Election 2015: A Little Post-Match Analysis

  Well, I did not see that coming.

  The fact that nobody else did either is little consolation: the Conservative Party has won a majority of 6, and David Cameron will return to No.10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. Whilst most people anticipated that the Tories might well win largest party, no-one thought that they would manage to win outright. The pre-election polling has never been so drastically wrong, even in the 1992 debacle.

  So, is it time for everyone to the left of the Tory neoliberals to curl up in a corner and cry? Well, no. The temptation may be great, but I feel it is one that we should resist; for now, at least. All is not quite lost just yet. Here is a quick rundown of the major events of election night, and exactly what they mean for the future of this country.

The Conservatives won a majority of twelve. Clearly, a Tory government is not the result I or many others on the left wanted. The failures of the Conservatives over the last five years are stark: Real wages have entered their longest period of sustained decline in at least 50 years, the UK's GDP per capita is still lower than its pre-recession peak, the deep cuts to welfare have resulted in dozens of deaths and left hundreds of thousands of people destitute, the top-down reorganisation of the NHS has wasted millions and allowed creeping privatisation to continue... I could go on, but I'd only bore you. Suffice it to say, the Tories have had a terrible effect on this country.

However, all is not entirely lost. The Conservatives may have won a majority, but it is a small one; a much reduced majority, in fact, from that the Coalition has enjoyed since 2010. This means that Cameron will find it increasingly difficult to govern as backbench rebels - of which there will be many, you may be sure - hold his party to ransom. The corollary of that, of course, is that he may have to step up the anti-Europe and socially conservative rhetoric to appease the Tory old guard. So, the effects of this small majority may be good or bad, but the new government is certainly going to be far from stable.

The leaders of the three main opposition parties have resigned. Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage have all resigned as leaders of their respective parties. In Miliband's case, this is reasonable; under his leadership, the party lost seats and suffered electoral wipeout in Scotland, due at least in part to his personal inability to connect with the electorate. He represents the metropolitan champagne socialist branch of Labour, and this was obviously not something the people of the UK could believe in. 

Clegg's departure is also fair enough. The Liberal Democrats have been reduced to just 8 seats in the Commons, putting them in joint-fourth place with the DUP. From their impressive performances at the 2005 and 2010 elections, this is a long way to fall, and Nick Clegg's decision to take the party into coalition is certainly responsible.

The resignation of Nigel Farage (having failed to win South Thanet) is, quite frankly, the best news I've had all day, but it is also worrying. Farage has been the figurehead of UKIP for so long that his departure (however temporary I suspect it may be) could cause UKIP to collapse (a very good thing), or it could allow the far-right elements within the party to take over. Make no mistake, Nigel is by no means the worst of the bunch, and a UKIP pulled even further to the right is a scary prospect.

Scotland went SNP in spectacular fashion. The SNP swept to victory in Scotland, claiming all but three of the country's 59 seats. The huge bloc of nationalist MPs that Nicola Sturgeon will be sending to Westminster (led pretty soon, I suspect, by our old friend Alex Salmond) will be a thorn in David Cameron's side. He know's that his small majority means that a few rebels could rob him of the ability to govern, and the SNP will hammer home any advantage they get. However, their principled tradition of not voting on matters which do not affect Scotland will limit considerably their effectiveness. This may leave David Cameron with carte blanche to do as he wishes in England, a worrying prospect.

Turnout remained low, though it increased slightly to 66.1%. The continued refusal of a third of the country to cast their vote is a problem. Those who do not vote as a point of principle are unfortunately indistinguishable from those who simply can't be bothered; those who are frankly unable to find any political party they are capable of giving their support to count just the same in the minds of our political masters as those who just don't care. The fact that turnout is traditionally lowest among those groups (young people, ethnic minorities, the unemployed) who the Tory government will be targeting over the next five years makes this an even bigger issue. 

