What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Winners and the Losers

08/05/2015
Well, the first thing to say to loyal readers who have been with me for a while is that there were no great surprises from last night’s election results, were there?

After all, my New Year predictions relating to the election were not that far wide of the mark. In relation to the election, I said:
- Those who voted YES in the Scottish Referendum will continue to behave as though they won. This may be unhelpful.
- Those who voted NO in the Scottish Referendum will continue to behave as thought he referendum never happened. This may be unhelpful.
- There will, I fear, be a Tory Prime Minister at the end of 2015.
- The Liberal Democrats will retain 10 – 14 seats in the House of Commons.
- Nick Clegg will lose his seat and be Lord Clegg by the end of the year.
- The Labour Party will not be led by a Milliband by the end of the year.
I was a couple of seats out in my prediction of the Lib Dem collapse. However, just about every poll in the five months since I made those predictions has had the Lib Dems winning 30 or 40 seats so I’m claiming that as being as close to a success as makes no odds today.

I was wrong about Nick Clegg losing his seat but the truth is, he’s lost everything else.

I take no particular pleasure in getting these predictions right. As someone who has been a candidate for the Lib Dem party in the past I can’t help but be moved by the losses that they suffered. However, as someone who is no longer a party member I’m also one of those who think that the party has not been acting out of its core values for some time. No-one I know who remains in the party took seriously my prediction at New Year. That failure to listen to those looking for a party capable of articulating and acting on core liberal values rather than simply exercising power at any cost is part of what resulted in electoral disaster last night. I knew this was coming.

But today isn’t really about who got their predictions right.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the winners and the losers of election night.

Winner: John Curtice
Having just said that it isn’t all about who got their predictions right, it is important to focus on someone who did get it right. John’s a strong winner of last night for helping to devise the exit poll that predicted, to many people’s astonishment an election result that few (other than you and me) saw coming. It was a bad night for the polling companies in general whose predictions of the last few months look next to useless. I wonder when we will stop listening to them? Millions of pounds have been spent on generally fairly useless exercises.

Loser: First Past the Post
How long can First Past the Post survive? Surely now there must be some movement in the Labour Party in relation to electoral reform. They’ve been resonsible for much progressive change in the past and need new progressive policies like someone in the desert needs a cool glass of water. Step forward electoral reform.

Oh, I know it would have meant more UKIP MPs. Even though I’m pleased we don’t face a Conservative-UKIP coalition for the next five years (this is my one crumb of comfort today) the basic unfairness of people voting in large numbers for political parties and then find themselves unrepresented is true whether or not one likes the flavour of the unrepresented.

The SNP are on record as saying that they believe in electoral reform. It is to be hoped that they remain so even though they are the recipients of First Past the Post’s largesse.

Winner: Democracy
Whether one likes the results today or one doesn’t like the results, there’s a bigger picture. There’s always a bigger picture. We get to cast votes. If you don’t like the result, take comfort in the truth that we have elections so that things can be changed. Some people don’t.

I’m puzzled that the far reaches of nationalist opinion are not suggesting that MI5 stuffed the ballot boxes with SNP papers to get the Tories back in. (For those reading from furth of Scotland, there’s a persistent insane belief that MI5 operatives rigged the independence referendum).

There were one or two incidents last night of electoral fraud being suspected. These related to a handful, a tiny handful of ballot papers. In other parts of the world it relates to whole countries.

Loser: The Liberal Tradition
Oh, I know it will bounce back. However it will take years and there will be a lot of dog poo politics needed to regain the trust of the electorate. It isn’t that dog poo politics isn’t important – it is. It is just that it doesn’t really fulfil the ambitions of those with progressive hopes and dreams.

Winners: The SNP and the Conservative Party
Both these parties are to be congratulated on their substantial gains. Each MP elected has to represent all their constituents regardless of the way they voted. All people of goodwill need to hope that those elected will hold that trust well. People of faith pray for parliamentarians whichever party they represent. All of that goes on.

I’m full of bitter admiration for David Cameron’s success. You only had to be in London for five minutes last week (I was there for a few hours on my way back from holidays) to realise the genius of his campaign. Making the SNP the focus of everything boosted the Tory vote in England whilst decimating Labour chances in Scotland. It was brilliant, cynical and devastating. Effectively, Cameron invented a new SNP-Tory electoral alliance that the SNP never signed up for and would be horrified to be identified with. It remains to be seen how this will affect what happens in Scotland in the future. One cannot but expect the SNP to do well next year in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. However a reminder that only a few months ago they were mourning a bitter campaign (if not party) defeat, is a reminder that in politics things change. They always change.

Loser: Human Rights
One of the great fears of this result for me is what happens now to the Human Rights legislation that has been so important in establishing a modern Britain fit to live in. The Tory party are free to rewrite our freedoms. And that’s bad news for the weakest, the poorest and most vulnerable.

Winner: Kelvin’s New Year Election Predictions
Did I mention I got pretty close? Did I? Did I?

You’ll listen to what I say next time, right?

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply