Back on 4 May last year, I sensed that Something was afoot. The general election might not be such a foregone conclusion, and the winds of change were blowing.

They were, but in a more subtle manner than it felt at the time. Just as it did in 1974, Britain had delivered a vote of no confidence in both major political parties. Barely 35% of those who voted, and less than one person in four overall, gave their assent to Labour's continued governance. Thanks to constituency boundaries based on the population as it stood fifteen years earlier, Labour was able to convert this vote into an parliamentary majority of 66.

This was very good luck - by my back-of-the-envelope calculations, had the election been fought on the proposed new boundaries, Labour would have had a majority between 10 and 50, and probably below 30. Rather than act in an appropriately chastened manner, Labour has ploughed on with scant regard to any criticism - indeed, the party seems to be forcing through all sorts of wrecking reforms.

It feels like the end days of Thatcherism circa 1990. There's a leader who is a distinct liability. A government pursuing policies that are quite clearly bananas. And they're fully expecting not to be there after the next election.

But I digress. May wasn't only a defeat for Labour, it was a defeat for the Conservative party. Playing the race card, as the Tories did under Michael Howaerd, was a depressing retreat to a bygone age. The opposition party has since re-invented its public face, electing a young and charismatic leader who has made an immediate play for those disillusioned by Labour. And those who never trusted the shysters in the first place.

Where is all this history leading? Here.

M'learned friend Mat at Not Little England has come to the same conclusion: that Labour needs to go. We hear:

In 1997, I wanted Blair to win. New Labour appeared to be a refreshing alternative to a Conservative govt that had been in office too long and lost its way. Now I want the whole lot of them out of office. It's not just Blair. Traditional Labour voters are increasingly alienated and looking elsewhere or simply not bothering. Labour cabinet posts are being filled by careerist politicians who have never had a life outside the political arena.

We could go on, we could mention the stealth privatisation of the health and education services under the guise of a "public-private partnership", one that can only build a further culture of dependency on a huge centralised monolith. Or we could mention the way that Labour has kept the economy ticking over by using lots of chewing gum and string. Or the way it's failed to reduce look for alternative sources of electricity and is now seriously contemplating the avoidable tragedy of nuclear energy once more. Or the way it's failed the nation by failing to undo the rail privatisation and by giving in to the roads lobby. Or the way it is set to demolish perfectly servicable Victorian terraces in order to prop up the building trade. Or any number of ways it has stopped being a party of the people, and stopped being a party for the people.

Mat continues:

Lib Dem and Conservative bloggers can emphasise the links between the parties, and persuade activists to put aside old scores.

To this end, I point out my post from three months back, about the historical links between the Whigs and Tories. It is thanks to Churchill's fondness for his old party that the Liberals survived as a viable political party.

I'm not particularly au fait with the internal politicking of the Lib Dems, but the 2004 Orange Book still looks to have the makings of this conjunction. Some argue that the exact prescription is putting the cart before the horse, but the idea is there. Similarly, the New Localism expounded in the Torygraph last year is a starting point for a raft of socially-liberal policies that could play well with the Lib Dems. (1 2 3 4) A century ago, both of these positions would have been described as Radical, a form of decentralisation that was the defining character of Liberals.

There will be some strange bed-fellows around. Urban lefties may not like to be associated with fox-hunters, but few can fail to be impressed with the Countryside Alliance's persistence and tenacity - and the ban on hunting with hounds is just another example of illiberal, centralising nanny-state politics.

Back to Mat, one last time.

Defeating New Labour is doable. It's acheivable. But neither of the two main oppositions can do so alone; electoral mechanics say it isn't possible. I can't face living under NuLab past the next election. But defeating them won't be easy. Are we up to it?

One of the most odious contributions to the last election campaign came from Polly Toynbee. "Hold your nose and vote Labour; the Tories will be worse," she proclaimed. It's a tactic that smacks of "I've lost the argument, but I don't want to admit it." She can't do it again. The Conservatives need to be taken seriously, and that is why anyone who wants Blair out (as I have since 1996) will find David Cameron's election is the best possible thing that could have happened. He's credible in a way that Tony Hawkes and Michael Howaerd were not.

The other contribution that really stuck in my craw came from Alan "I don't like liars, I don't like bullshitters" Sugar. He claimed that if one Labour voter in ten stayed at home or voted Lib Dem, the Conservatives would get in. As I explained at the time, this was bullshit, and Mr Sugar must have known it was incorrect. I still cannot take him seriously. At all. Ironically, were he to make the same claim to-day, he would not be incorrect.

