British general election (17): how did all the polls get it so wrong?
May 9th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The failure of all the polls to predict the actual outcome of the General Election has rightly caused many questions to be asked. There is to be an inquiry commissioned by the British Polling Council into what went wrong.
But this is a wider problem than Britain, In other countries, like the USA and Israel, polls have recently got things badly wrong and some hard thinking is taking place.
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (1)
My 9th short story: “The PM And The MP”
May 9th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Enough of political reality; let’s have some political fiction.
Six years ago, I wrote a short story entitled “The PM And The MP” which features a Labour Prime Minister who is Jewish and radical. This week, Ed Miliband might have become that man in the real world – but it was not to be.
At least, you can read the story here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
My short guide to the British political system – an update following the general election
May 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
My web site contains around 170 sections. The most visited section is my short guide to the British political system and, in recent days, there have been especially large numbers checking out this section.
I’ve now updated it to take account of the recent general election and you can check it our here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
British general election (16): I officially resign as an election pundit
May 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
OK – I’ve now caught up with my sleep, having gone to bed in the early hours when the broad thrust of the General Election result was clear and I could take no more blueness. When I went to bed, I hoped that I would wake up to find that it was just a bad dream. But, when I did wake up, I found it was not just a dream – it was a nightmare.
And I did not see it coming. I broadly believed the polls. Indeed I thought that Labour would do a bit better than the polls in its key marginals and it was on that basis that I forecast a minority Labour Government.
The front page article in the “Guardian” newspaper this morning states that: “The result probably represents the biggest shock in a general election since 1945“. But 70 years ago, we did not have a whole succession of opinion polls forecasting such a consistent result and a world war, with mass mobilisation of citizens and deployment around the world, might have been expected to change social attitudes profoundly. This result in 2015 is utterly amazing. Another “Guardian” writer has written: “It is the biggest electoral revolution in the British Isles since Sinn Fein obliterated the Irish home rulers in 1918”. In 1945, the revolution was one of class; in 1918 and again in 2015, the explosion is one of nationalism.
It’s no wonder that, when the BBC and then YouGov announced their exit polls last night, so many politicians and commentators could not believe them. Famously Paddy Ashdown even promised to eat his hat if the BBC poll was correct – a rare flash of humour on a depressing night. How could the polls have got it so wrong? Either the methodology is massively flawed (although they had Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland correct) or voters lied to the pollsters or there was a huge and very last-minute swing to the Conservatives or some combination.
Let’s just remind ourselves how seismic the result has been:
- The Conservatives were all ready to experience another failure to secure a majority of seats since 1992. I was a teller for Labour on my local polling station and even my opposite number for the Tories seemed to accept that this would be the case. Instead the Conservatives won an overall majority of seats for the first time in 23 years.
- Labour was not expecting to win a majority or even necessarily the largest number of seats, but it was confident that it would win enough seats that, together with the Scottish National Party, it could block a return to No 10 by David Cameron. Last Saturday, I was at an election rally in London addressed by Ed Miliband and this was clearly the mood of the activists there. Instead Labour lost 26 seats compared to its tally last election.
- At the last General Election, the SNP took a mere six seats – the same as they did in 2005. Just eight months ago, the SNP lost a referendum on Scottish independence. Yet last night they took 56 out of 59 seats.
- Five years ago, the Liberal Democrats won 56 seats and for the last five years have been in a coalition government for the first time since the Second World War. Today they barely exist with a mere eight seats at Westminster.
- The blood is all over the walls. Three party leaders – Ed Miliband of Labour, Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems and Nigel Farage of UKIP – have resigned their roles. Labour has lost a succession of big names from the Commons including Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy. The Lib Dems have seen an electoral massacre losing Danny Alexander, Vince Cable, Ed Davey, Simon Hughes, Charles Kennedy and David Laws.
