Tag Archives: labour party

Labour’s UKIP fear factor: A ballot box illusion

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Jeremy-Corbyn1-440x248

Jeremy Corbyn ; Labour doing well in council elections as UKIP declines

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One of the reasons Labour MPs  are deciding to try and ditch Jeremy Corbyn is the fear that following the referendum result UKIP would become the official opposition by seizing swathes of Labour seats in the North and Midlands at the next general election.

Their ( at present) ex leader Nigel Farage boasted to journalists at a reception earlier this year that UKIP would win hundreds of seats from Labour in a Scotland style  melt down as the working class deserted Corbyn over immigration and leadership issues.

Since UKIP achieved its ambition for Brexit this month  one would expect them to be riding high every time voters went to the polls.

But the handful of council by-elections since Brexit are telling a totally different story with Labour actually increasing its share of the vote in some seats – and when under fire mainly losing votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

Although these results are at present straws in the wind they seem to suggest that public is separating its vote to remain or leave the EU from its support for parties on domestic and local issues. I have written about this in Tribune magazine.

By coincidence two of the first council by-elections  were in heartland UKIP areas in Kent and showed an increase in the Labour vote and a decline in support for UKIP.

In every other seat UKIP contested they lost their previous share of the vote and when they challenged Labour in a Luton ward for the first time came bottom of the poll with a derisory 69 votes.

The by- election in Welling in the London borough of Bexley was in a borough that voted to leave and in an unpromising ward  for Labour that included had one UKIP and two Tory councillors.

Yet the result last Thursday in St Michael’s ward saw the Labour share of the vote increase by 11.5 per cent to come a close second to defeating the Tory who recorded a 2.7 per cent increase in his share. UKIP’s share of the vote declined by 14.7 per cent.  Over 30 per cent of the electorate voted – one week after Bexley recorded a decisive vote to leave.

The second by-election in Newington in Thanet – a UKIP stronghold – saw UKIP just retain the seat by 14 votes. But the UKIP share was down four per cent and the Labour share was up 1.9 per cent. The Tory share was down 2.5 per cent.

Two other results in High Town, Luton and Leatherhead North in Surrey saw Labour lose a share of the vote but not at the expense of a declining UKIP. Leatherhead was a straight battle between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats who gained the seat with a 27 per cent  increase in the share of the vote.

In High Town the main challengers were the Green Party who clipped Labour’s majority and the Liberal Democrats who stood for the first time gaining 14.2 per cent. UKIP got 5.4 per cent of the vote. Labour’s share of the vote was down 13.4 per cent.

Conway in North Wales might be a example that detractors could quote. The Labour share of the vote in last Thursday’s by election in Mostyn fell 6.1 per cent. Local circumstances – the previous Labour councillor, a ship’s captain who hardly attended council meetings – may have been a factor.

The Tory share went up by 4.7 per cent and the Lib Dems by 4.9 per cent. But significantly the UKIP candidate – known in the area as he had stood as an independent – could only muster 75 votes -under 10 per cent of the poll. A full analysis can be seen on  this site.

Given the state of the Labour Party at the moment their performance in local councils is extremely robust. It still has to be tested in a by-election in the North and Midlands. But on the evidence so far the UKIP threat is a myth when it comes to the ballot box.

Fact and Fiction over Jeremy Corbyn’s first by election defeat of the year

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Jack Paton

Jack Paton: :Local hero Pic Credit: Cumberland News

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Guido Fawkes and the Daily Express couldn’t wait to jump on the fact that the Labour Party lost  the first council by election of the year last Thursday.

After all this was in a Labour ward in flood sodden Carlisle where Jeremy Corbyn turned up to help and talk to flood victims and they firmly  rejected Labour in favour of an Independent. Paul Staines was ecstatic predicting a deluge of losses for Labour next May as the party totally disintegrated under Jeremy Corbyn to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

But both Guido  and the Daily Express are guilty of sloppy journalism because if they had looked  or wanted to look more carefully things were not as they seemed.

Myth No 1 was that  the Labour vote collapsed as Carlisle voters following the reshuffle chaos decided Labour was finished. I bet they had more things to worry about clearing up their flooded homes than following what was going on in the Westminster bubble.

