"Your opinion doesn't count because you're thick and you have a common accent": the story of Remain (and Boris Johnson's election)

It is pretty commonplace these days to read or hear an otherwise intelligent person explain how somebody holding an opposing view does so as a result of either being paid to do so or else being brainwashed by the media and advertising. This outlook is doubly common when the otherwise intelligent person considers that the person doing the 'wrongthink' is less well educated. Here's a excellent example from Peter Jukes in a tweet that garnered several hundred likes and retweets:

This is the point. I don’t blame Leave supporters: 30 years of lying by 90% of the press: hundreds millions spent on dark ads by Johnson, Cummings, Banks and Farage, boosted by Putin.

If you voted leave in 2016, you did so because you were brainwashed, lied to and conditioned by the media or by advertising. We see the same argument from public health professionals as they explain that the reason John smokes and Mark is obese is that sinister and manipulative marketing - John and Mary's choices were not real choices, these people (unlike Peter Jukes or the public health people, of course) had no real agency, no free will, they are leaves blown about by the storms of marketing and media.

On the evening of Britain's departure from the EU, somewhat reluctantly, the broadcast media ventured into Parliament Square where several thousand folk were enjoying the moment. There's a little clip that, for those who believe leave voters were hoodwinked, confirms the undoubted thickness and ignorance of leavers. Two women with strong, working class accents are asked by the reporter why they voted to leave. And the answer from both was, albeit not in fancy dan language, right on the money - the vote was about restoring decision-making to the UK parliament where, people felt, they had more chance of affecting those decisions. This, of course, wasn't enough for the reporter who wanted them to say what laws or rules the women would change (hoping, of course, that they'd say something bigoted about immigrants) but they didn't oblige and the reporter moved on.

For our otherwise intelligent person the womens' thick accents and their slightly inarticulate response was enough to confirm that the combination of a "right wing" media, dark money and a number on the side of a bus had led them to vote leave. The women are plainly not intelligent enough to listen to argument, consider the options and make a decision (unlike our otherwise intelligent person).

The idea that the environment in which we live affects the decisions we make isn't either new or wrong. Media and advertising are part of that environment but not the whole of it - if we say that free will is moderated by our social environment, we are not saying that people's decisions are made for them by advertisers or their opinions put in their heads by the media. What our friends and family say, the conversations we have at work or in the check out queue, a thousand interactions that are not controlled by media or advertisers, these things are at least as important - probably more so - than the ads or the news. Why do you buy that particular brand of soap powder? Chances are that it's the brand your Mum uses and the same will go for preferences across a host of products and services.

None of this denies people agency but rather explains how we go about choosing. It's something we don't do in isolation (this also applies to our otherwise intelligent person) but by processing all the information we have received. We place different emphases on these sources, trusting some more than others - I remember a tale told during the recent election where someone reported how their first time voter daughter returned from college saying how the teacher had told them they should vote for Corbyn but, as the tale concluded, that young voter said that she trusted her parent's opinion more than the teacher.

After their defeat in the referendum and, latterly, in December's election, our otherwise intelligent person has expressed the intention to listen to the voters. The problem is that, because those voters are going to say things about being respected, our otherwise intelligent person won't really be listening. After all, the reason they voted the wrong way is because they were manipulated by sinister forces, lied to and exploited by dark forces who don't share their interests. Either than or (and this is more commonly held by our otherwise intelligent person) those voters are just thick and stupid.

So, instead of hearing what those voters are saying ("yes we do want to leave the EU") our otherwise intelligent person listens instead to people like him who have written long analyses of why Labour and/or Remain lost. A two thousand word one in the London Review of Books or a piece by some sociologists at a London university - that'll provide all the evidence our otherwise intelligent person needs, no need to actually listen to what those fat working class women are saying. The BBC did a feature from "the North" by visiting university campuses and talking to people who shared the same outlook, background and worldview as the producers of the programme. It probably didn't help much to broaden anybody's understanding of those people who, in the view of our otherwise intelligent person, voted the wrong way because of dark ads and the right wing media.

The extent to which people who are less articulate (usually, but not always, a consequence of a lower level of formal education) get ignored but our otherwise intelligent person and his friends reveals a degree of intolerance for opinions that are not validated by the in-group. More credence is given to somebody sitting in a book-lined Islington flat who writes about why people in Bassetlaw deserted Labour than an older couple having a drink in a Worksop Wetherspoons. Despite only vaguely knowing the location of Bassetlaw and certainly not knowing anybody who is from Worksop or Retford, our Islington writer gets published in a widely read newspaper or journal while the old couple's opinion, at best, gets (a slightly sneering) fifteen seconds on the local evening news. But then we should remember, as our otherwise intelligent person knows, the writer's opinion is real while the old couple simply reflect the propaganda of that right wing press and those dark ads.

People ask what changed, how the Conservatives and Boris Johnson turned it round and won that victory. What was Dominic Cummings' magic formula? Why? Perhaps, in answering these questions, we should begin with understanding that the biggest change was the decision to ignore the media, to be positive and to offer something believable and tangible to ordinary voters. And because conservatives, and especially leave voting conservatives, had got used to being called thick, xenophobic racists, it was an easy job to make common cause with a load of largely Labour voting leavers who'd experienced the same attacks. If you don't respect people's opinion then you really don't deserve to get people's support.

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"It's a culture clash": how VoteWatch frames Pakistanis as uniquely guilty of election fraud.

It seem innocent enough, even noble - VoteWatch they call it and it, we're told, does this:

Exposing ballot burglars, reporting on elections, opening-up politics & producing documentaries

What could be wrong with an organisation dedicated to exposing electoral bad practice and to hold the feet of those running elections to the fire? The answer is pretty simple, VoteWatch isn't really about any of this as a quick visit to its website would tell you - just on the 'UK' section of that website we see:

An attack on Labour MP David Lammy's expenses claims

More on David Lammy as they look at whether the hate mail he receives is self-generated

A report on the resignation of the UK ambassador to the USA

A nasty police siege in Peterborough - badged as in the 'Multicultural District'

Gordon Brown attacking Corbyn over anti-semitism

A tenuous link to a convicted vote fraudster describing his nephew in a 'drug fuelled rage'

Eventually we come to a video that says it's a 'guide to the Pickles Report'. And this is where we begin to see the real agenda of VoteWatch and why the Brexit Party (and the right of politics in the UK should be concerned). You can read the Pickles Report (here) and you'll find that it gives a series of proposals for tightening up the administration of of elections and the prevention of illegal and corrupt practices at the polls. This covers the location and management of polling stations, the intimidation of voters, postal voting, personation and the administration of the count. Pickles was critical of the Electoral Commission and strongly supported the use of an easier election petition system rather than that commission.

