Justice

Just when you were beginning to think that nothing would ever happen to these Teflon shysters, along comes this news:

Two High Court judges have ordered a rerun of this year's General Election campaign in the Greater Manchester constituency of shadow immigration minister Phil Woolas.

Mr Woolas won the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat by 103 votes over Liberal Democrat rival Elwyn Watkins.

But he has been found guilty of knowingly making false statements about Mr Watkins in campaign literature, and faces a three year ban from the Commons.

So Woolas feared losing the election, and made statements about his opponent that were untrue, and which he knew to be untrue. Stripped of judge-speak, that says he lied repeatedly and deliberately to gain an advantage over an opponent. So far, so typical of New Labour. I am rather heartened by this news. After cash-for-honours and the rest, I had begun to despair that politicians would ever be brought to the kind of justice that the rest of us live under every day of our lives.

What intrigues me, though, is Woolas's response to the judgement:

In a statement, he said the judgement "raised fundamental issues about the freedom to question politicians ... It is vital to our democracy that those who make statements about the political character and conduct of election candidates are not deterred from speaking freely for fear that they may be found in breach of election laws."

This is arrant nonsense. The whole purpose of election law is to ensure that candidates cannot speak freely, but must strive to ensure that what they say is truthful and fair. What he is saying is that (presumably) he is in support of laws to make sure that elections are fair, as long as they don't apply to anyone.

I suppose you could argue that it is vital for criminals to be able to steal people's property without being deterred from doing so by the fear of being found in breach of the law against theft. It would make as much sense.

It says a lot about Ed Miliband's judgement that he appointed him to the Shadow Cabinet before the result of the Election Court was known. He must have thought the outcome was a formality. I am glad that Justices Teare and Williams thought otherwise.

Kerry McCarthy Gets Wrist Slapped Shock

Back in May, I posted this about the electoral irregularities of Labour's 'Twitter Tsar' Kerry McCarthy:

Old news now, but Labour's 'Twitter Tsar' (Gawd help us) as made a bit of a boob. On Thursday, she sent out a tweet, reading: "First PVs opened in east Bristol, our sample (numbers of votes cast against candidate names), #gameON!"

This is clearly illegal, as the Representation of the People Act 1983 forbids the publication or communication of any polling data before the close of the polls on election day. Publication of early returns may, of course, influence the result, which may be done routinely by countries like Zimbabwe, but is frowned upon here.

The Returning Officer has now handed the matter over to the Police, but I have a deep suspicion that this will be kicked into the long grass until well after the election. Anything we can do to express our concern is worth doing, so I wrote last night to the Returning Officer.

I quoted my letter to Stephen McNamara, the Returning Officer, and also his reply. I was right, of course, and the matter was kicked so far beyond Third Man and into the stands that it has only just been found by a spectator and lobbed back. But re-emerged it has, and Kerry has been severely dealt with. The sitting MP for Bristol East has been found guilty of interfering with the electoral process and ... given a caution. I know, because DS Terry Greenhow has written to me and told me:

Dear Mr NAME IN CAPITALS BECAUSE I AM MERGING THIS LETTER FROM A DATABASE

Your communication regarding Ms Kerry McCarthy MP

I understand that you have expressed concerns or made a complaint about Ms McCarthy prematurely posting the results of a General Election postal ballot on Twitter. I hope you will accept our apologies for the delay in our response to you. As you would expect we had to carry out a thorough and complete investigation into this matter and it was further complicated by the need for it to be referred to a Special Case Team of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in London who have specific responsibility for deciding on investigations involving the electoral process and operate completely independently of the police.

However, the case is now concluded and the CPS have advised that Ms McCarthy should receive a caution from Avon and Somerset Police. This took place at a Bristol Police Station today 25th October 2010.

Your sincerely

DS Terry GREENHOW
Economic Crime Team
Avon & Somerset Constabulary
01275 816771

Well, a reply is better than no reply, and at least it shows that the system is working to some extent. Only two questions remain:

1. Our electoral process is possibly the most precious thing (apart from the thousand-year-old Common Law) that we as a nation possess. How come a blatant interference with its workings by one of the electoral candidates, which could have resulted in swinging the result her way, is punished by a mere caution?
2. As a sitting MP has now received a Police caution for interfering with the democratic process, which may have benefited her candidacy, how come she is still sitting as an MP?

There is a third question, which is how come the Labour Party hasn't expelled someone who was caught in this way and further tarnished the Party's reputation for electoral fairness, but I suppose that one answers itself.

John Reid spells it out

I've always had a sneaking regard for John Reid. I didn't agree with him on everything, far from it, but I always felt he acted with a sense of decency and honour. This is him talking about the possibility of a Lib-Lab coalition, and I can't disagree with a word of it. (See my previous post on the 'progressive consensus'.)

