Month: June 2024

A change of view: Trump will almost certainly win if Biden doesn’t step down

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

A comfortable majority of Americans do not want Donald Trump as their next president. It is very clear on any trip to the US.  The problem is a similar majority don’t want Joe Biden either. The only candidate each one could beat is each other, which is why they both need a Biden versus Trump fight.

Biden failed last night…

Last night’s presidential debate just made it harder for Biden to win. All the fears that he is in cognitive decline and simply too old for a second term came to the fore. This was Biden’s chance to put such concerns to rest. Indeed, the debate so early in the campaign was his idea. He flunked it.

Biden is a decent man and has actually been a reasonable president. Democrats have consistently performed better in elections than opinion polls. Since Trump was convicted in the hush money trial, Biden had been drawing level in polls. Trump has become wilder and more dangerous in his views and has his own cognitive decline problems at 78.

After last night, none of this is now enough. Biden must step down, or Trump will almost certainly win.

The problem for Democrats is that Biden might not agree with this analysis and, if he does and reluctantly steps down, they are left with the deeply unpopular Vice-President Kamala Harris. Trump may win on this scenario, too.

If Trump is a mess of the Republicans’ own making, Biden is now a mess of the Democrats’ own making.

At stake is the future of American democracy, the integrity of its legal system, a triumphant Putin, the NATO alliance to name but a few issues…

Democrats better come up with a solution to the Biden/Harris conundrum fast. Otherwise, America and the wider world will enter a very dark phase indeed.

The Labour Party should be a touch worried…

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

This seems a strange thing to say. Labour has run a relatively smooth election campaign so far. Starmer is looking confident, and the shadow front bench is campaigning competently. The tax issue has not blown up in their faces and the gap with the Tories remains at c20%.

And yet…, and yet… Labour’s share of the vote has been very slowly falling. Poll trackers have the party down from 45% to 41% and some more recent polls are recording figures below 40%. Labour has lost a little ground to Reform and the LibDems but remains so far ahead due to the Tories’ almost complete implosion.

Things look rosy for Labour now but could get very tricky very quickly after July 4th…

On the subject of the Tories, each week is the worst one since, well, the previous one and their ability to shoot themselves in the foot will become the stuff of legends. Today, having clung to the untenable position of not suspending candidates caught up in the election date betting scandal, the Tory Party under huge pressure has now withdrawn support from them. The worst of all worlds. A week of excruciating pain with their opponents honing arguments around Tory sleaze and a sense of entitlement, only for the Tories to throw in the towel at the last minute and abandon these sorry figures. Their campaign is the gift that keeps giving…

But back to Labour. The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) is excoriating about the ‘conspiracy of silence’ around both major parties’ spending plans. Significant cuts have been built into public service provision outside core areas such as the NHS and Education over the next few years and, for Labour, having ruled out NI, income tax and VAT increases, none of its other identified tax measures will close the gap sufficiently. The party is avoiding a discussion on capital gains tax increases for example and other initiatives to fund services by clinging to the mantra that ‘growth’ will float future ministers off the rocks. Quite a few more voters might think this is dishonest come next Thursday.

Labour will win next week in terms of seats and win handsomely but what about its mandate if its share of vote continues to fall? If it is forced to raise a host of taxes not outlined in its manifesto there will be uproar or at least a huge amount of cynicism. And that is before the new government explores other areas where there is that conspiracy of silence such as social care and closer alignment with the EU.

Why does this matter? It matters because life in government for Labour could get very tricky very quickly and if the new administration is perceived not to have a sufficient mandate to be radical, solutions open to it to solve the already formidable visible challenges (let alone the hidden ones) will be somewhat restricted. Disillusionment amongst voters towards the political class will be rife.

On the other hand, a massive majority in terms of seats courtesy of a crushed Tory Party might mean Labour, at least for now, really doesn’t care.

The Tories only become interesting after July 4th…

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

That is if they survive, of course… Incredibly, the election continues to get worse for the Tories. The latest opinion polls, on average, have them winning just a hundred or so seats maximum with Labour’s majority being 250 plus. Reform UK may scrape a few seats, but only the LibDems seem to be the ones having some FUN. I won’t hear it against Ed Davey. His stunts are getting him publicity, and his role caring for his son has really resonated. They may surprise on the upside, adding to the Tories’ woes in the South/Southwest.

If they don’t self-destruct, the Tories become interesting again… on a 10 year view…

This blog feels the Tories will do a little better on the night as former Tory voters peer into the abyss and pull back from Reform. They will at least remain the second largest party, but it is pretty clear Labour is on course for a huge majority. The interest on election night will be less about the outcome and more about the scale of the Tories’ defeat and results in individual seats.

The Tories will be out of power for a generation and deservedly so. Attention will initially be on the new government and some actual policies, but Labour will have an opaque mandate, and over time the focus will switch to a decent Opposition holding the government to account.

So, back to the Tories. Despite relative moderates being well represented in parliament on most election outcomes, courtesy of its inglorious members, the Tory Party will almost certainly move to the Right. Moderate MPs, who are usually hopeless in leadership elections, will not be organised enough to block this and will get tripped up by the membership if they were. But therein lies electoral oblivion. A move back to centre ground beckons second time around on a long-term view. The question is who can be bothered to wait?

