Last week's reference to my Labour colleagues on Cardiff Council gave me cause to consider my reticence to this point towards blogging on council matters. At one level, this blog was never going to become a repository for ward news because that sort of thing was never its purpose when it started two years and one major city ago and it still isn't. Sooner or later I'm sure there will be a Llandaff and Danescourt Focus Team blog, but that's for another day.
As for city-wide issues, I've always recognised that I'm a member of the ruling group and that I have responsibilities to my colleagues. Our executive team is one of the very best in the country and I would not want anything that might appear on these pages to make it harder for them to do their job. Keeping my own counsel is difficult at times; there's one ongoing story I'd really like to blog about because it has given us the winner of the 2008 Scunner Broon Award for Stupidest Political Quote Of The Year, but I'll save that for the appropriate juncture.
Nevertheless, one thing you do learn very quickly in this business is that the council is a reasonably decent microcosm of the world of electoral politics everywhere and the examples worthy of note abound. One such came last Tuesday at Environmental Scrutiny Committee, where we received a presentation from the leader of the Sustainable Development team as part of the Executive response to a scrutiny report on that subject.
What was remarkable was the questioning that followed from the two Conservative members of the committee. The first enquired about the scientific basis of the team's work, leading to a brief discussion between him and our chair about whether it was most or the vast majority of scientists who think climate change is real and anthropogenic. The second went even further, asking in all seriousness whether the council's 60% carbon emission reduction target had taken into account the actions of China, India and the USA...
And yet, the thing to note is that it's not remarkable at all. Beneath the flaky veneer of the Cameron revolution, these are the members the Conservative Party actually has; old white men for whom the one nation is Britain. Dave's thesis, of course, it that they aren't important in the grand scheme of things and that it is the Goves and Greenings and Warsis of this world that matter. But while in Cardiff we're lucky that they're only the official opposition, it is traditional conservatives like these who are running councils and Conservative Associations up and down England and will have a big say in the actions of any future Cameron government.
I've been trying and failing to catch up on a backlog of blog topics over the last few days, but the work of a councillor must come first and rightly so. What's less helpful is when little nuggets are thrown your way and your feel the need to disgorge them to the blogosphere asap, thus interrupting the carefully laid plans.
Nevertheless, I must divert your attention to the latest Zogby poll (courtesy of Matt Drudge), not for the numbers (because my poll policy is pretty much the same as Lib Dem Voice's) but for the sheer depth of the demographic analysis...
"Three big days for Obama. Anything can happen, but time is running short for McCain. These numbers, if they hold, are blowout numbers. They fit the 1980 model with Reagan's victory over Carter -- but they are happening 12 days before Reagan blasted ahead. If Obama wins like this we can be talking not only victory but realignment: he leads by 27 points among Independents, 27 points among those who have already voted, 16 among newly registered voters, 31 among Hispanics, 93%-2% among African Americans, 16 among women, 27 among those 18-29, 5 among 30-49 year olds, 8 among 50-64s, 4 among those over 65, 25 among Moderates, and 12 among Catholics (which is better than Bill Clinton's 10-point victory among Catholics in 1996). He leads with men by 2 points, and is down among whites by only 6 points, down 2 in armed forces households, 3 among investors, and is tied among NASCAR fans."
As a NASCAR fan myself (highlights on Five, Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 2am) I'm all in favour of the last category, but you have to ask yourself; if the candidates and their campaign teams are getting that depth of information and worrying about demographic groups with that level of finesse, how have they stayed sane this long?
There's something disturbingly onanistic about enjoying blogging an event while not actually enjoying the event. Still, as it appears to be the only way I can haul myself through a presidential debate, here I am again in the company of the Channel Formerly Known As News 24.
Or rather I would be, except my digibox for some reason can't pick up one of the BBC multiplexes so I can only get analogue BBC2 and in one of those engineering works during major sporting event moments, BBC2 is giving us a replay of Ding Junhui vs Graham Holt and not BBC News as it normally would be now. What I have, therefore, is Sky News, which hopefully isn't going to piss me off by cutting to the ads in due course.
The table format feels rather like a boxing match in a football stadium, with the action dwarfed by the surroundings. There's a fundamental dichotomy in the format; the candidates are closer than they've been before, but the table is in the way to prevent them taking swings at each other. Again, right from the start there's a difference in style, with McCain talking to the format and Obama talking to the camera.
Unsurprisingly McCain ducks the first exchange when Obama pins his plan to help homeowners as another bailout to the banks, instead leading with the story of Barack and the plumber from Ohio. That exchange reminds me once again of that great Bartletism; “That's the problem with the American Dream, everybody's preparing for the day they're going to be rich.”
Still, it's a good exchange to have, because it really is about the fundamental questions, about trickle-down versus trickle-up. It's a debate I'd kind of like us to have too; redistribution is fine if it allows, as Obama suggests, Joe the Plumber to be able to start his own business sooner. That sort of economic change matches the political change we as Lib Dems are looking for.