Interesting how David Steel (for whom I have always had regard) tried to argue that, because more voters voted for Labour and Liberals combined, this somehow represents a demand for proportional representation without further discussion. I can't see how that works, frankly.

Having listened to Reid, I'm beginning to think that a Lib-Lab coalition would be a good thing for the country, long-term. Both parties would be destroyed.

Words I Hate 2

Well, phrases then. I wrote about my hate of the misuse of the word 'appropriate' a while ago. Now there's a new one, and one I am sure we are going to hear a lot about in the near future (and possibly for a long time after that): progressive consensus.

It's being used as an excuse for the two loser parties to get together and form a government in the face of clear rejection of them both by the electorate. Because Labour and the Liberal Democrats between them got 315 seats, and the Conservatives only got 306, they are claiming that this shows that the British electorate are in favour of the 'progressive' policies represented by the two left of centre parties.

Leaving aside for one moment the misuse of the word 'progressive' (what's progressive about raping civil liberties, taking money for peerages, increasing unemployment, and all the rest?), this is complete, utter, unadulterated, weapons-grade, gold-plated bollocks.

Look, you self-deluding morons:

Labour lost 91 seats, compared to 2005.

The Lib Dems lost 5 seats, compared to 2005, despite the unprecedented advantage of the leadership debates and a wave of Cleggmania.

The Conservatives gained 97 seats, a bigger gain than any since 1931 and on a swing that was bigger than the one that swept Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979. This is despite the fact that it takes more voters to elect a Conservative MP than it does a Labour MP (due to Conservative constituencies being larger), a fact that the Lib Dems were not shy of pointing out in the run-up to the election.

How anyone can argue that this points to an affirmation by the voters of their belief in centre-left politics is beyond comprehension. And if you say it's the fault of the archaic FPTP system and get all proportional on my ass, then look at it in terms of vote share, something which the Lib Dems and the newly-converted Labour Party ought to regard as difinitive:

Labour down 6.2%
Liberal Democrat up 1%
Conservative up 3.8%.

If that shows anything, it shows that the electorate rejected Labour in large numbers, thought the Lib Dems were a little more desirable, but that the Tories were more so.

Progressive consensus? I don't think so.

The only good thing about this is that they believe it to be true - and it isn't. And so any move towards a new government which relies on this non-existent consensus will fall flat on its arse.

I suppose that's 'appropriate'.

Not Dead Yet

A lot of blogs seem to be crowing that "Gordon Brown has resigned". One even popped a virtual champagne cork.

No he hasn't. I listened to the speech live, and this is what he said:

If it becomes clear that the national interest, which is stable and principled government, can be best served by forming a coalition between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, then I believe I should discharge that duty to form that government ...

But I have no desire to stay in my position longer than is needed to ensure the path to economic growth is assured and the process of political reform we have agreed moves forward quickly.

In other words, I will resign when

a) a stable government between Labour and Liberal Democrats has been formed (how long before we can be sure it is 'stable'?)

b) the path to economic growth is assured (how will this be measured?)

c) the process of political reform is moving forward quickly (agreement on PR? referendum fixed for PR? referendum won on PR? PR established as new voting system and fully bedded in?)

Achieving all of those could take months, or even years, depending on how you define your terms. And Gordon is very good on hidden meanings that suggest one thing but mean something entirely different. Read any Budget speech for examples.

He's not gone yet, not by a long way. As with the Vampire, celebrations should only start when the stake is firmly in the chest and the body no longer moves. Anything else is foolish and premature.

Brown - just not getting it AGAIN

So your party has just emerged from an election, at which you have lost a large number of seats and share of the vote, and another party leader is talking to you with a view to an alliance that will keep you in power.

Are you nice to them? Treat them with respect? Take their approach seriously?

Not if you are Gordon Brown.

According to Jon Sopel, quoting a "very senior Liberal Democrat source" who is "close to the negotiations", Clegg phoned up Brown for a discussion, and Brown was rude to him. Some choice quotes:

Apparently, Nick Clegg is reported to have told Gordon Brown to resign, and that is where the conversation started going badly downhill, apparently.

The "senior Liberal Democrat source" said that it was a diatribe, it was a rant, and that Gordon Brown was threatening in his approach to Nick Clegg, and that Nick Clegg came off the phone at the end of it, feeling ... that the person in the shape of Gordon Brown would be someone it would be impossible to enter into a partnership with because of his general attitude to working with other people.

This has been "strenuously denied" by Downing Street, from "sources very close to the Prime Minister".

You pays your money and you takes your choice, but the source I spoke to ... I would say was reliable.

