New Model Tories

It's telling that the day after the coalition published its manifesto -which, incidentally, nobody had the opportunity to vote for or against - Dave has penned an article telling us that he remains a Conservative.

And I believe him.

The trouble is, the Conservative Party is a conservative party in the same way that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is democratic. - in other words, it isn't - and Dave knows this which is why he calls himself a progressive and has branded the coalition with the Lib Dems as a "progressive alliance".

Since Cameron took over the leadership of the Conservative Party he has pushed through the changes initiated by the likes of Howard and purged the Tory Party of any last semblance of conservatism. They are now the New Model Tories and they are not the party that the majority of people who voted for them thought they were.

Curiously though, those people who voted in this copy of Blair's "New Labour" are uncommonly quiet about the fact that they have been led up the garden path.

Where are all those people who were telling me "just wait till Cameron gets in" and "he has to do this to become PM"? Well, he got in, he is PM and he is exactly the same as he was before.

No - that's not fair. He isn't exactly the same as he was before because now he has thrown away any pretence at being a conservative. Now he's our Prime Minister he is all progressive this and progressive that - talking about "radical change" and "moving on" and other meaningless progressive phrases.

Almost eleven million people voted Tory at the election - they might just as well have voted Lib Dem or Labour because that is what they have got. And yet, for some reason, they refuse to admit they were wrong even though they privately know they were.

Give it a couple of years and I doubt whether you'll be able to find many people who admit to voting for Cameron in 2010 - just like few people admit to voting for Blair. It doesn't really matter - because those people know they voted for Cameron and they know that they voted for a fraud.

I did keep trying to tell people that is what they would get - because Cameron's whole campaign was built on a monumental fraud. The only thing we weren't sure of is whether it would be the fraud of pretending to be progressive when he really was a conservative or the fraud of being conservative when he is really progressive.

Well, now we know that it was the latter. You people voted for a man who was deliberately perpetrating a deceit in the vain hope that he was deceiving the enemy. He was - but his enemy was conservatism.

What now, conservatives?

This is a question for all those people who kept telling me that Cameron really was a proper conservative and that we'd all see his true colours once he was Prime Minister.

Well, he's Prime Minister and we've already seen him sell out to the Liberal Democrats. So what now?

Do you still think Cameron is a conservative or have you now realised that he really is the "heir to Blair"?

And do you now understand that the party you support is closer to the philosophy of John Smith than it is to that of Margaret Thatcher?

Cameron has pulled off one of the greatest coups in modern times - not by becoming Prime Minister, but by fooling the Tory party into believing they were still a conservative party and capturing the last free-thinking political party for the progressive left.

Now he's openly thrown his lot in with the progressive left and revealed his true colours after all - and they have turned out to be another shade of red, not Tory blue.

So what now?

More constitutional vandalism, a parliament ever more detached from the people and a ruling elite who sneer at the things you believe in and that you thought they stood for.

So what now?

As one loser bows out, another slips in

So Gordon Brown - a man who never led his party to an election victory - stands down as Prime Minister and David Cameron - a man who has never led his party to an election victory - takes up the post.

Another "unelected" Prime Minister is incumbent at 10 Downing Street - do you think the press will give him the same sort of hard time they gave Gordon Brown for being "unelected" and never having won an election?

I don't.

But I will.

Rejected not elected

I'm not often in agreement with the Marxist John Reid, but this time he is right. All three parties were rejected by the electorate and none more so than the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties.

Which begs the question - why is it he can understand this yet so few other people in the political world can't?

There is no call for the parties to "work together" and there is no mandate for any of them to work independently. The message from the electorate is clear and unequivocal - and it is "we think all of you are useless".

A couple of quickies

Listening to various "experts" pontificating over the election, a couple of things have struck me over the last couple of days.

First of all, I keep hearing them say that the "people" have "decided" that we want the parties to work together. I don't see how they can draw that conclusion - millions of people voted for the various parties wanting to see the party they voted for gain an overall majority. We didn't "choose" this situation - it just arose because the three main parties are unelectable in their own right.

That's not the same as saying we want them to work together - it's saying we think they are all rubbish.

The second thing that struck me was supposedly intelligent and knowledgeable people talking about "unelected" Prime Ministers.

In the sense that they mean, we have never ever had an elected Prime Minister. The PM is chosen by the governing party - not the people. The person chosen as PM is usually (but not always) a member of the House of Commons and, therefore, elected.

It's a fundamental part of our parliamentary system and the fact that so many people fail to understand this is ridiculous. In some ways I shouldn't be surprised as the failure of our schools to teach anything about Britain or British history other than how awful we were has been evident for some time - but most of the people making these stupid statements about "unelected" Prime Ministers were educated a long time before our education system was turned into a left wing indoctrination programme.