- UKIP and the Green Party have each won just one seat in spite of polling almost 4M and over 1M votes respectively – compared to the SNP’s 56 seats for under 1.5M votes. I have long been interested in electoral reform and voted for the Alternative Vote (AV) in the referendum in 2011. I guess that some version of proportional representation for Westminster elections will not be on the agenda of the newly triumphant Conservatives, but our present first-past-the-post (FPTP) system was designed for a very different political situation and needs serious change.
What happens now? Sky News has produced a list of nine things we can expect in the next five years.
At the economic and social level, we will see more austerity, more public expenditure cuts, more reductions in welfare, a weakened National Health Service, and more food banks. At the constitutional level, we will have an referendum on UK membership of the European Union and great pressure for even further devolution to Scotland. The worst case scenario is Britain out of Europe and Scotland out of Britain and a smaller, weaker, more divided nation. On the other hand, it might just be that the Conservatives implode over the EU referendum …
This has been the 12th General Election in which I have participated. I have never known anything like it. I am still shocked and bewildered and very sad.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (9)
British general election (15): today’s the day and it couldn’t be closer
May 7th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The front page article in today’s “Guardian” newspaper summarises the position this morning:
“Britain is heading for a second hung parliament in succession after the most drawn-out election campaign since the war appeared to be ending in near deadlock with Labour and the Conservatives tied at 35% each according to the preliminary results of the final Guardian/ICM campaign poll.
Ed Miliband’s party has pulled back three points on ICM’s previous campaign poll, published nine days ago, with the Conservatives remaining unchanged. Previous ICM surveys had reported Conservative leads, ranging from six to two points.
Labour’s recovery appears to have been helped by a last-week squeeze at the political fringe: Ukip and the Greens both slip back two points, to 11% and 3% respectively.
The Liberal Democrats are unchanged on 9%, a buoyant Scottish National party climbs one to a Britain-wide score of 5%. Plaid Cymru are on 1%, and other minor parties are also on 1%.
The Conservatives are still predicting that their dominant message warning against a Miliband government dependent on the votes of the Scottish nationalists will sway the many undecided voters as they enter the polling booths on Thursday.
But on the basis of the ICM survey so far, the long-promised swing back to the Conservatives in the final 72 hours before the election, the central pillar of the strategy organised by Lynton Crosby, David Cameron’s campaign manager, has not materialised.”
If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to vote now …
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
My Bank Holiday weekend cinema viewing: three very different new releases
May 6th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
First, there was the superhero blockbuster sequel “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” which I have reviewed here.
Second, I viewed the cheap and uncheerful but effective horror movie “Unfriended” which I have reviewed here.
Third, there was a new version of the Thomas Hardy story “Far From The Madding Crowd” which I have reviewed here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
British general election (14): what does my local Conservative candidate think is the key issue in his campaign?
May 3rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
I live in the constituency of Brent North in north-west London where the sitting Labour MP is Barry Gardiner who is standing for re-election and expected to win. His Conservative opponent is Luke Parker and, in an earlier posting, I highlighted how his initial leaflet supported something called “compassionate reform of the benefit system”.
Four days before actual polling day, I’ve received another flyer from him and virtually the whole of one side of it is dominated by the statement: “To fight the bin tax and build a better Brent, vote Luke Parker on Thursday 7th May”.
Now I don’t know how closely you’ve been following this election. I’ve watched all five television programmes featuring debates between and interviews with the party leaders and I’ve read a lot in print and online – and I’ve never heard anyone talk about “the bin tax”. Indeed I am pretty confident that you have no idea what Parker is talking about.
In fact, it is not a tax (which is mandatory) but a charge ( which is voluntary). If you live in the Borough of Brent, the charge is the princely sum of £40 a year to have garden waste collected from your home every two weeks or every month (depending on the time of year). We do live in Brent and we have signed up for the service and paid the charge.
There are two points to be made to Luke Parker:
1) This is a charge levied by the London Borough of Brent -which happens to be Labour-controlled – and it has absolutely nothing to do with the British Government or the British Parliament – except that boroughs are having to make such charges because central government funding to local government has been cut so much.
2) Even if this charge was a matter for national government, is it really more important than the deficit, the National Health Service, child benefit, jobs, housing, immigration, education, Europe, Trident … ?
