Upset With The Election Result?

There are a group of people in our great nation who are deeply troubled, especially since the election result last Thursday. Are you one of them?

What can you do to salve the painful feelings of rejection and humiliation you must be experiencing? You may have tried a number of things already to comfort yourself and salvage your sanity.

Perhaps you've already posted a sanctimonious FB message expressing your disappointment at the obvious moral and intellectual shortcomings of those 11.3 million voters who don't share your superior brand of politics.

Perhaps you've already warned your Twitter followers not to bother turning up to NHS appointments as the organisation no longer exists or where it does they'd better take a credit card.

Surely you've reposted a letter from a left wing reverend or an "11 year old girl", or some such, to David Cameron imploring him not the exterminate poor people or introduce hunting of the disabled, like we all know he wants to... the bastard.

You've probably posted memes calling for a change in electoral system to one that might deliver more palatable results for you in the future.

You almost certainly would have pointed out it's all the fault of the "Tory press" and that even the BBC didn't play its part in promoting Labour seriously enough.

You simply must have signed up to some kind of anti-Tory manifesto.


You may even have had a bit of a riot and wittily defaced a monument to war heroes with the words "Tory scum!", such is your understandable anger at this disgustingly unacceptable democratic outcome.

If you've done all these things and still feel down, never fear. The Guardian have provided counselling advice from a psychotherapist for all those tender hearts that have been "traumatised by the election result"...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/10/traumatised-by-the-election-result-a-psychotherapists-recovery-guide

No, really, this is an actual thing. Please do read it, even though, at first, you'll think it must be a spoof. As with everything written in The Guardian, it's achingly (self-)righteously worthy advice.

Local Elections 2013

Ed inspiring commuters on the Tube

Lots of spinning going on about the council elections results. In reality, it's been a typically bad mid-term result for the Tories and the Lib Dems. Labour's gains have been patchy and mostly disappointing. Only UKIP can take any pleasure in that they attracted a significant percentage of the vote and some councillors. Although no councils, of course.

Apart from the UKIP performance, the only other notable outcome is Labour's lacklustre progress. Ed Miliband had the following going for him:

• With the Liberal Democrats in coalition with the Tories, Labour are the lone party of opposition on the left. Dissatisfaction with the government should drive votes to Labour as the only possible alternative
• The Coalition parties are in mid-term, midway through implementing very painful reforms and departmental budget cuts that have sapped their political capital.
• UKIP are splitting the vote on the right, sapping support from the Conservatives
• Labour were starting from a very low point and the Tories a very high point, as the last time these wards were fought was during the darkest days of the previous Labour government. Any slight improvement in Labour's vote should have delivered hundreds of councillors.

Given all of this, you'd expect a Labour landslide, gains of 4/5/600 or more. But no, nothing like it. More worrying for Labour is its lack of success in the South. The only councils Labour won were Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire - both rock solid Labour before Labour's disastrous result in 2009. Few significant inroads were made in the South of England.

Ed Miliband has had an easy run in the media for a while. But following recent poor decisions, especially around opposing Conservative welfare reforms, another car crash interview and now these disappointing results, pressure should start to mount on the Labour leader. But, I suspect, most of the electorate have already made their mind up on him, and Labour's only hope will be no economic recovery and UKIP's popularity persisting to the election in 2015.

If yesterday's vote proves anything, it proves the country has a strong right of centre mind set. Ed Miliband's march to the left is leaving people cold.

Local Election Results - Nothing We Didn't Already Know

I'm getting a bit bored of the hysterical local election results coverage now. It's difficult to see what these results tell us that we didn't already know. There is a lot of commentary, especially from anti-Cameron right wing commentators as well as the normal party political spin from Labour, around the state of the Conservative party and its leadership.

Based on the local election results the BBC estimates the national share of the vote as the Tories on 31%, Labour on 38% and the Lib Dems on 16%. This outcome reflects what polls have been telling us about Tory support for about a month now. Labour's support is not anywhere near the peek of 45% some polls have suggested and the Lib Dems (who always do better at local elections) is higher.

If anything, the lack of much improvement in the popular vote for Ed Miliband's Labour party since last year's local elections is comment worthy, but instead we're hearing how fantastically well Labour have done and how Cameron's "gaffe prone" government is in real trouble.

