No Contest

Race to join the race.

On Thursday 20^th May, Diane Abbott spoiled Andy Burnham’s year. Former Health Secretary Burnham had consulted the astrologers in all the daily newspapers, examined the entrails of the first pigeon he could see in Trafalgar Square and finally decided to cautiously launch his leadership bid. He had appearances booked on all the influential programmes and had (probably) spent hours having his eyebrows waxed and any unsightly nasal hairs removed…only to be completely gazumped by the irresponsibly spontaneous Diane Abbott waking up and deciding that this really looked the day to launch a leadership bid.

Abbott then joined Ed Milliband in trying to talk about grown-up things like ‘why did we lose the election?’, ‘why don’t people like us anymore?’, ‘what if David Milliband is too nerdy to get elected?’ It was refreshing. The public engages with Abbott, she doesn’t over-do the jargon, she seems to spend some of her time talking to people who aren’t members of political parties and she seems…well…happy.

So, Sunday morning, listening to ‘Broadcasting House’ on Radio 4 and Abbott is reviewing the day's papers with none other than…Lionel Blair. Great opening joke from Lionel, who reported than he met Cherie Blair just after the Labour landslide in 1997, and she greeted him warmly, asking ‘do you get called "Tony" as much as he gets called "Lionel"?' ‘No-one's ever called me "Tony",’ he answered. Chilly silence from Cherie, but the studio loves it. Brilliant move, this, Diane Abbott with much loved, old guard entertainer, well done Diane, you’ve won over Middle England.

And then it went wrong. Lionel started telling stories. It was like meeting up with an old friend of the family that you last saw when you were a kid, the kind of person that you used to call ‘uncle’ even though they weren’t related to you, and realising that the world has moved on and they haven’t. Lionel, it turns out, has some interesting views on, you know, everything that’s changed in the last thirty years, paying taxes (he thinks that Vince Cable wants to tax his conservatory), women, socialism, John Prescott. And I’m not actually saying that he’s racist, but I am implying it…

So Diane Abbott is left looking uncomfortable, except this is radio so she just keeps quiet. She must have been wondering why David Milliband wasn't there, or either of the Eds. This is the problem of being an outsider in the Labour Leadership race, you have to pursue any opportunity for publicity that you can get – just to get on the ballot paper.

It’s unlikely that any Labour party member will be able to vote for Diane Abbott as Labour Leader. The race at the moment is the race to get thirty-three MPs to nominate you. Labour has 258 MPs, so there could be seven candidates standing in the actual election, when it begins. The problem, however, is that MPs want to be seen to back the winning horse. The two Millibands between them have 78 MPs pledged – twelve more than they need. But David, particularly, is likely to keep picking up nominations. Why not? You think he’ll win, you get in early, then he owes you a favour, maybe a Shadow Cabinet post and then a role as a Junior Minister once the Coalition falls apart.

Another MP hoping to be a candidate is John McDonnell. He has proposed that once a candidate gets to thirty-three MPs, they close the book and so MPs have to go and find another candidate to officially support. His argument is that real contests helped the Conservatives and Lib. Dems. elect leaders who weren’t the favourites, who came through in the PR battle and began to raise their profile with the public. The Labour Party, on the other hand, has a history of Soviet style mock-elections. Notice that David Milliband has said next to nothing so far. Why take any risks?

Sadly for Diane Abbott, nobody seems to be taking McDonnell’s proposal seriously.

Dirty Bricks

National Unity?

The last time that there was a Liberal in Government was during the Second World War, when token ‘Liberal National’ candidates were stuffed into posts to make the whole thing seem representative. The last time that the Liberals really had power was 1922, when the Conservatives pulled out of a coalition government that had been keeping the Liberals, led by Lloyd George, in power since the end of the First World War. The thorny issue that ended power-sharing was a familiar enough complaint: allegations that honours were being sold off. Contemplating the new Coalition, I can’t help wondering what the issue will be that will start the unravelling process.

This morning we woke up to news that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Lib. Dem. David Laws, has been outed by The Daily Telegraph. Ostensibly, the article is about an expenses scandal, but really it is an opportunity to discuss the sexuality of the minister in charge of tightening the national belt. The timing is impeccable: cuts announced during the week, first rock chucked at the beginning of the weekend.

