Labour party despite the police only following what was standard operating procedure, going to the home of someone they wanted to talk to in the early hours when they were most likely to be there. In this instance we have the just as puffed up Dave Watts, the right honourable member for St Helens North declaring that Woolas was found guilty by a kangaroo court, which is a strange description of what is essentially the High Court in a different guise. Woolas whilst immigration minister, lest we forget, said with a straight face that some of those working on behalf of asylum seekers were giving "false hope" through their actions, working to overturn rulings which could have led to their clients being sent back to face the mistreatment and potential death which they'd fled from.

It's not difficult to see this as a continuing hangover from the expenses debacle. For one thing, it shows an extraordinary lack of awareness of what ordinary public opinion is like: overwhelmingly when asked ordinary voters describe MPs as liars and cheats, fairly or not, and where else do they need to look for evidence than this case? Not only is one exposed as having deliberately lied about his opponent, but his pals at Westminster are objecting to him being thrown out of the party for doing so, whilst complaining bitterly and muttering darkly about judges deciding what is and isn't an "acceptable" untruth. Rather than doing something for their constituents, like providing a decent opposition to a government which is hell bent on pushing through badly drafted and hasty legislation, not to mention brutal austerity measures, they seem more concerned about as usual, standing up for themselves. Fundamentally, it shows, as Liberal Conspiracy has it, an utterly warped lack of judgement.

Finally, it's incredibly short-sighted in another obvious way. The chances of the Liberal Democrats putting in a performance as strong as they did back in May are dubious to say the very least. With a fresh, untainted Labour candidate running against Watkins, now forced to defend the record of his party in government, the odds must surely be for an increase in Woolas's notional majority of just 105. By continuing to support Woolas they're just prolonging the agony and further disgruntling the constituents who are without an MP for the foreseeable future. Those backing such a busted flush couldn't be doing a better job of showing exactly why the wider party remains unelectable in its current form.

Update: See this post for a rather lengthy take on Watkins' support for scrapping the Geneva convention.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Ed Miliband, Elwyn Watkins, Graham Stringer, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, parliamentary Labour party, Phil Woolas, politics, racism, smearing

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11/09/2010 10:41:00 pm | Permalink |

Friday, November 05, 2010

Not a tribute to Phil Woolas.

As welcome as the political demise of Phil Woolas is, the way in which it has come about has hardly been ideal. Not solely due to rather than being removed by the electorate he has instead been unseated by a court, but also due to how the Labour party itself could have eased him out, suspending him from the party whilst he defended himself from the accusations made by his Liberal Democrat opponent, Elwyn Watkins. Inexplicably, despite knowing that a ruling was in the offing over whether or not he could remain as an MP, Ed Miliband still thought that he was a perfectly suitable choice to be of all things, the shadow immigration minister.

As Dan Hodges points out over on Labour Uncut, Woolas set himself up with the party's full connivance as the "straight talker" on immigration, winning the support of the Sun for his "tough" but obviously fair policies, a role which the new leader thought he should continue to perform in opposition. Only now that he's been found guilty is it decided that his campaign went so far beyond acceptable norms that he cannot remain a Labour party member, with Harriet Harman making the thoroughly disingenuous statement that "[I]t is not part of Labour politics to try to win elections by saying things that are not true." No, that's since been outsourced to the Lib Dems.

It does however take a considerable amount of chutzpah for Simon "straight choice" Hughes and the unelected Baroness Warsi, who previously complained without a shred of evidence that three Labour MPs with large Asian communities in their constituencies had won thanks to electoral fraud to decide that they were best suited to comment on Woolas's downfall. Still, not like politicians to tell lies, eh?

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Ed Miliband, Elwyn Watkins, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Phil Woolas, politics, racism, smearing

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11/05/2010 10:18:00 pm | Permalink |

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Whither Woolas?

Reading back the Guardian's late 2008 interview with the then immigration minister Phil Woolas, it's perhaps not a surprise that he finds himself fighting for his political life before only the second specially convened electoral court in over a hundred years. Asked by Patrick Barkham about the by-election campaign he contested back in 1995, he was unrepentant about the criticism he'd received:

"We took a deliberate decision that we would play hardball because we were fed up of the Liberal Democrats," Woolas growls. "If you read politicians' biographies from Maggie Thatcher through to Michael Foot, they will tell you that the Liberal Democrats play dirty and are sanctimonious about it."

In Woolas' view then, Elwyn Watkins' decision to file a complaint under section 106 of the Representation of the People Act must be the ultimate act of sanctimony. It's also a decision fraught with danger: not only does Watkins have to prove his case rather than Woolas prove himself innocent as in libel actions, the electorate tend to be notoriously unforgiving of those who seek legal redress rather than accept they've lost the public vote. Back in 1997 the then distinctly anonymous Mark Oaten won Winchester by a whole 2 votes, only for the result to be voided after his opponent went to the election court, complaining about votes which went uncounted as they hadn't been stamped. At the subsequent by-election Oaten turned his majority of 2 into a fairly astonishing 21,556. If Watkins does win, it will likely be a new Labour candidate who he'll have to face as even if the judges don't bar him personally from standing again, it will be, or at least should all but impossible for him to stand as the Labour candidate again.

Undisputed is that the campaign in Oldham East and Saddleworth had turned personal and incredibly nasty. Defending a slim majority of 3,500 in a constituency with a high proportion of Muslim voters, Woolas was one of the targets of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, an organisation that can best be described as having a decidedly radical flavour, as well as having a highly controversial founder.

Where the truth ends and the fiction begins is much more difficult to ascertain. Watkins' case has it that Woolas was so convinced he was going to lose that he turned in desperation to link the MPAC campaign directly with Watkins and the Liberal Democrats. Woolas's fairly extraordinary eight page newspaper-type electoral missive (linked in the best quality from MPAC's post on it), almost entirely filled with personal attacks on Watkins, claimed that some of the election material supposedly produced by MPAC had included death threats against him. In fact, in what seems to be the only credible reference to the actual existence of the leaflet in question, apparently delivered only in Muslim areas of the constituency, the Sunday Express described it as from a "smaller group", without naming those responsible. It doesn't seem to appear anywhere online, and while it wouldn't be beyond credulity for Woolas's campaign to have completely invented the entire thing, the apparent use of the term "chamcha" in it, meaning bum kisser, sounds reasonably authentic.

In response to the Sunday Express story MPAC issued a press release, as well as a link to the leaflets they had produced. Woolas's campaign had clearly conflated the two together, as MPAC made no mention of immigration whatsoever in their material. It could well be that MPAC were running two campaigns: one official and one unofficial, including the distribution of the leaflets from the "smaller" group, although this is impossible to quantify. The Jewish Chronicle reported on the day of the election that the Community Security Trust had raised concerns about MPAC's multiple campaigns against sitting Labour MPs with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. In Oldham Woolas's team and MPAC swapped accusations of intimidation, and apart from Woolas's claim about the death threats, not much else. Geoffrey Alderman later wrote for the JC that he felt MPAC's campaigns had been strong and blunt, but not especially sophisticated. More pertinently, he felt that their efforts were "peripheral" at best.

