Something For Everyone In Latest Polls.

The Survation poll this weekend comes with some surprising polling.

Opinion polls can be strange beasts and they sometimes tell you more about the pollsters and their paymasters than about what the general public actually think.

But having said that, they can contain some very interesting data.

People don't always tell the truth to pollsters and wording of questions and 'weighting' can be critical to results.

Not all pollsters apply these guidelines the same and paymasters have an agenda - good polling for them can be self fulfilling prophesies - (people will change their views because of polling and 'follow the crowd'), so they choose both pollsters and questions accordingly and media outlets suppress results they don't want and give extra publicity to the results they like.

Saying all that, a lot of pollsters now make the raw data freely available. Lets look at some raw data in the latest Survation poll.

The poll was conducted online amongst 1023 respondents on their 'online panel'. 973 expressed a voting preference.

I don't know about you, but I can see 2 glaring problems already.

1. Surely people who sign up online to polling panels are self selected, i.e they already are showing more interest than most. This must skew results in some way. Of course, lots of polling is online. I am not singling out Survation. But generally this makes me suspicious of results.

2. Considering only around 60% of UK adults vote, 973 out of 1023 is very high. Like I say, not surprising considering this is from a self selected panel.

But anyway lets look at some surprising figures.

UKIP are on 12%, yet, another poll the same day puts them at 6%. Seems suspect to me. Polling companies claim 3% either way accuracy. So they could claim one poll is 3% high, the other 3% low. Yet, I never hear a 6% lead for one party described as a statistical insignificance! I could probably take calculated guesses that would mostly be in this sort of range. Hardly useful polling.

The Greens have around 10% support amongst 18-34 age group, 5% amongst 35-54 and 2.5% for over 55s. It seems their support is doubling every 20 years. So expect a Green government in 2070!

Labour lead the Tories amongst social class AB and C1 voters. And of course are 20 points ahead amongst DE voters. So it seems Labour are the party of the middle class and the 'scrounging' class but not...

The Tories amazingly are ahead amongst C2 voters - the manual skilled 'aspirational' working class. The importance of Sun and Murdoch support perhaps?

Amazingly 20% of DE voters are Tories. Considering how they are being squeezed to death by Tory policies this is hard to swallow for us lefties. But it does goes to show how people don't necessarily vote in their own interests.

When you consider the regional breakdown, Labour are virtually dead amongst manual workers in the South.

Overall though, Labour lead with 37%, Con 30, UKIP 12, LD 10, GRN 5, OTH 6.

In Praise Of Administrators

Administration is derided as 'back office', shorthand for 'waste', everyone it seems wants to see less if it. Admin staff are generally the most poorly paid and poorly treated in any organisation.

Yet administration is inextricably linked with organisational efficiency. Otherwise good companies with excellent products can go bust if poorly administrated. The main reason capitalism beat communism was better administration. Spending extra on admin can save money overall.

It's about time admin staff were given their due. This is not the area to make easy savings.

In Memory Of My Mom.

Phyllis Harding 1931 - 2011 (Photo taken a few months before her stroke)

I generally try to stick to pure politics on this site, but I wanted to write about this somewhere.

My mom died a few weeks ago. She suffered a stroke in September that left her paralysed and unable to speak and she was not to recover from this.

My mom was one of thirteen children, six of whom died in infancy. I was told my maternal grandmother even buried two children on the same day. My mom nearly succumbed to meningitis herself at the age of eleven. My mom lost both her parents in her youth, her mother died when my mom was twelve and her father when she was seventeen (I was not to know any of my grandparents).

I only learned the other day that my mom and her twin sister were the youngest in the country at the time to be granted tenancy of a council house at age seventeen. While some of the children were looked after by older sisters, my mom and her twin took care of a younger sister and brother. I can't imagine any of this would be allowed today.

My mom was to meet my dad in 1951, get married and have three children, me and my two brothers. They were to stay together all this time, never spending more than a day apart.

When writing the eulogy for the funeral, the celebrant asked what we would miss most about my mom, we all cried, countless thoughts passed through my head all jumbled together. We shared some happy memories of my mom, her warmth and humour and sheer idiosyncracies. But the overriding thought I get now is that in my mom I have lost one of the few people who I knew would always be there for me, stick up for me no matter what, as I stumbled through life making mistakes. For that and more I will always love her and be grateful to her. As my dad said on her death - 'words cannot describe how I feel'. Mom, we will miss you. Love always, Neil.

The ten worst (and five best) things the coalition have done...so far.

Most of the 'worst' things listed below were actually denied by the Tories before the election with the wonderfully worthless phrase 'we have no plans to do this'.

TEN WORST

1. Scrapping the Educational Maintenance Allowance. - This is a particularly mean thing the Tories and Lib Dems have done. They talk in vague terms about 'targeting' help to the 'poorest' but there is no sign of that. The scrapping of this £30 a week to the poorest students studying their A'levels also makes little economic sense - see Chris Dillow's stumbling and mumbling blog. EMA has been somewhat overshadowed by the less serious student fees increase (which actually is a better deal than students currently get).

2. Increasing VAT to 20%. I don't care how much the Tories and Lib Dems claim this is 'progressive' and 'fair', the fact is this will increase the tax burden on the poorest the most. It is a terrible tax that the Tories always put up, remember Thatcher and Major who put it up from 7% to 17.5% and extended it to utility bills. At a time when inflation is a problem, the VAT increase will add to inflationary pressures on the Bank of England to put up interest rates. Remember that rich people LOVE higher interest rates - the debt burden will increase and debt is basically a way of redistributing money from poor to rich.

3. Scrapping meaningful statistics collection To make sure we lefties cannot back up our claims that Tory medicine is completely regressive, inequality will be measured differently, crime figures will exclude anti-social behaviour etc etc. The usual Tory tricks used in the 80s and 90s basically.

4. 80% cut to university funding This is a far bigger issues than fees, pity the media don't cover it.

5. Massive cuts in public transport grants leading to 20% increase in bus and rail fares. And they have the cheek to tell those forced out of their homes by benefit cuts (see 6) to catch the less frequent and more unreliable bus to work that is now far more expensive thanks to the Tories and Lib Dems. Who relies on public transport the most? You guessed it, the poorest. This also makes a mockery of their claim to be green.

6. Housing benefit cuts Once again the Tory media machine managed to focus everyone's attention on the attention grabbing 2% of the housing benefit budget that goes to those in inner London where rents are extortionate and people pay over 20k a year for a roof over their head. The real headlines should have been the reduction in the LHA from the average rent to the bottom third of rents EVERYWHERE which will mean the poor having to leave London and most other cities and towns and commute huge distances to find work on the now uselessly underfunded and expensive buses (see 5).

7. Targeting the £83bn of national cuts at local government in a shameless and cowardly attempt to shift the blame The Tories and Lib Dems claim they are enacting progressive 'cuts' to services. Pleeeaase! They talk of 'localism' and empowerment, of democracy. Yet what is more regressive than targeting urban poorer councils with the largest cuts while protecting wealthier rural areas? What is more undemocratic than reducing local authority grants and stopping councils from raising revenue in other ways by freezing council tax and restricting car parking charges. While charges on the elderly, disabled and other service users rocket (that's if the service hasn't disappeared altogether). Not to mention their reduction in benefits in line with a CPI rather than the more appropriate RPI. Inflation for the poorest is higher because they spend more on fuel and food where prices are rocketing at 10% or more. During the election the Tories had no plans to cut benefits, raise VAT and cuts would not affect the frontline so they said. Now millions will be put on the dole by the cuts as efficiency apparently means more potholes and less libraries, taking £30 a week off the poorest teenagers in education, cutting child benefit and employing less police, less teachers, doctors and nurses, street cleaners and social workers.

8. Opening the NHS up to even more greedy accountants and lawyers GPs are supposedly paid to help patients not administrate and negotiate EU competition laws. Postcode lottery they say, absolute chaos and US corporate takeover of the NHS more like, resulting in more waste of public money. This really is very scary.

9. Reneging on curtailing excessive bankers bonuses As if we expected anything else really.

10. Avoiding their taxes? Inheritance tax trusts, offshore interests, multi-millionaires claiming 20k a year off the taxpayer to pay their mortgage while lecturing those claiming pitiful subsistence level benefits. And these shadow cabinet millionaires lecture us all about 'we are all in this together' yet we know we can't trust these guys to collect taxes off the rich and powerful and big corporations that pay for politicians holidays and helicopters and election campaigns. Direct action is the only answer and changing the electoral system they defend so robustly because it allows them to fiddle boundaries in their favour - a far more powerful seat winner than winning more votes.

And the far less significant...

