Day 6899: Now that the Turkeys have Voted for Christmas…

Thursday:

I don’t suppose anyone’s noticed, but there’s a General Election on.

Manifest

So let’s put it on record that this is a VERY STUPID PLAN.

A General Election is VERY HIGH RISK.

If we get a Lib Dem government, we CAN stop Brexit. But that’s a REALLY big “if”.

If Johnson wins a majority, he can have ANY BREXIT HE LIKES. Maybe his “deal”; maybe the self-styled Spartans of the ERG will blackmail him into No Deal. “Spartans” being an anagram of “AN SS PRAT”.

We should have taken every extra day we could get to look at Johnson's "deal", unpick it, show it for what it is. We should have hung him out to dry in a Parliament that would not let him legislate, show him up as weak, powerless and posturing.

Yet faced with 19 Labour MPs voting for the clown car’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill AND the sight of Jeremy Corbyn slipping into Number 10 for talks with the Government on how a timetable for debating the bill might be agreed… a last roll of dice seemed like the better option.

Remember, every day that we are still in the European Union is another day of winning, is another day closer to proving Brexit is impossible, and ending this nightmare.

So where do we stand:

With the odious Nigel Farrago having finally been swallowed by his own betrayal narrative – accepting a one-sided deal with the Tories to stand down half his company (they’re not a Party) in exchange for bugger all – the Brexit Party (not a Party) are now a spent force, excepting that their subversion of the Tories is now complete.

So in England, these are the THREE Parties and their strategies:
(Wales and Scotland have nationalist parties as well, who have their own agenda, particularly Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Nasty Party, who are out for gaming ANY result to achieve a new independence referendum.)

CONSERVATORIES

The Tory strategy is to say only they can finish the mess they’ve made by getting us into the Brexit disaster. Yes, their pitch is they can make a COMPLETE MESS. And the evidence is that they CAN!

It’s a horribly short-termist tactic – within weeks of the election it will be clear that “get it done” means “you’ve been had”, as the country progresses to merely the next round of endless argument and fear of another no deal – but the cynical wiring into the nation’s exhaustion with the debate and division that THEY THEMSELVES caused appear to be working.

In a further divisive calculation, they’ve also decided that since most of the population believe politicians lie all the time, they might as well just lie. So thank you to all right-on comedians and commentators who’ve been fostering this for years and years by lazily telling us so over and over and sneering ‘They’re all the same’ (because that’s easier than actually explaining that most politicians try to tell the truth as they see it); congratulations, you’ve empowered a fascist takeover.

So, so far, what we’ve heard from the Tories has all been about costs of Labour’s manifesto (made up); consequences of a coalition between Labour and SNP (made up); and next to nothing about their own plans.

And it’s working.

With a few honourable exceptions, the media is failing us catastrophically by merely parroting the Tory line, rather than challenging the government who are SUPPOSED TO BE IN POWER over what they are actually doing.

HARD LABOUR

The Labour party strategy is the same as it always is: claim that the NHS is being privatised.

Oh yes, they’ve got a whole Scandi-style socialism smorgasbord of policies: nationalise everything so they can give away everything from free broadband to free tuition fees, and the price tag hardly matters because (a) the Tories are promising to spend money like it’s going out of fashion too (didn’t they used to want to “save the pound”?) so costings are largely fictional, but (b) they aren’t going to win anyway!

Labour’s big weakness (after their Leader) is their incoherence on Brexit.

We know that Labour would much rather Brexit was “done”… well not “done” as such (see above), but we all know too that Johnson and Jeremy can agree that passing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill means “done” because it suits their interests… And Labour want it “done” on a Tory watch, so that the Tories are to BLAME, and so that they can go back to campaigning in their comfort zone of “Vote For Us Or The Puppy Gets It” (where as usual “the puppy” means the NHS).

What Labour are doing very well is attacking the Liberal Democrats.

IF Labour’s real aim is to beat the Conservatories, then this is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Most of the seats where Lib Dems are challenging, across the South-West, the south of Manchester and of course London, are seats that we can win (and have won!) but Labour cannot. To flip the Labour line, taking votes from the Lib Dems really does let the Tories in.

And yet as in 2017 and 2015, Labour are working hard to convince those voters that to choose Liberal is to let in the Tories, even though the reverse is true.

So why are Labour doing this. Firstly because it’s easier. Secondly, because it provokes US to attack them BACK, and that’s a look that works better for them then for us: “look! how shocking! the Lib Dems are attacking Labour! they must be Yellow Tories!” they do say. But thirdly because Labour actually PREFER a Tory government (with them in Opposition) which they can rail against in comfortable impotence. What truly terrifies them is a Liberal Democrat government that might actually change things for the better, suddenly revealing that the entire Labour movement has done NOTHING for decades.

And it’s working.

The “vote for us or you’re helping the Tories” message is playing on fear and shoring up the rather tattered remains of the alliance that voted for Corbyn in 2017, back before Labour decided that it could put up with antisemitism more than being anti-Brexit.

THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Lib Dem Fight Back

The Liberal Democrat plan in this Election – and any General Election that wasn’t 2015 – is to GET NOTICED. We have to offer HOPE and CHANGE. Change from the stale duopoly that just swaps one authoritarian power for another; hope that we can break out of the past to build a better future.

That’s not going well.

The Tory and Labour leaders have collaborated with ITV and BBC to lock Jo Swinson out of the debate to be Prime Minister. The “excuse” which they won’t say too loud is that “only Johnson or Corbyn can be Prime Minister”. They won’t say that too loud in case someone realises that that means there’s something WRONG with the election.

The Labservative framing of the Election is pushing people into the old choice of “who do you fear more?” Vote Labour to stop the Tories getting in; Vote Tory to keep Corbyn out. Don’t vote Lib Dem or you’ll let the others in!

We should be doing so much better than this.

When we campaigned in the Euro Elections on our VALUES, we WON.

It’s been a JOY to support Siobhan Benita’s campaign to be Mayor of London, because she’s been talking to people about our VALUES – and making speeches saying: “immigration is good” and “end the war on drugs”. Liberal solutions to crime, housing, clean air that liberal London needs.

And I have been BEGGING to stand for Parliament on a Liberal Values ticket, to say we can be radical and different. We NEED Liberal Voices to be there, so that the case for Liberalism is made. LOUDLY and OFTEN.

Instead we’ve positioned ourselves as safe and sensible. The moderate centrists rather than the extremist wingnuts of right and left. There are GOOD things in our manifesto. But also too much “don’t scare the horses”.

Well Liberal Democrats SHOULD scare the horses.

If the plan is to get noticed, then RADICAL GETS NOTICED. Soggy centrist mush does not.

Look at the alternatives:

Corbyn cannot make his mind up (or cannot ADMIT to making his mind up) on the biggest issue since the end of World War Part II. And cannot bring himself to clean house even in the face of overwhelming evidence of antisemitism riddling his Party.

But somehow WE’RE the bad guys for not standing down for any pro-Europe Labour MPs who – no matter how pro-Europe – will still trot happily behind putting an antisemitic Lexiter into Downing Street.

Johnson, by his own admission, should be looking out ditches to go lie in. His hope to bounce parliament and country into his “deal” without scrutiny has failed.

But the message that he’s a failure has been allowed to slip away, by letting him have the pre-Christmas election he was gagging for, making him look again like the master of the agenda, rather than the servant of chaos.

Why are we not cutting through against two appalling LOSERS?

Because we are campaigning in GREY when we should be campaigning in GOLD.

SO HOW DO WE GET TO LIB DEMS WINNING (from) HERE

We are letting the Tories get away with setting the agenda, THEIR agenda, defining Brexit as nearly done, rather than about to get a whole lot worse, and all the empty promises they can make from a dividend they will never deliver. We are letting Labour’s attacks pull us onto THEIR territory (you’re with us or you’re Tories). We’re NOT playing to our RADICAL strengths.

So we need to be LEADING THE FIGHT against the Tories more.

And we need to start LOVE BOMBING the Labour lot more.

In her leadership campaign, and in her victory speech, Jo talked about building a LIBERAL MOVEMENT, drawing on people from all traditions, Liberal, Green, Tory AND Labour.

We’ve gone all in to win over Tory remain voters – but at the risk of alienating the social democratic voters who we need too.

Labour voters think Labour are the GOODIES (they’re wrong, but you can’t tell ‘em that – it’s an emotional thing). To win them over, we need to be showing we are GOOD too (and BETTER!).

They GET the problem with Corbyn. Many of them SHARE it.

But seeming to attack Jeremy more than Johnson risks that. Yes, we say “no deals with Johnson or Corbyn”, but they HEAR “no deal with mwah mwah mwah Corbyn”. Well actually they HEAR “we hate Magic Grandpa!”

We have clear lines of attack on Labour: antisemitism, irresponsible spending, arrogant, out-of-touch leader and above all the dithering indecision over Brexit because Jeremy decided the EU was a bad thing when Tony Benn told him so in 1975 and he hasn’t changed his mind about a single thing since.

But beyond “Stop Brexit” what are our clear attack lines on the Tories? We have a route map to Zero Carbon Britain; they would rather back fracking. We would build a better economy based on a new green deal; they scrapped it. We would tackle the root causes of crime; they just want to lock more people up. Why aren’t we saying these things more. And loudly.

Sure, we should say Labour are WRONG: we think they have the wrong answers or no answers.

And with Labour attacking us, we are RIGHT to point out their hypocrisy.

They say austerity is a failed Tory ideology. Our plans to invest in education and health are BETTER than Labour’s.
They say there is a climate crisis. Our plans to achieve Zero Carbon Britain are BETTER than Labour’s.
They say crime is a blight on lives. Our plans to tackle knife crime, end the war on drugs, and work for and with young people are BETTER than Labour’s.

But we still need to be beating the Tories over the head with their Brexitopocalypse MORE.

Tories CHOSE the austerity, and kept it going way past the point it might have been working.

Tories abandoned all the GOOD GREEN investments that Lib Dems began in the Coalition, throwing green businesses under the bus.

Tories cut the police and knife crime got worse under Boris Johnson as Mayor of London. He HID from the riots and cannot face a crisis.

And Brexit makes austerity worse, makes it harder to tackle the climate crisis working alone not with Europe, has triggered an eruption of hate attacks that have pushed fear of crime way up.

With all of the defections – and in spite of the wonderful Luciana Berger and fantastic Chuka Umunna being ex-Labour (but Blairites so – to the Corbyn Cult – “Tories” anyway) – making us look more like a Tory Lifeboat for the soft liberal wing of the Conservatories, or worse the Continuity Cameron/Clegg Party, we need to be DISTINCTIVELY LIBERAL. Not “I’m Tory Plan B”.

The Tories have RUINED this Country. Liberalism WOULD DO BETTER.
Labour have LET the Tories RUIN this Country. Liberalism WOULD DO BETTER.

I love Jo. And I think she IS distinctive. Her interview on ITV was positive and upbeat, especially after the slapstick debacle of Johnson and Jeremy going at each other, but not listening to anyone for an hour. But we need more.

If we are going to Stop Brexit and Build a Better Future… we are going to need to Build a Better Liberal Democrats.

Day 5961: The Tories: Wrong. Unstable. No Leadership.

Thursday:


Theresa Mayhem says that she needs to win a General Election to be a “strong leader”.

Well, if she’s not strong enough to cope with a Parliament that will only back her 522 to 13, then she’s really pretty WEAK indeed.

She wants you to believe that she thinks the polls are wrong and that Hard Labour have a chance of winning. Which is about as credible as a promise written on the side of a bus.

This election ISN’T about picking who’s the Prime Monster. It’s about picking a PARLIAMENT that is able to HOLD HER TO ACCOUNT.

After five years when the Coalition was starting to put Britain back on the right path, when inequality actually fell, and jobs and wages were coming back, we have had a Tory Government that has been all U-Turns, broken promises and backstabbing.

How is THAT “stability”?

And there was a lot of fuss over a poll saying that now people thought that the referendum got the answer wrong by 44% to 42% - missing the BIG picture that the country remains MASSIVELY SPLIT, right down the middle. And that Mrs Mayhem and the extreme Brexiteers are MAKING IT WORSE.

How is THAT “leadership”?

Do you want to give a BLANK CHEQUE to the Tories?

I mean it’s a good job Mrs Mayhem doesn’t have a record of saying one thing and then doing the other.

Except for her U-Turn on not holding a General Election before 2020
Except for her U-Turn on remaining in Europe
Except for her U-Turn on not raising the National Insurance Tax
Except for her U-Turn on raising the National Insurance Tax
Except for the Tory U-Turn on PIP payments for the disabled
Except for the Tory U-Turn on working tax credits
Except now she wants to break the triple lock on pensions

A STRONG leader needs a STRONG Parliament to make sure that the KEEP THEIR STRONG PROMISES.

Mrs Mayhem has caved in, again and again, to the wishes of her Extreme Right-wing backbenches, and to the whims of a handful of billionaire tax-exiles who control – unaccountably – the right-wing newspapers.

And what about that DEAL with the European Union?

How is Mrs Mayhem going to cope when negotiating with the European leaders, who are a bit less likely to roll over than Uncle “strong message here” Jezza and the supine Labour Party?

So far, in fact, it’s Mrs Mayhem who has caved in on every issue she’s tried to force: settling the rights of British Citizens in Europe before trigging article 50 (non); parallel trade negotiations (nein); Gibraltar (viva España). This does not bode well for her “deal making”.

Meanwhile, Bojo “Punishment Beatings” Johnson has been made the Old English labradoodle of President Trump: told to “sit and stay” when he was supposed to be off to Moscow; admitting that it would be “very hard not to join in” if the US wanted to fire off another volley of high-explosives into the Syrian war zone. And for all the hand-holding and the fawning Gove, Britain still got bumped to the back of the queue – sorry “line” – for the Americans to make a trade deal with the EU first.

“Take Back Control” turns out to mean “Do what Donald says (and like it)”.

If Parliament’s “meaningful vote” on the final deal is going to be, well, meaningful, it needs a Parliament that is strong and unafraid to ask questions, to speak up for ALL the different views, Remain and Leave, and the different ideas and then try and bring us back together.

That’s why you need to vote for the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.

Liberal Democrats believe in a Parliament that represents ALL opinions – even ones we don’t agree with. Liberal Democrats believe in a democracy that means ALL voices can be heard – not silencing people we don’t agree with, not “Crushing” the Opposition. And one that trusts the people, not taking them for granted.

Weak leaders are afraid of questions.
Weak leaders are afraid of TV debates.
Weak leaders are afraid of Parliament.

Don’t give in to weakness. Don’t give Mrs Mayhem a blank cheque. Vote for a Parliament that is STRONG and hold the Tories to account for their promises.

If you want DEMOCRACY to MEAN SOMETHING: support the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.

Day 5241: The Balloon Goes Up

Friday:


Well, as Sir Bedivere might have said surveying the field of Camlann and the ruin of the flower of England, that could have gone better…

Fear won the day. Scotland voted for the SNP out of fear of the Tories; England voted Tory out of fear of the SNP. This was terribly cynical populism on the part of Mr Balloon and Mr Nicola Insturgent. We are as a nation more divided, more diminished as a result.

Not that the Liberal Democrats' campaign was innocent of blame in this.

Fear won the day because we didn't give hope a chance.

Sometimes only chocolate can help

Launching our manifesto, Nick Clegg said it was time to give people hope at the end of austerity, but instead we fell into a trap of saying we would try to moderate between extremists. "Who do you fear more?" was the underlying language of our "hearts and brains" message. "They're scary, vote for us because we'll keep you safe."

It wasn't what we WANTED to be saying – we had a story to tell about ending austerity once the job was done; about the opportunities of education; about lifting the stigma of mental ill-health; about creating a green future – but we quickly got side-tracked into debating deals, darkened rooms and red lines.

It would be easy to blame Cap'n Clegg. Some already have, though the swiftness and dignity of his departure has drawn much of that sting. He was at his best inspiring people in the debates before 2010 and in his resignation after 2015. It was only the intervening five years as Deputy Prime Minister that got in the way of seeing him as a decent man.

Hindsight and cynicism might say we should have replaced him a year ago, pulled out of the Coalition and let the Tories run as a minority for a year, to show everyone who bad it could get. But that was never what we went into Coalition to do. We wanted to show it could work and that we could be trusted in office to do our duty. We couldn't have defenestrated one leader and then saddled a new one with Coalition partnership.

And we're not really that sort of Party anyway (no matter how ruthless people think we were with Chatshow Charles and Sir Ming the Merciless).

Ultimately, this election was lost in May 2010. Never mind the tuition fees: that was the albatross hung around Cap'n Clegg's neck, but the opinion polls showed that the voters had already deserted us. We lost because we went into Coalition at all.

So add to the (depressingly long) list of things that the Great British public says that they want, but do not vote for: cooperation between parties that behave like grown-ups.

I was, fluffy feet in the air, totally sold on the Coalition. If we were or are to mean anything as a Party surely that has to mean getting our fluffy feet on the levers of power and implementing some of those policies. And implement them we did, many good policies – raising people out of tax; pupil premium, school dinners and apprenticeships; pension reforms; and most personally equal (er) marriage.

The Liberal Democrats paid a VERY high price today so that we could wear these rings as husbands. Thank you. We are SO grateful. It will NOT be forgotten.

Pluralist politics is off the agenda, now. No one will go into a coalition, possibly ever again.

Before the election, the positioning of the Nationalists – the Scottish Nasties, their Welsh Mini-Mes or the English Kippers – and their hangers-on the Greens that they would never join a coalition, that their principles were too "pure" was just too precious and too self-serving for words. They would get their policies by "confidence and supply", they claimed – no, you get nothing for confidence and supply; if you want policy to be implemented you need a minister to guide it through; you've got to get your fluffy feet DIRTY.

But now, who in faith could recommend a Coalition deal if the punishment meted out by the voters is so vastly, disproportionately out of scale to the offence.

Which is a great sadness, as it marks the death of a tradition in British politics going back to the start of Cabinet government.

We become more Presidential, more dictatorial, more in the Thatcher-Blair model than the tradition of debate, scrutiny, argument and compromise that was very British.

And look at the things we might not have in five years' time: human rights, a welfare state, a place in Europe, the BBC…

Within hours of the election, the now-Liberal-free government was already planning on cutting benefits for the disabled while Theresa Nuts-in-May was revving up to rummage through your emails by reintroducing the "Snoopers Charter".

This will be the first test for the new Parliament. There are Tories – notably David Davis who forced a by-election on the issues of Civil Liberties – who might be persuaded, cajoled, even honour-bound to vote against the intrusive and unworkable spying on every citizen. Mr Balloon's majority is as thin as an After Eight – or an After Twelve, perhaps.

Leadership hopefuls, take note: the Liberal Democrats have got to be in that debate, making a lot of noise, and a dozen new friends!

And this is merely the beginning of the scale of what faces the new Liberal Leader (I look forward to the contest, and Norman Lamb will no doubt give him a good debate and maybe even a run for his money, but it will be Tim Farron).

There are plenty of good people putting forward "where do we go from here" plans: Auntie Jennie, Auntie Alix, Andy Hinton, David Howarth, to name but four, all have decent takes. Even Daddy Richard tossed out some thoughts over the course of election night:

We need to stop being so cautious, playing piggy-in-the-middle and say something that might frighten the horses, so:

1) Housing. We need a radical alternative that says how we can deliver the "build more" we all know is the answer. So raise a tax on existing property equal to the (few billions) you need to spend building. And to discourage NIMBYism, the more houses we build the lower the tax (hmm, taxing existing land values, strikes a familiar chord). And while we're at it, pay for housing benefit by taxing rents.

2) Clean the air of our cities. This means planning to replace *all* cars with electric, which means planning the charging infrastructure and planning how we're going to generate all that electricity (which means fusion).

3) Wi-if. Free. Nationally. Same rationale as the penny post in the Victorian age – it's a key architecture for government so the public might as well get it for nominal cost too.

