Tag: General Election

GENERAL ELECTION DEBATES:WILL THEY HAPPEN?

 

THE BACKGROUND

Did you see Salmond and Darling shouting over each other in the recent debate on Scottish independence? Things are hotting up north of the border! The police are being called in to maintain order at meetings and to ensure there is no intimidation at the polling stations in a fortnight’s time.

 

So back to that debate where the moderator failed to control the Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond and the leader of Better Together Alistair Darling. But it was lively and so was the audience.

 

Will we have a similar debate for the whole of the UK next year at the General Election? It shouldn’t really be necessary to ask that question considering the success of the first party leader debates ever in 2010. Twenty million people watched the three debates including the young and those who usually consider political programmes a waste of time. The first debate produced the historic initial surge in support for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

They were a valuable new feature of our general election campaign and their future should be secure, but it isn’t.

 

This autumn broadcasters and politicians will be locked in prolonged negotiations with no certainty that we will get debates next year. There are a number of questions.

 

WILL THEY HAPPEN AT ALL?

 

For decades the debates never happened largely because whoever was in power felt they had everything to lose by allowing their opponents the even playing field of a studio debate. They only happened in 2010 because Sky threatened to go ahead with an empty chair if Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg failed to turn up.

 

The Conservatives have been prevaricating for months. Heaven knows why. Ed Miliband’s “oddness” should work in the Tories favour in this image obsessed world. By now we ought to know for certain that the debates are to take place with all the details in place. The closer we get to May 7th with the political temperature rising, the more difficult will become the negotiations. There were 76 clauses covering the conduct of the 2010 debates!

 

HOW MANY DEBATES?

 

David Cameron has suggested that the debates dominated the campaign to the exclusion of local activity. There is some truth in that. We were either analysing the last encounter or speculating about the next. This was all people were talking about on the doorstep. Cameron has suggested there might be only one debate or if there were more then they should be spread across January to May next year.

 

WHAT ABOUT UKIP?

 

The biggest problem for the broadcasters is the rise of UKIP. The BBC, ITV and Sky all have guidelines about who should appear in programmes and for how long. I should know. I spent enough time hovering over a stop watch in the campaigns from 1974-2005.

 

The guidelines refer to due weight being given to major parties and appropriate coverage to others. None of that helps us with UKIP. They will have at least one MP by the General Election (Douglas Carswell in Clacton), they won the European Election, have a number of councillors and a respectable opinion poll rating. To deny Nigel Farage his place alongside Cameron, Miliband and Clegg would anger the British voters.

 

I don’t agree with anything UKIP stands for. They are edging us towards the disaster of the exit door from the EU, but they represent a distinctive point of view in this General Election and they must be heard.

 

THE AUDIENCE.

 

In 2010 members of the public were allowed their foot in the door, but only to pose a question and then shut up. Time must be given to allow the questioner to comment on the initial answers given. That right would not be abused because the audience will have been vetted most carefully for party balance.

 

We need to hear PDQ that the debates are on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO FRACK OR NOT TO FRACK?

THE ENERGY GAP

 

Is the extraction of shale gas part of the answer to our looming energy gap, or a potential environmental disaster in our crowded island?

 

Opposition to fracking is rising as demonstrations from Blackpool in Lancashire to Balcombe in Sussex have shown. The government meanwhile seems determined to press ahead with exploratory licensing despite the fact that we are in the run up to a General Election.

 

The fracking controversy is coming to a head because Britain is facing an energy gap. Coal is a declining source of energy. Old nuclear power stations are being decommissioned and negotiations with energy companies about the strike price for new plants are lengthy. Fears about nuclear power after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents left politicians reluctant to invest in new plants around the turn of the century. UK natural gas production has been declining at 8% a year since 2000. Despite government support for renewables, the fact remains that water, wind and bio-energy account for a small percentage of our energy supply.

 

Then there is Russia. Recent events have increased a desire for the EU and the UK to be less dependent on Vladimir Putin’s gas and coal.

 

FRACKING

 

The process of fracking extracts gas from shale rock by pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into fissures one or two miles down. The gas and waste water then flow up to the surface.

The chemicals used are commercially confidential and that has proved controversial with environmentalists.

 

Estimates vary as to how much shale gas there is under the UK. A recent report commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change suggested that fracking could deliver 25% of the UK’s gas needs by the middle of the next decade. Other experts feel it will take much longer for shale gas to be produced in volume and that cheaper Russian gas will continue to be attractive. Indeed a key question will be the impact of shale gas on household bills.

 

The American experience looms large. There has been a 75% increase in United States natural gas reserves due to fracking. Gas prices have reduced from $12 to $3 per million British thermal units By 2020 the US will be exporting gas. However whilst states like Pennsylvania have embraced fracking, New York maintains a moratorium. Also when comparing the US with the UK, the major issue of population density must be taken into consideration. Another important difference is that American landowners own the mineral rights beneath their land whereas here they are the property of the Crown.

 

Currently there is a promise that £100,000 plus 1% of total revenues will be paid to local communities where fracking takes place. The question is will this be enough to buy off residents who fear groundwater contamination, methane leakage and incessant tanker movements on country lanes? The government insists that a tough regulatory regime will be in place and cite the cautious approach Ministers have taken so far. That includes a moratorium on test drilling when it was suggested that natural seismic movements under Blackpool might have been caused by exploratory work.

 

The conference will be held eight months before the General Election. Some of the most promising shale gas fields are under marginal constituencies in the North and the fracking debate could well become an election issue. Claims for the level of public support for fracking vary widely. An industry commissioned opinion poll claimed recently that opposition was down to 24%. A poll for the Guardian and Nottingham University suggested the nation is split fifty fifty.

 

However enthusiastic national government is to press on with fracking, it is local councillors who have to give planning permission. Some are questioning their expertise to make such crucial decisions.

 

On this crowded island fracking pitches local communities and environmentalists against those with responsibility for keeping the lights on.

TORY MINORITY GOVERNMENT ?

 

 

If the economic recovery continues until May next year there is at least a possibility that the Conservatives will be the largest party after the General Election.

 

Since 1979 voters have rewarded governments with at least three terms in office and although the Tories didn’t win outright in 2010 they will get most of the credit for turning the economy around. Labour is still vulnerable to being characterised as the party that got us into the mess. It’s a rough old world but reference to the worldwide recession by the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls won’t wash with many voters.

 

But it is only largest party status that the Conservatives can realistically hope for. The failure to reform constituency boundaries will cost them 20 odd seats. They will also lose votes to UKIP if their recent lacklustre campaign in Wythenshawe is anything to go by. The Tory candidate there was a hapless vicar who party managers allowed to be filmed on TV wandering around on his own having his leaflets refused by shoppers. They tried to pass off criticism by saying that a constituency which historically had one of the largest council estates in Europe was not their territory. That wasn’t Harold Macmillan’s view when he built hundreds of thousands of houses in the fifties or Margaret Thatcher when she introduced the right to buy.

 

The Tories are never going to win seats like Wythenshawe and South Shields but they should try and beat UKIP into second place. In six northern by elections in this parliament they have trailed in behind Nigel Farage. Across the north UKIP may become the default vote for blue collar workers who aren’t Labour.

 

All that said I still think the Tories could be the largest party in May 2015, so what happens then?

 

There has been speculation that David Cameron is set to promise to rule out a further coalition with the Lib Dems in advance of the poll. The advantages of this would be to focus people’s minds on a straight choice between Tories and Labour and it would avoid an embarrassing row with right wing Conservative backbenchers who are determined to reject a further deal with Nick Clegg. I think it is very likely that if Cameron tried to continue the current arrangement, he’d be removed.

 

The idea of a Conservative minority government has been dismissed on the grounds that it would be unstable and wouldn’t last. That presupposes that the defeated Labour and Liberal Democrat parties would be eager to force a second election. This is nonsense. In a second election the voters would likely repeat their message that they preferred the Tories and might even give them an overall majority to punish the parties that hadn’t got the message. The evidence of recent “replay” elections bears this out. Labour won narrowly in 1964 and handsomely in 1966. They were short of a majority exactly 40 years ago in March 1974 and won a slim lead the following October.

 

There is no reason why a Conservative minority government couldn’t rule for a parliament provided it steered a moderate course. It could even reasonably renegotiate our terms of membership with the European Union and seek to put it to a referendum. Would Labour and the Liberal Democrats oppose this with the 2020 General Election already coming into view?