FIVE BEST

1. Raising the income tax allowance Helpful but when the tax system is so vastly skewed against the poorest, it is pissing in the ocean and less progressive than the VAT increase was regressive.

2. Allowing councils to use a small amount of housing revenue to build social housing and allowing councils to borrow to build. Limited but better than nothing.

3. Cutting police numbers There really is little evidence that police are cost effective in reducing crime although I understand why people might think this and they certainly don't support these cuts - this is brave for a Tory led government and Ken Clarke though the cuts are small compared to cuts to local government and benefits.

4. Ken Clarke making the argument that prison does not work Reducing prison numbers will be an achievement of this government if they do it. Prisons are universities of crime. Shamefully Labour backed the tabloid campaign against this forcing Cameron to u-turn a bit.

5. Cutting defence Once again, defence got off lightly compared to other cuts - you basically could cut the entire 'defence' budget and spend it elsewhere, the country would benefit massively. Good to see the Tories willing to do something though - maybe the Lib Dems have had an influence afterall.

There you have it, fancy adding to either list in the comments?

Who to choose for Labour leader?

Ed Balls would be a disaster, so would David Miliband. How do I know? Well I predicted Brown would lose us votes even before he became PM. Image matters whether we like it not. Balls is fat and comes across as pompous.

I would pick the best looking person with good communication skills - which, of the limited choices available, leaves Jon Cruddas and Ed Miliband. I am on the left, so Jon would be my choice.

Sadly Labour members are likely to choose neither because the party has become so hollowed out only neanderthal tribalists, charlatans and nerds are left in the party. And none of these have got a clue about public opinion.

How Many Houses Does David Cameron Have?

A simple question one might think, but according to Johann Hari - Cameron DOESN'T KNOW!!

Let's start with a tiny story, that points to a bigger untold tale. A few days ago, the Leader of the Opposition was asked how many homes he owns. "I own a house in North Kensington and... in the constituency in Oxfordshire and that is, as far as I know, all I have," he said. He then started to get confused, said he might own four homes after all, and pleaded: "Do not make me sound like a prat for not knowing how many houses I've got." Imagine if Neil Kinnock said this in 1991. Do you think you might have heard?

This surely tells us more about Cameron than any feelgood pose in the media. Why does he get away with this? This would have been front page news if Brown had uttered it.

Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that our press is Tory, could it?

Referendum 2010?

Nothing demonstrates the duplicity of David Cameron, the Tories and the Right in general more than the issue of referenda.

Labour promised a referendum in their manifesto on the EU treaty and I agree that it is a betrayal of that promise not to provide one. Some would go further saying it is 'travesty of democracy'.

Yes, all well and good, yet, Labour also promised a referendum in their manifesto on proportional representation but the Tories categorically oppose this referendum.

It seems failure to honour a referendum is only a 'travesty of democracy' when the Tories...

(and their right-wing friends in the press) say so.

You have to hand it to Cameron, he knows how to spin a yarn. He presents high minded talk of 'giving power to the people', while actually carefully entrenching the status quo.

Fixed term parliaments are just window dresssing and impractical anyway. If a minority Tory government in a hung parliament won power, they would soon call a general election if the opportunity to strenghten their position arose. All this talk is just a figleaf to present as radical something that is not. Ditto a few independent MPs and one or two de-selections of near retirement Tory grandees - just window dressing. So far, 1 in 3 Tory MPs have been found to be on the fiddle, and 1 in 5 Labour MPs, how will more Tory MPs elected under the same system make any difference? Notice also how it took 5 days into the expenses revelations before the Torygraph mentioned any Tories and made out the £250,000 a year Cameron gets from the taxpayer for doing up his house and having nice holidays is all good and above board.

What of his reduction in the number of MPs, surely a good thing? Well putting aside Cameron is only doing it for partizan party political gain (it makes it easier to gerrymander the boundaries in the Tory favour) - less MPs would ironically only work well under a proportional system where an enlarged constituency could provide a number of MPs of various political stripes for constituents to consult (elected in proportion to what voters actually want). If Cameron really cared about strengthening the constituency link he would be making constituencies smaller and more coherent under our present system.

The so called 'constituency link' that is used to defend our present system is completely meaningless when constituencies are so large and prone to alteration. The Tories also propose to ignore administrative and geographical boundaries when drawing up constituencies for the general election after next. This is just pure and simple gerrymandering. How can you punish your MP, if you are likely to be in a different constituency by the time it comes to vote? How can you engage a community when it is split between several constituencies and combined with bits of communities from other areas?

