Dem Glib Dems

Or is it...? (Hat-tip: Beau Bo D'or)

I had a quick gander at what the Lib Dems promised. A lot of platitudes and Mum's Apple Pie stuff. The one really good thing was promising to scrap ID cards, but I have a feeling whoever gets in may get rid of them simply due to the cost. The Lib Dems seem to be downplaying  their tradtional support for Proportional Representation, which seems strange when you consider that the opinion polls suggest a groundswell of popular opinion for a hung parliament, with no one party having a majority of seats (as it should be if no-one can get a majority of the votes). I have a feeling democratic principles would be abandoned pretty quickly in negotations with either (or both) main parties if the chance of Cabinet seats fell the way of the Lib Dems' leadership..

Of course, after their shameful sabotaging in Parliament of attempts to get a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, one should not expect much from the Glib Dems. My EU Right Or Wrong, Lib Dems?

Meanwhile, around here in Hampstead and Kilburn, the Lib Dems and Conservatives are both claiming to be the main challenger to Labour. An investigation by a local blogger suggests there is some truth in the claims made on behalf of Ed Fordham that he is only 474 votes away from taking the seat.

However, as the first commenter on the link above suggests, it is a bit more complicated than that. Most of the constituency is in Camden, but there are a few wards which are in Brent and used to be part of the old Brent East constituency, held by Lib Dem Sarah Teather. Now that she is standing in Brent Central, it remains to be seen if any personal vote for her in the Brent East part of Hampstead and Kilburn stays with the Lib Dems or goes elsewhere. Furthermore, the 474 figure above is based on the 2005 General Election. As far as I can make out, figures from the 2008 London (Mayoral and Assembly) Elections and 2009 European Elections suggest the Conservatives are the main challengers here. Throw in the fact we have local council elections on May 6th too and I wouldn't like to predict the result in Hamsptead and Kilburn. Who would be a psephologist?
 

General Election Time Is Almost Upon Us. Can I Get Excited...?

The 1640s: the birth of negative campaigning in British Politics

I'm getting a fair bit of political leafletting and mail shots at the moment. Mainly from the Tories and the Lib Dems. The Glibs say they can win here (Hampstead and Kilburn), although I gather in every seat in the country their propaganda claims they 'can win here.' I have a feeling a lot of the Lib Dem stuff is to motivate people to vote in the Camden Council elections which will also be on May 6th. Camden is currently run by a Con-Lib Dem coalition, with the three councillors in the ward where I am all Lib Dems. So all this stuff is not so much to get a Lib Dem here into Parliament as to prop up Lib Dem support for the Council Elections.

I'm going to try and force myself to post something every day once the General Election campaign starts, which most informed and (uninformed) opinion says will begin next week with Gordon Brown going to Bucks House to secure Mrs Windsor's dissolution of Parliament. I'll try and discuss anything that I find interesting and/or catches my eye, or at the very least make sure you know about it. This is supposed to be the first 'Internet General Election' in British history (although they said that about the '97, '01 and '05 ones as well, I seem to recall), so I will do my best to get a handle on how it is all going.

I will get another couple of posts up in the next few days (internet/media and US politics will be their general theme) before the big hoo-haa begins. Just to whet your appetite for the Big One, I've taken a few images from the superb Bo Beau D'Or blog, who like a lot of people, does not want the Tories to win, but is not too enamoured with Labour either (as opposed to people who do not want Labour to win, but are not too enamoured with the Tories either!).

Yes, the Tories are bringing back Maurice and Charles Saatchi to oversee most of their General Election advertising campaign, while Saatchi & Saatchi (which Charles and Maurice left back in '95 to form M&C Saatchi, which came up with the Tony Blair 'Demon Eyes' poster which led to the crushing Conservative landslide victory in 97...) oversee Labour's ad account. Whoever said the business/media/political world is incestuous eh? Furthermore, I wonder if  M&C's campaign are less open to ridicule than other Conservative advertising campaigns so far this year? (Hat-tip: MyDavidCameron.com)

 

I'll leave the General Election there for the moment. There'll be a lot more where that's coming from in the next few weeks (I can see you flicking travel websites as I type, looking for cheap flights out the country...). I suppose we should just be glad this Parliament is almost at an end. To quote a phrase someone from around 360 years back, what we are left with for the next few days is 'this fag end, this veritable Rump of a Parliament with corrupt maggots in it' (Trevor Royle [2005] Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660, Abacus, p.485).