Will 2015 follow 2010 and be a loser's election?

As we head towards the mid point of the current parliament no party looks like being the next victor. On current form a 2015 general election will bring results much like 2010l, where there was no clear winner.

In 2010 Gordon Brown had failed to convince the country he deserved to win. David Cameron assumed his Tories would waltz to power by default, yet they didn't. The Lib Dems lost numerous seats as they failed to take advantage of Nick Clegg's popularity bounce following the TV debates.

In 2012 we've got a Labour leader in Ed Miliband who is growing into his role but hasn't convinced yet. Depending on who you ask, his leadership is either a work in progress or ineffective. The Tories are struggling to get their programme through parliament, such as NHS reforms, in the face of huge public and professional opposition. While  many voters buy their line that the economy is "Labour's mess" they are not convinced that the Tories are the best for the country. The Lib Dems are paying the price for fronting up several of the Tories unpopular policies, such as the trebling of tuition fees.

How does that project the three parties forward to 2015?

Labour need to continue to build on successes, such as forging the political agenda, as they did over phone hacking and bankers' bonuses, but through to actual cut through with voters. This has so far failed to materialise. The Telegraph's Benedict Brogan is right when he says "Labour would be foolish to think an absence of enthusiasm for the Tories can get it out of its strategic hole". It can't win by default, just as it failed to do in the 1980s. 

The Tories need voters to start thanking them for taking tough but correct action to improve the economy. They also need to look more like a government in control of events and the political agenda than they currently do. They need to look like they are most fit to govern of the three parties.

The Lib Dems need people to forget about their sins, such as trebling tuition fees and hope to recover local support where their pockets of seats exist. I have no idea whether this will happen.

Nobody looks like doing what they need to forge ahead in the polls. That means it is all up for grabs and the political landscape is likely to continue to shift according to external events and how each of the main players react to this.

Nick Clegg calls for referendum on Europe

The big story of the last week has been the potential rift in the coalition between the anti-Europe Tories and the pro-Europe Lib Dems. Driving a wedge between his party and his location partners  Nick Clegg said to the Daily Telegraph: 

"For as long as I've been in politics, the Conservative Party has had a bee in its bonnet about Europe.

"I think eurosceptics need to be careful what they wish for. We as a country are massively dependent on a successful Europe for our own prosperity, British jobs, for money in people's pockets. Every step towards the exit sign will lead to lower confidence in the British economy.

Given that and how the media continually portrayed the Lib Dems as the only party united on Europe, in favour of great British participation in the EU and against a referendum on membership, many will wonder why Clegg was pledging a referendum himself just last year. 

This is not just a surprise for everyone who thought Clegg was against a referendum on EU membership but also highlights, if we really needed to do it again, the duplicitous nature of Clegg's "i'll do anything for a vote" Lib Dem opportunists. 

Remember that the same 2010 election was the one in which Clegg and his candidates personally signed pledges not to increase student tuition fees. No this. Voters will be left wondering what Clegg really stands for? It certainly isn't clarity or consistency.

A poor week for all the parties

It is popular to remark that the Tories are undergoing a series of policy and political retreats. It is also popular to opine that this is a result of the Lib Dems restreating to their lefty safe territory after their local election wipe out.

Some of this is true. We wouldn't have had the NHS reform listening exercise or the changes to the programme if there wasn't something different about it. The real difference isn't in the policy changes that may or may not happen, I expect wholesale changes to the NHS to happen anyway.

What this all demonstrates is that the Tories feel politically weak. They are allowing both the Lib Dems and the risk of unpopularity with the electorate to force their hand. The Tories should feel stronger than they do because even if the Lib Dems want to flex their muscles, they too are week and facing oblivion.

