Tag Archives: Ed Davey

daily blog, diary blog, elections, historical, Jewish lobby in UK, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Diary Blog, 27 August 2020, including thoughts about the Liberal Democrat Party

16 Comments

LibDems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Liberal_Democrats_leadership_election

I see that the LibDems have elected a new leader. Not hard to find one better than Jo Swinson was, even in the LibDems’ restricted gene pool. Ed Davey is part of the old LibLabCon Westminster stitch-up, tied-in with finance-capitalism and political lobbying, but is and is perceived as more solid than crazed lesbian (she prefers “pansexual”) Layla Moran [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Liberal_Democrats_leadership_election]. [Note: some unflattering facts seem to have been expunged from Layla Moran’s Wikipedia entry].

Ed Davey got about two-thirds of the leadership vote.

Davey [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Davey] will not rock the LibDem boat much; neither will he get more people to join or vote for the LibDems.

The scamming of, and later betrayal of, the voters in 2010 led to the debacle of 2015, when the LibDems went from having 57 MPs to having 8. In fact, the high point of LibDemmery in terms of MP numbers was under the egregious drunk, multikulti fanatic and Jewish lobby tool, Charles Kennedy, who increased the LibDem MP contingent from 52 to 62 in 2005.

Charles Kennedy’s predecessor, Paddy Ashdown, was rather liked by the public, I think, despite the farce of the “Paddy Pantsdown” episode. Ashdown, a former Royal Marine and SBS officer, had increased the LibDem bloc of MPs from 20 (1992) to 46 (1997).

Kennedy was replaced by Nick Clegg in 2005, lost his seat in 2015 and finally drank himself to death a few weeks later. Nihil nisi bonum mortuis, but I never liked him. The sort of person who is all in favour of the UK being invaded by black and brown hordes and “I’m all right, Jack” because sitting comfortably in the more affluent parts of London, the suburbs, the country or, in Kennedy’s case, Fort William, in the Highlands of Scotland. I also disliked the fact that Kennedy was so firmly in the pocket of the Jewish lobby. Having said that, Kennedy did oppose the NWO invasion of Iraq in 2003; credit where due.

I think that the LibDem party and also msm commentators have underestimated the sense of betrayal among voters in respect of what happened 2010-2015. It still resonates. It resonates even with me, and I have never been a LibDem member, supporter, or voter! The sheer conscienceless lying cheek of it! The broken LibDem promises, the selling-out of the voters just so that LibDem careerists like Nick Clegg, little Danny Alexander [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Alexander] etc could get ministerial portfolios in the Con Coalition.

Both Jo Swinson and Ed Davey were given government preferment during the Con Coalition, Davey at Cabinet level (Jo Swinson was merely a PUS).

During the Con Coalition of 2010-2015, the Conservative Party leaders played the LibDem leadership like a balalaika. Example: the LibDems withdrew opposition to the Bedroom Tax after being offered a law (now in place) prohibiting free plastic bags in supermarkets.

Now, Clegg is the main European gopher for the Facebook Jew, Zuckerberg, while Alexander now works for something called AIIB [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Infrastructure_Investment_Bank] and lives in Beijing (or, as I stubbornly call it, Peking). Both received knighthoods, for what that is now worth.

What now for the LibDems?

The LibDem representation in the Scottish Parliament has more than halved since 1999 (when that parliament was established). Now only 5 MSPs out of 129, a situation unchanged since 2011. A similar position to the LibDems in the National Assembly for Wales (1 AM out of 40, again unchanged since 2011). The next elections will be in 2021.

In the London Assembly, the LibDems have 1 member out of 25, while in the Lords, they have 89 peers out of (soon) over 800.

At Westminster, the LibDems now have 11 seats out of a potential 650. That is one down from 2017 but four up compared to 2015. The British electoral system is of course bizarre. In 2019, the LibDems got 11.6% of the national vote, but in 2017 had only 7.4% (yet one more MP!).

