Interpreting By-Elections

Much arrant nonsense is always talked about by-elections, both before and after. Today was no exception. So I thought I’d give you…drum roll please…Melvin’s Top 10 By-Election Tips.

Tip 1 - In reality, by-elections are simply a referendum in one constituency on how the punters there are feeling about the Government on that given day. Thus, most by-elections are protest votes.

Tip 2 - By-elections therefore tell you bugger all about (a) the Government’s real (un)popularity, b) the Opposition’s real (un)popularity or (c) public opinion on any one issue.

Tip 3 - Melvin’s ‘rule of thumb’ is that sitting Governments usually get a kicking, the Opposition usually prospers and occasionally a small bunch of one issue loonies surprises everyone.

Tip 4 - If the Government candidate does well, however, then that is probably significant.

Tip 5 - If the Opposition’s candidate doesn’t do well, then this is also probably significant.

Tip 6 - If a loony third candidate does well, this usually means fuck all and normal order is resumed at the next General Election, with said loony disappearing into obscurity.

Tip 7 - If it is a safe seat, then most other main parties don’t spend much time, money or resources on it.

Tip 8 - The party which wins, claims “this is an historic victory which will change the mould of politics for all time”. It doesn’t.

Tip 9 - All parties try to use the result to damage the other parties, even if their own result is woeful eg “Well, David, we didn’t do as well as we had hoped (swing against of 90%, they lost their deposit and their candidate committed suicide at the count) but really the story of the night is that this is a truly terrible result for the x party”.

Tip 10 - Any truly meaningful impact of the result is always completely lost on the media.

So how did last night’s Galloway spectacular measure up, then?

Tories - Did badly, as expected. Not really a shocker for a Government in the middle of an austerity programme.

Lib Dems - Ditto.

Respect - Typical, horrible Galloway campaign playing to the young disaffected Muslim vote. He has one card and he plays it well. He will make some amusing speeches but will be an irrelevance.

Labour - What a shocker. They were either complacent or incompetent or both. Their once brilliant election machine is history. Too much time is being spent right now arguing internally about who should be sitting on which deck chair while the very unhappy good ship Titanic further embeds itself in the iceberg. Bad, bad news for Millipede Minor. If he can’t win a by-election in a half-decent Labour seat right now, after a truly horrible week for the Tories, even loyalists must be wondering when to wield the knife. Expect manoeuvres in this weekend’s press from the Blairites and Millipede Major.

Who Will Build These Homes?

Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition of 2010 which produced ‘Open Source Planning’ - a relatively anti-property development policy prescription - has turned into a very pro-development Government. It’s all about growth. Put simply, there are only a few things Government can actually do to help the private sector lead our growth out of the recession, and creating the right policy environment for lots of property development is one of them.

If you want growth, you need investment. And if you want investment, you need development to generate those interesting returns that make investors invest. And the real benefit of all this for a Government is jobs.

So far, so good. But to get voted back into office, you need to be delivering increased wealth for normal people not just the business and investment community, particularly after you have had to squeeze them so hard for the last few years to pay down that deficit. And this, children, is through home ownership as demonstrated by Mrs Thatch in the 1980s.

For all the silly Government schemes of the Blair/Brown years which hosed lots of taxpayers’ cash around for little significant return, Mrs Thatch actually delivered social mobility through Right to Buy. Millions moved from defining themselves as ‘working class’ to ‘middle class’ during Mrs Thatch’s era simply due to home ownership and the wealth it generated for them. (Which is why I’ve always been so perplexed why Lefties (a) hated Right to Buy and (b) saw no redeeming features in Thatcherism).

So, increased home ownership is good. And of course more residential development also delivers more affordable housing which gets people off local authorities’ waiting lists which is better for the individuals and cheaper for the taxpayer. The Government has embraced this and has brought forward several eye-catching policies:

Right to Buy - A massive expansion of the scheme which Blair/Brown had tried to water down as much as they could for frankly ideological reasons.

Build Now, Pay Later - By letting developers plan, build and sell residential projects on excess public land marked for disposal and not demanding payment upfront but only when the developer has actually sold his newly developed houses seriously excites a development industry which is struggling to get banks to fund its development schemes. And it will seriously kick start the delivery of new homes and affordable housing.

NewBuy - Announced today, this scheme essentially provides 95% mortgages for first time buyers who are buying a newly built home. The developer puts an additional 3.5% of the purchase price (essentially roughly what they currently spend on incentives - mortgage fees, new carpets, new curtains etc) into a fund managed by the mortgage company with Government underwriting another 5.5%. This gives a serious cushion for any mortgage company should any future crash happen, thus enticing them to lend.

So with all this going on, everyone is getting into residential development. I have lost touch of just how many of my clients which previously have not been residential developers but which are now getting in on the act. And we’ve had a rash of private equity investors and developers buying up residential development companies - Macqarie, Carlyle, Development Securities. We even have a new entrant in the form of Skanska, which has residential experience in Scandinavia but never before in the UK.

And what have we seen from the media? Wild, misinformed, almost hysterical opposition, take this from Fraser Nelson at The Speccie as a typical example. Read the comments after the post. Some people put Nelson bang to rights on his nonsense.

But here’s the real problem: our residential development industry is now 50% of the size it was in 2007. So who is going to actually build all these houses? These smaller, leaner resi developers absolutely do not want an unsustainable boom. They are in fact not crazily expanding their businesses like they did previously. They are instead all paying large dividends to their shareholders who have stuck with them in recent difficult times. Persimmon, which was selling around 24,000 new homes a year at the peak, is now selling around 15,000 a year and is happy at this level. The new entrant, Skanska, is only aiming for 1000 a year; small beer.

The Government might be going to be rather frustrated sometime soon.

Workfare Update

Chris Grayling has written to Tory colleagues updating them on 'Workfare':

"Dear colleague

"I am writing firstly to thank those colleagues who have been so vociferous and helpful in the debate we have had over the past few days over the work experience scheme. I also wanted to give you a bit more information about where we have got to with the scheme.

"One of the great ironies of the campaign against the scheme was that, whilst we are undoubtedly doing some difficult and controversial things in welfare reform, the work experience scheme is not one of them. It is a voluntary scheme that is extremely popular with those who take part, around half of whom come off benefits afterwards. We know that a substantial proportion are staying with the employers with whom they do the placement.

"Over the last week we have worked hard to demonstrate that the campaign against the scheme is being orchestrated by anti-capitalist demonstrators, with not a little help from some trades unions. We have also won the overwhelming support of commentators in the media.

"When I met employers yesterday, they were very clear that thy will absolutely refute any suggestion that unpaid work experience is a bad thing, and that they believe strongly in what we are doing. They did, though, want us to ease the conditionality regime for the scheme if they were to continue to take part.

"In reality we make very little use of sanctions on the scheme – fewer than 1% of participants have faced penalties, normally for serious offences such as theft, racist language in the workplace and abusive behaviour. Since the scheme is oversubscribed, getting people to take part has not been a problem.

"However we have agreed to allow people who sit down with their employer at any stage of the placement and say that they want to leave to do so without penalty. A JobCentre Plus adviser will then clearly sit down with that person and see if they require any additional intervention to help them with their job search. I should stress that the sanctions regime remains in place and those who commit serious breaches in their workplace will face penalties.

"We are now working to build up the scheme. We have already added three major new firms to the scheme this week – Airbus, Hewlett Packard and Center Parcs. Around 200 smaller firms have also come forward to express interest in supporting the scheme in the past two weeks.

"This is something that all colleagues can help with. JobCentre Plus staff are working around the country trying to find employers who will offer placements. They would welcome your help in encouraging local firms to participate. So if you have ideas, or contacts who are willing to take part, please do get in touch with your local JobCentre Plus manager, or email me so that I can put you in touch directly.

"We know that this approach makes a real difference to unemployed young people, and every extra opportunity can help – particularly for those from the most deprived backgrounds who don’t have the necessary contacts to find their first piece of experience in the job market.

"Thank you again for your support. With best wishes, Chris"

How anyone can actually oppose this initiative bewilders me.

Growth Taxes

March’s budget is important. All budgets are important but this one is more important than usual. Why so?

Well in truth, this is the last budget that will deliver any tangible and demonstrable change during the lifetime of this Coalition with a General Election now fixed for May 2015. And, moreover, with UK plc stuck in economic neutral, this next budget desperately needs to stimulate some growth.

Question - So what can a Government do to stimulate growth?

Answer - Tax cuts.

