Cameron presides over a reactionary government

David Cameron has belatedly allowed the publication of a list of dinner guests to 10 Downing Street, after the former Tory treasurer Peter Cruddas was caught claiming party donors would get a dinner invite and access to the PM and Chancellor George Osborne

Cameron caved in after constant pressure from Labour and the media but resisted strongly. He wheeled out Tory "dirty work man" Francis Maude for the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme and Five Live breakfast. He just wanted to bang on about Labour being funding by the trade unions that founded them, as if that was some sort of crime. It didn't wash and Maude "trended" on Twitter all morning. Poor Franny.  Why should he take the blame?

Unfortunately today's poor political management from Cameron and his team is part of a long running pattern. In opposition Cameron was quick to jump on any bandwagon he could. This included repeatedly talking down his country, remember "Broken Britain"? Apparently that was all because of family breakdown, yet 2011's youth rioting was instead due to a moral breakdown.

Whenever there has been a political storm under Cameron's premiership he has resisted weakly, then given in. The list is growing, with today's meek climbdown following these other highlights:

• Being reluctantly forced into allowing a public inquiry into phone hacking at News International
• Telling us all Liam Fox was doing "a good job", which he tried in vain to keep him in as pressure grew around his friendship with Adam Werrity
• Telling us all that his spin doctor Andy Coulson was doing " a good job" which he tried in vain to keep him in as pressure grew around his involvement in phone hacking
• Reluctantly bowing to public pressure to intervene and limit bonuses at state owned bank RBS

Cameron clearly doesn't feel that his government is strong enough to resist in such cases. If that is so why not just limit the political damage by admitting so immediately the next time something like this trips him up? That way he'd be able to recover and move on more quickly.

He won't do that because he either doesn't have the political judgement or the right advisers with that required judgement who are continually leading him down a path towards a lack of control that if faced with a more serious crisis of Black Wednesday proportions could fatally damage the government.

An ideological Tory budget

Compassionate Conservatism has come to an end with yesterday's budget. David Cameron and George Osborne can no longer claim that they are on the side of the lest well off. We've all been given a tax cut, but this helps the richest more than anything else.

Replacing a tax on earned income with a mansion tax means many of the top 1% will be much better off, while the few who buy £2m+ homes will be worse off, but there aren't many of those. There are plenty more pensioners or low paid working families reliant on the savagely cut tax credits.

The Tories have been brash and bold. This was an ideological budget, cutting tax for the rich while squeezing the workless poor. It also did nothing to stimulate growth, so crucial in creating jobs and easing the pain for those at the bottom.

This was both brash and risky from the Tories, who are now upsetting an ever widening set of key groups:

• Doctors - unnecessary reorganisation of the NHS
• Nurses -  unnecessary reorganisation of the NHS
• Teachers - cuts
• Police - cuts
• Army - cuts
• Pensioners - cutting their tax allowances
• Families - cutting access to child benefit and tax credits
• Students and middle classes - trebling tuition fees

How big will the list become? Will Labour be able to take advantage? It can if it continues to focus on the tightening belt on the squeezed middle and not on class war. This represents a golden opportunity for Labour to capitalise on the government's growing unpopularity. The narrative for the next election has been set by the cut to the 50% tax rate. What hasn't been decided is whether it will make any difference. Except to the top 1% of earners who are quids in. 

Boris Johnson ignores the suburbs & Ken gets a kicking

Further news of Boris Johnson ignoring his fans in the London suburbs fails to have dented his popularity. At a time when the Tory Party is consolidating a lead over Labour in the opinion polls despite doing lots of unpopular things, mayoral candidate Johnson is following suit. The latest mayoral opinion poll puts him ahead of Labour rival Ken Livingstone on both first and. crucially, second preferences.

An example of Johnson's "relaxed" attitude to his suburban vote was demonstrated by his ignoring of a 3,000 name petition against plans for a high rise development on top of Twickenham station. He approved the development, despite Richmond Council, run by the Tories stating that they believe in "low density" developments. Johnson himself has opposed/said what he thought people wanted to hear Richmond Council's planned development of the nearby riverside side as being "inappropriate" for the area. He can't have it both ways.

Or can he? Just like the Tories nationally, saying and doing unpopular things seems to only increase their poll position. YouGov's poll today put Johnson ahead, 54% to Livingstone's 46% in the race for mayor. Today's Guardian ICM poll also put the Tories ahead by three points over Labour, with 39%. Perhaps this suggests that while unpopular, the Tories are trusted more than Livingstone and Labour more generally at the moment.

