The Labour Humanist

It was the Grey Vote that killed the November election

The Conservative surge in the opinion polls that killed off the prospects of a November election was built upon a large swing away from Labour amongst older voters. The Grey Vote - which accounts for at least one in four voters if you count just the 65+, or over 40% of turnout if you count in all voters aged 55+ - has proved the be the most volatile age-group in the electorate.

Older voters swung from Labour to Conservative in dramatic numbers in the key polls during party conference season. Here's the evidence. In the ICM/News of the World poll of voters in marginal seats the Conservatives had opened up a decisive 56%-32% lead over Labour amongst voters aged 65+ and were ahead 47%-33% amongst voters aged 55-64. In the same poll Labour led the Conservatives 41%-30% amongst younger voters aged 18-24. But doing well amongst younger voters amounts to very little to any party struggling with the Grey Vote, because if its sheer size, and critically, the much higher voting turnout amongst older voters. In this poll a pathetic 16% of young voters said they were "certain to vote" compared 72% of voters aged 65. It's a clear political calculus that any party who seeks power needs to be polling strongly amongst large groups of voters who actually bother to vote. Doing well with the apathetic counts for very little. Here's some ICM numbers:

Certain to vote:
18-24     16%
25-34     37%
35-44     51%
45-54     52%
55-64     69%
65+        72%

Voting Intention
            Lab    Con    LD

18-24    41%    30%    29%
25-34    46%    45%     8%
35-44    45%    41%     6%
45-54    34%    43%    11%
55-64    33%    47%    13%
65+       32%    56%     9%

Source: ICM for the News of the World. Published October 7 2007

With all the usual caveats about the fallibility of polls, and not comparing panels of identical voters, look at two other national Yougov polls to show the large swing amongst older voters. The Yougov polls for Channel Four News over the last two weeks (here and here showed a nine point lead for Labour with voters aged 55+ turn a week later into a Conservative lead of four points. Compared to the 35-54 age bracket where Labour's lead only dropped from 11% to 9% over the same period. The Grey Vote appears highly volatile compared to other age groups.

The Grey Vote may not be on the radar screen of our youth-obsessed media, but there are compelling reasons why older voters should be a priority segment for Labour's strategic campaign planning. The Party has lost ground since 2005 amongst this key sub-section of voters.

There are a range of issues where Labour has a good story to tell, but needs to do much more to improve the quality of life for older voters. Labour's investment in the NHS has transformed both the quality of our local health services and dramatically reduced waiting times for operations. But, there are too many reports around of poorer standards in services for older people. Likewise, long term care is far from being a settled issue, too many voters feel the funding arrangements are unfair and too many older people suffer abuse and neglect in care homes, and yes, Inheritance Tax, needs to be looked at. As Neasa MacErlean points out in yesterday's Observer, there are real issues of perceived injustice within the current system.

Did the Tories spin or just plain lie about Cameron's "unscripted" speech

Already covered here and here, but this needs to be distributed more widely around the web. The Conservatives have claimed Cameron's big conference speech was unscripted. But Kevin Maguire's blog comes up with a different story:

"If David Cameron's audition to be a cable TV daytime host was unscripted, a line swallowed by many newspapers and broadcasters, can anyone explain why the "speech writer" was last night having his hand shaken by fellow Tories?

A lawyer acquaintance waiting in a Euston station taxi queue at about 7.45 watched as a well spoken man enjoyed the plaudits of fellow Cons fresh off the train from Blackpool.

Anyone know him? He looked in his 30s, fairish hair, dark suit. chequed shirt and a tie with an emblem or motif from a university or club.

Reading a London Evening Standard headline hailing "1 hour 10 mins without a script", he laughed and claimed he wrote the address  before boasting "they believe he extemporised!" Another Tory laughed too then grabbed his hand before saying: "Seriously though, great speech. Congratulations."

That Cameron somehow made it up as he went along, apart from a few notes, is the best piece of spin for years."

More evidence of the spin/lies from the comments at Bloggerheads:

Well, at least according to Tara Hamilton-Miller writing for the New Statesman... :

--'On Sunday evening, Cameron's speechwriting team of Steve Hilton and Danny Kruger were ensconced in the leader's suite at the Imperial. The first draft was too long at 12,000 words, so they were up into the early hours meticulously slashing it. "The danger is you have to cover everything without making it look like a shopping list, but you don't want to lose the theme," said an aide.'

Posted by: Jherad at October  5, 2007  2:35 PM 

Confused Conservative Party web site attacks its own non-domiciles policy as a "City of London" tax

The Conservatives yesterday promised to impose a £25,000-per-year charge for "non-domicile" taxpayers, but their web site still has a briefing attacking, what is now, their own policy from when the Liberal Democrats proposed a similar scheme a few years ago.

The document is titled the "Lib Dem tax sting" and they brand taxes on non-domiciles as a "City of London Tax". Here is the apparent rebuttal of their own policies:

"#7 - City of London tax

Liberal Democrats would ‘end the practice of giving non-domicile tax status’ (Liberal Democrats, Alternative Budget, Invest to Innovate, 8 March 2002, p.6).

Yet as the Evening Standard has warned, ‘a change in the tax status of non-domiciled resident individuals will devastate the London shipping business centred on the Baltic Exchange, cost thousands of City jobs, destroy London’s position as the international centre for shipping, undermine its ability to attract key foreign personnel in all its other areas of activity and result in a lower, not a higher, tax take for the Exchequer… When people talk about the competitiveness of the City, they usually refer to the number of foreign bankers and brokers who are happy to come here to work. These create the pool of talent that cements London's position as the leading international financial centre. A change in the rules will make them want to leave London. There is nothing the Government could do that would give a bigger boost to Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich, the rival Continental financial centres’ (Evening Standard, 26 March 2002).

A study by economists at Numerica has observed that abolishing non-domicile tax status would knock between £5 billion and £10 billion off Britain’s GDP (cited in Sunday Telegraph, 3 August
2003)."

David Cameron may have given up smoking, but this is all policy written on the back of a fag packet stuff. The Tories are clearly struggling to get themselves ready for a possible election.

The sad demise of the secular Tory bloggers

As we enter Conservative conference week it's sad to see the apparent demise of the small strand of Tory bloggers who adopted a consciously secular and humanist tone to their writing.

We have lost Martine Martin's blog as she has decided to stop blogging now she has a job in Westminster. This prompted to me to look up the other secular Tory blogger on my links list, Jeff Peel, only to find his wordpress blog "the way it is" seems to have bitten the dust.

This is all very sad because we need a healthy secular voice inside the Conservative Party, who in my experience, and from their recent history, are incredibly intolerant of a multi-belief society and many Tory activists seem rather keen on using the power of the state to force a cultural and political primacy of Christianity down our necks, whether we like it or not. It was the Conservatives who implemented compulsory Christian worship in schools and cross-party Humanist groups in parliament find it hard to recruit and retain Conservative members.

Are there any secular humanist Tory bloggers out there? By this I don't mean Conservative supporting bloggers who pre-dominantly write about the interaction between religion and politics from a secular standpoint, although that would be an intriguing find. But any Tory bloggers who have "outed" themselves as atheists and who occasionally cross swords with the religious authoritarians in their own party. Is there any secular life out there in the Tory blogosphere?

Conservatives in Exeter want to kick out councillors who won't take part in prayers

The nasty party is alive and kicking. Tory mayor in Exeter wants to eject councillors who refuse to take part in her prayers. Apparently:

"Councillor Yolonda Henson, the council's Conservative Party leader, said she would ask for a new rule, requiring anyone who does not want to stand at council meeting prayers to leave the chamber. The Lord Mayor began the meeting by saying that she intended to be a traditionalist, which appears to mean she will not tolerate dissent."

Grassroots Conservatives just aren't comfortable with modern Britain are they.

This is Why the Conservatives Cannot Possibly Represent Modern Britain

Here's some striking statistics on why Bullingdon Dave and the Conservative Party cannot possibly hope to claim to represent the British people in any meaningful sense.

