It wasn't a jump to the left

Hell yeah. 

What a relief.  All but one of the opinion polls indicated a dead heat between the two main parties. The bookies saw a Labour minority government (propped up by the SNP and Liberal Democrats) as most likely.  The broadcasters were convinced that the odds of the Conservatives forming a government, a minority government, with the Liberal Democrats and maybe UKIP and the DUP, were not good.

Meanwhile, the hated Lynton Crosby had kept David Cameron on one message, and Cameron kept saying that the Tories only needed to win 23 more seats to govern alone.   Yet, with all of Labour's rhetoric about how awful the economic recovery had been for so many, and calling itself the "party of the many not the privileged few", it seemed inconceivable that with the sinking lid of spending cuts, that the government wouldn't lose seats.   325 seats is a majority, and it was thought that if the Conservatives got 290 seats it would be a good night for them.

Then it came at 10.02pm on Thursday night.  Exit polls predicted not only that the Conservatives would be the largest party, but would be two seats short of a majority.  So it was to be that this was too "conservative", and an overall majority would be won with 331 seats.  Why?

1. Ed Miliband, even those his net negative poll ratings improved in recent weeks, never remotely came close to David Cameron as preferred Prime Minister.   Cameron may be a professional spin doctor, he may have no strong philosophy, he may be (as Labour didn't tire of pointing out) a posh boy who went to Eton and belonged to the Bullingdon Club, but then Miliband was not so different. With the exception of a short guest lectureship at Harvard, his entire career had been to work for the Labour Party or be an MP.  He is a millionaire, who inherited an expensive home in one of the most upmarket parts of London (Primrose Hill), and was a Marxist academic.   Any accusations of Cameron not being "in touch" were easily redirected onto Miliband.

2. The economy, stupid:  With a drop in unemployment of 2 million, inflation at around zero, average wages growing above inflation, and the economy having grown faster than any economy in Europe in the past five years, the story the Conservatives could sell was positive.  By contrast, Labour had remained far behind in credibility on the economy.  Yes, the crash was a banking crash, but when Ed Miliband said that Labour hadn't spent too much when it was last in government, on BBC Question Time, the audience laughed at and ridiculed him.   If Labour couldn't show contrition for wasting money before, how could it be trusted now?  By contrast, the Conservatives had cut spending, albeit modestly, and the economy grew, rather than flatlined (as Labour said it would).  The state had shrunk from 45% of GDP to 40%, and Conservative plans to cut further, which Labour scaremongered over, didn't scare many voters.  

3. Classwar? No thanks:  Labour went on about a recovery that worked only for the wealthy, but for the 2 million who got jobs that wouldn't ring true.  Labour's rhetoric was constantly a refrain that was against wealth-producers, that rarely talked positively about business, that claimed the Tories were supporting the "privileged" few, unlike Labour, didn't wash.  After all, if the Tories were only for the rich, how could they attract support of at least a third of voters.

4. SNP: Polling for months had increasingly indicated Labour was going to lose a lot of its seats in Scotland, as a result a key plank of the Tory campaign was "vote Labour get SNP" given it was difficult to envisage Labour winning enough seats elsewhere in the UK to make up for the Scottish losses AND gain a majority.  As the SNP's policies were so clearly Scottish focused, and to the left of even leftwing Labour.  Even though Ed Miliband said "no deals" with the SNP, and at one point said he'd prefer a Tory government to doing a deal with it (which didn't help him in Scotland), nobody believed him that if the numbers stacked up, he'd do it and English voters saw a vision of a government beholden to handing Scotland more money, or another independence referendum.  The pro-Tory press (Sun, Mail, Telegraph and Times) all supported this.  Of course, with Labour losing all but one of its seats in Scotland to the SNP (and the Conservatives keeping their sole MP), it helped, but Labour + SNP is still only 288 seats.

5. End of the Liberal Democrats:  While the Liberal Democrats lost a significant number of its voters to Labour and the Greens (Labour had counted on winning the majority of them), the Conservatives hoovered up a fair share of the Liberal Democrat seats as well, including all of those in the southwest. Whilst the Liberal Democrats argued they would give the Tories a heart and Labour a brain, voters who leaned one way or the other simply decided to vote for one of the main parties.  Whilst Labour did gain from this, it lost due to...

6.  UKIP took from Labour.  The conventional view of Labour (and the Conservatives) was that UKIP would largely hurt the Conservatives, being, by and large, a mix of old fashioned Conservative resistance to the EU and immigration, and a scepticism of nanny state type solutions.  However, in the final weeks, the Conservatives successfully campaigned in their heartland to convince many UKIP voters to vote Conservative to keep Labour out.  This is what cost UKIP Rochester and Strood (which it had won in a by election), and stopped Nigel Farage winning South Thanet. This didn't work on UKIP supporters who had come from Labour in the north, who saw a party that talked to them in the way the Conservatives never could.  Labour lost seats due to UKIP, because its class war "metropolitan elite" rhetoric and narrative seemed fake, unlike the gaffe prone but straightforward talk of UKIP.

7. The polls worked for the Tories:  With almost all polls showing a very close race, there was genuine fear of a Labour government (not really a genuine fear of a Tory government) causing economic disruption.  Turnout was higher this time than in 2010.

8.  The shy-right:  One theory is that a reason polling looked low for the Conservatives compared to the actual result, was that many who hold "right wing" views keep them to themselves.  They are not activists, and those who are leftwing activists make it very clear how much they hate those who may support the Conservatives or UKIP, and are willing to vandalise, occupy or otherwise do violence or threaten those who disagree with them.  People are more hesitant to publicly support the right, than support the left, understating the views of the right.

So, a sigh of relief?  Yes.  Joy? Not really, except for the schadenfreude of the demise of multiple politicians, which is ALWAYS a joy.

To see Ed Miliband discover his party is more of the few than the many.  To see Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (and former right hand man of Gordon Brown when in government), Ed Balls removed from office, after his predictions of a flatlining economy, and that the Conservatives cut "too far and too fast", was glorious.  To see the odious felcher of dictatorships, George Galloway, ousted by a large margin, was delicious, as was removal of the anti-Jewish Liberal Democrat David Ward in the neighbouring seat in Bradford East.  To see oodles of green religion worshipping Liberal Democrats disappear, especially the arch-interventionist "Business Secretary" Vince Cable and subsidised renewables fanatic, Ed Davey, was wonderful.

Of course there is the claim that the Conservatives didn't win because the proportion of the vote won was far short of 50%.  This is true, but then had the UK had a form of proportional representation (noting voters rejected 3-2 a shift to a moderately more proportional system in 2011, by referendum) much would have been different.  Parties would have campaigned everywhere, not just the marginals. The SNP would have become much less relevant a factor.  More voters might have gone for smaller parties, and who knows how many voters it would wake up in "safe seats" who finally thought their votes would matter.  Regardless, adding the Conservative and UKIP vote would reach around 50% of seats, and adding a few Ulster unionists of both stripes would create a majority.   The left can't claim a majority.

In NZ the great fear of the "right" (I use the word liberally) was that MMP would mean permanent leftwing government.  In fact it has, but not by leftwing parties, rather the National Party moving towards the statist centre to occupy the majority ground.

So yes, there is a Conservative majority, it was won by a mix of sheer economic results, and fear of the left spending too much, interfering too much and wanting to take from some to give to others. There is reason to have some hope for the UK, but what of the parties that lost?

UK General Election 2015

Well I did what one has to do in the UK, I stayed up till 10pm for the exit polls and have just woken up four hours later, because by now there are few results, just maintenance of the exit polls that predict a result the polls did not - a poor result for Labour, a massive wipeout for the Liberal Democrats, a huge gain for the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives coming much closer to an overall majority.

However....

that may yet change.

