UK basks in Bank Holiday sun,- and wind.

You can't have it all. So far the 2013 Spring hasn't really happened,- more of a continuation of winter most of the time. With June only days away the appearance of some warm ( if behind your windbreaks) sun has been welcome and an almost unusual backdrop to the second Bank (ie public) Holiday of the month. This one is doubly significant as it leads straight into the half term week, another "works shutdown" for a UK plc almost exhausted by the long run of unrelenting toil since the Easter holidays all of six weeks ago. Never mind, we will soon be into the summer social sporting and corporate hospitality season of Ascot, Wimbledon and Henley which will see us nearly into the summer hols proper.

So how are we doing and how's our world?

Very sadly the week was dominated by the shooting of an off duty soldier by a couple of deluded religious extremists acting it seems alone in isolation from any group. The one off grouping or hit man is the most difficult thing to detect or predict. There are disaffected people everywhere,- and not just in Britain. Some express themselves noisily but others sit and smoulder and in most cases do nothing. A tiny percentage though will be insane enough to believe that killing people will in some way advance their cause or even gain them eternal redemption for their other deficiencies. That's what happened this week .Inevitably baying tabloid media and self-appointed pundits spent a lot of column inches and air time saying why didn't the security services detect this one coming? The answer is of course that a 100% success rate is impossible and the fact that these incidents are so few and far between is a testimony to a 99.99% sucess rate nevertheless.

Inevitably included in the response are calls from political opportunists, led by the Home Secretary, Theresa May,  to revive the recently abandoned and potentially highly repressive measures contained in the Communications Data Bill. These , widely condemned by free speech supporters at home and abroad , would have given the government, any government, the right to access almost any electronic communication of any sort. It's the kind of thing that could be expected and would be condemned here if the country concerned were Russia, Zimbabwe or almost anywhere but the UK. Even if benign in initial intention ,it is capable of being used and misused by less scrupulous governments in the future and as such is highly dangerous. The fact that the idea is supported by both the left and right wings of the UK's political parties should be warning enough and for once the LibDems are right in opposing the Bill. It is likely that they will be overwhelmed by an unusual and unholy alliance of the Conservative and Labour parties, the leadership of both being apparently impervious to what it means for the underlying character of the British way of life.

Before this incident took over the headlines and the inner pages, the politicians, ever keen to avoid the top slot in the baddies of the day stakes, had been labelling approbrium on the evil tax- evading,- ie minimising,- global nationals. Much to the relief of many in the Canary Wharf and City banking areas Starbucks had enjoyed a spell in the dock a few months ago and been named and shamed as really bad people. That got expenses-laden politicians off the hook too. They hadn't been enjoying being below estate agents and bankers in the national trust tables.  The offshore global betheren hadn't broken the law,- something created by politicians and contained in about 17,000 obviously clear and concise pages of tax rules and formulae,- but  just done their duty to their shareholders , customers and employees by not spending money where they didn't need to. Like most , Starbucks had though created thousands of jobs in Britain, all occupied by people who paid tax and usefully with any left over bought goods and services which employed other people who then also paid tax, weren't on the dole.... and so on. They had created a product people wanted to buy, trained their staff well and given many a launch pad into other things, but the evil so-and -sos had not paid more in tax than the 17,000 pages said they might if they were actually worded differently. This week it has been Google's turn in the dock. Again they have created new jobs for a large numbers of people in the country, are a good and even fun employer, are investing over £1 building in a new HQ and generally pouring megapounds into the economy, while perfectly legally paying corporation tax in Ireland where it's lower. "Unfair, foul, we need EU or global agreements to stop this kind of thing happening". "I will raise it at G8 " says brave, fearless David Cameron scenting a popular and emotional winner. This is the same David Cameron who a few weeks ago was urging French businesses to move their head offices to the UK to avoid new and punitive taxes at home. That, it seems, was fair game. The Irish doing it to the UK is not. Have we missed something,- and might not the Irish anyway have got it right with a low business tax regime? Isn't that where we should all be heading to leave more money in companies' and peoples' pockets to invest or spend to expand the economy?

