Lib Dem Conference: Can Clegg Fight?

I've been doing a lot of focus on the Tories recently - as, currently, they're the party I'm most sceptical about - but that doesn't mean I'm not prepared to put the spotlight on what Nick Clegg and his party are proposing. Speaking ahead of the Scottish Lib Dem Party conference in Perth, Clegg argued that, quite plainly, Labour has failed Scotland.

To which I would argue: are you sure about that? After all, Scotland now has its own Parliament, and Scottish MPs have more of a say on English politics than MPs representing English constituencies do in Scotland. That would seem to me to be a suggestion that Scotland has been allowed to become less dependent on England, which in many ways is beneficial.

However, Clegg is tapping in to an important battleground here. With the Conservatives only having one seat in the entire country, and opposition towards the leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, occasionally venturing into very grim territory, this may be the Lib Dems' best chance of gaining a large number of seats: Labour have a whopping 39, compared to the Lib Dem's 12. If Clegg can convince them that his fight for equality and against local poverty will help improve the social standing of many Scots - and maybe it can - then the Lib Dems could potentially create a power base north of the border. What may benefit their cause is the fact that Labour see Salmond's threats of a referendum as being the important issue: if those two parties are to busy arguing over the potential break-up of the union, then perhaps we will see a divide-and-conquer strategy employed by the Liberal Democrats.

Either way, Clegg has a fight on his hands. If he doesn't gain more than the 11 seats Charles Kennedy managed to pick up in 2005, he will be seen as taking the party back towards the wilderness: and that could easily see him replaced by the more popular Vince Cable. He needs to convince: then he can conquer.

Can I have an "Aaaaaaaaa" and three consonants, Carol?

Afternoon all! Good to see that Cornwall's actually getting some warm weather now :-)

So, two months to go (in theory), and even the Times appear to be somewhat concerned about the situation of the Tory campaign. While they've found much to attack with regards to Gordon Brown's role in Iraq (and quite frankly, I should hope so too), the front page concedes that the PM's performance at the Chilcott enquiry was "confident".

Page 2, however, is much more revealing. The second article,"Political Inconvenience", has the subtitle "Why the Conservatives have been derailed by the Ashcroft affair". Do tell...

"The affair poses serious questions about Mr Cameron and Mr Hague. They were too weak to confront Lord Ashcroft and insist that he tell them his tax status."

Not what you'd want to be hearing from an influential newspaper. It gets worse...

"More disturbing still has been their reaction upon learning the truth. They have calculated that taking action would produce too much political turbulence. So instead, they have hunkered down, hoping the whole thing will go away. In other words, they have put political convenience ahead of principle."

Will that be all, Mr Daming Indictment?

"Given that the way Mr Cameron governs his party provides the best insight into how he might govern the country, this is not encouraging."

I'm not a Cameronite (if there is such a word), but that's brutal. Ashcroft does get most of the stick in that article, mind, but for a paper that usually backs the Tories, that is far from a ringing endorsement.



There's still quite a few articles that are pro-Tory though, and one of them catches my interest: "Pupils to learn poetry by heart in Tory 'traditionalist' lesson plan for schools". Basically, Michael Gove (the Shadow Children's Secretary) wants kids to learn more about the monarchy, more about works of literature, old-school mental arithmetic, that sort of thing. And to be honest, I like what he's saying. I argued against the abolition of the monarchy in Year 8; I'm a big fan of Shakespeare and Dickens; and like Gove, I want to see modern languages being given more of a chance.

And, whilst we're on the subject I don't particularly like the idea that we should automatically attack the British Empire, or yell at the town councillors of Bristol that they have the blood of slaves on their hands. Both the empire and the slave trade involved horrific events that I've had to read about, and which I will always condemn as acts of needless inhumanity. But we need to understand why people thought such institutions were a good idea: and I'd much rather the kids of Years 9 through to 11 got to know a bit more about Britain's past, rather than just three solid years of Stalin and Hitler: a lot of people I know got put off history by that.

So yes, education under the Tories might well be an improvement. Until you read the article about that woman who's leading their taskforce on mathematics in schools. "Shrill, populist and irrelevant" on Question Time according to Valentine Low on page 3 of the Times, it's only Channel 4's supposed darling Carol Vorderman, isn't it? Who, to be honest, I would not have seen as beiong any of those things, but the picture of her in the paper begs to differ. SCARY LADY.

The response to her performance has been scathing from almost every angle. Throng calls her a
"sniping, right-wing, moaning idiot". James McIntyre calls her a "poor man's Sarah Palin". Internet forum posters are unanimous in condemning her: one poster goes so far as to call her "a bitter old hag". If you want to read more about her performance, just type in "Carol Vorderman Question Time" into Google. The results - pardon the Dragon Ball Z reference, anime fans - are over 9000!

So. Not the best person to be supporting the Tories, then? Still, at least with Boris Johnson on the panel the Tories had someone to make them look like the party to vote for: I've a lot of time for the bumbling blonde. At least he admits when he's wrong about something. It might be a good idea for Ashcroft and Vorderman to do just that.

Mugabe? Seriously?

Oh dear. In an attempt to make the Conservatives look very silly indeed, the Guardian has put a small headline on the front page entitled "Mugabe backs Tories". Using irresponsible amounts of sarcasm to herald this 'good news', it says that Mugabe thinks Zimbabwe has "a better chance with David Cameron than with Brown".

To which I say, "Mugabe and the Guardian: you have both just demonstrated supreme idiocy". And you can print that.