Just like with the original bullying allegations, this story has been denied by Downing Street, but to an average observer, it just fits with what we know.

There is plenty of evidence around now that says that Gordon Brown is an aggressive and controlling bully who does not tolerate dissent. If Clegg comes to any agreement with Labour that does not involve Gordon Brown stepping down, then he is toast - both electorally and personally. Brown would eat him for breakfast, daily. With Marmite on, and a cup of tea.

Further confirmation that the man is totally unsuited to his high office. How the hell is he still there?

Source

Balls

Just - Balls.

5 am, off to bed.

Balls.

In Memoriam P.E.B.

Tonight, when I sit up until the small hours watching the results come in, there will be someone with me. I won't be able to see him, but he will be the reason I am not tucked up in bed dreaming of a lottery win.

Dad came from a family of Labour and Co-operative party activists. His mother was one of the founders of the Co-operative movement in Skipton, and the whole family was unswervingly, tribally, Labour to the core. This was what I grew up with. Labour are the only party that cares about people. Conservatives are all selfish. Businesses always exploit their innocent, loyal workers. Trades Unions (note the 's' - never Trade Unions) are a vital part of a fair society, and without them working people would be downtrodden. The Labour Party are the political arm of the Union movement, and it is right that Union subs go to support the only chance the workers have of decent representation in Parliament. Even if Labour are wrong, they are wrong for the right reasons. You can always trust a Labour man to have the good of the working class, and therefore the country, at heart. Politicians are noble, selfless and hardworking, except of course for the Tories and Liberals, who are in it for what they can get. The closed shop is a necessary evil, as without it workers' rights would be trampled on.

When you have this drilled into you throughout your childhood, it can be hard to escape and think for yourself. I was too young to vote in 1970, but I voted Labour in both the 1974 elections, and in all the local elections I voted for the candidate best placed to beat the Conservative (I moved around a lot, but often found myself living in safe Tory seats). It was easy to do: being a student in the early 70s meant that voting Labour was the obvious thing to do, even if Labour weren't anything like radical enough for most of us. But by the time of the 1979 election, I was 25 and starting to think for myself. The dismal record of strikes and incompetence from Callaghan's government in the late 70s made me question a lot of my beliefs and in 1979 I voted Conservative for the first time. I was conscious that this was an act of rebellion, and I told no-one. I became a bit of a floating voter after that (although constantly mindful of the views of my Dad, that floating voters were just people with no morals or principles and, worst of all, potential Tories). I did feel strongly about the sleaze issue in 1997 (hah!) and voted for Tony Blair. The promises of a new kind of clean, transparent and honest politics won me over. The lies and manipulations over Iraq made me realise how wrong I had been, and it's been downhill ever since - no need to list all the things that have gone wrong since then - to the point where I despise Labour and view them with hatred and contempt.

I'm making my Dad sound like some rabid Trot, and of course he wasn't. He had a very different life from mine. Born in 1913, he lived through some hard times, including the Depression. He was 23 when the Jarrow March took place, and it passed within a few miles of where he lived. It made a big impression. He fought in the Second War, in the Royal Tank Regiment in the desert. I think he fought at El Alamein, but he was too modest to talk about it. He was fundamentally a good man, with very high moral principles, and I am glad that a lot of those principles have rubbed off on me, even if they sometimes make life a bit difficult. He believed, above all, in fairness. It is wrong to lie to people, to exploit people, to seek personal gain over the good of society. You do your best, you pay into the kitty willingly, and you know that people less fortunate than yourself are being looked after. It wasn't self-interest, either: he had a good job and was well-paid, and he never begrudged paying his rightful share. In other words, he stood by his principles, even when they cost him. He regarded it as shameful that people could be starving while their countrymen lived a life of plenty, and I can't say I disagree.

Of course, today is a different world. I'm not sure he would be too keen on people living their lives on benefits with no intention to work. To him, the Welfare State was a safety net, not a hammock. He abhorred drugs, drunkenness and gambling, so Labour's 24-hour licensing and their relaxation of the casino rules would have mystified him. I imagine the expenses scandal would have rocked him back on his feet - not the Tory excesses, he'd expect that, but Labour people flipping homes and getting the working classes to pay for non-existent mortgages? In his world, that would have been unthinkable.

He died in 1988, just at the end of the Thatcher period. God only knows what he would make of Labour today. He would regard the bullying of McBride and Balls as utterly unacceptable, Peter Mandelson would have irritated him intensely, and he would have been deeply unhappy about going to war on a lie. And yet, I'm pretty sure his tribal loyalty to Labour would have pulled him through. He would have said "yes, these are bad things, but the people who did them are good people underneath, and that counts for a lot."