Focus has been on the number of council seats gained and lost by the parties since these seats were last up for election in 2008. But Labour couldn't have failed to win 700 odd seats given the low base they were at 4 years ago and the very high base the Tories achieved. Labour did well to win about 100 more than that but that's still not terribly surprising. It's worth remembering that Labour gained over 400 seats in the local elections on the same day they lost the General Election in 2010, with a Michael Foot-esque share of the national vote due, again, to the base positions of the parties when those seats had last been elected. So, Labour haven't produced anything worth the hype. The danger is that all the positive coverage they are getting will start to embed the idea that the same lot of failures that ran this country into the ground up to 2010 are credible candidates to run the country again in 2015.

The main difference between now and last year's election is the fall in Tory support. There's no doubt Cameron has some major issues with communicating his government's agenda. This has been a major contributor to the Tories drop in support of about 5% since the general election. For example, the last budget cut taxes for the poor and increased the amount of tax raised from the rich, but you'd think the opposite was true from the coverage it received in the media. This last month has seen one issue after another spin out of control. The government's position in most cases has been reasonably defensible. But no adequate expectation setting before policy announcements seems to take place. Then, following announcements or potentially damaging events, no effective rebuttal of opposition attacks occurs, allowing them to drive the media agenda and influence public opinion.

I have to admit, the lack of aggressive media management from the likes of the mendacious Alistair Campbell is refreshing in this government. But perhaps Labour had it right. Could it be that a modern political party can't survive without aggressively bullying the media to get your line into their headlines. I hope that is not the case. But one way or the other the Tories need to get their point across. Otherwise, Labour's minor successes like these local elections will continue to be blown out of all proportion and their, often misleading, narrative on government policy will become the perceived truth in the public's mind. It could already be too late.

Of course, the Tories woes are not all down to poor communication. They are lacking a strong message that goes beyond getting the nation's finances back into shape (and even that is arguably suffering as they increasingly water down their policies as the going gets tough and in response to pressure from their worried coalition partners). The Big Society was supposed to provide a broader agenda but it's disappeared as has Steve Hilton, Cameron's policy guru and nothing seems to have replaced it or him.

Cameron shouldn't be panicked into any policy lurches to the left or right. But he should take some time now to clarify what his broad message is and how to effectively get it across to voters. He should start by looking at who he has working on media management and policy development. Then he needs to start planning to differentiate the Tories from the coalition, focusing on what he'd like to do but currently can't and how a majority Tory government would deliver if given a chance.

"Snooping" - A Daft Policy That May Not Even Get To Be Draft

Someone really needs to get to grips with the Government's communications. The latest heavily trailed and predictably unpopular policy looks set for a U-turn before it is even officially been drafted for consultation...


Whatever the government proposes now, it will look as though they were "forced" into a watered down version of the original policy (or whatever evil fantasy policy is in some critics' heads), by whatever group want to take credit - front of the queue will be the Lib Dems, of course, closely followed by those making lots of noise today on Twitter and Facebook but who were silent and happily voted Labour in the Blair years when lots of far worse authoritarian policies were being enacted.

State Funeral For Maggie?

The proposal to give Margaret Thatcher a state funeral deserves more public debate than it's been given, as Peter Oborne points out. But of course the debate will inevitable give voice to the usual left wing Thatcher haters who take every opportunity to share with us their feelings about the ex-Prime Minister.

Peter Oborne correctly points to sections of society that have reason to regret the changes she brought to the country. But those with genuine reason to dislike Thatcher are vastly outnumbered by the, mostly middle-class leftists, who hate Thatcher because the shift in British politics she engendered. They've had to live with the fact that the only way Labour has been able to get back into power has been to move to the right. They hate the fact that it took, what many of them believe to be a "Tory clone", like Tony Blair to get Labour elected and pine for the days when a Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown or even an Ed Miliband of all things, could once again be electable. Their insecurities often give rise to hateful and mindless attacks on the woman they see as the main change agent, their arch-enemy.

But such is politics and while I think the nation owes Maggie a great deal, I also think a national debate on whether or not she is a suitable candidate for a state funeral and what form that should take would be healthy. If the debate concludes for a state funeral it would result in one that has the support of more people than otherwise might be the case.

Indeed, without a real debate, the argument is influenced by the inane and ignorant such as this from Sunny Hundal on a e-petition to "privatise Thatcher's funeral". It's a good example of how the left's hatred blinds them to basic facts. Hundal refers to the "first privatised funeral" as if funerals are generally run by the state. It may come as a shock to Hundal and the signatories to the petition he is touting, but normal funerals are already private affairs. I know it's meant to be a joke and he's taken the idea of privatised funeral to mean a for-profit event with ticket sales etc. But the "joke" doesn't really work when you consider that, for example, funeral directors actually make a profit, the evil Thatcherite bastards! Hundal is right about one thing, perhaps Thatcher would have been happier with a private funeral.

