It's so strange the way he's talking

I think I should record the fact that I'm really, really enjoying the Labour Party leadership election.

Which is a bit odd. Because so far there has been not a single memorable moment, and because the candidates are so poor. I've written elsewhere about the best slate of candidates in a Labour leadership election, but this is surely the worst; there was more talent on display in 2007, and there was only one name on the ballot paper then.

But the whole thing's been transformed by the arrival in the spotlight - reluctant, blinking, bewildered - of Jeremy Corbyn, the longest serving member of the Left's chorus-line. Unheralded by the critics, never even an understudy, he's somehow turned a school nativity play into a hit show.

Or, more accurately, into part of a hit series, one more episode in a longer running story about the public's dislike of the political establishment.

If we were to date the start of this story, I think we'd go back to the elections of Martin Bell in 1997 and of Richard Taylor in 2001 as independent MPs. Bell was ably assisted by the Labour machine, so perhaps he doesn't really count, but certainly Taylor - who took the safe Wyre Forest seat from Labour on a Health Concern ticket - was a shot across the bows of the establishment. As I wrote in A Classless Society: 'At a time when political parties were losing support at an unprecedented rate, they could not afford to ignore the spectacular success of a genuine independent.'

Then there was the election of Respect's George Galloway as the member for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 and Bradford West in 2012. This year, of course, Galloway emulated Shirley Williams's unenviable record of losing a seat at two successive general elections, but meanwhile the Scottish National Party was gleefully sweeping the board in Westminster.

In between, there was the brief flurry of Clegg-mania in 2010 and, more significantly, the spectacular rise of Ukip. It may only have one MP, but the vote Ukip achieved in the general election was substantial: 3.9 million people turned out to support the party, more than the Liberal Democrats and the SNP put together. I think it's reasonable to point out that many of those people were voting in anger at the failings of the other parties, rather than to express their total support for Ukip's platform.

And now we have the Corbyn insurgency. Napoleon once said that every corporal carried a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack, but no one realised that his comments should be taken literally.

Every one of these developments since Wyre Forest seems to have come as a complete shock to the Westminster commentators. And partly this is because the new political class and the media have become as one.

There's always been an overlap between politics and media, but since the 1990s it has reached absurd proportions. Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper - all of them journalists or ex-journalists. It feels as though the two groups have interbred to the point of imbecility, and are now apparently unaware of anything happening outside the Strangers' Bar and a handful of decent restaurants within earshot of the division bell.

With some honourable (sometimes very honourable) exceptions, political commentary has descended into a kiddies' Kremlinology, with little titbits about whether George Osborne has the tactical upper-hand over Theresa May in the race for the Tory succession.

The Blairite-Brownite saga was the model, a dispute that was rooted entirely in ego. 'There is but a cigarette paper between the politics of Brown and Blair,' Polly Toynbee wrote in 1996, but 'most of politics is far more about personal rivalry, jealousy and suspicion than usually gets reported.' Now that's pretty much all that gets reported.

And then, from time to time, the cosy consensus is disrupted by the public demanding that their voice be heard as well. And those interruptions to business seem to be turning up with every greater frequency.

So we have the hugely entertaining spectacle of columnists trying to work out why anyone would take Corbyn seriously. He's not part of the inner circles. He's not a player. He is, on the other hand, a man who's been on virtually every demonstration for the last thirty-five years (or on the counter-demonstration if the original one wasn't appropriate). He may not have figured in the media very much, but his long service is known and admired by a great many of those who will vote in the leadership election.

Corbyn represents the outsider at a time when insiders are deeply unpopular. A vote for him is a vote against the establishment (however loosely or widely that is defined). Just for the record, I still don't think he's going to win the leadership, but then the SNP didn't win the independence referendum last year and it didn't seem to do them much harm.

And talking of referendums, that's the next episode waiting to be written in the story of Britain's disillusionment with Westminster. At some point in the next two years (sooner rather than later, if the reports are to be believed), the political class is going to have to put itself up for approval by the population of the country. The ostensible issue is our membership of the European Union, but it'll be surprising if that's the sole item on the agenda.

Now that one's going to be really enjoyable.

Gradually learning?

Good news from Tristram Hunt on the state of the Labour Party. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the shadow education spokesperson says that Labour has already 'learnt some early lessons' from the 'catastrophic' election results.

And those lessons are: 'We are no longer in favour of a 50p higher tax rate; we support a referendum on our continued membership of the EU; we back the expansion of Heathrow; and we did not - despite the rebellion of some - vote against welfare reform.'

