This Island Sucks

The problem with practical jokes is that very often they get elected

(Will Rogers)

© Bryan Ferry, 1978

If you can’t be a good example, try to be a horrible warning

(Stephen Fry)

The First Big Thing this month, in case you have already forgotten how the whole shitstorm started, was of course the Owen Paterson case and Andrea Leadsom's pro-corruption amendment, that pretty much woodchipped Commons' Standards Committee and the last shreds of respectability the English Government claimed to have. For once, I found myself agreeing with Keir Starmer here. Though his points would carry more weight if 27 Labour MPs, including himself, hadn't failed to cast a vote on an amendment that passed by only 18 votes. Of course, nobody expected what happened the next day: Jacob Rees-Mogg performing the fastest handbrake U-turn amidst peak hour traffic since Dog domesticated Man, and letting Owen Paterson hanging out to dry under the Brexit bus, with no choice left but to resign. It was very unfortunate indeed for Labour that this collided with the sentencing of Claudia Webbe, in her trial for harassment and threats. Labour have expelled her from the party, but nobody can force her to stand down if she chooses to appeal, so the Tories will have a field day with her being the albatross around Starmer's neck for the foreseeable future. Some, on the progressive side of the punditariat, wanted to convince themselves that the Paterson thing was Johnson's Last Stunt because public opinion had had enough of it. And, much to my surprise, it looks like this was actually the last drop that broke the camel's back. Voters who had borne with the Conservatives and their shenanigans for months turned against them in droves, as the trend of recent polls shows.

I would gladly wager a tenner that nobody, especially not Johnson himself, predicted the Category Five Shitstorm that followed the opening of this particular Pandora's can of worms. Owen Paterson soon became a footnote in the Book of Revelation of various MPs', the huge majority of them Conservatives, second and third and fourth jobs that earn them more than their constituents-paid salaries. Something else probably did not register on most peoples' radars, but is more important in the long run than Paterson and Webbe. The English Government admitted, in the dark nether regions of the Autumn Spending Review, that they don't have any way of assessing the "success" of Brexit, and all they have is "narrative reporting on progress". In plain English: unverifiable porkies, and I'll have more on that later. Pretty much the same as Wunderkind Rishi Sunak's Autumn Statement, which is now proven to be built on quicksand, as the UK is actually heading straight to a recession. And inane fearmongering from the outgoing Head of the Armed Forces won't provide a cover story for this. The only surprise is that Boris Johnson is still ahead in the "Preferred First Minister of England" polling. Though his rating has gone down sharply, it only spawned more undecideds as Starmer's rating has also taken a plunge. Go figure.

More than anything else, this says a lot more about Starmer than about Johnson. According to Opinium's most recent poll, only 27% of Brits see him as a Prime Minister in waiting, while 46% don't. People still see Johnson as a stronger leader and more able to get things done, conveniently forgetting that it often means getting bullshit done. Starmer is considered more competent and more likeable, but lots of people are simply neutral or undecided on the traits that would qualify him as the best candidate for PM. To put it in layman's terms, Beige Is The New Red just doesn't work. But even this might no longer be a problem for Sly Keir quite soon. Because Johnson's only way out of the Autumn Of Discontent within his own party feels like squaring the circle. His only remaining foot soldiers would be the 2019 intake of Red Wall MPs, who "owe" him their seats, but are also quite likely to lose them after a Labour surge. So the actual way out would have to literally be the way out: Bozo standing down, with all the risks involved in a divisive leadership contest. Whoever wins it, and my tenner is still on Rishi Sunak, would be tempted to call a snap election, both to clean the Borisian Stables once and for all and to get a personal mandate for a full term. If that happens, as I still think it will in 2022, all clocks are reset and all bets are off. 

I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception

One who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else

(Boris Johnson’s school report, Eton, 1982)

© Bryan Ferry, 1977

An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know what you only just found out

(Will Rogers)

Boris Johnson might have thought that throwing Geoff Cox under the bus looked like a good idea at the time. But it massively backfired as the one earmarked to become the scapegoat actually became the symbol of the whole shambles, and fuelled the already widespread belief that all of them are corrupt and out of touch. former French President Jacques Chirac, who had a colourful career himself, once remarked that "les merdes volent en escadrilles" (shit flies in squadrons). That pretty much sums up what has been happening to Bozo over last two weeks, with one lousy headline after the other. And he can't even rely on COP26 to boost his image, as by all accounts it ended in unsatisfactory compromise and fell short of expectations. This also had some influence o the current snapshot of general polls, which shows Labour ahead for the first time this year. My Poll'O'Polls today includes the last two, fielded by Opinium and SavantaComres between 10 and 12 November. Super-sample size is 3,979, with a theoretical margin of error of 1.55%. It shows that Labour, for once, have visibly made progress on their 2019 vote share, while the Conservative are substantially down. Compared to what we had two weeks ago it also shows the Greens down, with every reason to believe that the missing votes switched to Labour. The Liberal Democrats have gone up slightly, though still not back up to their 2019 vote, and with hints that it involves tactical voting in some regions.

This snapshot is unmitigatedly disastrous for the Conservatives, though the backstory is quite revealing of the opposition's current state. It has more to do with Johnson pulling a reverse Churchill, single-handedly defeating himself, that with Labour actually making the case for alternative policies. The only question now is whether next week's polls will be even worse. Which is quite a plausibility, with Jennifer Arcuri dragged downstage centre again, and apparently not against her will. Not that we will really learn something we didn't already know, but it's always fun to have all the juicy details exposed. Pretty much in the same league, Matt Hancock's story, about how he single-handedly defeated Covid on the beaches and in the streets, might be a good read. Though it now looks like this one is again a "Deal Or No Deal" story. And finally, the never ending list of Tory sleazers now includes Jacob Rees-Mogg and Douglas Ross. Who'd have thunk? I guess Bozo will now have to kick Jake under the bus, because he won't have the opportunity to use Doogie as a decoy, as the Scottish Tories will deal with him before that, as unceremoniously as they dealt with Jackson Carlaw. Interestingly Doogie's chronic incompetence has now boosted the SNP vote to an unexpected level, even bagging back voters who had previously switched to Labour. Nicola Sturgeon will certainly miss Doogie when he's gone, as he was reliably the SNP's best asset. Though I have a hunch that the Tories' next choice will be just as awful, so Nicola can keep using the proverbial argument that "at least, we're not as bad as the other lot".

