Originally published @ 7:03 am, Sat 14th May 2011
First, a sweet little story concerning a Lib Dem husband and wife team who given one of them got elected last week on a terrible day for their party, must have set out hoping both would get elected. The Nottingham Post reports however that whilst the husband got more votes, the tallies were transposed from one sheet where Robert was listed below Hazel to one where Hazel was listed below Bob. The Post rather overstates the couple saying they've not let this incident come between them, but it's possibly about as positive a story as the Lib Dems are going to get out of the local election results.
Indeed, a kind of concensus has been developed that since the Conservatives had a net gain of seats, they did well, whilst Labour - who gained most seats - had a mixed night because of Scotland.
All seemingly ignoring that the divides being created within England were emphatically reinforced by results that show Labour doing better in urban areas and the north. It's plain that all have been able to use the allocations of grant to councils to their electoral advantage - Labour in such areas able to motivate people by the unfairness to their authorities and public, whilst Conservatives elsewhere have being able to show how relatively well, they've done by having a Conservative authority. Such a divide ought to trouble commentators, but for now Andrew Neill and the like are stuck on football-style out of 10 ratings for the party leaders.
In Nottingham, there are no Lib Dems left on the City Council. The swings against them to Labour were massive, typically over 20%, and I am pleased to say that this year, I played my part, spending a lot of time in 3 of the wards working against 5 of their councillors, including the one where the leader of the Group was defeated.
In Nottingham, the Lib Dems have in the end been typical of the franchise that the Lib Dem party really represent. Winning wards through melocdramatic newsletters ("we had a blocked gully-pot cleaned"), oblivious to their party's national views, or more pertinently, unable to translate them to distinctive programme of policies and prioirties. And in tight scrapes, resorting to process and legal-styles approaches rather than values and argument. Time and again in the council chamber, they were warned that the orange-hue of their national leadership would cause problems on the health service and tuition fees. But when the coalition did for their prospects, the Leader complained not of values and policies, but called for Nick Clegg to go cos he was getting his role in the coalition wrong.
Meanwhile, a chance to see what property-based labour-movement-free local politics of the victorian age might have been like is available at the Nottingham Playhouse where they are presenting Ibsen's "The League of Youth".
The liberals are represnted by a young man, confident in his abilities, moving to a new town to seeek a new oportunity and galvinsing the public through speeches. the conservatives, by the iron factory owner with signfiicant property and a daughter available for marriage. The liberal seems to know that he needs to marry inot wealth to progress and the play in the end becomes about his fickleness in his matrimonial intentions as he chances wealth for power, for which he is ultimately humiliated.
As a play, it's fine and very good value (the £3 programme has the whole script within it). Actors appearing from the audience and from the public entrances is particularly entertaining.
The Nottingham Post reports the adaptor as saying "The larger issues – political opportunism, hypocrisy, the choices people make when they turn from popular to elected leader – might also sound familiar to anyone with a passing interest in modern British politics."
Yep, back to the old chestnut that politics as a discipline and vocation is more dishonest than most (I'd cite journalists and barristers). The play does make the point that part of any perceived problem is that the voters might be easily led by charisma (yep, Ncik Clegg selling authenticity through the camera lens).
But a significant passage sees the Conservative land-owner spelling out how only people such as him can know how to handle power and wealth, and the Conservative cause does win.
But it's a worthwhile play, giving a glance of what property-based, labour movement free politics was like, which should make us all the more grateful to the Chartists and trade unionists for changing the society we live in.
The League of Youth
TO BE PROOFED
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