Valencay 2013

This short film is a tribute that I assembled to some very brave people whose lives are commemorated annually at Valencay in France. Sophie and I visited Valencay last weekend:

Everyone is a Winner! Almost..

I am absolutely delighted with the election results today. Everyone I wanted to win, won but more importantly, almost everyone I wanted to lose, lost.

My previously mentioned Aunt (leader of Lib Dems on Kent County Council) won by a massive margin. She got 55% of the vote versus the split Conservative vote of 20% and UKIP 16% - she was unassailable.

Conversely, but equally happily, all of the Conservative County Councillors in Surrey Heath (my area) won. Even those who the Lib Dems attempted to unseat by not running a candidate in the hope of the votes going to Labour failed. Even the most marginal division, a controversial figure, who I  like enormously, managed to increase his majority! - Well done Pitt!

Fortress Surrey Heath was also unassailed!

Overall the Lib Dems lost out and Labour failed to gain any convincing amount of ground.

But the greatest success was the massive bloody nose that Cameron got. It was a victory for the anti-establishment.

If Dave had invested his election broadcast in a vision of himself on bended knee, begging the county to vote FOR UKIP it would have been less effective than the strategy he did decide on which was to rubbish UKIP and by association, UKIP voters.

This was a monumental error. It turned a potential embarrassment into a rout. I just cannot quite believe that the man running this country was capable of such a moronic misjudgement. I hate to think that my local MP and friend of both Dave and I would have endorsed such a stupid approach.

I wince as I read the line I read above about Dave. I, like so many Conservative members have invested huge expectation, albeit with misgivings, in him. But unfortunately, no - tragically, he just hasn't delivered. He snatched defeat from the jaws of success in 2010 - how could anyone lose that election? And since then, other than for brief moments, has failed to prove himself capable of leadership.

I, like many others, have been prepared to make allowances since 2010 for the impact and realities of coalition. But really the way this election was handled, proves beyond doubt that Dave simply, sadly, is not up to the job.

It's time to finally accept it. I was wrong. Dave, despite my hopes and expectations, just is not the man.

I should have known back in May 2010 when he was reluctant to move out of his west London home to No. 10. What kind of committed PM shirks at that!

Instead I just invested my hopes and expectations in a Conservative leader who I hoped would fulfil those expectations that were embedded way back in the late 1970s..

Margaret Thatcher's recent death and the resulting analysis of her life and achievements jolted me, and thousands of others, who considered ourselves Conservatives into examining this pre-supposition more forensically than we have for many years.

I had to conclude that I am Thatcherite more than Conservative.

And therefore I have to conclude that Cameron must now go if I am ultimately to remain a Conservative.

Ashcroft Spits about Splits at Farage

Michael (Lord) Ashcroft, the multi-millionaire Conservative polster has unwisely written a particularly snidy letter to Nigel Farage that has been published in the Mail on Sunday. 

In it, he suggests that Nigel Farage's ambitions for UKIP are inconsistent with his stated aims of achieving a referendum on EU Membership. Ashcroft concludes that if Farage were serious about a referendum he would support the Conservative party now that it promises a referendum after the next GE if it is in power. Effectively Ashcroft accuses Farage of selling out to his own ambition.

This is a monumentally weird and twisted piece of logic that seems to have a sense of entitlement at the root of it. 

Why on earth does Ashcroft suppose that the Conservative party is the solution here? If the Conservative party had promoted and offered a clear referendum commitment some years ago then UKIP would never have got started. To suggest that they should now 'fall on their swords' in favour of the Conservative party is absurd.

The reality is that Ashcroft's sneering approach reflects many in the Conservative party who still, incredibly do not seem to grasp the idea that they are going to have work with UKIP if they can possibly hope to win in 2015. 

My Aunt is leader of the Liberal Democrats on Kent County Council. In the local elections this week she is up against a Conservative who won 25% of the vote last time and the UKIP candidate who won 10%. Apparently the local Conservatives are targeting her ward as they feel it is winable..

Frankly unless there is some local issue I am not aware of, this seems extremely unlikely. Because as Nigel Farage put it after the Eastleigh By-Election, the Conservatives will split the UKIP vote or as Ashcroft would have it, UKIP will split the Conservative vote. The result will be that my Aunt will win - the one situation nationwide where I am happy for this to occur!

Actually I think the vote belongs to the electorate and unless some great tactical opportunity presents itself they will vote for the party most likely to deliver what they want. This will not be based on what the parties say they are going to do, but on what the electorate believe they will do.

So whilst the Conservatives do have huge historical numbers, people generally do believe that Farage is genuine, whereas the other mainstream parties have been proved to be unreliable at best.

Perhaps Ashcroft thinks that his letter may convince some voters that Farage is as bad as everyone else. Perhaps some will be convinced by this argument but I suspect overall, his intervention is counter-productive because instead more people will just think that Conservative Lord Ashcroft is just 'Lording it' over man-of-the-people Farage.

Nigel Farage's strategy seems crystal-clear to me. He is putting up lots of UKIP candidates for the local elections this week. By Friday he will have hundreds of examples of damage inflicted on 'the Conservative vote' - split votes. He will then have the Euro elections to fight in 2014 where he may well get the most votes for the first time, and then he will sit down to negotiate with a hopefully chastened and finally wised-up Conservative party before the run-up to the 2015 General Election.

Perhaps Michael Ashcroft should look at his own polling and ask himself if the target voters that the Conservatives are after - 'The Strivers' are more likely to vote for an old-Etonian or a salt-of-the-earth striver type like Farage? 

Bit of a no-brainer init bruv?

Thatcher - The Fantasist's Root of All Evil.

I have just been watching Channel 4 news. Some gangly faced cretinous child girl from some economics think-tank has been flashing flirty toothy grins at a bemused John Snow whilst explaining how Margaret Thatcher was responsible for the current financial crisis in response to this report by C4 News.

Apparently when Mrs T initiated the 'Big Bang' in the 1980s - she caused the current collapse. Apparently it is nothing to do with the failed euro project, or the sub-prime lending in the US and elsewhere or the lack of oversight or failed FSA structure implemented by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

What utter bollocks.

If that kind of logic prevailed then we wouldn't blame the lunatic driver who killed the small child as a result of their dangerous driving, we would imprison the road builder, or perhaps the guy who ordered the Tarmac..

What utter stupidity. 

This inane idiot was counterbalanced by Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom who calmly and rationally attempted to illustrate the wrong headedness of this hypothesis.

But frankly I object not just to Channel 4 for running such a fatuous and ridiculous piece. Obviously I blame the moronic think tank girl for her pathetic smirking grins but I also blame Leadsom for dignifying a ridiculous charade by attempting to seriously answer the charge. 

There are rare occasions on which it is only appropriate to pour derision and scorn on someone, and this was one of those occasions. 

And while we are at it, Mrs T was not responsible for the decline of manufacturing, or the closure of coal mines. The unions and a succession of failed governments of both persuasions did that (more mines were closed in the 60s and 70s than in the 80s). It was they who made these industries hideously inefficient and incapable of operating without huge government subsidy. Mrs T simply did the inevitable dirty work that her predecessors were too weak to do. She simply stopped the crippling subsidies, beat back the unions and incentivised growth and liberal markets.

Come on Conservatives. Wake up. Start defending the Conservative record. Lady T is dead and hasn't been able to defend it for many years. It's your job to explain exactly how the Conservative thinking and approach pulled Britain back from the abyss and how it can do it again.

And stop allowing others to distort cause and effect. The positive effects of what the previous Conservative government did were abundantly clear to the rest of the world. It's only the fantasists and the morally corrupt and self-deluding political opposition who can convince the UK electorate otherwise if you stay quiet or fail to argue your case.. nuff sed.

A Pivotal Political Moment

I am a political watcher. I have been watching Politics intently for 32 years - from the days when Margaret Thatcher was campaigning to become Prime Minister back in 1979. 

Many would perhaps rightly think that this is a fantastic waste of the time invested. But it does occasionally pay a dividend that I value. Every so often I get a political insight from something I am watching and analysing that gives me a huge steer on the nature of future events. These occasional breathtaking insights are sometimes foresights that have the brilliant clarity and certainty of hindsight - quite an assertion!

One example of this was back in 2003 when I was nerdily watching the entire Conservative conference on TV while pretending to very slowly re-decorate my kitchen. Two young MPs from the 2001 intake made their first prominent appearance together conducting a Q and A session. It caught my attention completely. By the end of the session I knew I had just seen the next Conservative Prime Minister - the only question was which of the two would it be?

At the time no-one in the outside world had heard of either David Cameron (my best guess for next Conservative PM due to his age) or George Osborne (my preferred option due to his brilliant presentational skills - sadly now shrouded by the perceived necessity to look 'serious' in his position as Chancellor.)

Last night I was again nerdily watching the tributes to Mrs T in the House of Commons on BBC Parliament channel. Amongst the mushy stuff, it was a fascinating exposure of the arguments for, and against, the policies of her and her governments. The tributes had been going on since just after lunchtime when the PM had delivered his brief accolade and by 6.30pm ish there were only a handful of MPs on the Labour benches and probably 40 or 50 Conservative, most of whom were there waiting to speak themselves.