The number of big names who lost their seats is shockingly high. They call it a Portillo Moment when a political heavyweight falls at the ballot box, but there have been so many this time around that they might have to change the name. Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander, Scottish Labour Leader Jim Murphy, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, Business Secretary Vince Cable, Energy Secretary Ed Davey, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander... the list is huge. Most are from the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties, and many fell to the SNP in Scotland, but the decimation of the upper ranks of the main political parties - together with the planned departures of old leading lights such as William Hague, Jack Straw, Malcom Rifkind and Gordon Brown - means that the new House of Commons will have a very different dynamic.

The number of women MPs increased by a third. A piece of uncomplicated good news, for a change, and pretty self-explanatory. Before the election 23% of MPs were women; now it is 29%. That is, of course, still 21% short of the ideal, but it is a marked improvement and one we should be very pleased about. One of these new female MPs, the SNP's Mhairi Black, is also the youngest MP elected since 1667, a huge achievement only made more impressive when you consider she took the seat from Douglas Alexander.

The UK's electoral system is STILL very, very broken. I will end with perhaps the most important point: the discrepancy between vote share and seats in the House of Commons continues to be a huge issue. The SNP won 56 seats with just 4.7% of the vote; meanwhile the Lib Dems won 7.9% but only 8 seats. UKIP won a single seat with 12.6% of the vote, the Greens one with 3.8%. The Tories and Labour are separated by 99 seats but only 6.5% in the vote. You get the idea - there is little real connection between vote share and seat share, and this is disenfranchising madness. You can read my article on PR for a solution to the problem, but the short answer is this: we desperately need as electoral system which ensures that Parliament represents the wishes of the people. It's called 'democracy' - you may have heard of it.


  These are just some of the most important results of May the 7th - much more will become apparent over the coming weeks. In the meantime, it is important that the progressives among us redouble our efforts to convince the public that the Tory message of cuts and rampant neoliberalism is not the only way, and far from the best way. May 2020 awaits.

Deja Vu: UKIP By-Election Victory. Again

  Yesterday’s by-election was more or less a foregone conclusion, with the Tories’ original promise to ‘throw the kitchen sink’ at Rochester & Strood having been ashes in the mouth of the Prime Minister for at least a week. So, Mark Reckless – UKIP’s candidate – retakes the seat he held as a Conservative MP from 2010, and no-one in the country with so much the suggestion of a finger on the fluttering political pulse of the nation should be at all surprised.

  That doesn’t mean the win is insignificant, however – not by any means. There have been noises for a few days now about a UKIP win triggering at least two more defections from the Tories. There are about as many candidates for this as there are Tory backbenchers, but two frontrunners are the arch-Eurosceptic Peter Bone – who has called for UKIP and the Tories to work together in the past – and John Baron, who when questioned about whether he would defect replied with the deliciously clichéd ‘never say never’.

  With the General Election approaching fast, it is more and more unlikely that the new tradition of forcing a by-election if you decide to jump ship to Farage’s mob would hold. Therefore, any future defections could well be automatic, potentially swelling the ranks of UKIP substantially in the run-up to May 2015. However, whilst Farage will be keen of course to pinch as many Tories as he can get his made-in-the-UK purple mittens on, what he is really after now is a Labour defector. This would fit in with his growing narrative about UKIP being a party of neither the left nor the right – and, considering polling shows their appeal among former Conservative voters is approaching its critical mass, it is looking increasingly necessary if UKIP want to keep up their admittedly impressive momentum.

  And what about Rochester & Strood itself? Well, with a much-reduced majority of 7.3% on a low turnout of just 50%, Reckless is far from secure. Lord Ashcroft’s polling shows that the Tories are likely to reclaim the seat in 2015, when – as Grant Schapps put it this morning – ‘the future of the country will be on the ballot paper’. Lib Dem, Labour and even Green supporters might be willing to lend their votes to the Tories to keep out a UKIP MP for a full parliament where they were not willing to do so for the sake of five months. We shall see.

