Saturday, June 28, 2014
Which Website Is Attracting 86.3% of Parliament’s Bandwidth? Or – Showbusiness for Clickbaitors
The air of Westminster is today seething with wi-fi so overheated that some researchers have actually* been microwaved (*not actually. Actually that goes for much of this article). Personality politics is often dismissed as just a beauty contest; now, at last, politicians have a genuine* beauty contest about themselves (*no, seriously, against all reason this bit is completely true). Among usvsth3m’s array of “Fights”, you can now vote for “Which gentleman MP is the sexiest?” Other votes pit songs, films, cities and scary clowns against each other, but I know this one floats your boat (and the Doctor Who choices). Warning: this is a post-watershed blog post. …
The usvsth3m set-up is familiar from the well-known exercise, ‘Which of X and Y is best? There’s only one answer – FIGHT!’ and here people create lists of anything that takes their fancy, from which two items are pitted against each other at random each time you click. This sorts the list by what or who’s won the most head-to-head battles. Simple as that.
Two Lovely Pairs of usvsth3m Votes – and a Poll Where Lib Dems Do Best!
Of the many available, four have caught my eye and my mouse clicks: inevitably, two for politics and two for Doctor Who. The pairs curiously mirror each other. “Which gentleman MP is the sexiest?” offers a choice of 504 men combining in random pairs (if that sort of thing turns you on), so I doubt I’ve chosen between more than a tiny fraction of them, while “Which government minister do you loathe the most?” gives you a choice of 21 Cabinet Ministers, so it’s much easier to ‘collect the set’. Similarly, “What is the best Doctor Who story EVER?” suggests not only that television is the basis of all reality but also that the world will end before August Bank Holiday, but even so provides an eye-blearying array of 241 stories, while “Who’s the best Doctor Who?” offers only 14 versions of the Doctor to choose from, and not even (spoiler) Michael Jayston.
The most confusing to pick from if you have several tabs open and are on a hypnotised clicking spree between multiple pages – I know nothing of this – is the “Which government minister do you loathe the most?” which, as you can spot, is the only one of these four where you want your favoured candidate to score not towards 100% but towards 0%, like an especially pointless round of Pointless. This means it’s very easy to mix up who should be up and who should go down. At the time of writing, Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne are hitting it out as the most unloved (not my picks, but high profile) at around 80% apiece, while Alistair Carmichael rejoices in being the only member of the Cabinet to score under 20%. Hearteningly, every Liberal Democrat scores below 50%, with the winner-by-which-I-mean-loser inevitably Nick Clegg, though still hated in only 45% of battles. So here at last is a poll in which the Lib Dems are doing comparatively well.
The main other conclusion I’ve drawn from this is that Iain Duncan Smith is a low-grade copy of William Hague, but lacking the looks, charm and redeeming social concern, and that Chris Grayling is a low-grade copy of Iain Duncan Smith, but lacking the looks, charm and redeeming social concern.
Favourite Doctors and My 85% Difference From the Average Fan
As for the Doctor Who choices… Well, at the moment I’m quite cheered by the results for favourite Doctor, which are significantly out of line with most polls and rather closer to my own views, though it’s possible this may change when more people vote on it. Not wishing to dwell on the unloved here, I’m delighted to see William Hartnell and Matt Smith currently in second and third place, and Colin and Sylv not inappropriately at numbers six and seven. The best story poll is the one in which I’ve voted least, counter-intuitively, as it’s the only one I could see myself going, ‘No, that’s wrong!’ and getting lost in it for days trying to affect the outcome of something completely meaningless (and even here the pictures matter: screengrabs, book covers, posters, many make the stories involved look much more or less appealing than they ought to be. I don’t think much of The Monster of Peladon, for example, but I have a Pavlovian response to Alpha Centauri, and as for The Smugglers…). At least, right now, my favourite story is doing about 25% better than in last month’s rather wider and more settled Doctor Who Magazine poll, so that’s something. But if I click 120 times, statistically it’s very likely to turn up in there for me to vote for it… No. No.
What I should do, I suppose, is post some of the more entertaining differences between what I think of various Doctor Who stories and how the average fan’s votes turned up in Doctor Who Magazine 474, just now disappearing from the shelves (but I’m sure you can find one, or buy the download). Should I? For the moment I’ll tease by saying that, out of 241 televised stories so far, my biggest differences either way with average fan opinion were one that I would have put 170 places higher – and another that I would have put 205 places lower! And both by the same author. Any guesses?
And Now the Main Attraction – Hot MP Totty
So, “Which gentleman MP is the sexiest?”… A serious project to bring sexual objectification to the attention of our lawmakers? A Parliamentary researcher with particularly varied tastes, or some other steamy clickbaitor? Or just taking the piss?
My own pet theory is that the poll has been created by the Labour Party in order to find an opinion poll that they can win: analysing the vital statistical correlation between the current top entries, the most plausible hypothesis is that all Labour researchers are under orders to vote and vote again for every member of the Shadow Cabinet. The null hypothesis would be that Labour’s Shadow Cabinet genuinely is a beauty contest, but while my tastes tend significantly away from society’s ideals of beauty, I don’t think I can be that out.
I found myself clicking on this quite a bit, though often with the ‘pass’ option, it being weirdly compelling more for my interests in politics than in men. Never have I been invited to pass sexual judgement on people with such a bizarre variety of internal reactions. All right, so some male MPs do indeed look attractive; others I recoiled from on looks alone. But for most of them, things were more complicated (or it would be their politics rather than their looks that made my flesh creep). For a start, I’d often vote for some of those with the most unflattering photos: I tend to look terrible in photos too, but it’d be interesting if someone did a (subjective) statistical analysis to see which MPs had had ‘good’ photos chosen for the site and which were clearly designed to put people off. Or which ones were just a little apart from the norm of Commons, conference or canvassing shots. What to make of the one covered in teddy bears? Did the person who compiled the list and pictures for the site have a particular thing for the sole MP pictured with his top off (and wood in each hand)? What have you got on your head, sir? Does anyone really think that being plastered from head to toe in Labour Party stickers is becoming? And how about the Tory posing by bales of hay, all the better to roll in it?
The disturbing thing about click, click, click is that very soon I stopped thinking about it. From being disturbed at being asked to sexually objectify people I may know, I quickly drifted into particular patterns to click through more quickly. Tending to vote the party line on Liberal Democrat MPs – tending to, with more than a few exceptions for more than a few reasons. Lib Dem readers, you may like to know that at the time of writing Duncan Hames is our highest-placed hottie, so congratulations, Duncan. The MP I’d have had top was disappointingly low (though while you’re down there…).
Or there were the wider political reactions. MPs of other parties that I’d met or heard speak usually got me clicking against them, because they’d moved from potentially off-putting to not on your nelly (with a few exceptions, like the backbencher I remembered as a nice old buffer who liked Doctor Who and might be surprised to get ‘sexy’ clicks as a result). Or the ones I’d never heard of but assumed if they were in the DUP they’d be downright unspeakable. Or the ones that are disgustingly homophobic – should I vote for them and send them a message to say so, in the hope that it would hurt them more than it would me? And of course that select bunch who, whatever their looks, I thought ‘unspeakable fascist’ and would vote against with anyone at all – though special points to the poll’s devisor, who managed to find a picture of Liam Byrne that seems to have captured his inner soul (an impressive feat in itself to find it).
Or there were the ones who were quite attractive and I didn’t know anything especially against them; or the ones who weren’t conventionally attractive but looked like they might be goers – several gentlemen’s eyebrows looked intriguing (as opposed to thinking of some, ‘He’s had lots of affairs – so he’s probably good at it’ or ‘He’s had lots of affairs – but I still wouldn’t touch him with yours’); or, I’m afraid, as my brain stopped processing images at all and I clicked ever more robotically, the names. I am of course in the top 0.1% of the population for being mocked about my name and should know better, but as words swam up before pictures I started thinking of Mr Crabb or Mr Clappison, not in my bed, or Mr Pincher, and with the court case so close, or wondering what filthy practice ‘Prisking’ is, or Mr Woodcock – does he have one? I’m sure the poor MP for Ogmore heard even more ‘jokes’ in the playground than I did. And looking at one of the currently highest-placed Tories, who by the vagaries of the algorithm popped up as a choice several times, I wonder if other people voted as I did for Mr Drax because he sounded like a Bond villain? And is it just me, or does Hugo Swire have the most Tory-MP-sounding name of any Tory MP? But when you start misreading names as ‘Tom Greatsex’ or ‘Michael Lubricant’ it’s just too close to Dilbert’s “You’ve ruined sex for everyone” and time to stop.
On the bright side, this is surely the most memorable tool yet for educating us on what the largely anonymous mass of Parliamentary Members look like – and encouraging us to be kinder to some – so I can recommend it as a valuable service to the public.
Labels: British Politics, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Magazine, Fandom, Polls, Sex
Monday, February 25, 2013
Eastleigh Memories – Time To Go There and Make New Ones!
Liberal Democrats! Have you been to Eastleigh yet? There’s still time, for the most hotly-contested by-election of the decade. Remember their last by-election? The incumbents (Conservative) was pushed into third place, while the main challengers (Lib Dems) won – now Lib Dem and Tory starting points are reversed, will they meet those same expectations? Labour leapt up from third place to second with 28%, showing Tony Blair was headed to government – where is Ed Miliband headed from his third place? I spent weeks there when I was younger and fitter, and remember a few things that might encourage you…
This time round, the Liberal Democrats have an excellent local councillor as candidate, from an excellent Lib Dem local council. Mike Thornton is the candidate with the best local record – as well as fighting on national issues, field-testing the new Lib Dem slogan “Stronger Economy, Fairer Society” and committed to being the 401st MP to support equal marriage. Whereas the bigots are spoilt for choice, with not just mouth-foaming minor candidates but the Tory (who disagrees on every single issue with her Prime Minister, except that they both know both their political futures depend on her winning) and, obviously, the bigot UKIP candidate threatening her are both making homophobic and xenophobic bigotry their top campaign priorities.