To follow my thoughts, I'll be live blogging on my largely quiescent UK blog http://libertyscottuk.blogspot.com and on Twitter @libertyscottuk for the rest of the night

All I can say for now, is that it is looking like the UK, once again, shows it wont elect a solidly leftwing Labour government.

Socialism for the UK: Ed Miliband will do it for his dad

Yes, Ed Miliband is trying to lead an elected socialist revolution in the UK because he didn't think his elder brother was being true to their communist dad, Ralph Miliband.  So said BBC Newsnight last night.

Their communist dad who had supported the USSR, who turned a blind eye to the executions, the slavery, the lies, the cold dark grey oppression of the Soviet system, who Ed adored.

Ralph Miliband died in 1994 when Ed was only in his mid 20s, an event which deeply affected him. He read his dad's books, looked up to him, admired and adored him, and missed him.  I understand that: the pain, the loss, the emptiness.  Ed Miliband's mission is not so much about a sober assessment of what objectively will work for the UK, but an emotional grab at ensuring his father's legacy lives on.  Ed is no communist, but he carried and directly expresses the principles and philosophy of his father.  As the younger brother of the more successful (academically and politically) David, he saw in David's more centrist Blairite approach to both economics and foreign policy, as a sell-out, a betrayal of the socialism and anti-Western anti-imperialism his father so forthrightly promoted.

Ed Miliband is seeking to be Prime Minister so he can get over grieving his father.

He's attacking capitalism in the form of banks, energy companies and the private media companies that don't support him, for his dad.  He's supporting socialism in the form of trade unions, the world's largest civilian bureaucracy (NHS), state sector schools, with a tinge of his own green evangelism, for his dad.  He's increasing taxes, for his dad, and he opposed using force to stop the socialist Ba'athist totalitarian dictatorship of Assad barrel bombing and using chemical weapons against civilians, for his dad.

Ed is trying to live up to his dad's distress that the post-war Labour Party wasn't radical enough.  You know, the one that nationalised railways, coal mines, airlines, broadcasting, healthcare, steelmaking, and bus services.  Unfortunately, it allied itself with the United States and NATO in opposing Stalin's rolling of the iron curtain over Europe.  

So today, millions of Britons will vote for a party that has (well through its union affiliates) decided Ed Miliband is its candidate for Prime Minister.

He isn't approaching politics with a consistent philosophy gained through critical thinking and debate, but through familial admiration and adoration of his father.

He isn't approaching politics with a pragmatism considering competing evidence and analysis from multiple sources, but with ideology blinkers that "must be right" because his beloved father told him so.

Of course we know Ed is not seeking to implement communism, but what he is promoting is class war, containing and controlling the free market, and with the philosophy of his father, he's more than willing to introduce new taxes and laws to fix perceived problems (obesity, offended Muslims, newspapers that disagree with him).

Should the government of the UK be left in the hands of a man who's mission is, in essence, to prove to his deceased father that he is a better, more loyal son than his elder brother?

What's wrong with an Ed Miliband led government?

As I wrote before, it is difficult to get enthusiasm for the past five years of Conservative led coalition government.  Yes, the economy has rebounded, but this is largely been a smoke and mirrors exercise that, if the Tories are honest, may well have been implemented by a Brown or Blair led government.  

It's what the Tories wont do that is the relief

It is based on two foundations.  

The economy is fixed?

One is just barely getting public finances into sufficient order, with a series of tax cuts, that bond markets are content and money that was once being transferred into largely wasteful public sector administration, and welfare handouts, are now in the form of tax cuts (notwithstanding the very damaging increase in VAT at the beginning). Public debt is still rising, the budget deficit is still £90 billion per annum, but the state sector as a proportion of GDP has shrunk from 45% to around 40% and the private sector has more than matched any cuts in state sector "jobs". The Conservatives promise to balance the budget next term (they promised to balance it this past term), but without tax increases.  This means the private sector growing to fill a net shrinking state sector.

The second foundation is printing money.  The Bank of England has maintained its base rate at 0.5% throughout the term, and credit is cheap.  The money is flowing into property, stocks and shares and other investments.  Few in politics question this, those who do point out that one cause of the last crash was the availability of cheap money, because low/virtually non-existent consumer price inflation doesn't reflect the asset price inflation that is part of the bubble of growth.

The boom and bust cycle has recommenced, so let's not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is a genius, he is merely following Treasury advice and tinkering over priorities.  

If you want reasons to have a modicum of enthusiasm for the Conservatives there really are only two areas of policy where there is hope for those of us wanting a future of more freedom and less government.  Education and the European Union.

Setting the poor free from the council run education factories

2.2 million pupils are now educated in what are essentially independent "free" schools albeit within the state sector, but completely outside the dead-hand of council control.  They are established by enthusiastic educational social-entrepreneurs, whose focus is on excellence, diversity and choice in education.  They can hire "unqualified" teachers.  You know the ones: the scientists, historians, musicians, writers who can inspire through experience and who are excellent communicators.  Not the BA graduates who can pontificate about "white privilege", "equality", "sustainability" and get children all excited about voting to make decisions as a group, but also tell the brightest to "share their gifts" with others.  The Conservatives offer more of this, and to extend it further, as they pour funding into supporting new free schools according to what parents want, enabling them to remove their kids from the mediocre council schools that are emptying.  This offers a great opportunity to break education away from the deadweight failure of post-war progressive state education teacher union dominated conformity and mediocrity.

Brexit

For the European Union, that club once of free trade and open borders, balancing blatant protectionist rent seeking for agriculture and vanity construction projects.  I once hoped the new eastern European Member States would provide enough influence to drive it more towards the former, but the lure of billions of Euros in structural adjustment transfers has kept them mostly mute.  Moreover, Hungary own government has slipped back into a mode of xenophobia, state property confiscation and corruption of the media and judiciary, and the politicians and bureaucrats at Brussels do little about it. Yes, David Cameron wants the UK to remain in the EU, but the offer of a referendum on EU membership is a chance to change the UK's relationship with it.  It's a chance to leave and have a formal free trade agreement, and to leave behind the subsidies, the customs union and the ever growing regulatory burden of a bureaucracy that is fundamentally unaccountable.  The European Union represents increasingly the decline of Europe, as it remains impotent to demand the structural reforms needed of the sclerotic Italy (which has not had net economic growth for nearly 20 years) and France, whilst seeking ever more states to bring under its umbrella, primarily by offering subsidies from northern Europe including the UK.  It remains notable that neither the Norwegians nor the Swiss or Icelanders have decided to join (although between them they make some financial contributions to it and agree to follow some regulations)

Free schools and freedom from the deadweight bureaucrat behemoth of the European Union are all there is, besides a handful of tax cuts (which are too few).

However, on their own they aren't enough, but there is a reason to vote, in some cases Conservative, but not always, to do something more negative - to keep Labour and the Scottish National Party out.

Had Labour been led by David Miliband, and been a rehash of the previous government, there wouldn't have been much between it and the Cameron-led Conservatives.  However, his brother Red Ed has taken Labour and swung it to the left, with a manifesto and rhetoric that are the most statist, most anti-free market and more disturbingly, anti-personal freedom since the 1983 Marxist manifesto of Michael Foot.

Workers of the UK unite, you have nothing to lose but your private sector jobs

It has harnessed the class war that the trade unions, who backed Ed Miliband (and outvoted both the party members and the Parliamentary caucus to make him leader), never abandoned.  It's the class war of his late communist father, that Ed - the younger brother - couldn't let go of, and it's fundamentally deceitful, toxic and disturbing.

