Thankfully the election of illusions is over and we can settle down to another five wasted years of political incompetence from the English ruling class. Looking at the election results Cornwall has now converged with rural south-east England, with a very large block of Tory voters and Labour and the Lib Dems trailing far behind vying for second place. In fact, politically Cornwall now resembles West Sussex. This embarrassing outcome was probably inevitable ever since local government in Cornwall adopted its high population growth strategy in the 1970s. Their plan to suburbanise Cornwall has worked.
The Conservative vote is now at a record high at over 54%. The next best performance was in 1979 and then then it fell (just) short of 50%.
Yet Cornwall still managed to differ from southern England in one way. Virtually everywhere east of the Tamar the Liberal Democrat vote rose. In Cornwall it fell again, to a record low. Are the Lib Dems paying the price for the failures of the Lib Dem/indie run Cornwall Council in the same way that northern English voters have punished Labour in Labour-led council areas?
Cornwall may still be exceptional, but this is an exception that is now the diametric opposite of the (albeit exaggerated) radical tradition of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the meantime, as the old political parties revert to the 1950s and resolutely ignore the need for fundamental and far-reaching reforms, it’s imperative that the Green Party, MK and others begin to discuss an agreement in advance of the elections to a truncated Cornwall Council in 2021. The luxury of continuing to split the progressive vote is madness in the current climate.
This has been an election largely fought in an unreal parallel universe, a fantasy land of nostalgia, fond illusions and political sleight of hand.
Illusion #1 is the conceit that somehow voting in the Tories, or anyone else for that matter, will ‘get Brexit done’. It won’t. Brexit is not an event; it’s a process. It’s a show that’s will run. And run. And run. As interminable trade negotiations drag on and the UK again teeters on the brink of a no-deal brexit, even leave voters may wake up to that. Or more likely not.
Illusion #2 is that this is some sort of old-fashioned exercise in democracy. It’s not. This has been the first really effective post-truth election in Britain, with the Tories in particular ruthlessly manipulating the media (not that difficult in the case of the BBC I admit.) Fake stories, doctored videos, false tweets, misleading ads, outright lies. All’s fair in their quest to buy votes and keep the rusting old wreck on the road for a few years more. Although hardly enthused, voters take refuge in the familiar as they vote back the most incompetent ruling class in British history, kings and queens of the royal cock-up.
Illusion #3 is that this is basically an election just like previous ones. It’s not. This illusion is deeply entrenched in the media and lapped up by the sheepocracy being herded, trance-like, to the polls. But occasionally, despite the soothing distractions and noise of the media, people can sense something looming just out of sight. Like a half-forgotten nightmare or a fleeting ghostly presence glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, there lurks the oncoming climate emergency.
This election shouldn’t have been about who gets brexit done or who patches up the NHS. In a rational or sane world, it would have been first and foremost about who takes the climate emergency seriously and who hasn’t got a clue. This is actually the election to lose. As the implications belatedly dawn, as the Arctic ice melts, as the weather gets ever more unpredictable, two things are likely to happen. Governments will be forced into radical and unpopular action, having complacently ignored the science for at least 20 years, and/or they’ll get the blame for an unravelling environment and overheating planet as they sit back and watch as nature takes its revenge on our greed.
In Cornwall the Tories are so far ahead in the eastern three constituencies that there’s no point at all there in voting ‘tactically’. The battle is for second place, with an eye on the next election.
With a 10% lead in Camborne-Redruth, George Eustice also looks safely beyond the margin of polling error. Even if all those intending to vote Lib Dem switched to Labour’s Paul Farmer, he’ll still lose. So don’t bother voting ‘tactically’ there either.
The gap in St Ives has hardly shifted since the Tories’ Derek Thomas established a lead two or three weeks ago when the Brexit Party ran away. The polls are suggesting an easier win for the Tories than in 2017. Nonetheless, the Conservative lead is still within the margin of error so it’s worth considering a Lib Dem vote here.
A second place where tactical voting is arguably worth even more serious consideration is Truro and Falmouth. Although the Tory lead here is wider than in St Ives, according to the polls it’s narrowing, and relatively quickly. Moreover, there’s still a residual Lib Dem vote here for Labour’s Jenn Forbes to sweep up.
If Lib Dems want to stop the Tory in Truro and Falmouth they must call for a Labour vote. In return Labour could call for a Lib Dem vote in St Ives if they’re really serious about getting rid of Thomas. But are they?
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Steve Double is the Conservative MP for St Austell and Newquay. Steve’s a bit of an enigma. Earlier this year he was an enthusiastic no-deal brexiteer who thought May’s deal was a ‘betrayal’. But now Steve’s a loyal supporter of Johnson’s deal.
One Steve said brexit was ‘an opportunity for the UK to recover some of its diluted heritage’; the other Steve stated ‘Britain is more multi-cultural than ever before and this is something to be proud of’. (These two statements were made at the same meeting!)
Meet the Steve who spurns no opportunity to wrap himself in the St Piran’s flag. This must be a different Steve from the one who’s keen to promote the Great South West.
One Steve thinks it’s ‘time to truly decentralise Britain.’ This can’t be the same Steve who has ‘almost always voted against transferring more powers to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or to local councils’, can it?
Then there’s the Steve who was horrified at the weak jokes tweeted by Lib Dem candidate Danny Chambers in North Cornwall. That Steve wasn’t at all shocked by the other Steve, who happily retweeted doctored Tory videos of an interview with Labour’s Keir Starmer at the beginning of this election campaign.
The only explanation has to be the existence of two Steve Doubles. This explains how he has found the time since February 2018 to take on another half-time job in addition to his parliamentary duties. Not to mention tweeting to all and sundry. Either that or he’s an alien or robot that doesn’t need to sleep.
The Steve, it’s a bit unclear which one it is, that describes himself as a ‘Christian Cornish Conservative’, has been spending three days of his time since February 2018 as a ‘policy advisor’ to the Good Faith Partnership (GFP). It’s not clear where its funding comes from, but this looks like a bona-fide faith-based charity that works to encourage humanitarian responses to immigration, welcomes resettled refugees, wishes to improve financial inclusion and publicise the challenges Christians face in the Middle East. Although it’s not exactly clear who’s advising whom. While Steve says he’s a ‘policy advisor’ to the GFP, the GFP claims it’s placed advisors with Steve and two other parliamentarians.
Advice doesn’t come free. For this Steve is paid £20,500 a year, not to mention the £500 the GFP handed over to help pay for Steve’s trip to Brussels in November 2018 to discuss UK immigration policy after brexit. Since June this year the number of days Steve has been doing this has been cut from three days a week to two and a half, although the daily rate rose from £133 to £144. This is, of course, in addition to his £79,000 annual MP’s salary.
Amazing how one man can find time to do both these jobs, although one might have thought providing policy advice couldn’t possibly take up three whole days a week. You’d think a meeting every month or so would be quite sufficient.
However does he fit it all in? There’s only one possible explanation. Sorry to break the news to the voters of St Austell and Newquay but there just has to be two Steve Doubles.
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Last weekend’s polls shows the Labour ‘surge’, or more accurately ‘creep’, stalling, or even falling back a little. Meanwhile, the Johnson juggernaut continues to inch its way upwards. This close to the election it looks like curtains for Corbyn, who seems to have become strangely subdued over the past few days as his lieutenants begin to manoeuvre to avoid the oncoming blame.
The rock-solid block of support for the Tories from the elderly and the uneducated, the complacent and the couldn’t care less looks immoveable. They’ve been promised the biggest illusion of all in this election of illusions – a post-brexit nirvana of everlasting prosperity amidst a return to the 1950s – and by God they’re determined to get it.
Labour has been unable to squeeze the Liberal Democrats to the same extent as they did in 2017 or as clinically as the Tories disposed with the threat of Farage’s Brexit party. Their only hope now is massive tactical voting. But this looks increasingly unlikely as Lib Dem and Labour tribalists run amok confusing voters for short-term party gain. The other is a dramatic, last-minute announcement by Jeremy that he’ll resign in the New Year if he wins the election. Come on, Jezza, your final act will be a heroic sacrifice for British socialism. Not too much to ask for, is it?
In 2017 the most accurate prediction for the election came from YouGov’s MRP (multilevel regression and post-stratification) model. This, based on a massive set of ongoing interviews, was updated daily in the week or ten days before polling day and indicated a gradually closing gap between Tories and Labour.
This time around YouGov produced its first estimate on November 27th, eleven days ago. This showed a very healthy Tory lead. Since then, they’ve chosen to remain silent, unlike last time. YouGov now says it will publish its second, and presumably final, prediction at 10pm on Tuesday.
Why is this of more than passing interest to psephological anoraks like myself? Because of tactical voting.
In Britain we have 450 seats that are safe and, outside by-elections, will very rarely change hands. In those places you could vote for Lord Buckethead, spoil your paper, let the dog eat your postal vote or not bother at all, knowing that you’ll still be lumbered with a Tory or Labour MP. The other 200 seats could potentially change hands. However, it’s not easy to predict which will switch.
This is what YouGov’s MRP polling provided in 2017, when it regularly updated its findings on a daily basis. Knowing which way the trends were moving helped us more easily make a sensible and measured decision on whether to vote tactically and who for.
Take the last election in Camborne-Redruth. Here’s what the YouGov poll was predicting, updated every other day and appearing on this website. In the final week of the campaign Labour was steadily closing the gap – by 7 points – and almost stole the seat.
But this time, YouGov’s decision not to update their poll means there’s no way of knowing whether voters are swinging to Labour in this constituency more or less than elsewhere and whether Labour’s Paul Farmer is in with a realistic shot of taking the seat. Therefore, potential tactical voters like myself are unable to make a proper decision. I shall therefore stick with my preferred choice and not waste it on a tactical vote.
We could of course rely on the regular snapshot polls. However, these are not at constituency level and it’s difficult to extrapolate trends from polls that all use slightly different methodologies. The absence of the YouGov data means that in this election we have much less reliable information on which to base our decision.
Polls can of course influence voting behaviour as much as reflect it. The absence of regular YouGov updates last week when it appears Labour was (slowly) closing the gap, operated to dampen any surge that may have been occurring under the radar.
But I cannot understand why YouGov has this time refused to release its data. Who does this benefit? Clearly, if information on trends is not out there, then any movement to Labour becomes less certain. People become confused on whether it’s best to vote tactically for Labour or for the Lib Dems or for others. Moreover, they are more likely to rely on the inaccurate and false findings peddled by the political parties. And the Tories therefore breath much more easily.
In addition, by 10pm on Tuesday at least one in five voters will have already voted by post, so news of any swing towards Labour that late will have absolutely no effect. Convenient, to say the least.
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But do many of them know anything about her connections with a conservative right wing political and business network, centred on the eastern Mediterranean?
Amusingly identifying one of her policy interests as ‘the environment’, Sheryll has made nine expenses-paid flights since the 2017 election. One of these was in 2018 to the States with an all-party group, paid for by a consortium of Heathrow and other airports. There she met with American politicians and ‘aviation stakeholders’. It’s safe to assume they didn’t discuss the urgent need to cut down on flying.
Most of the other flights on parliamentary ‘business’ were to the Mediterranean and middle East, where Sheryll appears to have a special interest. ‘Fact-finding’ visits to Cyprus were interspersed with a trip to Israel in 2018, paid for by the Conservative Friends of Israel and the Israeli Government. This was followed by a trip to Turkey, courtesy of the Conservative Friends of Turkey, to meet with ‘business people and politicians’.
In August this year she was back in Turkey again. This time the trip was funded by the Yunus Emre Institute and another Turkish cultural organisation. The Yunus Emre Institute is a Turkish-government funded soft-power institution with close links to the President Recep Erdogan. During that visit she met with ‘key officials’ and saw the condition of Syrian refugees. It’s fair to say these probably did not include any Kurdish refugees from secular and socialist Rojava, branded ‘terrorists’ and fleeing Turkish tanks.
As well as these visits to right-wing regimes Sheryll has a particular fondness for Armenia. In 2017 she joined other Tory brexiteers in attending a conference on ‘Progressivism and Conservatism’, hosted by the Prosperous Armenia Party. This is a pro-Russian, eurosceptic, socially conservative and economically liberal party led by tycoon Gagik Tsakuryan, described by some as an Armenian version of Trump.
There’s a very comprehensive account here of the way Tsakuryan has been courting Conservative MPs and other European politicians. Sheryll returned to Armenia in late 2018, again paid for by the Prosperous Armenia Party, to attend an ‘investment and trade round table’. What exactly is her fascination with Armenia? Is she helping broker a trade deal that will replace the UK’s trading relations with the EU? Or is she being used, wittingly or unwittingly, to shore up the reputation and credibility of an Armenian politician?
Voters in South East Cornwall, who are preparing to give Sheryll a massive majority next week, should be asking themselves who else she represents. Her connections with ideological soulmates in the middle east is rarely, if ever, questioned in the mainstream media here. It ought to be. Instead, let’s get back to Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-semitism. Now there’s a real issue.
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Wildfires raging in Australia and California and, earlier this year, in Siberia.Floods in Venice. ‘Biblical’ deluges of rain in northern England. October again the hottest October on record. Must be something going on. Oh right, ‘the world has, at most, about three decades to completely decarbonize before truly devastating climate horrors begin’ (David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, 2019, p.214). Not that you’d necessarily be aware of the seriousness of things from this election, which is somewhat odd, as it was billed as ‘a’ or even ‘the’ climate election.
As fossil capitalism drags us ever closer, or maybe past, the tipping point, politicians struggle to keep up with the panic now gripping climate scientists. Instead, they persist with the conceit that dealing with the climate emergency is just another manifesto pledge, along with funding the NHS or getting Brexit ‘done’. Sleepwalking voters are massaged with traditional electioneering promises by the bucketful. In the meantime, most of us cling to the belief that things will go on getting progressively better while a benevolent state sorts out the climate.
The truth is it won’t. Thus far, political leaders have turned out to be either ignorant, complacent or complicit. We’re living through the beginning of the end of a short-lived (in the context of human history) consumerist frenzy, the unsustainability of which some of us have been pointing out for years. (For a frightening worst-case scenario of the consequences of business as usual see Wallace-Wells’ book, cited above).
So, what do the parties promise to do about the unfolding climate emergency? In order of the most alert to the most irresponsibly complacent we have …
The Green Party. As we might expect, the Greens are keenly alive to the climate emergency. They calculate that we need to spend £100 billion a year on a ‘green new deal’ to achieve net zero by 2030. It should be pointed out that this doesn’t save future generations from climate breakdown; it merely staves off some of the most disastrous scenarios.
Labour claims that under its plans a ‘substantial majority’ of emissions will be cut by 2030. It promises to spend £250 billion on a Green Transformation Fund, as part of a total £400 billion fund, over the five years of a Parliament. The words are fine – they will ‘put people and planet before profit’ and ‘tackle wanton destruction by taking on the powerful interests that are causing climate change’. But policies are weaker. Moreover, some of Labour’s infrastructure promises, like Cornwall Council’s spaceport, contradict their commitment to tackling the climate emergency. The classic example is their ambivalent position on airport expansion.
The Liberal Democrats promise to phase out carbon emissions by 2045 and spend £130 billion on ‘infrastructure investment’. They will also end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. But again, their £130 billion includes spending on carbon-costly projects such as HS2 and 300,000 houses a year.
Finally, the Tories offer to spend just £5 billion. £1 billion is going on developing clean energy. This will ‘help us lead the world in tackling climate change’. Another £4 billion will be set aside for funding decarbonisation projects. This will miraculously achieve net zero by 2050. The Tories are hamstrung by their ideology (and possibly fossil fuel donors), living in a dreamworld where ‘free markets, innovation and prosperity can protect the planet’. They refuse to recognise that free markets and prosperity have been part of the problem not part of the solution.
Things are a little better this time, but the fantasy continues.
positive mentions of ‘growth’
Greens
0
Labour
2
Liberal Democrats
7
Conservatives
13
mentions of
‘climate change’
‘climate emergency’
‘climate chaos’
total
Greens
6
26
10
42
Labour
17
14
0
31
Liberal Democrats
13
9
0
22
Conservatives
7
1
0
8
In the meantime, the illusions fester. We’re told that more and more voters are raising the issue of climate breakdown spontaneously. Yet only 3% of those concerned citizens intend to vote for the party that most urgently wants to do something serious about it. Doh!
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The story of the polls over the last three weeks is as follows. The Brexit Party’s support has collapsed, Farage having been comprehensively out-bluffed by the Tories. Brexit Party voters have swung almost to a man or woman behind the Conservatives, giving them an extra 4-5% in the polls, most of this occurring in the first week of the campaign.
After a stable start, Labour’s share of the poll has been creeping upwards, by 2% in the second week and 3% in the third. This has been enough to narrow the Tory poll lead over the past fortnight by 4-5%. But that lead – at around 10-11% – still guarantees them a clear majority.
Given the idiosyncracies of our absurd voting system, Labour doesn’t actually need to be that close but just 6-7% behind in order to be in hung-Parliament territory. Yet unless it can continue its rise in the polls at the same or higher rate in the week left, or the Tory share starts to fall by a few points, which doesn’t look likely, Labour is not quite going to make up the deficit by Thursday week. Although it may well be closer than the media would like us to believe. Cue panic-stricken attacks on Corbyn as the real picture gradually dawns.
The Lib Dem vote hovered around 14-16% in the first two weeks of the campaign before, last week, there were unmistakable signs of a slide, by around 2%. There are still plenty of Lib Dem votes out there for Labour to squeeze, therefore. And more than existed in 2017. Meanwhile the Green vote has been stable at just over 3%, with the SNP vote holding up and together with Plaid and others accounting for around 5%.
On the other hand, there are imponderables. What will the turnout be and will it vary from one part of the UK to another? How many (if any) seats will the Tories lose in Scotland? Will tactical voting work? However, the latter is made less likely in many seats by deliberate misinformation, mainly from the Liberal Democrats, on who the best candidate is to vote for. And of course, the polls, as in 2017, could be wrong!
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