And so it came to pass that the polls were wrong, not about the Tory vote or the Lib Dem or UKIP vote. Quite simply the Labour voters did not come out on the day according to Ben Page of Ipsos Mori. This may have been because they were uninspired or lazy; unlike the Tories who were reticent about their voting preference and because the prospect of being dependent on SNP MPs did not play well in England. The fall out for the Lib Dems and Labour has been catastrophic and it will take many months before they can operate as effective opposition parties. By that time the new government may have run away with the spoon.
Already Murdoch is demanding a lesser role for the BBC and John Whittingdale has been asked to oversee the license review. I have no problem with a BBC license fee of £145 per annum, after all it is only a third of what I would have to pay to watch Sky at £432 per annum. What's more I get a goto website and a handful of excellent radio stations, all free of adverts. The BBC would be good value at £5 a week and far better value than Sky at £500 per annum.
The £12bn of benefit cuts have been entrusted to Duncan Smith, a man who was found to have broken the Code of Practice for Official Statistics for twisting figures to support government policies, and whose own cv was a discovered to be a work of fiction. The great Europe debate will dominate the airwaves over the next two years during which time we will lose even more influence in Europe and on the world stage, although PM's usually begin to find their international feet during a second term. Meanwhile schools and other public services will continue to be handed over to the private companies that contribute to Conservative funds. And that goes for the NHS too where Jeremy Hunt has been allowed to continue his baleful influence. Justice is entrusted to Michael Gove, which should ensure some rough outcomes.
No doubt we will get a third runway at Heathrow making it an even more miserable experience and HS2 will gobble up capital spending. Birmingham to London will be 45% quicker, ideal for London commuters, but if HS? ever extends to Glasgow it will be just 12% quicker, which seems to defeat the purpose of the project. Most of the investment will be in the south east and then there is Crossrail 2 demanding funding and with Boris in the cabinet you would not bet against this taking most of the remainder of rail capital investment. All pretence of creating social housing will be transferred to the private sector with incentives to buy. Meanwhile pensioners will be protected and allowed to avoid inheritance tax below £1m.
The Scottish Government will be given a further tranche of fiscal autonomy but probably at the cost of dispensing with the Barnett formula. Along with the loss of oil revenues and with plummeting whisky sales this will call for some creative alternative revenue raising schemes from the Scottish Government and they will not be able to blame Westminster when things go wrong.
Any chance of a written constitution or reform of the House of Lords is unlikely, although parliamentary seats will be redistributed and reduced to 600 constituencies giving a sizeable advantage to the Conservatives. The probability of introducing proper press regulation along the lines of Leveson will be ditched. There will a further sell off of British companies and the Chinese will probably end up building and financing new nuclear power stations. Wind turbines and other green energy sources will be slowed down and left to market forces, despite the urgency of addressing climate change.
And finally local services will be even further downsized along with the minister, Eric Pickles. Localism will be no more evident than the Big Society was after the last election. Perhaps we should remember that this was achieved by the conservatives picking up votes from just 24% of the electorate. The so called progressive parties, including the Lib Dems, now that Nick Clegg has resigned, may have gathered more than half of the votes but that does not matter in the first past the post lottery that has delivered another Cameron led government. The sooner the UK adopts a fairer voting system the better for ensuring a more fair and egalitarian society that is tuned into the rest of the world.
Already Murdoch is demanding a lesser role for the BBC and John Whittingdale has been asked to oversee the license review. I have no problem with a BBC license fee of £145 per annum, after all it is only a third of what I would have to pay to watch Sky at £432 per annum. What's more I get a goto website and a handful of excellent radio stations, all free of adverts. The BBC would be good value at £5 a week and far better value than Sky at £500 per annum.
The £12bn of benefit cuts have been entrusted to Duncan Smith, a man who was found to have broken the Code of Practice for Official Statistics for twisting figures to support government policies, and whose own cv was a discovered to be a work of fiction. The great Europe debate will dominate the airwaves over the next two years during which time we will lose even more influence in Europe and on the world stage, although PM's usually begin to find their international feet during a second term. Meanwhile schools and other public services will continue to be handed over to the private companies that contribute to Conservative funds. And that goes for the NHS too where Jeremy Hunt has been allowed to continue his baleful influence. Justice is entrusted to Michael Gove, which should ensure some rough outcomes.
No doubt we will get a third runway at Heathrow making it an even more miserable experience and HS2 will gobble up capital spending. Birmingham to London will be 45% quicker, ideal for London commuters, but if HS? ever extends to Glasgow it will be just 12% quicker, which seems to defeat the purpose of the project. Most of the investment will be in the south east and then there is Crossrail 2 demanding funding and with Boris in the cabinet you would not bet against this taking most of the remainder of rail capital investment. All pretence of creating social housing will be transferred to the private sector with incentives to buy. Meanwhile pensioners will be protected and allowed to avoid inheritance tax below £1m.
The Scottish Government will be given a further tranche of fiscal autonomy but probably at the cost of dispensing with the Barnett formula. Along with the loss of oil revenues and with plummeting whisky sales this will call for some creative alternative revenue raising schemes from the Scottish Government and they will not be able to blame Westminster when things go wrong.
Any chance of a written constitution or reform of the House of Lords is unlikely, although parliamentary seats will be redistributed and reduced to 600 constituencies giving a sizeable advantage to the Conservatives. The probability of introducing proper press regulation along the lines of Leveson will be ditched. There will a further sell off of British companies and the Chinese will probably end up building and financing new nuclear power stations. Wind turbines and other green energy sources will be slowed down and left to market forces, despite the urgency of addressing climate change.
And finally local services will be even further downsized along with the minister, Eric Pickles. Localism will be no more evident than the Big Society was after the last election. Perhaps we should remember that this was achieved by the conservatives picking up votes from just 24% of the electorate. The so called progressive parties, including the Lib Dems, now that Nick Clegg has resigned, may have gathered more than half of the votes but that does not matter in the first past the post lottery that has delivered another Cameron led government. The sooner the UK adopts a fairer voting system the better for ensuring a more fair and egalitarian society that is tuned into the rest of the world.
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