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Archive for May, 2012

Labour’s London committee rooms are getting nervous…

03/05/2012, 06:36:46 PM

Uncut has been busy ringing round Labour committee rooms in London and the news isn’t encouraging. There’s a valiant GOTV operation underway but the rain and a bruising campaign have combined to make for a distinct lack of engagement among the public. Voters are reluctant to turn out and it’s hard going on the doorstep.

Out of 12 committee rooms that Uncut has had feedback from, turnout is down. Really down. As in: on course to be in the 20% zone, at a push. Admittedly there are commuters currently wending their way home who will be voting, but based on progress from the morning into early evening, the number of London Labour voters that the GOTV operation will be able to deliver to the polls is running substantially below target.

Naturally caveats apply. In one sense a depressed Labour turnout doesn’t matter if the Tories face an even bigger challenge. And the rain falls on Tory heads as relentlessly as it does on Labour ones. But again the word coming back from the tellers at the polling stations to the central committee rooms is not good. The Tory vote seems to be holding up better than Labour’s.

Clearly evidence from 12 committee rooms does not equate with the whole of London. And various local factors could skew the feedback, but the rooms that Uncut has spoken to are in all 4 corners of London and at the moment nerves are jangling in head office.

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In praise of…local councillors

03/05/2012, 07:00:24 AM

by Peter Watt

It’s a big test today for all of the parties. London and Glasgow will be watched particularly closely but so will the results from Derby, Plymouth, Southampton, Harlow, Norwich and, well you get the point! Will Labour get more than 700 gains? Will the Tories lose more than 300?

Will the Liberal Democrats go into meltdown? Clever people will talk about the impact of the ‘omnishambles’ of the News International scandal and the budget on the Tory vote.

There will be a debate about whether there is evidence that Ed Miliband is convincing voters that he is more than David’s brother and is edging towards Downing Street. The results will all be scrutinised and analysed for their national significance. But to be honest this inevitable focus on the national is a shame because it masks the individual battles and hard work of thousands and thousands of local candidates across the Country.

I once stood for election to Poole borough council. I came within 54 votes of winning what had been a safe Tory ward. But to be honest with hindsight I am glad I didn’t win! Being a councillor is just too much like hard work for my liking! In fact at a time when politics is held in such low regard, local government is a beacon of hope.

Local councillors are the unsung heroes of the political world. They are often part-time holding down a job as well as carrying out their council work. Yes they get allowances, but they are hardly paid a fortune. And for their allowances they are incredibly good value. The endless lists of committees and panels, school governors and board meetings, the residents’ panels, full council meetings and group meetings. This merry-go-round of public service is often interminably boring but really quite important and frankly someone has attend!

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We need to send the Tories packing

02/05/2012, 02:38:08 PM

by Siôn Simon

Fifteen years ago the country went to the polls, cast their vote for Labour and sent a message to the incumbent Tory government. People said: we won’t be treated like this; we won’t be lied to, conned, taken for granted; asked to work harder for less, while the rich get richer; we don’t want hand outs, but sometimes we need a hand up. And Labour voters delivered that message and sent the Tories packing.

But they came back.

It didn’t take long for David Cameron’s mask to slip, or for them to reverse the work of the last Labour government. Snatching tax credits away from millions of working families, scrapping the education maintenance allowance, increasing tuition fees and, with Osborne at the wheel, driving the country back in to recession.

Tomorrow we have another opportunity to send a clear message to the Tories and their Liberal Democrat houseboys that we won’t stand for their lies, cozy kitchen suppers, daily updates with media barons and shambolic handling of the economy. In polling booths up and down the country people have the chance to tell David Cameron and George Osborne exactly what they think of them.

The local elections aren’t just about individual communities, they are a report card on this government. Whether it be in Birmingham, where the Tory and Lib Dem controlled council has done nothing to support, speak up or stand up for our city against their central Government cronies cuts. Or in London where Boris Johnson has done nothing to help the woman on the street but managed to find time to campaign for tax cuts for his wealthy mates. We need to send the message.

Because if we don’t kick them out of power in Birmingham, if we don’t send Boris packing in London, then Cameron and Osborne will think they can get away with it. That they can keep looking after the few and make life harder for the many.

The message to wavering Londoners is clear: it doesn’t matter whether you like Ken. You need Ken. Because you can’t afford Boris. He is an out-of-touch playboy who has taken Londoners for a ride, and charged you 50% more for your bus trip on the way.

Ken has an unparalleled track record of putting ordinary Londoners first. Now, of all times, that is what London needs.

In Birmingham, eight years of Tory-Lib Dem misrule – during which they never won the popular vote – has devastated our city. They have attacked our must vulnerable people with disabilities. Twice their cuts have been found to be illegal. The fight back for ordinary Brummies needs to start tomorrow.