But these kinds of articles and petitions highlight the polarised views on the subject and the need for more of a public debate.

It is kind of amusing to see so many on the left getting worked up about a state funeral for Maggie when you remember that the arrangements were set in train by Gordon Brown as part of his usual party political mischief making. He was attempting to destabilise a reforming Cameron leadership by courting Tory right wingers with gestures like inviting Maggie to No 10 and then the state funeral planning. But, as with most things Gordon tried, his plans didn't work out.

NHS Reform and The Evil Market Boogyman

There is no doubt that the government's proposed NHS reforms have proven to be controversial. Originally backed by Lib Dems, Andrew Lansley has now lost their backing as the party descends into panic mode after the poor local election results. Without the support of the Lib Dems the reforms stand little chance of getting on the statute book.

It seems the main sticking point for the Lib Dems is the extent to which the market will play a role in the provisioning of a free-at-the-point-of-use service.

But, what is this evil market that is threatening our fantastically efficient and effective NHS, in the minds of the left anyway? If you read the Guardian or watch the BBC you'll be under the impression it is some kind of malign mechanism that is designed to sap whatever is good out of anything that comes into contact with it. A diabolical agent of the right wing, whose only purpose is to destroy the NHS and replace it with a US style health care system, where only the rich can afford decent treatment and the poor will be left to die in agony on the streets (because they'd have sold their homes to pay for what inadequate treatment that could pay for).

It suites those on the left, the statist planners and advocates of entrenched public sector interest, to characterise the market as a thing, a device, usually portrayed as an ideological paragon at the heart of the plans of frothing mouth right wingers hell bent on suppressing the poor and enriching their banker mates in the city. But, if you haven't already dismissed this as ridiculous (genuinely) idealogical nonsense, think on a bit more.

What is "the market"? It is nothing more than the choices made by you, me, our neighbours, their friends and family, in fact everyone. It's not an extraneous body with an agenda of it's own. Why shouldn't our needs as patients be put at the heart of our health service?

In Britain we have come to expect a free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system. There are some powerful moral arguments for it and it appeals to our sense of fairness, that everyone, regardless of ability to pay, should receive the best healthcare available. We call the system the National Health Service and we are all very attached to the concept. And quite right too.

Free at the point of use it maybe, but cost free it certainly isn't. The cost to all us tax payers runs to over £100 billion a year. It has the income of a small nation but with the burden of expectations of a very large, complex and demanding one. As multiple reports over the years prove (including this one), the NHS is neither efficient or effective in delivering the standard of care we expect. As someone who has had a love one almost die of malnutrition on an NHS ward, I know for a fact that reform is needed.


The model we use currently is predominantly based on services being delivered by state owned entities and staff. New Labour's early reforming zeal attempted to introduce a more modern and competitive environment but met the same seemingly immovable forces of self interest in the form of public sector unions and others, such as the doctors' union, the BMA, who mobilised to scare the general public and the Prime Minister of the day into believing change was too risky. Old Labour fifth columnists like Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband made sure these voices were heard and moved to scupper all subsequent attempts at reform that threatened their friends and party funders and (as they saw it) loyal Labour voters in the public sector. Sadly, history may be repeating, with Cameron replacing Blair and Clegg replacing Brown. Cameron may not be worried about upsetting Labour voters in the public sector but he is worried about re-contaminating the Tory brand with the poisonous idea, no matter how untrue, that he wants to privatise the NHS.

So, we're spending enormous sums on an organisation built on the 1940's concept that centralised state planning and provision is the only way to provide a national health service free at the point of use. This approach has failed to deliver consistently excellent service as expected. There's been much tinkering at the edges to attempt to improve things but nothing that has been in any way adequate. And now the money's running out. David Cameron is committed to maintaining real terms funding and is avoiding real NHS budget cuts. However, after a decade of fiscal incontinence that has seen the NHS's budget more than double, the organisation has lumbered from poor productivity to worse. Some, politically motivated performance targets have been met (especially around elective appointments) at the expense of professional medical judgement in many cases and overall quality of care has dropped.

What's needed is choice. For example, GPs should be able to assess the performance of local care providers and send patients to the most appropriate one dependent on their needs. If that happens to be a private outfit rather than a public one, so be it. As far as the patient is concerned, it is free. The only difference would be quality. Where appropriate the patient should be provided with adequate information to be able to make informed decisions of their own about where and how they are treated.

