This appears to have tickled my interest: Why would anyone want to join a political party?

I left the Liberal Democrats at the beginning of this year and all I really appear to have lost is the ability to not win Lib Dem Voice’s Blog of the Year award, or feature in Iain Dale’s list of Lib Dem blogs… boo hoo! Party membership (well, of Labour or the Conservatives) does have advantages for political bloggers who want attention. Perhaps Sunny can expect more appearances on the BBC as the representative of Labour’s Grassroots, which isn’t bad work if he can get it.

After all, the official job of the political blogosphere is for people to dress up in party colours and throw their own turds at each other until they each die of old age, but not before teaching this important and critically useful skill to the next generation. People want to see what the real nutters and crazies are like when they’re not media trained and not watching what they say. Every post is a mini, magical car crash and we’re all ghoulishly waiting for the next one.

Sunny can now join this wonderful game. Good for him.

But the biggest scam people fall for when they join a party is this idea that they can ‘change it from the inside’ which is a very cute idea but is essentially very much like buying a lottery ticket in order to stimulate the economy with the millions you’ll win.

Take the Liberal Democrats, for example. Here’s a party in which members are actually able to vote on stuff and set the party policy… but wait! First you need to be a voting rep, which is a gift from the local party. If you’re one of the lucky chosen few then you’re still just one vote. Power? It’s nothing of the sort.

That, however, is the most democratic of the main parties. Labour? You don’t even get that.

The only real power anyone in Labour or affiliate organisations really has is the power to give it money, then shut up while their betters use that money to ignore them and their crazy ideas and do exactly what the marketing people tell them.

Q: At which point does the opinion of the chumps who bankroll the whole business come into “how to reach A, B and C in the most cost effective way possible?”

A: Ha. Haha. You’re funny.

No, what you’re really buying with your hard earned/easily sponged money is the ability to change from saying, “they” to “we” and suddenly have your opinion discounted by the ‘not we’ as party political nonsense that isn’t worth a damn.

Joy!

But, all joking and cynicism aside… gosh darn it, knowing all the good that the Party will accomplish with that £10 you paid to join brings a warm fuzzy glow to your heart, doesn’t it?

Cuts of £290 million from the Future Jobs Fund, which provides paid employment for unemployed young people. The cut will mean a loss of 94,000 jobs for 18-24 year olds facing long-term unemployment.

I decided to go look at what the FJF was all about. Turns out the Government pays organisations minimum wage for apprentices (£95 a week) so that people who’ve been unemployed for 12 months who are between 18-25 years old can get a temporary job. Organisations that want a ‘free’ employee have to ‘bid’ to the Government. They don’t offer cash. Instead they make a promise about how great it’ll be for the people they take on.

The Government has decided to cut this program, describing it as ‘ineffective’. Existing commitments will be honoured but no further ‘bids’ will be taken. Left Foot Forward describes this as ‘cutting 94,000′ jobs.

I looked at who’d been winning the bids and mostly they’re quangos, charities, councils and other NGOs. In other words, it’s proven to be a very effective way for the public sector to boost their numbers without requiring additional funding. The private sector, by contrast, has shown little interest.

The costs associated with employing someone are not limited to just wages. There’s training, mentoring, software licences, uniforms, desks, chairs, equipment and everything else. For a private sector company with workers already sitting idle, this scheme is simply a drain on resources.

But what about for the people who get these temporary jobs? How does it work out for them?

I followed the ’94,000 jobs’ link and found this:

Evidence tells us that this type of demand-led labour market scheme is the most effective means to prevent long-term unemployment when vacancies are limited.

That’s quite a bold statement! So I followed the ‘evidence’ link to find out where it’s supported and found it linked to… well… Left Foot Forward again, where they write:

There is a strong evidence base to show that the Future Jobs Fund model is the best available to prevent long-term worklessness and unemployment setting in – participants in job guarantee schemes have a better chance of moving into future work.

