EU: What next for Labour?

Britain’s currently a country without a Prime Minister. The Conservative Party without a leader, but make no mistake, her Majesty’s Opposition is in turmoil and having an existential crisis. The referendum result saw Labour heartlands falling like dominoes to Brexit. Salford, Stoke, Sunderland and South Wales. All areas with a strong Labour heritage, all areas that voted decisively for us to leave the EU. The vote’s a stark contrast with the party, who are the main pro-European party of Britain, despite previous unsuccessful anti-EU stances.

The comparison with Scotland and the independence referendum is worthwhile. A divisive contest left a divided nation. Whilst the result was different, the anti-establishment vote led to the annihilation of the party in an area it had previously dominated. There’s a huge risk that following the Brexit vote, the same could happen again at the next election south of the border, and Labour could be wiped out in England and Wales.

As I indicated in ‘EU:The day after the night before’, my perception of the Brexit vote was a strong rejection of perceived ‘mass immigration’ and the European Union as an organisation. This leaves Labour between a rock and a hard place. They risk sticking to their guns and haemorrhaging voters to UKIP or changing their policies in line with immigration-sceptic and anti-EU voters, which could both seem disingenuous (immigration mugs anybody?), and risks losing their University educated, metropolitan backers.

The concern for the Conservative Party as well as Labour, is now the overt anti-immigration genie is out of the bottle and neither party are trusted to control it. Misguided Brexiters don’t realise that in order to survive outside of the EU but also have access to the free market, we will have to accept freedom of movement, as Norway and Switzerland have done. When Brexit doesn’t result in a sharp reduction in Schroeders Immigrant arriving in Britain, the support for both parties by the leave voters could evaporate overnight and switch over to the far-right. A dangerous scenario for British Politics and race-relations in the UK.

Whether sticking to their guns could pick up centre-right voters horrified at the turn the Conservative Party has taken remains to be seen, but with John McDonnell’s economic ideas usually out of kilter with theirs (aside from some surprising common ground) it’s unlikely.

The Brexit vote has resulted in a vote of no confidence and a leadership challenge to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. A wholly unfair blame game has set in. The winning margin was 1.3m voters, and I don’t think there’s anything Jeremy could have done to persuade every single one of them to vote differently. This is a proxy war against Corbynism, and should be recognised as exactly that. If he goes, the shame will be that he is the first Labour leader in a long time honestly and overtly acknowledging the pressures of immigration, pledging to do something about it by re-introducing the Migrant Investment Fund, whilst still talking about the benefits of immigration.

What to do? As always, it has to be a genuine hybrid of solutions. The argument over the EU and immigration has been lost. Whilst it’s not worth giving up efforts on changing ideas, there shouldn’t be a pinning of hopes on it, and neither should there be an expectation of ‘misguided voters returning home after their strop’. It didn’t work in Scotland and it won’t work now. Many of us recognise that the issue isn’t immigration, rather the lack of investment to support the population influx. However, with the prevailing narrative of two decades’ immigrant blaming set in, it’s a long way back from that position to convince voters of what the reality is.

From a socialist perspective there’s room for a firmer policy line on immigration. In order to provide an equally high quality service to each and every person in Britain, you have to control the amount of service users, so that inevitably some aren’t subject to overstretched services. It would be pitching equality of provision for all, but including a line on immigration that is counter to continuing the ‘come all ye faithful’ model of the mid-00s.

On the European Union, it will be subject to events in many ways. If Brexit goes swimmingly, it would make sense to continue the status quo but keep an open door to future European Union entry, depending on certain factors (Euro adoption). If Brexit does result in the economic turmoil that many of us suspect, then pitching swift re-entry would make sense to the already converted, but would further alienate those leavers who have voted Labour for decades.

What is crucial is that there needs to be a concerted effort to impress upon voters that the party honestly and genuinely understands their fears and concerns, without condescension. They need to convince the voters that the party believes their concerns and will seek to try to address them.

This would involve Labour MPs coalescing their views with those of the electorate and trying to find a middle ground between addressing their concerns and promoting the benefits of controlled immigration.  It’s not an easy position to be in, and not one I envy Jeremy Corbyn for, if indeed he’s in that position for much longer.

Have you had your EUrika moment yet?

For those of you who missed my unmissable Trident article last month, it spoke of an issue where most people have made up their minds whilst I sit on the fence, picking up splinters.

For me, I take a similar position with the European Union, however I’m increasingly sliding off that wooden fence, dislodging all those splinters and thinking that despite others who back a leave vote in June, there are respectable reasons to vote leave and I may very well do so.

One of the biggest reasons? The dictatorial swagger with which it operates, meaning it’ll let the heavy roller be pulled over the weakest in order to fulfil the stronger party’s interests.

In Greece Syriza won a landslide 2015 victory snubbing the economic regime the country had been run under previously, with guidelines set by the European Union.

Whilst unemployment reached 28%, youth unemployment hit 60%. In a group of three young adults, the likelihood is two would be unemployed. It’s no surprise Syriza won.

As they tried to mend the legacy of a broken economic system, bound by the rules of Eurozone membership, they sought more bailouts. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, the Greek economy couldn’t be rebuilt overnight.

Yet despite the Greek voters voting for Syriza’s advocated referendum option, the European Union continued to exert pressure and a lot of the pledges the inventive Yanis Varoufakis had put forward were dropped. He resigned.

All because it wasn’t good for the major members, the smaller one had to toe the line. Consequently the Greek population suffered more hardship.

As part of the deal, Greece had to sell off state assets, all part of the neo-liberal economic philosophy the European Union follows and takes a ‘conform or crushed’ attitude towards democratically elected governments.

It’s tantamount to bullying. We’ll never know whether or not Varoufakis’ economic reforms would really have dragged Greece out of the mire or sunk the country’s economy to new lows, but the chance was never given, because it didn’t appease Wolfgang Schaube or Angela Merkel.

What this means for Britain, outside the Eurozone, is it constrains possible policy choices in the future. Renationalising of the railways is a popular policy, yet due to EU Directive 91/440 it might not be allowed. Thus forbidding the state from making money from operating train services, but favouring big businesses who want to buy franchises.

