UK General Election 2015 - A View from the Asylum

Well, that was a jolly little election wasn’t it? The polls got it wrong. Or was it the Poles? (Blasted foreigners coming over here and taking away our sense of reality).

But then I thought the anti-immigration sentiment encouraged by UKIP had had some effect when I was told something about Exit Poles, only to discover I’d got the spelling wrong, and an Exit Poll was a system of finding out how people had actually voted (as opposed to how they said they would vote.

The Exit Polls told us that all the other polls had been wrong, and that far from being faced with a “Hung Parliament” (some say hanging is too good for them) there would probably be a Conservative government with a workable majority.

The trouble was that we had all learned to believe the earlier polls, and now we had the Exit Poll none of us believed it. Indeed one-time leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown said if the Exit Poll was right he’d eat his hat. So far as I know this has not yet actually happened. A dollop of custard might help it go down, and it would be appropriately in line with the Party colour.

Similarly, ex-Labour Press Secretary Alistair Campbell said he’d eat his kilt. Again, yet another broken promise.

What do I think of Clegg?

So, in the end we did finish up with a Conservative Government, and now David Cameron (left) has got to learn how to govern without the moderating influence of the Liberal Democrats.

I’m sure we are all going to enjoy the ride, and I recommend we all hang on tightly and try not to scream too loudly. It’s going to be a scary ride for Cameron himself as he now heads a government with hugely reduced majority compared to the one enjoyed by the previous Coalition.

 

Many of the swivel-eyed loons on the Conservative back benches that John Major used to refer to as “the Bastards” are still there ready to kick up a rumpus over membership of the EU.

Once again we have gone through an electoral process that is increasingly falling to bits, as more and more Parties build up a following. “First-past-the-Post” cannot in any way be deemed as democratic in a multi-party environment. I’ve never been a great fan of either UKIP or the SNP, but they’ve thrown into sharp focus the ludicrous nature of our system.

One and a half million people voted for the SNP and got 56 seats. Nearly four million people voted UKIP and got 1 seat (they had two before, so that’s a 50% reduction). Who is going to tell me that this makes any kind of sense?

Under a proportional system the Conservatives would still have won (with about 250 seats), Labour would have come second (with about 200 seats), UKIP would have come third (with about 70 seats) and the Liberal Democrats would have come fourth (with about 50 seats). SNP and Green Party would also have been represented but with fewer than 50 seats.

What do I think of Cameron?

As the results from our ridiculous system came rolling in, it soon became obvious that the Exit Poll was actually spot on, and as the day after the night before began to shine its Tory-blue light into our bleary eyes, our ears picked up a strange sound, rather like dead flies falling on to a parquet floor. In fact, that’s what it was .. the sound of Party Leaders falling like dead flies: first of all Nick Clegg (right)

- who managed to retain his seat - resigned his leadership of the Liberal Democrats. 

Labour Leader & some guy in a suit

Then Ed Miliband (left) resigned as Leader of the Labour Party (having failed to convince the British people that what they needed was more distinct Socialism, more class envy, and acceptance that if they were not fat-cat bankers then they were some kind of victim).

And then – keeping his promise that if he failed to win the South Thanet Seat he would resign – UKIP Leader Nigel Farage (below) did in fact resign. It was the end of the war and the Farage Balloon had been deflated. He was now free to spend more time with his beer and fags.

UKIP - United Koff-sticks & Independent-Breweries Party

And on the third day he rose again!

After pressure from Party members Nigel Farage decided to un-resign. (Is that a word? My spell-checker’s accepted it anyway). Susan Evans, his appointed deputy, had enjoyed the shortest period of office in the history of the world. A pity – I quite like her.

And what are we to say about Scotland? Having lost the referendum on Independence, the SNP managed to destroy the Labour Party in Scotland and won all but a couple of seats. Their

Let's hear it for me!

leader Nicola Sturgeon (left) - a bit of cold fish in my view - was hailed as some kind of heroine, and you could sometimes see the flicker of a smile hovering around those thin lips. Now, thanks to the vagaries of our electoral system, she has 56 seats in the Westminster Parliament on only 9% of the UK vote.

The SNP is a National Party with a set of policies closely resembling Socialism. “National Socialist” .. now why does that ring a bell? A National Socialist Party with a charismatic leader. Oops! Now watch them make merry with Prime Minister Cameron. It won’t be long before the Scots are so fed up with the UK Government that the “Smiling Assassin” will be able to whip up enough enthusiasm for a second attempt at Independence.

Don’t even think about boycotting Haggis .. it was invented in England! It was in an English recipe book by 1615. It’s not found in Scottish documents until 1747. Crikey, that’s just over an hour and a half between them!

