About UKIP

No, this is not about Kippers rejoicing about Greece's discomfort because this version of it sounds like a defiance of the EU but about their representation in the House of Lords, something I have written about before.

It seems that the Prime Minister has replied to Lord Pearson's letter on the subject of whether more UKIP peers will be appointed with the following words:

The Government’s policy is to ensure that the House of Lords continues to work well.

I have committed previously to keeping the party peers under review and will, of course, give further consideration to the points you raise when we come to consider recommendations over the course of this parliament.

As this is somewhat meaningless I suspect there must have been something else in the letter and as soon as I find out I shall report on it.

Meanwhile, we are faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, the House of Lords has been packed by political hacks of various kind by the previous Cameron and the Blair/Brown governments and we really need no more members. In fact a purge is in order. On the other hand, UKIP should have some representation in Parliament and they are unlikely to get that in the Commons despite the number of votes they received.

If we take the view that peers should be appointed on merit and regardless of party affiliation or electoral votes then all is well. But if we take the view that the Lords should somehow, indirectly represent opinion then UKIP should have more peers.

If the Prime Minister calls a moratorium on more peerages then all is relatively well though why there should be so many Lib-Dem ones remains a mystery. But if he appoints numerous Lib-Dems who lost their seats then UKIP will have something to complain about and so shall the rest of us as the House of Lords is an important part of our constitution, such as it is while we are in the EU.

That campaign so far

Eight days to go to the European and local elections and I imagine that all readers of this blog have been overwhelmed by the glossy and meaningless literature that seems to be what election campaigns consist of these days. There is something to be said for abolishing that right to free postage so that parties start considering a little more carefully what they send out to stupefy the electorate. Of course, they can always hire cheap immigrant labour to deliver leaflets but they will not have that free post.

This year's crop has been outstandingly dire in both content and design. The first Labour leaflet I received had a big picture of Ed Miliband looking solemn and the message: "Only Labour will tackle the cost-of-living crisis". Reading this and glancing through the other items: NHS, "free" childcare, housing crisis and soaring energy bills, I could not help wondering whether the party in question had the first idea of which particular elections were coming up. For Mr Miliband's information, none of that can be solved in the European Parliament and very little at the local level.

Actually, tucked away in a corner there was a reference to MEPs who are fighting for jobs and growth (mostly their own jobs and the growth of their waistlines) because, forsooth, we would lose 3.5 million jobs if we left the EU. It seems quite extraordinary that anyone should come up with that particular chestnut still or to think that Britain's membership of the EU somehow depends on the MEPs.

Since then I have also received the Labour leaflet for the local election in which they promise to cut taxes (having clearly forgotten that when they controlled the council, our local tax rate was among the highest in London) and to protect the NHS or the local hospitals or something like that. Nobody, I may add, has been able to explain precisely what the plans are about local hospitals and what alternatives there might be to the projected rearrangements, known by some campaigners and the Labour party as cuts. Nevertheless, it is a bad sign for the Labour party that all they can campaign on is the NHS.

I was not altogether surprised to read that they are now behind the Conservatives in opinion polls, a most unusual situation at this stage of the electoral cycle. It made me recall the 1992 General Election, the first in which UKIP's predecessor, the Anti-Federalist League campaigned. (Yes, it has been around that long.) The day I realized that Labour would lose was when I was accosted by some supporter of theirs who solemnly argued that the real power in the land was the Monday Club. I put my money where my mouth was and eventually won £10 from a friend. Still, Labour can comfort themselves with the thought that opinion polls matter less than the actual election. At least, they might be able to comfort themselves with that thought until next Thursday.

Let's get the unimportant ones out of the way. I have not had any Lib-Dim literature but I gather that they are calling on all of us to re-elect the egregious Sarah Ludford, as ghastly a euro-weenie as I have ever come across and much given to hyperventilation. At one debate she became quite hysterical about people she described as climate deniers. I asked her whether these people actually denied that there was such a thing as a climate. She just gobbled.

The Greens are calling on me to re-elect Jean Lambert but for some reason all the policies are out and out socialist ones, thus proving that saying about watermelons.

Then there is something called the Communities United Party who desperately need a proof-reader to get rid of the inappropriate capitals in their leaflet though I hope they keep the fierce eagle. I am not altogether sure what they are campaigning about as they seem to think all sorts of issues can be solved in the European Parliament and I am not certain that their slogan, Strength in Unity, is entirely appropriate. Reminds me of all those fly-by-night parties that used to appear just before European elections with much fanfare, putting forward "real people" as candidates who invariably demonstrated their reality by knowing nothing about the European Parliament for which they were standing. Mind you, I think that the Communities United Party is against Britain's withdrawal from the European Union though I am not sure I can quite work out their argument.

