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I’m all for progress but I really am not too sure about robots conducting orchestra’s. I think it is just silly, although some human conductors are a bit mechanical!

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The government is falling apart and Cameron caused it.

The government is falling apart, day in day out new revelations appear. The slew of memoirs released at the weekend would have been deeply irritating for the PM and the inner sanctum. Then Frank Field fires an exocet at the government this morning in an interview. All this is against the backdrop of a collapse in economic confidence and the governments opinion ratings in freefall. David Cameron would be forgiven for thanking his lucky stars, that is if he wasn’t partially responsible.

Why do I say that Cameron is responsible? Well firstly the strategy that Cameron during the final years of Tony Blair was to deliberately hug the modernisers or Blairites extremely close. This was a deliberate attempt to split the Labour party, it was designed to force the incoming Brownites to tack away from the centre-ground. This was accompanied by Cameron simultaneously moving the Conservatives towards the looming gap in the market. Now that strategy has come to fruition as Brown moved slightly away from the Blairite inheritance and Cameron moved in to the centre. As the Conservatives rebounded in the Autumn and moved ahead in the polls it caused the split in Labour to widen as each side in the Labour party try to pull it in different directions.

Cameron now has the space to move to a new stage of his strategy, to map out the Conservative alternative and to exploit Labours continuing difficulties. I expect that Cameron will now project more gravitas and unveil more ideas as he uses the disintegration of Labour to stake out more of the Centre ground for the Conservatives and also seeks to put the next election totally beyond doubt. Make no mistake whilst some of the governments woes are self inflicted a lot of that is down to Cameron driving the wedge in whilst Blair was still in office and playing the Labour factions off against each other.

Sticking my neck out part 2 - The Broxbourne Prediction

So here is my prediction for tonight in the wards of the Borough of Broxbourne, They are presented as ranges of 50 votes so for example 150-200. This is based on a similar turnout to last year. Obviously if turnout is markedly different my ranges will be meaningless. You will see that I am predicting the Conservatives to win 11 of the 12 wards, and Labour to win 1. As the Conservatives are defending all 12 seats this will represent a loss of 1 seat and result in a council of 35 Conservatives with a 3 strong opposition Labour group.  As soon as I have the results I will post them to compare my prediction against reality.

 

 

BROXBOURNE	Labour	100-150
	Conservative	1150-1200
	BNP	200-250
	Liberal Democrats	150-200
BURY GREEN	Conservative	850-900
	BNP	650-70
	Labour	200-250
CHESHUNT CENTRAL	Conservative	1050-1100
	BNP	300-350
	Labour	200-250
CHESHUNT NORTH	Labour	200-250
	Conservative	850-900
	BNP	400-450
FLAMSTEAD END	BNP	300-350
	Conservative	900-950
	Labour	150-200
GOFF’S OAK	Conservative	1400-1450
	Labour	150-200
	BNP	150-200
HODDESDON NORTH	Labour	200-250
	Conservative	1100-1150
	BNP	250-300
HODDESDON TOWN	Conservative	650-700
	BNP	250-300
	Liberal Democrats	250-300
	Labour	150-200
RYE PARK	BNP	250-300
	Labour	550-600
	Conservative	700-750
THEOBALDS	BNP	250-300
	Labour	250-300
	Conservative	1000-1050
WALTHAM CROSS	Conservative	450-500
	BNP	300-350
	Labour	600-650
WORMLEY AND TURNFORD	BNP	350-400
	Labour	150-200
	Conservative	1000-1050

 

Broxbourne Borough: Ward by Ward - Hoddesdon North Ward

Moving north we come to Hoddesdon North ward, which is the northernmost ward in the Borough. The results from 2004 are as follows:-

Conservative   1478      Labour             354           

For comparison the result at last years round of elections was as follows:-

Conservative   1193      Labour             256           BNP   213

This ward is the northern extreme of Hoddesdon and is centred around the bulk of the Hundred Acre estate. Demographically speaking this should be a closer ward than it is. The estates are not particularly upmarket and it is tribute to the Conservatives locally that they have such a lock on this ward. The Labour vote has been remorselessly squeezed in Hoddesdon North and is now down to about 15%. I doubt it can go much lower. The BNP stood last year and scored only 12% which is unsurprising as there are a few things to play on but not a lot and the Conservatives are ridiculously strong in the ward.

