Unwanted Liberal Advances

Nick Clegg's Lib Dems have managed to hang onto Eastleigh, and thus Nick Clegg has managed to hold onto his Lib Dems, despite the Huhne/Price and Rennard scandals. Whilst holding a seat is not so much an advance as a maintenance of the staus quo, with the incumbent MP heading off to jail and defending a tiny majority and polling nationally in the single digits, this was quite something for the Yellow Terror.

The main point, though, about both of these stories was that it is very clear that lots of people (his own people I should stress, not Tory or Labour malcontents) say that Cleggo knew about both of these in pretty vivid detail. Weirdly, he has come down with a touch of the Murdoch's and can't remember being told any of it. Convenient because if the very many people who essentially say he is lying are being truthful, Nick would be in a spot of integrity-based bother. And the Lib Dems are all about integrity. There are 3 possible conclusions:

1. Nick Clegg is not suited to Government as he simply cannot recall even the obviously most important things he has been told.
2. Nick Clegg is not suited to Government as he runs such a loose ship that he doesn't want to properly investigate serious allegations made about very senior party members, or else his deputy, 'Quad-member' Danny Alexander, doesn't bother telling Clegg the important bits once he has investigated them.
or...
3. Nick Clegg is not suited to Government as he is telling whoopsies, the lying little tyke.

The whole unsavoury affair brought to light an interesting point though, which Toby Young tried to explain a couple of weeks ago (not particularly well) to the Labour Party Conference (Question Time audience). This was that we should be a little careful over calling an amorous advance a sexual assault. There is a big difference, and screaming "how dare you, you chauvenist rape-condoning pig" at anyone who points this out does nothing to help those victims of actual sexual harassment or assault.

Think back - have you ever thought "I'm in here" and lunged at the object of your fancy? Maybe you were 15, at a party in the room with the coats with the pretty girl from French class, maybe you were 25, dancing the light fantastic with a fellow reveller in a nightclub, or simply 35, trying "to steal a kiss" as you dropped off your dinner date at her door. Now that was rather ageist of me to suggest that only teens do house parties, 20 somethings go out clubbing and 30 somethings do dinner, but you see the point, no doubt?

You have not always asked for written permission to go for a kiss I will wager - and nor should you. Or (for those kissing girls - because the way we are hard wired means it is generally boys who have to chase girls) when kissing to go for the hallowed ground of the boob touch. Now "no" means "no", but we must agree that working out sexual signals is a dark art, and one which backfires sometimes. Etiquette dictates you go very red in the cheeks, become very very English and mutter things like "I'm terribly sorry...I thought I saw you catch my eye...too many sherberts...I'm awfully embarassed...etc" In normal circumstances, getting it wrong is not a sexual assault - crossed wires are just that. We cannot legislate the (un)knowing glance.

Now clearly I'm talking about Lord Rennard and his alleged Lib Dem activist fetish - presumably for him there is something enduringly sexy about a moronic idealist with discalculia. Clearly one can go too far in trying one's luck, but just trying it is no crime (I'm not advocating forcing yourself on someone, but leaning in for a kiss or stroking a leg is flirting, and you are allowed to get it wrong if you behave correctly immediately on finding out your error). It is irrelevant that he could be mistaken for Eric Pickles from afar, or that in trying his luck he would be attempting to commit adultery. If he only propositioned these women and tried unaggressively to kiss them, on the criminal side of the ledger if he is guilty most of us should be locked up.

The more important charge is that it does seem likely, if these allegations have any substance to them, that he has abused his position of power. That is very different to the general commentary in the press which is incredibly worrying and has all the hallmarks of a society on the march toward "sexual thought crime." Romantic misunderstandings are par for the course, forceful abuse of power is not, nor of course sexual assault. Let's not mix them up though, eh?

And So I'm Back, From Outer Space...

I'm not dead.

I've been away in deepest darkest Scotland for a couple of weeks and have had to watch budgetary developments et al from afar. I was hoping to be able to blog whilst up there but my wi-fi hopes were somewhat dashed when I produced a new fangled 'credit card' to pay for drinks in a pub and received a look as if I had try to pay with babies' limbs and fairy dust. They don't take plastic, the kind barman spat, suggesting those who wished to pay with this new found wizardry were not the sort who were welcome here. So I didn't bother asking for the wi-fi password.

So I find myself in the familiar territory of waterski-ing behind the news.

