My General Election forecast made less than 12 hours before the polls opened yesterday morning was rubbish. I forecast a comfortable majority of 76 for the Conservatives, when it now looks like there will be a hung Parliament. That my central estimate was the same as both Lord Ashcroft‘s and Cerburus at Conservative Women is no excuse. In fact it is precisely not following general opinion, but understanding the real world, that I write this blog. What I have learnt is that the social media was driving a totally different campaign that was being reported in the other media. The opinion polls started to pick this up, and all sensible people did not believe it. Personally I was partly blind to the reality, as I cannot understand why large numbers of people should vote in numbers for an extreme left political activist who has over many years has sided with terrorists. Or a prospective Home Secretary who once voiced support for terrorism, and is unrepentant about that support. But then, in Paris 2015 leaders of the Western World voted for a Climate Agreement to cut global emissions, when that very Agreement stated it would do no such thing. The assessment of achievement was in the enthusiasm of the applause for the world leaders, rather than comparing objectives with results. That means comparing the real data with what is said.

Similarly in this election, we had all parties saying that they would spend more on things that have very marginal benefit compared to the cost. This included improving the NHS by giving staff a pay rise, or increasing the numbers of police “in every ward” to combat terrorism. It also includes trying to retain the structures of the European Union when we are leaving it, without defining recognizing the issues of a half-way house or the real benefits of those institutions There was also the gross hypocrisy of blaming problems caused, in part or in full, of past policies on something or someone else. This includes

• Blaming austerity on the Tory Government, when the current structural deficit is a legacy of Gordon Brown’s Golden Rule. Given that Gordon Brown is a Scottish Progressive, it something that the SNP needs to confront as well.
• Blaming rise energy bills on the Energy Companies, when it is a result of the Climate Change Act 2008. When Ed Miliband launched the policy at the Labour Party Conference in 2013, it was seen as something of the left extremism. But the Conservatives put such controls in their manifesto as well.
• Blaming the rising cost of pensions on increased longevity, when a major part of the reason is near zero interest rates on savings.

Part of that blame is for the rise is the spin doctors, who only put out messages that will be well received by the target voters, and keep in the background areas where the target voters are split in their views. The Conservative manifesto and Theresa May’s election campaign could be seen as the inheritors of these 1990s New Labour doctrines. The Labour Party, however have rejected New Labour Blairism. In one sense Labour have retrogressed, with mass rallies that hark back to era when the British socialist party was in the ascendancy. But in another way Labour grassroots have embraced the new technology. We have a new way of communicating ideas based on a picture and 140 characters that takes power away from a few professional manipulators of public opinion. That power now rests with alpha trolls or non-entity celebs with their shallow views supported by isolated facts. It is a sphere where excluding other opinions by changing the subject; or having the last word; or taking offence for upsetting their false perceptions; or claiming those with other opinions are either outright lying or are blinkered; or getting fanciful claims repeated thousands of times until they are accepted as though they were fact.

There is a way out of this morass, that is the exact opposite of the Donald Trump method of out-trolling the trolls. It is by better understanding the real world, so that a vision can be developed that better serves the long-term interests of the people, rather than being lead by the blinkered dogmatists and alpha trolls. I believe that Britain has the best heritage of any country to draw upon for the task. That is a country of the mother of all Parliaments and of the country that evolved trial by a jury of one’s peers. It is a country where people have over the centuries broken out of the box of current opinion to produce something based on a better understanding of the world, without violent revolution. That was the case in science with Sir Issac Newton, Charles Darwin and James Clerk Maxwell. This was the case in economics with Adam Smith and in Christianity with John Wesley. But there are dangers as well.

It is on the issue of policy to combat climate change that there is greatest cross-party consensus, and the greatest concentration of alpha trolls. It is also where there is the clearest illustration of policy that is objectively useless and harmful to the people of this country. I will be providing some illustrations of this policy nonsense in the coming days.

Kevin Marshall