Mr Cameron is completely right. I must admit, that isn't something I say all that often. But in this case he is one hundred per cent absolutely correct. What has led to this?
Well, this headline in the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5690836/Deceit-over-cuts-wil-lead-to-riots-says-David-Cameron.html):
'Deceit over cuts will lead to riots', says David Cameron
Basically, Cameron is arguing that spending cuts are necessary (an idea that most reasonable people accept - the British budget deficit is massive, and the country faces losing a credit rating notch, which would be a fiscal disaster). However, he is taking the argument further today, claiming that an attempt by Labour to go into the next election with a manifesto that promised spending would stay the same or increase would make the inevitable cuts much more politically painful. Up to the point, claims Cameron, where people would riot in the streets and lose what little respect they have left for the political class.
Cameron is correct (although maybe overdoing it a bit with the whole riots thing). If Labour try to pretend that they will not have to cut spending during the election campaign (which they are still brazenly doing), then when they inevitably have to cut spending to fill the gigantic hole they have dug for themselves (unless they plan to go back to the 1970's of confiscatory taxes) it will be a final nail in the coffin of respect for Parliament, Government and the political system. It is betrayals like this that permit extremist parties access to mainstream people, and more importantly, their vote.
I love the British Parliament. I love it's institutional organisation, I love the building it is housed in, and I love the way it is run (with Opposition days, snap debates etc). However, there is one area that the New Zealand Parliament could possibly teach the British system something. That is in the field of Prime Ministers Questions (PMQ's) and other Ministerial question times.
People always complain about 'yaa-boo' politics, especially in PMQ's, where the Leader of the Opposition gets up and asks long questions (more like short speeches) in an attempt to embarass the Prime Minister, then the Prime Minister stands up and usually ignores the question or touches on it in the most cursory way, then makes a short address that usually involves the policies of the Opposition parties. The answer to this is not in the personalities of the Members involved. Every Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have come in pledging to end the 'Punch and Judy' politics (including both David Cameron and Gordon Brown), before reverting to type. The answer lies in the Speaker and the rules of the question times.
In New Zealand, an MP or Shadow Minister is allowed to ask a short question only (although they are allowed supplementary questions), and are usually prevented from overly editorialising in their questions. But in response the Minister must answer the question, and if they fail to do so, the Member who asked the question is fully within his rights to raise and point of order and demand an answer (and this happens more often than one might expect). Speakers are particularly strict (usually) on questions involving numbers: for example "Could the Minister tell the House how many people are currently waiting for operations on the public health waiting lists?" Now, there will be editorialising by the Minister (such as "Health spending has increased by a billion pounds since this government took over" etc), but if they do not provide the numbers then the Speaker will often demand they answer the question a second time, providing the information.
Now, obviously it isn't as rosy as the previous paragraph makes out. The Minister will still often evade the intent of the question without reprimand, and the last two Speakers (prior to the current Speaker) almost destroyed the point of question time through removing the requirement for Ministers to answer the question (they were instead permitted to 'address the question', which meant they could say almost anything). However, giving the Speaker further powers and abilities to compel answers from Ministers may lead to more reasoned questioning sessions, since Opposition members may feel that they can actually gain something from asking policy questions.
Sucks to be the Tories. Looks like Bercow is the new Speaker of the House of Commons. Who'd have thought? Interestingly, I was at a party until after the results came out, and I heard two very different versions of how Bercow got the votes to win. One (from an irate Tory) was that Labour had whipped their votes behind Bercow in order to 'stick it' to David Cameron (on the premise that a Speaker, once chosen, cannot be removed except in truly exception circumstances), so now the Tories will be stuck with a Speaker who they don't particularly like if they win the next election. This particular person was enraged at Labour, claiming it was Labour using their majority (insofar as Labour voted Bercow, and every other party voted for someone else). Strangely enough, across the floor at the same party, I came across a dejected Liberal Democrat who was deeply depressed at the result for Speaker, and particularly upset because he claimed the Lib Dems had thrown their votes behind Bercow and gotten him over the line.