45p - Good start but a shame Osborne either didn't have the guts or the bargaining power to go the whole hog. And a shame it won't come into effect until next year (though you can see by giving people a year to defer earnings out of 50p towards 45p it should guarantee a bumper first year of 45p revenue thus 'proving' a point in 2014). It doesn't matter that it makes sense financially, it's bad news to go to 45p PR-wise. It will be bad news again PR-wise (though sensible and encouraging of growth and investment) to drop it to 40p, or indeed the Laffer curve's 38p optimum. It would have been better to get this PR out of the way in a oner (like removing a sticking plaster) 3 years before the election and let the real economics of the decision speak for themselves by election time in generated growth. No surprise the media or their political arm in Westminster are painting it as they are. Ignore and move on.

Granny tax - Old people have done fine from the Coalition - let's not get hung up on having a generous benefit reduced until it falls in line with everyone else. Yes there are poor and needy aged members of society, but not in much greater numbers than elsewhere across the spectrum. Conversely they are in general better off than average. Today's pensioners are the baby boomers. They have enjoyed the massive enrichment of the last 40 years, particularly in terms of home values. They rarely have mortgages and other outgoings are smaller with no small children etc. Time to take a bit of 'pain' and realign to the rest of society. Incidentally, nice to see some (thought the minority) understand this in letters pages across the media.

Child benefit - good to see an effort has been made to taper the issue of the cliff edge benefit drop. This deals with the only important problem - that of someone getting a pay rise which results in a net earnings loss after they become disqualified from child benefit. It doesn't, because it is too costly to do so, deal with the almost irrelevant 'problem' of envy. That is that people who earn £60,000 don't like the idea that they get nothing and 2 people earning £40,000 each still do. My advice: suck it up, big lad. I have banged on about what is 'fair' before in taxation etc. I am willing to say categorically than it is not unfair that if you earn £60,000, you don't get child benefit. Yes it would be nice, but the economy isn't built for that luxury. I find it pathetic that people are still complaining. All they are is upset that someone else got a bigger lolly.

Donorgate (which I assume it is already being called) - who gives a shit? Politicians cannot and should not live in bubbles. They are meant to be lobbied by the people they represent. This includes you, me and Richard Branson if he so wishes. Political parties need funding. They get this from people who think this will buy them influence and people who wish them well. Just like many big businesses will want to donate to Tories who are small Government people, Trades Unions will want to donate to Labour who are big Government people.

Why? They feel those parties better represent their interests. The idea is we get to decide if we like the policies people come up with - it's a democracy, we have elections. If we think our politicians are making bad decisions entirely based upon their donors' wishes, vote them out. I have no issue with who comes to tea with Dave - it's the policies he makes I care about. And whilst we're on the subject, perhaps is it a touch hypocritical of Labour to make a fuss over supposed influence of donors to Tories when their party has actual proven influence of donors? Largest donors to Labour? Trades Unions. Who essentially decided who leads the party - the Trades Unions.

That'll do for now.

A Liberal Dose of Taxation?

Well I certainly have to start with an apology. Been a long time since I posted and indeed a while longer since I posted with any regularity. No doubt both my dutiful readers, in an effort to find similar levels of mental stimulation, have returned to watching paint dry or with the advent of summer are perhaps out in the garden watching grass grow. Why? New job, long hours and I suppose also the fact that the news cycle has been repeating itself very much over the last month. Thus, whilst things are still gripping me, they seem to be pretty much the same things I have already written about.

So what to post about? I am nearly there with my human rights follow up as it has reared its ugly head in the press recently, but that may have to wait until next week, time permitting. I suppose I could write about super-injunctions, but then, I think that's the point, so I can't. I could reiterate the point that most commentators are happily ignoring that, crap though they are, the Coalition plans for student fees are progressive and by virtue of everything being paid back only when one is in work and when one can afford to, only taxes the rich graduate, not the poor applicant. One such fool was Baroness Kennedy of Mansfield College, Oxford on Any Questions this evening, who was either shockingly ignorant of the policies or deliberately misrepresented them. I could write smugly about winning the AV vote (not personally, you understand, but as Terry Leahy says, "every little helps"). However, I'm quite happy with the fact that the crap idea of AV has just gone away now, so think that best left alone. I am not, however, leaving it alone because I feel the need to buoy up the Conservatives' Coalition partners after a pretty shoddy few weeks.