Yes, well, I'm not entirely sure that these are necessarily the lessons that the electorate were hoping would be learnt, but there we are. At least Hunt's proud of them.

Of these achievements, the new position on the EU referendum is irrelevant - the vote's going to happen, whether Labour 'support' it or not. And the reconsideration of the top tax rate and the welfare reform is supposed to wave a white flag, to send out signal that the Tories have won the arguments about wealth creators and deficit reduction.

The one that I find a bit odd, though, is the Heathrow business. Because that's a huge commitment for a temporary leadership to make. And it's one where the Labour position actually does matter. If for example, the party said that it would never support a third runway at Heathrow and would cancel the project without compensation if they were to be elected, that would cause the government serious problems. I'm not saying they should say that, merely pointing out that this is a long-term undertaking. Why worry about it now?

More broadly, there's something I don't entirely follow with this approach that the interim leadership of Harriet Harman is taking, this attempt 'to show the party has listened to the electorate'.

I know Labour didn't win, but a lot of people voted for the party, and their voice is being ignored. If they'd wanted to vote for MPs who agreed with the Conservative manifesto, presumably they would have voted Tory. Surely they didn't return Labour MPs in the hope that all policies would be abandoned on entering Parliament?

The lessons that can be learnt from the electorate should be about areas of policy, not the policy itself. If, for example, people are worried about the benefits bill (and I think they are), then it's Labour's job to address those concerns. But not simply by adopting Tory proposals. That's silly.

Similarly if they're concerned about immigration (and I think they are), then Labour needs to engage with that issue. Which could mean defending open borders, if that's what they believe in. But the lesson is that the party should talk about it. Hunt mentions in passing that Labour were seen as being 'lax on immigration', but sadly he has no good news to impart on this subject.

One other point that annoyed me in Hunt's piece. (He's always capable of annoying me.) He writes: 'a vote for the SNP did what it has always done: let in a Tory government.'

I know this is a standard Labour line, but I wondered: is it true? So I did what any concerned citizen would do, and looked up the figures on Wikipedia. This graph shows the share of the vote won by the four main parties in Scotland between the election of October 1974 and that of this year.

The purple line is the SNP vote. They did well in 1974, coming second in an election that was won nationally by Labour. Then their vote slumped for the three elections won by Margaret Thatcher. The share didn't change between 1992 (narrow Tory victory) and 1997 (Labour landslide), but fell a little for Labour's two successes in 2001 and 2005.

In other words, there's no truth whatsoever in the idea that an SNP vote helps the Tories. It makes no difference at all. Presumably Hunt is speaking here in his capacity as party hack, rather that of historian.

The general election campaign, 2015

Just in case my publishers are reading this (which they're not - they don't talk to me anymore), I should stress that I'm not intending to write a history of these times. But if I were, who and what would I take out of this election campaign as being worthy of note?

Possibly the sheer resilience of Nick Clegg, the thickest-skinned politician ever. Probably Natalie Bennett, with her brain-fades and advocacy of polyamorous marriages. Definitely Grant Shapps in all his gormless glory.

What else? Russell Brand would be in there. Maybe Ed Miliband and the hen party? Maybe David Cameron forgetting which football club he's supposed to support? That's the kind of thing I normally record.

The one event that would certainly be included - even though it'll fade from the collective memory - would be the BBC Question Time last week, in which the audience accused successively Miliband, Cameron and Clegg of being liars. More than anything else, that seemed to nail this campaign and the state of modern politics.

Before, during and after the manifesto launches, we've had - from all parties - a relentless series of what columnists nowadays like to call 'offers', but which we used to call policies. Or bribes, to be more precise. Each day there's been a new proposal to reduce tax or to increase spending or, more frequently, to tell other people what things they should be doing differently.

Employers, housing associations, landlords, fuel companies, rail operators, bankers, tobacco firms: all of them, ministers manqué claim, could be regulated more stringently or made to reduce their profitability. This is all perfectly fine and legitimate - only the libertarian fringes object on principle to all intervention in 'the market' - but it's hard not to see it as being an alternative to government action.

One party suggests they'll build x number of houses, and another chips in with x x 2 (or x x 3, if x x 2 has already been taken). None of the contenders actually intend to build any houses themselves, of course: these are just figures plucked out of thin air and magically transformed into targets.

Because we are still, sadly, in a political world of targets. Lord know it's not as bad as during the first government of Tony Blair when, as I wrote in my book A Classless Society:

There were targets for the quantity of cars, cycles and pedestrians on the road, as well as for traffic casualties and dog mess; for the numbers of smokers, heroin addicts and pregnant teenagers; for the incidence of robberies and building-fires; for how many children visited museums and galleries, and for the proportion of school-leavers going on to higher education. There was even a target for the number of otters to be found in the wild...