  Speaking of the other parties, it didn’t go too well for them either. The swing against Labour was -12%, nearly as much as against the Tories, while the Lib Dems got just 1% and lost their deposit once again. The Green Party, meanwhile, continued their recent trend of thrashing the Lib Dems into fourth place with 4% at the expense of some of the Labour vote. Sixth place, for those who are interested, went to a dominatrix who was last year voted Britain’s favourite sex worker. She got just 300 votes less than the Lib Dem candidate.

  To summarise: UKIP continue their march, while the Tory and Labour high commands will be quaking in their respective boots at the prospect of further defections. The Greens are still doing quite well and the Lib Dems look like the next general election may well see them wiped off the face of the Earth. 2015 is going to be an interesting one, methinks.

Politicians: They Won't Change Unless We Make Them

For decades, and particularly since the expenses scandal of 2009, politicians have grown steadily more despised - but why should they change?

  An ICM poll, published in the Guardian on October the 13th, gave us some interesting information on the state of politics in October 2014. The party polling itself was fairly standard fare - the only real point to note is the expected 5-point increase in UKIP's share in the wake of Douglas Carswell's election in Clacton - but more interesting is the data on the leaders' personal ratings, shown below:

  One point to raise straightaway is the absence of two individuals: Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party (expected, due to the outrageous anti-Green media bias) and Nick Clegg. Clegg's absence is particularly telling - it demonstrates the total lack of regard given to the now-decimated Liberal Democrats. But more important still is the data itself.

  Notice the numbers on the graphs. It will not escape your notice that they are all significantly below zero. Now, it is clear that certain leaders have strengths in certain areas: Farage leads significantly on perceived ability to understand the public and on perceived honesty, while Miliband is clearly ahead on looking after the interests of the many over the few. 

  Farage's party, then, will use these data to improve their anti-establishment credentials; Labour will (cautiously, so as to avoid cries of 'evil socialism) capitalise on the sense that they, not UKIP, are the true party of the working classes. Cameron will do his best not to mention them at all. But none of these approaches get to the real heart of the matter - and why would they? It is in the interests of all the neoliberal parties not to raise this question. So It's going to have to be me.

  The question is this: Why are our politicians so awful that we are having to differentiate between different degrees of negative publicity just to draw out some meaningful comparison?

  At the end of the day, it shouldn't matter that Ed Miliband is only 10 points below par at looking after the working classes while Farage and Cameron are 20 points below, because the key thing is this: They are ALL seen as terrible. Even 'anti-establishment', flavour-of-the-month UKIP has a leader seen as generally incapable across these three fairly broad categories. The fact that one leader might be slightly less bad than the other two should be irrelevant. The only reason it isn't is because the leaders are more or less identical, so the minutiae become suddenly vital differentiators.

  Why, then, do our political masters get away with being seen as universally useless? Sadly, the answer is because we let them. This most recent poll makes one thing clear - despite seeing their leaders (two potential Prime Ministers and a potential Deputy Prime Minister) as incompetent, 80% of the population who state they are likely to vote in May 2015 are planning to vote for either Labour, UKIP or the Conservatives. Add in the Lib Dems - whose neoliberal policies make them virtually identical to the other three, despite their current disfavour - and that's 91%.

  Even worse than this overwhelming lemming-style rush towards parties which these data prove we have no enthusiasm for is the number of people planning not to vote at all. The same poll shows that 23% of people rate themselves as 50% certain or less to vote, with 10% saying already that they definitely won't. Results from past elections show that, on average, around a third of voters do not vote on polling day. I've spoken at length about voter apathy before, so i won't wax lyrical about it here, but this also feeds into the overall issue.

  And that issue is this: Politicians won't change, they won't become any better than their current abysmal low, until we make them. And, much as Russell brand would have you believe otherwise, refusing to participate - tempting as it is - will not do that. Neither will voting for parties who espouse the same hypocritical, neoliberal-authoritarian post-Thatcherite political consensus as the Tories - and that includes UKIP as well as Labour and the Lib Dems. 

