Liberal Burblings

Archive for September, 2007

The interesting thing about the Ipsos MORI poll in the Observer today is that the percentage of respondents saying Brown should call an autumn election is 39%. In last Wednesday’s YouGov poll this was 29%. Of course, these are polls done by different pollsters. But I wonder whether perhaps there is a growing body of people, after all the speculation, who are saying “Oh, go on then – get it over and done with, Gordon”.

I notice that we are repeatedly being told that there won’t be an announcement this week – Gordon is going to wait until the Tory conference is over, apparently. So we are told.

Is it the old cynic in me, or does this make me certain that the old blighter will jump in his Rover, Brenda-bound, tomorrow or Tuesday to go for October 25th? (He has to allow 17 working days between going to the Queen to ask her to dissolve parliament and polling day – meaning, by my calculations, he would have to, at the very latest, go up the Mall with the early morning traffic on Tuesday).

This would completely wreck the Tory conference. Just imagine all those MPs having to hurriedly book out of their hotels, forfeiting their payments, and abandoning Cameron to address one of Britain’s finest collection of chairs on Wednesday.

I really can’t believe that that old political calculating machine, old Brownie, will collate all his various polls, focus groups reports, seaweeds and teabags and come to the conclusion that he will go to the polls on November 1st or that it might be a good option to leave open (Bearing in mind Haloween on Oct 31st, clocks going back on Oct 28th, bad weather, fireworks, particularly bad prospects for Scotland). The last time the UK had a general election after October 25th was 72 years ago in 1935.

And I really do think that Brown is going to have an enormous problem with just saying “ho hum, no election this year” after all this fuss.

By the way, forget everything I have written on this subject up until now!

When you are a parent, you pick up words of wisdom from the strangest of sources. There’s a Disney film called Lilo and Stitch (above) that gave us much amusement as a family. A cartoon set in Hawaii, it tells the story of a little girl called Lilo who is left orphaned with her adult sister, Nani, after a car crash kills her parents. The two sisters are joined by a strange alien creature who is the product of an illegal genetic experimentation on another planet. After 90 minutes of mayhem, the creature, Stitch, domesticates itself and becomes part of the family with Lilo and Nani.

There is a tear-jerking final sequence when it is explained that families come in all shapes and sizes and that we should cherish the family we have, in this case two orphaned sisters and an alien odd-ball.

This is a film David Cameron could do with watching.

The tax cut for families which he was proposing has now morphed itself into an increase in tax credits, as Vince Cable has highlighted today:

It would appear that the so-called Tory tax cut for families is not a tax cut at all, but an increase in tax credits’ a means-tested benefit subject to enormous complexity and problems with mistaken payments.

The problem with this whole thing is the families excluded from the measure. Firstly, single parent families. It is wrong to make generalisations about these families. It is very difficult to find relationship break-ups which are not accompanied by enormous heartache and which do not involve single parents working very hard, under extremely trying circumstances. Secondly, the measure excludes families where the parents have not married. Personally I know of such an example where, quite frankly, most people don’t realise the parents aren’t married. They are extremely loving and caring parents and have been in partnership for well over 15 years.

But most sadly, the Tory married couples’ tax credit increase will exclude families where one parent has tragically died. This will include families of those who die in the service of their country.

The Tory party really is surpassing itself in smug self-righteousness when it is engineering giving away public money and excluding widows bringing up children on their own.

I have been taking a little look back at autumn elections since the war.

It’s 33 years since the last autumn election. All the intervening general elections have been in May, June or April.

There was an October election in 1964, when the Tories were defeated by Harold Wilson’s Labour. There were also October elections in 1959 and 1951. The latter one of that couplet was due to Labour whittling away their thin majority. The election had a 82.6% turnout and resulted in a change to a Conservative government. 1959 had a 78.7% turnout and the Tories held on to power.

The October 1974 general election had a 72.8% turnout and resulted in Harold Wilson’s Labour government transforming itself from a minority one to a majority one – just.

The thing about 1974 is that the country had been going through what can be fairly described as its biggest crisis since the war – the The Three Day week with energy shortages, power cuts, television stations closing down at 10pm etc etc. It was “Dunkirk spirit” time. In February 1974, Ted Heath had asked: “Who runs Britain?”. The answer came back “Not you, mate” and Harold Wilson, in eight months, brought the country back to a semblance of order.