But even without this excess of zeal, the thinking behind the target culture still dominates political thinking; the stated intention to do something is believed to be just as good - and certainly much easier - than actually doing it. As Blair himself once put it: 'It's the signals that matter, not the policy.'

This time the signals extend to cover the behaviour of foreigners.

The Tory manifesto promises to deliver '100,000 more UK companies exporting in 2020 than in 2010' with a 'target of £1 trillion in exports' - presumably whether or not people want to buy our stuff.

It also says: 'We will set challenging targets for Visit Britain and Visit England to ensure more visitors travel outside the capital' - whether or not that was in the holiday plans made by those tourists.

Meanwhile, the Labour manifesto promises to 'push for global targets to tackle inequality and promote human rights' - whether or not... well, you get the idea on that one.

And since we don't believe these silly statements, however solemnly intoned they are, we then get the absurd spectacle of Cameron pledging to enshrine in law a promise not to increase income tax, VAT or national insurance. Followed by the even more absurd Miliband gimmick of having his vague, waffly pledges literally carved in stone.

I genuinely thought that this last one was a joke when I heard it. I still do.

But no matter how feverish the promises, how apocalyptic the denunciations of the other side(s), the electorate - as that Question Time audience illustrated - resolutely refuses to be convinced. We still think they're all lying. And they are.

Just to be clear: this was not always the case. There was a time when politicians told us grown-ups if things were going wrong. This is Edward Heath's message to the country in December 1973, telling us that we were in for the hardest Christmas since the war and that our standard of living was going to fall:

I'm not sure I can envisage Cameron or Miliband making that kind of broadcast. 

Mind you, it didn't do Heath much good; two months later, he was thrown out of office. Maybe that's why telling the truth fell out of fashion. Or maybe it was John Smith as shadow chancellor in 1992, telling us that if we wanted better services - which we said we did - we would have to see tax rises, which we decided was beyond the pale. Or possibly it was Blair winning three consecutive elections by peddling his PFI fantasy of 'investment' on the never-never. 

In any event, everyone now knows that there are serious problems coming, yet no politician is prepared to say so.

Despite all of which, I remain mostly optimistic about the future. 

Primarily this is because I don't believe the current settlement can survive, since it is so clearly dysfunctional. 

As many have pointed out, the principal justification for a first-past-the-post electoral system has always been that it provides strong, stable government. This no longer looks like a clinching argument. 

The inherent distortions are about to be revealed in the starkest manner ever. It is almost certain that Ukip will win the third largest share of the vote, and yet could end up tenth in the share of seats (the position it was in at the dissolution of the last Parliament).

Similarly, Nicola Sturgeon has talked a great deal about 'shutting the Tories out of Downing Street' with an anti-Tory majority in the Commons. This may well be the result, but the majority of the popular vote is likely at the same time to be right-of-centre; the Conservatives, Ukip and the Liberal Democrats will probably get more than 50 per cent between them. (I'm assuming that the Lib Dems' more left-inclined supporters will have abandoned them.)

There is also the fact that we no longer have any national parties, just a fraying patchwork of regional and nationalist groups. Those that still pretend to be national are self-evidently not fit for purpose.

And then there's Scotland. Some commentators are berating the Conservatives for jeopardising the Union with their apparent encouragement of the Scottish National Party; others are berating the Labour Party for their complacency in letting the SNP outflank them on the left.

But it doesn't matter much who's to blame; the fact is that there aren't very many passionate Unionists left, on either side of the border. Those who do claim to believe in the Union seem incapable of making out a case for it that goes beyond sentiment and slogan.

Whatever happens tomorrow, large numbers of people are going to feel not merely unhappy - that's normal - but cheated.

Back in 2012, I wrote that 'things are about to change quite radically'. I think we're edging ever nearer a critical moment.

The Emperor's New Troosers

I've mentioned before (here and here) that the level of hyperbole in this general election campaign is getting a little silly on all sides. Sometimes this has become a story in its own right. Such was the case with Theresa May's claim in an interview with the Mail on Sunday that a post-election deal between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party would provoke 'the biggest constitutional crisis since the abdication of Edward VIII'.

Now this is obviously over-the-top, and I'm disappointed that a politician of May's standing has clearly forgotten all about Gough Whitlam. (She must once have known about him; she was at Oxford University at the time of the Dismissal and surely even geography students were vaguely aware of what was happening in Australia.)