It's not just that he will end the free schools programme, meaning only wealthy parents can afford choice of schools for their kids, leaving the poorest stuck with the lottery of whatever monopoly school their council offers (but all teachers will have to be "qualified" and unionised you can bet). It's not just that he will introduce new taxes on owning expensive homes, on earning more than £150,000 and abolish the non-domicile tax status that encourages thousands of the best, brightest and wealthiest to live in the UK (and each pay in average income tax on UK earnings 2.5 times the average wage). It's not that he wants to ban household energy price increases, and require all new power generating capacity to be renewable (and so much more expensive).  It's not that he spreads the perennial (and always disappointing) rumour that the Tories are going to dismantle the NHS (they aren't, they're increasing spending).  

Profit is evil

It's that he is at best suspicious, and at worst hostile to entrepreneurship and free enterprise. His agenda includes making employment tribunals free to employees wanting to bring claims, which with his class warrior hat on (purely theoretical mind you, he's never worked in the private sector) couldn't possibly mean employees would invent grievances against employers for personal gain.  His readiness to establish new regulations for the energy, banking, property rental and railway sectors (including helpfully setting up a new state rail operator to compete with private ones), is based on a belief that there isn't a problem that can't be regulated away.  He wants laws to cap profits in the health sector, he wants laws to force energy companies to lower prices when wholesale prices drop.

Your land is our land

Yet it more intrusive than that.  He has said he wants the power to confiscate private land if a property owner obtains planning permission, but doesn't build the approved development within a fixed time.  You need council permission to develop, which can take months if not years, then if they grant permission (at your expense), you lose your land if the market conditions that prevailed when you applied no longer exist.  Not only did Miliband not think what impact this would have on new applications, he didn't think it was morally wrong to confiscate someone else's land.  He didn't think that maybe the problem of housing supply in the UK is because the planning system effectively nationalises land development in the hands of local authorities.

Yet this is all economics, par for the course socialism.  The entrenchment of the NHS and public sector school monopolies are to be expected, as is renewed growth of the welfare state.

Newspapers that oppose the Labour Party are bad

It's Miliband's views on free speech that chill me.  He embraced the findings of the Leveson inquiry and will seek to institute statutory press regulation if industry self regulation does not work.  Given how often he has rallied against Rupert Murdoch (who to Labour, made the sin of once supporting it, then turning its back on it), there is every chance Miliband will require newspapers to be licenced. The mere fact that Labour friendly newspapers, like the Mirror, also engaged in phone hacking and other illegal practices is not acknowledged.  Labour wants to "take on" the "vested interests" of newspapers that disagree with it.

Hating speech

Under Labour men and women are "equal" but separate in Islam

Moreover, Miliband's willingness to appease Islamists is more chilling too.  It's not the image of a Labour Party campaign meeting in Birmingham above, which segregates men and women of Islamic faith so much, but his commitment to outlaw "Islamophobia". 

As Rod Liddle in the Spectator wrote 

There is no such thing as Islamophobia, of course. There are people who dislike Islam and will continue to dislike it no matter what fatuous legislation is enacted by the forthcoming Labour/SNP coalition from hell. And they dislike it for perfectly good, rational, reasons.

Islamophobia? That seems to me an entirely rational response to an illiberal, vindictive and frankly fascistic creed. I am not a Muslimophobe — I am well aware that enormous numbers of Muslims do not subscribe to all of the particularly unpleasant tenets of Islam as it is practised and preached today. 

So it is, but Ed Miliband, as he seeks to woo intolerant Muslim voters, has decided to erode a bit more freedom of speech.  Expect Police to treat this as a form of Islamic blasphemy law, all the time he blames the government for not passing tough enough legislation on surveillance of personal communications to fight terrorism.

I'm sure Ed believes he opposes Islamist terrorism, it's just that his appeasement of those who expound it, and opposition to those who criticise it, says something else.

Bye bye Scotland

It goes further of course.  Polling indicates that Labour is likely to lose between half and all of its seats in Scotland, primarily because when the 45% who voted for Scottish independence cast their votes for one party in a first past the post general election, it's enough to sweep aside those who believe in the union, since they are split between four parties. 

What this means is that it is almost certain that for Labour to form a government, it will rely on support from the SNP (despite Ed Miliband's protestations).  What does this really mean?

Let's be clear, despite the claims of the SNP, its primary interest is in getting a majority of Scots to vote for it at the Scottish elections, get another referendum and to win it.  It wants independence.

To achieve independence it needs there to be Scottish disenchantment with the Westminster government, not a comfortable arrangement that delivers what it promises.  Its ideal outcome is a Conservative led government, for then it can shout on the sidelines, finger point and say "look, we never voted for the Tories, we must get ooot".  However, what if it, and Labour can form a "progressive coalition", which is what its Marxist leader Nicola Salmond claims?

The SNP says it will push Labour to the left and wont agree on any legislation or budgets that don't meet its demands.  Either Labour will surrender to it, and face disenchantment from voters from elsewhere in the UK that they are subsidising Scotland (more), or Labour will say no, and call the SNP's bluff and say "go on, bring us down and risk a Tory government".  For the SNP, either works.

If Labour gives it what it wants, involving much more money being transferred north of the border, the (mostly) English disenchantment will make it easier for another Scottish independence referendum to be held, because English voters will express a similar antipathy towards Scotland as the SNP has promoted against England.  Much better to get both sides to resent each other.  However, Labour may hope that it gets credit for supporting Scotland. 

If Labour calls its bluff, the SNP will revert to the "Red Tories" line and say that Scotland doesn't get what it wants from the Union.  It can abstain from supporting a Labour budget or indeed a Conservative confidence and supply motion, and claim the moral highground, although it is undoubtedly the risker line to take.  Labour wouldn't mind this of course. 

What it all means, is that any Labour option lies within it the seeds to break up the United Kingdom. Yes, that might seem like lancing a socialist boil, but it is my ancestral homeland and also the land which brought us Adam Smith, David Hume and Francis Hutcheson, as part of the Scottish Enlightenment.  Did the descendants of all of that really all emigrate?  I don't want the union to break up, and I don't want the Labour Party to facilitate it.  Labour did create Scottish devolution, after all.

Hold your nose

There is a lot to loathe about the Cameron government, but a Miliband one will not only steal from the productive and kneecap the most promising reform in education since the war, but will further limit freedom of speech, and will further erode property rights.  

If you're in a safe seat everywhere but Scotland (which has no such seats anymore), you can do whatever you wish, it wont matter.  That's roughly two thirds of all seats that wont change sides. Beyond that, if you think you'd rather not sit by and let a government emerge from the election muddle without ticking a box, here are some ideas.

1. Positively vote for a few Tories.  Steve Davis, Kwasi Kwarteng and David Davis positively deserve your vote, they are positive, proven friends of liberty.  

2.  Positively vote the one libertarian UKIPper likely to win.  Douglas Carswell. 

3.  In Conservative/Labour or Liberal Democrat marginals, consider voting Conservative, except in Hampstead and Kilburn, where Lib Dem Maajid Nawaz will be a formidable battler against Islamism.

4.  In Labour/Liberal Democrat marginals, consider voting Liberal Democrat except Bradford East (to oust the vile David Ward).

5.  In Labour/UKIP marginals, vote UKIP.

6.  In Scotland, vote Conservative, to hell with the two cheeks of the arse of socialism and nationalist socialism.

7.  In Bradford West, vote Labour to oust George Galloway. 

8.  In Ulster, vote Conservative or the Alliance.  To hell with the sectarianism.

9.  In Wales, it doesn't matter.

10. Have a long bath, consider your strategy to protect your investments and assets and watch the circus.

What's going to happen?

You're going to pay more, you're going to get more of your life regulated, and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs (and a bunch of others will be eager to do stuff to affect your life).

It's grim and depressing, but it truly is the case that David Cameron is better than Ed Miliband, because of what he wont do.