It’s a remarkable by-election, in that the Lib Dems have a strong local candidate, strong local issues, strong national issues (we believe in fairer taxes – the Tories don’t), and a bloody awful week of national publicity. The Tories and Labour, on the other hand, are simultaneously competing for the title of ‘Worst mainstream party candidate in a by-election since 1996’ (Jeanette Davy, South-East Staffs. She was a Lib Dem, so it’s about time one of the others won the wooden ballot paper). The Tory is an appalling snob who brays that no local school can possibly be good enough for her child, then demonstrates that no local voter is good enough for her to talk to by refusing to bother showing up for the BBC hustings. The Labour candidate is a minor comedian who says Labour supporters should “Go for it” and vote tactically for Lib Dems in seats like this – except, er, if he’s standing – and embodies the Labour Party’s Two-Minute (Thirty-Year) Hate by wishing Margaret Thatcher had been killed by terrorists.
At least George Galloway isn’t standing, having already won one by-election this Parliament and so not due to flip over to his 56th different constituency until 2015. That vile, bullying racist apologist for rapists and dictators is living proof that you can fool a lot of the people some of the time… But, after they get to know him, never more than once. UKIP with a beard and a red carpetbag.
So if you can get to Eastleigh and help (or make phone calls from your area), or donate if you can’t do either, do it today. I’m twice the age and weight I was in 1994, and have been particularly ill in the last week – but if I’m up to going out the door tomorrow or Wednesday, I aim to make it. You can read Lib Dem Voice’s or Mark Pack’s continuing reports from the campaign, and I personally recommend Liberal Youth’s “Today I Made A Difference” EastLY campaign to inspire you!
The 1992-97 Parliament was the period when I was young and healthy enough to spend more time helping out at Parliamentary by-elections than in the rest of my life put together – sixteen out of the eighteen that were held, in the days before parties took to tapping their older MPs to retire out of fear of lost seats. It was also the time when the largest number of policy motions I’d written got through Conference, for those foolish Lib Dems who believe campaigners and policy wonks can never mix (and are one Focus short of a delivery route). For some of the crucial ones, I spent weeks sleeping on people’s floors, or freezing to death hitch-hiking, or not being highly regarded by university tutors whose courses I was unaccountably absent from. Eastleigh was one of the friendliest, happiest, and didn’t have much rain. For all those reasons, I recommend going there yourself. And there was one more big attraction…
The bakery in town is my most indelible memory, which is odd, because though the smell of a bakery is one of the most wonderful in the world, I like pies and cream cakes, but have never cared for doughnuts. And yet, one morning I strode in and uttered the unusual but satisfying line, “Could I have two hundred doughnuts, please?” They offered ridiculous discounts for multiple buys, so that, say, one doughnut might be 85p, but you’d get three for £2, or ten for £5, with escalating discounts the more you bought. These were for the cheery campaign HQ and all the hundreds of volunteers rather than personal consumption, but the huge stack of boxes had the advantage of obscuring the rosette that might have put off an opinion pollster on the street. “Oh no,” I remember saying, “I wouldn’t like that Tony Blair as Labour Leader. Margaret Beckett’s the one you want, she’ll be very popular, and John Prescott, he’s a sensible man.” Since then, I’ve always taken opinion polls with just a pinch of icing sugar. Can any 2013 volunteers enlighten me as to if that baker is still there?
Eastleigh was also an excellent town for outspoken residents – much more exciting for a canvasser than shrinking violets. Last week, Boris Johnson failed to find a single Tory voter when knocking up the most Tory street in the constituency. I did rather better with Lib Dems last time I was there, but here are three canvassing experiences that stayed with me:
And finally, one word of memorial to Chris Huhne. He’s probably not a good man, and may not be a nice one. But I’m grateful to him for two things that he was good at. He was a bloody good minister – as I’ve written before, even his Tory enemies found him (far too) effective, and we should all be grateful for the hard work he did for the country and the planet as Secretary of State For Energy and Climate Change. And before then, within the Liberal Democrats, he did more than any other individual to make raising allowances and taking the lowest-paid out of tax altogether into what became our biggest priority in the last election, our biggest priority in government, and now our biggest priority in the by-election. It was briefly a Lib Dem policy in the 1990s, swiftly dropped because it cost too much. For much of the early 2000s, I was literally the lone voice on the Federal Committee calling for it – as the bit in italics in this piece forlornly demonstrates. It took a far more powerful policy wonk than me to get it on the Lib Dem agenda, and as the bits not in italics demonstrates, that was Chris. Lib Dems with gritted teeth and freezing delivery rounds will feel they have little to thank Chris for this by-election. Millions of the lowest-paid who now pay no income tax won’t know it, but they have quite a bit to thank Chris for, actually.
The 2013 Choices
This time round, the Liberal Democrats have an excellent local councillor as candidate, from an excellent Lib Dem local council. Mike Thornton is the candidate with the best local record – as well as fighting on national issues, field-testing the new Lib Dem slogan “Stronger Economy, Fairer Society” and committed to being the 401st MP to support equal marriage. Whereas the bigots are spoilt for choice, with not just mouth-foaming minor candidates but the Tory (who disagrees on every single issue with her Prime Minister, except that they both know both their political futures depend on her winning) and, obviously, the bigot UKIP candidate threatening her are both making homophobic and xenophobic bigotry their top campaign priorities.
It’s a remarkable by-election, in that the Lib Dems have a strong local candidate, strong local issues, strong national issues (we believe in fairer taxes – the Tories don’t), and a bloody awful week of national publicity. The Tories and Labour, on the other hand, are simultaneously competing for the title of ‘Worst mainstream party candidate in a by-election since 1996’ (Jeanette Davy, South-East Staffs. She was a Lib Dem, so it’s about time one of the others won the wooden ballot paper). The Tory is an appalling snob who brays that no local school can possibly be good enough for her child, then demonstrates that no local voter is good enough for her to talk to by refusing to bother showing up for the BBC hustings. The Labour candidate is a minor comedian who says Labour supporters should “Go for it” and vote tactically for Lib Dems in seats like this – except, er, if he’s standing – and embodies the Labour Party’s Two-Minute (Thirty-Year) Hate by wishing Margaret Thatcher had been killed by terrorists.
At least George Galloway isn’t standing, having already won one by-election this Parliament and so not due to flip over to his 56th different constituency until 2015. That vile, bullying racist apologist for rapists and dictators is living proof that you can fool a lot of the people some of the time… But, after they get to know him, never more than once. UKIP with a beard and a red carpetbag.
So if you can get to Eastleigh and help (or make phone calls from your area), or donate if you can’t do either, do it today. I’m twice the age and weight I was in 1994, and have been particularly ill in the last week – but if I’m up to going out the door tomorrow or Wednesday, I aim to make it. You can read Lib Dem Voice’s or Mark Pack’s continuing reports from the campaign, and I personally recommend Liberal Youth’s “Today I Made A Difference” EastLY campaign to inspire you!
Eastleigh Memories of 1994
The 1992-97 Parliament was the period when I was young and healthy enough to spend more time helping out at Parliamentary by-elections than in the rest of my life put together – sixteen out of the eighteen that were held, in the days before parties took to tapping their older MPs to retire out of fear of lost seats. It was also the time when the largest number of policy motions I’d written got through Conference, for those foolish Lib Dems who believe campaigners and policy wonks can never mix (and are one Focus short of a delivery route). For some of the crucial ones, I spent weeks sleeping on people’s floors, or freezing to death hitch-hiking, or not being highly regarded by university tutors whose courses I was unaccountably absent from. Eastleigh was one of the friendliest, happiest, and didn’t have much rain. For all those reasons, I recommend going there yourself. And there was one more big attraction…
The bakery in town is my most indelible memory, which is odd, because though the smell of a bakery is one of the most wonderful in the world, I like pies and cream cakes, but have never cared for doughnuts. And yet, one morning I strode in and uttered the unusual but satisfying line, “Could I have two hundred doughnuts, please?” They offered ridiculous discounts for multiple buys, so that, say, one doughnut might be 85p, but you’d get three for £2, or ten for £5, with escalating discounts the more you bought. These were for the cheery campaign HQ and all the hundreds of volunteers rather than personal consumption, but the huge stack of boxes had the advantage of obscuring the rosette that might have put off an opinion pollster on the street. “Oh no,” I remember saying, “I wouldn’t like that Tony Blair as Labour Leader. Margaret Beckett’s the one you want, she’ll be very popular, and John Prescott, he’s a sensible man.” Since then, I’ve always taken opinion polls with just a pinch of icing sugar. Can any 2013 volunteers enlighten me as to if that baker is still there?
Eastleigh was also an excellent town for outspoken residents – much more exciting for a canvasser than shrinking violets. Last week, Boris Johnson failed to find a single Tory voter when knocking up the most Tory street in the constituency. I did rather better with Lib Dems last time I was there, but here are three canvassing experiences that stayed with me:
- The man who growled at the Lib Dems and refused to let me talk to his wife when I politely enquired, because she voted the way she was told. Canvassers, never treat a house as monolithic (even if there’s an opposition poster there – a Labour poster-bearer at a different by-election told me quietly that he was a member and had to, but was voting tactically). The second he slammed the door, the upper window sprang open, and she quickly confided: “I always tell him that for a quiet life. But I always vote for you lot.”
