Tag Archives: triple lock

Diary Blog, 19 October 2022

Afternoon music

On this day a year ago

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One cannot see, as some simpletons did in the 1970s, the conflict in Northern Ireland as simply a kind of “national liberation struggle”. More a kind of several-hundred-years-old sectarian conflict between two populations, and mainly occurring in a relatively few areas of the province.

The methods of the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s particularly were brutal and callous. Despite some harsh measures on the part of the British and/or Northern Irish authorities, the sort of 1930s/1940s Soviet-style clearances that might have finished the whole problem were never used, nor ever even contemplated.

The British never really hit the IRA infrastructure as hard as they could have. Gerry Adams was, ludicrously, allowed to be notionally “on the dole” for many years, ferried around in one of the black taxis used extensively by the IRA. He and McGuinness and the like were never killed, their families never arrested, their properties never destroyed.

I think that it is clear that the British always favoured, at root, a nice polite Westminster-style “political solution”, even if that meant, strategically, giving in to Sinn Fein (and thus the IRA) in the long run (if only because the birth-rate of the “Republican”/Catholic population was higher than that of the “Loyalist”/Protestant population).

The same happened in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, a country I myself visited in 1977. In 1979, the British played it their usual way, with a nice polite conference at Lancaster House in London (a rather nice small palace, of sorts, which I saw when invited to a couple of receptions in the 1990s).

The British used their intelligence services to bug the hotels of the delegates, and made sure no-one blew the place up. Emerging from that was the idea of a British-style “election” from which would inevitably emerge the winner, that nice, well-educated, little man, Robert Mugabe.

That’s how Britain has done these things since 1945— superficially slick, well-organized, without too much noise or violence in most cases (until the British have left), but in the end, a complete disaster. It started with Indian Partition in 1947.

The bombings etc carried out by the IRA were terrible. Having said that, they were not a tenth of one percent as deadly or as wounding (in bald numerical terms) as, say, the American bombings of countries such as Iraq in the past 30 years, and even smaller by proportion than the bombings in Germany, Japan, France, Romania etc carried out, mainly, by the British and Americans during the Second World War.

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[Lazienki Park, Warsaw]

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Anyone listening to System/Jew-Zionist-lobby pundits such as Dan Hodges is likely to be disappointed, at least most of the time.

I agree with the above, though. This is not now about a piece of Westminster Bubble theatricality, but about the fact that million upon million British people are now going to suffer terribly simply because stupid Liz Truss and woolly-head Kwarteng have been trying to play a performative game with the future of Britain.

If the last part of that tweet is right, we are well and truly ******…

Even so, need one take seriously most British “security and intelligence” sources? Those people have been wrong most of the time since 1945 (and, indeed, were for much of the 1939-45 period).

Mirabile dictu— I even find myself in agreement with sleazy Bryant this afternoon. Not that one need be a political genius to see the obvious truth of that tweet, of course.

Kick them in the head. Don’t spare the smug smirking grey-hairs either, men and women both. In fact, do them even harder.

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The future of medicine may lie mostly with a more holistic approach.

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If the Prime Minister (yes, even if it is Liz Truss) commits expressly to something, commits to it in the Chamber of the House of Commons, and in response to a direct question, that’s that…or else.

As I blogged yesterday, if the Triple Lock is not reinstated, then that is effectively the end of the Conservative Party, because the hard core of Con support consists of pensioners. If most of them abstain or vote elsewhere, the Conservative Party might really end up with a national vote of 10%, and that would leave them with 50-100 MPs, quite possibly at the bottom of that range.

The Conservative Party is polling around 20% or so. Take away half or three-quarters of that, and you are left with 5%-10%. Goodnight Vienna.

Exactly.

Lose/lose for the Conservative Party. Election now means about 50 Con Party MPs left (ironically, as blogged yesterday, probably including Liz Truss), but the only alternatives are to keep her as PM until the next general election, which might mean a near-total wipe-out, or to replace her as soon as possible, and then hope that at least a third to a half of the Con Party MPs can be saved, 100-175 of them.

