"A terrible beauty has been born" - by Richard... Monday, May 10, 2010

"A terrible beauty has been born" - by Richard... Monday, May 10, 2010

While we were getting worked up about the general election, US vice president Joe Biden was in Brussels, talking to the EU Parliament – make sure you have the sick bag when you listen. But, more to the point, be afraid ... be very afraid.

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Cleggerons vs the Europhons - by Richard... Sunday, May 09, 2010

As far as scrutiny by the British media goes, the "colleagues" couldn't have chosen a better weekend to pull a fast one. While the media luvvies (and most of the political blogs – including this one) are obsessed with the attack of the Cleggerons, they are attempting to set up a stabilisation mechanism to ward off an attack of the Europhons, who are exploiting the Greek crisis.

However, Bruno Waterfield is on the case, telling us of the extremely dubious legality of the "mad weekend scramble" to make a deadline of when markets open on Monday.

What is totally unsurprising is that the "colleagues" should try to pull such a stunt. We've been saying consistently that they will do whatever it takes to protect their single currency, and this is just another example of their determination. But it is rather amusing that, on what is supposed to be Europe Day, they are having to shore up their construct, running rough-shod through their own treaty structures.

However, while there are few details on the precise mechanism, Sarkozy is saying that the EU response would "include all the institutions of Europe." He says the euro is facing "its most serious crisis since its creation" – which rather puts the Cleggerons in their place. But then, if this is right, Sarkozy has an unpleasant surprise coming.

Certainly, the Swedish finance minister, Anders Borg, is in no doubt about what they are up against ... "herd behaviours in the markets," he says, "that are really pack behaviours, wolf pack behaviours." The volatility in markets, he warns, could "tear the weaker countries apart."

Thus, something seems to have been agreed although, from this report, you'd be hard put to work out exactly what had been done, other than it only amounts to the creation of a fund worth tens of billions - when hundreds of billions are probably needed.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard also has problems working out what has happened but, he says, if the early reports are near true, the accord profoundly alters the character of the European Union. He adds:

The walls of fiscal and economic sovereignty are being breached. The creation of an EU rescue mechanism with powers to issue bonds with Europe's AAA rating to help eurozone states in trouble - apparently €60bn, with a separate facility that may be able to lever up to €600bn - is to go far beyond the Lisbon Treaty.

This new agency is an EU Treasury in all but name, managing an EU fiscal union where liabilities become shared. A European state is being created before our eyes.

No EMU country will be allowed to default, whatever the moral hazard. Mrs Merkel seems to have bowed to extreme pressure as contagion spread to Portugal, Ireland, and -- the two clinchers -- Spain and Italy. "We have a serious situation, not just in one country but in several," she said.

The euro's founding fathers have for now won their strategic bet that monetary union would one day force EU states to create the machinery needed to make it work, or put another way that Germany would go along rather than squander its half-century investment in Europe's power-war order.

As this crisis intensifies, the UK elections could by mid-week be looking like small beer. But now is not the time to be in the middle of tedious and protracted power-sharing negotiations, with the Lib-Dims holding out for changes in the voting system. Already, the Cleggerons are looking irrelevant, as Brown and his ministers deal with the real crisis.

The way this is going, it could work in Brown's favour - we could see him still in Downing Street by the end of the month, setting out the terms for a GNU ... and we're not talking about a song or an animal.

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All Hail the Cleggerons! - by Richard...

As the political pundits desperately try to work out the unknowable, what most certainly has not been factored into this ongoing drama is the inadequacy of the main players.

Far from having all the facts at their fingertips during the election campaign, with a complete and accurate grasp of the situation, it seems the Tories didn't have the first idea of what was going on. Right up to the last minute on the Friday, they believed The Boy was going to be sauntering into Downing Street by midday. Some of the chaps had even been resting up through the latter stages of the campaign, in order to be ready to take hold of the reins, to guide the ship of state and all that crap.

This and much more is brought home in a piece in the Mail on Sunday, rather confirming that the Tory high command are so far up their own backsides (or each others') that the only way they can see daylight is through the gaps in their teeth.

Once again, of course, we are seeing "bubblevision", where being at the centre of things, far from conferring perfect vision and insight, creates a peculiar kind of political blindness. The self-indulgence of our political classes, however, is rebounding on us, as the supposedly outgoing chancellor is still running the show, over rescue attempts for the euro.

Instead of being at the helm, little Georgie Osborne is relegated to the team negotiating with the Lib-Dims. The unreality is contagious though. One sees this as an attempt by aliens disguised as human beings (pictured) to set up The World Federation of the Cleggerons. Soon enough, we expect them to be standing on the steps of 10 Downing Street proclaiming: "All Hail the Cleggerons! We are the Hairs of Blair! Kneel before us, the mighty ones - someday we will rule the Galaxy."