I have said since 2010 that the LibDems are living on borrowed time. I still think that, though the “cockroach” quality of the LibDems has just managed to keep them in play. There are several reasons for that. First, the LibDem support for the EU. That may not be hugely popular nationally, but is not hugely unpopular either. Then there is the fact that LibDem voters tend to be concentrated in particular constituencies. Most of the “Celtic Fringe” LibDem areas of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall may be lost, probably forever, but there are leafy suburban seats in England that will be forever LibDem…or will they?

LibDem MPs tend to represent, in England, affluent suburban/rural seats: Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath, St. Albans, Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), Westmorland. The other four are in Scottish seats, all but one rural and rather remote.

The 2019 LibDem vote-share of 11.6% was below that of UKIP in 2015 (when UKIP, with 12.6%, got only 1 MP elected). The difference lies in the Schwerpunkt or concentration of forces in those particular constituencies. Several are marginal seats. UKIP failed in 2015 because its 12.6% was only half of what would have been required to win at least some seats. Had UKIP got a national vote of 25% in 2015, it would have got, undoubtedly, 30% or 40% in a few seats and so won those seats. 12.6% is not enough; neither is 11.6%, but though the LibDems get 2%, 5%, 7% in most seats, they achieve higher votes in the favoured few constituencies. For example, Ed Davey’s vote in 2019 was over 51%; Layla Moran’s was over 53%.

One unexpected (to me) fact is that the actual membership of the LibDems is now around 120,000, its highest ever as “Liberal Democrat Party”, though the old Liberal Party had a membership, albeit very long ago (pre-WW1), in the hundreds of thousands, as well as hundreds of MPs, peaking in 1906 with 398 MPs out of 670.

Membership is a secondary factor. Labour had nearly 600,000 members last year (2019) when it lost to the Conservative Party, which had only 140,000. The Labour pressure group, Momentum, has about 40,000; UKIP still has 26,000 (supposedly), despite being a “dead parrot”.

The LibDems will probably limp on, eventually to die “not with a bang but a whimper” in the words of Nevile Shute in On the Beach.

In a binary system, the in-out of the two parties contending tends to alternate,on the national level. The LibDems have MPs because, in their now-few core areas of the country, the LibDems are the alternative to the Conservatives. However, the Con Coalition of 2010-2015 destroyed the (if never credible to me personally) LibDem trump cards, supposed integrity, honesty, idealism etc. I really do not think that the LibDems can climb out of the hole, but they may just gently decline to a few MPs before actually expiring.

Mike Stuchbery

I blogged about “antifa” cheerleader Mike Stuchbery last year: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/10/23/a-few-words-about-mike-stuchbery/.

He has now (again) tweeted about me. In fact, he (or someone using his name, and an email account obviously set up for the purpose) sent my blog a silly and hostile message fairly recently. I suppose that it might have been someone else using his name, but the message was tracked to an ISP number in the Stuttgart area (Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany), which is where Stuchbery now lives.

Obviously, I did not approve (what I take to be) his comment for publication, but the details are still on file. I do not threaten people. Not threaten.

When I started blogging, nearly 4 years ago, I thought that I would almost inevitably get hostile messages, but in fact have so far only had about half a dozen or so, over the 4 years. I suppose that most people who might send such messages cannot be bothered to set up email accounts just for that purpose, when all that happens is that the messages are seen only by me, not my readers; also, the senders are usually blocked.

Alternatively, maybe most people who read my blog posts enjoy them, support what I say, support me. Now there’s a thought…

Stuchbery’s outbursts today:

I suppose that I should thank Stuchbery for publicizing my blog. After all, I myself cannot do so via Twitter; the Jew-Zionist lobby had me expelled in 2018, and I am not on the other well-known platforms (Facebook, Telegram, YouTube etc).

I noticed that a few people replied to Stuchbery’s post(s). Here’s one:

https://twitter.com/RedFiddler/status/1298970539717926913?s=20

The tweeter @RedFiddler is an Australian, a Ph.D.-holder using the actual title “Dr”…I have blogged before about this quite recent affectation (recent in the Anglophone countries; it is more accepted in, particularly, Germanophone lands, where at one time not many people had higher degrees), though I suppose that it is just about possible that the tweeter is in an academic teaching post.