Some mettle is about to be tested. The Government is being pressured into sacking Laws, because, the argument goes, he will be seen as a hypocrite for stopping other people spending money that he has been caught misappropriating. It will seem to a lot of Liberal Democrats that the Telegraph is really attacking homosexuality: do you really want a gay man telling you what to do with your money? This will enrage every Lib. Dem. supporter in the country. It had better enrage David Cameron, if he wants to keep his partners.

But sooner or later a Minister is going to make a real mistake, an actual error in their job and will need to be fired. All sorts of problems begin. Does a Liberal replace a Liberal, or is this about appointing the best person for the job? There are three times as many Conservative MPs to choose from, and soon the new MPs are going to want jobs in Government. How patiently will they wait?

Hopefully Laws will survive and we can all rest easily in our beds, knowing that the person over-seeing the deficit has a double-first in Economics from King’s College, Cambridge. The alternative, Laws being forced from office by a right-wing newspaper, would reaffirm every worry that Lib. Dems. have about the deal they’ve made.

Could be an interesting weekend.

The Pursuit of Government

At lunchtime we wondered if David Cameron would be Prime Minister by tea time. At 5 o’clock Gordon Brown announced the beginning of formal talks between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. The sudden change of fortunes seemed shocking, yet it is hard to believe that we haven’t got more of these surprises to come.

Most of the key players in the present intrigue are lawyers and they are choosing their words carefully. Gordon Brown is ‘prepared’ to resign if a deal is struck with the Lib. Dems. Nick Clegg has stuck to his firm belief that the party with the most seats should be allowed to seek to form a government before any other party tries.

‘Seeking to form a government’ seems like the ‘pursuit of happiness’: you skip quickly to the interesting word at the end and forget that all that is being offered is a journey.

It could well be that today’s decision by the Liberal Democrats is a bargaining tool to whip the Conservatives into shape. They know that the Lib. Dems have defined themselves as a party battling for Proportional Representation. The Conservatives will have to give ground on this issue if they want a coalition.

It may well be that the Conservatives have no room to manoeuvre. It is also likely that the Lib. Dems are not such natural bed-fellows with Labour, especially once all the national parties get involved. Labour MPs from Scotland don’t spend sleepless nights worrying about losing their seats to Tories – it’s the SNP and the Lib. Dems who provide the opposition.

As close as a ‘Rainbow Alliance’ may seem this evening, we could well have a minority Conservative government by the end of the week. That would end talk of Proportional Representation for some time. If the Lib. Dems can’t form a coalition with two very desperate party leaders, it will be hard to convince voters that a coalition government will ever work.

The Rainbow Alliance

Gordon Brown is spending the weekend at home in Scotland. This is symbolic – yesterday The Sun’s front page called him ‘the squatter at No. 10’. 10.7 million people voted Conservative, so Brown could do without pictures of him cheerfully coming in and out of Downing Street. In fact, Brown could do with everyone forgetting about him for a while.

Houses are very important at the moment. Every news bulletin seems to feature either Cameron or Clegg arriving at or leaving their London homes. We know, for example, that David Cameron eats Hovis’ granary loaf – can you imagine how he must have agonised over which bread to be photographed holding? I’m surprised that he didn’t have a focus group of marginal voters assembled in the newsagents with him. He must also have been hoping that he picked the same loaf as the Clegg family. ‘We like that, don’t we? You can trust a man who eats a Hovis granary loaf.’

Gordon Brown is removed from all of this, aloof or sidelined, depending on your view. But there is more to his removal to Scotland than meets the eye. The Conservatives are the fourth party in Scotland. By going home, Brown is entering a Labour stronghold. He is also showing voters outside of the South of England that he shares their frustration.

If you combine Scotland, Wales, the North East and the North West of England, the Conservatives hold 33 seats to Labour’s 139. The idea that the Lib Dems (20 seats in this region) redress the balance must seem ludicrous. It must be frustrating to have voted in these regions and to watch the losers forming a Government. It must seem as though a Con-Lib pact is a coalition for the South.

But, of course, the reverse is also true. A Labour-led coalition would require the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the liberal block from Northern Ireland to command a majority. The only area not significantly represented would be the South, where Labour barely exists outside of London. For voters across the South the idea that there was no conclusive outcome must seem like madness.

The term ‘balanced parliament’ seems appropriate. On one side you have the North, and fairly evenly lined up against them, you have the South…

Scarecrows aren't real people.

The British press is hysterical at the calmest of times, so the weekend’s events have given free reign to the most absurd statements. One that keeps being repeated is that the ‘market needs a Government by Monday’. Another is that ‘the nation has spoken’. I am left wondering why imagery is controlling the affairs of a country full of actual people.

‘The market’ is the political equivalent of the bogeyman. If you don’t vote for a right wing party, ‘the market’ will not be happy. If you do vote for a party that believes in the redistribution of wealth, then you’d better do it in significant numbers. ‘The market’ can’t cope with anything indecisive. And what ‘the market’ hates the most is a hung parliament. A hung parliament means that ‘the market’ will collapse, and when a market collapses it won’t revive until it has eaten you, your family, your grandma, even babies…

Like most imaginary fears, the best cure is to take a deep breath and wait to see what happens. My rudimentary knowledge of Economics tells me that the most significant market collapses have not followed hung parliaments, they’ve followed seismic mistakes by the people who work in merchant banks. And that’s the point: ‘the market’ is what things are worth according to the people who are trying to buy them. It isn't an entity capable of rational thought.

It’s pretty hard to say what millions of people across the word mean when they buy or sell a stock. They may be responding to personal circumstances or they may be expressing disgust at the outcome of an election. They may, even, just be doing whatever everyone else is doing.

This problem with interpreting what groups of people mean has led to lots of commentators declaring that the hung parliament is ‘what the country wants.’ ‘We have spoken’. I’m not sure that I agree. An election, it seems to me, is a way of taking a snapshot of what individuals are thinking.

10.7 million of us want an immediate start to tackling the deficit from a largely Euro-sceptic, low-taxation government. 15.4 million want to continue borrowing to nurture a recovery, with a government that would redistribute wealth and continue to have strong ties with Europe. The 15.4 million are divided into two groups who disagree over issues such as electoral reform and the tax system.

The problem is a simple one: not enough of us agree. We haven’t spoken with one voice – we are fairly evenly divided. And the only way we will agree is by continuing to debate the issues until some of us change our minds. That will require stronger, clearer arguments from our politicians.

So hopefully the market won’t have a tummy-ache tomorrow: and if it does, we should put it to bed until it recovers. Joining a coalition should be like joining a Casino or taking out a credit agreement – there should be a mandatory cooling-off period. If a politician cites ‘the market’ as the reason for their haste, take it as a sign of their own desperation – not the market’s.

No Longer the New Blair

David Cameron’s favourite album, allegedly, is The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. I’ve always wondered how that will go down with Her Majesty when he pops in for one of his weekly meetings…oops, I mean ‘if’…because now his chances of leading the country depend on Nick Clegg.

The Cameron/Clegg relationship reminds me of another Smiths’ song: ‘Oh, would you like to marry me/and if you like you can buy the ring’/She doesn’t care about anything…’. Poor Dave is the ‘she’ in the song – he needs to seem very, very nonchalant. He needs to look as though he doesn’t really need Clegg. If he looks desperate, Clegg will ask for too high a price – Proportional Representation, which would change the Conservative party forever. And desperation will get him into trouble elsewhere, too.

The real enemies are behind him – sharpening knives. ‘Unnamed Tory sources’ have been letting displeasure slip since the early hours of Friday morning. They see him as a failure because, even though he engineered the biggest swing since 1931, he didn’t manage to completely rewrite the history books and win a majority. These short-sighted critics don’t see where the real problem lay.

This year’s election was never going to be the one. With the first-past-the-post system, the Opposition has to over-turn majorities slowly, one brick at a time. That’s why Labour didn’t win in 1992. The blame for the Tory failure lies with William Hague and Michael Howard, who hadn’t achieved enough in 2001 and 2005. It was always an impossible task for Cameron this time.

The Conservative Party thought that Cameron was their Blair. They woke up on Friday to find out that he was their Kinnock.