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Archive for May, 2011

It’s Lib Dem MPs, not Labour ones, that Cameron is really trying to cull

09/05/2011, 02:00:45 PM

by John Underwood

So there we have it. Vince Cable is surprised to discover that the Conservatives are “ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal”. That’s a bit like being surprised that the Pope is a Catholic, that fish swim and that this year Christmas Day will fall on the 25 December. The word “naïve” doesn’t come close.

A man who is surprised that the Conservatives are ruthless would probably be surprised that a couple of young, female “constituents” asking sharp questions at a constituency surgery turned out to be a pair of reporters from the Daily Telegraph.

For years, of course, the Liberal Democrats have been the very embodiment of ruthless calculation, by pretending to be different things to different people in different parts of the country – the “only” alternative to Labour in the north of England and the “only” alternative to the Conservatives in the south.

Last week, they reaped a whirlwind of rewards for years of political duplicity. In the north, they lost votes to Labour because they were seen to be part of a Conservative-led government that is cutting public services; and in the staunch Tory heartlands they lost votes to the Conservatives because die-hard Conservative voters rather like the idea of cutting public services.

Labour supporters can be forgiven a few days of schadenfreude as they reflect on the mire the Liberal Democrats find themselves in. But before long they will need to turn their attention to the Conservatives.

As for the Lib Dems, the question is whether they will learn their lesson and wise up to the need to get tough with their coalition partners.

It won’t be enough to posture and strut over Andrew Lansley’s health service changes and to threaten a “veto”. The current proposals have, in effect, already been vetoed by Conservative back benchers like Charles Walker MP, who is currently leading a particularly vociferous campaign to save an urgent care centre in his Broxbourne constituency. There will be changes to the health and social care bill, but it’s no thanks to the likes of Nick Clegg.

Having been stitched up by the Conservatives on the AV referendum, the question is whether the Liberal Democrats will get tough with their coalition partners in other areas.

Reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 has largely been reported as a barely disguised ruse for reducing the number of Labour MPs. In fact, it could be more accurately described as a ruse for maximising David Cameron’s chances of achieving what he failed to achieve at the last election – an overall majority. Reducing the number of MPs is as much about getting rid of his Liberal Democrat “partners” as it is about hurting Labour.

If, in the aftermath of the AV referendum, the Liberal Democrats really want to prove to their supporters that haven’t been taken for patsies, they could do worse than consider a serious “go slow” on this part of the coalition agreement.

John Underwood is a former director of communications of the Labour party.

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The Labour and Unionist party

09/05/2011, 11:15:36 AM

by Michael Dugher

On Friday afternoon I was sat in traffic on the M1, driving down from Barnsley to the elections count in Leicester. The news broke at about three o’clock that Labour had picked up five seats in Ipswich – including three from the Tories – to take control of the council. It was in Ipswich that Labour’s Chris Mole had been defeated in the general election last year, giving the Conservatives the seat for the first time in nearly 20 years. Despite some very good results for Labour across the country, particularly in the big northern cities and towns, as well as in battleground contests in the midlands and in the south of England, the news on the car radio was bad. We had been heavily defeated in the Scottish parliament elections. Labour had even lost Kirkcaldy, in Gordon Brown’s own backyard, a result that meant Alex Salmond was on course to a majority at Holyrood. The “story” on Friday afternoon was already moving on to include interviews with talking heads about what the SNP win meant, what the constitutional ramifications were, and when the referendum on Scottish independence might be held.

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Monday News Review

09/05/2011, 06:50:59 AM

GPs urge NHS reform rethink

The leaders of Britain’s 42,000 family doctors are warning David Cameron to radically overhaul the government’s unpopular health plans or risk them wrecking the NHS. The Royal College of General Practitioners has written to the prime minister demanding major changes are made to the health and social care bill. It is undergoing a two-month “pause” while Cameron, his deputy, Nick Clegg, health secretary Andrew Lansley and a panel of health experts undertake a listening exercise designed to improve Lansley’s plans, which have drawn much criticism. In a strongly worded submission – the first by a major health organisation during the renewed consultation – the college urges Cameron to remove or substantially amend many of the bill’s central proposals to radically reorganise the health service in England. Without a major rethink, the NHS will cease to be a truly national service, postcode lotteries in care will be exacerbated and foreign firms will use EU competition laws to take control of hospitals and doctors’ surgeries, it says. – the Guardian

