No, I am not talking about the Tory leadership election.
Or Brexit.
I know both might make my case but what I am instead referring to is the quite extraordinary decision that the Tories have made about the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.
This by-election will happen because the Tory MP for the constituency was convicted of expenses fraud in the House of Commons. 19% of the local electorate signed a petition for his recall. So he had to go. Only 10% is required to secure a recall.
And now the Tories are putting him up as their candidate for re-election. Never have I seen a more certain strategy to lose an election. The once almighty election fighting machine that the Tory party was has really lost it. It is as if they now want to lose, everything.
And they will.
The problem is the damage they will create whilst doing so.
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It is eye-popping. I did see the bizarre suggestion yesterday that the local(?) party felt that since he had caused the opprobrium he should be the one to take the hit. I thought he’d just done that by being “recalled” – which, come to think of it, is a pretty weird euphemism for being dismissed from democratic office in disgrace. Perhaps this is the local version of the doomed but oft repeated wheeze of trying to avoid a ministerial resignation by claiming that the minister who caused a scandal is “best placed” to clean it up. It never works – and presumably neither will this.
However, speaking of parties more than half in love with easeful death (theirs and/or ours), the reports this morning from as mild a source as Margaret Beckett that unnamed parts of LOTO (apparently the acronym in current mad-house that is the Labour Party for the “Leaders team”) are not only preventing Corbyn from backing a second referendum and Remain, but actually want to see us with a No Deal exit!
Look here upon this picture and on this? Which bunch of idiots are going to be quickest to do the most damage? No wonder an unnamed EU member state’s senior ambassador is quoted this morning (The National) as saying “At the moment people are looking at the UK and wondering ‘what is going on there?” We’re pretty puzzled too.
Nigel, I think it was in The Economist that I read recently that they are pretty relaxed about a Corbyn-led Labour government because they believe that John McDonnell as Chancellor would have to be on the BBC every morning explaining why he wasn’t going to be able to increase public spending as had been promised in opposition – they are obviously absolutely happy that the neoliberal straitjacket is tight and secure.
Perhaps there are people in Labour who think that only a “shock” of some sort will break the bonds, and a so called “no-deal” Brexit will provide this.
Seems a reasonable proposition to me.
John McDonnell has to grasp MMT
Utter Tory madness, now exacerbated by failure to publish the writ for the by-election.
That was supposed to happen yesterday, then today, and still has not happened. They tried to blame the local council, and that has been denied.
It has been suggested they don’t want the election to be on the day the new PM takes up the post (25th July), which might have occurred if the writ had been published yesterday.
This was raised in a point of order after PMQs today by Liz Saville-Roberts.
Speaker Bercow confirmed he’d been told yesterday that it would happen today, but was told today that it would not, and advised her to pursue the government chief whip.
A point occurs to me – having watched a similar stunt pulled in Berwick, Roxburgh and Selkirkshire in Scotland in 2017.
If they make the byelection coincide with a General Election, or even vitually so (with the campaigning periods substantially overlapping), since there is no spending limit for a byelection, the smallest amount of creative accounting ambiguity would mean that their spending in not only Brecon and Radnorshire but also in a set of contiguous areas, which it would be impossible clearly to define, could be usefully enormous.
Sadly, it may be a calculated risk that pays off. He won in 2017 with 48.6% of the vote – up from 41.1% in 2015. Also, it was a bigger the electorate in 2017. Also, in 2017 the Lib-Dems came second but with only 29.1% of the vote. It’s probably fair to assume that most of the 19% were not Tories so unless TBP are standing he’s probably got a pretty good chance of being re-elected.
Yes, the contemporary Tory party are scoundrels.
But the political system that supports moves like this must also be changed.
Hi Richard,
Would you care to comment on this..? Not that I’m considering purchase just on it’s title and the implications..?
Best wishes
Ian
PS wld normally have sent this via email but yr notifications don’t allow…
From: Capital & Conflict
Date: 27 June 2019 at 07:19:45 BST
To:
Subject: Re. hardback book in post
Capital and Conflict
27 June 2019
.
Hardback book in post
NICK HUBBLE
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https://images.southbankresearch.com/images/Nick_H-Sign_trans-200.png​
Nick Hubble
Capital & Conflict
How the Euro Dies is published by Southbank Investment Research.
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Without seeing more I can add little
£5 may be worth the risk
You don’t have to read it if the intro is rubbish