Into the murk

Hopeful, still

Please permit me to say to everyone but especially the Tories 'Lisbon Treaty' , a referendum???
Immigration , a fair solution and no amnesties.
Be there for Britain and restore (or try to) everything that made us proud and great and there is plenty

Oflife

Cameron should have give a speech prior to the election in the same tone as the one he just gave at 2:30pm. He appeared a lot more confident and assertive. And that is what the electorate were looking for, but never received prior to yesterday.

"Lend me your ears."

Jabberwocky

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

joe

No, of course they won't admit it. In the end, Cameron will tear the Tory party apart.

Incidentally, is a Lib/Con alliance a supporter of Israel or not ?

Jez

I can't believe what is happening.

The Conservatives are looking 'left' all of the time.

On radio 4 and 909 there's like a little party going on....

"Woop woop! A Liberal left Tory Party is going to collude with a Liberal left Liberal Party..... or a psuedo Far-Left Nulab Party is going to collude with the Liberals."

This is a really terrible, weak and fragile position for the country to be in right now.

Norm

Listening to all three this morning they still don't get it.

Kevyn Bodman

'Will the Cameroons now admit it?'
No.

'Is the Pope a Catholic?'
Yes.

Better to have asked about the Pope's woodland habits,then you'd have got 2 negative answers and,more importantly,2 answers the same.

That, not entirely critical point, aside, you are right.

TomTom

Angela Merkel in 2005 had exactly this situation having thrown away a lead she was forced to watch Schroeder taunt her and then to be in coalition with the SPD. Now she rules with FDP in coalition but faces being deposed after Sunday's electoral disaster upcoming.

These countries are split from top to bottom. Personally, I think this result is the harbinger of the future of elections

terence patrick hewett

the prospect of getting anything done. zero. the quangos are still there. our poor corrupt country is need a violent revolution.

GaryO

You'll find Tories are claiming a victory.

GaryO

joe
May 7th, 2010 3:48pm

"Incidentally, is a Lib/Con alliance a supporter of Israel or not"?

Make your own mind up:
http://cifwatch.com/2010/05/01/the-nightmare-shidduch/

For me, neither party is warm towards it, shall we say.

Neil Craig

The real catastrophic losers are the LibDems though this will not be fully apparent for years.

In an election where they had according to some polls been about to become largest party; where for the first time ever they were getting media coverage to match the big parties; where the normal argument against voting LD, that it is a "wasted vote" which would let in the other party no longer applied (indeed where Labour ministers were saying vote LD not Labour because Labour is the wasted vote); where public contempt for the big parties has never been as great, the LDs have nonetheless lost seats & barely gained votes. The public, for the first time, got to see the Luddism, nanny statism, illiberality, eco-fascism, government parasitism, eurofanaticism, mass immigrationism, nihilism & all round lunacy of a conglomeration of single issue fanatic groups & they don't like it. The catastrophic nature of the result is being hidden by the fact that they do have the balance of power & that Labour are quickly & the Conservatives less quickly to supporting a democratic electoral system. The LDs have to go for PR or most of their membership would hang the leaders. But while FPTP disadvantages them against Labour & Tory it gives them a massive advantage against UKIP, the BNP & Greens.

Terry, Eilat - Israel

Hopeydopeychangey - Melanie, you have a real gift for language. But, what happens when the Greek illness spreads to Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc. and then on to Britain? And, there is a real liklihood of a major regional war in the Middle-East, possibly this summer? Oil prices will go through the roof with predictable consequences. I think the Titanic hasn't hit the iceberg yet ......

Roger Evans

If Gordon Brown had not been Prime Minister, and the Labour campaign had been fronted by someone much more afffable such as Alan Johnston, I suspect Labour would have kept their majority. The Conservatives failed to connect with the average man on the street. Only the voters' hatred for Gordon made them vote for Cameron. None of this is a surprise. We all know that, nice bloke though he may be, David isn't up to the job. This isn't the time to conduct an inquest into Tory policies, but it's a problem we'll have to address urgently before the next election.

Raymond

Where did Cameron lose it? Undoubtedly, one are was the shameful decision not to allow the British people any say over the Lisbon Treaty. But another area, was his equally shameful decision, to appease the homosexual lobby group, by his treatment of Tory candidate Stephen lavender and his own shadow home secretary , Chris Graying.

cyllan

the people has voted for labour.

8.6 million of them.

after all the corruption lies , spin, and economic crisis, nearly 1/3 of votes went to labour.

they got nearly as many mps as the cons

I BLAME THE PUBLIC, NOONE ELSE.
WE DESERVE BROWN, AND THAT IS THE TRUTH.

so enjoy the nannzy state , we earned.

