Gordon Brown-pants' Labour at a serious low

YouGov (the now trusted pollster following the accurate Mayoral Election predictions) has the following figures post-mayoral election:

CON: 49
LAB: 23
LD : 17

This is the lowest Labour figure since records began, yet Gordon Brown is still at the helm?

Well apparently it would be even worse with anyone else in charge - including Milliband, Smith and of course Ed Balls.

I suppose that's the only consolation for Gordon Brown, certainly not for the Labour Party though.

Will it get any lower? With the credit crunch not getting any better and the Crewe and Nantwich by-election seemingly going to be lost, it seems that Gordon's not at rock bottom just yet.

Is it possible to recover from this in time for the next General Election? I point to 'no' and a very, very, very small part of me thinks that's better. Is it democratic to have a parliament where the leading party has more than double the seats of the shadow. Of course, being a Tory this sounds great and it is democratic as people have chosen and voted. But is it fair?

Thatcher Interview with Iain Dale

For a university project I interviewed Iain Dale on the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. Here are his answer. Many thanks to Iain for giving up his time to do this, it helped greatly.


Q1. In John Sergeant's book 'Maggie', he claims that a conservative MP told him that Margaret Thatcher had 'ruined' the Conservative Party. To what extent do you feel that she had damaged the partyand do you think she should have resigned earlier?

She didn't ruin the Conservative Party. The cowards who overthrew her did. If they hadn't ditched the most successful peacetime PM in that way and let electoral politics take their course, the course of the last 20 years might have been very different indeed. It has been a running sore ever since, and it is only really now that the Party is recovering. We can all play 'what if' and it might well have been better if she had resigned of her own accord at a time of her choosing, but we will never know how things might have panned out. Her big mistake was in not have a natural successor lined up.


Q2. In retrospect, do you think that Michael Heseltine did the right thing by challenging her?

I do not think Heseltine did the right thing, either for the Conservative Party or himself. He made sure he would never wear the crown. If he had waited for her to lose an election he would probably have won a leadership election. I think he knows that now.


Q3. Do you think that her backing of John Major, along with the Poll Tax, proved that by 1990, she had completely lost her political intuition?

She had no alternative but to back John Major. There were no other viable candidates. The poll tax was a big political error, there's little doubt about that. It took the form of a very slow car crash - many people could have prevented it from happening but failed to. Her well honed political antennae deserted her on that one.


Q4. In his recent documentary, Michael Portillo suggested that he tried to persuade Mrs Thatcher to fight the leadership challenge, and not to step down. If you had been a cabinet member, at that time, what advice would you have given to her?

I would have also urged her to fight on and go down all guns blazing if necessary. Defeat became almost inevitable I think, partly because she was so badly advised by the people around her - mainly John Wakeham, Tim Renton and Peter Morrison.


Q5. Political commentators argue that David Cameron is the first Conservative leader able to turn the "I would never vote Tory because of Thatcher" brigade. Why do you think this is and do you think there are any other Conservative members of parliament who could do this?

I think that is probably right. He has decontaminated the Tory brand, although I would argue that much of that contamination occurred under John Major rather than Margaret Thatcher. But Cameron has indeed restored Tory fortunes in a way that his three predecessors hadn't managed. However, he does not appeal to the C2 skilled working class vote in the way that Margaret Thatcher did. She identified with them through her policy on council houses and share ownership. His challenge is to have that same appeal.

Have we got it all wrong?

Everyone says that people vote elsewhere in local elections to give the current government a short, sharp shock but is this not the other way round?
Surely, people think of councillors as more involved and less sly than MPs so if they were wanting to deliver a show of dissatisfaction to the government then wont they vote elsewhere at a general election and vote for whoever they think would run their ward better in local elections?

This occurred to me when my friend said he voted Lib Dem in the locals but would vote Tory at the general to get rid of Labour.

Does anyone else agree?