Anyway, so as to get away before the weekend holiday rush ,Parliament shut down again on Tuesday afternoon. Nothing to do with avoiding having a Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday of course or actually not having a lot to do now much of the legislation factory has moved across the North Sea to Brussels.  Cameron sensibly headed for the airport, ignoring howls of "How could he when we are under attack from terrorists"? from the learned tabloids and others. We should be grateful that he went. We need our leaders , such as they are, fresh and not exhausted from having to be on the bridge in all kind of foul weather. They'd always be there and too befuddled to see or do anything about the future. With state of the art communications systems,- and we can be sure he isn't marooned with just an old bedside or hallway telephone, -he is hardly out of the picture. His choice of destination, the familiar Ibiza, is though a bit unimaginative and disappointing. OK, it has pretty much guaranteed warmth and sunshine, beaches and good food and drink and it isn't far away in case a dash back is really needed and there's no jetlag involved . Wouldn't though a family saunter around say Singapore, a pleasant and easy introduction to modern ,thriving, prosperous, hard working, everything working, Asia have been more thought provoking and educational? We would add Bangkok, but for any politician that is probably a risk too far. Just think of the opportunities for photographers: "Just stand in front of that door a minute Mr Cameron".  A trip to at least Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai in should be compulsory for all Britain's and indeed the EU's politicians. If the absence of that, their sunlounger reading on their Kindles should be the guide to Hong Kong's flat rate tax law.

One thing Dave will have missed as he headed off to the sun was the UEFA Cup Final at Wembley between the German teams Bayern Munich and Dortmund. Maybe he wasn't invited but maybe he watched it on TV?  If he didn't he should have, as should Messrs Miliband/E and  Clegg. Not for the game,- they could have skipped that if they weren't interested,- but for the bit at the end when the 2 teams climbed the Everest-like steps to the presentation box high in the stadium, itself no mean feat after 90 minutes on the pitch. There was Angela Merkel, relaxed, genuinely joyful, chatting easily and naturally with all around her and the teams and officials as they came up. Could any of our wooden leaders looked so spontaneous, human and really rather than patronisingly glad to be there?  For some reason they all seem to have enormous difficulty in presenting themselves as real citizens of planet earth beyond selected areas of London and their allied country retreats. If the Germans throw her out in this year's elections perhaps we could offer her a contract. We are happy with European football managers so why not a country manager?

UK-The Queen's 8th May Speech. All the fun and games.

Yesterday HM the Queen had the dubious pleasure of again reading out from a parchment manuscript (well, at least it precludes last minute alterations) her government's intended programme for the next twelve months. That will take the country to within a year of the 2015 General Election. Time, you might think for really getting a grip on the essentials and fast tracking delivery.

The whole speech took less than eight minutes, was fair on some aspirations, especially of those wanting to get on a bit, verbally positive though unclear on immigration, helpful in moving the sluggish progress of the new High Speed 2 railway line along a bit but not overly so. (The £2bn a year spend on construction has to follow on from the same sum currently being spent on London's much delayed Crossrail scheme). There were things about pensioners only having to pay around £150,000 between them to cover what passes, or doesn't , for "care" in their twilight years, a fairer society, the favourite LibDem insert which gives them sort of fuzzy warm feelings but are otherwise pretty meaningless. At root is the underlying theme that the current scapegoats , be they bankers  or people who have made a bit other than by the socially acceptable means of winning it on the X factor or the lottery or being a footballer or pop star must be soaked for more tax. The fact that they already may pay more than is fair is irrelevant. Philosophically the left mean "Yes, we support you getting on a bit but just don't overdo it even if you create jobs for other people as being better off would be unfair and we will take the money off you."

There were weren't even vagueries about the promised one day referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU. Never mind , we already know that Dave will go to the Belgian/EU capital with jaw squared, say "enough is enough" and come back with another piece of parchment or maybe a tweet from Angela saying all is well. Everyone knows it won't be. The UK and the mainland European superstatists simply want different things and always have. Neither of them is wrong. They just think differently.