4) Drugs policy. Currently the war on drugs is obviously utterly counterproductive. Decriminalise. Medicalise. Possibly even legalise regulate and tax in case of weed.

Firstly, and it's a thing that comes up several times from the suggestions my fellow Lib Dems are making, is the need to reboot the Liberal Democrats as a Party – hold our own constitutional convention, as Jennie puts it – to reform the organisation into something a bit less like a drunken gavotte by a spider drenched in ink. It is vital that the Party recognise its big failings from the years in power and before that allowed what happened with the likes of Mike Hancock and the whole Chris Rennard debacle, where no one saw any justice and we all came out looking sleazy. It needs to be done, so let's get it done, and do it right, but it is essentially inward-looking. We need to be projecting a positive face outwards too.

So, looking forward, HOUSING is the idea that clearly coming forward from the thinking in Lib Dem circles: it's a clear crisis in supply and one intimately linked to the fundamental flaws of the British economy, namely that most of it gets turned into wealth and tied up in property instead of working to create jobs and opportunities. Ideally driving down house prices would increase opportunity for people to own their own homes while releasing capital into more production, non-rent-seeking projects. Our ability to make large-scale changes – planning garden cities – may be curtailed by the wipe-out, but local campaigns can still focus on local developments, particularly those that fail to make affordable provision part of their mix.

This is a START but we need something BIGGER, not just managerial tinkering but real radical change.

The linking theme of those policies is that they are about changing things for the better, offering hope and opportunity.

That is an agenda that we need to move swiftly to seize. The roots of it exist within our 2015 manifesto, as I've already said, and in the slogan "Opportunity for Everyone".

The Blairite faction within Labour are already urging their Party to become the Party of "aspiration"; we need to give people a REAL CHANGE alternative to Thatcherism-lite, and do it pretty darn quickly.

Where, in all this, the Labour Party?

Well, Labour lost the election badly for all the reasons I've been spelling out for months: they never made the effort to address their failures at the end of Mr Frown's government, they didn't develop a critique of the Coalition's policies. No, shouting "traitor!" and "no cuts!" (then mumbling something about how you'd cut "nicely"), does not amount to a critique. Mr Milipede's personal handling – scoring cheap debate-club points and stunts, culminating in the infamous EdStone (now known as the "heaviest suicide note in history") – were every bit to blame, but so was the rest of the Party by letting him muddle through putting off the difficult decisions because he wanted to avoid the fights that characterised the Blair/Frown years in office.

Truly, Labour's problem was that they spent five years being ANGRY, and angry does not win elections.

The blogger Another Angry Voice put up a typical meme hitting out at the folly of the electorate punishing the Lib Dems for siding with the Tories by electing the Tories.

It's obviously enjoyable seeing so many Lib-Dems MPs suffer the consequences of their self-serving treachary, but seeing so many of them lose their seats to Tories beggars belief.

How can you punish the Lib-Dems for collusion by voting for the very people they colluded with?

AAV says "It's obviously enjoyable seeing so many Lib-Dem MPs suffer" demonstrating *exactly* why the left lost this election. When you would rather see people suffer than campaign to *stop* suffering, then you're part of the problem, not the solution, no matter how clever you think you are by calling the electorate "drunk".

The suggestion is that Labour's spite sent teams to Sheffield to try and unseat Cap'n Clegg when they should have been working Ed Balls seat, and so they lost the shadow chancellor to their own decapitation strategy.

In a way, though, Labour will be helped by Ed Balls losing his seat.

I am sad for Ed Balls personally, for losing a job he clearly loves.

But more broadly, I hope that it helps Labour move on, rethink their economic policy and admit to and move on from the errors of the Gordon Brown era.

Also, it will allow Yvette to contest the leadership without the shadow of standing against (or blocking) her husband which would have been used (unfairly) in the way Ed v David was used.

Labour's travails do impact on us. So long as they remain in eclipse, they drag down the politics of hope with them. By looking a shambles, or worse in hock to the Scottish Nasties, they strengthen the Tory position, which is of course based on fear.

Which brings us back to where we came in.

We cannot let fear win.

There IS a place for the CENTRE: not as "neither one thing nor the other" but as heart and hope; not splitting the difference between left and right but healing the divisions in our society; not just holding back the tide against things getting worse, but saying it's okay to believe that things can and will get better.

In this diary:

Mr Balloon is David "Call Me Dave" Cameron, leader of the conservative party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with a majority of 12 seats on a 37% share of the popular vote.

Ms Insturgent is Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party and First Minister of Scotland, the devolved government of Scotland, whose Party won 56 seats in the UK Parliament on 4% of the nationwide popular vote (the quirk of our voting system that it rewards geographical concentration rather than broad popular support – normally I call this Largest Loser Wins, but in Scotland in 34 out of 56 seats, the SNP polled more than 50% of the vote)

Cap'n Clegg is Nick Clegg, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister, resigned after winning just 8 seats on 8% of the popular vote. I should probably start calling him "Parson Blyss" now that he's retired.

Mr Milipede is Ed Miliband, former leader of the Labour Party and Her Majesty's Leader of the Opposition, resigned after winning 232 seats on 30% of the popular vote.

Chatshow Charles is Charles Kennedy and Sir Ming the Merciless is Sir Ming Campbell, the two leaders of the Liberal Democrats immediately preceding Nick Clegg. The Party's MPs persuaded Charles to stand down when it became apparent he had an alcohol problem; Sir Ming stood aside of his own accord when it became clear that the newspapers were only interested in his age as an issue, and not the Party's message.

Norman Lamb and Tim Farron are two of the remaining Liberal Democrat MPs: Norman is a former minister and seen (fairly or unfairly) as the Clegg loyalist successor; Tim is former Party President but stayed out of government to maintain his independence, seen as the hot favourite.

Mike Hancock and Chris Rennard are Liberal Democrats who were involved in scandals during the last five years (both alleged to have behaved inappropriately to women).

Yvette is Yvette Cooper, wife of Ed Balls, Labour's Shadow Home Office spokesperson, seen as a possible leadership candidate, though rumoured to be uncertain she wants the job now.

Day 5239: Worst! Election! Eveh!

Wednesday:


A British General election is NEVER an "edifying" process. The electoral system makes most voters irrelevant and the media craves the spectacle of a car crash not informed debate, so the voice of the people is most often lost under the slanging match.

In my fluffy lifetime, I've seen one or two British General elections. (Well, four, ACTUALLY, but I don't remember 2001 when I was 1 [R: nothing] –shut up, daddy), and my Daddies have seen LOADS more, but even THEY don't remember one that's been as HOLLOW and EMPTY a CHARADE as the current Cavalcade of Whimsy™.

The prospect of another hung Parliament, almost guaranteed if the current polling is even remotely close to accurate, has made the question of the Parties' policies, their differences and their overlaps, ever more vital to the empower the voter to understanding of how to use their choice.

So OBVIOUSLY the entire campaign has been reduced to two questions:
• who will "get into bed" (in a "darkened room") with whom – or, apparently more importantly, who will RULE OUT getting into bed with whom; and
• dividing ALL policies of all Parties into (not, as you might expect, those that cause cancer and those that cure cancer), but into those that are RED LINES and those that are TUITION FEES.

The media are of course completely culpable, and have totally let down the public (though the public's almost complete disinterest in controlling their own lives was just begging to be let down).

We have not had any representation of different policy or philosophy; instead, we've had a three-ringed circus, where the clowns throw meaningless custard pies at each other and the Nationalist/Green alliance – riding on the suddenly-popular coattails of Nicola Sturgeon (this year's Nick Clegg, lest she think she's in any way special) – have had three bites of the cherry in every debate while former media darlings the Farragist Kippers have been sidelined to their furious but impotent chagrin and the Liberal Democrats have been stitched up like, well, kippers.

Only the third, "Question Time" style "debate" came close to properly interrogating the leaders and drawing out any differences. Even then, the differences were primarily: "I won't tell you where I'm cutting" v "I won’t tell you I was overspending" v "sorry about that".
The meeja have OBSESSED about what the deals post-election will be like – it's almost as though they're deliberately ignoring the one part of the narrative that they cannot control and is increasingly predictable only in its unpredictability. So they've been pressing all and sundry on who would do the deed with whom, leading to this silly spectacle of ruling out partnerships that the public may press upon us.

Yes, I realise the Liberal Democrats did that too. Yes, we were wrong to. This is a democracy: we have to work with who the people send to Parliament to represent them. You won't beat the Nationalists by isolating them – that just makes them SPECIAL. Northern Ireland could only BEGIN the path to healing when we TALKED to the Irish Nationalists. Where does not talking to the Scottish Nationalists get us, other than BROKEN? Liberalism BEST represents people by bringing them together. We are pluralist by nature; we form coalitions because it is our PHILOSOPHY not merely pragmatism.

So please, no more ruling out deals before the people have got a word in edgeways!

And if I NEVER HEAR the words RED LINES again in my LIFE it will be too soon.

(Yes, we are guilty of this one too.)

The possibility that it might just be SLIGHTLY more complicated than "this policy will cause an irretrievable breakdown of coalition negotiations" while "this policy will be tossed to the winds for a whiff of the ministerial leather", does not apparently excite anyone.

So we see Cap'n Clegg trapped on Andy Marrmite's sofa between Nasty Nige and Yvette "the Snooper" Cooper and trying to put on a brave grin as he is harangued from left and right, as each howls like a banshee to demand that he rule out this or rule in that; while interviewers, thinking they are being SOOOO clever, try "trapping" candidates with the question "well, it's not on the front of the manifesto so is it a red line?"

(Apparently we're afraid to just answer: "no, we'd like it and we'll get it if we can", to this. It would be nice to think that that would be the grown up answer, but you just KNOW it only sends us further down the rabbit hole of "well, is it more important or less important than your pledge on tuition fees?".)

And you know what, not even the tuition fees policy was as simple as "red line" or "toss it aside": the Liberal Democrats had to barter it up to a better deal for students, effectively a graduate tax, and the price for that rather than just Labour's system plus unlimited fees, was having to vote for it.