In fact the Labour share of the vote – in a low turnout of 18 per cent- marginally INCREASED – from 33.1 to 33.5 per cent.

The party that lost out more was the third placed Conservative candidate whose share of the vote DECLINED by 5.4 per cent. Funny that was not reported.

Myth No 2 was that the Independent got there by taking votes only from Labour. In fact as the excellent Britain Elects Twitter file pointed out last time it was a four cornered fight with UKIP and the Greens standing. UKIP got 14 per cent of the vote but after their disastrous performances in many council by-elections and  the Oldham West Parliamentary by-election, couldn’t even find someone to stand. So it looks as though this vote switched to the Independent.

The third point ignored by the press- and this is where sloppy journalism really takes the biscuit – is that the winning candidate is a local hero.

He is Jack Paton, a former veteran, and a long time campaigner of the old style ” pavement politics ” type which was pioneered in the past by the Liberal democrats.

As the local paper , the News and Star, reported :

“Mr Paton, who has also worked with cadets in Botcherby and is a well-known figure in the area, becomes the second sitting independent city councillor for the estate, with Robert Betton already representing this neighbourhood.

” Mr Paton recently led the transformation of a dilapidated building into a new base for Army cadets, with the conversion of a former hairdressers on Victoria Road and land behind it.

He has also previously campaigned on issues including buses in the area and on kerbs and pavements that he perceived as dangerous for wheelchair users.”

He has his own Facebook page and tweets as @sixtysjack. His Facebook page is full of congratulations from local residents and his family.

Where Jeremy Corbyn might want to take note is that he is an army veteran and a traditional working class supporter who backs our troops. He is the sort of person who would  have warmed to Kevan Jones, the junior shadow defence minister , who quit this week, and was grossly misrepresented by John McDonnell as a right winger.

In that sense the vote is a warning to Corbyn that Labour is a broad church and needs to decide how it is going to keep on side this type of voter. After all the next PM is 2020 will definitely not be an Independent.

 

 

Oldham West: How Labour is defeating the UKIP challenge

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Jim McMahon victorious Labour candidate
Jeremy Corbyn ; a difficult but challenging task ahead

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Anybody who has followed UKIP’s recent performances in council by elections would not have been surprised at the resounding victory by Labour over UKIP at Oldham West, the seat held by the late Michael Meacher MP.

Once again the Westminster Parliament appeared out of touch with local reality when it assumed that Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership would mean the end of Labour as a serious fighting force and a close run result at Oldham, heralding a revival for UKIP.

The combination of a popular young local candidate in Jim McMahon, the leader of Oldham Council, and the fact that the Labour Party  has had a surge in membership meant that the party was well  placed to win.

The serious loser is Nigel Farage who ran a vicious anti Corbyn campaign using the worst of the deluge of bad press coverage, expecting a big boost from white working class voters in Oldham. But it didn’t happen – hence his outrageous attack today on Asian voters for keeping Labour in poll position.

This is a real problem for Farage because his entire strategy is to get the votes of mainly white working class voters in the North so he can replace  Labour as the official opposition by winning swathes of Northern seats.

This is clearly not happening in Oldham. Despite I suspect some switching  from the Tories to UKIP – resulting in the Tories very bad performance where their share of the vote dropped to under 10 per cent.

If you analyse the UKIP bad run of  council by-election results – it shows they are falling back  everywhere except in their traditional heartlands in the Fens, Kent and Essex. They are making no headway in London

The Oldham West result was preceded by a similar UKIP slump in a council by election in Chorley in Lancashire. In Chorley Labour recorded a 12.7 per cent swing –taking the seat with 57.3 per cent share of the vote and winning with 697 votes. The big loser was UKIP whose share of the vote dropped by 12.4 per cent – getting just 76 votes.

And there have been similar bad performances – including two last night -one in the London borough of Newham where there was an 9 per cent swing to Labour and UKIP got only 3.9 per cent of the vote.Labour got 1440 votes, UKIP, 78.

The other was in the Malvern Hills – a Tory heartland – where UKIP was pushed into third place, halving their share of the vote, to 13.3 per cent from 27.7 per cent. They got 56 votes. Labour, standing for the first time in the ward, got nearly 23 per cent of the vote, 96 votes with the Tory winning with 268 votes.

