Over half our MPs’ seats are so safe, they never change hands. Then Brexit gave those millions of ignored voters a voice...

KJ and Fee know who and what is to blame...

SOURCE Electoral Reform Society

In safe seats odds are firmly stacked against any voters looking for change. The average constituency last changed hands between parties in the 1960s, with some super safe seats having remained firmly in one-party control since the time of Queen Victoria. That means, at every election, the majority of seats can be predicted because of Westminster’s broken First Past the Post electoral system. As consituencies are small and only elect one MP, rival parties often don’t stand a chance of winning in hundreds of seats across the UK. Even if they have significant support it counts of nothing if they lose. As the loss of safe seats is rare, parties target their resources on a small number of floating voters in marginal seats – meaning they give up on millions of voters across the country. Four weeks away from the 2015 election we could predict the results for over half of the total constituencies.

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Labour MPs ousting Corbyn: the rebellion of the cheesemakers!

Labour Party rebels blaming Jeremy Corbyn for BREXIT bring to mind an emotionally inept spouse trying to work out why his angry partner threw a teapot at him. 

The ninny obsesses about what his spouse had against the smashed teapot. Was it the colour? Did the nozzle drip? Would a new teapot make everything better? He is far too self-obsessed to see the problem is himself.

Labour MPs rebelling against Jeremy Corbyn are so distant and self-obsessed they can’t hear what the people they claim to represent are saying. 

"Blessed are the cheesemakers!" the bovine MPs hear, taking this as clear confirmation they should rebel. "The Greek will inherit the Earth" sends them scurrying looking for whoever is bearing the nicest gifts.

So inept are the Labour rebel leaders that they staged a drip-drip of shadow ministerial resignations over several days. Confirming to ordinary Labour Party members the whole rebellion was rehearsed like a school production of a Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera: long on planning, short on talent.

We Resign, TaranTara!

Or perhaps it was simply the later the resigner left their announcement indicated the measure of their cowardice in waiting for safety in numbers? 

In fact both the main political parties, like many other reptilian species, periodically slough off their skins. The Tories with Thatcher in 1975, and Labour with Blair in 1994. What is unusual is in 2016 the Tories and Labour do it together. Writhing like two mating rat snakes. No romance, no empathy, just the need to spawn and survive.

BREXIT was a protest against a politics that cut the many adrift, leaving the few to prosper. Corbyn and his supporters seem to be the only mainstream leaders who understand this.

Perhaps Corbyn’s role is to block the Labour Leader’s seat to keep it from the Blairistas. Like the ancient Roman Horatio, Corbyn is holding the bridge to the leadership until an ambitious and suitably talented politician emerges from the Left.

Britain needs strong parties of all complexions, from Left to Right. Whoever that ambitious and capable Leftie is, its about time you stepped forward. 

Until then, Corbyn should continue his Rope-A-Dope strategy, and let the rebels come out punching until they get bored with themselves.

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Even David Cameron’s mother Mary has signed a petition against the cuts

SOURCE BBC NEWS: David Cameron's mother signs anti-cuts petition

Mary Cameron, 81, has put her name to a campaign against plans by Conservative-run Oxfordshire County Council to close a number of the centres. Retired magistrate, Mrs Cameron, told the newspaper: "My name is on the petition but I don't want to discuss this any further." She reportedly signed the petition while visiting her son in Oxfordshire. Campaigners are trying to stop the closure of nearly all of Oxfordshire's 44 children's centres - the county council wants to keep eight hubs, to save £8m pounds. The petition describes the proposals as a "false economy", and says the early intervention services provide numerous economic and other long-term benefits. Campaign organiser Jill Huish said she was "not surprised" to have the Prime Minister's mother's endorsement. "It shows how deep austerity is cutting our most vulnerable when even David Cameron's mum has had enough," she said. The prime minister previously wrote to the local authority in his capacity as MP for Witney expressing "disappointment" at planned cuts to museums, libraries and day centres for the elderly. But council leader Ian Hudspeth hit back, saying the cuts were the result of reductions in funding from central government. Members of Unite employed in early intervention by Oxfordshire County Council will walk out on strike on February 16 after voting overwhelmingly for industrial action.

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MPs pocketed 10% payrise while Department of Works and Pensions report shows over half of Britons have been cutting back on food.

Wage restraint has been tough. In March 2015 the Chief Secretary to HM Treasury announced:

"Our teachers, doctors and armed forces do a wonderful job serving the people of this country. Pay restraint has been very difficult for many, but has helped us to protect vital public service jobs while we deal with Britain’s deep financial problems.

The independent pay review bodies have worked hard to bring forward a balanced and affordable set of recommendations that delivers on our commitments to increase pay by around 1% and deals with particular pressures. The government is grateful for their work and I am pleased that we are able to accept their main recommendations.

The government has accepted in full the recommendations for the following workforces who will receive an average of a 1% pay increase:

• Armed Forces
• independent contractor GPs and dentists
• Prison Service
• teachers
• senior military
• judiciary"

Happily for some the doom and gloom did not spread everywhere.

From 31st July 2015 MPs pocketed a 10% payrise, their pay going up from £67,060 to £74,000 per annum (backdated to the General Election in May 2015). 

Perhaps you remember all those MPs shaking their heads and shooting out their lips protesting that the payrise was a disgrace in these times of austerity? According to the website Donate My Payrise 74 out of the 650 MPs pledged to hand over the extra cash to charities. The website helpfully gives links to the individual MPs’ public statements, so you can check what your MP did or didn't say.

A report in October 2015 by the Sun newspaper stated in fact only 26 MPs had actually done so. [Subsequent to the Sun report the SNP chimed in saying their MPs too would donate their rises to charity, but hadn't at that time decided to which ones]. 

Asked what David Cameron would do with his payrise, the Sun reported Cameron’s spokesman would only say:
“The PM has been explicitly clear since the very start that he does not agree with this pay increase.”

Which may remind you of Cameron's response when asked whether he benefited from the "millionaire's tax cut" in 2013. Cameron was asked by Stephen Pound MP, during Prime Minister's Questions of February 13th 2013 : 

"Q12. [142834] Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab):  will [the Prime Minister] tell the House whether he will personally benefit from the millionaires’ tax cut to be introduced this April?

The Prime Minister: I will pay all the taxes that are due in the proper way. "

There is a spooky similarity between Cameron's statement and that of the Starbucks and Google bosses when they were being grilled by a parliamentary select committee on multinationals tax dodging shenanigans:

"we strive to follow the letter of the law and have done so in the case of our tax obligations. All taxes owed to the UK have been timely and fully paid"

Mr.Troy Alstead, Starbucks

"We pay all the tax you require us to pay in the UK."

Mr.Matt Brittin, Google

Could it be Cameron, Starbucks and Google share tax advisors? Surely not!

The Government is not simply turning a blind eye to the predicament of the less well off. Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) showed enough concern to commission a report on the impact of the Bedroom Tax: "Evaluation of Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy". This report found that three quarters of those affected tried to make ends meet by cutting back on food and clothing. The report also states that even among people not affected by the Bedroom Tax (referred to in the report as the "comparison group"): 56% cut back on food and 62% cut back on clothing. Which is not so surprising when, acccording to OECD figures, the UK has one of the highest proportions of workers on low pay in the developed World:

Duncan-Smith, thoughtful chap that he is, waited until the day MPs broke up for Christmas holiday, on 17th December 2015, before publishing the report. So as not to spoil their mood as they scampered off to spend their 10% payrise on presents and other festive stimulants. You can't say our Government isn't sensitive and caring.

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Corbyn's leadership victory showed the Labour Party membership don't want their party to be a "Tory Mini-Me" as it has been since 1997. If Labour MPs learn that lesson from Corbyn's leadership, then Corbyn will have done his job even if they do manage to oust him.

There can be no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn was the correct answer to the Labour leadership election in September 2015. After all, in a British democratic election "correct" is whatever the electorate says it is. And Corbyn (59.5% of the vote) was startlingly ahead of the rest of the pack: Burnham (19.0%); Cooper (17.0%) and Kendall (4.5%). In a victory as surprising as the Conservatives winning the 2015 General Election, the Labour Party electorate left no doubt Corbyn was the right answer. But take a closer look at the question that had been put to them.

When the Labour Party asked its electorate "who should be leader" it actually got the answer "who should not be leader". The overwhelming response being: not Burnham; not Cooper; not Kendall. The message from the voters was they wanted none of the above.

However, the box for 'none of the above' had the name 'Jeremy Corbyn' next to it. And perhaps as much to his own consternation as the Parliamentary Labour Party's (i.e. the Labour MPs), Corbyn was made leader by unambiguously being "none of the above".

The Labour electorate voted strongly against 'all the above' rejecting their common policies embracing austerity and generally following the Tories onwards and rightwards. Labour's mistake in recent elections was not that it was too Lefty. Its mistake has been to race to the Right chasing votes as a priority over representing its natural support base. Like Wile E. Coyote running beyond his natural support base, the cliff's edge, in 2015 Labour came crashing to electoral defeat for the second time.

