Thumbnail guide to Britain's Euro Elections outcomes.

- Contrary to expectations nobody other than the LibDems got a bloody nose. The percentage take of the votes and the resultant numbers of MEPs came to:

                                                      %                                        MEPs

UKIP                                         27.49                                      24
Labour                                       25.40                                      20
Conservative                             23.93                                     19
Greens                                        07.87                                     03
Lib Dem                                     06.87                                      01

-Although  Labour on the left  came out marginally ahead of the Conservatives, the combined Conservative and UKIP vote on the right soundly beat them by gaining 51.42 of the total share and 43 MEPs against 20
Even the cave dwelling Greens did better than the LibDems. The message here is that if anyone on the right thinks they are likely to get what they want by voting UKIP at the General Election in May 2015 they are going to be sorely disappointed. All they will achieve is a socialist , interventionist tax and spend Labour government, something the majority clearly don't want. Even less will they like the resultant Prime Minister, Ed Milliband who clearly doesn't like them.

-The UKIP win, much hyped in advance and since by the media, should not yet cause too much hysteria and panic in the ranks of any party. Its ingredients are too complex and mixed in likely lifespan to benefit from kneejerks. Careful and wise (now that might be a problem) consideration over the summer is required. One factor affecting a string of constituencies along the line of Britain's major north-south high speed railway line HS2 is how those Conservative voters who opted for UKIP because they opportunistically oppose the project will vote next year. As above, if these people really insist on voting UKIP out of rail-rage all they will do is to let Labour, whose project it originally was  in. If that happens HS 2 will still go ahead but possibly with some cost saving reductions by reducing Chiltern and other landowner- protecting tunnels and cuttings. Labour doesn't much care for the vociferous rural lobby and why shouldn't the Liverpudlians, Mancunians be able to enjoy the much vaunted outstanding scenery they will pass through in their hundreds of thousands?

-Nigel Farage comes over as a man of the people, the sort of bloke anyone could have a good chat with anywhere. He's also the sort of man who you would be likely to meet in the pub, cafe, bus, anywhere. None of the Party leaders get anywhere near that. As result much of what they say, however good or bad is simply filtered out. People stop listening. They are not taken in by carefully arranged and managed PR photoshoots in schools and hospitals (mainly) and selected faux "man of the people" surroundings and they certainly don't like feeling they are being spoken down to.

- David Cameron opens his mouth too often about too many issues ranging from football managers to anything else he thinks might make him look as if he is feeling people's pain, whatever it is. Dave is probably a nice enough bloke, has limited life experiences outside his own small coterie and caste and is never going to break out of that mould. He is an average manager, not a leader and certainly not a man driven by a vision of Britain and the world in 50, 25 ,10 years time or probably even tomorrow morning.

-Ed Milliband isn't a forward looking visionary either. Any vision he has is from the rear view mirror. He is stuck in the same old grooves. His Marxist father sits heavily on one shoulder and Unite's Len McClusky on the other. Both are people of the past and both drag him there too. When faced with any situation he can only trot out the same old phrases designed, through constant repetition,to take insidious root in the electorates' sub conscious. Increasingly though they irritate and make said electors feel an urge to throw up. How many more times must we hear "The cost of living crisis" , "Hard working families" (what about hard working singles, bone idle families etc?), "For the many not the few" and the rest. Apart from the cost of living crisis many of the rest go back to Gordon Brown's time. Didn't he do well? Do people really, really want a re-run?

Nick Clegg was beaten and truly routed but has so far held up remarkably well against the subsequent LibDem plots, attempted coups, rumours of deep divisions and disloyalties. Such things are the substance of top level or even bottom level (something maybe we should be careful of talking about unless we stray into other contraversial territory) politics. Every politician needs to keep firmly in sight former UK diplomat Percy Craddock's warning: "It isn't the other side you've got to worry about. It's your own." The same goes in much of business and industry but that's another story. It's very lonely at the top and real friends are very few. Caesar may have be the best known to be surprised by Brutus but the tally of Bruti grows relentlessly.

Next up in the elections game is the Newark by-election this week. Here the focus is on an older UKIP candidate versus a shiny new young wealthy, London based Tory boy straight out of standard box. When will they ever learn? A UKIP win against a      Tory majority is almost unthinkable but..................... This could be the tail and of the Euro election UKIP bubble. Then comes the will they, won't they, debate over whether the UKIP vote is just a one-off protest against the current state of UK politics and politicians with their attendant whiffs of  shallowness, greed, self interest, lack of vision and class issues or whether it is something more deep rooted. In some areas it probably is here to stay at least for a while. In others, voters should think very carefully about what they really want and who/what they are really voting for. Certainly the most likely effect of a big UKIP vote in may 2015 is a Milliband-led Labour government. One way to ensure HS2 and another London runway is built maybe as that is where they were in 2010, but the downsides to another 5 years (at least ) of Brownite style government may not be something at the top of everyone's list of preferences. 