Nonetheless, there is a clear problem in the position adopted by the SNP. The party's manifesto is a mix (less charitably, a mess) of policies, some of which relate simply to Scotland, others to the whole of the United Kingdom.

So, for example, the SNP will 'seek an explicit exemption ... from the terms of the proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership' for Scottish Water. But not for Thames Water or any of the other suppliers. On the other hand, the very first page of the policy proposals (after the usual fatuous photographs of the leader) says that the party will 'vote for an increase in NHS spending across the UK of £24 billion by 2020-21'.

This seems to me to be at best impolite. Health is a devolved matter already, even without the additional shift of power to Holyrood that would presumably accompany the SNP having any say in the Westminster government. One doesn't have to accept the Conservative proposal of English votes for English laws to feel that a party with no candidates in England should not be announcing how much money they want to make England spend on its health service.

Nor, even if - as a voter in England - one believes in increased funding for the NHS, should one look to the SNP to deliver this.

Because it's not actually their business.

The manifesto of the Democratic Unionist Party, by contrast, has not a single word to say on the subject of the NHS, though it does mention the devolved health service. Instead the document is rooted entirely in the hope of a hung parliament, allowing 'an opportunity for Northern Ireland's voice to be heard in London like never before'.

The same bifocal approach runs through the whole of the SNP manifesto. The idea that the Scottish Parliament should be given the right to decide which sporting events are reserved for free-to-view television - that seems pleasingly parochial. Telling the rest of the UK how many houses we have to build is rude and wrong.

There is a constitutional issue here. Something to do with representation and taxation, since spending relies on taxes, whether now or in the future to pay today's borrowing.

And the problem is exacerbated by the voting system (which, incidentally, the SNP are proposing to scrap in favour of the Single Transferable Vote). The latest opinion poll, published yesterday, shows the SNP on 54 per cent in Scotland, which is predicted to translate into 96.5 per cent of Scottish seats.

Or, to put it another way, 1.3 million votes (assuming a similar turnout to last time) would yield 57 MPs. Meanwhile, as I've said before, Ukip - effectively the English equivalent of the SNP - will register over two-and-a-half times that vote for a total of maybe three MPs.

I don't think that, despite May's argument, the emergence of a minority Labour administration propped up by SNP votes will spark a constitutional crisis as such, since the rules of Parliament are perfectly clear about how governments are chosen by MPs. But it will provoke a crisis of confidence in the system of government. I don't know how that will manifest itself, but it cannot simply be wished away. Not in a country where there is already deep dissatisfaction with our version of representative democracy.

The answer, in the short term, can surely only be the introduction of proportional representation. The Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru, like the SNP, favour the Single Transferable Vote, while Ukip also support reform.

But whatever the outcome of this election - even if the Tories do get a majority in the Commons (a prediction to which I cling, despite all the evidence) - a reform of the voting system is an urgent necessity. It would be absurd to have another election fought like this.

Postscript: Since posting this three hours ago, a new poll has been published showing the SNP still on 54 per cent, but with Labour sliding still further - projections now suggest the SNP would win every seat in Scotland.

We're not all Rob Roys

Since the only story in the general election is the performance of the Scottish National Party, I thought I'd have a look through my archive of political quotes to see what's been said on the subject of Scotland from outside:

'One only has to go to Scotland for a moment to understand the Scottishness of Scotland.' - John Major (1992)

'Scotland needs the Labour Party as much as Sicily needs the mafia.' - Malcolm Rifkind (1992)

'I love Scotland. It's a loony sort of place.' - Screaming Lord Sutch (1998)

'A wee, pretendy parliament.' - Billy Connolly (2000)

'I would rather have played rugby for Scotland than be prime minister.' - Iain Duncan Smith (2002)

'Ghastly.' - Camilla Parker-Bowles on the Scottish Parliament building (2004)

'We need Crossrail to keep London's economy ticking over, so that we can continue to pay for the Scottish to live the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.' - Ken Livingstone (2006)

And here's a pot speaking about the kettle that is Alex Salmond:

'A man who fell in love with himself at an early age and has been faithful ever since.' - Alastair Campbell (2008)

Who gets my vote: part 3

Moving on from the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats, I come to the right-wing parties who are fielding candidates in my constituency, Holborn & St Pancras.

Ukip are sticking with Maxine Spencer, a 51-year-old former immigration officer. She got all of 587 votes last time round, when she was beaten into sixth place by the BNP. (In an area not short of luvvies, it is possible that the BNP benefitted from having a candidate named Robert Carlyle).

Since the BNP aren't standing this time, and since Ukip have been receiving much more national media attention, Spencer will presumably improve on her 1.1 per cent share of the vote and might even (though it's unlikely) save her deposit.