- The Labour voter on the next doorstep along from me who thought government should tell the workers what was good for them and hand out what they decreed when Tony Blair got in, because Labour and the unions knew best. And the Lib Dem canvasser I was tag-teaming with stoutly telling him that, no, workers should be involved in management rather than everything being from the top down, and the Labour man’s incredulous cry of “You can’t let workers make their own decisions!”
- The man one sunny day in a suburban crescent who got more and more heated about immigration while the other two canvassers did the whole rest of the street and all the neighbours stayed out one by one to listen. Never have I delivered so many calm “That isn’t true, sirs” or “I must disagree with you, sirs” at such increasing volume as the voter went from slightly racist to shouting conspiracy theories. After my final “I don’t believe we’re going to agree, sir, so I shall say good day,” he opened his gate and lumbered after me to the corner, screaming “Chidgey’s not an English name!!”
Chris Huhne
And finally, one word of memorial to Chris Huhne. He’s probably not a good man, and may not be a nice one. But I’m grateful to him for two things that he was good at. He was a bloody good minister – as I’ve written before, even his Tory enemies found him (far too) effective, and we should all be grateful for the hard work he did for the country and the planet as Secretary of State For Energy and Climate Change. And before then, within the Liberal Democrats, he did more than any other individual to make raising allowances and taking the lowest-paid out of tax altogether into what became our biggest priority in the last election, our biggest priority in government, and now our biggest priority in the by-election. It was briefly a Lib Dem policy in the 1990s, swiftly dropped because it cost too much. For much of the early 2000s, I was literally the lone voice on the Federal Committee calling for it – as the bit in italics in this piece forlornly demonstrates. It took a far more powerful policy wonk than me to get it on the Lib Dem agenda, and as the bits not in italics demonstrates, that was Chris. Lib Dems with gritted teeth and freezing delivery rounds will feel they have little to thank Chris for this by-election. Millions of the lowest-paid who now pay no income tax won’t know it, but they have quite a bit to thank Chris for, actually.
Labels: Bigotry, British Politics, By-elections, Conservatives, Gay, History, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Liberal Youth, Personal, Polls, Tax
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Liberal Democrats Or UKIP?
Today’s opinion polls show the Liberal Democrats surging to second place over Labour. But, as you shouldn’t be too excited about one day’s figures, you should note that only most polls are predicting the Lib Dems as this week’s big gainers – a couple suggest the United Kingdom Independence Party. Which should you pick? Unsurprisingly, I’m calling for the Lib Dems… But only on three issues. On the fourth, you should vote UKIP. Either way, it’s appropriate the polls make the big fight one between the two parties with the most straightforward views on Europe: make it work, or retreat. Both the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are promising a referendum on whether Britain stays in the European Union or pull out, but the Liberal Democrats want us to vote to stay in and get things done, while UKIP wants us to vote to close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears and ignore the world.
The other parties are somewhere in the middle. The Conservatives want to sound as anti-European as they possibly can without actually following the logic of their ranting and getting out – I suspect because, deep down, they realise that leaving the European Union would both destroy the British economy and leave them with no-one to blame, so they’d rather shout abuse than take responsibility. The Tories are even leaving the biggest, most influential group in the European Parliament – where all Europe’s mainstream conservative parties join together to get things done – to form a tiny sect with a Czech party that opposes any action to stop climate change and a Polish party that’s rabidly homophobic and calls President Obama’s election “the end of white man’s civilisation”. And those are the nice ones. The Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party (clue’s in the name there) have a swastika-like logo and are big fans of the SS. Yes, that SS. No wonder former Conservative ministers are calling Mr Cameron’s plans a “rigid commitment to impotence,” when the modern Conservative Party is even voting to let crooks and murderers go free rather than co-operate to stop crime across borders.
Labour are even less honest, knowing that Europe is good for Britain but too gutless to say so, instead wrapping themselves in the flag and being as vacuous as possible. We got our single Labour leaflet through the other day, which largely consisted of a union flag and very little writing. Until we saw the small Labour logo at the bottom, we assumed it was from the BNP.
Speaking of which, all the other parties are pretty much at one in being rabidly anti-European, so they’re much of a muchness (some bigger liars than others). I hope the polls are right and the BNP are polling too low to win any seats; the only other party that might get anywhere are the Greens, who are likely to keep their existing couple of MEPs but not get anywhere else. And even they, unlike all the mainstream Green Parties in Europe, are on the me-too anti-European bandwagon. I hope they’re being exactly the same as all the other knee-jerk anti-foreigner British parties because they’re cynically trying to get votes, rather than because they actually believe it, but either way, it’s a massive fail on achieving anything. If you want to tackle climate change and protect the environment, you need to work with other countries – pollution doesn’t stop at the Channel. The self-styled “Green Party” talks a good talk, but they don’t do anything about delivery. Only the Liberal Democrats actually want to make the European Union work for real green action.
So, here are the choices.
Put simply, most polls are showing that the Liberal Democrats are the party most likely to push Labour into third place. Today’s ICM poll puts us clearly ahead of them. So if you want to give Labour a good kicking, the most effective way is to vote Lib Dem and see us beat Labour in the popular vote. Although I don’t like the top-down nature of the electoral system for the Euro-elections, which gives far too much power to parties and not enough to the people, it does have the advantage that it at least reflects people’s votes for parties more accurately. So while at Westminster we have a two and a half party system in terms of which parties win seats, for the Euro-elections there’s effectively a four and a half party system in terms of who’s got a realistic chance.
Now, though most opinion polls show UKIP on a much lower vote than they got in 2004, there are a couple that put them, rather than the Liberal Democrats, in second place. Assuming for the sake of argument that that’s true, they’re much less worrying to Labour. If Labour are beaten by UKIP, they can say, well, they’re no threat at the General Election, because they’ve never yet won a seat at Westminster (though one MP has left the Tories to join them). But the Liberal Democrats have 63 MPs, winning quite a few seats from Labour at the last General Election, and are an even bigger threat to them next time. Being beaten by the Liberal Democrats – as we’ve done in several local elections in the last few years – leaves Labour with no crumb of comfort.
We are stronger together, poorer apart.
The Liberal Democrats are a pro-European party. A lot of the time, we seem like the only pro-European party. And it’s precisely for that reason that we want to make the European Union work better, and work together with a large and influential Liberal group from many countries in the European Parliament. We’ve always called for reform – because we can see the good that Europe can do, it frustrates us when it’s petty, undemocratic or secretive. That’s why for many years we’ve had practical proposals for cutting back waste like the Common Agricultural Policy, for having EU decisions taken by the elected Parliament, not the unelected Commission, and freedom of information at all levels, particularly for the Council of Ministers, where national governments make decisions in secret and then pretend to blame other people. The other parties don’t care about making the EU more open, more democratic, more effective – because they like to campaign against it, and the less well it works, the more they can shift the blame from themselves onto other countries.
In a world of globalisation, the European Union is vital. Not only has it kept the peace amongst all its member states – for the first time in a thousand years – but it’s where the large majority of Britain’s trade takes place. Outside the EU, we’d still have to trade with all the same people… But we’d no longer have any influence on the rules. How mad is that? Countries working together can tackle the global economic crisis, promote free trade, save jobs, make the banks behave – one country on its own simply can’t. They can protect civil liberties, from global corporations and big governments alike. Gangsters, murderers and terrorists can all be dealt with far more effectively in cross-border co-operation, but anti-European parties like the Conservatives have voted to let them all go free rather than work with other countries. And that’s insane. Above all, we need to tackle climate change and other environmental problems, the biggest threat to humanity. And you just can’t do that in one tiny bit of the world. The more we work with other countries, the stronger we push for common standards, the longer our planet will last. Vote Liberal Democrat to get things done.
Obviously, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are united on one issue, which is to have a referendum on whether or not the UK should stay a member of the European Union, though if we get that referendum the two parties will be leading the opposite sides. So if you like the Liberal Democrats on every other issue but want to leave, you can vote for us without worrying. However, if you’re anti-immigrant, socially conservative, don’t believe in climate change and your main political aim is to pull out of the European Union and pull up the drawbridge against all ‘foreigners’, please vote UKIP, because they’re very slightly less horrible than the BNP.
Don’t vote for them, though, if you want to affect European politics in any more constructive way than just to stick two fingers up to the lot. Despite UKIP complaining that too many of Britain’s laws are made in Europe, they never turn up to vote against them, or for them, or to change them… They simply never turn up. Their attendance record at the European Parliament proves that, rather than critics or champions, they’re Britain’s laziest politicians, taking the money but not doing any work on the laws they pretend are so important. UKIP are the party of thieves and layabouts.
This week, Nick Clegg launched a campaign for ordinary people to take back power and clean up politics. This morning, David Cameron and Gordon Brown have been trying to jump on the bandwagon. The Liberal Democrats have spent years voting for freedom of information and reform in Parliament, but being defeated by Labour and Tory MPs – so it’s no wonder that the Liberal Democrats have the smallest share of MPs of any party being accused by the Torygraph (even if all their facts are right) and over the most minor things. Not one Liberal Democrat MP has been accused of the big frauds, like Labour MPs’ house-flipping, non-existent mortgages or tax-dodging, or of the lavish luxuries, like Tory MPs’ duck islands, servants’ quarters or moats. UKIP’s one MP, on the other hand, was a strong supporter of the corrupt Speaker who blocked reform, voted against freedom of information about MPs’ expenses (all the Lib Dem MPs supported it) and has been accused in the expenses scandal. So 100% of UKIP MPs are dodgy.
