Some thoughts on the results

It is a good thing that I made no predictions as the only one that other people made that came true was Sadiq Khan becoming Mayor of London. I did say that it was unlikely for UKIP to get three seats in the London Assembly and I was right. They now have two, Peter Whittle and David Kurten, one more than the Lib-Dims, which says something about the latter. The Greens also have two members (as they always did) but they seem to have got more votes. None of it matters in the slightest as the Assembly has no real power and role beyond writing reports nobody reads and have its members prance around in all importance.

I wish the UKIP members luck but I have no clear idea what they intend to achieve - the London Assembly has no control over immigration; nor will it have any even if we come out of the EU. As that seemed to be their only campaigning issue I cannot quite envisage their future political activity.
The last time there were two UKIP members in the Assembly, Damian Hockney and Peter Hulme-Cross in 2004, there was a split in the party very soon after the election. The UKIP group became Veritas under the leadership of Robert Kilroy-Silk, then One London without him. It continued to be One London until it was voted out in 2008. The basis of the split, readers of this blog will not be surprised, was personal clashes between the UKIP/Veritas/One London group and the Dear Leader of UKIP, who is still there in that position. [I was there and could tell many tales.] Judging from this year's election campaign, the same problems will not arise with the latest UKIP Asssembly Members but, of course, one can never tell.

One thing did intrigue me: the UKIP mayoral candidate's somewhat poorer performance than predicted by himself and many others. Instead of third, he came fifth. Was that because he had allowed the Dear Leader to muscle in on the campaign? Well, he can't say I didn't warn him. 

There is some jubilation about the fact that More Britons Voted For Sadiq Khan Directly Than Any Politician In British History. This is a meaningless statistic as London is the largest place for direct voting. We vote directly for MPs but no constituency is as large as London and neither is any other city with a Mayor. As it happens the turn-out was still 45.30%, exactly the same as it was in 2008. Of that 56.90% voted for Khan, which still makes it only 25.78%, just over a quarter of London's electorate. As it happens, there are constituencies where the winning MP gets more than a quarter of the electoral vote.

Altogether Sadiq Khan got 1,310,143 votes; in 2008, with the same turn-out, Boris Johnson got 1,168,738 votes, undoubtedly the highest number at the time of what any British politician had got in a direct vote. I do not recall anybody mentioning this.

It has also been pointed out to me by a reader of this blog that it is not " right to give the winner credit for 56.9%. That's on the basis of his 1st and 2nd preference votes. But what is a 2nd preference vote?" What, indeed? Ought we have a two turn election - with the top two having a run-off vote a week later? I do not think even that will bring the turn-out to over 50%.

I shall pass over the various predictions, both of the horrified kind (a Muslim elected Mayor of "one of the major European cities") and of the cheerful, happy-clappy kind (we have a working Mayor who will deal with issues and not be an international star). There are very few issues the Mayor can deal with and with the ones he can Mr Khan's promises bode ill: he is unlikely to stand up to the transport unions, he wants to control Uber and anything else he can lay his hands on, he has not explained how he is going to be able to afford a freeze on transport fares and so on, and so on. I fear the worst, not because he is a Muslim (is that really worse than a buddy of Yussuf al-Qaradawi or of the IRA leaders, as Ken Livingstone was and is, of course) but from his stupid, ignorant socialist ideas. I rather suspect that the new Mayor is going to be more cautions than our Ken about whom he will invite to City Hall and with whom he will share a platform as he is looking to a post-London political career.

Meanwhile, what of Zac Goldsmith, the loser? He was chosen as candidate because the Conservatives, knowing that London does incline to be pro-Labour, wanted another charismatic person, like Boris. Zac's main rival, Syed Kamall, a good chap and very sound in his politics, appeared to lack charisma (and, I was told quietly by his own supporters, performed poorly on the hustings). In hindsight, the party should have realized that Kamall had one enormous advantage: he, too, was the son of a bus driver, though he did not grow up on a council estate. His parents bought a house and let out rooms. These were the two points with which Saddiq Khan started every single statement, speech and piece of electoral literature. It worked. People voted for him. Probably they would have voted for Syed Kamall as well.