While the campaign by MPAC certainly could have affected the result in Oldham and Saddleworth and was undoubtedly a concern for Woolas, they would have been far more worried by the apparent surge by the Liberal Democrats, even if for the most part on the night it didn't happen. One suspects instead that it simply gave Woolas's team a great opportunity to conflate the two things together, as well as materially mislead at the same time. Even if you could conceivably describe MPAC as extremist or militant, to link them to the demonstration by al-Muhajiroun back in 2006 outside the Danish embassy as not just one but three leaflets from his campaign did was a clear act of deception, not least as al-Muhjarioun and its successor organisations view voting as haram while MPAC's campaign was all about encouraging Muslims to make their voice heard. Most disgraceful of all is that Woolas was apparently fully prepared to play the two communities in the constituency off against one another, claiming as he did in the last two leaflets delivered that the real reason why the extremists were targeting him and supporting the Liberal Democrats was due to his stance on immigration and their policy on an amnesty, something he must have known to be false. His campaign even wrote in the eight-page faux-newspaper that

"we despair of the Lib Dems for their weak policy on immigration. It is so important for our local community that we get it right.

...

It risks making things much worse."

without so much as a hint of irony.

Whether or not Woolas wins or loses the case ought to be irrelevant when it comes to his membership of the Labour party. By any standards, Woolas's campaign sank into the sewer in its desperation, smearing a political opponent in a clearly libellous fashion while caring not a jot for the cohesion of the constituency for which he was standing. In his Guardian interview he boasted of how you can either "hide behind your desk and not say anything or you can get out there and get your hands dirty". It's clear which he decided to do when he faced defeat. Labour under its new leader ought to show that the days of political assassination are over by expelling Woolas for bringing the party into disrepute.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Elwyn Watkins, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Phil Woolas, politics, racism, smearing

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9/15/2010 11:59:00 pm | Permalink |

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The shape of cuts to come.

An 18-year-old I know, unemployed at the time, voted Conservative last month. When I asked the reasoning behind his vote, his first point was that they were going to get rid of all the illegal immigrants. His second was that they were going to do more for those like him unable to find any sort of work; I replied that Labour had already set-up a scheme which guaranteed either a job or training for those out of work for six months between the age 18 and 24, a period of time on the dole which he was fast approaching.

I don't know for certain whether it's anything to do with the Young Person's Guarantee, but I suspect his finding a place on a building site where he's worked for the last three weeks is almost certainly linked to one or more of the four employment schemes introduced by Labour which have been cancelled at a stroke today, under the justification that "they do not represent good value for money".

The actual money saved this year by cancelling these schemes is, according to the BBC, £500m. Whether there will be any actual saving from cutting the four job schemes is difficult to tell; clearly gone into the calculations is that for most people between 18 and 24, their national insurance contributions are so low as to mean that their jobseeker's allowance will only last for those six months after which they would have been offered training or a job. Others who would have been helped will instead be back on JSA, increasing the unemployment figures, not to mention increasing the amount spent on welfare.

These are in any case rather strange decisions by a government which campaigned so vigorously against what it claimed was the prospect of a tax on jobs. The new work and pensions secretary claimed in his initial interviews that "work makes you free", yet apparently is fine with leaving those currently unemployed with even less hope of finding a job than they had previously. It's also completely out of sync with the thoughts of Lawrence Mead, apparently an influence on the new government's thinking on the welfare state and a chief proponent of "workfare". Well, perhaps except for one of the aspects of his philosophy:

For difficult cases, such as fathers who do not work and fail to make child support payments or ex-prisoners on parole, the sanction for not working would be jail. "It's less controversial than it sounds. In my interviews with state officials [in the US] they did not blink about putting men in prison to enforce a work requirement. Putting welfare mothers to work in the 90s was much more controversial."

Except even that contradicts with the other new Tory thinking on crime as elucidated by Ken Clarke. Or maybe that's just another part of it: actual criminals out, the unemployed in?

Not of course that it was the Conservatives who were the face of these cuts, instead it was Danny Alexander and the Liberal Democrats, who I can't recall at any point suggested cuts to schemes such as these during their election campaign. And as for the 18-year-old man I know, almost certainly with a job thanks to the government he voted against, it will be just the first betrayal of his first participation in this glorious thing we call democracy.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Danny Alexander, politics, spending cuts, welfare reform

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6/17/2010 10:13:00 pm | Permalink |

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The shape of the Con-Dems to come.

The more you look at this Conservative-Liberal Democrat deal, or ConDem as it's bound to become known by its detractors, the more you wonder what on earth the Liberal Democrats have gotten themselves into. To say that the Conservatives are going to be holding the whip hand over a party that has little more than subjugated itself in an act of collective lust for power is not even close to being an exaggeration.

Nick Clegg emerges as by far the biggest winner, at least in the short term. Quite how often he's going to be appearing alongside David Cameron is impossible to tell, but he's the only one from his party to be even close to having a job that will make any great difference. Not because he's deputy prime minister, which has always been a vanity title, but through his apparent role in spearheading reform. Even that though is not going to be all that it seems: apart from fixed term parliaments, the only real reform which is already being set in any kind of motion, and the already agreed referendum on the alternative vote which the Liberal Democrats haven't got the slightest chance of winning, the rest is either thin or likely to be delayed indefinitely just like so much was under Labour. There'll be yet another committee on Lords reform, reporting by December but which you can bet will be put further back than that, yet another committee on the West Lothian question, and only then at the very bottom is there "then the radical devolution of power" which both have spent so much time promising. Not very encouraging just how far down the list it comes in reality, is it?

An indication of how far this is likely to be two parties working together in the "national interest" in practice is shown by the complete absence of Liberal Democrats from the great offices of state. This would have been a further encouraging concession to the party, being prepared to sacrifice a major position to show just how far they're willing to go to make this work. Instead, despite the rumours whirling around last night we have Theresa May as home secretary, which while an improvement on Chris Grayling is not even close to being Chris Huhne. Frankly, I didn't believe for a second that Huhne was ever going to be acceptable to the likes of the Sun, and so it has proved. May is however a complete unknown quantity, having never shadowed any sort of minister in the Home Office. Even more enlightening as to how the Conservatives are likely to shape law and order policy is how it doesn't even begin to rate a mention in the draft agreement - expect the party to be just as up the arse of the tabloids on the matter as New Labour ever was, and don't believe for a second that the Liberal Democrats will be able to temper them on it. Also worth noting that as well as home secretary May will also be minister for women and equality, which shows just how high up the government's agenda those two things will be - not even worthy of a full time job, and given to someone who has one of the most difficult portfolios of state.

Of the jobs which the Lib Dems have been able to snatch, the best of the bunch is undoubtedly Vince Cable as business secretary, but how he's going to work under the charmless and completely inexperienced George Osborne is anyone's guess. Alongside him for comfort will be David Laws, another of the "Orange Book" liberals that have so spectacularly triumphed and who will doubtless find themselves right at a home in a Conservative-run treasury. As for the two other cabinet positions which were made available to them, you can't really get a more uninspiring or thankless position than minister for Scotland under an erstwhile Tory government, and making Chris Huhne energy and climate change secretary is a masterstroke - all the blame can be laid on the Lib Dems for their failure to make any progress on either, while the Tories can happily ignore all of its previous commitments on the environment, which are naturally left until last in the draft agreement.