The Conservative candidate is the veteran sitting Councillor, Lyn White. The Labour candidate is Ed Hopwood, who has stood for Labour previously. The BNP are fielding a candidate again this year in Colin Whittaker, I know nothing about this candidate.

The Conservatives will have little to be worried about in this ward; they managed a touch under 70% in a three way contest last year. The national trend will make life very difficult for Labour and one wouldn’t expect them to exceed their share last year, having said that it is difficult to see it dropping much further. The BNP may improve on their 12% and may nudge in front of Labour but it is difficult to see them gaining more than 15%. This looks like a quite comfortable hold for the Conservatives.

Broxbourne Borough: Ward by Ward - Flamstead End Ward

I now move on to Flamstead End ward, which is again fairly westerly ward and is usually considered to be a part of the town of Cheshunt. The results in 2004 were as follows:-

Conservative   1256       Labour             382           

For comparison the result at last years round of elections was as follows:-

Conservative   960       Labour             220        BNP     295            

The ward is one that is borderline rural, and shares much in common with Goff’s Oak although somewhat less affluent and less homogeneous.  There are parts of Flamstead End ward that would be a rich seam for Labour if they were more popular nationally which is not the case with neighbouring Goff’s Oak. Parts of the ward are adjacent to the mammoth Brookfield out of town shopping zone which is probably the principal shopping area in the Borough.

The Conservative candidate is new this year, Martin Lyth, I know nothing about him. The Labour candidate is Alec McInnes, a regular Labour candidate in recent years, usually in Bury Green. The BNP are fielding a candidate again this year in Mark Gerrard, again I know nothing about this candidate.

The Conservatives will have few concerns in this ward; recent history has shown this to be a heavily Conservative ward. The Conservatives won by 3-1 in most years since 2003 mainly due to it being a simple two way tussle. Last year with the entry of a third candidate the Conservatives still managed to outperform the combined effort of the other 2 candidates by almost 2-1. This year it would seem that with the national picture looking the way it does and little locally to push votes one way or the other a similar 2-1 margin over the combined opposing candidates looks eminently possible.

London Buses

Every day on my way to work I decide to get off of the tube one stop early and walk to my office. This provides me with about an extra 15-20 minutes of walking and I consider it some valuable exercise. I am usually doing this walk in the environs of Oxford Street at about 8:30am. Over the last few weeks I have been observing the buses as I walk to work, this being a fairly busy part of London with one imagines lots of people starting work around there at 9:00 or thereabouts. The curious thing I have noticed is the number of buses that have relatively few passengers. Now along my route there are a wide variety of different number bus, so clearly they are following different routes and coming from and going to different places and yet bus after bus is severely underoccupied. The other day in point of fact I noticed within 5 or so minutes down the same stretch of road two buses of the same route, both of them were double-decker buses, one had 2 passengers on it the other had no passengers visible on it. So this was one bus with the driver and cost thereof, all the fuel and cost thereof, all the pollution and cost thereof with no passengers.

Now clearly one cannot draw full conclusions from the rather prosaic and anecdotal evidence I have outlined, however I think that there could well be a case for looking at the servicing of routes. If we have within minutes of each other buses following the same route and carrying a combined number of passengers that would fit comfortably onto just the one bus it might be worth just taking a look. Obviously there may be portions of the route that are more in demand, and what I am seeing is not representative of the whole story. That would be a perfectly fair thing to suggest, and I would be prepared to accept that, however I think that when one of the largest bus fleets in western Europe is being talked about we need to be confident that it is being used most effectively. 