Whether the directive would provide problems for countries interested in buying back their railways, remains to be seen, but with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) around the corner it wouldn’t be of any surprise if it did.

TTIP is another example of the EU’s blind faith in a neo-liberal economic system which could negatively impact Britain.

There’s still a lot of mysticism and rumour around TTIP, but it’s is a bilateral trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. Its purpose is to reduce regulatory barriers for big business (banks, food safety laws and environmental legislation for example).

Of course, the 2008 banking crash taught us regulation was a terrible thing.

There are concerns about whether TTIP would open up Public Health services to mandatory privatisation, with transnational corporations able to sue governments for not allowing them to bid for contracts.

Adding to TTIPs mysticism, MPs were able to view the TTIP proposals earlier this month…but only able to take pencil and paper in with them, with a ban on electronic items. The European Union is going to approve and go through with TTIP, whether MEPs like it or not, and voting out might be one way to stall (not necessarily stop) the UK getting caught up in it.

Whether TTIP or any other methods are passed isn’t just down to MEPs but rather the European Commission, who are elected by the European Parliament. What is undemocratic is they are not directly accountable to the citizens of the E.U.

It appears to be improving, but that’s like saying Saudi Arabia might be getting less barbarous. It’s an outrage they’re still barbarous or undemocratic in the first place.

And you can’t talk about the EU without taking about immigration. Since the Schengen Agreement, effective since 1995, there’s been freedom of movement in the European Union. This led partly to Britain’s net migration figures being above 100,000 since 1998 and going over 300,000 in 2013.

Migration does have economic benefits. However, with the Schengen agreement, it’s impossible to plan from one year to the next how many migrants you’re going to attract. If we had a government who built houses, hospitals and invested in schools, imagine how impossible it would be to make sure each person coming into the UK would have a house, school place if needed and if required, a hospital bed in an emergency. You can’t, and it’s neither fair on them or people who already live in Britain.

There are issues with exit, although I don’t think the threats of losing jobs is as big a threat as is conceived. Britain has a diverse, capable and well-educated workforce, why would any organisation want to uproot its infrastructure and give up their experienced workforce to move abroad. For a business it’s an unknown quantity.

My major concern would be three-fold; if we are to exit, it would be on a Conservative Government’s terms. There are a lot of safeguards for worker’s rights which are enshrined in EU law that we benefit from. If we leave we could risk losing those, and a pernicious Conservative government could eliminate them altogether.

Whilst plausible, it may be another scare story. If the Conservatives were to do that, it would be electoral suicide, whilst there are some who would still vote for a party like that, many would turn their backs on a party who would scythe down holiday leave or increase the standard working week.

Similarly, if we stay in the EU, and regulatory barriers are harmonised between the UK and EU, is there not a risk TTIP would look to remove regulatory legislation on workers’ rights?

Whilst David Cameron would likely resign if ‘Leave’ won the referendum, and Labour may not win any subsequent election, it’s a good indication that leaving isn’t a risk worth taking.

Britain benefits from EU money, particularly disadvantaged areas and that was seen across Wales when I lived there for four years. This is money that otherwise wouldn’t be allocated to those areas, with spending in impoverished areas seemingly not high on the Government’s agenda. The money usually given to the EU for membership could be invested in these areas, meaning we could be able to cover that shortfall, and use that money to solve problems of inequality in Britain.

There’s also an element of preserving the status quo and sticking to what we know. We know how the EU works; we know we tend to do okay from membership and it is a risk leaving. We would be able to get trade deals with other EU countries and nations further afield, however nothing is definite. It’s untried, and untested, leaving is a leap of faith. People’s natural instinct is to stick to what you know, and I think that’s what many eurosceptics will do.

I think there are compelling arguments to vote for either options, but is leaving too much of a risk, particularly with our exit being negotiated by a Conservative Government, which could further hit the British economy and worker’s rights? Areas like Wales and Scotland would lose out from not having that money, and in reality would that money be reinvested? It’s all unclear and a leap of faith.

On the level of principle, the EU needs to be stood up to and Britain is well placed to do that as the EU’s second largest economy. It isn’t as democratic as it should be, does hurt smaller countries and is resistant to change. Britain’s history and foreign policy narrative is about standing up to bullies, and we have a duty to do so here. Britain is a great nation, and could be even better – whether that’s inside or outside the EU is yet to be decided.

Trident: I used to be indecisive, now I just don’t know

Boom. Just like that.

Usually I’m somebody who can be decisive when it comes to opinions. Infact it’s been said I’m prone to jumping to conclusions but Trident is something I’m ambivalent about, and I’m yet to be ‘won over’ by the arguments of either side. It’s an issue that will become increasingly prevelant in the media over the next few months as we move towards a renewal vote, and it’s another issue that could cause problems for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

I went along to the Constituency Labour Party meeting last night during which there was a debate held on Trident. As someone in the ‘undecided’ category, it was interesting to hear both sides (including CND’s) but I’m still none the wiser.

On paper, the arguments against Trident appear almost bullet proof, or certainly heavily missile proof.

In a society where Government rhetoric is firmly opposed to any mass-state spending it’s bizarre the Conservatives are happy to wave through £167bn (£167 000 000 000 000) of spending on something it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever use.

The impact that amount of money could have on society if spent on schooling, healthcare, and housing could be transformative. If spent correctly it could help close the poverty gap and improve the life-chances of so many in society.

No longer would there have to be children going to sub-standard overcrowded schools, people on long housing waiting lists, and it may be feasible to get rid of prescription charges and cost for dental and optometrist treatment.

It would be worthwhile spending a proportion on boosting conventional forces, but with that amount of money to go around, the ways to split it and possibilities are almost endless.

It’s forgotten that we have been signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1968. We have an obligation to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and renewing nuclear submarines conflicts with that.

Nuclear weapons were developed and stockpiled during an era of international politics which ended in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, where missiles were aimed across the ‘Iron Curtain’ for 45 years since the end of the Second World War.

We live in different times, no longer do the biggest threats to British security come from other states, in the last 25 years it has been from organisations such as the IRA, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. These groups have shown no sign they’re in any way deterred from attacking Britain, and neither can we attack them with nuclear weapons either.

