Last words on the 2010 election

Thought I'm not quite as sceptical about the coalition as he is, I'm going to give the last word on the 2010 election to Norman Tebbit:

There is a perfectly good argument that the very difficult things that need to be done in the national interest are better done by a coalition than by a single party government. It is an interesting argument. But it is not an argument which was advanced before polling day. And it rests upon the assumption that unless he was included in the Government, Mr. Clegg would have led his MPs to vote against measures which he knew were in the national interest. Nor was it an argument which appealed to Margaret Thatcher who also faced some difficult and controversial decisions in 1979.

It is sometimes now forgotten that as late as the autumn of 1979, Jim Callaghan, a man with far greater popular appeal than Mr. Brown, had been favourite to hold on to power. In the event, the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher, polled 13.7 million votes, Labour scored 11.5 million and the Liberals 4.3 million. More remarkably, eight years later, she was returned with 13.8 million votes against Labour’s 10 million and the Alliance’s 7.8 million. In the disaster of 1997, Blair led NuLab into office with 13.5 million votes, John Major’s Tories (who no one in their right mind would describe as right wing xenophobic extremists) crashed to 9.6 million and the Lib Dems to 5.2 million. After eight years of NuLab, Blair could muster only 9.5 million votes, but the Conservative vote was still only 8.8 million, and the Lib Dems only 6.0 million.

Tebbit continues,

Against that history of recent elections, this year’s figures are deeply depressing to anyone who has any affection for our Parliamentary democracy. Cameron’s Conservatives struggled up to 10.7 million votes, still more than 3million less than Thatcher in ‘87, only just better than Major’s 9.6 million in his defeat at the hands of Blair in ‘97. NuLab sank to Labour’s second lowest total for 75 years [8.6 million], and the wonder kid Clegg [at 6,836,824] was 500,000 short of the Alliance vote nearly thirty years ago.

Mr. Cameron is Prime Minister not because the voters turned out for him, as they had done for Thatcher and Major, but because Labour’s vote collapsed. These were truly awful figures for all three main parties, and even more when we bear in mind the population increase since 1979. How could it have been that in the face of the worst government we have seen for many, many years, the Conservative vote was so low?

It's a question oft repeated by Tebbit, and it is a good one.

Still, we are where we are, and we have to make the best of it. And unlike Tebbit, I'm not a fan of old school Conservatism. There is at least a chance that some of the positive features of the Liberal Democrats will lead to a better outcome than we would have seen with a Conservatve majority government, especially if Daniel Hannan is right that "Lib Dems are often better than Tories at grasping the difference between being pro-market and being pro-business."

Early moves on Capital Gains Tax are Europe are deeply concerning, but there is still a glimmer of hope.

Should Lib Dem voters feel betrayed?

Yesterday I watched the 13 May episode of Question Time, featuring Michael Heseltine, Charles Falconer, Simon Hughes, Melanie Phillips, and Mehdi Hasan. Even in this company, Hasan stood out as a vile.

Much discussion focused on the question of whether Liberal Democrat voters should feel betrayed. It's a bizarre idea, since their party has long supported proportional representation, which — for better or for worse — would make coalition governments commonplace. And with coalition governments, compromise is inevitable — even more so than usual, manifesto commitments will be broken.

I imagine the 'betrayed' Lib Dem voters fall into three categories:

1. those who hoped for a coalition with Labour
2. those who hoped to remain in principled opposition
3. those who thought the Lib Dems could win a majority

I doubt there were very many in the third category. I have no sympathy for those in the first. As for those who would prefer to remain independent, I think they should reflect on quite what a good deal they've got. For the first time in decades, they will be able to influence major areas of government policy. It is an opportunity they would be foolish to pass up.

According to today's report from the BBC, it seems that the assembled party activists have recognised this:

Lib Dem activists have "overwhelmingly" backed leader Nick Clegg's coalition deal with the Conservatives.
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The new deputy prime minister is reported to have received a standing ovation from Lib Dem activists at Birmingham's NEC. Party sources said no more than a dozen of the 2,000 delegates opposed the deal in a show of hands.

Hannan on the coalition agreement

Yesterday evening Daniel Hannan shared some of his thoughts on the Lib-Con coalition agreement, and provided an amusing juxtaposition:

10. The parties agree to implement… a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.

11. The parties agree to implement… measures to make the import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence.