Where UKIP do have presence – their effect has been to hit the main parties without winning outright. In Ashford, Tories took a seat from Labour by two votes and in Rochford, Essex, Labour took a Tory seat by four votes.

However pundits or commentators want to play it.- this was a good result for Labour, a bad result for UKIP, and an appalling result for the Westminster Establishment who had written the Labour Party into the history books.

 

The full result
Jim McMahon (Labour) – 17,209 (62.11%)
John Bickley (UKIP) – 6,487 (23.41%)
James Daly (Conservative) – 2,596 (9.37%)
Jane Brophy (Liberal Democrat) – 1,024 (3.70%)
Simeon Hart (Green Party) – 249 (0.90%)
Sir Oink A-Lot (Monster Raving Loony) – 141 (0.51%)

 

 

 

 

Stormin’ Corbyn a hit in Korea (No Mail-on-Line not North Korea but the capitalist South)

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Jeremy Corbyn - a hit in Korea

Jeremy Corbyn – a hit in Korea

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While the British media has been uniformly hostile to Jeremy Corbyn – his victory has led to some completely different  coverage abroad.

One TV station “News Tapa”   – a nonprofit online investigative reporting organisation  in South Korea – decided to devote  a half hour programme to what they called the Corbyn Syndrome- for viewers in their country.

The  TV station –  unusual because it is crowd funded by over 35,000 people using a principle also used for byline.com for individuals decided that Corbyn was an interesting phenomenon precisely because he was an example of  a popular rebellion in a mainstream party challenging conventional politics.

According to the broadcasters it hit a nerve in South Korea because politics is seen as remote, dominated by big business and career politicians and not exactly squeaky keen. Sounds familiar? They were also fascinated how a backbencher representing a working class constituency could suddenly capture the minds of so many people and propel themselves to the leadership of a major party.

As Seon-Ju Choi, the London co-ordinator for the programme’s production said :”In S. Korea, the conservative party has been in power for many years now since our president Noh who committed suicide.  In a way, it has been very depressing all the public funds have been radically cut, and many people are struggling due to lack of public service and many of privatisation, etc.  We would love to feature the amazing and exciting story about Jeremy Corbyn’s story, how the left-wing politician has received overwhelming support from the public, and became a leader of Labour Party.”

It The film is in Korean but there are enough British people interviewed – including me- for people to follow most of it.

For those interested the link is here http://newstapa.org/29509 .

It makes interesting viewing.

How the golden oldies and the disenchanted young combined to give Stormin’ Corbyn victory

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Jeremy Corbyn: Now leader. Pic credit: Labour List

Jeremy Corbyn: Now leader. Pic credit: Labour List

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Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide victory to become Labour leader has come as a shock to the Westminster bubble and the political Establishment.

Those who followed opinion polls and betting odds thought he might win but did not think it would be such an overwhelming victory.

I suspect – from a growing number of anecdotal chats – that his victory is partly due to an unique revolt that spanned two generations and came together in a perfect storm to overthrow the political Establishment.

My generation –  who are around the same age as Jeremy Corbyn – suddenly decided they were fed up to the back teeth of the Labour Party apologizing for its existence and assuming post Blair there is only one way to run a society.

We feel uneasy at the rapidly widening gulf between the rich and the poor, do not like to see public services denigrated, do see the value of a trade union, and don’t like the nasty politics that treat refugees as opportunists trying to get a slice of the good life.

We also yearn for proper debates about major issues – like should we renew Trident and what is the future of the NHS and the welfare state, how serious is climate change etc. At the moment this is never discussed because of a sickening consensus that only way to solve anything is to get the rich to make even more money and bow to the international gods of global capitalism.

I know a number of people who looked at the Labour candidates and thought with the exception of Corbyn they sounded remarkably the same. So like the grandfathers and grandmothers we now are – the swinging sixties generation- decided they wanted a change.They voted for a new grandfather of the nation.

Young people who have talked to came to a remarkably similar conclusion. The politically aware tell me they found conventional party politics “ boring” with politicians too scared or too worried to say little more than political platitudes. They liked Corbyn because he said what he thought and cut through the crap. They wanted someone to lead rather than just follow.

