Imagine the worst possible scenario: May 7, Gordon Brown and Sarah walk into Downing Street to cheers from a carefully selected crowd of Labour party agents and apparachiks. He shakes hands manically, his painted-on smile glowing like a supernova.

Against the odds, Gordon has won another five years as Prime Minister, with a parliamentary majority of 20. The predicted surge of tactical voting for the Tories failed to happen, largely because the turnout was very low: 37%. It was a battle of the core votes and client state. Only Labour could win.

Pundits claim that the three 90-minute TV Leaders’ debates were so boring they turned the nation off at the plug. The country slept through the election as a result.

The Tories are shattered. Television vox pops confirm that voters didn’t know what they were offering; it was too technical and there were no big sweeping themes to enthuse them. The gamble of relying on Brown’s unpopularity flopped spectacularly, especially as large parts of the Tory core vote simply stayed at home.

Tabloid overnight phone polls seem to confirm that if Cameron had offered a trade-only relationship with the EU at the top of his menu he would have gained enough votes to give him a 30-seat overall majority.

Naturally, Conservative Eurosceptics are furious and demand his head, which he offers without protest. George Osborne takes over as Tory leader.

Scroll forward two years: the economy is in a double-dip recession. The peak-to-trough drop in national output rises to 11 percent — a full-blown depression, dubbed by the media as Britain’s lost decade.

Brown is so unpopular a serious leadership challenge is mounted against him by senior Cabinet colleagues. At last, the old fraud is toppled and David Miliband becomes Prime Minister.

The Conservatives are 25 points ahead in the polls, while a series of by-elections reduce Labour’s majority to one. As Britain’s place in international league tables collapses into the mid-teens, while its credit rating falls to triple-B, interest rates rise inexorably.

A vote of no confidence is passed in the House precipitating another general election.

The Conservatives get in with a majority of 150. George Osborne goes to the Palace, while David Cameron becomes Chancellor, William Hague Foreign Secretary.

At a late supper of meatloaf in the Number 10 flat, Osborne says, “2010 was a good election to lose.”

Cameron’s lip curls, “For you, you mean.”

John Evans

Recent Related Commentary
Saturday Ramble: Is David Cameron making the most of his abilities?
Saturday Ramble: Politics and the land of Cockaigne
Saturday Ramble: Bubbles — how they destroy us and how we can fight back
Saturday Ramble: Gordon Brown’s Invictus rictus
Saturday Ramble: Pre-Budget frog spawn

In the coming election, we have a choice, it seems.

Direct Democracy: the wisdom of crowds.
Parliamentary Democracy: the wisdom of clowns.

At least that’s how it looks after the long five-year stretch of this dreadful Labour parliament.

The wisdom of crowds is often seen as mob rule. Anyone who has witnessed the “flaming” of someone on the internet, whether in the blogosphere or the newer social networks, will know the sickening verbal violence involved, often with accompanying death threats.

In California, where direct democracy, in the form of citizen-inspired referenda holds sway over the state government, people often vote for a measure while simultaneously rejecting the money to fund it. Not surprisingly, the Sunshine State is bankrupt.

In Britain, where our more homogenous population (at least until Labour got in) usually means a more sensible result, the public would vote down most extremist measures. Parliament would, of necessity, vote the money for genuine popular concerns.

A reasonable extension of direct democracy might moderate the stultifying control of a government and political class that has all but destroyed the country in a decade. A move towards more referenda in selected policy areas would add to our shrinking stock of democratic accountability.

As always, the Syntagma Law of Up-To-A-Pointism should be the restraining principle.

* * * * *

Up-To-A-Pointism: If something works, it only works up to a point. Thereafter it yields diminishing returns, followed by negative consequences. Government intervention is like that, as are free markets. Both have a limited bandwidth within which they operate well.

The overwhelming majority of people are programmed to operate within a rather narrow band of experience, even the high-flyers. Once activity breaches the limits of that band, whether above or below, they rapidly lose all sense of reality. No-one can really be trusted to behave well in the wider interest when events are excessively good or painfully bad.

* * * * *

As for Parliamentary democracy, not many people would vote for what they regard as the wisdom of clowns now. Parliament will need careful nursing in the medium term to regain the affections and trust of the electorate.

Specifically, it should draw back its ancient powers of legislation. It’s no good pretending. Voters are aware that most of our laws are made in Brussels, even the so-called Equality Bill, despite the gold-plating of Harriet Harman. Without competence over all our lawmaking, the House of Commons will never command the respect of the people, as once it did.

The wisdom of crowds is good at spotting wrongdoing and corruption, especially when informed by a free press and media including the internet. It is not good at framing legislation or passing general laws in which it has no interest. Up to a point, it can be used to bolster common sense and legitimacy in a rarified and out of touch political class.

A blending of choices might just return the wisdom of clowns back into the Wisdom of Crowns.

John Evans

Recent Related Commentary
Election Notebook: A Conservative slogan
Election Notebook: The politics of happiness and hope
Election Notebook: Repeats do not fair voters win
Election Notebook: Tories lack of courage creating equality with Brown
Election Notebook: Conservatives brazen elitists? Bring it on

The Labour Party’s election slogan is typically Gordon Brown, although some say John Prescott “composed” it years ago. Could anything be worse?

The LibDem effort is scarcely better, something about change that works for you. Useless beyond words.

So the Conservative masterpiece needs to be just that. Here are some parameters:

1. Looks to the future without using the word “future”.
2. Condemns the past 13 years without seeming to do so.
3. Totally positive.
4. Simple and snappy.
5. Stays in the memory.
6. Taken in at a glance.
7. An implied invitation to participate.

Surely an impossible task?

As a public service, Syntagma has reached deep into the little grey cellbox to produce this:

I was once a professional copywriter in the City, and wrote that famous slogan for BT’s Telex:

It was just unfortunate that telex was replaced a few months later by the fax machine. Ah, well, you can’t win them all.

Andrew Rawnsley appeared on Sky’s Adam Boulton show this morning leveraging his new book The End of the Party. The book gives a series of vignettes in which Gordon Brown is depicted in near murderous rages, abusing staff and colleagues with uncontrolled abandon, while rampaging through his work-space like a Visigoth.

This fellow is clearly not only a bottler, but a bottler-upper. His inability to express himself bursts forth from the dam in moments of high tension as he hurls office equipment around the room or manhandles secretaries out of their seats.

A real villain would ravish them on the spot. Gordon just takes over their job.

If he was a good Prime Minister we could perhaps stretch a point. But he’s not, and he was hopelessly inadequate as Chancellor as well.

Mills & Boon wouldn’t put up with him, and neither should we.

Tim Montgomerie got a good write-up in the FT last week in an article by Chris Cook, a leader writer. Two quotes caught Syntagma’s eye:

1. Tim Montgomerie: “If Britain’s relationship with the [European Union] is fundamentally the same after five years of Conservative government, the internal divisions that ended the last Tory period in government will look like a tea party in comparison.”

The piece suggested that “Cameron is planning a purely cosmetic Eurosceptic policy.” If true, it means he is out of touch with a large majority of the party — a very dangerous place to be.

2. “[An] element of the modern Tory platform may yet divide them: climate change. Montgomerie has become increasingly vocal in his scepticism. As he said just two months ago: ‘It is an issue that can split conservative parties around the world.’ Cameroons, take note.”

Another quote adds: “One front-bench MP described [ConservativeHome's] likely future role as a ’serial harbourer of fugitives. I would expect Tim to back MPs who stand up to the whips in pursuit of the ConservativeHome agenda. God only knows what that means for our policies on climate change, Europe, on immigration or on defence.’ ”

If David Cameron fails at the General Election — Heaven preserve us! — would Tim Montgomerie make such a bad replacement leader?

Annoyment of the Week
A Gordon Brown-free zone

Imagine walking down the High Street of the quiet South-West town of Dorchester, minding your own business, only to be approached by the increasingly rotund figure of Ann Widdecombe.

Does she need directions to Thomas Hardy’s house, perhaps? Or is she about to ask after the bus station? No, Ann wants to know your opinion of the Ten Commandments.

Unlikely, most of us would think, but not where Channel 4’s increasingly bizarre Sunday night religious slot is concerned. Taking the concept of big tents to the limits of intelligibility, the new series on The Bible: a History includes the kind of people who might have walked straight off the pages of the Old Testament itself.

Ann Widdecombe is nothing less than certain about any topic, and might, on a good day, pass for a biblical Prophet. To her, the Ten Commandments are the foundations of law as it should be made. King Alfred the Great used them as the basis of his, and they went on to form our Common Law, now sadly depleted by the inanities of the Human Rights Act.

A perspiring Christopher Hitchens appeared fleetingly, but walked out of Ann’s interview. Stephen Fry was adamant the Commandments were all a load of rubbish cooked up by old desert tribes.

Tonight, Gerry Adams, former IRA leader, talks about his hero, Jesus Christ.

Sometimes putting out-of-place people into unusual slots yields unexpected insights. I shall not be finding out this Sunday evening.

James Purnell has never resonated strongly on my political radar. I watched him on Newsnight a couple of months ago and was not particularly impressed.

This week he announced he is standing down as an MP at the early age of 39.

Judging by the hagiographies from various commentators, he was a political giant waiting to happen. He had real views, real nuances, social policies galore and an ability to get to the very top.

What a pity he sat through 13 years of Labour attacks of this country’s very existence without a public squeak of protest.