Thus the debate around tax cuts is going to get louder and louder week by week. But within the Coalition’s economic plan to pay down our huge national deficit ASAP, is there any room for tax cuts? My guess is that there is. What Chancellor does not plan to leave himself room for some popular tax cuts in the run up to a General Election? So with no growth, maybe Boy George will have to deploy that little bit of slack he has up his sleeve earlier than he had planned. But, which taxes create growth?

The Lib Dems have nailed their colours to the mast: reduced personal tax allowances. They want to take anyone earning less than £10k out of the tax system funded by…you guessed it…taxing the rich more, mainly via their loony mansion tax. In the long term, this is a laudable aim - I suggested something similar way before the 2010 General Election - and of course in the short term, very populist. And it seems ‘fair’, which is the new lexicon. But, and here’s the problem, it will not stimulate growth. Because those for whom this makes the most difference - those on fixed low incomes, typically the economically challenged and the old - haven’t got much to spend.

Mr Yvette Cooper, desperate to suggest something populist to raise their sinking ship, has Labour calling for several possible different cuts: VAT down to 15%, or income tax down by 3%, all on a temporary basis, or the Lib Dem personal allowance option again. All unfunded. Just borrow more. To hell with it. Fuck the consequences. Think we’ve all experienced Mr Balls’ economic prowess before haven’t we? But, again, there’s a teency weency problem. None of them deliver growth, because the cautious just save more and the incautious just splurge their extra cash on ‘stuff’, and almost all ‘stuff’ is made abroad and imported. So we would mostly be stimulating China’s economy, not ours to any great extent.

So again, what tax cuts promote growth?

Well, there’s the problem. History has shown us again and again that it’s the tax cuts unpopular with the Left and painted by them as tax cuts for the rich that actually stimulate growth: corporation tax, CGT, and top rate income taxes. (Afternote - And the OECD agrees with me!)

Tricky one for the Boy George.

Let's Have Some Common Sense

As Mr Eyebrows reminded us today in the Pre-Budget report, we are in the shit. Deep in it. Way past our armpits. There are just a few tufts of hair poking up from beneath the NuLab economic shit that has enveloped us. (And before you Lefties who always email me complain about the bias in that last sentence, remember this: we are the only G20 nation still in recession. Think about it.)

And we also know that we need to give the public sector a haircut. A massive one in fact to reign in public spending. Even NuLab and the Etonians agree on that; they are just arguing about when and how drastic the haircut should be.

So, let me in my sweet simpleminded way suggest some common sense to the thinking behind that public sector haircut.

The social welfare state in the form it has now grown into is ethically and financially out of control and now completely unaffordable. This is the time to be bold and re-model what type of social welfare state we want and can afford.

Four examples of how topsy turvy our social welfare state has become:

1. BOM is a wonderful blog I read daily. I do not agree with all that it says, but I respect its intellectual rigour and common sense economic logic. It had a really interesting post the other day, which in summary and in round numbers said this:

Good thing - 22 million private sector employees (aka the producers).

Bad thing - 12.5 million state pensioners, 7 million out-sourced Government employees, 6 million direct Government employees, 6 million people totally dependent on benefits (of one kind or another), 530,000 employed in further and higher education, 40,000 GPs and 33,000 working at National Rail. Thus 25.5 million public sector employees (aka those for whom the taxpayer pays.

Spot the problem? We have an imbalance. Too few in the private sector paying for too many in the public sector. We need a change.

2. Next, the NHS. Should your next door neighbour pay for you to have bigger tits just because it would make you feel a bit better about yourself? Should the people down the road pay for you to have your cock chopped off if you feel more like a woman than a man? Should the inhabitants of the next town pay for gluttons to have appetite suppressants because they are too fat? Should the taxpayer pick up the bill if you make lifestyle choices that have zero financial implications for yourself but significantly expensive financial implications for the taxpayer, like fags, booze and drugs? You get my drift.

We have an NHS where we have subverted 'no taxation without representation' into 'I do WTF I like and some other fucker should pay for my life choices'. We need a change.

3. Now, employment. Do we want a society where those that are willing to work are worse off if they do because the benefits system is too generous? Don't we want to make work a more attractive option than living on benefits? The so-called benefits trap. Crazy. We need a change.

4. Last, prisons. Under NuLab, we have locked more and more up in prison (and not built enough prisons so then let them out again, but that's another story). However, prison is so cushty that for many of those that end up there it is better than being outside. Here's David Bywater, an ex-prisoner:

"Things can get difficult if you are shoplifting or whatever you are doing. So you think, I will go to a prison for a bit of a rest period. You know you are going to get your drugs, methadone and what have you, so you are better off inside."

