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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Can the Lib Dems avoid addressing the 2015 Mandate question?
Prior to the last general election, Nick Clegg stated that in the event of a hung parliament, “the party which has got the strongest mandate from the British people will have the first right to seek to govern … the votes of the British people are what should determine what happens afterwards. Whichever party have the strongest mandate from the British people … have the first right to seek to try and go…
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As you point out the election maths mean that it is highly unlikely that LAB will be both the seat winner and votes winner and not have a majority.
If GE2015 looks close on votes Clegg, or whoever, will be pressed repeatedly and no doubt he'll give the same answer as at GE2010.
One get-out Clegg has here is that they have to actually form a stable government. That gives him a lot of ways to plausibly blame things on extremists in the other parties. For example, Cameron seems to have promised a referendum premised on a treaty that doesn't exist. He can reasonably ask whether Tory backbenchers will continue to support the new coalition during the third or fourth year of its non-existence. In any case it shouldn't be hard to find Tory backbenchers ready to go on record with the fact that they couldn't be relied on to vote for [liberal thing].
Far fetched? Maybe. Will shall see better after May 2nd and better still after the 2014 EU elections.
The chances of a Milliband headed government were weakened this week by the supposed confrontation between Ed and the Unite union, and the supposedly good meeting between him and Galloway.
"But Mr Galloway said this was "a lie" and called the Labour leader "an unprincipled coward with the backbone of an amoeba".
Oh dear! Little Ed in trouble again.
tim,
From your quote on the last thread... "He said their pupils could pose a health threat to the rest of the population similar to that from groups such as gipsies and travellers, who have previously spread the infectious disease."
Pleased to see that you don't consider such comments as being bigoted.
The last electoral hung parliament before 2010 was 1974.
UKIP are indeed a new factor but the finely balanced electoral math that requires a hung parliament still requires seats which under FPTP means UKIP need to start winning by-elections. A reasonable voteshare isn't enough by itself to guarantee seats under FPTP.
It won't be like 2010, because the LDs will have been in government for five years. Everything they say and do will be scrutinised more closely and they will not be able to hold the equidistant line without running the serious risk of driving potential support away. The electoral maths for them is that they are defending more seats against the Tories than they are against Labour. This means that they are going to be heavily dependent on anti-Tory votes. The election messaging will have to reflect that; post-election manoeuvring will have to as well.
In any case, the Tories have made clear they are wedded to FPTP. The party with the most seats is what counts under that system. They can have no complaints if the LDs hold them to that.
And, finally, if Labour does win seats in 2015, that will mean at least a few Cameronite first termers will have lost. This will, in turn, affect the balance of the parliamentary party in favour of the unreconstructed right. It will not want a coalition with the LDs and will no doubt label the losses a judgement on the coalition.
Meanwhile, it's been another wonderful week for Eck:
"The Icas report calls on the Scottish Government to outlines its plans for Scotland’s pension future ahead of the outcome of the referendum.
This is a bigger issue than currency. To the man and woman on the street, there are few issues more important than how they will fund their retirement.
The clock is ticking on pensions.
• David Wood is ICAS executive director, technical policy"
http://www.scotsman.com/news/comment-impact-of-independence-vote-on-pensions-1-2910354
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10021046/Vote-for-Farage-Are-you-completely-bonkers.html
He's not the problem - independence is:
"WOMEN are more opposed to independence than men not because they dislike Alex Salmond but because they are far more sceptical about the detail of Scotland going it alone."
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/salmond-off-the-hook-over-women-not-saying-yes.20922947
So the "we'll put in Sturgeon to fix the wimmin's issue" ain't gonna work.....
Can the UK guarantee they can fund pensions without Scottish revenue? as they cannot even do it WITH IT! And if so, how?
Do the Slovaks celebrate "Independence" from the Czechs?
"Dismissing the language of "scroungers and skivers" used by some on the right"
That would be Liam Byrne then....
So big corporates, who generally pay above the LW anyway get tax breaks and SMEs who have more of a problem will be faced with funding the tax shortfall. Genius.
Miliband'll have the same problem he did when in charge of DECC. He'll have an idea to do the right thing, then some luvvie will come along, make a threat and he will back down.
His time at the DECC really shows how poor he would be as PM - it was an absolute disaster. Signing off the closure of many GBs of generative capacity without making the hard decision to build replacement capacity.