CHAPTER ONE: LABOUR AND THE BIG LIE

The nadir of this is the blind arrogance of Hard Labour's "our entire manifesto is the red line"; the take it or leave it and accept nothing from anyone else approach. Well, it's what Mr Milipede and the rest of the Labour "negotiating" team "offered" the Liberal Democrats last time. Remind me, how'd that work out for him?

(Clue: it got his boss fired.)

The bitter irony is that there's nothing IN Hard Labour's manifesto, their anodyne pledges – carved, ludicrously, into a giant tablet (of soluble aspirin, probably) – do not amount to a hill of beans large enough on which to mount the fatuous Ed Stone!

I think – I hope – that people voting for the Labour Party are doing so because they hope for a better society, a more compassionate one, a more responsible one where people care for each other.

(Because the CYNICAL view is that it's a load of public and third sector workers demanding that the government spends a lot more of other people's money on the public and third sectors… and calling the Conservatories the SELFISH ones. But that would be – almost literally – uncharitable.)

What I regret, though, is that I see absolutely no evidence that the Labour Party will deliver on that hope.

Harriet the Harminator and Rachel the Reaver promising that Labour will get "tough" on benefits. Mr Milipede, son of immigrants, promising that Labour will get tough on immigrants. This is not a ploy to fool the Kipper vote and slip into power; this is what these people truly believe. If power means sacrificing some poor/foreign people, they'll be first to construct the giant wicker Kinnock.

I remember who it was who started taking away the benefits of disabled people because they decided that people too sick to get out should prove they were not fit to work. And it wasn't the "evil" Tories. The Tories may be VENAL, but they only want to cut the money. Hard Labour will sanction your benefits BECAUSE IT IS "GOOD" FOR YOU.

And so, the beginning, middle and end of ANY deal the Liberal Democrats do with the Hard Labour Party has got to be to require the HARM PRINCIPLE be made a fixture of the work and benefits system!

"First Do No Harm" is the Hippocratic Oath; we need a "First Do Not Starve People to Death Because You Believe They're Not Working Hard Enough" Oath!

(I refer again to how ANGRY I am with the Greens for making such a total DOG'S BREAKFAST of selling the Citizens Income!)

In spite of this… in spite, or even BECAUSE of the Milipede-crafted model of offering nothing to anyone in order to offend no one… I was almost coming to the conclusion that Mr Milipede, arrogant and yet useless as he is, with his talent for holding things together by an act of zen-like doing nothing, might be the man for the job, the Perfect Prime Monster for a Parliament that no one wins and cannot do anything.

And five years of Parliament doing nothing might be a blessed relief to us all.

But then he went and told a direct lie.

He told Mr Marrmite: "The deficit didn't cause the financial crisis; the financial crisis caused the deficit."

This is palpably, provably untrue. Hard Labour spent more than they raised in tax, and so had to borrow the difference – that is, in the jargon "ran a deficit" – in 2007. And in 2006. And in 2005. And 2004. And 2003. And 2002. And 2001. A Debt Odyssey. Long, long, LONG before the economy was consumed in the flames of Northern Rock's crash and burn and Lehman Brothers' self-immolation.

But that lie was a cock-up. A rhetorical spasm caused by trying to sound cleverer than he really is.

The real lie that Labour have been telling is a complicated one, hidden by claiming that they are the ones lied against: that the story of the recession is itself a lie, one told against them.

The left generally, and Labour particularly, have latched onto this line: "Labour's borrowing did not cause the financial crash".

This in itself is NOT clearly true.

Certainly it's not a DIRECT cause – the banks lent too much money to people who could not afford to pay it back, and in the end those loans (the so-called "sub-prime" mortgages) going bad is what toppled the global banking system.

But WHY and HOW did the banks lend that money?

WHY did the banks lend the money? It takes two to tango, so WHY did so many people go on a borrowing and spending spree? WHO – implicitly, even explicitly sometimes – encouraged them? Buy now pay later was the ethos of the naughties, condoned by a Hard Labour government "entirely relaxed about people getting filthy rich", and who totally played along with their PFI schemes, paying for vanity projects on the never-never.

The bankers were ABLE to lend too much because credit was so cheap, because the West's leading bankers – including those in the Bank of England – wanted to keep interest rates low to stop the bursting of the dot-com bubble from turning into a recession. Mr Frown's fingerprints are on that decision, entirely supporting the "wizard" Alan Greenspan at America's Federal Reserve, just as Lord Blairimort gave unquestioning support to President Bush.

And who should have been regulating the bankers? Step forward City minister, Ed Balls. Oh yes, egged on by the Conservatories. (And of course over the protests of the Liberal Democrats and sage warning of Dr Vince "the power" Cable!) And as the old saying goes, if Mr Balloon had said go "jump in a lake" would the Labour Government have done that too?

So Hard Labour are far from INNOCENT of responsibility when it comes to causes of the crash.

But that ISN'T the point.

Overspending IS A BAD THING.

It is A BAD THING regardless of whether the entire global economy goes into meltdown on your watch.

Hard Labour's BORROWING might not have led directly to money-geddon in 2008, but that absolutely does not mean that borrowing to cover your spending at the height of the biggest bubble in history was OK!

WHO said "no more boom and bust?" Who was proved SPECTACULARLY WRONG about that?

There's a very scary thesis about – called Modern Money Theory (but known as the Magic Money Tree for reasons that quickly become obvious) – that a lot of dangerously stupid people who think they are clever (cough cough Ed Balls cough cough) have latched onto, that says "if you print your own currency you cannot run out of money". Oh BOY are they wrong!

The Chinese famously invented paper money. The VERY NEXT thing they invented was HYPERINFLATION when the Emperor's children thought "if we're printing this stuff, then we cannot run out of money".

[Sidebar: In fact, Great Britain and Americaland HAVE printed a whole lot of money during the recession – the "Quantum of Easing" you may have heard of – and the Eurozone is doing it now. But we just about got away with it because the DEFLATIONARY pressures of the economy IMPLODING kind of cancelled out the INFLATION of blowing up the currency.

But when Mr Alistair "Captain" Darling – ADC to Mr Frown's General Melchett – printed a whole lot of money in 2009, there was a huge spike of inflation in 2010. Coincidence? (Darn it, fairness makes me admit that partly it WAS – food and energy prices also shot up as India and China expanded. But only partly!)

So it's treated like playing with FIRE because everyone but everyone knows that if it goes into a hyperinflation spiral then it's next stop Weimar Germany and literally Goodnight Vienna!]

And yes, it's correct, as they keep saying like it proves anything, the national debt WAS a lower share of national income in 2007 than in 1997 – that's because the debt was at a high point in 1997 and was brought down by following Ken Clarke's Tory spending plans for Labour's first term, and the economy was in a dip in 1997 (post housing crash, pre dot.com) and at the height of a boom in 2007, a bit like saying you're shorter as a share of altitude when you jump off Beachy Head than when you jump of Brighton Pier. It's still not clever to jump off either!

The Tories ran up the national debt in the Nineties to get themselves out of the political and economic hole caused by the Poll Tax and the ERM debacle and the house price crash. And they were JUSTLY punished for their economic incompetence. Why do Labour think THEY should be allowed a free pass for hosing money on THEIR political toys?

So Hard Labour say that it's a "Big Lie" that people say "Labour's borrowing caused the crash".

But that itself IS the lie – NO ONE says that; what they say is that Labour's borrowing (and their decision to put all our eggs in the City's basket, AND their failure to supervise the unscrupulous bankers, AND the climate of borrow today and leave the future to deal with the debts) left us in the WORST position to survive when the crisis hit.

We, Great Britain, had the longest, deepest recession and slowest recovery of the Western nations. But Labour says that was ALL the Coalition cuts, and nothing to do with the depth of the swan dive they had taken. Oh no, honest guv, you can trust us, we're mates with that Russell Brand now.

Labour's economic message is one of COMPLETE DENIAL, a total failure to recognise that they were in any way to blame for the pain of the last five years, or that they would have done anything substantially different, or to come up with any realistically different alternative plan for the next five years. ("The same but with the pain lasting a bit longer and not properly finishing the job," would be the fairest assessment. And the SNP's "end to austerity" is just "the same as Labour but with even longer pain again"!)

When Ed Balls (and those on the left who parrot him and retweet him mindlessly) accuses Master Gideon of ending up where Labour were planning to be in terms of borrowing as much as Labour planned and cutting as much as Labour planned… what exactly IS the accusation here? That Labour wanted the cuts to be deeper?

CHAPTER TWO: TORY FANTASY ECONOMICS

So how DID we end up where Hard Labour were planning to be?

Well, dur! Because Master Gideon's "long term economic plan" lasted about a FORTNIGHT!

It was about that long before the nice people in the Treasury realised he couldn't even work an abacus and gave him some bricks to play with while asking Danny Alexander to take charge. (David Laws, alas, not available!)

(Master Gideon, remember, is the "genius" who engineered the "No" vote in the AV referendum and thereby GUARANTEED that the Tories would LOSE this election.)

Lib Dem policy was to invest in infrastructure. Ooh look, the Coalition invested in infrastructure. Classic Keynesian spending in a recession and the economy started to recover. The quid pro quo of shifting to Plan B was we allowed Osborne to keep CALLING it Plan A!

Which of course makes even MORE ridiculous the Tory campaign of: "let us stick to the path we've been on (by veering off sharply to the right into these dark and trackless woods and I'm sure that's not a cliff ahead of aaaaghh!)".

Labour's total failure in the last five years to come up with ANY economic answers AT ALL, is intimately bound up with the Tory's decision to throw economic caution to the dogs and promise anything and everything to everyone: £7 billion for middle-class tax cuts; £8 billion for the health service; £10 billion for a free pony in every child's bedroom (not actually true); and a surplus on the accounts on top!

And all to be funded out of £12 billion of unspecified cuts to "benefits". But not pensioners. Or children. Or the disabled. Or workers. Or non-workers even… It seems we must give a LOT of money to IMAGINARY claimants! That must be why so many REAL people need to use FOOD BANKS!

But not content with stealing Labour's clothes to spend money we don't have, the Conservatories ALSO want to derail the recovery by clamping down on the people who are making the economy work (immigrants) and the people who are buying what we make (Europe).

