Tuesday, 28 May 2024

 

What a depressing General Election campaign in prospect

No hope and far too many uninspiring politicians

As a progressive, a Social Liberal of the left and radical this election holds out little for me at all and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so negative in my now 43 years involved in politics.

Yes, of course, the Tories have very much had their day. They’ve brought the UK to its knees whilst destroying our public services and our international reputation. Whilst never voting Conservative I find the mess that party has created astonishing. My old dad was a life-long Tory who died in 2009 but he was telling me that his party was going wrong at the turn of the century. How right he was, yet if he was still with us would he believe how far they have sunk? I think even he would also be astounded.

Yet despite the utter political, economic and social mess we are in the opposition parties are clearly struggling to offer an alternative way forward. Too often we have heard the Official Opposition saying they will stay with this Tory policy or that and in turn this has meant that our lead opposition party has by default been putting forward a right of centre policy platform.

Then look at the political leaders themselves; what an uninspiring bunch they are. Charisma has pretty much passed them all by and it makes you wonder where the next generation of leaders will come from and whether they will be just as engaging! Kennedy, Smith, Ashdown from the recent past must be turning in their graves and even Blair must surely wonder what on earth has become of the progressive political class.

That there will a changing of the guard seems all but inevitable but will we take any steps forward or can we only hope to stop or even just slow down our decline? Food banks are everywhere, poverty likewise, housing for those on low incomes is all but unobtainable, our wonderful NHS is on its knees, local councils are going bankrupt, our rivers are full of sewerage, and social care has all but fallen apart. In short there’s a massive agenda to address as we are in a right old pickle and that’s being polite about our dire situation.

You can’t create a society where the rich keep getting richer whilst the poor keep getting poorer without there being civil unrest yet do our political leaders realise this? I fear they’re sleep-walking us into a social and civil catastrophe if they don’t wake up and smell the coffee soon.

The bottom line is that it seems many voters will vote for the party in their constituency best placed to beat the Conservatives, or at least that’s what they say they’ll do. On that basis they’ll often not be voting for things they like and want to see but simply to chuck out the politicians they hold responsible for the state we are in. Our electoral system has always effectively made us vote for our least bad option and it seems we’ll be doing that with bells on in 2024.

Forgive me, but there really is little to be positive about when trying to stop things getting worse is just about the limit of many of our leading opposition politicians.

Yet there will be a few progressive politicians hiding even in Starmer’s Labour Party that are being kept quiet so as not to raise expectations. My party, thankfully, doesn’t have the ability or willingness to hold down our radical progressive MP’s as can be seen on the rare occasion when a Lib Dem gets onto a TV programme like Question Time. Tim Farron (despite my reservations  about his religious issues), Layla Moran and Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper have all made really good contributions in recent times, so yes there are glimmers of hope that even this old political misery can identify.

The really strange thing about the state we are in, as we approach GE 2024, is that the Conservatives have successfully pulled a once left of centre Labour Party onto their own right of centre lawn to do battle. So, whatever the result, the war will be won on a centre-right policy agenda and this old progressive finds that utterly depressing.

Oh, and one final thought, should we look upon Labour’s leadership as New Conservatives? They certainly come over to me, as a progressive, like that.

Sunday, 26 May 2024

Will the latest 'transformational' public transport plans for Liverpool/Merseyside get off the drawing board this time?

 Rail & 'Bus' links to Airports

As a railway enthusiast, it's hard not to get carried away with plans like these (see link to Liverpool Echo article above) BUT.... Merseyside has been here and such transformational public transport projects have been talked up many times before. On that basis, we should be broadly supportive but rather skeptical too.
 
A surviving bookmark from the Merseytram project
 
 Remember the failed Merseytram project? 
 
It failed, in my view, because the destination of the first line could not be agreed upon. Merseytravel, the then public transport authority for Merseyside, wanted it to go to Kirkby whilst others in the constituent Merseyside local authorities* wanted it to go to Liverpool Airport. The then Labour government eventually pulled the plug on the finance most probably due to the local squabbling. Manchester got its now admirable tram system because of unity of purpose.
 
A 'Glider' is a bus
 
The 'Glider' concept is in all reality a bus made to look like a tram i.e. rubber tyres rather than steel wheels on rails. For it to work it will need the infrastructure to separate it from other road traffic otherwise it'll just be a bus, looking like a tram, stuck in traffic. Guided bus-ways have had a very mixed recent history and it's a concept that has not really caught on.
 
Liverpool Central Station
 
That Central Station needs enlarging is a given as it's effectively standing in the way of expanding the present Merseyrail system to places such as Wigan and Preston due to lack of capacity at the station.
 
So I suggest that we broadly welcome what's proposed but we'll need to keep a weather eye on delivery. If Merseyside ends up with a great high-speed rail connection to Manchester Airport and a second-rate bus connection to Liverpool Airport then there'll be a call for politicians' heads, as failing again is not an option.
 
* I was the leader of Sefton Council back then and supported the Liverpool Airport line option.

 

Monday, 6 May 2024

 

General Election Looming

Tactical Voting – Will it happen for real?

If you look at opinion polls you’d think with the Tories being so unpopular that Labour and Lib Dem voters would size up each constituency, decided who is most likely to beat sitting Tory MP’s and get on with it, but things are not so straight forward in the real world.

Firstly, you have to have an understanding of the constituency you live in as it’s the only place that matters when casting your vote. Seeing Labour so far in front in the national polls and then blindly voting Labour thinking it will change things in your seat may well be exactly what keeps a Tory MP their seat! Look at it this way if Labour are usually in 3rd place in your constituency then blindly voting for them to win may just split the anti-Tory vote enough to actually assist your beleaguered Tory MP. If the Lib Dems are usually 2nd or have previously beaten the Tory in your seat then voting for them is probably the best option if you want the Tory MP out.

But do voters know enough about their own constituency to make a reasoned informed decision, if their main objective is to get a sitting Tory MP out? The national polls won’t help them so where do they get clear independent and easily accessible information about what’s the best way to vote in their particular seat?

Even if you get that far there are other factors in play. Some tribal Labour supporters will not vote Lib Dem even to get a Tory MP out despite the Lib Dems being to the left of Labour these days. Many working-class identifying Labour supporters are quite right-wing in their opinions, many supported Brexit and some broke a habit of a lifetime to help deliver Boris Johnson as PM! So don’t assume all or even a majority of Labour supporters are progressives and left of centre as many are not and in that case the Tories will in effect be their 2nd choice, strange as that may seem. And this very factor is, of course, why Starmer puts forward a right of centre pitch to voters. His objective is to get his right-wingers back in his tent; anything else is secondary to this.

Then look at Lib Dem supporters. How many of them will vote for Starmer’s Labour Party which they may well see as being right of centre? Asking progressives to vote Labour if they are not habitual Labour voters may be an ask too far, but they may do it as a one off. However, to persuade them Starmer really needs to be offering proportional representation (to stop the Tories swinging back into power), to re-join the Customs Union, Single Market and ultimately the EU (to boost our economy), to save the NHS from more damaging privatisation etc. etc. Of course, Labour are not offering such things so progressives are at best sceptical of voting Labour.

Then there’s the Green vote which of recent years is significantly a socialist-biased one as the Greens have become home to those leaving or being chucked out of Starmer’s right of centre party. Asking them to vote Labour will be a big ask but maybe not as difficult for them to vote Lib Dem?

And the above issues are just with regard to England as Wales and Scotland effectively have a 5-way split political system with the added complexity that brings.

Let’s now look at what right of centre voters will do. Of course, they’ve all pretty much voted Tory for generations but UKIP started to change that. The present day Tory Party is in effect UKIP by another name but we have an even more right wing party in Reform.

If Reform stands against most or all of the presently sitting Tory MP’s then our first past the post electoral system could all but ensure the Tories are wiped out. But will Reform stand in large numbers or will the Tories find a way of buying them off? Even if they do stand pretty much everywhere to what extent will the right wing vote be split? Please bear in mind that a not insignificant part of that vote will go to Starmer’s party if he is successful at regaining Labour’s lost voters who delivered Brexit and Johnson. The question therefore is to what extent will right of centre voters be voting tactically too?

All this convoluted political carry on is because our warped electoral system often forces voters to put an ‘X’ next to their least worst political option on ballot papers. If only we could just vote for the party we genuinely supported! That would take PR of course, so go figure what you’re going to do tactically as presently your choices are limited and not necessarily straight forward either.

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