One Wheel on My Wagon

When Prime Ministers resign it is usually the lead item on the news. But Gordon Brown’s hari-kari yesterday was wedged between revelations of secret Labour talks with the Lib-Dems and the Conservatives' bizarre offering of a referendum on the Alternative Vote system.

Obviously, the Tories don’t mean it. William Hague’s body language said as much. He looked like a disgruntled father-of-the-bride trying to find the warm words through gritted teeth, to welcome his feckless son-in-law. You will struggle to find more than a handful of Tories who support PR or think it a price worth paying for a majority Government. Cameron risks seriously alienating the old guard like Tebbitt who, Dave should not forget, is not too old to deliver a swift kick to the ‘cajones’.

The points of negotiation have reached farcical levels. It reminded me of the ‘Not the Nine O’Clock News’ company boardroom sketch when industrial action would be averted if the unions were offered, “use of this swivel chair in future discussions and your wife’s recipe for lemon ice-cream.”

Brown’s resignation ‘ploy’ was to lure the Liberals back into the rainbow alliance. Stepping down would, in theory, allow re-newed leadership to give such a coalition a certain vigour. The plain fact is, it doesn’t have the numbers. There are other colossal strategic reasons why the coalition of the walking wounded would be serious political folly. The idea of forging a coalition with SNP is just fantasy politics. You couldn’t get Labour and Nationalists in one room without hand-to-hand combat breaking out.

So thankfully the ‘grey beards’ of the parties have invited themselves onto the airwaves to counsel against it. I heard David Blunkett, John Reid and Paddy Ashdown make the self-same points in the space of half an hour on R4 this morning. These are politicians who have been around a bit. They’re not posturing, they are telling the brutal truth.

For now, it’s over.

Say it Ain't So

I think it was about 1.30 on Friday morning when the total of Labour seats declared was 99 and Conservative 98. I remarked to the semi-sober and disgruntled crew around me, in a few moments the Tories would take the lead and it would be a very long time until there was a reverse of the score. At least five years, if not ten.

Although Labour vote held up quite well, the slump of the Lib-Dems back to 2005 level (totally not predicted in this blog) meant dozens of gains for the Cons. Labour voters were prepared to vote tactically for Lib-Dems but that was not reciprocated. The patterns were not very consistent which allowed for ill-advised optimism from the left’s commentators and a very long evening. But so many seats were showing swings of 8-9% it was clearly Cameron’s night.

They don’t seem so pleased with their ‘win’. Senior figures are making clear their undiluted horror at not winning an overall majority. One told the Guardian today. “We were effectively told to shut up because they [Cameron’s inner circle] told us they knew how to win. That hasn’t happened.”

It is not pure sense of entitlement which irks them. Cameron only fell over the line with 36% allowing him to run minority Government or maintain an unwieldy, short-lived coalition with Lib-Dems. Had they won a handful less seats, say 290, then a Labour-Lib Alliance would have been worth 340 so clearly a viable prospect.

But on 315 or so there is no such ‘mandate’ and it could only stumble on for only a few months under the shakiest alliance of SDLP, Green and Plaid. Any referendum on electoral reform would risk being lost especially if Brown were lurking there like a walking cadaver. In any event, there is far from a consensus among Labour MPs this is remotely advisable.

There is nothing else for it but PM Cameron for a few months at least. One thing about the Tories is, they know how to consolidate power. After much frontbench schmoozing with Clegg’s team, only IDS has been honest enough to say the truth on PR, “the Conservative Party simply isn’t interested in changing the electoral system.”

Now they have got this close, they won’t be letting go just yet.

Oh, and bye-bye Gordon.

Voting Described as 'Brisk'

It's always reported as brisk or slow, another British electoral tradition.

The thoroughly old-fashioned, manual British voting system, with pencils on strings in musty church halls, is very reassuring. The system has hardly been adapted in 100 years.

Many countries have tried to modernise the voting process in a bid to save some piffling amounts. More likely politicians or senior officials feel a bit embarrassed about the archaic ‘look and feel’. But the main point of election day is accuracy and ensuring the count is free from fraud. There is no compelling case to change when the two main criteria are already satisfied.

In Florida in 2000, the pencil was deemed too problematic for the locals to wield, so in some counties, they used electronic screens where voters would use their palms to indicate their choice. Only about 10 percent of these ‘votes’ were actually recorded. And the nature of the exercise means any software errors are rather fatal to the process. We cannot be casual about this, the price of such blunders is the disenfranchising the voter which is unforgivable.