Yes, now I think of it, I think that as got me riled enough to fall upon as my target for today. Why, oh why, is it accepted wisdom that the Tories should start bending over backwards for the Lib Dems, "shoring up" the embattled Nick Clegg and generally making them feel a bit better about themselves after they had their first taste of what taking decisions as opposed to taking the moral high ground, and hang the practicalities is like? My that was a long sentence. I like those. You may have noticed. Short ones can be fun too, though. Occasionally.

The leverage in the partnership is very firmly in the Tories' court, to horribly mangle metaphors. They did rather well in local elections for a governing party making cuts in a harsh economic climate; surely far better than they thought they would. Not only have they not lost much ground to Labour, but they have gained crucial support back from the Lib Dems. This was vital as one of the largest reasons the Tories failed to win a majority was the number of seats taken from them by Lib Dem votes, not Labour ones. They have also very easily won the AV vote. It has been a pretty good couple of weeks for them, in fact.

As some shrewd political commentator or other mentioned recently, a large number of Lib Dem voters vote for them exactly because they are unelectable; a protest vote. That vote no longer makes sense when they are in power, so they lose a great deal of support. Also they were always going to cop an enormous amount of flak from the largest demographic who support them; the dreamers who love the idea of Lib Dem policies but aren't too fussy over doing the maths. They simply cannot understand why or how the Lib Dems could be doing so many un-Lib Dem things. The reason, of course, is that the Lib Dems in Government realised that you might have to compromise your abstract principles when faced with the reality of Government.

So why the rush to help the Lib Dems? They are fixed for 5 years in this Parliament, and bound to the Coalition agreement. They would neither dare renege on the Coalition deal nor depose Nick Clegg. Who is waiting in the wings? Chris Huhne? Now that's a political joke. Certainly not Vince Cable. Danny Alexander would be a fool to run and David Laws is currently incommunicado. In short, the Tories are in the driving seat, and the Lib Dems have lost their leverage. They are still bound to deliver their Commons votes on Coalition Agreement, but cannot threaten to take their votes in the plebiscite away - that support has evaporated.

So please let us see no Lib Dem freebies. Most importantly of those, I hope the Chancellor ignores the idiotic rebranding of Vince Cable's ludicrous "mansion tax". The increasingly worrying Cable is blowing the trumpet of fairness again. Yes, it is his view the rich should "pay their fair share". As I have said before, nobody is willing to actually put a number on "fair", because they know they are already taking a disgusting amount from them in comparison to almost any world economic power. They always forget to mention how much they already pay in tax, what they do for the economy, and how little most take from public spending. Yes, fairness, the banner under which you can apparently justify theft.

The mansion tax policy is abhorrent. It is a tax on an asset - what people choose to spend their hard-earned post-tax money on. The Government has no right to this money (like it has no right to levy inheritance tax). It is totally unfair that someone who chooses to buy an expensive house with their taxed money be taxed on it more than they already are. There is already the dubious stamp duty, and council tax that somehow links size of house to how much you should pay for identical services, used or otherwise from local Government. Someone of the same earnings could buy many smaller homes, overseas homes, gamble it all away, snort it all, or burn it all. The state should, according to Vince, differentiate between the two of these identically rich people because one put their money in a property.

It isn't about "they can afford it" and not just because many people with large homes are cash poor and couldn't, but about the concept which is morally wrong. What is even more ridiculous is that Cable thinks that he is in a position of power whereby he can demand a swap - the dropping of the 50p rate (which has caused UK tax revenues to drop as businesses fled to more tax-friendly countries) for an introduction of his disgusting policy. The 50p rate needs to go, and if the Business Secretary can't see that it is an enormous barrier in front of the sign the Coalition wishes to hang stating "Britain, open for business", perhaps it is time for him to go too. Perhaps it has been so long since the Tories were on top they don't know how to deal with winning. There's being magnanimous in victory and there's handing back the prize to the losers. One can only hope Dave, George et al know where the line is.

MPs expenses next methinks…

A Miserable Little Compromise

An important day in our national history approaches, and lots of people are getting very excited. No, I am not talking about the "how on earth is it considered appropriate 24 hour rolling news that someone is getting married and some barking old woman has camped out to watch it and dressed her dog up in a tiara and veil show?" Or the Royal Wedding as I believe it is more normally referred to.

