Tag: Politics

Challenger

It’s another phrase from HHGTTG. “Mostly harmless”. However, there are things that may seem mostly harmless that subsequently turn out to be far from harmless. It’s that law of unintended consequences playing out in real life.

In the UK, we are stuck with the First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system. There is no good in pretending otherwise. Pretending that its perverse effects don’t exist is pure folly. Voting systems inevitably impact the results of elections.

What FPTP means is that the more parties, and their candidates that there are standing in an election, in each constituency, the more the votes cast can be spread. This reality often gives a big advantage to the incumbent. The one who came top of the poll last time votes were cast.

Thinking can go like this. The past winner always wins around here. So, my vote doesn’t count. If a past winner reinforces the impression that nothing has changed, then nothing will change. Because of this feeling of acquiescence, opposition voters may be more inclined to vote for a wide range of fringe candidates. Again, the thinking is that this doesn’t matter because the outcome of an election is a foregone conclusion.

In a lot of places up and down Britain this is how both Conservative and Labour politicians have stayed in power. It’s not because people think they are doing a good job. It’s more because their most immediate opposition struggles to marshal a concentration of votes for an alternative.

The conclusion from these facts is simple. If you are a voter who wants to see change then go for the opposition candidate likely to get the greatest number of votes. This is sometimes called tactical voting. It’s not so much tactical as realistic pragmatism aimed at bringing about real change. Look at the numbers. Unless the individuals concerned are one in a million, those formerly in 3rd place, or further adrift are there to do their best but not to bring about change. A vote for a mostly harmless candidate, way down the order, just helps to keep the current Member of Parliament in place.

2024 is a year of great potential. If change were ever needed it ‘s now. I’m confident that the British electorate is savvy enough to choose the path to change. This may mean choosing differently. This may mean taking a close look at the local situation.

No doubt a succession of bar charts will highlight who’s up and who’s down. Take a close look at them. Make sure the challenger really is the challenger. If the numbers say so, and you want change – go for it.

Choice

Desperate British Prime Minister (PM) comes out with the line that the future will be troubled and fast paced change will outstrip past progress. Ok, so what’s new? Hasn’t that been the path of the world since the invention of the computer? Acceleration of change is now locked into humanities destiny.

The audacity of the man is astonishing. Having been intimately associated with calamitous failures of the past decade he espouses his unique abilities to keep us safe and secure.

Hell, I thought former PM Boris Johnson had a big ego. Monday’s speech goes beyond ridiculous[1]. When he says: “People are abusing our liberal democratic values” what comes to my mind is the right-wing government he leads.

We all know, it’s reported continuously, how dangerous the world has become. Noone in any major political party would dismiss that reality. That is bar the eccentric, downright crazy and maybe the fringes of the Greens party.

Interestingly, as far as I know, PM Rishi Sunak isn’t a climate change denier, but he doesn’t have much to say on this monumental global issue. When he says: “And in this world of greater conflict and danger, 100 million people are now displaced globally.” It should occur to him that competition for resources in a world where the climate is changing is at the root of this movement. By the way, there are 8 billion people in the world[2]. So, let’s get our reality in proportion. True, the 0.1 billion people now displaced globally is a figure likely to grow in the next decade. But they are not the enemy.

I had to laugh when I came to the mention in the speech of “robust plans”. The thing that has been characteristic of this Conservative period of government is the distinct lack of planning.

The country’s whole relationship with its neighbours was changed without any plan (Brexit). The ups and downs of the COVID epidemic were endured without a plan, other than that which was made up day-to-day. Year-on-year cuts in defence spending have only been reversed in the wake of global events not a plan of any kind. Surely the Conservatives can only offer a – make it up as we go along – way of governing? It’s what they’ve always done. Hence, the slow decline that has afflicted the country.