I can see him now, on Election Night, with his favourite chair pulled up in front of the TV, waiting for Mum and me to go to bed. He would have the Manchester Guardian pulled apart on the floor in front of him, and sheets of paper with lines and charts and coloured pencils ready to record the results as they came in. (This was before the days of coloured graphs in the papers and swingometers on the TV - you had to make your own entertainment in those days.) He would stay up all night, and then grab some breakfast and go off to work. To him, politics mattered, and he had no patience at all with people who couldn't be bothered to vote.

He'll be here with me tonight. He'll have to make do with The Times, I'm afraid ("bloody Tory paper"), and there won't be any slide rules or lists of numbers on a scratch-pad. But I will have a number of channels to watch, all the calculator things on the web and, if I get bored, any number of blogs to read and respond to on my laptop. He would have loved that.

I shall miss him tonight.

Election Fever

This election has been bad for me. As a self-confessed current affairs junkie, I have been spending far too much time watching TV and reading online commentary over the last few weeks. It is as though the impending election has developed from a mild itch into raging urticaria that I have to scratch constantly. If I'm not watching the news on TV, I am reading all my subscribed blogs, and then if I run out of things to read there, I am scanning the websites of the newspapers. And, as JuliaM correctly observes, there is for more information, variety and informed comment in the blogosphere than in all the dead-tree media combined.

The election has also been bad for this blog. I have a lot of things I would like to say, but they have already been said better (and first) by those with far more knowledge and experience of these things than I have, so my blogging of the election has ended up being a bit of soul-searching and a lot of "hey, look at this" while linking to better things. Bike stuff has certainly taken a back seat, which is not how I planned it.

Soon, the fever of the election will be over, and the hard work of getting this country back on its feet will begin. (You will note that I assume a Tory victory here: the alternative is too awful to contemplate.) And I will be back to blogging about the garden, and a joke I heard, and a bit of music that inspired me, and bike trips and the usual nonsense that seems to emerge when I put fingertips to keyboard. In a way, I am looking forward to that.

How will I be spending tomorrow? I will be voting, of course, probably earlier rather than later, and then I will be intermittently watching the news for any developments. If the last few days are anything to go by, Gordon Brown will probably slip on a dog turd, fall and break his hip, Cameron will roll his sleeves up again, and Clegg will mention 'the two old Parties', conveniently forgetting that the Liberal Party is one of the country's oldest.

I might try to have a nap in the afternoon, as I want to watch as much of the hot party-on-party action in the small hours as I can. At about 9 pm, I will line up the beers and the bottle of Balvenie Signature that I have been keeping for this very occasion. I bought this back in October last year, and I said then that I would be keeping it until election night. It's funny to think that, when I wrote that, I assumed that the Conservatives would be romping home with a safe majority, and the whisky was in anticipation of a celebration. That was how it looked at the time. Tomorrow, it could be drowning my sorrows. How things change.

I will provision my area with a few crisps and nuts (beer and whisky on their own can require nibbles, I find) and then settle down to watch the events unfold. Once (probably one of the 1974 elections - I was younger then) I watched it right through to about 6 am, but usually I stay with it until about two or three o'clock. I'm hoping to do better this time, but I get tired more easily now, so I'll go when I am either tired, bored or demoralised.

A final prayer: whatever the overall result, please, Lord, please - make Ed Balls lose.

And, whoever you vote for tomorrow, vote.

It Ends Here

At least, we can only hope that it does. Here's The Last Ditch, eloquent as ever:

For every promise broken, for every lie told, for every soldier sent to war ill-equipped, for every child's future blighted by Marxist educational dogma, for every pound seized and squandered and - most of all - for every freedom lost, Labour must pay tomorrow with its political life.

If we have self-respect as a nation, we must not dodge this choice. Voting for someone who will decide for us later whether David Cameron or Gordon Brown should be Head of Government is cowardice.

If you have a Libertarian candidate to vote for, go ahead with pride. Start us on the long path to a real change that can restore the nation. For the rest of you alas only the Conservatives - flawed as they are - can end this.

And here is Cameron's latest attack video. I can only wonder why this wasn't being broadcast from the rooftops six months ago.

Our Labour Candidate

I've been a bit hesitant about posting this, for reasons which will become clear, but I am mightily intrigued by the Labout leaflet that dropped through my door a few days ago.

First point, I suppose, is that the leaflet says practically nothing - vague promises about the future being safe under Labour, putting local people first, making work pay, and so on. It's only a 4-side A5 sheet, so there's not a lot of room to start with, and of course everything has to be in both Welsh and English, so that halves the space available for text anyway.

