Category Archives: Governments and parties

a centre-left nation needs what kind of government?

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One outcome of all the MySociety work for this election was the survey administered by DemocracyClub volunteers to all candidates. The results by party are graphed here, with standard deviations and error bars.

Some immediate conclusions: Surprising egalitarianism. Look at question 1, which asks if the budget deficit should be reduced by taxing the rich. Only the very edge of the error bar for the Conservatives touches the 50% mark; the only parties who have any candidates who don’t agree are the BNP and UKIP. Also, question 4 (“It would be a big problem if Britain became more economically unequal over the next 5 years” – agree/disagree) shows that there is a remarkable degree of consensus here. The three main parties of the Left – the Greens, Lib Dems, and Labour – overlap perfectly, and even the lower bound on the Tory percentage is over 50%. Only the ‘kippers and the fash even skim the 50% mark at the bottom end of their distributions. This may actually not be a statement about far-right thinking, because of…

Extremist internal chaos. On every question except the one about immigration for the BNP and the one about the EU for UKIP, these two parties have huge error bars for every question. As soon as they get off that particular topic, the error bars gap out like the bid-offer spread in a crashing market. Clearly, they agree about very little other than their own particular hate-kink. So the result in my first point could just be because they always have the widest standard error and deviation.

Immigration, or a field guide to identifying British politics. If you’re a Liberal, Labour, or a Green, you’ve got no problem with immigrants. Even the upper bounds only just stroke the 50% line. All the parties of the Right, however, overlap around the 80% line. Need to identify someone’s partisan affiliation quickly? Wave an immigrant at them. The other culture-wars question about marriage is similar, although the gap is smaller and the error bars bigger.

The consensus on civil liberties. Everyone, but everyone, thinks there are far too many CCTV cameras about. All parties overlap at between 68-78%…except for Labour. Labour is the only party that supports CCTV and it supports it strongly. There is just the faintest touch of overlap between the top (i.e. least supportive) end of the Labour error range and the bottom (i.e. most supportive) of the Tories’.

Trust and honesty. Liberals, Labour, and Conservatives all think politicians are honest. No doubt this is because the respondents are themselves politicians. Interestingly, the exceptions are the BNP and UKIP. Very interestingly, the BNP is united in cynicism, whereas the UKIP error range gaps-out dramatically on this question. The Greens’ error range converges dramatically on exactly 46% agreement – they are almost perfectly in agreement that they don’t agree.

Art and culture; only ‘kippers, BNPers, and a very few extreme Tories don’t support state funding of the arts.

Britain is a European country and is committed to the European Union. You can’t argue with the data; the Tories and Greens average between 20-30% support for withdrawal, zero for the Liberals and Labour, and even the upper bound for the Tories is well under the 50% line. Obviously, the BNP and UKIP want out, which is obvious and after the election result, arguably trivial.

Pacifist fascists; bellicose conservatives; divided lefties and ‘kippers. OK, so which parties are least keen on military action against Iran, even if they are caught red-handed building a nuke? The Greens are unsurprisingly 86% against with minimal error – perhaps the only occasion they would turn up a chance to oppose nuclear power! The other is the BNP – 82% against. Who knew we would find a scenario in which the BNP would turn up a chance to kill brown people? Labour, the Liberals, and UKIP would split down the middle – they overlap perfectly around the 50% mark. The Tories, however, are the war party – 39% against, with the lower bound well clear of the other parties. The UKIP result is strange – you’d expect them to be basically like Tories or like the BNP, but they are most like Labour on this issue, although they have a tail of happy warriors. The BNP is also the party most opposed to continuing British involvement in Afghanistan – even more than the Greens. Labour, the Liberals, the Tories, and UKIP overlap heavily around being narrowly in favour, although UKIP as usual gaps out when it’s not discussing how much it hates the EU.

Even the Toriest Tories say they support UK Aid. This one’s fairly clear – even the upper bound for the Tories is well below 50% and everyone else serious is much lower. UKIP and the BNP are strongly against, but their error bars are quite wide – clearly, they’re not sure whether they hate foreigners enough that paying them not to be immigrants is a good idea.

Summary: We’re a broadly social democratic European nation, with a few nutters for comic relief. And Chris Lightfoot’s Political Survey results (the primary axis in British politics is liberty-vs-authority, strongly correlated with internationalism-vs-isolationism, and the secondary axis is egalitarianism-vs-libertarianism, but there is surprisingly little variance along it) from 2005 appear to be confirmed.

Instant speculation, instantly out of date

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What will happen after the election? If there’s a Lib-Lab majority, which seems likely, though not certain, Nick Clegg, among others, have a few unpleasant decisions ahead of him.

One unusual factor is that any coalition agreement or pact has to be voted on through several levels of the party. Exactly what qualifies as an agreement is a bit vague, however.

If the Tories would agree to PR, Clegg would most likely support them. They almost certainly won’t though. They’re an uncompromising lot and FPTP has served them very well.

Clegg will probably let Cameron through without a good deal on PR. I don’t actually think it’s sensible. (CF) I think Clegg may be savvy about election campaigns, but not about these sort of things. He’s not bloody minded enough. Tories getting a shot has become what’s expected, what’s supposed to happen. From a not-losing the-three day news cycle perspective it would make sense, and because people sort of expect a Tory minority, because the immediate reaction to a Labour-liberal deal would be negative. Never underestimate the feeble mindedness of anyone who isn’t actively evil.

If Clegg makes a less attractive deal, he risks getting overruled, so I reckon he’ll tolerate Cameron without any preconditions, to bypass the grassroots.

If there’s a Lib-Lab pact or actual coalition, the Tories will almost certainly get much high poll numbers fairly soon – the Lib Dems won’t be in opposition anymore, and the economy will still be crap. So if the Lib Dems lets them through with only a vague promise of PR, they’ll soon be in the position to say: “we dare you to vote us down”. And there’s a good chance the grass roots will nix it. The Lib Dems will do very badly in the next election then, whether it’s early or in 2015.

But will Labour offer a good deal? Even if a majority of them wants to, will the leadership be unified enough to offer something some figures are strongly against, with no one in charge and election campaigns starting (for both leader and deputy)?

If both larger parties are uncompromising, Clegg will have no less than six, maybe seven shit sandwiches to choose from. A pact with Labour, or with the Tories. Letting either of them in without ANY deal, to bypass the grassroots. Immediate early elections, which doesn’t only risk a Tory majority, but global economic meltdown (or so people will say). Or outside chance, a national unity gov’t. I think he may then choose what may be the shittiest shit sandwich.

Having said all that, I think the combined odds of a Lib-Lab pact or toleration, either now or somewhat later after some unpleasant twists and turns, is slightly higher than a long term Tory gov’t.
Of course, in thinking about the future we should also consider the risk of the economy imploding because of political uncertainty, even if we get the in my opinion lesser evil in the cabinet.

Update: If Clegg lets Cameron through and then the next Labour leader and Clegg wants to do a deal, could they avoid a new election? My understanding is now that Clegg and the next Labour leader could avoid a new election. This would make letting Cameron in more likely and a bit less irrational. If Cameron goes down to no confidence and doesn’t see it coming soon enough to call a new election, the leader of the opposition gets a shot at forming a government.

Thanks to Ajay, Alex and Keir for their input.

In the polling booth

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So there I was, all ready to convert my well formed pro-Liberal Democrat voting intention into a mark on the ballot paper, when this strange mist descended, and all I could think was: is there any way – any way at all – to stop this place going Tory? So I went for the Labour guy instead. Good luck, Martin.

As it happens, there’s also some local elections on around here and the single Green candidate picked up my vote, along with two randomly selected Lib Dems.

Polling continues until ten tonight. It was busy down there. Anyone else had any booth moments so far?

Election sidelight

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The gutter press (well, the Daily Telegraph: so the gutter in question is presumably attached firmly to the eaves of a rather nice vicarage somewhere in Buckinghamshire) has made much of the fact that Gordon Brown is an “unelected prime minister” – i.e. he hasn’t yet fought and won a general election as party leader. The fact that he’s attempting to do so now should have answered that point – it hasn’t – but it’s interesting to note that this isn’t exactly a rarity in British politics. Continue reading →

controlled demolition

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Niall Ferguson, not surprisingly, argues in the Speccie, also not surprisingly, that the Tories should deliberately crash the economy for ideological reasons – 1979-80 style – and then call in the IMF.

This idea has apparently already “been doing the rounds in Tory circles.” But I guess that’s not surprising either. 

