Marcus Wood

2008-05-19T17:44:00.006Z

What has happened to the LibDem by election machine?

For as long as I have been active in politics the only game in town at by elections were the Lib Dems. For years and years some of our safest seats fell to them : Eastbourne, Ribble Valley, Newbury, Christchurch, Eastleigh, Littleborough, Saddleworth, Romsey; these by election defeats map out the decline of the Tory party from the heights of Thatcher to the lows of IDS; the Liberals creamed us as our more, (ahem) unpopular policies were exploited ruthlessly.

In the Blair era they made equally spectacular gains from Labour: Brent East and Leicester South, and most recently, Dunfermline; successfully switching from being the 'anyone but the Tories' choice to 'anyone but Labour'.

When they didn't actually win, you could be forgiven for thinking they had; given the fuss they made. In Bromley, for instance, they came a close second to us and claimed it as a massive 'victory'.

But lately they seem to have lost their way, Southall and Sedgefield were unremarkable results for the yellow team after coming nowhere in the London mayoral contest. And the word from Crewe and Nantwich is that they are going to be beaten into a very poor third there.

I am told by a well-placed Lib Dem source that the reason that they aren't doing well in Crewe is because activists are concentrating on the upcoming by election in Henley-On-Thames caused by the election of their MP Boris Johnson to mayor of London.

Lib Dem strategists are briefing journalists that they believe that Henley has the potential to be 'Bromley MK 11' and there is much excitement about the possibility of... coming second.

Faced with the most unpopular Government since John Major at the nadir of his fortunes the Lib dems are targeting... Henley on Thames? - the ex seat of Michael Hestletine, the Blue Blazer capital of Europe, the home of the Royal Regatta?

I used to live in Henley On Thames, in the days when people crossed the road to avoid you if you wore a Blue Rosette Henley remained the one place where you could be sure of a warm welcome as a Conservative; the one place where you could share your Thatcher memories without shame.

Why would anyone choose to deploy resources to a rock-safe Conservative seat, at a time when the Conservatives are riding high in the polls, in preference to giving Labour a good hiding in a seat they are expecting to lose?

If this strategy is real it suggests either that delusional Lib Dems are living like faded Hollywood stars, unaware that the political world has changed; or that their activists -in spite of constant assurances about 'equidistance'- are only really motivated to come out when its Toff-bashing time.

I'll take the latter explanation.

2008-05-16T08:42:00.004Z

MP's will have to disclose their expenses after all.

The Speaker, Michael Martin, has lost his high court battle to stop the exposure of the details of second-home expenses claimed by 14 prominent MPs. The Commons authorities had challenged the Information Tribunal's demand that a detailed breakdown of MPs' additional costs allowances had to be provided under the Freedom of Information Act.

The allowances cover the expenditure incurred when an MP is away from home on parliamentary duties, including the cost of running second homes and general household bills. A total of 14 MPs and former MPs, including former prime minister Tony Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, Tory leader David Cameron and the former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, will now have to disclose a detailed breakdown of what they claimed. MPs can claim up to £23,000 a year on expenses for costs associated with running a second home; a sum that is also paid tax-free.
This is the most contentious of the various allowances that MP's can claim because it includes mortgage interest on a second home. MP's have to 'claim' a sum each month up to the maximum; they can't just get the cash, so their is a whole list of other claimable costs such as plasma screen TV's and so on that gave rise to the much publicised 'John Lewis List' earlier in the year.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, for instance, has spend £7,000 of taxpayers money renovating a home in his Sheffield constituency - decorating costs, carpets and so on were paid for through his ACA.

I should point out that Mr Clegg is not breaking any rules and is only doing what hundreds of other MP's do. He at least has pre-empted this ruling by voluntarily publishing his expenses last week. But the thing is that when the property that Mr Clegg has so nicely renovated is sold, the profits will remain his.

In my view calling this an 'allowance' is a chirade; it's part of MP's pay and they should be honest enough to admit it; the trouble is if they were to add enough to their salaries to replace this allowance they would need a headline salary of £100,000 - and they don't think the public will wear that much.

As I say in business to candidates all the time, if you can't justify the salary you are asking for; you are asking for too much.

2008-05-15T11:55:00.002Z

Relaunch # 4 in serious trouble already.

Gordon has spent the last few days in another 'relaunch' of his premiership, first with a £2.7bn tax 'borrow-and-giveway' ploy then with yesterdays string of new policy announcements (can you remember any of them? No, neither can I) and today he has been touring the newsrooms trying to repair his decimated public image; and judging by the reactions in the press, he has completely failed.

Brown just cannot help making pledges and promises to ‘fix’ things that, in all honestly, aren’t his problem.

House prices are a good case in point. Having for years promised to ‘do something’ about the level of house prices Brwon as adopted responsibility for an issue that is not in his control. Consequently when house prices became too expensive he took blame for it and now that they are due to nosedive he will get the blame for that, too.

As private homebuilders (over whom Brown has no control) mothball new building sites he will get even more blame for miserably failing to meet ‘his’ 3m new homes target.

I have pointed out before saying you had brought an end to boom and bust in a free economy is about as realistic as saying you have ended summer and winter.

From as soon as he said it a ticking clock to his own doom was started; it’s not a question of if there is a bust it is only a question of when, and the longer the boom, the bigger the bust that must follow.

Banks have been lending recklessly as they always do as a boom reaches maturity and they go chasing market share with their swollen reserves; this time it has been in housing; in 1929 it was in share speculators, in the 1980’s it was South America - whatever the case the outcome is always the same; bad debts and a credit squeeze.

Its banks who cause recessions, not Governments. Governments may make them worse (or mitigate them if they can) but its the desisions made by millions of consumers, thousands of investors or hundreds of bank managers that makes our economy grow or shrink not what Gordon decides.