Second is the colour they have chosen for the banners and sidebars. It's red, of course, but they seem to have picked a particularly bilious shade of deep blood-orange as the main colour, and then overlaid it with a very slightly lighter orange to create a background design, behind the text. Perhaps it's the Labour rose, who knows, but the two shades of orange are close enough to make it look like a poor-quality print.

But it's the candidate who is the most intriguing. She's called Mari Rees (good Welsh name, and proper Welsh spelling), and she lives in Milford Haven. The leaflet claims that her family have lived in the area for "hundreds of years". This is very important in Pembrokeshire, which has a powerful sense of identity: very Welsh where it counts, but also slightly separate and distinct from Wales itself, as the county - or at least the populous Southern half - has been mainly English-speaking since the Middle Ages, and many local people take pride in the fact that they are not the same as the Welsh 'up the line'. The Tory incumbent, Stephen Crabb, is a local boy (although Scottish by birth, he lived in a council house here when he was a child and went to the local comprehensive).

So far, so good. But I can't help thinking that most people will read the candidate background, and then scratch their heads when they see her picture. For, not to put too fine a point on it, Mari Rees is black.

Before anyone jumps down my throat for pointing this out, I would say that this isn't a problem for me, and I doubt if it would be a problem for most people in Pembrokeshire. There isn't a lot of racial diversity here (read: not many black faces) but that doesn't mean that the people are intolerant. In fact, I once taught IT to an unemployed black guy from Bradford when I was working for a training company, and he said that he loved living in Pembrokeshire because it was the only place in the UK he had lived in where he encountered no racial prejudice at all. If Pembrokeshire takes leave of its collective senses and votes Labour on Thursday, Mari Rees's colour will not make one iota of difference. Equally, if they return Stephen Crabb, it won't be because of some innate racism in the Pembrokeshire psyche. It will be because Labour have forfeited the respect and support of the population.

In fact, I think Labour are to be applauded for her selection. Preseli Pembrokeshire is (I think) 14th of Labour's target seats (Tory majority just over 600), so it's not as if they are putting up a black candidate in an overwhelmingly white but unwinnable seat to score diversity points.

But there are two things that puzzle me. One is the phrasing of "the Reeses have lived in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire for hundreds of years". That's a pretty remarkable claim when you think about it. It would make her more 'local' than most of the people who live here. I doubt if more than a handful could claim Pembrokeshire ancestry for that length of time. Anna's family are regarded as 'Pembrokeshire born and bred', and they moved to the area from the Valleys in the middle of last century.

Is it perhaps possible that Labour are just a little too keen to prove her local credentials? Is there a sub-text that says "look, we know she's black, but she is as local as you are"?

The other puzzle may be just a trick of the printing process, but of the six photographs of Ms Rees in the leaflet, the two main ones show her as being much paler in complexion than the others. A search of Google images shows a lady who is quite dark-skinned, and yet the main photos are of a person with a pale coffee complexion.



I may be making something of nothing here, but is this deliberate? Taken with the 'hundreds of years' thing, does this suggest a failure of nerve on the part of Labour? Do they think that Preseli Pembrokeshire will not vote for a black person unless she is somehow made less black?

I don't know. I'm a little uncomfortable posting this, as I know that some people will see it (as they see every reference to race or nationality, however innocent) as racist. I will state clearly that I will not be voting for Ms Rees, but it is because of her party's record in government, not because of the colour of her skin.

I do wonder if there is some slightly racist thinking behind the leaflet, though. "Let's challenge a white male Tory with a black woman, but she musn't be too black or too exotic. Just lighten up the main pictures and stress the local connections, will you?"

If so, I think her backers have done Ms Rees a great disservice.

Do Yourself A Favour

Last-minute attack clip, pointing out some of the worst things about Labour's 13-year rule. It kind of summarises many of the reasons I feel as I do.

The Tories should have been banging this drum continuously for the last six weeks. Still, better late than never.

Crosses and Boxes

Cold Steel Rain says it very well:

It is with thoughts of the economy we will vote, as well as immigration and health care. But if you will, please remember those fallen soldiers. At this very moment British troops are fighting and they are dying - let them know that although the Labour Party cares little about them, to us the Covenant means everything.

Next Thursday we have an opportunity to place a cross in a box. I would ask you not to put yours against the Party that has put so many crosses above so many boxes.

There are so, so many reasons not to vote Labour, aren't there?

Voting

Five choices here in Preseli Pembrokeshire: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and UKIP.

The Labour candidate is a lady called Mari Rees. She is a journalist (which could mean anything) and a community development worker. So, no experience of the world of real work, then. There's nothing on the Labour candidate's leaflet to make me rush out and vote for her - it's all the usual vague aspirations and apple-pie stuff that no-one could disagree with. Notably, there is no mention of Gordon Brown - the nearest Mari gets to a touch of stardust is a photo-op with Carwyn Jones.

