All Change

So much for Crewe and Nantwich.

Good ol’ Gwyneth held the seat comfortably at the last election and now her daughter secures a 17.6% swing to the Tories.

This sends a message in block caps underlined twice. This encapsulates exactly the innermost secrets of winning politically where the way is hardest and the opposition is toughest

It gives the lie to the ‘in your face’, ‘up and at them’ tendencies in the party. The decision to import toffs into the local mix was witless, embarrassing and unsuccessful.

We received a royal thumping. We are holed beneath the waterline. Our efforts at bailing out are not being helped by the guys from the bridge directing their hoses on to our exertions in the scuppers.

Now it’s up to Gordon. Change course he must. Unequivocally, quickly and effectively.

No pressure there, then.

But one area he might like to consider – a small pocket of quality shining through the underperformance which characterised Birmingham.

In the very same month that Ken lost London, that Gwyneth’s legacy did not endure, that the local elections went South at a pace…….the Tories were denied any material improvement in their vote in Sutton Coldfield.

In Vesey ward, the Tory vote went down for the fourth election running.

Clearly, Dr Rob is doing something right. If there was any election in the last ten years when your blue rinse, died in the wool, totally committed, knee jerk, gimme the pen Tory could have been expected to queue up at the ballot box, this was it. We are at the point in the political cycle when expectation is all, no performance will ever outbid the anticipation that change is in the air. They should have been able to milk it.

Their back up was good, their leaflets are quality, the MP sent his snapshot album to every voter in the constituency. Money is not a problem to these people.

We could have expected chartered buses to have been made available for the faithful and the disappointed, the mad and the bad and the sad to climb aboard and administer mass chastisement to a government so far out of touch they can’t find a cell.

And in Vesey ward, the Tory vote went down for the fourth election running.

Gordon must phone Dr Rob. And when Rob talks about community politics, when Rob talks about action, about surveys, about involvement about putting in the hard miles, about inspiring a few activists, about maintaining an honest, uncomplicated relationship with an electorate a million miles from his philosophical preferences, Gordon should reach for a stubby pencil…………

And Gordon,…Leave out the Toffs.




Nightwatchman

Dear Gordon

Thanks very much for the email.

You and your people keep writing to me.

Its quite flattering really. I was unworthy, but perhaps I’m not after all.

And when the cleverest man in the kingdom takes the trouble to sit down and tell me what he’s doing, well it sort of brings a warm glow.

One does, rather guiltily, find oneself wondering however whether it’s an awfully good idea for you to be spending time on the likes of me, rather than, well…doing.

Here, forgive me Gordon, here we have a very very intellectual man. You are known as a triple alpha achiever. A man who considers carefully and rejects a host of ideas beyond the farthest reaches of our imagination before selecting the policies to adopt. We see a trained mind totally comfortable with forensic analysis of what to do, consequences, balance of advantage, assessing shades of grey in every action.

But your image is a blundering obsessive reeling from disaster to catastrophe bullying the electorate with ever more lists of statistics they’ve all heard before.

You’re better than that, Gordon.

Perhaps you should start acting the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister does not ‘fight back’. The Prime Minister does not get into the gutter and slug it out with the hoi polloi. The Prime Minister employs his God given talents to avoid, above all things, being compared unfavourably with lesser beings.

And if he gets distracted or if the dancing matador occasionally scatches a hit, so what? The little people will be always be impressed more by achievement than by bullshit. Count the number of competent governments who have been removed by virtue of any combination of cheap stunts and stand up routines.

Not many. Governments are like fish, they decay from the head down. Governments lose elections. Governments.

So here’s the deal old son. I don’t need to hear from you.

But please, please do something about the policies. There is a fault line running through the core of your stuff which gives succour to your enemies and drives your friends to despair.

New Labour has for ten years, run an essential deceit on taxes and enterprise and welfare and keeping the Daily Mail onside.

The merry prank was funded by benign economic conditions and a light rein on the City of London. And it worked.

Its over now. We now need a more steely resolve to see us through. We need ‘fair’, we need ‘seen to be fair’, we need complete confidence in your ability to unite the people to get through this.

So forget ambitious legislative programme, forget apologetic chats round TV studios.

Think fair, think how bad 42 days without charge looks, think about BA corruption.

Act the Prime Minister.

Properly.

The rest will take care of itself.


Kind Regards


Nightwatchman

Happy Birthday

Our MP, rich and successful Merchant Banker, Andrew Mitchell was in town last week.

He took time out from a busy schedule to congratulate a resident who has reached the age of 108 and he issued a statement on the Burmese emergency.

I suppose we can forgive him for dropping in on the 108 year old. It didn’t harm anybody and it is a good age. Mrs Barker had lived through around 50 years of various disastrous Tory governments so she was entitled to a visit from Merchant Banker, even if he did bring his photographer with him.

The statement on Burma was much more significant.

We are at the stage in the life cycle of the current government where the general election starts to loom. There are reasonable odds to be had that the date will be next year. Less, perhaps than twelve months to make up our minds.

So the Shadow Secreary of State for Overseas Development could be expected to give us a glimpse of an imaginative approach to the utter shambles which faces South East Asia.

What we got was another dollop from the Constituency Phrase Book. This serves to say very little about Walmley Cricket Club, it congratulates the lady in the Orchard House Nursing Home and now it is pressed into service to sum up the post- typhoon tribulations.

Merchant Banker at his most authoritative:

Get a needs assessement from the UN
Get a generous world response to a UN appeal
Get Burmese Government to give access to the relief effort.

Oh!, and the final earth shattering statement – “Trying to go against the grain doesn’t work.”

We pay him to make this up!.

Is there no smidgeon of his well padded being which is tempted to thread a way through the meaningless platitudes and address the heart of the issue?

Which is that the Burmese Government is not going to cooperate and hundreds of thousands of people will die unless the West finds a way to force the issue.

Alas Forcing Issues is not Merchant Bankers Bag.

He’s very good at the other stuff.


Nightwatchman

What did you expect?

Class has been a pernicious instrument of conflict for a very large number of years. Its influence touches us all from the old Chester Road terminus all the way through to the station at Blake Street and beyond.

I don’t think we can blame the Tories for class differences but they are, shall we say less energised by the prospect of seeing it off. Or orf.

We were treated, at the count to a graphic illustration of the survival of the baser instincts.

The Tories had an ok night. Not glorious, by any means in the context of the national tide which was flowing but all their candidates got in and they seemed pleased.

The traditional victory speech was handled by Councillor Howard. He is an unattractive little man and he gave us an unattractive little speech. He did thankfully express his gratitude to the Returning Officer but then chose to make triumphalist remarks about Mr Pocock and his capacity for destroying the vote.

People as naturally pompous as councillors understand the conventions of titles and they understand the conventions of post election remarks. Enjoying a completely expected victory too much is regarded as ‘bad form’ and neglecting to observe an academic’s hard won title is likewise - shall we say ‘outre’.

Liberal Democrat lady was next up and gave us the traditional Lib Dem line on not wishing to make a political speech. Fair enough.

It was Rob’s turn.

And he was so good. He is a cartoonists dream is Rob. Tall man, strong featured and always but always good humoured. Absolutely and totally unputdownable.

He breezed through the formalities, then turned his attention on the Tories. He chose to mark the event by generously and courteously paying tribute to the long serving .retiring Tory Councillor for Vesey Ward, David Roy.

David Roy has not been our favourite politician. We have, in fact been in conflict with David Roy over large number of issues over a large number of years. But, he has served the town and the city over a prolonged period of office. Not to refer to his service at the first count which did not feature his name was a crass error and Rob rectified it.

Beautifully.

It was deft, it was charming. It was devastating. Alan Shearer would have put it differently……

It was different class.



Nightwatchman