Polls and election results often come down to gut feel and who looks more like a leader than what a candidate is actually proposing to do. Both Johnson and Livingstone have as many fans as enemies which means there will be more changes in support right up to election day, with both bucking national (Tories more popular than Labour) and local (Labour more popular than Tories in London) trends.

Will 2015 follow 2010 and be a loser's election?

As we head towards the mid point of the current parliament no party looks like being the next victor. On current form a 2015 general election will bring results much like 2010l, where there was no clear winner.

In 2010 Gordon Brown had failed to convince the country he deserved to win. David Cameron assumed his Tories would waltz to power by default, yet they didn't. The Lib Dems lost numerous seats as they failed to take advantage of Nick Clegg's popularity bounce following the TV debates.

In 2012 we've got a Labour leader in Ed Miliband who is growing into his role but hasn't convinced yet. Depending on who you ask, his leadership is either a work in progress or ineffective. The Tories are struggling to get their programme through parliament, such as NHS reforms, in the face of huge public and professional opposition. While  many voters buy their line that the economy is "Labour's mess" they are not convinced that the Tories are the best for the country. The Lib Dems are paying the price for fronting up several of the Tories unpopular policies, such as the trebling of tuition fees.

How does that project the three parties forward to 2015?

Labour need to continue to build on successes, such as forging the political agenda, as they did over phone hacking and bankers' bonuses, but through to actual cut through with voters. This has so far failed to materialise. The Telegraph's Benedict Brogan is right when he says "Labour would be foolish to think an absence of enthusiasm for the Tories can get it out of its strategic hole". It can't win by default, just as it failed to do in the 1980s. 

The Tories need voters to start thanking them for taking tough but correct action to improve the economy. They also need to look more like a government in control of events and the political agenda than they currently do. They need to look like they are most fit to govern of the three parties.

The Lib Dems need people to forget about their sins, such as trebling tuition fees and hope to recover local support where their pockets of seats exist. I have no idea whether this will happen.

Nobody looks like doing what they need to forge ahead in the polls. That means it is all up for grabs and the political landscape is likely to continue to shift according to external events and how each of the main players react to this.

NHS reform re-toxifies the Tory brand

I can't understand why the Tories are so hell-bent on reforming the NHS. This unpopular change is dragging their brand through the mud when the party has traditionally struggled to get people to believe they will not destroy the NHS. Why do it when you don't have to? Just leave it alone. At least wait for people to trust you first before meddling.

David Cameron and Andrew Lansley are hell-bent on NHS reform precisely because it is such a political body. The NHS symbolises the Labour Party and therefore the Tories have always been suspicious of it. I can understand but not excuse that. What many Tories are now refusing to forgive is Cameron's picking of an unnecessary and un-winnable fight when the  economic climate makes governing hard enough.

Cameron is trying to plough the changes through whatever the opposition in the hope that people will have forgotten about it by 2015 at the next general election. I doubt voters will forget.

Cameron and  Lansley contradict themselves when they claim the reason for the NSH changes, like GP fundholding in the early 1990s, is to take power away from bureaucrats and give it to highly trusted doctors. That might be fine. Except that falls down when the Tories ignore these trusted experts, doctors and nurses, to ignore their advice about the bill.

If we trust doctors, as Cameron says we do. Trust their judgement and drop the bill or watch the Tory brand disappear again.

Boris Johnson has some nerve

Reading mayor Boris Johnson's quotes in tonight's Evening Standard that "for too long our transport network suffered from waste and neglect" make sm y blood boil. How he has the nerve to make such claims I don't know. When we talk mayors the previous Labour mayor delivered an unprecedented expansion of our transport infrastructure. 

This mayor, Boris himself, stagnated it by cutting future projects such as the Cross River Tram. Crossrail and the London Overground were nothing to do with him. He has a tough fight on his hands if he thinks he can fight Ken Livingstone on transport. He is better off sticking to other topics where his Labour challenger is weaker, such as personality.

Boris burns your cash and ignores the future

The London Mayor has a good amount of power to change the city through a range of management, financial and infrastructure levers. The big three issues for Londoners often focus on crime, transport and housing. Wit the latter two the mayor has to plan for the future because what happens in their four year terms often doesn't bear to fruition until much later.

Just look at current mayor Boris Johnson's introduction of a new "Routemaster" style bus. His four years are almost up and we haven't yet seen any on the road, though craftily we will just in time for the forthcoming election. Taking a deeper look at Boris' mayoralty and his claimed transport achievements and we see a celebration of many projects that he had very little to do with.

