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Archive for April, 2012

How Boris calling Ken a “f***ing liar” will play out

03/04/2012, 04:56:10 PM

by Atul Hatwal

Politics is an uptight profession. Displays of genuine emotion by our leaders chills the blood of advisers and apparatchiks. Control is lost, the roulette wheel is spinning and anything can happen next.

Even if there isn’t a total meltdown, loss of composure alone is a sign of political weakness and opens up a line of attack on temperament and suitability for office.

Reports of this morning’s nose-to-nose confrontation between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson will have initially sent the Tories into a tailspin. Labour tweeters duly piled on immediately following the exchange to push the line that Livingstone had touched a raw nerve in Johnson, who was seriously rattled.

But emotion isn’t always bad. Sometimes, when a politician shows genuine feeling, it reflects authenticity rather than weakness.

Think Hilary Clinton’s teary performance at the diner in New Hampshire in the 2008 race for the Democratic nomination . The immediate assumption in the press pack following her appearance was that she had cracked under the pressure. She was weak.

The voters disagreed. For the electorate, she had just become human and following her victory in New Hampshire the race was prolonged for months.

Or John Prescott in the 2001 general election campaign. When that mulleted moron threw an egg at him, Prescott’s reaction was natural and understandable, he punched him.

I can clearly remember the unbridled panic that gripped the Labour side in the minutes and hours after the punch, as well as the glee among Tory campaigners at this turn of events. At bare minimum, the Tories felt this demonstrated JP’s unsuitability for office.

Wrong again. For the voters, John Prescott was behaving like a normal person – the type that polls constantly say people want to see more of in politics.

As with Prescott, the key to the denouement for this morning’s fracas will be the substance – was Boris Johnson in the right?

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Stop taking liberties

03/04/2012, 07:00:31 AM

by Kevin Meagher

Last week we learned that the government, in its benign munificence, wants to have access to all our emails “on demand”. We are, it seems, all now assumed to be terrorists or master criminals until proven innocent. Our calls, texts, internet searches and other electronic messages will be fair game for the prying eyes of our securocrats.

A one-off sortie across the demarcation that separates personal liberty from an ever-encroaching state? Were that it were so. The past week has been an utterly dreadful one for Lady Liberty.

Take into consideration, if you will, the case of 21 year-old Liam Stacey. He was jailed for 56 days last week for posting racially offensive comments on Twitter following the collapse of Bolton Wanderers player Fabrice Muamba. No need to recite his vile ramblings, but let’s say he stood out from the crowd in not wishing the footballer a swift recovery.

Sentencing him at Swansea Magistrates’ Court, District Judge John Charles told Stacey: “In my view, there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence.” Wow, really? No other means of punishing this stupid, half-pissed student for tweeting his brainless racist tirade without locking him up and ruining his life?

His university was no less draconian. He faces being booted off his course, despite being in the third year of a biology degree, at the whim of some po-faced university commissar. Will his own parents be obliged to disown him next?

When we hurtle past “reaction” and crash headlong into “over-reaction”, nothing should come as a surprise. Like any other sentient human being, I abhor racism and as a Wanderers fan was doubly aggrieved at what Stacey posted. But when did boorishness come with an automatic jail sentence?

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Back in the real world, it’s still the budget, stupid

02/04/2012, 03:17:59 PM

by Ian Lucas

As the dust settles on a tumultuous couple of weeks it is becoming clear that outside the Westminster bubble, only one event has truly cut through to the general public: the budget.

With the cut in the 50p rate of tax and the imposition of the “granny tax”, this was truly a Budget for “the premier league” – those top rate taxpayers who had the ear of the prime minister and have benefited directly as a consequence of George Osborne’s announcements.

What is clear is that securing economic growth and new jobs was not a key topic of conversation at the Downing Street dinners. Before the Budget, and after it, the failure of this Government is its failure to build growth.

A cut to capital projects has taken away key Government support for private sector job creation. Whole industrial sectors – such as construction – are suffering as a result, and both large-scale firms and their smaller subcontractors are holding back.

The uncertainty in the jobs market is reducing employee confidence. People are postponing major spending decisions. If you are worrying about your job, you won’t move house. Income for the local economy, agents’ fees, finance to builders is held back.

Worries about jobs are hold back spending; yet the Government has increased taxes on consumers. Every penny more on VAT for central Government is a penny less for local business.

It is necessary to reduce the deficit. But the most damning statistic for the Government is that it is borrowing £147 billion more than predicted – because the economy is not growing and more people are out of work.

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Complaints over postal votes in Manchester Central selection

02/04/2012, 07:00:04 AM

Party members in Manchester Central are complaining that they risk being disenfranchised in the selection process to choose Labour’s candidate for the forthcoming parliamentary by-election because party bosses are refusing to allow postal voting.

The unusual move is said to be due to the selection’s tight timescale, caused by the resignation of former minister and parliamentary Labour Party chair, Tony Lloyd, who hopes to become Greater Manchester’s first elected police and crime commissioner this November.

However eyebrows are being raised by some members who question why the process is being hurried along, especially if it makes it difficult for elderly and housebound members to participate.

They have written to the party’s North West regional office warning that some people risk being disenfranchised as a result of the postal vote ban.

They also worry that the seat contains economically diverse communities and that there may be a differential turnout between the more prosperous city centre wards and places like Newton Heath and Moss Side – some of the poorest communities in England.

Four candidates were shortlisted last week to succeed Lloyd, including Ed Miliband’s deputy chief of staff, Lucy Powell, Patrick Vernon who runs a health charity in London and Manchester councillors Rosa Battle and Mike Amesbury.

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Revealed: Secret ministerial transport memo

01/04/2012, 08:00:53 AM

by Kevin Meagher

Labour Uncut can reveal the existence of a secret government contingency plan to transport ministers to meetings around Whitehall in the event of a fuel shortage.

Ministerial cars will be mothballed for the duration of any fuel strike in order to show “we’re all in this together”. Instead ministers who need them will shuttle between appointments across Whitehall by… sedan chair.

The novel idea, brainchild of Chancellor George Osborne, will see unemployed young people specially trained to carry ministers around. The ability to carry a sedan chair may also be used as a means of qualifying for DLA in a tightened ‘fitness to work’ test.

According to a leaked memo entitled: ‘Contingency Ministerial Transportation: Safari Old Ploy’, Ministers will be carried around as if they were on safari. “It is important” the memo says “that we do not give rise to the impression that ministers are behaving like Roman emperors.”

The original plan was for rickshaws, but Osborne vetoed this move, claiming they would need a road fund license. Also, it is believed the Chancellor in fact has his own sedan chair, which he is eager to use in public.

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