  The only way to force a change is to get involved. Campaign on issues which animate you, which make your blood boil; speak out when things occur in the world which are unfair; vote when polling day comes around, and for the Greens or the nationalists or any other party which challenges the status quo. But don't limit yourself just to voting - Brand is right about that: the once-every-five-years electoral ballot is the establishment's way of keeping us quiet in between. Fight for the things you deserve and for what you believe in, and maybe - just maybe - we might get some politicians who aren't universally reviled.

  One can but hope.

Europe 2014 - Options on the Table

Part One - Why You Should Vote

  One week to go until the European Parliament elections. Are you excited yet? I trust we shall all be voting? No. Well, you should. As I explained in an earlier post, not voting ISN'T - as Russell Brand would have us believe - a protest. If there's no party you feel represents your views, I sympathise, but at least have the good grace to turn up and spoil your ballot paper. Because not voting at all means only one thing: the politicians get to ignore you. And that can't be good.

  Plus, the thing about the EU elections is that the vote is conducted under proportional representation, or PR - specifically by the Closed Party List system. Without getting too technical, this basically means that the constituencies for the election are huge and return multiple members - the South-East of England, for example, returns ten. Every vote counts, and the members are allocated by the percentage of the votes that were cast for that party (unlike in general elections, you vote for a party rather than an individual). 

  Continuing our example, in the South East in 2009 the results were as follows:

• Conservative Party: 34.8% of the vote; 4 MEPs
• UKIP: 18.8% of the vote; 2 MEPs
• Liberal Democrats: 14.1% of the vote; 2 MEPs
• Green Party: 11.6% of the vote; 1 MEP
• Labour Party: 8.2% of the vote; 1 MEP
• BNP: 4.4% of the vote; 0 MEPs

                     [SOURCE: BBC News]

  As you can see, PR a far more democratic way of allocating seats than the First-Past-the-Post system used in Local and General Elections. Under such a system, the Conservatives in the UK would have gotten all 10 South-East England MEPs. This would therefore waste all of the votes cast for the other parties, as well as all of the excess votes which the Tories had over their closest competitor, UKIP - 15.9%. Therefore, under FPtP, only 18.9% of the electorate's opinions would have been taken into consideration. PR isn't perfect - no representative system can be - but at least under this system the MEPs in the chamber far more closely match the wishes of the electorate.

  I digress somewhat. The point is, PR is far more democratic than any other system, so the old rallying cry of the apathetic voter - 'My vote won't make any difference' - no longer holds. The EU election is one election where every vote really DOES make a difference. The UKIP claim that 70% of our laws are made in Brussels may not be true, but in the region of 7% of primary and 14% of secondary legislation DOES originate from within the EU apparatus, and that is something not to be taken lightly.

  I'm no Eurosceptic, but is is true to say that the EU is fundamentally antidemocratic in its current form. We have the power to change that, and to forge a Europe that works for all of its people - but if we continue the current trend of only around one-third of the population voting, that will never happen.

Part Two - Who to Vote For?

  Right then. Now I've done the slightly ranty bit, it's about time I cast an eye on the bunch of toerags actually looking for your vote. Now, descriptions of each major party and their policies can be found here, but I will summarise each of their broad positions for you, with particular focus on Europe, of course. 

The Conservative Party

• Currently the largest party in the coalition government, the Conservatives are ideologically committed to neoliberal economics. This essentially means they want reduced state spending, a deregulated capitalist market, a restricted welfare state and no state ownership of industry
• Conservative social policy is, unsurprisingly, conservative - they support, in general, traditional institutions such as the monarchy and Christian values such as the nuclear family. They are also very authoritarian, favouring harsh anti-terror measures and the use of prisons
• The Conservative view on the EU is mixed, with some members - such as Nicholas Soames, grandson of Winston Churchill - being strongly in favour of the EU, whilst a growing percentage are committed Eurosceptics
• The party is committed to holding a renegotiation of the UK's settlement with the EU, followed by an in-out referendum on the basis of that renegotiated relationship to be held no later than the end of 2017. Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to step down as PM if he is unable to deliver on this promise