There seems to be a general assumption that Zac Goldsmith's campaign was terrible, lacklustre and negative at the same time. Here is Tim Montgomerie putting the boot into Lynton Crosby, who has just been knighted. His opinion is that Zac should have campaigned as himself (an already known quantity) not as a Lynton Crosby candidate and there is a great deal to that. We certainly saw nothing of that charisma for which he was chosen though, I have to add, Saddiq Khan's campaign was also dull as ditchwater as was that of most of the other candidates.

Andrew Roberts thinks differently and blames the Consrevatives who sniffed nastily and distanced themselves from Zac when he attacked Saddiq Khan for sharing a platform with some very foul people, indeed. This was turned into Islamophobia by people like Andrew Boff, who had lost to Zac in the nominations and the ghastly Baroness Warsi as well as a number of commentators. I agree with Mr Roberts: in itself there is nothing wrong with pointing these facts out but there ought to have been more. A couple of interesting comments from Andrew Roberts's piece:

Full disclosure: I know and like Zac, contributed to his campaign financially and – despite not agreeing with much of his green agenda – was proud to be among the more than 994,000 people who voted for him last Thursday. That total was not that much fewer than the 1.3 million who voted for Sadiq Khan in what has been a pretty uniformly Labour city since before the 1970s, once the unique personal phenomenon of Boris Johnson is taken out of the equation.
..........
When Baroness (Sayeeda) Warsi – a semi-detached Tory at the best of times, though still nominally one – then also jumped on the bandwagon and denounced Zac on Twitter as “Britain’s Biggest Bigot” for his “Dog-whistle, nasty politics”, it was clear that the Left was having its job done for it by Zac’s fellow Conservatives. Ditto Ken Clarke’s negative comments on Zac’s campaign. In fact, Zac was perfectly right to point out, for example, that Khan had employed someone who believed that Private Lee Rigby’s murder was fabricated.

Of course these people will have to eat their words over the coming months and years when Sadiq Khan’s former political acquaintances continue to spout their repulsive Islamist comments about the subservience of woman and the evils of homosexuality, whereupon Zac’s warnings about Khan’s lack of judgement will be proven right. His denunciation of Khan “giving platform, oxygen and cover to extremists” will be seen as prophetic, and we’ll see if the likes of Boff, Warsi and Clarke – and indeed Zac’s own sister Jemima – are then big enough to admit it.

I predict that the day is not far off when many more than 994,000 people will wish they had voted for Zac Goldsmith.

I cannot imagine any circumstance in which people like Baroness Warsi will admit that they are wrong.

Any predictions?

Predicting local election results is very difficult for obvious reasons: they are local and are affected by local considerations and individuals. Also, the turn-out tends to be quite low, which is unhelpful for those who like to see patterns.

The assumption is that there is a general and widespread dissatisfaction with the main parties, which these days means the Lib-Dims as well, and this will show itself in the vote. But how, is what few people know. Will there be a stronger vote for the small parties, for independent candidates or will more people simply stay at home, recognizing that local government in this country is a bit of a farce?

Then there is the problem of several cities having a referendum on whether they want a directly elected Mayor. One hopes that they will take one look at London and, especially, Tower Hamlets and vote against such a terrible notion in droves. But it is possible that they like the idea of having someone like Lutfur Rahman at the helm of an expensive but powerless body. If the turn-out remains as low as ever in those cities, then the chances are the proposal will go through and Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham will face London's problems: there will be another expensive layer of government that will not actually be in control of anything much but will be able to spend a lot of money irresponsibly and interfere with people's lives from time to time. A jolly prospect.

The Boss of EURef tells me that the suddenly revived Respect Party is likely to play havoc with the Labour-controlled Bradford council. I would be in favour of the big parties getting their noses bloodied if it were no Respect that profited from it.

Talking of which, what of UKIP? Hard to tell. For various reasons I have, as ever, been subjected to a barrage of over-optimistic predictions about that party's probable performance but that happens before every election and by-election and the necessary results have nor been forthcoming. Mind you, over-optimistic in this case means "we shall beat the Lib-Dims and come third". Even if that happens across the country it is hardly the most spectacular achievement after 20 years of existence, a goodish amount of publicity, a situation in which the Lib-Dim vote is, apparently, in free-fall with the electorate heartily sick of all major parties and the EU front-page news of the negative variety every day.

