What can one say?

Thank you. By some unusual twist of electoral good fortune, this blog has somehow made it into the top 100 Conservative blogs in the Total Politics 2010 Blog Awards (actually its the top 50, but there's no image for that). No. 41...

Given that this blog has not been going long, and took a whole month of that time off after the General Election, it feels rather strange to be receiving this sort of accolade, and especially to be breaking into the top half of the ranking. Now I'll have to shoot for no. 1 next year.

Also, a shoutout to O'Neill over at Unionist Lite, who in spite of consistently telling me he's 'unaligned' is still listed as a top-20 Conservative blog, where be belongs. ;)

The Wall Street Journal on the Big Society

For those who don't read American websites very often, I thought I'd link to this short piece on the WSJ website. It's fascinating seeing the sort of solutions to British problems that can be proposed in an American publication - a real prism for seeing the political differences between the UK and the USA.

Anyway, the WSJ takes a wonderfully Liberal (although they'd not use that word) attitude to the Big Society, and I certainly appreciated the fresh perspective on it: I had not previously understoodthe scale of the potential clash between market liberalism and the big society, for a start. I hope this gets a few more people interested in reading foreign political output if they don't already - it can be truly fascinating stuff.

Woohoo!

Nothing new to add on my part, just officially registering my delight at the apparent defeat of the 'graduate contribution (tax)'. I wrote to parliament on the issue and published the letter on here back in July, so I'm happy to let all my legions of readers share in my sense of happy closure. ;)

Labour and Northern Ireland

Ian Parsley recently posted about the changing attitudes of the Labour Party to Northern Ireland. The focus of his piece was on how this demonstrated that it is time for Northern Irish politicians to move on, but it set me thinking about the potential for a transformed and actively unionist Labour relationship to Northern Ireland. Please note, to spare myself the effort of endless equivocation later in the post I will state here that there is of course the option that Labour will simply be ignored or rejected by the NI electorate and get nowhere. I'm not unaware of this when pondering their potential.

The most obvious plus is it would serve as an extension of the Conservative & Unionist attempt to normalise politics in the province by having mainland parties compete there. In the wake of its lack of success elements of the UUP are thoroughly disenfranchised with the project, but for those of us who remain 'integrationist' the aspiration to see the principle parties of the United Kingdom gradually break through in NI remains dear to our hearts, and I for one would be happy to see this come from the left as well as the right.

What would Labour's chances be like? I confess to not being entirely sure. The most obvious potential gain for an electorally active Labour Party in Northern Ireland would be the formal annexation of Lady Sylvia Hermon. Her voting record (back when she attended Parliament, of course) is apparently that of a loyal Labour MP in any case, and holding an MP could give NI Labour a real electoral and profile boost.

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Correction: Thankyou to Ian Parsley for pointing out that - whilst Labour sympathetic and voting for them in a confidence motion - Hermon does not have a pro-government voting record from the Labour years.

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Beyond that, I can only hazard guesses at how Labour might do. Their relationship with the SDLP will be quite important. Polls suggest that there is a significantly larger proportion of the Catholic electorate that support the union (roughly 25-33% depending on the poll) than actually vote for unionist parties (7%). Two possible factors that could explain this are the overwhelmingly right-of-centre positions of the official unionist parties, and the anti-Catholic (perceived or otherwise) baggage they all carry from earlier times. The Labour Party should suffer from neither of these problems, and could potentially expand the unionist electorate by attracting SDLP-voting Catholic unionists. This in turn could have an important effect in SDLP-contested marginals like South Belfast. On the other side of the coin, that very likelihood could serve to dissuade potential left-of-centre supporters voting Labour if it could lead to a right-of-centre Unionist candidate gaining a seat.

The other potential area of growth for Labour NI is working-class unionists. In the debates in unionist circles over an apparently shrinking electorate, there is a challenge to the 'Garden-Centre Prod' (middle class apathy) theory by those who believe that it is in fact working-class disillusion that is weakening the unionist electoral base. Left-of-centre unionist parties are pretty thin on the ground, with the unattractive Progressive Unionist Party being the only apparent option. Labour could also benefit from the legacy of the peace process, which was delivered during Tony Blair's reign.