If he still doesn’t understand that at his age he really isn’t fit to be PM.

2008-05-12T09:08:00.010Z

Browns Troubles continue.

Another weekend of torrid headlines for the Prime Minister as ex ministers and others close to him spill the beans on his temper, his moods, his inability to make decisions and various other supposed chracter flaws that all add to the feeling that he is the wrong guy to be running our country.

This is all getting very like 1995 all over again ....

I don't remember a time since then when there has been such an unstoppable deluge of bad news for a Prime Minister with more and more of it sourced from his own side. In 1995 John Major was forced to issue his own MP's with a 'put up or shut up' challenge and although he was re-elected overwhelmingly that summer the damage was done to his authority and from then on the Tories were a one-way bet for the 1997 election.

Like many commentators I now don't believe there is a viable way out for Gordon Brown - I think he, too, is a one -way bet to lose office; and in his case it could be even worse because he suffers from three distinct disadvantages that Mr Major didn't have in 1995:

1) In 1995 the economy was rapidly coming out of recession, house prices had just started rising and inflation was falling. Today inflaton is rising and we are just entering a likely recession.
2) John Major had been elected as leader of the Conservatives and subsequently elected as Prime Minister in 1992. Gordon Brown has only ever been elected by the good people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
3) In spite of his troubles John Major was generally liked as a man and trusted by the public; he had come from realtive obscurity to the leadership and had no 'history' of unpopular decisions. Gordon Brown on the other hand has eleven years of history as Chancellor and is neither liked or trusted by the vast majority of people in this country.

... or pehaps even a bit like 1979....

Of course the Labour Government could even fall apart completely before the next election is due in 2010.

The Blairites will get much more aggressive if they think there might be a challenge to the leadership before the election while the young turks will manouvre for advantage after it has been lost. Those marginal seat backbench MP's need to appeal 'across the spectrum' - following a Blairite agenda while the safe seat lot only worry far more about keeping the core vote happy; calling for taxes on the rich and more 'socialism' in their policies.

And now we have the Scottish question coming up, and another bloc of Labour MP's in safe Scottish seats suddenly find the uncomfortable possibility of full devolution (and a P45) hoving into view. The last time Labour fell from office in 1979 Scottish Devolution was the issue; the Government lost a vote on it and then lost the subsequent vote of confidence motion.

It could be the 10p rate, Scottish Devolution, or something else, but this Government has all the ingredients in place for a sudden and terminal collapse.

2008-05-07T07:41:00.003Z

Referendums? - everywhere exept where we want one.

I learned yesterday that Wendy Alexander, Labour leader in Scotland has decided to back calls for a referendum on Scottish Independence. This cynical exercise is a desperate attempt to stave off further losses north of the border to the SNP who have been making life very uncomfortable for the Labour Party there. Labour desperately need their Scottish heartlands to stick with them at the next General Election to stay in the game at all; having lost the overall vote in England to the Tories at the 2005 Election; and the Welsh vote in this years local elections.

Now we learn that influential Labour members are calling on Gordon Brown to launch a referendum to scrap the pound and join the Euro (no surprise that that issue would arise as soon as the UK economy started to look shaky; the last recession was the only time this idea was seriously considered, too.)

Yet we have been denied a voice on what is far and away the most important matter of all of these, the EU constitution.

It seems unbelievable that on the one hand the Labour party readily accepts the need to hold referenda over Scottish independence and the pound/Euro question, but not about whether our basic constituitional rights are controlled from London or Brussels.

If the cabinet and Gordon Brown knew and agree with Ms Alexanders decision their position over the EU referendum looks impossibly inconsistant.

If Labour 'trust' the people over Scottish Independence, then why not over the EU constitution? Could it be that polls suggest that 66% of Scots would vote to STAY in the United Kingdom while suggesting that 70% would REJECT the EU constitution?

Is the lesson here that we can only have a referendum if we give Labour answer they want?

2008-05-04T18:08:00.003Z

.... And the turnout was over 45%, a postwar London election record.

Who says the Mayoral system is bad for local democracy?

The adoption of the directly elected mayoral model for local government has been a running sore with cthe Lib Dems ever since ex party member David Scott started his campaign to have one way back in 2004. A consistent claim by MP Adrian Sanders has been that the mayoral system itself is bad for local democracy and unpopular with the public.

The evidence in London fully supports my alternative view that having a directly elected mayor is the best way to regenerate local politics and re-engage the public in this vital tier of Government. I don't remember any local election with this level of interest; in fact I can't remember any political contest outside of a General Election that has garnered such fascination and detailed analysis from the media and in turn from the public. For several weeks now the London Mayoralty has come second only to Gordon Browns woes in the column inches and media time which is measured daily on Politics Home.com

There have been half a dozen televised debates, passionate arguments about congestion charges, bendy buses and community support officers; as well as a constant analysis of the problems and potential solutions to Londoners complaints and frustrations which would have been unimaginable had these elections been for the old GLC.

Londoners have been given clear, alternative options fronted by clear, alternative personalities to vote for refreshingly free of the kind of petty-minded, "yes he did; no he didn't" squabbling that epitimises most local election contests. And as a direct result the turnout was significantly higher than at any London local elections for decades.

From the democratic standpoint, the Boris has had his policies thoroughly analysed and publicisied so there will be no wriggle room for backtracking later. This is terribly important because one of the alarming side effects of low interest/low turnout local elections has always been that ruling administrations usually win with very few of their electorate having a clue what it is they actually promised to do, making it impossible to hold them accountable for failure.

It is true that the mayor has control of the main levers of power and yes, the Mayor doesn’t have to engage in the kind of committee compromise and smoke-filled room bargaining that went on under the old system - but surely that is one of the main benefits? Clear, accountable and above all open leadership is infinitely preferable to unaccountable fudge and compromise behind closed doors.