 Realists know that Dave's record as a negotiator so far hasn't been wonderful,- and that's being nice to him. Right now he is up/down there with that awfully nice chap on "The Apprentice" who can't help giving the shop away even after a good deal has been done . That means that British free traders but non-federalists can't be optimistic about where the EU is inexorably going. The much better organised Europeans are much more politically astute, battle hardened ,savvy and organised . They know that despite the advance carryon ,come the day or night our man is really a pushover and that he really wants to stay in and be invited to the top table. He only likes top tables and has always been used to them. He would cringe at the very idea of being anywhere else. Heaven forbid the Burger King or even the Starbucks, or British, tax paying Costa, next to the laundry. He is therefore likely to accept the nice seat away from the rabble even if he knows, as surely he must, that the real discussions in Europe have long been stitched up by the continentals beforehand off camera. They always have been. They will give him some nice words and a bauble or two to take home and offer the British public in a referendum and that will be it. None of all this is a good starting point for those who really do want a new relationship with the EU and with it a thoroughly democratic overhaul of that incredibly autocratic, directive and non democratic organisation.

 The UK has never wanted to be absorbed into a monolithic superstate . Its biggest failing is never having come out straight and said so. It should have done so right from the start but in Edward Heath's fawning desparation to get in it never did . Successive Prime Ministers have then put off the moment of truth and as result allowed the UK to be sucked ever deeper  in. As result, getting out has become more and more difficult.

Her Majesty, the master of concealing her views about anything other than a winning horse, delivers the words with no indication of her feelings about any of it. No rolled eyes, no yawns or sounds of weariness and no inserts along the lines of "You won't believe this but...." If her world were free it would be reasonable for her to glance through the pages and declare: "Look, I think that Dave or someone has already tweeted, twittered or something about all this so you already know as much as I do. There's not much point in reading it out and its full of platitudes and things that will never happen anyway. Come on Philip, these good people must be waiting for their lunch, we should be going".

After the royal party, including a medal festooned Prince Charles and tiara topped (Princess but not) Camilla, had left, the politicians filed out for said (subsidised) lunch break before going back to the Commons for the traditional exchange of unpleasantaries. Something has happened to the art of debating recently. The art has largely gone. (Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are much needed in the Commons). The two main party leaders, Dave and Ed show it clearly almost every time they exchange any comments beyond "Hello", if they actually ever do say that. Whether it is weekly Prime Ministers Questions, a debate like this one or any other, we are not treated to carefully ,calmly and coherently worded statements, explanations but an exchange of noisy rants conducted at high volume. This is neither debating nor oratory. Miliband has developed a cleverer approach than Cameron and goes to get under the Prime Minister's skin, something that isn't difficult . The latter should know that by now and , if the good responses don't come easily he should have been tutored have been tutored in how to go about them, how to vary the pace and tone and come out on top and Prime Ministerial without just being noisily arrogant. Unfortunately there either hasn't been any tutoring or if there has been a change of mentor is needed.

Put aside the pagentry and spectacle yesterday in parliament was not inspiring . There was no sign of vision or leadership anywhere. It was very dull and pointed towards another hung parliament after 2015. Some might say it pointed more towards hanging parliament as electors file into the booths to spoil their papers by writing in "None of the Above" or of course simply voting UKIP to say the same thing. That's a dreary thought and an indictment of the current crop never-done-a-real- job professional politicians on all sides. They should be boldly delivering vision, dynamism, energy, and commitment to better everything. With two years to go to the next General Election they aren't. That's not good for democracy. It's also a huge waste of talent on their part. Time to get a grip.

UK Local elections in a nutshell.- It's all down to humans.

THE STORY:

This week's single parliamentary by-election (In escapee David Miliband's former rock solid Labour seat) and multiple council, and mayoral elections have been given General election style media coverage, hype and subsequent entrail examination. Further miles of newsprint will be gobbled up in tomorrow's Sunday papers, the verdicts largely pre-ordained by the political stances of the writers. On the TV Channels the BBC will plough its own institutional left of centre, anything labelled Conservative gets a bit of a snigger, furrow.

To save everyone time, here's what it was all about and what the outcomes mean, especially the 23% of "X" s achieved by UKIP, only recently described by David Cameron,- who got 25%- as a party of and for fruit cakes.

BEFORE THE ELECTION:

- This was the flip side of the 2009 elections when the Brown government was deep in the brown stuff and the Tories did extremely well.