Most exciting UK election in ages? Other minor parties are banal (Part Five)

Having run through the Conservatives (who want to shrink the state a little, just wont say how), Labour (who want to grow the state, and balance the budget, except the latter doesn't add up) and UKIP (who want to shrink the state a little more, except for healthcare, education and immigration), what about the others?

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats are the other party of government, who have taken a schizophrenic approach over the years since the Liberal Party merged with the breakaway Social Democrat Party in the 1980s. It was in the centre, then when Blair led the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (and the green political religion was in ascendancy) it moved left.  Now, it has spent five years supporting a Conservative government in coalition, and has been severely hammered by its voters, used to feeling morally superior by supporting policies that they knew would be highly unlikely to be tested with reality.

Given Labour's swing off to the left under Ed Miliband, the Liberal Democrats are playing the only logical card they have, by claiming to be more fiscally responsible than Labour, and more "caring" than the Conservatives.  For a libertarian this doesn't mean a lot.  The Liberal Democrats are happy to support some lower taxes, but also support new taxes on the "rich" including a mansion tax.  Beyond that it is much of the same, except for a commitment to five new environmental laws, and the Liberal Democrats are solid supporters of retaining EU membership.  What sliver of liberty remains is a belief in a slightly less criminalised approach to cannabis, solid opposition to further state surveillance powers on communications (which both Labour and the Conservatives battle to support), and a handful of candidates (such as Jeremy Browne) who are more "classical liberal").

Or indeed neither

The one thing the Liberal Democrats do have is bargaining power. This is the largest minor party that would credibly help support either major party to be in government.   The avowedly leftwing parties wont, so it is difficult to see how they can have that much bargaining power.   Yet, what really can be said of it?  It is so plagued with the disease of environmentalist unilateralism that it is difficult to see it, on economic policy, as being anything more than a hindrance.  Yet it's rather fractured approach to personal liberties is better than the two main parties (although UKIP may end up being better, it wont have the 20-30 or so MPs the Liberal Democrats are likely to have).

With few exceptions, there is no good reason to vote for a Liberal Democrat candidate.  They are, after all, usually moderate socialist politicians with a deep green tinge.  It's a shame.  The old Liberal Party, while it did have a mixed centre-leftish tinge on the welfare state, it also has a strong commitment to personal liberty, a position not comfortably held by the "tough on crime" two main parties.  The Liberal Democrats have found identity only because Labour swung off to the left, if Labour loses and returns closer to the centre, it's hard to see what the point of the Liberal Democrats is.  Yet, it is the first time one can say that the Liberal Democrats are the most likely of any of those standing, to be in government after the election.  It is difficult to see how either major party could govern without its acquiescence.

Scottish National Party

Shrill, nationalist socialism with two key motives.  First and foremost, engineer a path towards a second referendum on Scottish independence, and secondly to implement an almost Bennite approach to policy.  In the first instance, polling indicates that it could go from 6 to the majority of the 56 Scottish constituencies, if not most or all (some polls suggest all but one), and so making itself essential in propping up a Labour government (it has vowed not to ever support a "Tory" government, which it treats as poison).  So, is a price of keeping Labour in power, a path to another referendum?  Of course, if the Conservatives form a government, it feeds the absurd narrative that, yet again, Scotland is led by a government it "didn't elect".  It's absurd, because:

1. The SNP doesn't stand candidates outside Scotland, so could never be a government to lead Scotland in the absence of independence.

2. A plurality of voters in every safe seat in the country can claim they never get the government they elect half the time.  Indeed, given the majority of voters never change their vote, they can say the same thing.  

However, the SNP is riding on the back of nationalist hysteria and scapegoating, which, given it is on the far left, it claims isn't racist, but is incredibly intolerant.  Other parties in Scotland have noted that it is much more difficult than it used to be to get supporters to put placards or billboard up on their properties, because SNP supporters may vandalise them or throw bricks through their windows.  Now it's clear most wont do that, but a handful of incidents have made Scots "feardies" for good reason.  As such, it might be that the SNP "surge" isn't quite what is seemed, as many Scots quietly think they've had enough of the intolerance of the nationalist socialists.

The fact the SNP actually runs the devolved Scottish government now, but blames Westminster for any ills in Scotland, and once campaigned on all the "oil wealth" that could shower Scotland with a generous welfare state, but low oil prices have knocked that idea away.  However, it is nationalism, a psychological disorder based on pure tribalism.  Driven moreover by an utter delusion that there can be an end to so-called "austerity", because debt and deficits can be willed away.  See Greece's current state to check out that fib.

So no.  The SNP offers nothing but an anti-thesis to reason and a smaller state.  It is led by an unreconstructed fan of Michael Foot, who remains committed to the far-left foreign policy position he held.   Conservatives will delight in its evisceration of Labour in Scotland, but the SNP is far more dangerous than Labour - it seeks to use its presence in Westminster to machinate the break up of the UK, and in the meantime to demand more socialism for it.  The only bright hope for Scotland is that the Conservative leader in Scotland, Ruth Davidson, is head and shoulders above most of the Westminster Tory front bench.  However, given many of the best and brightest Scots left the country already, she will feel lucky for the Conservatives to hang onto their sole seat there.

Greens

Think Green Party and think more mad, led by a poorly prepared Australian, who is standing in a seat that she has no chance of winning.  The party that said membership of ISIS shouldn't be considered a crime or a reason to keep someone from immigrating to the UK.  A party that wants everyone to have a guaranteed welfare cheque, and engage in a spending programme the Institute for Fiscal Studies described as:

This sense that there is free money out there just waiting to flow into the Treasury’s coffers without anyone noticing reached new levels in the Green party manifesto, which claims to have identified a truly staggering £200 billion worth of tax revenue from tax avoidance, financial transactions, the rich and the wealthy.

That would be laughable if it weren’t playing into a wider narrative that there is a magic money tree that we can pluck at will. There isn’t. All these taxes, if collectable at all, are paid in the end by individuals. Many of them, especially when layered one upon the other, will have damaging economic effects.

The Greens will be lucky to retain their single seat.

Plaid Cymru

SNP in Welsh, with much less chance of winning many seats.

Ulster

In Northern Ireland, politics is mostly about which sectarian side you identify with.  On the Protestant/Unionist side it is the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)  for the hardline, and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) as more moderate.  On the Catholic/Nationalist side it is Sinn Fein for the hardline (which also takes the salary but never turns up to Westminster) and the SDLP for the moderates.  For the unaligned, the Alliance, the Conservatives and UKIP are standing.  What does it all mean?  Well the Conservatives may try to get DUP and UUP support to form a minority government.  Labour is aligned with the SDLP.  Rarely do the MPs from Northern Ireland become part of any government, it might matter more than it has for a generation this time.  Sinn Fein may be incredibly vile, but it does have the record of doing the least harm in Westminster in recent years, having never voted for any taxes or new laws (or anything).

Respect

Catholic communist appeaser of Islamism and supporter of Scottish Unionism, George Galloway, is the MP for Bradford West.  This is one seat I hope Labour snatches.

Conclusion

Nothing to see here, except people who want more of your money, who mostly want more control of your life, property or business. Beyond a handful of Liberal Democrats (one-hand), there is no reason to consider supporting any of this lot,

Most exciting UK election in ages? No to UKIP (Part Four)

UKIP is not a libertarian party.  It is not a free market party. It is not the UK equivalent of ACT.  It is a populist party with some good policies, and an outspoken leader who, sometimes, is rather good. 

So if you vote for a UKIP candidates, judge the individual on their merits, because the manifesto is a very mixed bag.

For me, in a first past the post system, a minor party better be pretty good, a decent alternative to deserve my vote.  After all, in most seats it has no hope of winning, so you might vote for it there as a statement of moral principle in support.  In those where it has a hope, it is more serious.  Is it better than the incumbent major party candidate?