Reverting to the main topic, you see the problem. These people hate Europeans and European culture to such an extent that they actually question whether European race and culture even exists! If anyone said the like about, say, African race and culture, or Chinese race and culture, the mob would either laugh or, more likely, lay down the “racist!” card immediately. Sick world.

Musical interlude

Tweets seen

This appalling government is totally beyond the pale. Migration-invasion continuing, no serious attempt to make Brexit work, ridiculous impositions such as the facemask nonsense, HS2 continuing…it just goes on. It is a “government of clowns”; there again, clowns are or can be rather sinister.

https://twitter.com/MarkACollett/status/1298965794014064645?s=20
https://twitter.com/PostmanPatriot/status/1298997227306721280?s=20

Unexpected, but welcome if it really reflects what was said…

https://twitter.com/LivesEuropa/status/1298964021681491968?s=20

Well, there it is. Owen Jones, the standard-bearer for the fake or pseudo-socialists completely in the pocket of the Jew-Zionist lobby, wants to censor and ban free speech. Quelle surprise…Here is my assessment of Jones, written 18 months or so ago: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/a-brief-word-about-owen-jones/

Final word today

BBC Radio 4 News at 1900 hrs (paraphased): “there has been a big increase in persons testing positive for Coronavirus. However, hospital admissions in respect of the virus continue to fall.” No mention at all of deaths from (or with) “the virus”. Because there are none now, or virtually none.

How long do you think that it will be before the BBC and the Government (and the pathetic scared rabbits all wearing their facemask muzzles) put two and two together? Perhaps they need a famous TV face to say to them: “yes, many many people are still getting Coronavirus. Few have symptoms. A few have sore throats etc. Almost none need any medical attention, let alone hospital admission. None are dying.”

Followed by “Citizens! It is safe to walk, talk, shop, drink and even return to work or school. Burn your facemasks!” (well, one can dream, but a proclamation like that would be too honest).

Goodnight, world, until tomorrow

Brexit, daily blog, diary blog, elections, MPs, Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

Diary Blog, 16 January 2020

18 Comments

Ha ha!

harryandmeghan

News from the “broken society”

I suspect that the judge, in the case reported below, had some sympathy for the defendant. So do I. There is far too much anti-social behaviour around, and the police are usually not very useful. I think that the lady in question was quite right, in the circumstances.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-mowed-down-teens-threatened-21291400

News from Labour

The newspapers in a flurry because Rebecca Long-Bailey seems to be in the lead, ahead of ex-DPP Keir Starmer. As already blogged, I have little time for any of the candidates, but the two I most want binned and humiliated are Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy. Overall, Rebecca Long-Bailey is probably the best from a policy point of view at least, but in a terribly poor field.

Voter migration 2017-2019

That is an interesting graphic. From it can be seen Labour’s haemorrhage of support quite clearly.

The Conservatives stood firm, gaining few new voters but still more than they lost; more Brexit Leavers migrating Lab to Con than Brexit Remainers migrating Con to LibDem.

The 4-point upswing in the LibDem popular vote is seen to be entirely Remainer dissidents from both Lab and Con, together with some 2017-non-voting Remainers.

While Labour did lose former (2017) voters, i.e. Leave supporters, to both Conservative Party and Brexit Party, and almost as many Remain supporters to the LibDems, almost as many former Labour voters as all of those defectors simply did not vote at all in 2019. What is especially interesting is that those former Labour voters who did not vote at all in 2019 were split about 50-50 between Remain and Leave.

What that means, to me, is that a very great number of people who used to vote Labour found it unsuitable in 2019 not because it was pro or anti the EU, but for other reasons. We are talking about somewhere in the region of a million people who voted Labour in 2017 but who did not vote at all in 2019. About 2.7 million fewer people voted Labour in 2019 as compared to 2017. Almost half of of those did not vote at all in 2019. So at least a million, maybe nearly 1,250,000.

What do these dynamics mean for the short or medium term? One problem is that we do not know all of the facts. Some former Labour voters defected to the Con Party or Brexit Party because those voters supported Brexit, but others obviously could not support Con Party or Brexit Party for other reasons. They at least could perhaps be called “social national” voters without a home. 500,000-600,000 people.