Clegg fakes fury over NHS

The Deputy Prime Minister said in January that he was behind the plans to “put patients right at the centre of the NHS”, but now claims he will not ask his party to back a “revolution” of the health service. David Cameron is allowing him to rip up the Health Bill as part of a deal to shore up the Coalition, risking a Cabinet split with Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, who last night looked a likely scapegoat. The Conservatives believe they have engineered a deal with Mr Clegg that saves his face with his party after devastating election results last week, but which also solves the Prime Minister’s problem with the NHS reforms. Mr Cameron was resigned to changing key parts of the Health Bill, announcing a “pause” last month. Allowing Mr Clegg to claim some credit is part of a Downing Street strategy to help Mr Cameron’s poorly performing deputy. Mr Lansley may find his own position difficult if Mr Clegg gets his way in delaying the timetable for changes in the way GPs operate. He could find himself the victim of a reshuffle next year, although Mr Cameron has so far remained fiercely loyal. – the Telegraph

Let’s make no mistake. The Tory leadership is allowing Nick Clegg to claim the credit for the NHS u-turn but there is no great unhappiness in Number 10 at the policy switch. George Osborne, in particular, has been worried for some time that the Lansley reforms could become deeply unpopular and imperil the Conservative party’s chances of re-election. But it’s just as likely that the NHS will imperil Tory election chances if it isn’ t reformed… This doesn’t mean that the Lansley reforms are the right reforms (I don’t feel qualified to make that judgment) but there are no easy options for the government on the NHS. No reform or half-hearted reform certainly doesn’t tackle the NHS’ fundamental efficiency problems. – Conservative Home

Labour looks for answers on Scotland

Ed Miliband was facing growing questions last night from Labour’s Blairite faction over his leadership after the party’s mixed performance in last week’s elections. The Labour leader first has to oversee the inquest into the party’s catastrophic results in the contests for the Scottish Parliament. He is also being urged to spell out more clearly his strategy for reaching out to middle-class voters in the South of England after Labour’s failure to make headway in the Home Counties. Mr Miliband yesterday argued that the party had reached a “staging post” in its recovery, while Shadow Cabinet members insisted the English results showed the party was making progress, after Labour gained more than 800 council seats in England. But figures on the right of the party believe it should have had a greater impact given the grim economic backdrop to the elections. One leading Blairite said: “Strategically, Labour is completely lost. Ed won the leadership as an insurgent but, now he’s there, he doesn’t know what to do next. It’s all looking very reminiscent of Gordon in 2007 when he finally toppled Tony. They have grabbed control, but now do not know what to do with it.” – the Independent

Cameron and Salmond row over referendum

David Cameron and Alex Salmond were at loggerheads last night after the Scottish National Party leader claimed to have free rein to dictate the terms of a referendum on the break-up of Britain. Mr Salmond said the Prime Minister has promised not to interfere in the vote on ending the 304-year-old Union between England and Scotland, giving him total control over its timing and the question on the ballot paper. Government ministers confirmed Mr Cameron promised not to deliberately erect “obstacles” to the referendum, during a telephone conversation following Mr Salmond’s landslide victory in last week’s Scottish Parliament elections. However, they made clear that Mr Cameron at no point gave the Scottish First Minister “carte blanche” over the vote and it was “inevitable” the Westminster Government will have a say. The Daily Telegraph revealed on Saturday that Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, a former Tory Scottish Secretary, has urged Mr Cameron to call a snap referendum now rather than let Mr Salmond decide the most politically advantageous time. – the Telegraph

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The week Uncut

08/05/2011, 05:23:44 PM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Atul Hatwal find the clouds in Labour’s local election silver lining

Dan Hodges on AV and the mythical progressive majority

John Woodcock thinks Cameron is a closet Uncut reader

Uncut gets to know the shadow defence secretary

Peter Watt says some people still believe in democracy

Sunder Katwala makes his bid to organise Ed’s stag do

…and Tom Harris says he hopes that is the end of AV

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The Sunday Review: Triumph of the City, by Ed Glaeser.

08/05/2011, 03:00:30 PM

by Anthony Painter

The royal family is bad for growth. It was nice of them to have a wedding to showcase London and the UK. It undid some of the bad that they may have done. It is not the institution of the monarchy that is the problem. It’s the personage. In fact, it’s one individual – Prince Charles.

It is the heir to throne’s misguided interventions in protecting sight-lines and the like that have contributed to London’s failure to sufficiently grow upwards to facilitate growth, argues Ed Glaeser in Triumph of the City. The worst thing an economy can do is make successful cities unaffordable and constrained. That is the impact of the types of argument that the Prince of Wales deploys. Instead, we should celebrate, promote, invest in, enjoy, and believe in the city. Glaeser loves cities; he sees them as fundamental to the future of civilisation. Their story has barely even begun.

