Back from the Front

There will be plenty to say on the national level of politics soon, but for now I'm keeping it parochial.  Shortly after 9 a.m. yesterday, I reported here from my two hours of early telling: "a higher proportion of heads-down, grumpy, won't-give-their-polling-number than I recall before: a more divisive atmosphere".  I also said there were no Labour tellers at the polls, which might have had an optimistic interpretation but - "may be some new tactical use of troops".

Well, it was.  As the day went by it became clear they were mounting a massive election-day door-knocking campaign, and they succeeded: our ultra-marginal blue has gone red, notwithstanding the predicted UKIP slump, and no change on the (small) LibDem turnout.  Purely 5,000 incremental Labour votes.

This makes me think two things.

1. arithmetically, it looks a lot like the 2015 UKIP vote came nearly all from Labour (though that's not what our extensive private polling said at the time) - and voting UKIP didn't prove to be the 'gateway drug' to voting Tory that some on the left feared
2. maybe it was equally that 2015 was aberrational: Labour stay-at-homes on that occasion.  the demographics tend to support that.

There's something else, too: our ex MP - a newly-minted junior minister - was bizarrely made a Privy Councillor in the spring.  He's highly regarded by CCHQ, and I thought at the time this must mean they reckon he's toast but want to give him a decent chance at the first safe by-election opportunity.

There was certainly no stinting on the Tory campaign here: as I wrote back when the election was called (sheesh, that seems a long time ago) the mood was extremely bouyant, and it stayed that way right to the final day, with volunteer turnout growing all the time.  Politics really is becoming more engaging, on all sides - a pretty universal post-referendum phenomenon.  In all the febrile political chaos that will now ensue, things could get very bitter out there.

ND

Footnote: a telling anecdote.  At our final party gathering on Wednesday evening prior to hitting the streets with our eve-of-poll leaflets - the biggest turnout we'd had, really huge - after the peptalk our man thanked several people who'd come to join the throng from outside the constituency including, he said with a flourish, "the Head of Policy from No.10!"  At which, a strong and caustic voice from the back (not mine) shouted "what policy?" - and there were cheers ...

The Sunderland result - 2017

Houghton & Sunderland South

LAB HOLD LAB HOLD

Results

General Election 2017 results

Party		Votes	%
Party Labour	Bridget Phillipson	Votes 24,665
Party Conservative	Paul Howell	Votes 12,324
Party UKIP	Michael Joyce	Votes 2,379
Party Liberal Democrat	Paul Edgeworth	Votes 908
Party Green Party	Richard Bradley	Votes 725

Closest from our readers

Actually too hard to tell. No one had labour making these gains.

Fight between Nick Drew and Timbo.											But its only 11.15pm and its still a very panicky time as exit poll is predicting no government. No Theresa. No Brexit.	Exit poll is suggesting a terrible result for the Tories.

Postcard from the Front

Just finished a 2-hour stint of telling at the polls, in my ultra-marginal division (supposedly a prime Labour target).  First observations:

• slow business, on a cold morning
• very few youngsters coming through (but they often vote in the evening)
• no Labour tellers out - which is v. unusual for a marginal: may be some new tactical use of troops, but flies in the face of conventional wisdom.  The again, what doesn't, these days?
• usual % of cheery folk, thumbs-up etc.  But a higher proportion of heads-down, grumpy, won't-give-their-polling-number than I recall before:  a more divisive atmosphere

Also had a stroppy young council employee / polling officer, told me I couldn't ask to see people's polling cards.  I told him I couldn't demand to see them; and that he should call the Returning Officer for further and better particulars.  (After 4 decades of doing this stuff, I know my rights.)

 Now off to cast some proxies.  Vote early, vote often ...

ND  

Update: polling officer v. confused about proxies - didn't even check who I was.  Democracy, eh?

Update 2: and the Labourites are not at the station either.  Some years, they've pestered the hell out of the train travellers.

And no eve-of-poll leaflet from them - you can't tackle a marginal without blanket effort (which is how we are defending it) ...  I think they may have given up on this one and fallen back to holding what they have. 

UK election results 2017

Whilst being a bit too busy to blog much (been twittering more at @Cityunslicker as that can be done more easily on the move), we have nearly reached the end point of the election. It is the last day.


So before the votes are counted, we can mark the campaign efforts.


Tories/May - 3/10 - U-turn on a manifesto pledge, no happiness at all, no real use of Boris or Gove who, let us not forget, WON the EU Referendum unaided by the party. Reasonable attacks on Corbyn but Guido has done it far, far better.


