General Election

[Matt Mackenzie]

I agree David - I didn't start it, but was simply replying to somebody else

(wouldn't mind an answer to my question earlier though - now *that* is chess related, or might be at any rate )

[Paul McKeown]

Matt,

Okay, back to the chess after this.

You might be right. But the way I see it is this:
a) Labour is in the bunker counting the casualties and hoping the Liberals can forget past insults
b) CCHQ haven't a clue what to do, just they know that they have a duff prospectus, Dave seems plastic, the smears have bombed. The public understands that some painful retrenchment is due. The patient might have swallowed a painful pill from matron, but he won't accept matron trying to sneak round behind them and shove a monstrous great needle up his backside. The Conservatives can't change their message at this late stage: the public can smell a fake and don't like it.
c) Large numbers are saying they find Clegg the most honest of all the candidates, he has to be to after all, to stand up in front of the TV cameras and come out with an agenda that large numbers will find outlandish. 49% say they would vote Yellow if they believed they could win and that tipping point is probably not that far off.
d) Large numbers of Labour voters are very disillusioned with the last government, want a change, and want to be able to say, "Well, at least I didn't vote Tory," even if that's want they think is best for the country.
e) The Tory toffs were the worst crooks in a crooked parliament and the shires don't take well to that.
f) The Lib Dems are reporting a vast increase in membership applications
g) There has been a huge rush in the last 2 weeks to register to vote and the demographic surveys show that this is predominantly in the 18 - 24 year old category, not traditionally voters. I doubt that they are going to vote to C or L and the twittersphere has gone bananas. That age group talk to themselves, and are very good at self organisation when they want to. And Clegg's upbeat ideas appeal to them, too.
h) There has been a huge increase in the number of postal votes. That is likely to lock in the current Lib Dem gains.

I think the Conservatives are hoping they can squeeze the living daylights out of the wingnut splitter parties, but are scared that a sharp swing to the right might scare the horses. They are in paralysis mode at the moment.

The public are in a feisty mood, they aren't swallowing the blue pills from the Daily Mail, anymore, as they can check the facts for themselves these days.

Personally I think the Liberals will get 120 or so, but that is sufficient to completely wreck FPTP anyway. I don't feel this is a rerun of 1983, the Liberals have lots of safe or safeish seats and lots of marginals. They have also been planning a long time for this breakthrough.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Yeah, I actually agree with a fair bit of that.

A hung parliament *is* a strong possibility, and I am hopeful that good may come of it........

But as you say, that's enough politics - Ed

[Ben Purton]

Deary me clegg lovers, look up the definition of liberal please. Taxation in its very essence is an anti liberal ideal.

Ben

[Rob Thompson]

Deary me clegg lovers, look up the definition of liberal please. Taxation in its very essence is an anti liberal ideal.

Ben

At least Clegg's tax proposals are somewhere nearing fair, as opposed to Cameron's. Anyway, i thought we were supposed to be moving back to chess, unless you recieved a memo that i didn't...?

[Paul McKeown]

Bit of a game changer from Cameron on Newsnight tonight: public sector cuts targetted at Northern Ireland (no loss for Cameron there, they stay resolutely outside of mainstream British politics) and the North East, which is to be his sacrificial lamb to resolve the contest into a more traditional Blue/Red struggle. LD's will still gain strongly, but Cameron's throw of the dice probably makes it easier for him or for Brown to achieve a minority by sharply polarising the debate. Unfair on the North East, of course.

[Neville Twitchell]

In regard to the list of chess players who have stood in general elections there was an Essex player called Nick somebody who I think stood for the Liberal/SDP Alliance as it then was in the 1983 election. I apologise to him for not remembering his name, and I don't know if he is still playing (or still fighting elections).
It is interesting to speculate on the political allegiances of chess-players generally. One might think that as a predominantly middle class pastime there would be a slight Conservative bias, but on the other hand as a quintessentially intellectual pursuit one might suppose that there would be a slight skew to the left. Perhaps these two tendencies cancel each other out and the distribution of chess-players is the same as for the general population. My own guess is that the average player is slightly to the left of the general population. On the other hand it is noticeable, as previous posters have said, that UKIP is well represented in the list of candidates.
Rachel Reeves is fighting a very safe seat at Leeds West for Labour and should certainly get in notwithstanding the swing against Labour. She fought the last general election and a subsequent by-election in Bromley but came fourth behind the Conservatives, Lib Dems and UKIP. I have seen her interviewed on TV a couple of times, by Andrew Neil during the last Labour conference and once on Newsnight by Paxman.
The Eagle sisters are of course the best known chess-playing politicians in Britain, both having been junior ministers, and Evan Harris, Lib Dem, is a well known supporter of the game although I don't know whether he has played competitively.

What of great players of the past? The fascist tendency is well represented by Alekhine and Fischer, and of course there were whole generations of Soviet players who were ostensibly good Communists, though they had little choice in the matter, but some were clearly more enthusiastic than others such as Botvinnik, Petrosian and Karpov. Spassky and Korchnoi by contrast were examples of leading Soviet players who were to say the least sceptical about Communism and the Soviet system. And of course Kasparov is now very active politically as the leader of a rather right-wing coalition grouping in Russia.

What about political slogans for chess-players?

How about "Time for an Exchange" or "Yes, we Caro Kann".

[Neville Twitchell]

Re my last posting I have just remembered that the player's name was Nick Amor, and he was, if I recall, the Alliance candidate for Brentwood, or certainly an Essex seat. He does not seem to have a current grading.

There was a B H Wood who stood against Gaitskell in the 1950 general election, as Matt Mackenzie mentioned, but I don't think it was the B H Wood.

Another chess playing politician was Bonar Law, the "Unknown Prime Minister", PM from 1922-3, who was a strong player, and almost certainly the strongest chess-playing PM we have had (not that that says much!). There is a game of his as part of a consulting team that played a simul against Capablanca in 1922 during the latter's sojourn here during the London tournament of that year. I can't remember the game, but I think it was of a reasonable standard and they may have achieved a draw. It is in the Caparos book on Capa's collected games. It must have been played just before Bonar Law became PM. The civil service chess league Cup competition is named after him.

[John Saunders]

I doubt that Bonar Law was as strong a player as Julius Silverman (1905-96) who was a Midlands MP for nearly 40 years. I've seen a couple of game scores of his from the 1930s (wins against Eliskases and Znosko-Borovsky) and I think he was close to master strength.

[Richard James]

Another chess playing politician was Bonar Law, the "Unknown Prime Minister", PM from 1922-3, who was a strong player, and almost certainly the strongest chess-playing PM we have had (not that that says much!). There is a game of his as part of a consulting team that played a simul against Capablanca in 1922 during the latter's sojourn here during the London tournament of that year. I can't remember the game, but I think it was of a reasonable standard and they may have achieved a draw. It is in the Caparos book on Capa's collected games. It must have been played just before Bonar Law became PM. The civil service chess league Cup competition is named after him.

From The Unknown Capablanca (Hooper & Brandreth):

[Event "House of Commons sim"]
[Site "London"]
[Date "1919.12.02"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Capablanca, Jose Raul"]
[Black "Allies"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C44"]
[PlyCount "91"]
[EventDate "1919.12.??"]
[EventType "simul"]
[EventRounds "1"]
[EventCountry "ENG"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "2002.11.25"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3 d5 4. Qa4 dxe4 5. Nxe5 Qd5 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bc4 Qd7 8.
d3 exd3 9. O-O Bd6 10. Bg5 Ne7 11. Nd2 O-O 12. Bxd3 f6 13. Qc4+ Kh8 14. Be3 a5
15. Bc2 Nf5 16. Bxf5 Qxf5 17. Qxc6 Ba6 18. Rfe1 Rfb8 19. Ne4 Be5 20. Nc5 Bb5
21. Qf3 Qxf3 22. gxf3 Bc6 23. f4 Bd6 24. b3 Rb5 25. Ne6 Rh5 26. c4 Rh4 27. c5
Rg4+ 28. Kf1 Bb5+ 29. Re2 Bxe2+ 30. Kxe2 Be7 31. Nxc7 Rc8 32. Nd5 Bd8 33. Rc1
Rh4 34. c6 Rh5 35. Rc5 Bc7 36. a4 Rxh2 37. Nxc7 Rxc7 38. Rxa5 h5 39. Rc5 g6 40.
b4 Rh1 41. b5 Rb1 42. a5 h4 43. b6 Rxc6 44. Rxc6 h3 45. a6 h2 46. a7 1-0


According to H and B this game was played on 29 December 1919. ChessBase, however, gives the date as 2 December 1919.

For more information on Bonar Law's chess career: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/bonarlaw.html

[Jonathan Rogers]

It was Nick Amos, and yes it was Brentwood. I think he then moved to Suffolk. Quite a good player, possibly under-graded in the 160s - at least when I played him as a cocky 200 in a quickplay, I found myself having to grovel a draw instead.

[Richard James]

I doubt that Bonar Law was as strong a player as Julius Silverman (1905-96) who was a Midlands MP for nearly 40 years. I've seen a couple of game scores of his from the 1930s (wins against Eliskases and Znosko-Borovsky) and I think he was close to master strength.

[Event "Birmingham"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1937.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Silverman, Julius"]
[Black "Eliskases, Erich"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C33"]
[PlyCount "39"]
[EventDate "2010.04.25"]
[SourceDate "2010.04.25"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 c6 5. Nf3 d5 6. exd5 cxd5 7. Bb3 Bd6 8.
O-O O-O 9. d4 Be6 10. Ne5 Bxe5 11. dxe5 Qb6+ 12. Kh1 Ng4 13. Qe2 d4 14. Nd5
Bxd5 15. Bxd5 Ne3 16. Bxe3 dxe3 17. Rxf4 Nc6 18. Qh5 Qxb2 19. Bxf7+ Kh8 20.
Qxh7+ 1-0

The (Even More) Complete Chess Addict places Silverman on Board 5 and Bonar Law on Board 6 in the Politicians team. On top board: Marmaduke Wyvill, runner-up to Anderssen (London 1851) and Tory MP for Richmond, Yorkshire.

On Board 8 is Edmund Dell, 1937 London U18 champion at age 15 and later Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under Harold Wilson.

[John Saunders]

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaduke_ ... ss_player)), Wyvill was a Liberal MP but your book, Richard, says he was a Tory. Which is right? I had a look at his games and am yet to be convinced that he was stronger than Silverman who (admittedly with the advantage of 80+ further years of chess sophistication) looks the more accomplished performer of the two. Bernard Cafferty tells me that Silverman was "no whit inferior to BH Wood or Ritson Morry" (Silverman's Midlands contemporaries - Olympiad player and no.2 in a British Championship respectively).

[Neville Twitchell]

I doubt that Bonar Law was as strong a player as Julius Silverman (1905-96) who was a Midlands MP for nearly 40 years. I've seen a couple of game scores of his from the 1930s (wins against Eliskases and Znosko-Borovsky) and I think he was close to master strength.

John, yes, he had slipped my mind. He was a Labour MP for Birmingham seats, Erdington and Aston from 1945-1983, and as you say probably the strongest chess-playing MP ever, who had some brilliant wins under his belt, especially the one against Eliskases, often given in anthologies, and given by Richard James in his post. Incidentally he was a cousin of Sydney Silverman, another, and more famous Labour MP, who was a maverick left-winger and the chief Parliamentary campaigner for the abolition of the death penalty, amongst many other things, but he, alas, was not a chess-player of any note.

Another very strong chess playing MP was Brian Walden, better known in his later incarnation as a television presenter.

Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, is the son of Richard (Otto) Clarke, a luminary of the BCF in the post-war era, and the man who invented the BCF grading system. Charles claims to be a chess player also but having seen one of his games the less said about that the better!

[Neville Twitchell]

It was Nick Amos, and yes it was Brentwood. I think he then moved to Suffolk. Quite a good player, possibly under-graded in the 160s - at least when I played him as a cocky 200 in a quickplay, I found myself having to grovel a draw instead.

Sorry Jonathan, but I have looked it up and it seems that his name was Nick Amor, not Amos, at least according to the election results website I looked at, though of course that may be wrong, but I do seem to recall that it was Amor. He fought Brentwood and Ongar for the Liberals/Alliance in both the 1983 and 1987 general election, coming a good second both times, to the incumbent Tory Robert McCrindle. See http://www.election.demon.co.uk/1983EC.html