Critical workers

Following on from yesterday's post, the government has published their list of critical workers on the gov.uk website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision

So, how did I do? I think fairly well. I missed off police (annoyingly, as I had them on my written list), and totally missed off prison officers, and the military.

In fact, the list is broader than I expected, with categories like 'essential financial services provision'.

I'd also hope that companies can apply for exemptions for their staff, e.g. if a company is working making ventilators (or components thereof), or scientists working on vaccines and tests, or companies making tests.

All in all, I think it's a good, comprehensive list. I wonder how many people it covers? Five to ten million, at a guess.

What is a 'critical worker' ?

With the shutdown caused by Covid-19 slowly rushing towards us like a particularly laggardly iceberg, it has been announced that special measures are being put in place to help 'critical workers' - such as creche schools for their children allowing them to still go to work.

This leads to a question: what is a 'critical worker' ?

Firstly, it probably depends from crisis to crisis: in a war situation, anything to do with the military, logistics, and wartime production would be critical.

But we are facing a health emergency, and therefore doctors, nurses, and all the frontline staff are undoubtedly critical.

In trying to work out how we as a family will cope with an extended stay in our home, I made two assumptions:
1) We will continue having power (i.e. gas, electricity).
2) Water / sewage will not be interrupted.

In my view, both of these are critical. A population left without power, water or sanitation for any length of time will soon see deaths occurring regardless of Covid-19. People need power, even in the milder weather of a UK spring. Much food will be frozen, and all that dried pasta needs cooking. And to ensure these services, people need to be working on maintaining them. If not serviced, things break. And when things break anyway, we need people to fix them.

Then there is telecoms. We are being told to work from home where possible, and it can be argued that this is not critical. However people rely on the Internet nowadays, and being able to keep in contact with family and friends far away will be a boon, and in many cases a lifesaver. Your elderly friend has run out of food? With communications, you have a hope of getting some to her. Likewise, our son's school is understandably leaning heavily on online resources to teach during this extended break. And the Internet could be a great morale raiser to people trapped in their homes.

Another example: food and logistics. Many people I know are relying on online grocery deliveries for their food. This has meant they have done little or no hoarding, and will rely on as much of their deliveries making it through as possible. This is probably a good, centralised way of restricting social contact. If this was to be a prolonged situation, you could use logistics and central distribution instead  to 'fairly' dole out essentials rather than ration cards, although that's admittedly a very rocky road.

Finally, there is what I would call the essential support staff - a good example in this crisis being the teachers who will look after the children of all the critical workers.

So, I'd create a rank of essential services for this outbreak:
1) Medical and related.
2) Essential services (gas, electric, water, sewage)
3) Logistics / deliveries
4) Telecoms
5) Assorted support (e.g. teachers, planners, decision makers)

I am almost certainly missing some. for instance, how long can society last without bins being emptied? For individual households, that might be less problematic. For many communal spaces, it might be. How about postal services (i.e. Royal Mail) ?

It will be interesting to see what the government comes up with later.

 Any thoughts?

The Venezuelan Petro.

In February 2018, the government of Venezuela - well known for its financial acumen - announced they were jumping on a digital bandwagon by launching their own cryptocurrency the Petro. The new currency had many stated aims, including to bolster the crashing Venezualan Bolivar currency, and to circumvent US sanctions.

This was an interesting move. The  initial sale allegedly raised $3.3 billion for the Maduro government, although there has been no independent verification of that claim.

I personally feel that government-backed cryptocurrencies are a good way forward for the technology. Although governmental backing reduces some of the advantages of such systems, it also gives a currency increased trust - and trust has been one thing holding cryptocurrencies back.

It is therefore interesting that Venezuela, a country that is in the depths of a massive financial and political crisis, is the first country to make such a move. So what has happened in the last year?

The answer appears to be 'not much'. You cannot go onto a market and buy a Petro or Petro Gold. No-one seems to have an idea about the value of a Petro. To make matters worse, the technology behind the Petro has changed several times of the year, even after launch - and there are even doubts that the currency even exists in any practical form.

I won't go into any jokes about the failure of a socialist state to create a reliable currency - after all, we capitalist countries haven't been brilliant at that, either. But the Petro does seem to be yet another scam cryptocurrency - albeit one created by a government that is in real trouble.

And meanwhile ordinary Venezuelans suffer.

Brexit: the current situation

Last night's vote gave Mrs May a smidgen of authority to go back to the EU and ask for changes to the withdrawal agreement. With the right changes, the deal might - perhaps, with a following wind - pass through parliament. Even that is far from assured, given the small margin of 'victory' in the vote.

There are many problems. The first and foremost is that the EU has said it will not renegotiate. Even if it did, there is no indication that they would agree to whatever quasi-magical alterations to the backstop people have in mind. And there is nothing stopping other countries - for instance Spain - from wanting to reopen other aspects of the agreement to their advantage.