Obviously with a secret ballot we will never know who voted for whom in the Speakers election. But funny that there should be two people in different parties, both of whom are upset at different people for the same result. Of course, Labour doesn't really care... their candidate (Margaret Beckett) got hammered, so after that is was a pick of two Conservatives...
The House of Commons is currently meeting to decide on their new Speaker. Who will replace Michael Martin in the gown of office in (titularly, at least) the most powerful position in Parliament? The results from the first ballot have come in, and no surprise to see no-one has received anything close to the 50% of the ballot. The results are: John Bercow (Conservative): 179 votes Sir George Young (C): 112 votes Margaret Beckett (Labour): 74 votes Sir Alan Haselhurst (C): 66 votes Sir Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat): 55 votes Ann Widdecombe (C): 44 votes
Parmjit Dhanda (L): 26 votes Richard Shepherd (C): 15 votes Sir Patrick Cormack (C): 13 votes Sir Michael Lord (C): 9 votes
The four lowest vote getters (all of whom received under 5%) are all knocked out. Surprisingly none of the others dropped out. Surprising only insofar that people like Ann Widdecombe and Sir Alan Haselhurst can hardly expect a huge jump in support considering there are 63 votes at stake (unless they expect to pick up most or all of them). What will be very interesting is to see what happens to Margaret Beckett's support. In the last day or two she had become the bookies favourite to win (at 2/1), and her third place in the opening ballot cannot be what she was hoping for. There was a news story yesterday claiming that Labour was whipping it's vote behind her. If they did, they've done a particularly bad job of it. Another interesting thing to note is that Labour MP's have been perfectly willing to support Conservatives for the Speakership. Labour candidates between them have received only 100 votes.
Another interesting point is what will happen to the Tory vote in later rounds. John Bercow, who is currently in the lead, is the man many Tories dislike intensely. He has moved from the far-right to the far-left of the party, and is known for a willingness to attack his own side. It is likely that much of his support comes from Labour. It will be facsinating to see if the Tories unite around one candidate in the next round in an attempt to keep Bercow out of the Speakers chair...
Part of the debate of how to make Parliament more accountable and democratic has been the red herring of reforming the House of Lords. This has been a particular bugbear for the left for many years, with the idea being that a group of unrepresentative, undemocratic, rich Tories were blocking the will of the people from being implemented.
However, this is no longer the case. Since Labour's removal of hereditary peers during their first term of office, and really since the Parliament Act which forbade the Lords from blocking a Commons bill more than three times (and later conventions and amendments that make it almost impossible for the Lords to block money bills or manifesto commitments), the Lords has become, I would argue, pretty much the perfect second chamber.
This may sound odd, and more importantly may sound like another example of a hide-bound conservative supporting the House of Lords because it is a) old, and b) has a lot more Conservatives in it than the Commons at the moment. However, I would argue that an appointed upper chamber is a great advantage in Britain, and the House of Lords in it's current form is the best system for it.
There are three main reasons why I think the House of Lords as constituted is the best form of Upper House for Britain (and let me say from the outset that I do not think that an appointed upper chamber is the best method everywhere. In fact, it is only because of the particular history of the Lords that it works in Britain - or to put it another way, if the House of Lords did not already exist, a country couldn't create it). There reasons are lack of democratic accountability (and thus a lack of mandate), the ability to have non-elected people become Ministers of the Crown, and representation and independence.
The big reason, for me, for the continuation of the House of Lords in its current state is the lack of democratic accountability. This may sound like a very strange thing to say, so let me put it another way. The House of Lords is unelected, therefore it has no mandate. Prior to the Parliament Act, the situation was intolerable where you might have the unelected Lords blocking laws with popular approval from the Commons. Today, however, you have a chamber which has been shorn of the power to do anything other than delay and amend legislation. Were the Lords to be replaced by an elected body, the sheer physics of legislative creep mean it is unlikely that a 'senate' or any other elected chamber would be willing to maintain the subservient position of the House of Lords. And, frankly, were a second chamber to have its own elected mandate then it would be right to claim powers equal to the House of Commons. In America we have seen this system further entrench the partisan divide in Washington, but also lead to gridlock between the two Houses of Congress, as different versions of the same law are often introduced, requiring long debate and negotiation even on laws where both houses broadly agree on the general proposal. But the House of Lords could never claim these powers. Therefore, the House of Lords has become (and even accepted as such by many in the House of Commons) the main scrutiniser of legislation.
