House Of Cards - The Final Cut?

You got to strike when the moment is right without thinking

And after a while you can work on points for style

Like the club tie and the firm handshake, a certain look in the eye and an easy smile

You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to

So that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in

(Roger Waters, Dogs, 1977)

Pigs On The Wing © Roger Waters, 1977

Dogs © Roger Waters, David Gilmour, 1977

And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown

And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone

And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around

So have a good drown as you go down all alone, dragged down by the stone

(Roger Waters, Dogs, 1977)

Remember that joke I told on Twitter about future historians writing about 2010s' Britain? Would be a shame if you didn't as I told it twice. Anyway, third time's a charm, so here we go again. First they had the worst Prime Minister in living memory. Then they had the worst Prime Minister in living memory. And finally they had the worst Prime Minister in living memory. There's something of a pattern emerging here, as I can honestly say that 2020 was the worst year of my life, but wasn't it for all of us, give or take? Now I have a hunch that 2021 will be the worst year of my life. And 2022.... who knows? Then I have a feeling '21 is gonna be a shit year for Boris Johnson too, especially as he and us won't see it out together (to be sung to the tune of The Who's "1921", but "1951" from the movie works too). More on this later. Of course recent polls are as contradictory and confusing as usual. Johnson's standing has indeed improved in the 'Preferred Prime Minister' polls, which will come as a surprise only to those who have shielded themselves from any exposure to Keir Starmer recently. I guess many peoples' thoughts on Sly Keir have gone from "now that's the lad who can beat Boris" to "how come he can't do better than Corbyn in 2017?" and now "could he really do worse than Corbyn in 2017?". While many, including himself, probably dreamed of him as Blair 2.0, he has emerged over time as worse than Kinnock 2.0, and it shows in the polls.

Of course this month's major event, the Eleventh Hour Deal, could significantly impact Boris's fortunes, and I must admit it left me quite puzzled. Like many, I was totally convinced Boris was deliberately heading for a No Deal so that he could pose as the Hero of English Resistance to the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. And it was also the surest way dosh-heavy tax-evading Tory donors could cash in on their disaster-capitalist gambles against the pound. We had a first hint things were starting to move when Johnson backed down on all punishing provisions relating to Northern Ireland in the Internal Market Bill, just hours after he had whipped his MPs into overturning the Lords' amendments that had removed them. And now Northern Ireland has been granted a special status, with some key provisions managed by the Republic of Ireland. Then unexpected U-turns happened on two key issues: fishing rights and regulations. The EU first proposed that the UK could repatriate 18% of the EU's fishing fleets' catches over ten years, then amended it to 25% over six years. The UK started with 60% over three years, never amended it, and after much haggling agreed to 25% over five and a half years. Six months earlier than the EU offered can't be spun as a Boris victory. And all the surplus mackerel in the world won't make a fucking difference.

© Nicola Jennings, The Guardian, 2020

There had also been lots of saber-rattling over the EU standards, with the UK claiming they would no longer be bound by rules they had no part in making. End result is wrapped in enough legalese that both sides can claim a win, but the dry fact is that the UK will still have to comply with EU standards on environmental, social and labour issues, or else risk sanctions taken directly from the WTO's playbook. These same WTO rules Boris said would give the UK the best of both worlds. Double whammy here being that the mutual recognition of trusted trader programmes means that UK producers will also have to fully comply with EU security standards. So on two key issues, Boris capitulated and all he got in return was jeopardising the export of Scottish seed potatoes. Something he might actually have considered a victory, as it was sure to piss off those pesky Nats, which it instantly did. And Bozo didn't make it really better when he later wafflingly admitted that he had fucked London too with concessions that will hurt the finance sector. An admission of guilt that Rishi Sunak felt compelled to correct, and I haven't the fuckiest scoobie why. Or have I?

Body language and the look in his eyes say it all, don't they?