What Eric Pickles didn't say was that the problem was confined to places with concentrations of Pakistani or Bangladeshi population. Reference is made to concerns raised by people from those communities (over intimidation, family voting - where a man accompanies a woman into the polling booth, and political party access to absent voter lists) as well as to the shocking Tower Hamlets case where the failure of police and Electoral Commission to act was eventually exposed by a private petition. More than anything it was the scale of Lutfur Rahman's electoral fraud that shocked:

Lutfur Rahman was found personally guilty by the court of making false statements about a candidate, bribery, and undue spiritual influence. The court also found Rahman guilty by his agents of personation, postal vote offences, provision of false information to a registration officer, voting when not entitled, making false statements about a candidate, payment of canvassers, bribery, and undue spiritual influence. A finding that corrupt and illegal practices for the purpose of securing Rahman's election, and that such general corruption so extensively prevailed such that it could be reasonably concluded to have affected the result was also returned.

It remains a concern that, in general terms, public authorities are loath to take strong actions in investigating election offences but although Pickles alluded to 'political correctness' as a factor his main concern was that the Electoral Commission set itself up as both rule-maker and policeman. Nor can we dismiss - as my colleagues in Bradford know well - the malign impact of clan and birideri politics in some Asian communities.

It is clear, however, that VoteWatch is not interested in encouraging improvements to the way in which we ensure fair elections but rather to suggest that malpractice is a specific problem for Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities and for nowhere else. Here is a map and graphic showing where the organisation has set up branches and, I assume, an image of the sort of people (South Asians) who are doing the alleged fraud:



So we have an image of South Asian men (plus a child) and a list of towns with large Pakistani or Bangladeshi populations. Returning to VoteWatch's article on the Pickles Report, we find that a good part of it isn't about voting fraud but about the street grooming scandals in Rotherham and elsewhere that did largely involve Pakistani men. Challenged on this apparently racist targeting, Jay Beecher who runs VoteWatch said:

"...voter-fraud is carried-out predominantly by members of the Pakistani community..."

Given that Lutfer Rahman in Tower Hamlets is of Bangladeshi heritage and noting the constant references to street grooming, we can only guess that VoteWatch want us to join the dots and come up with the word 'Muslim'. By inference VoteWatch want us to believe that, were it not for Muslim voters, there'd be no problems with elections. Here's Beecher again:

It's a clash of cultures. Democracy is seen in different forms, with varying attitudes towards it in certain countries. Voter fraud is rife in Pakistan for instance, along with cultural voting, bribery etc. Those methods are now employed over here in the UK

I have some news for Jay Beecher - our laws on bribary, cultural voting, intimidation, impersonation and false registration date back to the nineteenth century when there were at most a couple of thousand Muslims in the UK and none of them from Pakistan because it didn't exist. This handy list of election petitions - filled with bribery, personation, intimidation and general skulduggery - gives a flavour.

This isn't to say that we have no problems with corrupt and illegal practices in our elections - false registration, dodgy nominations, postal voting abuse and personation - or indeed that some of these may be more prevalent in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. Rather it's to notice that in the world of VoteWatch all the baddies are brown (or privileged white people too scared of the brown people to act).

Last year (2018) the Electoral Commission reported:

Of the 266 cases that were investigated, 191 needed no further action. A further 55 were resolved locally with informal advice given either by the police or the Returning Officer. 17 cases are still under investigation or are awaiting advice from the Crown Prosecution Service. We will continue to monitor these.

There has, to date, been just one conviction - for forging signatures on a nomination form - relating to elections in 2018. Even if the Electoral Commission could up its game this does not suggest that there are widespread problems with the administration of elections or with corrupt and illegal practices. Furthermore, half of the 2018 allegations related either to "allegations about someone making false statements about the personal character or conduct of a candidate" or for not including an imprint on a leaflet. And there's no obvious difference in investigations between years with metropolitan council elections (covering more than half of the Muslim population) and those without.

I've gone on at length here because VoteWatch and other organisations that focus on Muslims as peculiarly criminal or strangely 'culturally distinct' represent a real threat to politics on the right. You only need look at what became of UKIP when it turned itself from a centre-right eurosceptic party into an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim campaign group. With close associations between the Brexit Party and VoteWatch, it seems to me that there's a real risk that its noble cause of securing democracy gets compromised by these links to a campaign saying "Pakistanis are stealing elections - look at Peterborough" despite there not actually being much evidence that this is the case.

VoteWatch link voting fraud with street grooming and use reports of criminal activity by Asian men to reinforce a message that in Beecher's words - it's a clash of cultures. What lies behind this is the worrying - and too widespread - view that, in some way Islam is incompatible with British life and culture. It is this lie that marginalised UKIP and it will do the same for the Brexit Party if it allows Jay Beecher and people like him to set the agenda. What's also important is that my party - the Conservatives - set clear water between the racially-tinged campaigns of groups like VoteWatch and our response to legitimate desires to ensure voting is safe and fair.

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Of course the Brexit mess affected this week's election results...thoughts from Bradford

Loads of other people will have a great deal to say about the local elections so I won't join in the debate about how Liberal Democrats taking control of Mole Valley represents a seismic shift in English politics. Or that the results reflect some sort of 'opinion poll' on Brexit (or the lack of Brexit) - although it's mad to suggest that this dominating national issue didn't have a major impact on people's voting, or not voting, choices. Anyone who knocked on doors will have experienced people - lots of people - exploding with anger when asked about their voting intention.

But it's not just Brexit, there are other trends and changes that need consideration - the continuing shift away from Labour in the Midlands (and, it now seems, in places like Teeside) and the shift away from Conservatives across the Home Counties (most obvious in the gentrified seaside). It does sometimes seem like nothing has changed - Conservatives are still the biggest party in most of those shire districts and Labour still dominates the cities. But what's less noticeable is that majorities are sharply reduced - where once the dominant party won with 60% of the vote it's now winning with 40% - in Bradford Labour won Royds ward (for lovers of 1980s movies, this is centred on Buttershaw the location for 'Rita, Sue & Bob Too') this year with 43% of the vote compared to 59% in 2012.