Very brave or very stupid

Oo er, big news coming from Scotland. After a few busy and exciting months, things seemed to have settled down into a consistent pattern. We had the Scottish Government running rings around the Labour party, with Alex Salmond coming across as a very impressive figure. We had the Labour party doing just appallingly, seemingly unable to cope with the fact that it had lost, wildly lashing out at everything that moves, led by one of the worst party leaders I have ever seen. Then we had the Tories, doing actually pretty well (although you would expect me to say that, wouldn't you..), not setting the political scene on fire, and still stuck in the 17%-20% box, but at least stable, and impressing in dealings with the SNP. Finally we had the Lib Dems, but the less said about them the better.

Anyway, that was how it was 6 months ago, that is how it was yesterday. Things were settled, things were calm. No longer, however, for Wendy Alexander seems to have actually made a positive leadership decision, shock horror. Mrs (could someone please clarify if it is Mrs) Alexander has decided, after months of rubbishing the idea, to support a referendum, in a 'put up or shut up' challenge. As the title of this blog suggests, this is either a very brave decision or a very stupid one. If she forces a referendum now, and the SNP lose, she could be seen as the person who broke the Nats, every Unionist in the land would love her. However, imagine what would happen if Scotland said yes. She would be the leader who played politics with the union and lost, a leader who took an unnecessary gamble and ended up dissolving the UK. A leader who made her boss lose his job.

It is risky, it shows desperation, and I would not have the balls to do it.

Left Field

Not to gloat, but I refer you to a comment you made here.


You know, this actually feels like a gloat. Ha ha.

Tax is rubbish

Oh dear, I expect groans at that title. Rubbish tax, easy topic, quick blog. Gordon Brown wants to impose a 'pay as you throw' tax on rubbish in England. Simple policy, I don't need to explain in great detail.

This is not actually the angle I want to come at this story from, but suddenly I feel compelled to actually discuss my opinion on the issue. As with all of these issues, we can split the discussion up into two. Political considerations and practical considerations. Politically, this is suicide. All it will do is wind people up. On a practical level, I am unsure. It is a gross violation of civil liberties (a computer chip inside every bin, cataloguing exactly what we throw away, even Orwell wouldn't have thought of that), however Labour don't seem too fussed about such things, so I guess this is no surprise. On a practical level, I think more credit does need to be given to the motives behind this. We do face a massive problem with how much some households throw away, with bins full every week. This rubbish does not just disappear, it goes somewhere, and causes massive damage to the earth. It is a big problem, and this is a brave attempt to deal with it, but it is not the way to go. How should we go? Well, I honestly don't know. I don't like to criticise without offering constructive alternatives, but in this case, I can't help it.

What I actually want to talk about is local democracy. This tax will be collected by local councils, whether they agree with the policy or not. It is wrong, just wrong. Local councils shouldn't be forced to do this, they should concentrate on executing the wishes of democratically elected councillors. This is the problem with local democracy at the moment, we treat councils like agents of central government, with the democratically elected councillors dealt with as an after thought. These are people who have a mandate to execute, they are not employees of some nameless Quango. Lets treat them with a bit of respect, and let them do the job they have been elected to do.

Useless reporting!

I'm sorry but from what I've read and learnt, Crewe and Nantwich is anything but a safe labour seat.
Labour have declared that Gwyneth Dunwoody's daughter will take her place as candidate at the by-election. Now surely that isn't very Labour of them. Select someone for a position of power based purely on their ancestry and not their ability and who also lives over 150 miles away from the constituency whilst their mother is still warm.
Personally, this sly tactic will most likely not wash with the public and I suspect that Labour will lose this.

OGC, I hope the £14K was for humour

OGC (The Office of Government Commerce) has come up with a new logo for £14,000!


Looks pretty dull and ordinary doesn't it?

Now turn it on the side...

















Good lord!

If you can't see what it is then your mind isn't dirty enough.

The reason I don't pay my TV license

This is the reason:




Now pardon my French, but "What a load of SHIT!"