Whilst Russia are on the rise again in the belligerence league (a bit like Liverpool, big in the 70s and 80s but collapsed at the turn of the 1990s. Except Liverpool aren’t on the rise yet) and Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine were an exercise in great judgement by him in exploiting the West’s inaction, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to use a nuclear weapon. And if he did, why would it be Britain? If we gave up our nuclear weapons, we’d have just as much a defence as NATO comrades Germany. To think we’d be immediate targets is arrogance about our importance.

In the closest the world ever came to nuclear war, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Nikita Khrushchev backed down when JFK stood up to him on nuclear weapons being in Cuba. It allowed Khrushchev to appear tough domestically, secured the withdrawal of weapons from Turkey and Italy and pulled the world away from the edge of nuclear warfare.

Why? Because they were a good negotiating tactic, and logically there was no reason to launch into a war when “Mutually Assured Destruction” existed. Sense saved the day and if the situation repeated the same would happen again.

If we were attacked in a first-strike situation, would the Prime Minister really have ordered a missile to have been sent back from a submarine, hundreds of miles off shore? Probably not, and naturally the letter a PM signs when he takes office is under lock and key in a Trident submarine. Understandably so, but we’ll never know what the order would be.

Even former aficionados of defence, Denis Healey, Michael Howard and Michael Portillo have come out against Trident after leaving positions of influence.

So far, fairly hardy reasons to get rid of our deterrent. Yet…

In Britain we’ve lived in a world since 1952 where we’ve been offered the security of nuclear deterrence. A deterrent is a passive defence, it’s not actively in an opponent’s face, it’s more like a cocked gun in hand, ready to strike at any moment. This security is something over time that is taken for granted, and gives us the security to think of an idealistic world where we could do without them. It’s easy to forget how much of a role it plays.

We haven’t lived in a world for 64 years where other states have had nuclear weapons and we haven’t. It would be completely unchartered territory for Britain’s defence in the modern age.

It would be as much unchartered territory as gambling our future defence (circa 30 years) on getting rid of a system at a time where there’s no immediate state threats to Britain. A lot can change.

It’s a credit to our society and international political history over the last 65 years that we believe an illogical, unstable politician could never rise to the top of a country with a nuclear weapon arsenal. However, we don’t know what will happen in the future, history by nature is not only cyclical but unpredictable. Having a deterrent may be a good, but expensive insurance policy to have.

The possession of a nuclear weapon allows Britain to maintain its place in the international political sphere. We’re still one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, with the power to veto any proposals we disagree with. As emerging economies grow and surpass Britain, if we were to relinquish our delivery system and weapons, what would stop us losing our place? Whilst it does hark back to Britain’s imperial history, it does mean whatever happens in the future, Britain is still relevant on the world stage.

The biggest spike in the disarmament argument is the gamble it would be with our security decades and hundreds of years ahead. The world is an unpredictable place, and you’re putting a bet on no sufficient threats emerging. You only have to be wrong once to pay the ultimate price for it – the ultimate underpinning argument of insurance, so is it best to have it, just in case?

The Labour Party and Trident

As mentioned above, a vote is being called about the renewal of the submarine class and our nuclear deterrent at some point this year. The Conservatives know it’ll trip Labour up as long as Jeremy Corbyn, avowed nuclear unilateralist, is leader, similar to the situation regarding air strikes in Syria. You can’t blame Jeremy for following his principles, they are a large part of what made him attractive in the summer and the arguments for disarmament are strong. Yet it will be another knock to the security credibility of the party, and a free vote likely will give another excuse to portray the party as split. As the proposals will undoubtedly be passed due to the Government’s majority, pragmatically is it the best battle to pick? Especially after poor messaging and communications has led to headlines about Jeremy wanting to give the Falklands away.

Again for once, I used to be indecisive, now I just don’t know…

Corbyns PMQs performances a signal of potential

Another PMQs, another thumping victory for Jeremy Corbyn. Even prominent journalists praised his performance; a rarity but something he’ll have to take whilst he can before the latest storm in a teacup arises.

The leader of the opposition gets six questions, and time and time again today he hammered home on Tax Credit cuts, something that if they had gone through the House of Lords on Monday, would have hit 3 million families hard, some losing thousands of pounds a year.

Even worse? The Conservatives denied they would cut it before the election. And the denial wasn’t in an awry statement, or a manifesto sub clause. David Cameron gave assurances in the leaders Question Time debate, and Michael Gove said it live on BBC Radio 4’s keynote Today programme.

In pushing the issue on all six questions, Jeremy exposed what were evasive responses, and got the headlines he wanted.

Facebook: ‘Labour leader asks 6 times for info on Tax Credit Cuts in Prime Minister’s Questions”, the BBC alike said “Corbyn demands tax credit guarantee”. Setting the narrative, and being seen to be driving home the interests of working people will do him well early on.

Even better, and something that has been consistent in his PMQ showings, is his manner and tone. Any time Conservative back benchers get a bit too overzealous in their shouting, and one stare tends to shut them up. His using of the “people’s questions” gives the questions extra depth and gravity that they wouldn’t otherwise had.

In his manner he’s been likened to a Headmaster, and it’s something that may work to his advantage. Authoritative and in control.

The vote in the House of Lords on Monday signalled the first significant crack in the Tax Credit cuts dam. Labour led the charge and politically got the best outcome. If the measure had been thrown out on Monday, it could’ve been reintroduced tomorrow in a different form and got through the Lords.

The Conservative government who proposed the cuts, and the bill said the rejection had caused a “constitutional crisis”, a diversionary tactic from the first big defeat of their Government. The argument that the Lords do not overrule on financial matters is a moot point. It wasn’t a financial bill, it was welfare. Different conventions, different unwritten rules.

Yet despite this triumph, and others on the Saudi Arabian prison deal for example, the Labour Party is painted in the colours of disunity and calamity by many, misleadingly so.

It would be a lie to pretend that the party is completely united, the Parliamentary Labour Party attempts of unity behind their new leader lasted all what felt like twenty minutes, before there was a minor revolt over shadow cabinet suggestions that were only half released.

Simon Danczuk, thorn in the side of Corbyn and Miliband previously has said that he’ll happily stand as a “stalking horse” candidate in May next year if election results aren’t as positive as hoped. Yet he’s seen as so divisive that he’d struggle to get a decent amount of support. Unless those who nominated him would like the party to implode upon itself, members leaving in droves again.

The appointment of Andrew Fisher as Policy Chief for Jeremy, and Seamus Milne as Head of Communications has created further negative headlines. Fisher’s appointment drew criticism and complaint from Tony Benn’s granddaughter, Emily.

Yet if Jeremy is to succeed, he’ll need people around him who will support him, rather than brief against him to the media like anonymous members of the Shadow Cabinet.

What needs to be realised is that the party is bigger than Labour Party MPs. The majority in Parliament were selected during the New Labour years, where centrally controlled vetting for the ‘right’ views was at an all time high. No wonder there are many in the party, blinkered to newer ideas. Their support isn’t all that matters, the members and trade unions are behind him, the other two prongs of the Labour Party trinity.

What Jeremy needs is time, support and an open mind from his fellow Parliamentarians on his side of the House. He has the huge support of the members, his performances in PMQs, the big set-piece of the political week have been very good, and his policy wins have been good. The right ingredients are there, he just needs support from his own side to really kick on.

Examining the Labour defeat

Ed Miliband led Labour in a different and ultimately unsuccessful direction

On Friday it’ll have been three long weeks since we fully realised the extent of the Conservative win in this election, a majority, 331 seats in the House of Commons. The opinion polls were proved wrong, and in my last post I wrote about the result of the election, but not necessarily how it came about, and how Labour lost an election that some thought they were nailed on to emerge victorious.

The fact they lost doesn’t mean they did everything wrong, far from it, it was more a valiant defeat rather than a rout, an unlucky 1-0 defeat rather than a 4-0 drubbing. A 1-0 defeat where the Scots have kidnapped two of your centre-backs perhaps, holding you back from what might’ve been 1-1 and a money-spinning replay.

Labour and Ed Miliband offered a fresh approach to politics, policies which were popular and had the right intention and message at its core. The sentiment behind energy price freezes made absolute sense at the time, before the prices fell due to the oil price crash. It would’ve been something that would’ve benefitted low-income people. More importantly, it came at a time when many were wondering when Labour would start offering some opposition and policies of their own.

However history will provide us with the retrospective fact that in response, energy companies simply hiked their prices, easily outflanking Labour.

Lowering tuition fees to £6000 is something that was done for the right reason. The press at the time reported on the disagreements between Ed and recently unemployed former-Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, on how to fund the fee drop. However the logic seemed to be that Ed Miliband thought that students shouldn’t be burdened with as much debt, and tried to ensure this whilst remaining fiscally responsible.

Miliband also pledged a more accountable democracy, people’s question times, which although a gimmicky policy, would have had creases ironed out, as well as reforms to the House of Lords; replacing it with an elected senate. Making the decision making and legislature processes far more accountable to the people it should serve.

This is taking aside ‘taking on’ the Daily Mail, Rupert Murdoch and others who Labour have previously shirked the challenge of standing up to. They even came close to pledging to renationalise the railways, a popular idea that would have been contrary to the Blairite tract.

Ed Miliband came across as an honest, genuine, self-deprecating person who wanted the best for Britain and its people, somebody who cared about those not well off in society and determined to do something about it. These were the feelings that shone through in his interview with Jeremy Paxman.

It’s no surprise that once the election campaign started that his personal ratings improved. Yes, they couldn’t have got any lower, but once people could judge him for themselves away from the portrayal by the press, some of them did. For some of the rest, by the time the election campaign had started, the negative image may have become so ingrained in their perspective, it was difficult to shake.

This is where it becomes apparent why he and Labour didn’t win. To some, he was unelectable, a bumbling fool, the man depicted as Wallace in the Times cartoons was an image hard to shift.

He pitched himself as the unconventional political leader, but he was exactly that…too far from the normal polished convention of a leader to be considered palatable. As the election period wore on, it became clearer and clearer that whilst he improved in some senses in front of a camera (He was not that bad to start with), it was obviously coached.

How often did he respond to a question with – “That’s a great question, and let me just say this.” Or “Let me just tell you this. Let me just make a point about this”? Often. While it was clear, structured and designed to get his point across, but it was repetitive, monotonous and sounded stale very quickly. Three ways to turn people away from you.

Policy was seen by some as being too left-wing. I would disagree, although when the press talk about “rent controls, energy freezes and tax rises” it’s clear to see why people would think that. The party were straying from the Blairite/Brownite centre line, a criticism levied by Peter Mandleson amongst others.

The opposing argument was levied; accusations of pandering to the right wing of the party, especially with the immigration pledges, or Andy Burnham’s pledge to only limit private profits and investment in the NHS. After members of his party were openly calling for him to go, only nine months before the election, it seemed that he resorted to spinning as many plates as possible instead of completely forging his own path. Instead of appeasing people, he turned many off.

This isn’t to say that policy was perfect. Energy price freezes. Not perfect, and wouldn’t have lowered prices, just kept them as they were. However it was an acknowledgement of a belief that market outcomes aren’t always in the best interests of ordinary people. An acknowledgement that some have wanted for a long time.

Policy critiques are the straw man argument, and issues went historically far deeper than that. Despite a new direction, the party haemorrhaged seats in Scotland while being labelled “Red Tories”, they lost votes in the North to UKIP after voters felt the party had left them during the successful years of 1997-2015. As Labour seek to shift rightwards, it’s important to note they lost votes as a latent result of the policies pursued in those years. A return to them would be suicidal, something that Ed realised.

The escape from the reputation of the Blair and Brown years is something that was underestimated, and a line that the Conservatives cultivated for the last five years. Labour’s Parliament saw a high increase in immigration; a group often blamed for everything from pressure on schools to traffic jams, and Labour were at the helm during the financial crash. People still tar them with that brush, especially when they’re told it’s still the case by the authority voice in Downing Street. Many thought we had moved on, but I think to many we hadn’t, and it’s what they associated Labour with.

