This EU Referendum Campaign - it's a joke, isn't it?

Iain Dale has written a post about the new EU Referendum Campaign. Sorry to have to ask, but it is a joke, isn't it?

There's no sane campaign organisation whose website front page splash includes a picture of the Prime Minister with a small dog and the words - 'Give us a referendum on Europe... or the puppy gets it' - see pic right.

Latest news from the Eric Pickles Appreciation Society

Now this is getting worrying.

After agreeing with Eric Pickles about golden handshakes and then about weekly bin collections, I'm now forced to support him in his call for councils to be able to choose the best governance model it chooses.

In an interview with Iain Dale for Total Politics magazine, Pickles was asked:

ID: The cabinet system in local authorities is very unpopular with a lot of people. If local authorities wanted to change that and go back to the committee system, what would your reaction be?

EP: Fine. We will be putting something into the local government bill to let them do that. I don’t care how things are organised. They can have it on the basis of a committee system, on a cabinet basis, on the mayoral system. If they want to introduce it on a choral system with various members of the council singing sea shanties I don’t mind, providing it’s accountable, transparent and open. That’s all I need to know.

I'm really not sure about Jim Currie's singing voice, but it is clearly good news that true localism is going to be allowed to flourish in this respect and that Cornwall Council will be able to choose whether it wants to continue with a system whereby all power is held in the hands of just ten of the 123 elected members or whether a committee system where nearly all councillors can play a substantial role is a better option.

Pickles has been (rightly) attacked by some of my readers over the bins statement as this implies a centralised diktat from government - even if I happen to agree with Pickles' line on the issue. But this is different as it will mean genuine power to decide for the whole council.

As an example of why things need changing, at today's communities scrutiny meeting we were due to have reports from the three Cabinet members whose portfolios the committee shadows. They didn't appear, apparently because the Leader had unilaterally decided that they should not do so and a centralised system for all scrutiny committees should be imposed. That's not open and transparent and it removes the ability of scrutiny committees to decide for themselves how best to examine the work of the Cabinet.

I'm prepared to bet that spreading out power is not something that the current Cabinet are going to support, but it is certainly something that I think should be properly decided by all councillors as soon as the law allows.

Lib Dem crisps

I don't know if anyone else heard Peter Mandelson being reprimanded on BBC 5 Live yesterday for eating crisps too loudly. Iain Dale was another of the guests at the time. His blog post is here. I thought the whole episode was hugely funny.

I've now got hold of a packet of the Lib Dem version.

I'm not too sure about the photo of Nick. If only they'd asked...

The Iain Dale predictions

Congratulations to Iain Dale for daring to come up with a General Election prediction. It's a brave commentator who puts his neck on the line (and he'll get even more kudos if he is prepared to publish his spreadsheet).

Of course, everyone has the right to dispute his predictions, but the key point he makes as far as I am concerned is that you cannot predict anything for the Lib Dems based on a national or regional swing. You have to take it seat by seat.

Why John Hirst, not UKIP is more likely to get the UK out of Europe

Iain Dale has been very consistent in tracking the case of John Hirst, a former prisoner who has been arguing that convicted criminals should not lose their right to vote in elections. Iain and I take different views on this matter (I believe that all UK citizens should have the right to vote unless they are convicted of an electoral offence and he doesn't). but I commend him on his assiduousness in this matter.

Iain reports that the Government has failed to take account of the European Court of Human Rights' judgement that the current UK position (that prisoners should not be able to vote) is incompatible with Human Rights law. The Government has responded that they are still consulting. The ECHR says that they have had long enough and so they must change the law immediately (ie in time for the next General Election) or be kicked out of Europe.

The Government has the perfect opportunity to change the law (there is a Bill going through Parliament at the moment that they are planning to amend with a commitment to a reform of the voting system), so that is no excuse.

It seems to me that (unintentionally) Mr Hirst has a better chance of forcing the UK out of the EU than UKIP!