Hard Labour may want to blame all the ills of the economy (since about 1799, it would seem) on the Coalition – while giving themselves a FREE PASS for "global events" – but back in the REAL world, we are part of the European economy and instability in the Eurozone – Greece, again, but also the domestic slowdown of our neighbours in France, and even Germany, not to mention the troubling, brooding presence of Vlad the Bad making war in Ukraine – are all bad for business.

All of which makes it a REALLY bad time to be causing EVEN MORE uncertainty over whether we might even stay IN the biggest economy on the planet for the sake of FLIRTING with Nationalism.

(It's possible that by now, the pressures that the Kippers and the Europhobe Tories have built up have reached such a pass that ONLY the explosive release of a referendum will settle them; that's no excuse for having built up those pressures in the first place, and this campaign has only stoked the fires further – all heat and no light at all. And, of course, as we've seen with the twisty-turniness of the SNP when avoiding ruling out a Neverendum for Scottish Independence, one referendum is never enough; it's just a temporary "hit" before the cravings start to build up all over again. Or until you kill the patient.)

As for the GROTESQUE pandering to the Kipper tendency over immigration – indulged in by BOTH Tories and Hard "Controls on Immigration, indeed" Labour – is just economically illiterate. The idea that you could just round up the unemployed youth of the country, ship them off to Norfolk or Morecombe and have them replace semi-skilled labourers like crop or cockle-pickers would be FARCICAL if it would not be so RUINOUS to our wellbeing.

(And the Liberal Democrats got burned on this last time so we are FAR TOO CAUTIOUS when we should be defending the rights of people to live and work and contribute where they wish. Immigrants, after all, are PEOPLE who have been GOOD enough to choose HERE of all places to make lives!)

So the Tories want to undermine our key economic strengths of being open for business; pull savings out their fluffy behinds by cutting benefits to they won’t say who; and at the same time spending like it's going out of fashion on unicorns and magic beans.

So OBVIOUSLY their entire campaign has been about the SNP!

CHAPTER THREE: SCARY MOVIES

It's been the FEAR election, hasn't it?

Hard Labour want you to be afraid for the NHS.

That is, the one Party that has NOT promised the £8 billion extra funding that the NHS's own Stephens report said was needed… and that privatised TWICE as much of the Health Service's services when they were in power than the Coalition ever did… says you should be afraid that the two Parties who HAVE said they WILL fully fund the NHS, and didn't put as much out to the private sector, will instead cut the service and sell it off.

So THAT makes sense.

Meanwhile, the Tories want you to be terrified that Nicola Sturgeon will wrap Mr Milipede round her little finger, that Alex (missing in action) Salmond will lead a tartan army of about 7% of MPs to overwhelm the decent yeomen and backbenchers of this very England.

That is, the one Party that is ACTIVELY campaigning for something that could break up the Union, by destroying the equality of MPs, by giving extra powers to the English only… is trying to tell you that Hard Labour must rule out ANY kind of Coalition… while being IN a Coalition themselves, AND playing footsie with the Kippers.

So THAT makes sense too.

And don't think that the Liberal Democrats fluffy feet are clean in all this – we've been putting out the fear of EXTREMEISM (left OR right) to convince people to try and stay with our nice safe middle-of-the-road managerialism.

That is the one Party that should be radical and mould-breaking and tearing down the walls of the establishment and letting in some light and change is saying "you'll be safe with us, snuggles".

So THAT makes NO FLUFFING SENSE AT ALL! But it's all we got. Along with the red lines and the tuition fees.

Everyone insists on talking about LEGITIMANCY (isn't that a spell from "Harry Potter"?) as though the British Constitution were set in tablets of stone (soluble aspirin, again) rather than a form of INTERPRETATIVE DANCE!

Once again, Hard Labour's MORE STUPID bellows of betrayal come back to bite it on the ARSE! Just as the nationalist chickens of blaming EVERYTING on a Westminster elite that takes Scotland for granted has come to roost in the rise of the SNP to supplant them in all their safe seats North of the Wall border, having spent five years slandering the Coalition as "unelected", they are REALLY in no position to claim a minority Labour administration will have ANY moral right to run the country.

Nicola Sturgeon talks about "legitimacy" only if a government draws members from all the nations of the Union, knowing full well how unlikely it is that Scotland will return Tories (Conservatories OR Laboratories!) in enough numbers to satisfy her test – and as a prelude for a pretext to claim "the Union has broken down; we must have another independence referendum!"

The Tories talk about "legitimacy" being conveyed by what I suppose we might have to call the "Clegg Doctrine" of the Party with the most seats and most votes having best and therefore first claim on forming a government. Of course, the Tories want to take this further and make it the ONLY claim on forming a government. Which is even MORE ludicrous, because they know they're not going to. The Party of the Union and tradition reduced to a dog in the manger.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE FUTURE'S BRIGHT; IT MIGHT EVEN BE ORANGE

If there's one good thing that might come out of this total disaster of an election it's this: the system is just so obviously, patently, totally broken, the result will be so plainly totally unfair and askew from what people voted for, and in such a way that it screws over both Hard Labour and the Conservatories AT THE SAME TIME, that everyone might finally realise it's time to stop using a Seventeenth Century system for the Twenty-First.

In fact, I'd say we should ditch ALL of our red lines for ONE thing: we will give you a government for six months – or a year – during which we will all take part in a Constitutional Convention under a Royal Commission that will let us TOGETHER sort out how we elect our Parliament (and executive, and if we want the one to be a chunk of the other or to separate them like America or France or Germany or, actually almost everywhere else, do); and who sits in Parliament (if we want unelected Lords and Bishops and Rooks and Castles, er) or even WHERE it sits (because they've got to move out of that Thames-side fun-palace before all the wiring catches fire)!

The answer is obvious so it will obviously take a great deal of time and patience to arrive at the obvious answer that we need a federal state with Parliament of multi-member constituencies elected by British Proportional Representation, and a national senate replacing the House of Lords Club.

But it can be done. The Scottish people showed the rest of us that it CAN be done: a proper reasoned – polite! – argument that sorts things out.

And maybe next time we can do this General Election thing PROPERLY.

And meanwhile we will rebuild a properly Liberal Liberal Democratic Party. A Party that exists to bring HOPE to people: a Party that will address the crisis in housing and give people the opportunity to live where they work; a Party that will invest in education and apprenticeships and even the living costs of all the students we now have going to universities; a Party that will clean up our environment, improve the quality of air in our polluted cities, by preparing the ground for switching to clean, all-electric cars (and there's a LOT of work that needs doing); a Party that will tax wealth more in order to tax income a less; a Party that will stop criminalising people for doing things that harm no one; a Party that will put a stop to bullying people for what they eat or how they dress or who they love or where they come from.

And, by Grimond, we might even do it in Government!

NOW, GO AND VOTE!

Day 5217: Church of Thatchianity Manifesto

Tuesday:

This is an ultra-quick skim through the prospectus of our erstwhile Coalition partners. Like Labour's effort yesterday, it has lots of pretty pictures.

The Tories' offer presents as very progressive, full of pro-active "our plan of action" bullets, promoting policies as positives (even when they aren't).

There are perfectly decent things. Unsurprisingly these are mostly lifted unblushingly from the Liberal Democrats: no income tax on the minimum wage; single tier pension and triple lock; apprenticeships; more women on boards; even "gay" marriage (a clue they still don't get "equal marriage").

But the more you read, the scarier it gets.

So I like the stuff at the start, up-fronting all the goodies, on investment and infrastructure. Maybe not the expanded roads programme, but better broadband and free wi-fi in public libraries (I'd go further in making free public wi-fi available; there are benefits similar to the introduction of the "penny post" in Victorian times). And devolution of investment and job creating powers to the North is bold and worthy.

And I like the promises on the NHS.

"ensur[ing] you can see a GP and receive the hospital care you need, 7 days a week by 2020, with a guarantee that everyone over 75 will get a same-day appointment if they need one"

is good policy, and it's long past time that the health service should offer more appointments at the weekend for people who are working all week. Though typically Tory putting pensioners first!

But then we get to the fantasy economics. Lots of spending promises; massive tax cuts, particularly for the better-off, particularly – it even gets its own chapter – for the dead rich in the South-East; and huge but undisclosed benefit cuts.

The one transparent claim…

"We will lower the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 to reward work"

…doesn't even make sense! The rewards for work are at best disconnected from the benefit of benefits, but surely this will start to impact in work benefits, reversing the "rewards of work".

While disinterring the inheritance tax pledge is a certain signpost to this being a "if we could govern without the Lib Dems" manifesto; we diverted that money to better use in raising the personal tax allowance for a tax cut for the less-well-off.


Then we start to get to the "Nasty Party" stuff from Teresa May's briefs:

First Immigration, where they won’t give up blaming the immigrants for the problems of not addressing housing, services and jobs:

"Tougher tests for migrants before they can claim benefits"

"We will legislate to ensure that every public sector worker operating in a customer-facing role must speak fluent English."

"And to encourage better integration into our society, we will also require those coming to Britain on a family visa with only basic English to become more fluent over time, with new language tests for those seeking a visa extension."

…all address fictional problems in order to appear "tough".

And later, on Law and Order and Terrorism where they have become almost entirely negative:

"scrap the Human Rights Act"

"and curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights,"

"so that foreign criminals can be more easily deported from Britain"

They claim they would "support victims" – but clearly not if those victims are victims of government and miscarriage of justice.

As for:

"tackle all forms of extremism, including non-violent extremism"
…that's the right to peaceful protest done away with!

While independent journalism and alternative points of view (in entertainment as well as factual) will be further curtailed with an arbitrary swipe at the BBC licence fee, claiming they will

"freeze the BBC licence fee, to save you money"

or (if they were being honest) to strangle the organisation and let Murdoch have free reign.

The "Big Society" returns from wherever we thought they'd buried it, with their new, rushed-out promise to grant three days "volunteering time" to workers (that is, have business pay for people to cover the charities people can no longer afford to support, but that the government needs to cover the services they've withdrawn), and a scheme to "expand National Citizen Service", i.e. put more kids to work cleaning the streets so we don't have to pay for proper road cleaners.