In the meantime, there is Farage/Reform. They will not merge with the Tories, and if they did, the Party would irrevocably split. Incidentally, if Boris Johnson tries his hand at leadership again, it would be the same result. No more Tory Party. Whilst new centre ground parties have a terrible record of succeeding, the total defenestration of the Tories would present unique territory for them to thrive.

So, on the basis that the electorate will want a competitive political landscape, attention will eventually turn back to the Tories or, if they self-annihilate, their successors. Whatever path is taken, the Opposition will probably have a good 10 years to even draw level.

Things can only get better…

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

I have an idea to rejuvenate the Tories’ election campaign. They should adopt Tony Blair’s 1997 campaign tune, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ by D:Ream on the basis things can’t get any worse…

The Tory campaign has been a disaster and it showed in Sunak’s body language in the Sky News interview last night. He looked utterly dejected and gave the impression he couldn’t wait for the whole awful experience to be over. California beckons whatever Sunak says.

Unfortunately for Sunak and the Tory Party, Sunak is no politician…

What has gone so badly wrong? Well, the obvious reasons are launching the surprise campaign in the rain on an unprepared Party, flinging untested policies into the arena such as National Service and then the D-Day debacle. Sunak’s colleagues are not with him, and he paints a lonely campaigning figure. He may be the most decent Tory leader of recent times (not much competition there), but he is a hopeless politician. Why an earth didn’t he wait? By November there would have been at least one interest rate cut and Rwanda flights which never resonated with the electorate anyway (only Sunak knows why he tied his future to this ridiculous policy) may or may not have taken off. It wouldn’t have really mattered. Sound stewardship of the economy, proving he was on top of its recovery would have been his best bet. Unless, of course, he thinks economic news will only get worse over the summer, a point not lost on the electorate.

And then there is Reform UK and the dog whistler, Farage. The Brexit referendum in the first place, the populism of Johnson, the disastrous tax cutting Truss, Rwanda and countless other nods to the Right including the initial appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary were all meant to assuage these folks and see them off. As one surveys the wreckage of the Tory Party, you wonder how the Foreign Secretary feels… Sunak, coming at the fag-end of a long Tory administration, was always going to have a tough time but he should have tacked firmly to the centre on day 1 and faced down his right-wing critics. The more you give, the more they take… We are now in the position where Reform are snapping at the heels of the Tories and Farage has a reasonable chance of becoming an MP before ‘taking over’ a defenestrated Tory Party.

Incidentally, the fight for the soul of a shrunken Tory Party after the election, ex-Sunak, should be one Tory moderates relish. There are many blogs on this to come…

Then bizarrely today, we have a Sunak aide being investigated by the Gambling Commission for pre-election betting on the date of the General Election. A case of insider dealing it seems… but why only place £100 at 5:1? A win of £500 does not seem sufficient compensation for a ruined career… Tory advisers can’t even get this right.

In the meantime, Starmer and the Labour Party generally look confident. They have barely put a foot wrong, and their safety-first approach gives the appearance of a government in waiting. It appears a largely effortless march to power. Of course, there are dangers in this but not too many.

Week 3 to Labour then. In fact Week 3 to almost everyone except the hapless Tories.

America stares into the abyss

~ Julian Samways ~ 1 Comment

The only place that makes you pathetically grateful for the level of political debate in the UK is America.

It’s an extraordinary comment you might think, but viewing things from the perspective of a business trip to New York, politics is dire over here. Two presidential candidates almost nobody wants; one a convicted felon, the other feebly tottering through public life, resting heavily on cue cards.

Two candidates few voters want but Trump is the real danger to America’s future…

The real difference, however, is that Biden is a decent man who has actually had a successful presidency, with the exception of the lack of border controls that might do for him in the end. The economy is booming, partly powered by green investment initiatives, and much needed infrastructure rebuilding is finally happening. He is also managing the Middle East crisis and Ukraine as best he can.

But Biden gets no credit. The impact of inflation, not his fault, still lingers, and illegal immigration dominates public discourse even with Democrat voters I have spoken to. This is now being addressed through an executive order, but it should have been a priority from day one. Biden looks and sounds too old for a second term, and moderates are in despair at the gamble Democrats are taking with him that may let Trump triumph.

As for Trump. He is a grotesque. Nothing truthful comes out of his mouth. He is a narcissist who doesn’t care a jot for the institutions of state or, for that matter, democracy and the voters who vote for him.  He is setting community against community and voter against voter. Think an extreme version of Brexit. Yet he is marginally ahead of Biden in the polls and has just raised US$140m in donations on the back of his conviction.

You just despair for the future of this amazing country. Voters are taking for granted all they have, and it feels we are witnessing the start of the collapse of an empire. cAD400 all-over again…

Trump and Biden need each other as they only have a chance of winning against each other. But it comes at the expense of the extreme polarisation of public discourse and the fracturing of American society.

Democrats are campaigning weakly, Republicans have shamefully been taken over by the cult of Trump’s personality.

America is looking into the abyss and there is only one way, at least in the short-term, for the country to save itself from itself.

For all Biden’s faults, America must reject Trump in November.