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.

No Sleaze Please, We're Lib Dems

It's a good job those Lib Dems are such a force for honesty and decency...



Ah...

Lib Dem's New Logo

Loving the Fib Dem's new logo...


Courtesy of Guido Fawkes.

Farage's Folly?

I'm not sure Nigel Farage was wise to announce that he's considering running in the Eastleigh by-election.

On the one hand, if he decides not to, he'll look like he's running scared of a fight in a seat currently held by the Euro-fanatical Lib-Dems. He'd have to come up with a pretty convincing reason not to run now.

On the other, if he does stand he'll almost certainly lose and, in the process, block the candidate of the only other party committed to delivering a referendum on EU membership and letting in Labour or the Lib Dems. This will illustrate perfectly the Tory message that a vote for UKIP is a vote for the EU fan boys in Labour and the Lib Dems.

There is a third option around a electoral pact. Toby Young proposes one scenario whereby the Tories don't stand in Eastleigh if UKIP agree not to oppose Tories in any of their current seats.

I can't see this being acceptable to the local party, given that they have a chance of winning. However, given the Lib Dems duplicitous reneging on their coalition agreement commitment to even-up the sizes of parliamentary constituencies, the Tories do need to look at more tactical options, as the system is rigged against them.

Who Was Most Influential On NHS Reform?

After all the threats and brouhaha that the Lib Dems put up over NHS reforms following their poor local election results, they must be disappointed with this finding in today's YouGov poll for the Sunday Times.

Who do you think is most responsible for influencing the change in the Government's policy regarding the NHS? (%)


Mind you, not as disappointed as Labour must be. They are clearly seen as complete irrelevant and ineffective by voters currently.

NHS Reforms. What's Changed?

Good summary of the NHS reform changes, from The Times...

Muscular Liberalism or Lack of Leadership?

I always vowed never to subscribe to The Times when it disappeared behind a pay wall. But then I began to miss some of my favourite columnists such as Giles Coren, Hugo Rifkind, Daniel Finkelstein, David , Rod Liddle and Matthew Parris.

But Saturday's column by Matthew Parris hits the nail on the head on the subject of NHS reform.

He imagines a Britain where our agricultural system is run like a Soviet collective. Everything is controlled by the state, everyone involved is employed by the state, all supplies are directed centrally. He then develops this crazy fantasy. The government decides on reform to allow farmers to choose between suppliers. He describes the response to this suggestion as follows...

"Now picture a special conference called by the farmers’ trade union to debate the proposals. Here is an extract from a union leader’s speech to the conference. He is railing against a duty, in the proposed legislation, to promote localised competition . . .

'I want proper controls nationally considered, not locals trying to sort things out . . . I want politicians of every stripe to understand that we do not need competition to run Britain’s food production. It creates duplication that is wasteful — and why give state agriculture’s money to private shareholders? What Britain’s food production needs to improve quality and efficiency is collaboration and co-operation across [all] sectors, [not] different materials being delivered by different providers in order to try to get a cheaper deal — fertilisers in one place, feedstock in another, veterinary services in another and follow-up somewhere else.

'Which brings me to one particularly unacceptable idea in the Bill: performance-related bonuses ... otherwise known as the ‘quality premium’. The idea is that farmers’ groups that ‘purchase well’ — ie, save money — will be given some money to hand out to their members . . . this idea stinks.'"

Only Parris doesn't have to imagine this response. These quotes are taken from a keynote speech by a Doctors leader at a British Medical Association conference in London last week. All Parris did was change references from healthcare to food production.



It highlights the perverse sentimentality we have in this country about maintaining a Marxist style healthcare system despite all the evidence that things could be so much better if a degree of competition, even if it is only in the supply of certain services or supplies, were introduced.

