Election 2024 - Canvassed

 Our first canvasser of the current election campaign knocked on the door this afternoon. Not surprisingly, given the torrent of leaflets already received from this quarter, it was on behalf of the LibDems and she handed over yet another, now increasingly redundant, piece of paper. It was nice to be asked what single policy measure I would like and it seemed to strike a chord when I said it would be to reverse Brexit; sadly I do not see this is remotely achievable in the near future even if the EU were to welcome us back, which I rather doubt.

The national talking-point seems to be about the blatant racism and homophobia of a Reform candidate but this is hardly news, the whole point of the party is to try make such views respectable.

In international news, France is having its first round of elections that could give a very right-wing party a majority in the Assembly and Joe Biden's weak performance in a televised live debate might have just done the same for his florid-faced felon of an opponent. It is not quite time to wake up my correspondent and despatch him back to Karakorum but the rattle of scimitars is getting closer.

Sarcasm Corner

 

Source: The Guardian

I wonder when those letters will be delivered ...

Election 2024 - It Grinds on

A week and a half to go in this strange general election. Opinion polls continue to suggest a huge Labour victory, coupled with a Conservative wipeout. I remain sceptical that it will be so big a change. The weather has turned warm - the first prolonged hot spell of this wet and chilly year - and it has clearly been good for the local party promoters because we had a positive flurry of leaflets in the past couple of days. 

I pass over "Reform" whose underlying fascist tendencies grow more marked each day that their glorious leader shows his admiration for Russian brutalism. Maybe he sees himself in ten years driving round in a fancy limousine with World President For Life Putin, much as Putin and the horrible thing that runs North Korea did in their much-publicised meeting. I would have to ignore it anyway, because their candidate has nothing to say except to highlight, with skilfully chosen tick marks, a list of seven policies. 

The LibDems continued a strong marketing campaign with a newspaper-style leaflet claiming once more that they are the only opposition likely to topple the Tories in Stratford. This was the prediction from ElectoralCalculus, and it was pretty accurate. The seat did fall. [I have edited this piece retrospectively, because originally I used a prediction that was actually based on some numbers I put in, not those based on the polls].

But my focus is on the two main parties. Labour produced a very slender prospectus featuring its candidates career as a financial crime analyst - now that is a skill that may well be in demand as the investigations in Conservative dodgy betting activities and the covid PPP sourcing programme continue. But as to some meaty policies - a promise to end the scramble for 8am GP appointments and support for a small hospital the other end of the constituency is about it.

Labour's man appears to be local. Actually he has been a local councillor for Coventry, not Stratford, but it is not too far away. The Conservative candidate has, in two distinctly different leaflets (that suggest the job was given to two interns working on the same material but in different rooms and not communicating with each other), emphasised his past political career. He is not very forthcoming about the fact he was MP for a constituency in Lancashire and a councillor in Salford before that, so not actually a local man at all and the pledge to support small business rings somewhat hollow from a man who supported the Brexit government of B. Johnson. Anyway he seems to believe that the Rwanda plan will "stop the boats", despite all evidence to the contrary and we can magically get to Net Zero without it costing any more. Perhaps the immigration fairy and the climate fairy can be persuaded to show up at last.

All attention now shifts to the last group match for England in the European football championships. Scotland were booted out yesterday after a miserable performance. England have not inspired so far though they will qualify for the next round whatever happens tomorrow night when they face the might of Slovenia, 57th in the FIFA world rankings compared to England's flattering 5th. What could possibly go wrong?

Election 2024 - Place Your Bets

Vote Spendthrift

Our Policies for a Massively Richer Britain 

A recent meeting of the Spendthrift Shadow Cabinet

We, in the Spendthrift Party, have been accused by poorly informed detractors of having "a galaxy sized black hole" at the heart of our policy to cut income tax to 1% whilst recruiting four million doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers and reasonably competent left-sided attacking wing backs, starting the day after we sweep to power. And they might have a point, were it not for our revolutionary financial plan. We will have little need of conventional sources of revenues, my friends, because we are riding the express train of the future and all the signals are green. We have found a sure fire way to raise enormous amounts of the ready and it's all thanks to the Conservative Party.

There's no need to work hard to create wealth. No need to to work at all, actually. Simply obtain some inside information and place a bet. Results guaranteed. This is a proven technique. Already associates of our great party have made the following wagers:

• The newly installed foreign secretary to describe Mexicans as "lazy, tequila-swilling loudmouths in stupidly large hats who spend all day lying around outside cantinas". The odds - a very tasty 20,000 to 1, thank you William Hill. We've pledged our tax revenues from North Sea Oil on this one and it is a dead cert to bring in £190bn within the very first week of a Spendthrift government taking office.
• Appointment of Liz Truss as Director of the Office for Fiscal Responsibility. Corals offered 38,000 to 1 against this ever happening and we've snapped it up, staking the take from customs duties in Dover and Southampton for the next five years. There's a guaranteed £290bn right there.
• Date of the next general election. We know when it will be, nobody else does and if Ladbrokes are happy to offer 90,000 to 1 against it being on Christmas Day 2024, who are we not to bet the Crown Jewels on it?

Vote Spendthrift. The only party who can genuinely say "We're betting it all on Britain".

Election 2024 - Out of the Woodwork

 The election is entering the second half and finally I have received a leaflet from somebody other than the energetic LibDem candidate for Stratford (4 separate items from her so far). Unfortunately the newcomer claims to be a contradiction-in-terms, a non political party (cunningly called Nonpol) that is campaigning to be elected on a raft of policies that somehow, mysteriously, are not political at all, even though they represent choices in exactly the same way that all political parties offer choices.

There is a list of policy objectives. Item one is something incomprehensible about transgenderism. Why on earth this should be the first thing they want me to read is baffling. Later on we learn that Boris Johnson is responsible for the war in Ukraine (and there was me thinking it was Putin, the historical legacy of Tsarist expansion south and west since Peter the Great and Russia's long term strategic goal of dominating the Black Sea), and that if only Britain left NATO then everyone else would disarm, link hands and sing folk songs in joyful comradeship. I noticed that they intend to simplify the tax system by abolishing VAT, charging a flat rate of income tax and raising the threshold before tax is paid to £35,000. How would all this be paid for? Ah, it's much too complicated for the leaflet so we are directed to the party website.

I went to the party website. Now they want me to watch a YouTube that will explain their tax strategy and how they will make the rich pay by forcing everyone to have one bank account, or something. Erm, if I might just interject - I am not going to watch your video. Either explain your plans in writing using words that convey a straight meaning or kindly leave the stage.

Towards the end of the manifesto is a comment about Covid and this gem

As Covid 19 originated in China and was not bought to a halt like SARS1, it has cost the UK thousands of lives and billions in costs. The cost to the UK from Covid will recouped from the Chinese economy. This will be done via imports of Chinese goods and taxation on Chinese assets based in the UK, until the debt is cleared.

I fail to see how importing even more Chinese goods will somehow "recoup" the cost of Covid. Surely all it will do is bolster the Chinese economy and undermine our own? But it's all right, we shall tax Chinese assets based in the UK. There's bound to be loads of those just lying around and of course there is no  question of any retaliation. No, we're definitely on safe and legal grounds. We could also tax them for bird flu, the black death and that nasty throat complaint, Chinese whispers, while we are at it.

As I have written in another context: when asked about these policies, the Chinese ambassador smiled inscrutably