My bet – Tony and Gordon will move for a referendum on the euro as soon as the Conservative leadership contest turns nasty – assuming it does (most previous contest have done so), which may be why Mr Howard has given the party space to bring in new rules in an attempt to smooth and hasten the process.
Category: current affairs
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Moving on
Right, election over. Move along. What’s next?
On the subject of the election result, I can’t see last night’s outcome really changing anything. The Tories certainly didn’t make any spectacular gains that are worth mentioning (at least in terms of share of the vote), whilst the LibDems continued their steady improvement and have certainly done more to be taken seriously as a proper third party. For Labour, the fact that a lot of the Blairites have disappeared will weaken the leader, but probably not sufficiently to change his plans regarding stepping down.
As I see it, the opposition parties still have a lot to do to be in a position to replace Labour in 2009. Or, more likely, Labour have yet to make that really big cock-up that will lose an election (although they’ve made some fairly horrendous cock-ups so far). -
Challenge
Our challenge this morning has been trying to decide how to vote in the county council election. Labour aren’t really an option, as the council has only ever been either LibDem or Tory. The Tories are the current incumbents.
Having studied the literature, I can find hardly any differences in policy at a local level. The main one I have found is that the LibDems oppose the introduction of charges for local car parks, whereas the Tories would rather introduce them and reduce the Council Tax – either way, you end up paying for the car park somewhere. Also, there is a rather complicated argument about the local planning process which essentially boils down to the LibDems wanting to keep the existing cumbersome and expensive process or the Tories wanting to spend a lot of money to change it – either way, it ends up costing us somewhere.
On balance, we feel that it comes down to track record and, put crudely, the Tories have increased the Council Tax more slowly during their period in charge than the LibDems did when they were in charge. Services have also improved and a few niggling local issues seem to have been sorted out.
So, it looks like a split ballot for me – different Xs on each of the two papers. But at least I can feel safe in the knowledge that I’ve voted locally in the local election and nationally in the national election. I encourage you to do the same.
Oh, and another factor – only the Tory county council candidate bothered to visit Ruralville (or our home at least) – so we can be sure that he knows we exist out here.
UPDATE – H has been to the polling station already and caused quite a stir, being the only voter there and causing palpitations for the rather elderly polling station officers who clearly are not used to such glamour so early in the day! I’m on my way there now. -
Protest or ignorance?
Interesting – the Protest Vote Party. I’m not sure that suggesting that people put their X against the PVP simply because they do not know enough about the candidates and their policies is really going to encourage them to do so – in fact, I think that such a suggestion is more likely to deter those who have rejected the other candidates after thorough consideration.
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Posters
Unscientific BBC survey suggests that fewer people are putting up party posters in the run up to this election than in previous years. There certainly seem to be plenty around here, although red seems a rare colour.
Interestingly, party political posters are exempt from the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992 (my favourite piece of legislation to flout, as regular readers will know) provided they are removed not more than 14 days after the election. -
Sir John Mills, RIP
Sir John Mills died yesterday at the age of 97. I always think of him saying something like "you simply have to, old bean, you simply have to!" or some other such earnestness whilst sitting in the tail gunner’s seat of a World War 2 bomber. His characters always seemed to be earnest. Perhaps that was my own misconception.
I remember one evening, many years ago, going into the Bell pub in Chichester. The Bell is directly opposite the Festival Theatre. As we walked in, my friend Louise was in a bit of rush, not really looking where she was going, and careered straight into John Mills as he was coming out. Neither party was injured. -
Meddling but not changing anything
Michael Howard says that, if the Tories are elected, they will raise the Stamp Duty threshold to £250,000. He stated today that, when Labour came to power, the average house purchased produced a Stamp Duty bill of £900. Today, that bill is £1800. His proposal would reduce that bill to nil for all houses below £250,000.
I think this policy is flawed.
The principal reason that individuals, couples and "hard working families" struggle to purchase a home is not Stamp Duty, but spiralling house prices. At present, there is a definite pressure on prices of properties around the Stamp Duty threshold that was announced by Gordon Brown in the budget. Properties that might be offered at £160,000, which includes a lot of smaller and first-time buyer properties are actually being sold at or below the "150,000 threshold. Dramatically increasing the threshold might save those families a few hundred pounds in Stamp Duty, but it will take the lid off of prices and ultimately cost them more.
The real problem is with housing policy. The Labour party proposes to offer more low-cost and subsidised housing to this ridiculous group known as "key workers". This does nothing other than add fuel to the market by taking many low-cost homes out of the general market pool, denying them to all the other "hard working families" who work in offices, shops and so on, but are not key workers. As any half-witted economist will tell you, reducing the supply always has the result of increasing prices.
In my opinion, the way to make housing affordable to more people is not to tinker with Stamp Duty. Abolish it, perhaps – that would have a zero effect on the market – but I don’t see HMG abandoning that source of revenue. The way to make housing more affordable is not to subsidise certain groups when they purchase property – that, in fact, has the opposite effect. The only way to improve the position of house buyers is to increase the supply of housing by relaxing or changing planning laws and increasing the number of new homes being built, as well as encouraging older homes to become available in the market again. Increased taxation on second homes that are not rented out (we must encourage a strong rental market) would also discourage second home ownership or alternatively raise revenue from those who are the owners of multiple properties that are denied to the general market.
To me, it seems so obvious, yet neither Labour nor the Conservatives can do more than make policies that generate cheap pulbicity. -
Boris on the doorstep
This story made me laugh until there were tears in my eyes. Why would anyone toothbrush their caravan?
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Spoilt
For those who, like me, are considering not voting or spoiling their paper in the forthcoming election: Not Apathetic.
I’m under some pressure from my wife to "vote properly". I can understand her reasons for this, and feel strongly that I have a moral responsibility to attend the polling station. But without a "none of the above" option, is it right that I should put my vote against a party or candidate whose policies I do not support?