Ukip: as the poster, so the party

John Rentoul tackles the question of whether Ukip’s latest effort is the most effective poster yet. The answer, it turns out, is no.

However, I think that it’s actually a pretty good spoof poster. Just as Ukip is a pretty good spoof party.

Does Nick Griffin like watching lesbians?

I didn’t watch it, but this quote raises an important question:

On the subject of homosexuality he said "a lot of people find the sight of two men kissing in public really creepy". "That is how a lot of us feel, a lot of Christians, a lot of Muslims," he said. "I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is."

Yes, yes. If one of the men were him, I’d certainly agree. Even if they weren’t kissing. And even if the other man weren’t there at all.

But more importantly, does Mr Griffin’s inexplicable (yet sweetly multi-faith) homophobia discriminate on grounds of gender? Does he find homosexuals of the female variety creepy when they kiss in public? What if they’re young and pretty? What if they’re wearing tight tops with Union Jack designs? What if one of them’s a nurse?

The nation needs to be told.

The slow death (by pie) of Labour and Tory Britain

Mark Reckons looks at the long-term decline in the share of the vote going to the two main parties, which has dropped from around 90% in the 1950s and 1960s to around 70% in the last couple of elections. He notes that (for the time being at least) the first-past-the-post voting system is keeping their overwhelming dominance in Parliament.

I would say that we are becoming increasingly pluralistic as an electorate. We have got used to voting for smaller parties and those often described as "others". I think the vote share of the two main parties will continue to decline and it will get harder and harder for them to justify the present system.

Mark’s post is titled ‘How low can we go?’, and I couldn’t resist thinking about an answer. What follows, as Peter Snow used to say, is just a bit of fun.

For reference, the 2005 election result:

C 33% (198 seats), L 36% (356), LD 23% (62), Others 8% (30)

Now, the latest Populus poll seems a fair place to start; feeding that into the seat calculator at Electoral Calculus, we get:

C 38% (341), L 26% (222), LD 20% (56), Oth 16% (31)

So despite a doubling of the minor parties’ vote, their seat tally is basically unchanged.

What I did next was gradually shift support away from the two main parties and towards the Lib Dems and others. I’ve taken a series of steps, each subtracting 1.5% from the Conservative vote and 1% from Labour and adding 1% to the Lib Dems and 1.5% to the others.

The result is s series of pie charts. The headings give the vote shares and the sizes of the slices show the number of MPs returned; the Conservatives are blue, Labour red, Lib Dems yellow and others green.


So, as the Labour/Tory vote erodes, the Lib Dems scoop up more and more seats, but the other parties hardly make headway, even at a quarter of the vote. And even when the Labour/Tory vote dips to 49%, they still hold just over three-quarters of the seats in parliament.

But then we reach what looks like a tipping point:


The Lib Dems continues their forward march (although even on becoming the most popular party, they still lag third in terms of seats), but now the minor parties really start to make advances as well.

From here on, the results splinter in all directions, and we can clearly say that even the three-party system is no more:


But of course this wouldn’t really happen, even if such mammoth shifts in votes did take place. There’d be massive local variation, and different minor parties would do well in different areas and against different main parties. But it’s an intriguing bit of Friday fun.

And now all this talk of pie has made me hungry...

BNP man goes native in Brussels

We’ve seen it so many times before – a political outsider with a reforming mission gets elected, only to succumb to the perks of office and the cosiness of the mainstream consensus.

It’s taken Nick Griffin precisely one month as an MEP to convert to the idea of a European superstate:

The EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering Europe, British National Party leader Nick Griffin has told the BBC.
The MEP for the North-West of England said the EU had to get "very tough" with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".
…
"If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that."

So there you have it. While all reasonable people can surely agree on the merits of drowning darkies, it is sheer madness to suggest that the Royal Navy – trouncers of the Armada, victors of Trafalgar and Waterloo, sinkers of the Bismarck and the Belgrano – should be merged into a Single European Navy and tasked with guarding the Italian coastline.

The Tom Says: We have our own borders to protect, Mr Griffin – as well as our own sovereignty, history and pride. The sooner you and your new euro-chums remember that, the better.

Racism and voting

People are aghast at the BNP getting two MEPs. Some are so determined to stop this ever happening again that they’ve taken to throwing eggs. At a party that makes great play of its supposed victimhood. Nice tactic, guys.

But should racists be allowed to vote, and to form political parties? Alas, yes. So: how many racists are there in Britain? The BNP got 6.2% of the vote last week, although this was only 2.1% of the electorate.

