Mr. 3%

What price power?

Well, it seems for the Lib-Dems it's 3%:

Before the election, the Tories promised that 80% of the work of cutting the deficit would come from cutting spending and 20% from raising taxes.

In fact, the chancellor has announced that the figures are 77% to 23%.

That 3% is the impact of the coalition.

According to Nick Robinson It's possibly debatable, but the Yellow Tories will surely argue that for all they are worth. Indeed (I won't look for it) but Luke Akehurst pointed out that Lib-Dem pre-election plans involved 0% tax rises to deal with the deficit.

The rout?

Now, this time last year, I was toying with placing a bet on the next election. My bet was - Tories as biggest party in a hung parliament.

I'm begining to be glad I didn't squander the £50, now.

My reasoning was, although the Tories were climbing in the polls, they needed a disproportionately large swing even to be the largest party, about 8% - their vote is very clumpy, and in their south eastern heartlands, they need about 20,000 per seat to get elected, whereas Labour takes northern seats with about 10,000 votes (some less, terrible turnouts up there).

We are heading for Tory government now, cheifly, the thing I've noticed over the last few ballots, is the Fib-Dems are starting to spiral down again, Yellow Tories are now voting Blue Tory because of Cameron's "progressive coalition" - played for and got,he's pulled some Fib-Dem voters to him.

What can Labour do? Their gradual slide down in the polls has become a rout: a give away budget hasn't stemmed the tide; Brown lacks charm, charisma or the famous vision he promised us - just more and more dull technocratic nonsense that's been blown away with the loss of his competence talisman. A lurch to the left seems unlikely. All they have left is events, dear boy, events.

That cigarrette paper, again

The indefatigable Theo Blackwell continues to chart the assualt of the Lib-Dem(Majority)/Tory council in Camden - with the news that they have disbanded the council's Voluntary Sector Unit as part of their drive to hold council tax down, and be seen to be a low tax administration.

Further, he reports of swingeing cuts to mental health care services up in Highgate.

My sources have it, that, in fact, the Tories are leading the administration, and are the real political and intellectual quality of the regime - their major partner is just a bunch of puppets - so I hear.

What this is is an assault on soft targets - probably frequented by non-voters - from the council budget. Not care homes or schools or the sorts of things that might animate non-users of such services, but which do provide a great deal of what makes a community decent - and which you don't really miss till you try to use it and its not there.

This is the cigarrette paper between the mainstream parties, this tiny bit of difference that makes all the difference. Tories and Lib-Dems, for the strong, against the weak, against the vountary sector, against civil society - barricade yourselves up and spend your tax savings on home defence. Cut the social wage, and let the rest sink.

Ramsay Brown?

It's the 1930's all over again - slim majorities, divided country, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And Gord Saveus has offered jobs to the Liberal-Satanists - cunnign ploy to divide and weaken them before an election? genuine sympathy for their politics and the grand progressive coalition? The long game preparing for a hung Parliament next time? All of the above?

Gordon Brown is an odd creature, his Wikipedia article seems to suggest he's never had a proper job outside politics, his entire existence seems to have been consumed by politics, and he clearly is a highly cunning political animal - Machiavelli was just the patsy for book Gordon wrote (it was a cunnign ploy involving a time machine, OK?). After all, Paddy "Driller-Killer" Ashdown (Former Dictator of Bosnia-Herzegovina) was approached by Brown after this story broke and offered a Cabinet post. Cabinet.

Maybe, just maybe, Brown's detachment from Labour is something to do with the servile and unchallenged way he got the job - he owes none of the PLP anything, and certainly doesn't have any rival staking a claim to his job and stalking him.

That's where to throw the blame. Tony Benn always used to highlight the power of patronage the Prime Minister has, and Julius Caius Brownsar has proven how effectvie this is in spades - ministerial colleagues can drag a PM down, but it's a grinding game, and at the minute he doesn't have a cabinet to resign from under him and is thus untouchable.