The PM lapses into a lazy “needs must” argument that sprinkled with Brexit bull****. Shakespeare would have approved. One example, in All’s Well That Ends Well:

Countess: Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clown: My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

Nothing wrong with being positive about the future. As a country we can do great things. What the PM claims is to have a plan. What he hasn’t got is a plan. And if he did have a plan the likelihood of his own side following that plan is absolutely minimal. He only goes where the devil drives. 

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-security-13-may-2024

[2] https://www.census.gov/popclock/world

ID

Photo ID is essential, or your ballot will be denied to you in the UK. You can’t vote in elections. That was the case for service veterans, last Thursday. The armed forces veteran card was not deemed acceptable ID[1]. This card was heralded as a great step forward by Conservative Ministers. It seems they had not thought through the implications of the new ID card.

The Electoral Reform Society pointed out that the arbitrary nature of voter ID rules is a problem.

No doubt to get milk the publicity, Boris Johnson, former PM, praised the officials who turned him away from the polling station where he attempted to vote in the South Oxfordshire police commissioner vote[2]. That inspired one or two cartoons. As you would expect featuring clowns. The legacy of Boris Johnson’s chaotic time in the premiership continues to echo.

News is not all negative on the voting front. The 15-year time limit on the eligibility of British people living overseas has been lifted. They will now be permitted to vote in UK elections[3]. Most interestingly, around 3.5 million additional people will have the right to vote in the forthcoming UK General Election. I wonder how those living in the European Union (EU) will vote.

Anyway, if we look at the results from last Thursday, the Conservative attempt at what could be called voter suppression seem to have backfired. Big time. My view is that we should be making it easier for citizens to vote and not harder to vote. As one joker pointed out, in this Parliament, there have been more cases of MP’s misdemeanours than there have been of voter fraud.

I agree that many of the heartfelt arguments of 25-years ago about ID cards are now somewhat moot. The way we use mobile phones has put paid to those arguments. Big Brother is here to stay. It’s astonishing how much personal information we give away freely, not to the Government, but to commercial entities committed to extracting profits from our data.

Formally proving ID is an anarchic process in the UK. There are multiple means, and they are all confusing or mixtures of one another. What is becoming a fixed point is one’s mobile phone number. So many computer systems send a text message that requires acknowledgement to prove who you are who you say you are. The assumption being that the person with the mobile phone is the person who owns the phone, and its number.

Maybe it is time for one unified and recognised official UK ID system.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/02/minister-apologises-veteran-turned-away-refused-voter-id/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/04/boris-johnson-pays-tribute-to-polling-staff-who-refused-to-let-him-vote-without-id

[3] https://www.gov.uk/voting-when-abroad

Runaway

Real votes in real ballot boxes are the best way to get an indication of where we are in these unsettling times. OK, I admit that the voter turnout for local elections doesn’t match that of a General Election (GE) in the UK, by a long way. However, what you can say is that those who are motivated to vote in local elections are certainly going to make the effort to vote in a GE.

So, the voting trend that has been observed over the last year, at least, continues. The Labour Party is gaining ground. The Conservative Party is sinking rapidly. The Liberal Democrats and Greens are making measured progress. Independents are gaining. Nationalists are treading water. The newcomer, the Reform Party is growing rapidly from a petite base.

If you have any association with, or supportive opinion of the Conservative Party this must be an extremely unsettling time. Yes, a lot can change in the next few months but the political party in power in the UK is steaming towards an iceberg at high speed. It’s the modern-day Titanic of the British political scene. It’s quite sinkable. It’s members running in different directions.

Often vigorously supported by “conservatives” is the British First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system for GEs. As is self-evident from any inspection of its history, FPTP punishes harshly small political parties or political parties whose national support dips below a certain point. Probably for the first time in decades the British Conservative Party looks as if its heading for that fine line whereby it’s devastated by the results of a national election. The political dynamics are different in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. That said, the general trend of decline of the modern Conservative Party is national.