The first disappointment of conference

I'm at the Lib Dem Conference in Bournemouth and doing the usual first day thing of having snatched conversations with friends I haven't seen in a while.

Across the room I spotted the Total Politics stand and a copy of Mark Oaten's new autobiography - Screwing Up.

Knowing that I appear in it (see here for details), I went over and thumbed through it to find my name in the index. Nothing. Nada. But wait, there was an Alex Faulkes in the index. So I looked at pages 33-34 and found that I have indeed been included under a wrong spelling.

Apparently Mark describes me as softly spoke and a rock. He also says that I insisted on driving at 10mph below the speed limit the whole time. I can't comment on the middle reference (but I'd like to thank him for it) but can safely say that nowadays I definitely talk too much and the only time I drive at 10mph below the limit is when I'm stuck behind a tractor.

The dog running over incident is, regrettably, spelled out in full, painful and accurate detail.

I shall be taking the spelling thing up with Mr Dale who actually emailed me to check that they had my name right.

Save Election Night - a silly, insular campaign

A lot of fluster in the political blogosphere about an apparent plan by some councils to move their general election count from the Thursday night to Friday morning. Jonathan Isaby, Mark Pack, Iain Dale and others are campaigning under the banner of 'Save General Election Night'.

On balance, I agree. But I can't let some of the proponents of this campaign get away with some of the statements they are making:

- 'It's tradition dammit'. Well, only up to a point. There are many councils which have only very recently come over to the idea of counting on the Thursday night - some as recently as 2001 or 2005. Among the seats which traditionally counted the next day were St Ives. So if you want tradition in places like that then the count should be held over.

- 'there really is no valid reason for doing so apart from sheer incompetence and laziness'. NO! There are plenty of very valid reasons why the count should take place the next day. Chief among these is that most of the staff involved in the count will have been working in polling stations all through the day. They will be knackered (as party staff will be) and mistakes will creep in.

Surely it is better to get the right result than a quick result?

Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. If you can have completely fresh counting staff then mistakes are less likely to occur. (Although there is nothing you can do to get fresh party staff!)

- 'We want to know who won as soon as possible'. I agree. To me the worst part of election night are the exit polls and the pointless pontificating by the networks on the basis that these exit polls are both accurate and can be translated into seats. They may be the former, but they are not the latter. And so I want to get into the meaty results sooner rather than later. But we should be trying to discourage authorities from seeing themselves as being in a race. I cannot believe that a count that is completed in 50 minutes is going to be perfect (I've met enough returning officers). In a safe seat (they tend to be) the outcome might not be affected, but let's make sure that the figures are accurate, rather than just broadly right.

And let's face it, the real fun of election night is not knowing which party will win - that's almost always a foregone conclusion. The real fun is the individual results - the upsets, the shocks and the rumours. Where would '97 have been without the Portillo moment? And in 2005, Lib Dems up and down the country were looking out for Solihull (betting slips in hand).

The campaign proponents are completely right to say that the 24 hour news agenda means that Friday counting would be a retrograde step. I also tend to agree with them that hiding ballot boxes away for 12 hours would mean the danger of fraud or mistake might rise compared with an immediate count using fresh counting staff.

But they are completely wrong to say that counting on the Friday would mean that no one could follow the results coming in. At the moment, having no results before 11pm and no flood before about 1am totally excludes children who have school the next day as well as the vast majority who are not able to stay up through the night. In that respect, this really is an insular campaign. The results programme might have high ratings but I guess that most people either switch off before midnight, are asleep on the sofa or are anoraks.

If you shift the count to the Friday then schools can use the experience to communicate real life politics to pupils, the majority of people who don't like to go to bed at 5am can be involved and the majority of the country can follow it as we work. A perfect solution - absolutely not, but only about as imperfect as counting through the night.

Sorry, I won't be joining the 'Save General Election Night' campaign.