Bradford can also illustrate what we might call the 'remainer effect' - Ilkley is safe Conservative territory but also the most remain voting ward in the City (over 70%). Here's this year's result:

In 2012 the Conservatives got 49% of the vote when the Labour candidate was Anne Cryer who'd been the local MP from 1997-2010. Contrast this with another safe Tory ward (the best one) which was strongly leave voting:

The result is almost identical to the 2012 result (58%) although the Green Party did significantly better this year and Labour slightly worse. It is notable that the Greens, despite not making any gains, did very well. We've seen how they did well in wealthy Ilkley, here's Bradford's poorest ward, Tong:

This was a tie - the one vote majority was drawn by lot. Labour have never lost this ward, not even in the great meltdown of 1992 when the Conservatives won every ward in Bradford South. This result, however, probably isn't (unlike Ilkley) down to remain voters - that UKIP vote tells us this is leave territory - but more what I'd call 'Lazy Labour' and a turnout of just 19% plus, depressingly, that Labour's candidate is Asian.

Yesterday's results were a disaster for the two big parties (not in Bradford though) - the Conservatives expected to lose seats but did so on a scale not seen since the mid-1990s. Labour - the beneficiary of Conservative collapse back in the '90s - failed to pick up seats. There were precious few Labour councillors across England's shire districts - after yesterday there are precious fewer and the party still has no councillors at all in dozens of councils. To answer why I'll give the canvasser's feedback - on doorstep after doorstep the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi
Voter: You're brave!
Me: No, people are lovely...
Voter: Brexit....
Me: Indeed. What a mess. Not Labour surely?
Voter: Corbyn...omg we don't want him

Yes there are lots of local factors and people do vote purposely differently in local elections but these results have been affected by the Conservative government's failure to deliver on a promise we'd leave the EU on 29 April 2019 and by Labour being led by an antisemitic, terrorist fan boy.

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Demanding ID at polling stations solves a problem that doesn't exist...

"It's about fraud", they cry!! Yet it turns out there isn't any fraud - or at least not the sort of fraud that gets sorted by demanding little old ladies in rural Wiltshire provide ID in order to vote:

Figures from the Electoral Commission show personation fraud at the polling station accounted for eight out of the 266 allegations made last year. No further action was taken for seven of these, and one allegation was resolved locally.

So last year there were precisely zero actual cases of personation fraud - the only sort of fraud that demanding ID solves. If you want to get serious about abuse of elections then you ned to look at:

1. Voter intimidation especially intimidation of women

2. Postal vote farming made possible by automatic rights to a PV

3. Abuse of political selection processes (in all the main parties)

4. Treating and, let's call it, "extreme creativity" around election expenses

One previously huge abuse - false registration - has largely been dealt with through individual registration rules.

None of this is to say that personation doesn't take place (people with experience of campaigning in places like Bradford or Tower Hamlets will tell you it is commonplace - albeit that the evidence for this is more limited). It remains the case that intimidation, treating and postal vote abuse are far more of a problem. The last is easy to deal with - we just return to a system similar to Blair's reforms - but the wide problem of how people campaign is much more difficult to respond to, which is probably why the simple "show ID" proposal - 'look we're doing something' - was taken.

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Only the electorate or the courts should be able to sack councillors, anything else is just a bullies charter

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has bunged out a sore losers report into "Local Government Ethical Standards" in which it tries to rebuild the old Standards Board model for enforcing such standards:

Council standards boards should have the power to ban councillors for up to six months without allowances, the Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended.

The report blathers on about bullying and harassment while at no point recognising the essential flaw in the old standards regime - it was used, again and again, as a means to bully councillors and as a political tool. My experience of this system showed that these boards are essentially kangaroo courts - in my case, while I blithely assumed I'd be dealing with the investigating officer, the Standards Board shipped up, at the cost of thousands in public money, a barrister to cross examine me. I was found guilty of having shouted at a fellow councillor but the board decided it wasn't bad enough to sack me. The whole process was a complete waste of time and money but really suited my political opponents (and not just the ones in the Labour Party).

Let's be clear. If a councillor has broken the law then the matter should be reported to the police who will investigate and, if there's a case, ask the CPS to consider prosecution. Serious stuff like taking backhanders for planning deals or smashing another councillor round the cakehole are covered well by law and don't require a standards committee. Non-criminal infractions - saying something stupid,  alleged bullying and harassment all fall into this category - are better dealt with through the political parties since they have far more sanctions. Bear in mind that, as a Conservative Group Leader, I could suspend the Party whip from any member and I could ask the wider Party to take further action should it be merited.

The idea that there should be a sanctions system built into local government standards processes undermines the relationship of the councillor with his or her electorate - these are the people we serve and, ultimately, the people who decide whether or not we get to stay as a councillor. Moreover the sanctions system deals with vague ideas of ethics drawn from a code of conduct that lacks detail, definition or specifics. It is a bullies charter.

I appreciate that the Committee on Standards in Public Life, as a bureaucratic entity, seeks to sustain and extend its role but its proposals return us to the days when councillors and campaigners used reporting people to the Standards Board as a political tactic. This acts to stifle debate, steers councillors away from commenting on sensitive or contentious issues, and reinforces the view that our role as elected representatives holds no privilege, we are no different from paid officials or appointed board members.

If you want a better proposal, just scrap council standards committees altogether. We're not snowflakes, we can cope.

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Is getting elected and being an effective politician correlated?

Some researchers have been looking into what people vote for in a politician and whether this gets us effective politicians. It would seem not:

We found that voters are not necessarily able to see what politicians are required to do in their day-to-day work and therefore have to rely on characteristics that might seem to matter for leadership, but may not actually be that important

The researchers go on to observe:

Voters increasingly choose politicians based on personality traits such as how warm, reliable, or decisive they appear to be, judged often by how they look or how tall they are.

This last point reminds me of Scott Adams observation that, all other things being equal, the tall candidate with good hair will win. Nevertheless:

...voters prefer candidates who are agreeable, but are won over less by people who look warm...

It seems that the politician who engages with the public by nodding, smiling and say "absolutely something should be done about that" is the same politician who, faced with the wiles of the professional bureaucrat, will smile, nod and say "absolutely, we'll do that".

We quite often pretend that we want politicians who think for themselves, challenge the assumptions of the bureaucracy, and provide leadership or direction. But when we get to the ballot box, we ignore all that and choose the one who says he's our friend. The problem with this is that we've likely chosen a candidate who wants to be everyone's friend making meaning that - and you'll see this all the time in councillors and MPs - he or she will spend their entire time crafting appealing platitudinous soundbites rather than doing the job. It's also a reminder that the 'good constituency MP' is perhaps less useful than the MP who spends more time doing questioning and challenging things in Parliament. Not that MPs should ignore their constituencies but rather than spending the five years of their term opening fetes, visiting businesses and kissing babies in Bigchester South might be agreeable to those constituents but doesn't make for an effective MP.

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Big Data didn't win it (my opening remarks from Battle of Ideas debate)

I guess I represent all the axes of evil on this subject – I’m a qualified Conservative Party Agent, a professional marketer specialising in direct marketing and a politician.