The Labour Party

• Currently the largest opposition party, Labour broadly support the same neoliberal economics as the Conservatives, although they favour slightly more regulation of the market and there have been some hints they may be willing to renationalise the rail industry
• Labour social policy is less conservative than the Conservatives', but they are equally authoritarian and much of the anti-terror legislation currently in place was drafted under the last Labour government
• The Labour Party is divided on the issue of the EU. Whilst there are few members as outwardly Eurosceptic as some Conservatives, there is a broad range of opinion within the party
• The Labour leadership has refused to make any clear statement on the issue of the EU, though it is generally assumed they are pro-Europe. They are committed to a referendum if any further treaty to transfer powers to Brussels is proposed

The Liberal Democrats

• The Lib Dems are the smaller partner in the coalition government. They are committed to neoliberalism, as the other main parties, although they have acted as a slight moderating influence on the extreme neoliberalisation of the Conservatives
• Lib Dem social policy is relatively liberal and they are strong advocates of equal rights etc. However, they have signed up to the authoritarianism of the Coalition and have backed such Tory proposals as secret courts in which the defendant may not even know the charges against them
• The Liberal Democrats are very pro-Europe and are committed to a referendum only if significant powers are to be given up by the UK. They wish to stay in the EU

The United Kingdom Independence Party

• UKIP have no Westminster representation but are increasingly popular in the opinion polls. They are the most neoliberal of the main parties, advocating such things as a flat income tax rate and the scrapping of maternity leave
• UKIP social policy is highly conservative and many candidates have expressed extremely distasteful views with regards to equality and democracy in the UK. They are generally less authoritarian than the above parties, however, though they wish to implement strict immigration controls to limit annual net migration
• UKIP's position on the EU is very clear - they want the UK to withdraw immediately, without any referendum or renegotiation on the issue

The Green Party

• The Greens have only one Westminster MP. They are the largest UK party not committed to neoliberal economics, and advocate extensive market re-regulation and the renationalisation of the rail and energy industries, amongst others, as well as a more comprehensive welfare state
• Green social policy is extremely liberal, being outspoken proponents of equal rights for LGBT people etc. and they are committed anti-authoritarians
• The Green policy on Europe is somewhat mixed - they want to remain part of the EU, but campaign for increased democracy within it and a shift in focus away from the interests of big businesses

The British National Party

• The BNP are an openly racist, fascistic organisation. They advocate corporatism as an economic system and a very harsh social policy, as well as strict authoritarian controls and the immediate cessation of immigration - quite possibly along with the expulsion of existing migrants

  So, there we go - these are the six UK-wide parties currently in with a chance to win MEPs. I haven't covered the SNP, Plaid Cymru or the Northern Irish parties on the basis that if you live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland you probably know a hell of a lot more about those organisations than I do, but in general the SNP, Plaid and the Irish republican parties are pro-EU while the unionist parties tend to be more Eurosceptic.

  Who to vote for, then? Well to me the choice seems quite simple. If you want out of the EU, vote Conservative - UKIP have no chance of achieving power in 2015, and never turn up to the EU Parliament so are useless as representatives, whereas at least the Tories are offering a realistic prospect of a referendum. If you want to stay in - and I hope you do - vote Green: they are highly active members of the EU Parliament who do their best to defend the interests of people over businesses and the political elites, and will campaign for reform to the issues which do admittedly plague the EU as is. 

  I can see no real reason to vote Labour - they have resolutely ignored the issue of Europe in all their election broadcasts and speeches, so frankly they don't deserve your consideration. The Liberal Democrats are slightly too comfortable with the anti-democratic features of the EU for my liking - plus, they're due some comeuppance for their treachery in joining the Tories in the first place - but they're not the worst choice you could make. I would reiterate, though, that both of these parties are signed up to the same neoliberal economic consensus that the Tories are, so if you're unhappy with the way the economy works for ordinary people, I urge you to consider the Greens.

  Detecting any hint of bias yet? Good - I should hope so.

