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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » David Herson: Elect in haste; repent at leisure
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » David Herson: Elect in haste; repent at leisure
Michael Howard did the Conservatives two great favours as leader: the manner of his arrival and the manner of his departure. After the hapless two years under Duncan Smith, he (and David Davis, by standing aside), created a much-needed sense of unity and with it, the first signs of the determination and hunger necessary to regain office.
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As Antifrank reminded us yesterday in another context; Eleanor Roosevelt said:
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
What are Labour discussing?
Until they decide what they are for (and 'not the Tories' has been tested to destruction), there is not much point in deciding who should lead them.....
If Miliband wasn't so sure of his 'intellectual self confidence' he'd have posed that question to the party, given them time to answer it, then resigned....
"What is Labour for?" Ed Miliband spent five years looking at a blank sheet of paper, not because there weren't ideas; they just weren't ideas that answered that question. There is no point in keeping Ed in place for another year or two when the electorate have told him he doesn't know what Labour is for. Next....
Labour will struggle whilst ever they don't have a leader who knows how to answer that question in 2020.
Next....
1) The defeat was much larger than expected, and blamed on Ed Miliband personally. In 2005, the Tories gained a few seats and Howard was given some credit for that, which allowed him to carry on a bit (although he announced that he would be going on that first day). I do not think Ed Miliband could have survived more than a few days - possibly not even a few hours - under the circumstances.
2) If Labour had a strong and respected deputy leader, somebody of ability, integrity and high profile who could look after things for a while as a caretaker, then your option might work. They have Harriet Harman. Enough said.
As a result, it really is necessary for Labour to have a new leader in place fairly quickly and trying to get to grips with the awful mess the party is in. Bear in mind they have the fewest seats for 28 years, the lowest vote for 32 years, the smallest representation in Scotland in 110 years, and hostile challenges from left and right eating into what remains of their vote. These are not things that can be tackled by a makeweight leader. Had they elected Cruddas or Johnson ten years ago, it might have been different, but they didn't and therefore the party needs a leader, however rapid and however inadequate the process.
A more sensible reform to enact now (as it certainly won't be re-enacted when the new leader is in place!) would be reforming the rules for triggering a confidence vote in said leader. That would at least allow them to get rid of a dud if necessary.
Finally though, let it not be forgotten that Ed Miliband probably did as well as any other candidate would have done in the circumstances (and rather better than Diane Abbott or Ed Balls would have done - at least he held his own seat). Labour's problems are not one of leadership and they will not be resolved by changing the leader. They will be solved only when people become convinced that they do understand (1) how the world works and (2) how ordinary people think and feel. The leader may have some bearing on that (anyone remember Ed Miliband's famous 'I get it' speech?) but the reality is 85% of the parliamentary leadership are completely clueless about the real world and utterly unaware of their ignorance (Lucy Powell, Yvette Cooper). As long as that persists, Labour faces an existential threat.
The memo, written by a British civil servant following a conversation with a senior French official, was rejected at the time by Miss Sturgeon as "100 per cent untrue".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon/11624267/Nicola-Sturgeon-memo-recorded-accurately-official-inquiry-finds.html
I wonder what percent it is untrue now? 90%? 75%? 33%?
The contest will take 3 months so there is some room for discussion, and for the triumph of Liz Kendall.
But tonight is Eurovision! Plenty of scope for dodgy voting there. Estonia looks good to me, but Fox jr is tipping Australia.
Looking at the three probables for the leadership election, New Labour is back with Burnham and Cooper, while Kendall takes it to the next stage - neo-Labour? There's no-one from the left of the party standing. Ed may have killed off the Labour left for a generation. Let's hope so.
@paulwaugh: Cooper seems to cast Burnham as 'doing what we’ve done before but shouting that little bit louder' + Kendall 'swallowing the Tory manifesto'
@DPJHodges: Yvette Cooper intervention today straight from Gordon Brown playbook. Wait. See where opponents position. Land directly between them.
I've never seen such empty, jargon-rich sixth-form debate stuff from any other Party leader. He talked like a text book with a very odd cadence, and never fleshed out what would deliver his half described grand concepts. It barely moved beyond terminology we were left to guess over. Predistribution?