They wanted someone who was going to challenge the status quo and was not part of the “posh boys” network. And further more they expect him – rather like the people who,like to like Nigel Farage,- to make mistakes.so may not be put off by a campaign denigrating him.Indeed such a campaign could be counter productive.

So far the reaction from the Tories has been hysterical with some like Michael Gove even claiming that Britain’s national security is now at risk with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm.

Really? I look forward to the first person to market a T shirt saying “I am a national security risk” and for David Cameron to order his or her arrest for wearing it.

Why Labour’s patronising grandees have driven people to vote for Stormin’ Corbyn

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Labolur's three grandees- Mandelson, Blair and Campbell Pic Credit: wherebuttheuk.com

Labolur’s three grandees- Mandelson, Blair and Campbell
Pic Credit: wherebuttheuk.com

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Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson,Gordon Brown, David Miliband, Tony Blair and now David Blunkett have all joined in bashing Jeremy Corbyn because he is the front runner in Labour’s leadership election and they are desperate to stop him.

Anyone but Corbyn is Campbell’s cry. Peter Mandelson has been up to his old tricks using back channels to try and get the election cancelled. The only person who has been wise enough to keep quiet is Ed Miliband who is leaving it to the members.

Yet what are these grandee’s credentials today for saying that Corbyn is unfit to lead Labour while the others would be fine.

Alastair Campbell’s reputation for plain dealing took a hit over the Iraq ” dodgy dossier” and is now a freelance journalist, a lobbyist and earns some of his money from dodgy Central European dictatorships like Kazakhstan.

Peter Mandelson has enjoyed a reputation for the ” dark arts” of politics and now is a strategic lobbyist with strong connections to Russian oligarchs who sympathise with Putin. We don’t even know the rest of his client list.

Gordon Brown is nowadays concentrating on education in Africa and stood down at the last election.

David Miliband is living in the United States doing good work in trying to provide humanitarian relief  to Syria.

Tony Blair is concentrating his entire life in making money from any country that will pay him large sums of cash – it is described in detail in  Blair Inc, my new book with Francis Beckett and Nick Kochan.

David Blunkett  along with Gordon Brown appears to have been the least avaricious but spends a lot of his time as an after dinner speaker.

None of them can say they are really in touch with the present mood of  Labour Party members, and some of them, notably Blair and Mandelson, have more in common with the wealthy global elite than a traditional Labour Party supporter.

And Labour Party activists long treated as foot soldiers and not given their head over policy formation by these grandees are revolting.  Ever since Blair reduced their power at party conferences they have had a diminishing say along with the unions.

The main charges from the grandees is that Corbyn will be hated by the  press and that he could never win an election.

Jeremy Corbyn Mp, not a grandee

Jeremy Corbyn Mp, not a grandee

But whoever leads the Labour Party will be monstered by the right wing press. Expect a simple nasty sexist campaign against Yvette Cooper saying ” vote Cooper get Balls” implying that the Ed Balls – just because he is married to her – will be inside Downing Street directing matters.

If it is Andy Burnham it will be that he is in the hands of the unions. If it Liz Kendall it will all be about inexperience etc

So people have remained unimpressed that by NOT voting for Corbyn they will escape the media’s wrath.

The election itself is five years away and Labour has a long time to redefine policy. Also with Corbyn’s promise of elections to the Shadow Cabinet –  Labour will be more diverse than just one faction.

What is quite clear that people want someone who will stand up for the party and launch a distinctive programme. They will not want a pale shadow of the present Conservative government- they can get a proper version already.

Yvette Cooper’s campaign has been disappointing. Instead of promoting women it has attacked men. Andy Burnham’s started well but seems to have gone all over the place. And Liz Kendall has not made the impact one might have expected.

This left Corbyn who no one expected to take off – striding into the lead. There seems to be a hunger out of there for a radical shift of direction. On September 12 we will know whether it has happened.

