by : l_rhodes Politics

If the liberals were in charge, Britain would not have voted this way

YouGov have released an excellent analysis of the vote broken down into various demographics. What this shows is that what we knew about young voting turnout was true, and indeed it now seems to go further, with an implication that the majority of people in employment voted Labour. If it weren’t for the retired, we’d have truly had a result not dissimilar to 1997.

The interesting point about the retired still voting Conservative is that it much of the manifesto turned them off anyway; the dementia tax and abandonment of the triple-lock didn’t actually seem to do that much damage, after all.

We have lost a voice who speaks up for people who want to “get on and do the right thing” by consistently reminding them that they are being taxed less. We’ve lost that voice who tells young people that they can get on with new postgraduate loans, with Help to Buy and Right to Buy. The voice we once had that Britain was going somewhere; that we were on a path to greater security, has disappeared.

Much of this can be attributed to Brexit and the requirement for a change of focus by the government to deliver it. As I said in March, Brexit being prioritised over all other manifesto commitments was a mistake. We have lost anyone who actually cares about what happens to the average voter in this country.

People who “rejected austerity” only did so because the Tories rejected them by not telling them what it does to their wallets and to their life chances. They things looked bleak from the start of the election, with the grand inspiration being “vote for me, and I’ll give ruining this country my best shot”.

The last time we had anything remotely inspiring from the May administration was her flagship announcement of new grammar schools. This pretty much only served to attract positive comments from rational minds like Peter Hitchens, that barometer for what the average voter in this country thinks…

If you want to see what vision delivers, look at the Scottish result under a liberal Tory, Ruth Davidson. Look at the result in 2015 for David Cameron, having displayed to the young that he sufficiently cared about them.

What we need to see from here is a return to a vision of government – one which appeals to working people (i.e. not Leave voters) and to young people again. One which is liberal.

One of the ways you can do that is to stop chasing the votes of people who are simply never going to vote for Conservative, whose hearts you’ll never win because they love what you’re delivering as a main priority, but don’t really care for you above and beyond that.

When Mrs May rightly resigns, the Conservative Party should return to the values that ran it between 2005 and 2016. It might just win the upcoming election if it does.

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by : l_rhodes Politics

How the Tories can fix their mess to fix this mess

Earlier this year, when I resigned my membership of the Conservative Party, I made references to her character as lacking in stability and confidence, comments I repeated throughout the year.

Who did quite expect Mrs May to thoroughly test the maxim “oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them” in this way? Who would have thought that pissing off your core vote – i.e. pensioners, and then climbing down mid-way through a campaign would make them view you as neither strong nor stable? Who would have thought that demonstrating yourself to be so inept as to having to abandon your key election message to “the best Brexit for Britain”, a soundbite so utterly uninspiring as to possibly be ascribed only to you?

We never quite expected Seamus and Jeremy to have pulled off quite what they did, either, but that was bound to happen. The highest turnout since 1997 of the under-30s group gave them the anti-establishment vote that they were looking for. Congratulations to a campaign handled less badly than May’s overall, and in terms of getting out the vote, handled very well.

Mrs May has delivered us an absolute farce of a situation in which she will not be able to pass any significant legislation. The DUP solution has provided her with a confidence and supply arrangement in a government that will simply no longer be able to pursue a hard Brexit. How could they? Doing so would damage the Union in untold ways. The major point here is that their majority will be so insufficient as to render Brexit impossible.

All in all, congratulations to Ruth Davison, a true Tory moderniser who has demonstrated that by uniting people, by inspiring people, by giving everyone – including under 30s – something to vote for, just like we had in 2010 and 2015, you can make gains. Just let them have glimmers of you acting as a human being, fighting for things, like same-sex marriage, and you do this thing call “inspire” them to vote for you.

Theresa May, as one of two losers of the election, having gambled it in the first place, needs to accept that she is the wrong person for the job. A new leader needs to replace her. The Conservative Party needs to think of not who is strong and stable, but who can inspire people when they face a new election to deliver not just Brexit, but something tangible in the autumn. Acts of human compassion and fighting for impassioned things that you believe in, such as same-sex marriage tends to make people view you in a positive light. It worked for Dave, and it can work for whoever comes next.

We need to at least accept that this manifesto and focusing solely on Brexit was a complete catastrophe, and move on from there. Doing so might just result in the election of a leader who can properly consider whether that ‘hard’ version is all that attractive or inspiring after all.

Going to the polls early is going to have to be a necessity. The Tory Party actually owes the electorate the chance to elect either them under fresh leadership or the Labour Party – and soon. They broke it and now it’s time to accept responsibility.

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by : l_rhodes Politics

This election must spell the end of hard Brexit for the Tories

This election has seen the biggest turnout in young people since 1997. Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity; or, rather, anti-Establishment message appealed to a sufficient number of them to deliver the hung Parliament that I’ve wanted for some weeks.

The message that young people are sending is not as clear as many are suggesting. Generation Y and under 20s supported the Labour Party in the last election, though not in large enough numbers. Young people desire socially liberal policies above all else, but do not like the prospect of leaving the EU, as demonstrated by their actions now in two general elections. Many in the commentariat are calling this the revenge of young people. Ultimately, it is an indication that young people are fed up with populist, right-wing policies in Britain, and are becoming inspired by an anti-Establishment candidate. Here is a numerical reasoning of the claim I am making here, paying particular attention to the fact that young people voted for the then anti-Establishment voice – and one which was not particularly Eurosceptic.

Cameron instructed his candidates in 2010 not to talk about Europe for fear of scaring people off. It was said by many of those MPs who called for a referendum that this was because he was not particularly Eurosceptic, and they may have been right about that. What they were wrong to be was, unfortunately, Eurosceptic in the first place.

Any Brexit deal supported by the DUP will require a softer Brexit; their security measures at home depend on it. A bloodbath is about to be unleashed within the Conservative Party, and we will have an early election. The person leading the party must demonstrate to young people that they care about their futures – and that includes preventing a hard Brexit.

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by : l_rhodes Politics

Spin, the farce of this election, and my prediction

This election campaign has been one fought like no other before it. Nick Timothy has had quite the job on his hands managing a neither strong nor stable candidate who seemed to listen to the Tories’ PR mastermind, Sir Lynton Crosby, to the letter. Crosby, as the key adviser, will have advised on the slogan “strong and stable”, and, as she demonstrated herself to be neither of those things, a very swift move to “the best Brexit for Britain”.

This was always going to be the problem when Mrs May faced the electorate. She’s nervous, vapid, a dark player in Government, and obsessed with control. An election meant that she lost control. She has managed to demonstrate these things quite astonishingly well in following the announcement of an election campaign at an interesting time in developments in politics, at home and abroad. The timing of this has been curious indeed.

Mrs May followed Crosby’s advice of restricting the message, sticking to the message at all costs, controlling the press questions. She never deviated from the advice. She did this because she is not a natural campaigner, and is clearly very nervous.

If you’re a fellow obsessive, you’ll remember that David Cameron hired Lynton Crosby to deliver him victory in 2010, who he eventually knighted for his delivery of a successful election campaign. The one thing that he didn’t do, though, was always listen to him. Dave was different like that – he was competent. When Crosby said “don’t debate”, he listened; when it became clear that the public viewed that he was running from a debate, he agreed to one – providing all party leaders attended. He didn’t run; she has.

Broadly, Crosby managed the campaign with US-style attack ads, including those “wrecking balls” featured in YouTube clips by Conservative Party candidates. If “coalition of chaos” sounded familiar to you, that’s because it’s the same line that Mr Crosby recommended the Tories used in 2010, back when I worked in the field. It’s a good line, and it worked then. It worked because he had a strong and stable candidate.

Corbyn’s PR campaign has been excellently run by Seamus. Incredible chap who managed to even persuade him to put on a proper suit from time-to-time. They’ve managed to tell you that all their policies are costed while knowing that it would be impossible to implement them, whereas the Conservatives haven’t even bothered to tell you that their policies are costed.

The Tory manifesto is a joke, but it was always going to be a joke. It’s a disgusting mix of social conservatism with economically illiterate policies. The biggest joke of it all, though, was the ‘Dementia Tax’, and how Mrs May climbed down to public pressure in the middle of an election campaign. She allowed fox hunting, an issue with which 84% of the public disagree, to dominate the news. She did not adequately perceive the strength of feeling on free school meals. But, most importantly, she actually dropped a key election pledge in the middle of an election campaign. We’re in bizarre territory here.

The NHS funding and mental health reforms do not go far enough. There is a crisis in this country, and I seriously doubt the 10,000 new staff will be all that new after all. Greater training, shorter waiting lists, greater awareness and a Health Secretary possessing this core personality trait called “empathy” would go much further than what she is proposing. Scrapping IAPT, as I have discussed before, would also help.

Back to the point here. The frankly horrifying things that have happened in this country in recent weeks have thrown terrorism into an election campaign. We’ve heard all about Jeremy Corbyn and his reluctance to use shoot-to-kill, we’ve heard all about his IRA links, and we’ve heard him attack the government on cutting Police numbers. All of this was going to happen, and it’s revolting that it has.

My old way of predicting polls – i.e. not being too obsessed with blatantly inaccurate data – tended to work. My prediction, for anyone who cares, is that Mrs May will have her majority when the polls close tomorrow evening. I am going to say that her majority will be around 50, because I know that polls understate Tory support. For the record, this was my gut feeling at the start of the campaign.

She will get her win. For once in my lifetime, I’ll be disappointed with that result, but I’d be even more disappointed with a Labour win.

There’s a problem waiting for her, though. She is demonstrating to the people with whom she’ll be negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union that she can bend under pressure. She is demonstrating to her Parliamentary colleagues – those types of people who tend to sack their leaders if they’re not very good – that she is neither strong nor stable.

She may need to re-engage with her harshest critics and take some leadership – some real leadership – in tackling terrorism both here and abroad. Otherwise, she may well find herself out of a job.

Good luck, Mrs May. You’ll need it.

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