The green shoots of Lib Dem recovery are appearing

Me in the New Statesman yesterday; Huzzah.

I was all set for a bit of spleen venting this morning when I woke up to be greeted with the South Shields by-election result. And let’s not pretend that any result in which your vote share drops by 13 percentage points, you’re beaten into seventh by (among others) the BNP, your coalition partner loses masses of support to the new girl in town and still loses less of its share of the vote than you do, and you finish just 155 votes ahead of the Monster Raving Loony Party, is nothing less than appalling. South Shields was a terrible result for the Lib Dems by any measure.

But actually, I can’t quite bring myself to give it both barrels. Because whisper it gently, but so far, the other council election results indicate the green shoots of recovery in the Lib Dems' support.

Now, those green shoots may have a certain straw-like quality as I clutch at them but so far, we seem set to lose only around half the number of seats suggested by the Rallings and Thrasher forecasts. And more to the point, we’re doing well in areas that reflect where we hold Parliamentary seats – taking around 33 per cent of the vote (to the Tories' 31 per cent and UKIP's 22 per cent).  Given the party looks set to adopt a ‘keep what we’ve got’ strategy for 2015, we look on track to achieve just that. And so far we’re taking around 16 per cent of the overall vote, which, given recent polls, many in the party would bite your hand off to achieve.

Plus there’s more good news for the Lib Dems - the success of UKIP. If UKIP were to take 25 per cent of the vote across the country in a general election, the chances are they’d take… 0 seats. The lowest winning vote share in 2010 was 29.4 per cent, higher than UKIP has ever achieved in a Westminster poll. Which says two things if you’re a Lib Dem. Firstly, UKIP (not a party which we have much in common with) may reduce the Tory vote, helping us to beat them, but are unlikely to win themselves. And were UKIP and the Lib Dems to jointly achieve 40 per cent in a general election and end up with a handful of seats,  the pressure to reopen the electoral reform debate would be almost irresistible…

There are plenty of results still to come in yet and lots of opportunities for it all to go pear shaped. And even if it doesn’t, losing another swathe of council seats to a party that bets the house on the grassroots ground machine is no laughing matter.

But so far things are looking ok. Though I won't be wearing orange if I’m in South Shields any time soon.

The Tory Posh School problem in a nutshell

I blogged yesterday about the oddity that the current Tory Party seems obsessed with promoting public schoolboys in general, and Eton alumni in particular, up the greasy pole; odd, because no privately schooled Tory has won a general election since Macmillan in 1959.

The problem was fairly neatly illustrated on 10 O'clock Live last night, when Janet Street Porter berated the 'Eton educated Ian Duncan Smith' for encouraging pensioners who didn't need their benefits to give them back. Her suggestion was how dare this posh bloke tell us we need to give our money back.

Now there's no denying IDS is posh; but he didn't go to Eton. he didn't go to public school at all. He went to a RC Comprehensive in Solihull.

But therein lies the problem for the Tories.  The posh boy public school not-one-of-us narrative has stuck. And the 'one of us' Tory voters who so venerated Mrs Thatcher, (Basildon man et al) are searching for a new home - and have found one in UKIP.

The Tories a bit stuffed.

Ho hum. What a shame

Why on earth do the current Tories keep promoting public schoolboys...?

Here's a list of Tory leaders. Spot the odd one out

David Cameron
Michael Howard
Ian Duncan Smith
William Hague
John Major
Margaret Thatcher
Ted Heath
Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Harold Macmillan

Can you spot the odd one out?

It's Harold Macmillan. He's the only privately educated one that actually won a General Election.

Of course Major, Thatcher and Heath all won majorities - but were all State educated.

Which kind of begs the question - why on earth do the Tories think a privately educated leader will win a general election for them?

Of course, Hague, Howard and IDS were also State educated. Which means Cameron is the first Tory leader to be privately educated since Douglas-Home.

Quite a thought...

I can't help but think if they could run posters like this, they'd be in a rather better position to say 'we're all in this together...'

I'd love to play you Ed Davey's speech from last Saturdays Mega rally against Heathrow expansion...

...but it does indeed seem beyond the wit of man to get blogger to load it; so instead here are some pictures of  the event which featured Ed (Lib Dem), Boris, Zac Goldsmith, Justine Greening (Tories), John McDonnal and Andy Slaughter (Labour), Jean Lambert MEP (Green), John Stewart (HACAN) amongst others.

If you'd like to express an opinion on the issue, do follow this link to the Richmond Council referendum

Best line was when Giles Brandreth introduced Ed - noting that he was following Zac and Boris, and being closely associated with either is not necessarily a brilliant career move.

5 Presidents

It is quite a picture this, isn't it?

Spielberg is making 'Obama' as a follow up to 'Lincoln'...

and wait until you see who he has cast as 'Obama'





(I love the White House Correspondents Dinner)

MP and Former Labour Home Sec Alan Johnson still supporting the Snoopers Charter

Alan Johnson was on BBC This Week last night and apparently, he still want the Snoopers Charter brought in.

The key passage can be seen here (the first 60 secs or so is the key bit) but as it won't be up for too long, I've also transcribed the key passage below. Thanks to @Glynley for finding the right clip.

Alan Johnson

"The government are, we hear today, dropping the Communications Date bill...this is not the time to be complacent".

When then challenged by Andrew Neil if he thought the government should have continued bringing in a Snoopers Charter, Johnson goes on...

"I think they should. Look, it was...I saw it, and so does the Intelligence and Security Committee, as a major major problem...we always had the ability with telephone calls and letters - because the state owned it - now with the explosion in new methods of communication, they don't know, to the extent they should, who is communicating with who".

It's now very clear, with the Tories having brought this forward this time, and Labour trying to do the same in the last government , that it is only the Lib Dems in Westminster who are stopping this legislation being brought forward and defending civil liberties in this area