I must draw this academic analysis of the General Election to a close, happy in the knowledge that we have some excitement to look forward to in the shape of leadership elections for Labour and the Liberal Democrats. I was looking forward to a UKIP leadership election too but Mr Farage has denied me that pleasure by only pretending to resign in the first place.

©Lionel Beck

The Last Liberal Democrat in Town.

May 2015

UK GENERAL ELECTION - MAY 2015 - MY MANIFESTO

Election Manifesto for the
None-of-the-Above Party

European Union

In the belief that the advantages of being in the EU outweigh the disadvantages, we propose that the UK should comply fully with EU principles except those with which we disagree.

Border Control:  We will take full control of our own borders. If we wish to plant hollyhocks and delphiniums in them, we will not be dictated to by the French that they should be entirely given over to garlic bulbs, nor by the Germans that we should plant sausages.

Freedom of Movement within the EU: We intend to propose that the chains on leg irons should have another couple of links added to increase freedom of movement.

Greek Exit: We wish to discourage the whole idea of a Greek Exit on the grounds that in the event of a serious fire this would discriminate against those of us who are not Greek.

Education

The teaching of “Creationism” will be banned in all schools. God knows it’s wrong.

Sex education in schools will include and introductory course in Latin, with particular reference to the meaning of “coitus interruptus”.

Defence

We intend to stop sitting on defence in order to reduce the incidence of splinters in bottoms.

The Economy

People who avoid paying their taxis will be compelled to use other forms of transport. We propose to remove VAT (Value Added Taxis, i.e., those that carry advertising)

We will increase the Personal Allowance to £12,500 thus taking millions of people out of any obligation to pay taxis. Taxi operators will consequently become insolvent but will obviously benefit from the aforementioned increased Personal Allowance as their income will below that threshold.

Transport

We will always be in favour of transport, as being a useful means of getting from A to B and vice versa.

We will build a network of mobility scooter paths in order to reduce the deaths of pedestrians.

People who drive with their mouths open and wearing hats at the same time will have their driving licences revoked.

Highway authorities will be prohibited from erecting signs saying NO ROAD MARKINGS. The rationale is that a driver who is unable to see that the road on which they are driving has no markings should not be in possession of a driving licence. Similarly, signs saying NEW ROAD LAYOUT AHEAD will be banned on the grounds that local people saw the changes being made, and people from outside the locality were not aware of the original layout. They also become particularly meaningless when the signs remain in place for up to five years.

The HS2 project will be re-routed to replace the current East Coast main line, thus avoiding going anywhere near Birmingham. 

The railways will be returned to Public Ownership, and all trains brought up to the same standard as French TGVs.

Justice

Capital Punishment will be restored, but reserved exclusively for two groups of people: those who put apostrophes in the wrong place, or use apostrophes where they are not needed, and those who persistently fail to turn up for hospital or GP appointments.

Social cohesion and integration

We intend to set up a new government agency known as the Office of Political Correctness (or “Ofspeech”) to be headed up by Jeremy Clarkson.

Cartoonists will be required to operate on a not-for-prophet basis.

Cartoons, dolls or puppets representing Punch & Judy will be banned on the grounds that they are offensive to white people, being a gross caricature of both their facial features and their personal ethics. That’s the way to do it.

All religions will be discouraged, and everyone will be obliged just to be nice to each other.

Foreign Policy

Foreign policy should be in English so we can understand it and this, basically, would involve not sticking our noses into everyone else’s business.

Health

A & E Departments will be known as Alcoholics & Emergency Departments. For people who fail to turn up for appointments, please see the Justice section above.

In order to be worthy of their huge salaries, doctors need to be prepared to be hauled out of bed at 3 in the morning to examine Grandma’s arthritic knee.

Politics

Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesdays will be replaced by a half-hour session of custard pie throwing; this would be similar to the current level of behaviour, and yet be far more entertaining.

To see further details of our policies please visit our Website (currently down for maintenance).

UK GENERAL ELECTION - It's the Dave & Nick Show!

Well, that has been the weirdest General Election I have ever experienced. Usually a national "swing" from one Party to another is easily discernible, and once you've a dozen or constituency results in you can see which way the whole thing is likely to end up.

But not this time. There was no discernible pattern.

Some seats went from Conservative to Labour, others from Labour to Conservative, others from Labour to Liberal Democrat, others from Liberal Democrat to Conservative. In two adjacent London constituencies previously held by Liberal Democrats, one was defeated by a Conservative, and the other increased his Liberal Democrat majority. In the north of England one seat experienced a 20% swing (almost unheard of) from Conservative to Liberal Democrat.

