It’s nearly over after four weeks of campaigning and that has been enough for us all. (How Americans survive 9/10 months I just don’t know.) So on Thursday it’s down to the polling station to cast our votes – then normal life until 10pm when the polls close. We vote old school here with bits of paper (no hanging chads for us) so the first results probably won’t come through until just after midnight. By 2pm enough results will have emerged for some sort of pattern to be identified but, if it’s too close to call we might not know until midday on Friday because a few constituencies in far flung parts don’t do a night count.

I’ll be voting Tory and, despite much of what is written about Cameron in the right wing US blogosphere I shall not be voting with a peg on my nose.

Forget UKIP. I know that some bloggers have latched onto them as the bearers of true conservatism – shows how little they know. I certainly agree with much of their anti EU sentiment and their harder line on immigration but policies alone do not a successful party make. You also have to have a measure of confidence in the leadership cadres and UKIP totally falls down on that. Tin foil hats, revolving eyeballs and bolts in the head tell you that you’re in a UKIP meeting – it really is the world of Buffy.

Probably the majority of Brits are sniffy about the EU – but it’s not high on their agendas. The Tories tried it as a major plank in their platform in 2001 and 2005 and it was not a game changer.

Forget also about Cameron’s admiration of Obama – this is standard boiler plate here in the UK where the Styrofoam columns are still erect and the political and media elite, with a few exceptions, are in a 2008 Hopey Changey time warp. It doesn’t mean Dave has gone all Frank Rich – it’s just empty rhetoric to please the gods of the BBC.

If I had my way I would probably have had a Tory party led either by shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague – a witty, shrewd, laid back Yorkshireman – or Mayor of London Boris Johnson – like Sarah Palin so far out of the political box that the normal rules of politics simply never apply. But we have David Cameron and I, like the Daily Mail, must confess he has begun to grow on me.

The Mail had its doubts about David Cameron sometimes wondering if he was another Clegg-like heir to Blair.

But over the years and with every week of this campaign he has grown in stature displaying serious minded conservative instincts and a tungsten determination to fulfil the Tories traditional function of clearing up the mess left by Labour.

He’s a man who believes firmly in a smaller state – indeed the only one of the three who sees virtue as well as pressing necessity in cutting public spending.

Meanwhile his commitments to the family (the stoutest defence against an overweening state) and to looking after the vulnerable shine through as genuinely as his belief in strong and independent institutions.

In his favour, too, he has shown huge energy, resilience and powers of leadership in uniting his party behind him.

Cameron is quite a complex character (Mick Brown had an interesting take on him in the Telegraph) and I don’t agree with everything he says – but a successful political party in an open, democratic society must always be a coalition of similar but not identical viewpoints and the modern Conservative Party, for all its “greening” and “caring”, is essentially Thatcherite in its commitment to small government and the protection of the family – and that’s good enough for me.

This is the last pre-election message from the bunker. Message #12 will be a comment on the results and will either be stained with the tears of despair or suffused with the spirit of ecstasy – such is the burden carried by the political junkie.

So, my friends spare a thought for this lost soul in the watches of the night (more specifically the early hours of Friday, GMT) as, slumped over the laptop, I measure my country’s fate accompanied only by my trusty bottle of gin…..

BTW…….waving my fist defiantly in the face of the gods of polling and punditry let me make my prediction now……A TORY WIN WITH A SMALL OVERALL  MAJORITY…..excelsior!!!

                                            UK ELECTIONS 1987 – 2005

Just look at the electoral arithmetic for all elections since 1987 and you can see why the Lib Dems advocate electoral reform – they have never had the number of MPs that have proportionately matched their  % of the popular vote. This is because there are many constituencies where they come second. Note how in 1987 they were only just behind Labour in the % of popular votes but ended up with a tiny number of MPs!!!!!

The Conservatives also have grounds for complaint – in 2005 they were just under 3% behind Labour in the popular vote yet were behind by over 150 MPs.

The reason the system favours Labour is because urban seats, especially in the north and Scotland (which Labour tend to win) usually have a smaller number of voters than the large rural seats traditionally won by the Tories.