Like Florida, we can expect some legal challenges; they are getting much more prevalent over the years. The increased use of postal votes gives potential voter fraudsters much more opportunity to defy the democratic will. But additional ID checks mean that should be kept to a minimum this time.

The only lengthy legal challenges in recent history have concerned dead-heat finishes. Tory Health Minister, Gerry Malone lost his Winchester seat in 1997 to Lib-Dem Mark Oaten by two votes. Although successful in the High Court in getting a re-run between the two, Malone did not realise the momentum was gone and Oaten annihilated him by over 21,000.

The legal wrangling this time may be more constitutional in nature. Cameron's Zeppelin-like ambition to become PM is bound to burst forth if Brown and Clegg discuss terms of a referendum on electoral reform which would block a Tory Government for the foreseeable. Dave has already called this, perversely, ‘undemocratic’ even though the coalition would constitute more than 50 percent of seats and votes.

But whatever the bust-ups after the election at least we will, unlike very many countries, be satisfied the vote was not bent. And most of the 'bendy' MPs, partial to extravagant expense claims, will be gone as well.

You're a Banana

Two articles on Michael Gove (left) in as many days underlines the shrillness of his hysterical outbursts to the public over a hung Parliament. He's more twisted and enraged than a Daily Mail editorial. He does not persuade; he berates.

He told Radio 4's Today programme this morning, “If people vote for the third party, for Nick Clegg, in this election, what they are doing is succumbing to a sort of blind date politics. The voice is seductive, but when the curtain slips back, after having voted for Nick Clegg, you don’t know who you are going to end up in bed with. You could have Ed Balls, Harriet Harman, or David Miliband as your prime minister. If that’s democracy, I’m a banana."

That is precisely what a Parliamenary democracy is all about. Gove is not just a banana - he's a monkey's uncle. He is essentially describing his support for a Presidential system which we don't have. There is panic in his voice and with good reason.

If the Labour vote can hold up to 30% then there should certainly be enough numbers of red and yellow MPs to keep back the blue wave. Whether their collective resolve against the Tories is enough to hold that coalition together is the big question. But we can expect the Cons to HOWL if they are marginally the largest party and yet don't immediately get PM Cameron.

There are also loud whispers about the constitutional position (presumably that means Francis Maude) and whether the Cons would "accept" the convention of PM staying PM until he resigns. Not sure what options they have. But to foist a minority Government on the country sounds a little, er, undemocratic.

This is just about craving power, pure and simple. The Cons clearly have little regard for democratic principle in terms of representaion. They claim to like FPTP as it gives 'power to the people to throw out a Government they don't like'. Again, a transparent mistruth. They like the absolute power of an overall majority unfettered by select committees and backbenchers. In any event, people vote out an individual MP not a Government.

You can bet they have got some plan involving a legal challenge taking inspiration from Bush in 2000. But their gnawing impatience and frustration seems to be about to get the better of them. My advice to Gordon is, check the locks on those Downing Street gates and beware a gang of upper class geeks in pinstripe trying to storm the barricades.

I am Warning You

Perhaps Cameron is losing grip on reality. Perhaps he has fallen into his own mirage. Yesterday he proclaimed, without blushing, voters who are old, who are poor, can best be looked after by a Conservative Government.

A truly staggering claim, like the fox declaring he was best at protecting the chicken coup. Like everything else in the Cameron dominated Tory campaign, it is a either a gimmick or an obvious tactic. What was he thinking here? Electoral hypnosis?

In some ways it was an attempt to match the highly memorable words of Neil Kinnock (left) when he saw Labour’s imminent defeat in 1983. “I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old.”

Of course he was warning about the instincts of a Conservative Government who cut taxes on upper incomes and doubled VAT, abolished eye tests and NHS dentists, saw youth unemployment reach 90 percent in places and the creation of a new underclass.

The current crop of Cons are still unashamedly cutting inheritance tax for those with estates of over £2m and handing out tax breaks which exclude all single parents.

Of course, Blair in 1997 went out to woo Mail readers and others with a very conservative outlook. His message was more reassurance then outrageous misrepresentation.

Cameron may offer a different brand of Conservatism but it is fundamentally not the case their first concern is helping the poor. For anyone living in the decimated community of an old pit village, the precise reason they are poor is thanks to the Conservatives.