We must show them that we won’t stand for it – we won’t be made mugs of by these privileged chancers. We need to stand up and tell them no. Enough is enough. We want our great cities back.

There’s only one way to send this message: vote Labour on Thursday, vote Ken and vote Yes in Birmingham’s Mayoral referendum.

Siôn Simon is running to be the first directly elected Mayor of Birmingham

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The double-dip, if it is one, has not changed the rules of the game

02/05/2012, 07:00:17 AM

by Rob Marchant

Delight, for many on the left, met the economic figures last Wednesday. Britain was not in recovery after all, but was the victim of a double-dip recession. Paul Krugman wrote eloquently of Britain’s “death spiral of self-defeating austerity”, and Ed Balls had a very good day.

All true, or very likely so, although one cannot know for sure, Balls and Darling seem to have been closer to the mark, and Krugman is usually a pretty shrewd observer.

Balls’ argument is looking considerably stronger than it did and, in parliamentary terms, as Dan Hodges puts it, he “put George Osborne on the canvass” . So this is the start of Labour’s long road back, right, now we have fixed our economic credibility problem?

Ah, would that it were that simple. Where we might want to differ from the good Hodges is when he says that “Balls has won”. He has not. Labour has not. For a number of reasons: but most already known. Stephen Beer, a fund manager, warns at Progress that we have not done “enough to restore economic credibility for Labour”, and he’s right.

But it is more than that. Even if we can make a convincing argument, in the court of public opinion, for being cleared of economic incompetence, there are a half-dozen other charges which it will surely want taken into consideration.

First, as Hamish McRae points out in the Independent , government predictions have underestimated GDP by half a per cent, on average, over the last ten years. So we may well not actually be in recession at all after the figures are corrected.

Indeed, the insightful McRae goes as far as to predict that the “doomsayers will be proved wrong” on the basis of some alternative figures from Goldman Sachs. Not conclusive, but enough to make us hesitate.

Second, the Tories being proved wrong is not the same as Labour being proved right. We do not know for sure what might have happened, had Darling or Balls been Chancellor instead of Osborne. Neither can we even explain in detail what we would have done: while we have specified a level of cuts, we have not yet said where we would have cut, which of course could affect outcomes.

So Labour might have done just as badly, or worse. We do not know and, besides, the game of alternative histories is rarely one which moves voters.

Also Beer writes correctly that, on top of this, we need to get back credibility with the financial markets, where we currently seem to be doing our best, via our “predators versus producers” talk, to alienate them.

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Rumours of Lammy vs Mensch for the London 2016 mayoral election

01/05/2012, 06:53:17 PM

After a long and bruising London mayoral campaign, what is the last thing that anyone on either side should want to think about?

Hint – the operative word here is ‘should’. But after all the vitriol, the debates and the wilful sacrifice of thousands of activists on both sides to the grip of the perma-cold – the sniffling hallmark of day after day knocking doors in the rain – thoughts are turning to the next cycle.

Difficult as it maybe to believe but already senior figures on both sides are beginning to wonder who will be the mayoral contenders in 2016.

Come what may, next time round, Ken and Boris will not be involved and potential wannabes will be manoeuvring for prominent London roles in the 2015 general election.

Within Labour there is a working assumption that David Lammy will move early to establish front-runner status. Having seriously considered throwing his hat into the ring this time, he eventually opted to chair Ken’s campaign and inherit the campaign organisation.

His political calculation is that in 2016, most of the 2010 intake of London Labour MPs will be either in government or battling over the future direction of the Labour party. Allying with Ken minimised his risk of losing the selection this time and maximised his pool of support within the party machine for 2016.

One former party aide, who worked on the London mayoral candidate selection process and advised Lammy to run was phlegmatic, “He would have killed Boris if he had been the candidate but the politics made sense to wait”.

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One example of what’s wrong with British journalism

01/05/2012, 07:30:10 AM

by Peter Goddard

Yesterday’s Guardian featured the ‘shocking’ news that staff on P&O Cruises will not be paid tips directly, but will receive a bonus related to performance.

The headline for this story makes great hay from the staff in question being paid just 75p an hour. Below the line, the audience is outraged, with much Cameron-bashing and righteous left wing scorn denouncing these ‘slave wages’.

But if we actually read the article rather than simply scandalise ourselves with the headline, a more complex story emerges.

The staff in question hail from India and the Philippines, not the UK.

And they work on boats in international waters, not the UK.

So, non-British employees working in a non-British location are paid wages that, by British standards, are very low. This seems rather less scandalous.

Assuming the cruise company provides their staff with room and board (and this is just one of the relevant facts that the article does not provide), the value of the 75p an hour wage bears no relation to the buying power of that money in Europe and therefore tells us very little about how well or badly these workers are being treated.

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