The vagaries of the British electoral system resulted in the Liberal Democrats increasing their national vote and ending up with fewer seats than before. Gordon Brown's Labour Party suffered the biggest losses, though were spared the predicted wipe-out. David Cameron's Conservative not only got the biggest share of the national vote but also gained the most seats, and yet were denied a working majority in the House of Commons.

Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats did a deal with the Tories to form Britain's first Coalition Government since the second World War. I am fairly comfortable with that, considering their combined votes represents 60% of the electorate, and in the serious circumstances in which we find ourselves it is imperative that we have a strong government that can take the necessary decisions and actions.

I've no time for the Liberal Democrat complainers who say they have been betrayed. What do they want? Have they enjoyed their years of impotence?

No Liberal Democrat (or their predecessors) has been able to gain a position of power within the lifetime of most us. Now we have the rare and exciting occurrence of Liberal Democrats being in a position to influence affairs, with five sitting in the Cabinet, and many others in junior ministerial positions. Moreover we now have a Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister. This has been the stuff of dreams for generations.

I hope this will usher in a new era of civilized politics. The new Coalition has made a good start by taking a 5% reduction in salary of all government ministers, frozen for five years; I also applaud the proposed introduction of fixed-term parliaments (thus taking away from the Prime Minister the right to call an election any time he sees fit to suit his own purpose). Both the Tories and the Lib-Dems have had to sacrifice some of their extreme and cherished policies. Good.

UK GENERAL ELECTION & the VOTING SYSTEM

We all got intoxicated with Nick Clegg and now we've woken up Clegless. Well, not exactly Clegless - he's still there but his Liberal Democrats finished up with less seats than before, even though their share of the popular vote went up by 1%.

In fact the Liberal Democrats nationally polled 23% of the vote and finished up with (at the time of writing) only 8% of the seats. In other words, the usual nonsense.

The Conservatives clearly increased both their share of the seats and their share of the vote, and therefore (according to Nick Clegg) have a right to try and form a government, but in this regard they would need to talk to the Liberal Democrats regarding how to get their support.

Gordon Brown's Labour Party could not form an overall majority in the House of Commons even if they took the Liberal Democrats on board.

In other words, another fine mess caused by an electoral system that fails to reflect the wishes of the British people.

UK GENERAL ELECTION & the VOTING SYSTEM

Click photo to enlarge

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg (left), Conservative David Cameron (centre), Labour's Gordon Brown (right), debating on TV, an event that transformed this election from plain boring into mildly exciting.

The most significant aspect of this first-ever national TV debate between Party Leaders is that it has propelled the Liberal Democrats to the forefront of the national consciousness. Because the vagaries of the British "first-past-the-post" electoral system have tended to give the Liberal Democrats only 60 or so Parliamentary seats on the back of 25-30% of the popular vote, they have hitherto been given less prominence in media coverage.

The new national TV debates have changed all that with Nick Clegg being given equal prominence to the other two Party Leaders, a prominence that has done him no harm at all!

Conservative and Labour votes tend to be concentrated in certain constituencies, whereas Liberal Democrat support is more widely distributed, resulting in their failing to succeed in the same way. Even though they are now riding high in the opinion polls, pretty much on equal footing with Conservatives and Labour, projecting the polls into actual seat gains on May 6th indicate perhaps a hundred or so seats (in a 630-seat Parliament).

Ironically, Nick Clegg's rise and rise has led to the other two Parties making the following statements ..

Voting Liberal Democrat will let Labour in.

Voting Liberal Democrat will let the Conservatives in.

If this doesn't expose the ludicrous nature of our electoral system I don't know what does!

Here's a radical thought: what about having a system whereby voting Liberal Democrat lets in the Liberal Democrats?

I know, too silly for words.

UK GENERAL ELECTION - The Usual Farce

Current opinion polls suggest that about 62% of the British Public do not want a Conservative Government, and yet such is the stupidly undemocratic nature of our voting system, that if people vote as they say they intend to, then the likelihood is that we shall finish up getting a Conservative government anyway, and it will be representing about 38% of the population.

I've been driven to distraction by this tyrannical system for the whole of my life, and I'm fed up to the back teeth with it. As a point of principle, whoever I vote for in this election, I shall be making a point of ensuring it is not for any Party that refuses to accept the need for electoral reform.

I guess that rules out the Conservatives. Labour are promising a referendum on the need for electoral reform, so that puts them in a slightly better light. The Liberal Democrats, Greens, and UKIP are all in favour of a fair voting system.

I'm sure most of the rest of Europe think we are completely barmy to put up with this kind of thing.