Labour leadership: Stormin’ Corbyn winning the new battle of Berkhamsted

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BERKHAMSTED CASTLE pPc Credit:geograph-org-uk

BERKHAMSTED CASTLE
Pic Credit:geograph-org-uk

Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire is not known as a centre of left wing radicalism. It has had only two revolutionary moments in its 1000 year history . They were the capitulation of the English to William the Conqueror in 1066 at Berkhamsted Castle and the Battle of Berkhamsted Common in 1866.

The latter was a remarkable story, A wealthy MP, Augustus Smith, was furious that a local landowner had enclosed common land above the town. So rather than just protest he took direct action. As a book, The Short History of Berkhamsted reveals he hired ” a miniature army of Cockney” toughs” and Irish labourers and charted a special train to convey them from Euston to Tring at the dead of night.”

These 120 men armed with crowbars tore down the iron railings overnight and the next day a newspaper reported ” “In carriages, gigs, dogcarts and on foot, gentry, shopkeepers, husbandmen, women and children at once tested the reality of what they saw by strolling over and squatting on the Common and taking away morsels of gorse to prove, as they said) the place was their own again.”

An Act of Parliament later guaranteed the freedom of the Common and Lord Brownlow who had tried to enclose it gave up.

Fast forward to 2015 and another extraordinary revolution seems to be taking place in the town if not the country..At a barbecue organised by the Berkhamsted and Tring branch of South West Herts Labour Party, members are talking about voting for Jeremy Corbyn.

Jeremy Corbyn Mp, popular with Berkhamsted Labour members

Jeremy Corbyn Mp, popular with   Berkhamsted Labour members

Now Jeremy has not had to bring in Cockney ” toughies” or Irish labourers to prove his point ( though they are many still in his Islington North constituency) but merely appear at local hustings with either other candidates or their representatives.

Both new members of the party and long-standing members are saying they are fed up with Labour apologising for what it stands for and don’t know what the other candidates for the leadership want to do. One lumped Andy Burnham,Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall into the same mould. She described them as vanilla – bland and tasteless with no ideological view of society.

They contrasted this with Corbyn who at least knows what he believes, doesn’t apologise for being a member of the Labour Party and would take the fight to the Tories and revamp the organisation. I saw no sign of entryism ( which the Sunday Times suggests) here among the new members – after all Chorleywood was never a bastion of the Militant Tendency even in its heyday. And John Mann MP is ridiculed for wanting to halt the election.

Angela Eagle Benefiting from Yvette Cooper's pro women campaign.. Pic credit: The Guardian

Angela Eagle Benefiting from Yvette Cooper’s pro women campaign.. Pic credit: The Guardian

This doesn’t mean that the people  who are going to vote for Corbyn agree with every single policy he stands for – but they seem to want something different from the present, in their words, uninspired rivals. The only pause for thought is whether this will split the party – but the history of the SDP suggests otherwise. And Yvette Cooper’s point about Labour being a club for the boys has made some impact  but not in the way she wants..It has caused people to think of voting for Angela Eagle as deputy to  gender balance their vote for Corbyn. I shall still plump for Tom Watson.

I sense rather like in the run up to the general election in Scotland that something big is happening and is becoming unstoppable. Already neighbouring Hemel Hempstead constituency party has decided to endorse Corbyn and it looked like that grassroots Labour members have suddenly decided they are fed up with the status quo and wants something different..

The impact if Corbyn wins will be game changing. Defeated Labour candidates in some areas are taking the opposite view as this article in The Guardian shows. They see that Labour didn’t take into account the views of working class voters hating scroungers and more immigration. I hear this too from the working class carers who assist my disabled wife. But don’t they realise what these voters want is NO immigration ( Britain is full that’s why public services are bad, they tell me) .They want a ban on foreigners holding British jobs and the ABOLITION of benefits for scroungers. Are Will Straw and Jessica Asato going to stand on a Labour platform banning anybody from abroad working in Britain and the abolition of large swathes of welfare to get their vote? I would be surprised – it would make an interesting article in Left Foot Forward.

Would Will Straw really campaign to stop foreigners getting British jobs to get working class votes?

Would Will Straw really campaign to stop foreigners getting British jobs to get working class votes?

No, Labour has to decide where it stands on all this and then campaign and educate people that it is cuts in public services not more immigrants that is causing a lot of the problem. That is why I am still deciding whether I should take the plunge and back Corbyn or stick with either Cooper or Burnham.

Will a Tory town hall victory in May lead to bitter defeat in July?

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St Albans Civic Centre: One of the new Tory controlled councils. Pic Credit: St Albans gov.uk

St Albans Civic Centre: One of the new Tory controlled councils. Pic Credit: St Albans gov.uk

This weekend’s Observer contained a very interesting article from Toby Helm revealing that local councils are planning to lobby the government like mad to stop yet another huge wave of cuts.

What was interesting is that it was coming from the victorious Tory leaders in May’s local elections who are now fearful of having to implement heavy unpopular cuts to local services.

It has gone virtually unreported the scale of the local government gains by the Conservatives who gained of 32 councils and 541 more councillors on the back of getting a majority in Parliament. the full results are on the BBC website here.

The gains – many from  no over all control include Amber Valley (from Labour),Basingstoke, Bath,Brentwood, Broxtowe,East Staffs,Gloucester, Gravesham,Hinckley (from Lib Dems),Herefordshire,Lewes, Newark,North Warwickshire,Scarborough,St Albans,Taunton, Warwick, West Devon,Winchester,Worcester and Wyre Forest.

Labour had just three gains, Chester, Stockton-on-tees and West Lancashire but overall lost control of  three councils and lost over 200 councillors.  But this masks the scale of Labour defeat in places locally like Dacorum in Hemel Hempstead where Labour is down to two seats and the Liberal Democrats down to three, with 46 councillors from the Conservatives.The Liberal Democrats lost another 411 councillors and control of four councils, holding on to South Lakeland, Eastleigh and Eastbourne..

UKIP gained their first council in Thanet  where Nigel Farage was defeated and put on another 176 councillors.This council will become a yardstick on how UKIP run local services.

The Conservative victors have every reason to be apprehensive. Local government has borne a disproportionate share of the cuts under the now departed Eric Pickles and George Osborne is introducing an emergency budget in July. The Treasury often prefer to land local government which supplies personal services with big cuts to spare some of the lobbying from anxious Whitehall departments.

I predict that we are going to see some very radical changes to services. Private companies like Capita must be rubbing their hands with glee and many councils may have to follow the London borough of Barnet and outsource the entire council to private companies. People will soon find out that the only way to contact their council will be by a call centre – if they are lucky in England – but if unlucky in Bangalore or Chennai. The Tory victors could end up being defeated by their own austerity policies.

Election 2015: Fear triumphs over hope

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David Gauke, prediicted the Tories would have a small working majority last Saturday

David Gauke, prediicted the Tories would have a small working majority last Saturday

Last Saturday in Berkhamsted market  treasury minister David Gauke, my local Tory MP now safely re-elected, told me five days before polling day, that the Conservatives would be returned with a small working majority.

At that time people said to me” he would say that, wouldn’t he? ” but Gauke had picked up, presumably from constituency returns, that the Liberal Democrats were doing badly. As the main challengers to the Tories in Herts South West he might take an interest even though his seat is one of the safest in the country. And he would know that many Liberal Democrat seats were vulnerable to the Tories and that Labour had more or less had it in Scotland.

As it turns out whether he had a crystal ball or not he was right – even though the opinion polls said the result was too close to call. Yet they all showed that a lot of people were still undecided.

What appears to have happened is that  enough undecided people on the way to the polling station appear to have bought the idea that they had to keep the government in power  to ensure that the “recovery ” continued and probably thought  ” I am just about OK” not to risk a change. A substantial minority – the UKIP vote – were so disillusioned about Westminster politics – that they were happy to vote for them  and damn the consequences. And it seems quite a number were ex Labour rather than Tory voters. and certainly that applied in Scotland where Labour seemed to have lost the plot.

Labour had offered the hope of a fairer society, more support for the NHS, and some controls on vested interests like private landlords and energy companies. Both Labour and the Tories  said there would be more unspecified cuts while the Tories promised to legislate to stop tax rises. But I suspect that people did not want to risk it because of these uncertain times.