Brexit is a failed past experiment. The Banking crisis of 20-years ago, COVID-19 and so called “woke” don’t cut it as excuses. That’s pure desperation. Agreed, that no one predicted how conflict and war would be such a pressing concern.

It’s an opinion, but I’ll express it anyway, that the public are swept by a mood of discontent. They are soundly fed-up with the British Conservative Party. There’s little, if anything, that can be done about the trend set by this public mood. It’s an abstract concept, the “public mood” and not so easy to quantify or qualify. It’s the sort of thing that we only know by its symptoms.

The tone of language used to describe the Prime Minister (PM) and his Cabinet is one sign. It’s as much to say – who the hell would want his job unless they were barking mad? Putting on a brave face when the trend is set.

Moving away from the Titanic analogy to that of a runaway train[1], the image in my mind is that of a steam train driver frantically pulling every leaver that can be found but nothing changes. The train is going to crash.

T’was in the year of 24. On that old Westminster line. When the wind was blowing shrill. The polls closed. And the party would not hold. And Number 10 came racing down the hill.

I’ll bet someone can do better than me with that children’s favourite.

POST: Here’s why I made that reference from the 1960s-70s. Ed Stewpot Stewart’s Junior Choice ( 1OOO Tracks For Kidz Of The 60’s n 70’s ) – playlist by ANDREW HARRY BRIGGS | Spotify and Ed Stewart’s Junior Choice – playlist by Shaun Russell | Spotify

[1]Michael Holliday ‘The Runaway Train’ 1956 78 rpm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNgpzF9N3_M

Responsibility

What do I have in common with former Prime Minister Liz Truss. Well, not much, I hope. Only I will stop myself from jumping on the band waggon and rubbishing the entirety of what she has to say. It’s astonishing to think that she was once a fully paid-up Liberal Democrat member. Her exit to the dark side is the stuff of decades past pulp fiction.

Truss’s published plans are clearly as mad a bag of frogs. Damming and disbanding anything and everything that you personally don’t like is a page out of the Trump playbook. Oh yes, there’s a community of enraged folks who will not read the detail and pied piper like follow the music. That will sell a tiny number of books before they pile-up in the high street charity shops of the country. Even they might flinch at stocking her castoffs in print. 10p would be too much.

Now, comes the; ah but. If I go back to the mid-1990s, I was writing about the proliferation of QANGOS[1]. Being a local Councillor at the time I felt a great deal of irritation in finding that so much government policy was focused on taking power away from elected local government and giving it to appointed bodies with no local accountability.

The Liberal Democrat approach has long been that power should be decentralised from central to regional and local government. A great deal of what we have seen in the last three decades has been exactly the opposite. Devolution in Scotland and Wales being the exception. Although, that didn’t make much difference when Brexit came along.

Giving specific powers to executive agencies is not the problem. You might think I’d say it was. No, the problem is the relationships between elected bodies and those who act as its agents. Once a democratically elected body has determined a course of action there’s benefit in having expert agencies, given clear terms of reference and a job to implement specific policies.

Politicians, generally make lossy managers. This is where the Truss / Trump doctrine, that politicians should control or manage everything as being extremely foolish. Centralisation does help when unified action is needed but for the most part keeping all decision making in-house degrades administration and enables it to become detached from reality.

Politicians are great critics. Their skills are best used to scrutinises activities at a high level. To exercise oversight and provide feedback derived from real life experiences (The Post Office scandal being an exception to this general assertion).

The former Prime Minister who holds the record for being the shortest in office had to take responsibility for her actions. In that most peculiar way, UK democracy worked. No well, but at least corrective action was taken in reaction to a calamitous situation.

Take back control in my mind means returning powers to regional and local government. Where QANGOS are necessarily then make sure they are kept under effective scrutiny. A lot of what I have said here is better said in a policy paper from 2007[2]. We know what to do but rarely do we do it.

[1] In the UK, the term QUANGO addresses “arm’s-length” government bodies, including “non-departmental public bodies” (NDPBs), non-ministerial government departments, and some executive agencies.