So how does UKIP stack up?  Yes it wants lower taxes (although it wants a diverted profit tax too), yes it wants to leave the EU, but wants to keep agricultural subsidies.  Yes it wants to cut foreign aid, scrap the Scottish subsidy (the Barnett Formula), the HS2 vanity project, merge government departments, end fake charities, limit child benefit to two children, deregulate childcare, tighten up access to social housing, repeal the Climate Change Act and withdraw from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. 

So why the hesitancy?

It's not so much the contradictions of liberalising the smoking ban for pubs and restaurants, but wanting to ban smoking in parks and introduce a sugar tax.  It isn't the tightening of protection of Green Belts and a new planning presumption in favour of conservation.  It isn't the desire to just pour more money into the NHS and ban foreign companies from tendering to supply services.   It isn't the creation of a sovereign wealth fund from taxes on energy extraction to pay for social care for the elderly.  It isn't the higher tax on empty homes, the abolition of tertiary fees for those studying science, medicine and engineering.

It's not even the substance of the policy on immigration, which is to have what is called an "Australian style points system" for all migrants.  It is the deeper, more insidious focus of UKIP rhetoric which is to consider that for most problems in the UK, immigration is a core contributor. The problems of EU membership, in terms of regulatory hindrance and waste are obvious, and to its credit, UKIP talks about withdrawing from the EU not to engage in little Britain isolationism, but to promote more free trade with the rest of the world.  Good.

Whilst, on the face of it, there is quite a bit to like, let's not pretend what is at the centre of UKIP's support base - opposition to immigration.

Blame for many of the UK's so-called ills is laid at immigration from Eastern Europe.  Not immigration of Islamists (for which I have some sympathy in terms of national security), but of people whose families spent at least two generations previously under totalitarian communism.

NHS waiting lists? Blame immigration

Housing shortage? Blame immigration

Traffic congestion? Blame immigration

Lack of school places? Blame immigration

Lack of jobs for the unskilled? Blame immigration

Moreover, the more disturbing, economic nonsense, is that immigration lowered wages which is bad for the economy.

With the exception of the arrival of some criminal gangs, all of the problems attributed to immigration are problems of statist solutions to allocating resources, not immigration.

The NHS problem is because it is free to anyone who turns up.  The housing problem is because Councils have a legal obligation to house whoever turns up, and Councils severely limit permissions for building housing.  Roads are congested because they are poorly priced and state funding of new road capacity was severely constrained for political reasons for many years.  There is a lack of school places because funding for schools does not follow pupils and parents, and so on.

Yes, there is a real issue about a country with a welfare state, with free health, education and housing offered to those who are poor, with open borders to countries which are much poorer per capita.  Yes, there are genuine issues about serious criminals, and gangs of criminals coming to the UK with no way of intercepting them.

However, UKIP has tapped into something darker,  It's the envy dripping xenophobia of part of the British working class who don't like these new people, with their funny ways, showing us up, working longer hours, for less money than they'll take, raising families, with aspiration.   That is exactly what UKIP is tapping into, as much as many of its well meaning folk deny it.  It made a colleague of mine at work, who is Romanian, and far from unskilled, feel unwelcome and uncomfortable.  

After all Nigel Farage did say:

Any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door

Not a gang of men, as he previously said, not squatting Roma, but a "group of Romanian people". Really?  Even if I give Farage the benefit of the doubt, in not carefully using words, it's the expression of xenophobia that IS unreasonable, and unfair. 

It is this the far left have taken and run with, to claim UKIP is racist, wants to deport foreigners and hysteria.  All of which is deplorable nonsense and smears.

Yet the mere fact that the far left can play this card is because UKIP has created the space for it.  It offers absolutely no solutions to health, education, housing or transport issues that are meaningful, it wants to sustain or even worsen the status quo.  Yes, its policies on energy and climate change are laudable, and withdrawing from the EU is commendable, but playing a tune on the back of the xenophobia of many is just plain irrational and wrong.

There is another dimension, which is the EU blaming when it is not only wrong, but actually gives succour to tyranny.  For some time, UKIP has blamed the EU for the events in Ukraine, claiming the EU orchestrated the popular revolt against the Putinesque thug Yanukovych, and that somehow Putin should be admired.  Seriously?  Whilst there was definitely a Western wooing of pro-Western politicians in Ukraine, including the EU, how was this evil?  Was it wrong to encourage Ukraine to ditch the 20 years of bankrupt kleptocratic autocracy that meant its per capita income has stagnated? Yes, Ukrainian nationalists are awful, yes the Russian minority does have genuine fears, but to damn the EU more than Putin? Seriously?  As bad as the EU is, it isn't executing its opponents, and we are a long way away from Russia - just ask the former satellite states of the USSR.

So no.  I wont be voting UKIP.  Not because I disagree with some of its policies, but because they are all entirely tainted by an overwhelming emphasis on blaming resource issues that are due to statism, on the arrival of foreigners, and the result of this rhetoric is this:

Yes, I'm oh so tempted to vote UKIP for what is good in it, I'm tempted to do so to stick two fingers up at the far left fascists who have vandalised UKIP property and threatened UKIP campaigners. However, I cannot in the depths of my conscience give moral authority to a party that has deliberately played on the xenophobia of ignorant bigots - even though it is actually against Europeans!  Yet there are a few who are deserving of your vote.  Douglas Carswell in Clacton is most clearly the best hope for a more libertarian UKIP.  Nigel Farage in South Thanet, might be tempting, given how well he debates at the European Parliament, but while most of his instincts are right, he IS the leader

So what about the other minor parties?

Most exciting UK election in ages? What small government option? (Part Three)

What do the Conservatives offer?  Rebuttal of the Labour narrative?

Barely.

In fact, Labour's accusations that the Conservatives will "privatise" and "destroy" the NHS (with implications of the doomed "American style health system") are total fabrications.  Labour also claims the Conservatives will cut public spending to the level of the 1930s, which is also a fabrication.  Yes, there will be cuts, but the level of public spending as a proportion of GDP will drop to levels seen around 2000-2001 under Tony Blair, and still higher than both Australia and Switzerland. Labour implies that the sick and poor will all suffer, and its class war narrative reinforces that, regardless of how much of a fictional piece of agitprop it all is.

The Tory narrative is "we've fixed the economy, there are two million more jobs, we fixed the mess Labour left us, we've cut the deficit, we're on the path to prosperity".  That is all very well, but is there a serious attack of the core Marxist narrative of Labour?

No, not really.

The Conservatives plead, rightly, that they cut the taxes of the lowest paid, by raising the threshold where income tax gets paid, to over £10,000.  However, they don't defend cutting the top rate of tax from 50% to 45%.  They find it difficult to defend raising the threshold at which inheritance tax cuts in to £1 million.

They talk about the money they have poured into the NHS, but never rebut the narrative that the way to get better healthcare is simply to put more money into an enormous bureaucracy full of producer capture, because who can say nurses and doctors are paid too much, or are not experts on how to procure supplies for enormous enterprises very wisely? 

The Conservatives play the "tax avoidance", "tax evasion" narrative as well, but don't say it is good for people to keep their own money often enough, although to his credit David Cameron has said this occasionally.  The problem is the Conservatives have raised other taxes, like Air Passenger Duty and have never addressed the biggest problem of the tax system - its complexity.

What about business?  No, the Conservatives have not argued that big business is good for Britain, and that the best way to deliver better goods and services for consumers at reasonable prices is to lower barriers to competition.  There is little talk about enterprise, entrepreneurship and how more people ought to set up their own businesses, and grow the economy and jobs through the private sector.  Yes there are votes in that, obviously, but when HSBC is looking to leave the UK, who is going to say this is bad?