It makes me wonder if they are being disingenuous rather than inaccurate. If they are, then they are deliberately seeking to mislead the people as much as the government is. If they aren't then they really should not be given the prominence they receive on national television and radio to peddle their lack of knowledge.

Dithering and dodgy dealing

Five days after the country went to the polls and we still do not know who will govern our country or who will be Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the Tories and Lib Dem leaders continue to meet secretly to thrash out little deals to satisfy their personal ambitions or the ambitions of their parties while the big hitters of Labour put out constant probes and feelers to test the waters or to force the issues.

Welcome to the world of hung parliaments - a world of dithering, shady deals in secret meetings and murky, clandestine politicking. A world where manifesto pledges mean nothing and all that matters is for each party to negotiate their own little slice of pie. A world where support for the government is dependent on backroom deals and money pledged to the causes of the minor parties.

This is the world we will see more and more of if we go through with electoral reform and some version of proportional representation. You think your vote counts for nothing now? Wait till we have PR - then you'll know how little difference your vote makes!

Sure, you'll have a parliament that more accurately reflects the way the people voted nationally, but we do not elect MPs "nationally" - but constituency by constituency. You'll have no connection to the House of Commons, the parliament will be more detached and remote than ever and your vote will actually make even less difference than it does now.

Instead we'll have dodgy deals to support dithering governments. This is only the first stage. Once this is over and we have some sort of coalition government, then the real horse trading begins - day by day, week by week, vote by vote - and none of this will have the government we want - just the government the political elite want.

How to ignore the electorate

I keep hearing politicians on all sides telling us how the electorate "has spoken" and that they have heard what they said - then go on to demonstrate that they have completely ignored the voice of the people.

They keep telling us that it is clear the people want "electoral reform" - but the two parties offering electoral reform were the ones who lost seats! There is only one clear message from that and this is that the electorate don't want electoral reform - or if they do, they don't want this pathetic bunch deciding what sort of electoral reform we get.

The other thing they are claiming that this election means is that the people want the parties to "work together". How do they work this out? The last time we had a hung parliament we had two political parties who were pretty much diametrically opposed to one another - was the conclusion drawn from that that the people wanted them to work together?

I don't think so - the one thing it does demonstrate is that the people have no faith in any of the parties to steer the nation through the coming economic storm. It is not a vote in favour of "consensus politics" or electoral reform - it's a vote of no confidence in the political parties of Great Britain.

Politics has been totally discredited - and the people who run our politics (including the media) are unable to see this. Instead they are portraying it as a vindication of all that they hold dear - a conclusion which can only be reached if you are completely and utterly detached from the people.

It's a lesson in how to ignore the people and a lesson to us all that our politicians are now so firmly perched in their ivory towers that they do not have the slightest idea what the people want or think.

There is nothing "unfair" about first past the post

Is it "unfair" that the horse that comes first in the Grand National is the winner?

And is it "unfair" that the bookies don't payout to the people who didn't back the winner?

Of course it isn't "unfair" - that is the system and our parliamentary and electoral system is first past the post. I'm getting a bit fed up of hearing various Lib Dem and Labour supporters of PR coming on television and being allowed to call this system of ours "unfair" without any challenge from the broadcasters.

For instance, in what way would it be "fairer" if the person who was the first choice candidate for more people in a constituency than any other was not the one elected to stand as that constituency's MP? Is that fair? Of course not.

The first thing to understand about our electoral system and the way our parliamentary democracy works is that it is based on an historic and important link between the people and parliament - the single MP constituency.

Every constituency has one MP and one MP only that they can send to parliament and the job of that MP is to represent the people of that constituency in parliament. There are flaws to this of course, not least the power of the party system through their whips to coerce reluctant dissenting party members - but we the people still retain that historic and very direct link to our government. Very few other systems can make the same claim.

Under a proportional representation system we can not have these single MP constituencies - because, as they are now, they are already "proportional". The candidate who gets the most vote also has the highest proportion of the vote - and so gets to sit in parliament. That is a fair proportional representation system is it not?

But what the Lib Dems and some Labour people want is something else - they want the number of seats in parliament to be decided by the number of votes cast nationally. You can not work this system and retain the historic and direct link between people and parliament - the only way to do it is to have a party list of candidates who get a seat depending on the national proportion of the vote.

What that will mean is that the parties will decide who gets to sit in parliament - not the people. For instance, I am in no way a Labour supporter, but I am always happy to see Frank Field elected to parliament. Under a party list system, Frank Field would be way down on the Labour list and would be unlikely to get a seat.

You have similar problems with STV, AV or AV+ - in particular, you will end up with MPs who are not first choice of most people, but MPs who are the least unfancied by most people. What a way to select the person to represent you in government.

