In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:
Dan Hodges says Cameron’s followers have stopped following
Michael Dugher reviews Ed’s big speech a week on
Jim Murphy says Fox is all bluster and hubris
Peter Watt points out normal folk don’t give two hoots about conference season
Dan Jarvis has been out on the beat
John Healey stands up for the NHS
Josie Cluer wants Ed to rip up some of the old rules
by Adam McNicholas
Many of us returned from Liverpool with a renewed sense of purpose as we approach the 2012 “mid term” elections. However, most members will not have been in Liverpool. They will have been working and going about their lives. For delegates and participants, the responsibility rests with us to bring the discussions and debates of national conference to the local level. As a member of the London Young Labour executive committee, I see it as my responsibility to ensure that young members across London are able to have a voice, whether or not they are able to attend key national events in the party’s calendar.
For those of us, like me, that have the flexibility in our circumstances to have been at Liverpool, reaching out beyond the base of party activists is not simply a challenge; but a responsibility that we bear.
As we approach the London Young Labour annual general meeting on 23 October, the current executive committee must do all that it can to ensure that LYL members have the opportunity to discuss and consider the direction of the party. As well as hearing from Ken Livingstone, there will also be scope for discussion and debate on the direction of the party. I will work to ensure that the schedule for the AGM is not just about elections, but about giving LYL members the opportunity to discuss the direction of travel that we are taking. (more…)
by Dave Roberts
I have been attending Tory conferences for the past 10 years (in a professional capacity you understand) and have to make the shameful admission that I generally have a pretty good time. The thing about the Tory conference, is that it doesn’t pretend to be anything apart from a jolly get together where activists can spend a few days talking politics, catching up with friends and listening to their favourite MPs and leaders make barn storming speeches.
Yet this year I found the whole affair a little lack lustre. There were the normal fringe meetings where the Tory right could sound off about the EU, fishing rights, immigration, the general demise of traditional standards and the moral decline of our youth. But there was a general lack of zip in the proceedings in the main hall, bars and fringe.
Boris Johnson gave a speech that rambled along, but gave the activists something to smile about and their love affair with him continues. George Osborne gave a dull speech that hardly stirred the audience out of their torpor until he attacked workers rights. Theresa May did manage to get the audience’s attention with her now infamous tale about the rights of cats. But poor old Andrew Lansley spoke to a half empty hall on what is supposed to be the Tories great love and great reform, the NHS. (more…)
by Atul Hatwal
It’s coming. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Peter Watt and Rob Marchant among others have been ringing the bell, but the gaze of Britain’s political class has been elsewhere.
Theresa May’s turn at Tory conference, as Mrs Slocombe, commanded more attention than the looming cataclysm. And now the shadow cabinet reshuffle is occupying Labour thoughts.
But as the eurozone ministers inch towards action, the shaking earth cannot be ignored for much longer.
In all of the furore around this rolling crisis, reams of newsprint have been written on the economics of the impending eurozone crash, but comparatively little on its political consequnces.
Yet it’s the political fall-out of this economic disaster which will utterly change Britain’s future.
Because after the eurozone finance ministers are finally driven to act, and the necessary billions are committed to securing eurozone, there will be a new European settlement.
The cost of Germany and France putting up the funds to save the euro will be pooled economic sovereignty in the eurozone, or more specifically a European bloc of 17 nations, where monetary and fiscal policy is run by the Franco-German alliance.
This will recast Europe and with it Britain’s economic prospects and security in three ways.
First, Britain will be vulnerable to increased eurozone protectionism, second the UK’s position as the preferred location for foreign direct investment in Europe will be threatened and third, Britain’s international defence commitments will likely need to be redrawn.
Protectionist voices have long been a central part of French economic policy.
Two years ago, the Sarkozy government received a formal slap on the wrist from the commission when one of its more hapless trade ministers admitted that Renault had shifted production of a model from Slovenia to France, in return for billions of euros of soft loans.
by Dan Hodges
Something isn’t right with the Tories. They are in government. They have been forced to share some of the spoils of their 2010 election victory, but victory was still theirs.
Their political position is sound. Having spent the past year trying to find some direction, Labour has dramatically struck out towards the electoral wilderness. The Liberal Democrats continue to passively fulfill their role as human shields. Cuts, riots, wars, economic stagnation; all come and go with the opinion polls registering concern, but little sign of open revolt.
And yet the Conservative party isn’t happy. Or rather, it is not content. It may no longer be the nasty party. But it is the greedy party. It wants it all. And it wants it now.
Standing in the queue to enter the Manchester arena, you could sense it. Impatience. Not directed at the diligent G4S security staff, but at the political gods. For a party whose members believe they were born to rule, being forced to share power is in some ways a more cruel fate than not having power at all.
Actually, that is an unfair caricature. Looking at the Conservative delegates they did not look all that dissimilar to their Labour counterparts. Perhaps there were a few more blazers, a little more Laura Ashley and salmon pink. But these were not masters of the universe. Just fairly ordinary men and women imbued with a sense of destiny and self-importance.
They feel this should be their time. The global economy is in crisis. The international picture an unsettled one. There is unrest on our streets. The unions are mobilising. There is a overwhelming sense of a society in moral decline. But they are being hampered.