So we come to the Conservatives, whose local election leaflet does not mention Charing Cross Hospital, possibly because that has more to do with the near-bankrupt Imperial College Healthcare than the local council or possibly because they have some guilty secrets there. They have a certain advantage over the Labour candidates in that they can actually point to a reduction in Council Tax and in debt plus a few achievements that are almost impossible to check. What does 25% reduction in crime mean? Are there really 44 extra police officers in the borough and what do they do? Still, I am reasonably pleased with the 6 new free schools, assuming they have actually opened and the 1,000 affordable homes to buy, assuming they do actually exist.

The more general communication that is aimed at the European Election proves without any doubt that the Conservatives are also using the campaign to fight next year's General Election. On the cover, a picture of their leader, our Prime Minister, the Boy-King himself, speaking rather than looking solemn. Well, looking solemn as he is speaking. What is he offering? A stronger economy at home, renewed respect abroad, real change in Europe. Two out of three are so vague as to be incomprehensible. How do you define renewed respect or real change. Experience with "Europe" tells us that the only real change we ever see is movement towards greater integration.

Moving on into the leaflet, I find out that these are the most important European Elections in a generation as for the "first time since the Eurozone crisis you get to have your say on Britain's relationship with Europe". I am not sure where to start in analyzing that particular piece of nonsense. We get our say on our relationship with Europe by voting for a certain party to send its members to the European Parliament, an institution of the European Union, of which we are a member? Just writing that sentence makes my head spin. Later on we are told that they are fighting to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU which makes about as much sense as people fighting to renegotiate Herefordshire's relationship with the United Kingdom.

Apparently, if we send in the Conservatives, fundamental changes will take place in the EU. Just to prove that we have a pretty picture of the London team with the Leader. Well, to be fair, the Conservatives are the only ones who have a picture of the whole team, regardless of whether they are likely to get in or not. (I doubt if numbers 6, Sheila Lawlor, or 7, Glyn Chambers, will.)

I left UKIP to last, partly because from the point of the view of this blog that could be said to be the most important party and the biggest missed opportunity and partly because it is still possible that they will come top. The great thing about the European Elections is that, because of the list system, nobody really wins but almost everybody does. So, UKIP coming top in the Euros will not produce a political revolution in this country any more than them coming second last time did. In fact, it will do very little unless they can parlay that into some seats in the General Election next year or one or two by-elections before that, of which there is no chance.

So, first things first, the news that Gerard Batten's home was attacked in the early hours of this morning is completely outrageous, regardless of what one thinks of the party. If, indeed, this is part of an organized campaign to intimidate UKIP (just as there was an organized campaign to intimidate the BNP) then it is also incredibly stupid. Do these people really not understand that this sort of violence merely gives their target group extra support? No, I don't suppose they do. At present, the police are investigating the attack so any other comments from me would be superfluous and quite probably factually wrong. (Here is another article that concentrates on Farage and his fears.)

Back to UKIP election literature of which there is more than from any other party. Either they have had another influx of money or what we are seeing is the well-known Farage strategy of throwing everything at one aim and to hell with the future.

To date, I have had two glossy and one newspaper-type leaflets. Mostly they say the same thing over and over again: there are people coming into this country to take away jobs, accommodation and the country in general. That is the main message with all other issues, including actual membership of the EU, becoming subordinate. That is something of a risky strategy: what if, despite being worried about mass immigration, the electorate of this country reacts badly to this kind of naked fear-mongering and hatred of the outsider?

One glossy leaflet had a big picture of the Great Leader on one side and a much smaller picture of Gerard Batten, the London MEP, on the other. It is, of course, important not to have a bigger picture of yourself than that of the Leader, not to have one above that of the Leader and not to look as if you were taller than the Leader.

On the Batten side (small photograph) we have a good deal about "4,000 people a week" coming to live in Britain from the EU and the cost in British jobs, pushed down wages and pressure on schools, health, welfare. I presume that means that people coming from outside the EU do not have that effect. What, I wonder, about the large number of French people who tend to get jobs in the higher ranks of the economy? Not all. Plenty of French work in catering as do plenty of Poles, Spanish (highly incompetent) and others. Also many Brits and Antipodeans. But, undoubtedly, there are pressures on school, health and welfare, all of which need root and branch reform, strongly opposed .... by .... yes, you guessed it, UKIP.

