Election blues

So the results in, only it isn't.

We are all reduced to the role of spectators to secret negotiations and deals as our interests, priorities and intentions are traded behind closed doors.

The BBC and Lib Dems would like this to happen after every general election for ever. IE to create and Italian style political system. In the BBC's ( & Labour's ) case because they think there would never be another Conservative government afterwards.

I can't say I'm very fond of whats going on right now. But I think David Cameron is doing the right thing, and we are where we are and ragging against it does no good. Personally I would support a Lib Dem/Con coalition. Politically I would prefer a Conservative minority government, but given the national threat of Brown's debt crisis we need stable government and a Lib Dem/Conservative coalition can deliver than and save the nation. Though the cost will be high politically at the follow on election.

Politically the best option for the Conservative party would be to be in opposition to a rainbow government, if it wasn't for the fact they will re-write the political rules to favour themselves whilst failing to save the nation from Brown's debt disaster.

So I'm hoping for a coalition deal - but its hard to be enthusiastic about it. The devil will be in the details no doubt.

I don't fear electoral changes ( I think reform is a loaded word in this context ) I just think any new system will take 4-8 years to become effective, and we just don't have that sort of time given the economic disaster Labour has created.

Anyway to summarise - this blog supports David Cameron and his teams efforts to put the interests of our nation first.

Fear and hope

I finished doing my bit to help in the election a few hours ago. The local team has its chin up, but the news from America is worrying. As is the thought of a minority government trying to deal with the sovereign debt crisis Labour has left the country with.

So there's hope, but I think a lot of fear also.

Politics is about to get deadly serious.

My feeling is that the BBC exit poll underestimates support for the Conservatives, but perhaps not by enough.

Who should I vote for ?

This is a question that it looks like many people are going to leave till they are alone with their ballot papers asking themselves the quintennial question - is it a tick or a cross on the ballot paper?

Matt apparently has a great cartoon on this this morning if your interested.

In some ways its been the X-Factor / Strictly politics election, perhaps we're expecting some sort of sing off at the end ?

The problem is after 10pm tonight the problems will have just started and we need people in power who can sort them out. And here's the hint - those are not the people who created them.

Most people realise that the full implications of Labour's scorched earth policy haven't yet been shown.

In short Labour funded its spending on a boom in private debt ( which it taxed through stamp duty, vat and the increased taxes on the higher economic activity ) and then more and more on sovereign debt. There have been no end of off balance sheet spending and spending commitments.

Some of us know in our heads this can't last. Now with the eruptions in Greece our hearts are getting a look at the consequences.

That's why the most responsible action you can take today is to vote Conservative.

Nothing else will do.

The Lib Dems could ( and their activists would heavily favour this option ) support Labour. That would result in a government that went for tax and denial rather than rebalancing the economy and growth like the Conservatives would do. Its worth noting that little fuss has been made of the triple lock procedure which ties the hands of the Lib Dem leader - so you might like Clegg - but he doesn't have the power to make a deal. Everyone knows that Lib Dem activists are mainly to the left and many to the left of Labour - you can work out what that means; ie Vote Lib Dem get Brown.

I have a lot of sympathy with the aims of UKIP and The English Democrats - but good folk your votes only make the Lab-Lib Dem pact of decline more likely. A Conservative government most closely represents your aims of the two on offer - please vote for it ! ( Its a secret ballot and no one will know ).

For the sake of our country and for everyone's future - please vote Conservative today.

Look at the last 13 years of Labour and vote Conservtaive on May 6th !

Voting Lib Dem just won't do it. Its now clear the only role left for the Lib Dem is possibly to support Labour to carry on !

The DUP are lined up to support the Conservatives and the SNP have indicated they will also. No need for the Lib Dems - there MPs only role could be to keep Gordon Brown in power and transfer more powers to Brussels.

Vote Conservative !

Gordon Brown in the dock

OK not the trial we've most been hoping for ( Tony Blair of course ) but you get the point !

General election 2010: The sobering up has started

For a long time, since John Major defeated Neil Kinnock against the expectation of the polls, I have had a theory about the last few days of a general election campaign.

I call it the sobering up period.

General elections allow national debates to happen in a way that is impossible at any other time of year. Outside general elections debates take place as bombardments from fixed positions, each side firing its artillery at the other. But in general elections ground changes hands, the unexpected happens, theory about which approach will triumph over another is put to the test and the results seen in the court of public opinion.

In this election it started with the artillery, and it was just as boring as politics had been before. But then the sudden breakthrough of Cleggmania meant that infantry had to be redeployed. An ignored enemy had to be reconnoitered by the other two and tactics to engage them tried and effected.