What about welfare?  Yes, the Conservatives are seen as being tough on welfare, but the only real gap identified by the IFS is that there are to be £12 billion in welfare cuts, but no one from the party will say where these will come from.  So instead of saying that we shouldn't be borrowing to sustain people on welfare, the main narrative is that the Conservatives "hate the poor".

The number one weakness the Conservatives have is that the "class war" narrative, which has been waged not so much by Labour until recently, but certainly spread amongst its foot soldiers in unions, the public sector and crucially, the education system, has taken hold.

The Conservatives are said to be the party of the "well off" and look after their interests, but Labour is the party of everyone else, and looks after them.  Not the party of individual enterprise, effort, responsibility, opportunity and freedom versus the party of large government, ever growing welfare, subsidising irresponsibility and failure, more regulation and identity politics stereotypes.  It's a view expressly commonly by young people, no doubt having been taught this by their Labour aligned teachers.

Beyond a few tax cuts, the Conservatives are mostly offering "we're not Labour", and most recently given the high polling of the Scottish National Party (meaning Labour will most likely need SNP support to get a governing majority), which is more leftwing, the narrative is "you don't want to be ruled by a government held to ransom by those who want to break up the UK, and want to vote on English laws".

It's fear, which is much less than a positive defence of the government incrementally rolling back. Because, you see, this Conservative Party is not offering much rolling back.  You see, I can have the same headlines as with Labour and you get this...

Most exciting UK election in ages? Philosophical commitment vs. capitulation (Part Two)

I was wrong.

When I first envisaged this blog post, the UK election campaign looked like a lot of "me too" ism, which moved away from the early rhetoric of Labour Leader Ed Miliband, to a middle muddle ground of mediocrity, where both major parties campaign on different versions of the same policies. Although in substance both main parties are not too far apart on most policies, the truth is there is a yawning gap, and it is one based upon not simply political philosophy, but the very notion of having a political philosophy and set of principles upon which to base policies.

In that sense, the Labour Party has got both.  The Conservative Party, has almost neither.

It's relatively easy to look at the policies of both major parties and see that the gaps between them are not significant.  Although they may joust over the economy (the Conservative claim of success) and the NHS (Labour's claim of disaster), the truth is there is little between them on both issues.  The Institute For Fiscal Studies said as much in its review of their fiscal plans.  The Conservatives would cut spending more than Labour and run an actual budget surplus, although there is no clarity about proposed cuts in welfare spending.  Labour would run a current (i.e. not capital) budget surplus, "as soon as possible", but is also unclear how it would make up the gap (it's claims of "savings", and revenue from new taxes and the perennial "crackdown on tax avoidance" are pitiful).   

On the NHS (note no one talks about health policy, but rather how much to spend on the world's biggest civilian bureaucracy), it's about "we'll spend £8 billion more" or "we'll spend £2.5 billion more per annum", both basically wanting to throw more money into the same system.  No debate, at all, about whether it is fit for purpose or whether there are better ways to deliver healthcare. 

Beyond that, there is a lot of noise about tax.  Both parties claim they will crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance, both parties claim they will get more money from the rich (who despite the top 1% paying 27% of income tax apparently should be fleeced more, in different ways).  Both have announced either direct or indirect measures to do this, Labour by increasing income tax on those earning more than £150,000 and by a wealth tax on homes worth over £2m, the Conservatives by cutting tax relief on pension contributions.

What about housing?  Well a review by Paul Cheshire, Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE, indicates that both parties are doing little to address the real issue, which is supply.  Both parties offer various fiscal bribes through either subsidies or targeted tax relief to make housing more "affordable", and Labour advocates returning to the heady days of building public housing, but Professor Cheshire says:

The illness is real but all that is on offer is snake oil; displacement activities treating some symptoms but not the underlying causes and – paradoxically – having the net effect of making the crisis worse. Perhaps that is just a little harsh on Labour but I did just hear their spokesperson offering the party’s solutions and the whole emphasis was on how the ‘market was not working so the planning system needed to be tougher’. Not so: the problem IS the planning system. It needs root and branch reform but that would take serious political courage.

The combined impacts of the Town and Country Planning Act, the power-hungry dedication of local authority planners and the banking of vast tracts of urban land as "green belts" is the problem, but no party will address any of these meaningfully.  Labour does want to introduce rent-regulation, whereas the Conservatives want to nationalise the social-housing held by privately owned Housing Associations so their tenants have a taxpayer subsidised "right to buy" them.  Neither is exactly a market oriented solution.

What about other policies?  Education?  Well, here there is more of a difference. The Conservatives have been pushing their somewhat successful "free schools" programme, which allows anyone to set up new schools, which is roundly opposed  by Labour and the teaching unions, and so Labour has promised to stop new ones being developed and to wage war on "unqualified" (read "non-unionised and not indoctrinated into state progressive teaching ideology") teachers.  Meanwhile, Labour wants to cut tuition fees, even though they don't have to be paid until a university student earns above the average wage.

How about the environment?  Who cares, thankfully (pledges on that have largely gone unnoticed).

I could easily go through a bunch of policies.  Labour's pledge to regulate energy prices, the Conservative pledge to freeze rail fares, both party's support for renewing the Trident nuclear weapons' system, but they aren't really the point.  On immigration, both want to "crack down" on immigration, except of course from the EU.

Yet what is actually going on between the two main parties is more fundamental.  Both embrace solutions to problems that are interventionist, that are sceptical about free markets.  The difference is that the Labour Party, and the Labour leader in particular - Ed Miliband - is back to its roots of Marxist rhetoric, narrative about the relationships between business and labour, and more explicitly a class based analysis of what is wrong with the UK (with some identity politics thrown in).

The Death March: Started 100 years ago today

As Aussies and Kiwis focus on ANZAC Day at present, it tends to overshadow an event, conventionally thought to have started today, a century ago, that is not as widely known as it should have been, not least because the land upon which it happened is, by and large, in complete denial of it.  The Governments of Australia and New Zealand, maintain this, presumably for convenience of trade with Turkey.  

That fact is an utter disgrace, and I give a rare credit to the Green Party for seeking to change this.

The Ottoman Empire was in trouble, the Great War, as it was then, was not going its way, and the Empire thought it had found one of the chief reasons, its scapegoat was the Armenians living in what is now Turkey, primarily because it saw Armenians as allied to Russia (which had often sided against discrimination and persecution of Armenians over previous centuries).  

There had been a history of periodic oppression of Armenians under Ottoman rule, as Armenians periodically rebelled against the inequality of treatment of the Ottoman state.  However, the catalyst for the events of a century ago came from the defeats of the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims fled from the Balkans to live in what is now Turkey, in what were predominantly Armenian areas.  These impoverished Muslims (who left many killed from war) were disenchanted by the relative comfort of the Armenian population, so a twin legacy of economic envy and "fifth column" fears emerged.  As Ottoman Muslims found it difficult to encourage Ottoman Armenians to turn against Armenians in Russia (which it was at war with), and there was genuine fear that Armenians would turn to fight with the Russians.

Armenian conscripts in the Ottoman army were demobilised, out of fear that they would switch sides. Their weapons were removed, and so it began.

Jevdet Bey, Governor of the Vilayet of Van, ordered 4000 Armenians to "volunteer" to defend the area from Russian attack, but the Armenians feared he would repeat his actions in villages of massacring Armenian men.  So they formed a self defence force, to protect a single square kilometre of the town of Algestan successfully.  On the night of the 23rd of April, the Ottoman Government rounded up 250 intellectuals and Armenian community leaders in Constantinople, and were moved to holding centres in Ankara, from where they were subsequently deported or executed.  In May, one of the triumvirate who ruled the Empire, Mehmed Talaat Pasha, ordered the deportation of Armenians.