In the first of what may be many recommendations tonight, if you haven't seen Simon Schama's new series yet, catch it on iPlayer. The idea that the American Dream is finally facing the reality that there is a limit to the resources the USA can provide is critical to the answers we're seeing to question two, with Obama tightening the belts and McCain looking for new ways to scrape the barrel.
Interesting that McCain again brings up the projector in the planetarium; if my first refutation of that wasn't enough, consider that other West Wing classic, the four-hundred dollar ash tray. On the matter of balanced budgets generally, McCain brings up the spending freeze in New York; I'd refer you to my favourite political columnist, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, for an intriguing look at why balanced budgets may not be the Washington problem you think.
The copycatting here is quite breathtaking; McCain sledgehammers in with an “I am not Spock” moment, then Obama responds listing the rows he's had with the oft-forgotten core vote of the Democratic Party (the teachers unions and environmentalists).
Rarely has the answer to a question been so long when a simple no would suffice. Asking them to say what the ads have said to their faces is absolutely right, but the answers are unsurprisingly evasive on both sides. McCain calls Obama out again on the town hall meetings, which works less well after he failed to kick butt in the one we had. He also keeps going to the amount of money spent, which is fine if people care about the nuances of electoral law but how likely is that? All raising the money suggests is that Obama has raised more money than anyone ever, which at some point has to reinforce the faith so many people have in him.
The result is a pox on both houses, though my feeling is that Obama's answers are more statesmanlike and more about the culture and the politics, rather than the details of the attack ads. It might work for McCain, but Obama got to make a full defence and the discussion was about McCain attacking Obama and not the other way around. Again, not being a voter it's difficult to know.
The questions continue to be excellent; “why is your running mate better than his?” is wonderfully playground. Obama's answer is entirely about Biden, with not a hint of kicking Palin while she's down. Most interesting is how McCain opens with “America has gotten to know Sarah Palin”; hang on, the central plank of your campaign is that we don't know Obama after two years of a campaign and now you're saying they know Palin after two months? While we're on her, if you haven't seen this John Cleese video, you really should...
It's Bartletisms again though, as McCain mentions and then Obama reiterates that Palin has united the Republican Party; I can't tell you how much I wanted a “what you've done is bring the right together with the far right.” Then again, I did have the visceral thrill of McCain describing the partition of Iraq as cockamamie and Iraq as a whole as united; as a supporter of Kurdistan I got a major kick out of that piece of stupidity.
My one worry with Obama is that he's very good with numbers, which I love but you have to wonder whether the voters do. McCain's attack, “it's eloquent but you have to look carefully at the words” is the right one and it's a shame he gets it through on one of my great bugbears, free trade agreements without labour rights requirements; and as I'm reading Mark Thomas' book on Coca-Cola and the murder of trade union workers in Colombia, I'm delighted that he raised them in showing why free trade with Colombia isn't the no-brainer McCain says it is.
The image of this debate is becoming clear, however; Obama smiling that big toothy grin as McCain speaks. He's not wrong to be smiling, but it's one of those attitude things that appear to be so important in the response to these debates stateside.
Healthcare is the American policy issue I think we would understand the least, given our commitment as a nation to socialised medicine. It's also the issue that was best dealt with by Matt Santos in the West Wing debate and as Obama covers that same ground I'm willing him to deliver the beatdown; instead we get the sanitised version. Following that up is another massive question, the Roe v Wade test for Supreme Court nominees. McCain won't impose one, which is fine but it ignores the relative level of scrutiny involved; if you impose a litmus test as a Senator, that happens on the floor of the Senate, when you do so as President it stays within the Oval Office (and again, the West Wing provides some interesting primers on what the White House can do in that process). I get the feeling that I actually disagree with Obama on abortion too, it being another Obama-Santos parallel, but I'd much rather have my disagreement with him making that choice than my disagreement with McCain.
Meanwhile, as Liberal Youth prepares to discuss tuition fees at its conference, it's nice to hear Obama making the most fundamental point about fees as they are now assessed; we can't ask aspiring scientists, engineers and doctors to take on a mortgage worth of debt before they've even thought of buying a house. But again, as the education debate continues it's Santos-Vinick again as the failure of Headstart in later grades rears its head. By this point, even I'm surprised by how much West Wing there is in this debate.
And so we come to the end of the end. My guess is that McCain hasn't won this one and again, if he has won it hasn't been the big win he needed. As someone just posted on Facebook, McCain sounds like a man who's beat; we can but hope that that really is the case.
Like most members of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, I've been thinking about this leadership contest for quite some time. It's safe to say that nothing in the two Federal leadership races I've experienced could have prepared me for how different this race feels.
Those two races were of course fairly abstract for me. In 2006 I was just Chair of Manchester Universities Liberal Democrats so I was thinking about it in terms of how it would energise my new members. A year later I at least had a candidate to be passionate about, but even so, as a target council candidate in Cardiff and someone on the edge of the blogosphere the consequences of my decision were not much more than statistical in the grand scheme of things.