Finally we had this outburst of Tory propaganda, specifically targeting the SNP, about 'voting against the deal is voting for no deal'. Which of course is total crap, legally and constitutionally, no matter how loudly the Tories say it and Keir Starmer or Stu Campbell repeat it. A turd wrapped in fancy paper is still a turd. They key principle is that the vote was not about the content of the deal, but only about giving the Government the power to implement it in domestic law. Because the deal itself is an international treaty, and Parliament does not have the power to ratify or overturn them. This is the Government's prerogative. Mike Russell made that point during the Scottish Parliament debate, and Joanna Cherry published a more detailed explanation in The National. Note that, if Parliament hypothetically had had the power to reject the content of the deal, which they did not have, the next step would have been to send the whole thing back to the drawing board and renegotiate with the EU. Even in that hypothetical situation, a de facto No Deal would have been possible only because it was a last-minute vote and Boris had already made an extension of the transition period impossible in earlier legislation. Remember what Theresa May did when her own versions of some deal were voted down, and she never used that fake argument that voting her deals down was voting for no deal. The Tory propaganda bureau just made that one up to score a cheap point against the SNP. And when all the lies are debunked, all that's left is Boris Johnson fucking Scotland again, and Labour gleefully lending a hand.  

© Brian Adcock, The Guardian, 2020

Back to the business at hand, the most recent polls also show that New New Labour has lost momentum (daft pun fully intended) after successfully overturning a 26% Tory lead earlier in the year. More recently, a long series of polls have shown Labour and the Conservatives statistically tied in the popular vote, which is enough to deliver a 20-30 seats' lead for the Conservatives thanks to the in-built gerrymandering that the Conservatives plan to make even worse in the next Boundary Review. Which is definitely the right moment for Sly Keir to try and deepen the rifts within Labour. You just have to wonder where Keir got that weirdo idea that it was even remotely clever to whip his MPs into voting for Bozo's deal, which has already been convincingly proven worse than Theresa May's. Whatever the reasoning, it's definitely a lose-lose attitude, as Sly Keir can no longer demand that Boris "own it" when he has made himself the de facto co-owner. Which has of course come under fire from both ends of the spectrum, from Remoaners to Lexiters, whilst triggering further resignations from an already thinned frontbench. Now all we need is Owen Jones adding his brand of spice to the broth, trying to prove that bothsidesism is the answer to all of Labour's self-inflicted woes, while contradicting himself from one paragraph to the next. Which of course is a timely reminder that a chimpanzee is more likely to type the full original text of The Canterbury Tales right on his first try than Wee Wokowen to write anything about British politics that even remotely makes sense. Anyway, we are now faced with the near-Doomsday scenario where the Conservatives lose the election but Labour don't win it, so the final choice is in the hands of that third party neither want anywhere near the power centers in SW1. You got it: those pesky Scottish Nationalists, who Keir has managed to infuriate just as much as Boris, not least of all with his bizarre idea to bring back Gordon Brown as the oven-ready world-beating expert on devolution. 

We also have some conflicting views on how Labour would do in the proverbial Red Wall seats that turned blue a year ago. First we had a targeted poll predicting a 7.5% swing from the Conservatives to Labour in these seats, which would mean Labour would gain back 36 of the 45 seats they lost there a year ago. Such a result is definitely supported by the trends of national polls, but then The Guardian felt they had to explain us why this would never happen. Not just once, but twice on the same day. Before retracing their steps and detailing why and how Labour would stage a decisive comeback in the North. Which can only make you wonder what The Guardian really think and who they support. Unless it's just all Guardian columnists aligning on Owen Jones: say one thing one day and the exact opposite the next, so you still have a wee chance of being right once in a while. Anyway, the most recent polls we have now are nine days old. Guess the pollsters are off on a break right now, probably not to Amalfi, but I hear Margate's lovely this time of year. So we have no idea yet what the fallout of the Bozo Deal and the Commons' vote on it can possibly be. I feel pretty miffed it turned out better for Keir Starmer than I expected, with only ONE Labour MP defying the whip and voting against the deal, and just another 36 (or 38 if you add Corbyn and Webbe) abstaining. Interesting too that not even one Conservative MP agreed with Theresa May's scathing takedown of the deal and didn't vote for it, not even Treeza herself. But this whole chain of events will probably hurt Keir and Labour more than Boris and the Conservatives. The first batch of 2021 polls will be fun to watch and decode. Will they signal a shift in voting intentions and a new trend? That's anybody's guess right now. 