  Oh, and don't vote BNP. Just don't.

Part Three - What Everyone Else Reckons

  Here, have some polling data before you go. You know you want to!

     

This graph shows the fluctuations which have been taking place over the most recent polls. Labour, the Tories and UKIP have converged - meanwhile, so have the Lib Dems and the Greens. Looks like it might be all to play for after all

The polynomial trendlines of the data smooth out the smaller changes to show the bigger picture. As we can see, despite a period in the lead UKIP look like they may well be on a downward trajectory. Meanwhile, the Tories are on the up and the Greens are catching the Lib Dems

These rolling averages are very crude, but they at least give some idea of what the election would look like were it held tomorrow. Given that there's only a week to go, time is running out for the parties to lay claim to their voters. At the moment, Labour and UKIP are neck-and-neck and the Tories (factoring in the three-point margin of error) aren't far behind. It's going to be close!

The Death of Liberal England?

  Those who recognised the reference to George Dangerfield's 1935 treatise on the decline of the Liberal Party, 'The Strange Death of Liberal England', take a house point. Shame on the rest of you...

  The Liberal Democrats are going through what even the most optimistic Cleggite would be forced to describe as a rocky patch. The party leadership's seeming inability to deal with the scandal brewing around former CEO Chris Rennard is but the latest nail in what is already looking like a fairly well-sealed coffin. Having claimed in 2010 that they were creating three-party politics in the UK, they seem to have succeeded admirably - the problem is, they're not one of the three.

  Yes, the spectre of UKIP would appear to have manifested itself in all its betentacled glory. The latest poll, which happens to be the ComRes/Independent on Sunday, puts voting intention for UKIP at 19% - more than twice the Lib Dems' 8%. UK Polling Report, a website which publishes - among other things - a weighted rolling average of the most recent polls, puts the figures closer (UKIP 13%:11% Lib Dem) but even this is a worry for a party savouring its first taste of power in eighty years. If the Lib Dems don't want to end up cast back into the political wilderness, they need to show that they are a stronger party than the upstart UKIP. If an organisation which started out as little more than a single-issue pressure group should manage to overtake the inheritors of a political tradition which stretches back to before the reign of Queen Victoria, it would spell the end of any Lib Dem hopes of further experience of government for the foreseeable future.

  Most likely the UKIP threat will fade somewhat after the European elections this year, and the Liberal Democrats will find themselves back in third place, if only barely. But even that is just not good enough. If Clegg and his party want to be taken seriously as an alternative to the Labour and Conservative Parties, they will have to do much, much better. At the last general election, the party took 23% of the vote. The chances of them matching that feat this time around seem slim to say the least, and - due to the admittedly unfair first-past-the-post electoral system - they will have to increase that by at least another 10% to pose a serious challenge to the entrenched parties. On their current course, this is simply not going to happen.

  The reasons for the Lib Dems' paltry performance in the polls are many. The betrayal over the tuition fees issue early on in the Parliament is still a wound fresh and raw in the minds of many students, traditionally one of the party's core target demographics. The number of students voting Liberal Democrat in 2015 is likely to be small. Then there is the simple 'guilty by association' effect of being in government with the Tories. With every right-wing policy Cameron or Osborne announces, the Liberal Democrat brand becomes further and further toxified. Meanwhile, those government policies that are the Lib Dems' own - raising the tax threshold, the recent announcement of support for a higher minimum wage, etc. - and would likely prove popular with voters are effortlessly hijacked by the Tories. It seems the poor boys in yellow can do nothing right.

  Put simply, Nick Clegg's strategy of 'aggressive differentiation' is failing. The long years of coalition have alienated many of the Lib Dems' traditional supporters, whilst those who would otherwise have used the party as a protest vote against the government are now forced by their participation to defect to UKIP, or even the Greens. Sad though it may be to see it happen, the Liberal Democrat party seems fated to crash and burn in 2015.

  And with scarcely a hair's breadth of difference on most policy areas between Labour and the Conservatives, that cannot be good for British democracy