You need only look at the positions which have been filled by those from the right of the Tory party to see where the centre of gravity on so many issues is going to stand. It was always expected that William Hague would be foreign secretary, but as Nosemonkey points out, he's likely to be the most strongly Eurosceptic politician to have ever held that office, having ensured that the Conservatives left the mainstream EPP grouping in the European parliament and joined up with a band of minor right-wing parties described by none other than Nick Clegg as "a bunch of nutters, antisemites, people who deny climate change exists, [and] homophobes". Hague was strongly in favour of the Iraq war, and along with Liam Fox, the new defence secretary, is a member of the Atlantic Bridge, a neo-conservative organisation that recently celebrated the achievements of that well-known pacifist and humanitarian Henry Kissinger. Again, despite speculation that David Laws might be education secretary, Michael Gove ascended to his natural place from where he will attempt to institute the "free schools" plan that Sweden is in the process of doing away with because of the corresponding drop in exam results. Oh, and he's another member of the Atlantic Bridge and probably the most staunch neo-con of the whole bunch, having written the perfect counterpart to Melanie Phillips' opus Londonistan, Celsius 7/7. Those on benefits almost certainly have the most to fear, though: not just Iain Duncan-Smith as Work and Pensions secretary, but Chris Grayling as his underling, and with a section in the draft agreement which shows that the Liberal Democrats having completely acquiesced and given the Tories free rein to introduce their plans for welfare reform. If you thought Labour through their rigging of the successor to incapacity benefit were bad, as those terminally ill are currently being declared fit to work, then you haven't seen anything yet. The most vulnerable and those who can't help themselves that Cameron promised repeatedly to look after seem certain to be the very first to suffer under the Con-Dem coalition.

Just where then are all the concessions that the Lib Dems were so certain they had grabbed? They got their pupil premium, somewhat got their raising of the income tax threshold to £10,000 which is going to be achieved in stages which might yet be delayed, but what else is there? They certainly haven't got a guarantee that the inheritance tax threshold won't be raised later, they're allowed to abstain on the marriage tax allowance, which will mean it will almost certainly get passed, they've got nothing on Trident, which seems to have been one of their first sacrifices, only an independent commission on breaking up the banks, nothing on immigration other than a welcome end to the detention of children for immigration purposes, but that's another thing to be believed once it happens, and only a guarantee that they'll be able to abstain on the possible raising of tuition fees. So much for abolishing them, even as an aspiration! It's true that we can't ignore the incredibly welcome section in the agreement on civil liberties, but even parts of that are flaky. They've also given in on the DNA database by agreeing on adopting the Scottish model, which will mean that the profiles of the innocent will still be added to it, just for 3 years instead of Labour's proposed 6. There's also something missing from the section on civil liberties: the Human Rights Act, which the Tories promised to repeal. That it isn't mentioned is deeply worrying. As is the complete absence of anything on media policy: the support of the Murdoch press for the Tories won't have come cheaply, and the cutting of the BBC down to size is an even grimmer prospect of what might be to come.

Where does all this leave the Liberal Democrats? At a stroke they've lost the biggest reason for students to vote for them, while in Scotland their chances of keeping their seats must be growing dimmer by the hour. After all, if a Lab-Lib coalition would have had no legitimacy in England, then a Con-Dem equivalent has even less in Scotland. They haven't even got a completely fireproof agreement to fall back which guarantees this coalition will last for the full term: even with the change to 55% of parliament having to vote for an election in order to get one, should the Tories fall out with the Libs they'll easily get a dissolution with the support of Labour, who must be ecstatic with how things have turned out, almost guaranteed that they'll pick up seats at the expense of a party which has had its head turned by the very first glimpse of power. Nick Clegg seems to have been dazzled by the supposed concessions, and by the chance of being deputy, but that doesn't excuse the entirety of the parliamentary party which also went along with him. The activist base, the parts of it that haven't instantly defected, must be terrified at what lies ahead for them whenever this agreement breaks down, especially if it does last the full 5 years and the cuts are every bit as harsh as they promise to be. If the 1983 Labour manifesto was the longest suicide note in history, then the Con-Dem deal might turn out to be the one which takes the most time to be acted upon.

As for our new double act and who they most resemble, you can't help but predict that they might well turn out to be Steptoe and Son, with Cameron as Albert and Clegg as Harold. Everyone knows that the central arc of the show, that Harold couldn't escape however he tried from his father, turned into life imitating art when Harry H. Corbett became typecast in his role and found himself stuck alongside a man who he genuinely couldn't stand, resulting in a disastrous Australian tour. Cameron clearly has nothing to lose, and his party is unlikely to be too damaged by any deal, its base still there, while Clegg is putting absolutely everything at risk by joining a partnership which he has next to no control over. He faces being stuck in the shadow of Cameron for the rest of his life, having acted as his fluffer while potentially consigning his own party to oblivion. Will it be worth it, either for the policy concessions he's achieved, or for the good of the country, as is if that ever really came into it? We might know far sooner than Clegg has to hope we will.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, cabinet reshuffle, Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Conservatives, David Cameron, hung parliament, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, our new overlords, politics

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5/12/2010 10:04:00 pm | Permalink |

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Liberal moment has arrived!

Let's get the mea culpa out of the way straight off. Frankly, all of us who called for a vote for the Liberal Democrats now look more than a little silly. To be sure, it was always likely to end up this way, and indeed, we wanted a hung parliament: we just didn't really expect for Nick Clegg to jump so willingly into a coalition with the Conservatives. On any realistic measure, the policies of Labour and the Conservatives outside of economics and perhaps civil liberties are closer to each other than those of the Liberal Democrats on so many things that it seemed risible to imagine that the two parties could agree to a full-blown coalition, and yet that's now what we have. The right-wing press and politicos said vote Clegg and get Brown, and yet we've received the opposite. We saw Cameron and Clegg tearing strips off each other in the final debate, and now we have them as prime minister and deputy. Clegg urged us to shake off the shackles of old politics and vote for something new, and while we've somewhat got that, just how many Liberal Democrat supporters will be anything other than mortified by the Frankenstein's monster we now have in government?

The idea that this can possibly last for a full five years, with fixed terms thrown in as another of the concessions, is fantastical. We can't for certain completely dismiss the behaviour of the Conservatives so far, which seems to have involved throwing numerous cherished policies straight on the bonfire (or not, as argued below), such has been their desperation to return to power, itself puzzling considering how they could easily have governed with a minority and/or gone almost straight away for a second election at which they would have received a majority, but does anyone truly believe that they aren't going to go at the first completely open opportunity to try and get a majority of their own, even with this ridiculous supposed agreement which has already named the date of the next election? Do the Liberal Democrats now seriously imagine that even if they get their referendum on the alternative vote, which will in many places make safe seats even safer, that they'll be able to win it when both the Tories and almost certainly Labour will oppose it to the hilt?

If the concessions made by the Conservatives look eye-watering at first sight, then examining them from a different angle is most certainly required. A majority Conservative government might just have pushed ahead with its plans on inheritance tax, but a minority one would have risked a huge backlash at the same time as it was making what look likely to be horrendous spending cuts. It was always likely to be shelved, same as the marriage tax credit, or however recognising marriage in the tax system would have been implemented, although the Lib Dems have now said they'll abstain on that, giving it a chance of passing. As it is, IHT hasn't been completely buried, just not likely in this "parliament", while the Liberal Democrats' similarly fanciful mansion tax has been sacrificed. There isn't even it seems an agreement on the always doubtful Lib Dem policy of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000, instead simply putting something towards helping lower earners, while the "jobs tax" will not be imposed, despite the Lib Dems siding with Labour over the national insurance rise during the election campaign.