But nice as these theoretical advances are, are they or even an actively unionist Labour Party likely? In terms of advances, it would really constitute a test of how far Northern Ireland had moved past sectarianism onto 'bread and butter' issues. On the mainland, the alliance of the working classes and the left-of-centre middle classes is the basis of Labour support, but for such a coalition to work in NI Labour would have to appeal both to working class unionist communities and SDLP-voting Catholics, which might be a tough balance to strike.

Beyond that, taking the Labour Party all the way from Reunification by Consent to outright unionism (by consent, of course) would be a major shift, which may be difficult to implement. Old-school Labour attitudes are still well represented in the party, and not just amongst the old. At my university, the Labour Students and 'Sinners' were practically coterminous. So whilst the likes of John Reid might describe themselves as 'unionist', I doubt it will become an easy label for the wider party to bear any time soon.

Nonetheless, Burnham and Miliband are demonstrating a new attitude to Northern Ireland by at least part of the Labour Party. This blog wishes them the best of luck.

Does the Australian Coalition offer a potential future for ours?

To any casual British onlooker following the Australian election recently, one of the strange things they might have noticed is that the battle was often described as Labour versus something called "The Coalition", with Liberal leader Tony Abbot often described as its leader. Given that Labour (or as the Australians inexplicably spell it, Labor - a misspelling solely reserved for the political party) were in government before the election, it surely seemed strange to mention a coalition? Wasn't the Australian system very similar to the UK, except with the Conservatives called the Liberals?

The fact is that in Australia, an electoral system that allows for ranked preferences means that the two pre-eminent centre-right political parties (the United Australia Party and the Country Party originally, and their successors the Liberal Party of Australia and the Nationals) have been in near-permanent political alliance since the Second World War. In short, the Nationals tend to stand in rural seats where the ALP are less attractive, and the ALP stand in the urban and suburban seats that largely have never heard of the Nationals. The ability to rank preferences means that the parties are free to stand candidates against each other - and remarkably, campaigning against each other has rarely done serious damage to the Coalition.

With the present speculation that the Conservatives might offer certain Liberal Democrats a non-compete, or the government contesting the election on some sort of joint coalition ticket, the Australian model looks intriguing. If the AV referendum produces a positive result (which for the moment this blog hopes it does not), could our coalition adopt a similar approach to the Liberal/National alliance? It certainly has its attractions - the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats would be free to promote an exchange of second preferences and defend the governments record whilst also being able to compete with - and campaign against - each other. A coalition electoral arrangement without the divisive need for a carve-up of the constituencies.

This arrangement holds extra attractions for those unionists who like me are integrationist but also sadly realistic. This is because an extra facet of the Coalition in Australia offers a potential solution to the 'party of the whole nation' crisis of the Conservatives. For the Coalition is not formed of two parties but - technically speaking - of five. In addition to the Liberals and the National Party of Australia there are the merged parties (the Liberal National Party of Queensland and the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory) and the National Party of Western Australia - a party that shares a brand with the national National Party but maintains a separate structure and identity in accordance with the particularist tendencies of that state (Western Australia actually voted Yes in a widely-ignored secession referendum in the 1930's.

This arrangement demonstrates that a unionist centre-right Coalition in the UK could more comfortably include having separate parties in Northern Ireland and even Scotland than the current setup because they could more naturally remain part of an overall electoral alliance - whereas under FPTP such an alliance would be highly uncommon and thus much more of a defining feature and talking point. Such an arrangement could even allow more than one regional party to compete for it - allowing a liberal UUP to swap preferences with a pro-coalition Alliance, to draw an example whose realism is obviously not to be taken too seriously bu serves well as an illustration.

Could there be an opportunity for unionism - not to mention liberal conservatism and orange-liberalism - in an electoral system that allowed for and even encouraged the formation of such an alliance? In my view, it could allow for a more dynamic political centre-right than this country has seen in recent decades, as well as offering an opportunity for more internal debate, competition and dialogue without the inevitable accusations of splits and divisions that arise when such things occur within a first-past-the-post political party. But I'm no expert - there could be some key aspect of the Australian system I'm missing, or any number of grievous errors this humble politcal dilettante has overlooked. Still, it is certainly food for thought.

The Scottish Conservative Party should not be made 'independent'.

Any vaguely unionist Conservative will be familiar with the plight of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party. Since a heydey in the middle of the last century as a strange coalition of Scottish political parties led by the Unionists, it merged with the southern party in the sixties and has declined since, with a total collapse at the end of the last Conservative administration* leading it to its presently parlous state of being Scotland's fourth party.

