Nick Clegg | Dave Kean

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Finally, Polling day is here

Written on May 5, 2010 by Dave in Politics

Any general election day is something of a celebration of democracy: this one feels a little different, for only the second time in the last thirty years we may see a change of government. As I wrote a few weeks ago, this feel different from 1997, the mood is a lot darker and there is not the feeling of better days to come that was had when Tony Blair and New Labour swept the Conservatives from power so comprehensively.

The electorate once again has the chance to remind those who end up in Westminster just who their ultimate boss is. It’s not the whips or the party grandees, it’s the electorate they have been courting so determinedly for the last few weeks.

I think we all understand the country is in trouble. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have actually seen the books and if it’s as bad as we’ve been led to believe it may be the country is faced with the biggest peace time deficit ever.

Whenever the next Prime Minister is will have to face the debt that’s been run up and make a large number of tough decisions. As a country we have tried to mitigate the recession by spending money the country did not have. This money has to be paid back.

In Greece we can see what happens when a government and people live so far beyond their means. There has been a nationwide social breakdown followed by strikes, arson, rioting and today deaths. While I don’ believe that Britain could head down the same path as Greece, but if the government does not reduce it’s spending to match it’s income then massive social problems await.

Blair and Labour were elected in ’97 with a mandate to fix public services and that took money. This increase in public spending was affordable as long as the economy kept growing at a pace that supported it.

When it stopped growing a couple of years ago swift, and potentially unpopular action was required. To be frank, I think Brown bottled it, with worried too much about being reelected rather than doing the right thing for the country

This election is unlike any other. In 1979 the country was feeling the pain, we were in the aftermath of the winter of discontent and inflation was rampant. It was obvious to all that the economy needed to be sorted and it turns out Thatcher was willing to risk her popularity and was the person to do it.

War and a Labour party that was all but unelectable aided her subsequent election wins, but the wins in the 80’ were based upon an economy made possible by the difficult choices and occasionally painful policies her government followed when they first came to power.

I also believe the same policies divided the country in a way never seem before. There were those who made fortunes off her policies, and a huge subclass that were left behind. Her government squandered billions of North Sea oil money and billions more raised by selling publicly owned companies.

The problems with the economy today are less immediate to most people, the power is there and rubbish does not lay uncollected in the street. The tough decisions were put off by Gordon Brown, but they are still there to be made.

The Australian government did the right thing, they made unpopular decisions and decided to live with the results. It hurt, and is still hurting, but the country will come out of the recession in better shape because of it. Whoever is living in Number 10 next week will have to make hard, painful and unpopular decisions. I hope they do the right thing for the country, not the right things for the polls.

One thing I don’t understand is that if Labour has identified 6 Billion in efficiency savings, why have they waited until now to implement them. They have seen the state of borrowing and if they truly waited until the election to roll out these savings it’s truly criminal to waste billions in taxpayers money.

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Who am I putting an “X” next too?

Written on May 3, 2010 by Dave in Politics

Labour has had something of a deathbed conversion to a principal of Proportional Representation. An idea that the Lib Dems have held dear for many elections.

This election has become more than who leads, but also something of a referendum on PR and its merits. The Lib Dems have waged a very intense and successful campaign over the last month; a significant amount of credit for this must go to Nick Clegg.

I think the Liberal Democrats and their growth as a true contender over the last month reflect an overwhelming national mood for real change. Business as usual for has left a country full of disenfranchised voters who are tired of the old politics and the professional politicians who see an election as a career more rather than the opportunity to better the world for the people they represent.

Proportional representation will not fix that, but it will give the UK something important: a parliament that is a true reflection of one of the most vibrant and diverse countries on earth. I think this election has shown that the two-party system is unrepresentative of the country and perhaps it’s time is done.

David Cameron promises a different version of Conservative Government than offered in the past. I think he deserves credit for moving to the political center ground and going some distance to making the Tory’s electable, a feat so many other leaders have failed to do. He has forced the party to become accept diversity; reject the Thatcherism that the party grandees embrace so surely. These are the people who have kept the Conservatives on the opposition benches for the last 134 years.

However his message that it’s going to be different has not been conveyed very well. There are contradictions and very little detail, the manifesto and promises sit there with little information to convey what it really means. He is message on people taking more responsibility for their lives and choices is an interesting argument against “big government”, but high among his policies is getting rid of the Human Rights Act. The one thing the people have to protect themselves.

