Handbrake Politics

Although we are only 65% of the way through the duration of this government’s ‘fixed term’ it’s probably a good time assess the achievements of the coalition; as the next 18 months will be more about electioneering than government.  This audit is obviously vital for the LibDems and Nick Clegg as they had to prove two things over the last 3 years, firstly that they are fit for government and secondly that coalition is better than one party government. Nick Clegg’s speech at the recent LibDem party conference offered us the radical message, that the last three years of coalition is not just be an historical aberration but a permanent fixture.  His talk of "bringing down the two party system" and ending what he calls the "clapped-out politics of red and blue" is a bold pitch for a party with such a low standing in the opinion polls - about 10% share!

Winning Ugly - with Clegg

Barack Obama has confirmed that Nick Clegg is better looking than David Cameron and for the British voter both look pretty ugly at the moment!  With less than two years to run before the next general election it’s time for David Cameron to assess two things: Firstly will it be a good election to win; secondly if it is worth wining is majority government advisable?

The UK lurches to the Right

The dust is settling after a traumatic and interesting set of local elections in the UK.  The results are still being gathered up by there is only one story- the rise of UKIP, who achieved 26%+ of the popular vote in the areas where they had candidates.  At the last general election in 2010 UKIP garnered only 3.1% so they have had a meteoric rise.  It still puzzles me that such a sizable proportion of the voting population would vote for a single issue party, a party of protest?  An opinion poll published on the same day as local election results reinforces the picture that UKIP have moved from being also ran's in the domestic political scene (they have been important for a while in Euro elections) to being the third party, displacing the Liberals.

Crossing the boundary

The vote, defeated in the House of Commons, this week on whether the boundaries commission should alter the constituency boundaries for the next election, raises a number of important issues for the coalition and the future of our democracy.  

Our parliament is elected on the basis of old constituencies that now bear little relevance to the population distribution of our islands.  Specifically there has been a migration of people from inner cities to the suburbs and satellite towns, creating constituencies with highly variable numbers.  This is important because MP should all have the same face value, today there are some MPs are elected by over 100,000 people and others that have only 30,000 constituents.  This population change has benefited the Labour Party hugely – some estimates calculate that the current imbalance gifts Labour about 30 seats, or nearly 10% of the number required for a working majority.

It seems pretty weird to me that MPS are allowed anywhere near the subject of constituency boundaries, this invokes the the wiff of rotten boroughs and gerrymandering.  Should this not be handled by an independent group who have strict terms of reference.

The Liberal Democrats voted down the proposed changes in a tit for tat spat around House of Lords reform, which the Tories had refused to support.  The Tories opposition to ‘Lords’ reform was based on the irrelevance of the measure and it’s pretty obvious to all that Parliament has more pressing issues – the economy for one.  Actually the real reason was the earlier, and much more painful, defeat on proportional representation, whether the Tories honoured the commitment to a referendum and then defeated the Libdems roundly!.

The Liberal Democrat party have some excuses for the poor quality of their decision making – the small number and poor quality of their MPs being their best justification.  Ask yourself the question - how many friends at university did you have who wanted to be a Libdem MP?  But their leadership should have been wise enough to realise that ignoring the convention of adopting fair constituency boundaries is a dangerous departure for a minority party.

Who will listen now when the Libdems bleat on about fairer elections and proportional representation when they have acted instinctively against this measure of fair constituencies, which the basis of free and fair elections. 

Of-course one should not forget the Labour party who also opposed the measure – but they have a track record of economic gerrymandering (Gordo’s tax credits) and have the lothian (Scottish Devolution) question looming.  Without the old courtesies to our constitutional conventions we may need to rip up 1,000 years of progress and try to codify our wonderfully unfettered constitution.  So Clegg has proved to be a danger, not only to the election prospect of his party, but the future of democracy in Britain.  SHAME

Our Green and pleasant land

I would have thought that Mr Clegg, being a Sheffield MP (for the time being), would have an alternative approach to the building of 2 million homes in the already congested South East . By making our great Northern Cities (including Sheffield) more attractive places to live and work we could avoid concreting over our precious countryside in the overcrowded South East.. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9809800/Nick-Clegg-Build-new-garden-cities-in-the-countryside.html

Reversing the current policies of 'WreakingBall' Boles is vital or great swathes of England will be lost to Barratt Homes for good. Why move the houses to the countryside when we could encourage people to move to where the houses are!  The hoodlum Planning minister Nick Boles has suggesting that the nine per cent of England built on so far should be increased to 12 per cent to meet demand. This would see 1,500 square miles of open countryside - over twice the area covered by greater London – covered with new housing. See my last post on this scandal.

http://getwd50.blogspot.com/2012/11/concrete-over-south.html

Coming back to the deputy PM you will notice that the weasel Clegg is offering to build all over his coalition partners constituencies – I wonder why

 

 

 

Dave's mid term manifesto

David Cameron (Lazy Davey) needs to make some response to the nonsense being spouted by his co-coalitioner Nick Clegg.  Whilst Clegg is claiming the political no-mans-land of the middle ground Cameron has a chance to further show that the Libdems are the  handbrake on the process of clearing-up the mess left by Labour and modernising our institutions. 

The problem is that Lazy Davey has long since taken his foot off the accelerator of change, having got off to a good start in 2010 it's been a woeful tale of tactical tinkering ever since.  If he can summon the vision and leadership ability he could get into a good position - the key policies of Welfare, EU and Immigration could well all land well for him and the general economy is now on the turn.  To win an outright victory he need to do more, specifically he must:

1. See through the successful execution of the policies around deficit reduction, welfare reform and immigration reduction

2. Square the Tory right on Europe - there must be a deal that leverages Angela Merkel's requirement to reduce budgets with our need to simplify and popularise our membership of the EU

3. We need a couple of flagship measures that give Davey the reforming platform that would get him a second chance (without the Libdem handbrake) at Government (and keep the Right happy).

The options might be:
     a)  Tax simplification - George Osborne needs to be bold - simple taxes will drive collections
     b)  An investment / R&D strategy that targets harnesses the strengths we have in our  private equity industry
     c)  Give business an excuse to unlock the cash that private business are sitting on, to generate new high quality jobs in the UK

The question is - how fussed is Cameron about the second term?   I think he is too interested in keeping his hair rather than risking pre-mature aging through an overdose of power.