LABOUR, LIBERALS AND UKIP IN TURMOIL.

Following the surprise election results of last week, the losers have been tearing themselves apart while the winners, the Conservatives and Scottish Nationalists, are simply rising above it all. While Cameron and Sturgeon are appearing in statesmanlike mode, Miliband and Clegg have gone and Farage has gone and returned in the space of a few hours; Labour, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are all in turmoil.

The departure of Miliband was inevitable after his party failed so miserably. A number of his former colleagues and supporters have come out of hiding and clearly laid the blame for their poor showing fairly and squarely on his shoulders; even his brother has had a dig and left the question of his return to British politics very much open. While he stays in his well paid job in New York, the Labour party is desperately looking for a replacement for young Ed, and has a pretty poor bunch to choose from. So far, the declared runners, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Mary Creagh, hardly inspire excitement. Very curiously, a much stronger runner, Chukka Umunna, announced his candidacy, was declared the bookies' favourite and then withdrew from the race a couple of days later. That Umunna was seen as the front runner must be a comment on the paucity of available talent and one can only wonder what the outcome of the leadership election will now be. For what it's worth, I'd be inclined to look to an older and more experienced hand, such as Alan Johnson, to take the reins for an interim period while one or 2 younger candidates are developed for the future, unless, of course, Miliband major can be enticed back from the USA.

While Labour simply has a paucity of talent and experience, the Liberal Democrats have almost no one left from whom to choose a new leader. The obvious candidate must be Tim Farron but he's not exactly set the world on fire in the past. However, he has only 7 possible opponents, the party having been all but wiped out at Wesminster, and none of them is any sort of 'Big Beast'. Whoever gets the job, it's likely to be a miserable experience for years to come.

While Labour and the Liberal Democrats at least know what the position is, UKIP have made a pigs' breakfast of the whole leadership issue. Having said that he'd resign if he failed to win a seat at Westminster, Nigel Farage did just that, only to have his resignation rejected by the party's national executive; consequently, he's remained as leader but has been subjected to a barrage of criticism and comment from certain party members and supporters. It does seem strange that he didn't argue his corner with the executive and at least push for an election to test the feelings of his party; that the executive, which is only partly elected itself, has denied the membership the opportunity to confirm, or otherwise, it's support for Farage seems wrong. Regardless, UKIP is now in a state of civil war which is doing it no good at all.

Somehow, Natalie Bennett, the hopeless leader of the Green Party, has avoided being sacked and seems likely to remain on our screens for a while yet, as does Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru. Whether they or Farage will be around at the next General Election in 2020, is for the future to decide, but we do know that Cameron has said he won't be and we know that Labour and the Liberals will both have new leaders; the only survivor from this time around may well be Nicola Sturgeon - there's a thought.

ELECTION HORRORS AHEAD.

Thank God the election will soon be here though what it will bring us is another matter.

For weeks now we've been subjected to the lies, prevarication and disingenuous drivel of a vast horde of political figures, and others, all telling us what they think we want to hear and none of them telling us the truth. Questions put by interviewers have been ignored, avoided or answered in such a way that an impression is given without actually making any hard and fast commitments; even Miliband's recent statements about the SNP and possible deals with them still leave more than enough 'wriggle room' for Labour to do whatever they like in the event of a hung Parliament.

The opinion polls have remained stubbornly stuck, with no party seemingly making any significant progress in convincing the people that they are the ones to vote for. We have the likelihood, at the moment, of Labour probably having most seats and entering into an effective agreement, formal or not, with the SNP, a party which is desperate for the UK to be broken up. The SNP, for their part, have made it very clear that they will not support any Conservative led administration under any circumstances, confirming their position as a party of the extreme left. Likewise, Plaid Cymru have made a similar statement, though both the Liberal Democrats and UKIP have left open the question of whom they might be prepared to support.

In the end, what we are left with is the real prospect of a minority Labour government propped up by a mish-mash of extreme left wing parties including the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens. With the mantra of all 4 relying hugely on 'an end to austerity' we will find ourselves plunged into another financial abyss, with government borrowing rising again to unsustainable levels. Of course, there will also be vast increases in taxation, especially for anyone who has anything; I can see further assaults on the so-called 'well off', more raids on pension funds, huge increases in council tax and so on. Eventually, the bulk of the population will be much worse off.

What to do about it all. Sadly, voting for my preferred option, UKIP may well lead to my constituency electing a typically oily Liberal Democrat, though the best candidate I've seen by far is actually the Labour chap. Nationally, votes for UKIP may well help Labour to pick up Tory seats and make the horror of a Labour-SNP axis a reality. I doubt that I will make a final decision until election day.

ED BALLS TRIES AGAIN AND STILL CAN'T SCORE.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear !

 

Poor old Ed Balls really is a first class idiot. Yet again, he's been on our television screens this morning trying to convince us all that a future Labour government will abide by the spending plans of the current lot for the year 2015/16, at least for 'current spending'. They would not reverse spending cuts already put in place but would attack the so called rich for all they're worth; it's now abundantly clear that payment of the state pension will no longer be considered a right for all and that Labour would restrict this to the people whom it believes to be the poor.

 

Balls was one of the principal architects of the appalling mess created by the last Labour governments of Blair and Brown. He now bumbles his way through interviews, trying to convince us that he has true economic gravitas and can resolve all of the problems that he created. He says whatever he thinks will win him and his party votes - spend more, tax the rich, introduce what would effectively be means testing for payments such as the state pension, winter fuel allowance and so on. Such policies are designed to appeal to his party's traditional voter base, but he also tries to appeal to others by pretending that our economy would be safe in his hands as he would not revert to typical Labour and borrow vast amounts more. This last is, of course, a sham as he has every intention of borrowing shed-loads of money for what he sees as necessary 'capital schemes' - building houses, roads, railways and everything else he can think of. Much of this would be current spending by any other name and would never be recouped, in fact, it would worsen our already dire state. This  approach would actually be the one adopted by communist Russia for many years, and one which eventually brought that benighted state to its knees.

 

Our country is in a financial mess. Part of this was due to some of our major banks behaving badly but most of it is down to the Labour governments of Blair and Brown, either through their direct actions or because they failed to ensure that the banks were properly supervised. Ed Balls and his mate, Ed Miliband, were both willing and enthusiastic participants in those governments and yet now they tell us that they know better than the current lot how to deal with the mess and ask us to trust them to put things right. Who do they think they are - Laurel and Hardy ? Come to think of it, isn't there some similarity there, a relatively thin one who's always scratching his head in bemused fashion and a fatter one who's bombastic but always shown to be a fool ?!

 

Voting for a government led by Balls and Miliband would be akin to turkeys voting for Christmas; it would be voluntary euthanasia on a vast scale as anyone with anything would find it taken from them and those with nothing would be no better off, while the country would be bankrupted. You have been warned.