Around 85% of British children attend a comprehensive school, but only 14% of Conservative MPs attended a comprehensive. Thanks to this Guardian survey we also know:

·Number of Tory MPs: 198
·Number who attended private school (independent or public): 112
·Number who attended a grammar: 46
·Number who attended a comprehensive: 27
·Number who attended a secondary modern: 2
·Number who attended an undefined state school: 11
·Number whose school's status is unknown: 1
·Number who refused to disclose: 1

So by my calculations that's nearly 80% of Conservative MPs went to a private or grammar school. Cameron's policy on grammars is an embarrassing dog's dinner - no more grammar schools as they are a bad thing, except for areas where there are already grammar schools, in which case more grammar schools will be set up! But then as this survey shows the Tories are so unrepresentative of the British voter how could they ever hope to understand our issues and our priorities?

Is David Cameron too scared to take on the Tory creationists?

Some of the country's leading scientists are very angry with David Cameron for his failure, when given an opportunity, to make it clear he was opposed to the idea of creationism being sneaked into children's science lessons by religious zealots. How do we explain this running away from what should be a simple commitment to teach science in science lessons? Is it because he is scared of being contradicted and embarrassed by the hardcore of creationists that exist in the Conservative Party?

This blog has already reported on Rob Wilson, the Conservative Mp for Reading East who, when asked specifically about intelligent design being taught in science lessons, apparently believes "There should be a balanced approach to the various theories of origin.".

And then we have Gary Streeter MP who has been pursued by postblogger in recent months on this question. Streeter, who is prominent in the Conservative Christian Fellowship initially gave this bizarre response when asked to keep science in schools separate from religious fundamentalism:

"I would be very happy to act on this matter as soon as you can prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Creationism is not true, and I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible."

Postblogger persisted and Streeter gave a second reply where he "outed" himself as a believer in, ahem, "intelligent design", and on the question in hand gave these weasel words: "I do not want to promote the teaching of creationism in our schools but nor do I wish to stop it."

Now  we have the Tory leader Cameron saying, when asked to respond to comments by a Conservative candidate for the Welsh Assembly who wants creationism taught in science lessons :

"Personally I don't support the teaching of creationism," but he added, "I'm a great believer that we need to trust schools and governors of schools to get these things right and I think that's the right approach." He said he advocated a "more devolved system" for deciding what schools were allowed to teach."

Cameron bottled it, I mean it should have been a no-brainer defending the proper teaching of science. I suspect Cameron knows that his party has a number of beyond the pale creationists ready to come out of the woodwork if he takes a clear pro-science stance. So much for his "leadership" qualities. As James Randerson reports some of Britain's top scientists are pulling their hair out with Cameron:

"The reaction from scientists has been predictably brutal. Steve Jones, the evolutionary biologist at University College London and distinguished popular science author said:

"They need to devolve some management to schools. I think most people would agree with that. But you can't devolve the truth. Something is either true or it's not and creationism is not.

"If somebody demanded the right to teach in mathematics lessons that 2 and 2 are 5 on faith grounds they would be laughed out of court ... by having this taught in science lessons they are damaging science it's as simple as that."

The developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert, also at UCL said:

"I am shocked that Cameron agrees that creationism can be taught in science lessons. Creationism is not science and is purely religious faith. There is zero evidence for it. We must oppose this. Next the students will be taught that the world was created in six days."

Wow 3 Republican candidates for president don't "believe" in evolution

In the recent TV debate 3 republican contenders for the presidency had to put their hands up, a bit like naughty school boys, when asked who here does not believe in evolution. The three were Tancredo, Huckabee and Brownback. Much mirth at their expense, but I don't think UK Conservatives should be so smug, more on this soon. Here's some more background the youtube clip below, the relevant bit is right at the very end.

Oh No! How embarrassing…the conservatives are trying (again) to come up with a list of “conservative” rock music

Conservative rock music has got to be up there in the all time chart of classic oxymorons. They don't get it, they don't understand it, but they keep desperately trying to cool hunt some kind of association between rock and pop music and conservative politics. But here come the British conservatives like Iain Dale getting excited at the prospect of Danny Finkelstein's search for "centre right" rock stars. (Dale shows this one is right over his head by proposing the theme music from Band of Brothers!)

Of course we've been here before. In a seeming act of political desperation John J. Miller in the National Inquirer has attempted to list “the 50 greatest conservative rock songs”. Now the first reaction is to say are there really 50 conservative rock songs, full stop, let alone any that would qualify for the classification of “great”.  The gross error Miller made was in his definitions which include songs which contain the “conservative idea or sentiment, such as skepticism of government”. US conservatives distrust of government usually boils down to disliking any interference in the affairs of the rich and powerful to get on and do what they like, exploit the poor, pollute the environment.

Whereas the strand of left wing governmental distrust which runs through much rock music is based on the view that the rich and powerful hold a corrupting grip on the state. In many rock songs it is a libertarian socialist or anarchist sentiment which drives distrust of “the man”. Conservatives, listen carefully, you are the establishment! All great rock music has the default position of you as the bad guys, ready to send the police round to smash up the band's equipment for violating and enraging "decent" citizens.

For crying out loud how can anyone who knows anything about the history of popular music put - as Miller does - the Sex Pistols and the Clash in a list of “conservative” rock music! Joe Strummer must be turning in his grave! That’ll be the same Clash who released the triple disc Sandinista to express support for the Nicaraguan socialist liberation movement in their conflict with…the US. The same Clash who name check Marx in the Magnificent Seven, the same band led by Joe Strummer who throughout his career expressed sympathy for the working class, hostility to racism and showed solidarity with liberation movements across the globes.

As for the Sex Pistols we look forward to the sentiments of “I am an antichrist…. I am an anarchist” being incorporated into future Republican or Conservative policy.

It's all looks like an act of desperation - scanning single lines in songs which might be interpreted as being in some way “conservative” whilst ignoring the wider body of work from that artist. How else can we explain Miller's inclusion of U2, who have worked hard for Greenpeace and on global poverty issues. And the Beatles! Sure the song Revolution expresses contempt for what we might call today trendy radicals. But we are talking about John Lennon who wrote imagine and working class hero. As Alex Petridis puts it:

"Any songwriter who doesn't actively cheerlead for Stalinism is held to be a neo-con, anyone who mentions Arabs is automatically assumed to want to bomb them off the face of the earth. The hitherto-unnoticed rightwing sympathies of the Beatles' Revolution are uncovered by the simple expedient of misquoting the lyrics. It seems a shame that he stopped at 50, thus depriving readers of the opportunity to learn how Morrissey's Margaret on the Guillotine is actually a demand for the reintroduction of the death penalty, the Dead Kennedys' Kill the Poor backs the Bush administration's policy on Hurricane Katrina and how close analysis of Billy Bragg's version of The Internationale reveals it to be a hearty endorsement of the current US regime."

The SNP supporting socialist brothers - The Proclaimers - must also have been equally delighted to be included!

Not content with his first ludicrous attempt to create a list of conservative rock songs. Miller returned with "50 more conservative rock songs".

This time he included The Smiths (Morrissey wrote of putting Thatcher to the guillotine), Elvis Costello (who wrote of tramping the dirt down on Thatcher’s grave), and the Dead Kennedys!

The Dead Kennedys right wing. Make you own minds Up;

"Kill The Poor"

Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron bomb
It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home:

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight"

Well, if nothing else the chap is good for a laugh trying to convince us that black is actually white. What next? 50 great conservative writers including George Orwell, Simone De Beauvoir, Satre and George Bernard Shaw?

We wish Finkelstein good luck in his venture, yes he'll sure need it, looking forward to similar hope he doesn't make the same embarrassing errors as Miller.

Poor old conservatives types, listen, you need to face up to the truth, you will never be cool or hip, so just stop trying!

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked edit of the next 18 Doughty St attack ad

Now look, I don't often get stuff like this but, ahem, a friend of a friend has passed onto me an early edit of the next attack ad being produced by Tory Tv 18 Doughty St. (They may wish to investigate their leaky office - but he'll never find out how I got this one).

I've got to say the message in this one is a lot more sophisticated than their earlier efforts, but this time they've gone in for a full frontal attack on Labour and I believe they have over stretched themselves. I get the feeling Labour colleagues are going to enjoy rebutting this one: