Nosemonkey's EUtopia

Up now at the General Election Blog. One that particularly ccaught the eye was some musings on how immigration may be a class issue from Stumbling and Mumbling. Personally I’ve always reckoned that in the UK racism is mostly a class issue, so this struck a fair few chords. Worth a look.

Anyway, it’s me doing it today, so any and all assistance would be much appreciated. Seen or written anything interesting? Email it to generalelection@gmail.com by about 7pm. Cheers!

It is, however, incredibly likely to appeal to and stir up racist sentiment. And it certainly IS racist to put up anti-immigration posters in close proximity to immigrant businesses and places of worship.

Michael Howard is not a racist. But he is fully aware of the racist, xenophobic sympathies he is appealing to, and his anti-immigration campaign is designed merely to stir up fear of the “other”. This is how pogroms start – something of which Howard, considering his heritage, should be fully aware. Manipulate petty xenophobia and racism for political ends and soon the “petty” part ends up dropped. For short-term political gain, Howard is risking a long-term entrenchment and expansion of genuine racism – something which is not, and never has been, part of the British way of life.

Up now courtesy of the blogger formerly known as Chicken Yoghurt. He’s attempted to abolish the numbering system, the bastard, but I shall continue to fight the good fight…

Also over at the General Election Blog I’ve put up another post related to my ongoing attempts to work out who to vote for, based on a campaign questionnaire that came through the letterbox today. May be of interest to some, at least…

Update: My local Lib Dem candidate has now emailed. He’s read my commentary on the questionnaire, think’s I’ve got some points wrong, reckons others are amusing and that others still are helpful. Also makes moderately reasonable points about why I should abandon a Labour MP with whom I agree on most things for his party. Some of the reasoning seems taken straight off the Backing Blair site… Seems like a nice enough bloke. I shall continue to ponder.

No editorialising from me, but this interview with the BBC’s Frank Gardner, crippled by bullets while on a routine assignment in Saudi Arabia, is a must read.

This is pretty much what I reckon the Backing Blair campaign should have been all along – I hoped they’d get to it eventually. Now my local Labour MP (well, OK, technically not just at the moment) is on the “approved” list – which is only right, considering their voting record.

Nonetheless, Backing Blair is still cautious. A Labour member friend of mine was telling me the other day to vote Labour so that Gordon would have a good enough majority to get things done. I, like the Backing Blair lot, am not so sure:

“the message is no longer Vote LibDem, Get Tory, but instead Vote Blair, Get Brown.

“There are two reasons to distrust this new message. Firstly consider Tony Blair. Given all the dissembling over WMDs, the sheer scale of his betrayal of our trust, taking this into account, what guarantee do we have that he will indeed stand down? None. And when will he stand down? Possibly sometime in the next 5 years, but it all comes down to trust, a commodity which Blair is sadly lacking.”

Either way, they now have a well-considered breakdown of constituencies in which anti-war, pro-civil liberties Labour candidates should receive our support as well as constituencies where the Lib Dems have a good chance of beating the Tories – either to first or to second place. It’s worth having a quick gander.

I, meanwhile, am still waiting to hear from my local Lib Dem candidate. For anyone who’s interested, this is what I’ve asked him:

Glenda Jackson has voted against the government consistently on the war in Iraq and ID cards, two of the major issues with which I am concerned. She’s liable to continue to be a thorn in Blair’s backside, and is well enough known for her views to get some airtime. She’s also very pleasant in person – she bought me a coffee once when I was working at the House of Commons.

However, a vote for her is – thanks to the absurdity of the current system – also a vote for Blair as Prime Minister. I want him gone. My ideal scenario, short-term, is a Labour government led by Gordon Brown with the Liberal Democrats as the official opposition – allowing you lot time to build up enough knowledge and MPs with experience to be able to form a government in 5-10 years time.

At the moment, however, my prime concern is for Blair to have as tough a time of it as possible. How would you, as a new MP in what will likely remain the third party, be able to give him as tough a time as an ex-minister with name-recognition value through her acting work, who has publicly called on him to resign following the Hutton Enquiry and voted against the government consistently over the last few years?

Just remember folks – you don’t have to make your final decision until polling day. I certainly haven’t, and there’s still time to win my support. A word of advice, though – don’t fucking patronise me – I’ll vote against you out of spite. I’m childish like that…

It’s fairly packed this time, thanks to Nick Barlow.

And by the way, Mr Smarty-Pants Barlow, I shall continue to defend the true number – like the mighty silver-haired one, Kilroy himself, I shall fight for truth to be returned to the General Election Blog’s roundup numbering system. Akin to those brave and noble souls who valiantly protested against the heinous loss of 11 good, strong English days with the vile switch to the doubtless EU-sponsored Gregorian calendar in 1752, I verrily ne’er shalt desist in mine righteous toil until the disgracefully-mislaid weblog collation is returned to us, it’s distraught admirers. Unless I get bored, that is…

(Come on UKIP/Veritas – why not include a return to the Julian calendar in your election promises? What’s with all this wishy-washy continental dating nonsense, eh? The return of those 11 days is long, long overdue – and the British people would truly bow down in awe before you should you succeed. Hell, you might even get my vote, just for the amusement value…)

Tim Hicks, using the BBC’s electoral calculator, again highlights how insane the current voting system is.

With the three main parties on 30% of the vote each, 10% going to others, here are the results we would get:

Labour 328, Conservatives 201, Liberal Democrats 86, Others 31

That’s on the same share of the popular vote. Democracy? Bollocks, more like.

Labour has hinted that if France rejects the EU constitutional treaty in its upcoming referendum (as the polls suggest it might) then the UK won’t have to hold one of its own.

