Category: National politics

Harriet Harman is easy to ridicule as Harriet Harperson. She makes it easy.

I don’t watch GMTV but apparently that was the forum that Harriet Harman, Deputy Prime Minister [sorry Labour party leader] and the person with her finger on the red button this week and last, used this morning (according to the Times) to say:

Somebody did say… that if it had been Lehman sisters rather than Lehman Brothers then there may not have been as much…

Essentially she was trying to blame the credit crunch on men. Only on Sunday the Sunday Times quoted her as saying:

Men cannot be left to run things on their own. I think it’s a thoroughly bad thing to have a men-only leadership. In a country where women regard themselves as equal, they are not prepared to see men just running the show themselves. I think a balanced team of men and women makes better decisions.

This woman aspires to running our country. What a complete arse? Apparently she will be standing in for Gordon Brown for another week. Deliver us from evil.

This attack video comes from the Conservatives. They pretty much call Brown a liar. I can’t say I disagree with them. I guess Labour thinks that no-one is capable of reading the budget Red Book. They are right that most people won’t read it. They seem to forget that nowadays there are enough people blogging and linking to that kind of document that they can’t really get away with this kind of lie campaign any more. Good job. For instance, see Fraser Nelson here.

These figures show the hollowness of Brown’s trademark Orwellian use of the word “investment”. The real meaning of investment conveys the putting aside of money for the future. It is used to denote the act of saving or the act of making capital (long term) purchases. Brown has used it as an attractive shorthand for revenue spending with no concern for outcomes. Spending for its own sake. Yet we see in his own government’s Red Book that actual investment in cash terms is due to fall from £63 billion in the current financial year to £46 billion in 2013/4. The man has so distorted the language and the numbers that he seems to have lost touch with reality completely.

The world has moved on and left Brown and his type behind.

Another way of looking at elections is to look at how many votes it takes to win a seat. One of the purported benefits of proportional representation is that it is meant to ensure that “every vote counts”. The disbenefits of PR are many, but let’s have that debate another day. Let’s look at the proposition that every vote counts. The figures below show how many votes it took to win a seat for an MEP. They exlcude the three NI seats.

Being on the up the Tories did not have to work as hard as the other three main parties (I guess you have to say that UKIP qualify as a main party for the European elections at least). The other three parties all needed about 190,000 votes to get an MEP whereas the Tories only needed 170,000. The two left wing, national, minor parties needed about half a million votes to get an MEP. On the other hand nationalist minor parties in small countries got their MEPs on the cheap – the SNP only needed 160,000 votes and the Plaid MEP was a steal at 127,000 votes.

You have got to feel sorry for the English Democrats. They polled twice as many votes as Plaid and almost as many votes as the SNP and got nothing. Now there is 280,000 votes that don’t count. The EDs got more than twice as many votes as they did in 2004 and can console themselves with having the executive mayor of Doncaster.

I haven’t had much time to analyse the European election results in London. They look like an unspectacular inching forward for the Tories in the face of the MP’s expenses scandal rather than a revolution. That said Labour lost an MEP. Previously London had nine MEPs – now it only has eight. The Tories retained their three MEPs. The LibDems, Greens and UKIP kept their one MEP each. Labour lost one and went down to two.

You can see the full results here. Coverage from the BBC here and Dave Hill here.

Lots of people will comment on the percentage vote shares. I always think it is worth looking at the numbers of votes. The Tories lost 25,634 (5.1%) votes – an effect of MPs expenses? Labour lost 93,994 votes or fully 20% of their 2004 vote. Disaster. The LibDems lost 48,634 (16.8%) votes. Disaster. Funnily enough UKIP did equally badly as Labour and the LibDems – they lost 44,193 (19.0%) votes. The biggest winners were the Green who gained 31,603 (19.9%) votes. The BNP also did well adding 10,268 (13.5%).

One side story from the London European elections is the performance of independent candidate Jan Jananayagam who managed to pull in 50,004 votes. A quick look at her website indicates that she got the Tamil vote.

I went to vote at about 4.30pm this afternoon in Ealing, West London. Here we are only voting in the Euro elections as London local elections are not until next May.

It was very quiet. I asked the staff a few questions. Up until 4pm only 293 had turned up to vote.

I have heard reports that some people are worried that the ballot boxes won’t be big enough for the very long ballot papers being used for this election. Apparently they have been tested here in Ealing and can accommodate 700 papers. That said the nice lady was having to use a long plastic ballot squasher to push the papers further down into the box even though they were barely over the 300 mark.

http://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/Flash/Flash%20Applications/videoPlayer_large.ashx

The point about this video from the Tories is that the latest possible date for the next general election is June 3rd next year – one year from today. We all know that Gordon Brown would only call a general election if he thought he could win it. It has not looked like he could since he became unelected Labour leader and unelected Prime Minister. Unless Brown is chucked out by his own party because they calculate that he will destroy them, or in the unlikely event that he decides to go for the good of the country, we will have to put up with Brown for another terrible year.

If you want a general election and a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty then go and vote tomorrow. Forget protest votes and vote Tory.

On Monday I noted that the Sun has come out for the Tories at the European elections on Thursday. Today the Times too endorses the Tories. They say:

So, by a process of elimination, that leaves the Conservative Party. The future of a viable EU surely lies in concentrating on those issues, such as the response to climate change and the need to secure energy supplies, on which co-ordinated work between governments is vital. That means it needs to spend a lot less time on pointless internal deliberation designed to cement power centrally, of which the Lisbon Treaty is an example.

The Conservative Party has the only manifesto which contains both these defining ideas. On that basis it merits support in tomorrow’s election. But the bigger issue is, in fact, whether an increased Conservative presence in Strasbourg can make any difference in finding a purpose for the European Parliament which, just at the moment, it palpably lacks.

As Labour implodes the best way to ensure that we get a referendum on the Lisbon treaty (constitution) and that we get a strong, new government is to vote Conservative.

I just heard on the 11am news bulletin that Cabinet Minister Beverley Hughes will not be standing again as MP for Stretford and Urmston. Check her out at TheyWorkForYou.com here. According to them she has been really going for it with the infamous Additional Costs Allowance. Joint first 2007/8, 2006/7, 2004/5 and 2002/3

The Telegraph seems to be going over the Labour cabinet this week. Yesterday it was Darling. Today it was Hoon. Could it be that Hughes was due to be done tomorrow and has jumped before she hit the headlines?