2008 Locals - What happens now

As I write, we still await the London Mayoral results, but on the back of the locals it would seem that Boris will do well. These are dire results for Labour, there worst performance in a generation it would seem. The lowest share of the vote and eclipsed by the Lib Dems in those terms. The projected national share from the BBC is:-

Conservative 44%

Labour           24%

Lib Dem         25%

Others              7%

It is clear that the results in actual elections are mirroring opinion polls. One has to be careful about using figures like this as the Lib Dems do a lot better in local projected shares to General Election actual share. I would suspect that if a general election were held that Labour would be on about 30% and the Lib Dems on about 19% . I suspect that the Conservatives would be roughly where they are. Given that electoral calculus gives the following UNS result of Conservatives 373, Labour 210, Lib Dems 37 a majority for the Conservatives of 96.

With the Mayoral result due later, the results of local elections 2008 show that the next General election will probably be the most exciting in many many years.

How bad is this for Brown?

Well I have now had an opportunity of watching our illustrious PM giving his soft interview to Marr. I have to say from his demeanour and the failure to deal with the issue of whether he is damaged by this shows that he knows he is. He kept flashing those fake smiles he has become used to in the last few months. It is beginning to look like a nervous smile, you know the sort that some people struggle with, they are told that Auntie is dead and break into a broad grin. I counted a number of Brown grins today, most of them at the hard questions. It showed more effectively than any of the words his realisation that this is a monumental fuck-up.

But let us consider how bad it really is. Well clearly the Conservative press, and Conservatives generally are pretty pleased. They are partisan so welcome any bad news for their opponents. I get a sense though of another feeling within the centre-right, the feeling of an enormous opportunity. I also get the impression Cameron and his team understand this which is why whilst he has been all over the media this weekend it has been done somberly soberly and with no demeanour of triumph.

The left wing press are pretty annoyed too, Polly Toynbee on Marr conceded that it was a disaster for Brown. She then went on to state that it was all over how Labour haven’t explained tax that IHT proposals have got wings. I think also that Labour’s default position of class war which was opened up at their Conference will be ramped up. I won’t dissuade them from it even though I think it will be an horrific mistake.

I notice that on Andrew Marr there was no Ming, surely when an opposing Party leader who is PM has dug himself a hole, you want to be there yourself to shovel the earth over him? But, no we had the smug Simon Hughes. Perhaps Ming, the third horse in British politics was already at the knackers yard!!

Busy Day for Politics

Well today has been a fascinating day. Brown bottles out. Then a poll puts the Conservatives 3% ahead of Labour with the LibDems on a derisory 11%.

So the next election is clearly a 2 horse race. People expect Ming Campbell to be taken to the glue factory pretty soon!!

Timing!

Within minutes of my last post and Gordon chickens out. Breaking news all it’s all off. Sound the all clear.

My points I have made about the impact on Brown stand. Heavy damage in the short term and an underlying erosion for the long. You can see the potential opposition reaciton “Brown looked at the likely verdict and recoiled, it proves that the only citizen’s jury’s he is interested in are the ones that offer the result he wants”

How to win an election

We hear a lot nowadays about how you can only win an election from the centre-ground. In fact such is the pull of this modern political cliche that all 3 parties are fighting to be or be seen to be in this centre-ground. I want to look at how you win an election, and I want to show that it is my contention that it has nothing to do with a concept of centre-ground. I want to smash apart that cheap and prevailing orthodoxy. A tall order but well here goes.

Why has the centre-ground become the political Grail quest?

The concept of centre-ground seems to have arisen in the mid 1990’s. I personally cannot find much reference to it before then. It was part of the Clinton and Blair triangulation strategy, whereby they both painted themselves as the sensible alternative to two largely constructed extremes. They were therefore in the centre-ground. They then went on to dominate the electoral geography in their respective countries and so they could construct a myth around the centre-ground. The myth is this, that the centre-ground is the point on the political continuum where most people are, that parties that want to succeed have to be where the people are and that the centre-ground shifts over time. Consequently they could fit every election winner onto the centre-ground, it moves over time remember, and it then gave them a ready made political strategy. Anything that was not hundred percent the same as the proposals they came up with and their opponents were not on the centre-ground, if opponents agreed with them they were welcomed to the centre-ground but the subliminal message to the electorate was then sent out. We are the genuine article, they are chasing us. It was brilliant, cynical and effective but it was an absolute pile of crap.

How are elections won then if not from the political centre?

There are a number of factors that impact elections and election winners but occupying the centre-ground is not one of them. When Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election she did it not by moving to where the people were congregated by setting her position and convincing people to move towards her. When Harold Wilson won the 1964 election he did it by encompassing not the centre-point of the electoral geography but by embracing the spirit of the age. Elections are often won by challenging the orthodoxy not embracing it, by shifting the political pole not by defending it where it is.

Let us look at Margaret Thatcher in more detail. When she became Conservative leader in 1975 where would the centre-ground as defined have been? It would have been around a prices and incomes policy and constructive union involvement in the economy. That was where most people had been for a long time. If she had decided to occupy the centre-ground then she would have stuck with the status quo and tinkered at the edges. The Thatcher government would have been a comforting failure and not a lot more. What Mrs Thatcher actually did was to critique the orthodoxy, point out the failures, take a long view on electoral fortunes and set out a different vision. She was assisted by the devastating economic problems and a healthy dose of good luck in terms of the Winter of Discontent, but she succeeded in shifting the poles. The result was a government that was an uncomfortable success.

Let us look at another example, Harold Wilson, in 1964. How did he win his election? Firstly he was assisted in part by the length of tenure of the government of the day. Secondly by a major scandal just a year before the election, Profumo. This in itself was never going to be enough. His electoral strategy was a massive compare and contrast with the Conservatives, dynamic against stagnant, young versus old, aristocrat versus common man, and it was designed to do one thing and one thing only. Shift the political poles. It moved people onto his ground.

So I think the essence of election winning is not about occupying the centre ground, but prising people off of your opponents ground and onto your own. Sounds simple in theory doesn’t it and remarkably similar to win more votes. However I am not talking about arithmetic calculations but about winning people onto your emotional and intellectual ground. The votes will follow the heart and the mind.

What ingredients make people shift ground?

Firstly, the absolutely necessary ingredient, is a believable critique of one or another area of current policy or orthodoxy. Every opposition can criticise the government, its what they are there for, but the criticism has to chime and has to be believed. Margaret Thatcher’s basic criticism of Labour was that there economic policy was damaging the country, it was a believable criticism when bodies went unburied etc. It got her listening space. Tony Blair for all his emphasis of centre-groundism had a believable criticism too, his was a twofold one. Economic incompetence and personal behaviour incompatible with government. For a government that had overseen 2 recessions and a market devaluation of sterling economic incompetence was a believable criticism. That it was somewhat off the mark was irrelevant it was believable and believed. The second criticism was moral incompatibility with governance, this again was believable in light of the many personal failures in the Conservative Party. Again the fact that a lot of the ’sleaze’ involved junior members of the government and backbenchers was irrelevant, the criticism chimed. This creates listening space for stage two of an election strategy.

Stage two has to be scope widening, what I mean is that once you have gained listening space for your credible criticism you have to make a few logical progressions and start to tie in other issues. You also have to take one of your opponents motivators and turn it on something that they can be made responsible for or appear to have neglected. Margaret Thatcher used her listening space from her criticism of economic decline to tie in union domination and a sense that certain unions had gotten too big for their boots. She then turned the governments class motivation against them, the class motivation being that rich people had undue power and influence and needed to be bought down a peg by redistributive taxation. Turning that against the government Mrs Thatcher pointed out that powerful union barons had too much control and influence and needed to be bought down a peg. In an age of grievance politics she had created a grievance that didn’t rebound to the benefit of her opponent. She had placed herself alongside a constituency of voters, anyone who resented union power. Be that union members, the boss class, whoever. She was ignoring the centre-ground as constructed and using her arguments to syphon off groups of interests to her ground.

Tony Blair used his criticism even more effectively because by showing incompetence and moral failure he was able to claim that when the government did something he approved of it was a happy accident and something he didn’t approve was an evil design. He carved out listening space to push the notion that the government had helped certain people become rich but neglected the poor. He did something slightly different than a straightforward rebounding of a government strength, he made a support of aspiration back into a grievance of the rich and powerful. He reconstructed class-based politics whilst maintaining a sense of assistance for aspiration. It worked, and instead of occupying the centre-ground he had split it asunder and syphoned off large groups and interests to himself.

So what about David Cameron and Conservatives?

After the above, you would be forgiven for thinking that I am about to critique David Cameron. Actually I am going to show that for all his talk of centre-grounding he is actually following the real election winning strategy I have demonstrated above. David Cameron is talking about moving onto the centre-ground as a tactical shield, it is a confusion tactic for his opponents. They believe him so they attack him on all the wrong points. What Cameron has been doing more so in the last few weeks and months is constructing a believable critique. He is criticising the Broken Society, it is believable especially as it comes against a backdrop of teen on teen (TOT) killing. He is using the space it gives him to recreate progressive aspiration as a political motivator. To which end he has repeated Margaret Thatcher’s trick of turning the class grievance back at his opponents. He has picked out non-doms, it is a political move of the highest order. The government cannot justify the position and the modest charge is not going to affect a multi-billionaire like Abramovich.

Cameron would probably be unable to win an election held now, in the same way that Margaret Thatcher would not have been able to win an election 3 months after Callaghan had become PM. Shifting people onto your ground takes time, and a certain amount of luck. I think though that if an election comes now no-one will gain a majority. The polls to me indicate that voters are being shifted and it will take time before the political pole has moved completely. As long as David Cameron keeps up the believable critique and using the space to invert the governments strengths and uses that to carve out his own ground. With a bit of luck, which might be afforded by the economy, then come an election in usual circumstances he will win.

What type of election will the next one be?

There are a number of scenarios in which Elections are fought and won or lost, and I will list them and go into detail. I will then explain what type of election the next one will be.

The time for a change election
The give them more time election
The no alternative election
The spirit of the age election

There is a fourth one which is actually a fusion of the first and last on my list and is the watershed election.

The time for a change election – This type of election is usually the type fought at the tail end of a long standing government. It is a natural pendulum election and the psychology of the electorate is a grudging ‘give the other guys a chance’. If the opposition party is reasonably competent and the government has made a number of unpopular errors, a move away from the government is usual and a change of government occurs without huge enthusiasm. A case in point would probably be 1970.

The give them more time election – This type of election is usual with a competent government that although making mistakes is broadly seen to need more time to fulfil their program and iron out the inherent difficulties of governing. In this type of election the opposition is pretty much doomed from day one. A case in point would be 1966.

The no alternative election – This is when the government is not hugely popular but the opposition is not seen as ready or able to rise to the challenge of government and so consequently the government is returned but without much goodwill. There are two modern cases in point, 1992 and 2005.

The spirit of the age election – This is when one party clearly captures the mood of the times or is visionary enough to see the emerging trend and appear to actually lead the charge. This is a very rare type of election in itself and happens maybe once or twice in a generation. The elections I would pick out as spirit of the age elections would be 1945 and 1983.

Then there is the watershed election – This is when time for a change and spirit of the age combine. It is an irresistible combination and it redraws the political and sometimes the cultural boundaries. I would classify only one election since the war in this way, that of 1997. The 1997 election is seminal, it was a gigantic landslide which obliterated the governing party and propelled an opposition party that had caught the mood of the age into a dominating position in the electoral geography. Short of catastrophic failure of government the winner of 1997 had banked enough electoral capital to guarantee a second mandate.

So what sort of election will the next election be? There is a case for a give them more time election, Gordon Brown will certainly be attempting to make it that type of election most especially if he goes this autumn. If he waits longer then that type of election will not be possible and he will have to try for a no alternative election. This will involve painting the Conservatives as hopeless or dangerous or both. I think he would have better luck in getting the right conditions in an early election for a give them more time approach. He may be thinking the same, hence the speculation. There is a case for a time for a change election, the government has certainly had ample time to succeed and plenty of failures to its name. The Conservatives have decided to try this approach in the short term, particularly in an autumn poll. It may or may not work. I think though the evidence is mounting that if Gordon bottles out of an early poll then we could see a spirit of the age election, the Conservatives in Blackpool this week sound like they get it. This is a curious phrase because the it is largely ephemeral but I don’t think it is a coincidence that grassroots Conservatives dominate the blogosphere. I don’t think it is a ploy that Conservatives are streets ahead in online campaigning and in understanding how aspiration works in the 21st Century. I think that the work that they have done on the ‘Broken Society’ combined with the above is evidence of them getting it.