Considering Labour still backs the right for people to live a millionaire's lifestyle on housing benefit i.e. spending up to £2k/wk on rent, do you seriously think that any reform would actually save money? My guess is that if this line of thinking does lead to policy, it will be of Affordability Grants everywhere, *and* state-funded house-building, which will increase the spending burden.
Still, it is interesting watching Labour privatise the provision of social security benefits to employers.
On the face of it, Mr. Herdson, that's a tricky question. In reality, less so. The Lib Dems would far rather back Labour, and they might get a second crack at buggering up the electoral system to suit themselves (deeply unlikely with the Conservatives). They'd probably claim the seat difference "shows why it's so important to 'reform' the electoral system" or somesuch nonsense.
Coalitions are crap. Politicians rather than the public determine the government and manifesto pledges can (and are) dropped with impunity. Accountability is degraded to a significant degree.
"He did not go into details"
"However, pinning Byrne down on more immediate welfare arguments is like grasping at a wet bar of soap"
“We have just not seen enough evidence,” stonewalled Byrne"
“We are not quite at that stage yet but it’s an idea we are looking hard at.”
“We’re not going to play politics, we would rather get some independent advice,” he sidestepped smoothly."
Government in this country is determined by a majority in the HoC. Full stop, period, end of discussion.
We have the current Coalition because it was the only combination that delivered that. If Lab+Lib Dem delivers that after the next election that is what we will have then, regardless of little details like who got the most votes.
Can I just make a quick mention of Sarah Outen, who has just set off from Japan on her row across the Pacific. It is part of her London to London via the World human-powered trip.
Starting in 2011, she cycled and kayaked across Europe and Asia to Japan. Sadly her first attempt to row across the Pacific ended rather spectacularly in May last year, when she had to be rescued in a storm.
She was the first woman to row across the Indian Ocean, and is a great lass who deserves some support.
http://www.sarahouten.com/
But that won't stop them, not even make them pause. These are politicians. It's what they do.
I was all day yesterday in our one division that has both BNP and UKIP candidates. The BNP weren't troubling the scorers, and several UKIP voters were using them for contrast, what we used to call triangulation - "I'm not voting for those racist thugs in the BNP, but I do worry about immigration, so..."
If we resist it by increasing the nominal rate of pay for the low paid we will have higher unemployment and then higher inflation until they start falling in value again. It won't take long. The idea that you can somehow abolish the laws of economics by statutory increases in nominal wages is so childishly simplistic that only the party that thought boom and bust had been abolished could take it seriously.
So an increase in the minimum wage to the so called "living wage" will accelerate inflation and unemployment. It will only save benefits if we are willing to have those benefits and the standard of living of the lower paid fall in real terms. It will scoop up more of those currently being paid slightly more than the minimum wage. This is likely to increase benefit entitlement in the long run.
This is no more a solution to too high government spending than printing billions of extra pounds.
What evidence is there that Miliband is remotely interested in lower benefits - if he is, his opposition to every "cut" is possibly a somewhat counterintuitive way of going about communicating it.
All parties have failed on house building.
Only one did so and preside over an uncontrolled immigration boom.
Have just been looking at national swing since April 2009 using ICM.This gives the following figures,CON to LAB 9%,CON TO LD 2.5%,LD TO LAB 6.5%.Likley UKIP swing CON to UKIP around 10%.
Applying these figures to last contests in 2009 gives the following seat cahnges(Thrasher and Rawlings figures in brackets)
CON -314(-310),LAB+218(+350),LD -3(-130),UKIP +98(+40)
The LD figure arises because of the small swing versus the Cons whchgive ssome seat gains to offset losses to Labour -not that high because in many Counties thre are few LD/LAB marginals.
The UKIP figure is impressive.But looking at the 2009 results shows UKIP in many second places with vote shares of 20% +.Farage has detoxified the UKIP brand and Eastleigh gave electoral credibility.
Clearly the Tories enjoy an inbuilt advantage with the likely return of the member for Sussex Mid-Drift and Porky Pickles but we should surely encourage Nick Palmer to stuff his chops with vast amounts of Swiss chocolate and perhaps I might be encouraged to indulge Nick with a weekly dozen or so of my fine pies.
Tickets might be sold for the weigh in as MP's parade in their bathing suits before alighting the electronic scales - Watch for our very own Andrea in the front row as a speedo clad "Hunky Dinky Dunky" emerges on stage and the gasps from the masses as certain above mentioned members flash their thong covered members !!
A massive ratings winner surely beckons !!
http://www.stemcor.com/Response to further allegations of tax avoidance in the UK press.aspx
How do we incentivise them to spend the money that way? I think that is the key to this. Maybe a badge? The Americans did something similar in the 1930s when falling real wages was a major part of the problem. This is definitely worth a try but it will never be more than a small part of the solution.
Which are these employers that are going to offer minimum wage jobs that are going to help the government meet its guarantee? And why should they help the government?
The absolute number of people covered by the guarantee is not as important as the knock-on effects.
Much depends on the composition of Labour, if Andrea is correct, a higher proportion candidates appear to be union placemen, and how far Labour move away from being a Blair lite party. Would the LDs want to work with union puppets, ex SPADs and other clones with so little non public sector experience?
It may be a more protracted set of negotiations next time round, but there may still be a significant number of LIb Dems who will be happy not to work with Labour - much will depend on the numbers and composition of both Lib Dems and Labour parties for a range of options viz a coalition, a pact or a supply arrangement. On the other hand should UKIP establish a presence in Parliament in 2015, post election bets could be very interesting.
This Living Wage nonsense is little more than a Command Economy delusion. Wages cannot rise to sensible levels unless they are paid for by productivity and growth. Anything else is a sticking plaster to make a few luvvie metropolitans feel good about themselves. We are still in the territory where nationally we want rewards without doing the work. If we want to be richer we must work for it and stop inventing daft gimmicks, they always go horribly wrong in the long term in any case.
***** Betting Post *****
Why would Luis Suarez wish to continue playing football in England, least of all with under-performing, non-European qualifying Liverpool F.C.?
My guess is that he'll be off like a shot this summer and I'm grateful to those nice people at Stan James for their generous odds of 2/1 against him still being at Liverpool for the first game of the 2013-2014 season.
There is a major trade off here that we need as a country to have a discussion about. Is is better that these marginal employees are working at the cost of the taxpayer or that they are not working at the cost of the taxpayer? It is not a simple question.
In the long run supply side reforms remain the answer. We need a better trained, better educated, better managed, better resourced workforce that is more productive and can afford to pay itself more because it has greater output.
So government policy needs to focus on Gove's reforms, tax incentives to invest, infrastructure that can encourage such investment, skills training that is not useless bits of paper but actually makes a difference to what people produce in their employment and the building of export markets for the output that comes from this investment. All hard, difficult, long term stuff.
Or we can have a couple of cheap simplistic headlines that might help Labour get elected. What to do, what to do?
"They would only be bigoted if untrue, surely."
I agree, but facts often don't enter into these sort of "discussions". Do you remember the fuss about IQ tests? They are a poor indicator of intelligence and there are many confounding factors but there are measured IQ differences using some of the tests. They may well be faulty and it's the conclusion that is probably wrong, but claiming that it was racist to even publish the figures was nonsense.
You're far too sensible to fall for this but many on the left do. Posh people eat babies, unless they vote Labour - why is that not prejudiced (pre-judging people)? UKIP members are unsuitable to foster kids in Rotherham?
Targetting Muslims at airports is annoying for the great majority of the innocents but there is a logic to it. So is that really prejudice?
Telegraph, Times and the Sun all going after them hard today.
Bit late though and somewhat unlikely to turn things around in time for the local elections.
** Reality - Few Benefit Dependent Labour Voters walk 20 miles in one year.
I have also railed on here many times about the absurd way that the last government encouraged buy to let landlords to get very rich on tax payers money. The reforms to housing benefit are by no means the complete answer but they were an essential first step in reducing this escalator of ever higher rents being driven up at the cost to the public purse. Capping payments is a very crude way to do this, the reforms where the available HB was limited to the lower part of the band in the local market is more important but both were opposed by Labour.
The test of government policy at the moment will be whether the funding being provided to the housing market stimulates more building, not more buy to let investment. It is too early to say whether this will work but I do not dispute your proposition that in many parts of the country having more houses built is a priority. Our debt situation is such I do not think the state can afford to build them and they need to incentivise demand for the private sector to step in. This is what they are trying to do. It will be the election after next before we know if it worked or not.
On the story: I'm sure a few, a very few, candidates haven't been properly vetted; but thats only to be expected after the rapid growth in membership and followers for Ukip in the last 6 months.
My way says make work pay, Ed's way says make subsidy pay.
:-)
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