Speaking of kids, on education, the Govian madness continues, with:

"…primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance for failure"

"turn every failing and coasting secondary school into an academy "

"and deliver free schools for parents and communities that want them"

How about delivering schools to every community that wants them, not just the buy-your-own free-schools if they want and can afford them? How about spending money to turn failure around (say… a pupil premium!)?


On the environment, very little "green crap" that isn't actually the work of Ed Davey, but glaringly they toss in:

"halt the spread of subsidised onshore wind farms"

…which surely contradicts their other aspirations of "cutting carbon emissions as cheaply as possible," "and ensur[ing] your homes and businesses have energy supplies they can rely on"?


Finally, they manage to have two whole sections on the constitution – on the United Kingdom and Europe – that miss almost the entire point of why people are crying out for big changes to how we are governed and represented, where instead

"give English MPs a veto over matters only affecting England, including on Income Tax"

and

"give you a say over whether we should stay in or leave the EU, with an in-out referendum by the end of 2017"

are together a short cut to constitutional chaos, and the breaking of our Union at home and abroad, with the most successful partnership of nations in history (England and Scotland) and the most successful trading bloc on the planet (Europe) tossed aside to get on the populist UKIP bandwagon.

(And telling that they would give income tax but not dare to share full budget control with Scotland; especially when they will devolve budget spending, but not income tax, to the "Northern Powerhouse".)


Overall, in spite of the "Let the Sunshine in (encore)" rhetoric, the attack on welfare and basic values of justice and tolerance, coupled with the rolling out of private provision from education to the media even to charity through their "volunteering" wheeze, paint this as a terrifyingly full-blooded Thatcherite manifesto that has abandoned any of the 2010 efforts to detoxify the brand.

And that is even before we get to the biggest clue: the resurrection of Mrs T's signature "Right to Buy" policy, extended to Housing Associations (with no doubt further devastating effect on the social housing stock). It is, as they say, a pretty blatant clue.

It's clear that the Tories are going to put to the test their insane theory that they only lost last time because they were not right-wing enough.

In fact, it proves more than ever how much the Liberal Democrats have done in Coalition to take the better (or only the least worst) Tory ideas and produce a modern, progressive government.

And how desperately important it is that the Liberal Democrats are returned with enough strength to do that again.




All emphases my own; original document here (contains pdf)

Day 5198: Ed-xaggeration – Mr Milipede Should Not Be Allowed to Claim Credit for Stopping Syria

Thursday: Not-debate Night


The election campaign sort of kicked off with an interview-and-question-time session each for the Prime Monster and his opposite Wonk. I fell asleep towards the end of Mr Balloon and woke up a few minutes into Mr Milipede. And it took me a while to realise that they'd changed over!

Which says a lot about the sort of choice facing the voter!

I am, though, nursing a particular annoyance at Mr Milipede once again rewriting history to cast himself as "standing up to Obama, Cameron and Clegg" over military intervention in Syria.

That's simply not what happened.

Generally, Mr Milipede was dreadful in front of the audience, but better in the one-to-one interview with Paxo. Milipede has a number of verbal tics or tells: "and I'll tell you why" or "of course it was hard", which he uses repeatedly and after a while start to make him sound like a robot that doesn't really understand how real people talk. The question the audience really wanted an answer on was: "Why did you knife your brother". His reply was a total non-answer: "I think I am the right man for the job." Why, Ed, why are you the right man for the job? Why are you so right for the job that you stabbed Brother David in the back to get it?

(There is a way to answer to this: David was foreign secretary, deeply complicit in the Blair and Brown governments and too associated with New Labour to allow the clean break with the past that election defeat showed they needed. And – and this is the important bit – if Ed could say that he'd tried to talk David out of standing on these ground, and that David hadn't listened… the needs of the country came first…
But… it means saying that he put "ideology" ahead of "family". And that's deeply antithetical to "small c" conservative voters, or whom his Labour tribe contains a LOT, not to mention massively hypocritical after five years of calling the Coalition "ideologically driven".)

He managed to land a real wallop on Mr Paxman at the end, though, ticking him right off for prejudging the election result. And, since it's about time someone took Paxo down a peg, that no doubt won the Labour leader a few points with some viewers. And, of course, let Mr Milipede off the question of having to say how he would negotiate with the SNP in a hung Parliament.

("How dare you prejudge the electorate!" thus translates as a new variation on the traditional cliché: "we are campaigning for a majority". It's probably the most important question of the election and we get yet another politicians' non-answer.)

For Mr Balloon it was the other way around. As an assured – even arrogant – public speaker he was easily able to handle the audience, especially when the format did not allow the questioner to press him for an answer if he dodged or changed the question (the usual politicians' tricks). But the interview was more difficult for him for exactly the same reasons. Paxo derailed the PM with an opening question about food banks, and Mr Balloon looked very shifty for a minute, not answering. Once he got himself together he gave a better performance.

This happened several times, in fact. His eventual answer on zero hours contracts, for example: "No I couldn't live on one, and that's why the coalition outlawed exclusive zero hours contracts, because they're not meant for people to live on!" was good; but he'd waffled first in order properly to frame his answer and so when he delivered an actual direct response it was lost. Mr Paxman's not interested if they answer; it's showing up politicians by hunting down their evasions that he lives for.

Mind you, we thought that Paxman was a bit harder on Mr Balloon than on Mr Milipede: the questions to the Prime Monster went to substance – numbers on food banks, borrowing, immigration – all areas where there's a substantive answer and Mr Balloon has to hem and haw to explain why it's complicated; the questions to Milipede went to character – the apologies for New Labour, the guff on "the wrong brother", and then the nonsense on "toughness" – all soft serves for answers that are only going to be hand-wringing and the feelz.

The question of "toughness" was particularly egregious, even before we get to the gung-ho "Hell yeah" of Mr Milipede's answer.

Do we really want a leader who is "tough"? Haven't we just had five years of "tough"; isn't it time for a bit of compassion, and listening, and co-operation (especially if there's going to be – as seems very, very likely – another coalition)?

LOOKING "tough" is actually WEAKNESS.

Looking "tough" is what has gotten Labour politicians like Rachel the Reever cravenly following the right-wing agenda of punishing the young and the out of work for being on benefits. Looking "tough" is what has gotten both Labservative Parties boxed into inflexible positions on raising taxes. Looking "tough" has led to everyone ruling out coalitions with everyone else as though this is anything other than a complete derogation of duty. Maggie Thatcher was "tough". And also mad as a box of frogs. "Tough" in other words is the exact opposite of good government and frankly we could do with a good deal LESS of it.

But then there's Milipede's answer: I'm tough enough to stand up to Putin because I was tough enough to stand in a room with Mr Balloon and Cap'n Clegg and say no to Barry O.

That is a… creative recollection of events in 2013.

Milipede has cultivated this popular myth that it was Labour, indeed he personally, who brought a halt to the rush to Western intervention in the Syrian civil war. It stems from a vote in the House of Commons, when – unexpectedly – the government lost a motion that would have prepared the way for British military deployment.

The government proposed a motion, with a caveat that there would have to be another vote before any action was taken (on Cap'n Clegg's insistence, having very strongly made the case for United Nations involvement before any United Kingdom action); Labour proposed a VERY SLIGHTLY different amendment (basically tightening up the conditions before action could be taken, but nothing that wasn't implicit in the government motion).

The Labour amendment got voted down – exactly as the Labour front bench intended so that they could look justified in voting against the government motion. In other words, the usual way that these votes are treated as a "game", a typical example of the debate club way that Miliband "plays" politics: letting him oppose the government on a technicality while still being able to claim that substantively he is tough on murderous gas attacks, tough on the causes of murderous gas attacks (and check with David whether we sold gas weapons to Assad while Labour were in power, Ed). (See also the "we never voted against Lords Reform" blocking of the paving motion that prevented Lords Reform, and more recently the reward for rich bankers "cut" in tuition fees.)

Only they didn't count on a Tory and Lib Dem backbenchers rebelling and the government motion falling too (24 out of 57 Lib Dems not voting for the government).

It was absolutely NOT Labour's intention or policy to block intervention in Syria. It was however the mood of the country, and on the conscience of those Lib Dem and Tory rebels, and to be fair to him it was Mr Balloon who stood up and said that.

So I rather think is STINKS when Miliband goes around claiming credit and saying that he was "tough". He was playing silly political games, and a serendipitous cock-up enabled the doves to beat the hawks.


Here are the government motion and the Labour amendment.

In this diary:

Mr Balloon the Prime Monster is David Cameron, balloon-faced Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Mr Milipede the Wonk is Ed Miliband, creepy-crawly Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
Mr Paxo (the Ego Booster) is Jeremy Paxman, veteran television interviewer famous for his aggressive interrogation and high opinion of himself.

Also appearing:
Cap'n Clegg is Nick Clegg, the not-appearing in this farce Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Other Party of Government, the Liberal Democrats.
Rachel the Reever is Rachel Reeves, soon to be contender for doomed Milipede's job.

PS:

Dan Hodges writes in the Telegraph. Dan is famously no friend of Mr Milipede, which I suspect will undercut the strength of his words here. His account of the history leading up to the Syria vote agrees with my recollection too.

Day 5190: A Budget of Signposts and Pitfalls

Wednesday Budget Day Election Day Minus Forty-Nine:


So, for the last time in the first fixed term Parliament, Master Gideon did a thing.

Liberal Democrat policies once more featured strongly (and anonymously) in the form of future rises in the personal allowance towards the minimum wage and a promise of an end in sight of austerity.

But most of what he did was mess things about. A little. He cut some taxes a little; cut some spending a little less; made the tax system a little more generous to favoured industries/more complicated with more loopholes. And made several bad jokes. Mostly about the unfortunate Mr Milipede's kitchen arrangements.

When he wasn't cracking our sides with his rib-ticklers, he gave us not so much substance as a full meal, more a sort of taster's trolley to whet our appetites for the shape of Parliamentary things to come.

