The Bewilderness

Nine points for Dave but nul point for majority

The new ICM poll for the Guardian highlights Broon's unpopularity and may steady some nerves in Conservative Central Office as they digest a nine point lead. The poll also confirms the large support for a hung parliament as a temporary reaction to the Rotten Parliament. Perhaps they confused the question with hanging MPs....

At 39-31-20, we are seeing a climb in the Tory lead after more adverse coverage for Labour. A weak budget and union ties will leave Labour looking to the debates as a gamechanger.

Labour opts for a 'political' budget

Labour attacks the Tories for not providing detail in their proposed fiscal policy or spending plans. And if they do, they are attacked as inconsistent. But Darling will present a budget, the “most important” for decades without details of tax or expenditure. Then why have a budget?

''Crucially we have got to plan now to ensure we get growth for the future because growth is what brings jobs, jobs is what will bring rising living standards.''

Darling will stand up in Parliament and concentrate on goodies without spelling their cost or how they will be paid. Another debased and mendacious set of lies from these scoundrels, a low and dishonest party unwilling to square with the electorate.

This is a dangerous game. A political budget may do more than dismay the markets. Their patience may snap and damage could ensue. I would like to see what the Liberal Democrats will guarantee then.

Postponing Judgement Day with an April Budget for fools

The Budget has been set for March 24^th. The lack of notice over the date and unwillingness to divulge the macroeconomic direction infers that there are strong debates at the heart of the government over the timing of the election and the content of the Budget.

The media report that the strong division with the Cabinet lies between the realists who wish set out concrete measures for deficit reduction and the spendthrifts, led by G Broon, who wish to use government expenditure to buy the election. This is an artificial division. I doubt that Darling or Brown differ over much of the content. Both support a fiscal stimulus based upon debt and subscribe to economic growth kickstarted by public expenditure.

They differ in signals and presentation. Gordon Brown wishes to strengthen the political spin and ignore market pressure, with his defence of frontline services and delusional emphasis upon saving the economy. He hasn't and he didn't. Alistair Darling and Mandelson are aware that the markets hold the whiphand, especially after QE has halted. They wish to pretend that they will do the markets bidding at a later day: putting off till judgment day the reckoning of their policies.

At such a delicate balance within the markets, will the Budget prove the trigger for further economic meltdown?

The grotesque endgame of New Labour

The Ministry of Defence has stopped British journalists from undertaking “embeds” in the armed forces during the period up to the General Election. Senior Officers have also been halted from making speeches during this period. The convention of curtailing relationships with the media during an electoral period, known as “purdah”, has not been extended to the armed forces before now.

Was the same convention enforced at the 2005 election? It does not appear so.

The government fears unpopularity for its treatment of the armed forces. The management of the news cycle is turning draconian:

“It’s a truth blackout. Nothing, especially the truth, is to stand in the way in Brown’s election. Our armed forces can fight and die, but not write or speak. Any critics of the Government are to be banned from having any contact with the press. This is the grotesque endgame of New Labour. They want to bury bad news and bury the truth.”

We have yet to see the grotesque endgame....

A plague on all at chilcot

To view Broon's testimony to the Chilcot Committee as a challenge to honesty falls into the battle of credibility that both the Prime Minister and the generals have used in their briefings, evidence and statements. Each side has tried to deflect blame on to each other, when it should be apportioned to all. This is not difficult.

The Ministry of Defence is notoriously incompetent in spending money and ordering equipment. The shortfalls in helicopters and armoured vehicles can be laid at the door of its procurement policy. The Treasury was rightly sceptical of certain claims emanating from such masters of special pleading. Yet this scepticism hardened into deafness, even when the critics were clearly those on the frontline, fighting a war without support from home.

Broon applied financial sanctions to the MoD to punish them for their ineptitude, even though the 'poor bloody infantry' were most likely to suffer from this constraint. Even then, it took years for the flaws in equipment to merit a response and money.

For any onlooker, Brown's refusal to bear any responsibility or share blame is evidence of his unfitness for office. That can be said of many to no avail and today, I say it of Brown. This has not prevented such candidates maintaining their power. It also does not mean that he feels genuine remorse for any soldiers who die on his watch. And that, extended further, means that he does not link his own actions with deaths in action. This is not vacuity. This is not cynical abandon. It is an unbalanced inability to thread the cause (Brown) and effect (MoD incompetence). He would gain my admiration of he had made a genuine effort to resolve the problems of the MoD. Instead, he allowed his contempt to shine through, appoint a part-time Minister in Des Browne and compounding the problems.

