Can Ed Miliband succeed where Tony Blair failed?

The Labour Party has surveyed voters' views as part of the major policy review. This has shown that voters want Labour to be strong on immigration, protect British interests first in Europe and international affairs, propose welfare reform and be tough on crime. This sounds remarkably like Tony Blair's rights and responsibilities policy agenda. It should surprise nobody.


This is no surprise because the country moved to the right at the last election. These are issues that are typically hard for Labour to campaign on as the party finds it easier to talk about subjects that matter to lefties. These leftie issues are unlikely to be enough to win Labour an election. However, these are the bread and butter working class issues and Ed Miliband needs to seize control of this agenda.
The Labour survey also showed that voters want the party to be tough on bankers and to soften the market. This is Miliband's natural territory. I don't think he'll find it easy to be talking about crime and immigration but it is an absolute must. That he hasn't yet can in part explain Labour's failure to secure first place in the English local elections.
Miliband's challenge is the tough, classic one faced by all Labour leaders. Talk tough on crime and immigration and lose support of the party and win votes, or do the opposite. If he can find a happy equilibrium he will strike gold.

NHS reform will press ahead

After being criticised by GPs, doctors, nurses, trade unions, the lap-dog Lib-Dems and Labour, David Cameron today unveiled sweeping changes to NHS reforms. Is this a significant political moment as it shows that the coalition isn't quite steaming ahead with its agenda as it would have liked?

I'm not sure the changes are as big as Cameron makes out. The fundamental changes to the NHS will still happen, even if a bit later than planned. GPs will still take over the commissioning of services from primary care trusts. Greater competition will still take place with private sector providers. I accept that the plans have been watered down but the fundamentals remain.
The reform process is ill thought out and suggests a dogmatic wish to return to the John Major days of GP fund-holding. I don't really understand on what basis the Tories decided that GP commissioning would be the answer to the NHS ills. There is no reason at all for this form of service delivery to be more efficient. On the contrary, spending swathes of scarce cash on a major reorganisation at a time when funds are so scarce seems completely foolhardy. For a Tory party that is so bent on cutting public spending to do this now shows how committed they are to the changes and demonstrates an ideological commitment to them.
The delays and changes show how hard Cameron is finding it to run his party and get his legislation through. I expect him to overcome these obstacles and press ahead with an unnecessary and costly reorganisation of the NHS just when it needed it least.

What has Boris Johnson actually achieved?

Mayor Boris Johnson is in campaign mode and is wasting no time in telling us all about his achievements. Unfortunately his "achievements" are not that at all, as has been widely pointed out.

BJ is claiming credit for Crossrail, the tube upgrade and obviously the cycle hire scheme. All of these schemes were under way well before his election in 2008. He also claims credit for the Olympic park, again something that has been finished while he has been in power but was secured by the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone.

As the race for London (mayor) 2012 hots up I wonder how many more half truths BJ will be peddling? Quite why he tries to cling on to power so hard when he does nothing with it is beyond me. It all seems quite pointless, much like his mayoralty.

Party funding debate has be impartial

After last week's revealing of the party accounts showed Labour falling back on it's trade union partners and the Tories on wealthy individuals for support, today's newspapers report again that the Tories want to put a £50,000 cap on donations.

The Tories and Lib Dems claim such a move would remove big money from politics. It would also rip the historic heart out of the Labour Party. The party was formed from trade unions and ordinary working people have a say in the party as affiliated members. Taking that away would create an artificial imbalance in UK politics. I can't believe that the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life will settle for this.

Unfortunately I don't expect the committee to recommend the only radical change that would stop cash for favours on all sides, state funding.

The Tories always paint the union link to Labour as some sort of sinister connection. The union link makes Labour more democratic and representative of more ordinary people than the other UK parties.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The state of political party finances

This morning's newspapers were full of reports of who was funding our political parties. Labour, £10m in debt, is even more reliant on trade union funding than before. The Tories have continued to rely on wealthy businessmen. The Lib Dems didn't have that much at all.

I also read that Tory super-doner Lord Ashcroft has just been given responsibility for reviewing Britain's considerable military presence in Cyprus. The Lib Dems are not happy about that. Ashcroft has bought his influence.

That these two stories appeared on the same day further stoked the strong but little heard argument for state funding of political parties in the UK. While big business or trade unions bankroll politics there will always be the accusation that they buy influence. Cash for questions, cash for honours, Ashcroft. The list of suspicious political funding has a long history and won't stop any time soon.

The only argument I hear against state funding is that voters who don't like politicians will like paying for them even less. That doesn't wash. Voters hate dirty politics and if paying a small amount to fund political parties and election campaigns cleans it up, then it is a price worth paying.

Finding the Tory switchers

I wrote yesterday of how Labour needs to target Tory voters to stand any chance of winning power again. The reduction in the number of MPs will only strengthen the need to focus on this. It is only by winning seats from Tories that Labour will stand a chance.

As much as I and many others have revelled in the pitiful state of the Lib Dems, the real enemy has always been their Tory masters.

Caroline Flint wrote for Progress that  Labour has "to reach out beyond our traditional heartlands" to create a real progressive majority. She points out that of the top 100 Labour target seats, 83 are currently Tory. Appealing to these Tory voters has to be the central plank of Labour policy and communications in the next couple of years. Looking at the recent English local election results it is clear that the party is not reaching these people currently.


Ed Miliband will have to blend to aspects as he attempts to drive Labour forward. They are often viewed as mutually exclusive, but I don't agree. Renewing the left of Britain and making Labour a party that rewards talent, is at the centre of our communities, campaigns (and doesn't just talk in dull meetings) can sit hand in hand with appealing to England's centre ground - being aspirational, fair on immigration and winning the economic argument back from the Tories.


Re-founding Labour is a good start but won't be enough as the party has to revitalise without and within.

Miliband to woo Tories?

I always find it interesting when someone suggests that the cure to all of the Labour Party's ills is to copy what Tony Blair did. This interests me because I generally agree but also because doing that is so difficult when finding a leader as talented as he is very difficult.

Aping Blair's style might not be right almost twenty years later but Dan Hodges is right that we would do well to heed political lessons from him. Quite simply people who vote Tory need to vote Labour instead. Wealthy people and those in the south. Picking up votes from disgruntled lefties will be insufficient and likely to end in a William Hague-esque core vote strategy. This is even more important if Labour can't win in Wales and Scotland, traditional suppliers of swathes of Labour MPs in Westminster.

How is this going to happen? Labour needs to be realistic about how it plans to win and smell the coffee. That will tell them that it needs to win in England and it needs to win over Tories, otherwise it is curtains.

The NHS:The end of the public service ethos

The point of the NHS is that it is free at the point of use. Nobody is expected to pay directly for their healthcare, it is paid out of central taxation. Another central principle is that the NHS doesn't exist for profit. What we pay in taxes shouldn't be creamed off to pay dividends instead of patient care. This is the pubic service ethos. The Tories plans for the NHS eat away at this.

Today's reports that one of David Cameron's aides Mark Britnell would be a "big opportunity" for the private sector show that the government's (not publicly stated) aim is to chip away at the public service ethos in the NHS. It strikes me that the point in these reforms is to allow the private sector a greater role in NHS service provision. This makes it likely that the private sector will cream off the profitable parts and leave the state to pick up and pay for the rest. Chipping away at the public service ethos is also likely to chip away at the quality of care given to patients as the profit motive encourages the cutting of corners.

Politicallly Britnell's comments demonstrate an extreme naivety about how people feel about the NHS. It also suggests that Cameron's proclaimed "love" for the NHS isn't the same love shared by the rest of the country. Cameron's advisor's comments were not off guard, off the record or mis-quoted. They show what the Tories really want to do to the NHS. They want to part privatise it.

The "pause" in the NHS reforms were just that. Nothing will change, the same reforms will happen, just a little later. Politically the result will be the same. As the Mirror reports that 62% of people are against the reforms, added to all of the professional bodies, this is yet another unpopular and unnecessary Tory policy. How will the Lib Dems react? They won't be able to stop it no matter how vociferous their complaints. Cameron is ploughing on regardless.

At least today's comments showed the Tories' true intentions, nobody can say they didn't realise what they were planning to do when the NHS gets sold off.

A year in Condemnation

The Liberal Demolition shows no sign of letting up. First there were the glory day(s) in the Rose garden at number ten. Then the betrayals, then the bickering, then the elections.

While repeated blows have landed on the Lib Dems and while they have been serious the victim is more likely to suffer a slow and drawn out death than a knock out punch. The Lib Dems will last to 2015 because whatever happens between now and the next election, like John Major's rebel turkeys, his disgruntled party can't risk a general election that would see them wiped out.

After founding of the coalition David Laws did his best to show that this wasn't "Cleggameron's" new politics as he thieved the taxpayer for several years for rent he didn't have to pay. That Clegg placed the his party's integrity at the behest of what he would have known would be a very unpopular Tory government shows how much he wanted to give his party their raison d'etre: electoral reform. He gambled everything for this. He lost. What has he got left? He has his party to save.


How can Clegg do this? Strong words in public but capitulations in private letting the Tories get their way will only weaken their cause. The real test is whether they can stem the Tory zeal for deep public spending cuts, especially as economic indicators worsen in the coming 12 months.

There is little Cameron will want to do to change the coalition. His government retains control of policy, the top jobs and the blame for anything bad always sits with the Lib Dems. After the initial disappointment of failing to get a majority at the general election a year ago, things could hardly be better for Cameron and his Tories.

Boris Johnson = trash

I find it somewhat odd that mayor Boris Johnson today praised the Transport for London management for negotiating an end to next week's planned tube strikes with the RMT.

Remember that this is the mayor which I liken to a boxer before a big bout. Great on the trash talk. Unfortunately for London, he failed to deliver on this. Remember that this is the mayor that promised to end strikes on the tube and has since been too politically pig headed to hold even a single meeting with any of the tube unions. Responsible governing means he should have done this, despite his political hatred of all the RMT stand for.

Today's statement from Johnson was just another load of trash from a mayor who has achieved nothing for London. He deserves to be knocked out in 2012.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Three Tory graphs

After yesterday's disappointing growth figures that showed the economy hasn't grown at all in the last six months, opinion polls continue to show Labour in the lead and strong disapproval for the government's work.


Courtesy of Mark Ferguson at Labour List

AV rows rumble on and I swing

Differences of opinion between the Tories and Lib Dems about AV continue to attract press attention. What was meant to be an apolitical issue has been fashioned into a party political affair. Peter Mandelson has suggested that Labour supporters should vote yes to hinder the Tories' potential electoral dominance. The no campaign have used Nick Clegg's unpopularity to encourage Labour supporters to vote no.

The recent sniping between the Lib Dems and Tories, plus interventions from Labour's heavyweights has added a little oomph to a rather dull and dry referendum campaign that will have passed most voters by.

The "row" has been the story rather than AV. That is much easier to report and shows a media appetite for tittle tattle over trying to educate the readership. There has been a great deal of nonsense thrown about by both sides. The no campaign have dubbed AV confusing, unfair and expensive. The yes campaign have dismissed the no campaign as the Tory old guard hanging onto the levers of power.

Both sides have tried to score party political points on the other. The no campaign calling on voters to deal a blow to Clegg, the yes campaign to David Cameron. If I'm going to be party political about the AV referendum, I'd like to deal a blow to both but voting for short term gain isn't necessarily going to deliver the best political outcome in the long term.

As usual Channel 4's Fact Check comes to the rescue bringing together the claims and demystifying the myths. AV won't be expensive and will ensure all MPs will be elected on some type of 50%+ support. AV wouldn't have altered many recent UK elections and would have exaggerated many recent results, like 1997.

I feel myself becoming a swing voter for the first time in my life. I've never approached an election and not been totally sure of how I would vote, but I am about AV. I want a fair system, a simple one and any change must be fair to all parties. Will AV be that change? I'm not convinced but it might be.

A coalition of convenience

The increasing tensions between the Tories and their coalition lap-dogs the Lib Dems over AV shows all is not as rosy as Dave and Nick like to make out.

'Leading' Lib Dems Chris Huhne and Vince Cable have both been playing to their gallery of party members and upset former voters by breaking ranks and criticising their big daddy. Under normal circumstances such behaviour would be met with a fell swoop of cabinet reshuffle. That isn't possible because the party has been guaranteed a certain number of cabinet posts. When there are only 57 MPs to choose from there isn't much choice. That Clegg himself is getting in on the act means cracks in the coalition will remain.