And all of this has to be done in a few weeks.

It really is an almighty mess.

Another problem is that we have MPs saying what they are *against*, and not what they are *for*. There are also far too many of them who seem to think that negotiation is a case of demanding, and then stamping your feet like stroppy children until the party you are negotiating with relents.

I fear this is not going to end well for us. And it is all our own fault.

The Holodomor

If you stroll down Calton Hill in Edinburgh from a certain direction, you may see a little memorial  stone sitting beside the path. It is a little off the beaten track, and many people will miss it during their visits to the city.

Its grey stone is a little bright against its surroundings; then again, it is barely a year old, and will fade with time.

As have, sadly, the memories and knowledge of the events it commemorates. For it remembers the millions of people who died between 1932 and 1933 in the Ukraine.

It seems almost everything about the Holodomor is disputed. Even its name is not settled: some call it the 'Great Famine', others the 'Ukranian Genocide'. Many argue it was a deliberate genocide to repress the Ukranian people, others that it was an accidental result of the collectivisation laws instituted by Stalin. Some say only a few million died; others up to 10 million (it seems likely the figure is between 3 and 7 million, in itself a frankly horrific range).

These disputes - often scholarly ones - get in the way of the horror, and can almost downplay them - as if saying "7 million people didn't die; it was only 6 million." makes everything fine.

The Holodomor deserves to be better remembered. And in so doing, more thought should be given to all those who died under Stalin's tyrannical regime.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. From Wiki:

"(it) is an international memorial day on 27 January commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust that occurred during the Second World War. It commemorates the genocide that resulted in the death of an estimated 6 million Jewish people, 5 million Slavs, 3 million ethnic Poles, 200,000 Romani people, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled people, and 9,000 homosexual men by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "

A few years ago we went to a talk by the great pilot Eric 'Winkle' Brown. We expected an entertaining talk about his experiences in the air, and that is what we got. However we also got a long section on his experiences near the end of the war. As a German speaker and pilot, he interviewed Hermann Goering after his capture, and also was one of the first people to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

He spent a fair while talking about the horrors he saw in the camp, and his feelings about the people who staffed it. Wiki has the following: "he soon interviewed the camp's former commandant and his assistant Josef Kramer and Irma Grese, and remarked upon the experience by saying that; "Two more loathsome creatures it is hard to imagine" and further describing the latter as "... the worst human being I have ever met."

The very powerful and upsetting talk made me realise one thing: I'd never actually heard a first-hand account of the camps before. I'd seen plenty of TV interviews with survivors, but whilst horrific, they lacked the impact that first-hand testimony holds. And as old age takes those who suffered in the camps and survived, and those such as Eric Brown who helped liberate them, first-hand testimony will evaporate. We shall be left only with recordings, and like pictures of emaciated survivors, or of diggers bulldozing piles of bodies into graves, they are easier to deny.

And this is a reason why we should all pause for a minute today to remember the Holocaust and to consider man's potential to inflict mass suffering on his fellow man. The Holocaust was not the first such atrocity, and sadly it was not the last. I fear to say there will be more in the future. The people affected my be different, and it may be rooted in different causes, but remembering the horror and saying "Never again," are good baby steps in preventing their recurrence.

Denying the Holocaust - especially because of dislike of the groups who were killed - is the first step to allowing something like it to happen again.

So pause and think. If you are religious, offer a little prayer. If you are not, think how you'd feel if it was your mother and father in such a camp, or your son or daughter.

For the people who died in the holocaust were not statistics, nor were they nameless bodies in a black-and-white photo. They were real people, as real as you or I.

Brexit, part n

With yesterday's new that the peoples vote campaigners have given up - for the moment - on forcing another referendum on parliament, it looks likely that the Brexit probability waveforms are finally collapsing.

It now seems there are three main ways forward:

1. Revoke A50 (this splits into two other options, permanently or temporarily).
2. May's deal, or something akin to it.
3. Hard, crash-out no-deal Brexit.

It feels like we're finally reaching an end-game for Brexit, or at least this phase of it.

Since option 3 is the default, it sadly still has to be the favourite. However there is probably a majority in parliament to avoid a no-deal Brexit, and not enough support for revocation. The ERG'ers are also starting to show some flexibility, so it may be that the dead corpse of May's deal is reanimated in some form.

On a related point, it appears that polling on Brexit is being confused by people who say they want a 'no deal' Brexit, when they actually want to remain - they think that no deal means staying in.

Brexit

It's all a bit of a mess, isn't it?

There is no clear way forward now that May's deal has been rejected. Many anti-deal people want options that involve the agreement of third parties, and therefore might be unavailable. They are wishing on unicorns.

The public split 52-48 on the Brexit referendum, and polling shows very little change in their view since then. Some polls show remain in the lead, some show leave. The country is still bitterly divided.