By endlessly complaining that the mayoral system is no good, by determining to abolish it and return Torbay to the cosy cartel that existed pre 2005 (when anonymous and unaccountable councillors felt free to increase their pay by 65% while slashing services and piling on taxes with impunity) the Liberal Democrats are playing with fire. They have put themselves in the same impossible situation that we Tories did in Scotland; having rubbished Scottish devolution for so long the Tories completely lacked credibility there - and when devolved elections eventually happened, they were virtually obliterated.

In short the evidence shows that the public engage more with a mayoral election, they understand more clearly what a Mayoral candidate wants to do with the power he is asking for, and once elected voters can judge him on his performance more easily.

And at the end of his or her term, if they are not happy, they can chuck him out and elect someone else.I think that is surely good for democracy and good for local Government.

2008-04-29T12:57:00.003Z

What will the story be this Thursday?

In the 2007 local elections my party beat all predictions to the number of gains we would make, breaking records and sealing our gains in 2006.

Local elections are a crucial real-world test of public opinion and at a time when polls have been showing a sharp jump inTory support and a falling back of interest in the other two parties it is very useful to be able to back up the pollsters with actual voting results.

Since the mid 1990's Labour have lost nearly half their local councillors, from a high of over 10,000 to around 5,500 today.

Needless to say speculation is running high that thursday will be a bloodbath for Labour, with talk of vote shares in the low '20s and results matching their worst ever in 1968 but my view is that things might not be that bloody for Labour on the night.

Partly this is because in many of the places we are in with a shout of winning we have hardly any serious campaigning power; in some northern city suberbs we have barely a skeleton network of grass roots activists, and local Government is not inspiring a new generation of activists either, they will work for 'Dave' at the next GE but leafletting over council bin collections is not what they want to do these days.

Then there is the fact that I think the Liberal Democrats have at last recognised that their best chance of survival lies not in continually tying up resources attemptiong to unseat Tory councillors in the South but in picking low hanging fruit in the North - and accordingly I do expect them to have something to celebrate on Friday morning (although as my previous post alludes to, not in the London Mayoral contest where I think they are in for a drubbing).

How well will we actually do? I hope three figure gains - 100 would be enough for me; but not as well as the papers want. I am expecting 'Tories disappointed' headlines on Friday and over the weekend presaging a let-up of the negative pressure on Brwon for the time being.

Fun to speculate, not long to wait.

2008-04-29T08:26:00.009Z

Who is this man?

Answers on a postcard:

2008-04-19T14:25:00.005Z

Comrade Brown and I both fail to conquor America ...

Rumours that I have been spying on Gordon Browns trip to the USA are wide of the mark. I have indeed been enjoying the Florida sunshine (but not the endless queing for theme-park rides with my children) but my trip was strictly R&R.

In contrast to the breathless manner in which the BBC have been covering the possibility of a woman ot a black man reaching the White House, very little news about politics seems to reach the media in America.

Worse news still for Gordon Brown is that his visit here was only mentioned once in any media that I saw or heard on two weeks; and then in the context of an apparent possibility that he might be ousted in a coup by disgruntled Labour MP's if his poll ratings haven’t improved by the autumn. I take much of what I read and hear in the newspapers with a pinch of salt at the best of times but this daft story surely wasn’t being reported in England... was it?

Curiosity got the better of me and by my second-to-last night I couldn't resist the temptation to take a sneaky peak at Politicalbetting.com where, sure enough, a book has been opened on the probability of someone else leading Labour into the next election.

It's all too predictable for the press, bored with the lack of news on the politics front, to make a story where there isn't one; I just don't believe that the Labour party have the guts or the organisation to even contemplate such a move and in any case their constitution makes removing a sitting PM almost impossible.

Which means the rumor must be based on the premise that Brown will 'do the decent thing' and fall on his sword; if asked to by his peers. If he ever believed that the best interests of the Labour movement would be served by stepping aside I suspect he just might consider it; but I cannot imagine that he would ever be so self-aware.

Gordon Brown suffers from the worst kind of arrogance: he believes his work is his purpose - his divine destiny- even more than Tony Blair did. I do believe the stories that Brown is not enjoying being PM; I don't doubt he finds the intrusive nature of the job difficult and utterly despises having his personality and character endlessly picked over by commentators (like me...) who he believes to be immeasurably inferior to him.

In fact the more the job is a trial, the harder he finds it, the more he will believe that it is the ‘right’ thing for him to be doing.

He may well be indecisive, mendacious and paranoid but he isn't a quitter. For some Labour insiders to hope otherwise shows a complete lack of understanding for the personality of their leader.

Good or bad they are stuck with him. Like most voters in England, America failed to appreciate Gordons greatness. In fact they failed to notice him at all.

Perhaps Lord Desai is right when he says 'Gordon Brown was put on this earth to remind everyone how good Tony Blair was."

2008-04-05T09:12:00.005Z

MP's face more humiliation over their allowances.

The House of Commons authorities have been forced to give up a small amount of detail concerning some MP's allowances and once again the newspapers are awash with lurid tales of John Prescotts eating habits and Gordon Browns TV choices.

The range of allowances given to MP's fall into three broad categories:
1) expenses for the provision of and for running their constituency office and staff,
2) expenses connected to communicating with their electorate, and
3) expenses connected to the costs involved in working in London and/or maintaining a home in their constituency, travel and personal costs.

There have been consistent problems with some MP's claims in all three categories. Early on under the new scheme several Labour MP's got into trouble for claiming the costs of offices that it turned out their political parties were using (all costs are not supposed to be for political campaigning, only dealing with constituents) and numerous MP's including our own have found themselves under very close scrutiny for employing family members in their parliamentary or constituency office.