The expansion of London Overground was set in motion by Ken Livingstone as was the major East London regeneration resulting from the Olympics. That happened because Livingstone planned ahead. Unlike the current mayor. Boris has left us with very little to help sate the demands of a growing city in the future. A loss making cycle scheme and loss making cable car, together with the world's most expensive bus.

That brings us to Crossrail. Boris and his Tory pals confirmed it when in office, but the project was planned and budgeted for by both a Labour mayor and government. When Ken says he will plan for Crossrail 2 and a Crossrail 3, I believe him because he has delivered in the past. All we are likely to get from Boris is a "yeah me too" or "how about we introduce a sponsored air balloon system that won't cost taxpayers any money."

Whoever wins in May has to think beyond the next election and be adult enough to think beyond politics. Otherwise their role as mayor is to tinker around the edges and leave London ill-prepared for the future.

Ken Livingstone versus Boris Johnson in social media

An analysis of social media conversations mentioning London mayoral candidates Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone shows the Labour man catching up on his Tory rival, much as he has done in the opinion polls recently, overtaking Boris by 2%, after trailing by 8% last summer.

The chart above shows the number of times each was mentioned across blogs, Twitter, forums, Facebook, YouTube and in news blogs and comments since September 2011.

You can see that Boris generally leads his Labour rival, with a remarkable peak in early October when he addressed Tory party conference and failed to say anything of significance about his plans for London.

Livingstone picked up in the last few days after a widely hyped interview with the New Statesman, after which Tory MPs demanded an apology after the mayoral hopeful stated that their party was "riddled with gays."

Looking beyond conversation volumes towards the sentiment of what is being said about the two men, is it a positive, neutral or negative comment, also shows the race, in social media, to be neck and neck.

Boris Johnson gains slightly more positive (green) than negative (red) comments, by a margin of +7%:

Ken Livingstone has more fans in social media than Boris in the last few months, according to our analysis:

Of course, the only statistic that matters is the election in May. What this shows is that this will be the close fight we all expect it to be and that despite Boris' celebrity status, Ken's attraction has far from wilted.

Racist Tory MP in more Nazi shame

This morning I picked up from Twitter rumours that Tory Cannock Chase MP Aidan Burley was seen texting and dozing while at a talk given by a Holocaust survivor. If true, that is disgusting and disrespectful in the extreme. When will these people learn?

This is the same Tory MP that was sacked from his junior minister role at the Department for Transport only two months ago after taking part in a Nazi themed stag do where he was responsible for hiring replica Nazi uniforms and toasting the Third Reich.

Attending a talk by a Holocaust survivor might have been an opportunity to redeem himself. I'm shocked and saddened by Burley's contempt.

UPDATE: we know that Burley didn't ask his allotted question at PMQs yesterday and wasn't in Parliament. Was he in Poland?

Boris Johnson finally works out what being a mayor is all about

The first phase of Boris Johnson's mayoralty was characterised by him doing very little. He wanted the mayor to spend less and do less. He cancelled many of previous mayor Ken Livingstone's planned transport projects and drastically cut the London Development Agency. This was all part of his plan to give Londoners "more bang for their buck."

The second half of Boris' reign has been characterised by a series of expensive, loss making projects, such as the cycle hire and cable car. Now it looks like he is starting to panic by claiming he will take over the running of train services in London.

I actually think that would be a good idea as the benefits of Transport for London management of the London Overground lines in north and east London have seen huge service improvements and growth in usage. I wonder whether Boris would be any good at it though when not long ago he claimed the whole concept unworkable.

I also struggle to believe Boris would do it if he won again. Not only did he scrap some of Livingstone's projects when he got in, such as the Cross River Tram, but he also failed to implement many of his own, such as a tram for Oxford Street. The latter was perhaps a daft idea anyway given the disruption that Crossrail construction has brought the area.

This also shows that Boris is running a reactive campaign. He is responding to the Livingstone proposals to cut fares by trying to offer his version of the same pledge. He is trying to fight Livingstone on his home turf. Boris has woken up to the responsibility of the mayoralty but rather too late.

Why I'm a progressive

Progress or stagnation? That is the sort of question politicians like to pose at election time. The one asking the question is usually the one who thinks they will provide progress, while tainting their opponents as the bastions of stagnation. That language framed the 2010 general election. David Cameron told us he offered change and progress, while the then incumbent, Gordon Brown and Labour, offered stagnation.

Nearly two years later, what have Cameron's Tories delivered?

Almost nothing. But stagnation. The economy was growing when they came to power. Now it is contracting. In total that has left Britain with a paltry 0.3% growth since George Osborne's spending review.

Disturbing. Pathetic. Very worrying.