Dominic L-R

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How exactly does Melanie know that the electorate turned their back on the national picture and voted locally? Surely if 'the people' had really "had it up to here" with the entire political system, there would have been a more obvious protest? Eg spoilt ballot papers, abstentions, or voting for minority parties.
But what actually happened? The Conservatives got 37% of the vote (more tahn Tony Blair got in 2005, when he got a majority of 60), but because of the quirks of the constituencies, this wasn't enough for a majority.
All that has really happened is that the vote between Labour and Conservatives is more evenly split than it has been for a long time, so a hung parliament is the inevitable result. The only surprise is that, given the size of the LibDem vote of the last 20 years, it hasn't happened more often.
Most elections in Europe end like this - in coalitions and deals. Germany has had coalition governments for 50 years, and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

Larry Gavin

It will dawn on somebody, somewhere, that there is something in a lot of countries that seems to be stopping strong decisive action - what would that be? - Democracy. Maybe, not far off, there'll be a push to bypass this convenience altogether.
Oh dear.

Jez

cyllan;

you can blame the 8.6 million then.... that's all.

The Tory's have positioned themselves into the middle- so they are seen as little alternative to the present Status quo.

To prove this, they are now in negotiations with a more left-wing party than Labour to try share power.

Obama type politics have failed here.

Even worse scenario would be a Nulab / LibDem takeover of power.

If the Tories had looked 'right' toward UKIP types- (and maybe even moderate, totally disenfranchised.... er, let's just leave that one for the moment maybe!) they would have had on average an extra 5 - 7% of the vote across the board.

UKIP (& that other one) would have had (apart from 2 places maybe) a majority of votes cast in their names last night, as a PROTEST VOTE only against the system / machine.

The Tories could have won outright.... yet still the fools that have advised them into this abyss are now directing them towards the 'left' that's have sunk them in the first place.

Bad news.

Patrick

I appreciate it is to early for recriminations but even the most strident Conservative will have to admit that David and George have blown it. Fact: The lowest rated PM ever..Yes EVER

Fact: The economy on its back
Fact: A tired Government after 13 years

Surely a monkey in a blue rosette could have got a majority in these circumstances, but David and George have somehow seiged defeat from the jaws of victory. The party must be furious becasue I am.

Sye

I would love a system that required the voter to pass a test proving they have an understanding of politics and national economics, plus what the current parties are offering, prior to being allowed to vote. This would generate a very informed electorate that would be great for this country and root out some of the lies and bias which plague politics these days.

Bob

Cameron didn't win. Clapped out Labour merely lost.

Cameron is still stuck with a centrist EU obedient manifesto, just like Brown, just like Clegg. They are all trying to reinvent variety in their policies but they are all on the same dog lead held by Brussels.
Cameron is just a blue labour man.

If he had significantly different policies, it would have given voters a real choice. If he was really a Conservative leader, he would have been given a real mandate from the people, as it is no-one really understood what he stood for other than "change". But then Clegg also stood for "change". So did Obama, and he is a communist!

Daniel Heslop

I think that Peter Hitchens has a point, the Tory 'brand' is busted after Thatcher. They simply cannot convince the socially conservative white working class to trust them again.

Archie

Spot-on, as usual, Miss Phillips, and no, the Tories will acknowledge nothing of the kind. Look at Cameron's preposterous A-lists"! I'm willing to bet my pension that they will be in denial - as everyone seems to say these days - for at least a year.

Augustus

All is murk all right. But one fact has emerged: The voters aren't impressed by Nick Clegg. And Berown isn't really the
'big loser' but Clegg. The LibDems even lost seats. So much
for the ninety minute wonder. Politics should be about programmes that solve problems.
This is like walking on coals with your shoes off.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Dear Melanie
I have mentioned this on our Wall, but will say it again. In view of the lack of ballot papers in many stations, the slamming of doors in the faces of those wishing to vote, the intrusive behaviour of many officials, and the blatently exposed booths, naturally without curtains or screens, I believe the election should be declared null and void. Brown has allowed this once great country to degenerate into a Third World disaster. A new election should be held, monitored by the U.N., who for once will have a task not beyond their limited abilities. I am not onvinced that all the mistakes were due to the polling stations 'not expecting so many people'. This and all the necessary recounts, makes me believe it is yet another scandal Nu Labour would like to sweep under the carpet.

Michael

Two points:

Raymond - According to various sources, the Conservatives suffered from a low gay vote as well, polling just 6% immediately prior to the election, regardless of whatever pandering they can be accused of. It didn't work in attracting gay voters, and I think you are really overstating the extent to which David Cameron reached out to that particular community; it patently failed to work for him.

Daniel Heaslop - Hitchens has made a very good point indeed. Thatcher has discredited Conservatism throughout vast swathes of society and the damage she did to real Conservative heartlands seems irrevocable to me.

Lee Jakeman

Yes, Melanie. The pope is a catholic.

And David Cameron will be a powerless prime minister.

Geoff Miller

Will the Cameroons now admit it?

Er - I guess you think NO.

Is the Pope a Catholic? Em? Is the answer NO?

Seriously though, You are right that the nation was screaming out for a return to sanity and all the Tories did was move to the Left on all the issues we wanted a true Tory response.

The biggest winner was the 40% "undecided" vote. How on earth can you enter the final stage of an election with 40 % of the electorate not knowing who to vote for?

It only goes to show that amongst the three main parties not one truly stood for what people want.

It seems that yet again the Public Sector Employees, benefit claimants, immigrants and gay sections of the electorate got what it wanted whilst the rest of us, the ones who overwhelmingly do all the work, create all the wealth, pay all the taxes, fight "their" wars and pay the tax were ignored - AGAIN.