On the Farage side (big picture) we get a paragraph about immigration and then one that makes me think that UKIP could do with some editors:

We have no control over our borders, but we also have no control over who we trade with, how much we pay to heat our homes and feed our families or how we just get on with our lives. 

To think that Mr Farage attended Dulwich College, the alma mater of two of the best twentieth century stylists: P. G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler.

The other glossy leaflet concentrated on UKIP's image as the radical, non-political party (just as their Leader is a non-political politician who is really rather a good bloke). Another picture of Nigel Farage inviting us all to join his team and informing us that "we are all going UKIP this year" because of Labour failure on immigration, Tory failure on planning (not strict enough), Liberal (ahem!) sell out to the EU and Green energy price hikes. Note, please, that the EU as a whole comes in third and is attributed only to the Lib-Dims. At least, I assume they do not mean the Liberal Party that is still in existence and is furiously opposed to the European project.

Examples of the "all" are shown by 18 small photos on either side of the Leader, implying that these are people who have seen the light. A quick look through and I recognized about a third as members, activists, candidates and employees of UKIP of long standing, including Sanya-Jeet Thandi who has since left the party. Ah well. Can't win them all.

So, UKIP is not entirely honest in its election literature. So what? Is any party? No, of course not and I think I have made that reasonably clear above. The point is not that UKIP is no worse than anyone else, despite the prevalence of troglodytes among the members, but that their USP, apart from the fear of incomers, is that they are different: not political, not corrupt, not dishonest. Not like the other parties, in other words. That is why it is so damaging when they behave exactly like the other parties and politicians.

Similarly, it would not be a newsworthy item that UKIP employed Latvians at what one assumes were rock bottom wages to deliver their leaflets if their campaign had not concentrated on the subject of immigrant workers taking British jobs and depressing British wages.

Finally, there is the UKIP News, the newspaper-style leaflet, that covers a few issues, the biggest one of which, the one that has the huge main headline: Britain Faces Fresh Wave of Immigrants. Everything else, effect on the City, the European Arrest Warrant, scandalous waste of EU aid projects (as if foreign aid that we give directly was not scandalously wasted and misused), all pale into insignificance.

Do I think this is racist? No. Furthermore, the cries of racism help UKIP in that they can preen themselves as people who are unjustly attacked by demented lefties. As a consequence, they never really have to explain their policies or their statements or how has a party that is supposedly a free-market, vaguely libertarian entity become protectionist, big statist (just read what they say about planning) and backward looking to a rose-coloured view of that tiresome decade, the fifties.

That debate

I have a confession to make: I did not watch either of the Nick v. Nigel debates. Well, really, I couldn't, not having a TV set and having better things to do with my time. Yes, indeed, that patch of paint just was not going to dry without me watching it. Nor have I, as yet, read what the Boss had to say about the second debate on EUReferendum but I gather indirectly that he was rude about both participants. That, I am sure, will surprise those readers of this blog who have not read his analysis. I also gather that it is only the Farage supporters who have attacked him in return. The Cleggies don't care or don't read EURef.

It has not escaped my attention, though, that Mr Farage is deemed to  have won the debate with popular opinion going 2 to 1 in his favour. I have not seen the figures as to how many people actually watched either of the outings, especially the second one. Nor has it escaped my attention that there are calls for Mr Farage to be included in whatever TV extravaganza there will be in 2015 during the election campaign and for the Conservatives to do a deal with him rather than Mr Clegg.

To both of which Mr Cameron can reply with one argument: as long as UKIP has no MPs doing a deal with them is a meaningless concept and why should their leader be part of that TV debate, rather than the Greens (one MP) or George Galloway (himself an MP).

All that is, however, in the future. For the moment I remain underwhelmed for two reasons. One is that I have yet to see any evidence that anybody outside the Westminster bubble, which includes the media and political bloggers (guilty, as charged!), apart from a few political geeks and the entire membership of UKIP, cared enough to watch and express opinions.

Secondly, I happen to remember all those TV debates in 2010 that Nick Clegg was deemed to win hands down. (How David Cameron and whoever was the leader of the Labour Party must be laughing now!) There was, if you recall, much talk of a Lib-Dim surge on the back of that stellar performance, the only question being whether they would come second or actually first.

We all know what happened. As I said at the time:

For, sadly, the Lib-Dims increased their share of the vote by a measly 1 per cent, lost five seats, did not take several seats they were confidently expected to do and did very badly in the local elections (not that it makes any difference). Their reward: places in the Cabinet and the Deputy Premiership for their incompetent leader.