The Tories know that the NHS is an historic weakness. People don't trust them with it so they can't take the risk losing whatever credibility they have with the health service. This also demonstrates political naiivity. Properly researched and planned before being announced, these changes could have met the needs of the health service in the first place and avoided talk of u-turns and retreats. This suggests that in the quest for taking power the coalition partners didn't work their way through all the detail. If the Lib Dems really were so opposed to all of this why didn't they say so when they had real power - at the coalition negoatiation phase.

This will be presented as a Lib Dem victory. The danger is that this will appeal to some of the Lib Dems lost voters but will further antagonise their coalition partners and masters, the Tories.

Nick Clegg needs to be very careful, while Cameron has more political strength than he realises. Ed Miliband should do everything to exploit a Clegg clinging on for life and a Cameron who is weak and reactiving the poltical environment rather than shaping it.

A year in Condemnation

The Liberal Demolition shows no sign of letting up. First there were the glory day(s) in the Rose garden at number ten. Then the betrayals, then the bickering, then the elections.

While repeated blows have landed on the Lib Dems and while they have been serious the victim is more likely to suffer a slow and drawn out death than a knock out punch. The Lib Dems will last to 2015 because whatever happens between now and the next election, like John Major's rebel turkeys, his disgruntled party can't risk a general election that would see them wiped out.

After founding of the coalition David Laws did his best to show that this wasn't "Cleggameron's" new politics as he thieved the taxpayer for several years for rent he didn't have to pay. That Clegg placed the his party's integrity at the behest of what he would have known would be a very unpopular Tory government shows how much he wanted to give his party their raison d'etre: electoral reform. He gambled everything for this. He lost. What has he got left? He has his party to save.


How can Clegg do this? Strong words in public but capitulations in private letting the Tories get their way will only weaken their cause. The real test is whether they can stem the Tory zeal for deep public spending cuts, especially as economic indicators worsen in the coming 12 months.

There is little Cameron will want to do to change the coalition. His government retains control of policy, the top jobs and the blame for anything bad always sits with the Lib Dems. After the initial disappointment of failing to get a majority at the general election a year ago, things could hardly be better for Cameron and his Tories.

AV rows rumble on and I swing

Differences of opinion between the Tories and Lib Dems about AV continue to attract press attention. What was meant to be an apolitical issue has been fashioned into a party political affair. Peter Mandelson has suggested that Labour supporters should vote yes to hinder the Tories' potential electoral dominance. The no campaign have used Nick Clegg's unpopularity to encourage Labour supporters to vote no.

The recent sniping between the Lib Dems and Tories, plus interventions from Labour's heavyweights has added a little oomph to a rather dull and dry referendum campaign that will have passed most voters by.

The "row" has been the story rather than AV. That is much easier to report and shows a media appetite for tittle tattle over trying to educate the readership. There has been a great deal of nonsense thrown about by both sides. The no campaign have dubbed AV confusing, unfair and expensive. The yes campaign have dismissed the no campaign as the Tory old guard hanging onto the levers of power.

Both sides have tried to score party political points on the other. The no campaign calling on voters to deal a blow to Clegg, the yes campaign to David Cameron. If I'm going to be party political about the AV referendum, I'd like to deal a blow to both but voting for short term gain isn't necessarily going to deliver the best political outcome in the long term.

As usual Channel 4's Fact Check comes to the rescue bringing together the claims and demystifying the myths. AV won't be expensive and will ensure all MPs will be elected on some type of 50%+ support. AV wouldn't have altered many recent UK elections and would have exaggerated many recent results, like 1997.

I feel myself becoming a swing voter for the first time in my life. I've never approached an election and not been totally sure of how I would vote, but I am about AV. I want a fair system, a simple one and any change must be fair to all parties. Will AV be that change? I'm not convinced but it might be.

Vince Cable on the slide

Vince Cable is doing his best to get himself sacked from the cabinet. After calling David Cameron's immigration speech "unwise" today he added another feather to his Lib Dem Tory hating cap. The only problem is that he signed up to this in the first place. It is also a problem that the Lib Dems are guaranteed a specific number of cabinet posts and if old Vince is kicked out, who replaces him?