Another Tory driven misgiving is the idea that Labour were anti-aspiration. A line threaded by the Conservative press. How is being easier to own or rent a house, get a secure and stable job, and stay in the EU, anti-aspirational? It’s not. How are messages like “Britain succeeds when working people succeed?” or “Britain can do better” anti-aspiration? They’re not, and you’ll find them in most Labour speeches.

However the press create a narrative, and when the tide of them are saying Labour are against working people “getting on”, a message straight from David Cameron, then it’s difficult for people to not believe what they’re told. If, over time, tabloids and broadsheets alike are saying it, then it must be true, how can you argue with all of them? If you don’t believe that the press would perpetuate this, you only have to look as far as Rupert Murdoch berating Sun’s journalists for not being critical enough.

This isn’t a case of vanquished runners-up calling the electorate stupid, an accusation some would make. Some people aren’t interested in politics and some never will be. They don’t have the time, nor the inclination to look and scrutinise articles, they’re at work, or taking children to school, or cooking dinner. They’re doing something they place higher in their priorities, and then when they see an errant headline on Facebook, or a sequence of front pages over time when they pass them in Sainsbury’s or Tesco, creating a narrative, it drips in.

The biggest reason for the Labour loss? Something that sounds complicated, but is painfully simple. Contrary to the Conservative message, Labour’s PR and Communications strategy was poor, scattered and at times non-existent.

There was no single, digestible, simple message issued to the electorate. The Conservatives was easy. “The Economy. They crashed it. We fixed it”. When repeated over and over and over again it sinks in. It’s repetition of a message, rather than the prefix to an answer.

What was Labour’s? A fairer society? The NHS? Not the Tories? All of them apply, but none of them was the consistent, clear message that they needed. Lynton Crosby had the Tory’s down to a tee, I don’t think the public had any idea what David Axelrod’s message was.

Whose idea was the immigration mug? The Ed Stone? Posing with the Sun? The newspaper which sullied the names of the people at Liverpool at one of the most tragic football tragedies of all time? While these could all have come from the leader, a firm and more talented Director of Communications and Strategy could have directed traffic and cultivated a message far better.

The electorate didn’t get what Labour stood for, it was too muddled, so when the governing party’s message came along, they believed it, it was easy to digest and understand. It was the economy, stupid. It’s a line that could have been debunked early on and effectively, but instead it wasn’t challenged.

With all of that, the country lost one of the best Prime Ministers they never had. For what it’s worth, Miliband should have been more open to staying on. Despite losing swathes of Scotland and in the face of all attacks, he increased Labour’s popular vote by 900,000, he brought members to the party who never thought they would vote or join Labour and eventually, the negative press coverage and rhetoric would’ve worn thin. As somebody with the right ideas, and right motivation, he could have led Labour back to power.

As a parting line, I’ll leave you with his resignation speech. A final show of a man with humility, honesty and somebody genuine. Even if the standing ovation is a bit much.

The unforeseen election result

Five more years of this…

10pm. 7^th May. Half of the internet takes a sudden intake of breath.

Against all previous polls, all signs and all conventional wisdom, the Conservatives were predicted to be the largest party.

The first step was denial, surely this anomaly of a poll was wrong. The next was anger, how could this have happened?

By 1:30am, when the Nuneaton constituency, one that if Labour were to become the largest party, they had to win was announced, it was a Conservative win. Not just that, but there had been a Labour to Conservative swing. By this time, there was acceptance, resignation and deflation.

Pundits announced that if that swing was repeated nationwide, then the Conservatives would have a majority. There would not need to be a Liberal Democrat ‘brake’ on Tory policy, nor would there be a second election needed before the end of the five year Parliament.

Utter dejection sunk in. How did this come to be? How is it that after five years of food bank usage rising, people having to exist on continually insecure contracts, prices going up above wages, ordinary people having less and less power in the face of those with money and influence, that people would vote for the party that is in favour of this, and more.

It’s something that still beggars belief. I awoke on Friday, and looked at the results. The polls were correct; the Conservatives were set to have a majority. It was like a rather bad dream, that surely reality couldn’t be this surreal.

Of course, this sounds like an utter melodrama. But when you’re faced with a party that wants to remove housing benefits from under-24s, won’t rule out another tuition fee rise, wants to cut welfare by £12bn, slowly privatise the NHS and will reduce seat numbers to keep themselves in power for as long as possible, then you have to wonder how people came to the conclusion that voting Conservative was a good idea.

The idea of a fairer and more just society was rejected, it’s no wonder there’s a sense of being aghast.

All that is left amongst many is deflation, being faced with this insurmountable time frame of five years until the next election.

How did we get here?

I’m not entirely sure.

A minor source of initial amusement arose from the collapse of the Liberal Democrats. Having supported a lot of rather heinous and nasty policies since 2010, it wasn’t a huge surprise when the forecast was to have them on a rather few seats.

What is a huge surprise, and says rather a lot about the Liberal Democrats is that their vote seemed to go to either UKIP or the Conservatives. Their voters may not be the believers in the progressive centre-left that people think.

Looking at swing and voter difference between elections isn’t an exact science at all, for example you cannot track individual voter’s ballots in the two elections. However looking at seats such as Morley and Outwood, where Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls lost his seat. The Lib Dem vote dropped from 8,000 to 1,400 between 2010 and 2015. Yet the Conservative vote only rose by 1,400 and UKIP rose by 6,000. (Labour only lost around 9 votes on 2010 in the seat).

In the South West, where the Conservatives picked up a lot of their seats from the Liberal Democrats, swathes of previous votes went from them to the Conservatives, not what you might have considered their natural progressive partners. Devon North saw a 12.3% swing from Lib Dems to Tories, Cornwall North saw a 10% swing from Lib Dem to Tories and Portsmouth South saw a 12.5% swing the same way.

The South West has some of the most deprived areas of the country and coupled with what has typically been seen as a progressive, forward thinking party based in fairness and equality as the Liberal Democrats, you would have thought that these seats would have gone to Labour. Instead UKIP and Tory vote share increased.

