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Should we be getting ready for a 2013 general election?

February 26th, 2012

LD peer links Lords reform to the boundary changes

Two days ago I suggested that the coalition could collapse over the house of Lords reform programme agreed between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the 2010 coalition agreement.

My post stated that if Tory MPs rebelled then the Lib Dems could pull the plug on the boundary changes which are due to be approved by MPs in the second half of 2013.

In a discussion on the Sunday Politics Lord Oakeshott made that direct threat – see link in tweet above.

The boundary changes are critical to the Tories if they want to secure a majority. In broad terms they bring the threshold down from the current 11% lead to about 7.5%.

@MikeSmithsonOGH
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  • MickP0rk

     Incidently, why is everyone falling for Clegg’s “differentiation” strategy?

    That’s all this HoL/boundary changes story is.

    Only the very gullible won’t have realised by now that Clegg and his spinners will be cranking up the differentiation rhetoric before May in a doomed attempt to win votes and distance themselves from the tories.

    That boundary changes and HoL reform will be contentious is hardly news.

    What matters isn’t this shallow transparent posturing but actions and there have been no meaningful statements or change in policy on HoL reform or boundary changes from Cleggy or Cammie.

  • tim

    because there are some local elections coming up?

  • Anonymous

    ‘You’re saying selling 3m-ish copies is a failure?’

    No offence Plato but that’s typical of your oversensitivity.

    I just thought it would be of interest.

  • Anonymous

    The £10000 threshold should not be seen only in the light of youth unemployment which, I believe, will be demonstratably worse because of it.

    I support the 10k threshold because I am a FDR adherent. That man turned round a depression. I will support any stimulus !

    But I support a VAT cut first because it helps the poorest and pensioners who do not pay taxes. Since that is not possible as the Tories are implacably VAT friendly, the increase in the threshold is the next best fiscal stimulus.

    On the monetary side, I would have used some of the later stimulus [ the last 100bn or so ] for targeted spend [ incl. where possible CAPEX ] rather than buying bonds. Very low interest rates hurt pensioners and savers.

  • MickP0rk

     The “differentiation” couldn’t have been starker last May with Clegg publicly raging against Cameron and the the No to AV campaign.

    How did those elections turn out again?

    Yet Cleggy actually believes HoL reform will be the thing to get him votes while he gives the nod to Lansley and Cammie’s inept NHS reform shambles.

    Poor old Cleggy what a shame.

  • Anonymous

    Syria, still waiting for someone to do something?

    Ask the White House which is still hesitating. They seem to be weighing up a number of things:

    1) Is it better let Assad survive to keep things in better condition with Russia and Iran?

    2) If there is intervention, whats the minimum amount that can be done? Backing a humanitarian corridor whilst letting others police it?

    3) Arming the rebels, how and who?

    Thats about it, lots of sound from Washington and as yet no light. 

    The Saudis, who have been involved already, are done waiting but do not have the desire for overtly putting their people in the front line. They are beginning more substantive ships of goods and services to the rebels. Everyone seems to believe the USA must back any intervention overtly in resources and not just word and whilst they wait the US continues to sit on its hands.

  • Anonymous

    Ed Miliband?  Appointing a Chancellor, what are you smoking?

    In the extremely unlikely circumstances that Miliband is in a position to a form a majority government he’d have to appoint Balls, or risk his chief attack dog going off the reservation.

    Now getting back to my question.  If the Libdems collapsed the coalition tomorrow, have you any doubt that Labour wouldn’t try within three weeks to bring the government down and force an election?  Be honest.

  • Anonymous

    Richard I think you misunderstand. If a LibDem says something which later proves inconvenient then they simply delete it from history and accuse those who remember of falsification.

  • Plato

     You are mistaken – Tories are supplicants whatever the situation.

    These are not the wagged tails you are looking for.

  • tim

    This time last year it may have helped Clegg, Dave is fucked on this issue after using his son, but Clegg had a window last year.