I still expect the coalition to last because both parties have a vested interest in making it. The Tories want to get their cuts programme through and the Lib Dems are desperate to cling on to whatever power they can. For Clegg needs to wait as long as possible in the hope that his party's plummeting poll ratings eventually reverse. I'm not site try will. They badly need AV to go through to show even a slight glimpse that the future might be even the slightest bit yellow.
Lib Dems won't be winning here for a while but that doesn't really matter as long as they continue to prop up the Tories.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Vince Cable on the slide

Vince Cable is doing his best to get himself sacked from the cabinet. After calling David Cameron's immigration speech "unwise" today he added another feather to his Lib Dem Tory hating cap. The only problem is that he signed up to this in the first place. It is also a problem that the Lib Dems are guaranteed a specific number of cabinet posts and if old Vince is kicked out, who replaces him?

I agree with Vince. Capping immigration could be damaging for business, which needs to recruit the best people to get our economy going again. Setting an arbitrary cap means this might not happen.

His antics remind me of a Channel 4 comedy programme from a few years ago where two contestants, each starting a new job, had to get themselves sacked. The winner got a week's dole money. The only catch was that they were not allowed to do anything obvious, like swear, use violence, steal or not turn up. They had to be creative and provoke their boss to getting rid of them. The winner got sacked from his job in an expensive clothes shop after dressing up in fancy dress and juggling the shoes.

Vince is juggling with his career, I'm not sure he cares. Vince is looking good for his £67.50.

Lib Dems: the indefensible

Poor Warren Bradley has been here before. His outburst at Nick Clegg suggests a man clearly worried about his own future. He is apparently sick of "defending the indefensible" with the latter being the Lib Dem coalition with the Tories.

Is it the VAT rise his party campaigned against? Is it the rise in tuition fees his party campaigned against? Is it the public sector cuts his party campaigned against?



For some time the Tories have had no presence in the north of England, which his Lib Dems profited from. People won't vote Tory there but when Labour has deserved a bloody nose the nice little yellow party has been there to step in. Bradley ended up as leader of Liverpool council, while the party was also victorious in other traditionally Labour strongholds such as Sheffield and Leeds. Now that many voters see the Lib Dems and Tories as a single entity it is highly probable that the pockets of northern support for the Lib Dems will go the same way as that for the Tories.

At least Bradley has been consistent. He might care about his party or he might only care about his own future. Which doesn't really matter at this time. He was one of the first and more high profile members of his party to warn about the effect doing a deal with the Tories nationally might have on the party's future. Speaking in July, just after the coalition was formed he said "we’re in a weak coalition, that will deliver nothing to the Lib-Dems except total electoral decimation. I give you that absolute guarantee, we will be wiped out by Labour in the North and the Tories in the South." In three weeks we'll find out.

Bradleys's current analysis may be robust but he misses a key point that many voters who were fooled into thinking Bradley's Lib Dems were a left wing party. Across England they have repeatedly gone into coalition with the Tories whenever it has suited their ends, as Bradley's email to Clegg points out, to get power

Highlights of Tory-Lib Dem coalition include:

• Lambeth 2002-2006
• Leeds 2004-2010
• Southwark 2002-2010

Bradley needs to look back a bit further into his party's recent history. Perhaps then he'd realise that the "indefensible" has been party policy for some time. Time for a new job Bradley?

Londoners suffer the most from the Tories cuts

As we head into an avoidable cost of living crisis caused by the Tories' tax rises and cuts, evidence shows that Londoners will lose badly. The poorest will be worse off than the wealthy. Yet more evidence that we're not "all in this together" after all, but its much more a case of "I'm alright Jack" from George Osborne.

The cost of living is so much higher in London than elsewhere in the UK that any hits to living standards will be harshly felt. As the graphic shows, Londoners get a raw deal from the cuts. Couples with children will lose 8% of their income by 2014/15. The poorest Londoners will be 7% worse off, the wealthiest only 5%.

Ed Miliband's job is to make this clear, in simple language to ordinary people. The cuts are not fair or even. The Tories hit those who can afford it least in the pocket.

Is Vince Cable a joke?