I think it's fair to say that - even though Spencer claims she's getting less abuse than in the last campaign - this isn't natural Ukip territory. It's also fair to say that the party won't be getting my vote.

I've probably written too much about Ukip on this blog and its predecessor (most recently here), but I would just make one further point: I'm really rather glad that Ukip exist.

The ex-communist turned Tory MP Eric Forth used to say: 'There are millions of people in this country who are white, Anglo-Saxon and bigoted, and they need to be represented.' He was quite correct on both counts. Any decent democracy worthy of the name needs to allow minority voices to be heard, because the alternative - of suppressing dissent - is immoral and dangerous.

Just to be clear, I'm obviously not suggesting that the Ukip vote is solely comprised of bigoted white Anglo-Saxons: Spencer herself, for example, is the child of a Trinidadian mother and a Welsh father. But it would be daft to deny that there's a strong element of Forth's section of the Conservative Party in there, having been made to feel unwelcome by David Cameron. And, sadly, they're not going to be represented.

Because I think one of the big stories of the coming election may well be a wave of dissatisfaction with a system that rewards the Scottish National Party so disproportionately when compared to Ukip. On current polls, and assuming a similar turnout to 2010, the SNP are in line to secure around 1.1 million votes and are predicted to get somewhere around forty-five seats; Ukip, on the other hand, will receive twice that level of support and will be doing well to win three seats.

This is palpably unjust. But it still doesn't make me want to vote Ukip.

For the last general election, the Conservative Party had a very strong candidate in George Lee. His election address made great play of his back story: Hong Kong Chinese, born in a semi-converted pigsty, child labourer in a toy factory at the age of five, came to Britain, joined the Metropolitan Police, rose to rank of chief inspector, subsequently became vice-president of T-Mobile - this was compelling stuff. He had no hope of winning, of course, but he cut a convincing figure and he got the Tory vote back into five figures for the first time since 1992.

He was so good (the Labour Party had reportedly been chasing him as well) that I assumed he was working his political apprenticeship, and that he'd move on and get a winnable constituency this time to become Britain's first Chinese MP. Regrettably I can find no trace of him having done so.

Maybe Lee was a bit too exciting for the local Conservative Party, because this time they've got a much blander looking candidate:

I'm probably being unfair to judge him solely on his looks, but I know very little more about him, apart from what I read in his literature and in a single newspaper interview. He's thirty years old, he grew up in Dorset, he joined the Conservatives at the age of fourteen, he studied history at Oxford, he's worked for an MP, he lives in Kentish Town, he's gay, he looks pleasant enough.

Oh, and he's called Will Blair. That's Will Blair. Doesn't stand a chance with a name like that. But I bet he turns up in another constituency next time.

Over-egging the pudding

In Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column today, he makes a great deal of Norman Tebbit's contribution to the general election debate.

In case you missed Tebbit's comments, he argued that since the Conservative Party wasn't going to get anywhere in Scotland, then Tory supporters might have to choose between Labour and the Scottish National Party. And since he is in favour of the Union, the conclusion is obvious. So was he advising Tories to vote Labour in Scotland? 'I hesitate to say that. But it is logical from where I stand.'

This, Hitchens says, is 'the most amazing development in politics since another former Tory giant, Enoch Powell, urged his supporters to vote Labour in February 1974'.

Er, no, it's not. I fear that Hitchens's longstanding hatred of the Conservative Party is clouding his judgement a little.

In the first place, Powell did not 'urge' people to vote Labour in 1974. He hinted heavily that this was the best option, in order to secure a referendum on membership of the European Community, and he revealed - a few days before the day of the election - that he himself had already done so in a postal vote. But that's not the same thing as 'urging'.

More importantly, this is not Tebbit's first offence in this territory. Back in 1997 he was asked if he would support James Goldsmith's short-lived Referendum Party. 'I would not go that far,' he said. 'Not yet. But I can understanding why many people who do not have such a strong attachment to the Conservative Party are doing so.'

In more recent times, he has repeatedly implied in his blog on the Telegraph site that his heart is with Ukip and that it's only force of habit that keeps him in the Conservative Party.

Hitchens writes: 'Lord Tebbit's outburst was astonishing.' And he asks: 'why hasn't the Tory Party expelled, or at least suspended him, for this blatant defiance of his leader?'

Well, it's not really that astonishing - it's not out of character for Tebbit at all. It is. however, a good story, and Hitchens is right that it should have attracted more attention. But - just like Owen Jones - Hitchens damages his case with this kind of hyperbole.