But the main point he makes is how today's Conservative party is failing to champion capitalism. Nothing illustrates this more than the backtracking on the NHS reforms we're seeing now. Many will put this down to the influence of the Lib Dems but the truth is that it is also a symptom of the Tories desire not to re-contaminate their brand. The simplistic messages put about by socialists is far easier to get across in soundbites on the telly and in newspaper headlines than some theory associated with free markets. Free markets that many people associate with selfish pursuit of profit by "fat cats".

A leader must make and keep his party electable. Cameron has gone some way to detoxifying the Tory brand (although not far enough to win a majority, it has to be said). However, sometimes public opinion needs to be led, not followed. Tragically, the case for reform has not been made effectively enough, so a dilution in the proposals was inevitable. But that doesn't mean the case for change shouldn't continue to be made and made strongly, one might say muscularly. A case that, given enough effort, would convince a sceptical public that a free at the point of use health service doesn't have to be totally provided by the state working to some monolithic central plan. That real responsiveness and quality improvements can be achieved through providers competing to be chosen by GPs and patients rather than there being only one option.

It's here David Cameron still has to prove himself. Will he lead a muscular liberal coalition that brings true liberalisation to Britain's public services and with it much improved service and efficiency? Or will he allow the left's preferred definition of the word liberal to prevail, an option that pollsters would tell him would be the best option. In which case we'll miss the greatest opportunity for decades to setup the high quality and high value health service that we need.

UPDATE
This article on the ConservativeHome website by Paul Goodman (@PaulGoodmanCH) covers the liberal/pragmatist debate really well. Definitely worth a read.

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.

Driving Miss Pricey?

In an extraordinary development in the Chris Huhne/Vicky Pryce divorce wrangle over whether Huhne got Pryce, his then wife, to accept his penalty points for a speeding offence, I read in The Sunday Times (£) that Huhne is to admit to police that "he can’t say he definitely wasn’t driving. He doesn’t remember what he did that day. He hasn’t got a diary about whether he drove or not".

This is fair enough. The driving offence occurred back in 2003. But presumably, police have a record of penalty points being issued on his car. Points which were then accepted by his wife. If this is the case then Huhne (who continues to deny he got his wife to illegally accept his points) must have discussed the penalty with his wife, agreed she was driving and completed the relevant forms to reallocate it. This process would have been somewhat more memorable.

Considering the one undeniable fact is that his car was caught speeding that night, if he was confident he was in the right surely it follows, as revenge follows adultery, that he would not have asked his wife to accept the points had he been driving that day. To now admit to not being sure whether he was driving is to admit that he may indeed have asked his wife to accept his points illegally. A significant weakening of his confident denials in the past few days.

The same Sunday Times report also highlights how Huhne's supporters are reduced to attempting to convince Pryce to withdraw her allegation because "If what she wanted was to ruin him, or really ruin him, it’s job done now. It’s time for her to save herself now," and how one of his own children (who was privy to the arrangement) could testify against him. This all paints a picture of a man who inspires distrust and disloyalty in those he goes into partnership with. It shouldn't be a surprise given his antics during the AV referendum campaign when he thought nothing of accusing his coalition partners of being liars and Nazi style propagandists when he could see the thing he wanted slipping out of his reach. After that there can be little trust in him from his Tory coalition partners. And after this affair it seems trust is ebbing away from even his Lib Dem colleagues.

If I were David Cameron I would be preparing to jettison the minister as doubts about his conduct continue to grow and his support begins to collapse. Getting rid of a member of your Coalition partner's party from a Cabinet position is not as straight forward as sacking one of your own of course. But Cameron needs to put his foot down with Clegg and agree an exit strategy for the beleaguered Energy Secretary.

If proven, it may seem a harsh price to pay for what many people might consider to be a minor transgression (albeit a criminal one); a transgression many others may have committed themselves when their driving licences were at risk following a driving offence. But a) it IS a criminal offence and as a cabinet minister it is unacceptable b) his confident denials and assurances to Clegg and Cameron will show him up as being untrustworthy and a liability to the government.

UPDATE

On top of the above. It's been alleged that another female confidante of Huhne also took points for him (Telegraph).