What about open primaries? These could potentially make a difference is they really were open. So far the Tories have just used them as a money making racket, charging £2 a text to vote and allowing multiple votes just makes a mockery of our democracy. The Tories are just not serious about real democracy - which is why they oppose the one truly radical measure that would give power back the voters - proportional representation.

Which is why the thought of David Cameron being our next PM is so depressing.

Like Helena Kennedy, I still harbour delusions that this dying Labour government will go out doing something truly radical and honour its promise to give people a say on how we elect our MPs (I also realise the futility of leaving the party under our present system). Although the cabinet don't seem to be able to get ther head round it, only PR will get rid of rotten MPs sitting in safe seats for life. Gordon Brown clearly has no principles, but maybe an appeal to his legendary hopeless tactical accumen would persuade him. Otherwise he must be removed, if the Labour party is to be in any shape to put up a decent fight.

If we are denied a say once again, even though not 40, I might not live to see the realisation of the true dream of democracy. Just as rotten boroughs were swept away with votes for all, only equal votes for all will sweep away our rotten MPs, making EVERY VOTE COUNT no matter where you live.

*Finally I just want to add that Cameron's proposed changes to Commons procedures are just fiddling around the edges - as Alan Johnson put it - 'we need to change the engine not just the uphostery'. When MPs on the backbenchs have shown themselves to be thoroughly untrustworthy, a few powers over timetabling bills and on second readings won't help.

Is Gordon Brown A Tory Stooge?

I have thought this for a while. I mean Gordon is just so bad it is like he is a put up job from the Tories.

There must be plenty of infiltrators - think about it, it wouldn't be that difficult. Only 2 or 3 active members in each ward, around 30 or 40 a constituency, there easy could be 5 or 6 Tories running the show in each constituency.

So many decent left-wingers have left the party that the charlatans have taken over. Destroying democracy in the party and instilling Tory like policies. But worse acting so incompetently that the Tories don't seem that bad an option. It has definitely happened in Brighton and I can guess who the Tories are.

I mean it all makes sense, deny a definite election win in Autumn 2007 and waste £1.2m of party funds in the process. It will be confirmed for me if Gordon calls a general election this year when we are in a awful place in the polls. Moron Brown might just be a Tory. Even stuff he must know is bad he tries to defend. He has no humility - surely nobody is that bad.

But worse of all, the party has got so corrupted that Gordon Brown can become our leader and somehow stay there despite being obviously absolutely awful. At least we members are absolved of responsibilty since we were never given the vote of who our leader should be. What a joke!!

Why Is David Cameron Defending Julie Kirkbride?

This is from wikipedia;

"On May 14th, 2009, her husband Andrew MacKay, the Conservative Member for Bracknell, resigned from his position as parliamentary aide to David Cameron, in the wake of the furore over Parliamentary expenses after what was described as an "unacceptable" expenses claim.

MacKay and Kirkbride own two homes: one in her constituency of Bromsgrove; and a flat close to Parliament in Westminster. In a case of so called "double-dipping," according to the Daily Telegraph, Mackay had used his Additional Costs Allowance to claim more than £1,000 a month in mortgage interest payments on their joint Westminster flat, while Kirkbride used her Additional Costs Allowance to claim over £900 a month on paying off the mortgage for their family home near her constituency. This means they effectively had no main home but two second homes – and were using public funds to pay for both of them. In 2008/9, MacKay claimed a total of £23,083 under Additional Costs Allowance, while Kirkbride claimed £22,575. They also claimed for each other's travel costs, with Kirkbride claiming £1,392 to meet spouse travel, while MacKay claimed £408."

So how is her husband guilty but not Julie Kirkbride when they both did exactly the same thing?

The plot thickens...

"On 10 November 2006, it was revealed that she had previously undisclosed links with the Midlands Industrial Council, which has donated millions of pounds to the Conservative Party".

Maybe she is just too valuable to the Tories.

Julie Kirkbride is homophobic (despite her ex-boyfriend), voted against a transparent parliament (what a surprise) and voted for the Iraq war. Here is her voting record. Do we really want these bunch of hypocritical Tory spongers ripping off the taxpayer and in our next government?

Cameron's Call For A General Election Is A Cynical Ploy To Take The Heat Off His MPs

David Cameron knows that Labour, currently 20 points behind in the opinion polls, indeed any party in that situation in government, would not call an early election so he can give out his populist call for one (backed by his new friend Murdoch).

But there might be a hint of panic in Cameron's call. Nobody knows how much more revelations are going to damage the Tories. Over 12 months voters will have a lot of time to hear about their Tory MPs misdemenours - as Labour deselects its culprits, Cameron would have to confront a lot of his own MPs and constituency associations that don't want to lose their cushy positions.

Currently about 30% of Tory MPs have been implicated and about 15% of Labour MPs (see lists below) the Tories potentially should have more to lose by this, but the press have managed to make Labour seem the main culprits.

Can you imagine Julie Kirkbride and Nadine Dorries faced by a drug dealer claiming it was circumstances that led them into crime - they would give them short shrift and their right-wing response would be to hand out a long prison sentence.

But when these hypocritical Tories were caught with their own hands in the till suddenly 'it's the system that made us fill our pockets with taxpayers money'. But there are plenty of MPs (maybe the majority) who didn't make outrageous claims. By their own right-wing Tory judgement Nadine Dorries and Julie Kirkbride and all the other piggish MPs should be behind bars. Any party and party leader who defends Kirkbride as Cameron and the Tories have closing ranks around her, deserve no seats at all, let alone to be in government.

Amen to that I hear a lot of you saying. So why are so many of you still voting Tory and going to deliver them a landslide? For Tories to still be on around 40% in opinion polls, you obviously cannot bring yourselves to disown your party whatever the provocation - which is why our system, with most MPs in seats for life, is so crap.

Go and vote UKIP or something if you want a load of right-wingers (although they are a bunch of crooks as well). Better still vote Green (especially in these PR Euro elections on June 4th where every vote will count) if you want to slam the main parties. Currently 54% of voters are still backing Labour and Tory in the Euros and even more for Westminster. What is wrong with you all?

Cameron is making people think a general election is the answer to a rotten parliament, but replacing one lot of Tory and New Labour frauds with a new generation of even more Tory frauds is no answer.

Have you noticed how it is all the new Labour and Tory MPs we on the left really despise who seem to be the worst culprits? - new Labour MPs who fiddled (so far)-

Douglas Alexander
Hilary Armstrong
Ian Austin
Vera Baird QC
Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper
Margaret Beckett
Tony Blair
Hazel Blears
Ben Bradshaw
Kevin Brennan
Gordon Brown
Nick Brown
Chris Bryant
Andy Burnham
Dawn Butler
Stephen Byers
Ben Chapman
David Chaytor
David Clelland
Tam Dalyell
Alistair Darling
Ian Davidson
Natascha Engel
Caroline Flint
Barbara Follett
Barry Gardiner
Ian Gibson
Geoff Hoon
Phil Hope
Diana Johnson
Gerald Kaufman
Alan and Ann Keen
Ruth Kelly
Fraser Kemp
Mark Lazarowicz
Shahid Malik
Lord Mandelson
Sarah McCarthy-Fry
Steve McCabe
Ian McCartney
David Miliband
Madeleine Moon
Margaret Moran
Elliot Morley
George Mudie
Paul Murphy
John Prescott
James Purnell
John Reid
Jack Straw
Kitty Ussher
Keith Vaz
Claire Ward
Shaun Woodward
Phil Woolas
Ian Wright and Tom Watson

Tory MPs who fiddled (so far) -

Michael Ancram
James Arbuthnot
Greg Barker
John Bercow
Sir Paul Beresford
Alistair Burt
David Cameron
Ken Clarke
Stephen Crabb
David Davis
Nadine Dorries
Alan Duncan
Michael Fallon
Cheryl Gillan
Michael Gove
James Gray
Chris Grayling
John Gummer
Alan Haselhurst
David Heathcoat-Amory
Nick Herbert
Douglas Hogg
Stewart Jackson
Andrew Lansley
Julian Lewis
Oliver Letwin
David Lidington
Peter Luff
Andrew MacKay
David Maclean
Anne Main
John Maples
Francis Maude
Patrick McLoughlin
George Osborne
John Redwood
Keith Simpson
Michael Spicer
Anthony Steen
Robert Syms
Ed Vaizey
Sir Peter Viggers
Theresa Villiers
Bill Wiggin
David Willetts
Sir George Young

They should all go!

Vote Match Europe Launched

Its fun and its over on the Unlock Democracy site or just click above. Find out who you should vote for in the European Elections on June 4th. As the Labour Campaign For Electoral Reform puts it;

"We are just about to vote in an election where EVERY VOTE WILL COUNT. It will count for the party you vote for. It will count for the way the European parliament operates and what policies it influences. It will COUNT AGAINST the far right (assuming you don't vote BNP). In a proportional system, turnout counts and therefore votes count" (the BNP need 9% in the NorthWest and over 10% (approx) elsewhere to elect MEPs)

As Lewis Baston at the Electoral Reform Society puts it;

"The BNP missed a seat in the North West by 0.4% in 2004. While the threshold is higher this time because there are fewer seats, 8 rather than 9, they should be able to win a seat with something like 8-10% of the vote depending on how the vote falls between the major and minor parties. This is their best chance, being a region with lots of seats, hence more chance for minor parties and a significant BNP vote. I would guess they need 10% or so in their other strong regions, Yorkshire & Humber and the West Midlands, less in London and the South East, although their vote is lower in these regions. The BNPs maximum showing could be 5, which would be alarming. I would not rule out 0 either which would be reassuring. A lot depends on turnout, and frankly on the luck of the draw with how the vote is split between the other parties"

Currently the BNP are on 7% nationally in opinion polls, heres hoping that is not enough for seats.

Out of interest, my results on VoteMatch were as follows;

Green Party 51 out of 73
Lib Dems 49/73
Libertas 48/73
Jury team 44/73
Labour 42/73
Conservatives 29/73
UKIP 15/73

Cameron Has No Credibility In Getting Value For Taxpayers

If David Cameron thinks it good value for taxpayers to continue to pay him £20k a year on his £1M mansion, how can we take his claims on getting good value for taxpayers seriously?

The Tories now say they won't claim for moats and duck islands and may even de-select a few older Tories, but they will continue to be very wealthy people on a top 5% salary expecting us on an average £23k to pay their mortgages.

Save us money? They are having a laugh. How can we consider them moral when they cut benefits of £63 a week or teachers starting salaries of £17k - they repeatedly say teachers and others are having it easy.

People may not want Labour anymore, but please don't replace them with these jerks. Vote for anyone but the Tories, they need teaching a lesson too!

"Most Voters Don't Read Manifestos And Have Only A Hazy Idea Of Party Policies"

Polly Toynbee has been attacked for saying this by some commenters who say she insults our intelligence.

But this is not about voters intelligence, this quote is just a statement of fact from Polly - people do not read manifestos, they have little interest in the detail of politics whatever their intelligence. So is the following;

"Most voters can't name their MPs or their councillors: they vote the national ticket".

There have been surveys showing how little voters know of their MPs and nothing demonstrates this 'vote for national ticket' more than the latest opinion polls, which still show Labour and Tory garnering 62% of those intending to vote - only about 10% of voters (mostly Labour supporters) have deserted them for minor parties despite the supposed universal disgust at their exorbitant expenses. Most voters cannot abandon their party loyalty no matter what the provocation.

There is now a large pool of 40% of the electorate who do not vote and this will only increase as more than 60% of 18-24 year olds do not vote. Politicians in safe seats are safer still when voters fail to punish them at the ballot box. The poor and the young can be safely ignored when they do not vote. If only these voters were motivated enough to cast their vote en masse for minor parties would the fatcats in parliament sit up and listen.

Polly once again hits on the three main things that need to be done to make our democracy better - proportional elections to Westminster both for the lower house and the unelected upper house and state funding of parties and limits on organisations and individual donations who buy influence over the head of voters.

As Polly points out Gordon has to go and Alan Johnson might just be able to finally honour Labour's pledge for a referendum on electing MPs. Too late to be implemented but a binding referendum would at least present the incoming Tories with a dilemma - ignore the public or honour their wishes. It would be sweet to see them try and wriggle out of that one.

The Tories had their spin ready for the expenses scandal - it seems no coincidence that the details were leaked to the Tory house magazine - the Telegraph, who have carefully picked over the details to hit Labour harder than the Tories. The tactic has clearly been to present Cameron as Mr Clean despite his MPs extravagance and his 20k mortgage interest at taxpayers expense. In truth the Tory claims have been far more outrageous (and costly to the taxpayer - quarter million pound fiddles to Labour MPs thousands and Libs hundreds) than Labours. If Tory voters really did care about taxpayers money being wasted they wouldn't vote Tory again.

Also has anyone noticed how Yougov polls in the Mail and Telegraph are keeping secret the rising Green vote - they don't mind bigging up the UKIP vote (who are just a bunch of ex-Tories) but not the Greens. This is ironic as the Greens are probably the one party who are free of expense scandals - UKIP have had MEPs sent to jail over it.

I'll finish with this quote from a commenter to Polly's article which sums up our dim future.

"There are some good ideas in this, but when I look at them my heart just sinks. The problem is that we have a prime minister who is an arrogant cretin. We need PR now, or our thoroughly rancid electoral system is going to hand a landslide to a conservative party few people really want to see in government. Now's Gordon's chance to lead the way to real reform. But he won't. He's too stupid. How on earth did this utter cretin ever get into office?"

Do The Tories Really Deserve A 152 Seat Majority Over ALL Other Parties When They Have Had Their Fingers In The Till Just As Much (If Not More)?

Thirty something percent of the vote, less than 1 in 5 of the electorate and the Tories are heading for over 60% of the seats.

No wonder the Tories love the present system of electing MPs. Who needs to attract majority support when all you have to do is split the opposition.

It seems Labour voters are more disgusted by this expenses scandal - probably because most Labour voters have never been able to claim them. Tory voters in contrast are probably much more sympathetic having accountants to flip their earnings to avoid tax and spicing up their expenses claims is a part of their lives too.

If you really want to show MPs of all parties on June 4th, we need you Tories to vote UKIP - you will get a nice right-wing MEP and as a bonus one who probably shares your hatred of the EU. Come on, us Labour supporters are deserting Labour, we need you Tory supporters to show you hate piggy cash troughing MPs as well. Otherwise we can assume you only want to save taxpayers money when it is spent on the working classes. Show us you care.

Prime Ministerial, My Ar**!

The Tory press are trying to big up Mr Cameron as 'prime ministerial' because a couple of his MPs and shadow ministers have promised to pay back a little of what they have robbed from us.

Cameron with his 20k mortgage interest at our expense and his 140k salary at our expense is only looking good in comparison to Gordon Brown who has put in a woeful performance. Cameron is not looking prime ministerial unless to look like a PM you have to be a cocky arrogant git as incompetent as the present incumbent.

All MPs on the scam should not get away with this and that includes slimy Cameron and Osbourne. Why has Julie Kirkbride got away with claiming for a second home her husband also claimed for, for example? QUARTER OF A MILLION POUNDS this pair of Tory no goods have cost us taxpayers!!

How could cleaning your moat, repairing your tennis courts and swimming pools and sheer tax avoidance ever be 'wholly necessary' for being an MP? Only if you were a crook would it be necessary. In fact does it surprise anyone that on the Labour benches Tony McNulty, Hazel Blears and Gordon Brown are crooks and that Tories like Hogg, Kilbride, Cameron and countless others are crooks. It is always the slimy right wing types in both the Labour and Tory party likely to be on the fiddle. To be fair to the Lib Dems, their dubious claims only involve a few hundred quid not thousands or even millions in some cases.

It is a real shame these expenses claims only go back to 2005 when apparently the 'rules were tightened', god knows what the dodgy Tory ministers were claiming for in the 80s and 90s from when Thatcher changed the rules!! I wonder whether David Mellor would sound so moral on radio 5 if that were known.

The real shame is that we don't have a proportional system which gives power back to voters. Under the present system MPs like Douglas Hogg and his moat will survive while Celia Barlow and Martin Salter - hard working MPs who have not claimed a penny, will lose their seats

For Once, Maybe We Should Listen To Tebbit.

Now I never thought I would say this, but maybe Tebbit is right. Under a proportional system the European Elections on June 4th give people a real chance to say how they feel about the expenses scandal.

If you are angry, do not sit on your hands - non-voting helps the establishment and the BNP because you become irrelevant and they can ignore you. Neither is the BNP the party to vote for, because they are just racist nonsense.

No, if you are really angry, this PR system means you can vote for the minor parties like the Greens and UKIP and know that the bigger parties will be hurt.

Polling Report suggests you might (for once) put your vote where your mouth is. Both the Tories and Labour deserve to do badly. As a Labour party member I am unable to say don't vote Labour, but for once a PR system gives us on the left an electable alternative. If you do not want to vote Labour like you normally do then vote Green, if you do not want to vote Tory like you normally do then vote UKIP. Not voting just helps Tory, Labour and the BNP. Lets really see voters do something useful for once, otherwise the main parties will never learn.

Incentives Do Matter: It's A Pity The Right Only Acknowledge This When It Suits Them.

Stumbling and Mumbling points out the wrongs of labelling people 'evil poor' and also the hypocrisy of right-wing rhetoric on incentives. Overstate the effects of a 50% tax rate and say nothing bad about the weak morality of those who avoid tax. Yet big up morality on the 'evil poor' on crime or welfare dependency when dismal education, poor parenting and poor job prospects offer them impossible odds out of their fate.

When the numbers on welfare rose from around 3m in the 70s to over 7m in the 80s under Thatcher, does that really mean we have 4m more 'lazy scum' than we had before, or is government policy to blame? Is it not obvious that lower welfare payments and poorer job prospects are bound to tempt more people into both violent crime (through frustration at their lot) and/or possessions crime.

The big question is (or should be) what is a more efficient and nicer society to live in? One with growing inequality and inevitable resentment, or one where society decides that there are reasonable limits on the gap between the haves and have-nots?

How Gordon Brown Could Win.

In short he probably cannot win but Gordon Brown only has to persuade 3 people to give him support if he wants to win the next general election - Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre and Richard Desmond.

Because it is not what you do that is important, it is how it is reported. I think the latest 'smeargate' incident demonstrates this - Labour have been pilloried for 'thinking' about doing what the Tories have been doing for years.

So what would these 3 powerful men want? - like previous Mail editor * actually proprietor thanks PZT * Lord Rothermere before him, Dacre has been given the mantle of government advisor on press freedom. Labour try their best but this would fall woefully short to win Daily Mail support - short by miles. With the Mail sensing electoral blood, even abolishing the BBC and massive tax cuts for the wealthiest would probably fail to acquiese them. I think Murdoch and Desmond however could be bought - further de-regulation of commercial TV and further emaciation of the BBC might do the trick. It would have to go further than even the Tories would dare promise - maybe even a total axe on the licence fee, certainly allowing Sky and others cheap access to the BBC archive.

Of course whether we in the Labour party would want to sell our souls even more to these media devils to remain with the trainset would depend on what Brown could offer us. It is doubtful Brown is clever enough to pull any of this off anyway and doubtful he knows what to offer us mere plebs - electoral reform or introducing a land value tax would give this guy a legacy to last millenium but he is so spineless he will soldier on fucking things up as he goes.

The other more simpler option is shock and awe - replace Brown with a radical untainted new leader and call an immediate election before the media can wreck their chances. It might not work, the Labour brand is so damaged - but can anyone really see sticking with Brown offering us much chance, even if he did suck media **ck.

I'd Be Depressed If I Was Married To George Osbourne

* Shuggy has an excellent post on this smeargate thing.

I think the press have finally got confident enough not to even try to hide their support for the Tory party any more. Now we have a load of non-story running about how bad and nasty the Labour party are because a couple of junior hacks were going to slag off a few top Tories for having affairs and taking drugs.

It beggars belief the amount of schadenfraude supposedly on show here in the Labour party. The Tories and the press are the nastiest bunch of bastards ever to walk the earth - this all smells of the non scandal of 'Jennifer's Ear' that floored Kinnock, what a load of bollocks the world of the media has become. Reminds me of this -

Cameron Spins Boundary Fiddle As Efficiency Gain.

This is very dangerous. It has been known for a long time that the Tories are going to fiddle the boundaries back in their favour and spin it as 'saving money by reducing the number of wasteful MPs'. But to spin it as making votes 'more equal' is laughable. If the Tories make this a manifesto commitment and they will, the debate has to be moved 'loudly and quickly' onto how on earth the present system can ever be fair when 80% of seats are foregone conclusions and also how can it be in keeping with the Tories precious 'constituency link' to move the boundaries all over the place and increase the number of constituents each MP has to serve?

In the dying days of this Labour government - a government that promised the people a say on how MPs were elected when it came to power 12 years ago, are we really to have to wait another generation while the Tories acquire power once again with only 20% of eligible voters supporting them and then fiddle the boundaries so they can win power on even less than that. It is so depressing. Whenever people tell me that the Tories have changed I will refer them to this nonsense - the Tories don't even believe in democracy, so how can they ever believe in equality?