Actually, it’s true: Liz Truss is a fighter, a noisy, aggressive, stupid, pointless woman used to pushing herself to the fore. Trouble is, once the silly bitch has forced herself to the front, there is almost literally nothing in her arsenal (intellectually or otherwise), and that is as true in the House of Commons as it is in any possible nuclear confrontation with Russia.

Will that be the next Liz Truss attempt to channel Thatcher and the Falklands? To try to create a “Falklands Factor” or “Belgrano Moment”? If so, a big mistake, and we may all be the victims of it. Russia is not Argentina, it has many thousands of nuclear weapons, many more advanced than our own few (most newspapers etc say the UK has 30-60, some claim 100).

Yes, it may be that Russia could only land 50 or 100 nuclear weapons on us. Is that OK? Do people think that anything much would be left?

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/.

“Stein”? (((J)))? Looks like it…

[Jason Stein]

Liz Truss is, apart from all her other faults, totally in the pocket of the Jew-Zionist and Israel lobby. She “proudly” said as much at the recent Conservative Party Conference, at the fringe event organized by the horrible “Conservative Friends of Israel” [“CFI”].

I posted, yesterday, Peter Oborne’s excellent analysis of the Truss/Kwarteng “government”:

That 9-minute exposition is a must-see.

I noticed that Oborne says that, over the past decade, the Conservative Party has been “captured” by “about four” groups, the primary one being “the super-rich“.

Another, interpenetrating, would be the Jew/Zionist/Israel lobby.

I agree. Generally, the aid monies stick to the aid “industry” itself, its executives, to corrupt governments and officials etc. Look at “Save the Children”: millions of pounds wasted on the salaries and expenses of sex pests and rapists such as Brendan Cox, the then husband of assassinated “Labour” MP, Jo Cox. I think that Brendan Cox alone was getting something like £300,000 (maybe £200,000 or so) a year, and he was not even the top boss!

If you want to help the poor of Asia or Africa or elsewhere, 9 times out of 10 your best bet is to just find a family and give money to them. No take-out, no bureaucracy; just a bit of money to help them get on.

There may be circumstances where a large-scale project can have good effects, but that is usually better done on the governmental level.

As for animal charities, better to find one which is directly doing good, such as those supported by the actor Peter Egan [A Perfect Spy etc]: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Egan#Animal_rights_activism.

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Cut off all money, arms, and ammunition to the Jew-Zionist dictatorship in Kiev.

Is Harry Cole pushing for war with Russia? Bad idea, if so.

Incidentally, we read that Cole has “the best security and intelligence contacts” of all mainstream journalists in London. Maybe, but how can he check the veracity of what he is being told? What do his contacts want in exchange? What is their agenda?

We are living in unusual times. Historically, more money spent on defence meant more real security for the British people. Now, the reverse is the case. More money spent on defence may mean a greater chance of a nuclear attack on the UK, especially when billions of pounds are wasted on the Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev, which (((typically))) is alternately wheedling and demanding more from us daily.

At the same time, the Royal Navy cannot or will not even secure our shores from migration-invasion.

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Wealthy Jew Peston may think that keeping the Triple Lock is a “car crash“, but Liz Truss and her fellow Con MPs know for certain that they are toast if it goes. I have blogged today and yesterday about it.

It is a simple calculation: with Triple Lock, the pensioners who are the core of Conservative electoral support will stay on board, most of them; without the Triple Lock, over half, maybe three-quarters, of the Conservative vote just evaporates, leaving the Conservative Party in an existential hole.

It may well be that international bankers prefer “austerity” for the British people, while parasites siphon off hundreds of billions, but the British people beg to differ.

When will idiots like Peston start working for the British people, and stop spouting System finance-capital propaganda?

You want to cut spending? Close down 90% of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, none of which are doing anything at all useful now. Also, stop sending money to arms manufacturers and to Kiev.

Interesting analysis

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/19/uk-austerity-voters-brexit-cuts-chaos

 “After weeks of City chaos, and scoldings from Larry Summers and the IMF, even the most liberal and tofu-loving of commentators have bought into a dangerous idea: that you can never buck “the markets”.

Behind this mentality lies a whole mix of things, including the very understandable schadenfreude that comes with watching the Britannia Unchained lot find out that the markets don’t actually love them back. And who wouldn’t find joy in seeing the double-breasted, vacant-eyed, permanently post-prandial beetroots who between them make up the Conservative parliamentary party await an electoral tide that will sweep them out into generational oblivion? But the “markets know best” is not the lesson of the past few weeks, or the pandemic, or the bankers’ bailout before it. And believing so puts you on a collision course with voters.

You can see the result today: the UK is once again in the grip of austerity and anti-democratic politics – when we got into this crisis precisely because of austerity and democratic failure. The vast spending cuts made by George Osborne wrecked our hospitals, our schools and our town halls, and stoked the frustrations that ensured Brexit. I heard it over and over while reporting before the referendum – passersby declaring they were voting out, and citing as their reason nothing to do with Brussels and almost everything to do with the Tories. Their mum’s wait for an operation, their kids’ inability to get a council house, the loss of industry, the black hole left by privatisation: 40 years of bombed-out economics and bullshit politics.

To prove how far we have regressed, the politician who is once again everywhere is Osborne, easily the most ruinous Conservative minister this century. Others might name the layabout liar Boris Johnson or Truss the malfunctioning android, but it was Osborne who robbed Britain of a future. In the 2010s, interest rates hit rock-bottom and markets were practically screaming for governments to spend and invest. The UK could have rethought and rebuilt its post-crash economic model, but he chose to trample on the working poor and to cut, cut, cut. He is a big reason why Tory economics now has only two settings: cutting taxes for the rich, which never produces growth, or pursuing austerity that never brings prosperity.

Even today, Hunt is copying Osborne’s moves, right down to outsourcing politics to the financiers – just look at the newly installed panel of economic advisers, which comprises just two representatives of giant asset managers and two hedge-funders. Yet Jeremy cannot be George, because his role model cut public services so far there is nothing of substance left to take without them falling over. Now inflation is in double digits (unlike the prime minister’s approval ratings), it is devouring every Whitehall budget.

This is the UK’s horrific doom-loop, where voters are told the untenable is inevitable, while the sensibles keep mouthing stupidities and capitalists mirthlessly toast a cadaverous capitalism. Further downstream, surveys suggest over half (54%) of the 4m households on universal credit have gone without food in the last month, sick people in Wales can wait nearly two days inside an ambulance before getting admitted to A&E, and about 100,000 households each month are rolling off their mortgages into financial disaster.

[The Guardian]

I have noticed that “George” Osborne (Gideon Osborne), that nasty part-Jew “a nobody-but-with-money”, is now once more all over the TV politics shows, dispensing his “wisdom”.

Britain 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/18/hardship-heartbreak-devon-families-lose-homes-airbnb-lets

It’s like It’s a Wonderful Life but without any angels to help people. Maybe what Britain needs are avenging angels. As people now say, “just sayin’.”

Suella Braverman

Suella Braverman must be the shortest-serving Home Secretary ever. Like her predecessor, Priti Patel, another one of Indian origin, she talked a good game on migration invasion and immigration generally. Whether she would have been any more effective, I doubt. Anyway, that’s her gone as Home Secretary, gone as part of the Government, but not as MP: she scored over 63% of the vote last time, so has a safe seat even in these times.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fareham_(UK_Parliament_constituency); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suella_Braverman.

Apparently, she may be replaced by the Jew Shapps, who, about a decade ago, posed as other (invented) people, even using false identity badges, in order to sell get-rich-quick schemes in the Palace of Westminster and elsewhere.

A fanatical Jew-Zionist, and former head of the UK branch of B’Nai B’rith [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27nai_B%27rith].

Can this “shitshow” of a government actually get much worse?

[Update, 31 August 2023: In fact, Suella Braverman, having been appointed Home Secretary on 6 October 2022, and having resigned on 19 October 2022, was reappointed by new PM Rishi Sunak only six days later, on 25 October 2022! As of time of writing, she remains, albeit ludicrously, pointlessly, and uselessly, in post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suella_Braverman.

Meanwhile, the Jew Shapps, the shortest-“serving” Home Secretary in history (6 days), and who has had other jobs since October 2022, has only today [31 August 2023] been appointed (ludicrously), Defence Secretary].

Late tweets seen

Useless“? Well, maybe (I have never heard of her). More useless than, say, Liz Truss, Boris-idiot, James Cleverly, Therese Coffey, and a hundred others?

How mad does this “shitshow” have to get before someone just takes Liz Truss outside and…well, you get my meaning?

There was a time, not so long ago, when British people laughed at goings-on of that sort overseas. Italy, Spain, maybe Yeltsin’s Russia, parts of Latin America or Asia. More than awkward. Humiliating for the whole country.

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Diary Blog, 9 October 2022, with thoughts around Liz Truss possibly freezing the UK State Pension

Morning music

[The Palace of Westminster]

On this day a year ago

5 years ago on the blog

The “grey vote”: Liz Truss adviser advised “freeze State Pension

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/08/freeze-pensions-slash-nhs-schools-matthew-sinclair-liz-truss-adviser

Well, there it is. Anyone not wealthy, and over the age of 65, as well as quite a few people of lesser age, who votes for the Conservative Party, is now a turkey voting for Christmas.

During the currency of the 2010-2017 governments, David Cameron-Levita realized that the only reliable demographic voting Conservative was that of “older people” generally— the older the voter, the more likely was he (or she) to vote Con, and also the more likely that that voter was to actually vote at all.

UKIP and, also, Farage’s other and later vehicle, Brexit Party, were mainly made up of fairly grey-haired and mostly ex-Conservative members and voters, people who at least vaguely realized that the Conservative Party was actually helping to destroy Britain, as the young Disraeli once wrote [“the great Conservative Party, that destroys everything“] and wanted a party that reflected their views better.

The trend is more or less the same now, except that UKIP and Brexit Party do not exist in any real sense, though Reform Party has taken up some of that slack.

Cameron-Levita and his cronies knew that fewer and fewer “younger” people, especially voters under the age of 30, were voting Con. That underlined the need to consolidate the Con vote in older age-groups, and especially the group that not only mostly voted Con, but could be relied upon to cast a vote, those in receipt of a State Pension, meaning those over 65 and some over about 62 (the eligibility age being slowly raised over time).

There were other factors: the older sections of the population were also those more likely to own a house or other dwelling outright, having either never had a mortgage or having paid it off while in their fifties, typically. The rise in nominal money-value of residential property therefore benefited that same group of older people.

The older sections of the population, especially the pensioners, were also those who favoured Brexit the most.

It is widely accepted that the general elections of 2015 and 2017 were won by the Conservative Party entirely by reason of the pensioner vote.

In the 2017 general election age became a clear dividing line in British politics: older voters overwhelmingly voted Conservative and younger voters backed Labour.

The data shows that there are still some clear patterns along these lines, although the waters are somewhat muddied by a move away from two-party politics.”

[YouGov: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/31/2019-general-election-demographics-dividing-britai].

The average age of the Conservative voter is such that the steepness of its “age curve” (the increasing probability of a person at 2017 voting Conservative given their age) is now almost certainly steeper than the natural degree to which people “get” more Conservative as they age. This is important as it suggests that new cohorts of voters cannot replace and replenish the ranks of the Conservatives, even if they do naturally get more Conservative over time.”

[https://wpieconomics.com/insights-archive/newsletter_blogs_polling-and-the-conservative-loss-of-political-ascendancy/]

See also: https://www.varsity.co.uk/opinion/22276.

