Can you vote with your heart and head tomorrow?

Right now it seems like I have to choose between my heart or my head, which is why one day before the election I'm still undecided. 

At least there are some things I know. I'd never vote UKIP and as per yesterday's post, that's a big NO for the Tories. The Greens are as small a party as I'd like to consider for this election, so I'm left with three. 

I live in the constituency of Old Southwark and Bermondsey. This was a newly defined constituency as of 2010 but when you add in similar constituencies around the same area, Lib Dem Simon Hughes has been the MP for 32 years.

In 2010, Hughes soundly won with 48% of the vote followed by Labour (29%), Tories (17%), Greens (1.6%) and others (3.7%). My impression is that Hughes has run the most energetic campaign. We also get a lot of Labour flyers through the door, but I think we get even more from the Lib Dems. You also see Hughes around a lot, get doorbell-ringing campaigners and you see a lot of Lib Dem signs around.  I don’t think we’ve received any election flyers from the Tories, UKIP or rather disappointingly, the Greens (although I can’t be certain, because my husband may have recycled the Tory or UKIP stuff before I saw it, but even if we did receive a couple it was much less than the two major parties).

It seems like the scale of the Hughes campaign reflects some worry about losing the seat, but I feel the Hughes onslaught must have had some impact.I haven’t really had any plans to vote for him, but even I find myself thinking that he may be the best candidate as a champion for the local area with his tenure, connections and potentially  a larger role in a smaller collation vs. a brand new MP, who is likely to work hard but may have less impact/influence. However, I’m more interested in national and global issues, such as austerity and how it's done, the size of the state, EU membership and fighting climate change, which is why I don’t plan to vote for Hughes. Also, I think they were in a difficult position in 2010 and have had some positive influence on the Coalition, but since I’m fundamentally unsatisfied with what the Coalition has done, I do not think I should vote to keep it in place.

I was surprised to find out reading the news today that it’s considered a close race between Hughes and Labour candidate Neil Coyle. 

Besides the rather insulting assumption that our borough’s 130,000 residents, bar a banker or two, aren’t here for the buffet of cultural delights, I thought this New Statesman article from yesterday about our constituency battle was interesting plus this one from the Guardian today. This article on the SE1 website also shows the Sun pushing its readers to vote Lib Dem here to keep Cameron as Prime Minister. 

I’m also going to share on Facebook the 38 Degrees email on our constituency battle.

A tight race unfortunately, doesn’t help me make my decision between Labour and the Greens. I realise now that knowing that Tories really couldn’t win in my area gave me a perceived freedom to vote with my heart, which is with the Greens. However, now that there’s a tight race between the Lib Dem and Labour candidates, I feel very torn, so I’ll explain below while I’ll (probably) vote Labour tomorrow and also why I’ll (probably) vote Green. Maybe writing this down will help me decide.

Why I’ll (probably) vote Labour tomorrow

Both my gut and my brain dislike the Tories (see yesterday’s post). I believe they are radicals rather than conservatives who fundamentally want to change this country for the worse, in irreversible ways if at all possible. Also, their full reliance on free markets as the solution to all problems unfortunately won’t only hurt the UK but also the entire world, by giving no chance for the serious fighting of climate change.

While I’m not enamoured with Labour’s climate change plans, I think that they will be much more open to pressure form the people to act decisively on climate change versus the Tories that won’t even open the door no matter what the people think. Think what you may of Russell Brand, but he has a passion for community activism and explains why he supports Labour in the video shown here, which as of a couple days ago had 1.75m views.

  

I’m torn on Ed Miliband. I wish he was more charismatic, but I think greater charisma often comes at a cost of limited other skills (aka the Boris effect). So if a lack of charisma means that he’s needed to be harder working and smarter to get where he is, I’ll take that cost. Plus I’m not bowled over the charisma of Cameron or Clegg either.

But I just wish that Labour would have done more to attack the false positions that continue to be pushed by the Tories and offered a more exciting position on the left. I think they’ve missed a big opportunity to fight for what many disillusioned people are looking for.

Unfortunately, for the sake of our future as a human race, we don’t have the luxury of a longer-term plan, such as to vote Green now to get a better Labour for the next election. It will be too late then. We really need to act now, which could mean being as strategic as possible (as described in this opinion piece in the Guardian today).

So if a Labour candidate has a chance to get into office tomorrow, my head says that voting to make that happen is potentially the most important action to fight climate change now. There simply isn’t a tomorrow or "next time" left. Labour will also move us in the right direction away from many of the Coalition's worst policies. 

Why I’ll (probably) vote Green tomorrow

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My heart is still with the Greens. Perhaps by virtue of being an outsider party, they say things that need to be said. They will fight against climate change and are willing to say that major changes will be needed to do it. They are willing to fight for disabled and disadvantaged people who need us to support them rather than demonise them, which in my mind is tied to fighting climate change. We need to show that this world is populated by real people who care about real people and the environment. Free markets have failed us regarding the environment and only by realising that there is a way for us escape this system that puts profits above all else, will we start to make the changes necessary to save this world for us, our kids (and I really hope grandkids and great-grandkids).

Voting Labour tomorrow means that we’re more likely to get the same offer from them in five years’ time. If we’re never ready to commit to what we believe in, then it will never happen. George Monbiot described well this challenge to find a progressive agenda in the election..And this is why I’m (probably) going to vote with my heart tomorrow. 

One sleep to go, hopefully the answer will be clear to me in the morning!

Are the Tories that Dangerous?

Getting the Tories out is the main goal of many on the left for Thursday’s election.

My gut agrees, but in the final weekend before the election, I realised that I wanted a more logical conclusion on this. I’ve included below various interesting sources that I found and would recommend. I considered the following questions.

1. Is austerity built on shaky foundations?

These two articles (from cross bench peer Robert Skidelsky in the New Statesman and economist Paul Krugman in the Guardian) go into detail on why austerity and deficit reduction weren't the only options for the Coalition. I am relatively sympathetic to the view that austerity was a popular approach in 2010 and economists seem better at analysis of the past than the future, but less sympathetic to the level this foundation was and continues to be relied upon by the Tories.

2. Can austerity support strong economic growth?

This seems to a major theme from the Tories. The idea that they were forced into austerity, but they’ve still supported relatively strong economic growth. I’m not convinced that this is the full story especially with the coincidence that the higher growth started when further cuts were significantly reduced and instead pushed forward to the next parliament.

The following is a quote from Robert Skidelsky’s article referenced above.

“Growth’s failure to materialise dished the Chancellor’s five-year timetable for cutting borrowing. With government revenues failing to recover, Osborne quietly slowed down the speed of his cuts, eventually declaring that a further £35bn of consolidation would be needed in the next parliament. The Bank of England injected a further £175bn into the economy between October 2011 and July 2012. In 2012, the government started subsidising bank lending for mortgages through its “Help to Buy” scheme. The shaky recovery that the easing of austerity brought about in 2013 made possible the Chancellor’s rhetorical masterstroke: we are growing faster than any country in Europe. This shows austerity works!”

3. Was austerity applied fairly or responsibly?

“Freedom, fairness and responsibility” were the first three words after the title page in the Coalition’s 2010 manifesto. The forward includes: “Difficult decisions will have to be taken in the months and years ahead, but we will ensure that fairness is at the heart of those decisions so that all those most in need are protected”.

I thought I could get to grips with this question by reading end-of-term reviews of the incumbents, but these were more difficult to find than I expected. But here are some great sources that I found:

A.     In January, the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at LSE published a series of reports and video presentations on the Coalition's Social Policy Record (here’s the main summary).

I've only had a chance to experience a small portion of this, but from what I've seen, it's fascinating and wonderfully in-depth (unlike so much of the news). 

This also helped me to understand the framework that the Coalition set up for deficit reduction. They chose to focus on cutting spending rather than increasing taxation (77% vs 23%) and actually decreased taxes by dropping the top tax rate of 50% and raising the non-taxable personal allowance from £6,475 to £10,000. They protected pensions, the NHS and education from cuts (although also didn’t increase their budgets as many think was necessary), so the axe fell very hard on what was left.

I'd love to pass on more highlights from it, but I’ll stick to only one graph from the summary document, which shows why I don’t believe the cuts have been applied fairly or responsibly.

Figure 2 The combined impact of direct tax and cash transfers was mostly regressive, moving incomes from poorer household to those that were better off.

Source: De Agostini, et al (2014)/EUROMOD. Figures show percentage change in household disposable income by income group due to policy changes, compared with May 2010 system uprated by CPI.

Other recommended resources are the following:

B.     The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). I appreciated both that their research was so focussed and their willingness to point out plans from any party that they thought didn't make sense.

C.     Two more in-depth articles from the Guardian (Slick and slapdash, U-turning and dogmatic - the legacy of the coalition and Cameron's five-year legacy: has he finished what Thatcher started? , which arguably have a certain bias but I appreciated for the level of detail.

D.     An article from the Spectator, which comes to similar conclusions (although from a different angle) to the Guardian articles.

4. The Tories will keep some promises, but which ones?

This is a bit unfair as it likely applies to all politicians, but the Coalition's record on its main goals seems pretty poor.

These are the goals from the Coalition's 2010 manifesto, as highlighted in the CASE summary  report mentioned above. 

The incoming Government declared that its most urgent task was to tackle the country’s debts. Fail

But it also insisted that fairness would lie at the heart of its decisions “so that those most in need are most protected”. The better-off would be expected to: “pay more than the poorest, not just in terms of cash, but as a proportion of income as well”. Fail

Beyond deficit reduction, the Coalition set a further goal of improving social mobility and creating a society where “…everyone, regardless of background, has the chance to rise as high as their talents and ambition allow them”. Fail

Reforms to ‘welfare’, taxation and education were promised, with devolution of decision-making powers from central to local government and communities.  Success (Done but by giving greater responsibilities to local governments with cut budgets).

Defining its core values as “freedom, fairness and responsibility”, the Coalition pledged to deliver “radical reforming government, a stronger society, a smaller state and power and responsibility in the hands of every citizen”. Success! Not for the first part on fairness, but the Coalition has definitely succeeded on being a “radical reforming government” with a “smaller state”.

From this, I have to wonder what are the true goals of the Tories for the next parliament.

5. Do the Tories care about you?

I understand  that some people will tend to vote Tory and are likely justified in doing so. This is by no means an exclusive list, but if you're a public school educated elite, an executive, a small business owner or a pensioner, then I can see why you're likely to vote Tory.

But will their policies also hurt these groups of supporters?

 A. Small business owner or pensioner, how would a floundering NHS work into your plans?

B. Elite, executive or exporter, are you ready to risk your future on an EU referendum? 

6. This was a Coalition. What would a true Tory government do?

I don't have the answer for this one, but I wish I did!

As you can probably guess by this point, I'm not going to vote Tory. This was already the case before this research because of my gut feel that they’re creating a crueler country and society that I don’t want to support, but now I logically understand why I consider them dangerous, too.

If this is an area you’d like to consider further, I’d like to point out two endorsements for the election from the Observer and the New Statesman, which are much more eloquently argued than this blog post.