And then one of those Eureka moments happened. Gisela Stuart (Labour) stood up and delivered her poignant tribute. It started off quite slowly with talk about the equality of women in Parliament. It wasn't remarkable in any way. 

But then Gisela started talking about Economics and the economist Hayek and 'the market' being 'social'. Essentially she was putting her finger on the key underlying political problem in our country and in so doing, shone a light into the dark pointing a way forward.

Gisela started talking about 'polarisation' in our political debate and agenda and specifically about the polarisation between, on one hand, 'socialism' and on the other 'capitalism'. Gisela's idea was that this is a false choice and that the presence of this false choice is what is holding us up - as she put it 'on both sides of the house' but as I would express it, in this country.

Ok. So what I am driving at here?

Well. For years and years we have been stuck with the argument between 'Socialism' and 'Capitalism'. Although the word 'Socialism' was rejected by the Labour party in the 1990s when Tony Blair thought he would be more electable by doing so, socialist principles are those that are embedded still firmly in the Labour party. Conversely 'Capitalist Free Markets' are deeply embedded in Conservative thinking yet much of the electorate believe that 'profit' is a dirty word. 

These things, as they have been defined, are polar opposites.

But this simply is not true. 

And so, the electorate are stuck. We want a socially responsible government but we also want an economically competent government, yet no political party seems to represent both these things. In the centre of the electorate's mind we either have a harsh uncaring but economically competent government (Conservative) or a socially responsible but financially irresponsible one (Labour).

The key to solving this dichotomy is to unravel the theories, go back to first principles and find the overlapping, common ground - to resolve the false conflict. This is what Gisela is driving at. A new, to use another dirty word, 'Consensus' that stops our political parties endlessly re-fighting the same underlying arguments with every policy announcement.

It's not about simply re-branding political parties - Labour as New Blue Labour or the Conservative Party as Hug a Hoodie, Compassionate Conservatism. That is too vacuous, too obviously a superficial exercise. It is about digging much, much deeper.

The seeds of Gisela's argument are what I believe will spawn a new and highly effective political philosophy - One that will then go on to gather support from the broad electorate. 

Perhaps this is a fitting tribute to Mrs T. The idea that an examination of her legacy has and will help spawn the school of thought which will dicate the pattern of political life in the not too distant future.

People say that Margaret Thatcher overturned the post-war consensus and was divisive. I would say she challenged the post-war consensus and was divisive because her philosophy failed to achieve a new consensus. The arguments still rage today.

What Gisela was starting to articulate was a need and a basis for a new consensus. I shall keep listening.

The question in my mind again is now only which of the political players (parties rather than individuals) will be the one to lead this forward.

Margaret Thatcher - The Legacy.

I vividly remember early one afternoon in 1990 jumping onto a tube train to be confronted, to my horror, with a newspaper headline announcing that Margaret Thatcher had stepped down.

I was stunned. I knew she was a headstrong and often difficult and divisive figure but surely everyone knew that she more than anyone had put Britain back on it's feet.

I was only 11 years old when Mrs T came to power but it was obvious to me that she was what the country needed. I remember the power cuts and the strikes and the overwhelming sense that country was slowly sliding towards oblivion and that she was the figure who those who understood what needed to be done, united around.

The day she went induced a feeling like a bereavement - which today's news brings flooding back.

In 1990 I felt as though the country had taken a foolish wrong turn. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I know for sure we did.

Despite the fact that she had, inevitably after 10 years as PM, lost touch, become egotistical and started to believe her own propaganda, Margaret Thatcher had much more to give. A shock would perhaps have done it. Got her back on the rails and renewed her energy and focus. There was no need for an unseating, particularly foolish when there was no strong alternative leader in waiting..

But it wasn't to be and perhaps that's partly why we seem to be re-playing the same arguments and scenarios today as we were back in the 1980s. Stuck in a strange political groundhog day, today we hear todays' politicians reciting very similar arguments to those of that time. Labour are blamed for their disastrous stewardship of the economy and the Conservatives are blamed for reigning back spending and restructuring the state.

Margaret Thatcher's legacy is extraordinarily impressive - the most significant politician by far of my lifetime.

I just wish she had been given the time and support to finish the job she started and been able to embed a truly sustainable economic and social model in Britain that combined sound, sustainable finances with social responsibility.

Instead we find ourselves looking for a leader of her stature - and can't seem to see one.

A Post, Post-Eastleigh Post

Let me explain that rather confusing headline.