Then there has been the concerns over using both the new £10,000 'communications allowance' and the annual report to promote MP's and boost their chances of re-election. Conservatives have promised to abolish the communications allowance if elected and the annual report rules will be tightened up to ensure that each MP publishes to an approved format.

The third area is probably the one that causes the most concern. Nearly all MP's are able to claim what is a tax free housing allowance that is around £2,000 a month and most of them take the view that it's a ligitimate part of their 'pay'. But MP's who had a London home already, or who get one for free, found that they couldn't claim mortgage or rent which seemd unfair; so the HOC authorities settled on a scheme whereby other 'costs' could be claimed instead, which is where the infamous John Lewis List comes in. MP's simply ensured that they claimed the money they felt they were 'entitled to' for other things that were 'essential costs incurred in connection with maintaining a second home' that added up to the allowance total.

Frankly the system is nonsense. In industry and in the civil service their are lots of cases where employees need to be based in two places, or need to maintain two homes; and very rarely would an employer start some stupid scheme like this.

What should happen is that MP's salaries should reflect the costs of the job more accurately and MP's should then pay for their own accommodation from their own pocket. If one MP wants to live in a caravan and then save for retirement while another wants to fork out for a flat screen TV and a flat in Canary Wharf then it should be their own business and no-one else's.

The political drawback, of course, is that to maintain the lifestyle to which MP's have become accustomed you would have to increase their salary by a lot more than the £20,000 housing allowance because it is tax free. You would be looking at a basic salary for MP's of about £100,000 and the headlines would be screaming "MP's award themselves a 65% payrise".

And we all remember what happens to elected representatives who award themselves 65% increases, don't we?

So in spite of promises by MP's for reform of the system I expect another fudge on the question of MP's housing allowances this summer, and more revelations and political damage next Autumn as a result.

Blog Updates: I am on holiday for a fortnight from this weekend.

2008-04-02T09:13:00.005Z

A new era for Africa?

The latest rumours leaking out from Harare today suggest that the actual election results from the Zimbabwe elections at the weekend are about 60% MDC in the Parliament and 55% Tsvangerai 40% Mugabe in the Presidential.

The bogosphere is alive with stories of Generals refusing to support the man who put them there, fearing that the level of opposition is just too high.

Apparently, although hotly denied officially, South Africans are in Harare trying to negotiate some kind of a settlement for Mugabe to leave peacefully on his own terms.

This is an intersting story with the potential to make a massive difference to the entire continent of Africa.

Firstly, if as we all hope and pray, the Mugabe regime ends relatively peacefully this will have been the second occasion this year that genuine democratic change has occurred in previous trouble spots in Africa without resorting to a major civil war (East Africa was the first) and secondly, it will prove that African nations can work together to support the peoples of each nation on the continenent, because on both occasions change will have been brought about for Africans, by Africans without any interference of outsiders.

One of the primary ingredients for economic growth and prosperity for any nation is investment and in the modern world that means encouraging international business and global investors.

Those investors require punitive returns bordering on exploitation in order to risk their money in regions and countries controlled on the whim of a dictator or where the rule of law is absent.

But in contrast, in African countries where the rule of law and a free democracy is proven to be established - and especially where it has been tested and found resiliant- external investment has flourished, the length of term for investors has extended massively and most important the level of return needed to attract their money has diminished, leaving more in the productive economy and creating wealth there.

So the implications o a relatively peaceful handover of power from Mugabe to someone else run much wider than just Zimbabwe, the whole continent of Africa could benefit.

It's a bit early to tell, and we may yet be disappointed, but Africa could be on the threshold of a major new era of stability, peace and growing prosperity.

Update April 4th - sadly the latest news coming from Harare is much less promising that when I wrote this. I will post again as and when we know what is actually going to happen.

2008-03-21T13:27:00.002Z

Will the cycling story be good or bad for Cameron?

The Mirror have run a story that David Cameron has ridden his bike through a red light, and down a one-way-street the wrong way on his regular cycle ride from his home in Notting Hill to the Houses of Parliament.

They followed him using a reporter on another bike and video recorded his journeys over three weeks, Mr Cameron apparently likes to ride to the 'office' at least once a week if his schedule permits it.

Their story was intended to damage the future Prime Minister (The Mirror is a strongly Labour supporting paper) but the fact that they and their Labour friends imagined it would harm him says more about how off the mark they have become than about Mr Camerons fitness for office.

The story is a big boost for David Cameron indeed, if it had been anyone but the Mirror publishing it I would probably have guessed this story was a plant by Camerons new press guru Andy Coulson.

Reminding people that he still regularly cycles to work is yet more proof that he is a regular guy not subverted by the trappings of power and status.

And as for jumping a red light on a push bike (in London) - well lets see - but I think the public will rate it as making him normal, not criminal.

I note two things, even the BBC highlighted how 'one minute he is cycling to work, the next he is meeting world leaders' and Cameron was heavily defended by cycling campaign group CTC.

CTC Director Kevin Mayne told the BBC

"It shows what an ass cycling regulation [and] traffic management is in this country at the moment... we campaign in CTC for things like opening up one-way streets, which are allowed all over Europe,"

"[Mr Cameron] is a yard in front of the white line in front of the Houses of Parliament - frankly, that's where I'd go to get away from the cars, he was hardly jumping the light" .

You can watch the video here:

2008-03-18T10:11:00.009Z

Tory poll lead growing rapidly

A series of polls have given all of us Tories a huge boost to already very high morale in the party.

On Sunday there was a Yougov poll in the Sunday Times that showed us at our best level of support against Labour since the days of Micheal Foot in 1983; with a 16% lead over Labour. ICM in the News of the World followed with a poll that showed our support up 6% on a month earlier and now the March ICM poll for the Guardian, which has just been published, gives the following shares - CON 42% (+2): LAB 29% (-2): LD 21% (+1).

If these figures are reproduced at the next General Election the Tories will win with a 60 seat majority.