Most of the actual tax arrangements are, of course, post-dated, setting the sort of traps for a future Labour Chancer– in the decreasingly likely event of there being such a person – just as Mr Allstar Darling did for him, with the "for one month only" 50% tax rate (which did indeed successfully blow up in Gideon's face). The promise of a little less squeezing of the pips on higher rate taxpayers (in the assumption that the Venn diagram of higher rate taxpayers and Tory voters is quite a large overlap) gives a sweetie to his base today that might reward a second time if incoming Hard Labour have to reverse it to make ends meet after the election and post Financial Review. Likewise, the £1000 tax free interest is a giveaway to the "haves" that makes the tax system yet more needlessly complicated (with interest rates at ½% you can "have" up to two-hundred grand in the bank before paying any tax on the interest). And aside from the Chancer's personal delight in being able to string two catchphrases together do we really need yet more money injected into the housing bubble? I'm just surprised he didn't rename the newly in-out-shake-it-all-about ISA his "long term economic savings plan"!

Meanwhile he sketched out a – suspiciously "Coalition flavoured" – direction of travel, adopting that Liberal Democrat pledge to bring an end to austerity and offer a promise of better days to come. His compromise of beginning to increase spending on public services "after four more years" falling mid-way between the Lib Dem position of "after three more years" and the Tory one of "after hell freezes over". Cutting the lifetime allowance for payments into a pension was also a Libby Demmy way of raising a few more tax dollars from the richer end of the spectrum.

This is, as we know, typical Tory strategy: use the Lib Dems as a sort of THINK TANK from Planet Nice to generate socially acceptable policy and use this to detox the brand (while pretending to smile and nod along to the wingnuts, and occasionally unleash a "Go Home Van" to keep them drooling happily).

Just because he's EXACTLY as scary-right-wing as his Romulan haircut suggests, don't ever think Gideon isn't PRACTICAL.

(And, in many ways, another Coalition is actually the best way for GIDEON to keep his own job: if they lose, he'll have to come third to Boris and Theresa in the ensuing leadership bloodbath; if they win on their own, then he might have to think up some policies of his own without Danny to hold his crayons for him!)

And look at how he did bang on about how the Coalition had brought economic success.

Obviously that's a GREAT advert for letting the Tories RUIN it by running the country off the rails on their own!

Being in Coalition has given him GREAT COVER for making it all up as he went along (or in fact letting Nick and Vince and Danny make most of it up for him, and then copying their homework). For all that Gideon the Chancer is a man who's made much political capital out of sticking to "Plan A", it should be apparent that we are by now on something like the "F Plan" (the diet nobody sticks to) or the "G-Plan" (given his wooden delivery). Whatever, he's in danger of running out of letters!

"Plan A" only lasted about a year. That was the "stick to Alistair Darling's disastrous plan to cut all capital spending" Plan. Fortunately the widely underrated Mr Danny managed to persuade Gideon to go on an Obama-esque Keynesian spending spree. That would have been Plan B. Plan C was the disaster of the OMNISHAMBLES budget, quickly walked back to Plan D. The REAL disaster being that budget had contained some attempts to simplify some of the tax system, and there's no way Gideon was going to try THAT again! And even last year we were still on Austerity Eternal of Plan E, but it appears that that didn't test well with the voters.

The only thing "Long Term" about the Conservatories "Long Term Economic Plan" is how long they've been ramming the stupid message down our throats!

Not that Hard Labour have much to crow about.

(It won't stop them. That Mr Allstar Darling was on the radio last weekend crowing about his own last budget – because, as he himself admitted, nobody else would – and saying that the Coalition's plan has arrived us exactly where he predicted the economy would be… slightly overlooking the fact that this must mean his own plan would have missed the target by miles and landed us in much worse straits! And also rather undermining Hard Labour’s case that they’d have done anything at all DIFFERENT!)

But in the absence of having bothered to pay any attention to what Gideon was saying, Mr Milipede delivered the speech he'd memorised anyway. I KNOW it's the hardest job in politics, replying to the budget with no notes or notice, but do you think he could at least TRY to remain on topic?

And if "long term economic plan" is becoming the most BORING big fib in British politics, then surely there's some sort of mutant hybrid of Godwin's Law being spawned on the other side: "the longer a debate goes on the closer to 100% gets the probability of Mr Milipede claiming it will lead to the privatisation/dismantling (the meaning of these terms being indistinguishable to his audience) of the NHS".

So today Mr Milipede invented the Tories "secret plan to fight inflation"…

No, sorry, that's "secret plan to wreck the NHS"; it's just he's so clearly and painfully obviously been watching too many episodes of his "West Wing" box set. It's all that free time he has not doing any work on actual policies.

But PLAGIARISM, Ed? Again?

I mean, bless him, he's only got one trump card, but he does keep playing it… in fact, it looks like he's only got one card AT ALL, at least only one that doesn't say "the same as the Tories but, er, nice" (see also what Rachel the Reever wants to do with welfare and Tristram the, er, Hunt wants to do with Education.) But it's clear that his schoolboy debate club tactics are no good when the country is calling for a STRATEGY.

The worst part of his day was probably the moment where you can see the dawning realisation creep into his sad eyes that the Conservatories are going to win, to beat him, beat him probably quite a lot. It was probably the time when he laughed at the second or third second kitchen joke.

Even until recently I had expected Labour to improve, and the Tories at best to hold their ground in numbers of seats. How could the Conservatories do anything OTHER than go backwards after the PAIN and the AUSTERITY and the BEDROOM TAX? But today, Miliband looked like a loser. No, worse, he looked like HE believed he was a loser, and that sort of thing is INFECTIOUS.

And Gideon looked like HE thought he was a WINNER.

Because Master Gideon's real talent is luck. The sort of luck that lets him get away with it.

Because this recovery isn't really a result of ANY plan – long term or otherwise – by this Government. It's mainly driven by the Saudis response to American fracking, pumping oil like it's going out of fashion (because it is!) driving down energy prices.

What the Coalition has actually done is a series of smart economic tacks across the wind, sheltering most people from the worst of the storm of the recession, while the rest of Europe has been battered by the ongoing Euro crisis, and while the rise of China and India drove a huge spike in energy prices and food prices, all of which delayed any chance of real recovery. We’ve been keeping more people in work – at the price of depressing earnings; keeping down homes repossessed; shifting the burden of taxation a few notches up the income scale. When the Lib Dems were stronger, we also kept benefits rising with inflation.

That doesn't mean that the austerity was WRONG or didn't work. If nothing else, thanks to the Coalition Britain was at least in a position where we COULD take advantage when the wind changed in our favour.

But what we've also done, again largely Lib Dem policies, is laid the groundwork for FUTURE economic strength: the pupil premium, and add to that free school meals, already giving kids a better education; the apprenticeships scheme, not just getting young people into jobs, delivering two million more quality training places, but kicking off a total reappraisal of the worth of vocational verses academic further education; even the hated tuition fees cum sort of graduate tax has delivered more young people from less well-off backgrounds into higher education.

You can, as Cap'n Clegg is fond of saying, still do a lot of GOOD with a bit of goodwill and three-quarters of a trillion pounds!

All of which means THIS is where the fight gets DESPERATE.

Liberal Democrats, we might have thought that we could go quietly into Opposition, sit the next Parliament out, lick our wounds – which will be many – and rebuild our tattered reputation under the cosy leadership of Saint Tim, while enjoying the no-doubt-hilarious spectacle of a minority Labour administration giving new definition to being propped up with a (lack of) confidence and supply (of demands) from the SNP.

WE MAY NOT HAVE THAT OPTION.

The Tories are already planning how to wreck democracy: that infamous "black and white ball" they held, that wasn't to raise funds for the General Election. They've already GOT the funds to fight the General Election. THAT was to raise funds for the SECOND General Election.

Remember, our slogan is "Stronger Economy; Fairer Society; Opportunity for All".

It's NOT because we'd deliver a fairer society than the Tories and a stronger economy than Labour. (Though we would. But that's OBVIOUS.)

It's because we'd deliver a FAIRER society than LABOUR and a STRONGER economy than THE TORIES!

Labour: the Party of I.D.iot cards, 90 day detention, dog whistles on immigration, cutting benefits for young people, introducing ATOS, introduction Work Capability Assessments, introducing tuition fees (yes, that burns), cash for peerages, cash for Bernie Eccleston, Iraq… no WAY are Labour the Party of "fairer society".

But equally, the Tories: the Party of throwing our relationship with our single biggest trading partner into doubt, the Party of toying with GBrexit, the Party of slashing immigration and all the benefits that come with it, the Party of slashing benefits(!), the Party of tax cuts for Dead Millionaires (promised again, this week), the Party of blowing dirty great wads on Trident… no WAY are the Tories the Party of "stronger economy".

People, if you DON'T want the LUNATICS to take over the asylum, if you don't want the drawbridge pulled up and the curtain run down on five centuries of Britain being the greatest trading nation on Earth, we CANNOT let the Tories win! Labour are about to surrender. It's up to the Liberal Democrats.

No pressure, then.

In this post:

Master Gideon = Gideon known as George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Mr Allstar Darling = Alistair Darling, his Labour predecessor
Rachel the Reever = Rachel Reeves, Labour Shadow Welfare Minister
Tristram the Hunt = Tristram Hunt, Labour Shadow Education Minister
Mr Milipede, reverting to Mr Miliband = Ed Miliband, probably-doomed leader of the Labour Party
Cap'n Clegg = Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Mr Danny = Danny Alexander, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary (i.e. second in charge) at the Treasury
Mr Vince = Dr Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and widely respected as Lib Dem economic spokesperson and stand-in leader

Day 5168: An Elephant's Eye on the Election

Tuesday:

You may not have noticed that there's an election coming. They've been keeping rather quiet about it.

A number of people have said that this year's election is "too close to call" or "too complicated" but I think that, even this far out, the results are pretty obvious.

The Liberal Democrats will come fourth in vote share with probably about 16% and win two-hundred and nine five-way marginals. Nick Clegg will become Leader of the Opposition as Al Murray is swept into Downing Street, made Prime Minister as leader of the Stop Farrago Alliance of Labour, Tory and SNP.

