UK election: Seats to watch

In a Parliament of 650 constituencies I am NOT going to review every one, but given the UK has first past the post, it is worth noting that many of those are NOT worth noting.

The bellweather seats worth keeping an eye on are:

Gillingham and Rainham: The Conservative's highest ranked target, if that can't be won it will be a bitter disappointment to the Conservatives and give Labour much cheer.

Guildford: The Liberal Democrat's highest ranked target, although it is Conservative held. If it stays Conservative, it will show the Liberal Democrat surge has not been at the expense of the Conservatives, but if it shifts it will be a big worry for Mr Cameron.

Waveney: Assuming a uniform overall swing, and no losses, this is the seat the Conservatives need to win to get a majority. It needs a 12% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, a fairly hard ask.

Rochdale: Where Gordon Brown's "bigoted women" resides. This is the number one Liberal Democrat target held by Labour. It would be very surprising to see this not fold, but if it doesn't then the Liberal Democrats will be worried indeed.

Bethnal Green and Bow: George Galloway's Marxist, Islamist party RESPECT took this seat last time round, but there have been major boundary changes (and he isn't standing in this seat). Labour will be keen to win this one back given Galloway's absence, the end of British military presence in Iraq and the lower controversy over Afghanistan. Watch Birmingham Hall Green for a similar reason, as the current leader of RESPECT, Salma Yaqoob is standing although RESPECT was not in the top three in 2005.

Poplar and Limehouse: Galloway IS standing here, but this is a very mixed constituency, including wealthy bankers living in apartments at Canary Wharf, a middle class on the Isle of Dogs and a substantial Bengali low income presence. Expect this to be three way between Conservatives, Labour and RESPECT.

Ochil and South Perthshire: This is the Scottish National Party's prime target to win from Labour, and given the high likelihood of a hung parliament, the SNP is key to play a role if it can. However, while a swing from Labour seems natural, the SNP has been burnt by the banking crisis, as some Scots no longer believe that an independent Scotland can hold out in the event of a major recession. If this doesn't go SNP, expect Scotland to be one of Labour's few areas of relative success.

Brighton Pavilion: No party gets positive coverage like the Green Party, and so it is seeking to make this its first seat. Caroline Lucas the wolf in sheeps clothing MEP and Green leader is standing in this Labour held seat. However, if she does well it is likely to be at the cost of Labour, so she might let the Tories slip in with the leftwing vote split. Watch and Norwich South and Lewisham Deptford for the same reasons.

Buckingham: Held by John Bercow, the speaker (from the Conservatives), it is a tradition that the two major parties never contest the seat held by the speaker. Now without confusing Bercow with the Scottish git who removed himself after the Parliamentary expenses scandal, there is a chance that a high anti-politics vote could remove him. The lead contender is UKIP's Nigel Farage, although there are a multitude of independents and joke parties. UKIP came second in the European elections for the UK last year, so will be keen to make this breakthrough, bringing a very different flavour to the House of Commons.

Barking: Held by Margaret Hodge for Labour, this should be a safe seat. However the big challenge comes from the BNP, as leader Nick Griffin is contesting. The BNP came a close third behind the Conservatives in 2005, and is pulling out all stops to get Griffin elected. It is unlikely he will win, as it is likely Liberal Democrat and Conservative supporters will hold their noses and vote Labour to prevent it. However, if Griffin does significantly better than the 16% the BNP got last time, it will show more than ever that parts of working class Britain still hanker to blame johnny foreigner for their own woes.

Morley and Outwood: Contested by Education Minister Ed Balls, one of the candidates on the Labour left to potentially replace Gordon Brown, this is being fought hard by the Conservatives to make a "Portillo" moment (when Conservative Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo was ousted by Labour in 1997). The odds are not high, but if it can be achieved it will be a clear sign of a sound Conservative victory.

Bury North: Number 50 in the Tory target list. If this can't be won, it will be a clear sign the Conservatives have not broken into the north and wont be the largest party in the House of Commons. 5% swing required from Labour for this seat.

Keighley: Number 100 in the Tory target list. If this can't be won, then it will be difficult for the Tories to form a majority. 10.5% swing required from Labour.

Dundee East: Labour's number one target against the SNP. A 1% swing needed here, which is possible given disenchantment at the Scottish Assembly where the SNP is in government with the Liberal Democrats.