The Conservative Party induced that reliable pro-Con voting bloc to carry on voting Con by introducing the “Triple Lock”, by which State Pensions would rise by the rate of inflation, or average pay, or 2.5% a year, whichever of the three was the greatest.

That obviously suited most pensioners very well, and secured those two election victories.

Poorer pensioners who received both State Pension and Pension Guarantee Credit were also served not badly, because the State Pension was covered by the Triple Lock, while Pension Guarantee Credit would still increase in amount, though only in line with inflation.

Rishi Sunak suspended the inflation part of the Triple Lock in 2021 (for financial year 2022-2023) [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53082530], thus —if you like— cheating pensioners; he also thereby broke the election pledge the Conservative Party made during the 2019 General Election.

Sunak, best known for his “panicdemic” “free money” giveaways, probably has that Triple Lock default, or sleight-of-hand, to thank for his not being ushered in as Conservative Party leader in 2022.

The vast majority of actual Conservative Party members are either pensioners or not far from becoming so. The, so-to-speak, “Indian giver” was basically given a slap by the Conservative Party pensioner membership. Had he not cheated the pensioners, Sunak would almost certainly be Prime Minister by now.

I’m laughing…

Now, it seems that the Liz Truss government may or may not continue with —that is, reinstate— the Triple Lock after 2023 (she still says yes…), but State benefits including Pension Guarantee Credit may or may not be uprated in accord with inflation— they may even be frozen.

Under the triple lock, pensions increase by the highest of earnings growth, price inflation or 2.5 per cent a year.

The government temporarily suspended the wages element of the pensions triple lock for 2022-23 to avoid a disproportionate rise of the state pension following the pandemic.

…former chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the return of the triple lock in May, and prime minister Liz Truss has since said she is “fully committed” to the lock.

…“With inflation into double-digits, average earnings (total pay) of 5.5 per cent isn’t expected to be the deciding factor in next April’s state pension increase. The state pension is likely to increase by around double this at over 10 per cent, confirmed in September’s inflation figure published next month.”

…“While prime minister Truss committed to reinstating the triple lock in the immediate term during her leadership campaign, questions will remain over its affordability and whether the triple lock will survive in its existing form in the manifestos of all parties ahead of the next general election.

[FT Adviser]

Can Liz Truss be trusted or relied upon? I think not (and her husband knows not!).

One thing is for sure— if Liz Truss or woolly-head Kwarteng short-change the “grey vote” any time between now and the next general election, that “grey vote” will either vote elsewhere or even just abstain, though it is ingrained in most of those of pensionable age that they should at least vote, as a civic duty.

There is also the point that house prices are forecast to fall, perhaps significantly, in 2023.

The Conservative Party is now around 20% in the opinion polls. Most of that hard-core 20% is composed of the “grey vote”. “Mess them about” by interfering with the State Pension and/or Pension Guarantee Credit, and the Con vote nationally, at a general election, might fall to as low as 10%. Then it would be “Goodnight Vienna” for the Conservative Party.

Tweets seen

Quite. Meaningless “exam passes”, “degrees” etc. Is James Cleverly any better or worse a Foreign Secretary for having a “degree” in Hospitality Management? It might even be “worse”…

Subhumans.

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Britain needs social nationalism. It alone can give the people what they need now and what they need for the future of their children.

Late tweets seen

I agree with both.

Social nationalism’s chance to rise up, and destroy the enemies of Europe’s future, will soon arrive.

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Diary Blog, 13 August 2022

Morning music

On this day a year ago

Saturday quiz

Well, I again beat political journalist John Rentoul this week— 5/10 as against his slightly shocking 2/10.

I would have scored 7/10 had I been able to recall the answer to question 7 (which I basically knew) and had I been more observant in the many billiard rooms I have seen, and so been able to answer question 4.

Apart from those questions 4 and 7, I did not know the answers to questions 3, 5, and 10.