I have said it before and, no doubt, shall say it again: until UKIP starts winning seats in the House of Commons or, at least, come close, they will remain marginal and all the brouhaha about their performance will remain irrelevant, no matter how many pictures, articles or blog postings there are about Nigel Farage, who, I gather, is about to celebrate his 50th birthday at the Ritz. No, astonishingly enough, I was not invited.

So where are we?

The Eastleigh by-election has confounded everybody, particularly the experts. I am rather glad I made no prediction and, indeed, took little interest. For, in the end, it is not a make-or-break by-election though things will go badly for a while for Cameron and his team, particularly Grant Shapps.

So here are the figures: turn-out was higher than we have been used to in by-elections at 52.8 per cent. The Lib-Dims, whose vote collapsed in the last several by-elections held the seat easily with 13,342 votes, down considerably from Chris Huhne's 24,966. Second: UKIP, for the third by-election, with 11,571 votes, third Conservatives with 10,599 and it is the Labour vote that collapsed: 4,088. As the Boss says in his far earlier posting (he actually stayed up being that kind of a person):

Mike Thornton's vote of 13,342 votes compares with Chris Huhne's 24,966 in 2010, yet Thornton talks of a Lib-Dem "mandate", having dragged in pitiful 32 percent of the votes cast, and 17 percent of the electorate of 78,313. UKIP's great victory amounts to 28 percent of the votes cast, or 14.8 percent of the electorate.

I am not sure this tells us anything new. People are not turning out to vote for any of the candidates (a spectacularly unexciting lot in Eastleigh) for a number of reasons.

The fact that this time the Lib-Dims held on to the seat after a number of catastrophic results while the Labour vote collapsed not only confounded those experts who said that the party was finished but shows a somewhat scatter gun approach by the electorate. We can draw no conclusions for the next General Election , which is two years or so away.

As for UKIP, despite their achievement in coming second yet again (and as late as 1 am last night Farage was saying that we may well see the first UKIP MP) they are now in no-man's land. Still no seat in Westminster, still not getting more than just over a quarter of the votes cast, still not achieving the position in political life, as opposed to the media they ought to have. Their plan to become the third party after the Lib-Dims has fallen by the wayside through the latter's victory in Eastleigh and they cannot pretend that they are the second party in the country with no MPs and very few councillors. So, despite the undoubted rejoicing in the UKIP ranks and despite the nauseating plaudits that will be heaped on the Dear Leader, the fact remains: after 20 years and in the most propitious circumstances they remain, as I say, in no-man's land.

For those who are interested

The Telegraph is doing live updates of the Eastleigh by-election. The suggestion is that the Lib-Dims, those who were about to implode according to all experts, will win with a majority of thousands rather than hundreds and UKIP might come second though that is not certain. The BBC calls that a virtual victory. It is nothing of the kind. In politics if you don't win you lose and it is long past the time UKIP can rejoice at not losing badly. Oh and this is not the most important by-election for generations.

No such thing as failure in politics

So Nick Clegg thinks that failure must not be rewarded by high bonuses? How about failure being rewarded with the position of Deputy Prime Minister?

After all the talk of Cleggomania in last spring's electoral campaign and after all those pointless TV debates between the three main party leaders the results achieved by the Lib-Dims were lamentable. Their share of the vote went up by about 1 per cent, when turn-out went up by just under 4 per cent; they lost 5 seats and failed to gain a number of those they had been certain of. One would call this a failure for the party and, more specifically, for its supposedly glamorous leader.

This is the kind of failure that ought not to be rewarded, according to Mr Clegg. But it was. Because the Boy-King would rather go into a coalition with the Lib-Dims than with his own MPs, the failing party found itself in government with a number of ministerial positions (that keep being filled by their people whenever one of the Ministers is forced to resign) and the failing leader became the Deputy Prime Minister with the apparent remit of producing the stupidest of all political ideas in order to take the heat off the Prime Minister himself.

Good to have a non-socialist coalition government

It always seemed likely that the Cleggeron Coalition will run into difficulties with the members of their various parties though the Lib-Dim problems might be greater than the Conservative ones, the members being more outspoken. There had to be a reason why Nick Clegg decided to toddle off to New York just as his Anti-Business Secretary, Vince Cable, was about to stand up and make an all-out attack on business. It couldn't have been just so he could pledge money this country cannot spare on an anti-malaria campaign that will not work.