I don't quite know how Vince Cable can live with himself. He has been absent from the news recently after a series of gaffes relating to News International's attempt to buy back a bigger share of Sky.

Low paid workers are facing a two-pronged hit to their living standards after Cable announced that the minimum wage is increasing by a below inflation 15 pence an hour. Couple this with a 2.5% increase in VAT and the rise in personal income tax allowances will be completely wiped out. Even though food isn't included in VAT, the cost of fuel is meaning the cost of food and essential items increase anyway. 

Recently Cable was responsible for the trebling of tuition fees. He then has the cheek to suggest he will cut teaching grants to universities for poor performing universities that charge the highest fees, ignoring that he has cut the teaching grants meaning fees have to fill the gap. Universities have no choice but to levy maximum fees. They don't get any extra money for this, it just replaces lost central government funding. There are arguments on both sides about the demerits of the new student funding system that are best argued in a dedicated post.

His red tape challenge reminds me of John Major's cones hotline. Surely Cable can use his own scissors to cut business red tape? This is little more than a gimmick.

Cable was once the darling of the Lib Dems for his foresight in predicting the global financial crisis. He was all over their election leaflets as he was seen as more marketable than the then very popular Nick Clegg. How times change. He was given a deliberately difficult ministerial post by the Tories who clearly saw him as a threat. He is still the most likely Lib Dem to resign from the coalition.

Labour by default

Labour's lead in opinion polls remains consistently at a minimum of five points over the Tories with the Lib Dems around or below 10%.



Looking back over the polls between Labour's disastrous 1983 election and resounding defeat in 1987 shows a similar pattern. A year after the election Labour were consistently ahead of the Tories but the failure of the party to earn the trust of voters saw this gradually eroded by the 1987 election day. The same thing happened again between 1987 and 1992. Until Ed Miliband starts to get a strong and positive recognition from voters I fear that 2015 may lead to a similar result as 1987 or 1992.

It feels a bit like the 1980s at the moment. An unpopular Tory government, cuts, protests and a dodgy economy. Miliband's job is easier than Kinnock's though as there is no major internal party strife to deal with. It is an opportunity and a crucial one for the country at a time when the Tories are getting cockier by the day with Climate Change minster Greg Barker saying the current government's cuts are what "Thatcher could only have dreamed of." That's very different to the official line and faux sombre faces of George Osborne and Danny Alexander every time they announce more cuts - this is sad and bad but necessary. Miliband needs to make people realise his feelings are real.

London's never had it so good

According to Mayor Boris Johnson London's never had it so good. The sun shines and everything is fine. He might think it is but I don't share his optimism. He belittled Ed Miliband's chief spin doctor Tom Baldwain for having to paint the world around him as in a "complete mess" whatever the circumstances.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Living costs are going up
• Tax is going up
• Vital government services are being cut
• London tube and bus fares are going up
• Thousands of jobs are going to be lost, hurting families and the economy

Perhaps Boris would like to do the honourable thing and add himself to the rising toll of jobless next year? After all, his pal George Osborne did say, "we're all in this together."

Poor to pay for the Tories

I love Channel 4's Fact Check. IT provides independent analysis of political rhetoric and gets behind the crap and tells it like it is. Like most politicians find it difficult to do. 


Housing Minister Grant Schapps suggested a few weeks ago that councils that make the biggest cuts must be badly managed and those who cut less must be more inefficient. Tosh. What that ignores is that councils like Islington have to pay out more to those on benefits and get less tax in return from council tax payers (as there are fewer of them) than in a place like Richmond. Richer areas have more council tax payers and few benefit recipients. That means Richmond receives a smaller central government subsidy than somewhere like Islington. Thast is quite basic and something I learnt very early on at university. 


Fact Checker sets this and Schapps straight. Councils like Islington and Manchester are facing far more cuts than just that to the main central government grant. This means they have no choice but to cut more severely than councils in better off areas. They say:


"it’s clear that deprived areas are worst affected.


"As a poor inner-city authority that gets more Government money than council tax, Manchester’s spending power is down 8.8 per cent in this financial year and 6.7 per cent in 2012/13. In Trafford it’s only 3.8 per cent this year and 3.4 next year."


The poorest pay most under the Tories. Despicable.