The same applied to the seat where I campaigned on polling day, Halesowen and Rowley Regis. A Labour target, which does have aspirational pockets but is part of the West Midland’s heartlands, saw a 1.2% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the same applies to Nuneaton and further north the Conservatives won Bolton West from Labour.

After five years of people at the lower end taking a kicking, you would’ve been mistaken for thinking that in these areas, Labour would have won or had their vote share increased.

What I would attribute it to, is the negative, nasty and downright vitriolic rhetoric from the right-wing newspapers and the Conservative Party slowly but surely getting into people’s heads. They may have liked the ideas and values of the Labour Party, but presented with a stark choice they decided to stick with the devil that they knew, rather than take a risk that they might have lost their job or the economy would’ve crashed.

That wouldn’t have happened of course, but the newspapers created a narrative that Labour couldn’t fully nix, that anything but a Conservative majority would ruin people’s lives.

In essence, instead of choosing community, or to make sure that everybody in society was catered for, putting the right safeguards in place, making Britain fairer, the public seem to have chosen to look after number one and forget everybody else.

This isn’t to absolve Labour of blame, but I’ll assess that separately next week.

How did the polls get it so wrong? Nobody seems to know, but the ‘shy Tories’ seem to have made a comeback 23 years later after they swung the election in 1992. What drives me almost to the point of infuriation is this idea that people have to be shy Tories otherwise they’ll get shouted down. The Independent, the disappointment of the election after leaving their core principle to endorse the coalition, carried an article on this yesterday.

Not the case at all. But surely if you have formed opinions, then it will have been after careful consideration in your own mind of what you think about a specific topic. If so, surely you would be happy to defend your reasons? Apparently not, and this is what the troubling thing is. People are happy and secure in their opinions that there should be divisions in society, that there should be inequality and that the markets should rule the world. But they don’t want to be challenged on them.

I assume it’s because they are driven by the notion that as long as they are okay, have money and are healthy, they are happy. It’s selfishness over selflessness, and in their own closeted minds, they’re happy to think that. Detractors are “Lefties who don’t understand how the world works”. No critique, just refusal to debate.

This election seems to show that this may be the way that British society is going and it deeply and seriously worries me. What’s worse is that we have five years to go until change can happen. In the mean time, as the saying goes, “Don’t mourn, organise.”

Who governs the country? An election preview

This sign will be rather familiar to many of you in three days time

Three days. After all of the build-up, the hype, the Prime Minister’s Questions and the debates, the General Election is just three days away, and it’s time for everybody and anybody to declare who they want to win. Steve Coogan’s done it, Delia Smith’s done it (And it’s not one of her half-baked ideas either), and even today Russell Brand has broken his usual ranks of urging people not to vote, to ask them to vote for Labour.

I’m yet to see any research into whether or not these make a difference. Clearly somebody at Labour Party HQ thinks so, and who am I to disagree. So I’ve decided that if I can’t beat them, that I’ll join in, with thoughts on Ceredigion and the wider-UK.

Ceredigion

I have the pleasure of living in a constituency which looks as though, despite all usual arithmetic, it will be a close-run thing between the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP, Mark Williams and Plaid Cymru’s (and God’s own town, Kidderminster’s) Mike Parker. Not even slightly a safe seat.

Mike Parker, Plaid Cymru’s candidate in Ceredigion who would do a brilliant job in Westminster.

I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting both on multiple occasions. Mark’s a good guy, comes across as honest, straight and genuine. Across the constituency it seems to be many people’s reasons for voting for him, despite the party he stands for. However this election, I can’t and am supporting Mike Parker.

Mark’s voted honourably at times, particularly and laudably against tuition fees, regardless of motives. However he’s the member of a party who have been complicit in the rise of food bank usage, the rise of zero-hours contracts, inequality in the U.K and the continued privatisation of the NHS.

This gives rise to the farcical attempts by the party to attempt to hammer the means that have been carried out over the last five years, whilst praising the aims. In the ITV Welsh leaders debates a few weeks ago, Kirsty Williams AM (Welsh Lib Dem leader) was happy to hammer Conservative measures on welfare amongst other things, but tried them to claim credit for the party for getting more people back into work.

It may only be me, but this is completely counter-intuitive and frankly baffling. If you disagree with how something is being done, then don’t try and laud the results as benefits.

Plaid Cymru are a solid alternative with an anti-austerity focus and represent Wales and only Wales. Mike’s a honourable, decent, fair and liberal minded candidate who will do the best for this area, with a party that wouldn’t dream of getting involved in the demonisation of the poor and cutting of crucial areas, let alone privatisation of the NHS. That’s why I’d advocate voting for him in Ceredigion.

Across the UK

In 1974 Prime Minister Edward Heath asked “Who governs Britain?”
“Not you” they replied

In 1974, Ted Heath staked his electoral legitimacy claim on a snap election on the issue of “Who governs Britain”. Back then it was the Government against the Trade Unions, but over forty years later the question has increasing pertinence.

Over the last five years this country has become more divided. Not just in terms of the student protests, independence referendum, marches, people going to join ISIS in the Middle East and many other areas, but socially.

A few facts; food bank usage has risen by 26.5 times from 40,898 days supplied in the last calendar year of the Labour government in 2009-10, to 1,084,604 in 2014-15.

People are being reduced to having to go to food banks to feed themselves and their families. The vast majority have little or no choice, and go with a huge sense of shame, as though they have failed at life. What’s more worrying, and I know this from knowing somebody in this position, that there are people who don’t want to seem to be “lowering themselves” to going, cap in hand to ask for some food. So even those figures don’t give the complete picture.

These people haven’t failed, it’s the results of a Conservative government squeezing ever more on those with the least in society, hitting them hardest, depressing wages whilst the cost of living goes up more-so than wages and those who are well off earn more and more. There are 1.96m unemployed, are there 1.96m well-paid jobs out there, for people to earn, pay taxes from and support themselves? Of course not.

The NHS privatisation has continued apace. In March, just before the election campaign really got underway, a single deal saw £780m of NHS services going to private providers. This is one deal. Many will see it as irrelevant, as long as they get better and it’s free at the point of use. But once you start to privatise services, the tail begins to wag the dog, and the tail will quite eagerly want to remove the free at the point of use part of the NHS.