I have no answers. It is up to reasonable people in parliament to be sane and sensible, and they are proving to be unreasonable, far from sane and very, very silly.

In my view, the first question MPs and the wider public should ask is: "what is certainly deliverable?" The second question they should ask is: "what will the great British public support?"

I cannot see an answer that satisfies both these questions. Brexit has split the country, and it seems few people - especially MPs - are willing to compromise their views, even when those views are undeliverable or anathema to the public.

It is easy to think of options that suit individuals.

You might want a second referendum. But which options would be 'fair'? There is also precious little time for one to be held before the end of March.

You might want an extension to A50 beyond March 29th to allow more time to sort it out, but the EU might not want an extension beyond the next European elections - and besides, who says people will change their minds even if we give them an eternity?

You may want to cancel Brexit, but would the EU want us to remain in with the same conditions, rebates etc as before, or will we be forced deeper into their project? And if the result of the 2016 referendum is ignored, people might reasonably cry: "what price democracy?"

The only clearly deliverable option is no-deal Brexit, and that threatens to be disastrous to the economy and country: but that is only deliverable because nothing needs to be done for it to be delivered. It is the default.

So that is where we are heading: a no-deal, crash-out Brexit that will harm the country in many ways.

I hope I am wrong.

Politics is moving very fast at the moment, with May facing a vote of no confidence this evening. Sadly, it seems that the views of too many people are firmly entrenched.

John Bellingham

Political assassinations are thankfully uncommon here in the UK. Aside from the tragic murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016, there have been precious few attacks on our MPs.

Before Jo Cox's tragic death, the IRA and their predecessors had done their best to kill MPs, succeeding on six occasions. Despite the list of sitting MPs who have been murdered is thankfully low.

But these are just the successful attempts; there have been other, unsuccessful ones. Labour MP Stephen Timms was attacked by an Islamic extremist, whilst a tragic machete attack on Nigel Jones killed his researcher, Andrew Pennington. It is clear that MPs can make an attractive target.

A simple plaque on a building in St Neots tells the story of John Bellingham, the only person to successfully murder a sitting Prime Minister.

An event to have civic pride in?

By all accounts (mostly, it should be said, written after his crime), Bellingham was not a success in  life. Born in St Neots in 1776, he set himself up in business and travelled the world, including to Russia, where he ended up in jail in 1804 over bad debts. It took him five years to finally make it home, and he seems to have spent that time getting increasingly annoyed.

For some reason, he believed the British government owed him compensation for his imprisonment in Russia. After his pleas to the government failed, he travelled on the 11th May 1812 to the Houses of Parliament, where he waited in a lobby. As Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (apparently not 'Percival' as on the plaque) appeared at about 5.15 in the afternoon, Bellingham shot him in the chest.

Bellingham made no attempt to escape, and in fact sat down on a bench. He therefore cannot have been very surprised when he was swiftly arrested, tried and executed within a week - despite people attempting to help him escape!

There was a surprising amount of public sympathy for him, partly due to Spencer Perceval's unpopularity, and a subscription ensured that the success he had missed in life was partly gained in death.

As for Perceval? He is a forgotten Prime Minister. Few remember him, and when they do, it is for the nature of his death that any of his many achievements in life.

The SS May

I've recently been thinking of Mrs May as being the SS Ohio.

For anyone not acquainted with the real story, it's well worth a read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ohio

I'm not claiming that Mrs May weighs a few thousand tonnes; only that she resembles the ship in her sheer doggedness in not sinking against all comers.

"Although May reached Brexit successfully, she was so badly damaged that she had to be effectively scuttled in order to offload her duties, and never led again. The PM is fondly remembered in Britain, where to this day she is considered to be the saviour of the beleaguered island."

"Another blimp, this time a Rees-Mogg 1725, was shot down by a May gunner; however, the blimp crashed into May's starboard side, forward of the cabinet table, and exploded. A rain of shite showered the government from stem to stern. The blimp's bomb failed to detonate. Captain Clarke was telephoned from aft by the chief officer, who told Clarke that the Rees-Mogg 1725 had crashed into the media and then bounced onto the government. Clarke 'rather curtly' replied: "Oh that's nothing. We've had a Boris 2018 on the foredeck for nearly half an hour.""

"Wires were now hauled aboard and emergency salvage trolls began to discharge the memes. At the same time, a fleet auxiliary, RFA Hammond Organ, began to pump 10,000 tons of votes into his own ballot boxes. As the votes flowed in, May sank lower and lower in the water. The last few votes entered her as simultaneously her keel settled on the bottom. Her captain, the British public, was subsequently awarded the George Cross."

"On 19 September 2019 the forward half of May was towed ten miles offshore and sunk by gunfire from the destroyer HMS Johnson. On 3 October, the stern half was scuttled in deep water using explosive charges laid by the salvage vessel RFA Mogg's Nanny."

