NHS reform infographic

Support for NHS the reforms proposed by the Tory and Lib Dem coalition is scant as the fantastic infographic below shows: 

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.

David versus Ed Miliband in social media

I wanted to see if David Miliband's New Statesman article and widespread news coverage of it had led to much social media commentary.

It clearly has, shown in the chart below detailing the number of mentions for each of the Miliband brothers over the last month:

This shows how mainstream news agenda is still driving social media and political commentary. Obviously. I'll keep an eye on how long the David bubble continues to fly.

David, Ed and the media

David Miliband's New Statesman article has garnered a great deal of media attention today. Everyone is either looking for, finding or creating signs of disagreement and tension between the elder Miliband and his brother, Ed, who beat him to the Labour leadership.

David's article is thoughtful and written with an academic style. The sentiment of this morning's media splashes has been wildly different. They have predictably focused on the fireworks rather than the proactive suggestions he makes because it makes for a much better story.

Is David really calling for a total re-think of his brother's stewardship of Labour? Does it matter? What does this tell us about Labour at the moment and the media's response to it?

David actually says what a host of Labour people said in the Purple Book recently, that the party needs to be state reformers and look beyond a big state as the answer to problems. He also stresses the need to balance internationalism, growth, investment and equal opportunities to help create an improving and thriving economy. It is hard to argue with any of this.

The perception gap with his brother isn't there in his words.

The perception gap between David and Ed's vision is in the words of the journalists who have reported on this. I don't see a great deal of difference between what the two brothers are either saying or putting into Labour policy. His key statement isn't all that different from what the Eds have been trying to get across to a sceptical media and voters:

"Our attacks on the Tories will not work if we are not clear about what we did. We should say loud and clear where we made mistakes, but we should also insist that the list of gains far outstripped the mistakes. After all, even David Cameron said on coming to office that Britain was better in 2010 than 1997."

He goes on:

"Principle without power is the stuff of a debating society, not a political party. "

The problem is that many commentators long ago decided that Ed's solutions are of the former, not the latter and haven't bothered to look at the detail because it gets in the way of a good story. David's ideas should be a hand up not a slap in the face for his brother. I think most within the Labour Party will see it that way, but that won't make a good story. 

Ed Miliband gets it right again

Ed Miliband's lobbying for a parliamentary vote about the size of state owned RBS boss Stephen Hester's bonus led to the banker backing down and waiving his bonus. Even the BBC's Robert Peston admitted it was  Miliband's campaigning that forced the issue.

This is great news for Miliband and Labour as it shows that the he has again forced the political agenda and made the right call on a high profile issue. His response to phone hacking is another key example.

Unfortunately Miliband's right calls on the issues that matter have done nothing to boost his or Labour's opinion poll ratings, with the Tories on a poll high. What will it take for Miliband to cement himself as the man who calls it right in the mind of the voting masses?

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.

Ken versus Boris: too close to call

I'd been intrigued to see what the latest opinion polling thought about the impending London mayoral election, incumbent Boris Johnson, versus former mayor Ken Livingstone, after last summer's polls suggested a commanding lead for BJ. Today's YouGov poll puts Ken 2% ahead, 51-49.

A surprisingly large number of Labour voters had previously said they'd vote Tory last June, though that has now fallen. That suggests that Livingstone's unpopularity among some after a long career has waned. That could be a result of his powerful campaign to cut transport fares. 

Conservative Home's Tim Montgomery recently warned Tories not to let their previous poll lead lure them into a false sense of security, dubbing it "dangerously complacent". That message will have come shattering home today. For the Tories, with BJ more popular than his party, the focus must be personality. Their man picks up votes because he is well known and seen as likeable. People seem to put to one side that they don't think he understands the issues. For example, only 13% see Boris as someone who is in touch with the concerns of ordinary people, compared to 40% for Ken. 

For Labour, the election has to be focused on the Tories. Boris is a Tory, not an independent. He is someone who makes the cost of living in London higher and isn't going to protect Londoners from the worst of a possible recession. 

Ken and his Labour team look like they will stick to that message. They should as it has worked so far. 

Ed Miliband and the unions

Ed Miliband today came in for criticism from trade union leaders for backing Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls who said Labour cannot promise to reverse all Tory cuts if it got in power again. This seem like such an obvious point from Balls and Miliband that I find it quite absurd that he has come in for today's flak.

It is in no way a betrayal of ordinary people or an acceptance that the Tories are right. It is just sensible real-politik.

The unions will simply alienate people from Labour by attempting to pull Miliband's puppet strings so publicly.

Of course, this is a problem for Miliband for he so openly used the unions to get the Labour leadership in the first place. What happens next will be interesting to see if Miliband has the balls to stand up to them or if the unions call in their favours.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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.

Will Ed Miliband make a difference?

Ed Miliband's speech today suggesting that Labour can't rely on splashing the cash if in government again picked up from recent articles and posts by the likes of Peter Watt and Gavin Kelly. The latter two were as criticising Miliband, despite his likely agreement with them.

Ed Balls and Miliband have been trying to get across the argument that growth should be used to cut the deficit. Today was the first time I've seen Miliband explain this in simple language, that you need people working and paying taxes to pay off the deficit, not claiming benefits. This is promising though the problem with Miliband's leadership has rarely been about what he has said, which is getting better all the time, more about two things:

1. Perception
2. Clear alternative

Miliband's perception problem hasn't gone away. His personal poll ratings are very bad at the moment though he is getting much more media coverage. Having a clear alternative set of policies to the government isn't easy but will become very necessary. There were a smattering of new proposals today though nothing fundamental. His theme of the "squeezed middle" has stuck with both Tories and Lib Dems trying to steal parts of his rhetoric. He proposes to promote changed business practice, like an end to quarterly reporting, to develop a long term investment based capitalism. 

Aside from his personal perception problems, Miliband faces difficulty in persuading voters that he understands the severity of the government deficit and knows how to get rid of it without unnecessarily and adversely affecting their way of life. He hasn't done that yet, people are just not believing Labour at the moment. 

Balls and Miliband have to convince people other than me that they should be taken seriously on the deficit and the economy. It hasn't worked so far, today's speech won't change it overnight either. At the moment it is all too esay to attack them for being involved in the last Labour government and to stop listening. There is some great stuff in the detail but most people don't bother with that. Not least when a hostile media doesn't tell them.  

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%.

Oh mayor, where art thou?

Given the volume of important and difficult events in London this week one would expect the mayor to be in-situ, in charge and on top of his brief. Unfortunately London has Boris Johnson as mayor. He is skiing in the Alps so hasn't been on hand to provide leadership for London through a difficult week.



The week he put transport fares up again, with the single bus fare now up 50% since he came to power in 2008, to pay for his lovely new bus. He was ignoring the fast shrinking pockets of ordinary Londoners by skiing. Mind you, his six figure "chicken feed" salary from the Daily Telegraph for his column must help, even just a bit.

Two people were finally sent down for the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. He eventually put out a statement but was slow off the mark.

Many Londoners want to know whether Boris really cares about London. On this week's behaviour I can only conclude that he has other things  more important things on his mind.

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?