After hearing the 5th or 6th one of these, it became clear that he simply didn't have the wherewithal to turn any of it into reality-based policies. It wasn't that there were a lack of ideas floating about - he just didn't like ones that involved developing actual Things-To-Do. Once it moved into How Will We Do It? territory he ran a mile and opted for bandwagons and Not The Tories.
I honestly don't think he had the practical chops to even grasp the issues - like one of those kids at school who get top marks and can't tie their shoelaces. But he wouldn't admit it.
However, the stat only goes so far. Hague made impressive gains at local government level, not only because Conservative candidates under his leadership were contesting seats last fought during the 1993-97 round, which ranged from appalling to cataclysmic for the Tories, but also in absolute terms: the range of councils gained (or, in the case of, say, Sheffield, lost by Labour - to the Lib Dems there!), might have been a pointer to a close general election. They were nothing of the sort. Similarly, Hague's 1999 Euroelection win pointed to little other than the narrow view that the public were inclined to Hague over Blair on the Euro but that was not an election-winning premise.
I've little doubt that the local election results under IDS represented no change from that pattern. Had he led the Tories into a 2005 election, the Con vote share would have melted back to the core because he quite simply wasn't PM material. Howard, on the other hand, was a credible prime minister, if not to everyone's tastes.
Put another way, the situation in 2003 for the Tories was in many ways similar to that for Labour in 2013 or so, except that Labour was far closer to power. The Tories knew that without change they'd be looking at a third Blair landslide, so acted; Labour misled themselves into believing that things were ok and in so doing, almost certainly allowing the Tories the chance of an overall majority. It's not that there weren't Howard-like candidates who could have been persuaded (Johnson, Darling etc), but they weren't called on because Labour were dazzled by the fools gold of the headline polls even when the subsidiary questions showed them for what they were.
Understanding why the Tories acted as they did in 2003 is no bad way of understanding the 2015 election.
I heard last year that the UK general public voted for the Polish milkmaids while the selected jury went with the Austrian transvestite. Not sure how true that was.
It'll be us probably.
Labour's had some weirdo leaders before so it's likely to recover. I know because I've voted for some of them.
Wilson - very political but OK
Callaghan - right man, wrong time.
Foot - mad as a hatter, but popular with the 'intellectuals'
Kinnock - I liked him. Yes, he talked a lot, but some of it was sense, and he did take on Militant which Foot would never have done.
Blair - Artificial and he lost my vote but he had a few redeeming features.
Brown - see Frank Field
Miliband - see Michael Foot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest_2015
Good piece, Mr. Herdson. The mentality of Labour appears to be that change is needed, but from the electorate rather than the party. If so, that's good for Burnham, though I'm surprised how well Kendall appears to be doing.
The more I think about it, the more this election looks like 1983. The Tories have got the next two GEs in the bag.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32856698
"The Bank of England has confirmed it is researching the financial risks of the UK leaving the EU after it "inadvertently" sent details of its work to a national newspaper.
A senior official sent an email about its confidential project on the issue to an editor at the Guardian newspaper."
Financial risks of leaving the EU, just happened to be sent to the Guardian. What a coincidence.
From memory, Labour were level with the Tories in the 45-55 age bracket, and had only a 3% lead in the 35-45 age bracket.
Labour's strength is in the under 35s, where the Tories will probably always struggle but accentuated by the fact they've struggled to find any real answer to the housing crisis (which they don't think is a crisis)
I agree Labour has a big problem with the older generation.
telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/matthewd_ancona/8025337/By-choosing-Ed-Miliband-Labour-have-handed-David-Cameron-the-next-election.html
Labour now is perhaps fortunate to have lost. As with any party in opposition, Labour has a natural resilience as people react against the government of the day. Had Miliband become PM, I could have seen him delivering sub-20% poll returns for Labour within 18 months.
Labour will always have a problem as it want instinctively to tax the wealth creators/or those with money more than is necessary... its like a disease they cannot shake off.
Until Labour can be the part of aspiration, and that's a big ask, its going to struggle.