The second reason is the ability to use non-elected people as Ministers. Many people have been lately decrying the selection of Sir Alan Sugar as the new 'Enterprise Tsar' (whatever that means... but it does mean his elevation to the Lords), which seems ironic, since that many of those same members of the chattering classes have been saying how wonderful the American and French cabinet systems are (where anyone, whether elected or not, can be invited to sit in Cabinet). I argue quite the opposite. I think it is a great strength to be able to select someone who the Prime Minister considers to be the best for the job, even if that person may not have been elected. Now of course, the backbone of British-style democracy is that the Government must be accountable to Parliament, and must therefore sit in Parliament. So, appointing someone from outside the political world would be impossible without a chamber that is appointed, since without the appointed House of Lords, such a 'non-political' person would have to wait for a by-election, stand for it, and win it before they could take on their ministerial duties. An appointed House of Lords gives the Prime Minister the opportunity to select whoever they think may be best for the particular government role, and it also give those who would be unlikely to reach a Ministerial position in an elected chamber (for example, Lord Miners or Sir Alan Sugar, who both have spent their careers in business and are therefore unlikely to have the inclination to either stand for Parliament, or to sit on the backbenches once they got there) or those who would be unlikely to be chosen as a party candidate the ability to help the country by being part of the Government.
The third reason ties in somewhat with the first. Because the members of the House of Lords are appointed for life, this gives the members great freedom from both the electorate and party whips when it comes to amending or delaying legislation. In the Commons the party whips wield immense power (as do the party hierarchy), because they can make ore break the Parliamentary careers of most politicians. Any desires that a backbencher might have of higher office (and there would be VERY few who could say with a straight face they have no such desire) are reliant on the party leadership. It is difficult for MP's to vote against the party on contentious issues where the party is three-line whipping (as in, pulling out all the stops to get MP's to vote the party line). However, the Lords (for the most part) have no such ambitions, and considering the largest bloc of Lords sit aloof from any party, this reduces the power of party whips further. Take, for example, the attempts by the Government last year to extend to 42 days the amount of time police could hold suspects without charge. The Government was successfully able to pass the legislation through the Commons on a knife-edge vote. The Lords voted down the bill by such a majority that the Government's case was irreparably damaged and the law was shelved. The fact that the Lords do not have to run for election also gives them the stand as a bailiwick against hasty and ill-prepared legislation being brought in as a response to a particular issue that has enraged the public. Now, of course I will never attempt to argue that the Lords always lives up to this Utopian picture I have painted. Of course there have been times where the Lords has happily passed through legislation without amendment that turned out to be ill-advised or had large loopholes. But an unelected chamber has the ability to hold up bills for scrutiny in the face of public and governmental demands in a way in which no elected chamber could.
There is one other small argument for the retention of the House of Lords. Money. Interestingly, a quick look through the Lords expenses shows a much cheaper house than it's elected cousin. Lord are not paid salaries, and can claim expenses only for sitting days they actually attend. The average Lord receives (this is a non-scientific perusal of the expenses documents) around 40,000 pounds a year, including office expenses (although this exclude a large number of Lord who claim little or nothing on expenses). An elected body would be significantly more expensive to run.
I've recently started a little project about the national health service (NHS) and I stumbled across this on BBC that got me thinking:
A nurse who secretly filmed for the BBC to reveal the neglect of elderly patients at a hospital has been struck off for misconduct.
Margaret Haywood, 58, filmed at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton for a BBC Panorama programme in July 2005.
She was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council which said she failed to "follow her obligations as a nurse".