There again, perhaps we have been watching too much Sky TV.

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A gamble that failed - by Richard...

By my reckoning, the count is 23 – the number of seats in which the Tories came second and the UKIP vote was greater than winning majority. BNP managed this 13 times and, when the combined votes are taken into account, the UKIP/BNP vote was greater than the winning majority in 41 seats.

In theory, at least, this means that these two parties, separately or in combination, deprived David Cameron's Conservatives of their winning majority. Potentially, the Conservative score could have been 347 instead of 306 – a comfortable majority of 22 over the baseline 325.

That said, it cannot be assumed that everyone who voted for the two minority parties would have voted Conservative had there been – as Booker puts it in his column today (link to follow) - a more robustly Conservative alternative, along the lines of the Thatcher offer in 1979, or had a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty been on offer.

However, in some seats the margin between victory and defeat was so narrow that what I call the "UKIP effect" can be more or less assured. For instance, in Bolton West, the Labour majority was 92 and the UKIP vote was 1,901. Dorset Mid & Poole North, the majority was 269 and the UKIP vote 2,109. In Hampstead & Kilburn, the majority was 42. UKIP scored 408 and BNP 328 votes.

Quite what the extent of the effect might have been though, will remain controversial, and it is a question the media and the politicians are reluctant to answer. But one thing is for sure – against one of the most unpopular governments in living memory, Cameron has managed to drag defeat from the jaws of victory.

To future generations, Booker writes, it may seem that the most remarkable feature of the 2010 election was that, after 13 years of one of the most disastrous governments in history, as Britain faces its worst economic crisis for decades, the Tory party failed to win a clear victory. He adds:

From the moment Mr Cameron emerged from nowhere as leader in 2005, his defining characteristic was his ruthless drive to create a new "Not the Conservative Party", in his own image. On issue after issue, from his infatuation with "greenery" and global warming to his insistence that his followers should not “bang on about Europe”, he sought to ditch traditional Conservative values and to pursue the Lib Dem, Guardianista "centre" vote. As for his party's more traditional core supporters, he did not so much take them for granted as treat them with contempt.

Such was the deliberate gamble of Mr Cameron's leadership, and the verdict of last week's election was that the gamble has not come off. For five years, it has been evident to anyone in touch with grassroots opinion that a broad swath of natural Tory supporters – including many readers of this column – have watched the antics of Mr Cameron and his little clique of close allies with bewilderment, frustration and dismay. Rarely can any Tory leader have aroused in many of his potential voters so little positive enthusiasm, even if many did last week reluctantly support his party.

Booker is then one of the few journalists who takes the "UKIP effect" seriously. Although support for its individual candidates may have looked derisory – with the media and others quick to put down the small parties – UKIP actually polled some 917,832 votes, making it easily the fourth largest party. And, if it has deprived Cameron of 20-plus seats, it has rewritten political history.

The decision to abandon his core vote and go for the woolly centre, sucking up to the Lib-Dims in the hope that they would gravitate to the Tories, has not paid off.

Even though little Nick Clegg has lost some seats, his party's share of the vote increased by one percent over 2005, delivering him 6,827,938 votes. Taking the near million UKIP votes and the 563,743 polled by BNP, Cameron gambled on ditching 1.5 million to gain a share of the near 7-million Lib-Dim votes. The gamble failed, leaving him with a party virtually indistinguishable from that of the other main parties, and his tenancy of No 10 Downing Street still in doubt.

With the only certainty now that there will be another general election in short order, Cameron needs to walk away from the wreckage of his current strategy or he may yet experience an even bigger failure as the "UKIP effect" takes its toll once again.

On the other hand, last time in 2005, I wrote that it could, "conceivably, deny the Conservatives power at the next election," then adding: "Dispute this if you will. Debate it by all means, but it does not seem to me safe to ignore it." Well, they did ignore it and they are quite capable of doing so again. They really are that stupid.

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UKIP effect 2010 - the full list (revised) - by Richard... Saturday, May 08, 2010

This is the full list of seats where the Conservative failure to gain a victory could be considered attributable to the "UKIP effect". This we take to be seats where either the UKIP vote, or the UKIP/BNP vote combined, exceeds the majority of the Labour or Lib-Dim winner. The list starts here - 41 seats [UKIP 23]:

1. Birmingham Edgbaston: Lab 16,894, Con 15,620 – majority 1,274. UKIP 732 and BNP 1,196 (total 1,928).

2. Birmingham Northfield: Lab 16,841, Con 14,059 – majority 2,782. UKIP 1,363 and BNP 2,290 (total 3,653).

3. Blackpool South: Lab 14,448, Con 12,597 - majority 1,851. UKIP 1,352 and BNP 1,482 (total 2834).

4. Bolton West: Lab 18,327, Con 18,235 – majority 92. UKIP 1,901.[*1]

5. Dagenham & Rainham: Lab 17,813, Con 15,183 - majority 2,630. UKIP 1,569 and BNP 4,952 (total 6521).

6. Derby North: Lab 14,896, Con 14,283 – majority 613. UKIP 829 and BNP 2,000 (total 2,829).[*2]

7. Derbyshire North East: Lab 17,948, Con 15,503 – majority 2,445. UKIP 2,636.[*3]

8. Don Valley: Lab 16,472, Con 12,877 - majority 3,595. UKIP 1,904 and BNP 2,112 (total 4,016).

9. Dorset Mid & Poole North: Lib-Dims 21,100, Con 20,831 - majority 269. UKIP 2,109.[*4]

10. Dudley North: Lab 14,923, Con 14,274 – majority 649. UKIP 3,267 and BNP 1,899 (total 5,166).[*5]

11. Eltham: Lab 17,416, Con 15,753 - majority 1,663. UKIP 1,011 and BNP 1,745 (total 2,756).

12. Gedling: Lab 19821, Con 17,962 – majority 1,859. UKIP 1,459 and BNP 1,598 (total 3,057).

13. Great Grimsby: Lab 10,777, Con 10, 063 – majority 714. UKIP 2,043 and BNP 1,517 (total 3,560).[*6]

14. Halifax: Lab 16,278, Con 14,806 – majority 1,472. BNP 2,760 and UKIP 654 (total 3,414).

15. Hampstead & Kilburn: Lab 17,332, Con 17, 290 – majority 42. UKIP 408 and BNP 328 (total 736).[*7]

16. Hull North: Lab 13,044, Con 12,403 – majority 641. UKIP 1,358 and BNP 1,443 (total 2,801).[*8]

17. Hyndburn: Lab 17,531, Con 14,441 – majority 3,090. UKIP 1,481 and BNP 2,137 (3,618).

18. Middlesborough South & Cleveland East: Lab 18,138, Con 16,461 – majority 1,677. UKIP 1,881 and BNP 1,576 (total 3,457).[*9]

19. Morley and Outwood: Lab 18,365, Con 17,264 – majority 1,101. UKIP 1,506 and BNP 3,535 (total 5,041).[*10]

20. Newcastle-under-Lyme: Lab 16,393, Con 14,841 – majority 1,551. UKIP 3,491.[*11]

21. Norwich South: Lib-Dim (gain) 13,960, Con 13,650 – majority 310. UKIP 1,145 and BNP 697 (total 1,842).[*12]

22. Nottingham South: Lab 15,209, Con 13,437 - majority 1,772. BNP 1,140 and UKIP 967 (total 2,107).

23. Penistone & Stocksbridge: Lab: 17,565, Con 14,516 – majority 3,049. UKIP 1,936 and BNP 2,207 (total 4,143).

24. Plymouth Moor View: Lab 15,433, Con 13,845 - majority 1,588. UKIP 3,188 and BNP 1,438 (total 4,626).[*13]

25. Rother Valley: Lab 19,147, Con 13,281 - majority 5,866. UKIP 2,613 and BNP 3,606 (total 6,219).

26. St Austell & Newquay: Lib-Dim 20,189, Con 18,877 - majority 1,312. UKIP 1,757 and BNP 1,022 (total 2,779).[*14]

27. St Ives: Lib-Dims 19,619, Con 17,900 - majority 1,719. UKIP 2,560.[*15]

28. Scunthorpe: Lab 14,640, Con 12,091 – majority 2,549. UKIP 1,686 and BNP 1,447 (total 3,183).

29. Solihull: Lib-Dim 23,635, Con 23,460 – majority 175. UKIP 1,200 and BNP 1624 (total 2,824).[*16]

30. Somerton & Frome: Lib-Dims 28,793, Con 26,976 - majority 1,817. UKIP 1,932 and Leave-the-EU Alliance 236 (total 2,168).[*17]

31. Southampton Itchen: Lab 16,326, Con 16,134 - majority 192. UKIP 1,928.[*18]

32. Stalybridge & Hyde: Lab 16,189, Com 13,445 - majority 2,744. UKIP 1,342 and BNP 2,259 (total 3,601).

33. Stoke-on-Trent South: Lab 14,446, Con 11,316 - majority 4,130. UKIP 1,363 and BNP 3,762 (total 5,125).

34. Sutton & Cheam: Lib-Dims 22,156, Con 20,548 – majority 1,608. BNP 1,014 and UKIP 950 (total 1,964).

35. Telford: Lab 15,977, Con 14,996 – majority 981. UKIP 2,428 and BNP 1,513 (total 3,941).[*19]

36. Wakefield: Lab 17,454, Con 15,841 - majority 1,613. BNP 2,581.

37. Walsall North: Lab 13,385, Con 12,395 – majority 990. BNP 2,930 and UKIP 1,737 (4,667).[*20]

38. Walsall South: Lab 16,211, Con 14,456 – majority 1,755. UKIP 3,449.[*21]

39. Wells: Lib-Dims 24,560, Con 23,760 - majority 800. UKIP 1,711 and BNP 1,004 (total 2,815).[*22]

40. Wirral South: Lab 16,276, Con 15,745 – majority 531. UKIP 1,274.[*23]

41. Wolverhampton North East: Lab 14,448, Con 11,964 – majority 2,484. UKIP 1,138 and BNP 2,296 (total 3,434).

Analysis will follow on a separate post. There is a list, incidentally, circulating by e-mail, claiming 25 UKIP scalps. However, that list is flawed, containing Lab/Lib-Dim contests, where the Tories came third. Those results would not have been affected by the UKIP vote.

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Cut off from understanding - by Richard...

"It was fitting that the BBC chose to give its election night party on a boat. No sooner had the fun started than the entire television system on board broke down for three quarters of an hour. So the flagship of the biggest broadcaster in the world, with captain Mark Thompson (and your columnist) on board, was floating helplessly, out of contact with the outside world.

Our predicament was a metaphor for the media's failures in reporting this election. We have abandoned serious study of what actually bothers people. We have become cut off from understanding the way voters feel about things outside London and the world of celebrity."

So writes Charles Moore today in his column. At least the man has sufficient intellect to understand what is happening to him, which is more than one can say for the majority of the media and the claque. Being "cut off" is as much an attitude of mind as it is a physical affliction.

It was indeed highly symbolic that the BBC chose this venue at extraordinary cost, and even more so that it then polluted its coverage with the inane, vapid opinions of its "celebs". But, in truth, the celebs made not much less sense than its professional commentariat, who are equally divorced from reality.

But no one is divorced more that Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, who says of the BBC effort: "This has been an extraordinarily exciting and important General Election campaign where audiences have relished BBC News output."

This is the way these arses think, trilling away about how "exciting" it all is, spending much more than an annual salary on a night's drinkies, producing sterile crap, to the sounds of mutual congratulation. This is why we are going to have to shoot them, and the sooner it is done the better.

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The UKIP effect - by Richard... Friday, May 07, 2010

A quick but inaccurate sounding suggest that the minority vote cost David Cameron his victory. What in 2005 I termed the "UKIP effect" cost the Tories an estimated 28 seats. And, neglected entirely by the media and the claque, it was very much in evidence in this election.

My early calculations indicate that over 20 seats could have gone to The Boy if he had courted the minority vote, which would have meant offering a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

An example of this is the Dudley North result. Labour gets 14,923 votes in a marginal that the Tories expected to get, putting them on 38.7 of the vote. Graeme Brown for the Conservatives gets 14,274, and Mike Beckett for the Lib-Dims gets 4,066.

But the "killer" is UKIP. Against a majority of 649, Malcolm Davis gets 3,267 votes - 8.5 percent of the vote, up 3.9 percent. Easily, the UKIP vote handed to the Conservatives, would have given them the seat. On the other hand, there is the BNP which polled 1,899 and the National Front on 173. Some of those might have gone to Labour, but others would have been Labour on their way to Tory.

With only two results yet to declare, the Tories are on 305, Labour – in contrast with the first exit poll – is "over-performing" with 258 and the Lib-Dims are on 57. Add the 20-plus seats attributable to the UKIP effect and The Boy could be in Downing Street right now.

And not one of the media pundits have even mentioned this. Nor will they – their brand of politics is a reality-free zone.

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The only certainty - by Richard...

"Any government formed in the next few days will not be able to command a stable or overall majority in the Commons. So the new Parliament is unlikely to last more than a year or so. A second general election is probable either later this year or in the spring of 2011," says The Times.

Forget the welter of low-grade and over-excited comment. That is probably the best that we can expect. The realities of power make it so.

In the meantime, I do not see Brown handing over the reins of power. If I had to put money on it, my scenario would be Cleggie and Boy Dave failing to come to terms, and Gordon planting his flag in the Commons, daring the boys and girls to bring down the government in the midst of a financial crisis, then declaring an autumn election.

And isn't it so very interesting that, after this election, all the parties are being so candid about that crisis. The speeches we are hearing now are of a tenor that was curiously absent before the election.

What we have to factor in right now is that virtually all of the professional pundits got it wrong. The volume of prattle is inversely proportional to its value - the "bubble" is so up itself that it is reacting, rather than thinking, and will consistently get it wrong.

No one could predict the way the seats would fall, says a fatuous little BBC girlie ... if she pulled her head out of her arse, the result exactly reflects the mood of the country - a pox on all of you. Only the BBC, the political classes and the claque have no idea what is happening in the real world - they did not see it coming.

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