Time to be unpopular with Mr Dale

Iain Dale, in an otherwise quite valid post about the Times attacks on a junior Tory Health Spokesman, says:

"Contrary to popular rumour, peers to do not get paid. They get an attendance allowance of £174 per sitting day. Last year, that would have trousered them £27,840. So unless you have private means, you have to have outside work."

Hmm - I would hope that this is not actually what Iain meant to say. If a person is used to having an income over £100k and has outgoings that reflect this, then they could not cope with seeing that drop to £27k per year unless they were allowed to have an outside income. But that is not what Iain said. What he said is that someone earning £27k per year cannot afford to live.

So in the interests of fairness, can Iain clarify that every single employee of Total Politics is paid more than £27,840 per year?

Vince for Speaker - another dastardly Tory plot

Iain Dale suggests that, at this time of scandal, the House of Commons needs someone with integrity to act as its figurehead and suggests that it might be time to cast party preference aside and choose Vince Cable to be the new Speaker (as and when Michael Martin quits).

I'm sure Iain proposes this with the best of intentions, but it does seem to me that, if it happened, it would suit the Conservatives very well indeed.

At a stroke the Lib Dem's top points scorer would be taken off the field of play. No longer would the 'man who predicted the downturn' be able to predict anything at all - for Speakers are required to maintain neutrality. Vince may have landed many blows against the Government, but he is also a threat to the Tories and has outperformed George Osborne for many months now. If the media want an opposition speaker on any economics issue then it is Vince they turn to, not George. If I were a Tory strategist then I would be leading the charge for the Vince for Speaker cause.

But I'm sure Iain proposed this because he thinks Vince would be a good Speaker. And if this is the case then it deserves consideration.

I have no doubt that Vince would make a fine Speaker and the public would respect him. But I'm not entirely sure that it is his longed for job, nor that he would be happy in the role. Speakers must be neutral and cannot speak up about any political issue - however expert they are. Unless we are to completely redefine the role then I cannot see the likes of Vince being up for it. And even if he did, once he got the expenses thing sorted, where would the fun be. Sitting in a big chair shouting 'Order, Order' is not the passion of any sane human being over the age of 8.

As Millennium suggests instead - perhaps it should be Norman Baker who takes the role.

Ashcroft under investigation for Tory donations

The BBC has confirmed newspaper reports that Lord Ashcroft is being investigated by the Electoral Commission over his donations to the Conservative Party.

Isn't it about time that Iain Dale started demanding that the party repay all the money to the donor?

Arise the BNP

John Hemming, as ever, appraises us of the results of last night's by-elections. Congratulations are due to the Duwayne Brooks, Jennie Clutten and the Lewisham team for winning a double handed by-election to hold two seats in Downham. For those who don't know, the Lewisham Party has been going from strength to strength in recent years (in fact, since I stepped down as Chair, although that cannot be the reason of course) and would be a good bet to take over control in next year's London council elections.

But the real message from the results must be the success of the BNP. In Lewisham they got 10% of the vote from a standing start. We lost 10% and the other parties traded marginally. Easy to suggest that this is 10% transferring direct from Lib Dem to BNP and of course that isn't always the case, but there will have been a large chunk who did just that.

In NW Leicestershire, the BNP came third with 28% from a standing start. The Lib Dem came 4th losing 19% of the previous vote. Without being on the ground, it is impossible to say what the causes were but I would suspect that we didn't run a hugely active campaign there.

And in Sevenoaks the BNP came from nothing to win with 42% of the vote as Dale notes. This was gained from UKIP and Labour as the Tories held steady and no Lib Dem stood this time or last.

So why are the BNP winning so many votes (if not more than the occasional seat)? In my opinion they are certainly picking up the 'against all' votes that may previously have come to the Lib Dems or Greens. These tend to be people who feel it is their duty to vote but are so hacked off with the Government and whoever is running their local council that they are not going to vote for any of the 'established' parties. They may deliberately vote for an outside party to give them a kick up the backside. In the past this was usually the Lib Dems. Now it isn't. Why? Clearly a thesis could be written here, but fundamentally we have stopped being against things and are all too often part of the establishment. This is understandable if we hold power - but it is still possible to campaign in favour of changes even if we sit behind the biggest desks at the town hall. And we can and must campaign against the Government - even in Council polls.

What is less understandable is where we are in opposition but still act as apologists for the administration. Let's face it - why should anyone vote for us if we fail to offer a real alternative.

The BNP are also learning (to a small degree) about campaigning. Whatever us political hacks think about them and their policies, the image they portray to voters is as a group sticking up for them - not racists, but on the side of local families. There's not a lot of depth to that message, but then not many people (including not many of their voters) want to see the BNP running anything. They just want change and they see the BNP as a way of delivering that.

So how to approach the BNP?

There is the Labour version which basically says you should march and demonstrate against the very prospect of the BNP standing in your area. Don't engage them and certainly don't debate them. Just get people to vote 'against the BNP'. In my opinion this is a stupid way of proceeding - particularly for Lib Dems. I hate the BNP but they are a legal party who have the right to express their opinions. If we debate with them then we will show them up to be vacuous fools. If we don't then, at a stroke, we dismiss all those who vote or consider voting for them as not worthy of our time either.

And the Labour line tends to obscure the regular election campaigning so that the only choice to the BNP becomes the established party - and that usually ain't us.

In his interview with Dale for Total Politics, Dave the Bin Man has his own take saying that the BNP are an excrescence. Once again, saying that a party is shit implies that anyone who considers voting for them is shit too. Thank you very much for your adult politics Mr Cameron. I think this is Cameron trying to avoid any Labour smear of him being soft on 'the racist/facist BNP'. So he feels the need to deride them in his opening breath.

But having got that over with, Cameron at least recognises that the best way to beat the BNP is to campaign against them. He says:

"the way to defeat it is to campaign actively on the ground. Pavement politics.
People turn to extreme parties if they think they have been forgotten by the
mainstream parties. That doesn't mean running towards issues they are
campaigning on, it means running towards the people that they are talking to and
showing you are listening to their concerns, taking up their issues and working
for them. You have to show that no part of the country, no part of your
constituency, no ward, that no housing estate is forgotten. That's the key
thing. Eric Pickles is an expert on this and has helped teach me this lesson"

In many cases the Lib Dems could do well to heed Cameron's advice (except the bit about Eric Pickles, obviously)

Wiki-gate - Is this the most pathetic spat imaginable

As Dr Pack has blogged, the Tories do seem to be utterly pathetic in the behaviour in what I shall christen 'Wiki-gate'.

So Gordon Brown may or may not have got it wrong when he said that Titian was 90 when he died. In the great scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Nobody really knows when he was born and so no one can declare with total accuracy how old he was when he died.

So what possessed Cameron to make an issue of it at PMQs?

Having done so, Central Office suddenly discovered that Cameron's statement didn't stand up when you looked at the world's number one fact checker - Wikipedia. Cameron might actually have been right. But you could be certain that the first place journalists would look to check would be Wikipedia. So SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE. And a wonderfully naive Central Office staffer acting totally alone (Tories are great fans of the Warren Commission) took it upon him or herself to change Wikipedia.

It's just that they never really understood how Wikipedia works and that their alterations would be tracked straight back to them with date, time and IP address helpfully provided.

Incidentally, it looks as though another Tory fan based in Sutton also decided to alter the entry to help Dave and so the combined effort was to shorten Titian's life by 8 years. Welcome to the world of Benjamin Button - Titian is a man who gets younger by the second.

So for all that Cameron got a schoolboy debating point out of the issue, Central Office got an afternoon of grief and embarrassment.

I do notice that Iain Dale has failed to address this issue on his blog. Given his love of challenging Lib Dem Voice whenever there is minutely embarrassing story for the Lib Dems, it would be nice to hear his take on this one.