Well, dur… Of course we won’t. If France rejects the constitution, that means it cannot possibly come into force. All it takes is one member state to say “No”, and the entire thing gets thrown out. So there’d be less than no point in holding our own referendum – unless, of course, you want to waste a vast amount of money on asking the country whether or not they approve of a treaty which no longer has any possibility of coming into effect.

The only question is – why are Labour bringing this up now? It’s an utterly pointless distraction. Unless, of course, this is the first step towards launching Labour’s secret weapon. The Tories have already said that they’ll hold the referendum six months after coming to power. Could this be Labour’s way of bringing up the contentious and divisive EU issue prior to the election? I wouldn’t put it past them. Say what you like about Labour – they’re not stupid…

I flatly refuse to accept this new numbering heresy. Roundup 7 (NOT 8) is here.

As an extra until I find more time, check out The New York Times’ profile of Michael Howard (reg. or BugMeNot required). They seem to be comparing him to Sandra Bullock…

Superb stuff – complete with handy, easy to understand graphs and stuff – showing just how anti-Labour tactical voting in favour of the Lib Dems won’t let the Tories into power, from Cabalamat Journal. A must-read.

“The Tories, on a constant 34% share of the vote, gain the maximum number of seats on a 13% swing from Lab to LD, i.e. where the Labour vote is 24.8% and the Liberal Democrat vote is 32.5%. The maximum seats the Tories get is 301. There will be 646 seats in the next parliament, so to get an overall majority they would need 324; thus, the best the Tories would do is 23 seats short.”

A 13% swing is pretty much unprecedented. It’s not going to happen. As for the Tories?

“A Conservative overall majority is wildly implausible. For it to happen, they would have to poll about 12 points higher than Labour, without the Lib Dem share of the vote rising to steal otherwise-Tory seats… There’s no point in being concerned about a Tory government unless they start consistently polling at least 5 points above Labour, and even then a Tory government is a remote possibility.”

Lest we forget, the best the Tories managed in today’s polls was 1 point behind Labour. But the way the first past the post system and the current make-up of the constituencies work, even if they get an equal share of the popular vote, Labour will still be returned with a majority. The best the Tories have managed to do in the polls so far was a one-off aberration which saw them 5 points ahead about two weeks ago. That’s 7 points less than they need to safely form a government.

So can we now please shut up with the scare tactics?

At the moment I’m still undecided. But as someone who’s pro-EU, the only choice is Labour or Lib Dem. And the more I hear Labour telling me how a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Tories when that’s so blatantly yet another lie, the more I feel tempted to abandon my current anti-war, anti-ID card, anti-detention without trial Labour MP and chuck a vote at Charlie and co.

Update: This site may be handy – lots of pretty graphs and stuff showing opinion poll-based projected results.

UP now at the General Election Blog (and yes, I know it says it’s number 7 – technically it is, but meh…)

Poll-wise, everyone’s got confused. What’s it to be?

Various polls for various papers today have major variations, so let’s have a run down:

Interstingly, both the News of the World and the Telegraph polls came from the same company – so how come the 6% difference in Conservative votes? Either way, A Logical Voice sums it up fairly neatly: “Polls give Labour a majority of between 60 and 152 seats… that sort of majority would be absolutely scandalous”.

As ever, UK Polling Report has more.

Oh, and it looks like Labour may have twigged that they’ll be able to secure more votes if they start hinting at an early Blair exit. The Independent on Sunday claims to have evidence that Blair is preparing to hand power over to Brown, along with a poll which reckons that with Brown in charge, Labour would be 12 points ahead… As I pointed out ages ago, Vote Blair, Get Brown could be Labour’s best possible strategy…

Update: Tim Worstall’s weekly Britblog Roundup is now up, and as ever it’s a good un.

Courtesy of Tim Ireland:

Drawing the Line

You’ll need sound. You’ll need to be prepared to end up simultaneously sad, horrified and angry. You’ll find it rather more difficult to defend voting for Tony Blair’s Labour party on May 5th.

Here you go – over at the General Election Blog. Lots of good stuff once again, including Chris Lightfoot explaining the methodology behind that political survey which I wrote about while drunk in my last post.

Elsewhere, A Big Stick and a Small Carrot keeps tabs on election posters in Aberdeen. None from the Lib Dems, but Backing Blair is represented.

However, most worrying – from the General Election blog roundup – is this looks at postal voting forms. It looks somewhat like it’s possible with these to sign away your vote forever, with nothing more than a signature.

Michael Howard has jumped on the bandwaggon to complain, but after the experience of my relatives and dodgy Conservative proxy voting tactics, his lot are hardly free from dirt on this either.

I mean, if you’re old and infirm, and some nice, well-spoken person turn up on your doorstep and offers to cast your vote for you, you may well be tempted to take them up on the offer – especially if they’re politely insistent that they’re only doing it to be helpful. But what with the whole anonymous ballot thing, how the hell can you check to see if they’ve voted the way you asked them to?

“It has been noted that, with votes cast in a polling station, there is no ability to prove to a person you have swapped votes with that you have fulfilled your end of the bargain. However, in the case of postal votes, there is the ability to show the ballot paper and so provide proof.”

This country could end up a more suspect version of Florida 2000…

Bonus linkage: A ripping to pieces of the UKIP manifesto by an ex-UKIP Eurosceptic:

“UKIP should be thankful that the media do not take them seriously. If this manifesto was given the same scrutiny to which the others have been subjected, the Party would be exposed as the amateurs they really are.”

The comments section is also worth a look on that one…