I agree with Vince. Capping immigration could be damaging for business, which needs to recruit the best people to get our economy going again. Setting an arbitrary cap means this might not happen.

His antics remind me of a Channel 4 comedy programme from a few years ago where two contestants, each starting a new job, had to get themselves sacked. The winner got a week's dole money. The only catch was that they were not allowed to do anything obvious, like swear, use violence, steal or not turn up. They had to be creative and provoke their boss to getting rid of them. The winner got sacked from his job in an expensive clothes shop after dressing up in fancy dress and juggling the shoes.

Vince is juggling with his career, I'm not sure he cares. Vince is looking good for his £67.50.

Lib Dems: the indefensible

Poor Warren Bradley has been here before. His outburst at Nick Clegg suggests a man clearly worried about his own future. He is apparently sick of "defending the indefensible" with the latter being the Lib Dem coalition with the Tories.

Is it the VAT rise his party campaigned against? Is it the rise in tuition fees his party campaigned against? Is it the public sector cuts his party campaigned against?



For some time the Tories have had no presence in the north of England, which his Lib Dems profited from. People won't vote Tory there but when Labour has deserved a bloody nose the nice little yellow party has been there to step in. Bradley ended up as leader of Liverpool council, while the party was also victorious in other traditionally Labour strongholds such as Sheffield and Leeds. Now that many voters see the Lib Dems and Tories as a single entity it is highly probable that the pockets of northern support for the Lib Dems will go the same way as that for the Tories.

At least Bradley has been consistent. He might care about his party or he might only care about his own future. Which doesn't really matter at this time. He was one of the first and more high profile members of his party to warn about the effect doing a deal with the Tories nationally might have on the party's future. Speaking in July, just after the coalition was formed he said "we’re in a weak coalition, that will deliver nothing to the Lib-Dems except total electoral decimation. I give you that absolute guarantee, we will be wiped out by Labour in the North and the Tories in the South." In three weeks we'll find out.

Bradleys's current analysis may be robust but he misses a key point that many voters who were fooled into thinking Bradley's Lib Dems were a left wing party. Across England they have repeatedly gone into coalition with the Tories whenever it has suited their ends, as Bradley's email to Clegg points out, to get power

Highlights of Tory-Lib Dem coalition include:

• Lambeth 2002-2006
• Leeds 2004-2010
• Southwark 2002-2010

Bradley needs to look back a bit further into his party's recent history. Perhaps then he'd realise that the "indefensible" has been party policy for some time. Time for a new job Bradley?

Is Vince Cable a joke?

I don't quite know how Vince Cable can live with himself. He has been absent from the news recently after a series of gaffes relating to News International's attempt to buy back a bigger share of Sky.

Low paid workers are facing a two-pronged hit to their living standards after Cable announced that the minimum wage is increasing by a below inflation 15 pence an hour. Couple this with a 2.5% increase in VAT and the rise in personal income tax allowances will be completely wiped out. Even though food isn't included in VAT, the cost of fuel is meaning the cost of food and essential items increase anyway. 

Recently Cable was responsible for the trebling of tuition fees. He then has the cheek to suggest he will cut teaching grants to universities for poor performing universities that charge the highest fees, ignoring that he has cut the teaching grants meaning fees have to fill the gap. Universities have no choice but to levy maximum fees. They don't get any extra money for this, it just replaces lost central government funding. There are arguments on both sides about the demerits of the new student funding system that are best argued in a dedicated post.

His red tape challenge reminds me of John Major's cones hotline. Surely Cable can use his own scissors to cut business red tape? This is little more than a gimmick.

Cable was once the darling of the Lib Dems for his foresight in predicting the global financial crisis. He was all over their election leaflets as he was seen as more marketable than the then very popular Nick Clegg. How times change. He was given a deliberately difficult ministerial post by the Tories who clearly saw him as a threat. He is still the most likely Lib Dem to resign from the coalition.