Thought for the day...............

................... for service providers and manufacturers.

If you can do it right why do it wrong?

Thumbnail Guide to Britain's Euro Elections.

It's pretty difficult to imagine an event causing less excitement than next week's elections to the European Parliament. What looks like a tragedy for democracy is simply a reflection of the fact that few believe that the European Parliament is really anything about democracy and that it anything but a rubber stamp for decisions taken totally undemocratically by the European Commission who listen only to the heads of France and Germany but otherwise more or less cook up whatever they want to in the furtherance of the thing Britain has never believed in-"Ever closer (political) unity".

Some will go to the polls if only to give the current trio of lacklustre and uninspiring main party political leaders a kicking by voting for UKIP whose only assets are an excellent speaker in the form of Nigel Farage who also comes over as a human sort of bloke who speaks an  intelligible language. This is something none of the others are or do  His other big plus is that fact that he is "None of the above".

So what are all the leaflets saying to urge us into the empty polling booths and then bothering to do anything other than spoil our ballots? Write-ins are not acceptable so scrawling "Plonker" in any box disenfranchises you for this session.

First leaflet though the door was the GREENS offering all sorts of rights including not to be make to work too hard,  not to be eaten too often (if you are an animal), and not to be able to read on still nights when the windmills aren't going round. They were pretty hot on everybody being virtuous, shifting cash from those who create or make wealth to those who don't and generally living a pretty chilled out life and in winter a very chilled out one as all those nasty power stations will have closed. Nice sunlit uplands for all then. Their leaflet is now on its way to recycling,- as they would wish.

Next in were the LIBDEMS. Yes, they are having a go. Read their stuff. They are making a difference. Stopping Tories being nasty. Dishing out hot school meals. Cost,- what's that? Also keen on recycling. OK folks. Thankyou. Your wish is met.

LABOUR sent a pic of Ed. Not sure why they bother in rural Bucks though handy down the pub as an extra feature on the dart board. Gets a good laugh though. Talked about the cost of living crisis. Don't they target their leaflets by area or maybe they've never been to rural Bucks?

Then in came Nige and UKIP. Great colours purple and yellow and they do stand out in the fields among the rapeseed flowers at this time of year.  Nige is good in the pub and enjoys the unspeakable sin of a fag (no we aren't talking of past top public school goings on here) so knows how to come over as the man to make a difference. God help us if he were ever able to but that's another story. He knows his markets so the Chiltern version of his bit of recycling trumpets his opposition to HS 2 tearing the life and soul out of a strip of land about 50 yards wide and twelve miles long through a part of the hills unparalleled  in beauty except for in the next valley, and he next, and the next. By taking this stance,-which will get him votes is these hills,- he identifies himself as standing alongside the GREENS, something that couldn't be further from his dreams. The fact is that they and he are "Do nothing, Change nothing, Hurrah for Old England and warm ale" parties. Off to the bin with this one though many households will treasure it and his party is likely to get the biggest vote and therefore the most British MEPs. If anyone wanted an argument against proportional representation that's a pretty good one.

Last, just today came the CONSERVATIVES with pic of polished, groomed hair Dave looking very Dave. In fairness though he had something to say. He and his friends haven't grasped the most powerful argument is that they really want to stay in Europe but a Europe changed for ALL participants, not just Britain. A Europe once and for all shorn of the "Ever closer union" dream of the hard core and ever more powerful unelected and dictatorial Eurocrats. That's the real Tory argument. They just don't put it across right. However, like them or not, they are the only party offering an alternative to grovelling subservience ("because of the jobs") to an increasingly powerful ,dictatorial and hugely expensive (= massive overhead on everything EU members do, making them ever less competitive in the world) centralising monster. For that reason there is no option but to give them the X on the day and hope for the best. Their blurb though, including the pic of Dave, can join the rest in the recycling bin.

Oh dear Dave...

Our Prime Minister's PR antennae, seldom wonderful, seem to have been extraordinarily anaesthetised lately. He will never be a man of the people. He just isn't one but nor is Ed or little Nick.They can't help it .None of them have ever really ever been out and about with real ones. As result he has always struggled a bit with understanding human reactions outside the various bubbles he has inhabited (Eton, Oxford, PR, Westminster) . Usually though advisers have managed to steer him around the deeper potholes.

Not these last couple of weeks.