I can't believe we have to pay for this rubbish. The US get fantastic coverage of elections with amazing graphics, the BBC needs to learn from them.
The BBC is far too complacent. It has a guaranteed income so they feel they can do what they want with it and just mess about. An election night broadcast is not entertainment, nor is it a 'joke'. It's serious and we want facts, trends, anything, but we want it presented to us in a normal, interesting manner. Not something so stupid it makes you cringe.

The reason Boris is Mayor? Coke, Prostitutes and Threesomes!

Would Boris Johnson be Mayor of London if he hadn't appeared on Have I Got News For You?

Certainly not in my opinion. The only way that the Conservatives could have won the Mayoral race was with a very popular public figure who the people like and admire. Yes, people did know about him and his personality before HIGNFY but appearing as a host on that show propelled him into the realms of 'celebrity' as well as 'politician'. Very few politicians manage to become celebrities. Tony Blair was one, David Cameron is trying to be one and Boris Johnson was made a celebrity on HIGNFY.

So we have Angus Deayton and his dodgy antics to thank for giving Boris the platform to succeed and oust Ken as mayor. Let's hope he does well.

Cardiff, Merthyr and The Vale of Glamorgan

Excellent news in South Wales.

Cardiff has remained NOC with the Lib Dems unsurprisingly taking first place and the Tories pushing Labour into 3rd. Had Plaid contested a few more seats then I believe they could have pushed Labour into 4th (ie. Dreamland) but they seem to be a bit under-represented in Cardiff. They don't realise how popular they are with the Welsh students.

Merthyr Tydfil has been lost by Labour which half surprised me, half did not. I was rather surprised by the fact it is a very mining community and they do claim more benefits than most places in the UK. However, the place is so backwards and a bit of a dump (cue onslaught of abuse) that the voters must be protesting at the way they've been forced to live and see a way of improving this situation. Voters there must be very dissatisfied with Labour.

Finally, the Vale of Glamorgan has joined Monmouthshire by turning blue! Excellent news for the conservatives who seemed to be non-existent in Wales and they'll be pleased to gain a council that's not on the border. Newport and Cardiff are in between so maybe they could do a bit of work there next time.

Boris has won!?

As you are probably aware, I have been following the London Mayoral Contest closely and I have been especially the last 48 hours.
Betfair had Boris on 1.43 most of yesterday and he has shortened to 1.06 now! For those who don't understand decimals, the closer to 1.01, the more it is certain.

'Odds on' = 1.01-1.99
Evens = 2.00
Over = 2.01+

Now it looks certain that Boris will be mayor as Ken is on 17 and Boris has just changed to 1.05 as we speak.

Excellent news! Now I do hope that Boris will be very wise, please the public as much as he can to help the tories into power in 2010.

Let's pray that he doesn't fuff up!

Surprise!

Not too surprised eh?

This was meant to be posted months ago but Arnie forgot to publish it. D'oh!

By-election in Crewe

So, before Gwyneth Dunwoody is even in the ground, the Labour party has called the by-election. I am in two minds about this. I will admit, when I first read the news, my second thought was 'wonder what her majority was?', a bit tasteless in retrospect, but we are all political anoraks here, whether we will admit it or not. So, if I thought that then I guess I can't condemn Labour for doing what they have done. However, it still just doesn't sit right. There is a big difference between having a look at a majority and actually calling a by-election. I would have thought the least the Labour party would do is wait until her funeral, before starting the political fun and games.

But no, it seems they are scared, so want to rush the campaign in an attempt to keep the seat. Politically, I understand where they are coming from. Personally, I think it is tasteless and quite contemptible.

119p a litre?!?!

Good Lord. I remember in the Israel-Lebanon war a couple of years ago when I nervously watched petrol climb from 91p to 99p a litre. There was all this talk of commotion when petrol hit the £1 a litre price but now that it seems to climb every day people seem less willing to shout out about it.
It's ludicrous, we know that most of that price is tax so can't the government cut it until oil is less than $120 a barrel?
After all, the only reason diesel is now higher than petrol is because of these 'tree hugging, cider swigging, leaf clothed Rod Hull lookalikes'.