Long ago I was involved in the 2001 Tory campaign, Save the Pound! etc. It was awful and Blair hammered us at the time. I think this is worse, the worst manifesto ever from the Tories. A brexit election and no plan even discussed for Brexit.


Perhaps 3 is generous, although the reactions to Terrorism have helped a little at the end. Better has been their social media campaign - miles ahead of the rest which will come as news to the echo chamber of lefty twitterati.


Liberal Democrats - 1/10 - It will be quite something if this weak and feeble party get more seats than last time. Personally, I think they will do worse and have bet (small) accordingly. Pro-Remain, Pro-Immigration, Anti-Gays - a hotch-potch of the least saleable ideas ever. No one wants anther referendum ever again, let alone next year. Dreadful effort and a fully deserved thrashing.


Greens - 1/10 - Why bother when Corbyn has stolen your clothes. Their vote share will sink to near 1%. No good ideas from the greens, re-heated communist nonsense only. There could be votes in kind of Green but in touch with reality party (see many European countries). But here they are stoic, spitting from the left on the Social Justice Warriors. (same marks and comments for Paid Cymru).


UKIP - 4/10 - Despite the usual hatred from all the media, Nuttall who has many challenges as a leader, has at least spoken about the causes of terrorism and has some more active ideas about what we should do about it. With Brexit UKIP don't have a long-term survival chance, but given this they have done better to tap the national mood than the Lib Dems.


SNP - 5/10- Don't really care and have not seen anything surprising from them, endlessly asking for referendums now is a vote loser but they seem addicted to it, hence they will lose votes.


Labour 7/10 - I find the Labour one hard, clearly the expectation was utter disaster but Corbyn will likely avoid that. However, promising unicorns to everyone is basically cheating and fraudulent, as a Government it would be chaotic in the extreme. As a way to maintain support it has been superb, they have found support for their Utopian dreams and played it well. Dianne Abbot has been comedy gold too, best thing of the election by miles, so extra marks for that.


All in all makes for a fairly unpredictable election, certainly not what was expected when all this kicked-off.

Sunderland - First to reveal all 2017 election

The premier league relegation hit Brexiteers have been the first declared UK election result of the night for six years running.
Houghton and Sunderland South will be an early, if not the earliest result on Thursday/Friday. 
 

This is Labour heartland. 13,000 labour majority in Labour's unsuccessful 2015 election. 
An increase of almost 5% for Ned Miliband, over the Gordon Brown election.

Its also Brexit territory. In 2015 UKIP came second and won 8200 votes on the appeal of leaving the EU. That was up from a lowly 1,000 in 2010.
It was also the first big wobble result on the actual referendum night. Coming out against party wishes, ignoring tribal voting and declaring for leave.

Tories, pushed to third place with a respectable 7,000 were actually 3% down and set the alarm bells ringing in Cameron's HQ on election night. 

What fortified team Dave moments later was the realisation that the Liberal democrats had utterly collapsed and gone from 5,500 votes, 2010,  to only 750 and had lost their deposit.
It was probably as early as this that Lynton Crosby whispered to Cameron, 'You owe me a knighthood.'

Two years later and none of the three main party leaders have survived. Its a very different battle for very different ideas. The polls, wrong in 2010, are now ranging so widely as to be useless for predictions. Its anything from a Corbyn/SNP coalition to a 120 seat Tory majority.

Sunderland, with its core labour support. Its steady level of 1/3 Tory support. Its UKIP upsurge and its Liberals implosion SHOULD tell us all we need to know about the election results.

• If Corbyn is heading for a massive defeat, Labour share should drop, even though a defeat in this seat would be incredible. 
• If UKIP are not finished forever they must do well here. If they don't, expect them to be wiped away completely. 
• If UKIP have suffered losses we should see where the Kipper votes have gone to. They are expected to break 25% lab. 50% Tory. 25% other or nothing.
• The Liberals must do better than a lost deposit. If they aren't into the 2,000 then the gamble they made on campaigning could be deemed to have failed.
• Though with pro Brexit being a major topic here, any 4 figure result might actually be OK for them.

Competition time.

Guess the votes in Sunderland South.

Predictions in the comments. Let us see who is more accurate. Pollsters or public.