This is not a call for complacency. This is a call of "Victory is within our grasp!" Organise well, seek allies where we can, and drive these lying cronies back where they belong.

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posted 20 Feb 2006, 17.15 +0000

Hullo.

A tricky* choice of viewing last night. With no Gilmore Girls to watch, not even 3rd season second time through, the options were:

* Professional Dancing on Ice The Roadshow, one of the Entertainments at the World Biathlon (and Other Sports and Entertainments) Championships.

* Britain's Psychic Challenge The Final, which everyone knows (especially the contestants) I'd already ruled out in favour of...

* Jackanory Night*. Which consisted of four tales - one by Kenneth Williams, who used many of the voices from Doily Woods; Judi Dench, before she became a Dane; Alan Rickman telling a Pooh story, which is just wrong, everyone knows those are Willie Rushton's tales; and Rik Mayall's famed telling of George's Marvellous Medicine. But they stopped it before the grand denouement, before George fed his amazing concoction to his granny. What happened next??

goes off and reads the book

Oh, that's fantastic. Quentin Blake's illustration must have been worth seeing!

There was also a decent documentary - the bloke who drew the illustrations while he was telling the story, the Littlenose tales, and a good mention for Jackanory Playhouse.

If there's one fault in The Hill And Beyond, it's the terribly slim entry for the live-action dramas. It wasn't as cutting-edge or (let's be honest) as good as ITV's Dramarama, but the run deserves more than a quarter-page dismissal. That said, any ideas if ITV Kidz (or ITV3!) will be showing classics like A Young Person's Guide to Getting Their Ball Back!

Goodbye.

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posted 20 Feb 2006, 19.29 +0000

The men's relay was won by Germany (Gross, Roesch, Fischer, Greis), Russia the silver, and France just pipped Sweden to third. Norway left Bjorndalen too much to do, he still pulled back to fifth. Felix Gottwald won the Nordic Combined Sprint.

Benjamin Raich won the giant slalom event, and Michaela Dorfmeister the Super-G. Germany won the ladies' bobsleigh, and Canada the ladies' ice hockey. Enrico Fabris beat all-comers in the gents' 1500m long-track event.

The country table is headed by Germany's 9 golds, with 6 for Austria, 5 for the FARCE, and 4 for Russia and Italy.

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posted 21 Feb 2006, 20.25 +0000

Right then. Playing catch-up with the responses to Mat GB's clarion call for action.

The not exactly impartial Bloggers for Labour says,

The next step in the plan (or the first step in some people's plans) appears to be the "Anyone but Labour" electoral campaign, which we couldn't possibly support. Anyone but Labour? No, that's totally irresponsible, even if a new website does appear to help you pick out the 'moral' candidate from the 'immoral' one.

As ever, the Labour apparachtiks set up a straw man and miss the point. This isn't a "Get Labour out at any costs" campaign. This is a "Decentralise and preserve human rights" campaign.

No-one is going to suggest voting for candidates who are opposed to fundamental freedoms. There will be no votes in this for the racist right. Whether trading under the banner of the BNP, the UIP, Veritas Party Leader Robert Kilroy-Silk, or as a far-right Conservative, there are no votes for those who would restrict the people further.

And there will be no votes for the restrictive left, those who do not trust the citizen to take any action. There will be no votes for candidates of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, for the Marxist-Leninist Communists, for the Leninist-Marxist Communists, or for the more nannyish Blairites.

That said, the name is misleading. Strictly speaking, it's not Anyone But Labour. The campaign needs a snappy and positive title. Erm... Vote For Change? Vote For a Difference? Vote For Liberty?

Labour's soft underbelly goes on to say,

Libertarian politicians rarely seem to win the hearts and minds of those motivated by the building of new schools and hospitals, or tax cuts - the fare of traditional British politics. So what likelihood is there of future success?

This is a narrowly-defined campaign, not about services and efficiency, but about values. Concepts that people believe in, concepts that cross party boundaries. It quite deliberately leaves room for a debate between the various parties about how to deliver services, about the priority of tax or spend, about hospitals or schools or flowers in everyone's hair.

At heart, it's a simple campaign: are you for liberty, or against it?

Now, the mechanics. In the UK, it is difficult to engineer a hung parliament. In Canada, the only other functioning democracy to use first-past-the-post, it's relatively easy, thanks to the presence and popularity of the Bloc Quebecois.

This leads very quickly to a guiding principle: Where they stand a good chance of winning, and voting for the candidate is a Vote For Liberty, vote for a Nationalist or a fourth-party candidate. Both the SNP and Plaid have traditionally voted for civil liberties, so has Dr Taylor in Kidderminster. The non-aligned group in the Commons - those who are not Labour, Tory, or Lib Dem - currently stands at 30 MPs. Any increase will make it that bit more difficult to make the overall majority.