NHS

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11107205/Father-two-waited-20-hours-E-told-GP-suffering-leukaemia.html

A father-of-two who waited 20 hours in A&E only to be told to see his GP ‘refused to leave’ the hospital without vital blood tests – which revealed he was suffering from terminal cancer.

Following the diagnosis he says the treatment and care he has received has been ‘amazing’.

[Daily Mail]

The NHS is a fine idea, which in practice is often also very good, but which is also often terrible.

The “free at point of use” foundation I support completely, but not for blacks and browns who come to the UK to get free healthcare off the back of the British people.

Increasingly, it seems that NHS healthcare is very hit-and-miss, and for many years there has been both terrible mismanagement and/or maladministration. There has also been a widespread (and from what I have seen) justified perception that basic matters, such as hospital cleanliness, have been left undone, or not properly done.

Further, not all NHS staff exhibit the compassion that they should, and that others do.

“Covid”, even now, has become and remains the go-to excuse for poor service, whether seeing a GP or using a bank branch (my own bank has now reduced its hours to those last seen c.1980).

American “pay or die” healthcare (a simplification, of course) is unsuitable, but so is an NHS which is now little more than a skeleton service.

What matters is what works for the people, “for the welfare of the people is the highest law” [Cicero].

Tweets seen

As I blogged when Starmer became Labour leader, even if you leave aside the fact that he is a puppet for the Jew lobby, the bastard is as dull as ditchwater, and has no vision, only pettifogging detail work to offer.

Wait until you see the lazy reporting from Ukraine…

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[Dutch people welcome the Waffen SS, Amsterdam, 1940].

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An effusion, though, which took its force from Brooke’s class origins (without wishing to seem “Marxist”). The poorer classes were considerably repressed at that time, arguably more so than in some other countries, even European countries (e.g. France).

Brooke, though not an aristocrat or very wealthy, was from the reasonably-comfortable middle classes, arguably the most loudly-“patriotic” strata of English society in that era.

Incidentally, while looking up a few things about Brooke, I happened to see this Wikipedia entry about a young lady with whom it seems that Brooke had an affair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Laird_Cox. Interesting character.

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A brief observation about the intolerable weather

As blogged previously, I have not only visited, but lived and/or worked in hot countries, albeit at a younger age, but there is something exceptionally oppressive about the heat this time.

I had to go out yesterday afternoon. Walking to the car, I felt the sun to be as fierce as I remembered it to have been once or twice in places such as Qatar. The sun felt, on the head and back, like some active and hostile force.

Disturbing to have such a feeling in England.

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I blogged as much a few days ago.

How can Ukraine “win”? What would a Kiev-regime victory look like? All Russian troops pushed back into Russia proper? All Russian people deported? Crimea (and its 90%+ Russian population) placed under Ukrainian martial law (or rule, without law)?

If Crimea is attacked seriously and heavily, or if Russian forces in the Donbass region are pushed back and out, Russia will probably resort to “battlefield” or “tactical” nuclear weapons.

What would be worse for Russia, Ukrainian cities —including Kiev— flattened, or Crimea occupied by Kiev-regime forces, or Russian troops and civilians pushed out of Ukraine? I think, that for Putin at least, defeat is unimaginable, and he will do anything to prevent it.

Ha ha! A trifle crude, but true all the same.

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Can The Conservatives Win A General Election? (or are they doomed?)

We are where we are, in the now-ubiquitous phrase. The prime-ministerial chair once occupied by the likes of Pitt, the 1st Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher etc is now occupied by a public entertainer of mixed ethnic and cultural origins, born in New York City, brought up partly in the USA and Belgium, and until recently a dual passport-holder. A rootless cosmopolitan playing out a performance as an “upper-class” “Englishman” caricature. Am-dram Churchill. Poundland Churchill.

Boris Johnson, Boris-idiot, Boris the clown. More to the immediate point, Boris without a majority, soon. As a child of eight years, Boris Johnson wanted to be “world king” and has for decades schemed and cheated and lied in order to get to the nearest position (outside the monarch’s own ambit) that England allows: the rank of Prime Minister. However, he has not become “King of the World”, but “King for a Day”, the traditional role, in the Revels, of the Jester or Fool (“…for who but a Fool would be King for a Day?”).

The Conservative Party elected Boris Johnson its leader. Conservative MPs voted to reduce the field to two. Conservative Party members, some 140,000 of them, voted and 66% of them, about 92,000, preferred Boris Johnson. It is not my purpose of this article to rail more than en passant against the absurdity that allows a prime minister to resign and for her successor to be, in effect, elected by 92,000 (mostly very elderly, mostly rather well-off financially) Conservative Party members (out of about 50 million voters generally). This article is for the purpose of examining electoral chances.

First of all, we have the Brexit chaos. I favoured Leave. I still favour Brexit. However, the whole process was criminally mishandled by the Conservative government of Theresa May.

How will Brexit affect a general election? I assume that the House of Commons will not allow a WTO or “no deal” Brexit, and so any general election that is then called will see Boris Johnson parking his tanks on the lawn of Brexit Party and trying to go all out for, effectively, the Leave vote of 2016. There are dangers for the Conservative Party in that.

Brexit is not the only issue in a general election. Some more affluent voters may vote Conservative for tax or other reasons even if they oppose Brexit. Also, many in the population will never vote Conservative even if they favour Brexit. Many despise Boris Johnson and will never vote Conservative as long as he is the leader. This is, if chess, three-dimensional chess.

However, now that the Conservatives under Johnson present themselves as the “Leave”/Brexit party, it can be assumed that a sizeable number of former Conservative voters who favour staying in the EU will migrate, at least temporarily, to the only significant Remain-supporting party, the LibDems. Where else can they go? It might be argued that many Conservative MPs favour Remain, and that those MPs will receive a special vote based on that. Don’t count on it. The label is the primary motor, and if Conservative means Leave, many Remain voters will leave…the Conservative Party.

If the next general election is called without the UK having left the EU, or having left on terms dictated by the EU (Brexit In Name Only), then Brexit Party will be waiting to snap up the hard-core Brexit vote.

Brexit Party intends, at present, to contest all 650 seats. Its mere presence ensures that dozens, maybe even beyond a hundred, Conservative MPs will lose their seats, in some cases to Brexit Party, but in more cases to the LibDems or Labour.

There has been talk of a Conservative/Brexit Party electoral pact, but that carries the danger of gifting the Brexit Party a bloc of seats. which might challenge the Conservative Party more strongly later.

Labour, though now called by msm commentators a Remain party, is more nuanced. Corbyn’s fence-sitting tactic, though much criticized, is all that he can do in a circumstance where Labour-held seats were more often (about 60%) Leave-voting, though most Labour voters voted Remain (because, as I blogged recently, Labour votes are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer seats).

It may be, anyway, that Labour voters have concerns other than, or as well as, Brexit: low pay, the Conservative attacks on the social welfare and benefits system, the burgeoning crime and disorder problem etc.

The composition of the Boris-idiot Cabinet and government will not attract many former Labour, LibDem or floating voters.

My conclusion is that the Boris Johnson government may struggle to attract the votes of more than 30% nationwide. Recent opinion polls have put the Conservatives at anywhere between 23% and 30%. Labour has been between 18% and 28%. LibDems around 16%-20% and Brexit Party 14%-20%.

If the Conservatives continue to lean towards Brexit strongly, they risk losing many of their pro-EU voters to the LibDems, but if they try to fence-sit or move more towards Remain, many of their previous voters will vote for Brexit Party or stay at home.

There is also the Boris Factor, but we see that, even though there has been a “Boris Bounce”, its effect has been slight. The Conservatives are still polling at or below 30% (as is Labour). Indeed, it could be argued that, for many former Conservative voters, especially in marginal seats, Boris-idiot is not an attraction but a turn-off. I concede that that is a guess, but it is at least an educated one.