I have already blogged about a potential media tipping point, I think this is evidence that the media might just be sensing that the Conservatives may be swimming with the spirit of the modern age. Time will tell on that front. For David Cameron though if he has managed to persuade Gordon against an early election may find that a few months down the road that the public begin to see clearly that the Conservatives represent the age and the future more effectively than Labour, and if that combines with a palpable sense of time for a change we could be looking at a watershed election.

General Election - Can Labour really win big in an early election?

So the general election speculation refuses to die and in fact gets more frenetic. Whilst throughout I have maintained that Gordon is just toying with everyone. I am beginning to wonder whether he might get boxed in and effectively have to call his own bluff and go for it for fear of looking like a coward. So I thought I might think through how an election called within a matter of days might pan out results wise. To do this I will look at the polling evidence, the underlying and immediate background and then add in my best guesstimates as to what that means for a result.

Firstly the polls, yes the latest YouGov poll was impressive with an 11 point lead for Labour, but I am going to use ConservativeHome’s poll of poll’s and adjust it slightly. The poll of poll figures were as follows, Conservative 34%; Labour 39.8%; LibDem 15.8% and Others therefore 10.4%. Clearly the actual result will be nothing like as bad for the LibDems so I am going to adjust by the following I am going to add 2.5% to the LibDems to allow for the exposure boost that there numbers receive, I am going to add 2% to Conservative and take it from Labour to allow for the fact that the polls underestimate the Conservatives and overestimate Labour. This gives us a tally as follows.

Conservative - 36%
Labour - 37.8%
LibDem - 18.3%
Others - 7.9%

This clearly would not result in a Conservative win, but I think also it would be unlikely to result in a Labour win either. Consequently if the shares were anything like the above I suggest that the result would be a Hung Parliament.

The trends are interesting, it is clear that the Conservatives were building back into being genuine election contenders before Brown took over the Labour leadership. There had been two consecutive years of frankly impressive Council elections, the polls whilst not stand out brilliant were good. The policy review process was going to plan and David Cameron was the man of the future. Then Gordon happened, the Conservatives wobbled then panicked and the media and some less reliable Conservatives are measuring Cameron up for his political coffin. I think this is premature, the trend was long term and solid, I think nothing in the last few months has changed the underlying trend of Labour on the wane and Conservatives in the ascendancy. The Labour party may have pegged it back a little, but the more hysterical commentators would have you believe that Labour were going to sweep all before them. This is I believe more than a little wide of the mark.

Other trends that are evident is the LibDem squeeze. This has been exacerbated by the Ming factor which is unfortunately for the LibDems doing them a significant amount of harm. The fact is that in two sets of local elections, the LibDems have found themselves taken apart by the Conservatives in the South, and have seen their traction against Labour in the North slip somewhat. This bodes ill for them in an election, I think no-one seriously expects the LibDems to do anything other than shed seats at the next election whenever it comes. However I suspect that Ming’s and the LibDems weakness is also seriously bad news for Labour too. In 1997 there is significant evidence of Lib Dem’s voting tactically for Labour to keep out the Conservative, the same is true of Labour supporters doing the same for the Lib Dem’s. I think the perilously low ratings the LibDems now have will add to the Cameron factor to exacerbate the level of tactical unwind. LibDems I believe will no longer see it as affordable to lend votes to Labour, this will dip Labour vote share in marginals and allow the Conservatives to pick up maybe a dozen seats from Labour.