Stephen Crabb is the sitting (Conservative) MP. He's a likeable enough chap, and is well-regarded in the area. His majority is tiny (a little over 600), but given the current polls, I don't think he will be having too many sleepless nights at the moment. He was guilty of a little 'flipping' in the expenses scandal, and he's a little too born-again Christian Right for my tastes, but he seems sound enough.

The Lib Dem chap, Henry Jones-Davies, I only heard of a few days ago when his leaflet landed on my doormat. I have to confess I haven't read it. I have a major problem with voting for the Lib Dems: however much they portray themselves as above the fray of petty politics, honest and straightforward, I always remember the dirty tricks they get up to at a local level (some that I have been aware of are hair-raising) and realise that they are fundamentally hypocrites. I'm attracted to some of their policies (the £10k starting rate of tax, for instance), but I could never vote for them.

Plaid Cymru are an interesting proposition. I support their desire for independence (although I am not too sure they would not regret it if and when it happened - the Welsh economy is not the strongest), and they have some good local spokesmen. They always give a good account of themselves on the TV news, and seem well-organised and professional. But fundamentally their politics are Old Labour - state intervention at every stage, and an over-reliance on the public sector as the driver of progress. If I were Welsh by birth, their nationalism might over-ride the politics temporarily, but I am not, so it doesn't.

And so we come to UKIP. I am fully in support of them over Europe - I think the very least we should have is a referendum on our continued membership, and I would most certainly vote to leave the EU. (To be clear, I am passionately pro-Europe. I love the place, and I consider myself European as well as British, and certainly closer to Europe than America. It's the institution of the EU that I can't stand, with its undemocratic and unaccountable structure and its corrupt and self-indulgent politics.) But I could never take them seriously as a political party. Nigel Farage seems a good bloke, but would I want him in charge of the NHS or defence procurement? There's not enough evidence that they would be competent, or even what the main thrust of their policies would be. If UKIP offered an immediate referendum on EU membership, and then promised to disband and force a new election for a newly-independent Britain, I might be tempted.

But there is only one real imperative at this election: Labour must be removed from office. Nothing is more important than that. If Labour get another five years, then all the liberties and freedoms that I have cherished since childhood will be gone, irreversibly. The economy would be in utter ruins, and (I hate to say this) one religion above all others will be granted special privileges and will dominate our public life. If my vote can stop that happening, then that is how I must use it.

So on Thursday I will be voting for Stephen Crabb, the Conservative. David Cameron was saying all the right things for me in the leadership debates, and with his recent remarks on a Great Repeal Bill and a contract with the people to clean up politics, get the economy going again, and reform welfare, I will do so with more enthusiasm than I might otherwise have done.

I'm hoping for a Tory Government with a modest majority of, say, 20 seats. As Margaret Thatcher said, large majorities are rarely a good thing. A government needs to be kept on its toes and not become complacent. But a hung parliament would be a disaster. All the deals would be done behind closed doors, principles would be jettisoned in favour of shady bargains, and the markets would probably pull the plug.

So that's me. Tory Boy.

Dealing with Hecklers

There was a time when the ability to deal with a heckler was an essential skill in the kitbag of every politician. Election meetings were usually public affairs, and the response of the audience was far from predictable. The politician had to be prepared for almost anything, and have an ability to think on his (or her) feet. Someone would shout "What about the workers?", and the speaker would reply "This gentleman asks about the workers. Well let me tell him something about our policies ..." Handled well, it showed good humour, an ability to answer tough questions, and a working ability to remember policy detail and relate it instantly to real situations. Handled badly, it showed everyone you were not on top of your game.

Now that everything is done through the medium of television, that streetfighter skill is not in as much demand as before. But seeing how a politician deals with the unexpected still tells you a lot about them.

Today, all three party leaders faced unscripted interruptions to their careful plans. Cameron and Clegg were heckled in the street (no links yet, sorry), got slightly flustered, answered their questioners, and got back on with campaigning. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown was giving a speech to the party faithful (again) when a heckler interrupted. What happened next tells you all you need to know about Brown's lack of humour, flexibility and spontaneity and New Labour's knee-jerk control-freakery:



Note how he carries on reading from the autocue and maintains the weird grin. He says that "there'll be plenty of chances to answer his questions later" - not 'answer your questions', as if Brown will deliver his speech and leave, with questions picked up by junior assistants later on. The heavies bundle the guy out (why? he didn't look angry or threatening to me) and the event carries on. It showed that, to Gordon Brown, the script is everything, and nothing can be allowed that deviates from the plan.