Notwithstanding the huge amount of bad PR, there are still some blue islands here and there on this island. Like the one where the local Conservative Club think Geoff Cox is actually a clever fox, and praise him for the way he fed his stash. There's massive irony in this happening in Esher and Walton, Dim Dom Raab's constituency, as he would be among the first to bite the dust after a massive collapse of the Conservative vote. Of course the real test is not Labour doing better than in 2019, as it is the case everywhere except in Scotland, which is a lost cause for them anyway. The key is whether or not they do better than in 2017, and you already know the answer is "no" as they are roughly 2% below GB-wide. Right now Labour is 8% below 2017 in Wales, 4% below in the North, 2% below in the Midlands and 5% below in London. The only exception, and one we've seen coming for quite a while, is a bounce of 4% above 2017 in the Leafy Bluesy South, which accounts for a massive 43% of English seats outwith Greater London. The factor that helps Labour is that the Conservatives have gone down faster and further than Labour went up, everywhere across England but especially in the South. Partly because the Liberal Democrats are not doing as badly as you might think. They might be below their 2019 results everywhere, but they're also above their 2017 results, having kept votes they once snatched from the Conservatives here and there. So the various criss-crosses of a volatile electorate between parties end up giving Labour better chances at gains that you might intuitively think.

There are better things in the world than alcohol

But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them

(Terry Pratchett)

© Bryan Ferry, 1973

This version recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 13 March 2020

Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects

(Will Rogers)

The seat projection, as you might expect, is a massive disaster for the Conservatives. But a 3.3% lead is still not enough to grant Labour a majority of seats. Ironically, and you probably have guessed it already, the key here is Scotland. If Labour could still count on 40 Scottish seats being delivered at every election, a lead of about 3.5% GB-wide would be enough to overcome the amount of pro-Tory gerrymandering already present in the current boundaries. But, without their old Scottish seats, they need a lead of about 10% GB-wide to secure a majority, and it will only get worse if the Boundary Review's proposals are implemented without amendments. Which is of course the cornerstone of the Conservatives' masterplan to stay in power past their shelf date, the neutering of the Electoral Commission at Michael Gove's capable hands being only the icing on the pudding. Now, you surely remember that the bar, in terms of seats, is not set on 2017 (262) but on 2005 (316 when you deduct the Scottish seats except Edinburgh South), that would allow either a minority Labour government, or a majority coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Current polling says Labour would be one-third of the way between the two bars, meaning any viable government coalition would need a deal with the SNP. And that's where the fun begins, wondering which one would outbluff the other on the terms of the agreement.

The other projection models are more Labour-friendly, with an average of  287 Lab, 269 Con, 54 SNP,  17 LibDems, 4 Plaid Cymru and 1 Green, based on Electoral Calculus, Election Polling and Flavible, fed with the same polling data. But even with the least damaging variant, the list of Tory fatalities remains impressive. I won't bore you with all the 88 names, as many are actually just obscure backbenchers, but just mention the most remarkable ones, who would deserve their Portillo Moment, or Balls Moment depending on your preferences. They are a mash of former stars, current grandees and assorted minor members of recent past Governments. First perennial pests Douglas Ross and Andrew Bowie in Scotland, where the Tories remain strong enough to save their other useless four. Then Theresa Villiers and Iain Duncan Smith in London, and I have no doubt the latter would trigger massive festivities at Labour HQ and elsewhere all across the UK. There's also Alun Cairns in Wales, who fell from grace in 2019 after interfering with a rape trial, obviously not on the side of the victim. Plus an assorted Pick And Mix of 75 in England outwith London, including past and present glories like Steve Baker, Tobias Elwood, Conor Burns, Alex Chalk, Will Quince, Amanda Solloway, Chloe Smith, Chris Skidmore, Maria Caulfield, Iain Stewart, Michael Ellis, Stuart Andrew, Stephen McPartland, Steve Brine, Robin Walker, Tom Pursglove and Robert Buckland. And the best for last: Alok Sharma, George Eustice, Grant Shapps and Dim Dom Raab. The harder they fall... 

© Chris Riddell, The Guardian, 2021

With my model, the breakdown of seats by nation and region shows the impact of different voting patterns, that can be seen in the polls' regional crosstabs. And of course quite clearly where Labour's strengths and weaknesses are, which is not where you probably expect them if you're thinking in pre-2019 terms. I won't even mention Scotland, though I'm doing just that right now, because it's clear that Labour are stuck on just one seat for the rest of time, far from their 2005 and 2017 results. At the far end of the spectrum, Labour are predicted to be really successful in London on 52 seats (vs 49 in 2017 and 44 in 2005) and in Wales (29 seats vs 22 and 29 respectively), when they were down on even the 2019 result in both not so long ago. Another success in the South comes as no surprise, as it was already in the cards earlier, but has reached a new high with 43 seats vs just 22 in 2017, and almost matching the 45 they bagged down there in 2005. The Midlands are a mixed bag with 42 predicted seats vs 39 in 2017, but still far from the 64 held in 2005. Finally, the historically Labour-leaning North is a major letdown with 113 predicted seats, not even matching the 2017 result, and a long way down from 2005 (117 and 133 respectively). There the weaknesses are in the North East and the North West, as Labour would do better than in 2017 in Yorkshire and The Humber. Something that I saw coming too, since the Batley and Spen by-election, and is supported by recent polling.

Labour gaining ground in London, from an already very favourable position, might explain why the Conservatives feel nervous about the by-election in Old Bexley and Sidcup, though it is statistically one of the least likely to switch to Labour. But of course major upsets can happen, so I won't risk a wager on that one. For now. More damaging to Boris Johnson would be the loss of 32 Red-To-Blue Wall seats of the 2019 intake, 11 in the Midlands and 21 in the North. And that's toodle-pip to Bozo's Praetorian Guard of drooling ill-trained newbies. Just imagine the look on Bozo's face when he finds out his most articulate and experienced support up there is now Ben Bradley. The other 56 lost seats would probably matter less to him personally, as most of the defeated MPs would likely not have supported him in a leadership contest. Especially those from the South, who are much more likely to have been allies of Cameron and then May, and supportive of Rishi Sunak, or possibly Jeremy Hunt, to restore the traditional values of One Nation Conservatism. 