I think the proposals have been rushed out and not communicated to key stakeholders in healthcare or to he general public very well. Taking time to pause and refocus is sensible. But, if the reforms are watered down or delayed until the next parliament we will merely end up with an organisation that has grown to rely on massive year on year budget increases to achieve bare minimum standards, if even that at times, facing the prospect of budget increases at barely inflation levels only. It won't know how to adapt. Services will be cut instead of unnecessary bureaucracy, productivity will carry on falling, outcomes will continue to lag behind international standards, cost efficient prevention will still play second fiddle to expensive cure etc etc.

Those that oppose the market playing a larger roll in the provision of healthcare are opposing the NHS becoming more responsive to our actual needs. They prefer to promote their ideological belief that only the state can provide adequate healthcare, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

All that patients care about is that their treatment is of the highest possible quality and free. Who provides it is irrelevant.

Winds of Change Are An Opportunitity For The Liberal Democrats

It's been a bad night for the LibDems but it's also been a bad night for Labour who, despite having probably the most favourable climate possible to gain seats against their opponents given the difficult decisions the government has had to make, failed to make the kinds of gains expected. They should have gained well over 1000 seats and that would just have put them back to where they were before their disastrous 2007 local election performance. Starting from a low base, as they were, gave them a chance to make substantial gains. And the Tories, starting from such a high watermark, were widely predicted to lose hundreds, if not over a thousand seats. In the end they actual GAINED seats! On top of all this Labour lost in Scotland and it looks like Ed Miliband has led the Yes To AV campaign to a humiliating defeat as well. The broadcast media have been quick to airbrush his elbowing of Nick Clegg out from the campaign leadership and are focusing on blaming Clegg, which is quite unfair.

So we won't hear much about Labour's woes. Clegg is in the firing line especially from disaffected and deselected members of his party. What with a massive defeat on the AV referendum it will be a dark few days and weeks for the LibDem leader.

There's talk of him playing a "more critical" role in government. I assume by this they mean being more questioning rather than more important. Perhaps they mean both. Either way I think this is the wrong reaction.

Clegg did well to win as much as he did in the Coalition negotiations. His vision and bravery are to be admired and applauded. But he, and his LibDem colleagues, already exert more influence on the agenda and policy than their support in the election justifies. Rather than attempting to distance themselves from the Government they should be proudly promoting what has been achieved via the joint venture. And not in terms of the "Tories would have been a lot worse if it wasn't for us" angle they so often take.

Instead they should look to the future and consider a permanent realignment that reflects where the true centre of British politics now is. Look where they suffered most last night; in the North where they used left wing friendly messages to gain seats; and in college/university towns and cities where students supported them as the anti establishment / anti tuition fee party. To some it may seem logical to readopt or re-emphasise these messages and shift to the left to regain lost support in these areas.

I disagree. The true centre of British politics is to the right of where the LibDems have traditionally pitched themselves. Not a lot to the right but enough to alienate many of the genuine leftists that liked the non-establishment / left wing combination. The reality is that the LibDems are now a party of government. They cannot be anti-establishment any more. So the leftists are left with Labour as a more attractive option.

The elections last night were effectively a hurricane ripping through the LibDems support, knocking down the weak but leaving the strong in place. As in nature, a disaster is often part of a natural cycle. These results blew away the leftist/anti establishment supporters and left the truly centrist supporters intact. I don't believe the LibDems can ever get the old supporters back fully and certainly not without destroying any credibility they will gain from seeing through the agenda of economic and social reform they are now committed to in the coalition.

Instead they should try to build on the new make up of support. Ed Miliband's union backers will be keen to see him take Labour further to the left while he will be keen to keep using language that won't alienate the parties' moderate supporters. The LibDems have an opportunity to expose this deceit and offer themselves up as a more economically credible (having helped fix the nations finances), truly liberal (meaning less authoritarian than Labour, accepting the free market but with a demonstrable social conscience) and, possibly, more libertarian than the Tories. This is one position to take, there are probably several options for realignment. But the important point will be to realign as a real alternative to the Tories and to replace Labour altogether as their main rivals. This would free up the Tory party to offer up a purer idealogical free market, socially conservative position that many of it's member desire and for which there is a demand in the country.

The true left - statist planners, tax and spenders, militant unionists etc, will still have their home in Ed Miliband's Labour party. But the LibDems will represent a much more popular, centrist body of opinion and deservedly replace Labour as one of Britain's top two parties, representing the centre against the Tory right.