I would urge whoever wins London’s Mayoral election to instigate a review of bus routes and service provision. It is essential that we are not supplying buses where there is no demand, because it could be at the expense of fuelling demand where there is no supply. We need to have a bus service that is responsive and that is most effectively deployed. I would also suggest that whilst none of us would want to use an overcrowded bus most of us would be more than happy if we didn’t have an entire bus deck to ourselves. I think that a fullscale route review would be beneficial and that a periodic fullscale review should be instigated to ensure that London’s buses are always most effectively deployed. It is no good happily supplying yesterday’s demand whilst today’s goes unsupplied, and tomorrow’s is not even thought about. Over time usage patterns must change and the Mayor of London needs to ensure that the service pattern is as well matched to usage as can be acheived.

Advice for the leaders

They won’t take any notice but I am going to dish out my advice as I see it:-

Gordon Brown

1 Understand how bad this mess really is.
2 Get your head down
3 No more stunts
4 Pray like crazy that the press don’t start to enjoy kicking you

Ming Campbell

1 Understand how dire some of your poll ratings are
2 Pray like crazy that the knives aren’t being sharpened

David Cameron

1 Understand that this is one tactical victory, enjoy it but don’t gloat
2 Get your head down, use the space to hone your message
3 Get your team to play to their strengths, it worked lasts week
4 Never again retreat from the fray. It allows your opponents space

More on Gordon.

Before Gordon became PM in June we had an awful lot of expectation management. Stooge Labour MP after stooge Labour MP queued up to say how Gordon was a big beast, shrew strategist and generally a million times as good as any Tory. We had Tony (remember him?) calling him the Clunking fist who was going to smack the Conservatives silly. We even had the media contriving to suggest how Gordon was going to run rings around the Conservatives because he was so good at tactics. Then he became PM.

For a little while the predictions seemed to bear out in reality. The Conservatives nose-dived into introspection and Gordon rode high, helpfully assisted by some chance events. Then super-confidant Gordon decided to play the Prime Ministerial ace in the hole. Election. For weeks now the Labour have been spinning (yes it hasn’t died despite Gordon’s funeral oration) that an election will be called. Initially the Conservatives did nothing about this, it seems they buried themselves for a bit in preparing for it if it came. Gordon and his gang of sanctimonious, over-promoted and arrogant acolytes kept on spinning away. The polls kept firming up as the deliberately invisible Conservative party retreated from view. Oh my they thought this is going to be easy. They allowed themselves to get totally out of control, it was if they were all high on election drugs. 1997 again they suggested, annihilate the Tories, another decade in power.

Meanwhile there sat David Cameron and George Osborne, probably with enormous grins all over there faces. What a gift of an opportunity. So they came up with a plan and stayed silent. Then came the Conservative conference, Labour predicted infighting and suggested that the Conservatives were exactly where they wanted them. But who had been stitching up whom? All was to be revealed as one by one David’s boot boys got stuck in. Gordon was overcome by a major sense of panic as he saw what was about to happen. Full scale tactical encirclement. So he came up with a wizard wheeze, go to Iraq and steal the headlines. Bring some troops home. That will stuff the Tories good and proper. But poor Gordon had forgotten the first rule of decision making, never make a decision in a panic. It all came back to haunt him. He was being cynical and he got caught, bang to rights. So next he goes and opens a hospital that was already open and had been for months. Oops. Actually it is probably standard practice but hey, the media were running with it.

Gordon is now in a total mess, the master tactician has been out thought, and out played for much of the last 10 days by David Cameron. He is now in a position whereby if he calls an election and wins with anything other than a significantly increased majority the press will turn on him. If he slinks off to lick his wounds, the Caledonian big beast tamed by the upstart from the shires then he is a laughing stock and his reputation will be in tatters. So Gordon has a choice call the election fight it come out diminished because there is little chance of a similar majority let alone a bigger one. Don’t call an election now and gift the edge to your opponent when you do get round to calling it . This is the most important decision of Gordon’s life and whatever he chooses it will be wrong and it’s all his fault.

Master tactician? Monumental twat more like.

Brown wastes no time

Well the Number 10 website has been updated to show Gordon Brown’s biography etc. Well they have had plenty of time to get ready for it. Interestingly there is a section in the Speeches secrtion which contains a link to the Labour Party website. I am not sure about whether this breaches any regulations around impartiality etc but it just seems a little wrong to link to a political website from a government site.