A secret ballot would be inconsistent with the manly spirit

And the free avowal of opinion that distinguish the people of England

(King William IV)

© Bryan Ferry, Andrew Mackay, 1973

Piano introduction © Colin Good, 2001

This version recorded live at the Apollo, London, 2 October 2001

Everything is funny eventually, it just takes time

(Roisin Conaty)

There is another major issue, and another major embarrassment for the First Minister of England, that has faded into the background right now: Brexit. Which, if you remember the previous episodes, was the cornerstone of Boris Johnson's Presidency... oops... sorry... Premiership, and the one issue that killed Labour in 2019. But pollsters have not forgotten about it, even if voters have. YouGov first asked respondents how they felt the English Government had handled Brexit. Unsurprisingly only Conservative voters give Bozo a clean bill of health on this one, as even Leave voters are more of mixed bag. All other political orientations concur that it was a fucking mess, a view also widely spread across all regions of England, and massively in Scotland. Even the South, who voted Leave more than the UK-wide average, are definitely unhappy about the results. Possibly because they have been on the frontline, and had to endure such absurdities as the massive and unused Brexit Lorry Park in Kent, or the red-taped queues at various ports. I have no doubt this played a part in them becoming Labour's biggest reserve of potential votes, as well as the site of many a major Tory trainwreck. 

So the majority opinion is definitely that Boris and his sidekicks really fucked it up, and then fucked it up again. Which gives an interesting twist to the massive involvement of Leave supporters in the Paterson debacle, and how mashing the two together can become a great talking point for the opposition in the incoming snap election campaign. On top of all this, toning down the rhetoric a few notches about the Northern Ireland Protocol will probably help in the short term, but is unlikely to alter the British public's perception of the omnishambles. YouGov then asked their pool if the UK had been right or wrong to leave the European Union, and the results are again merciless for the Brexiteers in charge. The surprise here is how many Leave voters still think it was a good idea, when a large number of them think the goods were not delivered. Surely there is some warped causality at work here. Again, there is clear dissatisfaction in all the leave-voting regions of England, with strong pluralities thinking it was the bad decision, even if it looked like a good idea at the time.

The widespread buyer's remorse here obviously doesn't help. It's not like anyone has the keys to the DeLorean and we can hit Rewind. So YouGov stopped short of asking the £1 million question. But SavantaComres did ask it: what if we had the option to vote in a referendum about rejoining the European Union? The results are less clear-cut than you might expect from the vast amount of discontent and buyer's remorse shown by the YouGov poll. There is a strong plurality in favour of rejoining, but not yet a majority. The breakdown by the actual votes at the 2019 general election and 2016 referendum nevertheless shows an interesting side story. People who did not vote at either strongly favour rejoining, and are probably the ones who would carry the Rejoin option past the finish line, if an actual referendum ever happened. Since those are likely to be mostly younger voters, you might conclude that time is on the Rejoiners' side. But that might also be a hasty conclusion.

Because this is a rhetorical question about a highly hypothetical scenario, as nobody seriously expects such a referendum to be held in the near future, or even ever. Especially now that Keir Starmer has made it part of his "serious plan for government" to "make Brexit work", whatever the fuck that may mean after the massive failures we have seen so far. Sly Keir might have thought it made sense to shed Corbyn's ambiguity on the issue, but he has probably chosen the wrong way to do it. His own voters, and also those of all parties he would need for a government coalition, massively favour rejoining. Surely Keir wanted to avoid reopening fresh wounds, and pushing a divisive issue to centre stage again. But he also might have painted himself into the wrong corner here, just to avoid toxic headlines from the Murdoch fish-wrappers. Anyway, and just this once, I want my non-binary choice here. Not just Brexit vs EU, but Brexit vs EFTA vs EU. Then nobody will put that one on the table, will they?

If you’re going to make rubbish, be the best rubbish in it

(Richard Burton)

© Bob Dylan, 1963

This version recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 19 December 1974

Light travels faster than sound, and isn’t that why

Some people appear bright until you hear them speak?

(Steve Wright)

Of course, pollsters thought the post-Paterson week was just the right moment to survey the electorate's view of corruption in UK politics. Definitely quite relevant now, when more and more people see Boris Johnson for what he is, a bent fly-by-night with the morals of a tomcat. YouGov asked their panel to what extent they think there is corruption in the UK, and their answer is merciless. There is a clear political divide here: the more to the left you vote, the more likely you are to acknowledge the reality of corruption, while Conservative voters are more likely than average to be in denial about it. No real surprise here, and it explains the geographical differences in the perception of corruption. Areas with a higher vote for left-wing parties are more likely to see corruption where it exists. The only exception is London, which pretty much fits the average profile of respondents. I have no doubt this is a key factor in the shift in voting intentions we have seen earlier.

Actually, the only amazement here is that only 80% of Brits see corruption embedded in the system. Especially now that the Conservatives have all their dirty linen waving in the breeze. YouGov asked only about a concept and didn't name names, probably fearing it would hurt the feelings of their friends in the Conservative Party. But Opinium had no such hangups and directly asked about some persons and organisations. And the result is devastating for Boris Johnson, his government and his party. Rishi Sunak does somewhat better, as people have probably noticed he did not cast a vote on Andrea Leadsom's pro-corruption amendment. So people probably grant him the benefit of the doubt, which is not the most comfortable position in such a debate. 

Personally, I believe that Keir Starmer is not corrupt, in the monetary sense of the term. But, unfortunately, you can't say the same about the Labour Party as a whole. Just one word: Liverpool. I'm not so sure about Rishi Sunak, as I don't believe in the common wisdom that wealth makes you immune to corruption. On the other hand, Wunderkind has probably hoarded enough IOUs to last him a lifetime in his earlier career before politics, which would potentially make him more of a corrupter than a corruptee. Then I agree that the respondents got it right when they identified the English Government as an entity, the Conservative Party as an entity, and Boris Johnson personally as the worst offenders. And yet huge swathes of rural England, who can smell a rat when they see one, and should be the first to uphold "traditional British values" like honesty and whatsnot, are still ready to give the Conservatives a plurality of their votes, albeit by only a hare's breath. And I have a hunch even more would if the Tories ditched Bozo and propelled Wonder Rishi to the top rung of the food chain. One despairs.

The British people are degenerating into a nation of halfwits, someone has to act

(Sir Michael Fielding, Midsomer Murders: Master Class, 2010)

© Bryan Ferry, 1974

This version recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 19 December 1974

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away

(Philip K. Dick)

Savanta Comres have also conducted the latest instalment of their Scottish Barometer for The Scotsman between 22 and 28 October. I have already mentioned the part about IndyRef2, as The Scotsman headlined with it ahead of the disclosure of the full detailed results. So let's turn now to the part about Holyrood voting intentions, and how it translates into seats. Obviously there is no buyer's remorse here, as the Yellow-Green coalition would be confirmed, and probably strengthened, if an election was held next week. I think a lot has to do with Nicola Sturgeon's personal image. Despite all the twitterstorms of disapproval, she still has excellent ratings in Scotland, where the most recent Opinium poll awards her a net positive of +16%. She is even seen more favourably than Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson GB-wide, where people are certainly influenced by her carefully crafted public persona. The numerous photo ops at COP26 did help here after all. 