In the firestorm engulfing all parties about expenses, UKIP were leading the way. Unfortunately, they weren’t leading the way on openness or cleanness, but on corruption. Only one Conservative MEP’s been shown to be a crook, but two UKIP MEPs have – one even went to prison for fraud. Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader, boasted last week about pocketing two million pounds in expenses when he thought the microphone was off. UKIP and the Liberal Democrats each had twelve MEPs elected in 2004, and both parties have lost one MEP through defections – in UKIP’s case, the man promoted as their effective leader last time, Robert Kilroy-Silk – but, on the bright side, no Liberal Democrat MEPs have been accused of corruption. Instead, Liberal Democrats have been in the forefront of opening up the European Parliament, publishing their expenses and campaigning for reform. Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies has been called the Parliament’s most unpopular man for constantly whistle-blowing and calling for change. When it came to the big vote in the European Parliament on cutting MEPs’ expenses and forcing them to be open, the Liberal Democrat MEPs voted in favour of change. Most of the Tory and Labour MEPs voted against. And the UKIP MEPs, as usual, didn’t even bother to turn up. So if you want to vote to clean up politics, UKIP are the party of thieves and layabouts. Liberal Democrat MEPs are the ones who’ve actually voted to get things done.
There’s one other issue that you might be considering, and that’s how to stop the racist, lying, loathsome BNP. This is more complicated, but I’ll have a go. The first thing is, I doubt the BNP will get any MEPs. They never have before, even when – like now – Labour has been cynically talking up the BNP in the hope of frightening traditional Labour voters back into the fold. And the media talk up the BNP because ‘ooh, scary fascists’ is a sexier story than talking about European issues. I can’t rule out, though, that some people are lying to the opinion pollsters because they’re too ashamed to say they’ll vote BNP, but will anyway. How can you make it even less likely that they’ll win a seat?
In London and the North-West, two regions where the BNP are relatively strong (but still a long way down), the best party to vote for to stop them is definitely the Liberal Democrats. In other regions of Britain, the best way to judge a tactical vote is to look at last time’s results. Each region elects only a certain number of MEPs, so check who was the last one elected, or the runner-up, then judge how the votes are going. Sometimes the tactical vote might be Labour (though they’re likely to be losing a lot of votes and seats), or Conservative, or even, in some places, UKIP, though that hardly counts as a vote against the far right. In the two examples I mentioned, the Liberal Democrats won two MEPs last time in the North-West. Our second seat there was the last elected, and prevented the BNP from winning a seat last time. So your best bet is to vote Liberal Democrat to stop them again. In London, polls suggest that the Greens will hold their single MEP, but have no chance of getting a second. Liberal Democrat Jonathan Fryer, though, was only 0.06% of Londoners’ votes short of becoming the Lib Dems’ second London MEP last time. So, a Liberal Democrat vote should be able to give him just that tiny bit extra he needs to be elected. Besides, if you really want to make the BNP miserable after the election, can you think of a better way to do it than making sure the MEP that takes the place they were hoping for is from the most internationalist party, the most socially Liberal party, and, in London, an out gay man?
Update: For a more personal and considered post on UKIP, read Andrew’s. But then, as UKIP would point out, I’m the son of an immigrant, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Update: Mary Reid has more on the Tories’ new partners in Europe, with Ed Davey’s questions on why they find working more closely with other countries offensive, but are happy to form a club with homophobes, anti-Muslims, climate change deniers and Nazi sympathisers, clearly all of which they find acceptable and congenial, as they’re literally going out of their way to do it.
And in at number 79 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.
The other parties are somewhere in the middle. The Conservatives want to sound as anti-European as they possibly can without actually following the logic of their ranting and getting out – I suspect because, deep down, they realise that leaving the European Union would both destroy the British economy and leave them with no-one to blame, so they’d rather shout abuse than take responsibility. The Tories are even leaving the biggest, most influential group in the European Parliament – where all Europe’s mainstream conservative parties join together to get things done – to form a tiny sect with a Czech party that opposes any action to stop climate change and a Polish party that’s rabidly homophobic and calls President Obama’s election “the end of white man’s civilisation”. And those are the nice ones. The Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party (clue’s in the name there) have a swastika-like logo and are big fans of the SS. Yes, that SS. No wonder former Conservative ministers are calling Mr Cameron’s plans a “rigid commitment to impotence,” when the modern Conservative Party is even voting to let crooks and murderers go free rather than co-operate to stop crime across borders.
Labour are even less honest, knowing that Europe is good for Britain but too gutless to say so, instead wrapping themselves in the flag and being as vacuous as possible. We got our single Labour leaflet through the other day, which largely consisted of a union flag and very little writing. Until we saw the small Labour logo at the bottom, we assumed it was from the BNP.
Speaking of which, all the other parties are pretty much at one in being rabidly anti-European, so they’re much of a muchness (some bigger liars than others). I hope the polls are right and the BNP are polling too low to win any seats; the only other party that might get anywhere are the Greens, who are likely to keep their existing couple of MEPs but not get anywhere else. And even they, unlike all the mainstream Green Parties in Europe, are on the me-too anti-European bandwagon. I hope they’re being exactly the same as all the other knee-jerk anti-foreigner British parties because they’re cynically trying to get votes, rather than because they actually believe it, but either way, it’s a massive fail on achieving anything. If you want to tackle climate change and protect the environment, you need to work with other countries – pollution doesn’t stop at the Channel. The self-styled “Green Party” talks a good talk, but they don’t do anything about delivery. Only the Liberal Democrats actually want to make the European Union work for real green action.
So, here are the choices.
If you want simply to hit Labour hard, vote Liberal Democrat.
Put simply, most polls are showing that the Liberal Democrats are the party most likely to push Labour into third place. Today’s ICM poll puts us clearly ahead of them. So if you want to give Labour a good kicking, the most effective way is to vote Lib Dem and see us beat Labour in the popular vote. Although I don’t like the top-down nature of the electoral system for the Euro-elections, which gives far too much power to parties and not enough to the people, it does have the advantage that it at least reflects people’s votes for parties more accurately. So while at Westminster we have a two and a half party system in terms of which parties win seats, for the Euro-elections there’s effectively a four and a half party system in terms of who’s got a realistic chance.
Now, though most opinion polls show UKIP on a much lower vote than they got in 2004, there are a couple that put them, rather than the Liberal Democrats, in second place. Assuming for the sake of argument that that’s true, they’re much less worrying to Labour. If Labour are beaten by UKIP, they can say, well, they’re no threat at the General Election, because they’ve never yet won a seat at Westminster (though one MP has left the Tories to join them). But the Liberal Democrats have 63 MPs, winning quite a few seats from Labour at the last General Election, and are an even bigger threat to them next time. Being beaten by the Liberal Democrats – as we’ve done in several local elections in the last few years – leaves Labour with no crumb of comfort.
If you want to get stuck in and make the European Union work, vote Liberal Democrat.
We are stronger together, poorer apart.
The Liberal Democrats are a pro-European party. A lot of the time, we seem like the only pro-European party. And it’s precisely for that reason that we want to make the European Union work better, and work together with a large and influential Liberal group from many countries in the European Parliament. We’ve always called for reform – because we can see the good that Europe can do, it frustrates us when it’s petty, undemocratic or secretive. That’s why for many years we’ve had practical proposals for cutting back waste like the Common Agricultural Policy, for having EU decisions taken by the elected Parliament, not the unelected Commission, and freedom of information at all levels, particularly for the Council of Ministers, where national governments make decisions in secret and then pretend to blame other people. The other parties don’t care about making the EU more open, more democratic, more effective – because they like to campaign against it, and the less well it works, the more they can shift the blame from themselves onto other countries.
In a world of globalisation, the European Union is vital. Not only has it kept the peace amongst all its member states – for the first time in a thousand years – but it’s where the large majority of Britain’s trade takes place. Outside the EU, we’d still have to trade with all the same people… But we’d no longer have any influence on the rules. How mad is that? Countries working together can tackle the global economic crisis, promote free trade, save jobs, make the banks behave – one country on its own simply can’t. They can protect civil liberties, from global corporations and big governments alike. Gangsters, murderers and terrorists can all be dealt with far more effectively in cross-border co-operation, but anti-European parties like the Conservatives have voted to let them all go free rather than work with other countries. And that’s insane. Above all, we need to tackle climate change and other environmental problems, the biggest threat to humanity. And you just can’t do that in one tiny bit of the world. The more we work with other countries, the stronger we push for common standards, the longer our planet will last. Vote Liberal Democrat to get things done.
If you want to stop the world and get off, vote UKIP.
Obviously, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are united on one issue, which is to have a referendum on whether or not the UK should stay a member of the European Union, though if we get that referendum the two parties will be leading the opposite sides. So if you like the Liberal Democrats on every other issue but want to leave, you can vote for us without worrying. However, if you’re anti-immigrant, socially conservative, don’t believe in climate change and your main political aim is to pull out of the European Union and pull up the drawbridge against all ‘foreigners’, please vote UKIP, because they’re very slightly less horrible than the BNP.
Don’t vote for them, though, if you want to affect European politics in any more constructive way than just to stick two fingers up to the lot. Despite UKIP complaining that too many of Britain’s laws are made in Europe, they never turn up to vote against them, or for them, or to change them… They simply never turn up. Their attendance record at the European Parliament proves that, rather than critics or champions, they’re Britain’s laziest politicians, taking the money but not doing any work on the laws they pretend are so important. UKIP are the party of thieves and layabouts.
If you want cleaner, more open politics, vote Liberal Democrat.