    The idea that Cleg would go to the edge over Lords reform rather than the health bill with 14% support is bizarre.

  • Anonymous

    How does a VAT cut help pensioners?

    Cost = £12.5 Billion.

    Opposed by Alistair Darling…

    Youth unemployment first hit 1 million during the Brown years, as you’ll recall, I’m sure you posted a number of criticisms of the then governments economic policies….

  • Anonymous

    I don’t think Clegg believes HoL will bring him votes, just as he is under no illusions that his warm support of Europe will win him votes (HoL because people don’t care, Europe because the LDs are out of step significantly with public opinion) – I think that as a major LD policy it is one he really believes in even if most people do not care about it all that much, and as with most things the case for change is much harder to make than to keep things as they are.

  • Anonymous

    Sunil, were you the page 3 Lovely today?
    Very fetching, but I didn’t realise there was such a shortage of dress material – obviously a result of Tory cuts.

  • Plato

    I want his babies: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9106741/Companies-failed-to-show-backbone-over-workfare-row-says-Sir-Stuart-Rose.html

    Sir Stuart Rose said the protests claiming work experience is slave labour are
    “baffling” and “nonsense”, as he called on companies to stick with the
    programme.

    Demonstrations have led a series of companies — including Tesco, Waterstones,
    Maplin, Greggs, Poundland, Argos and TK Maxx — review their participation in
    the scheme, which sees people on benefits working for free for up to eight
    weeks.

    But Sir Stuart said companies should have been more robust about standing up
    for the

    “I think that one or two of them have shown a little less than backbone if I
    might say so,” he told Sky News. “I think you have got to stick with it. You
    can come in, you can get work experience and if you like it you can stay
    here and possibly get offered a job, if you don’t like it after the first
    week you can go away. I don’t get it, what’s the problem?”

    He also called on unemployed teenagers need to knuckle down and give work
    experience a go. The business chief, who started his career on the shop
    floor, said there was more to working in retail than stacking shelves.

  • tim

    What are the downsides for Clegg if he kills Lansleys bill?

    None.

  • Anonymous

    I would. But then the only way it could come about is if the Tories voted with Labour to overcome the 55% threshold. Surely, you don’t expect the LD Turkey’s to vote for an early Christmas.

    I cannot believe that both the Tories and Labour will want a GE at the same time. One or the other will find an excuse not to. The Tories could easily cite “national interest”, “deficit reduction” etc.

    Until now, I would not have been too sure how my party would have played it’s card. But the current NHS drama has clearly given Labour an extremely valuable card in a General Electiion campaign. Certainly in the near future. For the Tories to convince the public in the midst of a GE campaign that privatisation / competition in the NHS is a good thing, well, that could lose them 50 seats.

  • Anonymous

     ’The man turned round a depression’. What utter rubbish which is not supported by any evidence whatsoever.
    The depression carried on and got deeper for some time, it made no to very little difference what FDR did, none of his schemes pumped economic growth.

    It was Hitler and the corresponding rearmament that brought an end to the depression.

    Yes, a stimulus can work, but it involves the deaths of millions of young men to feel its full impact.

  • Anonymous

    I asked about that in my local garage/shop. There were hadly any copies left. I did not buy one but the staff member told me that the SOS had been selling like hot cakes. It might be souvenir hunters but we will only knowfor sure  in the coming months

  • Anonymous

    He gains 20 seats ?

  • old_labour
  • Anonymous

     what would those costs be? He fired the NOTW team, the existing Salaried Sun team will, with a bit overtime if lucky, have done all the work.

    There has been close to no publicity about the launch other than that which comes entirely free via the news.

    The Sunday Sun will be in an operating profit within months.

    I wonder what the Observer would give to be making an operating profit.