I suspect many people think these “cuts”won’t affect them – only welfare scroungers and immigrants. I  think they will be in for a very big shock because there is no way the books can be balanced without much wider reductions if not removal of services. Local government, social care, benefits for disabled people, all are likely to be hit and there is no need now for a government in power for the next five years to bother with higher pay rises for public sector workers. There will also be a bonanza for private  firms to take over the rest of the work of the state and fraught referendum on Europe and a resentful relationship between England and Scotland.

Labour will have to do some new thinking on how it is going to offer a vision to attract people to vote for them – or be squeezed between UKIP and the Greens. Otherwise the prospects for 2020 will be even worse than now after the new  more equal constituency boundaries come into play and reduce their Parliamentary representation even further.

There is a very bumpy road ahead for this government with a small majority and a controversial manifesto to implement  but an equally bumpy road for all opposition parties as a result of today’s shock result.

Election 2015: Are We Bovvered?

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Driving around England just days before this week’s poll what has struck me forcibly is the absence of party political posters in ordinary people’s homes. Years ago when it was a simple two horse race with a rogue mare in a few Liberal strongholds the country would be a sea of red and blue with a spattering of orange.

Twice I have driven between Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire ( half of it not on the M1  but sticking a lot to the A5 and cutting across towns and villages Like Leighton Buzzard and Towcester) and I could count the number of party political posters on two hands. Now it may be that the old party poster is out of fashion or political support is now emblazoned on Twitter rather than the front window, but I suspect it may reflect a deeper malaise reflected in the polls.

Given that we have had a ferocious election campaign the extraordinary fact – barring a last minute switch in the next 48 hours -is that the English polls have remained roughly the same ( given a point or two ) throughout the campaign.The earth has not moved.

The exception is Scotland where the SNP looks heading for a landslide on the back of the referendum campaign – and has if anything strengthened its lead if the polls are to be believed. It could achieve a virtual wipe out of the opposition. Gordon Brown , Alastair Darling and Sir Menzies Campbell must be very relieved they stood down this election rather than face defeat at the hands of the voter.

What I suspect – beyond the hard core of supporters – is a general disillusionment with politicians, a lack of trust, and a sad view that politics can’t change things. This was shown by one Tory supporter who told me she had decided to support the party ” because things were just about all right”. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for a party which claims to have saved the country from Labour fiscal disaster, created full employment in the South and destroyed inflation. I know the Tory top guard -minimum income £67,000 a year – just can’t understand why voters aren’t flocking to them in droves to give them like the SNP either a  Thatcherite landslide or a decent working majority.They must be desperate now.

Labour seems also to have failed yet to achieve a convincing swing – though Miliband who is being portrayed as a weird wonk by the right-wing media- has actually increased his poor ratings once people saw him perform on TV. How Murdoch must regret he hasn’t got Fox News over here where he could run stories which  Sun Nation and Zelo Street highlighted – like Miliband’s plans to evict the Downing Street cat – to garner landslide Tory support from the Cats Protection League and RSPCA.

And Nick Clegg has the student tuition fees lying promise like an albatross around his party’s neck – people do not trust what he says. Individual Liberal Democrats may do better in individual seats than national polls suggest – and they could even have a freak win in Watford  over the Tories where the  Liberal Democrat mayor is fighting a ferocious campaign against strong  opposition from Labour and Tory.

As for UKIP – their highlighting of immigration and quitting the European Union – has meant they have not faded away – and still attract a significant minority of disillusioned voters but their poster count is not high either.In my view they have a nostalgic and nasty view of the modern world that won’t work in the 21st century.

And the Greens have made some inroads though not enough to gain seats – though they have a fighting chance in Bristol and Norwich.

But the general impression is a public still interested in political issues but disillusioned with politicians. The expenses scandal, and broken promises still resonate. The lack of trust can be shown by Cameron’s desperation in promising to frame in law his uncosted plans to promise no tax rises and Miliband’s promise to erect a stone monument in the Downing Street’s garden  featuring his election pledges.

My serious worry about this election is what happens next if politicians and political parties can’t garner the trust of the people.Siren voices are already suggesting getting rid of them and leaving the country-like much of society -to be run by business. The latest is Ministry of Sound man James Palumbo. His article in the Evening Standard is dangerous stuff. It suggests  simplistic solutions that would deny a proper debate about the issues. And there are real issues – but politicians have to level with the British people to regain their respect.