This is turning out to be a funny old General Election! I will put some of my observations here and maybe some will resonate.
The opinion polls have so far been stubbornly almost static. What small movement they show for a party's support, tends to be contradicted by the next poll. No UK-wide party is demonstrating a clear and commanding poll lead. Labour and the Conservatives are stuck around the 32-34% mark.
In themselves, these results are surprising. Given the improving health of the economy, especially considering the almost Greece-like basket case that the Conservatives inherited, the Conservatives should be further ahead in the polls. Partly some of reason for them not being ahead will be a natural left-leaning bias in the media but much of the reason is the short-term memory of the average voter and, let's be frank, their selfishness.
The latter point first. If the polls are to be believed, then the average person doesn't care that parties like Labour and the Scottish Nationalists or the even more extreme Green Party are happy to impoverish the nation and mortgage the country's future for our children, our grand-children and our great-grandchildren (etc., etc.,) rather than undertake the structural reforms and yes, cuts in spending, that are a requirement to the improvement of the health of the UK economy.
This 'I don't care about the future of my country or kids, I just want my wide-screen TV, three holidays a year and lots of tax-payer subsidies, even if it does mean increasing borrowings and therefore debt and the deficit' attitude, can only be described as selfishness.
Let us be very clear. The UK has not experienced 'austerity'. Has any pensioner seen their pension cut three or four times (as has happened in Portugal)? No, of course they haven't. And perhaps that is why the Conservatives are not enjoying the fruits of the economic position in which the UK sits. People didn't feel any real pain, weren't turned out en-masse to live on the streets, those streets were not full of begging and ill-clothed children and families hawking their meagre possessions for the price of a tin of beans or a loaf of bread. People's view of so called 'austerity' is that 'it didn't really affect me personally, too much and with Labour now saying we can spend a little bit more but tax the super-rich in order to pay for it, well that sounds reasonable to me!' Don't worry, I am not a hair-shirt wearer who gets off on experiencing the pain of real spending cuts or seeing others experience it but I really do want to see Britain overcome it's debt dependency, for the sake of my children, grandchildren, etc., etc..
Fact is that UK government spending, under the Conservatives, has increased, every single year during this parliament. The Conservatives went into Coalition with the Lib Dems, in 2010/2011 and total spending was £674 Bn, which was £19 Bn higher than the previous year. In 2013/14 total government spending was £725 Bn. Not a huge increase I will grant but neither is it a sign of the allegedly 'savage' cuts that Labour and their left-leaning allies in the media, particularly the biased BBC, would have you believe. I believe though that the actions taken by the Conservatives will have the long term effect of reducing government expenditure. Remember, from 1999/2000 to 2009/2010, Labour increased spending from £339 Bn to £675 Bn. Almost doubling government spending and taking it to 47% of GDP. The Conservatives have now got this heading towards a sub-40% position and, if re-elected will get this into a more sustainable 25-30% range during the course of the next Parliament. Before you ask, I say sustainable because such a level of spending then allows the government the flexibility or room, if you like, to deal with unforeseen events, should they occur - to increase public spending if absolutely required.
Now to the earlier point. The anti-Conservative bias of much of the media and particularly the BBC.
The narrative, from the Labour party, in the run-up to the election was that Conservative leader, David Cameron was a 'toff'. Someone who had attended Eton and Oxford and was wealthy and out of touch with the general public. Someone who lacks the 'common touch'. Well no big surprise from Labour, there. They project Cameron as such since it puts them, in their narrative, firmly on the other side - alongside the 'man in the street' (or has that become the 'person in the street'?).
How Labour must have chuckled last Sunday. Cameron was interviewed by the BBC's Andrew Marr, and was asked about an interview he gave to the Countryside Alliance magazine (Countryside Alliance is a lobby group that represents rural interests and was very prominent in galvanising support from those communities, in opposition to the Fox Hunting Bill). Anyway, Marr declared that Cameron had stated, in the CA interview, that fox-hunting was his favourite sport. Simple fact is that Cameron said nothing of the sort. When Marr made the comment, Cameron looked non-plussed, as well he might, given that he had never said anything like that. Just to drive home the point though, Marr then repeated the lie. Marr has since apologised for his error but only on Twitter and only after being found out. So, a question for the BBC and Andrew Marr - did you knowingly lie when you falsely quoted from the CA article? Or was it that you or your researchers were too lazy to check out the factual nature of statements? Or was it maybe that putting such a statement, however false, out there, would resonate with people and bias some of them, especially in urban areas, to be anti-Conservative and to confirm the Labour narrative about Cameron being a 'toff'? Okay, so that's three questions, but you get my drift.
This is just the most blatant example of the BBC bias but you could also include the constant interruptions made by Evan Davis in the interviews he has conducted. Not only are these rude, they show a clear disregard for allowing the Conservatives to put across their message and response in a coherent way. The Conservative message keeps getting broken-up into smaller 'bites' and the speaker having to try to stay on message and also to consider how and when to respond to the latest accusation. Very poor! The sooner the £145 TV tax is repealed, the better!
More to follow on this but my advice to Cameron is ignore the staged events and photo-ops. Do a 'John Major' and get out on a soapbox in the towns and cities of the UK and talk directly to the people. Show them that Conservatives passionately believe in the UK and it's people and tell them that Conservatives have a plan for us and our children, grand-children etc.. Don't let Labour and their 'cut from the same cloth' SNP allies, steal the election and our country!
The opinion polls have so far been stubbornly almost static. What small movement they show for a party's support, tends to be contradicted by the next poll. No UK-wide party is demonstrating a clear and commanding poll lead. Labour and the Conservatives are stuck around the 32-34% mark.
In themselves, these results are surprising. Given the improving health of the economy, especially considering the almost Greece-like basket case that the Conservatives inherited, the Conservatives should be further ahead in the polls. Partly some of reason for them not being ahead will be a natural left-leaning bias in the media but much of the reason is the short-term memory of the average voter and, let's be frank, their selfishness.
The latter point first. If the polls are to be believed, then the average person doesn't care that parties like Labour and the Scottish Nationalists or the even more extreme Green Party are happy to impoverish the nation and mortgage the country's future for our children, our grand-children and our great-grandchildren (etc., etc.,) rather than undertake the structural reforms and yes, cuts in spending, that are a requirement to the improvement of the health of the UK economy.
This 'I don't care about the future of my country or kids, I just want my wide-screen TV, three holidays a year and lots of tax-payer subsidies, even if it does mean increasing borrowings and therefore debt and the deficit' attitude, can only be described as selfishness.
Let us be very clear. The UK has not experienced 'austerity'. Has any pensioner seen their pension cut three or four times (as has happened in Portugal)? No, of course they haven't. And perhaps that is why the Conservatives are not enjoying the fruits of the economic position in which the UK sits. People didn't feel any real pain, weren't turned out en-masse to live on the streets, those streets were not full of begging and ill-clothed children and families hawking their meagre possessions for the price of a tin of beans or a loaf of bread. People's view of so called 'austerity' is that 'it didn't really affect me personally, too much and with Labour now saying we can spend a little bit more but tax the super-rich in order to pay for it, well that sounds reasonable to me!' Don't worry, I am not a hair-shirt wearer who gets off on experiencing the pain of real spending cuts or seeing others experience it but I really do want to see Britain overcome it's debt dependency, for the sake of my children, grandchildren, etc., etc..
Fact is that UK government spending, under the Conservatives, has increased, every single year during this parliament. The Conservatives went into Coalition with the Lib Dems, in 2010/2011 and total spending was £674 Bn, which was £19 Bn higher than the previous year. In 2013/14 total government spending was £725 Bn. Not a huge increase I will grant but neither is it a sign of the allegedly 'savage' cuts that Labour and their left-leaning allies in the media, particularly the biased BBC, would have you believe. I believe though that the actions taken by the Conservatives will have the long term effect of reducing government expenditure. Remember, from 1999/2000 to 2009/2010, Labour increased spending from £339 Bn to £675 Bn. Almost doubling government spending and taking it to 47% of GDP. The Conservatives have now got this heading towards a sub-40% position and, if re-elected will get this into a more sustainable 25-30% range during the course of the next Parliament. Before you ask, I say sustainable because such a level of spending then allows the government the flexibility or room, if you like, to deal with unforeseen events, should they occur - to increase public spending if absolutely required.
Now to the earlier point. The anti-Conservative bias of much of the media and particularly the BBC.
The narrative, from the Labour party, in the run-up to the election was that Conservative leader, David Cameron was a 'toff'. Someone who had attended Eton and Oxford and was wealthy and out of touch with the general public. Someone who lacks the 'common touch'. Well no big surprise from Labour, there. They project Cameron as such since it puts them, in their narrative, firmly on the other side - alongside the 'man in the street' (or has that become the 'person in the street'?).
How Labour must have chuckled last Sunday. Cameron was interviewed by the BBC's Andrew Marr, and was asked about an interview he gave to the Countryside Alliance magazine (Countryside Alliance is a lobby group that represents rural interests and was very prominent in galvanising support from those communities, in opposition to the Fox Hunting Bill). Anyway, Marr declared that Cameron had stated, in the CA interview, that fox-hunting was his favourite sport. Simple fact is that Cameron said nothing of the sort. When Marr made the comment, Cameron looked non-plussed, as well he might, given that he had never said anything like that. Just to drive home the point though, Marr then repeated the lie. Marr has since apologised for his error but only on Twitter and only after being found out. So, a question for the BBC and Andrew Marr - did you knowingly lie when you falsely quoted from the CA article? Or was it that you or your researchers were too lazy to check out the factual nature of statements? Or was it maybe that putting such a statement, however false, out there, would resonate with people and bias some of them, especially in urban areas, to be anti-Conservative and to confirm the Labour narrative about Cameron being a 'toff'? Okay, so that's three questions, but you get my drift.
This is just the most blatant example of the BBC bias but you could also include the constant interruptions made by Evan Davis in the interviews he has conducted. Not only are these rude, they show a clear disregard for allowing the Conservatives to put across their message and response in a coherent way. The Conservative message keeps getting broken-up into smaller 'bites' and the speaker having to try to stay on message and also to consider how and when to respond to the latest accusation. Very poor! The sooner the £145 TV tax is repealed, the better!
More to follow on this but my advice to Cameron is ignore the staged events and photo-ops. Do a 'John Major' and get out on a soapbox in the towns and cities of the UK and talk directly to the people. Show them that Conservatives passionately believe in the UK and it's people and tell them that Conservatives have a plan for us and our children, grand-children etc.. Don't let Labour and their 'cut from the same cloth' SNP allies, steal the election and our country!
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