Subsequently, Armenian property was confiscated, and hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forced at gunpoint, to leave their homes and businesses, and the towns and cities where they lived. Many were sent to march to Deir ez-Zor, in what is now Syria, crossing desert to get there.   Many starved or dehydrated in the process.  Some were shipped by rail, in a manner reminiscent to what the Nazis would replicate across Europe 25 years later. 

It was not just men of military age, but all men, women and children.  The soldiers had full carte-blanche to do as they saw fit, so in Damascus some would display women naked and sell them as chattels.  25 concentration camps had been set up to take the Armenians, where they were provided with woefully little rations in the way of food and virtually no medical attention. 

There are reports of villages being razed, with the inhabitants burned to death,  Estimates of the numbers killed range from the high hundreds of thousands to 1.5 million.  Raymond Ibrahim in The Commentator writes of the atrocities committed, saying they are not unsimilar to the actions of ISIS today, on some of the same territory.  

Turkey today denies that there was genocide, merely that Armenia collaborators with Russia were killed in war, and that the deportation wasn't forced killing, but that there was merely some starvation.  This continued obfuscation may reflect intense nationalistic pride, but it doesn't reflect evidence.  It is clear that, for a combination of historic bigotry and genuine military concern over allegiance, that the Ottoman's decided to remove Armenians from their country, not just without compensation, but in a manner than ensured many would die.

The continued denial by Turkey should shame its government, as it feeds into bigotry by some Turks against Armenians.  What's a further disgrace is that Barack Obama, even after campaigning about recognising the Armenian genocide, refuses to call it that as President. The continued obfuscation of the US President (if not Congress), and the governments of many countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and a more nuanced (gutless) position from the UK, and of course (just to show the humanity of Islam and its  opposition to Muslim led slaughter of non-Muslims) the only Muslim majority countries to recognise it are Lebanon and Syria.  

Some Armenians think that the commemoration of the events at Gallipoli are intended to take attention away from what happened to their ancestors.  I don't believe this is at all true for almost everyone who is involved in them, but it is important that we remember and note what happened.

Today, the country of Armenia is a small fraction of the territory that was Armenian dominated, and essentially represents the territory Russia won from the Ottoman Empire, minus that which it administratively carved up into other Soviet Socialist Republics.  Notably, a large Armenian enclave remains in Azerbaijan, where a sectarian conflict has periodically raged since independence of both countries.

The genocide of Armenians helped inspire the Holocaust.  It has also helped inspire Islamic State.  It is only right that today, we spend a moment to learn and remember what was done, because of their nationality and religion, to hundreds of thousands of innocent people.  It isn't about "shaming" Turkey.  It is about not forgetting when states wage the worst act any of them can do - to torture and slaughter there own people, for the crime of simply existing.

Starving child victims of the genocide of Armenians

Most exciting UK election in ages? In one sense... (Part One)

That's the line being taken by the UK media, of course every election is presented as a "once in a lifetime" chance, when it rarely ever is.

What is deemed exciting is that the polls for the past few years have indicated that neither major party is likely to win a majority of seats.  There are two reasons for that.  

Firstly, boundary changes that were recommended by the Electoral Commission, but which perversely need Parliamentary approval to be implemented, have not been.  This is largely because the current boundaries tend to favour Labour and the Liberal Democrats, because both parties have constituencies that have proportionally fewer voters than the ones currently held by the Conservatives.  So some MPs represent fewer voters, meaning their votes count proportionally more than those in others.  The Liberal Democrats refused to support the boundary changes in coalition, so for the Conservatives to win a majority of seats, the party needs, on average a 4-5% higher share of the overall vote than Labour, which would (notwithstanding the next point) have more seats than the Conservatives, even if the Conservatives had a higher proportion of the vote.  Remember, this is still the vagaries of First Past the Post (and voters rejected a mild form of electoral reform in a 2011 referendum). 

Secondly, minor parties are making a significant impact, in varying ways.  Not the Liberal Democrats, who expect to get hit because a fair proportion of its voters didn't agree with it backing the Conservatives and may feel lucky to win half the current lot of seats.  UKIP is taking support from the Conservatives in the south, but also Labour in the north (it is polling a strong second in many traditional "safe" Labour seats, primarily because of immigration-phobia, but also perceptions that Labour is a party of the so-called "metropolitan elite". It will be pleased to get at least 3 seats. The Greens are having a small impact too, mainly taking some Liberal Democrat voters (as the Liberal Democrats were the green evangelists of the past) and Labour ones, although the Green run Brighton Council's disasters and the shockingly poor performance of Australian born (yes I don't know why Australian Greens migrate to pollute the planet with their ideas) leader Natalie Bennett.  It will be surprising if it wins more than the one it has at present.

Yet none of those parties is having the impact of one that has a much smaller percentage of the UK wide vote, but which could win more seats than the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens combined.  It is the Scottish National Party.  Fresh from losing the independence referendum, it has rallied the 45% support that the independence idea gained into direct electoral support.  It is eviscerating both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, and is looking like winning most seats there.  By wiping 30-40 seats from Labour's tally of "safe seats", it looks highly unlikely that Labour could win a majority.  

So, the most likely outcomes of the election are for the largest party to try to cobble together a coalition or series of confidence and supply agreements, with one, two or even more parties, and to fail and find the second largest tries the same.

From a psephological point of view it is interesting.  The Conservatives could pair with the Liberal Democrats again, and possibly UKIP, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland might back the Conservatives, perhaps the Alliance Party could too.  However, the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP (from Northern Ireland) have all indicated they would "block" a Conservative government, and so might back Labour.  The Liberal Democrats have said the largest party in Parliament is the one it would most likely work with, but UKIP is highly unlikely to go with Labour.  The DUP hasn't ruled out supporting Labour as long as Northern Ireland got its pound of pork.  Meanwhile, Sinn Fein wont take up its seats, although there have been rumours of Labour-Sinn Fein discussions.

So from a pure who does what with whom equation, it's interesting.

My suspicion is that there will be another election later this year.

However, in terms of the variety of what is on offer, it is more nomenclature than substance, as I will write about shortly.

Proper political interviews from the UK...

Whether he stays or goes should be irrelevant, because incisive political interviewing on New Zealand television is, at best, as scarce as a Macaya Breast Spot Frog.

So for my kiwi friends, I thought I'd show you what exactly you are missing out on.  Bear in mind that while the UK is not devoid of decent political interviewing, it isn't common here, and the best of the current lot - Andrew Neil - has been prohibited, by the Conservative and Labour Parties, from interviewing the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

Why?  Because he asks straight questions, seeks sources, has research done to find contradictions between statements of others from the same party, stops politicians taking over interviews and refuses to let evasive answers be tolerated.

Enjoy, imagine this in New Zealand.... (and yes I know Lindsay Perigo would deliver, but New Zealand broadcasters have been braindead on current affairs for over 20 years now, so I've lost all hope)

Exhibit 1:  At 4:09 watch Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett get grilled on the parties far left spending spree lunacy and economic illiteracy, and belief that belonging to ISIS and Al Qaeda shouldn't be a crime in itself.

Exhibit 2: At 4:00, watch Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman tie herself up in her own party's policy contradictions, helped along by a proper interview.   

Exhibit 3: At 4:05  watch UKIP Leader Nigel Farage get grilled about the comments of some candidates (this is a year ago, before two Conservative MPs resigned, defected to UKIP and got re-elected at by-elections)

Exhibit 4: From the start, Scottish National Party Deputy Leader quizzed over its policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Exhibit 5: From 1:55 Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander, on the failures of increasing capital gains tax to raise additional revenue, including near the end, the Liberal Democrats not having paid the bill for policing at its previous conference.