When New Labour under Tony Blair started steering starboard the Labour support base believed their party would take them all together on the trip to the promised land. They were disappointed. Inequality remained at Thatcherite levels, 

GINI Coefficient is a measure of inequality

manufacturing industry withered, 

financial companies were left off their leashes to recklessly and ruinously reave away getting filthy rich. Labour supporters' faith handed Blair three successive victories, but each time the victory got progressively smaller: 1997 43.2%; 2001 40.7%; 2005 35.2%. Labour lost in 2010 with 29.0% of the vote, and lost again in 2015 with 30.4%.

As more and more of Labour's support base realised New Labour had steamed off without them, they withdrew their votes. Given the rare opportunity of a leadership election to decide whether they wanted more of the same with Burnham/Cooper/Kendall they voted for 'none of the above' and got Corbyn.

If Corbyn does sacrifice his leadership on a pyre of his principles, the Labour Party should not allow smoke to get in its eyes and rebound back to 'one of the above'. It should realise that while 'none of the above' may not mean Corbyn, it still means 'none of the above'.

It is perhaps not the individuals - Burnham; Cooper; Kendall - who are the problem. It is their, and the Labour MPs in the Parliamentary Party's, misunderstanding of what the Labour Party is for. They need to understand that Labour is supposed to represent the Left. If the Labour Party strategy is to get into government by being like the Tory Party, then we end up with a de-facto Tory government whoever wins. Tory policies by a Labour government are still Tory policies.

Labour should get into government by representing the labouring people - including doctors, teachers and accountants as well as barristas, road sweepers and shelf stackers - to ensure they are getting their fair share in the form of income (e.g. lower inequality; welfare to supplement low wages); services (e.g. education; NHS); and rights (e.g. free access to the courts and legal aid; protection from scamming banks and energy companies). And if Labour can't get into government by representing the Left, it should represent the Left from Opposition.

Because Opposition works too. George Osborne's fiasco in November 2015 when he cancelled his Tax Credit cuts shows even he understood he had taken a step too far. Osborne realised people of all political leanings know the hard working low paid are getting a bad deal from the 'free market'. With the demise of Osborne's Tax Credit cuts perhaps Labour MPs will take courage that they can keep their offices while doing the jobs Labour MPs are actually supposed to do.
 

After losing the May 2015 general election, the Labour Party set up an inquiry into why they so unexpectedly lost. The Labour Policy Coordinator at the time of the report in August 2015, John Cruddas MP, wrote:
"The first hard truth is that the Tories didn’t win despite austerity, they won because of it. Voters did not reject Labour because they saw it as austerity lite. Voters rejected Labour because they perceived the Party as anti-austerity lite." 
The way the wind was blowing was clear to the Labour electorate: in order to save their seats Labour MPs wanted to turn away from the likes of "Red Ed" to someone more bluish. The Parliamentary Party of Labour MPs thought the purpose of the Labour Party was to get them into and keep them in Parliament. They thought the success of the Labour Party was measured by how many of them sat on the green benches. They thought it was enough for them once in Parliament to do what the Tories do, but feel a bit bad about it. However the rest of the Labour Party, those outside Parliament, didn't see it that way.

Weakening employment protection, cutting access to justice, to health, to education, privatising the public sector, these all happened under Labour, Conservative and Coalition governments in recent decades.

Choosing Jeremy Corbyn was the 'none of the above' option in the Labour Leadership election. If Corbyn decides this is not a role for him, Labour needs to take care replacing him. Perhaps it will be someone who didn't run for the leadership in September 2015. Perhaps even Burnham, Cooper or Kendall may learn the lesson of Corbyn's victory. Perhaps one of them could transmogrify into the 'none of the above' leader.

Britain needs a strong party of the Right, and a strong party of the Left. Each side depends on the other to control its excesses. New Labour's electoral success from 1997 was supported by a Tory Party in disarray, flummoxed at how it should oppose what were Tory policies. The Tories' electoral success may be supported by a Labour Parliamentary Party more focused on ousting its leader than opposing the Tories. 

If Labour becomes a strong party of the left, even if he doesn't stay on as leader then Jeremy Corbyn will have pulled off precisely the sort of coup the country needs. And if he does stay on, with the Tories making life harder for the young, the working poor, public servants, the disabled, those in care, minorities etc. etc., who knows where he may end up.