How on earth does Mugabe think that his decision will ultimately decide who managed to get into No. 10? And more to the point, why does the Guardian think his comments will make the blindest bit of difference? I'm not going to vote Labour or Lib Dem just because Mugabe prefers the Tories: he's entitled to his opinion, but he dictates enough people's lives as it is!

Honestly. That is the quintessentially British expression that comes to mind. The Tories aren't going to win or lose over Zimbabwe: the average Briton is too busy worrying about the economy. Which, ironically, is what Mugabe should be concentrating on instead.

In other news today...

• The Lib Dems are starting their Scottish conference in Perth, with Nick Clegg promising to clean up politics: his speech is happening tonight;
• Gordon Brown has said that the Iraq War was "right", and on my own personal assessment sounded a bit more convincing than Blair;
• And a YouGov/Channel 4 News poll of 60 marginals puts the Conservatives ahead on 39%, with Labour on 37%. The national poll has the Conservatives on 38%, Labour on 33%, and the Lib Dems on 16%. You can follow the polls week-by-week here.

That's all for now!

Chris

The 40 Key Seats

This afternoon, I've been looking specifically at pages 6 and 7 of the Times, with the firmly right-wing headline, "Tories target 40 key seats to give them precious margin of victory". Precious as in extremely useful when getting bills passed, not precious as in that thing Smeagol keeps banging on about.

Basically, the Conservatives can become the largest party if they can get hold of 72 more seats: and as they gained 33 last time round, that's definitely manageable. However, in order to get the 326 seats they need for an overall majority, they'll need 116: and that's where the 40 key seats come in. In theory, they're easy enough to get - Stafford, seat no. 40, has a majority of 2,121 - but failure to get them all could lead to a hung parliament and the dreaded coalition governments of yesteryear.

So, not surprisingly, the Tories are throwing huge amounts of money at these seats: and you can't blame their attitude, nor fault their commitment. The problem last time was that they targeted too many "key seats", and thus spread themselves a bit too thinly. Lord Ashcroft has gone on record as saying that of the 130 seats they targeted, 50 were unwinnable. This time around it should be easier to make gains: but marginal seats are hard to predict.

My own personal reason for being interested is that two of the key seats are in my home county of Gloucestershire. Cheltenham, held by Martin Horwood of the Lib Dems, is target number 6; and Stroud, held by David Drew of Labour (my local MP), is target number 15. Mr Drew's majority is remarkably small - he won by just 350 votes in 2005 - and to be honest, I can see him losing this time around. He's been our MP since 1997, and has been commended in his role as a backbencher rebel, but the local council is staunchly Conservative, and so is the area: before he got in, Stroud had a Tory MP for 47 years. I'm not too sure that Cheltenham will fall to the Tories, however, as it seems to have handled the recession relatively well.

Truro and Falmouth, the constituency that I currently live in, is not such an easy target: and as such, it's at number 86. Frankly, anyone could win that one: it's a new constituency for 2010, but the area has seen a Conservative MP, a Labour MP, and a Liberal Democrat MP (in that order) within the last 15 years. It'll be interesting to see if it remains yellow on the map come May.

What is slightly worrying is that only three of the 40 seats are in Scotland and Wales: perhaps not surprising, but are the Conservatives going to risk dividing the UK again? From the map in the times, it doesn't look like they're willing to risk trying to win support in areas that still hold a grudge against Thatcher (such as the North-East), which begs the question: is Cameron going to be any different?

We'll see: the Tories have got to get in first. And in Stroud, they're well placed to do that. Target no. 15, you have been chosen well.

Chris

Hello!

And good afternoon to you all from the Cornish town in Falmouth.

You may well be completely unaware that there is going to be a General Election this year: you certainly do not know when exactly it is happening, because the date has not yet been announced by the current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown (who is currently handling questions from the Iraq Enquiry). However, many British newspapers have come to an informal agreement that the probable date is Thursday, May 6th: and as that's in almost exactly two months, I thought now was a good time to begin examining the various parties involved in the first general election for five years, and indeed of this new decade.

So who am I? Well, my name is Chris Stanley, from Stroud in Gloucestershire: I'm studying History at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus; I turned 21 last October; and I'm hoping to pursue a career in journalism, with a view to either entering politics or travel writing. But more to the point, this is the first time I've had the opportunity to vote in a general election.

And, honestly, I don't know who to vote for.

It's not that I can't name the leaders of the three main parties, because I can: it's not that I don't want to vote, because I do. But this is not a good time for politicians: the disillusionment of voters with the Labour Governments of Blair and Brown, coupled with the Conservative Party's difficulty in shaking off the ghost of Thatcherism, makes it difficult for people my age to know if either party has an interest in the student vote. Even the Liberal Democrats have dropped their plans to scrap tuition fees under the seemingly unconvincing leadership of Nick Clegg.

So which is the best party to take Britain forward? Should Brown be allowed, in effect, to dominate the political scene for a staggering total of 18 years? And should David Cameron, a man who has had five years to prepare for government but is running the risk of becoming Edward Heath without the cabinet experience, the more suitable candidate? And if neither is able to obtain a majority, should they seek to work with Nick Clegg, or tough it out in a minority government?

Either way, there's two months to decide, which should be more than enough time for me to get a good idea of which party's about. In order to do this, I'm going to be keeping an eye on BBC News, and reading both the Guardian and the Times for balance: occasionally throwing in another newspaper, such as the Sun or the Telegraph, in order to get a wider view. I'll also be reading other political blogs, and asking for your opinions. Starting now! Do feel free to leave a comment or question about the election: whether you're planning to vote, campaigning for one of the parties, or even if you couldn't care less about all this political stuff. It's your call!

Here's to a potentially decisive two months...

Chris