A Good Deal?

People ask me whether the coalition is a good deal. If activists from both parties are complaining in equal measure that too much was given away, that says that it was about right.

No one believes that a minority Conservative government would have lasted beyond Christmas. Now there’s a good chance the coalition will last long enough to get to grips with Labour’s economic mess.

Meantime we must stomach the hike in capital gains tax and the delay in abolishing inheritance tax for families with modest wealth.
And hope for the best.

Stolen Bicycles

Sympathies to Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Spelthorne.
He commutes from central London each day by train, with a folding bicycle so he can then get around. Unfortunately it keeps on getting stolen. Four times now he has bought a brand new one.
My advice, after I had my bike stolen, is to get a cheap second hand one!
Truly an indictment of thirteen years of soaring crime under Labour.

Sore Feet

After two weeks of campaigning my feet have turned red, where the serrated edges of my bicycle pedals have gnawed through the thinnest part of the soles of my shoes.
As I rest up I wonder whether the phone companies have played a trick on the opinion pollsters, and routed their calls through to voters on Mars.
I’m not finding a single person changing their party allegiance based upon the party leaders TV debate last week.
No doubt the legions of uncommitted voters have plumped for one party over another, but their support is very fickle, and many won’t actually be voting.
When I remind them that unlike the prime ministerial contenders, the leader of Britain’s third party had nothing to lose, they admit that closer scrutiny will sway them again.
I repeat: wait until the poll on May 6th.

Opinion Polls

Whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to outlaw political opinion polls altogether, like they do in some countries, they should be taken off the front page and put near the back, alongside the horoscopes.
Their main purpose is cheap publicity for the market research companies who conduct them.
I have already questioned their methodology in this blog, which largely explains why they are all so inconsistent.
If you speak to people you find that a vast number -- who will be voting in three weeks time -- have simply not applied themselves to the question of which prime minister they’ll be better off with.
So as I wrote before, I will be waiting for the exit poll at 10pm on polling day.

British Election is Called

Five years we’ve been waiting, and the election is now underway.
Because they are so infrequent, British elections tend to be complicated, with floating voters expected to weigh up a huge range of issues, and live with their decision for a long time.
This election is different, because the Conservatives have a simple message, something politicians give their eyeteeth for.

Voting for anyone else could mean a hung parliament, and five more years of Gordon Brown.
So vote for a positive future . . . vote for change . . .
Vote Conservative.

The campaign to win back Kingston & Surbiton is launched with Eric Pickles and PPC Helen Whately (and myself in the centre of the back row). Kingston is a seat needed to give David Cameron a working majority.

Less Nudity Please, We’re British

The Blair Babes were hopeless at arresting the tide of permissiveness during he last 13 years, so let’s hope Cameron’s Cuties will be tougher.
The Noughties saw a massive rollout of strip-joints across Britain after Labour relaxed the planning laws in 2003, allowing lap dancing clubs to masquerade as ordinary bars.
One is now threatened in Staines High Street, though so far ways have been found to prevent them popping up in Spelthorne.
I’m not sure we need to go so far as Iceland last week, who with almost half their legislators female, have made it illegal for any business to profit from nudity by its employees.

Great Candidate: Rotten Government

Obviously the Labour Party is seriously bad news for Britain, as we slip lower and lower down world league tables, and social cohesion is disintegrating whilst the gap between rich and poor is at its widest for a generation.
But here in Spelthorne we have a marvel in the Labour’s Parliamentary candidate, Adam Tyler-Moore.
Following my blog two months ago he’s still leaving his leaflet hanging out of letterboxes. Also the content lets him down badly, as it's so nasty and scurrilous that only the most loyal Labour voters would appreciate it.
However the man is so polite, personable, knowledgeable and well presented, and he’s being very well received on the doorstep.
And boy, does he get around. He’s like a ferret, as each day I come across more and more residents he has spoken to in every town and village, right across the constituency.
He deserves second place in Spelthorne at the General Election, and then to earn a safe seat elsewhere next time.

Five More Years of Brown?

As I speak to people up and down the land (yesterday in north Manchester), the answer comes back the same:

We do not want five more years of Gordon Brown.

Funny thing is when you ask them if they’ll be voting for Cameron’s Conservatives they don’t seem quite so sure, as if there is some kind of third option for Prime Minister -- which they have to agree there isn’t.
A vote for any of the minor parties is a wasted vote when it comes to turfing out Gordon Brown.
That is the conundrum the opinion pollsters face, complicated by a serious flaw in their methodology.
You see, when you ask floating voters how they voted five years ago they genuinely can’t remember, and so make it up -- and say Conservative if they’re leaning that way now. So their opinion is excluded by the pollsters when they weight the raw data to match the actual result in 2005, skewing their prediction for 2010.
Best hang on for the exit poll at 10pm on May 6th.