It is interesting to think of what other famous ships politicians might be. Is Cable an S-80 submarine, poorly designed, unfit for purpose before it's even left the dock? Was David Cameron the Titanic, a vainglorious vessel that sunk the country on its own self-regard? And as for Jeremy Corbyn ... well, I'll let you decide which ship would best represent Jeremy Corbyn ...

A 'modernised' modern major-general song.

I am the very model of a Brexiteer Armchair-General,

I've more ignorant than vegetable, animal, or mineral,

I love the kings of England, and I fight the fights historical

From Amsterdam to Maastricht, in order categorical;

I'm ill acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

For me all votes of confidence are problematical,

About the evils of Europe I'm teeming with a lot o' news,

With many dismal facts about those awful remainers' views.


With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan.

My ten political predictions for 2017

1) There will not be a General Election.
2) Corbyn will still be Labour leader.
3) The Conservatives will be having regular polling leads (see point 2).
4) Article 50 will have been triggered.
5) UKIP will be struggling to find a new policy position.
6) Lib Dems will rise in the polls and continue to win locals, but will have more trouble in any parliamentary by-elections.
7) The SNP will start to suffer electorally from its years in power.
8) At least two MPs will resign from the government over Brexit: one from leave, and one more from remain.
9) Trump and Putin will have a falling out.
10) House of Lords reform will continue to be talked about, but will not be progressed (this one is a banker).

Of these 1, 3, and 4 are the ones that most match my own wishes.

Railway planning chaos

So the much-vaunted plans to upgrade many of Britain's railway lines have hit the buffers hard. What has happened?

Background:

Network Rail (NR) divides its agreed work into five-year control periods. The current period is known as CP5, which runs from April 2014 to March 2019. NR has been told it can spend £38.5 billion on its work during that period, a figure which includes: (1)

• capital expenditure (£13 billion); this covers improvements to lines and stations, and new lines such as Crossrail or Thameslink.
• replacing and renewing older parts of the network (£12 billion)
• day-to-day maintenance and operating costs (£13 billion). 

It should be noted that three-fifths of this money comes from the government's Network Grant, whilst most of the rest comes from the passengers and freight operators who use the railways. (2)

Much of the work to keep the existing network running is self-financed by NR itself, using money it receives from the train operators in the form of Track Access Charges; last year NR actually made a profit. However new projects - such as electrification - costs more than NR can afford, and the government loans them the money as part of a Network Grant. As such, this work needs to be agreed with the government. In 2013-14, the Network Grant was £3.7 billion (1).

The program to electrify these lines came not from the government, but from Network Rail and the train operating companies, who persuaded the Department for Transport and the Treasury that it was the right thing to do.

The decision:

Yesterday it was announced that some of the capital expenditure on the Midland Main Line (MML) and Trans-Pennine Express (TPE) electrifications were to be postponed. This does not necessarily mean NR is spending less; they will still be spending £38.5 billion during CP5, just on fewer projects. In the autumn a review will state what should happen to these other projects.

What went wrong:

The first stage of the work on the Great Western Main Line (GWML) has turned out to be much more expensive than planned, and is behind schedule. Rather than progress work on the other schemes, the pause may allow NR to work out what went wrong and apply lessons learned to the other schemes. Alternatively, such recalculations might push the cost-benefit ratio to such a level that the schemes are not worth continuing.

Worse is the fact that NR is also failing on their bread-and-butter work: the track renewals and resignalling schemes that are done all the time as systems age. According to Rail magazine, in the first year of CP5, they have overspent by £230 million and are 77% behind schedule on overhead line renewals (that is replacing exiting lines, not creating new ones), 63% behind in signalling renewals, and 7% in track renewals. These are no-brainer schemes that they have wide experience of and should be getting correct.

It is clear that there is little chance of getting the other new work done within NR's £38.5 billion budget over the five years, and therefore a pause, whilst unfortunate, is probably wise.

Whose fault is it?

Network Rail's. They decide on the work that needs to be done, and produce a budget for that work that gets approval from the government. They have singularly failed to meet the monetary or temporal budgets they set, even if those were somewhat woolly in the first place (as mentioned by the Transport Select Committee in January (2) ).

Network Rail have some valid excuses. The sustained, vast increase in traffic (67.3 million more journey over the past year alone) has put pressure on the network and reduced the time available for maintenance works. But this cannot fully explain the delays.

The problem is that it is very difficult to work on lines that are in operation. An example of this was the vastly expensive WCML upgrade; planned at about £1 billion, it came out at £10 billion, over time and did not deliver everything planned. Often they only have lines between one in the morning and six the next morning; in those five hours they need to make the worksite safe, move equipment in and out, and do the work. Often this means that only two or three hours is work done a night, whilst the staff are paid time-and-a-half or double-time for the full shift. It is a very uneconomical way of working, and is getting more expensive as manpower and equipment costs increase, and the netwrok gets busier.