In another contradiction the Cameron talks of “united and equal” taxation, while advocating inheritance tax cuts for the wealthy. At the same time the party plans to continue the recovery with both austerity and spending pledges at the same time.

In a two party world the other choice would be embracing five more years of Labour government under Gordon Brown. There is no question that Labour have achieved much in the last three terms, the saving of the NHS, investment in education and a minimum wage are huge items of agenda the party delivered.

Hand in hand with revitalizing these services, we were promised reform. The inefficiency still exists and has grown in the last few years with all sorts of Quangos and legions of managers in the NHS. If Brown says they can find 6 Billion in savings this year, why have they not done it already? Politicians the world over forget whose money it is they are spending.

In this campaign Brown has failed to inspire me with a vision for the future or provided an argument for giving Labour another chance.

For many the second biggest issue on the table is the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was maybe the most important foreign policy call of the past sixty years. Labour lied, the Tories backed them and both were catastrophically wrong.

The Liberal Democrats have become a significant factor in this election and when this is all said and done there is every chance they become that party that makes, or breaks a minority government through a formal pact.

The party has traditional appealed to the working middle classes. Labours record on defeating poverty and being a spokesman for the working class remains unmatched, but for me they, and in particular Gordon Brown has not done enough. The Lib Dems are philosophically closer to Labour than Cameron and the Tories, but could they work with a Labour party led by Brown?

After decades of being on the outside of the two-party political system and not being heard, Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem center message has been heard very clearly in a way I’ve not seem in my lifetime. Today both Labour and the Conservatives must be second guessing the decision to invite Nick Clegg to the debates.

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13 Years with a Labour majority

Written on April 21, 2010 by Dave in Politics

“What I’m interested in is the big poll on 6 May, when people really have to choose five more years of Gordon Brown – the uncertainty, the bickering, the haggling of a hung parliament – or a decisive clean break with the Conservatives.” David Cameroon

Is it really as simple as that? Perhaps it is, but a hung parliament could potentially force debate and compromise. With a huge Labour majority these are things that have been missing for the last 13 years.

After the Labour landslide victories in the ’97 (179 seat majority) and ’01 (167 seat majority) general elections there was no requirement for Labour to worry what the opposition had to say. The last election in 2005 was not quite as overwhelming a victory, giving Labour a still substantial 66 seat majority.

For the last 13 years Labour had a very comfortable working majority, with the loyalty to the party rather than the electorate it’s meant unpopular legislation can still be railroaded through in comfort with the minimum of debate. There have been once or twice that the party whips have had to do a little work, but the MP’s understand where their loyalty lay.

The opposition is relegated to a rather noisy, but ultimately inconsequential role.

There is no check and balance to the government and they are allowed to operate with relative impunity.

Looking back to 2001 and 2002, having a 167 seat majority when some very controversial laws and motions were being revised (extended detention without charge, ID cards and the war in Iraq) meant that the wants and desires of the electorate were not necessarily considered.

Looking at it in a rather simplistic way I do think that a functional pack made up of a couple of the current parties could be a good thing for government and would certainly add a check to the system that has been missing since the tine Conservative majority of the mid 90’s. A Labour-Lib Dem pact (anti-Conservative more than anything else) seems the obvious alignment. The Lib Dems are philosophically a lot closer to Labour than the Cameron and the Conservatives. To give some additional credit to Nick Clegg, he’s done a rather good job in differentiating the party from the big two during the last year and taking a lot of the ground in the political center Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy the party seemed a little further to the left than today.

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An interesting week in politics

Written on April 20, 2010 by Dave in Politics

It’s been an interesting week in the UK, Lib Dem Nick Clegg clearly won the first debate.

For me this was because he used straightforward language and stayed away from the forced sloganeering that permeates politics. He did not have anything really new to say, but was consistent and it was not exactly the venue for spontaneous announcements. However Gordon Brown may have given Nick Clegg his new slogan: “I agree with Nick”. The PM used this seven times during the first debate.

A poll published today put the Lib Dems in the lead with 33 per cent, one point ahead of the Conservatives and with Labour trailing on 26 per cent. This polling suggests that a hung Parliament is increasingly likely and that the role of the Lib Dems would be to make a pact with one of the major parties to form government.

Philosophically Labour seems like the natural partners and it’s very possible that Labour is actively working towards that end.

Clegg seems to have found some additional confidence and has made some strong statements. He’s plenty of time to get this wrong, but so far I’m impressed.