At this stage of the parliament, it's difficult to determine an optimal strategy for the next election. I suggest that we treat it as a referendum on the past performance of each MP, based on the way they vote in key divisions.

What we do need is a strategy for May's local elections. We need to canvass each candidate with a serious shot at winning, and find out if they're for or against us. Every candidate, every ward, everywhere.

Somewhere or other, I've got the classified results from the 2004 elections in the West Midlands. It's not much, but it is a useful starting point.

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posted 21 Feb 2006, 20.40 +0000

If it's the last week in February, it must be time for National Snow Day.

What's happening? Well, we've got dry, cold air coming in from the east, there it goes, see the mass of blues sweeping past Norwich, toppling Hull, under the Tyne Bridge. And we've got wet and slightly warm air coming up from the south-west, we're representing it by the yellow colours. See it? Now, where these two air-masses collide...

Pow! Just look at that! White stuff everywhere! Birmingham is sitting under almost a centimetre of ice, there's freezing rain in Stoke, and Nottingham is covered in the stuff. If this swing continues across the rest of the country, we'll all be ground to a halt by nightfall.

That was the wrong sort of snow.

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posted 23 Feb 2006, 18.39 +0000

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posted 23 Feb 2006, 19.24 +0000

Russia (Anna Bogaliy, Svetlana Ishmouratova, Olga Zaitseva and Albina Akhatova) won the Ladies' Relay event, beating Germany by 50 seconds, with France a minute further behind.

In the No Rifle event, Chandra Crawford and Bjoern Lind won the sprint disciplines. Elsewhere, Anja Paerson won the women's slalom, Philip Schoch beat his brother Simon to win the parallel slalom, Daniela Meuli won the ladies' event. Cindy Klassen the women's 1500m long-track speed skating, and South Korea the short-track relay. Switzerland lost the curling final in extra time. Again. Sweden won it this time.

Nine golds for German representatives, six for Austria, five apiece for Canada, FARCE, Switzerland, and Russia.

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posted 23 Feb 2006, 20.05 +0000

To the city centre to-day, and I find that Virgin has vacated its massive store on Corporation-street. Instead, they're trying to squeeze everything into a converted shoe-box further down the High-street. The fools; that was the last remaining decent record store for those of us who didn't and don't want to buy the top 50 tat and nothing else.

The ostensible reasons for my trip: 1) to post a package overseas. Which I did within ten minutes of arriving, no thanks to the counter assistant who asked if I wanted to take out a loan. "If I'm sending many more of these parcels, I'll need one," was the answer that didn't arrive until after I'd left the post office. 2) to stock up on some daily vitamin supplements. 3) to purchase a fountain pen and some letter-writing paper, for what should be blindingly obvious reasons.

I hadn't planned to get a card for Mothering-Sunday, but it's only four weeks away, and one that's got now won't need to be got when all that's left is cheese. Nor had I intended to get a mouse-mat made out of an old car-tyre, but I did, and it works well. Indeed, nor had I intended to get a hand-drawn tourist map and guide of London, but I did. OK, it's a bit old (telephone numbers are all 071-), but it's better than nowt, and the equivalent served me well in Toronto.

Now, what's been happening this week? A spoof posting to the Record Of The Day board reveals that Pete Do'herty is the creation of the KLF. In turn, that lead to what could be the Best Comment Ever.

Still on Metafilter, some thoughts for ring-beeps, because ring-tones are *so* last century.

Moazzam Begg has written again in Het Grauniad. Even though it's mostly things we've heard before, there's still something in his story that shocks to the very core.

In Gordon The Gopher country, there's a battle raging. Well, actually, no there isn't; it's more of a polite disagreement, they're nice people in Tucson. Anyway, there's a civilised debate about whether radio announcers should give out opus numbers. "Yes," say those who know how music works; "no," say those who reckon that the casual classical music listener will be put off by such technicalities. "They're more likely to be put off by hearing the same thousand pieces over and over again," say those who prefer The Third Programme (which errs on the side of giving opus numbers) to Classic FM (which doesn't give them consistently.)

Yesterday, the Commission for Slapping Down Errant Councillors gave its verdict on the case of Ken Livingstone and the Concentration Camp Jibe. We reported the case in depth last year, and there's not much to add. The sentence - that Mayor Livingstone be suspended for twenty working days - is grossly out of proportion to the offence, and brings the Commission's already murky role into even greater disrepute. Wouldn't a token suspension be more appropriate? Anyway, it's not as though the Evening Substandard has learned from its lesson, as it continues to give credence to scare stories. See also: Mailwatch.

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posted 25 Feb 2006, 16.24 +0000

A new number one in Germany, where Bob Sinclar's Love generation outsells all-comers, including Eros and Anastacia. Amine remains top in France, where Najoua Belyzel comes from nowhere into number 3. In Belgium, both Belle Perez and Kate Ryan have top 20 entries in both Flanders and Walloonia - they were the front-runners for the national Eurovision entry. Marit Larsen - formerly of M2M - has the best-seller in Norway, with the rather moreish Don't save me. Last year's Eurovision hopefuls, Wigwam, are in the top ten. And in Sweden, Melodenfestival-related acts hold five of the top twenty places this week, but none can push past Sebastian.

*20 NE Chris Brown - Run it
 19 17 Pati Yang - All that is thirst
*18 NE Amine - J'voulais
 17 12 Madonna - Hung up
 16 15 Nolwenn Leroy - Nolwenn ohwo!
*15 18 Richard Ashcroft - Break the night with colour
*14 19 Natasha St-Pier - Un ange frappe a ma porte
*13 20 Eros Ramazzotti / Anastacia - I belong to you
 12 16 Melanie C - First day of my life
 11  2 Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down
 10  8 Mattafix - Big city life
* 9  9 Juanes - La camisa negra
  8  5 Coldplay - Talk
* 7 10 Bob Sinclar - Love generation
* 6 11 Depeche Mode - A pain that I'm used to
* 5  7 James Blunt - Goodbye my lover
  4  4 Tina Arena - Aimer jusqu'a l'impossible
  3  6 Sugababes - Push the button
* 2  3 Sugababes - Ugly
* 1  1 Kelly Clarkson - Because of you

In the UK, Madonna's new record, Sorry, is rubbish. It's also the best-seller. Well done to Corinne Bailey Rae, whose soulful Put your records on is the number two this week; she's been hyped to high heaven over the past few weeks. Westlife's cover of Kate Bosh's Amazing is number 4, with the Darkness new at 8. Nonsenses from Simon Webbe and Michael Kiddyfiddler Jackson are in the teens, as is Morning Runner, which has passed me by completely. Good to see some decent rock in the lower half of the 40 from Maximo Park, Delays, We Are Scientists, Alkaline Trio, and Funeral for a Friend.

The utterly tedious Jack Johnson has the best-selling album, ahead of the Monkeys and KT Tunstall. Neil Diamond's 12 Songs is the highest new entry, at position 5. Good climbs for Kayne West and Fall Out Boy, and new entries for Peggy Parton and Ray Davies. We Are Scientists and the Subways also bounce into the chart from lower down.

Here's the good stuff on the singles listing:

 2 NE Corinne Bailey Rae - Put your records on
 9  9 Source - You got the love
10 10 Fall Out Boy - Sugar we're going down
14  8 Dead or Alive - You spin me round
21 NE Maximo Park - I want you to stay
23 NE Delays - Valentine
25 28 Boys Aloud - I predicate a riot
27 22 Kelly Clarkson - Because of you
29 NE We Are Scientists - It's a hit
30 18 Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down
33 19 Jesse McCartney - Beautiful soul
34 NE Alkaline Trio - Burn
37 24 Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats
38 23 Ashley Simpson - Boyfriend
39 NE Funeral For A Friend - Roses for the dead
41 30 Sugababes - Ugly
44 63 K T Tunstall - Suddenly I see
46 42 Arctic Monkeys
        - I bet you look good on the dancefloor
47 26 Boy Kill Boy - Back again
49 25 Kubb - Grow
51 67 Boys Aloud
        - Every day I love you less and less
56 45 Sugababes - Push the button
57 66 Kelly Clarkson - Since you've been gone
75 47 A-ha - Analogue

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posted 26 Feb 2006, 20.36 +0000

A cold week, with lying snow on Friday.

20 Mo wind am, cloud       3/ 7, 1.0
21 Tu wintry showers       2/ 5, 2.0
22 We cloud, mist, shwrs   1/ 3
23 Th snow, sleet          1/ 3, 5.5
24 Fr sleet showers       -1/ 3, 2.5
25 Sa wind, sunny spells   1/ 5
26 Su wintry showers, sun  1/ 6, 1.0

No fewer than 50 degree heating days this week, the winter's total goes to 597½, well above the score at this point last year 508½/677½. It wasn't quite as cold as the corresponding week last year, though. The current figure was achieved on 13 Mar last year, two days later than last week's corresponding figure.

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posted 26 Feb 2006, 20.37 +0000

older writing... write to