Labour by default

Labour's lead in opinion polls remains consistently at a minimum of five points over the Tories with the Lib Dems around or below 10%.



Looking back over the polls between Labour's disastrous 1983 election and resounding defeat in 1987 shows a similar pattern. A year after the election Labour were consistently ahead of the Tories but the failure of the party to earn the trust of voters saw this gradually eroded by the 1987 election day. The same thing happened again between 1987 and 1992. Until Ed Miliband starts to get a strong and positive recognition from voters I fear that 2015 may lead to a similar result as 1987 or 1992.

It feels a bit like the 1980s at the moment. An unpopular Tory government, cuts, protests and a dodgy economy. Miliband's job is easier than Kinnock's though as there is no major internal party strife to deal with. It is an opportunity and a crucial one for the country at a time when the Tories are getting cockier by the day with Climate Change minster Greg Barker saying the current government's cuts are what "Thatcher could only have dreamed of." That's very different to the official line and faux sombre faces of George Osborne and Danny Alexander every time they announce more cuts - this is sad and bad but necessary. Miliband needs to make people realise his feelings are real.

Marching on together

I marched on Saturday for the first time in my life. I doubt anything will change, the Tories will hold their nerve and carry on cutting regardless. What Saturday did show was a great resolve and commitment to show that the country doesn't support what is happening.

Living standards are falling substantially. Taxes are going up, which will hit the poorest hardest. The government is putting thousands of people onto the dole. That won't help as taxpayers then become a burden on the state. It is clear that the burden of paying for the deficit to be reduced won't be borne by those with the "broadest shoulders". How can it be when VAT is up and the top rate of income tax will be cut?

I got the feeling that large numbers of the people marching on Saturday, like myself, were not natural protesters. There was a fantastic family atmosphere on the main march with lots of fancy dress and music. That belied the serious issues behind the march but showed that it was nothing like the previous student protests.

What now? There'll be more of the same from the Tories while Nick Clegg will continue to make himself unpopular. In an interview with the Financial Times today he says that a Liberal Democrat budget would have been "very close" to last week's. This hot on the tails of Clegg being caught on microphone saying that there is little for his party and their Tory chums to disagree on.

Labour needs to take advantage of the swell of support for an alternative to the government agenda. According to a YouGov survey the public backs the TUC and the march, with 52% in favour and 31% against. That shows a country divided but one in which the majority is against what is happening. The biggest question is whether this translates to election results in May. It probably will and the government will brush it off as mid-term blues and say they expected the result.

For the march and the elections to mean anything they have to be the start of consistent knock-backs for the government. If that happens their confidence might suffer and the next general election would be much more interesting. Protest was the easy part. The hardest part is keeping public confidence for an alternative and winning that support in the long term.

Lembit Opik is a joke

Lembit Opik's "Citizen Lem" video is meant to promote his bid to become London mayor next year. It is meant in jest but unfortunately the joke is on and not with Lem.


Citizen Lem from Mancha Productions on Vimeo.


The Lib Dems have never been serious contenders in any of the London mayoral elections and Lembit's "bid" symbolises a party lurching from disaster to laughing stock.

Mark Pack points out that no Lib Dem London assembly members, council leaders or MPs are backing the bid. That doesn't mean much though as there are only three Lib Dem assembly members, two council leaders and seven MPs after poor results for the party in 2010.

Before propping up the Tories nationally the Lib Dems already lost support across London. Before last year's election Lembit could have solicited support from eight council leaders. Give it another year after the regional elections on Soctland and Wales, locals in England and the London assembly elections and we'll see how much is left for the Lib Dems.

Poor Lembit. He makes great video, just not quite on topic.

Does it matter if Miliband isn't loved?