Exhibit 6: From 1:04, Transport Secretary, Conservative MP Patrick McLoughlin, confronted about security at railway stations, environmental approach to transport.

 and more if you like....

John Pilger – hyperbolic fiction writer and fan of Putinesque fascism

For many years John Pilger has been the pinup polemicist of the far-left, he takes evidence and facts of actual situations, and uses them to justify his inevitable conclusion that some atrocities, suffering or disaster is the fault of Western governments and businesses.  Of course, like any decent polemicist he takes quite a bit of accuracy, points that are difficult to refute, and then uses it to hitch onto his predetermined line.

The enemy of humanity is capitalism and Western liberal democracy, and humanity’s friends are those who accept governance by socialists, nationalists, theocrats and other leaders who epitomise opposition to those enemies.  By contrast, he depicts Putin’s Russia as a proud sovereign state, ignoring blithely its suppression of dissent, and the vast corporatist gangster run corrupt economy it represents.   I can only guess it is because it reminds Pilger of his beloved USSR.

Now he has let out a vituperative narrative about the globalsituation that is long, but starts with treating the United States as morally equivalent to Nazi Germany, which should be enough to tell you what he is, a raving charlatan:

 

Had the Nazis not invaded Europe, Auschwitz and the Holocaust would not have happened. Had the United States and its satellites not initiated their war of aggression in Iraq in 2003, almost a million people would be alive today; and Islamic State, or ISIS, would not have us in thrall to its savagery.

It’s history for simpletons, and is almost laughably childish.  Yes, Auschwitz would not have happened as such as it was in Poland, but to claim that the Nazis would not have committed genocide in Germany before then is ludicrous.  To claim “almost a million” people would be alive today had Iraq not been invaded, is equally ludicrous.  Even the controversial Iraq Body Count website counts a total of one-third of that figure.  To claim even that presumes the Hussein demagogues would have not executed opponents, not invaded neighbours and not spawned proxy attacks in the Middle East.  Pilger, you see, treats the Hussein regime as having moral legitimacy and a right to exist.   It also ignores the inconvenient truth that most of the deaths were due to insurgents Pilger and his ilk supported.   

You can’t have it both ways, supporting terrorists resisting the invasion, and then blaming the other side for the people they massacre.

Furthermore, to blame ISIS on this is even more ludicrous.  ISIS was spawned in Syria, as resistance against the Assad regime (which Pilger implicitly supports, and which has always been aligned with the USSR/Russia historically), it spread to Iraq due to sectarian bigotry of the Iraqi government supported by Iran (another regime Pilger implicitly supports).  

I could go on, as pulling apart Pilger is like the proverbial shooting fish in a barrel, it’s too easy. However, given it’s too easy, I’d thought I’d summarise his turgid piece into a series of bullet points, you’ll get the picture rather quickly:

Greece votes for a dream, and it is only that

The news that Greece looks like getting a far-left government let by the soft communist Syriza Party has excited some commentators, but what is perhaps most deceptive is the claim that it is a "rejection of austerity", as if the choices to Greek people were like a menu.

In fact, the choices are far more stark, because what Greek politics is and has been ever since it joined the Euro (indeed one could say ever since it joined the European Economic Community), is an exercise is mass deception and reality evasion.

The troubles of the Greek economy are not due to "the Germans", nor are they due to "the bankers", they are due to the peculiar, though not unique, mismatch between the part of Greek society that wants money from the state (and protection for their businesses or jobs), and the part that doesn't trust the state at all, to the point that it egregiously evades taxation on a grand scale.

This mismatch used to be managed by stealthily stealing from most ordinary Greek people through continual devaluation of the drachma. 

Then it was covered by structural adjustment transfers from the EEC/EU, as Greece gained money to build transport, energy and civic infrastructure, and of course the ongoing subsidies for its agricultural sector.   When it joined the Euro, the Greek government gained access to easy borrowing in a hard currency at low interest rates, so it ran further deficits.  The OECD describes Greece's economy as thus:

In Greece, economic difficulties go deeper than the direct effects of the recent crisis and fiscal consolidation is urgent. Difficulties have been brewing for years, so when the crisis came, Greece was significantly more exposed than others. Besides the severity of its fiscal problems, Greece has, over the past several years, gradually but persistently lost international cost competitiveness, resulting in widening current account deficits, a deteriorating international investment position, and a poor record of inward foreign direct investment. 

Greece has a highly regulated protected economy, with a bloated state sector. 

Syriza wants to protect the economy even further, increase the state sector even further, cut taxes and thinks that banks in other countries, supported by taxpayers in northern European Eurozone states, will help Greece out.

There are, in effect, two paths.

Either a renegotiation of existing loans to be written off or extended is achieved, and Syriza quietly folds its promises on state sector pay, free electricity (indeed any further giveaways), and Greece remains in stasis.  or

Greece defaults on debts and leaves the Euro.

In the former scenario, it looks like at best Greece might get some easing of terms of debt repayment, but the idea that it will get half of its debt written off again, is unlikely, given the previous deal saw private Greek government bondholders accept a 50% write down of debt.  There is little real chance the Greek government could get anything from the private sector, so any further loans will be government to government.  

If Greece gets the sort of deal Syriza hopes for, it will set a precedent that Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and even French and Belgian governments will want to replicate.  At that point, you would have to wonder how much tolerance voters in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland would have for propping up their profligate southern neighbours (let alone the former communist bloc countries that went through much more radical and painful structural reforms than Greece should be facing). 

The real risk is that voters in those countries eject governments that agree to bail out other governments with their money.  After all, who wants to be seen to be bailing out Italy?  German guilt over the war can't be stretched that far.   It threatens unravelling the Euro and even the entire EU project, as parties like Syriza effectively want a fortress Europe that looks closer to the former COMECON than a customs union.

The latter scenario has seemed less likely, but I'm not so sure.  A deal gets offered to Greece that extends the terms for existing loans, in the hope that Greece engages in reforms, but ultimately Greece will run out of money.  At that point, it faces either not paying its pensions or public sector workers, or issuing a new currency, and then the Greek economy finally collapses under the weight of its fundamental contradiction.  A western European standard of living cannot be sustained with an economy that is akin to a wealthy developing country, 

The only solution to this is to reduce the costs of doing business, address the corruption within the regulatory/subsidy/state contract/tax system, remove protection for existing businesses (and jobs) and to cut the role of the state, while enabling the state to be more effective in carrying out its core responsibilities.

However, the outgoing Greek government only made modest progress on this, and Syriza is philosophically opposed to making life easier for the private sector.  Syriza believes in the state owning larger businesses and licensing/protecting smaller businesses.  It believes in a generous welfare state and public sector, and wants lower taxes on everyone except the "rich", who of course have either already left or have at least set up their accounts in a way that they are away from the hands of the taxman.

Even if Syriza does get a deal that avoids a default, it will only delay the next crisis.  An anti-business, anti-free enterprise party will continue to strangle Greece just like similar policies have done for many years.  

What's bizarre is that Greece's northern neighbours have faced much more serious levels of reform and restructuring in the past twenty years than it needs to, but they did it.  Bulgaria and Albania are both much poorer than Greece on a per capita GDP basis, but have economies in much better shape. 

The tragedy is that too many Greeks have voted for a dream that they too can convince taxpayers in other countries to buy them a standard of living they don't earn themselves, and that they can convince banks and other private investors to risk their money with a government that is unwilling to pay them back.  It is a dream, and it is about to become a nightmare. 

What I wrote before about Greece, two years ago, remains true.  

What went wrong with Greece

Greek voters have rational choices, but they reject them

Greece's tragedy should be a lesson to all

Greece for dummies. Austerity = living within your means

Greek crisis is a taste of things to come

Greece is collapse under the weight of its own contradictions

Greece's socialism catching up