[Politics] Election fever.

[davywavy]

Abraham Lincoln once famously observed that you can fool all the people some of the time and and some of the people all of the time, but not all of them all the time. Perhaps less famously (but possibly unexpectedly), Richard Nixon went further and tried to exactly quantify just how many people you can fool all the time. If you're an incumbent in a democracy, he said, it really doesn't matter how bad you are but some people will always vote for you and no matter how good you are, some people never will. He actually gave an exact figure - 18% - for this proportion of the population.
You can twirl your moustaches, cackle evilly and murderously pursue Penelope Pitstop to your heart's content and at least one member of the Anthill Mob (probably Dum-Dum) will still consider you the best candidate, or, looking at it another way, you can raise the dead from their graves and spray free liquor from every rooftop and about one person in every five would still rather have The Hooded Claw, thank you very much.

I was reminded of this 18% rule by the papers last week, when they reported that opinion polls currently show Labour on 19% and were speculating on how much further support for them may slump. My answer to that would be not much further, unless Nixon was wrong. What's perhaps most interesting about this is that even in the middle of Watergate, Nixon's approval levels didn't drop below 20% suggesting that if we were to hold a straight race between Gordon Brown and Tricky Dicky, Nixon would win by a mile. Now that's political unpopularity.
It's been interesting over the last few years to watch the decline in both Brown and Labour's fortunes. Three or four years ago when I would pop something onto LJ suggesting that the Emperor wasn't wearing any clothes I could reliably expect a pro-Brown greek chorus to pop out of the woodwork and start singing the praises of his natty attire. As Brown's manifest nudity became clearer it appears that the cheering section quietly hid their pom-poms in the back of the wardrobe and are pretending that the whole thing never really happened.

Truth may be the daughter of time, but it doesn't half make political debate a lot less fun.

Over the weekend, both the Telegraph and the Guardian led with the same story, and when they agree on something you can be sure that there is something seriously skew-whiff in the state of Denmark. This story was that according to opinion polls, more than two-thirds of people want an general election immediately. This is not all that surprising in the wake of political corruption scandals and economic collapse, and it's also no surprise that the opposition parties (who we may expect to benefit from such an election) are enthusiastically calling for an election too. It sometimes seems that the only person who doesn't want an immediate election is me.
This might surprise you given my well-established loathing for the band of meatheads who we laughingly call our government, but I'm rarely a fan of precipitate action in a crisis. The problem with elections in which one side is plainly going to lose and another plainly going to win (and, barring alien abduction, David Cameron will be the next Prime Minister) is that the obvious winners don't have to try - and that's a bad thing. Think back to 1997 when Blair was so obviously going to romp home that he didn't actually have to make any meaningful policy promises; all he had to do was smile lots, say some fine-sounding but noncommittal words and avoid being arrested for abducting schoolchildren and the election was his. Cameron finds himself in that position now and so he's busily making plenty of 'pledges' but few enough actual written promises - and I rather like to see what politicians actually plan beyond observing that they have a 'passion for excellence' or whatever the management buzzword du jour is.
The LibDems are actually doing rather better and putting forward some interesting and original ideas like the Repeal Bill, which is an excellent notion and something I've been banging on about for years. Indeed, were it not for the fact that the LibDem Constitutional Reform proposals were apparently written by someone with a serious head injury they'd probably have my vote.

But anyway; to summarise. I dislike snap general elections with an obvious winner ahead of time because that winner can avoid engaging with the electorate in meaningful terms. As such I'd say no to an immediate election, in the hopes that it will force some concrete proposals and promises about the people who are going to win it. As I said above; truth is the daughter of time and on this, the time we haven't had yet is just as important as the past.
But what do you think?

[Poll #1406417]

Comments

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

That entry you linked to reminded me of the idea of the Citizen's Wage, which I like more the more I think about it. The only thing that I wonder is how much wailing there would be if the incredibly complicated current system of benefits, JSA etc was abolished, with all the thousands upon thousands of staff currently paid to adminster said system suddenly redundant.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

I'm growing increasingly enamoured of the idea as time goes by. Flat rate income tax and getting rid of the baroque benefits system, all good stuff.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

See, we agree on some things. We'd probably find some points of order to argue over (probably amounts and percentages), but Citizens Basic Income appears to be an idea whose time is coming.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

I'd like to look into it more but IIRC one calculated out proposal puts it at £4,000 per year and the tax rate at around 45%.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I did some sums on it a few years ago (and I'm cursing because I can't find the post and so don't ahve access to my numbers), and I worked out that if you simply shut down the entire benefits system and diverted what it costs into CBI, you could give people between 4-5k p.a. I suppose the question I'd be asking of your numbers is whether that 45% tax rate would be total take or if you'd be sticking thinks like NI and sales taxes on top of that.
Even if not, 45% is a little high, considering the Laffer Curve.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I'm being brain dead, but do you mean you'd give people £4k, and then take 45% back in tax, or everyone would get £4k tax free, and then everything else would be taxed at 45% after that?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

No; Citizens Basic Income is an idea wherein everyone recieves a basic payment to live on - let's say 5k pa - and after that, there's no NI, social security, tax credits, or similar whatsoever. It isn't taxed income, so it's in addition to anything else you earn. It's a basic living amount of money and after that, knock yourself out.
When it has been tried it appears to foster greater social and community networks, and people are just as likely to go out to work as the disincentive of losing benefits vanishes. You might remember you and I talking about it on a quayside whilst waiting for the pub to open for lunch a few years ago.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I do remember it well, and I like the idea. I'm just trying to figure out where the 45% that you and Grim were talking about above fits in.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The big question is cost; costed proposals vary widely are are probably the make-or-break factor. I've seen it costed out that simply shutting down teh social security system in this country would pay for a CBI of abotu 5kpa, but Grim is proposing a 45% tax rate on other income to achieve the same. I'd say that if he's right it'll never fly.