Notice how recently the “Other” parties have gained larger percentages of the popular vote but have not increased their number of MPs to any great extent.  When a government only has a small overall majority, however, they tend to be courted by the bigger parties.  “Others” are made up of almost entirely of regional parties from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Smaller parties like the Greens, UKIP and BNP find it very difficult to break into Parliament because their votes are spread all over the country.

The magic number this coming Thursday will be 326 – if none of the parties reach that figure then there will be a “Hung” Paliament leading either to a Coalition govt (Lib/Lab or Lib/Con) or the possibility of one party trying to muddle through each week as a minority govt…all very unpredictable…..

If you found the brief montage of the old man’s marriage in Pixar’s “Up” deeply moving then you might understand why this ad currently running on UK TV screens has had a similar impact on many viewers.
It was made for John Lewis, one of Britain’s most successful (and best loved) retail chains.
In about 90 seconds it compresses the whole life of a woman from babyhood to grandmotherhood. Only at the end is it revealed as an ad and even that is done in an understated way.

It’s a simple, linear narrative, with no particular surprises. But it is beautifully, beautifully done. And if you’re honest, it makes you yearn to be that woman – or for your wife or mother or sister to be that woman – and, of course, for your whole life to be cosseted in nice things from John Lewis.

Everything about the clip is out of sync with much of what we see on TV or in the cinema. It’s not gritty, violent, erotic or edgy. It’s incredibly old fashioned with it’s overarching message of family values and loving relationships constant through the buffets of time.
It’s just an ad – but it contains a message that says more about conservative values than a whole library of academic tomes.

In the UK National Insurance (NI) is in some ways similar to Social Security in the USA. Contributions are paid by both employers and employees. By doing so employees are entitled to certain benefits. The amount you pay depends on how much you earn and whether you are self-employed or not.

The Labour government plans to increase all contributions by 1% in April 2011 thus hoping to raise  money to protect front line services in the public sector. The Tories say if they come to power they will scrap the increase. The debate has been robust and Gordon Brown has attacked the Tories in no uncertain terms.

And so to cut six billion pounds from the economy now, as the Conservative are suggesting, would risk reversing our progress and creating a double-dip recession.

This mantra has oft been repeated by Labour speakers and the punditocracy of the left. But each time it is used it merely serves to underline the reason why there is no such thing as a prosperous socialist economy. To Brown (and other believers in the efficacy of big government like President Obama) the formula is quite simple

THE ECONOMY = THE GOVERNMENT

So let’s just get it straight, Gordon. Scrapping the 1% NI increase will not cut six billion pounds from the economy. It will still be there but, instead of flowing into the coffers of Whitehall to be then redistributed as largesse to whoever takes the government’s fancy it will remain in the pockets and purses of employees to spend or invest as they wish and keep down labour costs for employers, especially for those small businesses whose survival is essential for the recovery of our economy.

Simple….

CHATTERING CLASSES OF THE WORLD UNITE – YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR ARUGULA!!!!

Is it possible that Kathleen Parker and David Brooks were in the Guardian’s London offices a few days ago?  Or maybe that’s just my febrile imagination. But there certainly is a waft of the Parker/Brooks perfume in this Guardian piece telling us all to vote Liberal Democrat – and be “clear and proud” about it!

The Liberal Democrats were green before the other parties and remain so. Their commitment to education is bred in the bone. So is their comfort with a European project which, for all its flaws, remains central to this country’s destiny. They are willing to contemplate a British defence policy without Trident renewal. They were right about Iraq, the biggest foreign policy judgment call of the past half-century, when Labour and the Tories were both catastrophically and stupidly wrong. They have resisted the rush to the overmighty centralised state when others have not. At key moments, when tough issues of press freedom have been at stake, they have been the first to rally in support. Above all, they believe in and stand for full, not semi-skimmed, electoral reform. And they have had a revelatory campaign. Trapped in the arid, name-calling two-party politics of the House of Commons, Nick Clegg has seldom had the chance to shine. Released into the daylight of equal debate, he has given the other two parties the fright of their lives.

A newspaper that is proudly rooted in the liberal as well as the labour tradition – and whose advocacy of constitutional reform stretches back to the debates of 1831-32 – cannot ignore such a record. If not now, when? The answer is clear and proud. Now.

Whatever…..at least they left out a reference to Clegg’s perfectly creased pants.

BTW – ignore that stuff about the Lib Dems and education and decentralising the state. By definition any group of people so closely sold on the EU is committed to a bossy, interfering and bureaucratic style of government constantly telling us what we must do for our own good.

Sorry, Guardianistas, but your declaration succinctly encapsulates every reason why I would rather shove my hands into a wasps nest than vote Liberal Democrat….

A metaphor enters the material world for Gordon Brown and his regime – even the bin men want them out…..

Our current lords and masters were lining up for a photo shoot

When just a few yards away this happened

Maybe the driver, seeing Brown and his gang nearby, panicked at the thought of another five years of Labour rule….

Yesterday evening the third and final party leaders TV debate took place at Birmingham University with one week now remaining before voting on Thursday May 6^th.

Most pundits seem to agree that David Cameron came out the winner and the post debate polls appear to show the public reaching a similar conclusion. Certainly that is the message  being carried by most of the media – and it’s good for Cameron because a lot of people either didn’t watch the debate or dipped in and out of it and will therefore rely on the media’s reporting to mould their own impressions.

Why did Cameron do better this time? Partly because his opponents didn’t sparkle.  Clegg was still a pretty boy but his “the other two parties” riff, so effective in the first debate, lost its novelty value, he did a fair bit of reading from prepared notes and, more significantly, on Immigration and Europe he was playing from Liberal Democrat positions that simply do not resonate with the view on the streets.

Brown just looked like a dead man walking, pale and tired and reduced to attacking the records of previous Tory governments (after thirteen years of Labour rule not even the most dim witted of cats would drink from this ancient bowl of milk) and endlessly regurgitating swathes of statistics in the manner of some minor Soviet official lauding the achievements of an obscure ball bearing factory beneath the brooding portrait of Stalin during the second five Year Plan.

Cameron, however, scored because, as Guido Fawkes pointed out, for this debate, instead of Frum he went Palin.

There were no mentions of worthy ‘Big Society’ concepts, no vacuous ‘vote blue, go green’ slogans. Time worn, winning Tory messages were pitched; tougher immigration rules, tackling welfare dependency, lower business taxes, sound money and smaller government.   Result? Clear win for the Tory leader.

In the first two debates Cameron had played safe, appearing to adopt a David Frum strategy of avoiding treading on the sensitive toes of the cultural “elite”. But this time he went ‘Cuda, hitting on those hot button issues that resonate with the man and woman in the street but embarrass those who fancy themselves as intellectually superior.

Like Palin in America he didn’t pitch for the approval of the chattering classes in London NW1 – the BBC panjandrums, the Guardianistas and all the well heeled high earners who care so much for the downtrodden but holiday in their Tuscan villas and send their offspring to expensive fee paying schools. His message was aimed at those ordinary mortals whose lives and aspirations have suffered by the imposition of policies designed mainly to allow the guests at North London dinner parties to bask in the glow of their own self righteousness – and it worked.

Will this translate into enough votes next Thursday to ensure a working overall majority for the Tories?  That’s the difficult question because the dice have not yet finished rolling  and nothing should be taken for granted. But, after this performance, Cameron and his party would appear to be in a better position as they enter the final strait than they were a fortnight ago after that initial eruption of Cleggmania.

Love this phrase from Troglopundit

If Gordon Brown were an American liberal politician, the media would already be reporting on this woman’s tax returns.

One thing you can say about the British press, left or right, there is very little respect for politicians and they will quite happily rip out your gonads whoever you are…..

Gillian Duffy, a 66 year old widow from Rochdale in the north of England lost her husband to cancer four years ago. She has a daughter and two grandchildren and it seems that, before she retired, she worked for the local council helping handicapped children. She is a core working class Labour voter who would no more consider voting Tory than fly to the moon. She spoke to Gordon Brown while he was out pressing the flesh, voiced one or two concerns and afterwards said she had been pleased with his answers and would be voting for him.

So far so good – Mrs Duffy is exactly the sort of person Brown needs to connect with to recover Labour’s position in the polls and he handled her rather well.

