Plus ça change! Or if you prefer Greek, τόσο περισσότερο αλλάζει.

Albrecht Ritschl. Never heard of him I hear you say.  Perhaps not, but in an interview given to Der Spiegel he does have some interesting things to say that are very relevant to the current predicament facing Greece.

A bit of background here to give us some context, Ritschl, 51, is a professor of economic history at the London School of Economics.  But he was born in Munich and previously taught as a professor at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, the University of Zürich and Berlin's Humboldt University. All very notable places of learning.

So what’s this German professor on about?

Germany, he explains, was the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century.  That being the case it has no right to lecture the Greeks, or its leaders should at least show some humility and be prepared to compromise when they criticise Greece.

“Germany is king when it comes to debt. Calculated based on the amount of losses compared to economic performance, Germany was the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century.”

The collapse of the Weimar debt pyramid had terrible consequences, but after the Second World War America spent a lot of money ensuring that there was not a repeat while victors such as Britain were crippled by the costs of war.

Ritschl says: “After the first default during the 1930s, the US gave Germany a “haircut” in 1953, reducing its debt problem to practically nothing. Germany has been in a very good position ever since, even as other Europeans were forced to endure the burdens of World War II and the consequences of the German occupation. Germany even had a period of non-payment in 1990.”

The anti-Greek sentiment in German media outlets is highly dangerous, says Ritschl.

“We are sitting in a glass house: Germany’s resurgence has only been possible through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War II victims.”

The Der Spiegel interview concludes with a question: “Looking at history, what would be the best solution for Greece -- and for Germany?”

Ritschl replies: “The German bankruptcies in the last century show that the sensible thing to do now would be to have a real reduction of the debt.  Anyone who has lent money to Greece would then have to give up a considerable part of what they were owed.  Some banks would not be able to cope with that, so there would have to be new aid programs.  For Germany, this could be expensive, but we will have to pay either way.  At least Greece would then have the chance to start over.”

Now, here is the interesting thing.  This interview was not conducted last week.  Oh no, it was on June 21, 2011.  Plus ça change!

Who inherits your house?

The Scottish SNP government has announced that it is moving forward on its proposals that will enable the appropriation of land that is not being used in an economically productive way.  Paul Wheelhouse, the environment and climate change minister, said the legislation that will be put to Holyrood before the current parliament ends in 2016 and could be voted on as early as next year will be a "significant step forward" in ensuring land is used "in the public interest and to the benefit of the people of Scotland".   That is a most interesting turn of phrase that should make you stop and think.  

But perhaps the secret is in what he said next: “My vision, and that of my colleagues, for Scotland is for a fairer, wider and more equitable, distribution of land across our nation, where communities and individuals have access to land and the Land Reform Bill will enable much of this to happen."

Land reform minister Aileen McLeod echoed this: “We want to ensure that future generations have access to land required to promote business and economic growth and to provide access to good quality affordable food, energy and housing.  The introduction of the bill is a significant step forward in ensuring our land is used in the public interest and to the benefit of the people of Scotland."

These are very seductive words.  Fairness.  We all want that.  Equitable distribution.  Now there we are changing the rules.  This is pure and straight socialism.  The state will control.  This misguided idea that the state knows best is nonsense. Similarly on the notion that equality equals equal distribution.  It doesn’t.

I always find announcements by politicians like Ms McLeod who have absolutely no experience in the real world of actually running a business and taking the risks of running a business confusing and frightening.  They just have no concept of having to pay all your staff and suppliers before you pay yourself a penny.   They have lived the a life of simply taxing people and then spending their money.

But if I may can is suggest there is a wider more worrying underlying principle the SNP are trying to introduce here.

What we have is a government assuming it knows what is best for the people to the extent it will take legally acquired assets away from their owner.  Let’s not get into the argument of who took what from whom hundreds of years ago. That's a different conversation and it is a wrong that still has to be righted, the sooner the better.  Much of the land the government is referring to has been legally purchased.

So using this assumption that the government knows best, what area of our lives will they stray into next?

If you have a lot of spare cash lying around in your bank.  Or a holiday home that you visit four times a year with your family.  Or any number of things that you own but really don’t use a lot, will the government now feel emboldened to, by creep, assume it can also start to pick off these assets with the fairness argument because they are not being used “in the public interest and to the benefit of the people of Scotland?”  What piece of literature does this remind you of?

A similar theme is developed by Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser.  A lawyer by trade he suggested the legislation could effectively overrule a person’s will.  In effect it would end the current succession law, which allows people to name in their will who they want to leave their house – immovable property – without any legal challenge.  And it’s not that big a step to move down the ladder to take away any rights of succession with everything reverting to the state when you die.   

You don’t think it could happen here?  Well, just look back at the things the people didn’t think could happen that have since the SNP came to power in Scotland.

Our children can't afford to buy a house here now.

There is a Bank of Scotland report out this morning about how three coastal towns in Scotland have seen their house prices double in 10 years. The bank's researchers found that a number of coastal towns had seen "substantial" increases since 2005.  Of 59 coastal towns surveyed, 15 recorded price increases of at least 50% in that time.  Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire experienced the biggest rise with a 109% jump from an average price of £63,540 in 2005 to £132,920 last year.  Lerwick in Shetland, and Peterhead, also in Aberdeenshire, recorded increases of 102%.  All interesting stuff that may have the good people of these towns rubbing their collective hands in glee.

Now I don’t know if you are like me and sometimes wonder exactly who benefits for the rise in house prices. Well, there is the obvious one set of people, children selling their parents’ house when they pass away. But beyond that, who benefits?

Take the Fraserburgh example.  You discover the value of your house has gone up.  So if you sell you will have a lot more money than you paid.  But unless you want to live in a tent or considerably down size, you won’t be able to buy a house in the town and have a wee bit left over because the value of all the other properties has also gone up.

So who does benefit?  I would suggest there are people who smile when the see the headline today.

But non smilers first. The people who want to get on the so called property ladder. They can't afford the higher prices.  And the next thing we will be hearing from these communities will be “our children can’t afford prices here, something has to be done”.

But on to the smilers.  Starting with Lenders. A higher price generally will mean you will have to borrow more.  That’s good business for banks and building societies.

Then there are the support services.  Estate agents.  If you do a percentage deal, your costs will go up.  Lawyers. Higher value, your costs will go up.

The government.  Yes, some houses can be outwith the taxation applied to most house purchases. But in general, the higher the price the more tax the government takes out of your pocket.  Oh yes, and more income from taxing the increased profits of these lenders and services.

So next time someone says, "magic, the value of my property has risen”, ask them who exactly will that benefit.  Cos it sure won't be them.

The case for compulsory voting in a referendum

Until recently I was rather in favour of referenda.  It could at one stroke give an answer to a tricky question by the people of the nation. Or so it seemed.  But two recent referenda have created more questions than answers.

Take the recent Irish one on so called same sex marriage.  An amazing low turnout of 61% voted on an issue of such supposed importance.  Of that 61% turn out about 61% voted yes.  Do the arithmetic and you find that this means only 37% of the voting population actually supported the measure.  So in reality, far from Ireland giving a real universal support to the measure, the truth is 63% of the population didn’t. 

It was similar in Scotland in the independence referendum.  Of the total eligible to vote only 37% voted in favour of Yes.  Obliviously that didn't pass.  But you could still have had a Yes vote with less than 50% of those eligible to vote actually voting Yes.

Now, given the campaign for Yes probably managed to get out 95% of their supporters, it really means you have rather a lot of disaffected people in Ireland.  The failure of both campaigns to win more than 50% of the electors over shows that referenda are by no means a way to change a countries laws or constitution.

Should the question of a Scottish independence referendum come up again, it should be insisted that 50% of the electorate and not just 50% of the votes cast must be reached before the vote will be carried.  That way we can be sure that a vote does exactly what it’s intended to do.  Give a clear answer from the whole country.

Do as I say.

Two statements from leading people this week.

Paul Kahn, president of the 16,000-employee Airbus UK, said Britain must compete for international investment. The "best way to guarantee this is by remaining part of the EU," he said.  Got that?

But his comment was a bit odd given it's barely 12 months since the CEO of Airbus said this:  "Clearly we have a massive investment in the UK and I don’t think there has ever been a plan to change that. The key issue is for the UK to continue to be a competitive place to do business. Profitable trade and political union are not joined at the hip. Russian and American companies trade with companies in Europe without being part of a political union. Business investment depends on profits not politics.".  Hey ho.

Now I will tackle Mr Kahns statement another time. But as a start, is it not fanciful to think that the UK, the 6th largest economy in the world, could not do its own trade deals like Switzerland, Iceland and Norway to name but three “local” countries?

But on to the second statement.

On Sunday, Len McCluskey said it was "essential" that the correct leader is chosen to lead the Labour Party, adding:  "It's up to them. If they inject more disillusionment in the party then the pressure will grow form our members to re think."

Both gentlemen are in effect issuing threats. Do it my way or we may pull out. The problem with both these statements is that they do not reflect that in a democracy the will of the people is, or should be, greater than the will of the head of an industry or trade union.

Give an inch.

MSPs have said that plans for new Holyrood powers fall short of recommendations made by the cross-party backed Smith Commission in a report just published.  The BBC reported that the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee said the UK government's draft legislation did not meet the "spirit or substance" of Smith.

Sounds an interesting story till you dig only the teeniest bit below the surface and are quickly not at all surprised at what you find.  The Committee has a majority of SNP members on it.  And it fits rather nicely with the continual confrontational narrative coming out from the SNP contingent at Westminster.  Give us more is the constant theme.

Now if the SNP and others who rather amusingly call themselves “progressive” had won a majority at Westminster they could agree to do just that.  But in case Nicola hasn’t noticed, the “progressive” majority never materialised.  They lost the election. 

So when you read the words of committee convener Bruce Crawford (SNP), "The committee believes that the current proposals do not yet meet the challenge of fully translating the political agreement reached in the Smith Commission into legislation.”, read, we lost  the election but we will twist and turn till we get what we want. 

Now I know it was a unanimous report with one Conservative one Lib Dem and two Labour Members putting their names to it.  But be not mistaken, this is a report that has as its core Mission Creep.  And if the Conservative Government didn’t know before, they better watch out now.  The SNP under Ms Sturgeon are pretty smart outmaneuvers and negotiators.  Give an inch and all that.

How can I say that?  Well, I don't recall the Scottish people being asked "do we want proposals like what is in the Smith Commission".  I recall a very simple question to which the Scottish people gave a pretty emphatic answer to.  Mission Creep is well underway SNP style.

The answer to why Scotland should recieve additional funding is 4 hours 43 minutes.

I had a lovely lunch with the family at Cherwell Boathouse in Oxford on Sunday.  Inevitably the election came up.  And the Barnett Formula.  How come Scotland can get free prescriptions and England can’t?  

Now this question is frequently addressed to me by southern cousins because in England the people have never really had it explained to them in the media what the Barnett formula actually is for.  I suppose the easiest way to explain it is to say if you see someone in need, you help them.   

Or to put it more in political terms, if, because of geography, it costs 10% more to treat the average patient in Scotland, the rest of the UK will help them out.  If you don’t get the geography bit go to www.travelinescotland.com and work out how long it takes to get  from Campbeltown to the nearest big general hospital, Glasgow University Hospital, formerly known as the Southern General.  I’ll save you the search time.  It’s 4 hours 43 minutes.   