Okay, maybe it won't QUITE happen like that. It might be two-hundred and EIGHT – get down to Hornsey and Wood Green because we CAN win there and help keep Lynne Featherstone as MP for Awesome.

Okay, okay, maybe not two-hundred and eight either. But there are reasons for OPTIMISM. Maybe not quite as much optimism as Auntie Caron managed to muster in telling the Westminster Hour we could hold all fifty-seven of our current seats, though you've got to admire her for saying it with a straight face.

I think we can hold at least half, probably somewhere in the mid-thirties, and maybe a gain or two as well.

The reasons for this are, of course, complicated, but come down to the weakness of Mr Milipede's Hard Labour and the split vote on the right.

LABSERVATIVES

We only HAVE about 15 seats facing challengers from Hard Labour or Nasty Nationalists – well, we have a couple more than that, but no one is taking Charlie Kennedy or Alistair Carmichael's seat without Viking Longboats. Most of our seats are a fight with our so-called partners in Coalition the Conservatories.

In order to counter the PERCEIVED threat from the Party they REALLY want to be in bed with, the Kippers, Mr Balloon has been not so much tacking to the right as galloping for the starboard flank as fast as Master Gideon's little legs and Theresa May's kitten heels can carry him. Policies like deep cuts in benefits, targeted at the young and the fatshamed; the obsession with cutting spending deeper and harder than necessary – while promising vast and unfunded give-away tax cuts, not to mention remaining highly dubious in their attitude to possible tax evasion especially by their rich supporters; their increasing security paranoia, with Civil Liberties infringements verging back towards New Labour era; above all the frothing venom over Europe and immigration… all these are painting them as the Nastier-than-Ever Party.

It makes it all the more desperately important than ever that Liberal Democrats hold the centre ground, not because we're wishy-washy and moderate, but because we're the Party with a radical social conscience and grounded, practical, old-fashioned British COMMON SENSE.

Fortunately for Britain (not to mention us!), Mr Milipede's cohorts appear to have decided that he's already lost. They have wasted the last five years conspicuously failing to come up with an alternative plan to Osborneomics-lite while ostentatiously avoiding any engagement with apology for the catastrophe that overwhelmed them in office. In much the same way as Mr Vague's disastrous 2001 election odyssey descended into "Save the Pound! Save My Job!", they are reduced to pitiful wails of "Save the NHS! Save the Milipede!"

It isn't that they don't have any policies. It's just that they don't have any policies that would make anything BETTER.

Take the latest mini-spat over TUITION FEES. It's clearly ALL about the POSITIONING. They want to be able to play the Nick Clegg card AGAIN, so they want to wave a policy that LOOKS totemic (but isn't) so that they can wave Lib Dem pledge cards around (please no one notice Labour pledges). Except first it means pissing two-billion quid up the wall and Mr Balls can't find the cash, and second, more importantly, it's a give-away to the RICHEST students, and doesn't actually HELP people who need it. Whereas the as-good-as Graduate Tax that the Liberal Democrats negotiated has ACTUALLY helped a huge increase in the numbers of people from the least well off backgrounds making it to University.

(The man responsible, Tristram Hunt – surely that's a silly nickname? – is clearly a total liability, whether it's announcing that he's PRIVATISING SURE START – which I remain astounded has not received more coverage; though not at the total lack of synthetic outrage from Pollyanna Toytown – or insulting all NUNS. That's no doubt why he's convinced himself he's got a shot at Mr Milipede's job.

Though to get it, he'll have to get past Mr Woodchuck Umunna, whose face can currently be found next to the Wikipedia definition of "ambition".)

Meanwhile Mr Balls, while remaining the man who most people blame for the crash, has recently managed to forget the names of Labour's business backers and suggest that every window-cleaner needs a paper audit trail. Bill Somebody and get a Receipt, you might say. Mr Ball's position is, er, erratic to say the least, oscillating between occasional adherence to the terrifying splurges of Modern Money Theory (or Magic Money Tree economics) and back to flat out austerity and refusing any of his colleagues the cash to fund their endless lists of not-quite-pledges.

So the rest of the Shadow Cabinet are all "on manoeuvres" rather than campaigning to win. They expected to inherit the Coalition's position on the green benches, but if they can't do that they'll settle for inheriting Milipede's seat instead.

That's where the Liberal Democrats need to press hard that we remain the ONLY Party that stands between the country and a terrifying Tory majority. Hard Labour just aren't up to the job. The last five years have shown that Liberal Democrat ministers and back-benchers have got the guts and determination to hold the line against the Tories.

SICKLY GREENS

One response to Mr Milipede's shambles has been the Green Surge. No, I don't mean BARFING.

The Greens would be more admirable if their one MP hadn't been more loyal to the Labour Line than many of Mr Milipede's own alleged colleagues. (Apparently the Green Party's own slang is "Watermelon" – Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside – but this is probably RACIST to watermelons.) Seeking to capitalise on Labour's weakness and to outflank them on the left they are standing as a Syriza-like anti-austerity ticket, though that might not play out so well now that the real Syriza have apparently capitulated to European Union demands to stick with the austerity programme.

(Thus probably saving Greece, but SELFISHLY denying us the service of demonstrating the Farrago Folly by proving that dropping out of the Euro actually COULD make things extremely very much WORSE.)

What I REALLY object to, though, is how much of an Ed Balls Up the Greens are making of selling the policy of a Citizens' Income, a policy that apparently I, a stuffed elephant, understand better than the Green Leader Ms Notaclue Bennett.

There are many positives to be gained from providing a basic flat rate cash stipend to every single person in the country, potentially saving a lot of bureaucracy, protecting people from abusive employers, rewarding carers and housewives/husbands for their contribution, and greatly simplifying and maybe even SAVING some people's lives. But it's neither cheap nor simple to get there and it needs a good, strong PLAN that you can lay out to get to all the upsides. What you absolutely cannot do is KEEP going on the radio and the tellybox and waving your fluffy feet in the air saying "read the website, I don't remember this bit!"

NASTY NATS

The OTHER response to the Great Miliflop is the rise of the tide of nationalist parties. "Blame-the-other-people" parties always do well in difficult times, and the economic times we've been through have hardly been difficulter.

And after five solid years of Labour supporters screaming blue murder about the Liberal Democrats for working with the Conservatories, it is quite a BITTER IRONY that they find the exact same tactic being turned upon them by the Scots Nats for supporting the Conservatories and other pro-Union Parties in the Referendum Campaign.

There could hardly be a better demonstration of the FLAWS of our First Pass the Port electoral rules (and how STUPID our journalists are) than what is happening in Scotland. The press appear ASTONISHED that the LOSING side in the referendum seems to be doing so well in the prospects for Parliament. But it's simple MATHS.

Under ANY system of alternative voting, the pro-Union votes transfer to block the minority Nasties. Which is what happened in the Referendum.

But under First Pass the Port, the LARGEST LOSER WINS.

Because there are SEVERAL Parties that want to keep the United Kingdom, the winning side is DIVIDED; because the Scots Nasties are ISOLATED, they hoover up all the anti-votes. Ironically, this is the tactic of MARGARET THATCHER, who they hate.

Hilarious as it is that the Nasties are probably going to deprive Mr Milipede of any chance of an outright majority, the worse outlook is that they might ALSO deprive him of enough seats to form a Coalition with the remaining Liberal Democrats.

KIPPERS

Channel Four's mockumentary "UKIP: The First 100 Days" has received record numbers of complaints. Mainly because that's what Kippers do best: complain. In fact, it's difficult to know if they do anything else. Except make on-camera racist remarks.

Though also, it was RUBBISH.

There was almost no sting to the satire, no ring of dangerous truth to the warnings. Police snatch-squads and brutalisation of innocent minorities were treated much more DAD'S ARMY than SECRET ARMY. Economic implosion didn't seem to affect anyone's standard of living, in spite of all the factories closing. And the nice lady UKIP parliamentarian turned out to be nice in the end, so that was all right. We didn't get to see the follow-up scene where it's explained that she's "had a breakdown" and she's carted off to Broadmoor in one of those coats that ties up the back while her family are on a one-way flight to Karachi.

No, if anyone should be complaining it's the OTHER PARTIES for this far too nice portrayal, that seems to imply we could get away with electing a bunch of RACISTS without it all going Nuremberg on us.

Of course, the last thing Farrago wants is to actually WIN. Winning means having to do something other than complain. Worse, it means being the one who is complained ABOUT. No, he likes his nice cushy Euro-job where he gets paid a fortune and doesn't have to show any results. Or even show up!

Still, lucky for Nigel our electoral system is so horlicksed that he probably won't have to face his nightmare scenario of being everyone else's nightmare scenario.

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT GOVERNMENT

The PLAN for the Liberal Democrats has always been to show that Coalition WORKS, and that we can be TRUSTED in Government. We've certainly shown that a Coalition CAN last five years. Remember, almost EVERY SINGLE commentator in 2010 expected a second election within six months. We've proven them wrong once already. Whether we can be TRUSTED is… a slightly other matter, unfortunately.

It's difficult to see how we can continue in Coalition with the Tories. We've largely used up the areas of policy overlap, not to mention the GOODWILL, between our Parties. Equally though, many people have suggested that a period in Opposition, licking our wounds, might serve the Party well.

Maybe it would, but would it serve our Country well?

I still believe that the purpose of political parties is to be in Government, getting things done.

(Not the Labour Party's urgent desire to be in Government just to be in Government; not the Conservatories belief that they are entitled to be in Government because they are entitled.)

A Labour/Liberal Coalition, with Vince Cable as Chancellor (finally!), would be a better outcome for the Country (AND demonstrate that Coalition can remain stable even if the larger partner transitions) than a feeble minority Labour administration, with Scots Nats and Green demonstrating the real meaning of "propping up" (where they can take ALL the blame and get no policies at all enacted). And another Liberal/Tory Coalition, could one be bodged together in the wake of the election tearing strips out of each other (probably around an agreement that WE will run the country while Mr Balloon plays Euro-referendum) would STILL be better than letting the nutters run the asylum on their own (with the Farragistas not so much propping up as pushing to topple over).

But the real choice belongs, quite rightly to the British people.

And we've only just begun.