Doing it properly for JR

John Rentoul tweeted this on 15 January and commented on my reply:

I’m sure he knows what an x-axis is and the limitations in that respect of the chart he tweeted, especially for periods when elections are spaced other than 4/5 years apart – like now. Anyway, this is possibly a slightly better way of presenting the same data for the vote share of the two main parties:

Really, it should be a histogram for each election, the data having no meaning in the intervals between elections. But joining up the data points appears to reveal a cyclic pattern of several election intervals duration.

Superimposing the percentage of the total vote which goes to parties other than the Conservatives or Labour seems to indicate the end in 2017 of what had been a very long-term trend. It was in the 1970s when the non-Labour, non-Tory share of the vote was last as low as in 2017. There were five general elections in the ten years from October 1964 to October 1974 - if there were a cycle, it was a short one. But it might be unwise to rule out a revival in Liberal Democrat and UKIP fortunes in the next few years.


Note

This is the full link to Cowling's data: drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Ik-g

The Oldham West and Royton By-election

By-elections are probably over-analysed and over-interpreted but I thought this week’s at Oldham West and Royton was worth looking at. It took place on 3 December 2015 almost exactly seven months after the General Election on 7 May and three months after Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader. I haven’t seen the results presented anywhere else as below, so offer them here.

The first column shows the Oldham West and Royton results in the General Election (GE) when over 43000 votes were cast. In the By-election (B-E) there were just under 28000 votes, as shown in the fourth column. If these had been cast in exactly the same proportions as at the GE (ie the same reduction in turnout had applied uniformly*) the parties would have had votes as in the second column.

The Green and Monster Raving Loony (MRL) votes can be ignored. What is striking is the consistency of the Liberal Democrat vote between columns two and four and the “poor” showing of the Conservatives. Where did those 2600 Conservative votes go? It seems like about 2000 to Labour and only 800 to UKIP.

Perhaps it’s fair to conclude that quite a few of the voters who are interested enough in politics to turn out for a by-election will vote tactically for whatever is in their own party’s long-term best interest.

Data from Wikipedia.


ADDENDUM 6 DECEMBER

* This was not the only assumption as well as ignoring the Green and MRL. It is possible that some people who turned out for the by-election hadn’t voted in May. More significantly, voters who did turn out for both could have shifted their allegiances in seven months. This diagram indicates the possibilities:

However, I can’t imagine that many May Tories have gone to Labour or Lib Dem. In fact, it seems unlikely that votes would have moved to the Lib Dems in any number from either of the other parties. Hence only the heavy arrows in the diagram,seem to provide a plausible explanation for what happened.

I don't know if the data is available, but it would be very interesting to see the numbers of postal votes, GE and B-E, broken out by party.

William Morris at the NPG

Six years before he died, William Morris (1834-96) published his novel News from Nowhere (above right), set in an idealistic vision of 1952. Nearly 120 years after his death the UK may be far from being the particular Utopia he imagined but Morris’s legacy is hardly inaccessible. His homes at the Red House (South East London), Kelmscott Manor (Oxfordshire) and Kelmscott House (West London) can be visited, as can the William Morris Gallery (East London). Morris & Co lives on to produce “authentic versions of his original designs”, and has a handsome website which would surely have met with his approval. Moreover Morris is currently the subject of an exhibition at Modern Art Oxford (post to follow) and the National Portrait Gallery in London is showing Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860 – 1960 (above left).

As its title suggests this is an ambitious exhibition in terms of its scope but, perhaps inevitably, is constrained by its NPG location: not all that much space and its strengths being portrait painting and photography, for example GF Watts’ William Morris (1870, above left) and Frederick Hollyer’s William Morris (1884, above right and in the poster). Nonetheless anyone who has an interest in Morris will be pleased to see items which, although in public collections, are not always on show or accessible. For example, the Prioress's Tale wardrobe, painted by Edward Burne-Jones on the exterior, (1859, below left) and Morris’s own La Belle Iseult (1858, below left) for which his wife, Jane, was the model.