It’s hard to find out how many racists there are, because most of them will cunningly say “I’m not a racist”. The fiends.

The British Social Attitudes survey regularly asks: “How would you describe yourself... as very prejudiced against people of other races, a little prejudiced, or not prejudiced at all?”

We can be sure that this question under-records racial prejudice. Nonetheless, the latest survey (2007) found 2.6% of people saying that they were very prejudiced and 29% a little prejudiced. These figures have been pretty consistent through this decade and last.

So if we don’t want racist parties to win votes, then we can: (1) make racists (or people who don’t care about anti-racism – a debatable distinction) less inclined to vote for racist parties; (2) make non-racists more inclined to vote for non-racist parties; (3) make people less racist.

Almost all reaction to the BNP in recent years can be classed as (1) or (2) – which fits with the prevailing cross-party and mainstream media mood that public attitudes are to be responded to rather than changed. Both approaches are worthwhile. (3) is much harder, and slower to work, but much more rewarding because it tackles the problem at root.

Britain’s got fascists

Bugger. Our first BNP MEP.

Shame on everyone in Yorkshire and Humberside who didn’t vote because ‘they’re all the same’.

Update: The man in question is one Andrew Brons, who in an earlier incarnation was a member of the nicely named National Socialist Movement. In the 1960s, Brons courageously opposed the bombing of British synagogues by some of his fellow NSM members:

On this subject I have a dual view, in that I realise that he is well intentioned, I feel that our public image may suffer considerable damage as a result of these activities. I am however open to correction on this point.

Update 2: Nick Griffin has weighed in:

Racism in this country is overwhelmingly directed against people who look like me.

How awful. If any of the media Jews are reading this, please stop being so beastly to Mr Griffin and his lookalikes.

Oh fuck off, you stupid lying fucking evil little shit

Being my first reaction to the BNP election broadcast (I’m not going to link to it; Google if you want to).

My second reaction is to single out this bit:

In the end, the answer to the question of by what right should native Brits be put first can be seen on every war memorial in the country. Just think with me for a moment of all those names carved on those cold, sad slabs of stone: English names, Scottish names, Welsh names. Irish names. Our British names. Nobody else’s because, overwhelmingly, it was our people who did the fighting and the dying for our country.

(NB “be put first” = “not get kicked out of the country”.)

This, as anyone who loves this country enough to find anything out about it, is horseshit. I’ll bet there are many ‘non-native’ war memorials in Britain, but one that I know of myself is the Memorial Gates:

The Memorial Gates are situated on Constitution Hill in London, SW1 and were officially inaugurated by Her Majesty the Queen on 6th November, 2002.
The gates are a lasting symbol recognising the enormous contribution made in the First and Second World Wars by the five million men and women from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Africa and the Caribbean who volunteered to serve alongside the British Armed Forces. They also celebrate the contribution that these men and women and their descendants continue to make to the rich diversity of British society.

Ooh, “rich diversity” – you can almost hear Griffin’s bile ducts bubbling.

Look at how the holocaust-denying turd has staged himself sitting in front of some medals, to give the impression that he’s ever been anywhere near a war, and in front of some books, to give the impression that he can read. Goebbels would have been proud.

But the fact is that very, very many people of foreign origin and dark skin (subjects of the British Empire) fought against fascism – too many for their names to fit on a memorial. And now these little snakes want to bring fascism in through the back door. Well, bollocks to them. No BNP, please, we’re British.

Hitler closed the private schools! Oh, and gassed some Jews

Harry Phibbs says:

The BNP is in fact an extreme leftwing outfit. It wishes individual liberty to be sacrificed to state control. It seeks the overthrow of capitalism, and rages against profit and speculators. It wishes to institute a siege economy with protectionism and the nationalisation of foreign-owned companies. In this it is being consistent to its founding inspiration. Hitler nationalised the banks and insurance companies, the economy was rigidly centrally planned, there was an extensive programme of public works, independent schools were banned.
Then, of course, there is the BNP's extreme racism.

Oh dear.

If the BNP does want to introduce protectionism and mass nationalisation, then I disagree with that (just as I disagree with Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party on similar grounds). But that’s not something I really devote any thought to.

The SLP is not a party I’d ever vote for, but as far as I know they’re within the civilised mainstream of political parties (even though way off to the left on economic policy). The BNP is different. And Hitler was different too. The Nazis are not reviled for nationalising the banks or banning independent schools, even if these were bad things to do.

