Tuesday 11 May 2010

Where to now?

Politically the UK balances on a knife edge. As predicted, Cleggie and the LibDems were caught in the two party squeeze. This comes about because unlike Labour and Conservatives the LibDems do not have a natural core vote. Labour since its formation has 'enjoyed' the support of the industrial heartlands where the traditional working class is in the majority. The Conservatives elsewhere where landowners and the suburban middle class predominate. Only in the SouthWest have we seen a maintenance of the old liberal tradition but that is not enough to threaten the Lab/Con stranglehold on British politics.
Today, by chance a relatively small grouping of LibDem MP's have both the big parties over a barrel and are exploiting their good fortune for all its worth. There is a saying 'grab a man by his balls and his heart will surely follow' is absolutely spot on. Even the Tories are throwing caution to the wind and offering some form of voting reform in order to win the hand of the fair Cleggie. According to the all seeing eye at the BBC even the fluctuations in the stock market are moving in accord with the perceived success of either suitor. But wrapped around this the media is coming out with more and more nonsense by the minute.
Question: did the voters vote for a hung parliament? I did not see on any ballot paper a little box for hung parliament. The public did not vote for a hung parliament. This is the fallacy of confusing outcome with intention.
Question: are the markets responding favourably to a LibDem/Con deal and adversely to the prospect of LibDem/Lab deal? The evidence was a strong rally yesterday and a decline this morning. No one knows what drives short term market fluctuations. The ex post rationalisation of market movements is like trying to make sense of the tea leaves in the bottom of a cup.
What is the alternative now? Well what I think would be really fun is if the Labour party let it be known that they have contacted the Conservative party asking for talks. Labour and the Conservatives have a small set of policies where they agree. Where they disagree they should have a system of bargaining whereby the party with the most seats (the Cons) chooses its highest priority policy, the Labour party would have 2nd choice and so on until an achievable programme for the forthcoming parliament had been established. Distribution of ministries would depend on the selection of policies and the leader of the party with the largest number of seats would be Prime Minister.
Easy really!

1 comment:

MohammadAli said...

'make sense of the tea leaves in the bottom of a cup.'
Whats does this term mean, I have never come across it. Please explain it's definition.