First there was the visit to John Lewis and his speech to staff saying that generally he only shopped at Waitrose because, to paraphrase down to the real meaning, he found a better class of people there. To rub it in and make sure that Sainsbury staff and customer understood the reality he went on to say that he only used their Chipping Norton branch because the town didn't have Waitrose. Not clever for a man whose biggest albatross is a common belief that he and his party are toffs and only really for toffs.

Then there has been the case of Culture Secretary, Maria Miller and her slightly overpaid accomodation allowance.  The independent parliamentary commissioner for standards recommended that she should repay £ £45,000 .This was reduced to £5,800  by the Parliamentary Standards Committee whose three non MP lay members have no vote . No reasons were given, at least publicly .They also found that her attitude to the investigation had breached the parliamentary code of conduct and insisted that she apologise to the Commons. She obliged flatly in 34 seconds flat. In length and style that simply wasn't good enough . It raised a furore and gave the Opposition a sitting duck house. To make it worse and add to the damage, in an old style display of ranks closing around mates, many senior Tories defended Ms Miller in her decision not to resign her cabinet post. All seen as very honourable within the group maybe but Dave should have been told that this one was insensitive, potentially toxic and gaining hostile legs amongst a public whose distrust of politicians , and especially Tory ones, is a major issue. Here was the opportunity for him to square his jaw and say resolutely that he and the party had zero tolerance in these sorts of case and she must therefore go. Instead he flunked it and very went out on a very public limb by firmly supporting her. Today she has resigned . That makes Dave's support  an image tarnishing ,vote losing waste of time. He should have anticipated the end game and gone straight to it. The affair now becomes not just an understanding issue but one of judgement one too.  As a footnote Mr Cameron said he hoped she would be back in the cabinet in due course. Again, oh dear.

Parliament has just arrived at the Easter Recess and this afternoon members will be flowing out of the doors in end of term, caps in the air mode. There must be a sense of weary relief as they do so and a feeling in the Cameron camp that it hasn't come a moment too soon . The boss presumably at some stage will head for the harsh world of real life in the Cotswolds. Dangerous. He may have to go to Sainsburys for heaven's sake. 

Historic dessert at Windsor?

Last night HM Queen Elizabeth hosted a dinner at Windsor Castle for Irish President Higgins. Among the diners were representatives from Northern Ireland including former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

The dessert may have raised an eyebrow or two:

"Vanilla ice cream bombe with Balmoral redcurrent centre"

Hmm.  Phillip's choice?

Posts on 1) Britain's High Speed Railway,HS 2 and 2) Aspects of and issues around MH 370

For posts on these two subjects please see our sister blog Airnthere either via www.airnthere.blogspot.com or simply Gooogle it.

Normal coverage of the world of politics and nonsenses will resume shortly.

Britain's health service ,-A question of service and professionalism

Twiga was summoned for a routine test at the local smart PFI-funded medical centre today. The unsurprising result was that a short consultation with the doctor is required. No problem one might think. The doctor's office is just along the corridor and he is said to do the admin on Wednesday afternoons. Isn't that the province of the recent additional overhead titled the "Business Manager"? What does he do? God knows,- or may not. Sorry no appointments available before mid April says the receptionist and no bookings are being taken beyond that because the person who sets the programme up is away until next week .OK, well how about talking to him on the phone, the new sort of initial appointment anybody calling up gets?  "We've got a slot in ten days time".

That's the level of service,-seamless not,- now experienced day in and day out by the clients of what leading politicians of all parties call "Our wonderful NHS". Little Nick said the other day it was one of the things he loved about the UK. Ed and Dave are similarly dewy eyed whenever the three letters, N,H,and S come up. Fair enough ,it has served them well, and some parts are indeed excellent for everyone but its organisation and administration are particularly dire. All too often it simply doesn't understand that it is a service business. It is also highly unlikely that any of these three gents has recently had to enter its portals as a normal mortal and had to sit on hard plastic chairs in A&E awaiting the target time of four hours.

Not so long ago it was all very different. The local practice was housed in much smaller quarters, did a lot more for minor injuries (GP's surgeries generally don't do stitching now so send anything requiring it to A&E adding unnecessarily to the waiting times there.In South Africa many ordinary chemists have someone to do it). The doctors lived in or near the community, were on call 24/7 and patients seen on the day,- or night. That was part of the professionalism and ethos of being a doctor. They were reasonably but not excessively rewarded for their time and expertise . Years of sleepless nights came with the job, along with enormous respect among the population at large.

Then along came G.Brown driving his answer to everything and in reality nothing, the money sprayer .In came new contracts removing 24 hour responsibility (and with it the true essence of professionalism,) and giving a lot more money in exchange for a suffocating burocracy and external control and targets over almost every field of medical activity. The old notion of public service went out of the window and and although the doctors now feel much richer they and those they should be serving are actually a lot poorer.