Ms Haywood, a nurse for over 20 years, said she thought she had been treated harshly and had put patients first.
Now, I have never thought deeply about whistle blowing before. In the previous times I have seen it, it has usually been done by members of the public service who are unhappy with a government's decision, and have then leaked that information to the press. This, I must admit, I have not always felt comfortable with. This story has led me to take a new look at whistle blowers in general. This highly experience nurse saw the terrible level of care her patients were receiving from the hospital and other staff members and worked with the media to bring this information to light. Now she has been struck off the nursing register for it, on the basis that her filming of patients was without their consent. 'OK', so I thought, 'well, we don't want ourselves being shown in these kind of situations on national television without our consent'. However, it turns out that the BBC obtained the consent of everyone who appeared on television (or their relatives if the patient was in no state to give informed consent).
As far as I can see, both the BBC and the nurse acted both correctly and with integrity. It is deeply worrying that if there are (and I'm sure we can all accept that there are) failings within the public health system that anyone who tries to bring attention to this is not only fired from their job but struck off the medical register. It is disappointing that the Labour Government's vaunted whistle blowers protection system has failed to utterly miserably.
If we need a strong and independent media for a fully formed democracy, we need to make sure people cannot be have such an extreme sanction placed upon them simply for speaking out about a situation such as this. This culture of punishing the whistle blower breeds and nurtures the faceless unaccountable bureaucracy who cannot be brought to account by those they serve, and cannot have their failings brought to public light. Only by lifting the rock on the failings of the NHS, or any other public service provider, can we (the taxpayer - remember us?) be certain that our fellow human beings are receiving the level of care they deserve, and also that we are getting value for the billions we pump into our public services.
One of the more disappointing (but not unexpected) results from the European Elections was the rise of the British National Party. Unlike both the National Front or even the British Union of Fascists (the British sister group to Hitler and Mussolini's parties), the BNP has now won seats at both Council and European level, and must now be considered a real threat to the established system. Nearly one million British people went into a polling booth last Thursday and put a tick next to the BNP.
Before I go any further, let's have some perspective. Fewer people voted BNP that voted for them in the 2004 European Election. Because of the woeful turnout, a smaller number of votes was able to achieve a much greater result for the BNP. And despite their successes at Council and European level, there did not seem to be anything in the results that the BNP are likely to come within cooee of winning a Westminster seat, or even of winning control of a Council. While there are a sizable number of people voting BNP, they are still a small minority, and there is no chance of the next election bringing a huge number of fascists into the Parliament where Churchill led the fight against Hitler.
So what does it mean for British politics? Well, first it means that there is a very sizable group of people who are very angry. Whether they are simply angry because of the expenses scandal, or whether there is a deeper anger over immigration and so-called reverse racism is a difficult question, and one I cannot hope to answer. However, I would point out that the Conservatives ran in 2005 on a strong immigration platform, and yet seemed to make no headway whatsoever in the North. Indeed, in a number of urban northern English seats the Conservative vote did not increase at all, or even fell from 2001. This would apparently indicate that in 2005 immigration was not the defining issue for large numbers of northern voters. It would be ironic in the extreme if immigration became the major issue for many voters now, just as large numbers of the Eastern European immigrants who came to the UK are going home because of the financial crisis.
But for those who are angry about immigration, it shows two things. One is that the major parties are not appealing or are not even discussing the problems that immigration has brought with it. As the rise of UKIP shows that Labour have failed to make the case in favour of Europe to a large part of the electorate, the BNP vote shows that the government has also failed to make the argument in favour of immigration. And that Labour has failed to spend enough money to make sure public services keep up with the increases in population that immigration brings. When an 'English' person can't get a council house because they are filled with immigrants (one of the main causes of anger against immigrants), the fault lies not with immigration itself, but with a government that has completely failed to either plan for the influx of immigration, or (once these issues became obvious) spend the money required for maintaining public services.
