Dave Boyle

Pollwatch – 10.20am

After 2 hours number taking, I can report a brisk trade in the Blackheath Westcombe ward. Turnout is about 10% after 3 hours – pretty good I’d say. My favourite moment was a 16 year old kid taking me to task as the Labour representative; I sadly wasn’t able to debate with him due to Electoral law, as I’d be canvassing within the precinct of the polling station but I really admired his passion.

My companion wasn’t a Tory or Lib-Dem, as they didn’t have anyone doing the job. A policewoman provided good company though – we discussed ASBOs, public drunkenness, reform of the Police, resources, the decline of civic society. I like this aspect of number-taking – you really do get to have conversation you wouldn’t otherwise have with people you wouldn’t normally meet.

One Labour voter told me that it would break his heart to vote Lib Dem, but couldn’t after the war. I knew what he meant, but couldn’t discuss that with him either. A 91 year-old woman voted, walking to the polling station on her own. She apologised for lumbering me with the consequence of a choice she’d not be around to see through to the end; myself and my policewoman companion both chided her pessimism. I thought afterwards that when she was born, women weren’t allowed to vote – a salutary reminder of how modern our own democracy is.

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Light Years Ahead

Stadiums shared by two football teams have been seen as problematic for many reasons; one of the major objections is the difficulty in making a joint stadium feel like home for two groups of people. In order that the ground doesn’t offend half the users, it becomes neutral, and ends up loved by none. Maybe that underlies the novel feature of the Allianz Arena, soon to be home of Bayern and TSV 1860 Munich.

The stadium is impressive architecturally, with the exposed steelwork of the cantilever hidden behind a screen, creating a totally different shape to the building. Maybe British stadia are going for the exposed exo-skeleton look on aesthetic grounds, but it’s far more likely that it’s simply because it’s cheaper that way. As Simon Inglis points out in Engineering Archie, a book about the great British football stadium designer Archie Leitch, the cheap and functional always took pride over the aesthetic. British grounds were engineered, not designed. Not much has changed, it would seem.

But back to the problem of club identity; the architects behind the Arena have come up with an amazing solution; the screen transmits light, so the stadium

changes colour

depending on who

is playing.

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Things I never thought I’d hear myself say (food and drink section) – No. 1*

‘I wish there was an Upper Crust here’

Edinburgh Aiport yesterday, on discovering that there was bugger all food to be had for breakfast in the departure lounge.

* ooh look – it’s another Freaky Trigger series that I’ll doubt I’ll get around to doing anymore on

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Totally Misguided Forehead Display

New Brazilian 17-year old wizard Kerlon has invented* a new trick. He balances the ball on his head and runs with it. Any attempt to kick it off will be dangerous play, seeing how you’re aiming to kick him around the head. A shoulder charge would be illegal.

I think this is nothing more than obstruction, like putting the ball between you legs when sitting down and preventing the ball being played. That’s the definition of obstruction. This sort of crazy madness must be banned by the International Football Board. If unchecked, they’ll all be doing it, and before you know it, football becomes rugby-with-heads, or netball-with-bonces. Unless, of course, players learn how to execute high kicks with stunning accuracy. But enough Shaolin Soccer.

* ie, been the first person to actually do it in a proper match

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He draweth out the thread of his verbosity*

I was doing a piece on the 2001 election in a similar vein to the one I did on 1992, which has turned from a post into an essay.

* Probably John Major’s best set-piece gag, when he said to Neil Kinnock “‘He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.’ Appropriately, that quote comes from ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’- and Labour will lose.”

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All Politics is Local

The 2001 Election by Dave Boyle

I was on pins for the 2001 election. For most of the country, it seemed a foregone conclusion, but the marginal I was working in, we didn’t have a clue. We knew that ultimately, the ability to form a government wasn’t dependent on holding seats like that. It was knowing that the MP was a good guy, that he’d made a difference and he was a bloody good constituency MP and deserved another 5 years.

It was always going to be tight. Lancaster was one of those that wasn’t in the wildest dreams of 1997 party planners. It had only ever had one Labour MP since 1832 – from 1970-1974 – and had briefly achieved fame through the efforts of the insanely bigoted dame Elaine Kellet-Bowman, who commented that it had was good to see ‘an intolerance of evil’ when the offices of Capital Gay had been firebombed in the 1980s, and before that, the flamboyant tory Humphrey Berkeley, creator of the electoral system for the Conservatives that eventually proved Thatcher’s undoing in 1990.

It was an interesting place, sociologically and demographically. The urban parts of the seat where Labour, whilst strong, had never been as strongly Labour as many an industrialised town. Lord Ashton, the local Baron of Industry, was the classic paternalist; he gave banquets for 1000s but threatened to close the factories if anyone had the temerity to vote Labour. There wasn’t as great a Trade Union tradition in the place, which surrounded by villages and hamlets, wore industrialisation like an ill-fitting winter coat rather than new wardrobe.

A big factor was Blobbygate. The MP had been one of the leading Councillors when they’d signed a fateful deal with Noel Edmonds to develop a scraggy park in Morecambe into a Crinkley Bottom theme park, with the theme apparently being ‘rubbish, unimaginative’ and ‘past its sell-by date’. The resulting furore had still to settle down, with District Auditor’s reports expected to be critical. The local Labour council had been routed in 1999 by the motliest crew of 1974 Local Government boundary refusenik poujadists and the Green Party.

Another factor was the bypass. Lancaster is a medieval City, with roads built for horses and carts. There’s been talk of a bypass since the thirties, and a lot of the constituents thought it was the absolute priority; an alliance of personally affected nimby voters and green voters were also sizeable. The MP had robustly held the line that it was necessary, but changed tack in the days leading to the poll. The Greens were standing a candidate and there was a fear they’d take votes from the left and let the Tories in. I recall urging green voters to split ticket when it came to the County Council Elections being held the same day, which as a Labour canvasser wasn’t something I should have done. Needs must.

Despite this, the canvassing was going reasonably well. Most were supportive, but there very much an air of one more chance; people hadn’t felt like they’d had a Labour government and wanted more, much more, for a second term. But in a marginal, reports and returns are one thing; it all comes down to getting the vote out.

Party volunteers often have to be reminded to vote themselves, so we decided to vote early. Too early. The Polling Station hadn’t opened, as the school caretaker had overslept, so the poll clerks set up a temporary station in the boot of the estate car belonging to one of them.

The school was on estate itself that was a heartland area for Labour, having amazingly (to us) gone Green in ’99. Canvassing then, I’d seen a dead body, and overdose victim, in a garden. It’d been there for longer than a good neighbourly neighbourhood would like. I’d be spending a bit of time there during the day.

That always worried me, because in addition to strong Labour voting, council house estates have a strong correlation with dogs that seem very aggressive and often not tethered. They roam placidly, until you approach the house where it lives, when it reacquaints itself with its defensive security role. And as it’s roaming around, the owners are often away or out or don’t care, and so no owner comes to rescue you as you wonder whether the dog can smell your fear, or sense your legs shaking nervously despite straining your muscles to keep them still.

According to those who’d canvassed in 1997, there were more people out during the day this time around. A telling sign of the fact that more people had jobs than in 1997, we speculated: would they draw a link between what happened in 1997 and their situation now? Or would the inflatable pink doll dominate?

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1992 Postscript

On Saturday April 10th 1992, The Guardian published a results special. It had a full page Steve Bell cartoon that remains the most powerful piece of cartoonery I’ve ever seen. I’m no big fan, and get slightly annoyed by the Bell-love if truth be told, but this one hit the spot.

It had an almost obscene pile up of animals, gargoyles and Tory cabinet Ministers, who’d stretched a song across the various lines of their tower of filth and sleaze.

We tax you
We sacks you
We sicken
We thicken you
We madden you
We sadden you
We’re outrageous

And at the bottom, John Major peering our of bin, bearing the words

But you still vote for us

It had it all – my disgust with the government, my despair at the result, and my anger at the 14M people who’d only bloody gone and done it.

I kept it and used to look at it regularly, until it was part of a set of personal affects stolen in 1996. I’ve since tried the great god google, but no luck. If anyone has a copy, or knows of where I can easily get one, I’ll be grateful if you’d let me know.

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For enquiring minds who want to know

They Work For You is a great site – a much quicker search facility of the Parliament site, all the info from the latter is there at the former, available as RSS with email alerts when particular subjects are raised, or when individuals speak.

In a similar vein, The Public Whip will tell you how rebellious your MP is, showing you how they’ve voted, or how MPs have voted on a particular issue.

Finally – want to know how it might turn out? Try UK-Elect to download a trial version of an election outcome predictor. Only trouble is, it’s based on uniform swing, which I just don’t see happening such is the breakdown in the bedrocks underpinning the Butler-era swingometer approach to electoral punditry.

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And then there was one

What if she dies before polling day? Would a Thatcher factor benefit the Tories?

In 2001, I worked in a constituency where the Tories were strongly tipped. People reported that the visit of Thatcher was pivotal. Unmotivated activists were reminded that despite their ambivalence about the government, there was a difference between the parties. Many voters felt the same, with the nice looking (if rather insipid) candidate for the tories acquiring a personality all of a sudden, and a personality they didn’t have much time for. Given the majority was incredibly small, it was one of many factors which definately made a difference.