You don’t say: “Then, of course, there is the BNP's extreme racism.” The BNP’s extreme racism is the very first thing you take notice of. And then, having seen it, you’ll know that they’re abhorrent and that there’s really very little point in looking at the details of whatever else they might be saying about other policy areas.

Does coverage for the BNP help UKIP?

I think it does.

To my shame, I forget what this effect is called (anyone?), but there’s a phenomenon in psychology that influences how people choose between options.

Say you give people a choice of wines (they’re not paying): vintage red or vintage white. They might divide 50-50, let’s say. But if you offer a choice between vintage red, bog-standard white and vintage white, something funny happens. Unsurprisingly, nobody picks the bog-standard white, but the balance between vintage red and vintage white shifts significantly in favour of the latter: 40-60, perhaps.

Why? Well, within those three options, there’s an immediate and easy comparison between two of them: the vintage white and the bog-standard white are the most similar pair of the three, clearly the same sort of thing – and one is obviously superior. This comparison, though, serves to boost its standing across the board, and so while it might in a one-or-the-other choice be on a par with the vintage red, in this case its first-round win (so to speak) gives it the momentum to score a clear victory in the final.

It’s as if the choice of ‘good red/bad white/good white’ is understood as ‘good red/worse white/better white’: ‘better’ beats ‘worse’ but ‘better’ also beats ‘good’.

So: to the BNP, who will be delighted to play the role of the bog-standard white.

Given a choice between the mainstream parties and UKIP, people might split 90-10 (purely illustrative numbers). A choice between the mainstream parties and the BNP might result in 95-5. But, in a choice between the mainstream parties, UKIP and the BNP, you might get something like 77-20-3.

What’s going on is this: with the options of both a thuggish, overtly racist nationalist party and a more middle-class, somewhat xenophobic nationalist party, there will still be some who prefer the racists. But the more genteel nationalists could actually increase their vote as a result of the BNP presence, because by contrast they are the more acceptable face of nationalism. Those voters leaning in that direction will be more tempted by the ‘better nationalists’. The BNP, rather than taking votes away from UKIP, could actually boost them by making them look more moderate and desirable.

And in this case there’s an added dynamic: a fair bit of energy from the main parties (and other groups) is – rightly - going into attacking the BNP for being dangerous extremists; this effort diverts them from attacking UKIP.

It’s a bit like the sort of triangulation that Blair and Clinton used to do (having seen right beat left too many times, they found that new left could beat old left and new right) – except that for UKIP, it’s the other parties doing all the work for them.

Yes, a higher media profile for the BNP may well help the BNP, but it could end up helping UKIP more.

Emergency exit

While I was researching that last post, I came across this little gem in Hansard.

Mr. Speaker: I call Sir Menzies Campbell. [Interruption.] Order. Would hon. Members leave the Chamber quietly?

The parable of Mark Oaten

While I wouldn’t vote for John McDonnell with a ten-foot barge pole, I’m pretty relaxed about his candidacy. Gordon Brown is bound to win by a mile anyway; a contest would dispel any nonsense about an illegitimate ‘coronation’ as well as making clear that’s Brown’s not an ‘old Labour’ throwback; and frankly, McDonnell does represent a significant strand of party thinking. The political differences between him and Brown are far realer than those between Brown and, say, Alan Milburn.

But here’s a cautionary tale.

Once upon a time, there was a little orange boy called Mark. He and his little orange friends wanted to make Orangeland more modern.

One day, the orange leadership was up for election. Mark stood, and all his friends cheered him on, as the only other candidates were a couple of boring oldies and a new kid whose name nobody could remember.

Then, disaster struck. Mark was disgraced and had to pull out. The orange modernisers were forlorn, and one of the boring oldies won.

Now, let me be very clear: I don’t think Gordon Brown has been seeing rent boys. In fact, I’d bet the public sector borrowing requirement against it.

But there are many types of bus that a political career can suddenly fall under. If (admittedly, a big if) something should emerge during the contest that sinks Brown, there’s no cushion to prevent McDonnell from becoming PM by default.

Just an idle thought.

The end of morality

Menzies Campbell surpassed himself on the Today programme this morning. John Humphrys broke with tradition and gave him a couple of critical questions on Iraq.

Humphrys: But we can’t cut and run because we’re losing soldiers, can we?