The second point is that over the last fifteen years, the word 'racism' has been so overused that it has lost the power to shape people's opinions. Fifteen, even ten years ago, a party being called 'racist' would probably have been enough to turn normal people away from it. But over that period allegations of racism have been so widespread, and often deployed against the most innocuous targets, that the power of the word has gone. To put it another way, so many things have been called racist in recent years that when something truly racist like the BNP comes along, attacking it for being racist no longer has the same power. It is a real shame that this has happened.
So, what next? Well, the biggest thing that must not happen (and both government and opposition MP's have done very well at this so far) is to paint everyone who voted BNP as racists. They are not all racists. Probably only a small minority of people who voted for the party actually believe in a 'whites-only' party. Labelling all BNP voters as racist will push this sizable minority further away from engagement with the major parties. Following this, there must also be a real look into the effects of immigration on people in the industrial cities of the north, and how they can be alleviated. Rather than looking narrowly at immigration, the conversation must now turn to provision of services so there will be enough for everyone. Major reforms will be required that will make service providers more accountable to the people they provide them to. Council housing stock must be repaired and the government must create conditions to increase the amount of new houses being built in inner city areas. And the major parties must make the argument to the people of Britain that immigration is a good thing. Simply rolling their collective eyes at the ceiling when someone brings it up, or claiming the person raising the issue is racist is not good enough. If immigration is a good thing (and I believe it is), then the major parties have a duty to tell the people of Britain why this is.
Finally, however, the results also show us the dangers of proportional representation. It has allowed a party that would almost certainly never win a seat in Westminster to sneak in in last place in two regions because of the voting system. Proportional representation in Westminster would see similar outcomes. As a matter of interest, I put in the pure vote totals into the New Zealand electoral website (that allows an estimation of a percentage of seats won according to a different proportional representation system, the St Lague formula, which is a favourite of many who call for PR in Britain). It shows that for Labour to form a government they would have to ally with the Lib Dems, the Greens and either the BNP or UKIP. The Tories would have an equally difficult task of forming a government. PR gives fringe and extremist parties both the chance to get into Parliament, and also power over the formation of government far above and beyond their vote share.
The big question swirling around the ether this evening is whether Gordon Brown will be removed as Prime Minister after a rebellion in the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is meeting this evening. Most commentators seem to be discussing whether Labour will or will not remove their leader, an act of regicide that (it must be said) has become more of a Conservative phenomenon than a Labour one. However, few seem to be discussing whether this would or would not be a good move for Labour. Of course, it is a matter of opinion (hence the deep divisions between the factions in Labour), so I will attempt to lay out why or why not Labour should make an effort to remove Brown as leader as soon as possible.
Since I am feeling contrary (and also because it represents the status quo), I will start with reasons why they should NOT remove Mr Brown:
1) Disunity destroys Governments (or, the 'put up or shut up' argument) - We have seen both pro- and anti-Gordon Brown groups coming to light from across the Labour party, factions that appear to have little in common and an apparent disdain for one another (at least in public). As the Conservatives deservedly learnt from 1992 to 1997, constant sniping and opposition to the leader leads to people viewing the party as concerned with only internal matters and not with the country. One could argue that the Labour challengers have had long enough to make their push for Brown's removal (heavens knows he has given the would be assassins enough chances), and since they haven't put up, they must now shut up for the good of the party and the country.
2) An immediate General Election (or the 'do you want to lose your seat' argument) - This one is a little more specious (see below), but the argument being put very well (allegedly) by Lord Mandelson is that should Gordon Brown be rolled by the party, his successor would be required to call an immediate election. As recent results in County and European elections have shown, Labour would certainly go down to defeat, and could face the kind of wipeout that the Tories endured in 1997, and the same long, painful period in Opposition. With Brown remaining at the helm, there is almost another year before the next General Election. It is possible that Labour will have recovered enough support by then to make a tilt at a fourth election victory with the expenses scandal out of the way, and perhaps the start of an economic recovery. Having said that, John Major probably thought the same way.