All pollsters warn that one poll is not enough to reveal a change in sentiment but equally all agree that several that say the same do.

So it is clear that far from putting a stop to the rot of Gordon Browns Government the budget has made the Labour Party as unpopular today as it was in 1983 when their radical anti nuclear pro-nationalisation election manifesto was described by a shadow cabinet minister as "the longest suicide note in history".

And the Lib Dems must be relieved that their support seems to be holding firm against Labour, too. After a rocky patch leading up to Nick Cleggs election Lib Dem support sagged below the psychologically important 16% level but in these three polls they have bounced back to near their 2005 election total.

2008-03-07T14:56:00.002Z

This isn't just fence-sitting, this is Lib Dem fence-sitting.

The Liberal Democrats bizarre decision not to vote either way over the EU treaty yesterday has refined sitting on the fence into an art form. For Nick Clegg -in his first big decision- to demand that his MP's sit on their hands on pain of resignation is simply breathtaking stupidity, especially at a time when many people are wondering just what exactly our Lib Dem MP actually does for the money he and his wife are paid.

Adrian Sanders position is especially ludicrous, this is the man who has never accepted our mayoral system (adopted fair and square after a referendum); refuses to offer us a referendum on probably the most import decision faced by Britain since he became MP, yet claims there is a 'need' for a referendum on whether Torbay has one casino or two.

In eleven years at Westminster our MP has achieved nothing for the people of Torbay. I am afraid that last week was the shameful pinnacle of an utterly ineffectual political career.

In order to get elected here in 2005 Mr Sanders solemnly promised voters that he would back a referendum and has blatantly reneged on that promise, something that at almost a quarter of his rather more honourable colleagues felt they couldn't do. He already holds the accolade for having polled the lowest vote of any MP in Torbays history, and I don't doubt that the dwindling numbers of people voting Lib Dem in Torbay will shrink further as a result of this week; but the real damage is not just to Adrians chances of ever being trusted again, it is that even fewer people will see the point in turning out to vote at all.

2008-02-25T17:03:00.009Z

Will the stay-at-home Tories come out for Dave?

Here is an interesting little graphic.

It shows the last six General Election results in Torbay but rather than show the percentages of the votes cast by the people who voted (as is normal) it shows the breakdown of the voting habits of everyone of voting age.

So we show the actual number of votes given for each of the three main parties plus the green line which shows the number of people who didn't vote for anyone.

Throughout the 1980's turnout went up (the green line goes down) and both Labour and the Lib Dems made gains at the Conservatives expense, peaking in 1992 when turnout reached a record high in Torbay, as it did throughout the rest of the UK.

"Lib Dem votes have
remained remarkably consistent"

But look at what has happened since then. While the Lib Dems had a blip upward in 2001 their votes have remained remarkably consistent at around the 20,000 mark since the early 1980's. Labour have bobbed around the 6-7000 mark - the change of seat in 1997 occurred because the Conservative vote plummeted from the 1980's average of around 28,000 to around 17,000 .

The number of people staying at home in 1997, 2001 and 2005 has gone up in almost the exact reverse proportion to Tory losses; an extra 10,000 residents sat on their hands in 2001 and 2005 compared to the average during the 1980s.

This effect, although not as marked, is noticeable in dozens of the Tory lost seats, now mostly the target seats that we need to win back in order to change the Government.

What does this mean? Well it depends who you talk to.

Liberal Democrat types will tell you that the demographics of the bay have changed, more people have moved in who are poor and underprivileged, and they tend to be the groups of voters less likely to vote - or vote Lib Dem or Labour. This, they argue, is their passport to remaining in office as it builds in their electoral margin.

Our polling and survey information tells a different story. It suggests that although the residential turnover of the Bay is as high as ever the demographic profile has remained remarkably stable. Those moving out or passing away are generally being replaced by new residents of almost exactly the same background and type; and lots of them also used to vote Conservative but stopped after 1992.

"there are as many as
11,000 people in Torbay
who used to vote Conservative..."

Put simply we think there are as many as 11,000 people in Torbay who used to vote Conservative; who haven't vote for us since 1992, but crucially who didn't vote for anyone else. These people were relaxed about seeing a change of Govenment in 1992 and did not see either Hague or Howard as a better potential PM than Tony Blair - they therefore simply abstained in the intervening elections.

These are not the people who vote UKIP and almost none have migrated to the Lib Dems - they are middle class, mostly retired and mostly small 'C' conservative people whose main priority is for a competent, fair-minded Government, preferably a Conservative one.

A lot of these people were exasperated at the end of the Major years and while generally happy with Blair's Government they have become frustrated and alarmed at the decaying competence of the Brown premiership.

I believe the majority of these voters were just about convinced that Camerons Conservatives might offer a decent alternative when the latest bout of expenses scandals hit the press and somewhat knocked their confidence; and that is why our poll lead has eased a tad; but generally we believe that they they are overwhelmingly back on side, to stay.

Hopefully, more good news from our local political scene and another two years of competent and thoughtful opposition will continue to bond these voters, but perhaps the best incentive for them to actually vote for me on polling day will come not from David Cameron, or the Conservatives, or even from me; but in the shape of the Scottish Gentleman living in No 10 Downing Street.

2008-02-13T13:13:00.003Z

Politics as it should be.
One sad loss in todays cut-and-thrust world of party politics is the art of good natured political debate.

Sadly too much of todays politics is about winning at all costs, about getting power for it's own sake - it has all too often become professionalised and remote, conducted behind closed doors by paid advocates working to a pre-agreed party line.

Last night saw the return of what had been becoming a regular social event in the life of our association -the political supper. It's a simple format, a two course £10 dinner followed by coffee and an open forum to argue the toss amongst ourselves about the issues of the day, local and national. We had got into a pattern of having them every month but the potential election last autumn saw evenings in September and October cancelled and somehow we missed dates in December and January as well; so I am relieved that last night was well attended and we have already organised one for March, I believe with Mayor Nick Bye guest attending.

