Serious commentators are now wondering whether the Conservative Party under David Cameron's leadership can actually win this forthcoming election. All the pointers suggest he won't quite make it. Not that Brown will win either. My guess is that the Conservatives will get around 290 seats making it necessary to do a deal with the LibDems.
But the real message of the election will be the size of the vote for the minor parties and the size of the stay-at-homers group. If these combine to be more than two-thirds then our democracy needs some kind of medication - FAST!
Simon Heffer asks in the Daily Telegraph "Can anyone explain what the Conservative Party stands for?". Currently I'm not sure there will be many rushing to say they know. It seems that several ding-dongs are going on between A-listers and constituency associations. Internal democracy in the Tory Party is on a back burner.
Heffer says this - "We do have a number of respectable (and, in the shape of the BNP, non-respectable) fringe parties who will hoover up votes from the main ones. The BNP believes it can win a Labour seat or two, and it may be right. The Tories are also finding it desperately hard to gain footholds in big urban areas outside London, with their potential working-class supporters now in some cases edging towards the BNP." The Conservatives have no answer to this.
The trouble is that all the major parties have colluded over their expenses, over the economy, over immigration and over the management of government. The people of the UK feel hurt and aggrieved. They see bankers wallowing in bonuses only available because the dimwitted Labour government saw no reason to curb their greed. I hear angry mutterings in shops, walking about town and from people I use to think mild-mannered conservatives with a small "c".
Simon Heffer also thinks that UKIP can "damage Tory interests, notably in the West Country, where the agricultural and fishing interests have had enough of Brussels, and this damage is potentially huge." The Conservatives need to wake up to the fact that it is not just the Labour Party that the country is cheesed off with, but the whole system of sleaze and spin.
Maybe we need some body scanners for politicians. Get them passing through the warts-and-all machines. "Sorry, Mr.Cameron. Machine says you don't have a clue!" Now there's a thought.
The nationalised railway loses too much money with poor service
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The present debate about whether to nationalise the railway overlooks one
crucial fact. In 2002 Labour did nationalise all the track, signals and
stations ...
13 hours ago
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