The most amazing part is that voters fail to see the kinks in the SNP's armour. I won't blame them here, as I also believed for quite a long time that it was better to "wheesht for Indy", even after I had started seeing some obvious cracks in Nicola Sturgeon's progressive-feminist makeup, and also identified some SNP MPs and MSPs as the bottom feeders they are. Don't ask me to name names, you all know the list as well as me. Now this last poll does not come as an actual surprise, as we had three in September which went pretty much the same way. Of course the next election is years away, and the Scottish political landscape will probably have changed dramatically in the meanwhile. The SNP will probably have lost their main asset, Douglas Ross, when the Conservatives fully acknowledge what a hopeless chancer he is, and dump him as unceremoniously as they dumped Jackson Carlaw. Another key factor will obviously be how far down the road to Independence the SNP have progressed, which might very well be "not an inch" and cost them dearly. So the result of the next election will be decided within the next two years, depending on what happens on that front, or does not.

The campaign for next year's Council elections promises to be interesting. And there will surely be a lot of irrelevant factors at play in it. The SNP will certainly try and make it a vote about Independence, though it has fuck all to do with it, as it's the only way to avoid being judged on their actual performance as councillors. There are many reasons to believe such a judgment would be quite harsh in many cases, Glasgow and Edinburgh being only the most obvious examples of gross incompetence. The various opposition parties will certainly try and make it a vote on the Scottish Government's policies, also totally irrelevant, but they might score some points doing that. Labour might find they have a good angle of attack with the chronic underfunding of Councils, and blaming it on everybody else, while the Conservatives would struggle with that one, as most of it actually comes from decisions made in London, rather than any made in Edinburgh. What might increase the uncertainty in these elections, is the number of voters who will use their vote to send a message about the management of schools, which is legally within the remit of Councils. The factor here is obviously the "inclusive" guidelines for schools issued by the the Scottish Government, and their blatant bias towards hardline gender ideology. One of the keys will be how many parents, even among SNP voters, will be incensed enough by these to vote accordingly, which would favour the Conservatives. Or how many pinch their nose and return SNP councillors despite their support for the Stonewall-compliant policies.

Surely just being around me makes you cleverer by osmosis

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: Under The Lake, 2015)

© Stephen Sondheim, 1973

Which Side Are They On?

I dislike and distrust the English

If England is still ruling the world, it is due to the stupidity

Of other countries which allow themselves to be bluffed

(Josef Stalin, 1939)

© Paul Kantner, 1998

The two sides of liberty’s golden coin are a two-for-one

Ice cream Snickers bar and a copy of Private Eye

(Boris Johnson, 2016)

Have the Conservatives totally lost the plot? Did they genuinely expect the Aukus thing to go away because it suits them? Now it has become an issue in the French presidential campaign, as it was really delusional to think the right-wing candidates would not try and use it against Emmanuel Macron. Which in turn can only prompt France to show some more muscle and tell the UK what a miserable lot they are. Did they really expect nobody would see through their feeble excuses for the shortage of lorry drivers and widespread shortages of all sorts of goods? Surely they did, don't put that level of stupidity past them, but they don't give a fuck as long as enough voters are deluded enough to keep them ahead in poll after poll. And even Swindon's Swinging Roundabout won't make a fucking difference. You can also argue that polls show that the electorate is highly volatile, and that polls conducted now, when we don't even know when the next election will be held, mean fuck all. And I would counter that people answer these polls with the implicit subtext that it's all about an election happening next Thursday, and more and more polls are actually explicitly worded that way. Now, with all this and Chevening too, your gut probably tells you that the gap in voting intentions, between the Conservatives and Labour, should have narrowed. Alas, poor voters, in Real Life As We Know It Outwith SW1, the trend of polls says it has actually widened, if only by a teeny weeny smitch.

Many in the "progressive" media speculate about a reboot of the Winter Of Discontent, complete with power cuts and shortages across the board. But Number Ten's Press Corps have undoubtedly already come up with the magic trick that will make everyone happy. Boris will not call it a three-day-week, he will call it a four-day-weekend, and make it sound more progressive and working-class-oriented than anything that came out of the Labour conference. The Guardian might get their hopes high about some sort of fin de règne mood at the Conservative conference, but it will take much more than that to topple the Conservative majority in Commons. Then we have this Twitter pile-on from Owen Jones and Jones Owen, eager to convince us that Labour under Starmer would come third in a two-way race. Which of course is just another episode of the never-ending saga of "The Useful Idiots Of Borisism". The German Communists in 1932 were also obsessed with ideological purity, and picked the Social-Democrats as their class enemy of choice. Then they had all the time in the world to sort out their quarrel, when the Nazis indiscriminately sent them all to Dachau a year later. Keir Starmer's spads should also keep an eye on what polls say about voting intentions in England Outwith The M25, where all hopes of a future Labour government come to die. There too, the Conservatives' lead over Labour has sightly increased in the most recent polls. Despite the shortage of honey at Waitrose's. Go figure.

Of course, there is no magic trick that would make Labour's chances at an election win better. Except perhaps becoming an opposition party. One can dream. Bear in mind that Labour would need to gain back all seats they lost in England last time aboot, if they want to deny the Conservatives a majority. And even this would leave the Conservatives as the first party by a wide margin, and with enough seats to go on as a minority government, gambling on the oppositions' inability to build a united front. Just think 2017-2019 without May's bumbling and tumbling, and Bozo aided and abetted by bland Labour leadership. What remains to be seen is how the Covid Report, about the English Government's criminal mismanagement of the early pandemic, will impact the Conservatives' electoral prospects. Outwith the SW1 bubble, actions have consequences but, sadly, it's likely the report, however damning it is, will have none.   

When you reach your Everest and you peak, you have to keep going

(Gareth Thomas, Richard Osman’s House Of Games, 2021)

© Paul Kantner, Otto René Castillo, Margaret Randall, 1989

The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda

It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth

(Garry Kasparov)

You can't say Boris Johnson does not have a moral compass. His only problem is that it points whichever the way the wind blows. Which might explain why he is still doing so well in the Preferred First Minister of England polls. I'm not ruling out something here similar to the "9/11 Effect" in the USA, when people thought "Thanks God it's George Bush in charge, and not Al Gore", and The Shrub's ratings skyrocketed. Or it might be the SW1 Variant of the SNP's favourite campaign slogan, "at least we're not as bad as the other lot". Not sure that Keir's new pamphlet will help much here, as it quacks and walks like A Study In Beige, just like what is supposed to be his best pitch for it in The Guardian. Then we have Peter Mandelson advising Keir to be a bit of Attlee, a bit of Wilson and a bit of Blair. Which could be an interesting exercise in squaring the circle, but won't leave Labour's target voters any the wiser. Now there's truth in one thing Lord Pete says, that these voters are "volatile and capable of turning to an alternative". Which is exactly what the polls say and, unfortunately for New New Labour, that alternative is Bozo.

Since The Reshuffle To End All Reshuffles, aka The Night Of The Long Wets, Boris has been triumphant in his world-beating unchallenged glory. It's quite embarrassing to see that Keir Starmer is still unable to mount a credible challenge, and prefers triggering yet another internecine feud within Labour, and then backpedals to the starting point under pressure, when there are already so many irrelevant rifts within the party, more on those later. It is also quite flabbergasting that Keir fails to see the obvious. That an attempt at tweaking the rules, to make a leadership challenge more difficult, will also make it more likely. Unless lefty activists choose to desert Labour in droves, and set up their own small business on the fringes, which may actually be the plan. Whichever it is, it does not have "success" written all over it. But there is another explanation to Sly Keir's unconvincing performance. Survation recently polled the public's perception of Boris, Keir, their parties and the government's performance. As is often the case with this kind of question, the results are quite astonishing.

This one is like an episode of QI, where everyone gets negative points at the end. Here Boris does best with a net -5, and Keir does worst with a net -12. The assessment of the Conservative Party and the Government's performance are fairly similar, if you compare the totals of positives and negatives. One of the rare occurrences where's there a semblance of consistency in a poll's findings. In the same poll, Survation found the Conservatives on 40% of voting intentions and Labour on 35%. Which is the same as the total of favourables for Boris Johnson and the Labour Party respectively. The interesting part is that Boris scores 3% higher than the Conservative Party on favourables, while Keir scores 4% lower than Labour. Which means that Bozo boosts the Tory vote, and their success in polls owes a lot to personal factors. While Keir is more likely to drag Labour down, again because of personal factors. There is definitely a lot of irony in someone who is a pathological liar and can't get anything done without fucking it up becoming an asset, when someone who is just bland, indecisive and contradictory ends up being a major liability. This is even more worrying for Labour when you factor in that Johnson is still the Master Of Time. He can call a snap election at his convenience, even with the Fixed Term Parliaments Act still in force. He has done it once, on well-intentioned tips from the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, so he can do it again. And here Starmer ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.

In a world that’s so full of anxiety, violence and misery

I truly believe that music is the one thing we can all use

To drown out the screams of people we don’t care about

(Jimmy Carr, The Big Fat Quiz Of Everything, 2021)

© Paul Kantner, 1972

I was in a band once, and we were utterly, utterly dreadful

We were terrible but we had a great time, which sort of sums up my life

(Tim Farron, Have I Got News For You, 2016)

It's always fun to watch where the Liberal Democrats stand at any point in time and space. We haven't quite reached the "blow jobs for votes" stage, but I expect that one to come up soon. When even The Guardian, who would like you to forget they once endorsed the LibDems, openly make fun of them, then it's time for some innovative campaigning, innit? It's less fun, admittedly, to watch Labour allowing themselves to be manipulated by extremist keyboard warriors, and letting "trans rights" become the dominant issue ahead of their conference. Then you have to wonder why the pronoun cultists suddenly drop their proverbial "no debate" policy, and demand a debate on an issue that's so far away from the real concerns of real people. Which also demonstrates that this lot, who self-identify as "socialists", have never read the works of Gramsci, or they would understand the concept of "working class culture", and not stray into ideological avenues that are a pressing issue only for a tiny clique of metropolitan intellectuals and over-age students. But right now they're just the "useful idiots of Borisism", as everything they do weakens Labour, and strengthens the GB News narrative about "out of touch woke Marxists". Quite expectedly, the Labour conference was not the unmitigated success Keir Starmer hoped and needed. The Observer did not find any signs of a post-conference bounce,  and the full sequence of later polls confirms it. There's not enough in them to make Labour look truly competitive again, as my current Poll'O'Polls shows. It includes the last three published polls, fielded between 25 and 29 October. Super-sample size is 5,700 with a theoretical margin of error of 1.3%.  

So far, nine polls have been conducted after the horrific murder of Sir David Amess MP, and tend to show it did not have much influence on voting intentions. Differences with the polls conducted on the week before the murder are marginal and statistically insignificant. Part of the explanation might be that none of the major politicians tried to score cheap political points here, most noticeably Boris Johnson, who sounded and looked genuinely shocked when he made an unusually restrained statement some hours after the murder. The only exception was Priti Patel, who was quick to promote some conspiracy theory about "bedroom radicals" spontaneously generated by lockdowns, and talk about toughening legislation about online communication. While nobody will deny the increase of hate speech and abuse on social media, and the necessity to tackle it, Patel once again appeared coldly and shamelessly opportunistic. Then it's safe to assume she doesn't give a rat's fuck about that, as long as she can push legislation that suits the radical right-wingers within the Conservative party. What the current snapshot of polls says is that's back pretty much where we were early in September, after a short-lived improvement for Labour mid-September. As with earlier snapshots, we don't have Labour doing spectacularly better, as they're only 2% up on their 2019 result. But mostly the Conservatives doing badly as they're now 5% down on 2019. As usual too, this hides more complex transfers from one party to the other, as the Greens are also doing pretty well. Even in places where you wouldn't expect them to, as the breakdown of projected votes by nation and region shows.

Again Labour are making progress in the Midlands, and even more so in the Leafy South. While they are definitely struggling in the North and in Scotland, but this time it doesn't help the SNP, who are down a bit. More surprisingly and against the GB-wide trends, the Labour vote is also noticeably down in Wales and London. In this context, I don't have any high hopes about the by-election in Old Bexley and Sidcup, that was triggered by James Brokenshire's untimely death. Some are already fantasising about it being Chesham and Amersham 2.0, but I don't see any genuine similarities between the two. Other than both, and their predecessor seats, having been solidly Conservative from 1950 to 2019. But current polls predict very little change in the Imperial Capital and, if anything, Labour might actually lose votes there to the Greens. While, already in June, the same polls predicted a significant Conservative slump in the Inner Commuter Belt. And the factors that might have helped the LibDems in C&A, like Blue Nimbyism, are definitely more relevant in the Outer Commuter Belt, not within Greater London. What happens inside the M25 definitely has a life of its own, and it doesn't match the patterns outwith it. Furthermore, the Conservatives held OB&S with a 41% lead in December 2019, while they led by "only" 29% in C&A. On top of all that, the main opposition in OB&S is Labour, while it was the Liberal Democrats in C&A, and Keir Starmer's poor image with the electorate makes a 25% swing to Labour highly unlikely in OB&S.

I tell this joke sometimes when I’m on stage

Jeremy Corbyn is the kind of guy that will go soft

While you’re having sex with him

And blame you for the fact that he’s lost the erection 

(Grace Campbell, As Yet Untitled: I Scribbled On The Other Breast, 2021)

© Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Marty Balin, Gary Blackman, 1970

This elderly woman in the front row, she came up to me afterwards

And she said, I have this to say, I’m a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn

And I think he is the kind of guy who would go soft

And then finger you till completion 

(Grace Campbell, As Yet Untitled: I Scribbled On The Other Breast, 2021)

My model says that the Conservatives would be down to a 21-seat working majority on current polling, assuming Sinn Féin bag the same number of seats and still don't take them. Other projection models are slightly less favourable to the Conservatives. They credit them with 328-329 seats, with Labour on 236-241, the SNP on 47-49 and the Liberal Democrats on 9-14. Which is clearly within the margin of uncertainty for any projection, and still means the Conservatives would cling to power on a sharply reduced majority. It's the not-so-unprecedented situation where it has got better for Labour, before getting worse again, and possibly getting better at some point in the distant future. But, for now, Keir Starmer is still further away from the £2.6m briefing room than Jeremy Corbyn was in 2017. Well, maybe he will get there in time for the first post-Craig James Bond movie. But I'm not even sure that the Conservatives turning rivers into open-air sewers because, ye ken, doing otherwise would be bad for business, is enough of a shocker to turn the tide. But some Conservative MPs seem to have been flooded with complaints from their constituents, so the English Government have watered down their approach. Though it's not really the trademark Borisian handbrake U-turn, but more like a reluctant L-turn.

The LibDems might pat themselves on the back for their supposed ability to gain Winchester, but it does not change the big picture. And they even got that one wrong as their only projected gain in England outwith London is South Cambridgeshire, which would just make up for losing Tim Farron's seat in Westmoreland and Lonsdale. Chesham and Amersham, their much celebrated by-election gain, would also return to the Conservatives under the voting patterns of a general election. From Labour's point of view, the good news is that they're projected to do as well as in 2017 in the Midlands and much better in the Leafy Nimby South. The bad news is that they're still 26 seats down on 2017 in the North, losing some ground in supposedly safe Wales, and in a quite ambiguous situation in London, where they would bag one more seat while losing votes. What this also proves is that votes for the Green Party of England and Wales are wasted votes, except in Brighton and Bristol. And don't jump to the conclusion that it makes the case for some variant of proportional representation, as it doesn't. Don't even mention Germany (more on that later, by the way) as the voting patterns under PR there are the result of 72 years of practice, and of a political culture that values consensus over confrontation, not something that happened overnight because somebody thought it cute and clever to change the electoral law. And also remember that what Labour need is at least a return to 2005, not 2017, and we're still a million miles away from that.

In case you wonder, three Scottish seats would change hands on current polling. Gordon from the SNP to the Conservatives. Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from the SNP to Labour. Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross from the Liberal Democrats to the SNP. This polling also has the Conservatives just one hare's breath away from another gain in Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock. With the SNP's vote again eroding, you never know what might happen next, especially as the Commons polls don't factor in the Alba Party yet, so more upsets might be in the making. Quite obviously, the SNP's mediocre performance in recent polls has to do with their Fake Crime and Public Inquisition Act, which was rushed through Holyrood before the last election, and is now being delayed for no clear reason. Except perhaps the Scottish Government struggling to find a way to amend it, and making it less of a Stonewall Act, without totally losing face. And also avoiding dick-in-your-face activists calling the SNP "a hub of transphobia" because the party would acknowledge that sex is a fact, and facts trump perceptions and feelings. But surely something is slowly moving in Scotland, when the usually SNP-cuddling and Stonewall-compliant National open their columns to a reader's letter directly blaming their gender self-identification obsession for him leaving the SNP. The times they are a-changin' and the tide is turning, as shown by this week's poll where only 20% of Scots and 29% of SNP voters support the Stonewall option of gender self-identification. Unfortunately, by some domino effect, this is not making the chances of Scottish Independence any better, more on this later too.

You can talk all you want about "building back better"

But if you're not actually going to do anything

It's just another empty Boris catchphrase like "levelling up"

Or "of course I will pay child support"

(Ahir Shah, Late Night Mash, 2021)

© Paul Kantner, 1983

What is the point in getting an education at all?

I know how to use the apostrophe

Apparently, now it doesn’t matter

What I want, I want the time it took me to learn that back

(David Mitchell, QI: Lumped Together, 2014)

This year's Conference Season was an oven-ready opportunity for pollsters to scrutinise the electorate's feelings about the various political parties. Something they missed last year with the Lockdown Conferences, and was seen as relevant this year, as the Labour Conference was widely seen as defining "make or break" moment for Keir Starmer. Spoiler alert: it neither made him nor broke him, though post-Conference polling shows he missed the opportunity to truly redefine himself as a charismatic Leader Of The Opposition. First item here is how the general public and the subset of Labour voters rate Sly Keir on some select items that might define his PM-ability. It's quite a mixed bag from the general public, though not as bad as Keir's adversaries would like us to think. The really worrying part for Keir is that even Labour voters don't think he is strong, whatever that actually means. I guess "decisive" or "standing up for his beliefs under pressure" do qualify, and these are definitely not Keir's fortes. Not sure, though, that it does disqualify him from the Downing Street job, as some former PMs were not really good at it either. And don't even get me started about the current one.

Opinium also tested the electorate's assessment of hypothetical government coalitions. With a wording that let all options open as it said "Do you think it would be acceptable or unacceptable for one of the main parties to form a coalition with...?", in the event of a hung Parliament after the incoming snap election. Respondents could project pretty much what they want on such a wording, and they obviously did. Labour voters are lukewarm about an hypothetical alliance with the SNP, while SNP voters convincingly endorse it. The real question here is obviously what the SNP could achieve from such an alliance. Quite possibly a stunt like the Con-Lib deal about Alternative Voting in 2011. It's quite easy to imagine Labour agreeing to a second Independence Referendum on the SNP's terms, then actively campaigning for No, like David Cameron did over AV. And then using a narrow defeat for Yes as grounds to rule out another referendum for a couple of generations. Then both Labour and Green voters massively support an alliance between their parties. The only problem here is that it would serve no practical purpose, such as an increased majority, under current voting patterns and FPTP. Simply because the seats that the Greens could gain if Labour stood down, are the same that Labour could gain if the Greens stood down. And there are just a handful of them anyway, so nothing that would conclusively swing the balance of power in Commons.

The response from LibDem voters is more ambiguous, as the question covered both a coalition with the Conservatives and one with Labour. All they genuinely say is that they would strongly approve the LibDems returning to power, and probably no matter whom with. Let's take that though as favourable to a coalition with Labour, which is certainly what a majority of them mean. The position of the SNP and Green voters is far less ambiguous, as obviously none of them would support a coalition with the Conservatives. Or would they? So we have pretty much a massive approval of a "traffic light" coalition of the kind currently in the making in Germany. More on that later. The massive irony here is that such a coalition, based on hypothetical "compromise", is just what the supporters of PR advocate. And it would be made not just possible, but also necessary, by FPTP.

Have you done the thing, when you can’t find your phone, so you ring it

And then you realise you’re ringing from the phone you’re looking for?

And it doesn’t help because it’s engaged

(Alan Davies, QI: Naked Truth, 2016)

© Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Byong Yu, 1974

You’ve got a lot to look forward to, you know

A normal human life, mortgage repayments, the nine to five, 

A persistent nagging sense of spiritual emptiness

Save the tears for later, boyo

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: Closing Time, 2011)

In the run-up to the conferences, Savanta Comres surveyed the electorate's perception of the various political parties on offer. This is how the voters of each party rate their own party of choice on the proverbial left-to-right scale, excluding "don't know" answers. Interestingly, the first choice is always "Centrist", even by only a wee margin. If I was a registered psychologist, I would venture that many people don't want to self-identify as extremists, in whichever direction, so "Centrist" is a natural first choice. But I am not, so I will not. Then there is an indisputable logic in a majority of LibDem and SNP voters describing their preferred party as centrist, as this is actually what they are. Then the real surprise is that fewer Reform UK or UKIP voters define their parties as right-wing than Conservative voters. Maybe we should pin that one on former Labour voters, who switched some time in the last couple of years, and haven't yet realised that there is nothing centrist or leftist in supporting a hard Brexit and English nationalism.

There is an interesting mirror-effect here between the voters of the two main parties. 15% of Conservative voters see the Conservatives as left-wing, 31% as centrists, 43% as right-wing and 11% don't know. While 44% of Labour voters see Labour as left-wing, 35% as centrists, 10% as right-wing and 11% don't know. My only caveat here is that we don't know how the respondents self-identify on the left-to-right scale, which would shed a different light on how they see the different parties. Voting intentions are just a partial hint, as there is a wealth of evidence that whom you vote for can be at odds with how you define yourself. And I don't even factor in potential tactical voting here. Savanta Comres also surveyed peoples' assessment of the various part being "too lefty" or "too righty". Again the really interesting part is their crosstab with voting intentions, reflecting what voters think about their party of choice. There is quite a consensus from all voters, to say their preferred party is about right on that scale. Probably most people don't want to be caught contradicting themselves.

Notably outwith the consensus are Labour voters, with only half thinking their party is about right, and one quarter each assessing it as too righty or too lefty. Paradoxically this might actually help Keir Starmer, claiming he has the support of three quarters of Labour voters in his quest to eradicate the Corbynistas. Who could in turn argue that Starmer is shamelessly culling a quarter of the party, who think it has veered too far to the right. Another round of pretty useless debates that will ultimately help nobody. But surely all the Useful Idiots of Borisism would relish in that like piggies in a mud bath. Interestingly, the run-up to the conference was also the moment The Times chose to publish long and eye-watering interviews of Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting. Just as if there's something in the brewing in some witches' cauldron somewhere, and we failed to see it.

I never ask visitors to take their shoes off, because I hate that when

I go to someone else’s house and they make you take your shoes off

I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t know what’s on your carpet, do I?

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown, 2021)

© Paul Kantner, China Wing Kantner, 1976

But I do ask people to take their glasses off when they come into my house

I find it rude, I think it’s an insult to my hosting, implying that

I’m gonna hide stuff or not help you up the stairs

(Jon Richardson, 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown, 2021)

Meanwhile, North Of The Wall, Savanta Comres have conducted another poll on the incoming Second Independence Referendum. Of course I mean "incoming" here in the loosest sense, like in "that asteroid, five million light years away, is definitely incoming". Their findings are pretty much the same as the weighted average of the five polls conducted in September. With Yes on 45% and No on 48%, we have hardly moved from where we were at the end of the summer. An earlier poll form Redfield and Wilton delivered a very similar result, close enough for me to use their crosstabs to make some points. But let's look at the trend first, and how it might have been influenced, or not, by events outwith of the Independence debate, or conspicuous lack thereof. The trendline might look good, because that's what trendlines are supposed to do with Excel, but the reality is that polls since the election are pretty much flatlining on 48-49% Yes and 51-52% No. Which is actually an astonishingly good result, when you factor in that the SNP have done fuck all for years to boost the Yes vote, as there are obviously more pressing matters to attend, like making crossdressing a legally protected characteristic.

The Redfield poll also shed some new light on the demographics of Independence, which are not exactly what we would expect them to be, based on earlier polls. 11% of Conservative voters voting Yes, and 18% of SNP voters voting No, is far higher in both cases than what we previously had. The downside is that they pretty much cancel each other out, and don't improve the overall result. The Yes vote among the younger generations is also lower than what we were used to, which might become an issue if the referendum is postponed until after Labour win a general election. Then there is one side of the issue that has never been polled, and it would probably be quite challenging to survey it: how many people do genuinely want independence, but not with the current variant of the SNP in government? I have a hunch there would be quite a lot. Just think of it and you will find three dozen reasons why, and their gender ideology obsession might not even be the strongest.