“The general election campaign is starting to come to life for the simple reason that a growing number of people are starting – and it is only a start – to believe, starting to hope, that we can do something different this time,”

“That the old tired choices that they have been given by the old parties of the past no longer need to govern the way in which we run politics in the future. I think that is tremendously exciting.”

The system

I was asked about the difference between the British and US systems, they are both “first-past-the-post” with a couple of important differences. In the UK, it’s one winner – one seat. The party with the most seats in the House of Commons forms government.

In America the winner of each state usually wins all of that state’s electoral votes, but those votes are distributed in proportion to the population (yes a couple of states divide the electoral votes, but lets ignore that). There is proportionality built into the system that’s missing from the House of Commons.

However, the biggest difference between the British and American election systems is that in the U.S., people vote for a leader. In the U.K. people vote for parties. The party then appoints their leader and the electorate has no say in that. If the party has the largest number of seats then their leader becomes the Prime Minister.

This is why Tony Blair was replaced by Gordon Brown with no election taking place. Blair stood down as party leader and was replaced by Brown. The electorate was not consulted (nor was it required) as it was an internal party appointment.

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“A Fairer Country” – Lib Dem Manifesto

Written on April 14, 2010 by Dave in Politics

Following on from the two big boys the Lib Dems published their manifesto yesterday. Somewhat ironically, the party that’s been the loudest critic of the big banks and their role in the economic downturn chose the heart of the City of London to have their press launch.

The overall message seems to be “trust us”; there is no marketing wet dream slogan to stand behind. The party described this as a “serious document for serious times”. The Lib Dems have been preaching the “change for people” and “building a fairer Britain for a number of years, and quite successfully at times too.

First examination and the party seem to have put a lot of effort into differentiating themselves from the Conservatives and Labour. Perhaps more work on showing how they can actually afford their promises would be nice.

The biggest “bribe” is no income tax paid on the first 10K/year. Add in raising pensions in line with earnings or inflation (why this is not done already just disturbs me) and the usual more police/smaller classes promises and it’s a large hole in tax revenue and additional costs that has to be filled from somewhere.

There is some tax raising proposals in the mix. First was to tax homes above 2 million pounds, followed a levy on bank earnings to help pay for the support they’ve had over the last year. Some tax credits for higher earners were also to be scrapped under the Lib Dem plans.

There are notes about public spending cuts and some nice tables at the back. Restrictions on public sector raises along with stopping the ID card program, not replacing the Trident and a few other things are part of the opposed cuts. Not sure if this adds up to the 15-17 billion a year required to pay for the promises.

Interestingly there were no pledges to keep income tax or VAT at current levels. In fact the manifesto makes it clear that tax raises may be required to reduce borrowings, but that it’s a last resort and the big focus will be on cutting spending. One big point of differentiation was talking directly about the deficit and that the borrowed money has to be paid back somehow.

The public sector savings proposed are substantial and first glance makes it tough to confirm that the numbers add up, this does create something of a credibility issue, but if the party set out to make sure people knew they were different from Labour and the Conservatives they did a nice job.

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Nick Clegg and Paxman

Written on April 13, 2010 by Dave in Politics

The BBC has Paxmans full interview with Nick Clegg here. Paxman comes off as being his usual direct self, while Clegg took a little time to get in track, but did OK

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Manafestos, riots, NHS and NI

Written on April 11, 2010 by Dave in Politics

The major parties are all publishing their manifestoes over the next few days. Each party is making statements about where they will not raise taxes to fill the black hole in national spending. For example Labour has said no change to income tax, but said nothing about VAT (sales tax) and the pledge to increase National Insurance (social security contributions if you are American) was already known.

The open promise to keep “business taxes as low as possible” is a pointless waste of good paper and does nothing to help Labours’ dwindling credibility on the economy.

Once again David Cameroon and the conservatives are not talking about the economy, the economy, but how the National Health Service (NHS) will be safe in their hands. It’s an interesting strategy, because if there is one thing that Labour has looked after OK over the last 13 years it’s the NHS. The previous conservative government under Thatcher and Major reduced funding and did the NHS a huge disservice. While there may be many problems with the NHS, too many managers seems to be one of the favorites, it provides a top quality service and is staffed by people who really care about the patient.

Clearly money public money is tight, clearly all the major political parties, if they’re going to be credible and trusted by the electorate in the run-up to the election, have got to make promises which we know the costs for and are clear know where the money is going to come from.

Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg (who I’m rather warming too, if my vote were still in Guildford they might get it) did have a couple of good lines over the weekend. He pointed to the rioting in Greece as a warning of what could happen if public spending were cut back too much.

Earlier this year Greece’s socialist government introduced some rather deep cuts to public spending to bring its deficit under control. Many thousands took to the streets and there was a general strike across the country in protest to the cuts.

While the UK has a nice history of rioting and social unrest over government taxation in the past (see “Pole Tax Riots” on Wikipedia), it seems difficult to see something similar happening. Primarily because the social stress brought about by the growing divide between the disenfranchised working class and those the new-money middle class no longer exists in quite the same stark fashion that it did under Thatcher.

With out that stress and the divisive policies along side the strict anti-strike laws in the UK it seems difficult to imagine to same level of coordinated protests over the loss of civil servant jobs.

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What will May 7th look like?

Written on March 27, 2010 by Dave in Politics

An election is coming in the UK, last summer I started getting e-mail from Labour, the Lib Dems, the Torys and UK Independence Party. All were looking for my vote in the imminent British general election. Brown can leave polling day as late as early June, but the serious money is on May 6^th as polling day.

The process is far different from the US. The date the country goes to the polls is only announced a little over four weeks beforehand. The incumbent PM goes to the Queen, asks for parliament to be dissolved and the race is on.

For the next four weeks the battle-busses and chartered airplanes take the party leaders, Members of Parliament, their staff, spin doctors and advisors up and down the country stumping for votes.

Even from a distance I find British politics far more coulourful and entertaining than domestic politics at home in the US. Ultimately because my vote is cast in one of the safest Labour seats in the country it’s actually fairly irrelevant, but I will take part in the process and vote in the election.

Some American friends are familiar with Prime Ministers Question Time, it’s shown on one of the more marginal cable channels on a Sunday evening, and are fascinated by the whole process. I thing Question Time actually shows off the best parts of the British process, it forces the PM to actually answer the questions, deal with the traditional heckling, attempt to show some form of leadership and respect the traditions of the House of Commons.

I sat and watched PMQT a few weeks ago and Gordon Brown answered questions ranging from hospital bed availability in a rural hospital to international treaties.

From a distance (with a serious nod to the newspapers and some parts of the new media world) six months ago it looked as though the Conservatives (AKA Tories) had Brown on the ropes and the election all but wrapped up. The economy was all that mattered, lets not forget that before taking over the top job Brown had spent years at number 11 Downing Street as chancellor and was (quite rightfully by the way) getting a lot of the blame for the state of the British economy.

The upcoming general election is really about one thing – The Economy – somehow David Cameron has been unable to make any serious capital out of the way Brown has handled of the downturn. If this continues and the Tories really can’t gain traction on this issue then the election becomes a far closer run thing.

The feeling is different from the situation in 1997, at that point the country wanted change more than they wanted Labour. Blair provided hope, promised change and assured us it was going to be different in the future. It was as close to a revolution as I’ve ever seen in British politics. Today the conservatives are desperate to give the same message, and either the message is not being heard, or it’s not being believed. Personally I think it’s the second, trust in government to do the right thing seems to be non-existent after the expenses scandal, lies about Iraq and bailing out the banks.

Interestingly it appears that many people view both the major parties as untrustworthy, not just the incumbent.

With worries about tax hikes and cuts in services the Conservatives are vulnerable. If this fear were to grow the Torys may be unable to really take Labour to the cleaners in May. If this were to happen the country is faced with the possibility of a minority or hung parliament.

If neither party have a majority in the House of Commons all of a sudden Nick Clegg and the Lib-Dems become both the major parties best friend. Heading into the election the Lib-Dems have 63 seats in parliament and won 22% of the vote in the 2005 election.

I did not know much about Clegg, he seems to be a true centralist. Previously the Lib-Dems appeared to have a slightly left of center position, that seemed to be the natural politics of previous leaders like Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown.

From a distance it seems that under Nick Cleggs leadership the party has moved a little further right. However in an impressive balancing act it is more of a true a more central position, rather than towards the Conservatives.

During the month before the election there will be a series of televised debates, and somehow Clegg got an invite to join Brown and Cameron on stage and make them a three-way affair. This is what third party leaders dream of, equal billing with the big two and a chance to show why they should be involved.

Of course the Conservative attacks may start working and people could start believing in Cameron as a potential PM. If these occur then I think on May 8^th we find Cameron moving into Number 10 and a nice working majority in the house, if neither of those things happen then potentially Clegg and his list of demands become very important.

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