Last night amongst the subjects we discussed were Rowan Williams' comments, the Mayors vision, MP's allowances, youth crime, the question of choice in schooling, and the rise and rise of the workless household and the merits or otherwise of siting the Factory Row homeless shelter in the town centre.

There is no agenda, no minutes, no notes, no conclusion and no voting; it's just an opportunity for anyone there to air there views and challenge the views of others. We had all kinds of people, from a new graduate recently moved here to an octogenarian born in Paignton.

It was respectful, insightful (there are some long memories in that room!), worthwhile and enjoyable and I am grateful for everyone who attended.

Next month, why not come along?

2008-02-11T11:54:00.000Z

Former Glory Beckons

I took the kids down to watch the major works going on along the Rock Walk on Saturday, joining several hundred others enjoying the Winter sunshine.

The sheer scale of the works involved is breathtaking and it is immediately obvious when you get there why it was necessary to shut the road for six weeks and why this project is costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is no doubt that the finished gardens will be completely stunning after settling down, and once again visitors and residents will be ably to fully enjoy the gardens as they were originally intended.

But as I was watching what is in effect a jumbo pruning exercise going on I couldn't help but ask myself 'how on earth did we allow it to come to this?'.

It seems to me that for a very long time our authorities have simply not been doing regular maintenance on Rock Walk with the result that more than twenty years worth of maintenance is now having to be done in one go. I am a quite a keen gardener, and I learned a long time ago that the best way of maintaining any kind of garden (or building come to that), is to do a little but do it often.

This derogation of regular maintenance over a long period has caused similar problems to other natural and man-made infrastructure, Abbey Sands seafront, the Banjo, in Palace Gardens, Oldway Mansion, the Cliff Railway, Paignton Harbour and Haldon pier; all of which are going to cost far more in repairs than would have been the case if the council had been told to do regular maintenance annually.

Somebody, somewhere, must have decided not to maintain these facilities properly and spend the money on something else. Who made that decision? What happened to the money that we have paid in rates and taxes all these years that clearly hasn't been spent on these important tasks?

Will anyone be held accountable? - sadly, probably not. The Councillors involved have mostly been voted out of office and many of the officers will no doubt claim they were just following orders.

There must at least be a lesson here for the future, Torbay residents must make sure that never again are our natural assets allowed to become so dangerously decrepit.

2008-02-07T13:45:00.000Z

This made me laugh!

Travelling a lot as I have this last couple of weeks you see every witty slogan imaginable on the back of a white van. Previous firm favourites of mine have included " If only my wife was this dirty"; "Also available in white"; "White, with a hint of M42" and "And your mother said I was dirty..."

I am fond of pointing out to my more scientific political friends that second guessing public opinion is an art, not a science. Irritatingly for those of my colleagues who are poll junkies I have often proved that tiny anecdotes of public opinion can be accurate as detailed polling as to what is going on.

So I am always interested in the small things - the minor aside overheard in the pub or rant from a taxi driver that many others dismiss, and that is why I thought this piece of graffiti was interesting, as well as funny.

It is a long time indeed since any mainstream political issue has been the butt of jokes like this - in fact I haven't seen this kind of thing on the streets at all since Labour took office eleven years ago.

Ok you say, get a life, it's one sardonic joke on one van spotted in London, so what?

Well when your attempts at improving public services after ten years result in this kind of thing appearing you know you have a serious image problem.

Whatever you think of the decisions he made, on Iraq, over peerages, however much he might have lied to us and deceived us, nobody ever treated Tony Blair as a joke. With Gordon Brown its becoming the reverse- it's becoming impossible to take him and his Government seriously. From Northern Rock through donations, bugging, lost CD's, its been one long bad episode of Fawlty Towers ever since he entered No 10.

As any politician will tell you there is one sound that is deadlier than any other for a prime minister; and that is the sound of the public laughing at him.

2008-02-01T12:42:00.000Z

Nice work if you can get it.

The rumpus over MP's allowances and especially concerning MP's turning their offices into a family affair has erupted this week after Derek Conway was ousted for having employed his son as a 'researcher' when in fact nobody could find what research he had done.

This newly resurgent interest in the behind the scenes goings-on of MP's offices caused another uncomfortable moment for our very own Adrian Sanders who employs the services of wife Alison and the Lib Dem group leader Cllr Steve Darling doing undisclosed work for an undisclosed amount.

The response to probing enquiries by the local newspaper was initially to agree for the need for transparency but, er, not just now thank-you very much. So apart from what is already in the public domain by law Mr Sanders refuses to say how much he pays his wife or what she does for the money.

His sole defence is that this information is confidential, but I and others say that as he is our MP and his salary, along with nearly all other civil servants salaries are in the public domain, so should the renumeration paid to his wife by you and I. He is quick to comment on the salary paid to the Mayor, and the borough's chief executive, and by hotels to their staff and he can do so because these salaries are published.

For all I know Mrs Sanders could well be paid a pittance for working all the hours under the sun, but he won't say and we cannot make him 'fess up; so I guess us taxpayers who fund this will never actually know. I suppose his refusal to come clean about this tells us all we need to know really because if she was earning peanuts I think he would be falling over himself to say so.

It really would be the ultimate Hypocrisy if, having banged on about Nick Bye not coming up with enough 'well paid' local jobs it transpired that the MP himself had had two or three well paid local jobs that he simply handed out to his mates.