LAB HOLD

Results 2015

Labour, with candidate Bridget Phillipson, have the following results:

• 21,218 total votes taken.
• 55.1% share of the total vote
• +4.8% change in share of the votes

UKIP, with candidate Richard Elvin, have the following results:

• 8,280 total votes taken.
• 21.5% share of the total vote
• +18.8% change in share of the votes

Conservative, with candidate Stewart Hay

, have the following results:

• 7,105 total votes taken.
• 18.5% share of the total vote
• -3.0% change in share of the votes

Green Party, with candidate Alan Robinson

, have the following results:

• 1,095 total votes taken.
• 2.8% share of the total vote
• +2.8% change in share of the votes

Liberal Democrat, with candidate Jim Murray

, have the following results:

• 791 total votes taken.
• 2.1% share of the total vote
• -11.9% change in share of the votes

Change compared with 2010

Terror Has Many Dimensions

We all have several good reasons to fear the septic pin-pricks being inflicted upon us in the abominable current terror campaign.  This probably isn't the blog to dwell on the personal, ethical or ethnic issues, acute and shocking though they be.

We do however reckon to cover politics and economics here, and I have a particular horror in those spheres.  It is that the current string of palpable outrages provide a massive post-election distraction for Mrs May, whose full and undivided concentration will need to be upon Brexit.  If I was being cruel, I might even say she looks as though she positively prefers dealing with Home-Office-type matters.

But Brexit requires 100% attention from almost the whole of government if it is not to be a first-order economic cock-up.  I've not been sanguine about May's capabilities in this regard for many months (who has?).  For the government to be diverted by anything else would be akin to Churchill's War Cabinet becoming distracted by a nasty outbreak of measles in the summer of 1940.   That may not be the perfect analogy but you know what I mean.

ND

Economist endorses the Liberal Democrats.

Economist endorses the Liberal Democrats.

 

The Economist magazine long ago followed the FT down the Eurohole. Chasing a federalist white rabbit. Today they find themselves too disgusted at Brexit to choose May. And too appalled at Leninism to choose Corbyn.

So they pitched, as they readily admit on their cover by showing a tiny picture of Tiny Tim, for the 7% support of the nation and went fell lemon.
To borrow a slogan still yet to really cut through, The Economist chose to endorse the voters of 
"The Few, not the many."

Well, what else can a Europhile publication do when the only two governing parties of Britain
both want to exit the EU?

   I'm very glad I'm not a SpAd for Timothy Farron. 
Firstly, because that would mean I was a SpAd for Tim Farron. Secondly, because I'm fairly certain I would have made the same pitch to voters, in almost the same way, that the Liberals have. 

The euro party is such a natural fit for Team Yellow it was obvious they would head this way. But the strategy fitted as well as the ideology. Students like Europe. 48% of the voting public like Europe. The broadcast media like Europe. Business like Europe. World leaders like Europe. And Liberals love Europe.
May wanted a Brexit election, so let's offer the anti-Brexit response. Labour are coming apart and might not even stay aligned to election day. The SNP pro-EU pitch will help Liberals in Scotland who aren't SNiPers. 

The toxicity of former Liberal lies will be completely forgotten if we pitch as the nice party. The hands across the sea, one Europe party of smiley backpackers and hardworking farmhands. 
Anyway, Liberals paid dearly for those lies last time. This time they will be forgiven.

Tony Blair was saying vote for winning Democrats. The progressive alliance of chaos is sort of in place. Labour voters, desperate to escape the disintegration of their party will flock to Liberal ideals.

The only real snag is the Brexit supporting West country, that is Liberal heartland, might not be won back by demanding an end to Brexit. But enough seats should be won elsewhere, at Labour, SNP and Tory expense, to have a real fighting chance of 30+ seats and on a great day, coalition status.

But it just hasn't happened. The Liberals have not moved in the weirdo polls. Not moved in the tracker polls. Not moved in the fake polls either. 7-8%. This is no fightback. This is a counterattack that failed to launch at all. A march to nowhere and back again.

Unlike Labour's recent 'Battle of the Bulge' surge. An unexpected counterattack against poorly equipped, weakly held, unready for battle, reserve quality troops, that has punched a great hole in the Tory lines. 
Its expected that May will rally in time. 
She will finally, against her own better judgement and fear of a rival, but out of necessity, send her crazy but popular, eccentric commander,  'Old Blood n' Guff' Boris Johnson himself, to do a massive flank attack and end the Corbyn offensive. 
It won't be all over by Christmas after all. Jez , instead of being utterly destroyed can retreat behind the Rhine and hold out there. For a bit at least.

The Liberals however have had no surge. No gains. No traction. 
Was Richmond Park just the uniquest of unique seats? A Brighton without the students?

And why has the strategy failed? Was it the wrong thing to do? To pin all hope on unrealistically  overturning a decision many were resigned to almost a year ago?

Or right strategy, wrong leader? Tin Tim's big Adventure.