Brexit, even if probably in a messed-up, disorganized way, is going ahead. Remain is a dead duck politically. Brexit will not be a factor in the next general election, except in residual ways. That means that, inter alia, the LibDems are toast.

About a third of the new 2019 LibDem voters were Remainers who were previously Con, Lab or non-voting. Now that Brexit is set to leave the political agenda, at least as an In/Out question, those voters will ebb away. At the same time, the concentrations of LibDem support in a small number of constituencies are diffusing, but the LibDems have no real national narrative to tell, while the paucity of MPs (11 at present) means that the pool of potential leaders is a mere puddle. Finally, the proposed boundary changes and reduction of MP numbers from 650 to 600 will kill off at least half a dozen LibDem seats anyway. Result— misery and probable annihilation.

I admit that I have been predicting LibDem annihilation for 9+ years, but in my defence I can only plead that I underestimated the stupidity of the electorate or some of it. I also underestimated the effect of the UK’s effectively rigged political system. Where else but to the LibDems could the voters go if unwilling to vote Con or Lab? Only to UKIP or Brexit Party. Controlled opposition. I do think, now, that the fateful hour is approaching for LibDemmery. Their vague “centrism” and “let’s all be nice in society” messaging rang very hollow after the terrible things done by the Con Coalition, in which now-binned Jo Swinson was a junior minister.

The Con Coalition killed the LibDems, or rather mortally-wounded them. The LibDems are slowly dying from the effects of 2010-2015.

The frontrunner for next LibDem leader is Ed Davey, who was a Cabinet minister in the Con Coalition. Not really likely to revive the LibDems, though a more substantial figure than Jo Swinson (whose recent elevation to the Lords, after having been chucked out by the voters of her Commons constituency, has probably irritated voters generally even more). Looking at the other LibDem MPs, one sees the problem in finding even a halfway-suitable leader!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrats_(UK)#Current_MPs

Another point to remember is that the turnout in 2019 was about 67%. Nearly 33% of eligible voters (in round figures, about 16 million people) did not vote. There are yet others who are eligible but who are not registered. Could there be a political position that would attract the allegiance of that 16M-strong or maybe 20M-strong bloc?

Interesting to see that the Greens, though basically a joke-party, managed to attract Brexit-unaligned voters who had not voted in 2017. Seems to me that, in part, that was a protest vote against the lack of choice.

Labour is hopeless at present, with no decent leader in sight and policies which are partly-popular but also partly deeply unpopular (eg mass immigration laxity). Its traditional base is ebbing away and its new foundations in the black and South Asian “communities” are not so solid.

Labour seems not to want to turn to the truths that everyone else, pretty much, sees: such as that mass immigration has destroyed decent pay, benefits, and has crowded schools, NHS, prisons etc. Labour wants to say that “unions are the answer” when they were not even the answer 30 years ago!

What about the Conservatives? Their new seats are not theirs by tradition or custom. The roots are very shallow. They are a government by default, who won the recent General Election by default. Labour might have had a chance were it not for the Jew-dominated hate barrage put up over 4 years and intensified during the campaign. However, that was only part of the story. The other part was Labour as it actually is. Diane Abbott as proposed Home Secretary? A West Indian woman who scarcely knows what day it is, who cannot put the right shoe on the right foot, who cannot add up…it just goes on! Oh, and who has made plain her hatred for the British people again and again.

Labour just did not look like a credible government. Even compared to Boris-idiot’s “Conservatives”. It did not hit hard enough against the Israel lobby that was behind the anti-Labour msm barrage either. Since the campaign and election, one of the sinister “Campaign Against Antisemitism” bastards, one Joe Glasman, even posted a triumphalist clip (he looked drugged or drunken) on Twitter (it is deleted now, I read) in which he admitted that the Jews beat Labour through msm links, “spies and intel” and a relentless focus on negative attacks on Corbyn especially. Indeed, he revelled in “his” victory.

The Conservative victory was won without having had to oppose a credible opponent (made still less credible by the Jewish-lobby publicity campaign and by its own flaws). Another factor was the weaponization of Brexit. 52% wanted Brexit in 2016 and even if the mismanagement etc had reduced that to perhaps 45% or 50% by December 2019, that 45%-50% was still more than the Conservative voting intention of earlier in the year, that stood in the 35%-40% range. It was that Brexit factor that augmented the Conservative lead.

2022/2024? Completely open. If a social national party exists by then, it might gain huge support. True, the political system is rigged via FPTP voting, carefully-drawn constituency boundaries etc, not to mention the msm, but if such a party has elections as a stratagem, not an end, such a party might still triumph eventually via other roads to glory…

An enemy of the truly European future

The Coudenhove-Kalergi idea again. How anyone could believe that a white Northern European population is less creative and has fewer evolutionary possibilities than, say, the populations of Nigeria, Congo, Brazil etc is hard to understand except in terms of multikulti brainwashing. Judge the trees by their fruits.

It would also be good if scientists who tweet could use “too” and not “to” when they mean “too”…

Ah, mystery solved. Our “scientist” is a former lifeguard and waiter, who later worked in IT and is now a lecturer at a couple of former polytechnics:

http://scienceontheedge.com/about/

*for those unaware of Coudenhove-Kalergi:

https://www.westernspring.co.uk/the-coudenhove-kalergi-plan-the-genocide-of-the-peoples-of-europe/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi

Harry and the Royal Mulatta

A tweet or two.

That last tweet hits the nail on the head. “He who would be first must be the servant of all”. The Queen understands that, at least in principle, but the younger royals feel only the entitlement, not the obligation. Some were always like that, of course. Princess Margaret. Prince Andrew. Edward Fag-End (as the Anglo-Saxons might have named him). Now we have this pair of msm “celebrities”.

An older sort of monarchy would have loaded their camels with gold (if they were lucky) and then banished them forever to a far kingdom. I suppose that, in a sense, that is what was done with Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson after 1936.

This marriage has tarnished the whole concept of British Royalty in a way never done before, certainly not so openly.

Update, 8 February 2021

Looking at the above blog post a year on in time, I think that it has held up well. Even the fact that the idea to reduce MP numbers from 650 to 600 in time for the next General Election has been binned changes little. The LibDems are still a dead duck, in my view.

Brexit, elections, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

The LibDems Elect A Leader

93 Comments

Introduction

I suppose that I should write a brief piece about the LibDems, now that they have elected a new leader. Somehow an underwhelming topic. First of all, the new leader.

Background

Jo Swinson MP was born in Scotland in 1980, went to a local state school and then to the LSE, graduating, it seems, aged only 20, and with a degree in management. She then worked briefly for a small enterprise in Yorkshire before becoming marketing manager with public relations duties for a local radio station in Hull, called Viking Radio.

Elected as MP in 2005 [LibDem, East Dunbartonshire], she was PPS to Nick Clegg, then a PUS, then a junior minister, all during the time of the “Con Coalition” of 2010-2015.

Jo Swinson voted for all or almost all of the Con Coalition policies, and has endorsed both zero hours contracts and “flexible working”. I am not a LibDem, but I have to say that Jo Swinson is really rather far from the LibDem traditional stance on such matters. She comes across as almost “libertarian” as far as worker rights are concerned.

The other candidate, Ed Davey, is not far from Jo Swinson, ideologically, though I should say that Davey was the more intelligent candidate of the two, so it makes sense for the LibDems to go for the less-intelligent and less-educated Jo Swinson…Davey was also the more experienced candidate, being about 15 years older and having been in Parliament for longer (since 1997, compared to Swinson’s 2005); Davey was also the only one to have served in the Cabinet.

Both Swinson and Davey lost their seats in 2015 (Davey to a Conservative, Swinson to the SNP), but were re-elected in the same constituencies in 2017. Both are “doing rather well” financially outside politics too: Davey is director or consultant to a number of companies, while Jo Swinson’s husband, Duncan Hames, an accountant (and also a LibDem MP from 2010 until 2015), now works for Transparency International, a well-funded NGO.

The LibDems’ situation and chances

2010 was surely the high point of LibDemmery. 57 MPs (out of 650) and a share in government: the Con Coalition. In 2005, under the egregious Charles Kennedy, the LibDems had won 62 seats out of 646, but were not in government.

The LibDems got 23% of the popular vote in 2010, but only about 9% of the MPs.

I believe that the LibDems could have demanded electoral reform from the Conservatives. They did not. They sold their chance for a few ministerial places, for official cars, red boxes, rank and flummery. In return they (Ed Davey and Jo Swinson among them) voted for every misconceived “Conservative” measure: the appalling regime of hounding of and cruelty to the poor disabled, sick and unemployed; the whole nonsense of “austerity”, which left the UK economy almost alone in advanced states in being mired in recession and/or low growth for years; the near-destruction of the armed services as an active and effective global force. For all that and more, for being doormats for the Conservatives, the LibDems were punished by the electorate.

In 2015, the LibDem vote slumped to 7.9% (8 MPs), then slumped again in 2017, to 7.4% (but, by the vagaries of the British electoral system, the LibDems ended up with 12 MPs).

In the 2019 UK European elections, the LibDems came second. I blogged about them then:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/eu-elections-2019-in-review-the-libdems/

but they failed fairly miserably at the Peterborough by-election a week or so later:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/06/07/peterborough-by-election-post-poll-analysis-and-thoughts/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/a-few-peterborough-afterthoughts-about-the-libdems/

I do not think that I have a lot to add to what I then wrote. My view is that there is and will be no “LibDem surge”, but what there might be is a LibDem gain from the decline of both of the other main System parties, as well as an electoral benefit arising from the Brexit Party surge —if it happens— in the South of England, mainly, where the LibDems are not infrequently in 2nd or close 3rd place.

If the Conservative Party is hit badly in the South, its voters split between Con and BP, the main beneficiary is likely to be not the Brexit Party, and not Labour (in most cases) but the LibDems. In those circumstances (and “Change UK” having died shortly after birth), it is not now impossible to imagine the LibDems again having a bloc of 50 MPs, something that I admit I thought, until very recently, would be impossible. The LibDems may not deserve it, but might in any event get it. In fact, thinking of —inter alia— Boris Johnson, that might just be the epitaph of our present age.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Swinson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Davey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrats_(UK)#General_elections

Update, 12 December 2022

We now know that there was the 2019 General Election only 5 months after I wrote the above assessment. At that election, my initial judgment, rather than my later speculation, was vindicated: the LibDem vote increased from 7.4% to 11.55%, but the FPTP system resulted in the LibDems losing 1 MP. That MP was Jo Swinson, who exited political life, having led her party for less than 5 months (144 days).

After the departure of Jo Swinson, Ed Davey was elected leader.

The LibDems had 12 MPs after the 2017 General Election, which reduced to 11 after the 2019 General Election. However, since then the LibDems have had three by-election successes, taking their number to 14.

Update, 3 February 2026

Having seen the blog post get quite a few hits in the past days and weeks, time for an update.

Jo Swinson has disappeared in into well-deserved obscurity, and is now described on Wikipedia as a Scottish former politician: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Swinson#Later_career.

As for the LibDems, under Ed Davey they achieved their best results, in terms of seats, at GE 2024— 72 MPs. That despite the fact that their result in terms of vote-share was historically low, only 12.2%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrats_(UK)#General_elections.

Ed Davey has become notorious for clowning around at fetes, rallies, conferences etc.

Having said that, and despite the LibDems having become near-irrelevant in policy terms, present opinion polling has them on or around 11%-15%, and surviving the coming likely massive cull of System party MPs. The polls seem to indicate that the slide of the Conservative Party (mainly) means that, as “dustbin” alternative, the LibDems might keep about 50-70 MPs, mostly in the southern half of the UK, at the likely GE 2029 or GE 2028, whichever. That might put them into the unaccustomed position of being the third or even second-largest bloc of MPs in the Commons, if Reform UK sweeps the board.