Paraphrasing Broon

An ICM poll for the Guardian puts Labour on 29%, 10 points behind the Tories on 39%, with the Liberal Democrats on 22%. This level of support for Labour equals a previous record low for the party in an ICM/Guardian poll recorded in May 1987.

I was touched by Gordon Brown's response -

"If you're doing things right, and the economy is doing well, the health service is getting better, your schools are getting better ... then people will respond."
He added: "It's a discipline on us to be better and more effective, and to listen to people."

Paraphrasing Broon

We are ineffective. The economy isn't doing well and despite the billions we have poured into them neither schools nor the health service are improving.

NB - Nothing from the BBC on this story?!

This Is What I Call A Landslide

Prague local elections results

Civic Democrats (ODS) - 53.3%
Social Democrats (CSSD) - 15.4%
Greens - 8.0%
Communists (KSCM) - 7.9%
Association of Independent Candidates - European Democrats (SNK-ED) - 5.5%
Others - C10%

Well done to ODS who can now rule without the support of any other parties. My only gripe is that part of the ODS platform was to increase the number of police officers in the city. Seems to me that there are enough already, they just need to focus on the criminals rather than road traffic duties.

The ODS' dominance in Prague is mirrored in other major capitals in Eastern Europe who typically vote for the mainstream right (e.g. Bratislava in Slovakia). Some of the political posters have been interesting to say the least and if I manage to photograph a few before they disappear I will post them. Here is an amusing text I received the other day from an expat friend who got caught up in the campaigning

"I've found myself a Green Party tram. I'm having badges, leaflets and green tea forced on me. It's like a hippy nightmare."

Tory By-Elections Strategy

Wedding and birthday surprise went swimmingly. I'M BACK. In recent times there have been at least 6 to 15 predictable bad news stories per Parliament. That’s right - by-election results. For some reason they never seem to come up in Labour/Conservative marginals where we could give Labour a bloody nose, but nevertheless our results are appalling. The last time we made a gain in a by-election was June 1982. That's less than once in a blue moon.

Back in July in the aftermath of the debacle at Bromley & Chislehurst, a Tory Radio interview with Francis Maude gave me no comfort that he was going to solve the problem. I never like the words “try to” when talking about how to solve a problem. So, at conference, I was particularly interested to find out what was happening about by-elections. I asked the girl on the by-elections stand who had been put in charge and she said that (she thought!?) it was Grant Shapps. She was also recruiting a by-election volunteer task force. I hope this volunteer force doesn’t look like this.

Grant Shapps (Welwyn & Hatfield) is a great campaigner and one of only 40 Tories who won a seat from Labour in 2005. Every Tory blogger should check out his local web forum and he is full of excellent ideas – an interesting factoid is that he reckons that he has e-mail addresses for 10% of his constituents. Nevertheless, the man is an MP – he has a day job. Use his expertise by all means, but I want someone heading up the by-elections who is employed in that role full-time who has that as his/her prime responsibility. I want the someone who can strategise, who can lead and motivate and can jump at the kick of a bucket. Should failure continue that person will be out of a job. I want that level of clarity. Am I asking for too much?

Long Long Weekend

I'm back in the UK this weekend for a wedding and will be extending my stay for my Dad's 60th and getting some admin out of the way. I've realised that my to do list is fairly extensive and I'm not yet close to being properly packed. Therefore, I've made the decision not to blog until the middle of next week. I may get the occasional chance to check for comments etc, but the timehole that is blogging is on hold for now. Bye for now.

Lee Rotherham - Visionary

Lee For Mayor

If you're a Tory, you should be interested in who we put up as the next candidate for London Mayor. If you're a tax-cutting Tory, the time for faffing around should be behind you. Lee Rotherham is the only choice. If you haven't heard of Lee, you may well have heard of the book he wrote - the excellent Bumper Book Of Government Waste (you've got my copy Pete). Lee's vision for his Mayoral term is clear and attractive. Tax and spending cuts, localise decision-making and ultimately abolish the position of Mayor. Magic.

The Wider Picture For The Conservatives

Across the country there are Tory councils increasing efficiency, reducing waste and generally delivering excellent value for money, but we don't get enough credit at the national level for these success stories. The received wisdom is that people want tax cuts, believe that there is incredible waste that can be carved out, but don't believe the Tories can manage it. .

Having Lee win the mayoralty and deliver on some of his eye-catching promises would rock those perceptions.

Further Reading For Enthusiasts

For more read this interview or this one or take a look at his campaign website. Lee is also a pretty humourous guy. Here's a few choice quotes.

Lee - If Mr Livingstone wants to retire tomorrow and run for Mayor of Caracas instead, I’d be delighted to sign his nomination form.

Q What makes you stand out above the other (Conservative) candidates?

Lee - Original thinking. There’s no point in Conservatives running for mayor believing they can run socialism better than the socialists. It’s not just the man at the top, Livingstone, who’s at fault over London’s government – it’s the whole structure and the system itself.

