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Rover’s Crisis

The whole Rover crisis (latest here) will doubtless play a major role in the upcoming election for the marginal seats surrounding Longbridge, and so the ‘B’ team (Brown and Blair) will doubtless be doing their best to help people to keep their jobs.

From what I’ve seen thus far of their handling of this crisis, though, they’ve bungled it. Badly. From the moment Patricia Hewitt announced that the company had called in the administrators when, in fact, they hadn’t, it was obvious that the government wouldn’t handle this whole crisis well. As far as I can see, this government has never been terribly good in a crisis – it’s suffered a battering through fuel protests, handled foot-and-mouth frankly terribly, invaded countries under false pretences, and the PM has stayed on his hols whilst tens of thousands are dying in the biggest tsunami in living history. And yet people still rate him as good in a tough spot. I would suggest that this is more because he is in power than because of anything he’s actually done.

Anyway, back to matters at hand. I’m not entirely sure on what I see as the ‘right’ course of action in this situation: Should Rover be supported with tax-payers money? Probably not. But should thousands be left jobless because of a government’s wish not to get involved? Probably not. And would Tony and Co. suffer from not being seen to be helping? You bet. So what’s the right course of action? Beats me.

I’d like to think I’d stick to my principles, and let the people be made jobless, rather than electioneering. That might seem a little under-compassionate for the families who would suffer, but governments can’t be bowing to companies to avoid job losses, or we’re no longer living in a democracy. Why should Rover get handouts just because the company is threatened with closure? Would other companies then get handouts if they announce they’re to up and leave to China? It’s a bad precedent to set.

That’s the position I’d like to take, but I think it would be very difficult. The government will be criticised for whatever it does in this situation, so I think it’s probably best to just leave them to find a way through this, and live with the outcome. I’ve said what I felt needed to be said, and unless they do something spectacularly stupid, I won’t be posting any criticism of their actions on this in future.

Well, actually, knowing me, I almost certainly will, but hey-ho, I can do that, because I’m not in government… and therefore I’m in a much easier position than them!

This post was filed under: Election 2005, News and Comment.

Swing Update

Today’s swing figure:

» 4.67% swing to the Conservatives «

A slight dip for the Conservatives today after a day with no campaigning. Clearly, they need to keep the pressure up for the rest of the campaign.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

Just Swing!

Today’s swing figure:

» 4.88% swing to the Conservatives «

No huge change today, clearly 0.06 is well within the margin of error, but better that it’s a swing away from Blair than one towards him, I guess.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

Let’s Swing Again

Today’s figure, which includes a slight refinement to the secret swinging formula…

» 4.82% swing to the Conservatives «

It’s a good day for Mr Howard as his lead increases and he reduces Mr Blair’s majority to about 60 seats. This is the level at which Mr Blair’s leadership would start to be questioned, since it would look like he’d done some serious damage to Labour’s share of the vote. We’ll see how this develops over the coming days…

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

Swinging for the first time

Election swinging, of course.

With all the polls about, it seems just about time to share with you my predictions, which are based on a wide number of polls and a patented (not really) formula I’ve created in order to predict the swing in the upcoming election. I intend to make this a regular-ish feature, because as new polls come out the figure will change.

So where does the swingometer lie today?

» 4.39% swing to the Conservatives «

So what would this mean for Mr Blair? Well the news wouldn’t be so bad, actually. He’d still be left with an overall majority of about 70, which wouldn’t be seen as such a bad defeat. And my local constituency would have turned Conservative, too.

I’ll do my best to keep you updated on how this changes as the polls change. But there’s every chance I’ll forget.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

BBC scoops party leaders for live TV first

It’s still unfortunate the Blair doesn’t have the courage of his convictions necessary to stand up to a live TV debate before the election, but at least this will bring us something close – a special live edition of Question Time, in which the party leaders will all partake – but separately from each other. Since the same audience will be used for each party leader, it’s going to be something like a debate via third-parties, and the success of the event will depend completely on the order in which the party leaders appear.

Clearly, this whole event will be unfair if the leaders simply appear one after the other, with the first not able to respond to the accusations of the second, and so-forth. Mr Blair will end up going last, telling lies (like the big £35bn lie), and the Conservative leader will not have a chance to respond. That’s clearly unacceptable. There has to be an opportunity for the non-participants in each round to reply to any accusations made, or the whole thing is simply a farce.

Having said all of that, this is clearly a major election coup for the Beeb, and they should be very proud that they’ve managed to bring it all together. I’ll certainly be watching: 28th April, 8.30pm, BBC One.

Other good news from Auntie this week includes the fact that This Week is going twice-weekly, now appearing on Mondays as well as Thursdays. Good news indeed.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

More Labour spam

It’s my favourite kind of spam again… this time, purporting to be from Mr Anthony Blair himself:

If you have been keeping up with the news, you may already know that I went to the Palace a few minutes ago to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament.

What, no greeting? Well, anyway, yes, I did know that. But it was more than a few minutes ago. In fact, it was several hours ago.

I wanted to get this message out to you straight away about what’s at stake at the election and how you can help. This will be a tough campaign and we will have to fight for every seat and every vote.

Well you didn’t do very well on your ‘straight away’ target, did you? But then, what targets have you done well on? This will be a tough campaign, I quite agree – after all, most polls agree that Labour’s going to win, and it’s not going to be easy to get the necessary swing to stop them. We really do have to fight for every seat and every vote, you’re quite right.