Any fool knows you need people in work, paying taxes, spending their wages to guarantee growth and pay off government debts. Everyone except Cameron and Osborne that is.

There is an alternative. That is why I'm a progressive.

Ken V Boris: too close to call, dirty, exciting

After last week's YouGov poll put Ken Livingstone ahead of incumbent mayor Boris Johnson in the race to lead London, LBC and ComRes have released their own poll. This again gives the former mayor a slender lead of 51% to 49%.

This is remarkable for a candidate who lost the mayoralty in 2008 after looking tired, disinterested and didn't focus on the issues mattering most to voters, as his rival Johnson managed to. As the likes of Adam Bienkov point out, that position is now reversed. Johnson is the one talking about protecting bankers, while Livingstone is talking about the rising cost of living and transport fares.

Interestingly, Livingstone is under performing against Labour's expected polling in London, while Johnson is more popular than the Tories. Despite that, Labour's candidate will be far happier as we enter the last 100 days of the campaign.

The Back Boris campaign is in a bit of a mess. Complacency about victory must have evaporated, along with his poll lead. I quick scan of London news sites and blogs shows a campaign not in control, clutching at straws or making false claims.

• Mayor Watch today reports that Back Boris is claiming Johnson began and implemented London Overground, when in fact, as the TfL website points out, Livingstone started it in 2007, a year before the buffoon took power
• Left Foot Forward highlights that Johnson used his Telegraph column to blame young people and their lack of skills for sky high youth unemployment
• Boris Watch notes that Johnson's primary vanity project, his new bus, is getting ever more expensive, with another prototype being ordered at a staggering £547,000

It is all getting very political. The first new bus for London is due on our streets in May 2012, election month. TfL are running an advertising campaign to highlight improvements over the last three years, which conveniently coincides with BJ's mayoral term. 

Our old pal and former Livingstone nemesis, Andrew Gilligan, now at the Telegraph, is at it again with a regular column of Livingstone-loathing. Fortunately fewer potential Labour voters read the Telegraph than the Evening Standard, his former home, so his distortive effect may be limited this time.  

What does this leave us with? A content that is too close to call, will inevitably turn dirty and one that will be great to watch.

Boris Johnson plans Thames tunnel after scrapping Thames Gateway Bridge

London Mayor Boris Johnson is going to announce plans to build a Thames tunnel linking Silvertown in East London and the Greenwich peninsula, somewhere on the map below:

 As useful as this link would undoubtedly prove this comes just a few years after the same mayor, Boris Johnson, scrapped plans by the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, for a Thames Gateway Bridge, just a bit further east along the river.

Apparently there was no funding for that. Given that tunnels cost a great deal more than bridges, where is the money for the tunnel? I suspect that the bridge was scrapped simply because it was proposed by a Labour mayor.

In his early days, Boris didn't see much point in being mayor and did little to propose major projects to change the fabric of the city. After a few years in the throne he has changed his tune and is getting to quite like vanity projects:

• There is his expensive new Routemaster, the world's most expensive bus at an eye-watering £1.6m each
• A loss making cable car - it cost £60m to build and has attracted only £36m in sponsorship
• And the popular but loss making cycle hire scheme. Over six years this cost TfL £140 to build but Barclays sponsorship only claws back about a quarter of that, while usage fees are estimated to bring in about £1m a year. Clearly not enough

The latter of course was a plan started by the previous mayor.


In 2008 Boris Johnson promised to give Londoners more bang for their buck. He has succeeded only in giving us more bang for more bucks. Not quite the same thing.

Ken Livingstone dubs Borish Johnson a "pickpocket"

In the latest swipe of what is developing into a rather juicy personality clash, Ken Livingstone is today running advertising in the Evening Standard dubbing his rival Boris Johnson as a pickpocket:

This highlights the rising cost of using public transport in London since Boris came to power in 2008. This includes a single bus fare increasing by 50%.

Where has all the money gone Boris?

Thousands of London commuters were met on their way to work this morning by two things: another round of jaw-dropping fare increases from mayor Boris Johnson and an alternative offer from Labour's campaign team. According to the campaign and quoted by BBC, 500,000 leaflets were distributed.

Key to the campaign is that Boris as mayor is making life worse for Londoners in an already tough economic environment. Under Boris fares have gone up between 20% for a weekly zones 1-6 travelcard and 50% for a single Oyster bus fare.

Boris's riposte is that the extra fare revenue is there to pay for tube improvements. This isn't entirely true as Transport for London has built up hefty reserves in the last few years, £728m according to the Evening Standard.

So the key question must be why Boris wants to continue hitting Londoners in the pocket with a stealth tax rise when he doesn't have to?