Looking beyond the headline opinion polls that currently show Labour with a healthy ten point lead over the Tories it appears that Ed Miliband is the least popular of the three main party leaders. Even less than Nick Clegg. He hasn't been in the job very long which is certainly a factor, together with him not having been the most high profile minister in the former government.

As Miliband's recognition grows I expect his rating to improve. He will benefit from not being a Tory or Nick Clegg. That isn't enough to sustain him though. He needs to be liked and must be seen as a credible prime minister if he is to take Labour to victory. He has more time though the media will try and put him on the football manager style pedestal and stir up suggestions that he isn't up to the job.

The forthcoming Scottish, Welsh and English local elections provide the first test. The AV referendum is interesting too, for two reasons. First, if Labour are popular but Miliband less so Labour could "win" the next election much like the Tories did in 2010 - without a majority. Second, under those circumstances but with AV he would have to do a deal with the similarly unpopular Nick Clegg's Lib Dems. Right now that seems like a very odd scenario but it could well come to fruition.

Islington Lib Dems win "opposition group of the year"

That the Lib Dems awarded their rump of councillors in Islington "opposition group of the year" at last weekend's spring conference is laughable.

Lets look at their achievments in a bit more detail:

• When I moved to Islington in 2004 Lib Dems outnumbered Labour councillors by 3:1. Last year the Lib Dems were routed and Labour now outnumber the Lib Dem councillors by 3:1, losing what was once their flagship council
• Islington South and Finsbury was the number one Labour - Lib Dem marginal in the country. After a deluge of leaflets from Bridget Fox this is now a reasonably safe Labour seat for Emily Thornberry

Since losing the council Islington Lib Dems haven't achieved very much:

• The rump of councillors have rarely been in full attendance at council meetings
• They have issued what I assume was satirical leaflet stating "Nick Clegg keeps his promises"! - what about tuition fees? Er...
• Celebrated dirty politics: this was one of the best read blogs of the year, which also made the local media and showed the outside world what most of us who have campaigned for Labour in Islington already knew. They are cynical, opportunist and play dirty, as shown by them having to pay Thornberry compensation for telling lies on their leaflets

Lib Dems winning here? No thanks!

Lib Dem bashing: they only have themselves to blame

Nick Clegg shall be hoisted by his own petard. He doesn't want students to graduate with £20,000 of debt. He certainly agrees with that, students will be in at least £27,000 of debt thanks to him. It is so easy to watch video after video of Nick Clegg telling us all before the election of how he wanted to help students and to bring in a new, open politics. It hasn't really happened like that has it?





The Lib Dems are currently on 9%, behind "other."

Lib Dem bashing

Medhi Hasan suggests that the coalition has exposed "Labour's worst tribalist tendencies". To some extent this is true. The party has enjoyed baiting the Lib Dems as a diversion from its own problems: losing power. I admit that I've enjoyed taking part, though that emanates more from having campaigned directly against the Lib Dems in Islington for many years. Locally they have always been my foe.

Hasan argues that Lib Dem baiting is a problem for Labour because it ignores the common ground between the two parties. He highlights rebels in the Lib Dem ranks, such as Charles Kennedy and Lord Oakeshott. Labour should extend an olive branch to disaffected Lib Dems, because the social democratic arm of that party historically derives from Labour and there is some common ground.  That isn't enough for me. Just as the Lib Dems held the Labour Party accountable for the actions of the leadership when in power, I feel we must do the same. We're involved in a competitive electoral fight. The Lib Dems know where we are.

If the "natural home for Lib Dems is on the left" they need to start proving that by their actions in government, at their conferences and if that doesn't work they should find themselves a new home while they still have the chance.

Lib Dem wipeout?

Much has been made of the Lib Dems' latest low in finishing sixth in this week's Barnsley by-election. Does this really signal the descent into oblivion for the Tory lap-dogs? The prospects don't look good for them. All those who were duped into thinking Clegg's party were actually of the progressive left and voted for them instead of Labour at the election will surely continue to desert the yellow.