Almost twenty years ago at the Newbury by-election Alan Sked stood for the Anti-Federalist League, UKIP's predecessor and came fourth, something he pointed out forcefully when he made his speech. One would like to think there has been progress since then but, apparently, next to none.

I would prefer to see one of two results for UKIP: either a spectacularly good achievement, with lots of seats on councils and a number of votes across the country that would put them, if not first then close second or a result so poor that they would be forced to reconsider their policies, strategy and tactics (though it has been pointed out to me that nothing short of complete annihilation would make them do that). The chances are it will be neither but a kind of OK outcome with a few places gained and a few close misses with many more that can be called progression. There will then be much rejoicing and calls to "bring on the GE" as if they were on track to forming the next government.

There is talk that UKIP might win one or two places in the London Assembly but predictions for that highly expensive and completely powerless and purposeless body are hard to make for two reasons: most people have a very slender notion of its existence, let alone its activity and for good reasons as I know, having worked in the Great Glass Egg for nearly four years; and the voting is barely comprehensible with a Continental-style system of candidates from various rather large "constituencies" plus a top-up vote from lists.

The BNP will most probably lose its seat but what will happen to it and to other seats is hard to predict. I seem to recall that in 2008 most of the predictions for the Assembly turned out to be wrong.

Another complicating factor for UKIP is that somewhere along the line somebody made a terrible mess of filling in the required forms so UKIP candidates have been listed as "Fresh Choice for London". The ballot paper for the Mayor appears to have both names on it but I am not sure about the two for the Assembly. This may actually be something in their favour in that people who would not vote UKIP might put a cross against that fresh choice. Or it might confuse everyone even more.

One thing I can predict with a fair amount of certainty: if one or more UKIP (Fresh Choice for London) candidates do get into the Assembly, there will be an almighty row in the party within a couple of months and a split between those inside the Great Glass Egg and those outside.

Of course, what matters in London is the Mayoral election and that, practically speaking, boils down to a choice of Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone. According to the Evening Standard it is too close to call but their polls are not clear in their indication, again for two reasons. One is that, as Damian Hockney, erstwhile Leader of the One London group in the Great Glass Egg, pointed out in a letter some weeks ago, the assumption seems to be that the turn-out will be over 50 per cent. This has never happened before and is unlikely to happen now. The other problem is that second transferable vote. All predictions are based on first vote only and while Boris is leading the gap is not enormous. What will happen with the second vote?

There again, the predictions were misleading last time. On the basis of the first vote it seemed too close to call for a long time but the second vote gave Boris a decisive victory. However, that was not declared till Friday evening yet by then Ken's minions had cleared their offices and packed their belongings, having summoned the removal firms, presumably, on Friday morning. So they knew more than the exit polls had told the rest of us.

The next time I write about these elections I may well be in the position of having to acknowledge that I was wrong or nearly wrong. We shall see.

How long do we go on wasting money

A new charity has been set up to deal with the lack of numeracy among the British population, especially its children.

Poor numeracy is blighting Britain's economic performance and ruining lives, says a new charity launched to champion better maths skills. The group, National Numeracy, says millions of people struggle to understand a payslip or a train timetable, or pay a household bill. Government figures show almost half the working population of England have only primary school maths skills.

A government spokeswoman said poor numeracy was a national scandal.

The new organisation quotes from research suggesting weak maths skills are linked with an array of poor life outcomes such as prison, unemployment, exclusion from school, poverty and long-term illness.

Poor numeracy is, indeed, a problem at that very basic and other levels. Our engineering firms are struggling to find a sufficient number of British employees not because every foreign worker will take lower wages or work 20 hours a day but because our schools do not teach basic numeric skills without which it is impossible to study engineering.

Poor numeracy means that basic economic factors remain a closed book to most people.

Poor numeracy means that any old rubbish produced by the Warmists, the Europhiliacs or the plain old statist banker-bashers is accepted without the slightest question by a hefty proportion of the population with politicians and the media cheerfully playing to the gallery.

In fact, this blog has already noted that City AM was starting a campaign to improve teaching of basic economics and suggested that Mr Gove's call at the time for maths teaching up to the age of 18 was misguided until the standards of teaching are improved.

I have also written about the campaign started by the Evening Standard to "get London reading", which called for volunteers to go into schools to teach children, for most of whom English is the first language, to read. Similar campaigns are being waged in other cities.

So there we are: in a country where many billions of pounds are spent on a national education system, where children start attending school earlier than in any other country and stay in compulsory, free at the point of delivery education for longer than in any other country, we are desperate for volunteers to teach basic literacy and numeracy because teachers apparently cannot be expected to do so. Is it not time we drew the obvious conclusion about our education system and about a large number of teachers who work in it?

While we are on the subject of London's schools I need to appeal to any reader who lives in London. Do NOT vote for Siobhan Benita, the former civil servant who happens to be female and rather photogenic, thus getting a good deal of media time and who has, therefore, been described as a radical. Actually, she is an old-fashioned left-wing statist who cannot envisage any system in which individuals or orgganizations of any kind are allowed to take any decisions for themselves. She is also remarkably ignorant about the role of the Mayor, preferring to run on the well-used ticket of "being against the white, male, middle class establishment". (I wonder how Ken Livingstone and Jenny Jones, the Green candidate, feel about that.) Oh yes, let me not forget that she is also a mother and used to work for Sir Gus O'Donnell.

If all the above had not disqualified her from being allowed anywhere near even a whelk stall, never mind a fishmonger, here is the clincher:

She is at her most passionate on education, and even if it is technically beyond the remit of Mayor of London, she says she is committed to reform in London. She is no fan of academies and "unfair" choices.

She says that grammar schools do not lift up the less well-off: "At the moment we have a system where if you can pay to tutor your kids - which is what most people do - and move into an area where the schools are good, then you're fine.

And if not, you're left behind. I say choice doesn't work. I don't think you should stop as Mayor until you're saying that every school in London needs to be excellent."

It strikes me from those and some other paragraphs that even the Evening Standard is beginning to tire of her performance. Let us hope she is soundly trounced.

If you think politicians have short memories ...

... what about the electorate? We hear a great deal about the need for politicians to listen to the people, about the importance of elections and elected officials just about everywhere and about the short-termism of politicians (that, actually, cancels out the other two as the short-termism consists of concentrating on the next election). But what of the short memories that the electors have?

The Evening Standard (not, one must admit, the most reliable of newspapers) had an article by Joe Murphy, their political editor, which said that, according to a recent poll, Ken Livingstone is leading in the mayoral race, of which, thankfully, only three months are left.

To be fair, the lead is so small as to be of no significance, once we remember the error margin and the fact that only about 30 - 35 per cent usually turns out to vote in the London elections. (And, to be even more fair, the comments on the article, by and large, sound horrified at this information.)

This, however, stunned me:

"It amounts to 100,000 Labour voters switching back from Boris to Ken. It looks as though Ken Livingstone's promise to cut fares on buses and the Tube has made an impact."

Mr Johnson remains far more popular than his party among voters and beats Mr Livingstone for charisma.

But the survey reveals a drop in the number of Labour voters who are willing to vote for the Conservative incumbent. Last June almost a quarter of Labour voters said they would choose him - but the "Labour for Boris" brigade has halved to 12 per cent.

Another change is that the number who see Mr Livingstone as "in touch with the concerns of ordinary people" has risen from 37 to 40 per cent; the number who think Mr Johnson is "in touch" has fallen from 20 per cent to 13.

Moreover, the three issues that Londoners regard as most important are those that Mr Livingstone has campaigned hardest on: tackling crime (picked by 42 per cent), improving transport (41 per cent) and easing the cost of living (33 per cent). Only four per cent think promoting London abroad, a regular Boris theme, is a priority.

As it happens, promoting London abroad was a boringly constant theme with Livingstone as well and, as I recall, he even opened a number of highly expensive London offices in various countries, one of which was Venezuela. Have people forgotten that?

Did crime go down, transport improve or cost of living go down under Livingstone? Did it, heck. The amount we paid in taxes for the GLA went up by leaps and bounds every year, apart from 2007. Strange, isn't it? Anything to do with the fact that the mayoral election was coming in 2008? Surely not.

As for the promise to cut fares on tubes and buses, we have been here before, as the Boris Backer site shows. There may be a bias in the site's attitudes but the facts are incontrovertible.

I cannot believe that so many people have forgotten already. (Well, actually, I can.)