The answer to all this is quite clear, civil servants public company managers and all the other legislators in the western world are banned from nepotism and employing spouses or family is not allowed unless in the most exceptional circumstances and with the closest scrutiny. This is not just to avoid the potential questions of fraud, but it is also because these relationships are usually unfair on other workers; it is just obvious that a spouse is not going to behave or be treated in the same manner as a regular employee by his or her boss and this gives rise to unfairness and resentment.

MP's must decide that their taxpayer funded paid, non-political assistants must be hired on merit and merit alone after a free and open (advertised) recruitment procedure available to all to apply; and family members must be excluded.

2008-01-29T13:58:00.000Z

Turbulence ahead for Cameron?

The media narrative has been pretty much all one way since the Conference season ended in October.

That one way as been against Labour and especially against Gordon Brown personally.

Hardly surprising as their has been plenty of ammunition about for the press to use.

However I detect a change is coming. I think the media are bored of this, and are looking to spice up the political pages with a new 'angle'.

A couple of recent stories in the media have the potential to be bad for Conservatives; especially the events concerning Mr Conway, a Conservative MP who has failed to satisfy the standards committee that the money he paid to his youngest son for research work was legitimate who now faces an investigation into the work done for him by his eldest child as well.

Now I am on record as being opposed to the employment by MP's of members of their family by the taxpayer and Mr Conway is therefore not getting much in the way of sympathy from me.

I think that anyone employing their friends and family on the taxpayer is leaving themselves wide open to attack, that is why it is so very rarely permitted in the rest of the civil service and in most publicly listed business’.

If I get elected I wouldn’t employ any of my family in any capacity on public funds, I think it shouldn’t be allowed.

Another Conservative MP has apparently been arrested and questioned over what looks like a serious domestic incident.

I have a view that the press may be looking to use any 'bad news' Conservative stories to shift the narrative back to 'how does Dave cope under pressure?' and that we may have a few weeks of fairly tiresome (for us, but probably a welcome respite for Labour) press coverage ahead.

I suppose it sells papers.

2008-01-24T13:47:00.000Z

So it's goodbye from me...

I suppose the only surprising thing about Hains resignation is that it took so long for him to make his mind up.

Unlike Brown, who already has a reputation for dithering Peter Hain is not known for delaying difficult decisions.

As Northern Ireland secretary he had no hesitation in releasing terrorists and bombers from prison; as work and pensions minister he has had no hesitation in shutting one quarter of Remploy factories (employing 5,000 disabled people) and as a deputy leader he had no hesitation in accepting £103,000 in unregistered donations including an alleged donation from Isaac Kaye - apparently a supporter of the National Party in apartheid-era South Africa, who is said to have given nearly £15,000.

Mr Hain is one of those rare political animals, a man disliked on all sides of the political divide. Whether it is that he is just a bit too ambitious for his own good I don't know; but there are few parliamentarians standing up to defend him today, from any party.

His legacy is profound, because he secures for Gordon Brown the sleazy 'cash for ...' legacy attached to Tony Blairs Government that a change of leader was supposed to throw off.

And there is the prospect of legal cases and court appearances for senior Labour figures right through the lead up to the next election.

2008-01-21T20:10:00.000Z

Northern Robbery

The latest news on the Northern Rock farce has left me astonished and angry.

The idea that Mr Branson, or anyone else for that matter, can acquire a 100 billion pound loan book and a substantial high street bank to boot for 650 million of their own money while the taxpayer is risking 60 billion (ten times as much) is about as one sided as it is possible to get.

I am a fan of private enterprise and as a Conservative nothing pleases me more than to see a successful entrepreneur scaling the heights of financial success - but not at the taxpayers expense.

If the Chancellor and his puppet-master are allowed to do this deal it will amount to financial mismanagement on a stellar scale which dwarfs the 'ERM black wednesday' affair when the Bank of England lost a purely notional £3.4bn trying to buy sterling on the foreign exchange markets and tops the disastrous losses made when Gordon Brown ignored treasury advice and dumped our gold reserves at the very bottom of the market.

On current proposals the Government will have outstanding guarantees on this bank for at least five years of at least £60,000,000,000. A guarantee is as much a promise to pay as a bank note; so count those noughts- each and every taxpayer could be stumping up to £4,000 apiece if Northern Rock goes bust.

Even if it doesn't we have a bale out here on a scale that is ten times the size of the state aid given to British Leyland in it's sorry years under Government control from 1974-1988; at l;east BL was the country's last major car manufacturer - Northern Rock is is a relatively minor bank in a fiercely competitive, indeed some would say oversupplied, market that was and is long overdue for a shake out.

How is it fair that other banks are now, in effect, trying to compete with a firm that cannot be allowed to go bust? How will it work if, in an attempt to stay solvent NR start stealing business from other banks and building societies using taxpayers money backed by gilt edged security?

What happens if the credit crunch goes on for a bit, there is a serious property crash and another bank -or two banks even, get into similar trouble. Will they be baled out, too?

2008-01-18T15:04:00.000Z

Vision or Nightmare- at least there is a future to discuss.

Whether you think that the Mayoral vision for the future of Torbay is your idea of heaven or a blueprint for hell on earth there is one thing that is long overdue and that is any kind of vision at all.

One of the main benefits of the mayoral vision is that at last there is a proper debate under way about the future shape and economy of the Bay; and there is at last a clear dividing line between the local political parties about what the future could be all about.

Unfortunately for all of us, successive Town hall administrations have failed to seriously consider the long term prospects for Torbay in anything other than negative terms. For 20 years the council has been content to presume that their job was simply to manage the decline of tourism with as little drama and hardship as possible.

Now at last things are on the move.

In the Blue corner we believe the prospects for this beautiful area haven't looked this good since the mid 19th century when the railways came. A combination of global warming, increased airport security, fashion and shortage of time will mean that more and more people will choose to take short breaks at home. Add to that the increasing demand from broadband connected workers to move away from the South East and seek a better quality of life (and lower house prices), and the fact that the baby boom generation are approaching retirement and the future looks bright, proviided we make sure the Bay is kept up to scratch. We look forward with confidence to a clean, prosperous and safe Torbay as popular as she ever was.

In the Yellow corner the stance is very different. To them Tourism is an industry that just brings hordes of unwelcome visitors. They can't help but dislike the money it makes for some people. They don't seem to like incomers at all, judging by the recent complaints by the MP about Eastern Europeans.

The tendency so far has been to simply oppose everything; the casino, balloon, industrial park, retail park, Goodrington, any major redevelopments in the towns etc without really so far offering any alternative ideas for economic regeneration.

The language used by them sometimes conjures up an image of a 'rust belt' backwater, not the thriving, prosperous and popular place that Torbay actually is. What vague ideas they do have seem to be built almost entirely on state handouts - either to a benefit dependent underclass, handouts for government agencies to create non-jobs in some pointless quango; or handouts for the council bureaucracy to expand still further.

This is a formula of despair that the public rejected in 2006 at the mayoral election when their candidate was so roundly beaten; then again in 2007 when the lost control of the town hall; but they just seem to be stuck in a time-warp and no amount of losing is going to persuade them to think again.

Most of the poorest in society have ambition; they don't want to be on low incomes and they don't want state handouts; what they want is an opportunity to succeed and do well and a thriving Torbay tourism economy is the best way of getting it.

I cannot understand why the Liberal Democrats seem to be so obstinately against making Torbay more prosperous, but they do. Perhaps they are worried that a thriving and successful town is usually very much a Tory town.

2008-01-14T10:44:00.000Z

Migrant Row- MP needs to apologise.

There has been a stonking row going on in Torbay over comments the MP made over the mayoral vision for the local economy. How wise was it to bring race and immigration into the debate about the Mayoral Vision?

Lib Dem Mp Adrian Sanders made a long and (for him) unusually opinionated statement expressing his view that more jobs for immigrants was in general a bad thing and that the mayor should not be encouraging it; and he further claimed the mayoral vision would make Torbay a 'jobs agency for Eastern Europeans'.

This led to an orgy of congratulations for him from some voters on the Herald Express website and a flurry of angry letters and protests from other voters who were horrified at his comments which they felt were racist in overtones; even though the MP has gone to some lengths to reassure them that they weren't.

Comments like "Thanks Mr Sanders, something has to be said about the floodgates being open to the migrants";"Call me racist or what there is two many migrants in England. What the bay wants is proper well paid jobs for English residents, English people of this country. Lets start and put the English first not the migrants first the English become third class people in our own country. Mr Sanders is right with is comments" or "We need immigrants like a hole in the head" would suggest that the MP's comments have indeed been a great comfort to people on the far right.

I can't decide if this is either a very sneaky political ploy or a catastrophic mistake on his part. On the one hand it has the potential to shore up his flagging support with people from the BNP and UKIP but on the other hand I think he has possibly isolated himself from many of his own natural supporters on the Liberal wing of the Liberal Democrats.

Indeed a couple of high profile Liberal Democrats have publicly rebuked him for straying into such illiberal territory and my emailbox has this week come alive with pledges for support from people who say his statement is the last straw.

I don't believe Adrian Sanders is a racist. Whatever disagreements we have I cannot imagine Mr Sanders consciously intended his comments to mean what it seems they did mean to the dozens of people who rushed to applaud him on the Herald Express website, so if it wasn't conspiracy it must have been a cock-up.

I don't mind having a debate about controlling immigration, indeed we did have a debate about it at the last election; but there is a need to tread very carefully to ensure that the way this topic is discussed does not serve the purpose of extremists. Adrian has drawn the issue of immigration into the completely unrelated issue of the Mayors Vision for Torbay and I think that was a serious error of judgement

Either way it would be wise for him to apologise for the offence he has caused, especially to those Eastern Europeans who contribute a very great deal to the Torbay economy and whom might reasonably feel slighted by his statement.

2008-01-08T14:10:00.000Z

When is 2% really 4.5% ?

Ask the Treasury or the Government what the current rate of inflation is and they will answer that it is about 2%, and falling.

But retail prices - the cost of real goods in the shops - is up by 4.3% since this time last year; a statistic that is rising- it was 3.8% in October.

Factory gate prices, the measure of wholesale costs is up by 4.5% on a year ago; and also has been rising; from 4.2% in the Autumn.

Factory raw material prices have been shooting up by over 10%, and fuel and heating bills have risen by a similar amount. Council tax, rail fares and most insurances have gone up by 5% or more, and petrol is up by nearly 20% on this time last year.

And probably the biggest direct cost for most households - interest charges, have risen massively. The monthly amount paid by most people on their mortgage is up by at least 10% and their credit card rates by much more, after a series of base rite rises and the now infamous credit crunch which has raised the real cost of borrowing to ten year highs.

So how come the 'official' rate is 2%? Simple, the rate is based on comparing a hypothetical shopping basket with a similar basket a year ago; so only the prices of certain products and services are included.

But increasingly the index has been, er, how shall we say, manipulated somewhat. Housing costs are now left out, so the increasing price of homes and the rising cost of the money used to buy them is excluded; and the index is adjusted and weighted by statisticians to exclude the profile of pensioner households and those earning over about £50,000 annually.

In reality inflation is over 4% and everyone -including the foreign exchange markets - know it; which is why current year wage rises top 4% as well.

Remember the advice: if inflation looks like 4.5%, if it feels like 4.5% then it probably is 4.5%; and at 4.5% we are at the highest rates for eighteen years and one of the highest inflation economies in the West.

And the really bad news is that the last time inflation hit these levels, interest rates had to rise into double figures to shore up the pound before the rate slowed.

The only people who still think that the country is enjoying low inflation are resident in No's 10 and 11 Downing street.