It kind of fits in with Cameron’s plan to storm the gates if he doesn’t get a majority. The general feel of the Tory campaign over the last few days has been of people nerving themselves up to do something drastic. 

On a local note, there’s a car cruising the streets of Crumpsall right now – quite a snazzy late model VW Passat – telling the broad masses to “Vote Respect – for cleaner streets and brighter parks”. We seem to have come a long way since Gorgeous George went to America to beard the Senators in their lair.

essential pathology

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John Harris, writing about the PM’s bid for the votes of people who deal with customers on a daily basis, says: 

This may sound tangential, but I'm rather reminded of a passage from a Tony Blair conference speech that both set out New Labour's credo, and captured its essential pathology. "The character of this changing world is indifferent to tradition," he said. "Unforgiving of frailty. No respecter of past reputations. It has no custom and practice. It is replete with opportunities, but they only go to those swift to adapt, slow to complain, open, willing and able to change." That doesn't describe Gillian Duffy, nor millions and millions of other people. And in this awful episode, here are the wages of that ever-festering disconnection. 

Me, I think Mrs Duffy’s adapting quite well: 

Gillian Duffy is being represented by a public relations agent and will not be giving any further comment this evening on her dealings with the prime minister, the BBC understands. 

I look forward to next Sunday’s News of the World with interest. Once more, Prime Minister, welcome to the world you made.

what gordon should have said

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You’re worried about immigrants? Jesus wept woman, I had this guy shot for you. What more do you want? 

Some of this goes back to the accession of the Poles, et al to the EU, when the government desperately tried to fudge the likely numbers coming in. What they could have said at the time was “ we know that large population transfers tend to make people nervous, but frankly we’re looking forward to getting hundreds of thousands of extra taxpayers in to help pay for all the stuff you get from the government. And it also means your kids can work anywhere they please on the continent too: and what’s more they won’t be stacking shelves. British win!” And just to underscore the point they could have timed a major public spending programme to the arrival of our Eastern European fellow toilers, being experts in the dark political arts and everything. They could have at least redirected some of the extra tax receipts that our new friends have contributed to the Treasury specifically to relieving what extra pressure there has been on schools, hospitals and other public services. 

All else aside, Mrs Duffy was owed an explanation of the likely consequences of the government’s actions at the time. If she’d have been given one, Brown might not have made such an arse of himself now. 

When our kid was young and he thought that there were monsters under the bed we tried to make it clear to him that not only were there no monsters under the bed but that there were no monsters full stop: because when you’re dealing with irrational fear what you need to make clear first of all is that there is nothing to be scared of. 

What the government has done over immigration was firstly to tell people that there were no monsters coming here, thus confirming the notion that immigration is in fact something monstrous; then saying that there are monsters coming here, but don’t worry, we only let them in if we give them licenses and if we find any under your bed we’ll deport them. Sure enough, the treatment certain categories of migrant are subjected to is truly monstrous, when it’s not just foul and mean spirited. This is positive encouragement for people to see monsters where none exist. Finally, an old lady comes along and tells Gordon about the monsters under her bed and he calls her a bigot. Now the Tories are dancing about shouting WOO, MONSTERS! and Gordon’s doom is apparently sealed*. Welcome, Prime Minister, to the world you made. 

 See also Justin, from whom I have snaffled many links in the above. 

*Maybe. On the other hand this seems to rest on a conviction that the “core Labour vote” is synonymous with the “confused Granny vote”, which strikes me as a version of the same metropolitan media condescension that metropolitan media types now like to accuse other metropolitan media and political types of. Hey, ho.

tzzzzeeep

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Watched The Debate this time. Ho Hum. Brown was a bit better than I thought he’d be. I imagined a conveyor belt filled with rubble chugging its way through the studio, discharging nuggety factoids at random. But he managed to make his personality cohere, more or less. Not a hugely appealing personality, consisting mainly of a lot of statistics held together by a gluey sense of entitlement, but we already knew that. 

Cameron was Cameron. Some of the stuff he was coming up with sounded like the kind of thing people who like that kind of thing like to hear, though it’s a different matter whether they like to hear it from him. He’s caught in the Blair trap: the more sincere he sounds, the more he conveys the feeling that he’s putting one over. 