Two former Lib Dem councillors have lodged a complaint with the Electoral Commission regarding Huhne's general election expenses saying that he made a "false declaration". (BBC News)

Could Cable Be To Cameron What Brown Was To Blair?

PoliticalBetting.com highlights analysis of the parties national share of the vote during Thursday's elections by Rallings & Thrasher. It confirms that the Tories actually had a (slightly) higher vote share than Labour. Given recent opinion polls that regularly gave Labour 6 to 10 point leads, the Tories have got to be pleased with that.

Considering the controversies over the spending cuts, tax rises, the NHS reforms and that the only repository for protest votes against the Con/Lib Dem coalition is Labour, this result is extraordinary and must be very disappointing for Labour. The coalition parties amassed 54% of the votes verses Labour's 37%. It's unsurprising that Lib Dems support dropped significantly from its impressive 2007 level. It is surprising the Tories actually did better than their 2007 result and their 2010. The Lib Dems were always going to have to face up to losing their soft support from the anti-establishment left. Their moderate left of centre support will also be flakey until they are convinced that the path the coalition is taking is correct. That will only happen once the path has been trodden and the results are tangible.

However, if the coalition is to deliver, all parties need to be working together constructively, supportively and with a shared vision of what is to be achieved and how. As I suggested in a previous post, the Lib Dems need to spend less time trying to win back the niche anti-establishment leftists that have abandoned them and try to build support back up from the true centre of British politics (that's a bit more to the right of a significant number of Lib Dem frontbenchers like Cable and Hughes). The aftermath of Thursday's election results has led to a lot of noise from the left of the Lib Dem party suggesting that they need to become more obstructive and demand more policies that would appeal to the supporters they've lost since allying themselves with the Tories. While there is sound logic in Lib Dems maintaining their identity apart from the Tories, I suspect much of this talk exposes good old fashioned anti-Tory feelings that have been painfully suppressed by their originators since the coalition was formed. And it's dangerous talk.

Tony Blair came to power intending to achieve radical reforms that would improve health, education and social cohesion. He failed miserably. Any improvements to public services were achieved through enormous increases in spending with little or no reform whatsoever. The result was ever diminishing returns on the investments. Productivity fell as budgets expanded seemingly inexorably. What improvements there were often proved to be illusory as real world experiences of public services were ignored in favour of managerial performance statistics that just ticked the right boxes for the politicians who started setting priorities instead of, for example, medical, educational or policing professionals. We were told that our young people had never been better educated, but employers were coming across increasing numbers of innumerate and even illiterate school leavers. We were told that our health service was the best in the world thanks to the enormous increases in spending there (it now costs over £100 billion a year). But cases of patients dying of malnutrition in hospital beds increasingly appeared in the media, complaints about uncaring and incompetent treatment increased and health outcomes lagged behind countries who's health services really did provide best in class care.

If there is one lesson this government must learn from the previous administrations it is that reform is the only route to genuine and long lasting improvement. What stopped Blair from achieving his goals? The answer is Brown. More accurately, it was the competing agendas of two camps in the Labour party, the Brownite left and the more reform friendly Blairite modernisers. Brown crippled Blairs reforms and eventually undid many of them. He was all for spending tax payers money but he didn't want to alienate the left of the Labour party by reforming services run and staffed by predominately natural Labour supporters in the public sector; staff who paid their dues to Unions who funded the activities of the Labour party. Indeed Brown thought that by massively increasing the number of people employed by the public sector (incredibly, and disastrously for our economy, to over 50% of the entire country's workforce) that Labour's future would be secured as "turkeys don't vote for Christmas" i.e. they're not likely to vote for the Tories as they believe they will reduce their numbers. In the end many did vote for Christmas and we are about to eat a lot of turkey. But I digress. The point is that, reform is vital, especially in health and education. And now we are finally starting to pay for Labour's largesse there won't be great wads of cash raining down to paper over the cracks that will inevitably appear if cuts are delivered without reform.