Freedom to Fail

In Britain, we don't usually find ourselves heavily influenced by Sweden. Apart from a flurry of Abba inspired boy and girl singing troups in the 70s and the 'continental' duvet, we find our respective cultures evolving quite separately

The Conservatives have ‘discovered’ Sweden as an inspirational model for social policy. IDS constantly holds them up as the standard-bearer for dealing with drug addiction. Their zero-tolerance to drug misuse combined with a rather evangelical approach to treatment, appeals to Duncan-Smith's peevish impatience with human weakness.

But it is Swedish education which has most keenly attracted the Tory proponents of the ethereal concept of the Big Society. Tory Education Shadow, Michael Gove (pictured), whether he believes it or not, has been pushing the policy of ‘free’ schools in the Swedish style.

I guess the intention is to portray these plans as unshackling our hugely over-regulated schools and so ‘unleashing the talents’. The ‘free’ schools will be released from a myriad of Government targets and infuriating bureaucratic rules set by Ofsted. They will also be free of the national curriculum and all its supporting guidance and standards.

Cameron has decided ‘free’ schools are emblematic of the sort of change they want to see. It is clearly a top priority; as a Government they would aim to get legislation passed by recess in mid-July and commenced by term-time in September.

Philosophically the policy is totally against the post-Beveridge consensus built up over the last 65 years. So not a surprise that several Conservative Local Authority leaders have placed themselves at variance to HQ’s policy edict. But philosophy aside, what do the plucky Swedes make of it?

Mona Sahlon, leader of Swedish Social Democratic Party, took the trouble to break political etiquette of not getting involved in another country’s election. Writing in the Guardian, she announced they were “proposing to put an end” to their experiment. Ms Sahlon issued a bald warning,“ creating a free market ….will certainly harm standards.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/02/conservative-education-policy-swedish-failures

This neo-con style of policy determination amounts to a rather aggressive and emotional response to a complex issue. Similarly, the Cons have decreed graduates with Richards (third-class degrees) will no longer be considered teacher material. A top degree does not a great teacher make.

Presumably even a minority Conservative Government will have a go at pushing this through in double quick time. It would have about as much chance of being passed as Osborne’s regressive budget. But at least their policies with face proper Parliamentary scrutiny then rather than the shallow analysis of an election studio.

Of course, by then we would be gearing ourselves for a second election in the Autumn.
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­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­George Osborne announced to the Mail on Sunday he would not plot against PM Cameron in an attempt to land the role of Premier. To paraphrase the great Muhammed Ali, “If Osborne even dreamt about becoming Prime Minister, he should wake up and apologise.”

Naked Ambition

Sometimes, as a journalist, you just have to bow to the sheer quality of someone's writing. Matthew Norman's excoriating profile of Ed Balls in the Independent this week was an exceptional piece of prose. He synthesised the reasons for my deep and at times unfathomable loathing of Balls.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-will-blinky-consign-labour-to-history-1956110.html

His inspiration was Balls's appearance on Newsnight on Tuesday night. Paxo was trying to discern how the Labour front bench would negotiate with Lib-Dems when no party wins a clear majority on 6 May. The Balls strategy was not sophisticated; just stonewall and crudely change the subject.

Paxman was not terribly frustrated by his deliberate obfuscation; as Balls answered the wrong question for the sixth time, old Paxo just looked at him bemusedly, as if to say, "you really have no clue what an arse you're making of yourself."

Ed looked pretty pleased with his idiocy, unconcerned his display of arrogance was exactly what infuriates the electorate to the point of apoplexy.

Matthew Norman called him, "cocky, fake, slimy, inelegant, ineloquent, charmless, witless, weird, sinister, glacially cold and luminestently remote," adding, "he may be the most chillingly repulsive politician of even this golden generation."

Brown was unelected by the Labour Party in 2007 because Ed Balls did not want David Miliband or Alan Johnson building a power base to launch their leadership challlenge in 2010. He still thinks he can win although the bookies put him 14-1 fifth favourite behind Miliband (David) at 7/4, his brother Ed as well as Alan Johnson at 6/1, and Hattie Harman at 9/1.

Balls has ensured he will stay in the headlines right up until polling day by picking a huge fight with that notorious bunch of nutter militants, primary school headteachers. Their refusal to administer 'Sats' tests for 11 year olds was supported by 64% but Balls has effectively threatened them with suspension and docking of pay. About 8,500 headteachers are intending to take industrial action from 10 May, that should tell Balls to seek compromise not confrontation.

But that's not the Balls way, he doesn't seem to take anyone's advice. Otherwise he would not be alienating core Labour voters just days before an election. So long as it helps his career, why should he care?