Crikey. Getting pissed off now. But, finally, this link leads to a PDF, a report written by Professor Paul Gregg, who was New Labour’s Go To Professor for academic support for welfare reform. The report itself, rather than being an out and out academic support of the arguments put forward by the ‘Evidence Based Bloggers’, is actually rather nuanced.

In fact it begins by pointing out that across the world virtually every single attempt by Governments to pay organisations to take people on for the sheer hell of it are NOT effective, that they do not materially impact long term unemployment and worse still they actually cause people to remain on benefits longer and reduce or stop job seeking activities.

It continues, attempting to understand these failures and then reframes the debate in terms of ‘well, if you HAVE to have a scheme like this, what version of it might have the best chance of success, or, at least, the minimum chance of not making things worse?’

I quote the conclusion of the report:

The evidence base present here suggests that increasing the focus on employer engagement, job search and search support will improve the chances of success for this programme…. But will it out perform the Flexible New Deal, which only has job search and support elements? This is not easy to answer definitively but, as shown with intelligent design around securing the next step into work, there is a reasonable chance.

Ignoring the rather weasel worded references to ‘chance’ – in academic terms almost entirely fluffy, useless language that tells us nothing other than, “dunno. My guess is… maybe”. Not exactly the devastating ‘evidence’ that I was looking for, truth being told.
So in other words, when Left Foot Forward say,

Evidence tells us that this type of demand-led labour market scheme is the most effective means to prevent long-term unemployment when vacancies are limited.

They are being deceptive or wrong. The evidence does NOT say that. When they say,

There is a strong evidence base to show that the Future Jobs Fund model is the best available to prevent long-term worklessness and unemployment setting in

… they’re neglecting to mention that ‘best available’ is only by comparison to every other project of this type which, historically, have caused more harm and damage than they’ve solved. That, again, is somewhat deceptive. The ‘evidence’ they’ve linked to does not support their argument at all.
Then again, anyone especially surprised?

“… already looking statesman-like at ten years old”

Judge for yourself, but I’m suspecting something of a motherly bias in the mind of the Mail today. Adorable? Yes. Statesman-like? Really?

Sure, we expected a repeat of the format that’s already looking pretty tired after just two episodes of “I’m a party leader, get me out of here!” but that changed the second Wolf from Gladiator, clad in spandex, announced that Clegg, Brown and Cameron were to be put through their paces on the Eliminator at the end of the show.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw Clegg emerge from behind a curtain wearing a Mexican wrestler’s outfit. “I’m Mister Different” he roared, before flexing his muscles for the camera. Brown, bizarrely, chose to dress himself as a Union Flag with “I LOVE GILLIAN DUFFY” written on it. Wonder what that’s all about? “I AM THE POWER OF BRITAIN!” Brown said, blushing wildly.

Then, no word of a lie, Cameron emerges wearing a jewel encrusted thong and a bow-tie and a microphone pack… and nothing else. The crowd gasps, is silent for a few moments before launching into a rapturous applause. “I’ve changed” he shouts. “Should I change back? No! I AM THE CHANGE YOU NEED!”

Several elderly ladies on the front row pass out in shock. Cameron’s humping the air, with his hand curled into the Sign Of The Devil pose when Clegg clobbers him on the back of his head with a chair. With Cameron floored, Clegg turns to Brown who promptly cowers in a little flag-esque ball. Clegg is relentless, but Brown’s only playing possum – he leaps (pretty impressively for his age) and attempts to get Clegg in a headlock. Meanwhile Cameron has composed himself and maneuvered himself into a kneeling position behind Brown. “Do it!” he cries, and Clegg wastes no time – he shifts his body weight and Brown topples over Cameron like the great big lummox he is.

David Dimbleby announces that Clegg and Cameron, with their tag team attack, have earned themselves a five second head start on the eliminator.

