Is Our Dave the New Nick? It Was @rustyrockets Wot Won and What Ed Could Have Said...



"We are all in this together, but some of us are in it more than you." George Osborwell

Is Our Dave the New Nick Clegg?  

As it has been reported that he is behind the stalling of our withdrawing from the European Court of Human rights and stopping Iain Duncan Smith from reducing child benefit to families with more than two kids. His pronouncements on the death of Charles Kennedy were also excellent. So now that he can't use Nick as an excuse and, despite all the gallivanting around the rest of Europe when he ought to be concentrating on real issues, has he become our greatest hope for common sense in government? Along with The House of Lords. Heaven help us.

On the election night, he apparently rehearsed his resignation speech, but then had to come up with a victory one. His communications honcho said, "Go with what’s in your heart” and he replied with “One nation. We should never have let that go.” 

His main problem is that he is still in a coalition, just one made up of One Nation Tories and the little england appeaser wing of the party, although some might be a bit of both. The One Nation part is probably in a minority, but they do tend to make better ministers and recent cabinet appointments were quite encouraging. Swivel-eyed little englanders do tend to mess up when given responsibility - like Liam Fox, Andrew Lansley, Owen Pattison and, of course, Iain Duncan Smith and can any sane person believe that allowing John Redwood to be in charge of a department would not be a complete disaster? 

It Woz Rusty Rockets Wot Won it. 

Well done to Mr Brand and the 44% of registered voters who did not vote, along with an estimated 15% of eligible voters who were not registered, as combined they form a clear majority. 

The election is officially the most unrepresentative in UK general election history - see the full report from The Electoral Reform Society

In the self-proclaimed "Mother of Parliaments", the Conservative party managed to get a small majority in the House of Commons with 37% of the vote or around 20% of those entitled to register to vote.  In contrast, the Turkish ruling party has lost its majority, as it only managed 41% of the vote. 

Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer has pointed that the obvious reason for the Tory majority was the electoral system, but the Guardian's John Rentoul disagreed and pointed out that the combined Tory/UKRIP/Ulster Unionist vote was just over 50%. However, there are many reasons why the Tories are the most popular party in the UK, but the electoral system is the main reason why they have a majority. Also, it is a block to real political and economic progress in the UK and is a big driver of the regional divides that threaten to break up the Union.

The Conservative vote increased by less than 1%, but this is quite an achievement for a governing party and another factor was that they hired Obama's data guy (the some other bloke in the current Moon Page 3) while Labour hired the ideas guy. This meant they were able to target the key voters in marginal seats while Labour engraved promises on a tombstone.

  

There are also many reasons why 4 million voted UKRIP. Many were former Labour supporters and on average they are less right wing that the average Tory voter. Labour really needs to reconnect with those former supporters and fully get behind electoral reform. They may be one of the two parties in the two party state, but with the unhelpful exception of Tony Blair, they do end up being the bridesmaid and not the bride. 

What Ed Should Have Said. 

He did have a good campaign, Ed Stone aside and when the chap in the BBC leader debates shouted at him about being an idiot or a liar for not agreeing that the last the recession was caused by the Labour government over-spending, he just denied it and mumbled about schools and hospitals being built.  

Below is what he could have said, with the benefit of hindsight, more time, and lots of help from Ben Chu from The Independent:

"I can see that I am unlikely to be able to change your mind on this and I believe you think what you have said to be true but the truth is that you have been misled and lied to this Tory-led government and by the many newspapers and TV channels controlled by its supporters. The truth out there is some of the media and in social media not controlled by vested interests and from respected, independent bodies such as The Institute for Fiscal Studies and even the current Permanent Secretary to H M Treasury who recently said that the recession was caused by a worldwide banking crisis "pure and simple."

When the financial crises started, our national debt was at a lower level than it was when Labour came to power and up until that point David Cameron and George Osborne had promised to match our spending plans.  

When this government came to power, the economy was growing and the recession had not been allowed to turn into a depression. We were also not comparable to Greece, which is a lie repeated by David Cameron in the recent Channel 4 debate and rightly scoffed by the questioner.  

Because of their policies we have had years of stagnation and falling wages along with an increase in inequality - those most culpable for the financial crash have got richer and have continued to fund the Tory party, whilst those with the least have had to pay and be demonised and scapegoated. £25,000 in 2010 is £30,000 in today's money, has your pay increased by a similar amount?  

This government had also promised to wipe out the deficit by now, but despite all the cuts it has reduced by less than half and they have added more to the national debt than all previous Labour governments combined.  

So no I don't think Labour overspent or caused the economic crises and if anyone should apologise it should be those who argued that governments should cut spending in at the same time private sector was cutting jobs and demand was falling at the fastest rate since the Great Depression - something that would have made the slump much worse. And those who ignored calls for caution and pushed through front-loaded cuts before the recovery was secure, suppressing growth and causing economic stagnation and falling wages and they are none other than David Cameron and George Osborne."

But now they are back in power and their party remains the biggest threat to the survival of the United Kingdom and they will make it more difficult to change this semi-democratic unrepresentative two-party state by making the constituency boundaries "fairer".