[2] https://www.libdemnewswire.com/files/2016/02/77.-Green-and-Prosperous-Communities-Local-Regeneration-for-the-21st-Century.pdf

Reform

It’s not a name that represents their reality. Although, a couple of the political polices they have on their books do mean significant restructuring. Proportional representation being one of those policies. They are a British political party that wants to continue the destructive arguments that brought about Brexit. Created in 2021 the Reform Party are the rump of the Brexit Party.

For poll watchers they are stripping voters away from the Conservative Party. In fact, their aim is to replace the mainstream Conservative Party. Unashamidly populist and right-wing, Reform is sending shivers down the spine of the centrist Conservatives. More libertarian than liberal, abolishing and leaving institutions is more their meat and potato pie.

It’s not at all unusual for such populist political parties to point at everyone else as a problem and assert that simple solutions can be magicked up in an instant. Reform is going for those issues that greatly trouble unhappy “conservative” voters. Taxes, immigration, green initiatives, mainstream media, and that nebulous topic “woke”. Failures in Parliament, at the Home Office and in the NHS are targets too. It’s the sort of stuff that gives a type of British voter a sugar rush.

There’s a deliberate attempt to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump in the US. The dynamics of politics are different in the UK but there’s an appetite for harking back to a mythical era when Great Britain was great and how that could be recreated.

If the Reform Party does nothing else, it’s tipping the existing Conservative Party to go ever more to the right of politics. This, to some extent, explains the ridiculous obsession with current Rwanda legislation that’s as likely to work as a square wheel.

One prediction can be made with confidence is that the coming Geneal Election is not going to be much like the one in 2019. What on earth would happen if well-known personalities like Boris Johnson backed the Reform Party who knows where we would go next. To me this is horribly like Germany in the 1930s. Taking a hard line on immigration is one thing but calling for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights is a slippery slope.

Politics with a noisy and truculent style has its place. Jam tomorrow and promoting “easy” solutions to complex problems are not new. Red-faced shouting and finger pointing has been around since Roman times. It’s the way a lot of people feel when things do not go well. Trouble is that putting people in power who tout this style always ends in bad consequences and disillusionment. It’s guaranteed.

Reform is polling in double digits. However, with the UK’s traditional First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system this means very little. Reform may influence the conservative climate of opinion only. Revolution is not in the air – yet. What niggles me a bit is that Brexit caught many people on the hop when it happened. Its legacy has been wholly negative. The question arises, are we in for another round of shooting ourselves in the foot? I hope not.

Yesterday’s man

Let’s say extreme things. Don’t think of the consequences. That’s on the playlist of this generation of right-wing activists. They are so afraid of being ignored that they push the limits on every opportunity. Say something outrageous and nine times out of ten the media will run the story. Stand devoutly against anything that can be considered normal, progressive, or socially responsible and whoopee it’s headline news.

I don’t feel inclined to name the chiefs of this art because that merely plays into their agenda. There’s a well-known but failed Brexit campaigner, there’s a well-known but failed former Prime Minister, and there’s a well-known but failed chair of a major pollical party. The common factor here becomes all too obvious. These folk are an epidemy of what my secondary school teachers used to call – empty barrels.

So, addressing the recent hokum, the current mayor of London is no angel. Have we ever had one that was? Pictures of one of his predecessors swinging from an overhead cable wrapped in a Union Jack flag have become a legendary funny story. Plans for the floral bridge across the river, he wanted to spend millions of public monies on ended in the dustbin[1]. Rightly so.

Today, the man in that office seems to reveal in meeting his opponents head-on. However, on Brexit and the environment he has been a voice of reason. Should he take a harder line on anti-war protests in the city? That’s easier to talk about than it is to do. His opponents know that fact.

Whipping up anger and division isn’t a zero-cost sum. The defence that will be used is that loud mouthed pundits are just saying what others think. That’s a shallow defence. It’s no defence at all to say, let’s all leap off a cliff together following the most foolish amongst us.