Big man, pig man, ha, ha, charade you are

You well heeled big wheel, ha, ha, charade you are

And when your hand is on your heart

You're nearly a good laugh, almost a joker

(Roger Waters, Pigs (Three Different Ones), 1977)

DISCLAIMER: this video contains scenes some people might find disturbing

© Roger Waters, 1977

With your head down in the pig bin, saying 'Keep on digging'

Pig stain on your fat chin

What do you hope to find down in the pig mine?

You're nearly a laugh but you're really a cry

(Roger Waters, Pigs (Three Different Ones), 1977)

Let's face it, the Conservatives are now doing pretty badly in Scotland, Wales and London, plus all the English regions where Labour are licking their wounds, biding their time and waiting in ambush. And all the English regions where the Tories still do well are in Tier 4, which is definitely not a good omen for a party that gets smashing results with the 65+. Of course this doesn't mean Labour should order champagne just yet, before Brexit makes you wait two months for a properly red-taped case from France. Them doing well in Wales, London and in the North doesn't mean Not-Too-Hardy Keir will move to Number Ten after the next election. The true measure of success for Keir would be matching Tony Blair's performance in 2005. Back then Labour bagged 355 seats. If you factor out 40 Scottish seats that are now lost forever, that would still leave Labour with 315 seats. Enough for Labour to claim victory and find their way to a majority coalition. They would already have 2 more seats with SDLP supporting them, and getting both Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrats on board shouldn't be too difficult. But the current seat projections fall far short of that. These are based on just the immediate pre-Christmas polls from YouGov and Survation, with an aggregate sample of 2,724 and a theoretical margin of error of 1.88%. The weighted average of these two polls would be slighly better for Labour than the overall long-term trend, as it says Labour would win the popular vote by 2.2%, and that would deliver, on average of all projections, the rarely seen perfect tie in seats. Because, ye ken, the gerrymandering and... wait... errm.... I've said that before, haven't I?  

It might not be an actual deliberate gerrymandering though, but just the unintended consequence of the rules of reapportionment. UK law says the allocation of seats in based on the electorate, which under-represents regions with low voter registration, which coincidentally tend to be more Labour-leaning. And also slightly over-represents Scotland, where voter registration is higher than the English average. A population-based allocation of seats, as is done in France or the United States, would increase representation of the North and London by 15-20ish seats overall, while decreasing Scotland's by 5ish seats. But we're not here to debate which method is fairer, are we? So what we have now is the worst projected result for the Conservatives since the last election, quite naturally so as it is the first time in a year that the Poll'O'Polls predicts Labour leading in the popular vote. But the resulting tie in number of seats would create quite an interesting, and possibly embarrassing, situation. It has the potential to be explosively embarrassing for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with the Conservatives cheshirishly grinning from the sidelines. Would Labour have the baws to try and strike a deal with the SNP? If they do, would the LibDems refuse a coalition offer from Labour and support the Conservatives? Numbers say Labour could do without the LibDems if they choose a deal with the SNP. But otherwise they would need the LibDems to quash any Conservative attempt at a minority coalition. With the added difficulty of not knowing beforehand how many Labour MPs would defect if Keir Starmer dared offer a deal to Nicola Sturgeon. This could easily turn into some shambolic variant of three-dimensional chess with pieces changing colour unpredictably. Sure this would lead to some Belgian-length negotiations to form any sort of viable government, plus endless opportunities for the punditariat to come up with some fantasy scenarios no politician would dream of. Or everybody might agree to a snap 'correction election' and hope for a different result.... 