This week, Nick Clegg launched a campaign for ordinary people to take back power and clean up politics. This morning, David Cameron and Gordon Brown have been trying to jump on the bandwagon. The Liberal Democrats have spent years voting for freedom of information and reform in Parliament, but being defeated by Labour and Tory MPs – so it’s no wonder that the Liberal Democrats have the smallest share of MPs of any party being accused by the Torygraph (even if all their facts are right) and over the most minor things. Not one Liberal Democrat MP has been accused of the big frauds, like Labour MPs’ house-flipping, non-existent mortgages or tax-dodging, or of the lavish luxuries, like Tory MPs’ duck islands, servants’ quarters or moats. UKIP’s one MP, on the other hand, was a strong supporter of the corrupt Speaker who blocked reform, voted against freedom of information about MPs’ expenses (all the Lib Dem MPs supported it) and has been accused in the expenses scandal. So 100% of UKIP MPs are dodgy.
In the firestorm engulfing all parties about expenses, UKIP were leading the way. Unfortunately, they weren’t leading the way on openness or cleanness, but on corruption. Only one Conservative MEP’s been shown to be a crook, but two UKIP MEPs have – one even went to prison for fraud. Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader, boasted last week about pocketing two million pounds in expenses when he thought the microphone was off. UKIP and the Liberal Democrats each had twelve MEPs elected in 2004, and both parties have lost one MEP through defections – in UKIP’s case, the man promoted as their effective leader last time, Robert Kilroy-Silk – but, on the bright side, no Liberal Democrat MEPs have been accused of corruption. Instead, Liberal Democrats have been in the forefront of opening up the European Parliament, publishing their expenses and campaigning for reform. Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies has been called the Parliament’s most unpopular man for constantly whistle-blowing and calling for change. When it came to the big vote in the European Parliament on cutting MEPs’ expenses and forcing them to be open, the Liberal Democrat MEPs voted in favour of change. Most of the Tory and Labour MEPs voted against. And the UKIP MEPs, as usual, didn’t even bother to turn up. So if you want to vote to clean up politics, UKIP are the party of thieves and layabouts. Liberal Democrat MEPs are the ones who’ve actually voted to get things done.
There’s one other issue that you might be considering, and that’s how to stop the racist, lying, loathsome BNP. This is more complicated, but I’ll have a go. The first thing is, I doubt the BNP will get any MEPs. They never have before, even when – like now – Labour has been cynically talking up the BNP in the hope of frightening traditional Labour voters back into the fold. And the media talk up the BNP because ‘ooh, scary fascists’ is a sexier story than talking about European issues. I can’t rule out, though, that some people are lying to the opinion pollsters because they’re too ashamed to say they’ll vote BNP, but will anyway. How can you make it even less likely that they’ll win a seat?
In London and the North-West, two regions where the BNP are relatively strong (but still a long way down), the best party to vote for to stop them is definitely the Liberal Democrats. In other regions of Britain, the best way to judge a tactical vote is to look at last time’s results. Each region elects only a certain number of MEPs, so check who was the last one elected, or the runner-up, then judge how the votes are going. Sometimes the tactical vote might be Labour (though they’re likely to be losing a lot of votes and seats), or Conservative, or even, in some places, UKIP, though that hardly counts as a vote against the far right. In the two examples I mentioned, the Liberal Democrats won two MEPs last time in the North-West. Our second seat there was the last elected, and prevented the BNP from winning a seat last time. So your best bet is to vote Liberal Democrat to stop them again. In London, polls suggest that the Greens will hold their single MEP, but have no chance of getting a second. Liberal Democrat Jonathan Fryer, though, was only 0.06% of Londoners’ votes short of becoming the Lib Dems’ second London MEP last time. So, a Liberal Democrat vote should be able to give him just that tiny bit extra he needs to be elected. Besides, if you really want to make the BNP miserable after the election, can you think of a better way to do it than making sure the MEP that takes the place they were hoping for is from the most internationalist party, the most socially Liberal party, and, in London, an out gay man?
Update: For a more personal and considered post on UKIP, read Andrew’s. But then, as UKIP would point out, I’m the son of an immigrant, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Update: Mary Reid has more on the Tories’ new partners in Europe, with Ed Davey’s questions on why they find working more closely with other countries offensive, but are happy to form a club with homophobes, anti-Muslims, climate change deniers and Nazi sympathisers, clearly all of which they find acceptable and congenial, as they’re literally going out of their way to do it.
And in at number 79 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.
Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Corruption, Environment, European Politics, Gay, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Nationalism, Polls, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton, UKIP
As Lib Dems Surge To Second Place, Polls and Papers Say – Vote Lib Dem To Really Hurt Gordon Brown
This morning’s ICM poll puts Labour in third place for both the General and European Elections, beaten by the Liberal Democrats, for the first time in two decades. That underlines why the Lib Dems are the best choice on Thursday, whether you’re voting to make the European Union work better or just to hit the Labour Government where it hurts. The negative and the positive cases are clear in today’s newspapers: The Sunday Telegraph calls the Lib Dem surge “the worst possible news” for Gordon Brown; The Observer calls for a Liberal Democrat vote as the best party on Europe. I’m voting for the party that best expresses my view on Europe – the Liberal Democrats. But I have to admit, voting to do real damage to Gordon Brown’s Labour Government is a very satisfying bonus.
The Observer comes off the fence today and calls for a positive, not protest, Liberal Democrat vote in the Euro-elections as the best party on the issues:
Today’s ICM poll for a potential General Election vote puts the Conservative Party at 40% (+1 from the previous poll), the Liberal Democrats surging to 25% (+5), and Labour at their lowest since polling began on 22% (-6). Asking the same people their voting intentions for this week’s Euro-elections – nothing about the county council elections – the figures are Conservative 29% (-1), Liberal Democrat 20% (+2), Labour 17% (-7), Green 11% (+2), UKIP 10% (no change) and BNP 5% (+4). Even for the General Election vote, where there’s far lower support for the minor parties and all of the three main parties are higher, the Liberal Democrats are slightly up on our vote at the last General Election, while Labour have lost nearly half their vote. Yes, I know, it’s almost impossible to believe. Over half of the people who voted Labour last time are still planning to. Where do they find them?
I don’t trust individual opinion polls, though ICM is usually the most reliable pollster, but there’s been a long run of them now showing Labour’s vote disintegrating. The question is, where is it going, and – for actual votes rather than just poring over polls – where would the most effective place be for you to put it? A Populus poll the other day, for example, gave very similar figures, except for putting the Liberal Democrats noticeably lower than other polls and UKIP noticeably higher. We don’t know what the result will be, of course, but in most polls the Lib Dems have been up on their European Election vote four years ago, with UKIP generally down. So it’s possible that either today’s poll or the previous one may be a ‘rogue’ poll (one that’s simply wrong). I would usually expect the Lib Dems to do worse in Euro-elections than in General Elections, with us getting our best votes in local elections, not just because the system enables other parties to make a breakthrough (which hurts each of the three main parties), but simply because Euro-elections are fought on a massive regional basis, and Liberal Democrat bottom-up campaigning is most effective the smaller the area. I’d say hold your breath, but probably more effective to get out campaigning this week, just in case…
Update: I’ve split this article into two and moved the original continuation of it, on the Liberal Democrats versus UKIP, into a piece of its own; I thought it read better that way. It makes more of the case why if you want to hit Labour hard, you should vote Liberal Democrat.
And in at number 59 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.
The Observer comes off the fence today and calls for a positive, not protest, Liberal Democrat vote in the Euro-elections as the best party on the issues:
“There is a pressing need in this country for advocacy of the EU as a good in itself, as opposed to something distasteful that occasionally suits our interests. That view does not preclude criticism of European institutions, but it eschews wrecking tactics against them.After the explosion on MPs’ expenses, columnist Andrew Rawnsley assesses the three parties’ proposals on constitutional reform and voting reform and suggests that the party to trust on changing things is the one that’s always argued for it, rather than the ones who’ve always voted against but suddenly find it fashionable. The Guardian, too, issued slightly half-hearted praise for the Liberal Democrats last week. Jennie has a vivid round-up of today’s Lib Dem news stories.
“Nick Clegg is the most instinctively European leader at Westminster. That is currently a lonely position, but the Lib Dems have a decent record of taking minority stands that are later vindicated. On the environment, on civil liberties and on the mounting debt bubble, the Lib Dems were quietly but consistently ahead of the Westminster curve.
“Likewise on transparency. In 2007, they opposed the Conservative move, tacitly encouraged by Labour, to exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The Lib Dems alone took a party line for openness.
“While MPs from all parties are tainted, the parties themselves are not equally guilty. A credible record of support for transparency and for constitutional reform reflects well on Nick Clegg's team.
“This Thursday's vote is being held in a uniquely febrile climate. It should be about Europe; it will be about the expenses scandal. On both counts, it is a moment to reward the principled consistency of the Liberal Democrats.”
Today’s ICM poll for a potential General Election vote puts the Conservative Party at 40% (+1 from the previous poll), the Liberal Democrats surging to 25% (+5), and Labour at their lowest since polling began on 22% (-6). Asking the same people their voting intentions for this week’s Euro-elections – nothing about the county council elections – the figures are Conservative 29% (-1), Liberal Democrat 20% (+2), Labour 17% (-7), Green 11% (+2), UKIP 10% (no change) and BNP 5% (+4). Even for the General Election vote, where there’s far lower support for the minor parties and all of the three main parties are higher, the Liberal Democrats are slightly up on our vote at the last General Election, while Labour have lost nearly half their vote. Yes, I know, it’s almost impossible to believe. Over half of the people who voted Labour last time are still planning to. Where do they find them?