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An NHS doctors strike will make it only the second time in 40 years. Both under Cameron

SOURCE BBC NEWS: BMA refuses to re-enter contract talks

The British Medical Association said the contract was not safe or fair and accused ministers of putting out "misleading" claims. A ballot over industrial action is due to get under way on Thursday 5^th November. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had made a last ditch attempt to persuade them not to push ahead with the ballot. This included the promise of an 11% rise in basic pay, but the BMA said this was misleading as it was offset by curbs to other elements of the pay package, including unsociable hours payments. The BMA has claimed there are insufficient safeguards to stop hospitals over-working doctors and that some medics stand to lose up to 15% of their salaries. The union also said it could not return to talks unless the government lifted the threat to impose the new contract. It is due to start in August 2016. Scotland and Wales have said they do not want to introduce the changes, while Northern Ireland has yet to make a decision.

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Twice as many LibDem voters went to Labour than to Conservative, but three times as many LibDem seats went Conservative than Labour. The LibDem collapse unintentionally handed the Tories victory in 2015. A LibDem "comeback" could hand Labour a victory in 2020.

The Conservative victory in the 2015 General Election has rightly been described by just about everyone as "stunning". However with the continuous repetition of this accurate assessment it is gradually being forgotten why it was stunning. And it has been forgotten what the immediate result of being stunned is.

The victory was stunning not because of its size, but because it happened at all. In fact Cameron's victory was smaller than any in recent decades except for his own performance in 2010, which forced him into coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

A report in September 2015 by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) throws some light on what caused this stunning event. In terms of changes in voter support, the report finds:

a) About the same number of voters shifted from Labour to Conservative as shifted from Conservative to Labour. Effectively cancelling each other out.

b) About the same number of voters shifted from Conservative to UKIP as shifted from the LibDems to the Conservatives. Effectively cancelling each other out in terms of number of votes, though not in terms of number of MPs.

c) Labour gained far more votes from the LibDems than the Tories did. But the Tories gained far more MPs from them. [Of the 49 seats the LibDems lost in 2015: Tories took 27; Labour took 12; SNP took 10].

David Cameron could well have quoted Henry V's not so famous speech in the Shakespeare play of that name. Not "Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more..", but the one at the end of the Battle of Agincourt:

"O God, thy arm was here;

And not to us, but to thy arm alone,

Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,

But in plain shock and even play of battle,

Was ever known so great and little loss

On one part and on the other? Take it, God,

For it is none but thine!"

Though instead of "God", the credit would go to the "Electoral Arithmetic". The vast migration of voters (pictured in the IPPR graph below) crossing political borders to find a better life resulted in gifting the election to the Tories. The large number of votes the Tories lost to UKIP did not cost them any seats, nor gain UKIP any. While the small number of votes the Tories gained from the LibDems won them 27 additional MPs.

Many have forgotten what "stunning" and "being stunned" actually mean. The thing about stunned people is they tend not to see clearly. Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party elicited terror from the Left and glee from the Right. Both were convinced that the Conservative's stunning victory proved the Labour Party needed to move Right in pursuit of electoral success. Both concluded a Leftier Corbyn-led party would hand the Tories power for a decade.

In stark contradiction to this belief, the IPPR report showed Labour would actually be noticeably less attractive to voters if it moved to the Right. Moving further to the Left would apparently make Labour marginally more popular.



What about the great tide of voters when the angry wind for UKIP and against the LibDems changes? Will it recede, and where will it recede to? The graphs below relate only to constituencies lost by the LibDems in the 2015 General Election:

a) Tories to UKIP:
Traditional Tory voters who moved to UKIP will be faced with months of derision from their former party. They will be told insisting on leaving the EU is a task for fools and buffoons. Will they return in the 2020 general election to the Tory party having been treated so scornfully by it? 

b) Lib-Dems to Tories:
The Liberal-Democrat party conference hall, in September 2015, echoed with promises of a great come-back. This is not so impossible. Now traditional Lib-Dem voters know that not voting Lib-Dem to punish the party for being too Tory, they ended up with actual Tories as their MPs. Perhaps next time they will be more careful what they vote for. With Labour a distant third in many of these lost seats, the voters would have to return to the Lib-Dem fold to eject their Tory MP. The Lib-Dems are not without consolation in their 2015 desolation, and have 20,000 extra shepherds to herd their lost sheep back into their fold:

We've had 20,000 new members join us since the beginning of the election campaign - why not join them too? http://t.co/uhtmkgT1D2 #CallClegg

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) June 25, 2015

The Conservative victory in 2015 was stunningly narrow. The 2020 election is for the Tories to lose as much as it is for Labour to win. Something the Tories are more likely to do if they continue to repel voters with their "Nasty Party" tendencies.

If the Tories truly believe Corbyn will be a disaster for Britain, then they owe it to save Britain by being less repellent even if it goes against the instincts of their current leadership. 

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