Lee - I did not spend my time co-writing the Bumper Book of Government Waste to tinker at the edges. I believe in a low tax, deregulated, free economy. I believe in letting people get on with their lives. And I believe in standing up to express these opinions, rather than letting the socialists win the argument by default. Let’s shout it from the rooftops. Low taxes and less regulation mean greater wealth and a better society for all.

Several other Tory bloggers are fairly sure that he has the right approach. All he needs to do is to turn these thoughts into a campaign that will win the election. A penny for your thoughts.

The Sads & Czech English Words II

The Sads are a band formed in Prague comprising a Canadian lead singer/guitarist, English cellist American guitarist and a newly-recruited American drummer. They provided the atmosphere at my house party at the weekend and were much appreciated by the guests. They are playing tonight in Vinohrady.

For more about the Sads check this link.

My second Czech English word is "action" which is used to describe a big night out with friends. For example, it's time we went out on an action. A wild action is the extreme version of this and fairly describes the Saturday night house party and subsequent visit to Harley's.

So They Are Cheats

A few months ago the Pakistani cricket captain Inzamam-Ul-Haq precipitated a crisis by refusing to take to the field after a ball-tampering decision in a Test match with England. He rationalised his decision as follows. "The pride of the nation has been hurt, we have been unfairly labelled as cheats". See here for more.

Many commentators (who should have known better) appeared to consider that this sense of honour meant that the usual concept of the referee's decision being final did not apply to Pakistan. I don't agree with this, but the cowardly ICC chief Malcolm Speed made it clear which side he was taking when, by his actions, he hung the international umpire Darrell Hair out to dry.

I hope that this breaking news will chastise them and jolt them out of their arrogant disregard for the cricket authorities. Are they going to admit that they can now be fairly labeled as cheats?

Land Value Tax 3 - My Counter To The Main Right Wing Objection

Third in this series on land value tax. LVT 1 and 2 posts linked here and here provoked an excellent debate and I learnt a lot more. Recommended reading is the "how land affects the average person" link at this website.

At this stage, I was planning to get on to the how of LVT, but I feel the need to counter the main right wingers' argument against LVT as set out in the comments section to LVT 2. Conservative councillor and blogger, Richard Bailey and an anonymous right wing poster were the most strident opponents to the principle of land tax.

Without wishing to deliberately oversimplify their objections the key elements of their argument were as follows;

"The right of private land ownership is as fundamental to our society as breathing air." and "not in further penalising people who have managed to retain assets despite the predations of socialist and successive wet so called conservative governments."

The Counter

Firstly, I could argue that many other "good" things such as hard work are well taxed. For example I could argue that the right to work is as fundamental to our society and should not be taxed. But, I won't make this argument, chiefly because the government needs the revenue from payroll taxes.

According to authoritative research the average value of an acre of UK development land was £404,000 in 2001. Obviously, this has risen further since then, but to be on the safe side, I will assume it holds. If you hold your £400,000 in undeveloped land, you pay no tax on that holding.

Imagine that instead of buying that land you have £400,000 in cash earning 5% interest per annum which equals £20,000 a year. 20% or £4,000 of that interest will be deducted at source by your bank and handed to the tax man.

After LVT is fully introduced, I imagine that a rate of 1% per annum would be reasonable - £4,000 in this example. Using this example, I think I can successfully argue that taxing land value merely balances up taxes on assets. Furthermore, unlike the private ownership of cash, private ownership of land necessarily deprives others of that land so there is a social cost to land, which ought to be borne by the landowners themselves. Any ripostes?

Lib Blogs

The Lib Dem linking comp is closed. My top three in reverse order of preference

Bronze - Liberal Bureaucracy - A fairly personal blog, with a unique angle (administration can be good). I'm going to visit this one a bit more before deciding whether to link.

Silver - Inner West - First impression was it was a bit heavyweight for this time on a Saturday morning. The blog is very thoughtful. The even-handed way in which he makes criticisms of Cameron (on not cutting taxes) and his own party is impressive. You're linked.

Gold - Forceful & Moderate - I'm a little seduced by small things such as the fact that the link to the Grauniad, it's a double act and that they appear to have big issues with the welfare state. More generally, I like the way that the site tackles everyday issues in a calm and engaging manner. Linked.

Whilst, I am at it (awarding gongs), I asked a few chess questions at the start of the World Chess Championships. Croydonian correctly named the first British GM as Tony Miles (pictured in his younger years). As to the other questions, Miles's biography is called "It's Only Me" which is an anagram of his name and the "handle" he used when playing Internet chess. He went to King Edwards School Edgbaston. His fellow alumni include Enoch Powell, J R R Tolkein, David Willetts and my brother.

Note - The new world chess champion is Vladimir Kramnik who won on a tiebreak after the main match was tied 6 - 6.

Apolitical

I've been spending too much time weighing in against Sion Simon to worry about my own posting and I have visitors this weekend. I don't like to be political unless I've thought the post through, so here is an apolitical post. Just stocked up on basics

3 2 litres bottles of still water
2 litres of milk
2 kilogram bags of rice and
1 jar of coffee.

The cost approximated to £2.40. Let's see who can turn this into a political post.