The other trend that will form a part of any autumn election scenario is in Scotland where it is less than 6 months since the SNP defeated Labour in the Scottish Parliament elections. An election in the next few weeks will be a gift to Alex Salmond, who would turn it into an ‘interim verdict’ on the SNP minority executive in Holyrood. There is few who doubt that the SNP would hurt Labour north of the border, and whilst it probably wouldn’t be spectacular as in May it would harm Labour chances of getting a majority. The fact is also that the two party struggle in May masked another trend in Scotland which was that the Conservatives whilst not making any headline progress did make sub-radar progress and I suspect would add to the haul of 1 seat in any general election, probably only 2 extra seats, maybe 3 at a push but again it would cause Gordon issues in terms of majority.

Finally there is the campaign itself, the notable thing about the speculation is that the Conservatives went fairly quiet when Gordon took over. Labour then dominated the agenda and shot into a lead in the polls encouraging election talk, all over the summer Labour and Gordon dominated and their small lead held. At the end of August David Cameron came back from his holiday and got stuck in, the Labour lead evaporated. He has not been spectacularly active since and the Labour lead has grown and with that the election speculation. This reached fever pitch when Labour dominated the news agenda during their Conference week. Next week is the Conservative conference, I imagine that the Labour lead will evaporate again. The campaign will have all parties in the spotlight, Labour have only had a lead in the polls when the opposition has been quiet. You can guarantee that in an election no opposition will be silent.

The speculation has mounted and mounted, helped along by Gordon and his chums. The Conservatives have kept their powder dry, most have interpreted this as folly and weakness. I suspect it is a deliberate strategy, Cameron tested opinion in early September found it was not solidly gone to Brown and is making sure that should Gordon be forced to call his own bluff there will be Cameron waiting with candidates in most of the top marginals, a multi-million pound fighting fund and a serious and credible set of proposals distilled from the most imaginative set of ideas in a generation. Labour want a snap election, they cackle that they will win it at a canter, I think it may be the Brown bubble that goes pop. To call an election or not, Gordon has Ed Balls but has he got the balls

The Brown Strategy: An Analysis

Over the weekend, lacking internet and with all my chores done I set myself to thinking about the current state of play politically. I have long been of the opinion that all the talk of an Autumn election will turn out to be just talk. I want though to offer a more detailed case than merely my hunch, so here goes.

Gordon Brown became PM and leader of the Labour party in June of this year at the age of 56. He has wanted the job his entire adult life, he has spent every one of the last few years obsessing about attaining the prize as he saw it. His whole career has been carefully orchestrated to achieve the goal of leading the Labour party in power. He will therefore jealously guard the prize and will not do anything to jeopardize his ownership of it. We can see some of this jealousy in the way he behaved in his shadowy campaign to destabilise the Blair leadership. Systematically he eliminated anyone who looked like being a challenger, or he bought them off, Milburn was seen off twice, Reid, and Jack Straw was drafted in only when he was a somewhat diminished figure. When talk began of Miliband being drafted as a runner, who can doubt that he was bought off with the Foreign Office?

What has he done since June, well he has moved quickly to build a steady image. He was helped in this by events. Firstly there were the terror events, and then the FMD outbreak. This all occurred against the backdrop of some of the less reliable Conservatives having a collective panic attack. Brown has distanced himself from the less popular policies of the Blair years; Super casinos and 24 hour drinking are being rowed back from. The mood music on Iraq/Afghanistan is being changed and the New Labour project given a bit of a makeover. It is remarkable how little has actually changed in terms of content, the direction of the government is broadly the same now as it was this time last year. The only change is the front man and the packaging. It reminds me of those horrendous washing powder commercials, “New even better Labour, our whitest whites yet” anyone?

What hasn’t changed? Well for a start New Labour is still a political magpie. Border Police, a Conservative idea, has been purloined but watered down and distorted in an effort to deny the Conservatives any traction with their real policy. People are included in the tent from all shades of opinion, where possible by encouraging them to change horses like Quentin Davies. If that is not possible then they are asked to advise the government like Mercer and Bercow. This is so that Gordon can blunt any attack with a simple formula along the lines of “We can’t be doing that bad because X or Y is still advising us, what is your problem Mr Cameron?” Further to that he is assiduously invading space perceived as being natural ground of his opponents, English jobs for English Workers is seen as a sop to the right. He is wrapping himself in the flag at every opportunity, and hardly a sentence drips from his mouth without “British” in it. Then there is his standard quote of late, “I am focussed on doing the job”. This is designed to be electorally lethal; it is the hidden part of this Gordon wants to convey, “The Conservatives and Lib Dems are focussed on politics”.