I don’t trust individual opinion polls, though ICM is usually the most reliable pollster, but there’s been a long run of them now showing Labour’s vote disintegrating. The question is, where is it going, and – for actual votes rather than just poring over polls – where would the most effective place be for you to put it? A Populus poll the other day, for example, gave very similar figures, except for putting the Liberal Democrats noticeably lower than other polls and UKIP noticeably higher. We don’t know what the result will be, of course, but in most polls the Lib Dems have been up on their European Election vote four years ago, with UKIP generally down. So it’s possible that either today’s poll or the previous one may be a ‘rogue’ poll (one that’s simply wrong). I would usually expect the Lib Dems to do worse in Euro-elections than in General Elections, with us getting our best votes in local elections, not just because the system enables other parties to make a breakthrough (which hurts each of the three main parties), but simply because Euro-elections are fought on a massive regional basis, and Liberal Democrat bottom-up campaigning is most effective the smaller the area. I’d say hold your breath, but probably more effective to get out campaigning this week, just in case…
Update: I’ve split this article into two and moved the original continuation of it, on the Liberal Democrats versus UKIP, into a piece of its own; I thought it read better that way. It makes more of the case why if you want to hit Labour hard, you should vote Liberal Democrat.
And in at number 59 on The Golden Ton for 2008-9.
Labels: British Politics, European Politics, Liberal Democrats, Polls, The Golden Dozen, The Golden Ton
Monday, October 01, 2007
Oh, I Give In: Election Fever!
After long being convinced there’d be no snap Autumn election, I have to admit that I’ve changed my mind this weekend: perhaps it’s simply that the momentum seems to have picked up to such an extent that Gordon Brown would look dithery if he didn’t go for it; perhaps it’s that the opinion polls are just what I’d want in Mr Brown’s place; perhaps it’s that I finally caught the bug at Saturday’s emergency Federal Policy Committee meeting to decide the Manifesto. Maybe only a successful and united Tory Conference could derail an election now – and how likely’s that?
While the Tories of course have the slight problem that as yet they have no set policies, and that the tons of reports they’ve produced over the Summer to choose from all contradict each other, the Liberal Democrats’ policy programme is ready. As announced to Lib Dem members from Chris Rennard’s ‘war room’ yesterday, this weekend saw a packed meeting of the Federal Policy Committee to decide the text of our General Election Manifesto in the event of Mr Brown going to the country in the next few weeks. Obviously I can’t tell you what will be in the Manifesto – though, as usual, if you’ve been following our policies, you’ll have a pretty shrewd idea. Nor can I tell you what sort of things were said at Saturday’s meeting. Perhaps after the election’s out of the way (perhaps in two years’ time!), I’ll write my memoirs of it on here, of what the three biggest arguments were, of the policy that was cut out by mistake, or of just how I used the medium of M&Ms to heckle a fellow FPC member.
What I can tell you is that this was my fourth Manifesto – crikey! – and that, having had far less time for consultation and preparation, it was rather less smooth and consensual a final meeting than those of 2001 and 2005, but still less gruelling than 1997. You’ll probably not be surprised to read, either, that I read the whole thing through in advance and drew up my personal ‘red lines’, carefully preparing forms of words to alter or add to what was there, often drawing on what was in a previous Manifesto (and often something I’d put in back then, too). So I talked quite a bit on Saturday, and if I might introduce the least important reason in favour of an early election, I’m quite keen to find out which of my insertions really has made it to the final cut… But will this draft of the Manifesto ever be presented to the British people, or will Mr Brown pull back and make us rewrite it in six months’, a year’s, or two years’ time?
With all the spin that Gordon Brown is right now making up his mind on whether to call an election, two past Prime Ministers are hanging over him. If you saw the news coverage of Mr Brown’s nakedly Tory election pitch in his Leader’s speech a week ago, you’ll have seen the portrait of George Canning appear again and again on your screen – the shortest-term Prime Minister in British history, who died after just 119 days in office. With all this election fever in the air, went Nick Robinson, surely the only thing that could hold Mr Brown back was the spectre of losing the job after just as short a time. What surprised me was that the alternative short-lived premiership of Jim Callaghan wasn’t presented as the Scylla to George Canning’s Charybdis: the man who teased people about an early election he might have won, then doomed Labour to two decades in the wilderness instead. At the time of Mr Brown’s speech last week, the appearance was of going for a Canning, but I still felt it was more of a Callaghan. Certainly, his and other Labour ministers’ speeches sounded like the opening of an election campaign – terrifyingly authoritarian and shamelessly Tory in tone and, unlike the current crop of Tories, Mr Brown is no lightweight, so you feel he means it. He wrapped himself in the flag, literally coloured his platform blue, and set his stall as socially conservative, inward-looking, foreigner-bashing and based on the past. I still didn’t believe it. I thought he’d fired the starting pistol only so the sound of it would make the Tories panic – but though that still might be the case, election fever seems to have got out of control.
Last week, the talk was mostly of an October 25th polling day. No wonder George Canning was such an irresistible parallel: that might give Gordon just 120 days to George’s 119. Now the gossip seems more around the 1st of November. With dark nights and old electoral registers, both would suggest low turnouts, which are probably bad for Labour as well as (it’s an old-fashioned consideration, I know) for democracy. An October election would clash with half-term and see some people away; a November one would be after the clocks go back and make people even less willing to go out in the evening. I suppose November 1st does have the advantage for electors that they could demand candidates dress up in Halloween outfits (election law forbids treating, but tricking is a grey area), and they could burn unsuccessful candidates as Guys the week after. Neither date appeals, personally; between the 25th and the 1st lie both our anniversary and my birthday, and I’d rather enjoy them in a less fraught way. If it’s October 25th, that’d mean we’d wake the next morning on our thirteenth anniversary – a Friday, no less – to hear election results, and those are never quite what a Lib Dem hopes for, are they? And until Saturday, I’d assumed neither date would appeal to Mr Brown, either. A low turnout might help the Tories; Labour is still on the verge of bankruptcy after finishing their 2005 election campaign £20 million in the red; and after all his sensible rhetoric of “I’m getting on with the job,” after he’s waited a dozen seething, bitter years to get his hands on it, would this notoriously cautious man risk throwing it all away?
Perhaps the biggest counter-argument to that is not fear, but hope. ‘Cautious’ Mr Brown has been much less cautious since he became Prime Minister, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he feels liberated since Mr Blair vanished in a puff of sulphur. I suspect a large proportion of the population feel the same sense of relief that he’s gone – so why not capitalise on that feeling while it lasts? And that sense that hope may not last brings us back to Jim Callaghan. He played about with the idea of an Autumn election that the press and his party thought was almost inevitable, half-singing with delight at the idea of standing them up: “There was I, waiting at the church.” Winding people up when you’re about to call on them to support you isn’t the wisest of political moves, and of course Mr Callaghan’s cautious retreat from an Autumn election with a chance was followed by the worst political Winter suffered by any Prime Minister in my lifetime. ‘The Winter of Discontent’ has become such a lazy cliché since then to describe every slight problem, rather in the way that pop groups for the last third of the Twentieth Century were called ‘the new Beatles’ before being forgotten, but it became a cliché because it was so absolutely dreadful. And it was Mr Callaghan’s own fault, for destroying hopes of union reform while a senior member of the government. Mr Brown’s previous government record is the economy: if that comes off the rails before he calls an election, that too would seem like poetic justice. Is it best to gamble on a run for it while the good times last?
Above all, he now has the sense of momentum – it isn’t just that people increasingly expect there to be an election and might feel let down if he doesn’t go for it, but that people expect Mr Brown to win. The Tories are fighting each other because they expect to lose; Labour are in good spirits, despite their terrifyingly right-wing, authoritarian Conference platform, because they think they’re going to win; and, very simply, a lot of voters like to be on the winning side and hitch their support to the person that looks like a winner. At the moment, that’s Gordon Brown.
OK, then – I suppose I should move on from gut feelings to ‘evidence’. I don’t think much of opinion polls – particularly individual ones. A long, consistent trend, maybe, but delirium over this morning’s meaningless margin of error, no. So though the ‘Brown Bounce’ over the Summer looks good for Labour’s chances, when election fever went wild last week over the YouGov poll for Channel 4, I thought Mr Brown would be wise to ignore it. In part, it’s because it looked then like a one-off. In part, it’s because it was from the famously unreliable YouGov, and showed a Lib Dem figure that only the most eye-rolling, foam-mouthed Tory on Political Betting would put any weight on. But mostly, in Mr Brown’s place I wouldn’t have trusted it because I know how polls change during elections. The Labour lead apparently doubled to 11%, but look at where it came from: Labour 44 (+5); Tory 33 (no change); Lib Dem 13 (-3). The thing is, what’s happened during almost every election campaign is that opinion polls suggest that during the election period the Tories stay roughly stable or up a bit but Labour falls significantly while the Lib Dems rise. So, though of course history is never a perfect predictor, if I were Mr Brown I wouldn’t trust a lead supplied by soft Lib Dem votes that are likely to move right back where they came from once their party’s on the telly more often. If Gordon Brown is to win, he needs to pull votes from the Tories. Just look at his speech a week ago: it was aimed full-square at shifting Tory voters.