I’m going to tell you that big data didn’t win it. That Cambridge Analytica is selling a bog-standard set of analysis tools rebadged as ‘political’.

Database marketing is brilliant. We can analyse large data sets and apply them to useable population geography – in the UK postcode sectors contain about 2,500 to 3,000 people.

When Cambridge Analytica tells you they have a profile for every community in the USA, they are simply describing the use of these well-established and widely used geodemographics.

It’s what they sell – it’s what we were selling to UK financial services companies, mail order business and retailers back in 1990.

Better still, we can then match this profiling information to our own data – in the case of a political campaign this is likely to be voting intention information: VI Data.

What this match will tell us is where our voters live and, more importantly, where voters with similar characteristics to our voters live. We might have lots of VI Data for Tory voters across the country but none in Walsall – what the profile does is tell us, at a very localised geography, where we’re most likely to find those voters in Walsall.

This is pretty much all that Cambridge Analytica do.

The big change Cambridge Analytica offer from base geodemographics is the use of social media information.

Overlaying this data onto that geodemographics perhaps (I’m not convinced) makes that granular geographical targeting more effective.

The bit of software Cambridge Analytica uses claims to be able to draw a phychographic profile from facebook likes and text – I’m not convinced (especially since most folks activity on face book involves saying LOL a lot, going aww at cat pictures and liking your friends baby photos).

Here’s an example of the problem from a review in technology blog, The Register:

A version of this test is online here, with another that analyses language. The first 1,000 words of Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit speech from January generates a 67 per cent openness rating, making her "liberal and artistic" rather than "conservative and traditional", and a 99 per cent score for her being a man.

The truth is that the data from social media is very dirty – what these clever techie folk claim is a long way from the reality. And, regardless of quantity, having rubbish data will always give you rubbish outcomes.

What Facebook does, however, is allow us to target advertising at that same granular level – I only need to buy advertising within a few miles of high profile score communities in target areas making the advertising more efficient and perhaps more effective. It also means that if you are outside my profile you won’t see much of my advertising.

What we have here isn’t a sinister conspiracy but just a set of marketing tools applied to politics. Does it work? Yes – but it’s not a silver bullet. We’d reckon on uplift in response of around 2X or maybe 3X compared to a random selection. Great until you realise that the response to random was around 0.2% - all that clever technology means that, instead of getting ignored by 998 out of 1000 people, you only get ignored by 994.

In every other respect this is little different from what we were doing nearly thirty years ago – digging into data to make our marketing better.

And it was not the main reason that Vote Leave and Donald Trump won. I see five things as mattering in effective political campaigns, only one of which is targeting.

1. Brand. Vote Leave got lucky because some journalist coined the term ‘Brexit’ giving a simple and memorable brand for the campaign. One that opponents of leaving repeated again and again. The same goes for Hillary Clinton – almost all Democrat campaign material talked about Trump – and Theresa May where the Conservatives pumped out millions of messages saying ‘May or Corbyn’

2. Call to Action. Again Vote Leave got lucky – “take back control” they said, giving people a simple action, voting to leave, that would make that possible. “Drain the swamp” said Trump. And the same goes for Corbyn (find quote)

3. Enhanced Word-of-Mouth – or ‘going viral’. Thousands of little green frogs – with all the memes and comments that went with those frogs - were probably more important to Trump’s campaign than the money he spent with Cambridge Analytica. And the same was true of Vote Leave and Corbyn – thousands of people creating and sharing memes, doing things unasked and without the campaign’s say so

4. Good targeting – yes it matters and using geography is a great way to do it in a system based on people voting locally. But, as Corbyn showed, targeting a demographic – young people – can also be pretty effective.

5. Finally Brexit and Trump won because their opponents ran dreadful campaigns. Theresa May did too but started too far ahead for Corbyn to catch her.

Yes targeting matters. Absolutely the generation of ‘fake news’ matters. But no, ‘Big Data’ didn’t win these elections. There is no sinister conspiracy, just a set of circumstances – good branding, viral social media, strong calls to action and awful opposing campaigns – that allowed the results we got. Targeting helps but, if we’d not seen the brand, message and memes – and the useless campaigns from Stronger In and Hillary Clinton, the results would have been different.

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Lots of truth in this....

Hard to fault this logic:

Once you understand endogeneity, it should come as not a huge surprise that “the candidate you want” so often ends up resembling “the candidate you don’t want” more than you had expected.

The article is about Macron but could apply in plenty of other cases!

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It's not just the economy, stupid - a lesson from Alinsky for conservatives

Politics is about the economy. This truth has, for most of recent history, dominated the manner in which elections have been fought and to a large degree the outcomes of those elections have been determined by the economy. When James Carville hung that sign - "it's the economy, stupid" - on the wall of Bill Clinton's campaign office, he summed up this political certainty.

Because of this certainty, politicians and, perhaps more significantly, political campaign managers began to focus their attention on economics rather than marketing strategy. These folk assumed that if you got your message right on the economy and economic management and won the argument by undermining the other side's economic credibility then you win. Every time.

And is certainly seemed that way. Bill Clinton won in 1992 by remorselessly talking up recession (a recession caused by his predecessor, of course). John Major delivered a Conservative majority in that same year by positioning his government as trustworthy on economic policy and Kinnock's Labour as risky. The same goes in Germany, Japan and Canada - everywhere you looked the secret was to be boringly reliable and trustworthy on the economy. Do that and the mantle of office falls onto your shoulders.

It seems that our presumption - that the macroeconomy is what matters - may have been misplaced. Here's Graeme Archer looking over someone's shoulder on the train:

You don’t intend to read over the shoulder of the person next to you on the tube, do you, but it’s unavoidable. The well-dressed young woman on the Northern Line on Wednesday was scratching away in a very expensive notebook. The novel in my hands turned to dust, and I swivelled my eyes at her writing.

Top of the page: “Objective: financial security.” Then a new line: “Need: £20,000 to be debt free.”

I didn’t read any more. The thought of twenty grand’s worth of (I’d guess) credit card and student loan debt makes me feel sick, even experienced second-hand.

The economy isn't a thing separate from the real lives of ordinary people, yet this is precisely the manner in which we speak of it. The newspapers and self-important parts of broadcast media are filled with earnest people talking about 'charts' and 'models' and 'forecasts' as if these grand aggregations of ordinary decisions mean anything to the real lives of ordinary people.

In 2008 all this changed although we didn't notice at the time. We assumed that the election of Barak Obama was, like elections always are, determined by the US economy crashing into the wall under a Republican president. Here's a bit of a clue:

"I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday."