Then current polling says we would have 60ish seats decided by less than 5%, so let's try to assess the alternate outcomes if these seats went another way than predicted, one half moving against Labour versus one half moving against the Conservatives. The alternate outcomes here are based on my model's projection, not the average. But it's close enough to make no difference in the overall landscape or how we can interpret it. Whichever way the swingometer goes would make the situation much easier for everyone involved. It it moves towards the Conservatives, Keir Starmer would make the courageous (in the "Yes, Minister" meaning) decision not to try and get in the way of a Conservative minority government. If it moves towards Labour, Keir Starmer would make the courageous decision to make the LibDems an offer they couldn't refuse and lead a minority government. Now there is a lot to say in favour of a scenario where we actually have a hung Parliament with the first party bagging a low number of MPs, well below the majority threshold. For once I agree with John Curtice, who for once is not just stating the obvious, that it would offer the SNP a golden opportunity to get Indy done. I quite like the idea of the SNP rebranding themselves as a Weapon Of Mass Disruption, and sticking to it no matter the amount of flak they take. Take every opportunity to derail the Westminster process, and whenever a Bill is in danger of failing, vote against it no matter what it is about, so that it does fail. So the English parties would be left with a binary choice: either form an unlikely Grand Coalition that would pass only irrelevant watered-down legislation, or capitulate and massively approve a Section 30 Order in the hope it will deliver a massive Yes victory and rid them of the pesky Nats once and for all. Not that I believe it will actually happen, but it would be fun to watch.

© Chris Riddell, The Guardian, 2020

This year Boris Johnson also has had to fight battles on unexpected fronts, the revolt of Tory MPs from the South of England against the reform of planning laws being one. I guess that Theresa May was delighted to be fronting this one. Karma-ish. Then Boris disposed of it in a familiar way: he caved in and withdrew the project. But the new year might not be such a bed of milk and honey. The man so desperate to be loved and cuddled will find out many he thought close actually dislike and loathe him, and that a lame joke at PMQs is no substitute for sound policy. Past experience proves that the Tories are not averse to disposing of once formidable leaders when they're past their shelf date, just ask Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. And, if Boris ever thought of doing that again, leaders staging their own coup to clean house from rebels and deadwood are seldom met with unmitigated success in the long run. Just ask Harold Macmillan. Ouija boards available at the nearest Conservative Association. Some within the party might think Boris has embarrassed them enough, that he has overstayed his welcome or simply that he has outlived his usefulness, and it's time the adults take back control of the classroom. Which is why I think Boris might celebrate the second anniversary of his moving to Number Ten, but probably not the second anniversary of his Glorious Election. 

The obvious top contenders in a leadership contest are Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak, though Jeremy Hunt might want to have another go at it because, ye ken, some people never learn. And I don't think this will be resolved by picking Rupert Murdoch's and Sarah Vine's favourite candidate. The one who's not Keir Starmer, that is. I still think Rishi Sunak has the best chances as he is young, smart, attractive and quite popular despite all his sins. And also the one most likely to be an efficient counter to New New Labour among the battleground centrist electorate, the part who favour strong and stable leadership over uncharted reformism, and thusly win the Tories the next election. While Sleekit Gove is.... well.... sleekit. Then it's not my place to say, the mostly-white-elderly-male membership of the Conservative Party will decide. Those, ye ken, who stopped watching "Midsomer Murders" when they started casting Black and Asian actors in lead roles, which was definitely no longer the Home Counties as we know and love them. It's not like the Conservative Party are genetically racist though, and the forever faithful in the backwaters of Surrey would never be the sorriest of bigoted narrow-minded nyaffs and write off their party's best chance at recovery, just because they don't want a darkie at Number Ten, or would they?

Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead!
You better stay home and do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old

(Roger Waters, Sheep, 1977)

DISCLAIMER: this video contains scenes most people will definitely find disturbing

© Roger Waters, 1977