We’re going to need the help of every Labour supporter – to distribute the leaflets, to talk to voters on the doorsteps and get on those phones.

I know much of the local party membership dislike Mr Blair, but would they really campaign against him? I think you’re being a bit optimistic, dear.

If you’ve never volunteered to help Labour’s campaign before, make this your first time. If you’re an old hand, we need you now more than ever.

Why would I want to volunteer to help Labour? Oh, I understand, you think I should sabotage the campaign from the inside. But isn’t that a bit of dirty politics? I guess we have to stoop very low, though, to beat a party which is a dab hand at cheating in elections.

For what’s at stake on May 5 is the future direction of our country – whether it goes forward or back.

I certainly don’t dispute that.

Labour hasn’t, by any means, achieved all we want yet.

After eigtht years? What have you been playing at, then? Launching illegal wars, and getting your knickers in a twist about keeping the fact they’re illegal secret?

And you may not agree with every decision I have made.

Too true.

But there’s been real progress in communities up and down the land.

What’s progress? Where exactly are you talking about?

Our country is fairer, more modern and successful than it was eight years ago.

Is the introduction of top-up fees by people who were paid to go to university fair? Is the inability to run an election free of blatant fraud modern? Does the fact that we have to cater to Brussels’s every whim make us successful?

And May 5 will decide whether we can build on – and accelerate – the progress made in spreading opportunity and prosperity.

What progress in spreading opportunity? Does providing young people with criminal records through ASBOs help their opportunities? And what’s this about prosperity? We’re worse off now than we were last year!

Or whether the Tories can succeed in taking Britain back to the failed and risky policies of cuts, charges and economic mismanagement.

Here we are again with the ‘Tories = Evil’ message, without actually making any firm promises of your own. Do you think the electorate don’t notice this?

Over the next five weeks, I will be out and about across the country spelling out that choice. And so will all my colleagues.

Oh dear God, please don’t come near here. And I’m sure you won’t be out and about that much, given you’re absence (until today) from your party’s homepage, and your unwillingness to engage in an open debate with the other party leaders. What is it you’re scared of, Mr Blair?

I hope to see you on the campaign trail.

I very much doubt that sentiment.

But if you have a question for me, you can visit the website labour.org.uk and let me know.

Hmm… How about, ‘What exactly was the full advice given to you by the Attorney General in advance of the Iraq War?’. Or how about, ‘Why did you present intelligence you knew was shaky as firm and concrete?’

I can’t promise to answer them all.

I’ll bet. It’d be something of a first if you actually answered any questions that weren’t to your liking.

But I’ll answer as many as I can throughout the campaign.

Carefully screened first, of course. In fact, why don’t you just make up your ideal questions, and answer them? It seems to be your PMQs strategy.

It’s less than five weeks now to polling day. Five weeks in which the future of our country is in our hands.

Very definitely.

We have a good story to tell.

Very true – a story of lies, deceit, and corruption.

Let’s go out and tell it.

Well, you see, I would, but every time anyone criticises your government, you launch a massive smear campaign that’s always full of blatant lies and often offensive to great swathes of the population, which rather creates difficulties for us.

Yours sincerely, Tony Blair

I doubt that very much – do you even know what the word ‘sincere’ means? And do you think anybody believes you actually write this political poop?

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

The battle is joined

If that isn’t a cliché, I don’t know what is… but the point is that the Election is now officially underway. Don’t forget our special election page (sjhoward.co.uk/election2005) which has been online for some time now, and the accompanying election RSS feed.

Stick with sjhoward.co.uk throughout the election for partisan, biased, opinion-based election coverage.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

Labour cheats in election

This should be much more damaging that it has been for the Labour party – in the run-up to a general election, it has emerged that members of the Labour party have been involved in rigging a local election – this should be huge. Talk about a corrupt political party – you can’t get much more corrupt than actually rigging the vote. Tag on to all this Alan Milburn’s comment that he’d do anything to win the election, and it becomes a very big story indeed for one of the tabloids.

If only this had come out a week earlier, when we weren’t all so concerned with the Pope and the Royals, it could have done considerable – perhaps irrepairable – damage to the Labour campaign. Of course, Michael Howard can’t throw this particular mud at the PM without being made to look stupid for trying to extrapolate one local council election to the whole Labour party. Anyway, we’ll see what happens tomorrow, but I don’t think many will have a free front-page to sling it with.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.

Good news and bad on ID Cards

Some good news on the ID Cards bill:

Controversial plans to introduce the ID cards are also expected to be shelved, with both opposition parties again determined to block the them.

But given that Labour are still marginally leading in the election race, it looks like it’ll be a temporary reprieve:

Clarke said their position ‘was crazy’ and pledged to reintroduce ID cards if Labour is re-elected, adding: ‘It will then become an election issue – which it doesn’t have to be. If it is, it will be because the Tories and Liberal Democrats have decided to make it an election issue.’

I really think that a scheme that is to cost hundreds of millions with little actual advantage to the fight against crime – or anything else for that matter – should be an election issue, and the fact that Mr Clarke thinks otherwise is perhaps because he knows that he can’t form a robust defence in the eyes of the public.

This post was filed under: Election 2005.




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