No, whilst I'm very happy for the bride- and groom-to-be and think both the engagement and the actual wedding day of such a prominent royal are indeed newsworthy, I am hopefully not alone in tiring of hearing about the niff naff and trivia associated with it day in, day out. I hope it doesn't ruin it for you if I let the cat out of the bag. She's going to wear a white(ish) wedding dress and look pretty. I wonder if I can still get odds on that.

No, I am in fact talking about an event a week later - the national referendum on the voting system. To get it out of the way early, I'll let you know I shall be voting 'no' to AV. And here's why…

Our voting system is not all about being 100% representative of how the nation feels. It is not. The  voting system that people might think would be 100% representative of how the nation feels is proportional representation (PR). Except it isn't. It only divides up their votes and allocates exactly that percentage of 'seats' to the 'parties' they voted for. It isn't representative of how they feel, it's a compromise, where people vote for the representative they think best represents their feelings, but they will not mirror everyone's every wish. And PR is rubbish. You get Nazis in Parliament and the nation would go down the plug hole as true PR for voting-in MPs should also mean PR Government. How adept at dealing with Labour's economic cock-up would a Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, BNP, DUP, Green, you get the idea, Coalition Government be? Simple, we'd be Portugal. Nearly as sunny at the moment though, I guess.

As I have written before, democracy is the compromise we have for two reasons. Firstly, because Parliament isn't big enough to fit in 61 million people, and more importantly, because we wouldn't get anything done with 61 million votes on everything - quot homines tot sententiae (so many men, as many opinions). That's what democracy is - the best compromise between having a say in all the decisions that affect you, and there being a chance of some decisions actually being taken. You pick the candidate or party you like the best and hopefully they pushes for all those things they said they'd do which you agreed with.

So what is our electoral system there for? It is there to fairly balance the feelings of the people, their 'will' if you will, and the need for effective Government. It is there to interpret the votes of the people and produce an effective Government that best represents them whilst standing a chance of strong Government, and we should make no apologies for that.

Therefore we need to look at what system fulfils that compromise, that balance, best. First past the post (FPTP), our current system, is not perfect, but it is far better than the alternative on offer - or indeed any other alternative I would argue. It asks the people what they want and based on which party got the most votes says "right then, a higher number of you voted for this lot than voted for anyone else, so this lot win and can have a crack at governing". It is fair and representative without allowing vicious minority groups a platform, or without condemning every Government to the infighting and inaction that plagues Governments in constant coalition.

There are three main problems with the alternative vote (AV). Firstly, it is a very negative system. It is as much about making sure someone doesn't get your vote as deciding who does. That is no way to decide who should run the country - it breeds totally the wrong idea as to what your vote means to you. That is, it is not about what you feel, what you believe in, but a negative sense of what you don't like. Whilst some might say this already exists under FPTP with tactical voting, it is vastly increased under AV. Every vote under AV bar the ones for the top 2 candidates (or occasionally more) is tactical.

Secondly, AV politics would be far more about not alienating your 2nd, 3rd and 4th choice voters than about attracting 1st choice voters. This means you will not see political parties coming out with what they actually want to say, but pandering far more towards other parties' voters. It means in the great political spectrum analogy which I like to call my ice cream seller theory, the parties become less representative of what they represent but move towards their opposition to steal their voters or at least make themselves appear a valid 2nd choice.

The theory goes thus: ice cream sellers of equal merit position themselves along a stretch of beach. Customers go to the nearest vendor. The ice cream sellers at the extreme ends realise this and move inwards. As they move in, providing they are still the furthest left and right, they are guaranteed all that custom between them and the beach edge, but can start to take customers away from their next nearest rival, those who started nearer the middle (this was what Blair did with Labour, taking the centre ground whilst keeping all the left as there was no option left of them, and undoubtedly what Cameron realised as he moved the Tories more central, though UKIP, BNP etc can cause genuine harm in some hard-fought areas, but it is beside the point).

The problem with this moving is that it encourages the wrong type of politics; not a principled one based on what your beliefs are, but one which is rather quiet about what your beliefs are, hoping your core vote stays with you, whilst you pander to other people's voters. UK residents may recognise this as the politics of the last 14 years with Labour and then the Conservatives supposedly gravitating towards the middle to win the vital middle ground that decides elections. It is a dishonest politics if you ask me, and not something we should further encourage with our electoral system. It also means you do not get strong Government as everyone is afraid of upsetting someone they might need as a 4th choice vote - and you need strong Government.