Then he blew the whole thing when he climbed back into his car. Not realising that his mike was still switched on he launched into an angry rant

He told an aide: “That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?”

When the aide said they did not know who was responsible, the Prime Minister snapped: “ridiculous”.

His companion suggested that television crews who filmed the encounter, in a residential street in Rochdale, would not broadcast it.

But Mr. Brown said: “They will use it.”

The aide asked what Mrs. Duffy had said, and Mr. Brown replied: “Everything. She’s just a sort of bigoted woman who says she used to be Labour.”

What had been Mrs. Duffy’s crime? She had told him she was concerned for her grandchildren’s future over issues like the national debt, university tuition fees and the levels of immigration – and it was the remark about immigration that triggered off Brown’s rant.

For years the issue of uncontrolled immigration has been a major concern for people like Mrs. Duffy who, because they do not live in the leafy suburban enclaves inhabited by the wealthy chattering classes who dominate the world of media and politics, are the ones who have to confront daily the pressures placed on housing, schools and health services by a massive influx of immigrants both legal and illegal. But for decades the political classes of all the main parties have refused to recognise this concern as legitimate, suppressing any debate with accusations of racism and bigotry. The result? The emergence of the British National Party (BNP) as a political force to be reckoned with in certain parts of the country.

At last, realising the dangers of keeping the lid closed down on debate, politicians have started making vague noises about tougher regulation but what the Brown incident truly illustrates is the contempt that people like him feel for the ordinary folk they claim to represent. The most terrifying feature of the whole incident is the light it sheds on the moment the mask slips once a hack like Brown slips back into his protected bubble – and this poses an additional question – which is the real Mr. Brown? Is it the affable chap asking after Mrs. Duffy’s family or the bad tempered and sneering creature looking for a staffer to blame for getting him involved with the lady.

Damage limitation programmes immediately came on stream once the Labour spin doctors realised how much stuff was hitting the fan. Apologies have been profuse but in a way that merely serves to underline the extent of the hypocrisy.

The stench is overpowering…..

Although the polls have apparently settled into a pattern with Tories ahead in the mid thirties, Liberal Democrats around thirty and Labour one or two points below the Lib Dems the runes are still difficult to read. With figures like that no party would have an overall majority (i.e. 51% of MPs) – however, as I have mentioned before, these national samples might well camouflage regional variations and I am still sticking my neck out for a narrow Tory overall majority.

Nevertheless there is still much talk of a ”Hung Parliament” and that would raise some interesting constitutional issues. Remember that Gordon Brown is the Queen’s first minister and if there was no leader with enough MPs to guarantee a majority HM would be involved in the process of selecting a new PM although she would not be involved in any negotiations. Her power, however, rests in the fact that she could refuse a request for dissolution of Parliament (a new election) from a PM if she felt somebody else could form a viable administration.

UK Polling Report succinctly spells out the key constitutional facts

1) The prime minister remains the Prime Minister until he resigns. Even if he has lost his majority or is no longer the largest party, the PM remains PM until he resigns. It is his right, if he wishes, to wait until Parliament reassembles and to try and get approval for a Queen’s speech, even if he does not lead the largest party.

2) The Queen’s government must continue. When the Prime Minister resigns the Queen immediately invites someone else to replace him, in the knowledge that they will accept. The Palace will not allow there to be a period without government.

3) The Queen will not involve itself in anything that could be construed as being partisan, and does not personally involve herself in negotiations – though the Palace will closely follow the progress of negotiations.

4) Should the Prime Minister resign, the Queen will invite the person most capable of commanding a majority in the Commons (or at least, getting a Queen’s Speech and budget past the House). That will normally be the leader of the largest party, but it doesn’t have to be.

5) Should a Prime Minister loose a vote of confidence, or something regarded as a vote of confidence like the vote on the Queens Speech, they must resign or request dissolution. A dissolution remains the personal power of the monarch, and she may refuse if the Parliament has only just been elected and there is a chance of an alternative government.

For those who find it curious that the monarch still retains this tiny measure of authority remember that, although she has to always appear non partisan, Elizabeth II has met all her Prime Ministers once a week for nearly sixty years – she probably knows more about the mechanisms of UK government than anyone else alive……