Middle England should just go on strike. Stop buying, paying tax, signing up etc etc. If we turned our backs on the rest of society and looked after ourselves it would take about 4 weeks to bring the country and the politicians, to its knees.

Clive

The Conservatives aren't far behind the LibDem's with regards to Israel.
See this pamphlet.
http://www.thestraightchoice.org/leaflets/4733/

Roy

Murk, murk, and murk. Positively sums up the three parties in the running. None were able to give the public a clear answer to tackling the problems that confront Britain. In fact none where able to honestly identify the problems, or the diabolical misdeeds of Labour, or appreciate there is a major crisis, never mind coming up with a solution. How can they have a remedy when they know not what the affliction is? So many who are sick of repeating what the trouble is! So many who go consistently unheard by the seemingly deaf and the daft of the power elite. So much of the trappings of would be leaders wrapped up comfortably in cotton wool and treacle.

Raymond

I meant to say Phillip Lardner, not Stephen lavender. Apologies all round.

Thucydides

Dominic L-R is right. All this stuff about the electorate turning their back on the national picture and voting locally is nonsense.

Two points: the abysmal performances of the BNP and UKIP, despite the most favourable of circumstances, prove that the British electorate have absolutely no appetite for hard right policies (not that that will prevent Speccie blog contributors from continuing to howl at the moon for years to come). And the Tories have hardly won any seats outside England. What does that mean for the Union?

gama

Cameroon's 'is it gas or a bowel movement' look didn't translate into an air of authority .

mark

Now here's a thing. The seats the Tories lost because many on the hard right voted UKIP. No data as yet for the BNP factor.
Bolton West: Labour 18,329; Conservative 18,235; UKIP 1,901
Derby North: Labour 14,896; Conservative 14,283; UKIP 829
Derbyshire NE: Labour 17,948: Conservative 15,503; UKIP 2,636
Dorset mid & Poole: Labour 21,100; Conservative 20,831; UKIP 2,109
Dudley North: Labour 14,923; Conservative 14,274; UKIP 3,267
Great Grimsby: Labour 10,777: Conservative 10,063: UKIP 2,043
Hampstead & Kilburn: Labour 17,332; Conservative 17,290; UKIP 408
Middlesbrough South: Labour 18,138; Conservative 16,461; UKIP 1,881
Morley (Ed Balls): Labour 18,365; Conservatives 17,264; UKIP 1,506
Newcastle-Under-Lyme: Labour 16,393; Conservatives 14,841; UKIP 3,491
Plymouth Moor View: Labour 15,433; Conservatives 13,845; UKIP 3,188
Solihull: Liberal 23,635; Conservatives 23,460; UKIP 1,200
Somerton & Frome: Liberal 28,793; Conservatives 26,976; UKIP 1,932
Southampton Itchen: Labour 16,326; Conservatives 16,134; UKIP 1,928
St Austell & Newquay: Liberal 20,189; Conservatives 18,877; UKIP 1,757
St Ives: Liberal 19,619; Conservatives 17,900; UKIP 2,560
Telford: Labour 15,977; Conservatives 14,996; UKIP 2,428
Walsall North: Labour 13,385; Conservatives 12,395; UKIP 1,737
Walsall South: Labour 16,211; Conservatives 14,456; UKIP 3,449
Wells: Liberal 24,560; Conservatives 23,760; UKIP 1,711
Wirral South: Labour 16,276; Conservatives 15,745; UKIP 1,274

Under ATV (alternative vote) the Tories would have a comfortable majority, similarly if we adopted the French system.

Cameron should offer something concrete to Clegg along the lines of the alternative vote system. Won't though , too thick.

Frank P

Dear Melanie,

Throughout most of my adult life, which started with military service in 1952, I have been attempting to warn anyone who will listen about what international communism is attempting to do to the Judeo-Christian culture of the West; exposing the roots of the plot, the plotters and their modus operandi. You have been trying to do the same for what? Fifteen years? Successive governments in both UK and America have mainly ignored us (and many others who have also seen the impending threats). In fact, not only have they ignored us, they have deliberately watered the roots of the sub-rosa revolution. They are now reaping the harvest.

As far as the UK (hah!) is concerned, ‘the plan’ now seems to be irreversible, insofar as our electorate now votes in larger numbers for it, than agin it (but probably most do not realise it). But in the United States I see signs that their electorate has now aroused from its slumber and the fight-back is beginning. It is entirely appropriate that you are in the US fanning the flames of a cleansing fire.

Equally we, and others, have tried to arouse the slumbering populaces of both the UK and the US to the exponential threat of international Islamic jihad and its temporary unholy alliance with the counter-cultural hegemonic movement engendered by Gramsci. Despite the violent and frequent overt assaults of militant Islam, that also has been largely ignored in the West. But again, in the US at least, there appears to be evidence emerging that the Americans are beginning to understand. I detect no such signs here, where the mass media is completely stitched up in the counter-culture hegemony.