Overall, though, he seems happy with the compromise, and hopes that more good news will emerge over time, especially with regard to citizen-initiated referenda. I haven't read Hannan's proposals in The Plan, but a quick search of the Conservative manifesto suggests that they were only ever intending to grant such referenda for local issues:

we will give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue if 5 per cent of the local population sign up

Letting us trigger a referendum on EU membership would be far too dangerous!

Hannan's biggest criticism of the agreement is the discrepancy between its treatment of electoral reform, and its approach to the EU. The agreement confirms that "both parties will whip their Parliamentary Parties in both Houses to support a simple majority referendum on the Alternative Vote", but it only provides for a referendum on "any proposed future Treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences" to the EU. Any prospect of an In/Out referendum has been dismissed.

As Hannan explains,

Neither the Conservatives nor the Lib Dems fought the election offering a referendum on AV. If we are now to have a referendum on something that neither party promised, why not have a referendum on something that they did recently promise, namely European integration?

It hardly needs saying that I disagree with the section on the EU. I think Britain would be much better off with a Swiss-style free trade agreement. But what I think isn’t really the point. Europe, like electoral reform, is an issue that cuts laterally across the parties, and which can best be settled by a referendum. It qualifies, after all, on every constitutional criterion.

I agree. There seems little point worrying about how our MPs in Westminster are elected, when they are powerless to stop harmful Brussels directives, such as the proposed restrictions on hedge funds, which can increasingly be passed by 'qualified majority voting'.

As noted previously, the best argument for delaying an In/Out referendum on the EU is that our government mustn't be distracted while our economy is in such dire straits: the cuts must begin now.

But if a referendum on the EU can wait, then a referendum on AV certainly can. The latter won't matter until the next election anyway, wheras the former may prove crucial to our recovery as well as our sovereignty.

The democratic deficit here should have people up in arms. As Hannan concludes,

No one under the age of 55 has had the chance to vote on whether European law should have primacy over our own. It’s time to let the country decide.

Big Government = Big Problems

This morning David Cameron wakes up as Prime Minister. My optimism has not yet waned. Here's a selection of my favourite Conservative election posters.






The Big Society is the least attractive of these. It is tainted by association with Saul Alinsky, and by the ridiculous suggestion that community activists be funded by wealth confiscated from 'dormant' bank accounts.

Let us hope that Cameron will see the light, and allow the Big Society to emerge organically, with minimal government involvement.

Always look on the bright side of life

As regular readers will know, and casual visitors may guess from the name of this blog, I don't always follow Monty Python's immortal advice from The Life of Brian.

This evening, though, I'm inclined to look on the bright side of life.

As I write this, we have yet to hear from the Liberal Democrats, but David Cameron's intentions have been clearly stated: he aims to form "a proper and full coalition".

The coalition presents opportunities as well as challenges.

It is a good excuse for both sides to do away with some of their sillier manifesto commitments. It will be interesting to see what goes.

By sharing the poison, it may prove fatal to neither party. It will be difficult for a hostile media to portray the upcoming rollback of the state as 'Tory cuts'. Instead they will be 'necessary readjustments', in the national interest.

The Liberal Democrats have no obligation to the client voters that Labour has built up over the last 13 years. They will go along with massive reductions in the public sector, provided the most vulnerable in society are taken care of.

The Lib Dem policy of raising the poorest out of income tax will be a nice complement to Conservative initiatives to break Labour's welfare trap. I hope we will see both carrot and stick, with massive simplification of taxes and benefits along the way.

The Liberal Democrats have harboured committed libertarians like Mark Littlewood and Charlotte Gore. I do not know how many such people have found their way into parliament as Lib Dem MPs, but I do know that David Cameron granted safe seats to Conservative libertarians, and they stand ready.

With the election and subsequent negotiations out of the way, libertarian voices within both parties will be able to speak more freely, and we may start to win the battle of ideas. It will start with a renewed emphasis on personal responsibility.

We may also hope that the Lib Dem's hold true to their manifesto commitment to "always base drugs policy on independent scientific advice"; this is an area of policy that Conservatives have always got wrong.

There were some promising notes in Cameron's first speech as Prime Minister:

• "Making sure people are in control, and that the politicians are always their servants, and never their masters"
• "Real change is not what government can do on its own ... real change is ... when we all exercise our responsibilities, to ourselves, to our families, to our communities, and to others"
• "I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain ... one where we don't just ask 'what are my entitlements?', but 'what are my responsibilities?'"
• "Above all, it will be a government that is built on some clear values: values of freedom, values of fairness, and values of responsibility"
• "I want us to build an economy that rewards work"
• "Rebuilding family; rebuilding community; above all, rebuilding responsibility in our country. Those are the things I care about; those are the things that this government will now start work on doing."