Confirming that Obama was trained in Chicago by the Alinsky apparatus, David Alinsky wrote: "It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well."

Describing how the Democratic National Convention was a "perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style," David Alinsky wrote: "All the elements were present: the individual stories told by real people of their situations and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd's chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people."

America had elected a 'community organiser', a campaigner. For sure, Obama was less of an outsider than some claimed but his election represented a change from the 'it's the economy, stupid' approach to campaigning. And remember, given the circumstances in the USA back then, the core victory for Obama wasn't the actual presidential election but was his win, from behind against a dominant and well-branded opponent, in the Democratic primaries.

Scroll forward a few years to 2016 and we witness two shocks - the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. In both cases that community organiser approach delivered - in the UK the Remain campaign was entirely old school: 'it's the economy, stupid' while those campaigning for Leave shifted the focus to that Alinsky-style human interest. There were rallies, debates, the use of social media and that on-the-ground spread of a message that made people believe they really could vote their lives better. And they did - Brexit won.

Now put aside your distaste and ignore what the BBC has told you. Donald Trump's campaign took all the lessons from Obama's 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination and applied them for a social media age. Read that letter from Alinsky's son again:

"...the individual stories told by real people of their situations and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd's chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people."

This describes Trump's campaign to the letter - add in social media which was in its infancy in 2008 and you have the recipe for his election. Despite him being a really weak candidate without an obvious base for support and without the financial resources available to the Clinton campaign.

All this brings us to 2017. A UK general election with the Conservatives out of sight in the polls and Labour led by Jeremy Corbyn, a leader who three-quarters of his MPs had no confidence in. The result was another shock as Labour climbed and the Conservative's lost their majority. Had it not been for the successful and different campaign by Scottish Conservtives the results would have been worse still.

Why? Right now we're talking about how bad the Conservative campaign was (just as we've done when we talk about the 2016 US elections) - over-centralised, too leader-focused, a dreadful manifesto and a campaign seemingly without bite or passion. And all this may be true but it doesn't really explain - after all the Conservative vote and share of the vote went up. Most of us would have been chuffed to bits getting over 42% of the vote in a general election.

The big story isn't the Conservatives but Labour. The Corbyn phenomenon, just like Obama and just like Trump, leaps straight from the pages of Alinsky - it is the victory of a community organiser against the established 'it's the economy, stupid' strategy. The story is no longer who sounds most credible talking about those macroeconomic charts and models but rather who can offer hope and change to that woman on Graeme Archer's train. Plus a million other stories - about people's health, jobs, education, pension and benefits - that fit into an organiser's narrative and motivate women on trains to become women at rallies.

Obama, Trump, Brexit, Corbyn - Melenchon in France, Bernie Sanders in the US, even the sainted Juston Trudeau in Canada - all changed how we campaign whether from left, right or centre. The old certainties - 'it's the economy, stupid' - are broken down by it being millions of different and personal economies that matter. Yours, mine and that woman on the train.

The Conservative Party remains trapped in the model of campaigning that didn't work for Clinton, didn't work for Remain, and didn't work a few weeks ago for May. It's not about how many Facebook ads you buy - that's just astroturf - but about an actual campaign run by committed campaigners. One irony is that the bussing of campaigners around in the 2015 election that caused so much hoo-hah, is much closer to the sort of campaigning we need.

In the end though, I'm struck by two things. Firstly that typically conservative folk aren't all that interested in politics - which is why Leave and Trump looked to a very different demographic for their shock troops. And secondly that, despite the apparant triumph of these populist campaigns, just as many voters are not taken in by the 'hope' and 'change' message when it doesn't come with a coherent policy message.

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Hey pleb, are you voting the right way?

There has been a whole pile of stuff written about how the poor deluded and misinformed - even ignorant - voters make the wrong choices. Much of this relates to the rather splendid decision of the British electorate to ignore the views of the great and good in voting to leave the European Union.

I was quite taken by Brendan O'Neill talking about the NME in a Spectator blog:

The rebels have become the squares, the youths have become the authoritarians, and the spirit of rock’n’roll no longer lives in the middle-class music scene or leftish activist circles, but in the hearts and minds of the little people.

The very location of this blog - given its subject - shows a world upside down. A former Marxist writing in the establishment's political journal about how the New Musical Express, the edgiest of music magazines from my youth, has sold out on the spirit of punk. But it's worse than this - we're in a world where the errors of voters need correcting, where the choices of plebs need nudging, directing, managing in order that they concur with the opinions of a self-appointed clique of educated, metropolitan sophisticates.

Here's O'Neill again:

What we have here is ordinary people, including vast swathes of the working class, saying ‘No’ to the status quo, sticking two fingers up at an aloof elite, channelling Rotten and Vicious to say screw you (or something rather tastier) to that illiberal, risk-averse layer of bureaucracy in Brussels.

Today I went to a meeting of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority where we received and discussed a report on the implications of Brexit. The report wasn't very good (it described 'long term' in its response to Brexit plan as January 2017-January 2018 - seriously) but it wasn't this that made my eyes widen. Rather it was the idea that, had we only communicated better - EU flags on pens were mentioned - then it would have all been different. Talk was of how we could, in the future, 'communicate' the poor, ignorant voters into voting the right way.

Bear in mind that these were, in all but one case, senior Labour councillors talking - the tribunes of the people spoke and told us that the people, bless 'em, didn't know what they were doing. The poor dears simply weren't aware of all the wonders that the EU had brought them (as they struggled to pay for the mortgage, find a reliable job, get the children off to a decent start, build up a nest egg for retirement).

It seems that everywhere people like this think democracy is rubbish. At least when people make decisions you don't like. I remember one of those same Labour leaders sternly suggesting that a balanced representation on votes cast meant 'they'd have representation, you know" - she meant UKIP but, like Voldemort, couldn't quite name the evil thing.

And this snobbish, 'voters should be shown how to vote properly' view isn't limited to the UK. Here's Tyler Cowan from Marginal Revolution:

It might have been a better situation when the elites, acting with some joint collective force, directed more of their energies to shaming the less elite voters than to shaming each other.

You've got this haven't you, darlings? This undoubtedly elite commenter writing on a blog with tens of thousands of readers thinks we should try to make ordinary working class voters ashamed of not voting the same way as their betters. It's little better than the squire visiting his workers to make sure they understood why they should vote for his son as the MP.

Instead of bribing, shaming or nudging perhaps the answer lies in actually sitting down and listening to these voters. Finding out what bothers them, understanding why they think government is run for the elites and that it is too far away, too complicated and too secretive for them to stand a chance of liking what is does - or, more importantly, what it represents.

If you start with the premise that the plebs have voted the wrong way, then you've already lost the argument. It you think attacking them, embarrassing them or shaming them is the way forward, you've lost that argument. And if you think the answer is for the great and good to decide everything then you're no democrat but a nannying authoritarian.

Two-thirds of Wakefield's voters chose to leave the EU. They didn't do this because they're 'left behind', 'excluded', 'ignorant', 'racist' or any of those other interpretations of "plebs, you voted the wrong way". They voted to leave because the EU was - and still is - an elite project run by and for the elite. A means - somewhat like too much international aid - of channelling cash from the productive in successful places to an unproductive elite in less successful places. A system where posh students get subsidised gap years paid for with the taxes of low paid workers and where grand European-funded offices filled with patronising middle-class development workers fail to make any difference to the communities they're supposed to be helping.

No-one voted the wrong way and the great and good need to get this into their thick skulls. People had a choice - a contested choice - and opted, in sufficient numbers to win, for the one that said Leave. To understand this you don't need to insult those voters or pretend that poor communication was the problem. What you need to do is realise that the EU is the biggest of all the elite projects - patronising, self-serving, suited, shiny-officed, out of touch, nannying, hectoring, bossy.

The problem is that all those people who benefited from the EU - and their friends, fellow travellers and useful idiots - think the answer to the problem is more bossiness, more nudging, more lectures and a mission to make anyone voting ashamed of voting their conscience, their feelings and their thoughts. It seems the elite still think the plebs are voting the wrong way and that this should be stopped.

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It shouldn't need saying but....

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Here are some words from my colleague, Zaf Ali in a message going out to people in his Keighley Central ward about the forthcoming referendum:

Having said that (Zaf is supporting Leave), I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not force, intimidate, harass and pressurise, bully, advocate and pester any one as to how they cast their vote. It's entirely up to each individual to look at both sides' arguments and debate through media, TV and newspaper - then decide yourself.

Can I echo those words. Too often we've seen unacceptable pressure - verging on intimidation - on voters to support one or other candidate in an election. I don't need to repeat the allegations made every year here in Bradford for people to understand that there's a better way of politics. It's fine to vote for someone because he's your friend, your brother. But it's not OK to put undue pressures on women or the young - indeed on anyone - to vote for that friend or that friend's side in an election.

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Officials are officious - which is one reason why we have politicians

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I know, I know. We're a shower. Useless. Self-seeking. Incompetent. But you really do need us. Really, you do. And here to illustrate is an example of what happens when politicians don't have a say:

"I fully understand that nowadays people are interested in what goes on at the count and those who attend would like to share their experiences on social media.

"However, I have a duty to uphold the national legislation, which is in place to ensure the confidentiality of the count process.

"This is why I am not allowing the use of electronic devices on the count floor.

"I do not want those responsible for counting to be distracted or intimidated by photography or filming. We all have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the count.

"Electronic devices may be used in other areas at count venues, but at the discretion of local returning officers."

So let's unpick this. The Returning Officer has decided that she will ban us having 'electronic devices' in order to uphold the 'national legislation'. Now I can't imagine that it has changed much from the guidance at the 2015 General Election. Which says:

You should also decide on a policy for the use of mobile phones in the verification and count venue.

That's it. The guidance also says that the count is not 'confidential' as it should be conducted in full view of those 'entitled to ' watch the count. The Returning Officer and her officials already have the ability - again the guidance is pretty clear - to remove anyone from the counting floor who is interfering with the counting process or distracting those conducting the count.

The decision taken here is, frankly, overkill. Officials have all the powers needed to deal with any interference with the count and this decision is merely for the convenience of the Returning Officer. It is officials being officious.

And this is always the case. Public officials will always prefer blanket bans, restrictions and controls to accommodation and flexibility. In my experience much of this officiousness gets blocked by politicians applying common sense.

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The switch to individual registration is a success

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Not that you'd think this listening to Gloria De Piero, Labour's "shadow minister for making sure the register is loaded with ghost voters" (or whatever her title is):

The shadow minister for electoral registration, Gloria De Piero, said the figures show 1.8% of voters have left the register since the move to IER. Ms De Piero said the drop-off had been particularly high in areas with a large proportion of students.

A while ago the whole exercise was opposed by Labour with cries of gerrymandering and accusations of some kind of evil Tory fix. It was, of course, nothing of the sort as these latest scandalous figures tell us. If the register has declined by less than 2% this is an indication that the result of the new system is a cleaner, more accurate and up-to-date system - a triumph really.

Moreover, most of the loss is accounted for by students not being registered in the place where they are students. This is (as a moment's thought might suggest) not necessarily an indication that they aren't registered but rather that they are registered at their home address - where mum and dad live:

"Among those students who were on the electoral roll turnout was relatively high. Yet it appears that many of them opted to vote at home rather than at their place of study..."

So the real figure - one we can't know without an expensive merge-purge of the whole UK register - for decline is likely to be significantly lower than 800,000. What seems to happen is that students who are registered in South Hams (to pick a place at random) then don't bother registering in Leeds North West.

From a scandal where 'millions' were going to lose the chance of voting because of the evil Tories we have reached a point where the transfer to a system of individual registration has resulted in almost no net reduction in the numbers registered. And remember that every person with an address who is receiving benefits of any sort (housing, child, JSA, in work) is automatically registered because that evil Tory government allowed, for the first time, DWP data to be shared with Councils for the purpose of registering people to vote.

What has happened is that local councils have been forced to spend time, effort and money getting the register accurate. Hundreds of thousands of ghost names - some fraudulent but mostly just the result of sloppy electoral registration - have gone but are replaced by the accurate collection of names of individuals who actually live at a given address. Students are almost the only group (single people in low paid work and rented housing but not receiving benefits being the other) that slip through the system.

The switch to individual registration has been a success.

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The case for democracy under devolution is simple...

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I wrote this under the ancien regime - it still applies:

So, dear readers, you need to stop with the 'we don't need more politicians' nonsense and understand that unless you elect people directly to make decisions on your behalf, you make it harder to hold the decision-makers to account. And you need to tell your councillor and your MP that devolution is all fine and dandy, an absolutely spiffing idea, but only if the spending of that public money is subject to your accountability through the tried and tested method of having the chance to vote the bastards out if you don't like them.

You've a choice between devolution managed by bureaucrasts and government appointees or devolution under the control of people you elect. Having a mayor and assembly works for London - I've no doubt it will work for Yorkshire too.

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Victory (and a comment on the election result elsewhere)!