I bet someone got it in the neck afterwards, though. "Who arranged that? Who allowed that to happen? Sue, I think. Ridiculous."

Just imagine how Cameron or Clegg would have dealt with it.

Edit: I've just noticed the carefully arranged doughnutting at the end. Five people, all young and well presented, and all clapping wildly, surrounding the smiling head of the Great Leader. The Kim Jong-Il school of crowd management.

Twitter Tsar and the Police

Old news now, but Labour's 'Twitter Tsar' (Gawd help us) as made a bit of a boob. On Thursday, she sent out a tweet, reading: "First PVs opened in east Bristol, our sample (numbers of votes cast against candidate names), #gameON!"

This is clearly illegal, as the Representation of the People Act 1983 forbids the publication or communication of any polling data before the close of the polls on election day. Publication of early returns may, of course, influence the result, which may be done routinely by countries like Zimbabwe, but is frowned upon here.

The Returning Officer has now handed the matter over to the Police, but I have a deep suspicion that this will be kicked into the long grass until well after the election. Anything we can do to express our concern is worth doing, so I wrote last night to the Returning Officer.

from Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx
to electoral.services@bristol.gov.uk
date 30 April 2010 23:58
subject Re Kerry McCarthy and leaking polling data before election

Dear Mr McNamara

I understand from reading the news that one of the PPCs for the Parliamentary seat of Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, has obtained information about opened postal votes and relayed the information to the general public via Twitter.

As someone who believes in the integrity of our voting system, I am appalled at this news. I understood that it was illegal to make the contents of any votes public prior to the end of polling, as this may be seen as an attempt to influence the result.

I hope that you agree with me that our democracy depends on the integrity of the voting system, and that Ms McCarthy's actions (if reports are true, and she seems to have admitted that they are) are contrary to both fair play and the law of the land. I trust that you will do everything in your power to make sure this does not happen again, and that Ms McCarthy faces the full consequences of her actions - including disbarment of her candidacy if the offence be proved.

I wrote as a member of no political party, but one who is afraid that our once unimpeachable electoral system has been steadily tainted by fraud and questionable practices over the last ten years.

Yours sincerely

Xxx

Today, I had the following reply:

from Electoral Services Electoral Services
to Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx
cc Fair Comment ,
Stephen McNamara
date 1 May 2010 13:23
subject Re: Re Kerry McCarthy and leaking polling data before election

Please see message from Mr McNamara:

Dear Mr Xxxxxxxx,

I have as the acting Returning Officer made a complaint to the police.

This is now a police matter and therefore I forwarded your email to them

regards

I'm barricading the door and feeding our already hyperactive dog on Pro-Plus and raw steak, as I expect a visit from the Internal Dissent Unit any night now.

Nicely put

None of the parties currently asking for our votes offers the combination of policy and approach that satisfies me; I imagine most people feel the same. And yet we have to make a decision: whether to vote, and if so, for whom. Phil Walker, over at The Melangerie, puts it very well.

I can recall some years ago, when there was major disruption on the railway network, having to get from York where I had been on a visit, back home to Leicester. Trains were cancelled left, right and centre, and there was basically no way of me making what was usually a very straightforward journey on a direct train. I couldn't get to my destination by a direct route, so I started taking trains which were headed in the right direction. I got home many hours later, but I got there.

The Tories aren't flagging up my destination on their schedule. They're not exactly aimed straight at where I would like us to go. They certainly wouldn't go far enough. But since this is the train headed in most nearly the right direction, I shall take it.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Final Leaders' Debate

Best of the lot.

Cameron: sincere, well-prepared and starting to make a fight of it. At last, talking about 13 years of failure, and picked Brown up on the 'taking 6m out of the economy' error. When he goes on the attack and takes that concerned frown off his face, he's good. 8/10

Clegg: newness starting to wear off. All the stuff about the 'two old parties' is sounding repetitive. Not a lot new to say, and looking far less assured than in No. 1. And he said his party would not have an amnesty for illegal immigrants. In the first debate, that's exactly what he did say. 6/10

Brown: unrelentingly negative about the other two. Listing Labour 'achievements' like a Gatling gun, in between slagging off everyone else. More about instilling fear of change than pride in his own record. And the shameful bastard repeated the cancer lie from the earlier party broadcast. 2/10

Clear victory for Cameron, and Brown went (if that were possible) even further down in my estimation. What a nasty mendacious bully the man is.

(And who allowed that make-up? Grey face and orange ears - I watched in fascinated horror. The other two looked normal, so it wasn't the lighting. And that smile at the end - "like the silver plate on a coffin".)