Or Andrew Whalley another ex-prisoner recently released after spending 10 years behind bars for a drug-related robbery with a firearm:

"I'm an addict, so if you give me free methadone, free drugs, keep me in active addiction, then release me out of prison, then surely when I come out of prison I've got to commit crime to keep me there." Was he ever offered rehab? "The last course I was offered was a safer injecting course". We need a change.

Now, of course I am being simplistic here. But my main point remains true. If we are to spend taxpayers hard earned cash that we have ripped out of their pay packets, then we should be giving them a good return on investment. Neither of these four random examples are doing that right now. And there are many other examples I could have cited. We need a much less generous social welfare state. Right now, it is too easy to beach yourself there and let the taxpayer pick up the cost. We need a strategic re-balancing.

Now, Lefties, before you cry foul and accuse me of being a self satisfied, arrogant fascist who does not care about those less fortunate than myself, consider this:

We are allowing our generous nature to (a) make the most vulnerable in society more dependent rather than less dependent, actually enslaving them to social welfare dependence and (b) bankrupting the country in the process. Is it sensible for the public sector to be larger than the private sector bearing in mind the latter pays for the former? Is it reasonable for taxpayers to pick up the bill for any damage I inflict upon society or myself; should I not have responsibility for my own actions? Should the benefit system pay me more than I can earn with my qualifications and experience? Should the prison system not be taking me off drugs and preparing me for an honest working life hopefully in the private sector?

So as the Etonians are 'blue sky thinking' about WTF they are actually going to do come 7th May 2010, they should be thinking on this: we need to use the discipline of having to downsize Government to re-fashion what Government should be doing and how it should be doing it.

Don't Do It, Dave

So the poster boy of all the gay, media luvvie Tories is back, read it here.

Dave: don't be fooled. Don't let this intellectually hollow, attention seeking, vain, conceited prat get on the candidates list, for God's sake. Being gay, rich, good looking and able to employ a good PR does not make someone a worthy candidate, even in this lightweight style over substance world in which we live.

Massow is a fraud. He has flip flopped back and forth from Con to Lab to Ind to Barcelona to 'find himself' and back. He is a liability.

Gotcha

As regulars will know, I am implacably opposed to ID cards. Here's my reasoning. But this is a good day for freedom, democracy and privacy. Testament to how out of control Gordy's inept Government is, can be found in this wonderful story.

Today Chris Grayling, the Tory Shadow Home Secretary, has changed our national policy on ID cards by effectively pulling the rug from underneath the Government's scheme, rendering it incapable of coming into existence. By writing to the five bidders for the contract, telling them clearly that whatever is agreed this side on the General Election will be ripped up straight after it. These bids cost millions, and what company is going to engage in the bidding process when the overwhelming likelihood is that it will be scrapped almost immediately.

Cuts (Wed 10th June)

So I blogged about this some time back when I was writing my short Tory election manifesto here, here, here and here. A brief extract:

"In general terms, frankly, it matters little who wins the next election, presumably in June 2010. Why? Well, whoever wins - assuming NuLab actually still has a chance - they are going to have to carry out exactly the same policies: significant tax increases concurrent with massive public sector spending cuts. There simply is no other option. None. Null. Zero."

What I loved about yesterday's PMQ exchange was:

1. So confused, inward looking and out of touch are NuLab now, that they don't even know their own policies.

2. So seemingly on the ball now are the Tories that they know the fine print of NuLab's policies better than NuLab.

3. Finally, the hidden truth, the reality that we dare not speak of, is out in the open. We need to cut the bloated public sector.

On a tactical point, I thought Cameron could have made more of his 'gotcha' moment.

As Predicted

Labour cabinet members have no balls - no one, bar James Purnell whoever he is - told the one-eyed fuckwit to stand down.

Labour backbenchers have no balls, as it is proven once again that they cannot seem to ever organise a coup.

The winner?

Dave. He will have a wounded, discredited PM left in place. Open goal until General Election day.

Having said that, all you bollockless NuLab MPs out there, can the disaster of Monday's Euro results not rouse you from your stupor?

New Tory Media

So The Sun, has come out as supporting the Tories for Thursday's European and County elections. Mildly interesting.