Electing Ed Miliband was a ball and chain round Labour, Burnham will be another.
If Labour do get into power it will be because the the Tories have problems with the economy.
D'Ancona was correct, although it's worth mentioning lots of people consistently said Ed Miliband was not necessarily fantastic.
Mr. Royale, well, quite.
"What, did you fall over....?"
This is ouchtastic.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/23/amazon-to-begin-paying-corporation-tax-on-uk-retail-sales
Yet Miliband's biggest defect is not that he is too Left-wing – although he is – but that he is, definitively, a creature of his party. Unlike Blair and the brother whom he defeated, he shows no understanding of why people might vote Tory. Indeed, his brow furrows and his eyes roll when he confronts disagreement. The ancestral verities of his party are so manifest to him that he finds it bizarre that anyone might think otherwise. He evangelises, but with no understanding of the non-believer. He is a preacher, not a persuader: this is an important distinction, and one that may prove politically decisive in the next few years.
People forget how Thatcher was loathed by sections of her party - fully reciprocated - because she wanted to drag them out of their comfort zone of consensus driven Butskellism and 'managed decline'. I remember my instant reaction when she was finally ousted 'so the bustards have done for her at last'......
This paragraph had me nodding along with complete agreement, in light of my earlier comment about his speeches.
A big gender gap now seems to exist among voters under 45. Tim was partly right, although the corollary of Conservative unpopularity with younger women is Labour's unpopularity with younger men.
Labour still has a huge lead among ethnic minority voters, but the Conservatives' vote share leapt by 7%. My guess if you broke it down further , you'd find a bigger increase in the Conservative vote share among Hindus, Sikhs, and Chinese.
However the figures for previous elections 2010 (L8.6M,C10,7M), 2005 (L9.5M,C8,8M), 2001 (L10.7M,C8.3M) do suggest the party is hardly in a catastrophic decline.
Quite frankly Labours vote has not changed much in 10 years. The main change has been the Tories getting their act together.
That is the difficulty and the opportunity for Labour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05vjft9/rory-bremners-election-report
A DUP-UKIP-Con minority next time round might be better long term for them too than a Lab Minority Gov't.
The pathetic whinging coming from down south at present due to SNP being popular is hard to believe. Supposedly intelligent people just mouthing inanities.
Ed Miliband’s party held on to 72% of those who said they voted Labour in 2010. The party lost votes in relatively equal numbers to the Conservatives (8%), Ukip (6%), the Lib Dems, SNP and the Greens (all 5%).
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/22/election-2015-who-voted-for-whom-labour-conservatives-turnout
It's as bad ASBOs punishing people for legal behaviour, or the reported desire of May to have the government approve programming prior to broadcast (I agree the BBC can sometimes be irritating and Mark Easton should become a criminal offence, but to have the government giving a thumbs up or down to current events broadcasting [or anything else] is monstrous).
What we're seeing a lot, both here and in the EU, is horrendously badly drawn laws wide open to abuse by incompetent or vindictive governments, with a vast yawning chasm between intentions and outcomes (RIPA here and the EU VAT nonsense both spring to mind).
Edited extra bit: drawn = drafted. Obviously. Ahem.
"A memo stating that Nicola Sturgeon told the French Ambassador that she would "rather see" David Cameron win the election was "recorded accurately" and not politically motivated, an official inquiry has found....
The memo, written by a British civil servant following a conversation with a senior French official, was rejected at the time by Miss Sturgeon as "100 per cent untrue".
Are we seriously supposed to give the slightest credence to anything the churnalists at the Telegraph write about this issue?
What you quote above is no more than Carmichael's SPAD being given the benefit of the doubt that he did not deliberately falsify the supposed comments between Sturgeon and the French Ambassador.
Even Carmichael has accepted that the report in the memo was "untrue"
Enjoy it while you can , keep filling those pockets.
The task for the next leader is five-fold, based on this election.
1) actually develop some actual policies, not motherhood and apple pie stuff about the NHS.
2) tell voters how these policies will lead to the sunlit uplands.
3) develop a coherent defence of the last Labour government so Labour is not blamed for the global financial crisis.
4) build a system like Jim Messina's for analysing the electorate.
Eurosceptics, conservative Christians, hunt supporters etc. Could all be deemed "extremists" under a future Labour government.
Mr. L, the term itself is a problem. Nobody normal would use the term, and it doesn't have an immediately implicit meaning. Tax cuts are obvious. More spending is obvious. Predistribution is bad vocabulary (if I'm writing very casual fantasy and refer to quillons without explanation, my readers won't know what I mean. For those wondering, they're the crossguard on a sword, and were often sharpened so you could punch them through a helmet at close range or do a murder stroke).
Boris and Julius Caesar offer good advice here. Boris referred to using simple Anglo-Saxon terms, and Caesar was praised by Cicero for using words which the vast majority knew but didn't always use (making the language readily understandable but also having the merit of novelty).
Then there was the tone problem. The Freeman PPB all but said "I vote Labour because I'm nice. If you're a bastard, you can vote Conservative. Are you nice?" It'll only have proved a welcome message to people already voting Labour.
That's continued post-election, where we had the great unwashed protesting against, er, a democratic election and defacing a war memorial.
Labour need a lot more than a new leader, they need a purpose and a direction. It was the lack of these that made Ed such a failure. They need to work out what they want and then work out credible policies to achieve this. That is hard work and almost none of it was done in the last Parliament.
Example. Labour want a more egalitarian society with more progressive taxation and higher public spending. This requires real decisions. At the last election they were promising a range of goodies funded by some mickey mouse taxes such as the mansion tax and the increase in the rate over £150K to 50p. No one really believed that this could generate the money they wanted to spend so their credibility was shot.
In contrast one of the more successful Lib Dem campaigns ever was the penny on income tax to save the NHS. Everyone could see that this would raise enough money to make a difference. The reality is that if you want higher spending on the NHS and welfare it has to be paid for. That means the majority paying more tax, not just some semi-mythical handful of bankers.
That means the case has to be made for that. It needs to be explained why the £8bn promised by this government is not going to be enough. The realities of an aging population surviving into expensive frailty need to be spelt out. An argument needs to be made and won before the election starts. This requires real leadership, something Labour never had with Ed. It takes time and real effort making the case consistently. No more blank sheets of paper, more a comprehensive plan for government. Labour really should be getting on with it.
He was shown saying it on the telly, but why not read the letter Carmichael wrote to Sturgeon. It is very brief so it should not strain you too much :-)
It includes the sentence:
"I accept that its publication was a serious breach of protocol and that the details of the account are not correct"
starter for 10. Perhaps if you read his apology letter even you will be able to understand the truth.
" I don't think Scots are stupid, so the only rational explanation I can come up with is that they hold the Westminster parties in total contempt."
I wonder if you might consider it just possible that they hold the Westminster parties in contempt because however dreadful the SNP may be it is as nothing to the failures of their opponents?
https://archive.is/b6ILv
So unless the Tories stop keeping their act together, what steps do Labour need to take next time in order to get more votes than they got even in 2001? I think that is more a difficulty than an opportunity.
So said someone who knew how to make a speech (and so said he using 13 one-syllable words).
Should I develop paranoia here? All help much appreciated.
And is there a GE being shown on BBC Parliament this BH? I told a friend that he could watch old GE coverage if the weather was bad on Monday and he assumed I was kidding.
"so Labour is not blamed for the global financial crisis."
Not this again. Labour are blamed for leaving us vulnerable to a global financial crisis by spending tax money from the financial sector which proved to be temporary, and committing it to future spending too. Gordon did NOT abolish boom and bust - he just thought he had and spent accordingly.
Guilty as charged.
The Cabinet Secretary has concluded that there is no reason to doubt that he recorded accurately what he thought he had heard. There is no evidence of any political motivation or ‘dirty tricks’.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/scotland-office-memorandum-leak-cabinet-office-inquiry-statement
Carmichael was wrong to authorise the leak, but what Nicola did or did not say to the French ambassador has not been established beyond all reasonable doubt.....but hey, whats one more lie among so many?
It was the dullest election night I can remember.
Edited extra bit: just over 20 minutes until P3 begins.
Boris does sometimes go too far the other way. In his book about Churchill, for instance:
As we have seen, [Churchill] chooses one, and leaps off just before it is about to die; leaps on a Liberal horse; and when that, too, is obviously about to cark it (or possibly dead on its feet), he leaps back on a new Tory steed.
Cark it?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11618890/The-Northern-Powerhouse-should-be-about-more-than-fancy-buildings-in-big-Northern-cities.html
The fundamental misconception of the so called 'Northern Powerhouse' - and its a good lesson in life to beware of anything or anyone with a self-important title - is that northern England needs to become more like London.
Something which would be great for northern fatcats of both public and private sectors but would be economically detrimental to most northern people and politically disasterous for the Conservatives.
Its worth noting that despite ten years of obsessing about northern cities and the supposed boost they expected to get be announcing HS2 the Conservatives are now further from winning Birmingham Edgbaston, Sheffield Hallam, Leeds NE, Leeds NW and Bradford W than they were in 2005. Whilst despite the collapse in the LibDems the Conservatives still have no councillors in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield.
Irish voters appear to have voted heavily in favor of allowing same-sex marriage in a referendum, the country's equality minister said on Saturday shortly after counting began.
"I think it's won. I've seen bellwether boxes open, middle-of-the road areas who wouldn't necessarily be liberal and they are resoundingly voting yes," Equality Minister Aodhan O'Riordain told Reuters at the main count center in Dublin.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/23/us-ireland-gaymarriage-idUSKBN0O717R20150523
When I read your continuing nonsense on the Carmichael/Sturgeon issue, I take continuing pleasure in the intellectual and political poverty of the SNPs opponents.
When you are reduced to trying to contradict the views of Carnmicheal himself you have slipped the bonds of sanity altogether :-)
His view is that Labour's comfort zone is as an opposition party (my summary) and I think he's right. Their contribution ... Tories eat babies and we don't.
"Broadchalke is one of the most pleasing villages in England. Old Herbert Bundy was a farmer there. His home was at Yew Tree Farm. It went back for 300 years. His family had been there for generations. It was his only asset. But he did a very foolish thing. He mortgaged it to the bank. Up to the very hilt. Not to borrow money for himself, but for the sake of his son. Now the bank have come down on him. They have foreclosed. They want to get him out of Yew Tree Farm and to sell it. They have brought this action against him for possession. Going out means ruin for him. He was granted legal aid. His lawyers put in a defence. They said that, when he executed the charge to the bank he did not know what he was doing: or at any rate not the circumstances were such that he ought not to be bound by it. At the trial his plight was plain. The Judge was sorry for him. He said he was a "poor old gentleman". He was so obviously incapacitated that the Judge admitted his proof in evidence. He had a heart attack in the witness-box. Yet the Judge felt he could do nothing for him. There is nothing, he said, "which takes this out of the vast range of commercial transactions". He ordered Herbert Bundy to give up possession of Yew Tree Farm to the bank."
One fact, one sentence. Short, sharp, clear words. Just brilliant.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1974/8.html
And on the other he is a beacon of honesty, probity and veracity?
Who has 'slipped the bonds of sanity altogether'?
The Western media seemed to studiously ignore Kerry's visit to Sochi last week. Hopefully Obama is going with his instincts now and ignoring the neocon crazies/liberal interventionists who led him down blind alleys in Libya(Clinton), Syria and the Ukraine(Nuland).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11617964/Banks-fined-3.5bn-for-rigging-foreign-exchange-markets.html
These big fines might sound impressive but ultimately the cost is paid either by customers or shareholders.
In effect these bank fines are nothing more than a way of transferring yet money from the average person to the government. The average person who has already lost out because of the rigging in the first place.
Until people, in particular until the fatcats start going to jail then these activities will continue.
A few clichés spring readily to mind;
In a hole, stop digging.
Quit when you are behind
There are none so blind....
Would you like a few links to these?
Oh, and let me address your logical bypass:
Why would Carmichael replace his proven lies which showed him in a good light, with what you claim may be further lies that show him in a dreadful light??
Didn't the clichés help, even just a little??