Markets begin to tighten noose round neck of Broon's Britain

Whatever the outcome of the election, best to set travel plans afterwards when the heat has settled. The pound dropped below $1.50 this morning as the risks around the economy began to harden;

"Dreadful economics, an uncertain monetary policy environment and highly uncertain politics will all leave sterling vulnerable in the near term," she added.

It is not clear if there is any distinction between a hung Parliament or a Labour government, but the 'Tory pricing' theory appears to be vindicated. There remains a question mark as to whether this is a bout of further volatility in response to a rogue poll or whether the potential for a full-scale crisis awaits a trigger.

The only result that would be a black swan event at the moment is an upsurge of productive growth in the UK economy.

Overshadowed by events, conferences gasp for publicity

Cameron made a strong speech without notes to the Tory Spring Conference. Faced with a pliant or hostile media, and a controversial 'push poll', published to bounce the news agenda, the Prime Minister as presented, has garnered good headlines. Cameron always gets good headlines when he speaks without notes and redresses accusations of triviality. He is the best ambassador for his party, without fail.

Was this a speech that could turn the news agenda? Unfortunately, the weekend was overshadowed by the earthquake in Chile and the closing ceremony in Vancouver for the Olympics. Nevertheless, Cameron gained enough airtime to dominate the news cycle for a short while. On to the debates...

Ramping up the rhetoric

Overshadowed by the Chilean earthquake, both Labour and the Conservatives have ramped up rhetoric in the face of political fatigue and public indifference. The electorate are tired of the campaign. Both of the parties have adopted strikingly similar stances: presenting the election as a choice between their ruination and what has been achieved/what could be achieved* (please delete as appropriate) I suspect that whatever choice the electors make, a short-term outcome will be ruin.

There was, for a while, a perception of shallow difference between the two parties, as we faced a battle of “cuts versus investments” or “investments versus cuts”. This has fizzled out: replaced by a greater danger for the Conservatives. Despite the damage Brown has caused, and the deceits that he daily airs, the electorate have gifted him a cloak of authenticity; whereas Cameron, who genuinely believes in some principled politics, has been damaged by a biased media carping on about slick salesmanship. Not helped by the asinine idiocy of his 2010 campaign, he faces a fearful outcome: that Brand Cameron is too tainted to provide that poll uplift for the Tories.

So, just before the starting gun occurs (and it may be tomorrow to drown out Cameron's speech), we face a political and moral inversion: where he who is false is considered a truthteller, and he who is principled, becomes tainted by unscrupulous scandal, and hos own unforced errors.

It is a matter of character from now on

The Labour Party have been spinning Rawnsley's accusations with gusto: a well-prepared onslaught, designed to reverse the tar, by equating anger with passion, frustration with leadership. Alongside such a campaign was the list of denials of actions close to but not quite the accusations that Rawnsley authored.

With sympathetic coverage from Sky News and the BBC, they hoped to set the pace and drive the damage underground. It was a disciplined approach. Tonight it has probably failed, as the leaks start:

But Mrs Pratt, who founded the National Bullying Helpline after being a workplace victim herself accused them of failing staff by “going into denial”.

“I have personally taken a call from staff in the Prime Minister’s office, staff who believe they are working in a bullying culture and that it has caused them some stress.

The psychological flaws and issue of character may now come to the fore. If the Tories have any political gumption, they will set out Brown's personality as a key issue of the election. But character extends beyond the Prime Minister to the Labour Party itself. Aware of the potential flaws, understanding the damage this could cause, the socialist placed party above patria. Faced with the disaster that ensued, they now promote and lie to preserve their power, cowards and hypocrites to the last.

This 'rotten' Parliament ends in gerrymandering

The government and the palace are preparing for a hung Parliament: just in case. For this rotten Parliament and this 'rotten election' is defined by three gerrymandering parties, two of whose policies have some residual merit.

The Liberal Democrats favour a proportional system that would provide them with more seats and perhaps a 'kingmaker' role. The Tories aim for a reduction of seats within a first past the post system, redressing the imbalance that favours the Labour Party.

The prize for rotten behaviour is handed to Brown and the Labour Party. Masquerading as reformer, they adopt the only electoral system that will extend their predominance in Parliament by accentuating their voting strength.

A hung Parliament may be the worse outcome, offering the opportunity to perpetuate this political class, all of whom deserve to be turfed out. The scum wish to alter the keys in favour of incumbency.