The reason the language emanating from the likes of Cable and Hughes is so dangerous is that, if it is listened to and acted upon, the Lib Dems will become the Brownites of the coalition. Hell bent on obstructing reform in order to focus on a subset of their support base that exists (actually existed would be more apt) out on the left wing. Believing, wrongly in my view, that a) they will ever come back and b) that they need them to survive as a real force in British politics. Ed Miliband's Labour is their natural home. Many politically aware leftists who may have once supported the Lib Dems will harbour a deep sense of betrayal as their world view leads them to believe most people agree with them deep down, that there is a "progressive" majority in Britain that's main aim should be to keep the Tories out. We heard Huhne, Mandelson and others describe this view during the AV referendum campaign. These people will not return to voting Lib Dem. Certainly not by the next election anyway.

This politicised view of the people of Britain is wrong. There is no progressive majority who would keep the Tories out for ever if only the Labour and Liberal Democrats got together. It's no coincidence that it was when Yes to AV campaigners started more explicitly describing AV as a way of "stopping the Tories" that their support started to plummet. It was a mistake, not least because AV wouldn't have "stopped the Tories". In fact what voters want to see is a government working with purpose, unity and competence to achieve real improvements, such as fixing the nations finances while improving services. They understand doing both is not easy but expect results none the less.

Those results won't come if Brownite style obstructiveness rears its one eyed grumpy head again within government in the form of Lib Dem attempts to win favour with voters who will never consider them again after they dared to stand with the great Tory Satan. Instead a better option would be to work constructively and supportively in government to deliver real and effective reform that will enable savings to be made in order to address the budget deficit, while entrenching long term improvements to services and avoid or mitigate the cuts short term affects. This will involved challenging policies as they are developed but doesn't include the public wholesale blocking of reform in order to be seen to be an opposition in government. Because if they do that, it won't be long before that's where they'll return, permanently.

If they stick together and make this coalition work, both parties can emerge at the next election and claim their fair share of the successes. Looking back from 2015, Labour will look as irrelevant as they really are in modern Britain. If things go very well there may even be an opportunity to replace Labour as one of the big two.

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.

Will AV Cost More Than FPTP? And Who's Worse - Woolas, Osborne or Huhne?

Flushed with their success at nailing lying Labour MP and Ed Miliband front bencher Phil Woolas, Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes are now threatening legal action over the No campaign's claim that AV will cost more than FPTP.

Before their success against Woolas, the Lib Dems had seen the successful prosecution of another Labour liar, Miranda Grell, who accused her Lib Dem opponent of being a paedophile and in doing so had won a council seat that was previously unwinnable for Labour. The Phil Woolas case was a landmark judgement as it was the first to overturn a constituency election result in a parliamentary election since 1911 and it reminded politicians of the boundaries they should be working within when making personal attacks on their opponents. Woolas and his Labour election team had suggested that his Lib Dem opponent wooed extremist elements of the Muslim community who were advocating violence in order to gain votes, that he was willing to condone threats of violence for personal advantage and finally, and least seriously, Woolas claimed he didn't live in the constituency, when he knew that he did.

To personally attack someone and suggest they are a paedophile or willing to soft peddle on violence or terrorism to attract votes is pretty serious stuff, Grell and Woolas got their just deserts in the end. However, some warned at the time of the Woolas judgement that it could lead to fatuous and politically motivated threats of legal action in the future and now we seem to be seeing just that.

Thankfully, no one is being accused of supporting violence or touching the kids. However, the truth is that both campaigns have made questionable claims. It's hard to judge who's been more misleading. As a confirmed No supporter I obviously am more sensitive to the misleading Yes claims. But I also recognise the No camp are making some dodgy claims themselves. But is "the AV will cost more than FPTP" one of them?

The No camp claim AV will cost £250 million to implement. This figure includes the cost of the referendum (fair enough I say, but I can see the point that that is a cost effectively already spent) and it includes the cost of buying counting machines. The issue here is that no detail has been specified in the parliamentary bill on how AV elections will be executed. So, no one knows if machines will be used or not. The Yes campaign point to Australia where they've run their AV elections without machines for 80 years. The No lot point a little closer to home, to Scotland, where machines are used in council and parliamentary elections. However, Scotland don't use AV but various other systems for their council and Scottish Parliamentary elections. The degree to which the counting of votes for these different systems in Scotland are more or less complex than counting AV votes is open to debate. However, clearly Australia don't need machines and even if they did, we don't have to, it will just take longer before the result is known - gone will be the "exciting" election night results so beloved of political junkies, like myself.

So, from the arguments I've heard being made publicly by the No campaign, the voting machine case is not made. It is a possibility if it is decided that speed is important but there is no definite requirement for them at this time. That reduces the £250m bill by £130m to £120m. The rest of the claim seems reasonable to me. So, yes it will cost more but perhaps not as much (in upfront costs anyway) as No claim. But, hold on, look underneath the claim, at the details and it's surprising that there's more to the the No case than they are managing to get out into the public conciousness.

There is a more convincing argument made by the No campaign in the detail of their claim but they rarely make it in public, presumably because it's quite technical and boring. However, I think it gives them more of a leg to stand on, if not a whole one.. That is that, unlike in Australia, there are already multiple different electoral systems in use in the UK, especially in Scotland and Wales where various forms of electoral system are used at UK national, Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and local council elections. Scottish people would face up to five different systems, the Welsh four and English three. If all systems were used at once, No claim, it would be impossible to deliver the results as quickly or accurately as we are used to in this country without automation.

However, again, the worst case scenario of all systems being used at once i.e. English local council, General Election, Euro parliament, Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, Scottish local councils etc. does not usually happen, although it is fair to say that they do double, triple or more up (as we've seen, controversially, with this AV referendum occurring at the same time as the Welsh assembly, Scottish parliament and English local elections). With multiple ballot papers being counted in completely different ways at the same time, it becomes impossible to manage counts effectively and automation would almost certainly be required - as they've found in Scotland already (they introduced automation for this very reason). This is a more compelling case for the use of voting machines. But again, there is a manual alternative. It just means very long waits for results, which we are not used to and may not want, or slightly longer waits but massive increases in man power at each and every count in the country - a big and ongoing cost.

But even if you ignore the multiple system count argument and the up front referendum/counting machine/voter education costs, what is not in doubt is that AV will cost more than FPTP in on-going running costs. The multi-round counting of preferences until someone gets "50%"* of the vote will inevitably take a lot longer, more man hours of effort in more places to achieve a reasonable turn around and acceptable accuracy. Given this fact alone, the No campaign is correct to say AV will cost more than FPTP. The £250m figure may be debatable (I suspect if running costs are taken into account it is a lot more than this) but that is the nature of political argument.

Threatening legal action and accusing the Chancellor of being a liar is unjustifiable and the action of a desperate campaign that is losing the argument with the public. If anything, such campaign tactics are more comparable to the Woolas style personal attacks on an individual's honesty and credibility than the No campaign making an argument (whether you agree with it or not) about the cost of an electoral system. Legal action is not on the cards either way, but it is hypocritical of Huhne, Hughes, Ashdown et al to accuse others of lying, then to dredge up the threat of Woolas style legal action, when it is they that are resorting to personal attacks and traducing their opponents.

I also suspect that figures on the left of the Lib Dems like Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes are deliberately targeting Tory individuals in the No campaign (remember it is a cross party platform that enjoys the support of many Labour and well as non-political people) in order to damage the coalition with a view to forcing an early bale out (and an early election). Huhne and Hughes would then be in strong positions to make a bid for leadership to "rescue" the Lib Dems following what would be a disastrous election result for Clegg (even under AV!). Or am I making an unjustifiable personal attack? Oh, just sue me, why don't you??

* Don't get me started on the "MPs will be elected with over 50% support" claim AV proponents make. That's a whole other post!

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"