But death is different. The vitriol that Imany still feel becomes more difficult to express with a pressure to show ‘respect’. We’ll see the dead unburied and rubbish piled in the streets, Thatch in a tank with a hanky for a hat, we’ll see Howard and the Tories projected into the position of official mourners with the statesmanlike demeanour that entails, with Blair also in shot, dancing to the Tory tune, and reminding some Labour voters of the uncomfortable fact that Blair has more admiration for a Thatcher than a Wilson or an Attlee. That’s my fear. My hope is we decide that particular past is a foreign country we don’t want to visit again.

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Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards – 1992

1992 was when I lost my political virginity. I can remember little of the 87 campaign, save for the post-poll Spitting Image. The lack of any discernible tension was exemplified by the finale to that show, a rendition of ‘Tomorrow belongs to me’ with Thatcher as the jack-booted singer. I didn’t get the Cabaret reference, being, as now, rather uncultured. I did think it poignant though, but missed the obvious point that it had been pre-recorded. There was no danger that it would fall flat on its face in the event of Labour actually winning. I also remember hearing the idea that Labour had won the campaign but lost the election, which sounded as daft and pointless as saying someone ran faster but finished second.

1992 was different. I felt like everything was coming together in my life. A-Levels were approaching, and the prospect of University. As Major was holding on to the last moment, there was no ‘will he, won’t he’ phony campaign; you knew it would by June. When Major went on April 9th, I was delighted. Even though there was a nagging fear that the removal of Thatcher had given them a chance, I was fully confident that we’d take them, and now, I knew when that day would be.

More than anything though, I’d be able to play my own part because the election was one day after my 18th birthday. I’d be able to vote, which given that I had no intention of smoking or riding a motorbike, and with sex something other teenagers did, voting was the rite of passage I’d been looking forward to all these years.

I lived in a rock-solid constituency, but college was in a key Tory marginal next door. I’d organised a debate between the two candidates at college earlier in the year, and gave the Labour candidate a call. As luck would have it, the campaign HQ was 10 minutes from my college, and served as the base for activity in 5 marginal seats in the immediate area. We’d finished the curriculum that Easter, so we had no classes during the campaign in favour of revision time. I spent most of my time at the HQ, calling people across constituencies and canvassing every night. The vibe was good. I wasn’t meeting Tories on the doorstep.

With some other friends, we were given tickets to the Sheffield Rally. It’s since gone down as the defining moment of Labour hubris. Kinnock’s ‘we’re alright!’ He’s since said that he knew then that Labour would lose and was trying to keep his chin up; that was overplayed and came out as embarrassing exuberance. He spoke magnificently, without notes or autocue, for over an hour. Barbara Castle was a warm-up speaker, and she too spoke without help aged 81. It was the first time I’d seen proper political oration, and sadly, it will probably be my last too. As we drove over the peak district back to Manchester, a poll on the radio said we were 10 points clear. Nothing was going to stop us now.

The day itself was, to my shame spent not getting the vote out, but processing it. I’d applied to be a poll clerk, and earned about ’80 for monitoring box LD in Heywood South ward from 7am until 10pm. As soon as it finished, I was met by a friend and we whizzed over to the Met Bar in Bury for the Bury North party, full of expectation. The exit poll was non-committal. Hung-Parliament. Hmm. Well, we thought, a coalition between Labour and the Libs. Basilson has since gone down in the popular mind as the moment it was clear the pendulum hadn’t swung, but I don’t remember it being like that at all.

The exit poll had caused doubt and the first results hadn’t shown the swing needed. Basildon prompted further doubt. I kept hoping beyond hope that things might change, but knew secretly that they wouldn’t. We’d been lied to, it seemed. Our result came in later: a tory majority of 7000 had been cut to 5000. Didn’t we do well!

The rest of the night blurred into a series of incidents, memories of which get poorer the more rum and coke I drank. Some Tories burst into the party at around 1am to sing ‘God Save the Queen’. We all cheered Don Foster’s victory over Chris Patton; the architect of our downfall was no more, and would suffer the indignity of a life in the diplomatic service. There was a row amongst the comrades when John Taylor failed to hold Cheltenham for the Tories after half his local party refused to work for a black candidate. One Labour member said it was a sad day for racial politics, but in the partisan atmosphere, there was more support for the argument that the only good tory was a defeated one.

Going home slumped in the back of my friend’s Volvo 240 listening to the 4am news, where it was announced that Kinnock had conceded. We went past a Labour billboard on the ring road around Bury and I started to cry.

My A-levels, though screwed up through not revising as much as I should, we just passable enough to get into university. And after some research with a combination of an election leaflet, the electoral roll and the phonebook, I managed to find the number of someone I’d seen a lot of in the campaign HQ and two weeks later, she was my first proper girlfriend. Doesn’t make up for rail privatisation though.

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