Cameron Behind

A report in The Huffington Post this morning suggests that Tory activists have been using tactical voting methods in the London mayoral elections in an effort to push Liberal Democrats candidate Brian Paddick into a humiliating fourth or fifth place.

Even The Huffington Post's own article suggests that the number of voters using this tactic may be very low, but it is sadly indicative of the times that it should even have been formulated.

Ever since the Tories romped back to power, they have behaving like someone who has stepped in something, desperately scraping the soles of their shoes in order to remove the Lib Dems. Indeed, for the first year of the coalition government both Labour and the Conservatives found common ground in their desire to return the Lib Dems to their former state of total unelectability.

That was all very well when the Conservatives were working towards the idea of a clean victory in 2015, but right now hopes of that seem to be draining away.

Moreover, events may yet conspire to strengthen the Lib Dems' hand. Remember Business Secretary Vince Cable, whose responsibilities to oversee News Corp's bid for BSkyB were removed from him and given to Jeremy Hunt? At the time Cable was made to look very stupid by a Daily Telegraph sting (which was later the subject of a successful complaint to the Press Complaints Commission). Now, however, he looks remarkably like the only British politician to shake hands with the Murdochs and retain his small change & pocket watch.

To a different extent the same can be said of Clegg himself. Having been variously depicted as hapless, clueless and ineffectual, he can scarcely be portrayed now as having anything more than a bystander role in the policies that have proved most unpopular for the coalition. While George Osborne was preparing his politically catastrophic budget, Clegg & Cable were pushing the idea of a "Mansion Tax".

As fig leaves go it may be small, but it beats going around stark bollock naked.

Of course, the recovery in Lib Dem fortunes has been predicted more often than the end of the world, the only difference between them being that at some point the world assuredly will end. Of less concern to the Conservatives than the rise of the Lib Dems, however, will be their own fall: something in which they are likely to prove the principal architect. Had they kept the Lib Dems relatively strong, they might have prevented Labour from jumping from third place into first in the Birmingham council elections last night.

In an ideal world the Lib Dems could act like a hedge fund for the Tories: an opportunity to invest both in ice creams and umbrellas. Right now - as Britain wrings out its prematurely knotted handkerchiefs beneath the pitilessly grey Spring skies - Cameron seems to have gone full-tilt into the ice cream business.

Lazarus Galloway

A Google search for "George Galloway demagogue" yields nearly fifty thousand hits (probably, after today, more) which is hardly surprising. Demagogue is generally the term of abuse hurled at politicians in lieu of more openly mocking the people who vote for them.

Sordel is, as regular reader of these pages will know, thoroughly disaffected with the democratic system of government, but it has its moments, and last night's ringing endorsement of Galloway by the electors of Bradford West was one of them. Rather than celebrate this vindication of a system that most people regard as an unequivocal good thing, however, many commentators will conclude that Galloway was elected because most of the people voting were too stupid or gullible to recognise a scoundrel when he stood before them demanding their voices. Unable to say this openly, for fear that their implicitly racist position will be seen for what it is, they use the word demagogue.

Labour Blogger Mark Ferguson nicely epitomises this view: "Voter ID and anti-Tory campaigning was, on this occasion, insufficient up against the onslaught of demagoguery."

The Times today - covering the event as though it were a massive electoral upset and smack in the face for Ed Miliband - gave a brief summary of Galloway's career taking in, as highlights, his deselection as a Labour MP in 1988 for admitting to sexual carryings-on while in Greece (surely the most bizarre career-threatening scandal ever); his support for Saddam Hussein; his expulsion from the Labour Party for opposing the war in Iraq; his defeat in the Poplar & Limehouse constituency in 2010; and, his subsequent failure to win a seat in the Scottish Parliament. "His credibility as a serious political figure appeared to have been finished by his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, where he was shown pretending to lap milk like a cat from the hands of the actress Rula Lenska."

The Times's account at no point suggests that the voters would have had a good reason to vote for Galloway; nor does it provide any analysis of the background to a victory in which Galloway got more than twice the votes cast for his Labour opponent and 60% of the overall vote.

So, let's do it for them. (I have laboured for several minutes on Wikipedia to bring you this special report.)

The Bradford West election was precipitated by the fact that the previous MP, Marsha Singh, stepped down through ill health. The Labour candidate was Imran Hussein, a former Labour councillor, who announced that he would not attend hustings with other candidates. (Not that Sordel would like to do battle with Galloway, but it's hardly the act of a political lion to run away.) Galloway's campaign was run by the defecting Labour campaign manager who had previously overseen Marsha Singh's victory.

All was clearly not well in the Labour camp.

Having inherited the Labour political machine, Galloway was in a strong position to mobilise popular sentiment. When his campaign manager was helping Labour, this was doubtless called "mustering grass-roots support", but now that he was helping RESPECT it became the "onslaught of demagoguery".

RESPECT has had a troubled few years due to a split between the Galloway faction and the Socialist Workers Party faction within what is a fairly small political organisation. Nevertheless, the core of its policies are focused on social values that might reasonably resonate with any voter: the rights of refugees and immigrants; redistributive taxation; an increase in the minimum wage; and implacable opposition to military adventuring.

On the face of it, then, Bradford voters would be making a rational and broadly self-interested decision to elect George Galloway as their MP. Regarding them as having been hoodwinked is an understandable slur on Galloway himself by his political opponents, but a revealing glimpse of their true estimation of the value of "democracy".

Eh? V?

Those who consulted, memorized and obediently signed up to Sordel's previous reflections on democracy will not be surprised to hear that a referendum on a new electoral system in the UK leaves me somewhat cold.

According to research cited by The Economist the consequence of a move to the A.V. system would be that 16% of seats would change hands at a general election rather than 13%. The ideal - a swing of 100% to the None of the Above Party - is, to say the least, unlikely, and even were the 3% of constituencies that changed all to become BNP that would only bring the BNP representation in Parliament up to (checks sums) about 3%. None of this counts as a smooth transition to democracy.

Sordel's contention is that very few voters actually care about elections, and this can be extrapolated to the Middle East and Africa where, we are repeatedly told, populations are rising up to demonstrate their ardent thirst for a fair vote. Certainly some of the people are rising up for a fair vote, but it seems a reasonable guess that the greater number would also be willing to rise up for an oligarchy stacked in favour of their tribe, religious orientation or favoured tyrant. Not many of the rebels in Libya would be risking their lives to see Qaddafi fairly elected.

More significantly, it seems reasonable to suppose that many of the supposed beneficiaries of democracy in Libya are much like ourselves: more interested in the wellbeing of our families, businesses and neighbourhoods than we are in who is in government. Many of those who are currently dying for democracy in Misurata were just trying to get on with their lives. Posthumously turning them into martyrs for a political ideal is a typically political manouevre that demonstrates that while the rebels may not be a fitting army, there are those among them well suited to a career of bribery and corruption.

Returning, then, to the United Kingdom, AV would seem to be the perfect voting system for our national temperament: an ever more long-winded process to satisfy us that our miniscule contribution to the election of our political masters has been felt. Religion may be the opiate of the people in some countries, but all you really need to pacify an Englishman is a big piece of paper and an ill-sharpened pencil.