Companies are there to make profits, and they won’t be able to do that without charging. Who will be hit the hardest by that? Those who aren’t well off. Who will come out of it okay? The owners of these companies, some of which have MPs as shareholders, directors and have been the beneficiaries of donations.

This is bruising inequality.

And in just a few days, voters will need to summon the spirit of Heath, and ask that question of themselves.

Who do they want to govern this country? Is it the bankers, the private health companies, the multi-national corporations? Or is it the people, of which there are 60m, together taking a stake in the society in which they live, having it run for the majority, not the few.

If they decide it’s the former, then vote Conservative. But my avocation would be for the latter, and the best chance of that is a Labour government.

As Russell Brand pointed out, if Labour wins, things won’t change overnight, you won’t wake up on Friday to some sort of better society. But the people with the best chance, intentions and policies to carry it out will have won.

Labour leader Ed Miliband in full flow

Ed isn’t perfect at all, but by all accounts he’s personable, human, and empathetic and having seen plenty of interviews he has a genuine passion to challenge the inequalities in Britain. (Not that faux-pumped up Cameron you saw for two days last week).

Rent caps, freezing energy prices, a house building programme and changing zero-hours contracts; all things that will help ordinary people, not those right at the top. Unlike the tax cuts for those on high wages that Cameron carried out after the 2010 election, that’s form for you. (And he wants to be taken on his record remember).

He’s been criticised for his rhetoric towards the SNP. For some people it’s seemingly surprisingly easy to forget, he’s challenging the SNP for seats, and looks to lose a few of them. Why would he endorse the party? It would be the equivalent of passing a football in front of your own goal, you’re asking for somebody to take advantage of it and score against you.

Why would he commend a party who seem intent on and delight in shamefully intimidating Labour candidates, their supporters and volunteers? A month ago a Labour councillor was chased down a street with a man carrying a chainsaw. You may as well expect a chicken coop to say they’ll work with a fox with particularly spiky teeth, who really want to gobble them alive.

Labour will have given up hopes of a majority due to the Scottish capitulation, and they may have to give up hope of being a minority government as a result. This will only increase chances of a Conservative government, and a government at that who will take the country further down the dark path that was described above. Things may be salvaged, and I think Labour may seek to work with Plaid, and the SNP but with a barrage from the right-wing press, it may be left to a second election to decide Britain’s fate.

This is a pivotal election. Who governs Britain? I hope on May 8^th, it’ll be the Labour Party.

A party used to ‘to the Manor Born’ offers ‘The Good Life’

Cameron is offering the Good Life to voters, the BBC clearly prophesied this with its blue background

It’s been a whirlwind start to the week for all political hacks as three of the parties have released their manifestos ahead of next month’s election. On the other hand, those who haven’t got the slightest interest at all, they’ll scarcely have felt the breeze. That in itself brings up the whole point of manifestos and whether they’re in decline, something which has been covered elsewhere.

Today’s events saw the Conservatives, a party more used to ‘to the Manor Born’ instead was offering ‘the Good Life’ to voters, as they should reap the benefits of five years’ work according to David Cameron.

Somehow I think most people will struggle to believe the party’s pledge when they’ve already committed to at least another two years of cuts that remain unidentified, but like most in times of dire straits they’ve harked back to glory years and given policy a retro feel with an extension of the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme that was popular in the 1980s and brought back in this Parliament but both times, left social housing in quandary as a result.

The plans give 1.3 million housing association tenants the right to buy their houses at a highly reduced rate. This is considered by some to be one of the better Thatcher policies of her Premiership, however since then the social housing that was taken out of the market hasn’t been replaced, leaving waiting lists stretching.

The Policy was rejuvenated in the 2010 Parliament, in which time Government have sold off over 26,000 homes and despite a pledge to build a replacement house for each one sold, only 2,298 have been built. It’ll come as no surprise therefore to readers that 80% of councils are saying they’re struggling to replace homes.

There’s now 1.5 million fewer social homes than in 1979, and a population 1/5^th larger.

Beyond that it’s essential Thatcher values being served up, short-termism and materialism. The money raised will be welcomed I’m sure by the Treasury, but will result in house prices rises which will price these ‘ordinary working people’ all parties so eagerly want to help (Lucky them!) out of the market and driven to private rental landlords.

Who incidentally enough, end up buying a large amount of the houses put up for sale.

However it plays to this value, incepted in the British consciousness since 1979 that people should be judged based on their possessions instead of values. Now this may sound like screaming Guardian reading leftism, but it causes undue stress, cost and animosity as people attempt to ‘keep up with the Robinsons.’

This isn’t an attack on ambition, but the crux of the policy is that to be taken seriously, you need to own your own home. Being judged by your possessions, not by your actions.

I’d argue not always. I recall in the Village I grew up in where my mother pointed out quite easily which houses were still Council/Local Association owned, and they had sold. Those that weren’t owned by their occupants had new windows, doors, were better insulated. As the Council had a duty to look after and do well by these tenants.

People in Housing Association property are not in a position usually to rent from private landlords, and it’s fair I believe to assume that their incomes aren’t on a par with those that do. So once they’re bogged down with a mortgage, how are they supposed to afford these improvements? Truth is, they often can’t.

“Extending right to buy to housing associations is not going to tackle the housing crisis – in fact it could make things worse for people on lower incomes who are already struggling to access a decent home at a price they can afford.”. These were the words of Gavin Smart, the Deputy Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Clearly somebody well placed to comment, and if this is their belief, then it’s hard to challenge. In fact the Tories had a tough time finding anybody to agree with the policy today.

Labour kicked off the week by announcing their plans for a fairer Britain, and both Ed Miliband’s speech and the manifesto was heavy laden with an insistence that they are fiscally responsible.

This follows on from the weekend where the Conservatives plucked a £8bn funding pledge for the NHS that Labour refused to match. It’s a rare occasion that the Labour Party can appear more austere than their opponents.

But this is exactly Ed’s intentions, and it’s what his mentor Gordon Brown did in 1997 by promising to keep to outgoing Chancellor Ken Clark’s spending plans.

The Party cannot go on (together) with the public’s suspicious minds. I imagine he’s hoping that by trying to appease a public who have doubts that suspicions will simply vaporise.