Carmarthan West and Pembrokeshire South: A Plaid Cymru target. If this can be won, Plaid Cymru will have lined itself up for 3 or maybe 4 more seats in the House of Commons.

Hastings and Rye: The threshold at which Labour loses its majority. Assuming the Conservatives obtain an even swing of 2.5%, the loss of this seat will mean Labour cannot govern alone. However, it does not mean the Conservatives can either.

Liverpool Wavertree: Not as interesting as it might have been. A safe Labour seat with 52% of the vote in 2005, but now has a Labour-Co/op candidate (the Co-operative party is aligned with Labour and has a very low profile) who is controversial locally for being a London carpetbagger. Actor Ricky Tomlinson expressed interest in standing, given he is a Marxist, but decided not to do so for business reasons (ironically). Instead, Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party has put up a candidate endorsed by Tomlinson. The red flag flies in Liverpool?

Cambridge: Libertarian blogger Old Holborn is contesting under that very name as an independent. At least this academically inclined city has a choice that is clearly about much less government, even if you don't agree with all of his views (e.g. on Afghanistan). His campaign website is here, and he is campaigning wearing the V for Vendetta mask worn by the character "V".

Safe seat games?

It is worth for budding psephologists to look at what happens in safe seats, the obvious six worth watching are:

Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath: Gordon Brown's seat. He had 58% of the vote there in 2005, with the SNP a distant second on 14.5%. Interesting to see how many protest vote to other parties.

Witney: David Cameron's seat. He had 49% of the vote in 2005, with the Liberal Democrats second on 23%. UKIP and the Liberal Democrats may both get a boost.

Sheffield Hallam: Nick Clegg's seat. With 51% of the vote in 2005, the Conservatives are a closer second on around 30%. Protest votes unlikely here though.

Liverpool Walton: Labour's safest seat. About 73% of the vote in 2005, the Conservatives not even able to rustle up 16%. Lib Dems, BNP and a socialist candidate all hope to make inroads.

Beckenham: Safest Conservative seat. 45% in 2005 but boundary changes have significantly strengthened that.

Ross, Skye and Lochaber: Liberal Democrat's safest seat, held by former leader Charles Kennedy with around 59% of the vote. Labour a distant second on around 15%.

The Police State none of the parties will confront

The Daily Telegraph reports on the appalling story of the Baptist preacher, Dale McAlpine, who was arrested in Cumbria for saying that he believed homosexuality is "against the word of God".

"Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act."

I shouldn't have to say this, but it is the simple Voltairean precept. I disagree with what he says, but I defend his right to say it. What is Britain today when a preacher cannot say in public what he believes?

I am an atheist, I don't agree with the mindless bigotry and judgment that people of many religions apply to homosexuality and homosexuals, but that does not give the state the right to police their opinions and criminalise him. Mr. McAlpine was arrested and put in jail for seven hours before being released. Why? Because the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police was offended.

He has been released on bail on condition he does not preach in public.

How fucking DARE they stop him preaching?

THIS is how "liberal" and "progressive" the so-called "Liberal" Democrats are, hand in hand with the Labour Party which passed this legislation.

It also shows how "liberal" the Conservative Party is, running absolutely shit scared from debate on such an issue, when Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling mentioned in a private meeting that owners of B&Bs that are Christian should be able to exclude homosexuals from their own homes if they wish. That perfectly reasonable expression of respect for private property rights was hounded down by the leftwing homosexual lobby and the left more generally as harking back to the days when homosexuality was a crime.

What absolute nonsense.

The Public Order Act should be repealed or amended to make it clear that "causing offence" is not defined by expressing opinions. The only public speech that should be criminal is that which is clearly threatening.

As vile and irrational as Mr. McAlpine's views are, they are his views and it is his right to hold them and express them, as it is my right to hold the contrary and express them (which no doubt offends him).

This is the sort of case that should fire up the Conservative Party to amend the law, but it is so overly concerned about removing its vile bigoted past in how it treated homosexuals, that it wont confront a lobby that wants to criminalise alternative opinions. That isn't British, it isn't liberal and it certainly isn't a belief in the government getting out of people's lives.

If you don't like people saying homosexuality is a sin, then argue with them, make your own point, or walk away. Otherwise you may as well start arguing to prohibit religious expression and non-religious expression you don't like.