More racist Tories

When will the Tories learn that racism is bad, immoral and just plain wrong?

The St Andrews University student society burnt an effigy of Barack Obama. The conveyor belt continues.

Racist Tory rumours

The Barnet Eye blog reports that a Tory Barnet councillor, John Hart "BA (Hons) MA" has been hauled before the borough's standards committee for allegedly making racist comments to constituents at the  Hendon and District residents' forum.

That sounds unwise, out of touch and very stupid. Why is it that there still seems to be a catalogue of Tories who believe this rubbish? Why is it that they think it is OK to spout such nonsense in public?

If he is found guilty, what punishment will the standards committee bestow on him? What about the Tory party? There have been far too many Tories caught making similar comments, who have apologised for being either misquoted, misunderstood or unaware that what they said is wrong.

It is time to draw the line and show that the Cameroons are different. Unlike many of the Tory party's representatives.

Should we have a referendum on EU membership?

Every time I hear a Europhobic Tory MP tell us how the country is crying out for a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU I wonder which people they are talking about. I really don't think most ordinary people worry about it that much.

Tory MPs are not ordinary people though and they are absolutely obsessed with the EU. The last two elections have seen a marked increased in anti-Europe MPs being elected for the Tories, making them a much more anti-party today than they were in the 1990s when the issue ripped John Major's government to pieces. That and the sex scandals.

Just after the 2010 election I appeared on a LBC radio debate. I sat opposite rather smug looking Tory and Lib Dems. They congratulated each other on how the coalition agreement was going to lead to seamless and untroubled governing. I thought otherwise. There is only so much you can pro-actively predict. I suggested then that something would come along, divide the coalition and the Tory party. That would be Europe.

They laughed at me.

How I laugh now.

Whenever opinion polls have asked people whether they want to pull out of the EU, as those Tories calling for a referendum do - this isn't about "choice", it is about going solo - they show a spit country. Today that shows 49% in favour of pulling out and 40% want to keep the status quo. Whether that result would stay the same once people were properly educated about the pros and cons of EU membership is quite another matter.

What we can be certain of is that David Cameron is going to have to waste significant political energy on the issue. This will eat away at energy better spent on fixing a rather broken EU and a creaking British economy. And for him, on trying to stop becoming an ever more unpopular prime minister.

Those anti-European Tories probably don't care about damaging their leader, because in their eyes, he betrayed them by signing up with the Lib Dems.

Crime up again under the Tories

In the 1980s and 1990s crime kept going up. At the time we thought it was just the way society was going. Then in the early 2000s crime started to go down. In the last year, crime has started to go up again. There is a common theme here:

1980s: crime up under the Tories
1990s: crime up under the Tories - peaking in 1992
2000s: crime down under Labour
2011: crime up again under the Tories

When I was growing up the Tories were meant to be the party of  law and order. How is that so when the reality is so starkly different?

Two polls, two stories

Opinion polls can't decide whether the Tories are unpopular or not. At the weekend YouGov, the most accurate at recent elections, put Labour and the Tories only three points apart. If that is so, Labour could be screwed. Unless things get a lot worse, which they look like doing.

According to Populus for yesterday's Times, Labour has romped to an eight point lead over the Tories, leading 41% - 33%. What does this all mean?

Polling isn't accurate. We know that already. We also know that the election isn't for several years. In that time Ed Miliband will or won't make an impact with voters. The economy will get worse and might, but probably won't get better again.

Economic pain and the unpopularity of the Tories and Lib Dems won't be enough for Labour. The big problem is that while people don't like government cuts and hate recessions because it means they get poorer and could lose their jobs, they might not blame the Tories.

Labour is to blame for the economic mess. That is what many will say. The Tories freely offered that line time and again, backed up by the Lib Dems. When they talk about the problems we face now, as things get worse, this is somehow related to a different global economic slump to the one we found ourselves in 2008/9. The Tory message has stuck and Labour hasn't been able to shift it.

Lots of voters still blame Labour. Until an alternative message sticks Labour's poll leads will look vulnerable, especially when boundary changes loaded in favour of the Tories come into effect. Labour is skint too. That means a decent election campaign is beyond the party as it simply can't afford the staff.

Both Labour and the Tories leave much to be desired in the eyes of voters. We have an unpopular government and an untrusted opposition both fighting to get heard. Labour has reasons to worry, as Mark Ferguson and Olly Parker outlined at Labour List, while the Tories do too, as outlined by Tim Montgomerie.

Does this mean Labour supporters should be depressed? Of course not. It simply means that there is everything to play for.