  • Anonymous

    Something else you don’t know about

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304024604575173632046893848.html

    ‘Let’s start with the New Deal. Its various alphabet-soup agencies—the
    WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)—failed to
    create sustainable jobs. In May 1939, U.S. unemployment still exceeded
    20%. European countries, according to a League of Nations survey,
    averaged only about 12% in 1938 … No one knew this more than FDR himself. His key advisers were frantic at
    the possibility of the Great Depression’s return when the war ended and
    the soldiers came home…’

  • Anonymous

    There is a strong whiff of congitive dissonance on this board this evening. Something in the coalition agreement, HoL reform, is potentially being opposed by a majority of the Conservative Party. 

    The Liberal Democrats, rightly or wrongly, feel that when votes came, they did the right thing (i.e. they stuck by the coalition agreement) even at personal political cost (tuition fees, etc.).  Of course, they only voted after some fairly absurd hang-wringing in public, which made them look even more buffoon-ish, but nevertheless, the vote went through supported by the clear majority of LibDem MPs.

    There is the feeling on this board that there was an AV-for-boundary changes agreement.

    There was not, there was the coalition agreement. Neither side has the right to flounce away from things they now find inconvenient. 

    Personally, I believe that HoL does require a referendum. But, to keep their side of the bargain, the Conservative Party needs to hash out a series of reforms it is willing to publically back. (Frankly, I think the country would be stronger with an electied, consultative upper house.)

    If the Conservative Party is unable to do this, then I cannot see the coalition lasting. And I cannot see the Liberal Democrats voting for the boundary reforms. And I cannot blame them.

  • tim

    I think Lansleys bill being killed probably benefits the Tories more than the Lib Dems.

    Cameron knows that Clegg knows that.

    But Dave can’t back down now, family guy made pledges.

  • Plato

     ”Sunil, were you the page 3 Lovely today?”

    I was distracted by Adele’s terrible hair day immediately next to it.

    I still haven’t read mine, its been a hot favourite with my feline friends who’ve missed sitting on newspapers.

  • Anonymous

     i doubt more than a few hundred people, bought it to make a ‘statement’, who would they be making it to? If the paper was good quality (i have no idea, i wouldnt touch the tat) and hit the parts the NOTW used to hit, they will come back and its circulation will stablise at the NOTW old numbers.

  • MickP0rk

    I think he does believe differentiating himself on HoL reform will shore up the votes of the ever shrinking lib dem base but he doesn’t appear to have noticed that more of them care about NHS reform than HoL reform.

    80% of lib dem voters wanted the NHS reform risk register released yet Cleggy and almost all of his lib dem MPs chums sat on their hands.

    He’s going to get a very rude reminder of the lib dem base priorities come the spring conference.

    Lib dem members would obviously like HoL reform not least because the elected lords would be elected on P.R. (in fact given how much Clegg will compromise on everything else about HoL reform it’s pretty clear that’s the main thing) but it’s not  lib dem touchstone like changing the voting system is.

    It’s a very poor consulation prize and it still looks like a pipe dream anyway.

    One day Cleggy will need to learn not to posture on things that he can’t deliver but he shows no sign of doing so yet.

  • Anonymous

    At least 50 seats, I’d say more like 150.  Just look at the opinion poll leads you’ve had since the NHS became an issue last spring.

    Those nasty tories introducing competition and private companies into the NHS in the 2001 parliament.

    Deliberate attempt to undermine the co-operative ethos of the service.

    Your speculating that Labour wouldn’t vote to bring down the tories, is of course nonsense.  Similarly the SNP and the Libdems could hardly vote to maintain David Cameron’s position in Downing St could they?

  • Andy Cooke

    Because under the existing system, a change in constituency size changes the representativeness and proportionality of the number of MPs returned.  The larger the constituency under FPTP, the less proportional it becomes, until eventually a single large constituency returning a single MP always sends back a single MP representing whomever got the mopst votes in the entire UK.

    Just for fun, I looked at what the HoC would look like if each region sent back a single MP.  In the last election, it would have been:

    Con – 5 (SW, SE, East, E Mid and W Mid)
    Lab – 6 (London, Wales, NW, NE, Y&H and Scotland)
    Sinn Fein – 1 (Northern Ireland)

    Of course, this would yield yelps as the regions aren’t that similar in size (so what happens to NI?  Or Wales?)