 
"Come on Snowy..Captain Haddock says we must get back to Brussels. And stop this evil plot"

Corbyn's Financial Transaction tax

never thought I would have to write at all about what a hard left might do.

In all the hullabaloo over the election and the government  sudden decision of the young people to vote for free education for themselves, we have missed the main trick.

The Financial Transaction tax is a very bad idea for the U.K. It would instantly move all non-equity trading to Europe and FX too if applied there. Right when Brexit is already making waves and causing enough problems.

Brexit and FTT really would kill the City. Killing your goldnen goose would be the silliest idea of all time and effectively a national suicide for the UK - after all, London subsidises every other region bar the Home Counties. The vast bulk of this extra cash comes from the City and related services.

No one has even mentioned this ludicrous proposal, which when the EU made it was enough to push even George Osborne to consider leaving the EU.

Now, in the firmament of a hard left manifesto, it is not even noticed. More is the pity.

Nuclear Fallout for Macron - And Us

Longtime readers will be familiar with my decade-long refrain that the French badly need
other countries to dig them out of their nuclear morass.  Their fleet of nukes (across France and, let it be remembered, the UK) is the biggest in the free world: they are ageing badly:  they have not been making anything like adequate provision for decommissioning:  their chosen strategy of extending the lives of the monsters is equally unaffordable:  intelligent frogs (and readers of this blog) have seen this coming for a long time.  

Their solution will centre on blackmailing their neighbours into contributing to a nuclear version of the CAP.  Brexit muddies the waters a bit for them; but they have other plans for the UK's role in all this - the exorbitant but government-underwritten Hinkley Point electricity price, plus the local blackmail of what's to happen to EDF's 8 existing reactors in this country. And, lest we forget, we are frequently** downwind of France ...

Enter the shiny new socialist technocrat Macron, who knows all this as well as anyone.  His official plan is to cut French nuclear capacity from 75% of their total generation to 50% by 2025; and his newly-appointed energy minister, one Nicolas Hulot, is a prominent anti-nuclear Green.  They can't afford that plan, either - and sensible people know that, too.  Rumours of a push-back by EDF are already flying.

Fun and games ahead.  A shame we don't have the leadership to make the best of our hand.  I first concluded May was going to prove useless when she rolled over on Hinkley in the face of threats from Hollande, and nothing we've seen since really changes that.

ND

_____________________
** Mark W says: sometimes, but not frequently

An interesting election campaign - quelle surpise!

Not really what anyone was expecting a few weeks ago in the UK.


However, Labour's message of hope (er, free stuff for all) versus May's message of woe (less stuff for all) was not perhaps something expected - even if so, it was not expected to work by the media or dare I say Tory Central Office.


Then the terrible atrocity in Manchester has really affected the country as a whole. One would think this would be bad for those weak on security like Corbyn, but he is quite willing now to say whatever he thinks he can get away with - his speech on security today was weird, but much more caveated than anything in the past.


Will it last? For the Tories to get a big majority looks tough from here, the collapse of the Lib Dems as well as UKIP has evened things up for Labour.


With momentum (literally?) behind Corbyn maybe he could win, indeed, it looks like he will win on his own terms of increasing the Labour vote and preventing a Tory landslide.


Definitely an interesting few days left of campaigning - what do you all think it will work out to in the end?

UKIP Manifesto

In surreal way, the launch of the UKIP manifesto is very well timed today. No doubt the liberal left will be making fun jokes about how horrid it all is....but..

Personally, I have really noticed after the atrocity in Manchester that the debate is very restricted in the UK, with media in particular very, very careful in its political correctness. In part, this is right after all we don't want to make a dreadful situation worse in the current climate.

However, it also quickly extends to any real discussion about what to do. UKIP are the only party that really means it wants to reduce immigration and improve the defences of the country. The Tories are broadly happy with things as they are and Labour want to encourage more immigration and open borders.

Yet nearly everyone I speak to, in hushed tones, asks why we let people back in the country who have been to Syria or Libya on 'extended holidays with family' or 'charity work.' Surely b taking these actions you have forfeited your right to remain in the UK and can have your passport voided so that you can't even board a plane back here.

Other countries don't do this, in Dubai for example, you will vanish straight jail for an indeterminate period and then swiftly be extradited. Tough love, but I see few terror attacks there considering they are a den of western sinners and shame.

Of course, we do it differently in the UK, but I really fear that over the years the authorities continue to rely on the security services whilst not joining the dots on radicalisation and visiting failed Islamic states - the time has come to be far more robust, from the IS perspective this is war, we should treat it as such too. Failure to do so will condemn the country not only to more terror but also to increasing division between muslims and non-muslims.