So what about the election, well again this suits Gordon’s purposes and is actually goes back to his obsessive nature. Gordon far from being above politics as he is trying to convey is the most politically aware PM in recent history. His every move is calculated, nothing he says, or does or allows others to say or do is by chance. He is deliberately allowing election speculation to continue. He is doing this for 2 reasons, one it focuses the minds of his allies and keeps them in the fold when he does things they wouldn’t approve of such as having tea with Lady Thatcher and two it makes his opponents jumpy. Gordon wants his opponents to be jumpy, jumpy politicians tend to make mistakes, and Brown wants mistakes. He wants to seize on those mistakes and punish them.

The election speculation is designed to destabilise the Conservative Party, it is designed to make the Conservative Party rush into making policy that doesn’t stand up. This is so that Gordon can kick it to death. However Gordon would need time to do that properly. So the speculation is just that for the time being. Keep your opponents guessing, try to force them into making mistakes, jump on them and spend 18 months kicking the crap out of those mistakes, then when you have wrecked your opponents’ chances call an election. That is as far as I can see the whole Brown strategy. David Cameron I think understands this in part.

Why this is the strategy goes all the way back to Gordon’s personality, he is instinctively cautious. Remember all those times he had Blair with his back to a wall and a loaded gun in his hand, only to put the safety back on and walk away. He is a man whose obsession with the prize of the leadership makes him fearful, fearful that something will snatch it away. When Blair refused habitually to stand down, Brown started a rebellion only to become fearful that by being seen to wield the knife it would deny him the crown. Now it is the same, Brown is frightened of 2 things. Firstly Brown is frightened of the Conservatives, he has seen that Cameron has made them serious contenders for power and so the next election is competitive. Brown doesn’t like that; he might lose a competitive election. Secondly Brown is frightened of history; he doesn’t want having engineered a leadership non-contest to be a PM who served without winning an election or to be a short-lived PM. So his strategy is twofold, use the threat of a snap Autumn election to destabilise the Conservatives and kick to death the mistakes they make as a result whilst biding your time and if things go better than expected be prepared to change the bluff for the plan. I don’t think things have gone quite well enough to change the basic plan which is to have nearly a year of kicking the Conservatives and go in May 08. If I am wrong I won’t have long until I find out.

Election Fever

Yet again election fever is gripping the pundits and the politics anoraks like myself. I can not believe Brown will go in October. I never have believed it. My holiday from work has been booked for weeks and handily now coincides with the election dates being suggested. So if I am wrong I can pitch in and help out.

Incidentally I am now definately looking to stand for my local council again. So hopefully come next May I will be back in the thick of the action. I love elections so if I am wrong about Brown and he cuts and runs then I for one will not be entirely unhappy, I love the prospect of canvassing, leafletting and all the rest.

Markets and Elections

Well I think we can safely say that the recent problems at NR have eliminated the potential for an election this October. I cannot think that any PM in their right mind would risk the charge of cutting and running, especially if it could be so easily made and not without some resonance. So I think that an election this year is all but impossible given recent events.

Are the market issues of recent weeks over? Well the government have given an unlimited largely unspecified guarantee to NR savers over any deposit currently held in NR. This appears to have quelled the issue for now. Over in the US Ben Bernanke has cut US loan rates by 50 basis points in order to stave off a recession, this led to a large rally in US stocks. I suspect there will be a general consensus that the worst has been avoided and everything will look rosy from here on in. Forgive my pessimism but I somehow just don’t buy it, I think that the economies of the world are looking ripe for a correction and nothing the governments or central banks can do will avoid it. They may stave it off but I still think it is coming. The economic cycle can not and has not been abolished, economies grow and then they stall and during that stall tend to consolidate the gains. The UK in particular needs a period of consolidation, as well as a long overdue lesson that you cannot buck the market. I don’t think that even after recent weeks that lesson is yet fully understood.