2019 Election - Just Another Day at the Office

Well, for this Liberal Democrat, it was just another day at the office. A lifetime of disappointments and false dawns has hardened me. I do, however, stick with my basic social liberal democratic philosophy of life. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Whilst the Liberal Democrats' vote went up in most constituencies, they didn't win many new seats, and lost some they already had, including the seat of Party Leader Jo Swinson!

Conservative Leader Boris Johnson (who marked his campaign by refusing an interview with one of Britain's most forensic political interviewers, pocketing an ITV journalist's phone, and hiding in a dairy company's fridge) romped home to victory by somehow persuading hardened lifetime Labour suporters in the industrial Midlands, North West and North East to risk the psychological trauma of actually voting Conservative.

As for the Labour Party, their performance was so bad that their number in Parliament roughly equates to the representation they had back in 1935. Their programme almost made Michael Foot's 1980s manifesto ("The longest suicide note in history") look reasonable. Whilst enthusiastic Labour activists, in particular, their 'Momentum' group appear to be enthralled by their Party being led by a couple of pseudo Marxists, it turns out that this enthusiasm for hard-left politics is not shared by the general population.

To end with what I started with, Jo Swinson's personal, and Party's disappointing performance is, I believe, entirely down to her. She made two massive strategic errors, which stretched some Party members' loyalty to breaking point. Firstly, she stood before the Liberal Democrats' Conference and announced herself as Candidate for next Prime Minister. It reminded me of Liberal Party Leader David Steel some years back, telling Conference to go back to their constituencies and "prepare for Government". That went well, didn't it?! Secondly, by announcing her intention to cancel Brexit unilaterally, without a second referendum, she effectively told 17 million people who'd voted to leave the EU to get stuffed. She appeared to have misunderstood the meaning of the second word in the title of her Party.

Both Labour and Liberal Democrats are now looking for new leaders.

Happy New Year! (We hope)

UK Local Elections May 2012

Well, it would seem that David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats (partners in Coalition Government) received a good drubbing in these elections, losing many hundreds of Council seats and losing control of several major cities.

Ed Milliband's Labour Party made an impressive showing, picking up hundreds of Council seats and gaining control of the cities the other two Parties were busy losing.

Bucking the trend, Conservative Boris Johnson just managed to get re-elected as London's Mayor with "Red Ken" Livingstone snapping at his heels.

As usual we have been regaled with all the usual stories by the Party "spin doctors", and for all they tell us that the Labour Party has regained the trust of the British Electorate, this, and all the other stuff peddled by the winning and losing Parties means not one row of beans, for the most shocking number to come out of all this is that only 32% of the electorate bothered to vote. So when the political parties are trotting out their analysis of whatever votes they managed to pick up, they are indeed just talking about a percentage of a small percentage of the electorate.

You need a massive imagination or mental excursion into fantasy land to pretend that these elections tell you anything much about what the British people are feeling about each Party - except that most of them just don't give a damn! That's what it tells us.

Our attitude to democracy is a national disgrace. It is appalling that nearly 70% of the country is content to let a small proportion of its fellow citizens to decide how we are governed.