Another reason to not vote Conservative.

UK election: Infantilisation of the electorate

Perhaps the most overwhelmingly depressing part of the UK election is not the blancmange tedium of the three main parties, nor the half chance that the vile BNP might win in Barking, or the Islamist loving RESPECT in east London, nor the anti-growth Greens in Brighton. It isn't the mass evasion of the trillion pound public debt and hundred billion pound budget deficit, although that comes a close second.

It is how, as Matthew D'Ancona correctly writes in the Sunday Telegraph, the Labour Party has infantilised Britain. He says "Margaret Thatcher had saved the country from economic perdition, ended the stranglehold of the unions, and nurtured a culture of enterprise, self-reliance, and share and council house ownership. But she had not truly weaned the electorate off government: the corrosive belief that "they" – some bureaucracy, the gentleman in Whitehall – can and should do everything for us. It is the great British paradox: the only thing we dislike more than intrusion is being left to our own devices.

New Labour identified this aspect of the national psyche, encouraged it and made it the basis of an awesomely successful electoral coalition. Labour would "invest", the Tories would "cut".

Well indeed, except that this infantilisation goes well before New Labour, and has never really been addressed by the Conservatives. It goes to 1945, when British voters were offered a deal by the Labour Party which essentially was "we've run your lives during the war, let's keep doing it". So the NHS was born, and half of the economy was nationalised, and the UK's growth was stagnated for decades, not least because the social planners put so many of Britain's poor in council estates that became hothouses of despair and crime.

The infantile attitude can be seen in what almost everyone who engages in politics on televised debates or seen in streets is saying "will you spend money on xxx?". A few ask "what will you do about the deficit?", but are unlikely to like answers of "cut spending on this, put up taxes on that".

Most tellingly, infantilism is seen on healthcare. The Conservatives surrendered to it, because the idea of PAYING to go to the doctor, let alone anything else, would guarantee political oblivion, for the result would be like the wailing of babies denied a chocolate bar. It is an attitude promoted by the Labour Party, which treats the NHS as if it is sacred, as if it is the totem of a caring society, rather than a rarely copied centrally planned queuing mechanism that sucks up more and more money as demands upon it are endless.

However, the idea that "they" ought to "do something" about this or that problem, has become the childlike dependency upon government to fix problems, pay for things, and make everything better. It is the philosophy peddled openly and proudly by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the philosophy that "they" will protect families, look after "your education and NHS" (note the use of the term NHS rather than just healthcare, the means is more important than the ends). It is feeding the childlike comfort of socialism.

The Conservatives can't talk that language with the same conviction, and so that provokes fear among the infant like electorate, which Brown nurtures "you'll lose your child tax credit, the economy will be ruined, you'll lose this, you'll lose that, mean old Mr Cameron will take away your toys like that nasty Mrs Thatcher once did". Instead of confronting it head on, the Conservatives, having no solid alternative philosophy, simply evade and cave in. The Conservatives have guaranteed to increase NHS funding in real terms year on year, despite the NHS having had record increases under Labour, well above inflation. The Conservatives have also promised to keep a host of benefits and payments that Labour introduced.

Why? Because the Conservatives know that, if they want power, they need to nurture the infants, and can only wean them off of nanny state by stopping its growth, and making a few select steps back. This time the key measure to change it is education, with a watered down version of the Swedish free school voucher system, because it can undermine the local government monopoly on state schools. However, this is a pale attempt at challenging the infantilism of the left. Even then, it is unlikely that even 40% of the electorate has enough confidence in this to vote Conservative. So so many say they have always voted Labour in the past, but can't bring themselves to vote Conservative, as it would be a "betrayal", or it would be voting for the "party that looks after the rich". The slogans peddled by the left who have their claws dug into those that want dependent upon the big nanny state for their healthcare, education, housing, employment, retirement income and everything else that comes with it. Nobody has dared challenge the simple notion that if it is your money, you have every right to keep it yourself - rather than you are obliged to let others have some of it.

That is the pernicious, destructive nasty taste of envy of British class warfare. It is only exacerbated by the anachronism of the country's biggest welfare dependents in the Royal family, and the existence of the House of Lords. However, these are minor in the scheme of things. What is truly disturbing is how the state and the state's institutions have effectively left so many of those, avowedly working class, to believe that success and wealth comes primarily to those born with it, not those who aspire to it.