The Lib-Dim Conference has gone the way they always go with lots of speeches attacking free choice in education, cut-backs in the public sector and other suchlike socialistic statements. None of this mattered in the past - they were just a joke. They are still a joke but they are now a joke inside the government so it begins to matter somewhat when the Anti-Business Secretary makes a speech that creates the impression of wanting to kill business and, particularly, financial business in this country. (Mind you, I don't know why he bothers. The EU will do it for him, anyway.)

Markets need to be controlled and controlled tightly, the Anti-Business Secretary told the cheering crowds as they are often "irrational or rigged". Irrational by whose standards? Markets are the only method whereby production and distribution can be adjusted to the greatest benefit of the greatest number but, presumably, they do not comply with the plans devised by politicians and regulators. As to rigging them, who does it more than anyone but the state in response to political lobbying or according to a favoured ideology.

As Mark Littlewood, Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, points out in his Telegraph blog

If uncompetitive practices really are what keep him awake at night, he should focus his fire on the public sector. In health and education, state-run behemoths crowd out and crush private alternatives. Consumers have very limited rights of exit and are obliged to tolerate sub-standard, inefficient services.

Some have even interpreted his speech as a coded threat to Rupert Murdoch. But if Vince Cable wants a greater choice and variety in broadcasting, it would be good to hear his views on the outrageously privileged position – and carnivorous behaviour – of the BBC. Being forced to pay an annual licence fee – on pain of a substantial fine and even imprisonment – is a deeply uncompetitive practice. On this matter though, Dr Cable seems silent.

Well, the Lib-Dims rather like certain uncompetitive practices. They have moved a long way from classical liberalism.

I must admit that I disagree with Mr Littlewood on one point. He thinks that "[t]he Coalition has made a reasonably encouraging start on tackling the deficit and ensuring public spending is got under control". The latest figures do not show this. One would not expect an immediate noticeable fall in the spending but the August hike was far bigger than anyone could predict.

Allister Heath, editor of City AM, does not mince his words and how right he is:

PLAIN awful. That is the only way to describe yesterday’s government borrowing figures, which saw the deficit jump to another record for August, dashing hopes the public finances were improving of their own accord. Revenue growth was tolerable at 6.3 per cent. What was shocking was that government current spending jumped 11 per cent year on year in August. Yes, that’s right, in the midst of a supposed period of austerity, the government has seemingly lost control of the public finances. In part, this is because of the higher costs on index-linked gilts, pushed up by our excessively high inflation; but nevertheless these figures smack of a government and civil service which are failing to get a grip.

If, in the midst of all this, our government also makes it clear that this country is particularly unfriendly towards business, we really are in trouble and that is even before we start examining the EU's destructive legislation.

And just to make sure that everyone who is at all a useful member of our society gets it in the neck, the Anti-Business Secretary has also proposed that tax on property should be increased. Presumably he and his colleagues, as politicians would be able to dodge it somehow. After all, if we really want to see "spivs and gamblers", particularly the first, you need to look no further than the members of the House of Commons. Does Mr Cable realize that he and his colleagues are viewed in that light by most of this country's population?

Wrong in one prediction

It seems that I underestimated David Cameron, the Boy-King of the Conservative Party. I did not underestimate his inability to win popular support for his party nor his hunger for office (as power he most certainly will not have) but I did underestimate his and, if it comes to that, Nick Clegg's, fear of their separate backbenchers and of the electorate. Forming a minority government would have been the honourable thing to do but also the riskier one and the outcome might have been a speedy election and a possible exit from Number 10. Up with this the Boy-King could not put. Hence this rather sordid little charade and the sight of the two best buddies, until recently worst enemies, smiling and waving to each other, pumping each other's hands and looking frighteningly similar.

For a couple of days we had the media drooling over the new coalition of losers for that is what they are. Let us recap: David Cameron led his party into an election that they could not lose: end of a third term of a highly unpopular government; a severe economic crisis caused to some extent by said government and its long-standing past Chancellor of the Exchequer, later Prime Minister; a dysfunctional set of Ministers many of whom had been caught out in financial shenanigans. What more could the Conservatives want? Yet they lost. Not getting that majority was a defeat.

Nick Clegg and the Lib-Dims received more hype and publicity in this election campaign than they had ever done in their relatively short existence (nobody is going to tell me that this bunch of statists are the descendants of the great Liberal Party of the nineteenth and early twentieth century). They were going to change the face of British politics, they were going to beat Labour into third place if not complete oblivion, they were going to form the government. Well, the last of those turned out to be true but in a very different way from what had been predicted.