Finally, it is worth noting that the experts in Austrian economics at The Cobden Centre have long recognised the potential in David Cameron's conservatives. In an article back in December, Toby Baxendale highlighted the best bits of Cameron's Big Society speech. For example:

The size, scope and role of government in Britain has reached a point where it is now inhibiting, not advancing the progressive aims of reducing poverty, fighting inequality, and increasing general well-being. Indeed there is a worrying paradox that because of its effect on personal and social responsibility, the recent growth of the state has promoted not social solidarity, but selfishness and individualism.

Time will tell. I have my doubts, as ever, but for now I will allow myself to hope.

Thoughts on the 'national interest'

There is much talk of coalitions being formed "in the national interest" or "against the national interest", but as usual, the mainstream media's treatment is shallow, and can give a misleading impression.

The alternatives to "national interest" are "party interest" and "personal interest", but only one of these holds up in the longer term.

It comes down to whether a politician genuinely believes that his party will deliver the best outcome for his country:

• If he does, then by acting in the "party interest", he believes himself to be serving the long term national interest.
• If he doesn't — if he recognises that his party's policies are against the long term interests of the country, as any thinking Labour politician must — then by acting in the "party interest" he is actually opting for personal interest.

So, assuming Clegg genuinely believes that "balanced parliaments" are the way forward, with all the back-room deals that ensue, and unless he thinks that our national fortunes will be irreparably damaged in the next 6 months, we would expect him to pursue electoral reform in both the party interest and the national interest.

A short-lived rainbow coalition to deliver electoral reform?

As has been widely reported, the combined forces of Labour and the Lib Dems are insufficient to command a majority in the Commons. Any Lib-Lab coalition would need to include a range of smaller parties as well, and it is hard to imagine such a diverse group holding together through the difficult times ahead.

However, I wonder if they could hold together long enough to push through electoral reform, and immediately call another election. Certainly the idea must appeal to Clegg.

Gordon finally gives up

From the BBC:

Gordon Brown has said he is stepping down as Labour Party leader.

Mr Brown, prime minister since 2007, said he wanted a successor to be in place by the time of the party's conference in September.

It was good of him to stick around long enough to lose the election. It will be interesting to see which vile New Labourite takes his place. Balls is probably out of the running after nearly losing his seat. Miliband the bug-eyed freak has long been considered a contender, but I can't really see it myself. I can imagine the old brute Alan Johnson playing better with Old Labour types, despite being a staunch supporter of Brown. If Labour want to stick with their equality and diversity mantra, Harriet Harman is the obvious choice, but I'm not sure their core voters have progressed enough to accept a woman as leader.

Did UKIP cost the Conservatives their majority? - Part II

Via Tim Montgomerie, I discovered an article in The Times on this subject:

Analysis of results shows that in at least 21 key marginal seats, Ukip’s share of the vote proved enough to allow Labour or the Lib Dems to see off strong Tory challenges.

Whether 17 or 21 seats, all of the points in my previous post still stand.

The most interesting suggestion, highlighted by Montgomerie, comes from an old article by Janet Daley:

In the name of its own principles, UKIP should now feel morally obliged to withdraw its candidates from the general election – or at least from contesting any seat in which a Liberal Democrat might oust a Conservative. If it does not – and if it thus succeeds in depriving the Conservatives of a working majority and inflating the LibDem result by default - it will have been responsible for providing the most Europhile party in British politics with signficant power in a coalition government.

More of the same? Yes please, say Scots

The UK has suffered terribly under 13 years of Labour, and the English, especially in the south, have roundly rejected Gordon Brown, with 87 Labour MPs sent packing.

In contrast, the Scots seems quite happy with the status quo.


Not a single seat has changed hands. Of 59 seats, only one is held by the Conservatives. The rest are firmly socialist. Such a state could not survive on its own.


Centuries on, the cross-border raids continue. Using wealth transferred from the south, Holyrood has chosen to abolish university tuition fees and prescription charges, while Scottish MPs in Westminster have voted down such pork barrel policies in England.