If last week’s YouGov poll failed to give me the election fever erupting across most of the media, though, the rush of polls since have been much more plausible. The latest YouGov in the Torygraph is pretty grim reading for the Tories, and still great for Labour despite their slipping slightly: with Labour 43 (-1), Tory 32 (-1) and Lib Dem 15 (+2), it maintains that striking 11% Labour lead over the Tories while including a less unbelievable Lib Dem figure. The latest Mori poll in the Observer has a slightly narrower lead, but still a relatively similar pattern of Labour 41, Tory 34, Lib Dem 16 (with us up a little again, though a flurry of Mori polls make direct comparisons difficult). The latest ICM in the Sunday Mirror, too, had a narrower Labour lead, with Labour 39 (-1), Tory 33 (+1) and Lib Dem 19 (-1); a tiny crumb of comfort for the Tories only through being less disastrous for them, and a suggestion that ICM’s previous 20% for the Lib Dems was an outlying rogue, much as the lower YouGov was.
The one that I’d be really keen on if I were Mr Brown is the latest Populus poll in the Times: it doesn’t give the highest Labour share, but it has a Labour lead of 10% and exactly the direction of change I’d want – Labour 41 (+4), Tory 31 (-5), Lib Dem 17 (-1). With a strong lead at the expense of the Tories and a Lib Dem figure that’s not so improbable as to be rejected out of hand, that’s pretty much the ideal poll for Mr Brown, I’d have thought. But is it true or not? Cut open a goat and make a wish.
Whatever the polls say, and whether an early election is or isn’t good for Labour, it’s probably not good for either of the main opposition parties. Of course, both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats called for an early election to give Gordon Brown a mandate, so we can’t complain! Lynne Featherstone wins points not just for backing the wiser and more principled Lib Dem policy of fixed term elections – the whole idea of Mr Brown being able to choose the election to gerrymander it to his best advantage is a perversion of democracy – but for making the point in two of the best headlines seen this year. As far as the Liberal Democrats go, I imagine that (as the poorest party) it may be tricky to build up a ‘war chest’, like everyone else we don’t have all our candidates in place yet (yes, I’ve been asked too, but my health’s still too wobbly), but in particular a short election campaign is worse for us, and an Autumn campaign will be a short one: we do better the longer we have to stick out leaflets and the longer we get airtime, and Mr Brown will want to limit both.
The Tories, however, are in a far worse state. They may be flush with cash, but they have no policy programme and little unity. Worse, having built up a Tory narrative over the past couple of years of a relatively liberal, green, safe, changed party, David Cameron hit the rocks over the Summer and has lurched to the right – but having ditched all his green credentials and stopped sounding like Mr Nice, Mr Cameron has not yet established an alternative persona (and I reckon it was a terrible mistake for him to trim at all; he was far more dangerous sounding not like a Tory). So perhaps the strongest reason for Mr Brown to go to the polls is that the Tories hate each other right now, and that’s a lucky time for Labour. Will their Conference be bloody? If the election is called this week, could the Tories be hit by John Bercow’s defection to Labour one day and by Zac Goldsmith’s defection to the Liberal Democrats the day after (finally burying Mr Cameron’s tattered green pretensions)? I doubt it, myself, but then who could have predicted that Norman Tebbit and Margaret Thatcher would effectively give their blessings to Gordon Brown over David Cameron, bitter old hatemongers that they are? In Mr Cameron’s place, I’d be petrified that I was about to get three weeks’ notice on my job, and after him, who do the Conservatives have?
There may be one Tory even more worried about an election than David Cameron… But I’ll give the answer to him in my next post.
Update: Congratulations to Richard Allan for having beaten me to a post this morning on the same subject, with better gossip and with almost the same title! And, slightly later, FPC Vice-Chair Jeremy Hargreaves has written a post about the Manifesto which, while less tongue-in-cheek than my account above, is spot-on.
That Manifesto in Full
While the Tories of course have the slight problem that as yet they have no set policies, and that the tons of reports they’ve produced over the Summer to choose from all contradict each other, the Liberal Democrats’ policy programme is ready. As announced to Lib Dem members from Chris Rennard’s ‘war room’ yesterday, this weekend saw a packed meeting of the Federal Policy Committee to decide the text of our General Election Manifesto in the event of Mr Brown going to the country in the next few weeks. Obviously I can’t tell you what will be in the Manifesto – though, as usual, if you’ve been following our policies, you’ll have a pretty shrewd idea. Nor can I tell you what sort of things were said at Saturday’s meeting. Perhaps after the election’s out of the way (perhaps in two years’ time!), I’ll write my memoirs of it on here, of what the three biggest arguments were, of the policy that was cut out by mistake, or of just how I used the medium of M&Ms to heckle a fellow FPC member.
What I can tell you is that this was my fourth Manifesto – crikey! – and that, having had far less time for consultation and preparation, it was rather less smooth and consensual a final meeting than those of 2001 and 2005, but still less gruelling than 1997. You’ll probably not be surprised to read, either, that I read the whole thing through in advance and drew up my personal ‘red lines’, carefully preparing forms of words to alter or add to what was there, often drawing on what was in a previous Manifesto (and often something I’d put in back then, too). So I talked quite a bit on Saturday, and if I might introduce the least important reason in favour of an early election, I’m quite keen to find out which of my insertions really has made it to the final cut… But will this draft of the Manifesto ever be presented to the British people, or will Mr Brown pull back and make us rewrite it in six months’, a year’s, or two years’ time?
Canning or Callaghan?
With all the spin that Gordon Brown is right now making up his mind on whether to call an election, two past Prime Ministers are hanging over him. If you saw the news coverage of Mr Brown’s nakedly Tory election pitch in his Leader’s speech a week ago, you’ll have seen the portrait of George Canning appear again and again on your screen – the shortest-term Prime Minister in British history, who died after just 119 days in office. With all this election fever in the air, went Nick Robinson, surely the only thing that could hold Mr Brown back was the spectre of losing the job after just as short a time. What surprised me was that the alternative short-lived premiership of Jim Callaghan wasn’t presented as the Scylla to George Canning’s Charybdis: the man who teased people about an early election he might have won, then doomed Labour to two decades in the wilderness instead. At the time of Mr Brown’s speech last week, the appearance was of going for a Canning, but I still felt it was more of a Callaghan. Certainly, his and other Labour ministers’ speeches sounded like the opening of an election campaign – terrifyingly authoritarian and shamelessly Tory in tone and, unlike the current crop of Tories, Mr Brown is no lightweight, so you feel he means it. He wrapped himself in the flag, literally coloured his platform blue, and set his stall as socially conservative, inward-looking, foreigner-bashing and based on the past. I still didn’t believe it. I thought he’d fired the starting pistol only so the sound of it would make the Tories panic – but though that still might be the case, election fever seems to have got out of control.
Last week, the talk was mostly of an October 25th polling day. No wonder George Canning was such an irresistible parallel: that might give Gordon just 120 days to George’s 119. Now the gossip seems more around the 1st of November. With dark nights and old electoral registers, both would suggest low turnouts, which are probably bad for Labour as well as (it’s an old-fashioned consideration, I know) for democracy. An October election would clash with half-term and see some people away; a November one would be after the clocks go back and make people even less willing to go out in the evening. I suppose November 1st does have the advantage for electors that they could demand candidates dress up in Halloween outfits (election law forbids treating, but tricking is a grey area), and they could burn unsuccessful candidates as Guys the week after. Neither date appeals, personally; between the 25th and the 1st lie both our anniversary and my birthday, and I’d rather enjoy them in a less fraught way. If it’s October 25th, that’d mean we’d wake the next morning on our thirteenth anniversary – a Friday, no less – to hear election results, and those are never quite what a Lib Dem hopes for, are they? And until Saturday, I’d assumed neither date would appeal to Mr Brown, either. A low turnout might help the Tories; Labour is still on the verge of bankruptcy after finishing their 2005 election campaign £20 million in the red; and after all his sensible rhetoric of “I’m getting on with the job,” after he’s waited a dozen seething, bitter years to get his hands on it, would this notoriously cautious man risk throwing it all away?
Perhaps the biggest counter-argument to that is not fear, but hope. ‘Cautious’ Mr Brown has been much less cautious since he became Prime Minister, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he feels liberated since Mr Blair vanished in a puff of sulphur. I suspect a large proportion of the population feel the same sense of relief that he’s gone – so why not capitalise on that feeling while it lasts? And that sense that hope may not last brings us back to Jim Callaghan. He played about with the idea of an Autumn election that the press and his party thought was almost inevitable, half-singing with delight at the idea of standing them up: “There was I, waiting at the church.” Winding people up when you’re about to call on them to support you isn’t the wisest of political moves, and of course Mr Callaghan’s cautious retreat from an Autumn election with a chance was followed by the worst political Winter suffered by any Prime Minister in my lifetime. ‘The Winter of Discontent’ has become such a lazy cliché since then to describe every slight problem, rather in the way that pop groups for the last third of the Twentieth Century were called ‘the new Beatles’ before being forgotten, but it became a cliché because it was so absolutely dreadful. And it was Mr Callaghan’s own fault, for destroying hopes of union reform while a senior member of the government. Mr Brown’s previous government record is the economy: if that comes off the rails before he calls an election, that too would seem like poetic justice. Is it best to gamble on a run for it while the good times last?
Above all, he now has the sense of momentum – it isn’t just that people increasingly expect there to be an election and might feel let down if he doesn’t go for it, but that people expect Mr Brown to win. The Tories are fighting each other because they expect to lose; Labour are in good spirits, despite their terrifyingly right-wing, authoritarian Conference platform, because they think they’re going to win; and, very simply, a lot of voters like to be on the winning side and hitch their support to the person that looks like a winner. At the moment, that’s Gordon Brown.
If I’m Going to Go Goggle-Eyed for an Election, I Might As Well Include Opinion Polls (and tea leaves, star signs and the entrails of goats)…
OK, then – I suppose I should move on from gut feelings to ‘evidence’. I don’t think much of opinion polls – particularly individual ones. A long, consistent trend, maybe, but delirium over this morning’s meaningless margin of error, no. So though the ‘Brown Bounce’ over the Summer looks good for Labour’s chances, when election fever went wild last week over the YouGov poll for Channel 4, I thought Mr Brown would be wise to ignore it. In part, it’s because it looked then like a one-off. In part, it’s because it was from the famously unreliable YouGov, and showed a Lib Dem figure that only the most eye-rolling, foam-mouthed Tory on Political Betting would put any weight on. But mostly, in Mr Brown’s place I wouldn’t have trusted it because I know how polls change during elections. The Labour lead apparently doubled to 11%, but look at where it came from: Labour 44 (+5); Tory 33 (no change); Lib Dem 13 (-3). The thing is, what’s happened during almost every election campaign is that opinion polls suggest that during the election period the Tories stay roughly stable or up a bit but Labour falls significantly while the Lib Dems rise. So, though of course history is never a perfect predictor, if I were Mr Brown I wouldn’t trust a lead supplied by soft Lib Dem votes that are likely to move right back where they came from once their party’s on the telly more often. If Gordon Brown is to win, he needs to pull votes from the Tories. Just look at his speech a week ago: it was aimed full-square at shifting Tory voters.
If last week’s YouGov poll failed to give me the election fever erupting across most of the media, though, the rush of polls since have been much more plausible. The latest YouGov in the Torygraph is pretty grim reading for the Tories, and still great for Labour despite their slipping slightly: with Labour 43 (-1), Tory 32 (-1) and Lib Dem 15 (+2), it maintains that striking 11% Labour lead over the Tories while including a less unbelievable Lib Dem figure. The latest Mori poll in the Observer has a slightly narrower lead, but still a relatively similar pattern of Labour 41, Tory 34, Lib Dem 16 (with us up a little again, though a flurry of Mori polls make direct comparisons difficult). The latest ICM in the Sunday Mirror, too, had a narrower Labour lead, with Labour 39 (-1), Tory 33 (+1) and Lib Dem 19 (-1); a tiny crumb of comfort for the Tories only through being less disastrous for them, and a suggestion that ICM’s previous 20% for the Lib Dems was an outlying rogue, much as the lower YouGov was.
The one that I’d be really keen on if I were Mr Brown is the latest Populus poll in the Times: it doesn’t give the highest Labour share, but it has a Labour lead of 10% and exactly the direction of change I’d want – Labour 41 (+4), Tory 31 (-5), Lib Dem 17 (-1). With a strong lead at the expense of the Tories and a Lib Dem figure that’s not so improbable as to be rejected out of hand, that’s pretty much the ideal poll for Mr Brown, I’d have thought. But is it true or not? Cut open a goat and make a wish.
Taking Advantage of the Opposition
Whatever the polls say, and whether an early election is or isn’t good for Labour, it’s probably not good for either of the main opposition parties. Of course, both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats called for an early election to give Gordon Brown a mandate, so we can’t complain! Lynne Featherstone wins points not just for backing the wiser and more principled Lib Dem policy of fixed term elections – the whole idea of Mr Brown being able to choose the election to gerrymander it to his best advantage is a perversion of democracy – but for making the point in two of the best headlines seen this year. As far as the Liberal Democrats go, I imagine that (as the poorest party) it may be tricky to build up a ‘war chest’, like everyone else we don’t have all our candidates in place yet (yes, I’ve been asked too, but my health’s still too wobbly), but in particular a short election campaign is worse for us, and an Autumn campaign will be a short one: we do better the longer we have to stick out leaflets and the longer we get airtime, and Mr Brown will want to limit both.
The Tories, however, are in a far worse state. They may be flush with cash, but they have no policy programme and little unity. Worse, having built up a Tory narrative over the past couple of years of a relatively liberal, green, safe, changed party, David Cameron hit the rocks over the Summer and has lurched to the right – but having ditched all his green credentials and stopped sounding like Mr Nice, Mr Cameron has not yet established an alternative persona (and I reckon it was a terrible mistake for him to trim at all; he was far more dangerous sounding not like a Tory). So perhaps the strongest reason for Mr Brown to go to the polls is that the Tories hate each other right now, and that’s a lucky time for Labour. Will their Conference be bloody? If the election is called this week, could the Tories be hit by John Bercow’s defection to Labour one day and by Zac Goldsmith’s defection to the Liberal Democrats the day after (finally burying Mr Cameron’s tattered green pretensions)? I doubt it, myself, but then who could have predicted that Norman Tebbit and Margaret Thatcher would effectively give their blessings to Gordon Brown over David Cameron, bitter old hatemongers that they are? In Mr Cameron’s place, I’d be petrified that I was about to get three weeks’ notice on my job, and after him, who do the Conservatives have?
There may be one Tory even more worried about an election than David Cameron… But I’ll give the answer to him in my next post.
Update: Congratulations to Richard Allan for having beaten me to a post this morning on the same subject, with better gossip and with almost the same title! And, slightly later, FPC Vice-Chair Jeremy Hargreaves has written a post about the Manifesto which, while less tongue-in-cheek than my account above, is spot-on.
Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, FPC, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Polls, The Golden Dozen
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Liberals Surge in Polls
I don’t usually set much store by opinion polls, but last night’s meeting of the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Policy Committee had news of such an extraordinary improvement in the opinion polls for the Liberals, which prompted a few little cheers (we were that excited) that I felt I just had to share it with you. Of course, under the Chatham House Rule*, I can’t reveal which member of the FPC revealed this detail to us, nor the name of the party leader who was cock-a-hoop about their sudden surge (apparently reflected in recent months across several polls, to be fair).
So join with me in celebrating that after decades of languishing in single figures (at one stage even falling below the 5% threshold needed for election), the German Freie Demokratische Partei has now soared to a towering 14% in opposition to the Grand Coalition of Mrs Merkel’s CDU-CSU and the SPD. Makes you think.
In other news about European Liberalism, the FPC last night also enjoyed a long and excessively fascinating discussion about the recent Congress of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist party – of which the Liberal Democrats in Britain and, indeed, the German FDP are constituent members – held in Bucharest. If you were one of the delegation from the UK, feel free to post a comment or e-mail me (click at the side of this blog) to explain just why you were unable to organise your way out of a paper bag. In particular, if you were one of the many delegates from the Liberal Democrats who didn’t bother showing up, nor bother finding anyone to go in your place and wield your (crucial) vote at the Congress, just what the bloody hell were you thinking? I ask only for information, and not because last night’s discussion suggested a bunch of amateurs who’d be laughed out of a students’ union debate, naturally.
*I try not to talk in jargon, so if you’re not familiar with the ‘Chatham House Rule’, it’s a way of permitting both free discussion without fear of personal comeback and free reportage of the discussion itself:gossip reports should be made of meetings so that the FPC as a whole can be held to account but individuals are not intimidated into mistrustful silence or circumspection.
26.02.07 update: perhaps unwisely in view of the nuclear exchanges in the comments, I’ve just made a tiny addition to this piece, so if anyone is tracking changes – in which case, you’ll note that this is the first alteration since it was first published last Wednesday morning – I’ll save you looking for what it might be. As I’ve just published another piece that mentions the FPC (and, as it happens, the Trident debate), I gave that an ‘FPC’ label and added the same three letters to the tags on here before realising it might re-open the specious ‘re-editing’ argument. Sigh. That’s it.
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So join with me in celebrating that after decades of languishing in single figures (at one stage even falling below the 5% threshold needed for election), the German Freie Demokratische Partei has now soared to a towering 14% in opposition to the Grand Coalition of Mrs Merkel’s CDU-CSU and the SPD. Makes you think.
In other news about European Liberalism, the FPC last night also enjoyed a long and excessively fascinating discussion about the recent Congress of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist party – of which the Liberal Democrats in Britain and, indeed, the German FDP are constituent members – held in Bucharest. If you were one of the delegation from the UK, feel free to post a comment or e-mail me (click at the side of this blog) to explain just why you were unable to organise your way out of a paper bag. In particular, if you were one of the many delegates from the Liberal Democrats who didn’t bother showing up, nor bother finding anyone to go in your place and wield your (crucial) vote at the Congress, just what the bloody hell were you thinking? I ask only for information, and not because last night’s discussion suggested a bunch of amateurs who’d be laughed out of a students’ union debate, naturally.
*I try not to talk in jargon, so if you’re not familiar with the ‘Chatham House Rule’, it’s a way of permitting both free discussion without fear of personal comeback and free reportage of the discussion itself:
“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”Apparently one poor innocent lamb at the previous FPC meeting had never been to any Lib Dem policy discussions in his life before, and was so naïve he reported damning (and in one case, I’m told, even accurate) direct quotations from named individuals in just such a way as to advance his case and damage theirs in an article in the esteemed pages of Liberator. What luck that his obvious misunderstanding suited his agenda so well! The FPC last night greeted this unintentional faux pas with much love, understanding and genteel indulgence, but I thought it best to make it clear the terms on which
26.02.07 update: perhaps unwisely in view of the nuclear exchanges in the comments, I’ve just made a tiny addition to this piece, so if anyone is tracking changes – in which case, you’ll note that this is the first alteration since it was first published last Wednesday morning – I’ll save you looking for what it might be. As I’ve just published another piece that mentions the FPC (and, as it happens, the Trident debate), I gave that an ‘FPC’ label and added the same three letters to the tags on here before realising it might re-open the specious ‘re-editing’ argument. Sigh. That’s it.
Labels: British Politics, European Politics, FPC, Liberal Democrats, Liberator, Polls