Cleggy boy ain’t all that. I mean, he’s alright in a "doesn’t wipe his nose on his sleeve" sense, which seems to be all that’s required right now. He sounded a bit apologetic about his best policies, ie on immigration and Trident, which is a mistake. He didn’t exactly squirm; it was more a slightly queasy appeal to reason, with lots of stuff about kicking things into committees. His position on both these issues cries out to be presented aggressively as “plain common sense” and he couldn’t shape up to that properly. He really should have mocked Cameron over his China comments last week. 

Sky had Osborne on afterwards, congratulating them on holding such a wonderful debate, which raises the underlying meta-issue in the election: 

Last week, the Lib-Dem candidate Nick Clegg—the third party candidate in the race—did so well in a television debate that he began to emerge as the logical alternative to Labor. This has caused the Murdoch papers to unleash a full-scale attack on Clegg—with hardly any pretense other than to help Cameron—now known as the “Kill Klegg” campaign. 

First I heard of it, though it’s quite good. 

In turn, the Independent newspaper ran a front pager yesterday with the headline “Rupert Murdoch will not decide the outcome of the election. You will,” challenging the Murdoch coverage of the race.

 Later in the afternoon, in a coming-apart-at-the-seams scenario, Rebekah Wade/Brooks and Murdoch’s son, James—who will both face the wrath of Murdoch senior if they don’t produce a winner—stormed over to the Independent, breached its security systems, barged into the offices of the Independent’s editor-in-chief and top executive, Simon Kelner, and commenced, in Brit-speak, a giant row. Their point was that newspaper publishers don’t slag off other newspaper publishers in polite Britain, but also the point was to remind Kelner that he wasn’t just slagging off another publisher, he was slagging off the Murdochs, damn it. Indeed, the high point of the screaming match was Wade/Brooks, in a fit of apoplexy and high drama, neck muscles straining, saying to Kelner: “And I invited you to Blenheim in the first place!” Blenheim being the Murdoch family retreat and the highest social destination for all Murdoch loyalists and ambitious Brits in the media. 

 This is one way for empires to end. 

Osborne’s comment showed that the Tories’ loyalties are still with the Empire. Nick, I suspect, will be happy to do business come the glorious day. Shame really. Some indication that he wasn’t could see him really attack the Labour core vote, and maybe get not a few Tories on board too. 

Incidentally, I was impressed by the way Clegg used the Lib Dem position on EU membership – an in/out referendum – to encourage Cameron to present his right wing for plundering by UKIP, which Cameron duly did. Maybe that’s a bit premature in terms of votes this time, but I am amused by the combination of “plucky outsider” “Mr honest as the day is long” and “cute as a shithouse rat.” There was the tzzzzeeep of the stiletto about the thing. I just wish he’d done it on Trident.

the endless halls

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Clegg spent many years in the endless halls of Brussels and Strasbourg, working for the European Commission and then as an MEP. A privileged environment that may have been, but above all a bourgeois one, and one whose elites were meritocratic and technocratic, not aristocratic. (Also deeply dull-sounding. The recollection that Geoff Hoon was an MEP before he entered parliament somehow makes that role seem almost devoid of any joy or life.) 

I used to work part time for an MEP and got to Brussels now and again. It was more fun than that. 

Thing is, they stack MEPs offices by party in Brussels, or used to. All the conservative parties were based on the first two floors. The European socialists were above them, and above them was where the fun started. 

My MEP’s office was directly beneath the Abode of the Liberals, and sometimes you couldn’t hear yourself think. There’d be shouting and odd cries and people running up and down corridors and the sound of heavy things being dragged to and fro. This would go on all day. I poked my head round the door once when I got the wrong floor on the lift and there were three men standing in a corridor staring intently into an open briefcase. One of them turned round, bared his teeth and hissed at me. The fascists used to complain about them. 

 But then the Euro-Liberals were an odd crew, libertarians in the continental style, with all the not quite coherence that implies: Dutch sex shop entrepreneurs sharing a caucus with really angry dentists from Stuttgart. And the Italian Radicals had to be seen to be believed. I suppose Clegg or someone like him spent a lot of his time going from place to place telling everyone to calm down and be reasonable. Or maybe he went native. Was it him being dragged down a corridor, or doing the dragging? I’m sure the Mail will get round to telling us.