If everyone said every thought that ever came into their head’s civilisation would fall part quite quickly. We have the luxury of large brains to filter our most of our alien and downright stupid thoughts. That filter is clearly not working in the case of some Members of Parliament.

What’s over the horizon is a good opportunity for the Reform Party (ex-Brexit Party) to sweep-up. There are clearly a lot of conservatives who badge themselves Conservatives who are not conservatives at all. Better they find a place what suites them rather than harbouring any false idea that they might become mainstream in the 21st Century.

Going back to the worst of the 1970s is not an appealing idea. A modern empowered version of sitcom character Alf Garnett[2] is a scary thought.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/17/absurd-vanity-project-for-our-age-boris-johnson-garden-bridge

[2] https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/june/till-death-us-do-part/

Protest

Experience of protest can range from the exhilarating and heartwarming to the frightening and intimidating. There’s a huge range of different experiences. Here’s a few:

During our Brexit phase of rocky turbulence, I stood in High Streets and marched through the city. Everything on the part of the remain protestors I met was peaceful and good natured. That can’t be said of those who took a different view. I distinctly remember a couple of in-your-face moments when approached by emotional and irrational individuals who seemed only to want to shout aggressive slogans in as intimidating manner as possible.

Overall, I’ve been fortunate. Every time I stood as a parliamentary candidate, more than 6-times, I was part of public events where people freely assembled. One of the mainstays of a British election campaign is an open event at a school or college where people can see and talk with candidates in-person and up close. These public events are essential for a functioning democracy. Voters can ask questions and draw their own conclusions from the performance of candidates answering in a local setting about key issues.

My work gave me the privilege of traveling to different countries. In my time off, I’d often look around and get a sense of what was driving political debate in that part of the world.

I remember a couple of occasions when the pure innocence of being a tourist brought be in contact with situations that if I’d known at the time I would have surely avoided. There’s one moment when walking through a huge square in Rome when I suddenly became aware that there were an unusual number of paramilitary police around. I was walking through crowds in the Piazza del Popolo. I looked back from where I’d been and noticed big green water cannon pointing towards the people around me. Inadvertently, I’d strode into a gathering of far-right political protestors. Once I’d clocked what was happening, I was out of there like a shot. 

Today’s, discussion about the nature of protest is one that should be handled in a careful and considered manner. There are threats and dangers that lurk in free and open public settings, but the answer is not to shut them down. Maintaining a balance is vital.

I do not agree with the Just Stop Oil protestors that their cause justifies the exceptional measure of parking themselves outside the homes of elected or would be politicians. Now, that maybe different when considering their places of work but it’s a basic human right – the right to a family life without intimidation. The families of those who work in politics must not be fair game.

In our media saturated world there are more ways of making a strong point about an issue now than there ever has been. There are more opportunities for creative and imaginative peaceful protests, more outlets, and more coverage. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Saturation.

Assemblies of people have and always will be, since classical times, a manner by which collective views will be openly expressed. They can become disruptive. That requires a degree of restraint and management. However, tightening restriction to the point of elimination of uncomfortable and troublesome protest will only make the overall situation much worse.

Protest can be the release of a pressure cooker. They signal where we all need to pay attention. They may not solve problems, but they are part of the equation.

QT

Over the years the BBCs Question Time (QT) debate programme[1] has played an important part in political discussions. It was a must watch for political activists and students at all levels. In fact, anyone interested in understanding the political views that permeate the country.

Unfortunately, the programme has declined to become a dull backwater for viewing if there’s nothing else on. The format is locked in to an awkward seeking of balance at the expense of an inquiry into the reasons and justifications for widely different views. There’s little in the way of vigorous cross-examination or investigation into the core values of the speakers.

I don’t want to blame the person who chairs the debate or the BBC for hanging on to the QT heritage. The programme has played an important part in the life of the country, in the past.