To challenge this, the Conservative Party offers little, it doesn't have the testicular fortitude or the circumspection to abandon what is fundamentally wrong with it - the residue of conservatism and the belief that the state is fine, as long as "we" run it, like good chaps well educated, who know how to look after everyone. You see, the Conservatives haven't a great record in reducing the size of the state. Thatcher largely only stemmed the growth of it, with the great liberalisation coming from privatisation of major industries, not the fundamental reform of the social sector.

To make a difference the UK needs is a party that has the proud liberalism that was once the Liberal Party, liberal on individual rights, but also liberal on markets and the economy. The Liberal Democrats have a veneer of social liberalism, matched with hardline leftwing state management of the economy. It needs a party that does NOT pander to the anti-immigration, old conservative rhetoric of judging people on their background not their deeds. It wont happen for this election, but it will be time for those who believe in less government to consider afterwards, what vehicle should be used to take these ideas forward. For unless the Conservative campaign has been a great con, that wont be the vehicle to do anything other than to slow down the rot.

Back to the 70s

Given this inane story, here's some ideas:

Government companies making locally built computers, TVs, shoes, ships, mobile phones, cars....

Yes the railway workshop builds freight cars, successfully, following competitive tendering. Yes it overhauls locomotives, successfully. Yes once NZ railway workshops built everything for the railway, including rivets, nails, bolts and the like - often at many many times the unit cost of importing the same. Imagine any business building all of its own components, but not selling those components to anyone else - how sustainable is that?

It just shows some idiots haven't learned from the past. New Zealand cannot economically sustain a car ASSEMBLY industry, for thousands of units per annum, let alone sustain building bespoke passenger trains and locomotives. It is worth remembering the Ministry of Commerce report in the late 1990s which stated that the cost of each car assembly job was over $100,000, for people paid a quarter of that.

Last time it assembled passenger carriages it was the 1950s (the old Wellington units about t obe replaced by new imported trains), the last locomotives assembled were a handful of shunters in the early 80s.

Of course it does raise the very real point about how stupid Labour is - given that it happily let the Wellington Regional Council order 48 new electric units being built in South Korea, while it was in power.

Still, the government shouldn't be surprised this sort of silliness is brought up, given it owns the railway and is spending half a billion of your money on the folly of a rail network that will serve the needs of perhaps 2% of all trips in Auckland, and will lose money year after year. Still, a majority of you voted for that.

UK elections: How about transport then?

I am not driven by transport policy in voting in the UK, because it isn’t that important. Good job, given how absolutely devoid of reason all three main parties their transport policies are.

How?

Labour has announced it wants to spend money, that it doesn’t have, on a high speed rail network. A network that will have a HIGHER environmental impact that the existing rail network, that will mostly attract users from existing rail services, and which would only affect domestic flights if built to Scotland for tens of billions of pounds. Note domestic flights are completely unsubsidised. This new cargo cult will mostly benefit business travellers, to an enormous cost to taxpayers. The Liberal Democrats and Tories say ME TOO! So unsurprisingly, it is easy to be cynical of politicians seeking totems for themselves. By the way, the Channel Tunnel was built, operated (and went bankrupt) with no taxpayer funding.

Labour also promises to spend more money it doesn’t have on upgrading railways, whilst maintaining a meagre programme for road expansion while it collects four times the revenue from road users as it spends on roads. The only bright side is support for a third runway at Heathrow airport, but a ban on any other airport runways being built.

Liberal Democrats are worse, with a religious opposition to road improvements, and a fetish for reopening rail lines paid for by money that doesn’t exist. The Liberal Democrats oppose airport expansion and want road pricing (which is economically rational, but not to pay for roads!). The Conservatives oppose airport expansion as well, and don’t want road pricing, except for foreign lorries. Disappointing given how the Conservatives once privatised rail (not particularly well), aviation, buses and road freight (yes the government ran a trucking company!).

So basically, don’t bother, nothing to see here. Not the slightest chance of embracing economically rational policies, so that transport users meet the costs of what they use, and for the state owned or managed infrastructure to be run to maximise efficiency. No, just continued socialism rubbing up against capitalism, with a strong taint of environmental theology.