-There was widespread media advance speculation that the Tories would be dealt devastating blows, lose control of many councils by losing 600+ seats.This it was said would put Labour, despite Ed Miliband, on track for a 2015  parliamentary majority.

-This was primarily a battle between the 3 established leaders, Cameron,(Clegg), and Miliband. Few other faces were seen or heard of on soapboxes or in the media. It was as if they were all unavoidably away, working from home or just on holiday. They seemed to want,-or have been ordered,-to keep away.

-In addition there was the known unknown Nigel Farage, leader and again sole face of UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party.

How were the leaders and parties  seen/what did they offer?


-Conservatives: In the immediate runup to the polls, Cameron insensitively (blissful unawareness?) reinforced the image and actuality of his inner circle being Etonian, failing which at least leading public school, and Oxbridge and mentally and behaviourally perhaps never having left the cloisters of these places. It is an unfortunate image which has dogged Cameron since the beginning and he has done little or nothing to deal with it. His inner group are visibly the sorts of people he feels most comfortable with and it is all very cosy. Most of its members are undoubtedly very clever and well educated people. Educationally Eton is superb with top university level teaching and mentoring. They turn out an excellent, confident and very polished product. The problem is that it and a few other schools also tend to isolate many of their pupils from any feel for or understanding of other worlds. Parachute them say into Liverpool, Blackburn, Glasgow and they are lost. They could analyse these places and their inhabitants but never understand them. This is a major failing and electoral liability.

-Labour (New Old): If David Miliband had, as expected and backed by individual party members and constituencies ,won the leadership contest in 2010 New Labour would be alive and well . It would now be offering a kind of mature Blair-free grown up slightly left of centre party, probably to the right of where many LibDems actually are. This would have enabled it to hang on to the asiprant middle class voters, particularly in the south, who gave Blair 3 successive general Election victories despite the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan. As the union block vote, led by Unite, managed to overturn the other 2 electoral college groups, we now have  Ed Miliband led party heading firmly back to its old roots, habitats (the north) and habits. That leaves most of the south other than parts of London and depressed , mainly seaside, towns looking for somewhere else to cast their votes if they don't go for the Tory boys.

-Liberal Democrat: Nick Clegg looks more miserable, pasty faced and frankly just wet by the day. He has made an art form of looking uncomfortable when sitting next to Cameron in the Commons and has decided that to survive in 2015 he has to visibly wring his hands and obstruct almost any non limp wristed measures proposed by his coalition partners. As result his party doesn't look like one that either of the other two would want to be in coalition with after the next election. He spoke yesterday of the party being in transition from being a party of protest to one of government. It may have been in 2010 but it certainly doesn't look that way now . With the added complication of the rise of UKIP,  this looks more like the party of nothing at all after 2015. Not an attractive place to put one's "X" this time then.

-and then there was UKIP, formerly derided by all three above for not really being a party at all but just a collection of right wing no-hopers glued together by a probably racist attitude to immigration and a dislike for wheer the EU has taken and hopes to take Britain. It's more about slamming on the brakes than having an exciting, well thought out and cohesive plan for a new Britain. In its 2010 manifesto it did mention being pro not just one but three new high speed railway lines and that sort of thing .When it came to vote harvesting though and the prospect of juicy electoral gains through a swathe of Tory Buckinghamshire by saying "Oh, but we didn't mean that one" and promising to be even more anti HS 2 than the already near-rabid Conservative opponents of the routing of the line through their heartlands UKIP went for it. So what had UKIP really got to offer ? First, foremost and many would say almost only, Nigel Farage, MEP. Alone amongst the 4 leaders he speaks plain English as understood by the bulk of the population. He is an excellent speaker . Just Google for his speeches in the EU Parliament where he is almost alone in Europe in down to earth, honest, clearly and decisively expressed  criticism of the EU's excesses and the culpability for them of its leading lights (?) We do not see such stuff in the Commons where the art of debate and clinical, rather than simply bawling, clinical disection of opponents has almost died out in the generally poorly attended House. Farage is also alone amongst the four leaders in being a man most males in particular can relate to. He says it like it is, has no time for political correctness, looks entirely at home and natural talking to anyone anywhere, particularly in a pub with a pint in one hand and a fag in the other. He is happy to confess to having seen the inside of a pole dancing club and having had a good evening. Just imagine Dave, Ed or Nick making such a confession. They'd probably have had to make it up anyway.