I don’t want to be one of those social media complainers for whom any deviation from the age of Robin Day is a blasphemy. Those black and white days are a wonderful snapshot of a long-lost era. The relationship between the public and their politicians has changes beyond recognition.

There’s no doubt that we have all become somewhat more superficial than may have been the case in the past. Politics has become something that is marketed to us as a commodity. It shouldn’t be that paper thin.

At its best such a debate programme gets to the fundamentals. If it merely tracks yesterday’s headlines the results are predicably shallow. Audience and panel members simply echo what we already know. What we’ve already heard elsewhere throughout the day.

What I want to know is more of the why and less of the what.

Say, a social liberal politician objects strongly to a dilution of human rights and a hard right leaning conservative welcomes such a dilution. We may already know that’s the positions they have adopted and campaigned on but are those positions of convenience or core beliefs?

Exploring what panel members really think and what they might really do is surly more interesting than allowing them to play to the audience, at home or in the room. I want an objective chair to put the panel members under pressure to uncover any deceptions. Deference born of an obsession with balance is as bad that born of class or impoverishment.

One of the parts of the format that seems unquestionable is the requirement to answer questions posed by members of the public. The audience is supposed to represent the members of the public not in the room. They rarely do. I’d much rather see a town square type format. That’s where the members of the public engaged are not so pre-selected or self-selecting. Walk out into a typical high street and randomly ask what question do you want answered? Do it live.

QT needs a major shakeup. It’s not quite dead. Its revitalisation is possible, but it needs to get off its current path.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t1q9

Look ahead

Much as I support the UK Government’s position on hormone injected beef, the exit from negotiations on trade have wide implications. Maintaining the regulations that ban the use of hormones in beef is a good move for farmers and consumers.

However, for cheese exports the collapse of talks is tragic. Zero to 200% is one hell of a tariff jump. The UK will be in a worse position with respect to trade than it was pre-referendum. That’s with a strong ally, namely Canada[1]. Brexit has made us worse-off.

Yet, the Brexit supporters that remain, still herald Brexit as a wonder. Logic plays no part in their thinking. It’s easy to respond in an angry way to this self-inflicted blindness. It does no good. The stubborn streak in those who have dug a big hole is a thick one. And the hole is getting ever bigger.

Clearly, there’s no urgency on the part of Canada[2]. On the UK side the urgency is much greater. The need to stimulate growth to bring about a recovery in the British economy is much needed. Sadly, the legacy of a decision made in 2016 has made created a weak negotiating position.

For a long time, the UK has been given a soft landing due to transitional arrangements. Now, these arrangements are drying up. Far from the propaganda of the Brexiters, trade deals are not easy.

The problem is a reference back to the past is like crying over spilt milk[3]. How to go forward when the relationship between different States has been significantly changed is no simple matter. The situation is not irrecoverable but the avenues that can be explored are limited.

So, I caution of a never-ending lament. Brexit will need to be rectified. The means to do it are tortuous and may take a long time. The means to undo the mistakes of the past may face opposition from many quarters. One of the predictions for the European elections, this year, are that there will be a swing to the political right. Several right-wing political parties across Europe are on the ascendancy.

Instinctively these right leaning political parties are likely to less internationalist and more focused on immediate domestic concerns. So, third parties, like the UK, may not be high on Europe’s future agenda. On the UK side the major political parties have gone quite on Europe. There’s plenty of campaigning on international issues, like climate change and military conflict but little on enhanced working together.

There are many national news stories where solutions are best arrived at by greater communication, cooperation, and coordination. This year, so far, the signs are that these three “c” are going to take a back seat. Ironic, isn’t it. Facing greater international challenges than for decades, States choose to look inward. This myopia will continue until leaders speak positively of the future. Vision is needed.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/canada-britain-pausing-free-trade-agreement-talks-2024-01-25/

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-uk-trade-cheese-1.7094817

[3] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cry-over-spilt-milk