So there we are - safely returned as the Conservative councillor for Bingley Rural. With over 5,000 votes which is pretty humbling. Kathryn and I had eaten in The George (Cullingworth's excellent pub) and left for the start of our marathon counting process with well-wishes and assurances of confidence in my success ringing in our ears. Some 32 hours later (that's right thirty-two hours) the result above emerged. Lots of people's hard work rewarded.

Elsewhere in Bradford we'd already seen Labour's 'grip on the City' strengthened (as the local paper put it) with its candidates winning in Bradford West and Bradford East. And in doing so ridding the city of two divisive and bigoted MPs - George Galloway and David Ward. The defeat of Galloway was a national spectacle - as the first rumours came from the vote tallies at the count, Twitter began to celebrate the ousting of Britain's most divisive politician and holder of records for blocking people on social media.

So when, while awaiting the final couple of results from Keighley, George Grant who'd flown the Tory flag in the contest with Galloway invited us to a drink at Bradford Brewery it was impossible to refuse. After all this new Bradford institution had been the scene - virtually - of one great battle in the campaign to run George Galloway out of Bradford. A battle that, when the history is written (if anyone bothers), brought hundreds of new people to the fight.

We dashed through the torrential rain to join George Grant and arrived to witness (one loutish drunk aside) a scene of unusual Bradford unity as left and right wing folk of all races and creed cheered the defeat of a man who had tried to bring sectarian politics to Bradford. It was a good night.

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Why you should vote (and why libertarian non-voters are wrong)

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Before the last general election I wrote a piece about why you should vote and concluded:

So why vote? The answer is simple and it’s the answer your granny used to give. You vote because it’s the right thing to do and because, however insignificant it might be, voting is often the only chance you’ve got of getting something changed. People really did chuck themselves under horses, people really did get killed, people really did strike, march and protest so as to get that right to pick up a stubby pencil and mark a cross in a box once in a while. Don’t get me wrong, if you choose not to bother it doesn’t make you a bad person – you’re not really letting down your suffragette great grandma or the great uncle killed on D-day.

So go and vote it’s your chance to do something. And do it loudly, proudly and knowing that it’s the most significantly insignificant act you can undertake.

I realise that this is probably insufficient as a proper philosophical analysis of voting. But I find the libertarian argument for not voting to be founded on a profound misunderstanding of voting's purpose. Here's Sam Bowman from the Adam Smith Institute (quoted by Chris Snowdon from the Institute of Economic Affairs):

‘If your aim is to affect policy, voting is irrational. If you want to act ethically, voting is irrelevant. Mathematically, the chances of a single vote actually determining the outcome of an election in a meaningful way (that will affect policy outcomes) is infinitesimally small.’

And I guess that, if the purpose of voting was to influence policy, Sam might have a point. But, as we all should know, voting's purpose is the election of a person not a policy. In a representative democracy we use voting to choose someone to go off to parliament because all sixty odd million of us can't fit into the building. Technology will probably make this obsolete (for a description of the problems this might entail go and read Norman Spinrad's 'The World Between') but right now that's not an option. Now if Sam's not bothered who represents him then there's no point in voting - he can make the rational decision not to fuss himself with the minor inconvenience of toddling along to the polling station. But if Sam is bothered then casting his insignificant vote is the only way in which he can influence that choice.

To return to influencing policy, there is a modicum of smugness about the director of an influential think tank talking about how voting doesn't affect policy. After all that director has the means and the capacity to influence policy by virtue of being in charge of a think tank. And the same would go for the chief executive of some large organisation able to invest its PR pounds in lobbying. But spare a thought for Mr Crowther in Cullingworth who doesn't have a think tank and doesn't have the funds to lobby government officials about policy. Voting is one of the very few ways in which that man can have a say on things that matter to him.

Finally there's Eamonn Butler's argument (also cited by Chris Snowdon) that writing a message to the candidates on a ballot paper is better than actually using said ballot for its intended purpose. This is an observation made my someone who has clearly never been anywhere near the counting of votes at an election. As a candidate my access to that ballot would be for a fleeting second while we review spoilt ballots - the returning officer will point out that the writing means the person could be identified and therefore the ballot is invalid before moving on to the ballor with a neat drawing of a penis carefully inscribed in the Tory candidate's box (which is incidently a valid vote for that candidate). Eamonn's message will not be read - he would have wasted his time.

Voting is an insignificant act but not one without purpose or point and collectively those insignificant acts can be significant (Sam and his friends not turning up may result in a government that bans right wing think tanks). There may be a case for alternatives - lotteries, policy panels, military dictatorship and so forth - but, in practical terms, we have to engage with the system we have in place. Because that's an election the result will be determined by those who turn up and vote not by those who don't.

So go and vote folks!

For those interested in creative approaches to marking the ballot here is the current Electoral Commission Guidance on doubtful ballots (pdf|)

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In Praise of Idiots Redux

Michael White, that most Guardianista of Guardianistas, has had a pop at the electorate:

But millions more, not just the poor and demoralised, will forget, shrug or even boast “I never vote” before turning back to something that seems more important: football, golf, Spotify, Britain’s Got Talent. They don’t bother to engage, let alone to make the connections between what happens to them and the difficult policy choices that bring it about, good or bad.

This, in the intense minority sport of being a Guardian reader is a terrible sin. Only topped by thinking The Sun is a rather better written newspaper and certainly a better read. The electorate shouldn't be going about their lives as normal (or as normal as us politicians allow them to live). No those electors should be "engaged".

I beg to differ. Indeed back in 2009 I wrote this piece in praise of idiots (the word deriving from those ancient Athenians who chose not to engage in politics):

Now the good left-wing liberals at the Guardian think this grumpiness, this disengagement, this disinterest is a problem. And that’s where I disagree – the core consideration is the extent to which we are able to live as Greek idiots. Quietly, privately, without bothering our neighbours with our problems – and when such people want change they will get up from their armchairs, walk away from the telly and vote. The idea that not being bothered with voting most of the time makes them bad people is a misplaced idea – they are the good folk.

Above all we should listen quietly to what this “apathy” calls for – it is less bothersome, less interfering, less hectoring and more effective government. Such people want government to be conducted at their level not to be the province of pompous politicians with overblown and lying rhetoric. And they want the language of common sense, freedom, liberty and choice to push away the elitist exclusivity of modern bureaucratic government.

Above all today’s idiots want to be left alone to live their lives as they choose. For me that’s the essence of politics – I praise these idiots and applaud their apathy. 

And yes, I do think people should vote. Yes I think people should take the trouble to understand what's being offered to them by politicians. But I also think this obsession with 'engagement' and 'participation' is misplaced - if people want to be engaged they will get out from those armchairs. A year or so before I wrote that piece, over 400 residents of Denholme had crammed themselves into the Blue Room of the Mechanics Institute. They did this because something was happening that mattered to them - Bradford Council working with developers was planning to dump the city's rubbish in a hole just outside the village. They didn't want this to happen (and it didn't).