It will be a painful transition though. The likes of Huhne and Hughes will not fit into the new order. They want to return to perpetual opposition so they can return to being the representatives of sandal wearing anti-establishment students, hippies, celebs too embarrassed to admit they're really Labour and environmentalists too embarrassed to admit they're really Greens. Ex-leaders will also struggle, having led the party through '97 onwards when there was strong left wing support for the LibDems and of course there's the ex-Labour/SDP members who will struggle. But those that have vision and are long sighted enough will know that they can't ever be more than a third party bit part players if they continue to compete for the ever decreasing left wing constituency.

There is no left of centre (or progressive as they like to call themselves) majority in this country. Most people don't align themselves on the left or right at all. They want to see clarity of thought, competent economic management, honesty and have confidence their politicians are working in the national interest. If Nick Clegg can keep his party whole heartedly committed to the economic rescue package and the public services reform agenda being pursued by the coalition, in four years time he can rightly claim his fair share of credit for it and make a credible claim that his party is a true party of government when the next election comes around. If they start playing silly buggers by disrupting business and attempting to show they're still great oppositionists - that is where they will return, permanently - to the opposition benches where, sadly quite a few of their current MPs are more comfortable.

And now there's a threat of Scottish independence with the SNP in power in Scotland. Scotland is a massive left wing counter balance to the naturally right of centre England. Removing them from Westminster elections will further decrease the scope for success of left leaning parties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland only elections. Scottish independence is far from certain but if it happened it would make a realignment of British politics essential.The LibDems would be in an even stronger position if they had already made the move.

So, through all the gloom and depression, Liberal Democrats with vision and ambition to play a full and responsible role in the country's future should dispel from their minds the myth of the existence of a "progressive" majority in the country and look to their future representing the real political centre, even though such a shift will be painful. The party is already feeling the pain of losing many of their harder left wing supporters. The process of transition would be even more painful as they lost activists and some big names as well. But worth it in the long run as they gained new supporters from the moderate left and right and eventually overtook Labour just as Labour overtook the Liberals at the beginning of the last century when Labour adopted a more relevant agenda that voters actually wanted at the time. Labour have long since lost their raison d'etre and, with a weak leader, are ripe for picking off at the next election.

Ed's Spin Is Taking Off But In The Wrong Direction

Back on 19th December, The Observer reported that Ed Miliband had instructed his shady, sorry, shadow cabinet not to refer to the government as a coalition but as "Conservative-led". The idea is that left leaning LibDems would hear this description and immediately believe their party had no influence on government policy and that they were merely being used by the evil Tories to cling unto power while they implement terrible right wing policies that would make Maggie Thatcher vomit.

The enormous din caused by the whining and gnashing of teeth by a growing number of actual right wing Tory backbench MPs wouldn't be enough to jolt these gullible liberals back to reality, Labour's spin Meisters calculated, and the poor deluded souls would rush into Little Ed's arms gratefully; forgetting how he had absolutely no interest in them during the LD/Labour talks following the General Election hung result, just a few months ago. Recent polls a the Old & Sad by-election suggest this may well have worked, for now anyway.

It seems Ed's little sound bite is catching on. I'm see "Conservative-led" popping up all over the place. And not just in/on the slavish followers of Labour's communication machine that you'd normally expect, like The Guardian, Mirror or BBC; but also in the Telegraph, Mail and Times recently. I suspect each journalist has his or her own reason for adopting the term - Labour supporters wanting to turn LibDems, right wingers wanting to bring down the coalition or reduce the influence of the LibDems, etc... But whoever uses it is likely to have the objective of weakening the coalition in one way or another. So, watch out for who's using the term as it's a useful (if not quite 100% accurate) method of spotting an underlying political motive behind a reporters/experts view that may be presented as independent or unbiased.

To be honest, I'm not convinced left leaning LibDems needed this kind of sub-concious Derren Brownesque trick to be convinced that they'd be happier with Labour. Many were disaffected Labour supporters or even old SDP (i.e. like David Owen - disaffected Foot-era Labour) supporters. They believe that there is a left wing majority out there in the electorate and this deal with the Tories is an anathema to them. They really have nowhere else to go other than to Labour. Sadly, for them, their left wing majority theory is proving hard to prove, if the polls are to be believed. Labour still can't achieve anywhere near 50%, despite being the only choice for the left now. And this despite the incredibly unpopular decisions this government has had to take.Things will get worse for the government in the next couple of years, but Labour really should be doing better now if the majority of Britain's are natural leftists. The coalition partners will hope that support will return in the final year or so of the parliament. If things are brighter economically then than now, that's not a bad bet.