Initially attacks on Cleggs character were tried, based on fact from his career in politics, but then the tactic that really yielded results turned out to be using the lack of the public knowledge of Lib Dem policies against Clegg by revealing them ! The public didn't appreciate that the Lib Dems wanted to replace Trident with some fuzzing uncosted unthought out alternative - they thought Nick had gone CND. The public hadn't heard of the Lib Dem immigration amnesty - but they have now and they hate it. The public hadn't realised what a disaster the UEro was for heavily indebted nations, but that's to providence they can see that in Greece today - and Cl€gg can't squirm his way out of his EUphoria.

So here's a set of stages that outside a general election could hav taken years to work their way through the public consciousness.

And now for the killer fact. We are broke - and yes Gordon Brown broke us.

Up to now the true horror of what has happened has been hidden from most people. Yes some people lost their jobs, many shops closed, but it didn't seem like the 70's or 80's. Perhaps it would never happen thought the wishful thinking public. After all New Labour's great genius was to suggest you don't need to chose between fiscal responsibility and salving your conscience with handing out govt cash - they suggested you could do both. It turned out to be funded on private, and then public debt, but it felt great whilst it lasted.

Now the public are angry that no one will tell them what will happen after the election. The argument between the Lib Dems/Labour who want one more year on the credit card, and the Tories who argue its time to start the hard work now in case things get worse, doesn't even make the airwaves at this stage of the election. The parties have almost started to compete for who can name the most cuts they have planned. ( The public can't avoid responsibility for this as Matthew Parris explains well in his Times article today ).

The final sobering up is starting. People realise this general election will have consequences for decades to come.

Vote for the Lib Dems and they will ensure a weak government more concerned about ensuring future jobs for Lib Dem activists that helping the country.

Vote Labour and the country will sink under debt and the IMF will be called in.

Vote Conservative and it will hurt. But the patient may be saved.

We now know we can't go on like this, and the vast majority of the country now realises this.

But only one party said this at the start of the general election campaign and that's the party you should trust with your vote.

The flights of fancy and intoxication of the X-Factor part of the election are over. Its time to sober up, face up to facts and save our nation.

Welcome to the sobering up phase of the election.

Labour must now choose the manner of its passing

Even Tony Blair can't revive the Labour patient.

The Lefties are horrified. The first tanks can now be seen closing in on streets just a mile from the bunker. It quite clear the end will happen in days.

But for most of the Labour high command there will be no political tomorrow. Some will fall not just from office, but from their privileged positions as recipients of generous state money. Ed Balls has only just realised it could all be over on Thursday - unless he fancies looking after the children whilst Yvette goes to work.

Till last Thursday Gordon Brown has still been the Prime Minister, but now he and the Cabinet which gathered behind him at the Downing Street bunker for the election kick off, are already yesterdays men. People have started to jeer and mock.

Those who will try to continue the Labour party are now caught in the headlights of their coming destruction. Should they try to boast their share of the vote everywhere ( so that they can still claim some legitimacy and just maybe make common cause with the Lib Dems ) or should they collapse their front against the Lib Dems by calling for tactical voting and betray their own candidates and perhaps destroy the Labour party for good.

And lets not forget the Labour civil war that is less than 6 days from starting. Will the first moves be made on election night, or like with the local elections before the polls have closed ?

The choice for Labour is now how it wants to embrace defeat. Will it be better to hurt the country and strike at the Tories to keep the government weak, but perhaps destroy the Labour party for a generation with a tactical voting plan ? Or should they hold firm and accept defeat, but recognise where they finish in 2010 will be the starting point for the next elections and they need to give as little ground as possible ( after all do you think the Lib Dems are likely to give those voters back ? ).

I suspect this is the darkest weekend many Labour party members can even remember since John Major defeated Neil Kinnock.

The Lib Dems have been wrong on the biggest question of the hour

Those serial chancers the Lib Dems probably thought being anti-Tory and siding with Labour on carrying running of the nations credit card for a few months was a smart move. After all it allowed them to stir endlessly and smear shamelessly.

But now, just one week before polling day, the weak point of that argument becomes clear.

Its always been known about, and it was Labour's chancellor Alistair Darling who put it best when he described the UK skating in thin ice which will suddenly give way. Once the cracks start its just a moment till your under the freezing water. No time to change your mind.

Events in Europe show how real that risk is.

Labour and the Lib Dems want to try our luck on the ice, because it offers themselves the best political returns.

The Conservatives have argued that reductions in over spending need to happen now, not next year. Like the Irish we want to set about safeguarding our country from calamity. The Lib Dems and Labour have chosen the Greek route.

David Cameron must crush Nick Clegg with this tonight. Labour is finished, but the Lib Dems could yet finish the UK with their selfish and ignorant economic policy. This is not a local council election where the traditional shameless Lib Dem stirring and opportunism can be tolerated any longer.

Vote Conservative - whilst there's still time and you've only heard the ice creek, not crack.

