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.

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.

 

 

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 3^rd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

 

25 years ago – Andrew Beattie

I lost my very good friend Andrew Beattie in April 1999. It’s hard to believe it’s 25 years ago as I think of him often. Andrew had some very significant influences on my life and it’s probably because of him that I’m an atheist, a Liberal and have a love of soul music.

Andrew (on the right) in Port Grimaud France July 1979*

We met at Ormonde High School (now Maghull High) in 1969 and quickly became firm friends for the 30 years, up until his untimely and rather sudden death.

Andrew academically was, like me, a middling achiever at school yet he was incredibly well read and it was no surprise when he went straight from school to work in Parrys’ University bookshop in Liverpool. 

Keith Page with Andrew - Lake District 1981

 

Of course, working with books all day encouraged him to read even more and he became quite the expert on broadcasting and the BBC, on politics and art too. He got into the painting of Edward Hopper and that led to his friends buying and dedicating a reprint of Hopper’s ‘Night Hawks’ for display in Maghull Town Hall, where I think it still adorns the wall.

We discussed many things as teenagers but mostly music and politics. Our music became very much Motown, Isaac Hayes and the then emerging Smooth Jazz. Our politics developed towards Liberalism after we decided to read the 1979 manifestos of the 3 main political parties. Both music and politics then dominated our lives from the ages of 21 to when we lost Andrew.

He got himself elected to Maghull Town Council (where he spent a year as Town Mayor) as a SDP/Liberal Alliance councillor and then on to win in Sefton Council’s Sudell Ward. He was a serving Lib Dem councillor on both councils when he passed away.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Andrew was a major influence on the life I chose to lead and I can’t imagine where I would be now without that influence. I still miss him very much and often say to myself ‘what would Andrew think’ particularly with regard to political and musical developments.

I keep in touch with his Mum Audrey (also a former Lib Dem councillor) and sister Alison and once a year or so we meet up to talk about old times.

* Sadly, Tad Jarrett, who was at school with us and who is pictured above with Andrew also passed away in 1990.

 

Why has Labour become ‘successful’ as it tracks center-right?

OK, I’ve never been a fan of Labour because I consider myself to be of the left. I decided at an early political age that Labour was not for me particularly because of its controlling, authoritarian tendencies. Also, I gained the impression that Labour really does not like free-thinking members, rather members who go along with the ruling sect of the time no matter what that sect may be promoting.

Well having read so far you’ll probably be saying to yourself ’this chap’s a damn Liberal’ and you’d be right, although I consider myself to be a Social Liberal of the left, often well to the left of many Labour Party members and supporters.

My final reason for being unwilling to embrace the politics of Labour is that I’ve found so many of their supporters to be quite right wing in outlook, in reality Conservatives yet tribally Labour. This was clearly demonstrated by huge numbers of Labour members and supporters backing Brexit and then delivering Johnson as PM! That loss of Labour’s voters is, of course, the obvious reason why Starmer’s Labour Party, looks/sounds and is, in my view, right-of-centre. How else is he to return the lost souls to the Labour tent other than by telling them Labour’s now one of their own?

Labour is no longer a party of the centre-left and whilst it has never really been a truly socialist party, there’s always been many socialists within it. Even under Corbyn the leading characters whilst clearly socialists delivered manifestos which weren’t overtly socialist to my mind. There can’t be many socialists left in Starmer’s Labour Party as they’re clearly unwelcome; some have been invited to leave, others have walked away.

But such is the Labour Party, they’ve always swung from one left-of-centre sect to another kicking lumps out of themselves in the process. However, we are in unique times now because of the almost complete collapse of the Conservative Party. It’s this collapse which I feel has driven Labour to all but become a new ‘one nation’ alternative right-of-centre party. Indeed, our unique political circumstances have, I would suggest, given an opportunity to those who want to change Labour fundamentally.

This is no longer the party of John Smith or Harold Wilson, more the party of David Owen being about as far right as a social democrat party can be and probably Christian Democrat in European terms. If some Labour members and supporters thought the Blair years were too centrist and even of the right (and they did) what on earth are they thinking about the further nudge towards right-of-centre politics?

But Labour’s saving grace, at is core, is that many of its tribal members and supporters will back it pretty much no matter what it stands for and in early 2024 what does Labour actually stand for? Its ‘popularity’ is because the Tories are so unpopular, not because Starmer is inspiring or that it is putting forward a popular set of policies.

It seems that voters are saying they’re going to vote Labour because it’s not the Conservative Party. They can’t be hoping for a better tomorrow, because Labour is hardly offering one, more that they hope things will be less bad! Little if any hope is promised by Labour spokespersons just that Labour will pretty much continue similar economic policies to the Conservatives but that those policies will be more competently delivered. That’s quite a political offer, NOT, but it seems for many voters this far from golden future may be the only alternative to further decline?

Any left of centre political hope or indeed leadership has to come from the Lib Dems, Greens and in Scotland the SNP. This could be the most depressing general election in many generations because the two main political parties aren’t going to be offering hope at all. The Tory offer will be goodness knows what. They don’t seem at all keen to deliver on their manifesto pledges as they flop around from one right wing divisive policy to the next as though blown by the cold wind of the far right. Labour, well they’ll just be a bit better at it, a bit kinder but following a very similar economic plan.

Forgive me if I don’t find this appallingly dreadful political prospect appealing…