When the leader of the Conservative Party and his immediate cohorts espoused Alinski methods during the General Election campaign, it became obvious that we are now beyond salvation; it seems now impossible to recoil as a nation before going over the precipice. Now that the ‘Tories’ are proposing to hop into bed with a deeply leftist party with an anti-UK sovereignty ethos, what possible hope can there be? If the other alternative – a Libdem-Lab pact is perpetrated it will be even worse.

After 58 years of shouting “Look out – they’re behind you!” to my fellow Westerners who appear to be overwhelmingly both blind and deaf, I am becoming very tired and disillusioned. In fact they appear to be wallowing in the short-term bribery, apparently obvious to the fact they will now have to start to pick up the tab for their hedonistic stupidity.

Keep up the good work Melanie. Of your generation I find your work the most inspirational. I wish I could do more, but though the spirit is still willing, the flesh is becoming increasingly weak.

I wish you the very best of luck with your new book. I have read it and though not possessed of the literary ability to do justice to its importance by attempting a critique, I heartily recommend it to everyone who cares about the future health of Western civilisation and its survival in the face of inimical, indeed evil, forces. It is a seminal work.

Daniel Heslop

The people have not voted local. Rather the two tribes, red & blue, have voted against each other thereby squeezing out the Lib-Dems.

Anne Wotana

Dear Melanie
I just read Frank P's posting. As long as there are people like you and Frank, then the battle isn't completely lost. In an ongoing situation which makes "Alice in Wonderland" appear staid, you are beacons of sanity and hope.

Beer Moth

Frank P

I concur with your observations of the advanced state of collapse in UK 'politics'.

I think what this election has shown is that our political classes now treat a massive swathe of our people, as a tiresome encumberence which will just have to be penned in while it withers away.

The ballot box has ceased to operate in the lives of so many, and they will find other means to make their presence felt.

A similar injustice was described many years ago, including the declaration: 'A terrible beauty is born..."

Perhaps we are not at that point of birth, but I think the mother and father have just caught each other's eye across the room.

Paul Weston

I was planning on reading Melanie's new book anyway, but feel especially moved to do so after reading Frank P's moving and succinct comment at 11:32

I stood for UKIP in the Cities of London & Westminster, achieving a rather unremarkable 664 votes.

I appreciate there was a great deal of tactical voting going on, but it was the attitudes of those I canvassed which revealed so much more.

My constituency is probably the most affluent in the country and its occupants some of the best educated.

Yet a good 90% were aggressively hostile to UKIP which I find absolutely heartbreaking.

I suspect I am probably a little younger than Mr Frank P, and my body is still willing.

But we have only one more election to awaken the people. After that I suspect it will be too late, or at least too late by anything other than genuine revolution.

Never has the power of propaganda been so revealed as in England today.

steve

Daniel Heslop. You're right on and Melanie is wrong. Labour voters here in Birmingham turned out like sheep to vote for, in some cases, demonstrably poorer candidates than the other parties were running. The quality of the local candidate lost out to tribal loyalties.

Arnold Levan

The fact of the matter is, if one looks at the political map of Britain most of the major industrial towns and centres voted Labour. The Shires voted Tory and have done so since Walpole was P.M.; they would do so if the Tories put a horse up as candidate. Melanie is right all parties lost. Lets cut the crap and have a coalition.

Michael

Paul Weston - could it not just be that because your target electorate are, as you say, educated that they simply saw through the nonsense you offer and took their votes elsewhere.

Blaming the electorate is a dangerous game that reveals just how out of touch and out of fashion your politics are and hopefully will remain.

I'd be looking at the mess in my own backyard before questioning other people if I had turned out just 664 votes.

Michael

Frank P - You need to read up on Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony pal before posting drivel like that.

Harold

It is clear what we need: a UK neo-con theo-con party, so that the 88% who voted Lib Dem, Labour, and wishy-washy Cameroon Conservative will at last have a party to vote for that truly reflects what they want for their country...

Depression

I'm with Frank P et al and I voted UKIP without even knowing who my local candidate was. Apart from the BNP or abstaining, it was the only choice if I wished to state my opposition to the continued erosion of British sovereignty. BNP was never an option (as an ex-soldier, I can spot low grade thug posers when I see them, and anyway my great grandfather on my mother's side was a Jewish emigre from one of the many Slavic pogroms so I guess they'd want to repatriate me - not such a bad idea perhaps, hmm..). So UKIP it was but let's face it Pearson was a joke, Farage little better. I fear that talk of alternate parties is merely playing pipedreamsand that there is no way out of our current trajectory until it inevitably hits earthy reality. Depressing ain't it.

Bob

Voters electing the best candidate in their local constituency! That's first past the post and how it should be. Elections are not democracy they are part of the process, they exist to frighten the government and provide catharsis for the electorate. It is the institutions that matter, they protect our liberty. The real problem is not the voting system but the parlous state of our institutions. Cabinet government ursurped by media star Prime Ministers and nullified on the Downing Street sofa. Parliament corrupt, unwilling and unable to hold the executive to account. A politicisised judiciary, police force and civil service and if that not enough a statute book full of laws and regulations no one can understand. That is the murk we have been led like sheep into this past thirteen years.

Len Watson

Some posters question Ms Phillips‘ assertion that voters “turned their backs on the big national picture and voted local: the candidate who impressed them on his or her own account won, largely regardless of party; simple as that.”

But this is what happened. The local press coverage in areas where Cameron upset activists and core voters by parachuting in so-called ‘A listers’ was terrible for the A listers. The campaign story for them was how local constituents didn’t want them.

The Tatler Tories (remember that appalling photo shoot) Shaun Bailey, Mark Clarke, Joanne Cash, Annunziata Rees-Mogg and Peter Lyburn all failed to win their seats (others did win their seats but they are just as foul as the five I have just mentioned).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1275139/UK-ELECTION-RESULTS-2010-The-Tatler-Tory-A-listers-failed-make-Westminster.html#ixzz0nM5ALJkh

When you take seats like that into account and the seats where UKIP helped either a Lib Dem or Labour candidate to take the seat, Cameron must surely be kicking himself for not offering a referendum on Lisbon. I know that would have been fraught with problems but better that headache than this.

An offer of a referendum on that would have seen UKIP stand our this election and those votes very likely to get the Tories across the finish line. I desperately wanted to vote UKIP but didn’t dare in case I helped put a Lib Dem or a Labour candidate in our seat.

The only mitigation Dave can truly point to is the tsunami of fraudulent postal votes in this election. It was always Labour that favoured this push for postal votes. Perhaps, like the Kremlin, they prefer elections where they know the outcome beforehand? The boundary changes (drawn up by Labour) also mean that Dave got 500,000 more votes than Tony Blair who got a majority of 67! Don’t miss a trick these Labour people, do they?

Ms Phillips writes: “This result finally proves that the Cameroon ‘hopeydopeychangey’strategy was a bad mistake, for all the reasons discussed here month after month. Will the Cameroons now admit it?”

Of course not. They dispatch Michael Portillo to the Telegraph to write this nonsense:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7693270/General-Election-2010-David-Cameron-will-surprise-many-with-his-courage-as-Prime-Minister.html

For those not already doing so, I recommend Norman Tebbit’s blog. He warns today:

The Tories will lose the next election if they enter into a coalition with the tainted Lib Dems

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100038710/the-tories-will-lose-the-next-election-if-they-enter-into-a-coalition-with-the-tainted-lib-dems/

Indeed. Clegg only had one phone call with Brown before he got one of those infamous earfuls we only ever get to hear when Gordon Brown forgets to take off his Sky News microphone.

What is Cameron waiting for? Give those two enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.

I’d give Clegg and Brown about five minutes in a coalition before there was a repeat of the Blair/Brown working relationship and then it would all be over. Let them knock lumps out of each other, Dave.

Don’t take a bruising for what Gordon did to the economy.

Let him get his hands around the throat of the nation’s darling, Vince Cable, and there’ll be an election before you can say ‘bigoted woman’.

Douglas Murray thinks so too:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglasmurray/100038816/how-to-achieve-a-tory-landslide-this-year/

Relugus

Its clear that we need to rebuild manufacturing in the UK as the selfish bankers are treasonous. The financial sector is a casino; you cannot make a casino the center of your economy.

The cost of living needs to drop, as do house prices. We need to pull out of Afghanistan immediately (we can't afford to waste money and lives propping up Karzai and his CIA oil crook buddies).
Shutting down our embassies and replacing them with a website would be an excellent policy, as would scrapping Crossrail (if the City wants it, they should pay for it, not the taxpayer).
I'm in favour of PR, as are most British people, because it devolves power and weakens our politicians; a very good thing.

Ilíon

Admittedly (I'm a Yank), I don't closely follow UK politics. But, from what little I do think I understand, I was hoping for a better showing by the UKIP.

Mr. Mabutoh Afunfa

Relugus good thinking, I see you don't have a government yet because many people did not vote, people should not complain if they wanted to be lazy and undecided, i think in the future any lazy person who don't vote should be fined.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

Goodbye Brown, Hello Cameron, Please try again at another time Clegg.

Joe Strummer

The British electorate had the chance to shun the main three major parties who were all knee deep in financial corruption, but what instead did they do ? They all went out in their droves to vote for the same parties. Quite frankly, Britain gets the politicians it deserves.

logdon

Frank P

Perfect! No sentimental morbidity or what the sneerers would call the misplaced fantasy of nostalgia but the pessimism of stark reality.

If and when we have a Berlin Wall moment of awakening and drag ourselves from the gotterdammerung which is sweeping Britain, the bells will ring out.

Meanwhile all I hear is the tinitus of babel like confusion.

just Louise

Writes Frank: After 58 years of shouting “Look out – they’re behind you!” to my fellow Westerners who appear to be overwhelmingly both blind and deaf, I am becoming very tired and disillusioned.

Sadly, I reckon it's time to try “Look out – they’re among you!”, Frank.

Verity

Thank you, Frank P, for one of your best posts ever - and that is saying something.