That prognosis could be too simplistic. Boundary changes will take many seats away from Labour at the next election. Couple that with unclear prospects for the AV referendum and there could be a very different political landscape in the near future. The Tories are likely to suffer from being a very unpopiular government.

This presents a huge political opportunity for Ed Miliband. He has to highlight splits within the Lib Dem support, Barnsley showed that many of these will come back to Labour. More crucially he and Ed Balls have to gain credibility for alternative economic policies to the slash and burn from the Tories.

At the moment there is so much uncertainty with the only certainty that the Lib Dems will wretch to more new lows before an election in four years that could be anyone's.

The end of the SDP?

It is bbvious that there are splits of opinion among Lib Dems. They have always been, in effect, two different parties with two very distinct ideologies. I can't see how ex-Labour Party and SDP members like Vince Cable can really stomach acting as puppets for an incredibly right wing Tory government.

If ministers wholeheartedly disagree with the government's programme and they don't feel that they can fairly argue their case within it, they should do the honourable thing and quit. Perhaps the SDP splitters should think about what happened in the early 1980s and come back to Labour.

Just what they would have wanted

Reading through the weekend's newspapers it struck me that the Tories are doing quite well out of this coalition. There have been mass protests against student fees, but the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg were the butt of that. Unpopular decision have not significantly affected their poll rating and neither has a new Labour leader. Yet they are driving through a programme of cuts and policies that they will long have dreamed of and are getting the Lib Dems to do their dirty work for them. Perfect?

There could be trouble around the corner with Ken Clarke's relaxing of criminal justice. The cuts will bite and people will lash back at the Tories I'm sure. The Tories are as guilty as the Lib Dems of breaking pre-election promises. David Cameron gave personal guarantees that Child Benefit wouldn't be cut and nobody ever suggested that VAT would go up, yet it has.

The mud hasn't stuck to the Tories, I bet they cant' believe their luck.

Bother for Teather

Lib Dem education minister and former Islington councillor Sarah Teather will be lining up with her colleagues to vote for trebling of tuition fees tomorrow. That much was clear today when she refused to answer questions from Sky News about why she had changed her mind on fees. Like many Lib Dems she probably hasn't and like most Lib Dems hadn't thought there would be any consequences of any of their policies as they all knew they wouldn't  win the election - except Nick Clegg who still hides behind the claim that the policy only counted if they won.

The Lib Dems are being punished on this issue precisely because they made such play of being honest and offering a new politics and because this policy was used at the election to demonstrate this. They are being punished because it was this policy that garnered so many votes for them. They can't have it both ways.

This isn't about voters not understanding the art of compromise and coalition. People haven't forgotten that the Lib Dems specifically targeted the student vote to win university seats.

Teather might not like it but she and her colleagues have to live in their own mess. Her more than many because she chose to raise the issue of student fees in her maiden speech to parliament. She said: 


"tuition fees are serious issues of concern to my constituents. All the evidence suggests that fear of debt will deter those from lower income families and ethnic minority communities."


Finally, a reminder from her own website in 2008, courtesy of the Wayback machine:

Of course, just like the real Sarah Teather, and despite the issue being so "close to her heart", her current site makes no mention of tuition fees at all. If actions speak louder than words, tomorrow she and the rest of the Lib Dems get to show us what they really think.

Judge Lib Dem MPs on what they do, not what they say

I picked up a great letter in Exeter's Express and Echo reminding us all of the specific wording of the Lib Dems' tuition fees election pledge:


'I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.'


Abstention means they will still be breaking their promise as they pledged to vote against. As is rightly pointed out, the pledge doesn't specify that this is dependent on being in government - when even Lib Dem supporters have to admit there was zero chance of them being the largest party after the election. They pledged to vote against increased fees. Full stop. End of. 


For once the language of the Lib Dems was plain. They should be held to that.