With media attention focused on electoral reform, the exploitation of England by Scotland has received little attention, but the West Lothian Question is well overdue for resolution.

The Last Ditch: What have we learned?

Tom Paine asks:

Have we learned much from this election? We already knew that, for most people, voting is about fear of worse not hope for better. We already knew that - for all the election time flattery about the wisdom of the people - most voters are political and economic imbeciles. We knew that, even though our government is borrowing 20 pence of every pound it spends, there is no national appetite for prudence. No candidates were ready to look us in the eye and say this can't go on. No candidates were ready (for fear of being thought "negative") to point to the markets jittering at every opinion poll and tell the truth that there is a limit to national credit. No-one was even putting forward a plan to reduce debt. The arguments were about when to start slowing the rate at which it increases. The economic debate stank to high heaven of irresponsibility, as the politicians peddled their old, powerful lie of "something for nothing".

I wholeheartedly recommend the entire article.

Tebbit: this parliament will not last 5 years

Norman Tebbit has predictably called for Cameron to avoid a pact with the Liberal Democrats, amdist the "unholy, unmitigated mess" of the election result:

In my view Mr Cameron should make it plain that while he would be willing to form a government and would welcome support from any party, he would offer no hostages, nor concessions as a condition of office.

If that sent off Mr Clegg to do a deal with his soulmates in a Lib Dem-NuLab arrangement or coalition, so be it. It could not last long, for at the most it would only delay NuLab a trifle on the path to economic disaster which it has pursued these last 13 years.

This Parliament will not last its potential five-year span. This election did not complete the purge of the sickness of New Labour. It is the next election which will decide the fate of the country – and the Conservative Party will not win that election if it is tainted with the contamination of coalition with a party which puts the interests of Our Masters in Brussels ahead of the interests of the British people.

These comments echo those of a friend of mine, who said a few weeks ago that it feels more like 1974 than 1979. He reasoned that things weren't yet bad enough for the public to see the light.

Tebbit concludes with bemusement that I share:

I am still left puzzled by those who keep on about how dreadful the Thatcher years were, without being able to explain why she kept polling more votes than Blair ever did, or Brown, or Clegg, or even, bless me, Mr Cameron has.

Did UKIP cost the Conservatives their majority?

Back in April, I wrote that it it would be interesting to see how many votes independent and small party candidates draw, and whether Labour lose as many votes to the BNP as the Conservatives lose to UKIP.

Today, Daniel Hannan writes:

Yet again, a largely Euro-sceptic country has elected a largely pro-Brussels legislature. A senior UKIP friend has run the figures, and tells me that UKIP cost the Tories 17 seats. If so, UKIP has probably let the Lib Dems into office: with five Sinn Fein MPs refusing to take their seats, 323 Conservative MPs would have constituted a bare majority.

There are two obvious problems with taking the "17 seats" figure at face value. The first is the source, which is clearly biased. The second is the dynamic nature of campaigning. If the Conservatives had gone sufficiently to the right to attract UKIP voters, how many seats would they have lost to the Lib Dems?

On the other hand, we do not know how many of the 16 million eligible voters who stayed at home were traditional Tories repelled both by the UKIP brand and by Modern Conservative policies.

Personally, I struggle to see how it would have cost Cameron votes to honour the spirit of his "Cast Iron Guarantee", and offer a referendum on Europe. The fact that the Lisbon Treaty has already been ratified is irrelevant. The only referendum this country has ever had was retrospective: on the 5th of June 1975, we were asked

“Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (The Common Market)?”

I say 'we'. Like tens of millions of people in this country, I had not yet been born. Moreover, the current EU is a far cry from a "Common Market".

Even the Lib Dems have said that we should get an In/Out referendum on the EU the next time significant powers are handed over to Brussels. Would the voters really have punished Cameron for offering that same referendum unconditionally, within 1 year of a Conservative government coming to power?

It may be that with the terrible state of our economy, Cameron doesn't want the distraction of a referendum. This is understandable, and perhaps the loss of votes to UKIP was inevitable.

However, it is also true that EU membership significantly restricts our options for radically overhauling our national economy.

Perhaps the best course is for Cameron to unilaterally disregard those EU restrictions that get in the way of our recovery. Initially these can be portrayed as short-term, emergency measures. As the years pass, the economy recovers, pressure from Brussels mounts, the Euro implodes, and the public increasingly see the benefits of going it alone, we can finally have our long-overdue referendum.

However, if a debate about EU membership at this juncture would be a distraction we can't afford, the same applies to a debate over electoral reform.

As Hannan concludes,

Let’s start with a referendum on EU membership. If the Lib Dems want a plebiscite on the voting system, fine: referendums are always and everywhere a good thing, serving to remind politicians that they work for the rest of us. But it would be preposterous to hold a referendum on how we handle the few powers that Brussels has left us, without first holding a vote on whether EU law should have primacy in the United Kingdom.

Hannan: An entente with the Lib Dems

Guido has been proposing a Lib-Con pact for some time now, but Daniel Hannan has been dutifully toeing the party line throughout the election campaign, and is only now beginning to expound the virtues of such collaboration.

His primary concern, rightly, is for our economy:

While we’ve been snarled in our domestic quarrels, Greece has been falling to pieces. Unless we take immediate and drastic measures, we might find ourselves in the same position. Our deficit is projected to overtake Greece’s next year, and our economy has until now been propped up, at least in part, by the markets’ confidence that a new government would bring spending under control.
...
Is it possible to reach an accommodation with the Lib Dems based on fiscal tightening? I think so. The two parties are divided over timing, not principle. On the campaign trail, Nick Clegg claimed that deferring the cuts was a whizz-bang piece of Keynesian pump-priming. But he is privately aware that postponement will make the cuts more painful when they come – as the Greeks are now discovering. With polling day out of the way, Cleggie no longer has any reason to deny the truth.

Like Guido, Hannan also sees a common desire to roll back some of the worst features of New Labour's Big State, and to give power back to the people:

Both parties, meanwhile, want to scrap ID cards and reverse some of the more statist legislation passed by Labour in the guise of anti-terrorism measures. Both agree that our political system needs renewal. Both want recall mechanisms, popular initiative procedures, reform of the Upper House, fewer MPs, a shift in power from Whips to backbenchers and from executive to legislature. These things would have a far more tangible and benign impact on our political system than proportional representation.

Most libertarian-minded Conservatives, like Hannan, will not object to tax relief for the poor:

As for tax, I rather agree with the Lib Dems that, when cuts become possible, they should first be directed at low earners. My guess is that most of my fellow Conservatives sympathise: lifting the poor out of tax, as Lords Saatchi and Tebbit propose, would do more to incentivise work than any number of tweaks to the benefits system.

The key to cooperation here will be to counter the self-destructive Lib Dem instinct to "soak the rich" — to fund tax relief for the poor by increasing taxes on corporations and higher earners — which would have a devestating impact on jobs, employment, and aspiration. Instead, tax reduction should be funded by immediate and drastic action to reduce the size and scope of the public sector.

Hannan even sees a glimmer of hope on the EU:

On Europe, both parties say they want a referendum on future treaty changes. The difference is that the Lib Dems would treat a “No” vote as a vote against EU membership. Here, at least, the Lib Dem position is preferable to the Tory one. The trouble is that the party has fibbed before on this issue before (see here). Which is [why] we should aim for a binding agreement between the two parties on an In/Out referendum within the next 18 months, with front benchers allowed to campaign on either side.

However, he recognises that there will be activists and MPs on both sides who will object to Lib-Con collaboration:

None of this is to say that an agreement – let alone a full coalition – will be possible. The Lib Dems might refuse to do a deal that doesn’t include a particular preferred voting system, though I suspect that the electorate would punish them for such egotism. Or they might split into, as it were, Asquith and Lloyd George factions on the issue of whether to collaborate with the Tories. But Cameron is right at least to explore the options generously and open-mindedly. Our national debt rose by nearly a million pounds while you were reading this blog. We can’t afford much more of this.

I recommend the full article.

Guido's Change Coalition

Guido Fawkes continues to support a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats:

Now is an historic opportunity to reform politics for the better, to open up politics and government, to roll back an authoritarian state. If the Tory right is too small minded to allow Cameron to do a deal with Clegg then they are as stupid as they are short-sighted. This is an historic opportunity to realign politics along a liberal-conservative axis. It is the chance to destroy the Labour Party as a party of government forever. If the price is real reform of the electoral system then that is a price well worth paying to free us from the economic destruction wrought time and time again, decade after decade, by a statist, big government Labour Party. Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, says he will fight Cameron.

Don’t do it my friend, at least see what deal is on the table, this is the chance to achieve Margaret Thatcher’s ultimate ambition of two competing non-socialist parties of government.