In fact, the more details announced, trickling out as I write this, the worse the deal looks for the Lib Dems. Trident will be replaced, the "value for money" simply scrutinised; there will be a cap on immigration, against all liberal instincts; spending cuts will begin this year despite the warning from the IMF that it wasn't necessary and could tip economies back into recession; and a referendum on transferring any further powers to the EU, although whether that's literally any powers we're unlikely to know. Where exactly the Conservative compromises that were "embarrassingly" being made, according to one senior Lib Dem source are, is difficult to ascertain, unless you include the five cabinet posts which are to go to the party, one of which is Clegg as deputy prime minister. Rumours are suggesting that Chris Huhne could be home secretary, which would be incredibly welcome and definitely a brake on the Tories' authoritarian instincts on crime, but I'll believe it when I see it. Can we seriously imagine the Sun welcoming an actual capital L liberal as home secretary, especially when Dominic Grieve was apparently thrust aside because of how he objected to Rebekah Brooks' (nee Wade) face about her then paper's coverage of law and order?

One of the most fascinating aspects of the deal will be just how the media responds to it. One presumes that to begin with the right-wing press will welcome it, simply because it ensures that the Conservatives are in Downing Street as they predicted and so earnestly hoped for. Once the novelty wears off though, and after they've forgotten how they previously attempted to shank Nick Clegg just like the hoody gang of their collective worst nightmares, are they really going to be happy with a coalition as potentially unwieldy and with such potential differences of opinion? How on earth can they be happy with the most pro-European of all the parties actually in power, even if they have no actual control on policy? More pertinently, they're going to be chasing their own backsides over just how much influence they will have over the government: previously they were assured of their concerns not just being noted but pursued and reacted to by a Conservative majority; now they're going to have to deal with unknown quantities also exercising power that by right is theirs! How long before the first newspaper urges the Tories to shaft the Liberals and either go it alone or call another election?

There's no doubt that this is a historic moment, but then history also tells us that past coalitions or pacts have ended badly. There's every reason to believe that this trend is not about to be bucked. The difficulty is in predicting exactly when: frankly, I can't see this lasting any more than two years, which would the best possible time for the Tories to back out, before the cuts have really started to hit home and when their support is likely to be highest. The Liberal Democrat vote is almost certainly going to be slashed in any event, and their Scottish seats especially must be in danger.

The least worst outcome, even when you weigh up the Liberal Democrats acting as a moderating influence on the Conservatives, was a Tory minority government. Yes, the coalition between the two parties seems to have delivered for now on civil liberties grounds, but that may well turn out to be the least of our worries. Can they Lib Dems really be happy, for instance, with the Tories' welfare reform proposals, which they've just signed up to? There'll no end it seems to the forcing of the sick and vulnerable into work, regardless of all the other factors concerning. Admittedly, coalition government, and it's almost certainly what we would have if we did finally get a form of PR, involves compromises and the doing of deals exactly like this one, but that usually involves parties which share more than the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives do, or at least do the surface. Key, after everything, might well be that Nick Clegg didn't so much as mention voting reform in his speech after the party accepted the deal. Perhaps, after everything, the sheer lustre of power clinched it.

For the wider left, the absorption of the Liberal Democrats into the government for however long it turns out leaves us in opposition but with more space for ideas than ever. For some of us, no longer sniping at those we are sympathetic towards, even if New Labour divorced itself so inexorably from our own values, will do us the world of good. It will also unite us far more than power ever did. To quote Bob Piper, with the caveat that I'm not going to dismiss Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats as the Ramsay MacDonald(s) of the noughties just yet:

Meantime, this is the opportunity for those of us genuinely on the left of centre of politics in this country to reconnect with the electorate, re-engage with the trade union movement, and ensure the Tories are defeated next time round, and Ramsey MacClegg and his rag, tag and bobtail quasi Tories are consigned to the dustbin of history. If we can get nearly 30% of the electorate to vote Labour at a time of financial crisis, with an unpopular government and leader, it should be a stroll in the park.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Conservatives, David Cameron, election night, Gordon Brown, hung parliament, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, politics

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5/11/2010 10:08:00 pm | Permalink |

Monday, May 10, 2010

The woman in a political sandwich.

It really is close to impossible not to reduce the continuing "discussions" between both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and now the Liberal Democrats and Labour to that of two suitors fighting over the same person, so let's not even try. If we deign to portray the Lib Dems as the woman in this potential political sandwich, quite what she would see in the two desperate men for her hand is just as difficult: there's the strutting, not quite as cocksure as he might have been Conservatives, convinced of his suitability and endorsed by the public, but who has different qualities and general interests to the lady he still finds himself attracted to, and whose motives are deeply suspect; or there's Labour, who she has far more in common with, but who by comparison is far from his prime, and who has a recent past which would turn off someone who had more of a choice. This isn't to consider just whether the men themselves might yet have second thoughts, especially after behaviour which some have already called "two-timing" or "betrayal"...

Quite whether Nick Clegg used the same sort of techniques and tactics in his alleged 30 conquests as he has over the last couple of days is also impossible to know, but it's undeniable that he's played his hand as well. Not only he has succeeded in apparently getting the Conservatives to compromise both on a referendum on the Alternative Vote and on his raising of the income tax threshold to £10,000, but he's also managed to get the leader of one of the parties to resign as the very first concession on negotiations. Admittedly, Gordon Brown was going to have to relinquish his position at some point, but to do so in the "national interest" and so dramatically is one of those moments to be remembered in the years to come. I've never properly understood the loathing of Gordon Brown by some (maybe, to descend into uncomfortable honesty for a second, because I look at him and at least see something of myself) but get the feeling that he's more likely to resemble the John Major model of former prime ministers than that of the Thatchers and Blairs.

There is however something distinctly odd about all the manoeuvring going on, both because we're not used to political parties even considering working together, and also because it goes so directly against their better nature. Our political system has for so long encouraged mutual antagonism, the massive exaggeration of what have often been small differences between the parties that it's startling just how quickly all of that can be discarded when the possibility of pure, naked power is there to be grabbed. For let's not kid ourselves, this is the real reason why all three parties are finding their manifestos so malleable. Gordon Brown's sacrifice is then so that his party can potentially continue to govern; his personal motive may have been noble, but the overall one is not quite as unselfish.

As the deals on offer go, it really should be a no-brainer for the Liberal Democrats just on the issue of political reform itself: AV without a referendum from Labour, a referendum on actual proportional representation later, as opposed to just a referendum on AV from the Tories who would almost certainly oppose it in their own constituencies if not in the Commons itself. We can't though pretend that this is just about voting reform: a Labour-Liberal Democrat pact simply isn't realistic if you do even the slightest thinking about it, and a look at the Tory newspapers tomorrow will quickly reinforce that. Already the Mail and Telegraph are in full cry about coups and black days for democracy, as if the voters themselves, despite their cries, didn't in some way endorse a hung parliament. As John Reid has already elucidated, relying on the nationalists in both Wales and Scotland as both parties would to get an overall majority is a recipe for instability: both will demand to be somewhat protected from the cuts to come, further inflicting them on an England which overwhelming voted for the Conservatives. The ravages of Thatcherism and the party's penchant for testing their policies on that country first has left Scotland a wasteland for the Conservatives; Labour would face exactly the same in England, something it cannot afford to do.