    Nevertheless, the larger the constituencies (and fewer the number of MPs), the less voice heard from the non-Big Two.  And the more we hear from the 66% supporting the Big Two at the last election, and the less we hear from the 33% who didn’t.

    Although I don’t support STV, I think it would be interesting to see Westminster forced to take into account the views of UKIP, Greens (more than the solitary one), and the rest.

  • tim

    You seriously think the Tories want to play “what it said in the coalition agreement”?

    The LDs would love that excuse to pull the plugs on Lansley.

  • old_labour

    I assume Sir Stuart was paid the going rate when he was working on the shop floor and Wikipedia said he started as a management trainee so he seems to have been somewhat sparing with the truth.

  • Anonymous

     relief from everybody and Lansley can get on rolling out gp commissioning across the country.

  • MickP0rk

     Persumably he promised Cammie he wouldn’t.

    I think it’s sweet he still thinks Cammie won’t dump him neck deep in the brown stuff at the first opportunity.

  • Anonymous

    If Clegg pulls the plug on the NHS “reforms”, he and Miriam will get invited to Cam and Sam for a thank you dinner !!

  • Anonymous

     What i find remarkable is two things:
    i) just how successful this scheme has been, with the firms involved and the number of placements.
    ii) just how much effort has gone into wrecking it by both the hard left and the soft left.

    If labour was in government and this exact scheme was presented to them they would have jumped at it.

  • Stark Dawning

    ‘”I think that one or two of them have shown a little less than backbone if I might say so”’

    Sir Stuart is absolutely right! It was appalling to see leading British firms cave in to a bunch of soap-dodging Trots and Union bovver boys with their vile tactics of smear and intimidation. Of course, it was the campaign against News International that first gave the green light to this anti-business bullying. Miliband should hang his head in shame for being one of its leading agitators.

  • Anonymous

    I think he didn’t promise Cam anything. You know how the joke goes:

    Why did Clegg cross the road ?

    Because he promised, he wouldn’t.

  • tim

    As with Dave, Nick hadn’t got a clue what he was signing up to.
    How could he promise Cameron that he agreed with him, when Cameron didn’t know what he was signing up to.

  • MickP0rk

    He has also been closely involved in a seven-figure marketing campaign,
    pledging the Sunday newspaper will hold its reduced 50p price to at
    least the end of the year. The Daily Star Sunday reacted by slashing its price from £1 to 50p, while the cost of the Sunday Mirror remains £1.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/26/rupert-murdoch-sun-on-sunday?newsfeed=true

    That you don’t realise that there are substantial investment costs in setting up and running a new Sunday paper is unsurprising.

    That you don’t realise that it’s going to take just a little bit more than overtime to keep it going is baffling.

    A Sunday paper is still of a completely different character to the rest of a weeks press output. It has to survive on scoops, giveaways and a great deal more content.

    All of which costs.

  • Anonymous

    An opportunity was missed??

    Huh?

    One of the if not ‘the’ first press conferences by any minister after the election began with a LibDem brandishing the letter left him by labour’s self evidently incompetent chief secretary to the treasury.  It said ‘There is no money left’.

    So come off it.  If this is a) the logic of how your mind works and/or b) your opinion of the ikntelligence of your listeners
    then
    no wonder you are an exMP.

    There is no money left …!
    I am amazed that you and any other apologist for socialism has the nerve to walk the streets during daylight, never mind lecture the rest of us on here.

  • Tim B

    In the interests of balance I can now reveal that I have met and shaken the hands of both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. If I could be bothered to go down to Marietta this afternoon I could have met Ron Paul too, but there was the little matter of Rory playing golf, which took precedence. Given the way he’s playing this afternoon, Ron might have been the better bet.

    Santorum spoke last Sunday, and Gingrich today, at a Southern Baptist church a few miles from my home, so I went along to both. It’s one of these megachurches, which looks more like a theater than a church.

    Impressions? Well, none really. It was all God and country stuff. Nothing I heard swayed my vote, which is as yet undecided. 

    Newt has much the firmer handshake and unflinching gaze.

  • old_labour

    Both the Mail and the Guardian kicked off these stories and the Telegraph has been spinning the line that opposition to the Government’s programme has come from Trotskyite front groups.

  • Anonymous

     Seven figures, over the year. There has been close to no marketing for its launch.

    Reducing the cover price will of course eat into profits massively. But Murdoch knows how to make money in the paper trade.

  • francis

    Sorry but you would have to lump NE, NW and Y&H all together:-

    Con 5 agree
    Lab -4
    SF – 1 agree

  • Anonymous

    This “differentiation” nonsense. I still believe the Lib Dems are wise enough to know they have to sh*t or get off the pot.

    Kill the NHS Bill, kill the Boundary bill.

    The Lib Dems aren’t stupid enough to do another “ooh we might, we can you know, we will you know” gesture.

  • old_labour

    I do not believe Clegg does details. In 2008, he thought the old aged pension was £30 per week when it was £90 at the time. Link below.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7620041.stm

  • Anonymous

    ‘
    the silly Tory Boundary gerrymandering.’

    How can equalizing the size of constituencies be called gerrymandering?

    I assume of course you understand what the word means?

  • Anonymous

    The guardian and independent do that don’t they?  Guardian have just sacked numerous people

  • old_labour

    New thread. 

  • Richard Tyndall

    Once again rcs100 you are clearly talking about what you would like to have seen in the Agreement rather than what is actually there. 

    Personally I put this all down to the lack of ability by the Lib Dems who were involved in the negotiating and drafting. It may well be they were taken for a ride but in the end the Agreement is what it is – in black and white. A commitment by both sides to whip through the AV and constituency reforms and a commitment to set up a committee to look at Lords reform. 

    If you disagree with me on this then point to exactly where it says in the Agreement that the Tory party will whip through the Elected Lords measures.

  • The Sunil on Sunday
  • MickP0rk

    test

  • MickP0rk

    test

  • MickP0rk

    test

  • Nick Palmer

    Curiosity, don’t you think? I’ll have a look too if I see one lying around. Most people will try anything once or twice.

  • Anonymous
  • http://profile.yahoo.com/VGEDM47IXSDSJV2G7CNMMV2HTE Iain

    What! You cant be serious Sunil! Are you taking a contrarian view to selling comics by backing losers?

  • Anonymous

     Do you have to posts ‘tests’ 3 times as well as everything else?

  • Anonymous

    ‘
    “Now we have studied the books I conclude that…”

    Almost every incoming government uses that line with exceptions like 1997 when the economy was in good shape.

    If you take the MOD as an example it took several months to uncover the Labour black hole of £38 billion. 

  • Anonymous

    SeanT, Found some tonic then?

  • Anonymous

    Oz vote shortly; they go into caucus to vote in 10 mins, many people voting for Gillard as they could not face another leadership change, not because they want her.
    Let me see if my previous numbers I advised to alanbrooke are close.

  • Anonymous

    73 gillard 29 rudd, last minute changes to gillard as people previously on his side defected this morning to be on winning side after “pressure”

  • Anonymous

    Just for you John I bought some rather expensive 2005 reserve riesling, knowing that riesling sometimes goes off as it gets older. When I got the crate it was almost like sherry.
    Conversely I have bought some rather good merlot and bottles that are 7 years old are even better than they were when they were bottled.

  • Anonymous

    Sorry John I have been watching the oz leadership spill…..
    Good wine is gorgeous and as you said in 20 years there will be another bottle to be opened.
    The problem is some young wines look good initially and go off rather quickly.

  • http://www.croydonloony.co.uk JohnLoony

    Oh… so it’s wine then? Oh…

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