We are seeing a realignment of party politics in this country. This is something the media is missing, in its keenness to report the demise (as they see it) of Clegg's leadership. And it's a realignment that is alienating as many right wing Tories and left wing LibDems. The realignment will only be successful if the coalition is successful. That is why there is such an unholy alliance forming around Ed's little "Conservative-led" sound bite.

Miliband's Labour and right wing Conservatives want to go back to the certainties of party politics before the General Election. Cameron and Clegg want to forge a new right of centre consensus. They calculate that, in fact, that is where the majority of votes are - not on the left but the right. I think Tony Blair and Peter Mandleson understood that too, even if they didn't fully understand right of centre politics and how to implement it effectively, they knew that was where the action is and they emulated it, to great electoral success.

So, for all Ed Miliband's sound bites and mind games, he is following a losing long term strategy by positioning Labour as the only home for the left. But in the short term, it could win out, but only if the coalition fails to survive until better economic times. If they falter, Labour would benefit by accident and the whole experiment would be lost, probably never to be attempted again. I, for one, think that would be a shame.

Ed Miliband's Credibility Deficit

"Watch my nose grow out to here when I talk about the deficit"

Ed Miliband writes in Thursday's Times newspaper that the deficit that the Government (or Conservative-led government as he insists on spinning it, in a pathetic and transparent attempt to alienate Lib Dems) is grappling with, is not the fault of the last Labour mis-led government.

In continuing his attempts to convince voters, who he clearly thinks are as gullible as 4 year olds, that this is the case, he is demonstrating what a poor leader he is and how he hasn't a clue about creating a credible narrative for his party that could return the credibility required to make them electable again.

In attempting to sell the lie that the deficit was caused by a "global economic crisis" he merely invites Coalition supporters to remind everyone, as if they needed reminding (sorry), that it is the structural deficit that is being addressed. In other words, the difference between what is spent from and earned in taxes after the economic cycle is taken into account.

The deficit wasn't created by the evil bankers, as some would have us believe. The bail outs of the banks, something Labour and Gordon Brown are quick to claim were part of their "save the world" strategy, certainly have added to the overall debt levels but not to the yearly structural overspend (a better word for deficit in my opinion). Eventually, those banks will be sold off (presumably just before the next election) and the taxpayers money spent on buying them out will be returned with interest. So, even the bank bail outs are only temporarily inflating the debt level that is being added to by the tune of £150bn a year, currently.

It is the £150bn overspend that needs eliminating if we are to start to tackle to frightening level of debt already racked up. The overspend has been caused by reckless and politically motivated structural spending increases that were unaffordable and now have to be brought back under control.

If you cast your minds back just a few years, you will remember a time when the word "cuts" was political poison. Labour's electoral strategy (something Ed Miliband was heavily involved in) was to keep spending more and more and then dare their opponents to suggest spending was too high. If they did, as the Tories had done in previous elections, the cry of "cuts in hospitals, nurses, doctors, police, schools, teachers, etc etc" would go out and voters were duly repelled. It was a successful strategy until the growing recession hit the banks and sparked the banking crisis. After that, people looked to government to spend more on supporting the economy and on social welfare for those cast into economic difficulty. But they saw a Government that had spent all the money during the good times and now had to rack up enormous debts to act to support an economy during, what was an inevitable downturn. We, the electorate, have to take some of the blame for being taken in by Labour's strategy and
the Tories learnt they had to avoid talking about cuts if they were to "detoxify" their brand.

So, the one thing Little Miliband gets right in his Times article was this lack of political clarity from Labour's opponents back then. That is regrettable but not an excuse to ignore the crisis now, as he proposes. His approach would leave us continuing to add to the £4.8 trillion debt mountain that is already a millstone around our childrens' necks.

2011 will be a testing year for the Coalition. It's on the right economic path but it starts getting rocky and is uphill for most of the rest of the Parliament. Let's hope it can keep itself together during the coming dark days of unpopularity and political tests, like the forthcoming AV referendum. The only way a clown like Ed Miliband will get elected is if the Coalition drops the ball in the middle of the game. The inbuilt electoral bias will return a Labour government with them just a few points ahead (or even possibly one or two points behind) the Tories. So, it's time for Tory and Lib Dem politicians and supporters to gird their loins and battle through the next couple of years while doing everything they can to counter the deceits put out by Labour such as "the deficit wasn't our fault"