Luckily by appearing Tory-lite it puts those faithful to the party at unease, but I imagine that they’re aware of the task he faces in order to get into Downing Street. I can imagine he wants to spend a bit more than he’s pledged, but knows that it would be spun easily by the Conservatives into a press kicking. And that’s the last thing he needs now.

Certainly there is a hope he doesn’t stick solidly to it. According to the National Health Action Party’s leader, Consultant Clinical Oncologist Dr Clive Peedell, the NHS will not remain free at the point of use under Labour’s funding offer.

Policy on ‘Non-Dom’ tax status amongst others are encouraging. For what it’s worth I would suspect if Miliband can get support from a similarly left-leaning party, then there may be a bit more welcome spending. Sadly there’ll be no revolution akin to 1945, which is completely do-able…but sadly a cynical press would cut it down in an instant.

And finally, the Green Party at a rather low-key event announced their plans. A lot of it is good, forward thinking stuff. The renationalisation of the railways strikes a good chord, as do reforms to the banks and ending austerity. It all sounds good, it really does, and even the citizen’s allowance may be judged to be ahead of its time but in the current situation seems baffling.

They’ve pledged a ‘Peaceful, Political Revolution’. The last time this happened was 1945, although instead of being generated by a 18-30 year old middle class generation who know how to pronounce quinoa, it was spurred on by a Trade Union movement, experienced politicians from a wartime coalition and a previously solid base in Parliament.

Until the Green party change their name, I can’t see them gaining much ground and at best, may just prove to be a Parliamentary pressure party.

Isn’t it ironic?

Running scared. A coward. Frit. Unless David Cameron does the very un-Thatcherite u-turn, it looks as though the only televised debate we’ll have will be the potentially chaotic seven leader debate that he pushed for.

The lack of willingness to stand up and face a challenge that is being displayed by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, is exactly the type of poor leadership he accuses Labour leader Ed Miliband of week upon week. In the words of Alanis Morissette, isn’t it ironic.

At the moment the Prime Minister’s avoidance of a debate with the leader of the opposition is one of the rare things that has united the narrative of the media. So much so that they have formally threatened to empty-chair him if he doesn’t turn up.

In the first place, Cameron had always been a big advocate of the televised debates. In 2010 (See below) and recently, when he pushed hard in order to have a seven leader debate. This time around, the original plan was to have (just) Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and UKIP in their main debate, which triggered angry words from the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party. He said that it was only fair to include them.

The broadcasters eventually obliged and have scheduled the debate that the PM advocated. After all it was only fair. Unless you’re the Democratic Unionist Party of course…and that’s over in Northern Ireland anyway, and considering them is so 1970s to Dave.

Now he’s insisting that the DUP should be included. Another potential barrier. However it seems apparent that he’s not doing so with the same vigour that he did with the push for the original mass-debate. Could it possibly be because Labour don’t field any candidates in Northern Ireland, so he has nothing to gain?

Having Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Green Party in the debates gives exposure to three parties that will take votes from the Labour Party. The SNP-wave that looks to wash across the Scottish Westminster constituencies looks to rule out any remote realistic chance of a Labour majority, or the party even coming close.

Of course the Conservatives have their own problems with UKIP (As do Labour), but compared to the Labour/SNP problem, it is a drop in the Westminster mill pool.

All the while, whilst pushing for the smaller parties to have a podium in the debates, there has been the undercurrent of fairness in his rhetoric. The fairness of including Plaid Cymru, the Green Party and the SNP. This value conflicts so strongly with the aforementioned cynical realpolitik that it’s a surprise that anybody buys into it.

However that’s where his idea of fairness stops. In 2010, as broadcast on 5^th March’s ‘Today’ programme on Radio 4, he pushed and pushed Gordon Brown to have the debates in 2010. In the press during the election campaign too , he defended the debates.

“I’ve always wanted these debates to happen. I mean they happen in every country. They even happen in Mongolia for heaven’s sake and it’s part of the modern age that we should be in.” – David Cameron, BBC3, 21 April 2010

“I think these debates are here to stay. They clearly engage people in politics which is what we need.” – David Cameron, News of the World, 2 May 2010

Yet he won’t afford Miliband the same opportunity, as it “sucks the life out of a campaign”. This is in real contrast to his statements about debates over the last six of so years.

It’s fairly clear that this is because he has more to lose than he has to gain. By being tackled by Miliband on his record in government, in front of the millions of people, he’ll be exposed to condemnation that the government hasn’t received for some years. The fear may be that the public will be more sympathetic with the criticisms that Ed makes, as opposed to relating to the positives that Cameron will exude. Losing the Tories votes.

As mentioned, week after week he takes delight in picking apart Ed Miliband’s weak points. So much so that the Conservatives reckon Miliband is one of their biggest electoral assets. Yet if this is the case, why is he so unwilling to stand toe-to-toe with Ed on a stage and argue against him? And if he’s so concerned with the idea of fairness, why will he not afford Ed the same opportunity that he had?

Cameron’s perception may be that the margins are so close; he believes any debate slips could deny him crucial seats that could swing an election.

The PM is considered by some Conservatives to have a bad track record in debates believing that it was these debates in 2010 put the kibosh on Cameron becoming the first Tory PM to lead a majority since John Major. That point is crucial here to him being advised not to take part, of course, but that will never be admitted publicly.

He is the Prime Minister, and whilst he should listen to advice given by his Director of Communications, Craig Oliver, he should also have the confidence in his own premiership to speak publicly to defend his policies and plot out his plans for the future.

There is still disagreement about whether the debates as a concept, are something that the public wants. In an age of low public engagement in national politics, new tactics should be tried to engage the electorate. It worked well for first time voters in 2010. Professor of Public Communications at Leeds University, Stephen Coleman said that 50% of first time voters chose how to vote based on the debates and 55% of the 18-24 year old demographic becoming more interested in the campaign was another affect.

If the wider-reality matches the research, this relatively new method of engagement is incredibly important. Rather than being embarrassingly empty chaired, The Prime Minister has to stand toe-to-toe with Miliband and debate. No ifs, no buts.