Victory for the anti-establishment

Among the blogging sites much joy at Beppe Grillo's unexpected 25% vote share in the Italian elections.  Nothing the internet likes more than giving politicians a good kicking. Unless its giving bankers a good kicking. And the Five Star Movement does that too by causing bank shares to fall across Europe following Italy's inconclusive election. So he is welcomed as a new libertarian force, smashing in the old, stale ways. Booting out lazy, incompetent, partisan politicians. Expelling the corrupt, the criminal and the charlatans from government and bringing a fresh start for politics. A rebirth. A whole new way of doing politics. No left. No right. just "the people".

So, good for him and his movement.

However, populism and personality cults have a way of going bad. Very, very bad. The history of the world, from Caesar to Perón, from Danton to Castro and from Lenin to Mao shows they have been bloodbaths. 

Beppe Grillo may not be a dictator in the making. He may be another Gandhi. Or a William Peffer. Italy may be just right for a major shakeup.

As CU posted earlier, the real problem is Grillo has mass appeal but no real ideas. He has managed to get the young and disillusioned to vote, without knowing what they are voting for. A protest party isn't a real party. Its a protest. Very hard to run a country on a protest. Especially hard when the country is in a crisis. 5* are going to have to do a deal. Will certainly be very interesting to see what is agreed and how long it lasts.

Benito Mussolini had three main platforms and goals for Italy.  

1.self-sufficient rather than greatly relying upon foreign imports

2. Increasing the population

3. Strengthening the currency

The battles for births, lira and grain.

If only he'd thought to add free broadband for all?

8 quotes below -4 from Grillo and 4 from Benito

 Can you pick the Benito quotes from the Grillo ones?

{no googling now..just have a guess. Put the 4 Benito numbers into the comments. + Have changed some words as the 80 year old vocabulary gives it away.}

1. "We stand for the sheer, categorical, definitive antithesis to the world of democracy…"
2.  "You have to participate actively in politics: change your habits: eat, travel, think in a certain way,"
3.  "There is no democracy; I decide everything. I'm a democratic dictator."
4.  "Dissent is inconceivable within the Movement."
5.   "It's finished! Give up! You are surrounded!" as banners waved  "We want to get out of the darkness."
6. "I want to use economic power to politically reshape the Italian state to fit our ideological outlook."
7.  "We are a religion"
8. "Every anarchist is a baffled dictator"
   

Miliband cleans up.

Labour have swept the board. Ed Miliband deserves congratulations. It was a great success. 854 new councillors, quite widely spread across the UK. I never thought he had it in him!

We’ll let the papers tell you why windturbine Tories did so badly. Lets have a quick look at why Ed’s Labour did so well.

Firstly, the low turnout was a massive boost to an opposition party. In some areas the vote was so small it was basically a fight amongst activists. Its much easier to get worked up against the government than for it. All incumbent parties suffer this. Especially midterms. Obama was given a similar sized boot in his. It doesn't diminish the success. But it did make it easier.

Secondly, this is a result fought over a pre-coalition background. When Labour last contested these seats they had to fight the protest party of the Lib Dems as well as the Tories. Then the liberals were the anti-Browns. Now the Liberals ARE the Tories. Labour is fighting on only one front. The message is its US vs THEM.

Thirdly. The total incompetence of the government in the last six weeks. Not one decent headline. Its almost as if the pre Mandelson Brown cabal had wandered back into office. A budget disaster. Pasty stories. Murdoch. Hunt. Fuel crisis. Qatada. Posh boys...

Any government can have bad luck, but to make their own bad luck is unforgivable. Why did the Tories tax 100% rock solid blue pensioners just before an election? Why did they do the half hearted tax cut to 45%? It cost them the positives of the taxation threshold rise without the gain of bold headlines for tax cutting.. It wasn’t necessary to do it now. Why not next year?

Miliband had the misfortune of the Ken tax story but that’s a local London matter, and it cost him his hat trick. But as the Tories have cocked up, labour have cocked up less. Miliband managed to avoid to much flak from the Galloway shock.  The misjudgement of Tom Watson to plug his book, hasn’t had much impact on anyone. Opposition don’t have to say much. If anything. Tony Blair won a landslide without having any policies at all. Ed Miliband took that lesson on board from his first day.

Fourthly – The media. This was just fortunate for Miliband but he didn’t upset the right wing press, which allowed him to exploit it. Since the budget the Tories dropped about 8% in the polls. That was a real drop where voters giving the benefit of the doubt decided they’d had enough. A daily negative press about Cameron, Tories, government, Liberals  and cock ups reinforced the rich vs poor, they are incompetent narrative.. Front pages with queues of foreigners stuck in an airports wouldn't normally upset the Daily Mail too much. But they went berserk. Weeks of damning headlines.

If this were a real election the right wing press would have been much more partisan. 

That doesn’t mean that Prime Minister Miliband is something we will be hearing in 3 years time.

Mid terms don’t mean much. The Liberals have now taken their final hit across all those angry voters who felt cheated by the coalition agreement. They won’t sink much lower. They are now at core. Elections are an uphill climb and each new seat that labour needs to take from the Liberals and Tories is steeper than the last.

The good UKIP councilor gains don’t net them any MPs. In a real election, when not voting blue probably does mean a vote for the red, voters will be less likely to give UKIP their preference. Especially if Cameron finally acknowledges the Euro split within his party and does something about it.

There are still three years to go. A lot can happen. The economy might come good. The SNP might struggle..or do better. The Liberals might find a reason to get people to vote for them again. Europe’s instability might have blown up or calmed down. So the result isn’t that important in the long term.

But for Ed Miliband it is still a very, very good result, And one that he can use to show that he can generate support and can get people out to vote for him. The coalition have allowed Labour back into the game. And so made the 2015 election much, much closer.

The Fall of Barack Obama

Obama offered Americans a free and easy pass to a better future: now they see it was an empty promise

Interesting piece on obama's woes on the First post here. Unusually for a U.S. President Obama has dissapeared from the radar here. I believe that's partly what this piece is alluding too. He set the bar too high and has now disappointed everyone. While I only agree with some of the post there are some comparisons about the different approaches the two new governments have taken getting to, and being in office.

Obama promised change. Change from the past. And hope. Hope for a better world. He didn't really say how he was going to do that, but then he didn't have to. He was left an even worse situation than Cameron's coalition. 10% unemployment, two seriously expensive wars, manufacturing shut downs and a housing and bank collapse, and all the other financial catastrophe that that brings.
When Gordon said it started in America he was right. The USA has been about six-nine months ahead of us in the credit crunch. So the Bluey-yellers should be watching what is going on there very carefully. US GDP +3.2% Q1, third solid growth 1/4 in a row, for example was bound to have influenced Osborne's optimistic treasury forecasts.

But, as the article says, Obama has not done the hope and change that people wanted. They wanted jobs. Jobs and credit. Not stimulus jobs, but real jobs. They haven't materialised.
The unemployment rate in the United States was 9.50 percent in June of 2010.

Where I really do agree with the article is that the economy should have been the number one priority for his first term. That, and that alone, will win him a second term. You can't offer 'more change and more hope,' from yourself. You must deliver.

In contrast the Tories, almost alone, tried to discuss the recession and the debt. So when they sort of won, they already had set expectations of bounty at nought. They are mentally well placed to carry out necessary reforms to the state and spending. the public expects them to do it.

But they should focus on achieving growth FIRST.The credit crunch must be ended before the campaigning begins. If it isn't, then its all over.
Obama wanted health Care reform. It was necessary, it was fairer,possibly end up cheaper and it has been a Democratic platform for decades. But it was a big fight. Ideological as well as politically. As Alexander Cockburn wrote;

Obama had his window of opportunity last year, when he could have made jobs and financial reform his prime objectives.
That's what Americans hoped for. Mesmerised by economic advisers who were creatures of the banks, he instead plunged into the Sargasso sea of "health reform", wasted the better part of a year and ended up with something that pleases no one.

The lesson for the coalition is clear. Interesting as Vince's 'university fairly paid for by all' and Gove's very welcome new school schemes, they are distractions now. The schools policy, one I wholeheartedly support, is in particular a second term policy.

Economy and debt first. Because if it isn't fixed, there won't be a second term, no matter how many new schools are opened.

Question Time

David Dimbleby will be joined in Cardiff by Peter Hain, Dr Liam Fox, Elfyn Llwyd, Nigel Farage and Janet Street Porter.

Farage has been sounding off about the uselessness of Van Rompuy.
JSP is good for sexuality and social media stories...

BQ predicts...

1. Hospital deaths and trusts
2. Bullying Brown + Badger baiting
   
3. Sexualisation of Jordan's children
   
4. Argentina / UK oil
5. School committees

The worst policy of New Labour, Ever.

Really, I have heard of some daft Government policies, Cones hotlines, Dangerous dogs, 5-a-day, etc.

But today takes the biscuit big time. At the G20 Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown started advocating the tobin tax. This is an old left idea for taking a tax on all international finance transfers.

Not only do very few countries agree with this idea, it is simply impractical to implement; and wrong. more tax is never the answer as all good capitalist know.

What really staggers me though is that Badger and Brownstuff could promote this idea in the very week in which they confirm the UK taxpayer is to own the largest international bank in the world by assets and 43% of another top 20 bank.

So the UK government now owns banks and is advocating a policy which will cripple there recovery. This is beyond stupidity, it really is.

In years to come the political world will have a new lexicon for all this Government;

'as stupid as a Brown plan' - for a truly appalling policy announcement

'even Brown would not have done that' - for a really turkey of an idea

ad infinitum.