For, sadly, the Lib-Dims increased their share of the vote by a measly 1 per cent, lost five seats, did not take several seats they were confidently expected to do and did very badly in the local elections (not that it makes any difference). Their reward: places in the Cabinet and the Deputy Premiership for their incompetent leader.

While Gordon Brown was legitimately the Prime Minister - the chosen leader of the party that had won three elections - precisely who elected Nick Clegg to be the Deputy Prime Minister?

Reading some of the newspaper reports one would think that the coalition, which emerged from a week's sordid negotiations was the greatest thing that happened in British politics since the sitting of the first reformed Parliament or William Pitt's announcement in the House that there had been a British naval victory at Trafalgar.

All is changing, though. The serpent has appeared in the Garden of the ConLib Eden - the backbenchers are unhappy. It seems that far from thinking of the country's welfare or returning power to Parliament, as promised, or restoring trust in politics the new government's first proposal has to do with the preservation of its own position.

Naturally, Labour politicians are protesting but, apparently, so are some Conservative MPs. The constitutional expert, Professor Peter Hennessy

told the BBC the new rules “created a very poor impression for the new politics”. He added: “This is not the new politics, it looks as if it is very, very iffy politics indeed ... It looks all wrong.”

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.

This is all about the proposal that a vote of no confidence in the government should in future require 55 per cent of MPs voting for it instead of the traditional 50 per cent plus 1. This was proposed as a rule almost immediately but, it seems, the government has now more or less accepted that there will have to be legislation about it. At least, I think they accepted it.

This issue is a little more serious than it sounds. Votes of no confidence is one of the few remaining powers the House of Commons has over the government. Hard to use when there is a large majority it could be utilized to great effect in a hung parliament. So the first thing this government did after being cobbled together is to announce its intention to weaken that power even further. What we have here, in other words, is our old friend an executive power grab.

Do I hear the words "coup" or "unelected"? No, I do not, at least not from all those activists and self-appointed analysts who screeched about Gordon Brown being unelected (which was not true) or him planning some grant constitutional coup (which he apparently was not).

(Dear me, this is really disturbing. I seem to be defending Gordon Brown. That is what this blog has been reduced to by the ConLib shenanigans.)

William Hague's response to the criticism shows that whatever knowledge of politics he ever possessed was used up in the two biographies he published, of the younger Pitt and Wilberforce.

William Hague defended the move. He said: “Once you agree that there should be a fixed-term parliament, it is only fixed-term if there is some provision to really give it credibility to make it hard to dissolve parliament.”

Has anyone agreed that there should be a fixed-term parliament? One cannot even argue that the electorate voted for it as it was not part of the main parties' manifesto or electoral campaign. Even if one did argue it, something of this kind cannot just be announced by a government - legislation is needed and it needs to be passed by both Houses of Parliament. It seems that in this session we shall once again have to rely on the House of Lords to protect our constitution and the few remaining parliamentary liberties.

Oceania and Eastasia are friends again

Forget all those insults; forget the fact that the Conservatives are still referring to the Lib-Dims as Fib-Dems; forget the notion that keeping Nick Clegg out is the primary purpose of the election. It seems more or less official that the Boy-King and the "evil" leader of the Lib-Dims are best buddies for ever or, at least, until one of them stabs the other in the back. The Conservatives are now repeating a new mantra: agreeing to the Lib-Dim demands, nasty and dishonest though they were, showed real statesmanship on the Cameron's part and a desire to do his best for the country.

Anyway, it looks like Cameron will be in Number 10 with Nick Clegg as Deputy and six places for the Lib-Dims. This must have been what the haggling was about. One wonders what they managed to snag for themselves.

In the meantime, here is one of my favourite socialist songs of all times, sung to the tune of Clementine:

In old Moscow, in the Kremlin,
In the fall of '39,
Sat a Russian and a Prussian
Writing out the party line.

CHORUS:
Oh, my darling, oh, my darling,
Oh, my darling party line;
Oh, I never will desert you,
For I love this life of mine.

Leon Trotsky was a Nazi;
Oh, we knew it for a fact.
Pravda said it; we all read It,
BEFORE the Stalin-Hitler Pact.

CHORUS:

Once a Nazi would be shot, see,
That was then the Party Line;
Now a Nazi's hotsy-totsy,
Trotsky's laying British mines.

CHORUS:

Now the Nazis and the Fuerher
Stand within the Party Line,
All the Russians love the Prussians,
Volga boatmen sail the Rhine.

CHORUS: