Weekly Poll Lowdown

As the returning officer I declare that a Labour Majority is elected to the constituency of the United Kingdom in 2015. The results are as follows.

Con Majority	1 (5%)
Con/Lib Dem Coalition	1 (5%)
Con Minority	6 (30%)
Another General Election	0 (0%)
Lab Minority	3 (15%)
Lab/Lib Dem Coalition	1 (5%)
Lab Majority	8 (40%)

The more time that passes the more I personally become of the opinion that we will do badly in the General Election in 2015. Last year in March if you asked me I would have said that we would win 2015 if we put in the effort. Now I doubt we can actually win a even the most seats in Parliament. Personally I'm still far from thinking that Labour will get anything resembling a majority. Ashcroft's poll of an 84 majority is probably a bit pessimistic considering its not yet 2015 so a large chunk of that is probably mid-term blues. A majority of 4 is on the liberal side of likely results at the moment.

This blog is almost exclusively read by Tories and as 60% of you are on the pessimistic side with only 5% saying the Tories can win a majority the situation at the moment does look bleak.

The main problem is of course the economy and it's not necessarily growth either because as I've said before the debt this year is going to go up and the deficit is predicted to go up to. We may be in coalition but we need to push hard to reverse these facts otherwise this country is going to be a mess. If Labour get in in 2015 we won't get another realistic chance to solve this problem till 2020 by which time we'll be seemingly months from disaster. We can only take so much debt.

It seems our party has a problem and it's that we are divided on whether to go for economic success or left wing consensus. For the moment the leadership not fully going for economic liberalisation but if we don't change that not only will party members be furious but the electorate won't vote for us. This is not like Thatcher in the early 80s either, she cut inflation after a few years but became unpopular due to high unemployment. She actually achieved her objectives, not even the Government thinks they're going to bring get rid of the deficit by 2015.

Please vote in the next poll.

Freedom of Speech

I'm quite interested in what is going on in the Tory Party at the moment. Everyone, all the way up to Government ministers who would usually take the coalition policy line, is coming out with all sorts of ideas for 2015 and ones for the coalition too. There seems to be a lot of free and open debate on what the party does next. This ranges from the questioning of the Coalition's economic policy (essentially a demand for tax cuts from the Chancellor), Mrs May wanting an official policy to pull out of the ECHR and Philip Hammond saying we cannot cut defence any more. I'd like to ask why this has happened and what will be the consequences of this?

Firstly I think people in the parliamentry party are becoming more sceptical about David Cameron's leadership. Until recently Cameron has had the party right behind him as leader, although not necessarily behind all his policies as this is the most rebellious House of Commons ever. You just have to ask people like Douglas Carswell what they think of the Prime Minister and he will say he honestly believes he is the right man for the job. But now I think many MPs are wavering.

The fact we are in coalition can only go so far as an excuse to why the economy is not moving. Other departments like Education seem to have converted Liberals to Tory education plans, why can't this be done to some extent on economic policy? The reason is is that both George Osborne and the First Lord of the Treasury are not pushing for liberal economics. A good example of this is the refusal to cut taxes some taxes as they say this will slow the rate in which he coalition is cutting the deficit. However, none of them seem to realise that a lower percentage taxation it actually brings in more real money because the economy grows. A large percentage slice of a small pie is less than a small percentage of a large pie.

Also I think one other man has a lot to do with this and it's our good old closet socialist Business Secretary Vince Cable. Mr Cable hasn't done much in his job apart from oppose all changes to employment legislation, occasionally turn up in a car factory and then go on a ramble across India. However he is a massive advocate of Keynesian economics. 'We need more spending' Mr Cable will always say. But now old Vincey has attacked the Tories for being economic 'Jihadists', although they are at the moment advocating a more liberal economic program than the Lib Dems (shock horror, who would have thought it!). So essentially, especially after the Lib Dem win in Eastleigh, Tories are saying what they want because the Dr that advocates an economic death is saying what he wants.

But what does this mean? These are just words after all. As I said last month the moment economic policy disagreement happens in the Coalition, it is as good as over. No one really wants to do it any more except Dave and Cleggers because they like their jobs and working with each other. 

Problems down tut Eastleigh

Trouble is ahead for the Coalition, which is obvious considering both parties are about to go to war over a small part of Hampshire.

The Liberal Democrats have been spoiling to attack the Conservatives for some time. To be fair this could be said the other way but at least Conservative Ministers are not briefing their Conservative colleagues to oppose the 'wicked Liberals' on almost everything. The air will be most foul. The Liberals feel aggrieved for not getting Lords Reform, although there seems to be some agreement on flaws in the legislation in the first place. Also many Lib Dems are not happy with the welfare reforms the Conservatives want, this is the line I think they will use on the campaign in Eastleigh ‘vote for us or the wicked Tories will get in’. The Conservatives are equally not happy with the Liberals deciding the new boundary changes are not fair all of a sudden. Nor do they like the seemingly timid Conservatism that the coalition government is pursuing in most cases (although I would also point to DC on that one for some blame).

Both parties are obviously going to vent their furies on each other and it will be unrelenting. It will be even worse because the Conservatives will throw everything into this by-election. For some this is a test of not only recent benefit cuts and the EU referendum pledge but of David Cameron’s leadership. If Cameron loses here it will be a huge loss in confidence in the party and him, especially considering that Eastleigh used to be a Tory safe seat. I’d watch your back Mr Cameron.

Personally I think this is a nail in the coffin for the Coalition, regardless who wins. The fighting will be very tense and will continue on after the by-election. However, as Cameron keeps saying the coalition is united on economic policy. But again, looking how the Lib Dems are now starting to refuse to cut areas, particularly on benefits, I doubt this will last much longer either.