A Welsh leadership contest is a different beast entirely, however. Now I'm one of 159 councillors and writing from a small but select blogosphere. What's more, I've worked with and for both candidates in the Assembly, so the experience I have to base my decision on is much deeper than it has been before. And let's be clear, the one thing that experience has at least assured me of is that both Jenny Randerson and Kirsty Williams would be outstanding leaders of our party.
But where are we asking that person to lead us from and, indeed, to? Right now, every party in Wales has its vulnerabilities. Labour have the mess of Her Majesty's Government hanging round their necks and a distinct lack of new energy driving them onwards (I mean, seriously, if Edwina Hart is a credible contender for the leadership of your party, you're absolutely nowhere...) Plaid are struggling to deliver anything from their seats at the big boys table for either their nationalist or communist wings, while also struggling to reconcile those wings into a coherent national package. And while Dave manages to keep the Tories on his side of the daffodil curtain away from their nastiness, on this side the waning influence of Nick Bourne (the man who was a Cameroony before Cameron himself) looks to be leaving the door open for a tougher brand of Conservatism that is both uncomfortable with the idea of Wales and ignorant of the damage it did the last time.
So the first requirement to my mind is a leader who will take the attack to the arrogance and complacency of the other parties. As a party we massively undervalue the ability of our members in the chamber, in the place they're actually employed to work; my belief in Nick Clegg's ability to do well in that arena was a big factor in my support for him and the benefits of that are starting to become apparent.
More importantly, however, I did say that every party in Wales has its vulnerabilities and it is the Liberal Democrats own vulnerabilities that must be addressed by any new leader. I would identify two particular areas of concern;
While individual AM's are known for their own campaigns and called upon by the media to speak on them (Peter Black on fuel poverty, Jenny Randerson on health, Mike German on Severn Bridge tolls, and so forth) there is no great sense that we cover everything and can speak to everything. They may not do it as regularly as we would like, but the media certainly call on Nick Clegg on just about any matter, and I suspect the same was true of Nicol Stephen in Scotland. Through no real fault of his own, however, Mike German has not been called upon in that sense, certainly since Ieuan Wyn became the second centre of power in the Government. Those appearances are crucial to winning the air war and reaching out to areas with no tradition of voting Lib Dem.
The Liberal Democrat Group is now pretty stagnant in terms of its membership, which hasn't changed in any way since March of 2001. I'm seeing an example of the results of that right now in Cardiff, where Labour have only two newly-elected councillors in a group of thirteen and only one councillor who might be described as young; the lack of energy driving that group forward is palpable. Things in our Assembly Group aren't by any means that bad (such places tending as they do to draw in the energetic) and the ongoing policy reviews will help on the ideas front, but the need for voltage is still there.
What we need from our new leader, then, is a positive, combative attitude and a blast of fresh energy in both policy and personality.
Kirsty has already shown that desire to take the other parties on, to break the pseudo-socialist consensus and return Wales to its liberal roots. She has the character to take us forward in the chamber and the ideas to take us forward in the hearts and minds of people across the length and breadth of this country. We need nothing short of a sea change from our leader, and Kirsty is the person to deliver it.
John Hemming's weekly round-up of the by-elections confirms a fantastic night for us, with gains in Bristol and Wantage and holds in Haringey and Southwark. And yet, none of these are the most fascinating result of the night. For that, we must head north to the land of the wag, for in Knutsford there were by-elections for both the existing Cheshire County Council seat and for a seat on the shadow Cheshire East unitary authority. And lo it came to pass that;
Cheshire CC, Knutsford Con 1647 (58.7; +11.4) LD Caroline Aldhouse 818 (29.1; -2.0) Lab 342 (12.2; -9.4) Majority 829 Turnout 28% Con hold Percentage change is since May 2005
Cheshire East UA, Knutsford Con 1679 (59.7; +2.1) LD Caroline Aldhouse 817 (29.0; +5.0) Lab 318 (11.3; -7.2) Majority 862 Turnout 28% Con hold Percentage change is since May 2008
The unusual factor here is that these are two simultaneous by-elections to essentially the same position; Cheshire East is a shadow authority until next May when it takes over from the County Council, so one job is real until then and the other job becomes real at the same point. As the wards themselves are coterminous (the shadow authority merely uses the existing county council wards, but with three councillors per ward instead of one) you have two identical votes with the same people going into the same polling stations on the same day.
And yet, the results are not identical; indeed, not only did seven more people vote in the unitary than in the county, there was a twenty-two vote swing from Labour to Conservative in the unitary over the county ballot.
There is, however, a possible reason; while the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates in both elections were the same, the Conservative candidates were not. The new County Councillor is a sitting borough councillor for part of the town, meaning she now has two jobs both of which are due to be abolished. Meanwhile, the new member of the unitary is the current Chairman of Cheshire County Council, on which he represents the neighbouring Bucklow ward.
The question, then, is why the new unitary authority member is changing seats. After all, Bucklow has three Conservative members of the unitary, all elected in May this year. Was he deselected in his own ward in May only to be thrown a lifebelt next door? If not, why does he want to stand for a different ward in October when clearly he didn't want to do so in May? Neither scenario suggests that the burghers of Knutsford have done well out of this little exercise in democracy.
