Boris/Local Elections/Crewe

I know it was all a long time ago now and I hate to remind you all but I wasn’t overly optimistic after the results.  I thought the local election results were okay but for both Crewe and London the squeeze took hold and we seemed almost resigned to the fact afterwards.

As for Boris, well, he has nicely shown his true colours in the first couple of months in power.  More rules and policies to hit the poor.  He shows as stupidity the idea that conservatism and liberalism go together.  He has also shown that the modern Tory is just as authoritarian as anyone in the Labour party.  I hope this will all come back to bite the Tories in the arse come 2010 but I won’t hold my breath.

Double-D and Double-H

First off, Nick made the right decision.  I can’t quite fathom why people think he didn’t. The only way for him to have possibly done better was to be psychic and get someone to resign first.  By staying out of the fight we got to have our say against 42 days and without looking like the crank that Davis did.  Fine, we don’t command the pulpit on civil liberties but this little debacle has thrown into light DD’s other less liberal positions with which we can go after him when he returns to the backbenches.  Plus it adds a little to the inner turmoil of the Tory party that is just aching to boil over as the scent of victory draws ever nearer.  The worst thing we could have done was stand, it would have leant weight to one of our opponents most promising attacks against us - that we are simply opportunistic, political scavengers waiting for some bloated carcass of politician to hove into view.

Ros4Prez

I have nothing against Lembit and am happy to have a Hello! celebrity in our midst but think the position would be better taken by someone with perhaps a smaller profile who can get on with the hard slog associated with being president and doing all the general party things, allowing the MPs to get on with furthering our cause in the wider sphere.  Plus she and Mark now live in the splendid surroundings of Suffolk, where all the best people come from.

Henley

Certainly not great, but not absolutely awful either.  Time to look at our overall campaigning technique though.  We have made a lot of our invincible by-election team but in these days of a Tory resurgence we will have to look for other avenues in to voters minds.

One thing though, I have to disagree with John at Liberal Revolution. I thought that the website wasn’t good, neither modern nor stylish, and although a lot of information was contained, it was simply too busy, best exemplified by the fact they couldn’t find anywhere to put the youtube video, so made it tiny and put it over a banner.  John Howell’s website wasn’t great but the main page was a lot simpler allowing the information on it to be taken in quickly (although at 1400 the day after they haven’t updated their website with the fact that they, er, won).

Brown’s woes

Wow, where to start.  The big man has taken a battering in the last couple of months, but he soldiers on as only a dour Scot can.  But I don’t understand why he continues to come out with more and more moronic ideas?  Surely it’s obvious that you shouldn’t lock people up for 42 days?   If your administration keeps losing people’s data, why do you think they would then trust you with being the sole repository for their identities?  If your party is the supposed champion of the people, why try to take more and more money from the poorest?

Even though Labour has dived in the polls I don’t think its beyond saving.  Less than a year ago Brown was riding high.  Who’s to say what will happen in the next two years to change to political scene before the next general election?  What it would take though I do not know, and I don’t think GB does either.

Cameron’s woes

Samantha may already be wondering what colour carpets to have in the No. 10 flat but I bet while she sits there looking at swatches, Dave is beside her wondering how long he can keep his group of parliamentary odd-bods all pointing in the same direction, or if he does make it into the black door, how long he will stay there before the knife comes down swiftly between his shoulderblades. The loons on the back benches and in the constituency parties are staying with him for now as he is a winner, but with no real substance behind his not very good style, he will trip up.

The cliche is that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them and I don’t think that will be any truer than in the general election of 2010.    

Nick’s woes

The polls ain’t good, but have they ever been?  Caught in the middle between the increasingly crazed Labour party and the resurgent Cons we really have to begin fighting our way out of the sandwich.  Importantly, we have to regain our own story.  At the moment we are taken over by the ‘protest vote’ story and the ‘opportunistic’ story, the latter not helped by Nick’s decision on the Lisbon referendum. 

I think the direction of the party is good, more in keeping with the original liberalism of the party.  This emphasis on putting individuals back in charge of their own lives is good, as it is the way the general consensus is going, with people more and more despondent with the burgeoning state.  I think we have to be willing to make tough decisions, such as proposing tough taxes, and also make radical decisions, such as proposing LVT or drug legalisation.

Most importantly though, we have to push away from the mainstream politics of the big two.  Currently we are seen as the poor man’s version of both, whereas moving away from them to a more radical standpoint would get us noticed above normal politics.  We need to admit that we don’t have the answer to all life’s ills, that the answers lie with individuals and small communities rather than anyone 50,100, 200 miles away in London.  This was nicely illustrated by Nick in a recent speech on education.

So, the country is moving away from Labour, as their ideas of social democracy move ever closer to pure socialism.  However, the country shows no real passion for the compassionate conservatism of the current right.  As with all good Englishmen, they really just want to be left alone.  Appealing to this nature of the country is the key to winning, IMHO.