The voters of Brent North deserve to be treated more intelligently than this.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (2)
British general election (13): why has Ed Miliband ruled out a coalition or deal with the SNP?
May 3rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Some of my Labour-leaning friends cannot understand why Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has been so categorical in ruling out a coalition or even a deal with the Scottish National Party. They look at the polls and see the likelihood of Labour and SNP together winning a majority of seats and think that the arithmetic of an anti-Conservative bloc is obvious. If only politics were so simple …
I can think of three reasons why Miliband has adopted his current stance in relation to working with the SNP:
1) Labour in Scotland is desperate to keep the SNP at arm’s length. If a coalition was on the cards now, Scottish voters would see even less reason to stay with Labour rather than switch to SNP since the consequences for the British Government would be the same arithmetically. Labour in Scotland wants to hold on to as many votes as possible (even if it loses most of its seats), so that hopefully Labour nationally can win not just the largest number of seats but also the largest number of votes which would give it more credibility in seeking to form a government. Also Labour in Scotland is looking a year down the line to the election to the Scottish Parliament when a different electoral system will enable it to win enough seats to be a credible opposition as long as it avoids melt-down now.
2) Potential Labour voters in England are concerned that a Labour/SNP Coalition Government would give the Scottish Nationalists a dangerous amount of political leverage. The Conservative Party posters of Alex Salmond picking the pocket of the Labour Prime Minister is a real fear. Floating voters feel that Scotland already gets a good deal economically from Westminster and that SNP in coalition would mean an even better deal. Many also fear the SNP position on Trident. And many are very worried that, giving the SNP too much leverage through a coalition or a deal, would mean another referendum on Scottish independence and the break-up of the UK.
3) Committed Labour voters in England are anxious about the diluting effect of any coalition or deal. The first coalition government since the Second World War has been an increasingly messy affair. Neither coalition partner was able to implement fully its manifesto and some treasured policies had to be abandoned. People voting Labour would like to feel that they will get what they vote for and, if they don’t, it will be because other parties voted against in open rather than one other party blocked the measure in the confines of a Whitehall meeting room.
So what will happen? Depending on the actual numbers of seats won by each party – which is still highly uncertain – the incumbent Government – with Tories alone or Tories and Lib Dems – may try to stay in power but, either because they can do the arithmetic or because they are defeated in the Commons, Miliband is then given the chance to form a government.
True to his word, it is a government which is not in coalition with the SNP and does not have a formal deal with the SNP (and probably the same applies to its position in relation to the Lib Dems). The minority Labour Government puts a Queen’s Speech to a Commons vote and defies the SNP to vote against it and bring down the Government. The SNP, with various oral reservations and qualifications, votes with Labour and then we get on to the normal business of Parliament which is considering Government Bills, most importantly the Finance Bill – except that this normal business will no longer be conducted in a normal manner.
Miliband has been careful to use the words “coalition” and “deal”; he has not ruled out some sort of arrangement with the SNP which will probably involve informal discussions on a Bill-by-Bill basis and sometimes even a clause-by-clause basis. This means that the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip will have critical roles in the new Government and Parliament. It means that there will be understandings, misunderstandings, narrow votes, and sometimes defeats – and we will just have to get used to this. Occasional Government defeats will not be the end of the world and, under the terms of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, will not require another General Election.
It may not mean a government for five years but it could well provide for several years of a government which, with political will, could be quite reforming. Political commentators will love it because Parliament will be endlessly uncertain and exciting. Many politicians and voters will hate it. But it’s called democracy. When the electorate has spoken, we all have to listen and act accordingly.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (8)
The changing shape and functionality of the mobile phone
May 2nd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
An inside pocket on my brown jacket
Of course, my iPhone 6 does not look a bit like this – which shows either how old my jacket is or how fast mobile technology is developing.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (0)
My 8th short story: “The Dinner Party”
May 1st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Interesting conversations can happen at a dinner party and interesting consequences can follow – those were the themes of one of my short stories. You can read it here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)