At this point everything goes completely mental: Nick Griffin, dressed in a bear costume, leaps out from the audience and starts growling and snarling at the 3 leaders. What followed next defies what I know about reality, but the three men seemed to look at each other, some unheard, unspoken exchange… then they clasp their hands together and transform into a giant robot. Well, fuck me sideways I’m thinking…. I didn’t know they could do that! Pity giant robots can’t fix the economy because that’s impressive.

Griffin was dispatched in seconds, but at a heavy price – the audience is covered in Griffin chunks as the Giant Robot’s foot slammed straight down upon him. Fascism in Britain defeated, the robot returns to it’s constituent parts – Clegg, Cameron and Brown… except somehow Brown now has the word, “knobhead” written on his forehead. The audience, or at least the parts that weren’t traumatised from the Gibbing Of Griffin, burst out laughing. Cameron shrugs his shoulders, innocently.

I don’t remember the rest, to be honest, I’d done rather a lot of LSD and it stopped making sense at this point, but I think Cameron was the first to complete the Eliminator, followed closely by Clegg… not quite sure if Brown actually finished it or if he’s still trying to get up the travelator now.

Sod Tebbit. There’s only one story that’s going to dominate the next few news cycles and that’s the footage of Brown chatting to a voter then getting into his limo with his microphone still on, creating an almost pure “The Thick Of It” moment. Transcript:

Brown: That was a disaster… should never have put me with that woman.  Whose idea was that? It was Sue I think… just ridiculous (punches back of seat?). Another voice: What did she say?  Brown: Och, everything, just some awful, bigoted woman. Used to be some Labour voter… (breaks up)

What effect will this have on the election? I think you can safely predict that the Gillian Duffy herself will have the entire media bearing down on her to give her reaction, and if the Tories and Lib Dems have any sense at all they’ll simply let this one play out without getting too involved.

Another consequence might be to reignite the stories about Brown’s temper and lacklustre social skills highlighted in Rawnsley’s book, “End of the Party”. Is this bad for Labour and Brown? Well, yes. It’s absolutely terrible and sensational at the same time. I’ll take my hat off to Brown though – he’ll have finally put Labour in top billing in the news for the first time this election.

UPDATE: I hadn’t finished typing this up when Brown had already gone on the radio to apologise. Gillian Duffy is apparently, “very upset”. Sky’s Adam Boulton says, “I’d be surprised if any of this turns out to be a vote winner.”

Anyway, I started the blog by posting something along these lines…

Happily my days of playing amateur spin doctor are long since over, but I can’t help but notice that “Do what you’re told: Don’t vote Lib Dem” is starting to become a bit of a ‘thing’, at least on Twitter.  Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) didn’t help:

Frankly I’m tempted to vote Lib Dem now. If we let the Telegraph and Mail win, well, freedom and Britain die.

My friend Stuart Sharpe complained earlier,

I actually quite object to the assumption that a vote for anyone other than the Lib Dems is ‘doing what the media says’.

The inherent “Fuck You!” to the system of voting Lib Dem appears to be the dominant message, and the more the Big Two and the Newspapers try to say, “Don’t vote lib dem!!” the more this cycle of stubborn resistance is reinforced.

But, see, isn’t the idea of voting for a party just because you’re told not to as bad as being told how to vote, really? Isn’t it equally irrational?

My feeling is that it’s not the message but an emerging sense of an ‘identity’ for Lib Dem voters: They see themselves as free thinking, fair minded, socially liberal and fun loving. They’re willing to try new things and listen to new ideas. They’re not interested in partisan politics or the “Punch and Judy Show” of Westminster, and have no particular attachment to any sort of vested interests or lobbyists.

It’s not an identity based on class, which is why it’s not quite as easy to define as the identities for Labour voters or Conservative voters, but it’s an identity nonetheless. And tools like Facebook groups and Twitter appear to give that identity something to cling onto that’s not geographical.

It’s not that this message is “working” and that people really are going to vote Lib Dem to tell Murdoch where to stick it – it’s just that this kind of message attracts the attention of those kind of people that the Lib Dem need if they’re going to grow.

Identity politics may generally have broken down over the last 50 years, and it may be an absolutely terrible way to decide who to vote for, but I can’t help but feel the success of the Lib Dems in this election might be is down to this, not policy.

You’d think such questions would be straightforward, but no: Did he mean seats or votes? ‘Votes’ would suggest the Conservatives, ‘Seats’ would suggest Labour.

So finally we have the answer, and what a Lib Dem-esque answer it is, too: “Biggest mandate” means highest votes AND seats.

What this means is that if Labour comes third in the popular vote, but wins the most seats, that won’t count. This is good news, I think, and could rule out a Liberal Labour coalition unless Labour are somehow able to show even the smallest hint of returning to the ferocious and relentless election winning machine of old.

It doesn’t seem likely. There’s really not that long to go now (you’ll be relieved to hear), and Labour seems to have literally abandoned all hope. Yesterday’s frankly cringeworthy Elvis stunt (their Elvis impersonator sang, “A little less conversation, A little more action please” without any hint of irony) may prove to be surprisingly apt:

Labour, it seems, is going to die sat on a toilet with its pants round its ankles, blowing a blood vessel trying to poo out a stubborn, rock like turd that’s been lodged up their colon for the last few years: Gordon Brown.

Truth is this barrage was always going to happen, and it happens to be happening today, as it happens. The journalists working on the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are working around the clock to find something – anything – that’ll damage Clegg permanently… or, you know, just for a couple of weeks. That’s all that’s needed. That’s what a Free Press does. They’re supposed to do this, for better or worse. The only Nick Clegg that’s any use to anyone is one that can survive smears, innuendo and outright assaults from the British Press. If he can’t then any Government of his wouldn’t last 5 minutes and we all know it.

But while all this is going on, Labour’s campaign is, just for tonight Matthew, playing the role of the traditional Lib Dem campaign… you know, that ‘other’ party that’s also campaigning that no-one really cares about. The Mail and the Telegraph can’t even be arsed trying to smear Brown as he’s no longer any sort of threat to them. The ‘narrative’ of this election, that it’s a fight to the death between the Liberals and the Tories, has already claimed its first casualty in the cross-fire: The battle for Labour has become trying to get any kind of attention at all.

Even the Tories seem to be struggling to stamp their message on the day’s agenda. They surely can’t regard a Clegg story dominating the BBC News website as any kind of ‘success’ or helpful, surely?

Are the Tories really about to “lurch right” at the last minute? Assuming the poster is for real, that is. Considering the quality and message it could be something only ever intended to be seen by readers of Conservative Home, to cheer them up. I really hope that’s the case. I really, really do.

First of all, let’s consider the message itself: “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work.” This policy is not shocking. Labour’s own manifesto says:

We will end for good the concept of a life on benefit by offering all those unemployed for more than two years work they must accept

The only real difference here is that the Tories have the guts to be specific about what “must accept” might mean. What about Labour? Removal of benefits altogether? Prison? Labour camps? At this point it’s anyone’s guess. Labour won’t be making a poster about their policy, either.

But it does provoke an obvious question: Is David Cameron still in charge of the Conservative Party’s message? Whether the four years of ‘decontamination’ has really worked remains to be seen, but this new message couldn’t be more explicit in saying, “No more Mr Nice Guy.”

Has the crisis in the polls and the firm, sharp, swift kick in the nuts that the electorate appears determined to inflict on both him and Brown caused what always happens to leaders when the troops become disillusioned and demoralised: They lose control. The troops mutiny and rivals begin to flex their muscles. Someone, somewhere, is in desperate need to bolster the Tory core vote and they’re getting their way. If Cameron’s behind this it’s a humiliating retreat into comfortable Tory territory and a pre-emptive admission that the last four years have been a mistake. Alternatively it looks like Cameron’s lost control of the message, or possibly worse that no-one at Tory HQ understands just how badly this sort of message plays with non-Core Tories. With apologies to my Tory friends, this doesn’t look good.

What’s tragic about this whole affair is that if Labour had said the same thing (and, you know, they have) they don’t endure the label of The Nasty Party. That’s because no-one seriously believes that Labour are in politics to punish the poorest people in society for their failures – whereas, true or not, people do actually believe that about the Conservatives. The decontamination strategy was supposed to change people’s minds about what the motives behind Tory policies are. The measure of its success would be their ability to get away with messages like this. But surely testing the credibility of the decontaminated brand is something you do during the second term, not before the General Election?

Time to get the popcorn out and wait and see.

UPDATE: Just to make it absolutely clear, I don’t have a problem with the policy. I actually admire any party that has the guts to tackle welfare reform. My point, in a nutshell, is that the Tories want to win, and that means appealing to more than just natural Conservatives. It means appealing to more people than they’ve ever appealed to before… this seems counterproductive.

“The Lib Dems will flounder when people look at their policies”

Doubt it. Confirmation bias suggests that the self-selecting audience of people who go looking for actual policies will want to like what they see. There’s enough sweet stuff in there to make most people feel happy about their choice. 10k income tax threshold? It’s a winner.

“Yeah but, Europe… what about Europe?”

And who’s going to bring that one up? The Tories? Doubt it – just a few days on a big Europe and/or Immigration bender will be enough to undo the last 4 years of Decontamination, leaving Cameron in the same trap that caught the legs of Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard. He’s simply not that stupid and will be hoping that someone like UKIP – or Labour – does the dirty work. Or, perhaps, in the next Leaders’ debate the subject will come up and Clegg will be ‘exposed’ that way.

But, be warned – Clegg is compelling on Europe and shows courage in his willingness to stick to his guns against populist sentiment. When I got the chance to interview him face to face his argument was that yes the EU is messed up and needs radical reform, but pointed out that without the EU, Europe would be a continent of highly protectionist nation states far worse than they already are.  In their manifesto the first EU policy is “breaking down trade barriers” and that I can approve of. In fact, in wanting reform of subsidies and limits on what the EU spends money on, the Lib Dems are surprisingly conservative here.

I think he needs to go a lot further with his criticism and be specific about the bits he does and doesn’t like, but frankly the idea of greater European co-operation on climate change and banking regulation leaves me cold… well, more than that, I actively despise that sort of policy. The fact that they’re offering an in/out referendum seems enough to mute a lot of fear.

“The Lib Dems won’t survive the onslaught of negativity that’ll be coming their way”

It’s already started – YouGoV/Murdoch are engaging in pretty nasty push polling (h/t Alix Mortimer). Of course, if this story escapes from the blogosphere, the idea that The Establishment are terribly threatened by the Lib Dems and will do anything to hurt them will become a ‘thing’, reinforcing Clegg’s narrative of the Lib Dems being an insurgency of normal people against the powers that be…  and future negative campaigning will serve no purpose other than to harden attitudes in favour of the Lib Dems, making the situation worse for the Big Two. It’s not clear who, exactly, can make successful attacks.

“Nick Clegg isn’t really British, is he?”

I always wondered if and when Clegg’s not quite 100% pure British heritage would become an issue, and concluded that not even the British tabloids were that repulsive… but you never know. Clegg’s mother is Dutch and his father is half Russian, making him, I suppose, genetically Lib Dem. But then, Barack Obama’s middle name was Hussain and he’s Black and that wasn’t a massive problem for him.

“A vote for the Lib Dems will mean a Tory Government”

Is that a threat?

“A vote for the Lib Dems will mean a Labour Government”

I’m confused.

“A vote for the Lib Dems will mean a hung parliament”

I’m really confused.

“Yeah but they can’t win though”

What, technically? I think you’ll find they can.

“Oh, piss off. You know what I meant. They won’t win.”

So?

“But it’d be a wasted vote!”

And? That’s illegal now, is it? Let people vote how they want.

“But The Tories Will Get In!”

We’ve covered this already.

“But.. but.. Brown!”

Don’t worry. He agrees with Nick.