Triumph of the City achieves something exceedingly radical. It not only develops a powerful case for the city per se, it asks us to challenge our entire notion of what a city is. In Glaeser’s world, the city is not the physical structures of the built environment, but rather the human networks that create culture, value, love, ideas and opportunity. In this, he echoes the social urbanist, Jane Jacobs, though sees her as ultimately too small-scale and conservative.

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George Lansbury: the unsung father of blue Labour

08/05/2011, 09:57:43 AM

Below we reproduce Jon Cruddas’ speech at George Lansbury’s recent plaque unveiling, with Angela Lansbury, in Bow.

by Jon Cruddas

Thank you very much. It is great to be with you all this afternoon. We are here to celebrate the life of one of the true heroes of the Labour party: George Lansbury. A man who was – to quote the great historian AJP Taylor – “the most lovable figure in British politics”.

We as a party are really only beginning to understand the true significance of the man and of his leadership of the party; a process of rehabilitation is underway yet is far from complete.

I think of Lansbury as arguably the greatest ever Labour leader. Not in an empirical sense in terms of elections won – he never faced the electorate in a general election as our leader.

Raymond Postgate wrote after George had resigned – and two weeks later an election was called – that “now they had lost their only popular leader, it was enough to wreck the labour men’s hopes of a victory”.

Irrespective of this, to have a third Labour government in 1945, or Wilson’s and Callaghan’s governments of the 60s and 70s – or Blair and Brown’s of more recent years – you had to have a party for them to inherit and subsequently lead; indeed from which to govern.

This is part of Lansbury’s legacy – to quote George Thomas

“He not only saved the soul of the party, he saved the party. We could have sunk into oblivion and the Liberals could have been reborn”.

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David Miliband looks to Labour’s future in DC

07/05/2011, 10:25:03 AM

by Jonathan Todd

On the day before his brother’s attendance at the royal wedding, David Miliband was in Washington DC. This followed his tentative steps back towards the philosophical front line with a speech at the LSE on the decline of the left in Europe. Then, at the centre for American progress, he addressed the politics of identity and fear. On both occasions, therefore, he tackled in an international context issues of profound domestic significance.

This approach, obviously, has the advantage of minimising any sense in which David is stepping on Ed’s toes. But such internationalism is also instructive. The challenges facing Labour are similar to those facing social democratic parties elsewhere. The rise of the English Defence League is not the only instance of the search for identity turning ugly. In different ways everything from the birther movement to the success of the True Finns and Thilo Sarrazins can be seen through the same prism.

Miliband identifies “a backlash against globalisation. In the context of a big shift in power from west to east, there are no votes in being an internationalist and there are votes in being nativist”. The west-east shift is involved with a deepening of the global economy, but political impulses form a counter-reaction to this. They may be less pronounced where economies are strong. Canada’s economy is relatively healthy and Bloc Québécois, who might be considered a nativist element in Canadian politics, suffered in recent elections.

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The clouds in last night’s silver lining

06/05/2011, 10:01:59 AM

by Atul Hatwal

As Ed Miliband surveys the results after his first major test as leader he will have mixed emotions. Great in England, good in Wales, bad in Scotland and rapidly forgotten on AV.

A curate’s egg, whatever one of those might be.

While the dynamics of devolved government mean the results in Scotland and Wales are driven by regional factors, and AV is done for a generation at least, it’s the English local elections where the tea leaves for the next general election can be best read.

England is where Labour needs to win the key seats, and its England where Labour has proportionately lost most voters since 1997. Ostensibly, the results give a sound basis for hope.

Not quite street party territory, but at least a couple of glasses of sherry.

On this happy path, the numbers of new Labour councillors elected take Labour back to respectable mid-2000s levels of representation in local government. Gains in a single election on this scale have not been seen since the mid-1990s.

This is not to be lightly dismissed. Revival in local government is an essential pre-requisite for national success.

Then there’s the overall vote share. While not spectacular, it was much improved over the election last year and progress at this rate would lead to a solid Labour majority at the next general election.

But still, there’s doubt.

Can a national result be extrapolated from local elections? Is this really a foundation for victory built by winning back Labour sceptics? Or a house of cards made from passing protest votes?

A few months ago in this column, I highlighted Labour’s poll challenge by looking at three specific questions asked intermittently by YouGov in their daily and weekly polls, and tracked their responses over the previous three months. These questions examined voters’ attitudes to the defining issues for the next general election.

The updated results to Labour’s poll challenge hold the key to interpreting last nights mixed election results.

The three YouGov questions look below topline voting intentions to reveal how voters feel the government is hitting them in the wallet, their view of how the government is cutting the deficit and who they prefer as a leader – David Cameron or Ed Miliband.

The public’s answers over this year have involved responses from tens of thousands of people and give a clear view of the scale of the problem.

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Friday News Review

06/05/2011, 05:40:58 AM

The start of a long road back

Labour took control of Sheffield early this morning, gaining nine seats from the Lib Dems on leader Nick Clegg’s home turf. In a further blow for the party, Carl Minns leader of Hull council, lost his seat to Labour. The result capped a disastrous night for the Lib Dems. The party was also predicting it “could lose everything” in Liverpool, which has traditionally been a stronghold. In Hull, the party lost ten seats to Labour, with former council leader Mr Minns among the casualties. Labour now has a clear majority in the city. Sheffield, where Mr Clegg has his parliamentary seat, had been governed by the Lib Dems without an absolute majority. The party’s former council leader Paul Scriven insisted that the results were merely a “short-term setback” for the party, and said it should not change direction in response to its drubbing in the polls. Mr Scriven said Lib Dems had to “keep our nerve, keep our backbone and keep bringing fairness to Government and sort out this financial mess”. He told the BBC: “We are in this for the long term, because if not we let the country down.” As the counts were declared in Sheffield, former Labour minister David Blunkett said Cleggmania had become “Clegg pneumonia.” – Yorkshire Post

Liberal Democrat group leader Carl Minns faces being unemployed this morning, having paid the price for cuts which left hundreds of council workers out of a job. In a press conference, Mr Minns admitted his Liberal Democrat party was facing defeat in Hull and losing control of the council. He also conceded that he was facing losing his own seat in Kings Park although the result has yet to be confirmed. He said: “It is clear that the Liberal Democrats are not going to have a good night tonight.” – Hull Daily Mail

Gray has got to go… will go…

SNP leader Alex Salmond promised a referendum on Scottish independence as early results indicated an historic night for his party. Huge inroads have been made into Labour’s central belt strongholds, with John Mason taking the Glasgow Shettleston constituency, James Dornan taking the Cathcart seat and Sandra White winning in Glasgow Kelvin. There were also SNP gains in Strathkelvin and Bearsden, Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse, East Kilbride and Clydesdale. The SNP also snatched Edinburgh Pentlands from the Conservatives – with former Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie losing his seat – and Edinburgh Southern from the Lib Dems. Meanwhile, Labour leader Iain Gray managed to hold his East Lothian seat – but by just 151 votes. He said that the collapse of the Liberal Democrats, who have already lost deposits, may have benefited the SNP. The final winners and losers are not expected to be confirmed until later in the afternoon. Voters are electing 129 MSPs, 73 for constituencies and a further 56 on regional lists. – STV

Alex Salmond was last night on course for a second term as First Minister as voters across Scotland turned away in large numbers from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Former Labour minister Andy Kerr became the first major scalp of the Holyrood election, losing to the SNP’s Linda Fabiani in the East Kilbride constituency. Mr Kerr, who was Labour’s finance spokesman in the last. Elsewhere, there were widespread signs of a collapse in the Lib Dem vote, with Tavish Scott’s party losing their deposit in the first seat of the night to be declared in Rutherglen, where the SNP vote surged by 16 per cent. The broad picture looks set to deliver an SNP victory and a return to Bute House for Alex Salmond with an increased mandate. If his re-election is confirmed today, Mr Salmond is expected to press ahead with his preferred plan to run a second SNP minority government for the next five years. Early indications last night suggested clearly that he will be in a far stronger position than over the past four years, when he held a one-seat majority over Labour. Labour sources were last night indicating they expected the SNP to beat them in several previously secure seats, and that their rivals could have a double-digit lead in seats by the time all the results came in. The last opinion poll of the campaign, published last night, suggested the SNP had double the support of Labour, and was in sight of a majority on its own. – the Scotsman

Encouraging signs in Wales

Labour fears it may “fall short” of gaining an overall majority in the Assembly elections. The party has led the opinion polls since The Senedd went into recess last month – and was recently tipped to go into government alone following yesterday’s vote. Party sources say they expect some gains and an improvement on the 26 seats it held in the last assembly – but Labour insiders admit they may not be able to surpass the “magic figure” of 31 needed to claim an overall majority. First Minister Carwyn Jones, who attended the count in Bridgend, has downplayed those suggestions – saying the result is still too early to call. – Western Mail

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Caption contest: Lefty love in special

05/05/2011, 11:46:12 AM

“The party is split” read the headlines. “Labour is dangerously divided over electoral reform” they said. They wish. Tomorrow a temporary division will come to an end. If Huhne and Clegg thought the AV campaign was bad – wait until the Labour assasins are reunited.