My BT wireless hub broke down 10 days ago. Although I fixed up an old modem and ethernet cable, I anxiously awaited a replacement of the hub.

It took BT three days to reply and promise me the goods the next day before 6pm.

It’s now four days later and still no replacement. On Friday I tweeted about the frustration on Syntagma’s Twitter page. A day later “BTCare” tweeted back and added itself as a “follower”.

I have great hopes that Twitter will succeed where four emails and two telephone calls failed.

Modern technology is both a bane and a boon at the same time.

Matthew Parris quotes the poet/singer Leonard Cohen in a recent column:

“I’ve studied the world’s great religions,” he says — then pauses. “But cheerfulness kept breaking through.”

As it will. I’ve always recommended studying the world’s great religions — see my book.

John Evans

Recent Related Commentary
DIARY: Inequality Benedict, Blubbing Brown, Annoyment, Brown’s Five Tests, Booker opens the books, Dambisa Moyo
DIARY: Curiosity Clegg, Annoyment, Lansley soap, Climate fate, Mystics, Swine flu blues
DIARY: Cameron needs buzz, A 10-second coup, Annoyment, New Tory poster, Ice-age ahoy, Frozen swans
DIARY: Sherpa Brown, Annoyment, Conrad Black, NHS fat, Ted and the IMF, Bloggers’ earnings

I have to admit I’m baffled by Conservative leader, David Cameron’s triangulatory campaign to become Prime Minister.

He’s beginning to fade in the memory as a vivid political force. Gordon Brown occasionally appears the stronger of the two men, despite being hopelessly barren of new ideas.

Cameron’s topics tend to be technical, small in stature, and rather nit-picking. Even when on the side of the angels, as over Labour’s death tax, his alternative doesn’t resonate, despite being sensible and reasonable.

With a possible surprise April election tantalizingly hovering into view, Labour’s back-offices are buzzing and Tory CCHQ is launching publicity initiatives by the skip-load.

But where’s the beef? Labour and Lib-Dem campaign slogans are trite, limp and predictable. One big Tory push would topple them into oblivion.

The Conservative counter attacks remain uninspiring, like the products of novel-writing software that churn out derivative prose, dreary plots and unreadable tosh.

Safety first is not the way to go when you need 117 seats just to gain Parliamentary parity. The American technique of going for the centre ground early, but moving in hard on the core vote at the end, is sorely needed now.

It’s so late coming, though, I’m starting to think David Cameron really is the mumsy house-husband he gives the appearance of being. A Tory form of Blairism is perhaps all we’ve got ahead of us for the next five years, followed by either more of the same or a return to Labour. The prospect is unthinkable.

David Cameron’s shoulders now bear the weight of Britain’s future. Will he be up to it?

Some Prime Ministers seem feeble at first, then grow into the job. Margaret Thatcher did. Ted Heath collapsed into petulant incoherence after a year or two. Tony Blair was a plausible fraud who took a long time to show his true, empty nature. Gordon Brown is predictably dire and operating way beyond the capabilities of his character and abilities.

The country now needs a great Prime Minister to reshape its future while enhancing its essential character. It’s a huge task that will take a lot of personal sacrifice and effort. Only the bravest and the best need apply.

Let’s sketch out a plan of action for the next PM to maximize British recovery and influence in the world. The following are my own views and don’t come with a guarantee, but by golly, they would shake up this battered and intimidated nation:

1. Ruthlessly drive decision-making, plus the attached money, away from Whitehall, down to local areas and businesses.
2. Ensure British decisions are taken in the UK, not by crackpot international agencies like the EU Commission or the UN.
3. Relentlessly improve education standards by dissolving most government interference and allowing parents and teachers to make the running.
4. Slice away government spending by the proportion Gordon Brown has added in the past 13 years … and then some.
5. Repeal all the green legislation that would beggar the country over the next 40 years.
6. Exploit as many home-grown resources and talents as possible before turning to so-called global markets, which are flaky in the extreme. Oil-shale gas is a good example.
7. Remodel Parliament into a slick machine for optimizing every aspect of the nation’s business, while minimizing legislation.
8. Finally, launch a Rebuild Britain programme that would address the main problems in simple terms that could be understood by everyone and taken up locally by businesses and communities.

I could go on, but you get the drift. We need to hear more BIG politics from the Tories if we are to believe they are up to the job.

Forget the past. The people want to hear about the future.

PS: New polling illustrates my point: Link HERE.

John Evans

Recent Related Commentary
Saturday Ramble: Politics and the land of Cockaigne
Saturday Ramble: Bubbles — how they destroy us and how we can fight back
Saturday Ramble: Gordon Brown’s Invictus rictus
Saturday Ramble: Pre-Budget frog spawn
Saturday Ramble: My word, you do look queer!