My final big problem with AV is the weighting of the votes. They say that everyone's votes count equally in AV, some people simply vote many times for the same person, some jump from bed to bed like Premiership footballers and BBC political correspondents. Whilst I'm not truly comfortable with this explanation, I can accept it because there is a deeper set flaw.

Proponents of AV say it is better than FPTP because it is is more representative. Not only have we looked at why that isn't exactly the point but we can also look at why it isn't even exactly right. Imagine there are 10 candidates (A-J) and they get the following breakdowns of the 100 strong voter turnout: A-48, B-10, C-10, D-10, E-10, F-5, G-5, H-3, I-1, J-1. Next round A gets up to 49, but still not over the magical 50%. As they run through the many rounds within AV, the candidates fall out from J backwards until we are left with A-49, B-26, C-25. When C is eliminated, A wins 51-49.

AV says that is a fair representation, 51% want A, 49% want B. Yet 48% actually voted for A 1st time and only 10% for B. How is that even close to being representative of the will of the people. Imagine if C's votes were redistributed so B won 51-49. Apparently now a candidate who is only 1st choice of 10% of voters should beat the one who had 48% approval as 1st choice. FPTP is simple here - you get more people to say you should win, and you win.

The miscarriage here is that whilst all men are equal and get one vote, that is on the premise of voting once. You cannot think it fair that a vote for someone as 9th preference (as B could have been for over half its votes in the case where it wins) should carry as much weight as a vote for someone as 1st preference. It doesn't ring true to me. In terms of how representative it is, surely when the first round had A and B at 48% and 10%, calling a win under FPTP there is far more 'representative' of who they want to win than the last round 51% for A and 49% for B? AV not only flatters B, but with a slightly different distribution of C's votes, could even have B winning when clearly lacking genuine popular support. And all because of hanging their hat on 50% - you can't be elected until at least 50% of the people who bothered to turn up to vote hate you less than the other people still in the contest. Pro-AV campaigners claim you need to have "the support" of 50 % of voters. I don't call rating someone 9th out of 10 "support", I call rating someone 1st "support", but maybe that's just me.

So there you go - a pretty long and perhaps at times hard to follow argument I don't doubt. What I'd like you to take away though is that not only is AV not more representative and genuinely calls into question the weighting of all votes as equal, but that being representative is not the only function of our electoral system. It is there to interpret how we vote and deliver accordingly as strong and decisive a Government as it can in line with our wishes. Not only is FPTP simple, but its simplicity gives it its validity and transparency. AV on the other hand is unrepresentative, shady and negative. In fact I think it flatters to deceive that it could even be "a miserable little compromise".

The Manifesto Whine

As much as it amuses me to watch Simon Hughes squirm as Paxman points out his potential tuition fees U-turn and the upset it is causing in his party, I do feel some sympathy. I am getting rather bored with a familiar whine from apparently intelligent political editors, newsreaders and commentators.

What whine you ask? Well, you didn't but I shall tell you anyway: trotting out the "this wasn't in your manifesto so why are you doing it now" or the more blatant "you lied to us, shouldn't you say sorry?"

The problem is that people will start to compare these so called U-turns to the many committed by the previous Government. Making that confusion suggests the last and present Governments were in the same position of power to be able to act on their pledges - something a fair way wide of the mark. Unfortunately, that misses two rather huge points:

1. The manifestos of both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were based on what they would do if they won a single party majority in the House (although a cynical commentator might suggest the latter manifesto was filled with vote-buying loveliness safe in the knowledge they'd never have to make the sums actually add up).

2. The only party with a definite idea of the state of the nation's finances is always the governing party.

So let us not pick on every point where Government policy differs from manifesto pledges. Firstly there always has to be a bit of latitude should the finances be as parlous as they turned out to be once the incoming Government get a real look at the books. Secondly, and more importantly, in a coalition there will have to be compromise on policy (or they'd be the same party). This will inevitably lead to one or both parties having to do something not in their manifesto, or go back on something that was in it. The parties in a hung Parliament have a mandate to form a coalition and govern in the national interest (Dave's new favourite phrase). They don't need to go back to the polls and ask if John Q. Taxpayer would mind if they changed a few things to make a coalition viable, so let's not pretend at every opportunity that they do.