The Liberal Democrats face a far worse dilemma. This could be both their greatest opportunity and their potential undoing. If they do go in for a coalition with the Tories, and they've rightly rejected the 2-year offer which Cameron initially made, which was clearly designed to leave them out to dry, and even assuming that the referendum on AV goes their way, not even close to being certain, then they're going to share the blame with the Conservatives for the savage cuts coming our way. Indeed, they've apparently given way on the cuts starting this year, against the advice of those noted lefties at the International Monetary Fund, not to mention the sainted Vince the Cable. AV might well mean not losing as many seats as they would have done should both parties find themselves forming only a one-term government, yet is such slight reform worth it to be thrown out along with the Tories, potentially for another generation?

The far better option, at least from my hardly towering vantage point, would be for them to reject both parties and let the Conservatives govern with a minority, support them on uncontroversial votes, abstain on the Queen's speech, and only vote against them on their worst excesses. This government will, in the words of Mervyn King, potentially find itself outside of power for decades, such will be the unpleasantness to come. Labour if it has any sense will spend the next five years rebuilding under its new leader, and it's already starting the process at grassroot level as shown by its performance in the local elections. It might well find itself cleaning up in 5 years' time, or even sooner. All depends now on just how much lust Clegg and his MPs have for real power, and on that score you should never rule anything in or out.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Conservatives, David Cameron, election night, Gordon Brown, hung parliament, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, politics

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5/10/2010 11:59:00 pm | Permalink |

Friday, May 07, 2010

The evening after the night before.

On the surface, last night's result looks bad for everyone and everything, with the one exception of the Greens and Caroline Lucas. The Conservatives, despite having everything in their favour failed to get the majority it looked for so long like they were going to cakewalk towards. For Labour, while not plummeting to the depths of 1983, they've come a distant second in the popular vote and even while they held on with mostly brilliant results in London and in some of the other major cities and town, they've been removed from almost everywhere else in England, obliterated, reduced to a rump. The Liberal Democrats have reason to be completely disconsolate: they improved their share of the vote, even if by a relatively measly 1%, yet they come away with 5 less seats.

Away from the parties, our other institutions, our media and our democracy have all taken a battering. Never has our electoral system looked so absurd, nor the union so dated. First past the post has been shown to be a relic of the two party system: it is indefensible to suggest it can continue to be the bedrock of our electoral system when a party increases its share of the popular vote yet still loses seats. Our parliamentary system deserves to be in tatters: it's equally as indefensible that the Conservatives have been denied a majority due to the modern rotten borough situation in Scotland and parts of Wales, when so much of policy in those two countries has been devolved to their parliament and their assembly respectively. The running of the election itself was in some areas a shambles, a complete joke: while the turnout differed wildly, an overall turnout of 65% is not even close to being historically high. How could people have been effectively denied the franchise through such rank incompetence when this was hardly an unprecendented event?

On the same point, 65% overall turnout is the most savage indictment of how we do politics in this country for a generation. Even when the result was the most uncertain since the 70s, when the campaign had been enlivened by the innovation of the leader's debates and when it seemed possible that a third party could dump the governing one into third place, still 35% of the electorate was either so disinterested or turned off by the campaign and what had gone on during this parliament that they abstained entirely. This is no longer simple apathy: this is clearly a sign of the contempt with which a significant minority in this country regard their representatives. The media, with the exception of the Mirror, the only paper to continue to support Labour, also look like chumps. All the screaming about how a hung parliament would be a disaster in the tabloids and yet that's exactly what the voters decided to deliver. The Sun, and especially James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) must be feeling sick at their failure to garner support for the winning party for the first time since Murdoch senior bought the paper. The Guardian and Independent meanwhile have shown just how much influence they have: precisely nil.

As much as a hung parliament was always the best possible realistic outcome, the distribution of seats has left us with the worst of all possible worlds. Neither the Conservatives in a coalition with the DUP can get a majority, nor can Labour joining forces with the Liberal Democrats in a modern pact. Nick Clegg's biggest mistake of the entire campaign was to say that the party with the largest share of the vote would have the right to make the first attempt at forming a government; as democratically sound as that is, it completely ignores the constitutional precedent and gives David Cameron and the Conservatives a huge advantage which they have gleefully grasped. For all the talk of discussions between the two parties, you only have to look at Cameron's derisory offer of just a talking shop on electoral reform to see that they're planning immediately for a second general election this year, simply going through the necessary motions. They could feasibly just get a Queen's speech/budget through parliament with DUP support, but only by dropping their plans to make cuts this year, something they also show no sign of conceding. And after all, why should they? Even if Labour and the Liberal Democrats could form a coalition which also contained all the other minor parties with the exception of the DUP, such a government has absolutely no legitimacy whatsoever in England. It could not possibly hope to govern for a full-term, and only then it would just be delaying the inevitable: a Conservative majority.

Far better would be for Gordon Brown to admit defeat now, resign and allow a new leader to start the rebuilding necessary as soon as possible. That will give the party a fighting chance in the election, whenever it comes. The alternative is clear: a Conservative majority in a second election on an even more derisory turnout, with no change in our broken electoral system. The only consolation is, as pointed out in the rather epic live blog, just how unpopular that Conservative government will be even with a majority: the cuts will be savage, with a one-term government being a distinct possibility. The next five years may be unbearably harsh on all fronts, but bowed as the left is, we are not anywhere close to having been wiped out. We have reinvented ourselves before and we will do so again, hopefully this time without the compromises which wounded us so deeply before. We have to unite, we have to fight, and we know what we have to do.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Conservatives, David Cameron, election night, Gordon Brown, hung parliament, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, politics

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5/07/2010 07:50:00 pm | Permalink |

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Election live blog (possibly).

11:15. And fuck it, I'm going to get some sleep, or at least attempt to. Back later.

11:10. Sarah Teather back in, in new Brent constituency. Great result for her and the Liberal Democrats. Real shame that wasn't repeated elsewhere.

10:54. Galloway out. No surprise. Not sure what he's going to do with himself now, or rather I do; spend just as much time away from politics in this country as he always has.

10:43. Really strong speech by Nick Clegg. Disagree vehemently on Tories having the first go at forming a government when all the constitutional precedents say it's the prime minister's (and Gordon Brown remains prime minister) right to make the first attempt, but it's not going to change anything on that score, even as Ed Vaizey is currently attempting to reach out to them. Frankly that makes it even more unlikely that a Lab-Lib and others coalition is possible. Cameron can, in that horrible cliché, start measuring up Number 10's curtains.

10:20. David Steel talking absolute sense. All the leaders should leave negotiations until tomorrow and get some sleep. Don't think I'm going to do the same just yet.

09:42. Formally a hung parliament. I said it was the best possible result, and it still probably is, only I wished desperately for the Lib Dems to at least get around 80 seats. It wasn't to be. Conservative government incoming in one form or another.