General election service

Well it seems like its on.

In a way this is very much a New Labour dissolution of parliament in that all the details seem to have been leaked before hand, with their characteristic disregard for our Monarch. Details of the starting statements of all three political leaders are in the public domain.

Call me old fashioned but I'll be adjusting my election clock ( one of the first, if not the first, in the blogsphere I might add ) once our sovereign has indicated her permission for parliament to be dissolved.

There's going to be frantic activity by online activists. The poster wars have already shown that.

However I know few people change their minds by reading a blog, and many people read blogs to pick up an individual view point. So I'll try to remember that fact and provide it.

The caveat will of course be that I'm a paid up Conservative - if you want to read attack on Tory policy and spin etc you'll need to head elsewhere.

I'll see what I can do to bring any ground truth information I can find.

And of course finally this is a very important general election for me. I've been set against the Labour government and specifically Gordon Brown for many years. I am one of the first to have called Gordon Brown a liar and I despair of the Liberal Democrats potentially keeping him in power.

For my nation I hope and pray for a Conservative victory with a working majority that will allow the damage Labour and the liberal establishment have inflicted on our country to be reversed.

England will fair badly out of this election. The main stream media will ignore us, the politicians will say the NHS and education when they mean the English NHS and English education. Quite frankly this is not our time, those of us who believe that England deserves the same status as the other home nations will need to work harder during the next parliament to get the issue up the agenda.

The next few weeks will be exhausting. The next few years almost terrifying ( whom ever wins - that's what the figures say, but this message hasn't really sunk in yet ).

I will do my best to share my perspective and thoughts with the stated caveats, bearing in mind that many of my readers take differing views.

I hope our nation will have a good debate and that reasoned decisions will be made in the ballot booth. I will campaign for that result to be a Conservative victory, but try to remember that everyone's going to have had their fill of media polished propaganda on the airwaves already.

Good luck everyone and I hope were all still on good terms by 7th of May.

Update: 29 days to go !

Is this the day ?

We can but hope ....

Will Brown bottle it again ?

With the polls turning against Labour again Brown must be considering going long.

They always fancy their chances to turning anything around - especially the truth.

Also Brown has always wanted to get the Tories to show their hand, allowing him to perform some of his infamous policy snatches and then say what else ?

Every one expects Brown to go to the palace on Tuesday, but whilst I agree its the most likely, I think Labour could yet go for June ( and maybe that's always been their plan as they have often tried to hint at an early election - probably to try and tease out likely Tory strategy and ideas ).

I suppose we'll all know shortly.

Update: Sky news are supposed to reporting sources saying Brown will go to the palace on Tuesday. Surely the whole thing has too much momentum to stop ? But Brown will regret not going in March ....

Much of the country have the same problem as Unite's BA cabin crew - they are just in denial about it

Through twitter I've been very critical of the Unite's BA cabin crew members who are planning on striking.

It looks like suicide - the airline is barely solvent due to pension commitments ( though I note BA has made some significant progress this week here ) and BA crew have the best pay terms and conditions in the industry - or at least very close to it.

Don't they know they're born ?

Add to that the rage felt by the public as their once in a life time holiday, honeymoon etc is spent instead in the purgatory of an over crowded terminal queuing for days to go no where with only the thought of what they had been looking forward to distract them.

Its political dynamite.

No wonder CCHQ has chosen this moment to highlight that "Labour has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Unite Union" - a quote from the former Labour Party Chairman by the way !

But let me put a different angle on all this .....

The BA cabin crew are in the same sort of denial that most of the UK general population is in !

Reported in yesterdays Telegraph is an IPSO Mori poll that shows:

• 50% of the voters don't think that any public spending cuts are necessary.
• 75% think that "efficiency" savings will do the trick.
• 48% think government spending should increase.

Oh dear.

None of the main three political parties - not even the smear and lies driven Labour party - are proposing this. They are all proposing real cuts ( and of course "tough choices" which are never spelt out ).

As a country we are broke - we have a continual diet of more borrowing from other peoples to pay for today, saying our children will pay them back. But everyone knows soon they will stop lending to us. ( Though the ever Labour party supporting BBC doesn't believe our AAA rating is in danger - everyone else does ).

The British voters seem to have no idea of reality at all ! They haven't even internalised the falsehoods ( based on assumptions that most people would call straight lies ) Labour are peddling.

So the great British public should pause before condemning the cabin crew members who are planning on joining Unite suicide strike, because the speck in their own eye is greater.

How can a proper election debate be held when so much of the population won't face the facts ?

PS I think this shows one of the greatest failings of public broadcasters like the BBC. They should have noted that the clear and uncontested financial facts just haven't been internalised by the electorate and tried to help them understand - but I guess they are too busy putting across their left wing world view and promoting the Warmist religion to have time to do their job.