This sorry tale has clearly done serious damage to the psychology of Scottish Conservatives. Some, such as the blog New Right (whose Europhilia I share) are advocates of fiscal autonomy for Scotland. Other times, a story of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party calling for an expensive memorial centre to be built on the site of some rebel victory will filter through. There are signs that the Conservatives north of the border are trying to ape some SNP stances, or at least appeal to their electorate. And then, in the wake of an election where Scotland again swung towards an unpopular incumbent, the likes of Norman Tebbit again bring up the idea of making the Scottish party independent.** As a Conservative but especially as a Unionist, I think this would be a very bad idea.

Firstly, there's the fact that those who simply wish to 'undo' the merger tend to have misunderstood the state of the Scottish political right before it. I read somewhere that the 'Scottish Progressive & Unionist Party' should be refounded - no such party ever existed. The right in Scotland during the mid-century heydey was a coalition of the soft-protestant Unionist Party and a motley assortment of people who used labels such as National Liberal, Liberal Unionist and yes, Progressive. This state of affairs was the product of decades of political evolution north of the border to say the least - it cannot simply be reconstructed by severing links with the Scottish party.

Assuming then that the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party became independent as a single party, how would it then relate to the Conservative Party? The Conservative Party would even more than now be viewed as a 'strictly English' political party, and when making cuts would be deeply unpopular in Scotland. The new party - who after all have been created solely to boost their electoral fortunes - would have precious little reason to be loyal to the London Conservative government.

Indeed, much might be gained by beginning to score political points off it. Assuming for a moment that the party's stance on unionism did not continue to soften into non-existence, it is not hard to envisage this Scottish party evolving along the lines of the 'Little Ulster' unionists in Northern Ireland. A centre-right 'Little Scot' party that 'defends Scotland' from London as strongly as it fights the SNP might well be more popular than the current Scottish Conservatives, but is it really one the Conservative Party should be in the business of creating? Given the noises that intermittently come out of the Scottish Party, it is perhaps expecting a miracle for an independent party to remain (if that is even the right word, perhaps 'become') a vociferous champion of integrated unionism north of the border. And in my view, the Scottish electorate deserve such an option.

And finally, what would an independent Scottish party mean for the Conservatives - especially under Cameron? In one of his most admirable strains of political consistency, Cameron has shown himself to be the most enthusiastic unionist to take the helm of the Conservative Party in a long time. He has taken a big risk in attempting (and continuing to attempt in the face of setbacks) to establish the Conservative & Unionist Party as a pan-UK party, including rebuilding links with what was once the Conservative Party surrogate in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party. Is he seriously willing to countenance undoing all that at a stroke by confining the Conservatives to England, Wales and Northern Ireland? It seems ridiculous. Experience with the UUP is also telling - I for one would not consider creating a Scottish UUP-equivalent an attractive proposal for restoring the fortunes of post-1997 Scottish conservatism.

In a way, it again reinforces the consistent theme I have noticed that unionists are veritable Picassos of pessimism. After our defeat in 1997 even O'Neill is saying that the Conservatives "are never going to be again the second, never mind first, party in Scotland". Why not? In the 1950s, when the Liberals had 5 MPs, I don't suppose any of them thought they'd be in government again. Like the Scottish Conservatives, many of them remembered a bygone golden age. But they persevered, and continued to hold true (ish) to their beliefs. What is it about having 5 Liberal MPs in an age when 97% of the population vote Labour/Tory in an FPTP system that is so much more inspirational than being the fourth party (although not by much) in a more proportional electoral system? Nothing I can see, unless you accept the much-pushed 'Thatcher killed the Scottish Conservatives' mantra.

Unionists should buck up and learn to believe in themselves and their cause. And the Conservative & Unionist Party should remain the pan-union party it has so recently started to again become.

*This 'It Was Thatcher' interpretation has gained wide currency but seems to overlook the fact that in the 1992 election Scotland swung towards the Conservative Party, and the Tories became the second-largest party north of the border.

**I would normally at this point furnish links, but typing 'Norman Tebbit Scottish Conservatives' into Google provides a cornucopia of material.

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Can I join the UUP?

Just a quick question to any passing reader who knows for sure - given that the UUP and the Conservative Party now have an electoral alliance am I allowed to be a member of both?