Some other people's stuff

Here's a couple that made me laugh:

Despite the 'howls of anguish' at the SNP victory in Glasgow East (he means me), this gentleman thinks that it is more likely that 'Britain will become potentially more tiresome than Belgium':

"It's more that there are so many potential problems ahead that, regardless of the rights or wrongs of Scottish independence, what worries me is that we're now looking at decades of Quebec-style tedium: narrowly defeated plebiscites on independence, followed by acts of nationalistic pettiness which stoke up the mutual ill-feeling to the extent that another vote needs to be held which is narrowly etc etc.

Not only is the natural human propensity for vindictive and mean-spirited behaviour, especially when nationalist sentiment (the best way, bar religion, of channeling all that is mean and base in humanity) is involved, coming to the fore; consider how much worse the combined efforts of lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians will make things."

I strongly recommend reading the rest - 'sfunny. Probably right too.

Also: I'm not very familiar with the Blairite John Rentoul. I stopped reading the paper copy of the Indy when it turned itself into an anti-war comic and the online version was behind a subscription wall for ages. However, on reading him recently - and I dare say I'm being unfair - he does strike me as something of an asshole. This is what he had to say about Miliband as a potential leader:

"They have to ask themselves the Peter Mandelson question, asked when Brown was being compared unfavourably with another younger Everyman in 1994: "Who will play best at the box office?" This time the choice is between Brown and David Miliband. The young pretender is growing in stature all the time and refreshingly normal. He must be the first Foreign Secretary to throw an American football (a gift from Stanford University on a recent visit with Condoleezza Rice) around his vast office."

To which Laban responds:

"I've noted the increasing triviality and shallowness of contemporary politics... Now apparently chucking a ball around the office is a good sign of premiership potential."

Meanwhile, Chris Dillow questions whether who leads Labour matters that much. In terms of their immediate electoral prospects, he's probably right but in general I disagree that leadership is unimportant. Blair wouldn't be having these problems on quite the same scale; say what you like about him - at least he could make decisions. I also doubt the Tories would be doing so well had IDS stayed in the job; the SNP wouldn't be doing so well without Salmond; and Scottish Labour could have done without the car crash that was Wendy Alexander's leadership.

Betting on Obama?

My default position is to prefer the Democrats to win any election rather than the Republicans. I tend not to get too worked up about it when it comes to the presidency though. There are a number of reasons for this but one that is overlooked to a degree I find inexplicable is that the powers of the US president are circumscribed by Congress to an extent that is, I think, without parallel in any other democracy.

In other words, instead of hearing the cliche that the American president is the most powerful person in the world, I think it would reflect reality better if more people said that Congress, in relation to the executive, is the most powerful legislature in the world.

This is one of a number of reasons why I have misgivings about Obama. He has for me the dual advantage of being neither a Republican nor Hillary Clinton - but whatever other problems might occur should he become president, I'd bet on this one: surely disillusion will follow hard on the heels of the euphoria we'll see should he win the presidential election? This is a function of his limited powers, which will be exacerbated in his case with the fervour of expectations now surrounding him.

Obama is undoubtedly charismatic - but one of the features, and dangers, of charisma in politics is that the carrier of charisma becomes a repository for people's best expectations almost regardless of what they are or what they do. When you have someone with charisma, people take them as representing almost anything they want - regardless of the reality. This is why, for example, Princess Diana could be for the monarchist the incarnation of a royal fairy-tale whilst simultaneously being an anti-establishment figure to those of a republican disposition - rather than what she was: a publicity-seeking, imploding bag of poisonous self-pity.

As for Obama, what we know - rather than what people want to believe - gives me cause for concern. For one, he strikes me as being woefully inexperienced. He is also rather conservative - having had a record, as far as one can tell, of being somewhat accommodating, flexible, in his stance on a variety of issues if this serves to further his career. There is, as far as I'm aware, no example of him being prepared to court unpopularity over an issue over which he feels strongly. Also, while I won't pretend to know what is best in this present situation, like a number of people while I welcome his expressions of commitment to Afghanistan, I treat with great scepticism the idea that the American involvement there is something that can be divorced from its role in Iraq.

However - and it was this thought that prompted this post - the more short-term concern has to do with his electoral strategy, and this is related to the whole issue of his charismatic style mentioned above. Maybe it's pure prejudice, evoked by the sight of Germans getting excited at a public rally and waving flags - even if the flags in question happen to carry the Stars and Stripes - but I can't help getting the feeling that the tone and manner of his European tour wasn't very wise. It might play well on the pages of the European press but in America?

It's the feeling he's peaked too soon and the assumption that the election is as good as won isn't going to go down well with a significant section of the American electorate. People don't like this and this thought floated through my mind: is this like Neil Kinnock's triumphal entrance at party conference prior to the 1992 election, only on a much larger scale? I have no idea but it occurred to me again when I read Paulie's short post on the subject:

"Am I the only one that thinks that McCain at 5/2 today is a very good price?"

No, you're not. I'm not going to have a punt for two reasons:

a) I never gamble. Nothing virtuous about this. Deep down I'm a shallow human being with an addictive personality and an adolescent's impulse towards immediate gratification. Fortunately, gambling is one vice I simply don't understand.

b) Even if I did, in this case I trust reason would prevail anyway. Having ignored my own advice - that in politics it is folly to attempt to predict the future - the memory of failing to predict the SNP win in Glasgow East is likely to be a strong deterrent for quite some time.

But no, Paulie is not alone. I'll eschew any temptation to predict the future this time but we are justified, I think, in remembering what we know from the past: people, voters, do not like being taken for granted - and I think this might prove to be a problem for Senator Obama's campaign. (Predicting again while pretending not to - I can resist anything but temptation.) He is still just a Senator, right? The thing is, he seems to be surrounded by a whole bunch of people who seem to have forgotten this already. Don't think the American electorate have though.

Update: Hmmm - seems the Kinnock comparison occurred to someone else too.



Remember this, anyone? How fucking embarrassing was that? I remember being profoundly embarrassed - and that was before Major won the goddam election...

An anecdote for the holidays

Over here.

Jeremiad

They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace - Jeremiah ch 8 v 11

You'd have good reason to ignore the apocalyptic tone of the following post. I might be over-compensating for my failure to predict the SNP win in Glasgow East. There is also the fact that I've spent the last ten hours sweltering in traffic with a six year old and a face swollen with toothache. But even without these exacerbating factors, I would be sick at heart tonight because I take the view that for once the rhetoric of the SNP mirrors reality: this result really is an earthquake and I have the feeling the after-shocks will be felt for many years to come, for generations to come.

I find it heart-breaking that the analysis thus far has been so short-term, so self-interested, so petty-minded - focused as it is on Brown's future and Labour's prospects at the next election when what is really happening is a strange eruption in Britain's political firmament. Gordon, apparently, has dismissed leadership speculation with the assurance that he's "getting on with the job". But you're shit at it, Gordon. Unbelievably shit. So shit you could say we're being confronted with being shit as a form of excellence. Consider the implications: we have lost a seat that has been returning Labour MPs since the 1920s. The third safest seat in Scotland. The fifth in Britain. I'm afraid the SNP are correct to say there is now no such thing as a safe Labour seat anymore.

It should go without saying that Brown should go now - not because this will necessarily improve Labour's prospects at the next election. No, as I've said before, as a matter of principle. But the PLP won't get rid of him, of course - they are, as Oliver Kamm rightly says, the 'sentimental party'.

How late it is, how very late - yet the complacency on display thus far has been absolutely shocking, astounding. And I don't just mean the Brownites - what else would you expect of people like Douglas Alexander? No, I mean the Blairites too. Feeling pleased with themselves, apparently. How dare they, how dare they? Shame on them. Take this nauseating piece from John Rentoul, for example:

"This morning's result in Glasgow is the worst possible for Gordon Brown and the best possible for the Labour Party. A margin of 365 votes is so close that it means that, if almost anybody else had been Prime Minister, Labour would have held the seat."

How wrong is it possible to be? This wrong, apparently. Had Labour held by a few hundred votes with some Blair clone at the helm we are being asked to believe this would represent a victory, a vindication of triangulation? No, no - and here it's worth while asking who is the author of this historic failure? Blair. Who felt beholden to some undemocratic deal made in some fucking London pasta joint? Blair. Who lacked the balls to sack him despite his egregious disloyalty? Blair. Remind me who endorsed Brown's leadership bid again? Oh that's right - it was Blair.