09:00. Clearly Gordon Brown isn't going to concede today, but I can't see any possible way in which any sort of coalition is either credible or could ever be agreed with the Lib Dems plus the other minor parties. The Tories have not won this election, but they've come within touching distance, and will almost certainly either govern with a minority or form some kind of coalition, most likely with the DUP and maybe others if needed. As suggested below, I still think a second election is worth a bet, if you're into that sort of shenanigans: the Tories would dearly love an actual majority they could call their own, but with the press the way it is they might be able to manage without it.

The Liberal Democrats are going to blame the electoral system, and that's exactly what I would do. The opinion polls were wrong in predicting them gaining parity with Labour; the exit poll, however, was almost dead right. Nonetheless, to lose seats is a catastrophe. On the day they were squeezed, Clegg simply wasn't enough to dislodge those who were always determined to try and get a Conservative majority, and as downhearted as I personally am with such a poor overall result, perhaps we should have expected it. Every time hopes have been raised for the Liberals, whether in the guise of the SDP/Alliance or otherwise, they've been dashed on the day itself.

Labour's result isn't as terrible as it could have been: the share of the vote looks to be higher than 1983 and the longest suicide note in history. On the plus side for the party itself, only minor ministers or ex-cabinet members have lost their seats; all the big names remain. It faces opposition, but this is not even approaching the oblivion which the Tories woke up to in 1997. It needs to be remembered just how unpopular this government, whichever form it eventually takes, is likely to be: if the Tories decide to govern by consensus and follow the cuts outlined by Labour and the Liberals which amount to the levels from the 1970s, then it might be able to hang on next time. If it goes instead for the biggest cuts since the second world war, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies believes it will impose based on its costings, then absolutely anything could happen, including Greece style rage. If it insists on going ahead with raising the inheritance tax threshold, just for one example, one can only imagine how much anger that will inspire; it will make the fury over the 10p tax rate's abolition look like the proverbial tea party.

We are facing a Conservative government. There is no way to claim this shows a progressive consensus, regardless of what the added share of the vote says. The left now more than ever needs to unite, and we need to fight. We have to battle the Conservatives and what their agenda threatens to be on every single front. We can't pretend that this result was not predicted, but equally we have to take heart from the Conservatives not gaining the majority they threatened for so long. We can be proud that regardless of the overwhelming media bias in favour of the Conservatives, especially that of the Murdoch press, the Sun has not even begun to have won it; if anything, ever since that paper's endorsement the party's support has fallen. More than anything, David Cameron has not had the endorsement which he has so keenly sought. We are humbled, but we are not even close to having been humiliated.

08.00. My local result has come in, as if you care. As predicted, Conservative rout: majority of nearly 9,000 over Labour in a new seat with a technical Labour majority of around 1,500. Greens came behind UKIP and the BNP, which is rather sad, but at least my vote had I chosen to go with Labour was nowhere near making a difference. The turnout, believe it or not, actually went down by 0.6% on last time. The turnout as a whole seems all over the place, and wouldn't be surprised if overall it's only slightly up. Hardly an endorsement of a campaign or our democracy when so much has been at stake.

07:37. A thought - Labour has all but been completely wiped out in England outside of the major cities/larger towns. The Tories have made gains in Wales but have got nowhere in Scotland yet again. The question has to be - why on earth is the Tory party still so committed to the union? With Scotland fully independent, the Tories outside of huge swings like 1997's could rule England itself almost perpetually. The West Lothian question looms larger than ever.

07:12. Another Portillo moment for me personally in a night mostly devoid of them: Blairite git and former minister (I think I might have used more colourful epithets slightly too liberally earlier in the evening) Tony McNulty has lost his Harrow East seat, the Tories getting a comfortable 3,403 majority.

7:00. The gorgeous Julia Goldsworthy has just lost her seat in Cambourne and Redruth, by a heartbreakingly close 66 votes. I know I shouldn't reduce it to such terms, but there goes easily the sexiest MP of all 650. Sigh. If you were one of the more than 6,000 that voted Labour when they didn't have a chance, hold your head in shame.

To, err, less priapic matters, it won't have escaped your attention that Labour and the Liberal Democrats can't form a coalition as it stands, and it's doubtful whether they can even if they gain the support of most of the sympathetic smaller parties. Gordon Brown is constitutionally fully entitled to attempt to form a government, and is doubtless attempting to do so as I type this. Far more realistic however is the Tories either forming a coalition with the likes of the unionists in NI, or attempt to govern with their minority without an actual deal. Here's a prediction which I may end up eating: the Tories won't be able to pass an emergency budget/and or a Queen's speech unless they make major concessions on cuts this year. I think we're set for a second election, which the Conservatives will gain an easy majority in.

06:22. For those wondering about Salma Yaqoob, i.e., just me, she sadly came second with 12,240 to Labour's 16,039 in Birmingham Hall Green. The Lib Dems were third with 11,988; they really should have tactically voted for Salma there. Sure she'll be back regardless.

06:00. And to follow that, the Fuhrer himself comes absolutely nowhere in Barking. Well, to be fair, 6,600 votes for the BNP is still a massive result for them, but 24,000 for a hardly ideal Labour candidate in the form of Margaret Hodge is a superb result. Tactical voting, the Hope Not Hate campaign and hatred of the scum clearly all worked to the BNP's disadvantage.

A word on the exit poll: looks like we were all wrong, and it was right, sadly.

05:52. Caroline Lucas wins in Brighton Pavilion by just less than 2,000 votes! Best result of the evening, absolutely fucking brilliant, first ever Green MP and under FPTP. Literally just been pumping the air like an absolute moron.

05:17. Gisela Stuart has held on in Birmingham Edgbaston, which was 39th on the Tory target list, with a majority of 3.1%, an excellent result. I presume that tactical voting played a role there. The Liberal Democrats have continued to fail where they should have won had Cleggmania been real - Labour have held on in Islington South.

To sort of attempt a brief summing up - even though we're still looking at a hung parliament, this has been a disastrous night for both Labour and the Lib Dems, Labour's vote potentially below Michael Foot's 1983 share. The Lib Dem vote has held, but not increased, which is bitterly, bitterly disappointing, and the electoral system has once again meant the bankrupt continuation of two party politics. The Conservatives have not triumphed by any means, but let's be honest - they're going to almost certainly be able to govern with a minority, whether or not Brown has the first throw of the dice. We're looking at Cameron in 10 Downing Street, hung parliament or not.

04:54. Ed Balls has held on in his new seat, despite the Tories throwing everything at it in the hope of a "Portillo moment". The BNP took 3,535 there, so we have racist cunts to thank for Ed Balls staying in, which is always nice. My own personal Portillo moment however is the defenestration of Charles Clarke, one of the few Liberal Democrat gains tonight in Norwich South. Farewell sweet Safety Elephant, for you most certainly won't be missed. Another notable result is Hammersmith - the Tory candidate there was Shaun Bailey, one of the infamous Tatler group of young, happening, hip, super-sexy modern Tories - and he's lost. Hah! 78th on the Tory target list as well. John Denham has also just won, one of the few ministers to resign over Iraq war - possible leadership candidate for Labour should it come to it?

04:20. 40 minutes on and we're still no nearer to knowing for certain whether hung parliament is going to be the result, although definitely heading that way. Tories simply aren't winning enough of their target seats, with the parties other than Labour holding on most fiercely. Wales and Scotland seats especially haven't gone for them. One of the worst results so far is Evan Harris' apparent loss - one of the most decent MPs gone. Labour have just held onto Luton South, despite Margaret Moran and Esther Rantzen, who got all of 1,800 votes. Ed Balls in Normanton apparently gone to recount, much as I dislike the bastard I'd love him to hold on. Jacqui Smith has lost, as she always going to, good riddance to a despicable Blairite, regardless of her expenses.

03:40. Labour have held on in Rochdale. If the opposition couldn't win off the back of "bigotgate", then that's a poor show all round and good news for Labour. Far less good news is a Conservative triumph in Carlisle, which wasn't even on the Tory target list. Results are coming in so thick and fast now that it's difficult to keep up. The difference in Birmingham Edgbaston may be as little as 20 votes, second recount there. Very handy page is here - the Tory target seats. Nick Griffin apparently conceded defeat in Barking, although nothing official. As for the Greens, declaration in Brighton isn't expected until 5am, closer than initially thought. Dearly hope Caroline Lucas grabs it.

03:04. Piss-poor speech from Cameron, didn't even attempt to claim victory, only said Labour had "lost mandate to govern". And you haven't won the right to at the moment. Couple of good results for Tories - taking Erewash on 10% swing, Dover also. The difficulty for Labour if everything stays as it is will be claiming there's a progressive majority when their vote is down, even if not by as much as thought, and when the Liberal Democrats have done so poorly when expectations were so high. Tory press is going to be fucking savage, claims of a coup bound to made. It's going to be incredibly nasty, potentially defining politics for years to come.

02:49. Switched to ITV - coverage is so much better, just keeping it simple, telling you the results as they come in. Lib Dems have taken Eastbourne, their first gain, Chris Huhne also hanging on in his seat, against the horrible hand-picked Maria Hutchings, who declared she didn't care about asylum seekers. Birmingham Edgbaston, major target for the Tories, appears to be going to a recount. The lovely Annunziata Rees-Mogg, or Nancy Mogg as Cameron allegedly suggested she call herself, has also been beaten by the Lib Dem incumbent. Again, Tories don't seem to be taking seats they absolutely have to, Lib Dems flat-lining, Labour holding on, hung parliament looking increasingly likely.

02:25. Lembit Opik out in Montgomeryshire on a swing to the Tories of an incredible 13.2%. Opik might have been a publicity whore and turned people off, but that's immense. Along with Robinson story of the night so far, and yet more evidence of a dreadful night for the Lib Dems.

02:13. Think it needs to be pointed out just how fucking atrocious the BBC coverage is. It's not just the boat, it's the almost complete ignoring of the actual results to talk to people who are saying absolutely nothing.

02:03. This doesn't just look depressing on the Liberal Democrat front, it looks disastrous. Failed to win in Guildford, which was their number one target, with a swing to the Tories of 6%. Going to be incredibly disappointed if the pattern continues.

01:51. Sadiq Khan doesn't just hang on in Tooting, keeps a 3,000 majority. Looks like a clear example of tactical voting. Tories take Battersea, but with Labour taking a better share of the vote than predicted. Wondering out loud here - could it possibly be that Lib Dems have been prepared to vote tactically while Labour supporters haven't?

01:37. David Blunkett essentially conceding defeat. Brown despite an increased majority with no bombast whatsoever. Lewis Bastion on the Graun live-blog calling a majority for the Tories. Still don't think you can realistically do that yet - some claiming, nothing official yet, that Sadiq Khan has hung on in Tooting, Labour held Durham against a Lib Dem challenge. The real disaster of this seems so far, and yet again with the usual caveats, no sign whatsoever of the Lib Dems rising to the heights which the opinion polls suggested. After the suggestion earlier in the campaign that we might finally have something other than 2 party politics, that would be incredibly depressing.

01:12. This is way too volatile to predict yet. 9% swing in Kingswood, not a main Tory target, 2% swing to LD against Tories in Torbay, 10% swing to Tories in Putney. Those huge swings look alarming but still nothing even approaching a pattern emerging.

00:55. Peter Robinson loses his seat with a huge swing to the Alliance, that's fairly massive. Did anyone predict that? Especially awesome that a non-sectarian candidate won. On matters far more profane: just how many cunts are there on this boat on the Thames? Toby Young, Maureen Lipmann, Piers Morgan, David Starkey, any more for any more? If it wasn't for Armando Iannucci and Ian Hislop I would heartily advocate sinking the thing.

00:45. Okkkkkk, went to play some Left 4 Dead 2 and in the meantime err, nothing has happened. Result from Sunderland Central is interesting: a "wildcard" for the Tories so an almost 7,000 majority for Labour, with only a 5% swing to the Conservatives is far more in line with what both exit polls and opinion polls were saying. Best bit so far: Joan Collins saying how important the family was. She should know, she's been in so many.

23:34. 11.6% swing to the Tories in Washington and Sutherland West. That's massive, and only on a low turnout which still went up by 7%. Again, shouldn't really be extrapolating, but that's worrying on all fronts. FiveThirtyEight also live-blogging, with their alternative to uniform swing calculations.

23:01. Incidentally, unlike others, I shall be imbibing energy drinks to get through the night, while munching through an already half-empty tin of Lindt truffles. Not sickly at all. No. Oh, and the first Sunderland result tells us fuck all. That's my opinion with psephologist hat on.

22:40. If the exit poll is right, and frankly the Liberal Democrats losing seats is making it look ridiculous, Brown clearly can't hang on. The Tory press will be in absolute full cry, Nick Clegg has already said that the Tories in this position should have the first go, against constitutional tradition but never mind, and the hangers on are proclaiming the biggest swing since 1931.

The sudden Damascene like conversion to PR from Mandelson and Johnson is incredibly cynical, as if it had be scripted should the exit poll say something similar beforehand. Desperation, as much as a Lab-Lib coalition would be preferable to any form of Tory coalition.

The electoral law is also clearly an ass; how can anyone justify shutting the polling stations when there are still people queueing, as reported in Manchester and Sheffield? Legal challenges in the offing also.

Justin is also live-tweeting over at Chick Yog, and I expect to be popping into the Lib Con live chat later.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, election night, live blog

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5/06/2010 10:40:00 pm | Permalink |

And now we wait...

Nothing left to say, I fear, except I reckon the turnout's going to be high if the two polling stations I've been near are anything to go by. If I get over-excited I might do a little live blogging, but we shall see. Not sure if Lib Con's doing anything live, but if they are you might find me over there also. And because I know you care so deeply, you'll be pleased to note I resisted the temptation, despite wavering in the polling station, and voted Green.

Labels: 2010 election campaign

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5/06/2010 07:04:00 pm | Permalink |

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

So who do we vote for now?

After an exhausting month of the same old politics, the same old deceptions and the same old unspoken truths of the harshness to come, it's incredible there's still so much, if not perhaps excitement, at least anticipation for what tomorrow and Friday hold. Partially that's down to the result still being so uncertain, but it's also been down to the emergence of a real, credible alternative to both Labour and the Conservatives. This hasn't just been thanks to Nick Clegg's performances during the prime ministerial, but down to voters themselves finally realising that a vote for the third party isn't necessarily a wasted vote.