Healthcare Choice

Last week I had a routine screening test at a top London Hospital -- something which a third of American adults have done, but you’d be lucky to get under Britain’s free NHS.
Everything was wonderful after the initial indignity of being frog-marched to the cashier to present my credit card. (They have a lot of Middle Eastern clients whose approach to settling bills is more relaxed).
At £1,200 for a four-hour stay, it made my prawn sandwich lunch the most expensive in London.
At least the Labour Government still allows people the choice to spend their money on healthcare, instead of say exotic foreign holidays. Though I remember Labour even banned those in 1966 when you couldn’t take more than £50 abroad each year -- documented in your passport.

Hung Parliament II

There’s been a lot of bunkum written about the prospects of a hung parliament, even on this blog.
The fact is no one knows the result of the General Election -- until the exit polls come out at 10pm on the day.
People say coalition governments work well in Europe, but Britain is not Europe, and for those old enough to remember, they never worked well under our adversarial system.
A further constitutional point is that Gordon Brown is not going to resign unless the Conservatives end up fewer than a dozen seats short of an overall majority. Otherwise he will cling on to power, dangling the carrot of proportional representation under the nose of Britain’s third party, something Ted Heath wasn’t prepared to do in 1974.
So to all those thinking of voting UKIP, or any other minor party, the advice is don’t. Vote Labour instead, because the result will be the same, and at least your vote won’t have been wasted.

No Council Tax Increase

Last night in Kingston the Conservatives set out a detailed budget, showing how to freeze the local council tax whilst maintaining services to the public.
Unfortunately this will be of no benefit to residents of the Royal Borough -- who already pay the highest rate of council tax in London -- because Britain’s third party who run the Council imposed a further 1.9% increase regardless.
The same evening Spelthorne joined a long line of Conservative run councils that are freezing council tax this year, specifically to ease the burden on the less well off caused by Labour’s recession.
I couldn’t believe it when one councillor from the minority party criticised the Conservative budget proposal for lacking in detail -- this from a party that yet again failed to present an alternative budget for the 19th year in a row. Nevertheless their lack of support demonstrated a commitment to raising the tax in Spelthorne as elsewhere.

Labour’s Death Tax

At last we have some clear blue water: on the care of our elders.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1789: “. . . in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes”. No wonder Labour’s death tax is such a double-whammy.
A compulsory levy robs those who've set aside something for their old age, transferring it largely to those who’ve made no provision. It discourages self-reliance.
The debate is also a proxy for the argument on both sides of the Atlantic about how to fund healthcare in general (bearing in mind that on average half our lifetime healthcare costs occur in the last two years of life).
People no longer want to pay more in taxes, i.e. “big government”. A more voluntary insurance based solution is not easy because the premiums are paid well ahead of the risk, but the concept is not so different from pensions.
New Labour ducked the issue for twelve years. The Conservative solution should not be scoffed at, even by the London Daily Telegraph.

Outdated Labour

I no longer mention by name the third-rate party in Spelthorne, as they are totally ineffectual, even in Sunbury where they have councillors. As usual they claimed to oppose the Conservatives’ budget, but failed to present any alternative at Surrey County Council last Tuesday.
However I’m worried for the main opposition, the Spelthorne Labour Party. Their parliamentary candidate is very enthusiastic, but sadly let down by their internet presence, or rather lack of. All he’s done is a couple of tweets back on 2nd January.
And Stanwell’s Labour councillor Victor Agarwal -- before he disappeared off to Swindon last month -- promised us a daily blog, but hasn’t written a word since June last year!
In fact so out of date is Labour’s website, they’re still promoting their previous parliamentary candidate, and apart from one news item 18 months ago, all the content dates back to 2007.

Direct Debit Fraud II

Last November I mentioned theft from the local Conservative Party bank accounts, and believe it or not, it is extremely easy -- that is until yesterday!
All you needed was to copy the sort code and account number from a membership form and all worldly goods and services were supplied to your own address. So efficient are the banks these days, signatures and addresses are no longer checked.
So a warning to all online thieves out there: our accounts are now blocked to new direct debits.
Ironically getting though to the bank is far harder than setting up a fraudulent direct debit was. As one point, for ID purposes, I was asked to quote a recent direct debit payment from the account -- I lost my cool.
No longer will Spelthorne Conservatives be financing pet insurance, car breakdown cover, broadband connection, camera equipment and several other domestic insurance policies.
All money raised will now be spent on campaigning to defeat the Labour Party, including over £300 refunded from the bank.

Ethnic Minority Politicians

I first noticed the term ‘BME’ only a few weeks ago, and I choose not to remember exactly what the initials stand for -- something to do with ethnic minorities, and by implication their promotion.
I’ve been unwittingly promoting ethnic minority politicians for years, not because of their background, but because of what they have to offer regardless of their ancestry. I find the BME agenda distasteful.
There was nevertheless a row yesterday about the fact that Operation Black Vote was quick to report the selection of Labour’s Stanwell County Councillor Victor Agarwal for the marginal seat of Swindon North, yet it took them a while to catch up on the selection of Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng for the winnable seat of Spelthorne.
I was however grateful for OBV’s fulsome apology.
For me, Spelthorne has the best candidate in Kwasi, and Swindon are welcome to Cllr Agarwal (though not as an MP).

Chasing Votes

I spent Friday evening chasing Spelthorne’s new Labour Parliamentary Candidate around Upper Halliford -- still wet behind the ears he hasn’t yet learnt to push his leaflets right through the letterbox.
He says he’s going to commute from Staines station -- interesting, as he doesn’t live here. He harks back to 1945 the last time Spelthorne voted Labour. A pity that the only person who remembered him call at their door was a Tory Party member. I’m glad he’s concentrating on Shepperton and Sunbury, areas where Spelthorne's third party rely so much on squeezing the Labour vote.
I found quite a few people interested in next week’s Open Primary to choose the Conservative Party candidate. Funny how people have different views about the same person, but that’s democracy. Gordon Brown isn’t completely written off, and there are worries whether Cameron is Thatcherite enough -- but that’s what they thought about Thatcher in 1978/9, before the word was invented!

Soft on Criminals, Tough on Victims

In a final betrayal of New Labour’s original 1997 pledges it is clear that Britain is now soft on criminals and tough only on their victims.
In America you knock on a stranger’s door to ask for help at your peril, as you are liable to be shot dead, no questions asked.
This week Myleene Klass was reprimanded by police for “illegally” brandishing a knife inside her own kitchen at youths taunting her from out in the garden. She was scared to death.
Personally I don’t have a problem. As long as I know where I am and where the exits are, I’ll roam the toughest housing estates, even after dark. All I fear is the embarrassment of being dowsed by a flagon of water in the summer, or feral youths firing snowballs at me in the winter. I’m fit enough to run away.
However far too many of our elders are imprisoned in their own homes after dark for fear of being attacked. This is not the kind of society I aspire to.

Agarwal Abandons Spelthorne

A month ago I was puzzled as to why the Spelthorne Labour Party had ditched their bright young hopeful Parliamentary candidate Robert Ferguson (born and bred in Sunbury) for an outsider with a double barrelled name.
Now the plot thickens, when today we learn that Spelthorne’s most popular socialist has clearly been over-looked.
County Councillor Victor Agarwal (born and bred in Stanwell) has had to go carpet-bagging to Swindon to find a Parliamentary seat.
Is this the same suicidal mentality that caused Labour to ditch Tony Blair -- their most successful election winner ever -- in favour of Gordon (bottler) Brown?

Carpe Diem

With both sides of the Atlantic as cold as the South Pole, global warming is fast becoming at article of faith.
But what’s this? Reports of an even bigger catastrophe with a nearby star set to explode. Like a volcano, T Pyxidis has been regularly erupting every twenty years, except the last minor blast was in 1967. So the big one (or supernova) could be any time soon (though soon in astronomical terms can be up to ten million years).
But hey, people say the star is 3,260 light years away, so we’ve got plenty of time. But what they forget is that we are observing the star at it was 3,260 years ago, and the devastating nuclear radiation will reach Earth just as soon as the light which tells us it is exploding -- in other words not even the four-minute warning of nuclear Armageddon we were promised in the 1960s.
It is a mystery why there are no signals from other life forms in the universe, so maybe mass extinctions are commonplace.
I say live for the day, and preferably not under another five years of Labour Government.

Hung Parliament

With practically half the UK population on the Labour Government’s payroll, including six million of working age on welfare and a million extra state employees over the last decade, the result of this year’s election cannot be gauged by opinion polls.
Whilst Britain needs a Government with a clear mandate, at this stage a closer result is more likely.
I would argue that a hung parliament is preferable to a narrow majority -- such as the one John Major had to contend with.
If Britain's third party were to support a minority government it would expose them as immature and priggish, and marginalize them as just the protest party that they are.
They would be ridiculed for propping up a discredited Labour Government, and one false move in any coalition with the Conservatives would earn them the blame for a crisis snap election.