And who, anyway, is the author of the left-behind society? Because it was this that the voters of Glasgow east recoiled against. Disappointing for the Blairites no doubt but I'm afraid there's precious little evidence that the personality of Gordon Brown was much of an issue on the doorsteps of Easterhouse, of the Gallowgate, of Ballieston. Crime was, housing was, drugs were. Despite his frankly Victorian solutions, it was the Tory IDS who drew more attention to the problems of this part of my city than any Labour MP ever did all the years Tony Blair was Prime Minister. This should be a source of shame for the Labour party in Scotland. They have healed the wound of the people lightly - because they thought they were like African-Americans and the Democrats: take them for granted because they have nowhere else to go.

But unlike African-Americans, Glaswegians have devolution - and devolution brought with it a proportional voting system. I think it would be fair to say that Scottish Labour have yet to come to terms with the shock this has brought. Labour in Scotland advocated both because they perceived them to be in their interests and pushed a soft nationalist line to this effect. This is what now has come back to haunt them. They sought to not so subtlety de-legitimize decisions made by the Westminster Parliament on the unconstitutional grounds that a majority of Scottish MPs failed to give their consent. They shouldn't complain now when the Tories play the same card - yet they do.

Even had devolution been constructed with impeccable federal balance, there was always the danger that it would set in motion a dynamic of which its authors had no control. How much more with a constitutional settlement that has almost none of these virtues? Once upon a time under Tory rule there was a truism oft-repeated that Labour were the most Unionist party in Scotland. Yet I can't rid myself of the feeling that this party of the Union has unwittingly become the author of its demise.

Glasgow East: live blogging

12:05 Hmmm - dunno how long I can last with this. Been watching the beeb for about 10 mins and already I'm losing the will to live. So far - nobody knows anything but this doesn't stop the pontificating pundits. Or maybe they do but they've neglected to tell us. Anyway, they're still talking about the implications of a Labour loss. As I've argued previously, the fact that people can even suggest this as a possibility in Labour's third safest seat in Scotland is pretty grim news.

One thing vaguely interesting: apparently the kind of hostility against Brown found in Crewe and Nantwich hasn't been evident on the doorsteps here. Seems reasonable enough: the constituents of Glasgow East have been taken for granted long before Brown was Chancellor, never mind Prime Minister.

12:23 Argh! How horrifiying is Nicola Sturgeon? Don't know who she is? Consider yourself fortunate. Here she is defending the SNP's ludicrously partisan attack on Wendy Alexander.

12:30 Ah, someone talking sense. Seen him before, missed the name - Gerry Hassan? - talking about Scottish Labour's aversion to elections.

12:32 Leadership elections, that is. Result near - looking close...

12:40 There's my MP at the count. Waste of space that didn't bother to reply to my email about the Iraqi translators campaign. There's everything that's wrong with Scottish Labour right there...

12:50 John Mason's turned up looking pleased with himself. Here's some info. He's big on committees but, the evidence would suggest, he doesn't have sex. Scary.

01:08 Hurry up, for fuck sake!

01:30 Goddamit all - they're talking about a recount.

01:43 Oh dear - seems it is indeed a full recount. Latest rumour is that the SNP has a margin of 354, which is less than the votes for the SSP candidate who shares the same surname as the Labour candidate. Disappointing - I'm gonna have to call it a night. Assuming that Labour have lost, this is a complete disaster. Labour has no safe seats in Scotland anymore and that it is the SNP who have them on the run gives confirmation, if it were needed, that the Conservatives are the opposition in England only. I'm wondering if this by-election might be remembered as the day the Union died? For one wonders how it could survive a Conservative government in Westminster and an SNP administration in Holyrood. Too apocalyptic possibly but I'll tell you what this ain't - this is no ordinary 'mid-term blues' by-election.

02:25 Result: SNP win. Majority: 365. Swing: 26%. Conclusion: we're all fucked.

Correction: Swing was 22%. The conclusion remains unchanged.