Trumpeldor

@Frank,
You are really a great soul
May you live till 120 years !
Do not be discouraged,whereas europe and uk are doomed, Usa,Israel,India and many other countries such as Columbia,Poland and Singapore are still alive and kicking.
Despite the clouds of ashes, you are still able to embark a plane bound for all these destinations
I wish you the best,
Trumpeldor

Bhaskar

As a liberal Tory, in many ways I see the current result as not such a bad thing in the long run although like many card carrying party members, I would have preferred the Tories gaining an absolute majority. But then life is never perfect. In the meantime, xenophobic parties such as UKIP and BNP have had a massive slap across their face and all this in the middle of the worst recession in living memory. This shows Britain is now irreversibly a liberal and progressive nation and it can only benefit from such a mindset. Cameron will do well to join this liberal, progressive bandwagon and make the Conservative Party once and for all a tolerant, cosmopolitan, free market oriented, environmentally friendly party and away form the the anti- globalization hard right. Cameron now has the golden opportunity to complete the modernization of the Tory party. Like the Lib Dems, most modernizing Tories believe in small government, individual liberties, support for small businesses, and they have an aversion to the surveillance oriented nanny state. One hopes Cameron will rise to the occasion and tell his rebellious hard right to emigrate to Arizona and join the Tea Party movement!

logdon

Frank P
"not possessed of the literary ability to do justice to its importance by attempting a critique"

Not so sure of that, Frank.

Your comment was masterly and encapsulates the reality most of the ostriches who pass for opinion formers and politicians both here and in the US will not touch with a barge pole.

Here's a link you may appreciate.

george-orwell.org/l_orwell-essay.html

And another on what really is going on

creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/murder-mayhem-self-censorship-a-timeline/

Trumpeldor

Bhaskar successfully embodies all the reasons for Frank's dismay about UK's doomed future...

Neil Saunders

Michael

Don't just post and run!

You have a wonderful opportunity here to explain exactly what it is about Frank P's references to Antonio Gramsci that you find so objectionable.

You might also care to explain precisely why you are at such pains to come(as it seems to me)to Gramsci's defence. Do you admire Gramsci yourself? Do you not admire Gramsci, but nevertheless feel that his name is bandied around too readily as a kind of shorthand by conservative posters?

This is an important topic, and deserves to be presented and debated less cursorily. In other words, explicitly rather than by hints and insinuations.

Jimmy

@ Frank P

Come now Frank, do a King Alfred or, perhaps, a Robert the Bruce, spin a few fighting webs.

Verity

Trumpeldor writes: "Bhaskar successfully embodies all the reasons for Frank's dismay about UK's doomed future."

I second that. I was about to add some comments of my own, though.

Bhaskar writes: "Cameron will do well to join this liberal, progressive bandwagon...".

Well, Seig Heil to you, too, sweets. The left, or "progressives" if you buy into the lie, are the thought fascists.

John Charlesworth

This is an excellent article! I even heard one MP say that the electorate (like a jury) had been unable to reach a decission and therefore new 'trial' would have to be undertaken. What arrogance! The voters have elected who they want and now the politicians (the servants of the electorate)must go ahead and produce a strong, stable Government.

Tedmund

Whats all this "concern about immigration numbers" suddenly coming out from Cameron in his stance on any merger with LDs.Why was it "played down" during electioneering? If he'd shown concerns before, many of the people in the street like Mrs. Duffy and me, with our travel passes, that use buses(not cars),and shop in town centre shops(not out of town shopping malls, rubbing shoulders with these ever increasing mainly East European people hanging around our town centres, while our own indigenous sort are gainfully employed ),would have voted your way in massive numbers, rather than giving our votes in desperation to the only other sympathetic party alternatives, (knowing their election chances would be nil or miniscule, and wanted to have our voices heard in sheer desperation) with those who sympathise with fears for the future of our offspring and especially our grankids.No, Mr. Cameron your so-called diplomatic wish not to upset the voting masses has back-fired, resulting in your parties inconclusive overall victory.Now you have to do a deal with the party that are the most soft on immigration, crime and Europe(an organisation that can overule our laws that they say are against their politically-correct views on "Human rights"). What a joke! Don't tell us now thats another bit of business you intend to get sorted, or is it?

Baron

Frank P:

well said, you got it spot on except for perhaps, and please don’t take it as criticism, one thing.

not all is lost my friend, the healthy core hasn’t vanished yet, it’s here. Impotent, deprived of publicity, derided it may be, gone it ain’t. It stretches wide and deep from those who do the utmost to help the assimilation of those newcomers who want to share in what once used to be the greatest culture in the world, to those who labour in charities, youth clubs and such installing in the minds of the young the virtues of tolerance, fairness and justice.

The anointed, currently in the driving seat, cannot win, the convulsing of their approach to societal problems has already begun, the bribing of Peter with Paul’s money is coming to an end. More is to come. In the end, the socialists not unlike their counterparts from the former Red East must lose, their take on life must fail for it is inimical to human nature. Their end may take time to come, but come it will.

logdon

What Bhaskar seems to be suggesting is that the Tories turn into New Labour.

In case he hasn't noticed, they lost. And furthermore not by a trifle but an even worst defeat meted out to Foot.

And if any doubt surrounding the venality of the left still resides, read Polly Toynbee's article as mentioned in Swords around a throne David Blackburn 11:47am.