The wealthier we get - collectively and individually - the less important politics becomes and the more important it is that politicians are humble enough to recognise this fact. When we consider something to be fundamental or existential then we are engaged - look at the turnouts in the Scottish referendum last year. But even though this current election is unusual and hard to call (as the pundits put it), the result will be a government. And that government will change some things and tinker with other things but for most people the worst outcome will be mild irritation. There'll still be a school down the road, a hospital in the city and policemen driving around. Buses and trains will still run. The supermarket will still be open.

There's an image in Asterix in Britain of an Ancient Briton stood on his (prized) lawn with a spear pointed at the Roman soldier. "My garden is smaller than your Rome but my pilum is harder than your sternum" says the Briton as the soldier orders him out of the way. Until that tipping point is reached, people - in the tradition of those Greek idiots - will look to family, friends, colleagues and neighbours long before they consider politicians and the antics we get up to.

Here's to those idiots. And Down with The Guardian.

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In praise of the (election) workers

The last few leaflets

At the start of this seemingly interminable election campaign I was delivering 'In Touch' leaflets in Denholme. In that peculiarly Yorkshire spring precipitation that can't decide whether it's rain, snow, sleet or hail. I'd listened earlier to assorted pundits, journalists and such like holding forth about the issues in the election and social media was cluttered with gangs of smiling campaigners waving placards.

And I thought that the image of the election campaign given us by the media is pretty unrealistic. A more accurate picture of election campaigning would show me in a wind-cheater, scarfed up and shivering a little as I plod up Hillcrest Road delivering my own personal little message. And thousands of others doing likewise everywhere across the country. Not just the ones in those Twitter pics waving banners but loads of others who are delivering a few leaflets because they support the cause, because the candidate is a friend, because someone asked and they thought 'why not'.

So when you're feeling a little cynical about politics and politicians think instead about the lady delivering my leaflets up Wilsden Hill, a beautiful, almost unique collection of old agricultural buildings, workers cottages and great views. Or about the old man who delivers them round your way. Politicians (well nearly all of them - I can name a few that don't) recognise the importance of these people, listen to them and understand that they do it for a whole host of reasons.

Yesterday, as the temperature dropped and the clouds gathered in preparation for today's rain, I was delivering my leaflet in Harden. At one house a couple were sat in their summerhouse drinking tea - taking a mid-afternoon break as they put it - and we had a brief conversation. Mostly about the fact (which they hadn't appreciated) that there are local council elections on the same day as the general election but also about my lack of 'minions'. I didn't go on to explain that what 'minions' I have are, in truth, volunteers and mostly elderly. These are the people who help me campaign every year and their number and capability diminishes with each passing year.

When I was first elected - 1995 by just fifteen votes - things were very different. Across the four villages of Bingley Rural we ran a full polling day campaign having canvassed more than half the ward. Every polling station (bar two with only 150 electors each) was manned from 8am through to 8pm, numbers were collected and crossed off. And we knocked up and pulled out - even down to one colleague baby-sitting while someone went to vote and another driving someone to vote as she'd had one or two too many to drink. I remind everyone that this is why I was elected on that day.

On 7th May the same applies - there will be MPs and councillors elected because of those men and women who plodded up damp drives, gashed their fingers on rusty gates, fought the evil that is the English letterbox and braved 'beware of the dog' signs. For sure, all the nice comfortable warm folk clicking on things in their living rooms will have helped too but the real slog done by the party workers come rain or shine is the reason why safe seats stay as safe seats, why marginals are held against the swing and why people we didn't think will get elected get elected.

There are too few of these people - we couldn't muster the numbers to run a full, old-fashioned polling day campaign these days - and the national party headquarters, filled with young folk who've never done one of those campaigns, are not interested in finding more. Yet those people who do that delivering, canvassing, writing addresses, sticking on stamps and bashing in poster stakes are the political party - without them it's just a badge or a brand sustained by large donations or, worse, through state funding.

So, before all the different political leaders, campaign managers and political strategists start taking credit (or blame) for the election result, let's celebrate those ordinary election workers who delivered, rang, stuffed and knocked. They are better and more important than all the David Axelrod and Lynton Crosby sorts that litter our political scene. Well done - whatever party it's for- and thank you.

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You aren't disenfranchised because you live in a safe seat.

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It's a common line - you hear it all the time (especially from successful left wing sorts who've gone to live in the leafy suburbs): "my vote doesn't count because I live in a safe seat".

This is, of course, complete clap-trap. Of course your vote counts (and is counted). The problem is that your neighbours choose to vote a different way. And there are more of them than there are of you. So the candidate or party they prefer gets elected.

Bradford has 30 local council wards. And just eight of those wards have only elected councillors from one party (four Conservative, two Labour and two Liberal Democrat) since they were last redrawn in 2004. Going back further there are even fewer wards that have only ever elected councillors from a single party (Ilkley, Wharfedale/Rombalds, Tong, Bingley Rural). And yet I'm sure that many living in inner city Bradford believe that the proverbial donkey with a red rosette will always win.

So instead of moaning (here's a classic from a Lib Dem):

Confession time. I’m a political activist and I’m not currently registered to vote. I have dropped off thanks to individual voter registration and I haven’t sought to redress it.

This is something which I find reprehensible, yet I am lacking the motivation to correct it.

I live in Esher and Walton which since 1906 has only ever returned a conservative MP. The lowest majority was in the 1930s, it was 16%. Dominic Raab got 58% of the vote in 2010, a majority of around 18,000.

The rest of the post is essentially a personal attack on the MP in question but the 'activist' is complaining that there's no point in registering to vote because not only do the Tories always win but the MP doesn't see it as his personal mission to address all her political concerns.

Now while it is pretty soul-destroying at times to feel that the enemy has vastly more local fire power, democracy still matters and our vote matters. I know this because when the BNP got a thousand votes in Bingley Rural - without a great deal of effort - I wanted to understand what it was that was exercising the minds of my electorate. I didn't change my principles but I did think about how I talked and listened to my neighbours.

There's a debate to be had about electoral reform (but not too often or loudly because the voters aren't really that interested) but no-one in the UK is disenfranchised because their neighbours choose to vote a different way. And the opportunity exists - as Bradford's politics shows us - for people to break through that safe seat logic and persuade those neighbours to vote a different way. Indeed the City has two MPs who proved that to be just the case - David Ward and George Galloway.

There may be such a thing as a safe seat but no such seat, given effort and circumstance, is invulnerable. And no-one is disenfranchised.

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