SO WHO DID WE VOTE FOR?

Were the Tories wiped out? Did Labour get those 600+ gains and do anything more than get back to where they were before the great Brown disaster?

The figures are simple:

Labour                     29%
Conservative            25%
UKIP                        23%
LibDem                    14%

Put another way, that means:

Parties of  the Right (Cons and UKIP)   48%
Parties of the  Left   (Lab and LibDem) 43%.

Not much more than one of Farage's cigarette papers between them then,with just a 5% difference overall between the right and left.

David Cameron as a leader isn't making much of an impact and there are no signs that he can. He doesn't appear comfortable outside his own circle, regardless of whether he is in London, at Chequers or at his Cotswold home and the thumbs down given to the Conservatives in these elections in his own constituency is significant. Labour's repeated dogwhistle cries of "Out of touch" have been very clever, found a resonance and stuck. Cameron does not come over as speaking "human" or someone you could have a good chat with in the pub, train, cafe or wherever. Indeed it is unlikely that you would find him in any of these unless surrounded by minders so normal contact is probably out of the question. Nor does he appear to have any normal sense of humour.

Ed Miliband is not disimilar in most of these respects . He is not therefore harvesting the benefit of Cameron's social isolation. He comes over to many as some kind of techi-geek from another planet and not as someone with whom you would enjoy a good easy going chat. That makes him a bit Brown-like though he probably wouldn't recognise the similarity. His appearances standing on a wooden pallet have often not drawn much of a crowd, if any, and have looked and been contrived and stage managed. Ditto all appearances of politicians in supermarkets, talking in schools and hospitals and the rest. They just don't look natural and so reinforce a feeling of artificiality so obvious that the audience feel demeaned for being taken to be mugs.

As for poor Nick, what can we say?

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTION?

-In theory the outcome is pretty open and there is everything to play for.

-If the economic situation improves, so will the Conservative vote, but probably mainly at the expense of UKIP.

-If the economic situation remains as now or deteriorates the Labour vote will increase at the LibDems expense as well as the Conservatives.

-The LibDems are unlikely to play any part in a post 2015 government. Apart from anything else, who would trust them?  If Labour were the largest party it would probably do what the Tories should have done in 2010 and accept power as a minority government and then call a new election on their first defeat, standing on a platform of "Give us a mandate and we will do the job. If you don't you've got the Tories and UKIP."

-The interesting question would be whether the Conservatives would really offer UKIP a coalition or go for the same "no coalition" policy as above. The fun would then seriously begin if a second election produced the same result as then deals really would have to be done.

..AND LASTLY...............

UKIP came out of almost nowhere to achieve 235 of the vote, not just as a protest but above all because they have in Nigel Farage a leader who can genuinely connect with people and talk easily to and with them in simple non politically correct English unimpeded by politico-speak and evasion. For the Tories , Boris Johnson similarly defies the odds simply because he comes over as fun, humorous, plain speaking and above all human. His being an Etonian doesn't come into the equation. People don't much care about that or debate whether or not he would make a good Prime Minister . They just like his apparent down to earth directness and humour. That's why he won the 2012 London Mayoral Election despite the odds. He too could be having a cheery weekend.

Despite the parties of the right being 5% ahead in voting numbers, ironically this may not translate into a victory in 2015. The reverse in fact. By taking this percentage of the vote UKIP could fail to gain any seats of its own but undermine the Conservative numbers in many constituencies by enough to give Labour the wins. That could translate into Labour gaining an overall parliamentary majority despite them and the other party of the left being outvoted by those of the right.

Although today's media seemed to have missed that point it is unlikely to have passed unnoticed by the two main party leaders. It could be causing deep frowns wherever Dave is this Bank Holiday weekend and some genuine smiles wherever Ed is. Two very different Sunday lunches coming up. Elsewhere Nigel Farage is likely to be found in the sun outside the pub with his trademark pint, a fag and the broad smile of one who has just launched the cat amongst the pidgeons and is now sitting back to watch the sport.