Hamstrung by an electorate that did not have the foresight to ensure the natural order was fully restored, and partners in government who lack the strength and courage to steer the ship of state through treacherous seas. (more…)
by Peter Watt
I have had a funny old conference season, in that I have essentially “watched” them all via the media of morning and evening news broadcasts and twitter. In other words, my consumption has been filtered. Conference would have passed me by, if I hadn’t actively sought out coverage, something most normal people don’t do. All of that time, effort and money spent on the annual jamborees; and most people will have barely noticed.
My overriding impression is that those unlucky enough to have tuned in, will have hardly seen an advert for a vibrant democracy. To be honest, I no longer understand those who still believe that the status quo, in terms of political party organisation in this country, is sustainable. And before anyone thinks that this a rant aimed only at the Labour party, far from it. Just read Fraser Nelson over at The Spectator on the Tory conference:
“If conferences are increasingly attended by people who are there to meet each other, no wonder there are empty seats in the hall. Most of the passholders couldn’t care less about what’s being said in the hall. It reflects a deeper malaise across our politics more generally”. (more…)
by Dan Jarvis MP
Yesterday we heard the latest in a long line of speeches from Theresa May about her vision for our police force: cuts of up to 20%, changes to police terms and service conditions and pension arrangements, electing police commissioners at a cost of 3,000 police officers, and vitally, a lack of strategic vision on policing – a far cry from the speech we heard last week from Yvette Cooper. The Home Secretary believes that these changes will not effect the front line. I know, as we all know, that this is a catastrophic misjudgment and demonstrates a naivety of the work our Police force carries out.
We regularly hear the falling crime statistic which Labour achieved in government but it is worth mentioning again- a 43% fall in overall crime, 7 million fewer crimes a year and the first government in the post World War Two era to leave office with crime rates lower then when we took office. This is undoubtedly due to the extra police we put on Britain’s streets, the PCSOs and the community groups which were set up to tackle crime in their neighbourhood, but it is also due to a greater understanding of the causes of crime: that our children need an education, our young people need opportunities and adults need jobs. We had to be tough on crime, but also tough on the causes of crime.
Theresa May, in her speech cited Bernard Hogan-Howe, the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner who has stated that police officers aren’t social workers, they’re here to stop crime, catch criminals and help victims. I couldn’t agree more, but, as I learnt from spending a week on the beat with South Yorkshire Police, Theresa May’s solution of cutting vital police numbers is not the answer. (more…)
by Josie Cluer
Ed’s speech outlined his ambition to “rip up the old rules so that the country works for you”. To succeed, he’ll also need to rip up the old rules of Labour politics, so that the system works for him. From top to bottom, we need to move on from our old ways of doing things, to run a party fit to fight an election in 2015. So what are some of the “rules” he needs to rip up?
1. If you disagree with someone in another camp, brief against them. First, there should be no “camps”: every ounce of our energy should be spent rebuilding the party and fighting for the election of a Labour government. Anyone who thinks that there’s time to concentrate on anything else is deluded, and Ed should stamp out any such behaviour. But that is not to say disagreement should be stifled. The advent of coalition politics has enabled the Tories and Lib Dems to agree on the ends but disagree on the means in public. Labour must see robust public debate within the party as healthy and positive. And those participating in the debate should enter into it in those terms.
1. To get on in frontline politics, you need to work for the party. It is a well-trodden path: parliamentary researcher, job at the party, special adviser, MP, cabinet minister. It’s not that those who follow this path are bad politicians. In fact, quite the opposite; some of the very best of the 2010 intake have been special advisers (think John Woodcock and Emma Reynolds – fantastic spads, fantastic MPs). But the balance is wrong. A more diverse PLP, drawing on a broader set of experiences and expertise, would be able to engage with the public better, and ultimately forge a stronger government. (more…)
by Jonathan Todd
George Osborne’s exhausted economic strategy will undercut his political strategy. Nothing in his speech on Monday changes this.
He knows that political narratives need pasts, presents and futures. His past is of Labour “overspending” producing economic failure; his present is about tough Tory “medicine”; and in his rosy future “together we will move into the calmer, brighter seas beyond”.
This “medicine” seeks to close the deficit this parliament, which is intended to secure market confidence and create space for “fiscal conservatism” (cuts and tax rises) to be offset by “monetary activism” (rock bottom interest rates and quantitative easing, of which we may see more soon). “In a debt crisis”, these interest rates are, “the most powerful stimulus that exists”.
However, this “stimulus” hasn’t stopped breakdown in Osborne’s economic strategy threatening his political strategy.
First, interest on government debt may be low, but Osborne can’t claim all the credit for this. Expectation of more QE pushes yields downwards, as does the “worldwide bond bubble”.
Second, if low interest on government debt was a sufficient condition for growth, Japan wouldn’t have suffered a lost decade and UK growth wouldn’t have been so anaemic as to see falling tax revenues create fiscal holes for Osborne. He either needs to accept that he’s been too aggressive and the deficit cannot be closed this parliament or be more aggressive still and impose further cuts and tax increases this parliament to fill the fiscal holes.
