Where are the weaknesses in the main parties as we move towards a General Election?

Let us start with the Conservative Party. Probably the only credible party of government in England and Wales. Whilst the Scots Nats are in Government in Scotland they can hardly be described as credible given their obsession with independence and lack of any grown up economic literacy. An independent Scotland would be bankrupt within five years but Sturgeon and co will have done Ok out of it before the collapse.

The Conservative Party is the party of the Nation State but a Nation State that still reflects the interests of those large corporations that are doing very well living off the fat of the nation’s debt.  They can see there are problems with the way the nation operates, but they have no credible solution to solve the problems other than more of what has been tried before. More privatisation, more tax and National Insurance, more attempts by the public sector to cut services as it models itself on the private sector by simply creating more tax payer funded millionaires. The Tories aren’t going to be revolutionary but at least for the time being the engine of the nation state still runs.

The Brexit issue is also a bit toxic as there will be consequences following withdrawal from the EU. We argue these consequences might look bad, falling house prices (won’t that upset the banks), reduction in value of the Pound, and issues around migration. However, these are the issues that drive the debt and house price based economy and as such any change is in the long term going to be positive. The conventional parties will not want to see the economy contract and as now will simply tax us more to make up for reductions in the Governments income. The Tories like the other parties don’t recognise that it is we the people who’s interests they should serve and it is the cost of government, not our services that should be cut. But who is going to do that?

We think the Tories will win the election but with a small majority as now and a mandate to fudge and deplete the terms upon which Britain leaves the EU. Probably a fudge on the Customs Union to keep world trade out of the EU via Britain’s back door. That should keep the EU staffers happy.

Labour are schizophrenic with a Blairite wing who still hanker after the “third way” mumbo jumbo and the “hard left” who hanker after a class war long after the “revolutionary” industrial and agricultural classes ceased to exist in any revolutionary form. They have morphed into the sad spectacle of what is described as the “underclass” the second and third generation unemployed industrial and agricultural workers. A horrible term for a group for whom the  Blair “third way” offered the loss of work, family, status, and “self-reliance” and ushered in a life of ignorance and idleness on the dole. Labour have become out of step with all the main constituencies the Blairite middle class will vote Tory or Lib Dem or Green. The inner cities with their “culturally progressively” Labour Party branches will continue to return most Labour MP’s

The Lib Dems all but annihilated in 2015 will make a striking come back with an offer that every well-paid state “staffer”, banker and Remainer will support. The Lib Dems like the Green’s are terribly well intentioned but have no grasp on the realities of how their policies drive an economy to the brink of failure. They like the Green’s and Labour believe in the transformative power of the state, yet experience tells us that the state is incapable of transforming anything because it can’t cut costs and can’t transform itself.

Finally the Green’s and Ukip. The Greens will offer socialism with a solar panel or two. Completely missing the point that the aggregate demand they seek to stimulate through “anti-austerity” simply allows the west to illegitimately gobble up more of the planet than in reality we should be able to afford. They do nothing to challenge the debt based economics that funds our consumption and lifestyles. It is possible the Greens might get a seat or two.

Ukip were a one trick pony. Great trick…..we have seen it now it’s time to **** ***. We don’t anticipate any wins for Ukip, the Tories will keep most of their seats with a bit of shuffling around between the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems. Ukip will experience their first existential crisis.