I have fed various recent opinion poll results into the Electoral Calculus calculator [see Notes, below], and it is quite hard to come up with a Conservative majority in the Commons. Most results show a hung Parliament with either Lab or Con as largest party. Only one showed a Conservative majority (of one vote). In several cases, both main System parties were as many as 80 MPs short of a majority.

Now we all know that the “glorious uncertainty” of the Turf is carried over to the field of battle of British elections. It is hard to predict elections in Britain and “a week is a long time in British politics”, as Harold Wilson said. Also, Electoral Calculus is a fairly rough guide. Having said that, it seems clear that, at least in the short term, the Conservatives are on the back foot here. Any gamble to increase the Conservative majority in the Commons may well backfire, as in 2017. That would mean the end of The Clown as Prime Minister, but would also mean something of a political and even Constitutional crisis.

These should be fertile days for social nationalism, but we are as yet not even in the game…

Notes

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

Afterthought, 29 July 2019

David Cameron-Levita as Prime Minister always made sure that the interests of pensioners were prioritized, in particular by introducing the “Triple Lock” on State pensions. Pensions have been one of several issues taking greater prominence over the years by reason of the increasing average age of the population of the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Pension_(United_Kingdom)#Pensions_Act_2007

There were clear practical political reasons for this policy. Support for the Labour Party at elections is fairly even across the half-dozen usual age groups, whereas support for the Conservative Party is concentrated among the old and middle-aged: just under 50% of all Conservative votes are those of persons aged over 65 years. Hardly any young people intend to vote Conservative (in the 18-24 age group, below 4%).

The loyalty of the over 65s has been reinforced by pensioner-friendly policies. There are signs now that the Conservatives intend to, in the oft-seen phrase, “throw the pensioners under a bus”. In 2017 Phillip Hammond wanted to remove part of the Triple Lock, but the DUP insisted on its retention in part-payment for DUP “confidence and supply” support in the Commons.

The Conservative Party is already getting some flak from the elderly for the BBC’s announcement that free TV licences will be withdrawn for those of 75+ years. There are rumblings about bus passes for pensioners. Overall, it is clear that the free market crazies now in the ascendant under Boris-idiot want to target the elderly as they have already done the disabled, sick, unemployed etc.

The Labour Party is now the party of the blacks and browns, those dependent on State benefits, and of the public service workers. The Conservative Party is now the party of the rich, the affluent, the buy-to-let parasites and the like, and (many of) the elderly. If the elderly who are not particularly well-off desert the Conservatives, the Conservative Party is in big trouble, because only about 10%-15% of UK voters can really be described as rich or even affluent, certainly no more than 20%. In 2017, the Conservative vote amounted to 42.4% of votes cast. If half or more of those votes suddenly disappear, the Conservative Party is quite likely to disappear with them.

Further Notes

https://www.ipe.com/countries/uk/peers-call-for-removal-of-triple-lock-on-uk-state-pension/www.ipe.com/countries/uk/peers-call-for-removal-of-triple-lock-on-uk-state-pension/10030786.fullarticle

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/27/pensions-triple-lock-questions-answered

https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/04/james-kanagasooriam-the-left-right-age-gap-is-even-worse-for-the-conservatives-than-you-think.html

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-over-75s-licence-fee-18335538

Update, 3 February 2023

Well, we all now know that, in December 2019, Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won a supposed “landslide” at the General Election. In fact, the Conservative Party vote was only 43.6% of votes cast, but Labour’s vote fell to 32.1%, and that decided the matter.

Key was the decision of Nigel Farage to stab in the back his own candidates and supporters by withdrawing Brexit Party from serious contention. That was the key act that ensured a Johnson/Conservative win.

Brexit Party ended up with 2% of the vote nationwide. Had Farage and Brexit Party gone all out to win from the start, Brexit Party might have got 15%, which though giving Brexit Party few if any seats, would have tipped the balance back to hung Parliament territory.

Other factors were the elderly and late middle-age voters sticking with the Conservative Party, and the relentless and mainly Jewish anti-Corbyn campaign in the msm, which helped to crush Labour’s chances.