While I understand there are libertarians finding most-unlikely sanctuary under the Lib Dem umbrella, the party also contains plenty of nasty socialists, europhiles, nanny-statists, and eco-freaks.

Judging by his responses to the TheyWorkForYou survey, I certainly wouldn't have trusted my failed Lib Dem PPC, Stephen Goddard, to "roll back an authoritarian state".

Indeed, I can imagine plenty of Lib Dems refusing to work with the Tories, and possibly even crossing over to Labour.

Time will tell.

Farage fails to take Buckingham

Results for Buckingham are finally in, and Bercow has managed to retain his seat.

I hadn't expected the "Buckinghamshire Campaign for Democracy" to beat UKIP, but even their combined vote share of 38.8% wouldn't have been enough to unseat the speaker.

Is the UK more Cameronian than Conservative?

Martin Kettle, writing for the Guardian, has ruled out a Lib-Lab pact:

even if they wanted to do a deal, Brown and Clegg are too weak in numbers and each too lacking in momentum to succeed in any such enterprise. This may seem perverse. After all, their two parties together are likely to have a clear majority of the popular vote. Yet each has floundered and propping up a loser is lethally dangerous politics. So while Brown is entitled to try to form a government, a weakened Clegg has immense difficulty going along with him. A Lab-Lib deal will have to wait.

So let's get used to it. The hung parliament presaged in last night's exit poll is overwhelmingly likely to produce a Conservative government, probably a minority administration ruling with Northern Irish consent.

He goes on to console his readers with speculation about the nature of the Conservative 'victory':

Be in no doubt that this is a huge personal victory for Cameron. But this is not a Conservative moment in the deeper political sense that Margaret Thatcher's 1979 win was. In time it may become one; but not yet. The result is too close. This remains a centrist country, more Cameronian than Conservative.

Gerald Warner is fond of deriding the Cameronian Party. I like to think that the Conservatives would have fared better in this election had they fought on Thatcherite principles, as suggested by Norman Tebbit, but perhaps that is just wishful thinking.

I'm not sure what percentage of the British public genuinely believe the politically-correct "centrist" line promoted by leftist intellectuals. I would guess that it is smaller than they would have us believe, but that it is on the increase. Whatever his true beliefs, Cameron's campaign was predicated on the fear that true conservatism is no longer saleable in the UK. In that sense, such success as he has enjoyed in this election can accurately be described as Cameronian (Tebbit would probably call it Ashcroftian).

The thing I found most disturbing about this election's results, though, was the continued Labour tribal voting. I know several intelligent and otherwise sensible people who cannot bring themselves to stop. What would it take for them to break their allegiance?

I suppose politics really is like religion: learned young, deeply engrained, and surprisingly easy to mentally compartmentalise.

Disappointing result for LPUK

I don't imagine anyone at LPUK had delusions of a breakthrough, but the results must nevertheless be disappointing.

Martin Cullip drew 41 votes in Sutton & Cheam, where the Lib Dems won out over the Conservatives by 22,156 votes to 20,548. No doubt people were disinclined to "throw a vote away" in such a close-run seat.

Nic Coome drew 141 votes in Devizes, where the Conservatives beat the Lib Dems by 25,519 votes to 12,514.

Perhaps LPUK should target safe Labour seats instead. Are there any libertarians in Scotland?

As I was in the process of writing this post, Guthrum posted to the LPUK blog with his thoughts on the result in Devizes:

This picture sums up why the Libertarian Party stood in Devizes yesterday. A BBC interviewer asking sensible questions about what is Libertarianism, and a Libertarian answering.

The imperceptible squeak in a seat where noblesse oblige rules the local Tory Party (I have not seen characters like this since watching the last ever episode of ‘To The Manor Born’) allowed 141 voters to vote for something that they have never heard of before Nic Coome stood, let alone had the opportunity to vote for.

Cancerous red in a sea of blue

It looks like the Lib Dems couldn't convince enough Conservatives to vote tactically.



It is disturbing that 42.5% of the people in my area chose the incumbent Andrew Smith, whose views on both local and national issues are terrifyingly true to the New Labour agenda. It would be interesting to know what share postal votes played.



Here are the full results:

Channel 4's Alternative Election Night

Channel 4's Alternative Election Night has just ended. By far the most entertaining election coverage I've seen.

David Mitchell was on top form, as was Rich Hall.

'Tis better to laugh than cry.