But the reason for the October election was clear. The country was coming out of a crisis. The government was in a minority of 33. Harold Wilson quite properly, and unavoidably, went to the country for a larger mandate, which he received.

I suppose you could say that the precedent of 1959 supports Brown calling an autumn election which he can expect to win.

The other precedents, particularly 1974, suggest that he will only win if he manages to convince the electorate that he is seeking their mandate in the interests of the country.

I am yet to discover any convincing reason, which is in the interests of the country, for Brown to go to the polls this autumn. There is no crisis. His government has a majority of 60+ and 2.5 years left to run.

If Brown goes for an autumn election he is going to need all his considerable powers of persuasion to convince people that he is not just doing it because he thinks he can win now and might lose later.

I have corrected my earlier post as I was misled by this Press Association report.

When I read this week’s by-election results on John Hemming’s blog, I thought John had maybe posted the wrong results, having already read the PA release! Such was the disparity between the report and reality.

Summary: The PA report said Brown was in turmoil after the Conservatives swept ahead in by-elections key marginal seats:

With results in from eight out of nine of Thursday’s council by-elections, Conservatives had snatched back the projected lead. Labour held six seats but, on the basis of results at Portsmouth and Northamptonshire, Tories look on course for a sweeping parliamentary victory at Portsmouth North constituency and a closer one at Corby if there were an early poll.In Dover the 5.5% swing in a Kent County Council contest for Dover Town – which covers more than a quarter of the Commons constituency’s electorate – would be enough for Conservatives to take it.

The actual results show:

Portsmouth: Tories up 3.3% but Labour held the seat with a 3.2% increase, four points ahead of the Tories.

Northamptonshire: Labour stonked the seat with a 718 majority. Labour share went down 8.7% but the Tories’ share went down also by 2.7%.

Dover: There were three by-elections. The Tories’ share went down in two of the seats by 8.2% and 12.6%. The bigger turnout/coverage seat was the town seat where the Tories increased their share by 4.1% but Labour still beat them by 512 votes and were 12 points clear. Count them. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12!

In Cheshire, the Tories went down by 13.2% in one seat and up by 2.1% in the larger county seat but the LibDems went up by 5.7%.

That’s a very mixed picture which certainly does not justify a report saying the Tories are poised to win the relevant parliamentary seats. I suspect it would take someone from the University of Plymouth’s politics department to analyse what these results indicate for future parliamentary contests in Corby, Dover and Portsmouth North, but it certainly doesn’t look conclusive enough to justify the sweeping predictions of Tory victories in the PA’s report.

The Norfolk Blogger and David Rundle mention a Tory press release which seems to have been at the foot of this nonsense.

I thought the PA were meant to be independent and objective? Perhaps they got carried away in the heat of the moment…

I have corrected my earlier post as I was misled by this Press Association report.

When I read this week’s by-election results on John Hemming’s blog, I thought John had maybe posted the wrong results, having already read the PA release! Such was the disparity between the report and reality.

Summary: The PA report said Brown was in turmoil after the Conservatives swept ahead in by-elections key marginal seats:

With results in from eight out of nine of Thursday’s council by-elections, Conservatives had snatched back the projected lead. Labour held six seats but, on the basis of results at Portsmouth and Northamptonshire, Tories look on course for a sweeping parliamentary victory at Portsmouth North constituency and a closer one at Corby if there were an early poll.In Dover the 5.5% swing in a Kent County Council contest for Dover Town – which covers more than a quarter of the Commons constituency’s electorate – would be enough for Conservatives to take it.

The actual results show:

Portsmouth: Tories up 3.3% but Labour held the seat with a 3.2% increase, four points ahead of the Tories.

Northamptonshire: Labour stonked the seat with a 718 majority. Labour share went down 8.7% but the Tories’ share went down also by 2.7%.

Dover: There were three by-elections. The Tories’ share went down in two of the seats by 8.2% and 12.6%. The bigger turnout/coverage seat was the town seat where the Tories increased their share by 4.1% but Labour still beat them by 512 votes and were 12 points clear. Count them. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12!

In Cheshire, the Tories went down by 13.2% in one seat and up by 2.1% in the larger county seat but the LibDems went up by 5.7%.

That’s a very mixed picture which certainly does not justify a report saying the Tories are poised to win the relevant parliamentary seats. I suspect it would take someone from the University of Plymouth’s politics department to analyse what these results indicate for future parliamentary contests in Corby, Dover and Portsmouth North, but it certainly doesn’t look conclusive enough to justify the sweeping predictions of Tory victories in the PA’s report.

The Norfolk Blogger and David Rundle mention a Tory press release which seems to have been at the foot of this nonsense.

I thought the PA were meant to be independent and objective? Perhaps they got carried away in the heat of the moment…

Recent council by-election results have been interesting.

Last week, Labour romped home in the home of the vital “Worcester woman” with a stonking 17.6% swing.

This week there have been vote share increases for the Tories in Dover (up 4.1%) and Portsmouth North (up 3.3%). But Labour’s share also went up – by 3.2% in Portsmouth. There were 8.2% and 12.6% decreases in the Tory vote share in other Dover seats which were contested. In Cheshire they were up 2.1% in one seat but down 13.2% in another. In Corby the Tories were down 2.7%. And I am not entirely sure that a win in Sunderland is likely to put that seat top of the Tories’ list. Thanks to John Hemming for his results list. Mark Pack provides an incisive analysis of recent by-elections in key seats here.

Being an old git, I go back to boring things like lighting up times and weather forecasts. These are the things which might feature low on the radar of those three upstarts, Balls, Miliband (E) and Alexander, who are advising Brown on the election timing. Being at that age when the weight of the testosterone in their bodies exceeds the weight of their brain cells, I suspect they are more on the balls of their feet wanting to knock the Tories out for another ten years.

But these things are top of the list with old fogies like me, when considering whether Brown will call an election this year (No, he won’t – as I have already said – but then again, I have nothing to lose if I am proved wrong!).

Brown is worried about the SNP bounce, so let us focus on Ochil and South Perthshire constituency. The Labour MP there, Gordon Banks (no relation to the Pele killer shot-saving goalie, I presume) holds a majority of 688 over the SNP from the 2005 election. He is 1.5 percentage points ahead of them. Tight.

So let us consider the Labour activists who will be going out to canvass support in the week up to November 1st, if that is the date on which Brown calls the election.

I have been doing a bit of research on lighting up times in Alloa, which is at the heart of this constituency. I have got the data from the US Naval Observatory site here, using Longtitude/Latitude data from Multimap.

On the Friday before the election, 26th October, those activists will be canvassing in the dark from 17:49hrs. So they will find that many people will not open their doors to them in the evening. Also on that Friday, those activists will start to hear the odd whistle, bang and flash of light. The start of the Bonfire parties in the run-up to November 5th. Another reason for people to keep their doors firmly closed for fear of allowing pets and children to be further frightened by the fireworks.

As they go out canvassing on Monday October 29th, those activists will find that it is even darker in the evening. The sunset will be earlier at 16:42, due to the clocks going back on October 31st.

On the evening of Wednesday 31st October, the day before the election, those Labour activists will find that everytime they knock on a door they will either not receive a reply, or be met with a handful of sweets or, worse still, an earful of swear words ending with the preposition “off”. It’s Halloween. Best not to bother to try canvassing then.

On the actual election day, November 1st, the sun will not rise until 07:21 hrs, 21 minutes after polls open. Not a great incentive for people to bother to vote on their way to work. And the sun will set at 16:35, discouraging many people from voting after work.

Obviously these vote-discouraging factors may impact the SNP vote as much as the Labour vote, but will Gordon Brown want to gamble on that? And in other constituencies with similarly restricted light situations (most, if not all, of the constituencies in the UK), the Tories will be able to rely on their hefty postal vote share and their electorate with its high proportion of people with heated cars and the ability to vote during the working day.

A point about the weather. In the first week of November last year, the temperature on some days in Scotland barely got up to 4 °C. In Oxfordshire, it went down to -5.2 °C at one point. Again, not ideal conditions for getting the vote out.

Of course, Brown may go for October 25th, even though this seemed to have been fairly authoritatively ruled out earlier in the week, via Nick Robinson. That way, he will avoid Halloween, Guy Fawkes parties and clocks going back. But it will still be dark when most of the canvassing is being done in the evenings, and dark on election day from an early hour.

On October 25th in that weathervane seat of Basildon it will be dark at 17:45hrs. In Portsmouth North it will be dark at 17:53hrs and in Alloa the sunset will be at 17:51hrs. …Not easy conditions under which to encourage those stubborn voters to venture from their comfy armchairs down to the polling booths.