Campbell: … I think you have to be careful, if I may say so, about words like ‘cut and run’, because they are incredibly emotive. … It’s four years since the military action ceased, and in that time we have committed a lot of money, we’ve committed a lot of fine young men and women and we’ve lost more than 140 of them. There is a point at which we can no longer justify that degree of commitment.

Humphrys: But surely that point is not when the country is in the kind of chaos it is in.

Campbell: Well, just examine the logic of that proposition. Does that mean that so long as there is any threat or anxiety about disorder then we will continue to stay there?

Humphrys: You could argue yes, if it was our – I emphasise if it was our responsibility, what is happening there now, then yes we should stay. You could argue that, and it is argued.

Campbell: Well, I accepted, although I was someone wholly opposed to this, I accepted a moral obligation. But that moral obligation can’t be open-ended. And we have a moral obligation to our own young men and women.

There is an argument sometimes made that the US/UK presence in Iraq is doing more harm than good – that our troops’ presence serves to inspire sectarian violence and prevent a political accommodation based on the domestic balance of power.

But Campbell isn’t making that argument. He’s not urging withdrawal based on a judgement of what’s in the best interests of Iraqis. He’s saying that even though we did take on a moral responsibility for the security of Iraq, now that the going has got tough, we should do the expedient thing and quit.

Waste of space.

BNP leader cleared of race hate

So does this mean that he has to resign in disgrace?

Nick Griffin said: “What has just happened shows Tony Blair and the government toadies at the BBC that they can take our taxes but they cannot take our hearts, they cannot take our tongues and they cannot take our freedom.”

Taking that oily little scumbag’s tongue?!?!? I feel ill at the thought…

BBC2 Thursday night comedy

I’ve watched two episodes of the new series of Extras without laughing once. I mean, it’s not bad, but it’s also very clearly not good either.

That Mitchell and Webb Look, on the other hand, is much better. A sketch show, so naturally hit and miss, but with just enough hits to keep me happy. I especially liked the heroin addict opening his Christmas presents. (Aunt: “I know how much you like heroin… I did get you some last year too, but I thought well, why not again?” Gran: “It’s some nice cocaine for you, dear – that is the one you wanted, isn’t it?”)

And then Newsnight had coverage of procedural motions at the Green Party conference… priceless.

Campbell condensed

Ming the witless has delivered his party conference speech. I’m not impressed.

(1) “A quarter of sixteen year olds drop out of education with no qualifications.”

False. The correct figure is 1 in 20, not 1 in 4.

(2) “The gap between rich and poor is wider than at any point under Margaret Thatcher.”

Vague, as he doesn’t define his terms. But the ONS gives us some harder figures, which tell a different story. Table 27 here looks at the disposable income ratios of the 10th decile to the 90th, and of the 25th to the 75th.

In both 2003/04 and 2004/05, the gap between the 10th and the 90th was smaller than in any year since 1987; the gap between the 25th and the 75th was smaller than in any year since 1986. (I grow increasingly bored of refuting people who say that there’s been no redistribution and no fall in poverty under Labour. Luckily, I have a massive boredom threshold.)

(3) “…there will be no peace in the Middle East while the Palestinians are subject to daily humiliation, settlements are expanded on the West Bank and the Palestinian people have no viable homeland they can call their own. As long as this continues, Israel’s legal and moral right to live in peace behind secure and recognised borders will be undermined.”

This is either stupidly worded or a despicable apology for terrorism. Certainly, Israeli treatment of Palestinians and occupation of land is unjust. And, as a matter of observable fact, it undermines Israel’s practical ability to “live in peace behind secure and recognised borders”. But there can be no acceptable grounds for denying that the people of Israel have an inalienable “legal and moral right” to do so. I hope for the Lib Dems’ sake that it was stupidly worded.

Go back to your constituencies…

…and prepare for broadband!

From the BBC:

[Lib Dem] Campaigns chief, Ed Davey, says: “We are an open, democratic party. Blogging is something Liberal Democrats feel very comfortable with.”
It is not, he claims, an activity that comes naturally to the “control freaks” of Labour.
“I could not imagine Gordon Brown as a natural blogger,” he adds.

Well, you know, I couldn’t imagine Ed Davey (or for that matter Ming Campbell) as a natural cabinet minister. I’d rather Brown focused on running the economy than on blogging.

But I’m being unfair. Davey understands that blogging isn’t the number one Lib Dem ambition in politics:

“I am not going to say it is more important than getting on the Today programme or Newsnight – but we do take it seriously."