Not that this isn't huge news but who else would The Sun support? The 'NuLab love in' has long since passed.

But factor in that this is a News International paper, where the proprietor (one Rupert Murdoch) has a history of being involved in that particular decision, and who is someone that all main parties try and court. Now that makes it much more interesting.

But here's an even more interesting question: what is the ongoing relationship going to be like between the next Tory Government and The Daily Telegraph? Now that really is interesting.

Told You So

You can't defy the markets, Ms Kirkbride.

As I predicted here.

McKay and Kirkbride

I am told by close colleagues who know him well, that Andrew McKay is a good bloke. Honourable. Sensible. Solid. Would have been a good minister etc. So the logic goes that it is sad that he has been forced out.

Good men sometimes make mistakes. Fleecing the taxpayer, as he and his wife have been, was wrong and clearly a mistake.

Thus he had to go and that was clear days ago. He just took too long working it out...as did Cameron.

Kirkbride will go shortly as well. It's just inevitable. If you are wrong, you are wrong. It is as simple as that, however nice you are.

The Tory Manifesto - Part 3

So having dealt with the big two issues, let's switch to tactics.
In essence, Gordon Brown in 2009 is doing once again what he did in the 2005 Budget. He has put off the necessary action he needs to take until after the forthcoming election. After the Budget in March 2005, the Economist front page said it all.

The same front cover could have been run after this year's Budget. Gordon Brown is being totally dishonest with the electorate. He knows that taxes need to go up and that public spending must be reigned in but he is ignoring these two facts and hoping to distract voters until after the election.

So Dave has an opportunity here. Bearing in mind my previous three Tory Manifesto posts and that there is inevitably going to be some short term bad news, his strategy should be as follows:

First, he should state the obvious - "Gordon Brown has presided over the worst UK financial collapse since the Great Depression. Economies are always cyclical. A recession was always going to happen at some stage. Gordon Brown did not plan for it. He had no plan B. Worse, he spent everything and saved nothing, exposing us to economic meltdown more than most other advanced economies."

Second, he should be honest - "The terrible state we are in will need taxes to rise and public spending cuts, whoever wins the election. Gordon Brown is being dishonest by not telling you this. He is hoping to spin himself back into Downing Street. And then....he will raise taxes and cut spending. That is dishonest and I am not prepared to do that. I am going to tell you the truth, however unpleasant it is."

Third, he should run my long term aspiration/short term pain argument as explained in Tory Manifesto - Part 1.

In short, his strategy should be to show Brown is incompetent and culpable, and then treat the electorate as adults. I believe that the stay-at-home Labs and Lib Dems and the genuine floaters will respond to this, thus giving him a decent majority.

The Tory Manifesto – Part 2

So the next big item is public sector cuts. How to do this and not shore up the NuLab and Lib Dem ‘Tory cuts’ mantra. My plan:

1. Declare that every Government department will from next year cut its budget by 1% each year for the next Parliament. That will make a 5% cut over the Parliamentary term before inflation is taken into consideration. A significant cut and more likely to be nearer 10% when you take inflation into account.

2. However, two departments will be exempt: defence (putting current overstretch aside, you can’t cut defence whilst you are at war) and the NHS – good for the stay-at-home Labs and Lib Dems (see Friday's post).

3. Commit to raising the retirement age to 70 in five years time, thus giving those due to retire time to plan.

4. Furthermore, announce an NHS review to last two years, led by an independent doctor, to see how the NHS needs to change to be more fit for purpose in time for the next election. Also commit to a defence review once we are fully out of Iraq to review the future size and shape of the armed forces, again led by an independent retired general.

The Tory Manifesto – Part 1

OK, so let’s deal with the biggest issue first: tax rises. If you are Dave, and you need to be seen by Tory voters as a tax cutter, how do you put up taxes and not been seen as a Lefty? Here’s my plan.

First, we will inevitably need to have higher taxes for at least five and maybe even up to 10 years. Why so short a time I hear you ask, when all the doomsayers are saying it will take many years to pay off the huge Brown debt? The doomsayers are purposefully forgetting two things: the huge profit that will be made when the next Government sells off the taxpayer's share of Lloyds Group, RBS etc and that the soon to arrive inflation problem will wipe out a large chunk of the debt.

So I think his best strategy would be to give us proles a longer term, clear explanation of where he wants to end up but then explain the short term pain. So, remembering my Tory manifesto preamble from Friday, how about this?