There is also a little fault on the part of the government, who from experience should not have trusted Network Rail's costings and should perhaps have slowed some of the work into CP6 (2019 to 2024) or later

The politics:

This is a major embarrassment for the government. Since they went into the election less than two months ago proclaiming these projects, they should answer when they knew this decision was a possibility, especially as there have been signs that the GWML upgrade has not been going well. However the ORR's report into the first year of CP5 which highlighted these failures was only released on June 12th, so alternatively the government might be congratulated for reacting quickly and trying to get things back in order.

There is another issue: rolling stock orders have been placed for new trains to run on the upgraded lines, and some of these may have nowhere to run. Whilst orders can be cancelled or postponed, perhaps at a cost, there is also a problem in that many of the trains that were due to be replaced were going to be cascaded down to other lines. This entire process will have to be rethought, and will leave people in old, out-dated trains for longer.

It has left a great number of unhappy MPs, mostly Conservatives, who were looking forward to upgrades to existing lines as much as other Conservative MPs opposed HS2. This may well have long-term knock-on effects for the government.

What about HS2? Politically, it makes the project harder; already anti-HS2 groups are using it as a sign that the project's costs will not be kept under control. But as detailed above, building a new line is in many ways simpler than updating an existing one that carries trains. As the disastrous £10 billion WCML upgrade shows, it is very hard to get a handle on the costs of such upgrades. So if you believe that more capacity is needed, this news strengthens the case for HS2, even if politically it is weakened.

Notes:

As a side issue, the TPE is being paused for another reason: some of the work might be replicated by HS3, which is part of George Osborne's plans for a 'Northern Powerhouse'. Whilst it makes sense to ensure that work is not wasted, passengers in the north deserve help now.

For another view, see Paul Bigland's excellent blog.

(1): http://orr.gov.uk/publications/reports/gb-rail-industry-financial-information/gb-rail-industry-financial-information-2013-14
(2): http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmtran/257/257.pdf

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: final thoughts

So that is my view of the current situation. The impetus lies with the Conservatives and the SNP, and politics over the next five years may well be defined by the relationship between those two parties.

I expected the result of this election to be a mess, and even considered another election in November as being likely. I was wrong, and I take little condolence from the fact that nearly everyone else was wrong as well.

This is how I rate the position of the political parties:

• Conservatives are undoubtedly in the best position.
• SNP have done a stellar job, and are in a prime position for the negotiation about the future of the UK.
• UKIP have built a very firm base, but must be slightly disappointed they did not get more MPs.
• Greens have made solid progress, but again they deserved more MPs.
• Labour have lost an election they should have won, and also lost much of their intellectual heart.
• Liberal Democrats are suffering. There is a way back for them, but it will be a long process.

One last note of warning about the leadership elections that face Labour, the Liberal Democrats and possibly UKIP. An orderly changeover to a competent person can play wonders for a party. A disorderly, argumentative changeover to a competent person can irrecoverably harm the new leader. As an example, Ed Miliband never fully recovered from his somewhat disruptive election as leader. The candidates would be wise to remember that as they fight amongst themselves.

Another last note: it is odd to think that the leaders of the main UK parties - Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and perhaps UKIP - might well all be different at the 2020 general election when compared to this one. I've a good feeling that that is (yes, you've guessed) unprecedented.

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: the Conservatives

Finally there are the Conservatives. What happened last week was unprecedented (yes, that word again), and it will be hard to repeat it in 2020, especially in the face of further unpopular austerity. But the are lucky in their enemies: Labour and the Lib Dems are in chaos, both in terms of leadership and strategic direction. UKIP are a threat, but they are currently riven by infighting and may not be able to keep facing both left and right for much longer.

A key issue for the Conservatives is that Cameron has admitted that he will not contest a third general election. This means that some time in the next five years there will be a new Conservative leader. I'm guessing that this changeover will occur after the 2017 EU referendum, whether he wins or loses. Therefore their success in the 2020 general election will depend on who is appointed as Cameron's successor. Boris Johnson is the media's favourite, and someone like Michael Gove is also likely to throw his hat into the ring. However my favourite is currently Rory Stewart, the MP for Penrith and the Border since 2010. He has a true boy's own backstory, including helping to run two Iraqi provinces. Even better, he is young and his constituency is in the north, a factor I will address below.

The party's positioning will be vital. Some of the elements that led them to be labelled 'the nasty party' have moved over to UKIP. Despite this, the Conservative vote share remained more or less static: those voters who moved to UKIP were offset by new Conservative voters from the Lib Dems and elsewhere. As such, Cameron's centrist approach has been vindicated. If the new Labour leader lurches to the left, as is entirely possible, then  the political centre ground may be left to the Conservatives. If Labour tries to be centrist, they will find the Conservatives already there.

There can be little doubt that the thin Conservative majority will decrease over this term through natural wastage: by-elections are always difficult for sitting governments to win. For this reason the Conservatives need to take an aggressive approach to 2020 and try to take more marginal seats. Experts were expecting them to take a defensive approach this year but they did the opposite, and actually attacked Labour marginals, of which they won enough to more than compensate for those they lost to Labour.

A key factor for the Conservatives will be the boundary changes they tried to pass in the last parliament, and which were somewhat controversially blocked by the Liberal Democrats. The changes were of two types: the equalisation of seat sizes in terms of populations, and the reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600. Combined, these moves would reduce Labour's built-in electoral advantage which means the Conservatives need to get a significantly greater vote to win the same number of seats as Labour. This is true if they keep the seat equalisation measures and remove the more controversial reduction in the number of seats. Expect this measure to be back in parliament this term.

If you look at the electoral map, it is clear the Conservatives powerbase is in the south and rural areas. Where they lack seats is in London, the urban north, and Scotland. London will prove a hard nut for them to crack, especially in the face of demographic changes and the mayoral elections which are almost certain to go to Labour. Scotland would also be difficult, but it would be sensible for them to target the seven second-places they achieved in Scotland this time. They might even gain one or two.

The real opportunity for the Conservatives lie in the urban north. It is telling that the third tweet George Osborne sent out after the election victory was about the 'northern powerhouse'. There can be little doubt that successive governments have treated the urban north poorly; the powerhouse of London has attracted more than its fair share of both government attention and finance.

There are many northern constituencies that might turn blue if the Conservatives gave them a little love; there can be little doubt that such attention would also be to the advantage of the country's finances as well: north versus south does not have to be a zero-sum gain. It would be easy to give the northern towns (and the north in general) some love whilst not spurning the south. The key to a third Conservative term in power may just lie in Osborne's 'northern powerhouse'. And he knows it.

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: the SNP

The SNP had a great election, but the result was not quite what they would have wanted. They are now a large minority party, whilst they would have been hoping to gain more power in Westminster by supporting (whether by coalition or confidence and supply) the Labour party.

The next big test facing the SNP is the 2016 Scottish elections, where they would be hoping to maintain the impetus gained in this general election. For various reasons, not least the electoral system in Scotland, this will prove more difficult than it did at this general election. After this there will be the 2017 EU referendum, and then the 2020 general election where they will be defending many seats that Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives will be coveting.

There may also be an issue with the quality of their new MPs. Many would never have expected to be elected when they were selected to stand in what were safe seats for other parties, and many are very politically inexperienced. The SNP will have to carefully manage their new MPs to ensure that they do not do anything too naive.

They will also need to be careful not to be too strident in their opposition to the government. Support for independence has not particularly shifted since the independence referendum, which means that a proportion of the SNP's support comes from people who are against independence. This may seem odd, but given Scottish Labour's longstanding contempt for the Scottish electorate - as best seen by the Falkirk shenanigans of a couple of years ago - I can understand why even a unionist might vote for them. They will need to maintain this broad support if they want to keep many of their Scottish seats, some of which have small majorities. On the other hand, the Conservatives suffered a prolonged decline in Scotland over the decades and are left with one MP; they have not managed to recover. It is perfectly plausible that Scottish Labour will not recover either.

Even the SNP voters who are in favour of independence may not have that aim as their foremost objective: for many the NHS, education, jobs or wages may be the most important factor. If the SNP threaten those, people vaguely in favour of independence might swap their vote. No party should ever forget the bread-and-butter issues.

One thing I do not see as an issue is Salmond versus Sturgeon. Salmond stood down as party leader after he failed to win the independence referendum; since then Sturgeon has taken the party to a new level. Salmond won a seat in Westminster at this election, and some foresee problems between the two of them. I do not; both are brilliant political operators who have different approaches: Salmond will be in Westminster issues whilst Sturgeon leads the party in Scotland. It may be an unbeatable combination.

But the SNP's main aim is independence. They can choose to oppose the government and exploit the fractures in the union in the hope that more of the Scottish population will become pro-independence, or work with the government to move to a halfway house within the union: for instance Full Fiscal Autonomy (FFA), with English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) in return. There are hazards for them in either option.

The SNP are on a high. Whether they remain there depends on how they use their power over the next couple of years.

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: UKIP

UKIP had an excellent general election, although the aftermath has been distinctly interesting. Whilst they only got one MP and their leader failed to gain a seat (for the seventh time of asking, which must be some form of record), their vote increased manyfold, with some candidates very close to winning. They also gained many more councillors and now control their first council. But they have turned victory into defeat very rapidly.

Their first big issue is Farage: he immediately stood down as leader after the election, as he said he would if he failed to be elected. However he did not rule out standing again. Only a few days later came the controversial meeting of the party's leadership, where his resignation was declined. Reports vary about what went on in that meeting, but whatever the truth it led to open warfare within the party. The main combatants are Farage himself and the party's only MP, Douglas Carswell.