Feeling Sorry For Brown

I was itching to post something yesterday, after the 'bigot' gaffe, but everyone else in Blogland seemed to have said everything necessary. So here are my thoughts after a short reflection.

On one level I feel sorry for Gordon Brown. As Nick Clegg said, "If we all had recordings of what we mutter under our breath we'd all be crimson with embarrassment." I have come away from meetings or social occasions and said things to my companion in private that were highly uncomplimentary in all sorts of ways. If I had to answer for some of the things I have said in those circumstances, I doubt if I would be invited anywhere much these days. But we keep our innermost thoughts to ourselves and those we trust, and our social and professional lives can carry on under the convenient pretence that we all like each other, hold much the same views, and admire each others' taste in curtains.

So when poor old GB was heard saying what he did in the car following the encounter with Mrs Duffy, it was a 'there but for the grace of God' moment.

But of course all that sympathy is totally outweighed by the sheer awfulness of what the comments revealed. And let's put to bed the idea that (as claimed by a lot of Labour-supporting commenters on CiF, and even John Prescott) this was somehow an underhand sting by the evil Murdoch-owned Sky to trap an innocent man. The microphone was, as I understand it, supplied by Channel 4, and was a 'pool' mike, with the output available to all news organisations. Brown knew it was there, and it was only carelessness that let him forget it was still live. I don't see much of a right-wing plot there.

Should anyone have reported what they heard, when Brown clearly thought he was in private? If the remark had been a personal one ("Can we find a bog sometime soon? I am desperate," or "I must get to the doctor to ask about this discharge"), then of course it should have been kept private. But the remarks he made were directly relevant to the issues he had just been discussing with a voter, and revealed a disrepancy in attitude that is surely of great interest to the nation who are shortly to be asked to vote in a general election. So, in my view, publishing his remarks was completely justified.

A couple of observations about the actual incident:

• It wasn't a difficult encounter, as some have claimed. Mrs Duffy put some questions to him, and he gave the standard answers. He was friendly to her, and she seemed happy with the meeting afterwards. If it had ended there, Brown would have emerged with some credit for meeting a 'real' voter for once and coming across as more-or-less human. There was no reason that I could see for his weary frustration at how it turned out, still less the blaming of an aide for the 'ridiculous' choice of interlocutor.
• The fact that he could characterise someone who raised the immigration issue (politely and without any derogatory language) as a 'bigot' tells us volumes about the way that the left regard the way 'ordinary people' think. If Mrs Duffy had gone on about "all these 'ere Pakis coming over and taking our jobs", I would have called her a bigot myself - but her question was anything but bigoted.
• The killer aspect for me was the way that Brown sought immediately to blame someone else - anyone - for the encounter. "You should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?" Of course, this now looks all of a piece with other things Brown has said - the economic crisis that 'started in America', the shortage of equipment in Iraq that was the fault of the generals, and so on. There's definitely a psychological flaw here: an inability to take repsonsibility for things, a desire to blame others for anything that goes wrong.
• The grovelling apologies (six at the last count, according to commentators) only added to the negativity. He claims he 'misunderstood' what she had said, and wanted to correct it. Or, from another angle (choose from the pick'n'mix excuses), that he hadn't had time to explain himself to her because of all the press, and wanted to tell her personally. I would have had more respect for him if he had said that he regretted the use of the word 'bigot', but that her attitude seemed to him to be prejudiced, and he was merely letting off steam in private. Not ideal, but no real harm done, and no attention from the world's press for the best part of 24 hours.
• The incident serves to confirm those reports of Brown's bad temper and willingness to lash out when things get difficult, so roundly denied by his cheerleaders.
• It shows Brown as utterly two-faced. His cheerful bonhomie to Mrs Duffy at the end of the meeting ("Good to meet you! Good family!") changes to sotto voce cursing the minute the car door shuts. We are entitled to ask ourselves if much of what we see of Brown in public is similarly artificed.
  

There were any number of ways to play this one, all of which would have left Brown looking a little disdainful, but undamaged. As it was, he managed to snatch a wholly negative outcome from a minor incident that any other politician would have turned, if not to their advantage, to a neutral and forgettable occasion.

Is this a game-changer for the last week of the election campaign? Too early to say, but Brown's performance tonight in the last of the debates is now more crucial than ever.

Paxo Stuffing

I like Jeremy Paxman. He's a good, tough and intelligent interviewer, and his book on The English was excellent. He is normally brilliantly well-prepared and thinks on his feet, and I have never seen him bested in any interview he has conducted. Even Michael Howard crumbled in the end.

Until tonight.

Step forward Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym, Senior Economic Adviser to Plaid Cymru. Dr ap Gwilym has done his homework, is on top of his brief, and is not scared of anyone.

Take it away ...