By 2020, the Tories would aspire to:

1. Using today's comparable numbers, increase the basic income tax allowance to £12k pa (currently around £6.5k), thus in round numbers taking anyone on the minimum wage out of income tax altogether – practical and good for the stay-at-home Labs and Lib Dems (see Friday's post).

2. Aim to reduce top rate income tax down from the Brown promised 50% back to the current 40% rate but with a longer term aspiration to reduce it further to 35% - good for the Tory tribal vote.

3. Scrap inheritance tax altogether – good for everyone, including many stay-at-home Labs and Lib Dems.

With that clear statement of where Dave wants to head, he can then give us the bad news of how tough things are going to be in the interim and get away with it.

The Tory Manifesto - Preamble

So over the next few days I am writing the Tory manifesto. Well, my version of it anyway. Here goes: the preamble.

In general terms, frankly, it matters little who wins the next election, presumably in June 2010. Why? Well, whoever wins - assuming NuLab actually still has a chance - they are going to have to carry out exactly the same policies: significant tax increases concurrent with massive public sector spending cuts. There simply is no other option. None. Null. Zero.

But Dave's problem is demonstrated by a meeting I had this week with a client of mine. He's a property guy. Big cheese. Rich. Very. Always voted Tory. Good potential as a party donor actually. His view: "Well Cameron will win so he doesn't need my vote. But anyway why would I vote for him? I have no idea what he stands for or what he actually will do once in Government. All I've heard is this soft Left, hug a hoodie, green, global warming crap."

All the good poll results have been because NuLab is in terminal decline and ripping itself apart, not because Dave has laid out anything even slightly compelling. And there is the rub. By being a 'New Conservative', Dave has confused us proles as to what he and his party are now all about.

So his conundrum is this: how to raise taxes but not alienate his trad Tories voters whilst cutting spending and not alienating those he needs either not to turn out for Labour or the Lib Dems or to attract to vote Tory once more. Putting aside for now that he of course also needs some 'blue meat' for his tribal vote, I think he has to target three groups:

1. The 'stay-at-home' Labour voters
2. The 'stay-at-home Lib Dems
3. The genuine floaters

He needs the stay-at-home Labs, now so revolted and embarrassed by their current Government, to be so pissed off they...well...stay at home.

He needs the stay-at-home Lib Dems to feel that (a) Dave may not be so bad after all and (b) to realise that to get rid of Labour they need to...well... stay at home.

And he needs the genuine floaters, also pissed off with NuLab, to at least see something attractive about his agenda and therefore give him the benefit of the doubt.

Until now, Dave's strategy has been to stay tight lipped about future policies, agendas, manifesto commitments etc until an election is imminent so that the desperate NuLab attack dogs have little time to savage him. But the time is fast approaching when Dave needs to say something about what he is all about and what he will do.

Hence, my Tory manifesto....

Monday Short Post No 1

Stuart Wheeler is an old school, unreconstructed Eurosceptic ie he says he wants to 'renegotiate' but in fact he'd be happy to walk out of the EU in a huff. His view does not represent the majority of the Tory Party.

You can't have members of any team dissing the team publically and supporting opposing teams. Dave was right to kick him out.

Wheeler will look pretty stupid and irrelevant when UKIP once again show itself to be a tiny fringe party at the Euro elections in June and the Tories are back in Government in 2010. This is one bet Wheeler will have lost.

Arrogantly Out of Touch

If ever there was an advert for how totally out of touch these greedy bastard MPs are with public sentiment on the issue of their remuneration, last night's Question Time was it. I watched in horror as the Tory chairman tried to defend the indefensible. View it here:



That talentless arrogant fat fuck Pickles actually tried to explain why he needs the taxpayer to pay for his second home when he only lives 37 miles from Westminster because 'it was the only way he could be at work on time'. It was excruciating. Car crash TV. And the audience reaction said it all.

The Tories lost some votes last night.

Dave, get off your ass and do something about this. Make a stand. Lead for fuck sake!

Annoying Things - Defeatest Tories

Sooooo bored of doom mongering Tories. They're either deluded, or after so long in the political wilderness have lost the ability to see what winning is, or just spinning not to seem complacent in front of the voters. Majority of 60-80 is my prediction, depending on how bad the recession is and whether Gordy makes any headway in spinning the line in early 2010 that he has done jolly well setting us on the right course out of the depths.