Perhaps wisely, given that Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelite blockbuster was only two years ago, the NPG show plays down Morris’s relationship with the Brotherhood (he was not one of the PRB seven) and instead gives visitors a chance to appreciate his other interests, like the Arts and Crafts movement, socialism in the years before the Labour party was founded in 1900 and the Suffragettes. Eric Gill (1882-1940) was one of many influenced by Arts and Crafts –Adam and Eve garden roller (1910-20, below upper) while a painting by Roger Fry of one of the Labour’s founders, Edward Carpenter (1894 below lower) provides a link to the Bloomsbury Group.

Various aspects of Morris’s legacy up to 1960 are examined in a fairly rapid succession: Cotswold Arts and Crafts, the Garden City Movement, particularly at Letchworth, and then, following the Second World War, the Festival of Britain and the flowering of one of its assistant designers, Terence Conran. In 2012 the V&A exhibition, British Design 1948–2012, had had the space to cover the latter period more thoroughly but some of its exhibits reappear here, for example Lucienne Day’s Calyx fabric (below left) produced for the Festival in 1951. The interesting portrait of Herbert Read by Patrick Heron (1950, below right) was given to the NPG in 1968 by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860 – 1960 ends on 11 January.

An informal Labour / Lib Dem pact?

The by-election for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) in South Yorkshire took place on 30 October and the results received little attention in the media which have been more interested in UKIP’s progress in the two parliamentary by-elections in Clacton and Rochester & Strood. A typical report noted that Labour had won with a small majority on a low turnout. However, it’s worth looking at the results in a little more detail and comparing what happened this year with the results of the first PCC election in South Yorkshire in 2012:

Several things stand out:

• The turnout was actually higher in 2014 than in 2012 by 2,800* votes. 
• The Labour vote was only 500* votes down on 2012. 
• There was no Liberal Democrat candidate in 2014 but in 2012 there had been 10,000* Lib Dem votes. By that time the 2010 general election Lib Dem surge (“Cleggmania”) was in the distant past so these were probably long-term Lib Dem supporters. 
• The English Democrats, a right-wing party of no national significance but big in South Yorkshire, lost 14,500* votes, the Conservatives lost 2,500* votes from 2012 levels. 
• UKIP increased its votes by about 30,000*. 

But it’s not obvious what was happening underneath. Probably some erstwhile English Democrats and Conservatives moved to UKIP and the slight increase in the turnout was mostly to their benefit as well - about 20,000* votes in all. Where did the other 10,000* come from? At a guess, many came from Labour but their departure was compensated for on this occasion by the arrival of former Lib Dems.

Which raises an interesting question – what would have happened if there had been a Lib Dem PCC candidate? As a guess, something like this, which assumes (middle column) that 5,000 votes go back to the Lib Dems from Labour and 2,500 from both the Conservatives and UKIP. The numbers don’t matter too much because the key point is that almost certainly Labour would not have had more than 50% of the vote in the first round:

In these circumstances the second vote system used for PCC elections would have come into effect. Where the first preference vote had been for Conservative, Lib Dem or English Democrat and the second preference was for Labour or UKIP (with the two largest vote shares), the votes would be transferred. 

There would then have been a second count of the Labour and UKIP votes. A similar argument to that above can be used to estimate what might have happened, assuming that all the voters had expressed second preferences, which they almost certainly didn’t**. It is worth considering what might have been the best case for UKIP. They might have picked up all the Conservative and all the English Democrat votes as second preferences. If they had also acquired all the Lib Dem second votes they would have won, but more probably, as above, at least 50% of the Lib Dems would probably have gone to Labour and 2,500* might have been ‘wasted’ on the Conservatives or not expressed any second preference at all. Even if 2,500* Lib Dems had voted UKIP as second choice, the second round would have given Labour its majority. It’s therefore not surprising that in the real ballot UKIP, even when the Labour first round margin over 50% was wafer-thin, didn’t ask for a recount.

But the margin of 29 wouldn’t have existed if there had been a Lib Dem candidate in the first round. I have no idea why this was the case, but, if nothing else, this PCC by-election offers an insight into how useful an informal Labour Lib Dem pact could be in normal parliamentary elections, even though these are “first-past-the–post”. If the Lib Dems were to soft-pedal their campaigning in Northern constituencies and concentrate their resources on holding onto their existing seats, particularly in SW England where, if Labour were to do the same in return, there would almost certainly be benefits to both. It would reduce UKIP’s impact on Labour in the North and the Conservative threat to the Lib Dems in the South West.

* Rounded figures.

** For example, in the 2012 Avon & Somerset PCC election second round, only 56% of the votes cast for the eliminated candidates indicated a second preference for one or other of the two candidates remaining.

Damian McBride’s 'standard tactic'

A post here last month, Supermac’s old trick, recorded a self-deprecatory anecdote by Peregrine Worsthorne which was a reminder of how the world works. In similar vein, this comes from an article by Damian McBride in the Mail on Sunday on 2 November about Jim Murphy, one of the candidates for the leadership of the Labour party in Scotland:

Sometimes in politics, we unfairly project our own cynicism on to others. When Murphy travelled to the Philippines last December to see the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan with my old employers, the aid agency Cafod, the staff he met spoke glowingly about how he’d helped the relief work. I smiled cynically that the pictures of him mucking in must look great. ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there weren’t any cameras.’ 

My first encounter with Murphy was equally illuminating. When I was Gordon Brown’s media adviser in September 2008, I approached Murphy at a dinner, warned him there was a rumour that he was planning to resign, and he should get out and deny it. It was a standard tactic to intimidate a potentially wobbly minister by making them think we had eyes everywhere. He looked at me with a contemptuous smile and snorted: ‘Away and eat your chicken, you.’

UK Trident: Summer 2014

Every so often there is a post here about the public debate about the UK’s future nuclear deterrent which, on current plans, will be based on Successor SSBNs carrying Trident missiles. Three recent items seem to me to be worth recording.

Labour’s National Policy Forum

This Labour Party Forum has 198 members who met in private for three days in July. According to the Guardian:

A full report of what was agreed at the NPF will be published at the time of Labour's annual conference in the autumn and it will form the foundation of the party's election manifesto.

The LabourList website's Mark Ferguson liveblogged the NPF and reported “the wording delegates agreed on Trident (as per last night’s late night deal)”:

With other nations possessing nuclear weapons, and nuclear proliferation remaining a deep concern, we can never be absolutely certain as to what the future security landscape will look like. In July 2013, the current government published its Trident Alternatives Review which examined alternative defence systems and postures for the UK’s deterrent. Labour has said that we are committed to a minimum, credible independent nuclear deterrent, delivered through a Continuous At Sea Deterrent. It would require a clear body of evidence for us to change this belief. 

Labour recognises the importance of Britain leading international efforts for multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Following the action we took when in government, Labour would actively work to enhance momentum on global multilateral disarmament efforts and negotiations, looking at further reductions in global stockpiles and the number of weapons. This would be done in line with our assessment on the global security landscape. 

Labour would continue to take a leading role internationally to push the agenda of global anti-proliferation with nuclear and non-nuclear states. This is a vision shared by President Barack Obama and Labour would work with the United States and other allies, such as France, to advance ‘Global Zero’, which seeks to advance an action plan for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Labour recognises that the success of past international bans on weapons of mass destruction such as landmines, cluster munitions, chemical and biological weapons. 

The NPT Conference 2015 will be a key moment for a Labour government to show leadership in achieving progress on global disarmament and anti-proliferation measures. 

Labour has said that the process and debate leading up to the next Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2015 needs to be open, inclusive and transparent, including examining all capabilities, including nuclear. It must also examine the cost implications as well as the strategic necessities, recognising the importance of the defence sector to the UK economy, and the need to protect and develop a highly-skilled workforce. To this end, a Labour government will have a continuing consultation, inviting submissions from all relevant stakeholders, including Labour Party members and affiliates, on the UK’s future defence and national security issues.

RUSI On Warheads

Back in March, I posted about a paper produced under the auspices of the RUSI think tank which aimed to debate Continuous At-Sea Deterrence. Its author, Hugh Chalmers, has since written The Bang Behind the Buck, Replacing the UK’s Nuclear Warheads which centres on the proposition that:

… the next Parliament may have to start considering a replacement [for the UK’s nuclear warheads] towards the end of its term if a replacement were to be needed by the latter half of the 2030s. (page 1)

and is consistent with the 2010 SDSR statement about replacement warheads:

3.12 Since 2006, work has been progressing in order to determine the optimum life of the existing warhead stockpile and the range of replacement options. Under the 1958 UK-US Agreement for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes (the ‘Mutual Defence Agreement’) we have agreed on the future of the Trident D5 delivery system and determined that a replacement warhead is not required until at least the late 2030s. Decisions on replacing the warhead will not therefore be required in this Parliament. This will defer £500 million of spending from the next 10 years.

if “by the latter half of the 2030s” and “at least the late 2030s” are taken as meaning the same thing. The RUSI paper thinks the need for replacement may arise because:

… it is unclear whether it [the UK’s current arsenal of nuclear warheads] will continue to age gracefully. The complex array of interconnected components that make up the UK’s warhead deform and decay over time, affecting its behaviour and thus the reliability of the warhead. … Eventually a fault may arise that cannot be easily remedied, and replacing original parts with alternatives gradually alters warheads from their original tested design, introducing uncertainty into their functioning and effectiveness. (page 1)

But unpromisingly for the reader:

Despite being pivotal to the long-term operation of the UK’s nuclear force, very little information has been made available as to what replacing a nuclear arsenal actually involves and how a replacement decision will ultimately be made. This is because most details of the UK’s nuclear arsenal and the methods used to maintain it are understandably classified. This paper draws upon what open sources are available to shine some light onto this issue by outlining the composition and status of the UK’s nuclear arsenal, and describing how it might ultimately be replaced or renewed. (page 2)

And the reality of the UK’s situation is that:

The origin of the current Trident warhead, and indeed most of the UK’s past nuclear warheads, can be traced back to the 1958 MDA with the US. This agreement, forged in the shadow of the Soviet Union’s burgeoning intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, ended twelve years of nuclear separation between the former wartime collaborators and gave the UK access to more advanced nuclear expertise and capabilities from across the Atlantic. (page 2)

So it’s not surprising when, nine pages later and towards the end of the paper, we are told:

The future of the UK’s nuclear arsenal is therefore inextricably linked to that of the US. (page 11)

and that in summing up the Future of the UK’s Nuclear Stockpile:

If indications emerge within the next parliament that the UK’s nuclear stockpile may not survive past the late 2030s, the government at the time will be faced with a dilemma. Without a clear steer from the US, the UK may have to choose between developing a replacement warhead with an uncertain supply of components (and over time, missiles), or retaining an arsenal of suspect reliability. In the case of the former, the UK might embark on a pathway that, at best, produces limited results, and, at worst, risks jeopardising the much-valued exchange between the two nuclear partners. Given this tough choice, pressure to replace the UK’s warhead may meet equal and opposite pressure to delay until a clear pathway can be developed in collaboration with the US. (page 12/13)

In this paragraph there are three ‘may’s, one ‘if’ and one ‘might’ and by my reckoning there are 39 ‘mays’, 21 ‘if’s, 16 ‘might’s, 10 ‘could’s and 10 ‘were’s (as a subjunctive) in the whole paper, reflecting its subject’s inherent uncertainties: to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, it has too many known unknowns and unknown unknowns. One of the few official statements on the subject was in the 2013 Trident Alternatives Review (TAR) which is correctly quoted as stating “that replacing the UK’s [Trident] nuclear warheads would take approximately seventeen years for the first unit at an estimated cost of around £4 billion in 2012 prices” (page 1), although the 50% confidence associated with this figure (TAR paragraph 25) was not included, nor was the interesting remark at TAR paragraph 5.12:

Analysis of the timescales likely to be associated with delivering a new warhead was conducted, using as a baseline studies that supported the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review and ongoing studies for a possible new Trident warhead (should one be required).

Most readers will conclude that the author has done as good job as could be expected in the circumstances. This paper is better written than its predecessor; indeed the author thanks six named individuals and “a number of experts”. The conclusions it reaches, given the nature of the Mutual Defence Agreement, are perhaps not that surprising. A cynic might say that it could just as appropriately been called The Buck Behind the Bang.

BASIC's Trident Commission Concluding Report 

Launch of the Concluding report in July 2014

BASIC, the British American Security Information Council, describes itself as “a small but influential think tank with one very large idea: we want a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons”. It set up the Trident Commission in 2011 as an inquiry into Britain’s nuclear weapon policy and the issue of Trident renewal with a membership of eight from appropriate ranks of the great and the good. I won’t list them all here, but will note that they include a former Conservative defence and foreign secretary (Rifkind), a former Labour defence secretary (Browne) and Professor Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (Peter Hennessy, as he is disrespectfully labelled in posts here).

Anyone who wants to go into the Commission’s activities over the last three years should start with their webpage and read on to locate Evidence Received and Background Briefings. The papers in the latter were by BASIC staff with one, Alternative delivery systems and their platforms, by Matt Cavanagh, a former Labour SPAD who worked on defence issues.  The Commission focused on three questions in particular, namely:

Should the United Kingdom continue to be a nuclear weapons state?

If so, is Trident the only or best option for delivering the deterrent?

What more can and should the United Kingdom do to facilitate faster progress on global nuclear disarmament?

Whatever BASIC may have expected or hoped for, the Commission’s answers to these questions in the Summary Conclusions tend to endorse the status quo. So, on the first:

Based upon the two key specific considerations, namely national security concerns and responsibility towards the Alliance, the Commission has come to the unanimous conclusion that the UK should retain and deploy a nuclear arsenal, with a number of caveats expressed below. Most notably, it remains crucial that the UK show keen regard for its position within the international community and for the shared responsibility to achieve progress in global nuclear disarmament.

and

We are conscious that our conclusion — that the UK should retain and renew its nuclear deterrent — must be weighed against the considerable cost of renewing and operating Trident, a cost that is a rising proportion of the defence budget (as capital spending on the project increases and as spending on other defence capabilities reduces). Over the life of the project, it can be expected that capital, running, and decommissioning costs associated with the nuclear weapons project account for roughly 9-10% of the overall defence budget, though into the 2020s we will experience a higher spend, and after that a smaller amount. However, we believe that cost must be of secondary importance to the judgment over whether forsaking the UK’s nuclear deterrent capability could open the country to future strategic risk. (page 6, L-HC)

On the second question:

The government’s Trident Alternatives Review considered the technical case for alternative platforms and delivery systems, concluding that at present there were no benefits to be had from choosing a different nature of system at this stage. The Trident SSBN (Ballistic Missile Submarines) system meets the criteria of credibility, scale, survivability, reach and readiness. Whilst the Commission is not in a position to interrogate in depth the information and assumptions underpinning the Review, we are opposed to proposals to develop alternative platforms and delivery systems, with new warheads, simply on the basis of possible but speculative cost savings. The choice of system and posture must be credible when considering national security and alliance relationships, and must embrace the UK’s responsibilities to stability and the wider international community. Whilst dual-use systems have the benefit of adaptability to circumstances, we have serious concerns about their capacity to increase strategic ambiguity, which would both complicate arms control and cause confusion in crises. (page 7, R-HC)

The third question is addressed on pages 8 and 9 of the Summary Conclusions and in Chapter 3 and anyone interested in diplomacy, non-proliferation and the “disarmament ladder” should consult those. Suffice it to say that the Commission is in favour of progress on nuclear disarmament and outlines constructive steps which the UK could take.

The Commission gave careful consideration to CASD and list reasons for and against its continuation and possible alternatives in Chapter 2 (pages 30 to 32). The Summary Conclusion was:

Some see a CASD posture as essential to any credible seaborne nuclear deterrent that would meet the UK’s needs into the foreseeable future. As a Commission looking ahead into a rapidly-changing world picture, we believe there are further steps that could be considered between the current posture and full disarmament, when the strategic conditions allow, with relaxed CASD as one of those steps. We are, however, divided over whether the UK could take this step independently, or only multilaterally with other nuclear weapon states. 

Some of us believe that CASD should be maintained for the foreseeable future and that we must wait for improvement in the security environment, specifically a reversal of the current trends in the modernisation of nuclear arsenals elsewhere and stronger indications of a matching intent to disarm. Some of us believe that the strategic environment today, which does not involve a current or near foreseeable strategic military threat to the UK and its vital interests, enables us to drop continuous patrolling and retain instead the capacity to increase patrols should crisis threaten. 

There is in any case an opportunity to initiate a full conversation with the United States and France on the conditions that could allow the allied nuclear weapon states to consider closer coordination of their continuous patrolling posture. (page 8)

The question of the number of Successor SSBNs is addressed in Chapter 2:

The Ministry of Defence assumes that the UK will still require a four submarine fleet to have a high confidence of maintaining an indefinite CASD posture, though decisions on this will be taken later*. This is because, even with the modernized PWR3 reactor that no longer requires mid-life refuelling, the new submarines are still expected to need complex mid-life overhauls for other components that could last several months. We do not have sufficient information to come to a definitive view on whether three submarines would be sufficient for a CASD posture, or whether replacing the four existing Vanguards with four successor submarines represents an increase in patrolling capabilities because of the higher reliability of new technology.

* Refers to the TAR paragraph 3.36, p.29 which reads:

Classified analysis about attempting to maintain continuous at sea deterrence with a 3-boat SSBN option showed that the risk of unplanned breaks relates directly to the number of submarines available for operational deployment, which in turn relates directly to the total number in the fleet. The modelling suggests that, over a 20 year period, a 3-boat fleet would risk multiple unplanned breaks in continuous covert patrolling as well as requiring regular planned breaks for maintenance and/or training. Experience to date with the Resolution-class and Vanguard-class SSBNs is that no such breaks have occurred or been required with a 4-boat fleet.

The TAR mentions PWR3 once (paragraph 5.19) and then only as being the reactor costed for the SSN(Vertical Launch) option. However, the Trident Commission’s Background Briefing Paper 3, Measuring the financial costs, states on page 22 that:

… the Successor submarine will be using PWR3 technology, so that mid-life refuelling will not be necessary …

At this point it is worth noting that the RUSI paper could only have been improved by consideration of and reference to some of the material prepared for the BASIC Trident Commission.

Summing Up

None of the above, Labour’s policy, the RUSI and BASIC reports, is advocating any significant changes to the current plans for replacement of the UK’s Trident SSBNs. The only issue of substance seems to be the number of submarines. In 1908/1909 during the Anglo-German arms race, the slogan popular among enthusiasts for the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought battleships was “We want eight, and we won’t wait”. Over a hundred years later, the number of the Navy's Successor SSBN’s is unlikely to be an issue in the 2015 election, let alone be the cause of a slogan – what would it be - “Three or four, but certainly no more”, perhaps?

As for CASD, it’s probably egotistical even for a blogger to quote himself, but this is what I said last time, and nothing I’ve read since makes me want to revise it yet:

My guess is that at some point in the future a Conservative or Labour National Security Council, or some ministerial subset of it, will meet to decide whether to order the third and fourth Successor submarines. They will know things that we don’t, like the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum and the extent of the recovery of the UK economy, and many things we probably never will, like the maintenance requirements of PWR3. One can imagine that if extensive analysis by the RN and the Ministry of Defence shows that CASD can be maintained for a very high proportion of the Trident Successor in-service life (ie to the fifth or sixth decade of this century) with three submarines, there might be reluctance to order a fourth. However, if the fourth Successor makes the difference between sustainable CASD and any of the alternative postures identified so far, it would have to be a group of politicians with a high degree of confidence in their ability to manage a crisis who would decide to spend the money on something else.

Dr Jokers in the House of Cards

When I first heard of the NHA party (National Health Action party) earlier this year, I followed it on Twitter (@NHAparty) and then on its recent website. The official launch is to take place on 15 November in Old Palace Yard, Westminster.

My initial feelings were that it might present the Tories with every politician’s (and general’s) nightmare of having to fight on two fronts simultaneously. In this case, UKIP would be on their right flank and NHA on their left, the first draining away their natural supporters and the second picking up the centre-undecided sort of voters they need to get more seats at the next election than they managed in 2010. I expected an onslaught on NHA to start fairly soon from the usual right-wing press and internet sources. But the opening rounds have come from well to the left of centre in the form of an article posted on the LabourList website, The National Health Action Party must be strangled at-birth, because:

It can only prosper at the expense of the only truly NHS party – the Labour Party. The National Health Action Party’s only offer is independent MPs voting how they please on everything from abortion to trade union rights, with no accountability or even consistency. But their potential to prevent Labour winning seats, as Richard Taylor did in Wyre Forest, is huge.

The article explains that:

Dr Richard Taylor beat the sitting Labour MP David Lock in 2001 after a huge campaign against the closure of the A&E. The Wyre Forest seat had gone Labour in the landslide of 1997. The ‘Health Concern’ campaign was supported by the local Lib Dems, who stood their candidate down to help defeat the Labour MP. Taylor was elected with an 18,000 majority. It was a famous victory.  

… Now Taylor has launched a new political party to stand more independent candidates like him. It’s called the National Health Action Party, and aims to stand fifty candidates against sitting MPs who support reforms to the NHS. This will presumably include current and former health ministers, and high profile MPs such as the party leaders. For example, one of the party’s founders Dr Clive Peedell is rumoured to be taking on Lib Dem Ian Swales in Redcar.  

The NHS is the closest we have to a national religion. People are passionate about their local NHS services, even when they aren’t very good, and better ones are available further away. If 50 National Health Action Party candidates stand across the UK, with ‘Dr’ ahead of the name on the ballot, and a party logo eerily reminiscent of the NHS logo, they will hoover up tens of thousands of votes in 2015. I doubt any will win seats. But they’ll win enough votes to keep the Tories in power. Why? Because they kinds of people likely to vote for an ‘NHS candidate’ are the kinds of people Labour needs to win to take seats from the Tories and Lib Dems.

We need some opinion poll data to clarify all this, once the average voter has some idea of what the NHA party is about. It also depends on just which seats the NHA candidates will stand in. Two of their FAQ answers shed some light:

4. Won’t you increase the chance of the Conservative and Liberal Democratic Party candidates being elected by splitting the anti-government vote? How many candidates will be standing at the next general election?  

We are not intending to contest all parliamentary seats. Instead we will be carefully and strategically selecting seats where we will have the best chance of being elected, or where we can have the biggest impact on the public’s consciousness. We hope to field about 50 candidates in the next general election.  

5. The Labour party have said they will repeal the Health and Social Care Act, so why do we still need a political party to defend the NHS?  

As of yet, the Labour Party has not given a detailed account of how they intend to repeal the Act or explained clearly what would replace it. Furthermore, we have seen the frequent practice of all major parties failing to honour their pre-election pledges. The Labour Party’s record on the NHS is also poor. It helped open the door to the exploitation of the health service by commercial providers. The NHA Party will be vital for ensuring that any future government repeals the most damaging aspects of the Act and restores the NHS to its founding principles.