So in order to ensure no matter where in the UK you live you get similar levels of care, there is an adjustment in the block grant that Scotland gets to compensate for the additional costs of providing the same treatments in such a geographically challenging environment.  And that can be reflected in many other areas that the Barnett Formula was intended to address.  Now I know it’s not perfect.  But while Scotland remains in the UK, it’s the best we have.  Indeed, being able to help each part of the UK when it was in need was a key justification given in the referendum for Scotland staying in the Union.

Now this is where it gets interesting.  Scotland gets its adjusted block grant.  But the settlement says that the Scottish Government can then prioritise what it spends given situations can and do change.  So we have a Scottish Government deciding that, because of local economic situations, prescriptions should be free.  But it doesn’t get any more money from Westminster to fund it.  No, it has to make cuts elsewhere to fund it. 

So the premise that England is paying for free prescriptions is one cultured by the media in London and really rather disingenuously doesn’t tell the whole story.  No new news there I guess!

"Four legs good, two legs better!"

You will remember that line from Animal Farm.  But do you remember this line?  “Cuts are never good, state intervention is always good".  No, I thought you wouldn’t.  I don’t either.  But then maybe it was in 1984.  No, not there either.  But it is a good line all the same and it reflects a still present view in some of the media.  Which is all well and good if it’s the Daily Record, Daily Mirror, The Guardian or Sky.  Privately owned media outlets.  We know where they stand and choose, or not, to buy their paper or media streams.  It’s not so good if it’s the licence funded broadcasters or the other publicly owned organisations like Channel4. 

Now I don’t believe this silly stuff about their infiltration by socialist and specifically Labour Groupthink. But it is difficult not to see there has been a problem.  Partisan?  Possibly.  Badly judged?  Almost definitely.  Why?  Because the culture that has existed in the BBC seems to have drifted to a shared ideology with Labour - "cuts are never good, state intervention is always good".  Perhaps they fear, because the public is the key funder of the BBC, it too is in line for “cuts”.    I actually do believe that BBC is an excellent organisation that produces world class stuff.  But it shouldn't be exempt from the effort to put the UK back on a sane fiscal footing than any other taxpayer funded activity.  Just look at Greece this morning and think of what we could have been like.

But I’m not sure your money and mine should be going to fund a Press Office that, within a day, is sending out what effectively is a briefing note against the new Culture Media and Sport Secretary. 

But perhaps it's no surprise.  Take one screen shot from the BBC web site on 27^th April.  

Labour’s lines and policies feature prominently and are completely unquestioned.  The only mention of the Tories links back to an ancient story about a Cameron speech given on 14 April.  Or another screen shot a few days earlier.   

 

See a pattern? 

Now I’m really not so sure it really is a plot by the BBC to go against everything a non-Labour government does as some conspiracy theorists would argue.  I think it’s just a lazy culture that has been allowed to grow over the years.  They employed like-minded people.  It’s the easiest way to recruit.

Peter Sissons in his autobiography, wisely penned after he'd retired, commented that he wouldn't call it a bias so much as a mind-set.  And that, in the BBC newsroom, you'll see any number of copies of the Guardian and the Independent floating around, but rarely a Telegraph.  He recalled the times he arrived to work when there was some major new story developing.  Asking for a briefing he would be handed a Guardian and told, "It's all in there. "

That's the core of the BBC's problem.  And they are going to have to sort it out very quickly before John Whittingdale does it for them.

Living by numbers.

If you are old enough to remember British synthpop group New Musik, you will remember  their 1980s hit 'Living By Numbers'.

So here are three last observations about the numbers the Election has thrown up.

First. In Scotland 50% of the votes cast went to the SNP.  But they got 95% of the seats.

Second.  Only 71% of the electorate voted in Scotland in the Election.  

Third.  This means the SNP actually only managed to persuade 36% of the Scottish electorate to vote for them. Nicola persuaded 37% to vote Yes in the Referendum.  So in reality support for SNP dropped by 1%.  And given the SNP managed to get virtually their whole vote out on Election day, that means 64% of the Scottish electorate didn’t vote for the SNP.

Credit where credit is due.

One person has come out of the Labour disaster with a great deal of credit. Ed Balls took his defeat with considerable dignity.  No gripes, no recriminations, no blaming anyone else.

I think many are like me think his economics were one stop short of Dagenham Docks.  But how he handled himself in a moment of painful public humiliation was a tribute to the man and he should earn the respect of us all. Well done Ed.

How much was your vote worth?

Two parties, two different stories.

Party	%	Votes	Seats
CON	36.9%	11,334,920	331
LAB	30.4%	9,347,326	232
SNP	4.7%	1,454,436	56
LIB DEM	7.9%	2,415,888	8
GRN	3.8%	1,157,613	1
UKIP	12.6%	3,881,129	1

A few observations to get you thinking.

The Greens polled 296,823 votes (3.8% of total) less than the SNP (4.7% of total) and get 1 seat compared to SNPs 56.

The Lib Dems polled 961,452 votes (7.9% of total) more than SNP (4.7% of total) and get 8 seats compared to SNPs 56.

The UKIP polled 2,426,693 votes (12.6% of total) more than SNP (4.7% of total) and get 1 seat compared to the SNPs 56.

The UKIP polled 1,465,241 votes (12.6% of total) more than the Lib Dems (7.9% of total) and get 1 seat compared to the Lib Dems 8.

And when they were up they were up. And when they were down they were down.

I’m not sure how Nicola Sturgeon felt at the Cenotaph earlier today at the VE Day Celebration event.  The awkward twitch of her right foot and looking away as the Duke of York laid his wreath was perhaps an unconscious display of her republican leanings.  Not that there is anything wrong with republican leanings.  Or was it she was remembering the other Duke of York, the Grand Old one, who marched his troops to the top of the hill only to have to march them back down again.  And I wonder if that’s Nicola’s concern.  I say that on two fronts. 

First of all she has marched her troops very effectively up the hill with the hopes of her supporters high.  And it was “her” supporters, this had a very presidential feel to it north of the Border, including the helicopter.  (I did hear some wag wonder if she could see the food banks from her helicopter).  But the march up the hill was done with the promise of influence and power at Westminster.  Now it’s clear she has neither it’s a new form of words that have appeared.  They are diluted to making Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster.  How she manages that drop in expectation for the thousands who have swelled the ranks of the SNP in recent months will be an interesting one to watch.

But it’s a second issue that is more concerning.  If marching charged up people back down has its own troubles, the behaviour of the new MPs will be an even bigger worry for her.  A good number of her new colleagues at Westminster have no track record of elected office.  Some of them have said pretty unwise things.  For example, Mhairi Black who unseated shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander as MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South described No voters in the referendum as “gullible” and “selfish”.   She has a turn of phrase for every occasion it would seem.

She bragged on Twitter: “Smirnoff Ice is the drink of the gods - I cannae handle this c*** man.”  Dangerous thing Twitter for any elected politician.  And there is nothing wrong with being a Partick Thistle fan.  But for an aspiring politician there is a lot wrong in the west of Scotland saying: “I’ve only just realised - I really f***** hate Celtic” and “Celtic, yer a joke!#scum".  Or when she fantasied about “putting the nut” on Labour councillors at a rally in George Square in Glasgow. 

Now in isolation these are not really issues.  But when you have a troop of similar hot headed loose cannons around Westminster, how long will it take for the credibility of the SNP as a disciplined body to fall to bits and with it the message they are clearly wanting to bring to the UK public. 

Think before you vote

Labours good luck note to the incoming Coalition after loosing the election five years ago.  How true were Liam Byrnes words.

How much is Ed Milibands house worth?

One of the phrases that has been doing the rounds this last week of the campaign has been Labour will speak up for the workers as if they are some minority that is being done down by the Coalition.  It’s been used time and time again.  The workers, they must be a distinct group of nearly extinct people that Ed wants to speak up for.

This confuses me.  In Scotland we have 94% of people eligible to work in work.  Which leaves 6% unemployed.  Some of that 6% will be what we call residual unemployment, people between jobs for example. 

Ed Miliband, in these class ridden statements, invites us to comment.  And I will. Ed Miliband is the only party leader whose house would be hit by Labour's mansion tax.  The Labour leader's north London home is worth a whopping £2.7m, more than triple the area's average house price, according to online property portal Zoopla which also reckons a Labour win would be bad for housing.  And Zoopla should know better than any politician.

It really is the economics of the madhouse from Labour.  Business leader after business leader I meet has the same story.  They struggled to get out of the the mess the last Labour government left us with. And crucially they are enjoying a little bit of growth and stability now.  They hold their heads in their hands when they listen to Labour and the SNP. Tax and spend. It brings back the memories of the last time Labour had their hands on the wheel when Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, the man who aspires to be chancellor, drove us to the edge of the the fiscal cliff, and they are still in denial of what they did.

Ed hasn’t a clue what it’s like to be a “worker”.  He’s never been one.  Or what it’s like to be a business owner as he so clearly demonstrated in the three way leaders debate on BBC.  He just doesn’t get that the public sector needs a dynamic productive sector.

In a Sky News question-and-answer session with young voters, the Labour leader was asked about his life experience outside politics.  What qualifies him to represent the people of Britain?

His answer: “I’ve done a number of things which I think, I hope, are relevant to this. I was obviously an economic adviser in the Treasury and I think that’s important. I think that’s important because the economy and how we change our economy is at the heart of the country.  I’ve taught. I taught at Harvard University.  I actually taught around government and economics and I think that, actually, one of the things that that did for me … [was the ability] to listen and engage with people about what their issues are, what they’re interested in.”  Read that answer again.  Let it sink in.  He's done nothing in the real productive world that pays for the politicians promises. (It was in 2003 that he did his stint in Harvard, a year's sabbatical, to study and lecture at Harvard's Centre for European Studies, before becoming an MP for the safe seat of Doncaster North in 2005).

Yes, I’ve been personal here, a thing I’ve consistently tried not to be in my blog.  But it’s the hypocrisy.  It's breathtaking.  And if you vote Labour, that's what you're voting for.

When is a mandate not a mandate?

It is interesting to hear Scotland’s First Minister time and time again talking about the wishes of the Scottish people.  Assuming that she does get the seats landslide the polls are suggesting, according to a TNS survey in Scotland she will still only have garnered around 54% per cent of the votes cast by the electorate.  

In other words, given the turnout won’t be 100%, it’s highly unlikely she will have persuaded a majority of Scots to vote for her.  Even if there is a whopping 84% turnout like there was at the referendum last year, Nicola will only have had 45% of Scottish people voting for her.

So when she claims to speak for the people of Scotland, hardly.  And if indeed she does get her wish and her influence is writ large over an incoming Labour government, I hope she remembers who she will be representing, the more than 50% of the electorate that didn’t vote for her.  But somehow I don’t think I’ll ever hear Nicola saying that.

And while we are on the subject of the SNP, it is pretty amazing to hear some of their ground troops at Hustings and on the streets indulging in what can only be called bully boy tactics.  Shouting to drown out people who have a different view is a sad reflection on where politics has descended over the past few years.  Nothing wrong with a good robust conversation.  But we all know where the fine line is crossed.  And too often it’s the SNP supporters who are crossing it.

Why drive something like a Golf when you can drive a Golf?

Do you remember that classic VW Golf advert, the one where various people said thing like, "it sounds just like a Golf".  Of course the punch line was "Why drive something like a Golf when you can drive a Golf?".  Why indeed.  You want the real thing.

Which leads me very quickly and neatly into todays revelation by Ed Miliband that Labour will stick to Conservative borrowing plans and not exceed them.  Well, of course in the obscure way he has, he didn't quite commit Labour to that and that will be his fall back position.  But any normal listener will have heard Ed say just that. 

So, with Labour seemingly agreeing to keep to an increasing number of pledges the Conservatives have made, why would you settle for something sounds like the Conservatives when you can have the real thing?

The light at the end of the tunnel may not be an oncoming train.

Across a number of marginal seats, Survation, found that 46% of Tory voters and 37% of Labour voters would back the Lib Dems if their own candidate had little chance of winning.

So let’s take one such seat, East Dunbartonshire, where Jo Swinson (Lib Dem) is fighting the seat.

Let's do the arithmetic. In the latest Lord Ashcroft poll taken 17^th April, it suggested that the following would be the result. Then along comes Survation with their more recent poll. I've applied the Survation effect to the Lord Ashcroft poll and the results are very interesting.  No wonder the Lib Dems are throwing the kitchen sink at East Dunbartonshire.

Party                        Ashcroft Poll        Survation Applied

Conservative                12.00%                       6.48%
Labour                         16.00%                      10.08%
Liberal Democrat          29.00%                      40.44%
UKIP                           1.00%                          1.00%
SNP                            40.00%                      40.00%
Green                          1.00%                        1.00%

So assume the Tory and Labour voters do as the Survation poll suggests they might do, Jo Swinson would get an additional 11.44% of the vote, enough to give her the seat by 0.44%.  And it sure isn’t all over yet if you replicate that in other seats.  For example, across the Clyde in East Renfrewshire, Jim Murphy (Labour) may also benefit from the bounce with Lib Dem and Tories abandoning their party to get Jim Murphy back in. 

But there is nothing new in this in a sense, certainly in Scotland.  Tactical voting has been a factor in elections for decades given Scotland has had a four party system in full swing unlike south of the border where it’s been two party dominance.

So if one thing is sure, every vote counts in this election.

They still think it's all over....

How far back can your memory go?  I suppose it's the thing you notice as the years go by, you remember more from years ago.  I'm sure there must be a medical word or expression that covers it. 

I was in one of these flashback moments the other day.  Clear as a bell it was.  Labour were going to win the 1992 General Election.  Everyone said so.  The polls.  The media.  The pundits.

Even Neil Kinnock the Labour Party leader thought everything was going to be all right on the night.

And who can forget the presumptuous Labour Party rally.  Oh yes, it was all over bar the counting of the votes.  John Major would sink without trace.

Then the unthinkable happened.  It didn't happen that way.  Red faces all round. And if my memory serves me correctly, John Major ended up with more votes than any other Prime Minster in history.  And he got a majority of MPs too so he formed the next government.

So it's not over in the 2015 version, by a long way.

Who gets the keys?

The months are turning into weeks. The weeks to days.  And soon it will be days to hours.  And before we know it we will be hearing Returning Officers across the UK telling us what individual has been elected to serve that constituency.

Then it's the morning after the night before.  My view is it won't go to this and a single figure Conservative majority will emerge. But what if there is no overall majority?  Who gets the first go at forming a group of parties that would give them the most seats?  Should it be the party with the most seats?  Or the party with fewer seats that thinks it can cobble together a majority? 

Well, how about we adopt a position that apparently is clear in the minds of some.  Certainly one candidate for the keys to Number 10 thinks it's clear anyway.   He said the “constitutional position is clear” and “very simple”.   In the event of a hung parliament “the Prime Minister gets to have the first crack”.  

Sound fair?  I though so too.  So who said that?  None other than Ed Miliband.

So Ed has already conceded that Dave gets first crack at it if he gets the greater number of seats. 

Sometimes party leaders must wish YouTube had never been invented.