To paraphrase Churchill, first past the post is the worst form of electoral system apart from all the others that have been tried. We can not change that system without fundamentally changing our entire parliamentary democracy - and that is a very dangerous thing to do, particularly given the track record of those who will be entrusted with this change.

But worst of all, changing that system will remove that very direct link between people and parliament. It will make government more remote, more detached and more inclined to act in the interest of government rather than the interest of the people or nation.

Is that really what you want?

I don't.

Politics is out of touch with the people

There can be no doubt that the British people have delivered a devastating critique of British politics at this election. The clear message is that the electorate are deeply unsatisfied with all of the main parties.

It was apparent right from the start of this campaign that the things which concerned the people of Britain were the dire state of the economy and rampant immigration, but the three main parties either avoided or skirted around the issues which concerned the electorate.

Not one party has put forward any coherent plan to tackle either the economy or immigration. With immigration, this isn't entirely surprising as all three remain committed to membership of the European Union - and as long as we remain part of that organisation we will not have control of our borders and can not, therefore, have any significant control of who enters our country.

On the economy the parties have offered very little of real substance. There is the talk of "efficiency savings" (why couldn't they make efficiency savings while the economy seemed good?) and some talk of cuts, but nothing on the scale that will be necessary.

You do not have to be an economics expert to understand the problems. Our nation is deep in debt and on top of that our government are borrowing more each year than they can earn. For a simple, household analogy it is like this ...

You have a massive mortgage, your credit cards are maxed out and each month you are spending £500 more than you have coming in. Cutting £5 off your monthly spending is not going to keep the debt collectors away or the bailiffs from your door, but that is, effectively, what the three main parties have offered us.

Even so, having been given a resounding thumbs down from the electorate what is it the three main parties are concentrating on? Is it the economy? Is it how to control immigration? No - they are concentrating on "electoral reform" - the one thing that nobody outside of the political parties gives a damn about.

Worse still, the political media are encouraging this discussion as if they seem to think it is the central issue as well. Apart from worrying a little that "the markets" might be a little unstable while our government remains in a somewhat confusing state, it is the only issue they are talking about!

How incredibly out of touch they are - the parties and the media.

No one gives a damn about electoral reform. It is a non-issue as far as the election was concerned and as far as the electorate were concerned - but for some reason it has become the only issue as far as the politicians, parties and political media are concerned.

They live in their own little world, totally detached from the rest of us.

How much longer are Tory voters going to keep fooling themselves?

How much more confirmation do traditional Tory voters need that the party they support is no longer conservative than the fact that Cameron is prepared to work with the Lib Dems to form a government?

And how much more confirmation that the three main parties are all the same than the fact that the same party that Cameron is prepared to work with is also prepared to work with the Labour Party?

The only reason Labour and the Tories aren't prepared to work with each other is the traditional enmity of their supporters.

Face the truth Conservative supporters - the party you support do not support your values anymore. The Tories are the same as the Lib Dems and the Lib Dems are the same as Labour. There is no conservative party for you to support anymore.

So stop voting for them.

The forgotten election

While the media attention is directed towards pontificating over various scenarios for a hung parliament and various Lib/Lab/Con coalition connotations something very interesting has been happening in the local elections.

Big gains for Labour - heavy losses for the Tories and Lib Dems.

Early days in those results yet I guess, but if this keeps on then I think it will signal a total disaster for the Tory party.

They would not listen, they're not listening still

So let's see - the one categorical thing you can say about this election is that the two parties which talked most about electoral reform did worse than the one that didn't.

Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats lost seats and the party that talked about it most of all - the Liberal Democrats - did much much worse than the opinion polls suggested.

That being the case, the only thing you can say about this election result it that it was more about what the British people didn't want more than it was about what they did want - and they have quite clearly rejected any idea of electoral reform.

But having heard the wishes of the people, the two main party leaders have chosen to ignore them and extend the offer of coalition to the Liberal Democrats with the promise of "electoral reform"!

How much of a kick in the teeth do you want the old parties to give you?

Whatever happened to the likely lad?

Nick Clegg that is.

We were told that he won the debates.

We were told that he had increased Lib Dem support across the nation.

We were told that his personal popularity was greater than that of either of the other two leaders.

We were told that he'd lead more Lib Dem MPs in the next parliament than ever before.

We were told that he'd beat the Labour Party into third place for share of vote.

But at the end of the day he's lost seats. Anyone wondering why? I've certainly heard plenty of commentators on TV and the radio wondering about this - but I'm not.

You see, the people of Britain might like Nick as a person - but they don't like his policies. What we can categorically say from these results is that the British people .....

..... do not want an amnesty for illegal immigrants or any more unrestrained immigration.

..... do not want to be subsumed further and further into the EU.

..... do not want the euro as their currency.

..... and they most certainly do not want proportional representation or "electoral reform".

Being nice isn't enough to win over the British people - especially when you're an anti-British, narrow-minded fool whose idea of government is to kneel subserviently to a foreign power.

The Cameron conundrum

It depends on how the remaining few seats pan out, but it is looking increasingly likely that neither a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition or a Tory minority government with ad hoc and Ulster Unionist support will win enough seats to be able to govern effectively.

So the likely outcome is that one of those two scenarios will struggle along for the next few months until their position becomes untenable and we end up going to the polls again. This throws up another interesting scenario.

Because, if Cameron gets to form a Tory minority government it is likely that Brown will stand down and be replaced by David Miliband. Much as I abhor Miliband, the media like him and he isn't tainted in the same way that Brown is - and as such he will probably be able to bolster Labour support much more effectively than Brown.

Although that may not be enough to give Labour an overall majority, it will probably be enough to give a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition enough of a majority to govern with some degree of authority - and leave Cameron out in the cold.

All of which is quite ironic - as the best bet for Cameron is for Brown to remain PM. It's also something of a conundrum for Cameron. If he is seen to have failed to unseat the most unpopular PM in modern times after the Tories had been out of power for four elections and with the state of the nation in a more perilous state than it was at the start of the depression then he will be seen to have failed.

But if he does become PM in a minority Tory government then he is likely to be facing a fresh challenge in months which he may well lose.

Either way, Cameron is looking like a loser.

The electorate have "punished" all the parties

So says Boris Johnson and I completely agree with him.

You ain't got no mandate either, mate!

Dave's speech to his constituency workers consisted of some line about Labour having "lost the mandate" to govern.

True enough - but they've not given that mandate to you either, sunshine. In fact, it is pretty clear that the voters don't think much of any of the three main parties - and that is despite them spending huge sums of money persuading you to vote for them and despite an enormous amount of free publicity provided at great expense by the media (and the taxpayer) which included three television "debates" in which only those three parties were represented.

The only clear message from this election is that the people of Britain have had enough of the old parties. They don't like them, they don't trust them and they don't want them.

Their time is running out.

A pathetic Tory performance

With about sixty seats still to declare it is still not clear what the outcome of this election will be, but it's looking increasingly likely that it will be a hung parliament with the Tories having the largest number of seats, but not sufficient to for a majority government.

This may be a surprise for many, but not for me. As I said two years ago when the supposedly informed political commentators were looking forward to a Cameron landslide ....

[R]egardless of what the polls say, I still believe that when an election does come the Tories will not win. Labour might lose - but the best the Tories can hope for, in my opinion, is a hung parliament and that, in my opinion, will be a disaster for them and for Britain.

It does get to be something of a burden when I'm always right - but it's a cross I'm learning to bear.

As I said, the outcome of this election is still far from being clear. Will Gordon Brown manage to form a coalition government with the Lib Dems or will David Cameron be Prime Minister with a minority government? I think it might still be a couple of days before we find out, but there are some things about this election which are clear.

The first is that the Nick Clegg "bounce" proved to be as solid as a David Cameron "cast iron pledge". Personally, I'm not surprised - the British people just aren't that keen on politicians who are as vehemently anti-British as Clegg. He might come across OK in the sanitised world of TV "debates", but the problem for the Lib Dems - as always - is that their policies don't stand up to scrutiny.

Even that nice Vince Cable - who everyone seems to think would make a great chancellor (I don't - if Cable had had his way we would be in the euro now and our economy sinking faster than a Tequila Slammer at an Ibiza hen party) wasn't enough to bolster Lib Dem support.

The second point is that Labour's support has collapsed in some areas but held up reasonably well in others. I expect someone will do a proper analysis of this at some point in the future, but it will be interesting to see whether those areas where they've retained much of their core vote are areas with EU sceptic and/or traditional Labour MP's.

The biggest and most telling point, though, is the abject failure of David Cameron's Tory Party - because that is what it is. His party may have won the most seats, but not enough - and this against a backdrop of Labour Party riven by internal wrangling, the economy on the brink of collapse and one of the most unpopular men as Prime Minister that we have ever had.

There is only one word to describe the Tory performance.

Pathetic.

Booze up in a brewery

Nothing sums up the state of modern British politics better than the utter debacle of voters unable to vote and polling stations running short of ballot papers.

After 50 years of progressive meddling and fiddling we are now so inept that we can not even run the fundamental basics of our democratic system - and this is despite the massive increase in postal voting (and electoral fraud).

What an utter shambles - and they want us to trust them to manage the national economy, our national defence and our borders?

I wouldn't trust any of them to run a booze up in a brewery