The Eastleigh by-election was a major Political event, which caused a great outpouring of thought, ideas and reaction after it’s conclusion. Hundreds of articles and blog posts (see here on Politicus.org.uk) have picked over the bones of it. 

Probably the most often repeated idea was that ‘it is only a by-election’ and therefore it is completely different, thus discounting the value of any conclusions that can be drawn from it. I don’t agree. There is much that the Conservative party in particular can learn from it.

Having read so many different views on the subject (via Politicus), the major points that I have drawn from the wide range of views for each of the different Political parties are as follows:

UKIP – UKIP played a blinder here. They managed to mop up a huge protest vote taking votes from all three other major political parties. Some dismiss UKIP's march forward as simply a protest vote that will evaporate at a General Election. But, success breeds success and this result will undoubtedly encourage other people to vote for UKIP in the future because they are less likely to see their vote as being wasted. UKIP have further enhanced the perception that they are a serious mainstream party with an increasingly strong vote-winning machine.

Labour - With a minor 'celebrity' candidate and after nearly three years of Coalition Government, Labour should have done better. The result was really a reflection of the fact that they are not seen as a differentiated alternative. There was little or no evidence of a protest vote against the Coalition going to Labour.

Liberal Democrat - The Liberal Democrats did extremely well to win this in light of the fact that the seat was vacated by the previous Lib Dem incumbent being convicted of perverting the course of justice, and the furore surrounding the Lord Rennard allegations. They managed to neutralise these issues and concentrated on harnessing their local dominance.

The key to their win was not the short term by-election campaign but many years of effort that they have put into this area, converting it from a strong Conservative constituency (In 1992 the Conservatives held the seat with 39,000 votes to 21,000 Lib Dem) to a Lib Dem stronghold with every single local Councillor being a Liberal Democrat.

Conservatives - This by-election was not an absolute disaster for the Conservatives when compared to the other parties. The Conservative vote was reduced by almost the same proportion as the Lib Dems but it illustrated and widely exposed three huge problems.

1) The strategy of attacking Liberal Democrat 'marginals' as a major priority at the next election is going to be very, very difficult to achieve. Grant Shapps needs to think carefully about this. He won his seat against Labour - The Lib Dems are very different opponents  They build a constituency grass-roots ground-up street by street, ward by ward providing them with a huge Get The Vote Out machine at election time.

2) The vote on the 'right' is split. Nigel Farage's 'The Conservatives Split our vote' quip resonated because it is so true. It was interesting to hear that a presumably rehabilitated Andrew Mitchell was seen walking in St James's Park (the traditional venue for clandestine meetings) with Nigel Farage after Eastleigh. Some kind of deal is essential if a vote split is to be avoided at a GE.

3) The Conservative vote winning infrastructure is in tatters. Many years ago, the Conservative party developed a powerful machine for doing exactly what the Liberal Democrats still do very successfully today. One of the elderly residents in the constituency in which I live explained it to me very simply - "when I was young, the Conservatives always held the best parties". In other words, they worked out what young people wanted (to meet the opposite sex) and then provided them with an opportunity for fun and social activity whilst involving them in the party.

This was the key to getting people involved early. The Conservative Agent career structure was designed around this. Agents were employed to organise events and gather new members. Members brought friends along to events, they met local and national politicians, kept coming back and joined, then invited their friends etc etc.

But this machine was never adapted to changing social expectations. The employed agents simply kept on ploughing the same furrow, doing the same things in the same way and get ever decreasing returns. The Diary of a Conservative Agent blog is a huge fund of information that illustrates exactly how outdated and ineffective the structure has become.

Conclusions - For the Conservatives

Unless the Conservatives can do some kind of deal with UKIP, the Conservatives are going to have to come up with relatively radical national policies to win the next GE. Radical because they need clear differentiation from the other parties, and because they need to differentiate what they have done in Government with the limitations of a Lib Dem partner and what they could do as a Conservative party in Government alone. They do not have the feet on the street to Get the Vote Out so they will have to rely on high profile national messages.

For the longer term, the Conservatives are going to have completely redefine the way in which Conservative Associations operate and completely redefine the model. It's way too late for evolution. Revolution is the only option. Small incremental changes that should have been made in the 1980s and 1990s were never made, so now the problem is huge and the structure needs a total change.

Unfortunately the Agent/Association model had one huge flaw. It didn't include a mechanism for it's own evolution and self-development. Much as I admire the dogmatic, self-less years of effort that these stalwarts have put-in, they are simply not part of a successful future.

Grant Shapps has his work cut out and the future of the Conservative Party, if it is to have one, depends on what he does next.