If Cameron has any gonads he will finally drain the fetid primordial swamp these people exist in.

Gary Wintle

This is glorious.

Our political and banking class are going to at long last suffer for their greed! Most wonderful.

The markets can go screw themselves, I don't recall them being elected to run this country.

We can start by publicly flogging Kirsty Alsop and greedy home buying/sellers scum she represents.

Michael

Neil Saunders - Thanks for your message and suggestion, here goes:

Firstly, with regards to Frank P's post, I simply cannot agree that there exists (or has existed) an alliance between Islamic jihadists and international communism! No amount of conspiracy theories or links to he saids, she saids article could get me to swallow that one.

Secondly, with regard to Gramsci, Frank P suggests that there exists a counter cultural hegemony of which the media is a part. This cannot be so, as there can exist only a dominant cultural hegemony and a counter cultural flow acting to usurp it.

So can we take it then that what Frank is actually trying to say is that, due to the inexorable power of capitalist relations they embody, the Islamic Jihad / Communist alliance have established a dominance and have imposed on us a mass media as an instrument of that hegemony?

Or am I missing something?

Snowman

Bhaska @ 5.40:

Well now, the combined vote of UKIP and the BNP comes to about 5% of the total, quite a number of ‘xenophobic’ people around, wouldn’t you say? What shall we do with them? Pack them off to Arizona, too?

This is democracy, you little liberal Tory man, it takes all sorts, and we have to live with each other.

just Louise

Michael, the link between islamists and leftist extremists is well exemplified in the horrid "Respect" party, whose MP, Galloway, was defeated when he contested Poplar this election.
Tina, a poster on one of Melanie's blogs recently, pointed to a similar alliance in her country, Ireland.
Strange how the atheistic extreme left can ally with religiously fanatical misogynists, but their common loathing of western civilisation and liberal values has made those bizarre bedfellows.

Harold

Frank P.
An international communist plot? Even in the heyday of this useful fiction, when the paranoia was in many cases genuine, the US had a clear idea of the extent of the threat and a good understanding of the plot's great virtue, namely that it could be uncovered wherever it suited the US. If you are under the impression that there is now a communist plot, you will have to contemplate the likelihood that this is a delusion. Even the US has moved on.

As for the threat from Islamists: Is it not wise to assess the magnitude of the threat? (asteroids may destroy the planet - should we devote all our energies, all our manpower and all our treasure to averting the danger?) Look at the resources available to the Islamists, and the resources available to the US and its allies. Make a rational judgement. Your warnings may then be taken seriously.

As for the media: the media in the West are owned by corporations (except those like the BBC beholden to government and subject to commercial competition). Do you think these corporations and governments are likely to finance media devoted to undermining capitalism?

Ian C

I usually agree with Melanie but much of this is firing from the hip. There was some localism and candidates for the smaller parties made little difference, whereas the UKIP vote, for example, allowed in pro-Euro/pe MP's and have cost the Tories an outright victory (probably just as well in the circumstances).

There was and is much wrong with the Cameron Tory party and his strategy for election. But from the 2005 result he could not be anything but extremely cautious in how he went about rebuilding a Tory lead - because he had to do much more thn any previous Tory opposition.

Why are we in such a dire political state in this country? Because our system gives un-checked power to the executive who have screwed up persistently and will until we have have better checks on them. Until we expand the power of Parliament to really hold the governement to account we will get ridiculous give-away populist government - cheered on by the media eager to sell copy and advertising by trivialising and pulling on emotional heart strings. With a powerful Parliament will come localism once more.

In these circumstances Cameron has done well (could have done better) but is by far the best on offer.

To follow Melanie's logic is to demand that the perfect be the enemy of the good. Principled perhaps, practical it is not.

Matt Pryor

Both the Lib Dems and the Tories have a real opportunity to bring back sensible governance to Britain. I really hope they don't squander it.

Michael

2 points -

First of all, excellent and rational post from Harold. Well said.

Second, to address just Louise. Well, I am familiar with the post from Tina. But I'm afraid I cannot take seriously any assertion that Ireland is a hub for Islamic extremism or that this supposed phenomenon has do more damage to Ireland's national identity than centuries of conflict with England and the mainland UK.

That is utter nonsense.

Roger Welsh

PR is a busted flush and will always be in British Politics. It does and will always produce weak coalition producing power modes for the humans who purport to represent democracy - us the voters. Look st Europe and pleasde don't tell me that it works well. It does not.

Jez

@ Bhaskar, Mark, Logdon,

I stuck this on D Korski's yesterday.... it's just random data but it backs up the premise that the centralist direction may be flawed. Also take into consideration that the voter turnout had increased across the board too;

"Source;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/search?location=election2010

Ok. I have no reason to lie here. This is the first time i've put this 7% thing to the test.

I randomly clicked on names of places. The ones that had the Conservatives second, i then looke to see if there were parties to the right of it and if there was, what their votes were.

Here are the results;

Chorley was the first;

Labour; 21,515, Con 18,922, Ukip 2021

The Conservatives would have had 20,943- just getting pipped at the post.

Cornwall North;

Lib Dem 22,512. Con 19,531. UKIP 2,301

Again LibDems would have still pipped the post although now with approx 681 votes in it.

