Since 2010 the Government has been more popular than Labour

In 2010 something quite remarkable happened.

Two parties came together, they claimed in the national interest (although some would of course dispute that motive) to form a coalition in order to govern the country for the next 5 years.

It has been difficult for the Conservatives and Lib Dems. They haven't always agreed and there have been at time bitter arguments between them. However they have managed to remain in government together and nobody now seriously thinks that they will not last another year until polling day on May 7th 2015.

In the meantime, the Labour opposition have tried to find different ways to position themselves against the government. They have been quite inventive in this. They have referred to it as a "Tory led government" as they clearly think this is a good attack line. They have at times accused the Lib Dems of "betraying" their voters and also implied that this government has no mandate as nobody specifically elected the coalition. They have questioned the motives of ministers of both parties in the way they have implemented the cuts, claiming they are "ideological". They have berated the government for being heartless, out of touch, in the pocket of millionaires and many, many, many other such attacks.

This has been rather effective. Look:

Labour climbed ahead of the Tories in the polls a few months after the 2010 general election and apart from a slight blip a year or so later when the Tories briefly overtook them they have basically stayed ahead. The Lib Dems slid down to around 10% and have bumped around at that level ever since.

Surely based on this Labour is winning the argument and the public would prefer Labour then?

Well not quite actually. Look:

If we combine the totals of both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, (i.e. the two parties of government) then that combined total has largely been ahead of Labour. There's a bit of crossover around the time and for a while after the "Omnishambles" budget of 2012. But for the majority of the time and certainly quite recently the "government" total has been ahead.

Of course the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are two separate parties. They won't be merging or standing on joint tickets, or even going for some sort of "coupon" agreement next year. They will stand separately. But Labour consistently attacks and berated the entire government. The pejorative term "ConDem" government is used to great effect in their campaigning. So if they are going to attack the entire government it is only fair to look at the figures in that context. And that shows us that despite the fact that for 4 years the government has had to make swingeing cuts and has launched unpopular reforms in all sorts of areas, they are still more popular than the Labour opposition.

If I was a Labour politician or activist I'd be very worried about this.

House of Comments - Episode 106 - The Miller Tale

Episode 106 of the House of Comments podcast "The Miller Tale" is out. This week I am joined by Labour PPC Jessica Asato and Lib Dem commentator Mark Pack to discuss the fallout from the Maria Miller resignation, power and harassment in politics and they address the question: "What are the Lib Dems for?".

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 106 - The Miller Tale’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

I blame the voters

I quit the Lib Dems last year mainly due to a growing disillusionment with politics. This takes a number of forms but amongst the top irritations for me is the culture of "failing to think things through".

I suppose there are many policies that would fall into this category in some way or another. Examples would be the "bedroom tax" which although in principle in a perfect world might work, in a country where it has only been possible for 6% of those affected to actually move to a smaller house (due to lack of housing stock) it instead causes hardship and suffering for the remaining 94% for no good reason.

Another example from the other side would be the policy currently being floated by Labour of planning to reduce tuition fees from £9,000 per year to £6,000 per year. All this is going to do is reduce the amount of money that the wealthiest ultimately have to pay back as those who earn moderate or average salaries after graduation would never end up paying the full amount back before the 30 year limit anyway. So a party that professes to want to help the poorest in society are proposing a flagship policy that will actually help the richest.

And in fact calling this the politics of "not thinking things through" is probably too generous. I suspect in most cases these policies have indeed been thought through. It's just that the temptations to garner the headlines for "cracking down on benefits" or "reducing tuition fees for hardworking families" are too good to resist.

The politicians advocating and implementing these policies are really engaging in a form of willful blindness.

But there is an aspect of this that we should not ignore. Those politicians would not be able to get away with doing this if they were properly held to account. Yes, the media should do it but the responsibility equally falls on the shoulders of all of us.

So no longer being a member of a party I now have the freedom to do something that politicians never do.

I'm blaming the voters.

If we had an electorate that fully engaged with the issues then policies like the "bedroom tax" would never have been risked. Those planning to implement it would have realised there would have been a huge backlash from a well informed electorate that would have quickly worked out there is no way for it to work without punishing some of the poorest amongst us.

If we had a franchise that was fully numerate and understood how tuition fees currently work (and who ends up paying them back in full) then Labour would not chance their arm in pushing a policy that rewards future bankers and lawyers at the expense of everyone else.

If we all read up on the history of prohibition in the US in the 1920s and drew the parallels with the current "war on drugs" it is likely that our current damaging, ridiculous, incoherent and inconsistent drugs policies would have been reformed years ago.

But that does not happen. People are too busy and/or uninterested in matters of public policy to give the scrutiny it would require for them to take a collective and fully informed decision.

I get it. I get that for the vast majority politics is a vague background irritant that only impinges on their consciences very occasionally, e.g. at general election time.

What I am saying is that it is all very well to blame politicians for bad decisions (and I often do - they definitely should do better) but their primary goal is to get and retain power. If they think they can only do that by appealing to the lowest common denominator as they know it will be filtered through the tabloid press and by polemicists who often get the most media coverage then that is what they will do.

I'm not sure there is really an answer to this problem. If anything, political engagement has been on the slide in recent decades. I suppose it is possible that as the internet and social media become ever more pervasive the chance for people to fully engage with political issues and evidence increases. But the amount of times I have seen things that are blatantly false go viral online suggests that this is unlikely to be a good solution either.

One thing is for sure. If the electorate continues to be largely disengaged then we will continue to get these sort of policies.

And whilst I'm happy to apportion the fair share of blame to those vying for or in power I also think a substantial share should go where it is equally deserved.

You.

Could Clegg really be this Machiavellian?

Bear with me here.

The Lib Dems are in trouble. Real trouble.

If the proportion of people who vote for the party in next year's general election is in the low teens as is looking likely they could lose dozens of seats. They could even be back to the days of the parliamentary party "fitting in the back of a taxi".

But one thing that could ameliorate this is if in many of the seats that the yellows are defending where their challengers are the Tories, the blues do not do as well as the polls are predicting. And one way that this could happen is if there is a big UKIP surge around the time of the 2015 general election thus splitting the vote on the right and saving many Lib Dem seats in the process.

Of course most commentators think that the current UKIP polling numbers will fall back to more "normal" levels, say 5% or so and the dent to the Tories will be minimal.

But what if someone helped the UKIP leader Nigel Farage to raise his profile around a year before that general election? What if the profile raising was done in the forum of two debates between him and another politician, a member of the government which effectively elevated him to the status of a senior cabinet minister? What if Mr Farage was then widely seen to have won these debates, thus demonstrating that his views are very popular, far more so than the 10% - 15% that the polls would have us usually think?

In fact what if the fallout from such debates made it pretty much impossible for the UKIP leader to be excluded from the pre-election debates in 2015?

This could then of course lead to a big bounce for UKIP just around the time they need it to do maximum damage to the Tories and inadvertently help the Lib Dems.

Clegg couldn't possibly be so scheming. Could he?