Election prediction: Con 309 Lab 285, LibDem 22; Con short 17 of majority

A note from Electoral Calculus:

A new prediction has been posted on 1 January 2008 at www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/

Recent polls show a continuing but smaller Conservative lead over Labour. Ipsos-MORI has a lead of 7% (down from 9%); Populus (Times) has 8% (up from -1%); CommRes (Independent) has 11% (down from 13%); ICM (Guardian) has 5% (down from 11%); and YouGov (Sunday Times) also has 5% (up from 11%).

Overall the Conservatives are now 7% ahead of Labour (down from 9%), which is enough to be the largest party, but not to form a majority. As a rule of thumb, the parties are level if the Conservative lead is around 5%. The Conservatives need a lead of about 10% to have a majority, and Labour needs a lead of about zero. The current prediction is that the Conservatives will be short 17 seats of a majority, winning 309 seats (-20 seats since 6 December 2007).

Political Performance Survey from Iain Dale

Iain Dale is running a Political Performance Survey to assess how various politicians are doing. You can take it here.

House Prices falling

According to a variety of sources UK house prices are falling, with the Nationwide suggesting that they were 0.8% down in November and 0.5% down last month. This is a very sharp fall, and suggests that the housing bubble is deflating rapidly. Now, bubbles do burst, or rather sharp rises in asset values nearly always result in sharp falls as long term trends reassert themselves. There had been some argument that UK housing was different this time because of a shortage of supply over demand, but there are always arguments that sharp asset appreciation is 'different this time'. Remember the don-com bubble? Or the last time UK house prices went off the chart in 1989-90? That last experience is probably the best guide as to what happens next. For most people the answer is nothing as a rise or fall in the notional value of their property makes no difference because they were not planning to move and even if they did the relative values of the properties whey would sell and then buy have not changed. The problem comes with people who have been speculating on property and assuming that house prices would only ever go up. Investing in property in the hope of reselling quickly for a capital gain, or building up a property portfolio to let are now fraught with risk, and some people who have not been careful enough are likely to go to the wall. Then there are individuals who have been using their houses as a piggy bank by taking out secured loans against a notional value that may not be there any more. They only get into difficulty if they have to sell, as does anyone who bought at the peak of the market and now has to shift their suddenly over-valued property. Look for a number of personal disasters reported in the media over the coming months, but also for some quite severe commercial effects as the companies that support property-based loans feel the pinch. House-building is also going to slow down quite sharply against this market background, and large-scale projects with a large housing component might also face restructuring at the very least. Here in Basildon, where we have a considerable portfolio of regeneration projects then this is something that we will have to watch very carefully.

Politically, this is all bad for the government, especially as more housing is one of their key priorities. As things stand, the market is simply not going to deliver on the numbers stated by government ministers, and there is not much that they can do about it. Look for some imaginative excuses in 2008.

Happy New Year!

May I wish all that chance upon this message a Happy New Year. Let us hope that politics in 2008 does more to deliver on what the people of Basildon District and Britain actually want, and less on issues that are politically fashionable or are personal or party political hobby horses.

Blair a Catholic

Tony Blair has been admitted into the Catholic Church, this despite deliberately downplaying his Christianity during his premiership so as to not sound like a 'nutter'. I am not a Catholic, but I am a little surprised as the reaction of some prominent members for that Church who instead of treating a new convert as a matter for rejoicing are suggesting that past policy decisions should have disbarred him. Even if you accept that he did things in office against the teachings of the Church then the parable of the Prodigal Son pretty much covers that situation, so maybe a little more quiet reflection and Bible study is called for and a little less carping. As for the 'nutter' thing, he sort of has a point. Politicians in the UK don't tend to advertise their religion because it gives rise to the suspicion that their political decisions are filtered through the literal interpretation of some book or another. The Atheists in British public life do not help by trying to equate jam-making Anglicans with the Taliban in terms of fundamentalist irrationality. So, Blair probably made the right call. Of course there are lots of religious people in politics. There are even lots of religious people on Basildon Council. I am a Christian, as are several other Councillors, and there are probably other religions as well but no-one actually talks about it. Is that good? Well, if the alternative is the US model where Christ is a regular running-mate at election time then maybe we have got it right.

Noak Bridge Parish Council shows how it should be done

First, I must claim an interest: my wife is a Parish Councillor on Noak Bridge Parish Council. Our local paper has reported that the Council has cut its precept, or tax, for the third year in a row. They have done this by not employing anyone beyond the Councillors themselves, not paying themselves anything, and substituting hard work for even trivial amounts of expense. They have an excellent Chairman in Alison Armfield, who is not my wife I hasten to add, and they have managed all sorts of projects in the village, from replacing old and damaged signs, to installing benches and play and recreation facilities for children and teenagers. They don't even brag about it; their Christmas newsletter's headline is 'Merry Christmas' and it is being delivered by the Councillors themselves. If Basildon District Council had managed a tax cut then you would be able to shut us up about it.

The article was wrong about one thing. They didn't get rid of allowances this year. They never have paid themselves anything.

A coup against Brown?

This is a rumour, but it's a good one, that there has been a conference call among Labour backbenchers with the aim of ousting Gordon Brown as leader. It seems to have started in the Blogosphere, on Labourhome no less, and it is also echoed in an article in today's Daily Mail that suggests that a bad result in May's local elections might mean curtains for Brown. One of the few Labour MPs who has allowed himself to be named is Andrew MacKinlay, from just down the road in Thurrock. He thinks that changes have to be made at cabinet level, and he is quite right about that at least. Too many of Brown's appointments have turned out to be duds, from Balls the incoherent to Darling the downright incompetent, but the problem really is the man at the top. Brown's real problem was his coronation; by efficiently seeing off any challengers before there was any kind of a vote he denied himself the mandate that he surely would have won. Now, too many backbenchers can honestly say 'well, I didn't vote for him', cos they didn't. No-one did, not as Labour Leader or PM anyway. Brown's allowing himself a day off for Christmas. He might get rather more than that in the New Year.

Government Data Shambles, again

Yet more data has been lost by the HMRC to add to that lost by other government departments. With the number of incidents approaching double figures, it is clear that there is a systemic failure of data and records security and management throughout large parts of the public sector. This doesn't just come from a failure of systems, though God knows these seem pretty shambolic, but from a failure of culture. Take the 25 million child benefits claimants on the two CDs that were lost for example. In cash terms this data could not have been more valuable if the two CDs had been made out of 24-carat gold. If they had been made of gold then no-one whould have shoved them into the internal mail, but no-one batted an eyelid about doing that to the data. Was it because no one understood how important the data was? Was it because it is almost impossible to get fired in the Civil Service no matter how poorly you perform? Professionally, I am an expert in this particular field and in my organision, a FTSE 100 company, errors of this kind would get you escorted off the premises by security. Unsurprisingly, this tends to concentrate minds. Now there is talk of adding criminal sanctions to the Data Protection Act. Well, that might help but it isn't actually necessary if management in government agencies were doing their jobs, and miscreants know that screwups of this kind lead directly to a P45.

The Times Gives a 13 point Conservative Lead

A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times has voting intentions with changes from their last poll of Conservative 45% (+2), Labour 32% (nc), Liberal Democrat 14% (nc). Read more here and here.

The 45% figure is the one the talking heads seem to think the Conservatives need to get to for a convincing election victory. Now that this hurdle has been overcome it will be interesting to see what the Left establishment line becomes. The BBC have decided just not to mention it for example. Too painful I suppose.

John Baron MP: Traveller plan from Regional Assembly is unfair

Unelected quango says number of local sites should increase by 70%

John Baron MP today criticised proposals from the unelected East of England Regional Assembly (EERA) to increase the number of authorised traveller sites in Basildon from 116 to 197 (a 70% increase) while still leaving some areas in Essex with as few as 15 sites. The plans were agreed this week by the Regional Planning Panel and will be considered by ERRA on 25^th January 2008.

John said:

These proposals are completely unfair and discriminate against Basildon District. The unelected members of this regional assembly should come and talk with local residents and gauge for themselves just how angry people are. Basildon has done more than most to provide sites, and so it is absurd that we should now be expected to provide even more.

These proposals would drive a coach and horses through our Greenbelt, as they equate need with unauthorised pitches and therefore reward travellers for illegally developing our Greenbelt land. But these illegal pitches reflect demand – a desire to be close to existing sites – not genuine need.

Instead, the Regional Assembly should be taking a genuinely regional view by obliging all those councils which have done far less to step up to the plate and now share this responsibility.

I would add that I sit on EERA for Basildon and that John's criticisms are entirely justified. If the Assembly was composed of elected members from the various Councils in the East of England then that would be one thing, but it is packed out with appointees from all sorts of unaccountable bodies who can easily push through anything they like. The Assembly has no proper rules of debate and it doesn't even record individual votes, so this could be voted through on a show of hands by people who don't face election and who can later claim 'it wasn't me guv'. Even the Labour government has realised that the Regional Assemblies are going nowhere and they likely face abolition; good riddance. In any case, if this plan goes through then Basildon Council at least will set the process in motion for a judicial review and then the whole stumbling, incompetent mess of the Traveller Review will be replayed out in the High Court. Or maybe EERA will have an attack of sanity and realise that its abject failure to represent the people of the Eastern Region's views on this issue among many others is the main reason that the Assembly is on the way out.