Plymouth Moor View;

Labour 15,433. Con 13,843. UKIP 3,188. BNP 1438.

4626 + 13,843 = more than 15,433.

Would have been a seat there for Con.

Labour 16,471, Conservative 12,749. BNP 1,960 UKIP 1,510. English Democrats 347.

12,749 + 1,960 + 1,510 + 347 = 16,566

My Maths may be crap- but do you get the picture?

They're just random ones.

You've got to ask yourselves;

Apart from one or two target wards 99% of all votes cast by UKIP/BNP/ED voters will have been to protest about the utter shambolic state of the place. They knew their guys weren't getting in as the drew the cross in the polling booths.

Almost anyone who voted Conservative will have been a Conservative. Anyone who wasn't would have voted LibDem or Labour.

That's why it so close now."

That was before todays shennanigans.

It shows how little they care about the country and how important their positions, careers are to these people taking the last 12 hours into consideration.

Gary Wintle

I'm delighted the Tories have accepted the Lib Dems excellent policy on those earning under 10k, which will give the economy a massive boost.
Anyone who opposes the 10k policy is an idiot or an elitist.

NH POL

"I cannot take seriously any assertion that Ireland is a hub for Islamic extremism" says Michael.

Standpoint magazine has a front cover article showing that it is Michael who speaks utter nonsense:

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2937/full

Michael

NH POL - I've read that. I've read it a few times, and I don't agree with it one bit. It is flagrant scaremongering, with a wonderful distortion of facts and figures to fit the author's agenda. The lawless perimeters of Waziristan are a hub for Islamic extremism, lets get things in perspective.

Dublin is not Waziristan.

Bob, son of Bob

Thucydides May 8th, 2010 10:33am says "the abysmal performances of the BNP and UKIP, despite the most favourable of circumstances,..."

How can the alternate policies of name calling and ignoring in all the TV media be considered 'favourable'? If they get 5% of the vote, they should have got 5% of the coverage. In the sample of about six hours I watched UKIP got less than a minute and BNP were never mentioned.

I wonder what percentage vote they would have got if they had been given even 1% or 2% of the coverage. It always puzzles me how voters can accept such blatant bias without even noticing. In the end this stupidity causes them to vote tribally for parties with the opposite views to their own, and to ignore the parties whose views match their own.

Neil Saunders

Michael

It's my turn to thank you for your response to my request for a clarification of your earlier remarks about Gramsci, etc.

I'd have to describe myself as an agnostic, so to speak, regarding the idea that the "counterculture" have established "hegemony", although I wouldn't automatically dismiss the notion as absurd or improbable.

It brings to mind George Orwell's remarks about Winwood Reade's "The Martyrdom Of Man". Orwell knew, as a teenage boy (when he first encountered Reade's book) that the official view of the world that he had been taught by his elders was absurd. He lacked the knowledge and judgement at that age to know that Reade's alternative scenario was true (in whole or part), but nevertheless inwardly conceded its greater probability.

My own knowledge of Gramsci is fairly limited, restricted to quoted excerpts from his writings that I encountered when typing my brother's MA dissertation (in Politics) several years ago (and also passing references to him in books and on the Internet), but my understanding is that he proposed a "long march through the institutions" on the part of would-be radicals. This strikes me as very close to the idea that the citadels of the establishment should and could be conquered (by stealth) by the "counterculture".

It's also very close to the prescriptions of the Frankfurt School (and here I have read in their entirety several of the key books, together with commentaries). Rather than stage violent revolution, the Frankfurt theorists proposed changing the key institutions of society from within.

There is, of course, a vast "conspiracy" literature (much of it accessible via the Internet), which is usually regarded as emanating from the wilder reaches of the political right. (An early example is Gary Allen's "None Dare Call It Conspiracy", published in 1971 and available in PDF format online. Allen was a member of the John Birch Society who appears to have drunk himself to death by the time he was 50.)

You seem to suggest that a true "counterculture" cannot, by definition, establish "hegemony", since by so doing would be to cease to be a counterculture. If that is so, it seems a very literal-minded interpretation of the relevant terms. Still, on that understanding, maybe all of the "right-wing" conspiracy theorists are the true counterculture themselves!

djw2009

Dear Melanie,

You did very well on Question Time tonight. You are right that the LibDems have been fantastically rewarded with their place in this government - 5 Cabinet seats - and, what is worse, total intellectual dominance within the coalition. I was glad a real conservative was invited on, because Michael Heseltine cannot be relied on to provide a proper Tory analysis.

Derek BLADES

Paul Weston tells us that he "stood for UKIP in the Cities of London & Westminster, achieving a rather unremarkable 664 votes."

Given that weak eyesight and forgetfulness gives any name on a ballot paper a hundred vote or so, Mr Weston probably persuaded less than 500 of the constituents - whom he describes as "some of the best educated�- to support UKIP.

The commonsense conclusion is that UKIP (and the little England rhetoric of Frank P) do not appeal to educated people. I can understand their position. Why do Frank P and Paul Weston have difficulty in finding the obvious answer? I can think of at least one explanation.