Finally, Redfield also polled the electorate's views on the timing of the referendum, the franchise and the conditions to be fulfilled. Here too, the results are not always what you might expect. The survey of the timing is self-explanatory. The question about the franchise refers to including anyone who lives in Scotland, which is the current definition. Or extending it to the Scottish-born living elsewhere in the UK, which is kind of the ethnocentric definition supported by some in the Yes movement. Finally the two questions about the conditions refer first to the infamous 60% threshold in polls, on which John Mason and Alister Jack agree, and was once also supported by Nicola Sturgeon. And finally to the choice between the proverbial Section 30 Order or a more radical way to trigger the referendum.

First, it appears that the public at large are not as keen on having an early referendum as earlier polls predicted, or as the Yes camp believe. Massive support from SNP voters means little here, as any scenario would first require a clear strategy from the SNP, which is conspicuous only by its absence right now. The answers about the franchise are quite ambiguous and possibly contradictory. I fail to see the upside of an "ethnic franchise", and quite a few downsides, even without considering the ethical considerations. I have a hunch that the ones supporting it will regret having opened that can of worms, if it ever becomes a serious debate in the run up to an actual referendum. Which is just a distant prospect anyway if we have to wait until five dozen of successive polls show Yes on 60%. The constitutional issue is also quite irrelevant right now, as nobody has yet defined a path to IndyRef that would not involve a Section 30 Order. Besides, if such a path was ever proposed, be sure the English Government would challenge it in court, and most likely win their case. Which would make the point moot and take us back to the beginning. Not much hope here, innit?

Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: Mummy On The Orient Express, 2014)

© Paul Kantner, 2008

You can’t really tell something is an addiction until you try and give it up

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: Mummy On The Orient Express, 2014)

Let's have a quick look now at what has been happening abroad, in Germany. A word first about the German electoral law. If you think the Scottish Additional Members System is complicated, then you will love the German Mixed Membership System. Constitutionally, the Bundestag has 598 members, 299 elected by FPTP in constituencies, and 299 elected by PR on regional lists with a 5% threshold. Only it doesn't work quite that way as the German constitution requires that the number of seats for each eligible party must be proportional to their national share of the list vote. For many years, the system included overhang seats (Überhangmandate). It means that, if a party got more constituencies in a given state than its list share of the vote allowed, they would keep these seats but their lists seats would be reallocated to the other parties to secure full proportionality. But it did not achieve perfect proportionality, as perfection implied that the party benefiting from the overhang seats would have to be allocated a negative number of list seats. Since this obviously couldn't happen, a small distortion of proportionality had to be accepted, favouring the two largest parties, the CDU-CSU and the SPD. It amounted to a combined bonus of 24 seats for them in 2009, when the mechanism was first challenged in court, but no change was made in time for the 2013 election, where the overhang bonus rose to a combined 33 seats. A corrective mechanism was enforced for the 2017 election, with the allocation of leveling seats at national level, after all the statewide counts and allocations of overhang seats are done. The net effect was to delay the official results by several days, and increase the size of the Bundestag to a massive and unprecedented 709 members, 19% above the constitutionally mandated number. And here is what this convoluted system has delivered at the last four elections.

I have chosen 2005 as the staring point, as it is the year when Angela Merkel became Chancellor, the start of an era that ended with the September election. I will not give all the details of the German political parties' ideologies, as it would take too long and you have it all on Wikipedia. It actually pretty much matches the British political spectrum, with the addition of a radical left party (Die Linke), that has roots in the former East Germany and its long-gone Communist Party. The major difference is that the electoral law gives a lot more weight to the smaller parties, and this has generated government coalitions after almost every election since 1949, without any exception during the Merkel era, due to increased fragmentation of the popular vote that started already in the late 1980s. The Merkel era is exceptional in German post-war history because she governed, for three of her four terms, with support from a Grand Coalition (CDU-CSU and SPD), something that had happened only once before since 1949. She led a more traditional and often-seen-before coalition between the CDU-CSU and the FDP during her second term, which abruptly ended when the FDP failed to clear the 5% threshold and lost all their MPs in 2013. Merkel could have then gambled on a minority government as the CDU-CSU was just five seats short of a majority, but this is not part of Germany's political DNA, so she chose the Grand Coalition again. 2017 could have been the spectacular odd one out, as Merkel first tried an unprecedented coalition between the CDU-CSU, the FDP and the Greens. It fell through because of irreconcilable differences between the FDP and the Greens over energy and immigration, while Merkel was true to her ruthless pragmatism and ready to compromise. Then another Grand Coalition was the only mathematically feasible fall-back option. And now the results of the last election have definitely signalled a major shift, with the CDU-CSU bagging their worst result ever, and the SPD becoming the first party again after twenty odd years as second.

Angela Merkel did not genuinely anoint the CDU's Armin Laschet as her heir, and quite possibly she is not unhappy with the SPD's Olaf Scholz, who was her Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister for the whole of her last term, most likely being the next Chancellor. What would happen next was at first anybody's guess. The only certainty was another coalition, but it was expected to take time before knowing exactly which. Negotiations after the 2017 election lasted until 7 February 2018, and Merkel was not officially confirmed as Chancellor by the Bundestag until 14 March 2018, almost six months after the election. Coalitions in Germany usually receive nicknames based on the parties' official colours. So you have the Traffic Light Coalition (red-yellow-green as in SPD-Greens-FDP), and the Jamaica Coalition (black-yellow-green as in CDU-CSU-FDP-Greens) among the possible options. Far less likely are the Germany Coalition (black-yellow-red as in CDU-CSU-FDP-SPD, named after the colours of the national flag). The as-yet-unnicknamed Rot-Grün-Rot coalition (red-green-red as in SPD-Greens-Die Linke) was a possibility in 2005 and 2013, but ruled out by the SPD because of Die Linke's "communist" past. The point is moot now, as Die Linke in freefall means Rot-Grün-Rot don't have a majority. The most likely outcome, in a clean break from the Merkel era, was always the Traffic Light Coalition, and now it looks like they're nearly there, with a tentative common government platform that includes lowering the voting age to 16. There might still be some interesting acrobatics on domestic policies, but no tectonic shift on foreign policy. Especially, don't expect any change in the German position about the EU's future relationship with UK. Not this time, Bozo, and probably not ever.

We used to think that, if we knew “one”, we knew “two”

Because one and one are two, but we are finding out that

We must learn a great deal more about “and”

(Arthur Eddington)

© Paul Kantner, 1969