3) A new leader would be more hamstrung than Brown (or the 'smack of firm government' argument) - This line of argument basically says that if Brown were to be replaced, then his replacement would have less authority to make the radical changes that some in the Labour Party (including Mr Brown) think necessary to right the listing ship of state. Mr Brown has been hinting of drastic public service reforms (while at the same time going soft on Royal Main part-privatisation) and radical changes to Parliament (more on this particular chestnut later). Could a new leader, elected after a scrabbily and highly divisive removal of Mr Brown (and possibly an equally divisive leadership race between the potential successors) be able to command the authority to push through these reforms, which would almost certainly be opposed by a section of the Party?
and finally 4) Who would replace him? (or the 'do you really want Harriet Harman/Ed Milliband as leader?' argument) - While the media have been practically crowning Alan Johnson (formerly Heath Secretary, now Home Secretary) as the replacement leader for Gordon Brown, he is not the only potential candidate, and if Brown was removed or forced to quit in circumstances that were public and acrimonious (such as an official leadership challenge), then others may throw themselves into the race. Harriet Harman and Ed Milliband (despite his repeated failings to show the gumption required for claiming the position of leader) may well offer themselves to the Party as alternatives. Milliband is an arch-Blairite and disliked intensely by most of Brown's supporters, and that was even before he openly challenged the Prime Minister last year. Harman is considered to be a leader on the left of the party, and is apparently widely disliked and feared by rightists and Blairites. Some on both of the Labour party's wings might decide that it would be better to leave Brown where he is, rather than risk getting someone (they would consider) far worse.
Next are the arguments for the prosecution, or why Brown should be removed:
1) It can't get any worse - This is the big one for many Labour MP's. European results last night broken down into Councils painted a very frightening picture for Labour MP's, including some ministers. In some safe Labour districts Labour was pushed into second or even third place. Edinburgh, which is home to the constituency of the Chancellor, had Labour in third place behind the Tories and the SNP. Indeed, in the Council that has the Prime Minister's own constituency, Labour only beat out the SNP by about 200 votes. And if the results in Wales and Scotland (not to mention North England) were repeated in a General Election, the result would be far more catastrophic for Labour than '97 was for the Tories. Why do I say this? Because if the results for Scotland were even close in a General Election to what they received last night, then Labour could be annihilated in East Scotland, and have their number of Scottish MP's reduced to 14 (out of 59). In Wales, they could lose 17 of their 31 Welsh MP's. This is a BIG DEAL for Labour, because come what may when they lost to the Tories, they always could recouperate in Wales and Scotland, which the Tories rarely if ever intruded. However, with the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties offering a real alternative, Labour can't take these seats for granted. This means that the results from last night may affect Labour more than other recent defeats. And it means that putting a new man at the steering wheel may save some of the worse elements of a defeat.
2) Who says there has to be a General Election? - Everyone, from Lord Mandelson to Nick Robinson on the BBC to some random bloke I met waiting for a bus this afternoon says that if Labour were to change their leader, there would have to be an immediate election. Nonsense. There is absolutely nothing in the constitution that requires it, and Gordon Brown was perfectly happy to take over as leader of Labour and as Prime Minister without an immediate election (as was John Major as Conservative leader after the fall of Thatcher). So the idea that Labour would have to hold an immediate election because yet another unelected leader has taken office rings a little hollow, as was pointed out by Baroness Blackstone in the Evening Standard. While of course the Tories would demand an immediate election, and the polls would likely demand it as well, frankly the Tories have been demanding an election for months, and the public have supposedly (according to polling) been wanting one since the expenses scandal broke. Why listen to either just because you have a new leader?
3) A new leader could save some seats - This argument posits that the public feeling is anti-Brown, rather than anti-Labour. The belief is that a nice new leader, like Alan Johnson or Jack Straw, could come in, do a couple of things, take the heat out of the expenses scandal by reforming the system (especially Straw, who has a background in constitutional reform and is current Justice Secretary), then call the (supposedly) required early General Election and lose, but probably save a few dozen Labour MP's while doing so. After last nights results, expect some of the more marginal Labour MP's to be considering this.
What do I think? For what it is worth, I think they should fire Brown. I think that, like Major, this Government is almost (always a caveat) certain to go down to defeat in the next General Election whenever it is. I believe that the result for Labour would be better if they replace Brown with Johnson, who has a very good backstory and is someone who Labour's heartland vote could probably identify with (a former postman and union official). And frankly, I think that Government's like this one will slide from disaster to disaster, and another year of torment will only serve to give Labour voters more time to consider their vote, and to reconsider the Liberal Democrats as an alternative (or, God forbid, the BNP). And finally, on a purely political level, I think that an early General Election may help Labour more than waiting until an economic recovery. Labour's constant (and incorrect) argument that the Tories would do nothing to help people during a recession might not have the same resonance once Britain is out of the worst of the recession and looking at new growth.
No change in Scotland seat-wise. As expected, Labour have come in a very distant second to the Scottish National Party. No joy for the Tories either though, as they failed to capitalise on Labour's collapsing vote, and in fact garnered slightly less of the vote than in 2004.
Most of the final results are in (except Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland, where they do not count on a Sunday) and it is worse for Labour than I expected even as I went to bed this morning. While I expect Labour's vote share to go up after the results from Scotland to come in (but even there, preliminary counting shows Labour well behind the Scottish National Party on about 20-21%), currently they are sitting on 15.3% of the total vote, and have suffered a loss (again, without the Scottish result where they may lose another) of 5 Members of the European Parliament.
It has been a total rout for the Government, and there is really nothing Labour can say to change that. Of major parties (left or right) across Europe, only the French and Hungarian Socialists had as bad a night, both of them losing a greater percentage of the vote - but from a much higher starting point. The big question on the lips of many in the chattering classes is what happens next. Well, it appears that despite everything, despite the local election results and now these truly horrifying European results, that Gordon Brown may still be safe. While reshuffling his government on Friday may not be what he wanted, it appears to have locked in a government that it would be very hard for Labour backbenchers to unseat. Labour rules require that not only must 70 MP's endorse a leadership race, but these 70 MP's must also agree on a replacement candidate. And with all the major leadership players now inside Cabinet (Alan Johnson. Harriet Harman and Ed Milliband) and with different factions from the left and right of the party represented in those who want Brown to go, it may be very difficult for those opposed to Brown to find a candidate to rally around.
Having said that, Brown is still reshuffling his government. It is the turn of junior Ministers today, and I notice that two other Ministers have withdrawn from the government refusing to unreservedly back Mr Brown. However, it is difficult to see a circumstance where the resignation or sacking of a junior Minister would have the required power to unseat a Prime Minister. There is one more chance for the plotters, and that is this afternoon's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, in what may be a VERY stormy session. But, short of something else unexpected happening (and frankly, after this last week, you really have to expect something unexpected to happen) I think that Mr Brown will be safe.
Going back to what I was saying last night about the distribution of votes to minor parties, it appears that once again in the Northwest that the British National Party has gained ground at the expense of Labour, with BNP leader Nick Griffin taking a seat of Labour. However, they aren't the only minor party to increase their shares of the vote. Both the Greens and UK Independence Party increased their shares of the votes, while both the Tory and the Liberal Democrat shares of the vote remained broadly static. To me this indicates two things. One is that the former Labour vote has gone every which way. To put it another way, the results show an almost 'anybody but Labour' night, with votes going to the BNP, the Greens and UKIP. But the second thing it tells me is that some of that vote went to the Conservatives... and more than the results indicate. Let me explain that seemingly odd sentence. The Conservative share of the vote increased very marginally, by about 1%. However, they also held or increased their share of the vote in places where UKIP greatly increased their share of the vote. Most UKIP voters (to make a gross generalisation) are dissatisfied Tory Eurosceptics, so one should expect to see that where UKIP did well, the Tory vote would fall slightly on the back of that. The opposite has happened, the Tory vote held up well. This would seem to indicate that even though the Tories were losing votes on the right to UKIP, they were picking up votes from Labour that not only equalled those going to UKIP, but led to an increased share of the vote. That would bode well for a General Election, and also makes it difficult to argue that the result for Labour is based solely on the expenses scandal.