At the start of the campaign the Liberal Democrats were the least worst of the three main parties. On the 5th of May they are now by far the best of the three main parties, having run a campaign which has at least somewhat attempted to be positive, without succumbing to the stranglehold of the centre-right on so much social policy. They have consistently stood against not just Labour's continued assault on civil liberties, but also their authoritarian stance on law and order, in contrast to the Tories, who continue to fight with Labour on who can be the tougher on crime. While many of their policies are far from perfect, epitomised by their caution on Trident, their failure to give fully fledged support to continued immigration and the give-away to the middle classes which is their lifting of the income tax threshold to £10,000, the positives hugely outweigh the negatives.

We shouldn't, while praising the Liberal Democrats, understate the achievements of Labour over the past 13 years. They took an underfunded and often demoralised public sector and flooded it with cash, for both better and worse. Schools and hospitals in many areas are unrecognisable from 1997, for the chief reason that so many have either been rebuilt or upgraded. Waiting lists have become almost a thing of the past, and while results in education have not increased by anywhere near enough, it's impossible to argue that we've moved backwards. Yet the public sector investment has come at a huge price: Labour's complete capitulation to the financial sector, the Faustian pact between the two funding Labour's public spending increases while the City was allowed to all but govern itself. As with all such pacts, it has ended with Labour caught in its own trap: forced into cutting its beloved state sector while letting the sector which caused the crash off with almost no conditions. The combination of Labour's complete enslavement to neo-liberalism, along with a social authoritarianism that at one point threatened to give the police the unbelievable power of detaining someone accused of terrorist offences for an incredible 90 days are just two reasons to reject them this time. Many more were provided by George Monbiot yesterday, and a further two were in the papers just today: the attempt to hold the hearings into the claims made by former Guantanamo detainees in secret, and the proposed deportation of Bita Ghaedi, thankfully for now postponed.

It would be equally remiss to dismiss the Conservatives completely out of hand. David Cameron has taken a party that was beginning to think it would never govern again and took it as far it's been possible to take it. While much of the change has to be put down to the passing of time itself, the Conservatives are an entirely different proposition from they were in 1997. This was especially illustrated by the campaign which the party led against Ben Bradshaw in that year, denouncing him as "bent Ben"; the party now, despite Chris Grayling and bed and breakfasts, has at least two potential MPs who are in civil partnerships and most probably more. The Labour attacks on the Conservatives and how they'll take us back to the 80s ring increasingly hollow for the reason that Cameron has reconciled so much of his party to what is essentially a New Labour agenda; indeed, on civil liberties the party is clearly to the left of the Labour party. As Simon Jenkins argued today, to present a Cameron government as a reactionary throwback is silly. By the same token however, Cameron has not ditched Thatcherism any more than New Labour did, and has not even begun to take the party back to its "One Nation" days when there was almost a social democratic consensus between both Labour and the Conservatives.

While Cameron has since attempted to ditch most of his Blairite overtones, his new Tories remain a party that is determined, regardless of the economic situation, to impose their own ideology, most nakedly on education. The "free schools" policy, about to be ditched in Sweden because of its deficiencies will not just even further dilute the amount of available funding to existing schools but also create even more division in a system where shared experiences are so fundamentally important to later life. It remains dedicated to raising the inheritance tax threshold to what will essentially be £2 million, just when such revenue is so desperately needed. They want to recognise marriage in the tax system even when society has moved on. They've spent much of the last 5 years decrying the state of British society, claiming it to be broken, yet at the same time continue to espouse the liberal values that have made this country what it is today. They want to tear up the Human Rights Act, one of New Labour's greatest achievements, for no other reason than to suck up to tabloid newspapers. They are dedicated to the same casual social authoritarianism that has created the largest ever prison population this country has ever seen. At a time when we desperately need new ideas, the only thing they have to offer is the "big society", a hastily cobbled together but unexplained policy, based around the most questionable of contemporary behavioural economic thinking and the fatuous Red Tory agenda. The party, while it has unquestionably improved, remains obsessed with the past and a bygone, halcyon period, whether it be the 50s or the 80s, which never existed except in their minds.

We shouldn't pretend that the Liberal Democrats are anything approaching a perfect combination of Labour's best motives with the Tory emphasis on individual freedom. They are, as the Guardian's excellent leader at the weekend pointed out, an almost exclusively middle-class party, whose credentials on tackling poverty have not even begun to be proven. They are an unhappy compromise of a party, containing both social democrats and free market libertarians, neither of whom are happy with the parties they would otherwise associate themselves with. It is however that melding which is now the better option, building on Labour's 13 years by not slashing the state to the extent to which the Tories will, while dismantling Labour's burgeoning surveillance apparatus. It is the best possible mainstream option on offer in 2010.

The problem with the above is that we have an electoral system which doesn't just force us into having to vote against the party we most want kept out, but that it also in some circumstances doesn't even let us vote for the second least worst option. In numerous seats across the country the Liberal Democrats are a distant third, including in my own. A vote for them in such circumstances is an utter waste. Tactical voting, while wonderful in theory, doesn't just involve us having to potentially hold our noses, but in some cases having to put a bag over our heads to hide our shame. The most realistic possible outcome from tomorrow's vote is a hung parliament, yet to achieve even that we have to do the equivalent of cutting off our noses to spite our face.

In a lot of cases, this means voting for a Labour candidate and a Labour party that has become everything we loathe, and most of us simply won't be able to stomach it. It's different if we can at least rationalise it on the basis that the person we're actually voting for was a decent MP and at least voted against Labour's worst excesses: in 2005 I voted Labour in an effort to keep out the Tory, and because he had abstained on the Iraq war vote (to his eternal regret) and voted against the worst of Labour's anti-terror laws. The Conservative won. This time round I have no reason whatsoever to vote for the Labour candidate, even if he seems a reasonable sort and supports voting reform. First past the post however means that I can either do the same thing all over again, or waste my vote with the Greens, as there is absolutely no point whatsoever voting for the Liberal Democrats when they have as much chance of winning as the Greens do. This reflects somewhat what may well happen if the Lib Dems do form a coalition and get PR through: destroy their own chances for the greater good.

I can't then wholeheartedly endorse tactical voting, as even though I'm fairly sure it will be the Greens that get my x, I might eat the tens of thousands of words written here and end up with the heaviest heart in the world voting Labour once again. Here then is my suggestion on how to vote, in the simplest possible terms: where the Greens can win, vote Green. Where Respect can win, and that probably just means Salma Yaqoob, although Galloway and their candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow might yet triumph, vote Respect. Where the Liberal Democrats can win, vote Liberal Democrat. Where any of the above can't win, just make sure you vote, whichever way you decide is best. And let's hope for just that.

Labels: 2010 election campaign, Conservatives, hung parliament, Labour, Liberal Democrats, so who do we vote for now

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5/05/2010 09:08:00 pm | Permalink |

Obsolete

Friday, May 13, 2011

A year on.

Friday, November 26, 2010

In which I admit getting it wrong twice in two days.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Disgraces and mutinies.

Friday, November 05, 2010

Not a tribute to Phil Woolas.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Whither Woolas?

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The shape of cuts to come.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The shape of the Con-Dems to come.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Liberal moment has arrived!

Monday, May 10, 2010

The woman in a political sandwich.

Friday, May 07, 2010

The evening after the night before.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Election live blog (possibly).

And now we wait...

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

So who do we vote for now?

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