The perceived wisdom was that UKIP would hurt the Conservatives; however at the election they took more votes from Labour. But UKIP cannot maintain this position for long, and the new leader will need to work out whether they are going to face to the left or right in the future.

UKIP seem to have gained the Liberal Democrats' 'None of the above' position as a protest party. Whilst many UKIP supporters are very supportive (as web forums show), they undoubtedly gained many votes from people who disliked the other main parties. This was exactly the same position that the Liberal Democrats formerly held, albeit the individual voters would mostly be different. Such voters could easily shift back again. Therefore UKIP will have to continue to position themselves in voters' minds as being 'different' to the other parties. That position may be hard to maintain if they become more successful, or the if the infighting continues for too long.

A 2017 referendum on EU membership may shoot one of UKIP's most precious foxes. However it may also play straight into their hands. It would be good if the party could decide on how a UK outside the EU would work, but that currently seems beyond them. Will they support or oppose the referendum? The hatred and distrust that many members show for David Cameron shows that they may well oppose anything he proposes.

I am unsure what UKIP should do with their immigration calls. On one hand mass immigration has caused social problems; on the other, UKIP have problems with racists within their ranks. Farage (or whoever leads the party) will have to try to clear out the more extreme elements and work out a position ready for the 2017 EU referendum.

They are largely a protest party, and there has been plenty to protest about. In particular the sexual abuse of children by gangs of men in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and elsewhere has understandably got many people angry. These scandals have been widely ignored, especially by Labour. But they need to be careful not to concentrate on cases where the abusers are ethnic minorities and the victims white, as opposed to the many cases where the abusers are white and/or the victims ethnic. Sexual abuse should not be made solely into a racial issue.

In addition, UKIP have rallied against what they term as 'LibLabCon' and 'the establishment' - the latter of which Farage mentioned in his non-concession speech. Leaving aside the fact that Dulwich-educated ex-city trader and MEP Farage is as 'establishment' as it gets, the more power they have, the less effective that call will become.

However great opportunities for UKIP stand in the large swathes of constituencies where they came second. It is easy to see the party throwing resources into these areas. However there is the caveat that what people on the east coast want may be anathema to their urban supporters.

The wild card is Douglas Carswell. The Essex MP had a reputation as a deep thinker before he moved from the Conservatives to UKIP last year, and the fact that his move was not criticised more says a great deal for the way he is regarded (this contrasts with the other Conservative MP who made the same move, Mark Reckless, who was roundly pilloried and lost his seat last week). Carswell is an unashamed right-winger who must be concerned by any move of UKIP to the left, and as UKIP's sole MP he will have a great deal of power and influence over the party's direction.

I see it as unlikely that Carswell would stand for leader; instead I think he will be content as acting as the power behind the throne, particularly if his wisdom will affect the views of his many friends that remain within the Conservative party. But the events of the last week makes it possible that Farage will not remain in UKIP for ling: the party seems to small for both him and Farage.

UKIP need to be careful that they do not turn their victory at the Euro and General elections into a massive defeat. But that might mean they need someone other than Farage at the helm.

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: the Greens

The Greens had a mixed election. They stood in many more seats than ever before, but did not manage to increase their number of MPs, with Caroline Lucas remaining their sole representative at Westminster. The Green party leader, Natalie Bennett, failed to get elected in her seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

But they did well in the popular vote, getting over 1.1 million votes and 3.8% of the total, an increase of 2.8% over 2010. Like UKIP, the fact they only got one seat is down to the vagaries of the FPTP electoral system.

The council elections were less positive. The Greens ran Brighton and Hove council as a minority administration, but this year they lost seats and control over the council. In England they gained a paltry 9 councillors (compared to the Conservatives 497).

The question is what proportion of their new support comes from people who are now genuine Green supporters, and what proportion supported them because they found they could not vote for Labour or the Liberal Democrats. The former are more likely to stick with the party than the latter.

The EU referendum in 2015 has to be an opportunity for the Greens. Much depends on Cameron's renegotiation with the EU; but there is a place for an unashamedly pro-EU party. Ordinarily that would be filled by the Liberal Democrats, but they are currently a party in decline. It would be easy for the Greens to accept that torch and run with it.

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: the Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats find themselves in a hideous position. In my view they did the right thing going into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, and they generally behaved well whilst in power. Their record in government is one they should be proud of. But it came at a hideous cost. It turns out that much of their vote came from the 'none of the above' voter, and going into government destroyed that sector. The red liberals also shifted in numbers to the Labour party, although in nowhere near the numbers the latter were expecting, As a result the Liberal Democrat base, both in terms of members, councillors and MPs, is tiny.

So what can they do? The answer is not much before 2020. They need to elect a leader who can find them a new position in politics, and for that reason if I was them, I would delay choosing a new leader until after Labour. But whoever gets the job has a hard task ahead of them.

They need someone who can engage with the media and sell whatever policy position and vision they develop. Sadly, none of their eight remaining MPs really seems to fit that bill if you exclude Clegg.

They also need to rebuild their political base. The last five years have been rough for them, both in terms of MPs and councillors. Yet they still have a large base of committed activists who can help them rebuild. A promising sign is that membership numbers have been increasing in the days since the election.

There is not much else that can be said about the Liberal Democrats. That is part of their problem: with the rise of UKIP and the SNP they are approaching irrelevance. They need a leader who can reverse that trend, even if full recovery takes several elections.

Some thoughts after the election aftermath: Labour

Any Labour supporter must be really hurting after what was a terrible general election. So what happens now?

Labour need to analyse what went wrong and try to elect a leader who can correct those faults, a process they singularly failed to do after their defeat in 2010. Sadly, the immediate aftermath of the election has seen many Labour supporters, including some past and current politicians, refuse to face up to the problems that  the party faces.

Choosing a new party leader will be made more difficult by the pull from the left and the more centrist segments of the party. If they are not careful it will become 'Brownites versus Blairites part three', although long after the major players have departed the scene. A new leader might be best looking for another route - a fourth way after Blair's third way. Some have even started calling it 'Now Labour'.

I have no particular favourite candidate for the leadership, and it is still early days. Initially the media seemed to be concentrating on ex-soldier Dan Jarvis, whose backstory is certainly compelling. However backstory does not of itself make a good party leader, and I have never heard him make a speech to judge his ability. He has also come out to say that he will not stand for personal reasons.

The timing of the leadership election is an issue. In 2010 Labour waited until the autumn conference to choose their leader; this gave the coalition months in which they could pull themselves together and set the agenda. For this reason many are calling for a snap election. This would favour the old guard, people such as Andy Burnham who stood in 2010. A later election would favour someone less well known within the party. It currently looks as though the latter argument has won, with a leadership election possibly being held in mid-September.

Ed Miliband was only elected because of the union vote (including one union who sent out ballot papers to members along with literature favouring him; a strange thing to do in a democratic election). The leadership selection process was altered last year after the Collins Review to a One Man, One Vote system, This will reduce the unions' influence over the election. However the new leader will still have to maintain good relations with the unions who donate massive sums to the party.

Once elected, the next Labour leader will have to decide what to do about Scotland. Their unprecedented (yes, that word again) rout of Scottish Labour has helped the Conservatives to a limited majority. But some of the SNP majorities over Labour are small, and Labour will be eyeing those constituencies covetously come 2020. Their problem is that Scotland is more left-wing than England. If the new leader moves Labour to the left then he risks alienating English voters; if he moves to the right he does the same for Scottish voters.

That is not to say the correct positioning is impossible: someone with the political skills of Blair could satisfy these seemingly different electorates (even if 'Now Labour' seems rather hackneyed). The problem is that I cannot see Blair Mk II anywhere on Labour's benches. However Blair was not exactly a household name before he was made Labour leader after John Smith's death in 1994, and yet he changed Labour forever.

The new leader needs to address the main reasons they lost: strategy. Miliband put in place a '35% strategy', which meant gaining 35% of the vote. Strangely, this would have been barely enough to win a majority; a seemingly modest ambition. As it happens, they failed in even that. In my view, the problem was that Labour espoused no true vision.

Most of Labour's campaign was worthy, but the disparate points were only connected by a vague hatred of the Conservatives. Whilst that was enough to fire up the Labour core vote, it did nothing to attract the general population. Sadly for Miliband, the core vote of both main parties is only about 30%. The new Labour leader needs to develop a vision for the country that embraces people outside their core vote. Blair managed this; Foot, Kinnock, Brown and Miliband did not.

There is also the need to sort out, and preferably widen, the party's finances. Currently they are too reliant on income from the unions, who are all too willing to use the influence their cash gives them. That union influence can have positive outcomes; however at times, such as when the unions essentially elected Miliband to the leadership, it can be positively malign.

Labour need an 8% swing to get an overall majority. Add in the boundary changes that the Conservatives are keen to push through, and it may be nearer 12%. This will be a difficult task: in 2010 Cameron got a 5% swing, whilst Blair got 10.3% in 1997. So the new leader may well need a shift larger than Blair achieved. For this reason, Labour's recovery may be a two-term task, and they may want to select a leader who can see them through that process.

The near-wipeout of Scottish Labour has also has ripped out much of the intellectual heart of the party. From Keir Hardie to Gordon Brown, much of Labour's political philosophy has come from Scotland. In this election they lost a large number of the party's deepest thinkers. That may hurt them more than is currently obvious.

Labour faces deep problems on all sides. Hopefully they can find a leader that will be able to solve them.