However, On the metro into work I came across something that added at least a small consolation.  When back in the UK over the weekend I picked up my old copy of ‘The political animal’ by Jeremy Paxman.  By a small stroke of coincidence that bit I got to this morning was when he went to meet a man named ‘Boris Johnson’ (never heard of him) when he was out canvassing to become the representative for Henley in the 2001 general election.  As well as bits about voters telling him all they wanted was someone who would bring back hanging and get out of Europe, JP has this to say:

“Henley is the sort of place where they’d vote a mule into parliament if it promised to kick in the right direction”

Cheered me up a bit - I’m glad we are not kicking in that direction.

• Grace Christine Astley - Independent
• David Laurence Bishop - Church of the Militant Elvis Party
• Ronnie Carroll - Make Politicians History
• Mad Cow-Girl - The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
• David Craig - Independent
• Herbert Winford Crossman - Independent
• Tess Culnane - National Front Britain for the British
• Thomas Faithful Darwood - Independent
• David Michael Davis - Conservative
• Tony Farnon - Independent
• Eamonn “Fitzy” Fitzpatrick - Independent
• Christopher Mark Foren - Independent
• Gemma Dawn Garrett - Miss Great Britain Party
• George Hargreaves - Christian Party
• Hamish Howitt - Freedom 4 Choice
• David Icke - No party listed
• John Nicholson - Independent
• Shan Oakes - Green Party
• David Pinder - The New Party
• Joanne Robinson - English Democrats: Putting England First
• Jill Saward - Independent
• Norman Scarth - Independent
• Walter Edward Sweeney - Independent
• Christopher John Talbot - Socialist Equality Party
• John Randle Upex - Independent
• Greg Wood - Independent

So, quite an array of nutjobs. I think we were right to stay out of that one.

But who is the craziest on this list: Icke, Mad-Cow girl or Davis? It’s a tough call.

UPDATE:  For all those people coming to this blog purely to search for Gemma Garrett, here she is:

Courtesy of the Daily Idiot

The script can be found here.

Belize Bank is controlled by BB Holdings Ltd, whose Chairman is the one and only Lord Ashcroft, who is of course, the Deputy Chairman of our lovely Conservative Party. He is, as well, the single biggest donor to the Tory party, bankrolling a considerable amount of their recent resurgence.

So the Tories get their money from Ashcroft, Ashcroft gets some of his money from BB Holdings, BB Holdings gets its money from the Belize Bank, and the Belize bank gets some of its money from Venezuela.  So does Hugo fund Dave then?  And is this money diverted from the Belizean poor to Conservative Party?

Unfortunately, its not quite that shadowy, although it would make for a good story.  Seems the Belizean government might owe the bank some money so it has decided to hold onto to this lot until the issue is resolved.

Still, the article brings up the nice fact, no doubt long forgotten, that a condition of Ashcroft’s Peership(?) was that he become a permanent UK residence, a requirement that the magazine is unsure he has fulfilled, therefore having, as they put it “representation without taxation”.

I also found this article in the Guardian from a few years ago, detailing the DEA’s investigation’s into the use of the Belizean banking system to launder drug money. Obviously, Mikey isn’t involved in this but it seems that the system he used his influence to set up in Belize might well be used for more nefarious purposes - if you can get more nefarious than funding the Tories.

Peter Clarke (PA to Keith Joseph) says this:

“I think you could say that the young Keith Joseph was not unlike the young David Cameron, that they both thought, in a rather naive way, that the state, organised by gentlemen, could be benign force and it was only the experience of living in Mr Heath’s cabinet both as housing minister and then as social security secretary that inoculated him against this. He saw that the state was capable of immense catastrophes and immense cruelties”

This naivety still spreads like a cancer through the halls of Westminster, and doesn’t only afflict the statist left and the authoritarian right, I think it can be on our own benches too.

But still,  this sums up nicely how I think of the tories and DC and the differences between the beliefs that they hold and the true liberalism that they pretend to espouse but never champion.  They still want big government, they just want it to be their big government. They think that if they were in charge everything would be hunky-dory.  It doesn’t work like that.  Even with all the best will in the world, governments will balls up.  It’s in their DNA.  To be truly liberal you have to give back as much power to individuals and enable them to make their own choices. And they don’t truly believe in devolving power back to individuals and communities - they just want it for themselves and to make sure they don’t have it.

You are better than the state - I really believe this is a position we should be grabbing by the balls.

“We hope that the Liberal Democrats under Mr Clegg will join us in putting pressure on the government to devolve power to local authorities, communities and individuals; in our opposition to ID cards; and in our commitment to social justice and environmental progress. We hope that together we can create a new progressive alliance to decentralise British politics.” Caroline Spelman (Con Chairman)

Localism, Opposition to ID cards, Social Justice and Environmental Progress - Hmm, I wonder where they got those ideas from?

All Lib Dem policies that the Tories have hijacked. So perhaps Nick’s reply should be:

“We are glad that YOU have chosen to join US in putting pressure on the government”

and then tell her where she can shove her alliance.

DON’T GIVE THEM PUBLICITY (AND NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING DOESN’T WORK)

Well, sorry guys, but with the recent performance of old Vince and the soon crowning of the young, hungry successor to Ming I’m sure we’ll be able to get our own publicity.

HIGHLIGHT THEIR UNPOPULAR AND INCONSISTENT POLICIES

Wait a minute, I thought you weren’t going negative. But why break the habit of a lifetime, eh?

MAKE THEM IRRELEVANT BY STEALING THEIR POPULAR POLICIES

Classic. “Destroy the libdems by pointing out they are right”. You’ve been doing this one for a while now guys, and whilst its good that you are seeing the light, I don’t think your support will be that happy with you for turning your back on the nastiness.

PRESENT THEM AS A WASTED VOTE THAT COULD KEEP LABOUR IN POWER

*yawn* so again, nothing good about the Tories, just say that Labour are bad. protest votes don’t say much good about your own party either.

UNDERMINE THEM FROM WITHIN (PARTICULARLY BY ENCOURAGING DEFECTIONS)

Sajjid Karim? oh, I’m scared!

LOVEBOMBING

Hey guys, we’re Liberal people, but we don’t all swing that way! Obviously Cameron has been reading this post recently.

BEAT THEM AT PAVEMENT POLITICS

Yep, good idea, Don’t use your massive national advantage, instead try and beat us at the one thing we are known as being the best at.

“A government auction of spectrum effectively turned into the imposition of a £22 billion tax on the telecom industry, just when it needed all the cash it could generate in order to build new networks and compete in a global market. Such short-sightedness amplified a cyclical downturn; bankruptcies, job losses and canceled investment programmes occurred as a direct result. This undoubtedly helped to set a leading UK sector back three years”

In his book “The Undercover Economist”, Tim Harford from the FT describes the above auction, and this is how I first heard about it, having obviously missed it when it happened in 2000. You can also listen to a short programme about it on the BBC here. As a scientist, I am a geek and therefore always enjoy finding the sources for material and therefore preceded to read the background literature from the auction designers, Paul Klemperer and Ken Binmore CBE.

So did the government devise some dastardly and cunning plot to deprive the poor telecom companies of all their hard earned cash? Well, no. The economists devised an auction that was the most efficient. Efficiency, of course, being the cornerstone of the free-market that Mr Redwood is salivating for. They couldn’t of devised a more free-market auction. Mr Redwood and others blames this auction then for the problems of the industry.

True, the telecom industry did go into decline around the same time as the auction (spring/summer 2000) and some commentators have attributed this downturn to the auctions held for 3G licenses around Europe. However, this is a case of post hoc, ergo prompter hoc (thank-you West Wing), and it is particularly absurd written in a review espousing free market ideals. One quote from the time sums it up perfectly:

“If there is a problem, it is the stupidity of the bidders, not of the government”

The industry (and now the Tories) likes to blame the government for the woes of the telecom business but the fact don’t match. At the time, none of the companies thought they were getting a bad deal, in fact, obviously, as it was an auction, they thought that the price was worth paying, otherwise they didn’t have to keep bidding higher and higher. The prices were not set in advance, the companies chose to pay this price - they determined the licence’s were worth this much, no-one else. One company even sold their licence after the auction and made a profit, so they were considered good value even. The prices were also thought to spur the companies on as they would now need to recoup the money spent, so rather than inhibiting investment, they thought it would make the companies and the industry grow. The head of orange at the time said:

“In a few years, people will think that the prices we paid were conservative.”

The downturn was in fact due to the general tech downturn at the time as well as a penchant for bad acquisitions by the companies. These, combined with a competitive mobile telecom market that was starting to grow. Another argument against the auction was that the price would then be passed on to the consumer. This is an argument you hear often from companies when they are fined or when costs go up, but when you turn it on its head, the idea is nonsensical: if the licenses cost nothing, would the company then charge nothing? Prices are set by the market, they are essentially a trade off between what you and I think the product is worth.

This story might not have been what most people picked out of the ECPG review, but i think it is telling. Here, the ECPG has shown that freedom is not what they want, they just want bigger business and smaller state. The free market includes risk due to partial information, and businesses choose whether to gamble in the market or not. Here, they lost out to the state by overestimating themselves. The alternative and what presumably John Redwood & Co. would have liked to have seen would have been a beauty contest were the government picks the companies that they think will run the licenses best. This is inefficient, as then no one knows how much the licenses are really worth and the companies spend the money they save trying to lobby and lie to get the cheap licenses. This would not be the free market.