Well, it's starting to become official now. The Labour Party has suffered one of it's worst defeats since year dot in the elections this week. For those who don't consider that British local political results are the most interesting thing they can find on the internet, a quick recap of results from last week: Labour suffered a haemorrhage of support across England. In County Council elections (which, it must be said, does not include most major urban areas), Labour lost every single council they held. Labour lost almost 300 councillors, and now have fewer than 200 seats across all county councils in England. Bugger. If you take the vote and apply it to Britain as a whole, Labour would receive 23%, behind both the Tories and Liberal Democrats. And if those numbers were the same at a General Election (which they won't be), the Tories would win with an overall majority of 30.
So, that was the Friday results. Now the European polls are coming in, and it is truly horrifying to watch. Labour has slumped across the United Kingdom. Labour looks set to get third place in the European polls behind the Tories and the United Kingdom Independence Party. With 16% of the vote. Yes, nationwide Labour is going to garner about 16% of the vote. Last election (five years ago - which, I might remind you, was in 2004 during the major debates over the Iraq War) Labour got 23%, and all the pundits said that it could get no worse. Well, it has certainly got worse.
But more worrying (for Labour) is the places where they are losing the votes. First they have lost Wales. For the first time since 1918 (and the first time ever to the Conservatives), Labour has not been the biggest party in a Welsh election. They lost 12% from their 2004 result in Wales, while the Tories gained just enough to propel them into first place. Some are blaming it on the expenses scandal, but to me it seems unlikely that Welsh voters would vote against Labour candidates for their expenses scandals while at the same time rewarding Conservatives who have been caught spending public money cleaning the moat on their castle or building duck houses. They are also losing a huge amount of support in the industrial north. They dropped about 9% in Yorkshire and Humber, and something close to it in the Midlands. If a General Election were held and Labour lost anything close to the votes they have lost in Wales, Scotland and the north, the Tories would win a large majority.
The thing that concerns me even more is the drift from Labour to the neo-fascist British National Party. In strong industrial Labour areas (especially in the north of England) such as Barnsley have turned to the BNP in a big way. The BNP has won at least one European seat, and may be in line to win one more (it is 1am and we are still waiting for the results from the North-East).
Obviously 1am is not really the best time for analysis, however, some thoughts are: 1) Labour has taken a hammering. There is no two ways about it. It has been possibly the worst result by any major party in polls in British political history (at least since the devastation of the Liberals in the 1920's). They have fallen to under 20% of the vote, and were it not for the weaknesses of the Liberal Democrats they could easily be fourth. 2) Labour cannot simply blame this on being a sitting government (often Euro elections are used to as a barometer of national government popularity). In many countries (including France, Poland and Italy) the incumbent government has actually had increased support. The one possible argument that Labour might have is that the centre-left has been pummelled across Europe, which is hugely ironic considering the financial crisis (and recession is often when voters prefer the centre-left) 3) The defeats of centre-left candidates across much (although not all) of Europe shows people claiming the 'free market/capitalism is dead' are grossly over-exaggerating. Demands for increased fiscal stimulus from socialist parties have been met with at best ambivalence by European voters. It appears that those who want a radical solution to the financial crisis have thrown their support behind the extreme parties of either the far right or far left.
I will make an effort to write more tomorrow, especially about the effect on Gordon Brown's leadership of the Labour Party...
OK, I was going to bed, but two results have come in that are interesting, both from the South. First, Labour lost their one MEP in the Southwest, losing it to the Liberal Democrats. Second is that the vote just came in from the South East (the most populous region), and Labour managed to get 8% of the vote. I think it might be very hard to sleep for Mr Brown...
I've set this blog up to look at and discuss major shifts in British and European politics. I will attempt to keep this as a thinking person's blog and therefore keep rabid ideology to a minimum. Having said that, I am a committed and unashamed conservative, and therefore stories on here will probably have a bias in that direction. I hope you enjoy!
