The trouble with politics is there’s never a ragin’ Cajun around when you need one.
Ed Miliband has begun the New Year by springing from his corner with the speed and ferocity of Jake LaMotta. Cameron and Clegg have been pinned to the ropes as the punches rain down. VAT. Banker’s bonuses. Oldham. One killer blow and they’ll be eating canvass.
But something’s holding Raging Ed back. The final hay maker feels heavy in the glove. For some reason, he can’t quite put them down.
James Carville would know the reason. Bill Clinton’s campaign manager had the answer to every political conundrum. And it was the same answer. “It’s the economy, stupid”.
Ever since the graphic, “Conservatives retain Basildon”, flashed across our television screens that cold morning in 1992, Labour strategists have held one truth to be self evident. The party that is not trusted to run the economy will not be entrusted with running the country.
Bill Clinton’s election victory later that year confirmed it. For the first time for over two decades a progressive party had taken on the right, and bested them, by selecting the economy as their battleground. As we watch Barack Obama move to heal his nation, and look back wistfully at three consecutive election wins, it’s easy to forget the significance of that victory.
But some have forgotten. To them it’s no longer “the economy stupid”. Now, it’s “the cuts stupid”. Polly Toynbee’s “red carpet of opportunity” lies enticingly before us. As the Tory led coalition scythes through our public services a terrified electorate prepares to leap gratefully into the arms of their Labour protectors.
Possibly. The Lib Dem’s are already in free fall as a result of their cynical act of appeasement. The Tories cannot indefinitely defy the laws of political gravity. Ultimately, the cuts will take a toll of the architects as well as the victims.
But a word of warning: if we have learnt anything about this Government it is that their callousness is underpinned by a low cunning. Cameron and Osborne are not fools. They have a strategy. And we are playing to it.
Ed Miliband is in a bind. He is tied to a fiscal policy that the public believes was profligate and irresponsible. His strategy so far has been to defend that record to the best of his ability. That is not enough. It may be time to switch tack.
The debate is homing in on the question of whether Labour was spending too great before the 2007 turbulence. And actually if you pull out the figures the answer is marginally on the side of ‘defend the record’- on the face of it. Current spending was in deficit ahead of the crisis though not catastrophically so- 0.3% of GDP in 2006-2007. The public sector net debt was lower than in 1997 at 36.6%.
None of this looks irresponsible in fiscal terms. Public sector productivity and inefficiency tell a slightly different story- there is no doubt that the money invested in public services post-2001 failed to raise output as it should have done. Steve Richards in his articulation of the case for the defence in the Independent this morning acknowledges that fact:
“Labour failed to address inefficiencies in the public sector and some of the additional investment was wasted needlessly, but the overall spending was necessary at the time, as Blair discovered then and some senior Tories discover now.”
So the case for the defence seems to exonerate Labour for imprudence but is more ambiguous on wastefulness. (more…)
It’s been a busy old year. Gordon departed. Cameron and Clegg moved the brokeback wagons into Downing Street. Gideon slashed and burned. Vince tried to waltz his way into some young “constituent’s'” knickers and Ed beat David.
After the arguments over the electoral college in Manchester, and the luke warm tussling over AV we thought it best to pick our winners rather than have a readers vote. The old fashioned way. Feel free to add yours in the comments.
Politician of the year
There really could only be one winner:
George Osborne
Filled with his own self importance, and a belief that he was born to do this. He had the audacity to call his budget “progressive” while slashing and burning with that trademark smirk. But in all serious political circles he has earned (grudging) respect. As Cameron twists and turns, Nick jumps through hoops and Vince dances around a resignation, Gideon has become the rock at the heart of the Cameron government. Well advised, well rehearsed and well… impressive. Let’s hope 2011 isn’t as good a year for the man who could keep Labour out of power for the next decade.
Runners up:
Ed Miliband won against the odds. Has finally beefed up his team and started landing punches. A win in Oldham East & Saddleworth followed by a good showing in the locals could give him the momentum to really take on the government in 2011.
David Cameron. He won. Just. He made it into Number 10. Just. He ends the year with decent poll numbers all things considered, a “radical” programme and a sturdy majority (courtesy of his Lib Dem pals). Fair dos. Not a bad position for a PM to be in.
Best supporting politician
Winner:
Nick Clegg. Like The Man from Del Monte in the old ads who liked to say “yes”, Clegg’s willingness to hop into bed with Cameron and accept his “big, comprehensive offer” now gives him more clout than any of his predecessors since Lloyd George. But at what price?
Harriet Harman for super-subbing during the summer, although lost marks for her fingerprints – or at least dinner plates – being all over the Hewitt/Hoon plot.
Geraldine Smith (late of Morecombe & Lunesdale) whose gutsy defences of Gordon and denunciation of all wannabe coup-ists was a sight to behold.
Brass neck of the year
What a 'Jeremy Hunt'
Winner:
Nick Clegg for his volte face on tuition fees.
Runners up:
Hewitt and Hoon for their risible, back-of-a-fag-packet plot to oust Gordon Brown.
George Osborne for calling the budget “progressive”.
Tony Blair for saying Bank of England independence was his idea in A Journey.
Liam Fox for his “fury” over his leaked letter to Cameron about defence cuts.
The man behind the man award
Winner:
Stewart Wood From Peter Parker to Spiderman. The bespeckled Oxford don and foreign policy adviser to Brown became the war time consigliere to Miliband Jnr. Masterminding the tortoise vs the hare victory over Miliband Snr. Now a peer with his sights set on taking down Sayeeda Warsi.
Runners up:
Sue Nye Respected for her long-suffering loyalty to successive Labour leaders and unfairly fingered for Gordon Brown’s Mrs. Duffy encounter (“It was Sue” squealed the nark). Bows out both well-liked and well-respected.
Ray Collins for helping keep the Labour show on the road and ensuring that Labour did not do as badly as some predicted. Or end up as broke.
Off to a flying start award
Winner:
Rory Stewart for his less than generous remarks about the sartorial standards of his constituents.
Chris Kelly the publicity hungry backbencher is rumoured to be taking his chicken whisperer act on “Britain’s got talent” next year.
Survivor of the year
Winner:
Andy Coulson. Like all spin doctors, a wannabe Rasputin. And like the mad monk, seemingly unkillable. He ends the year in situ. But the phone hacking scandal is not going away.
Runners up:
Vince Cable One time Lib Dem treasure, ended the year on a low after trying to impress two young undercover journos with his “nuclear option.” Neutered but still walking. Just.
Jonathan Ashworth. It is said that in the event of a nuclear holocaust Jonathan Ashworth will still be working in the Labour leader’s office. 3 masters in 12 months.
Gisela Stewart. One of the bright points of a grey evening was seeing Birmingham Edgbaston – the first seat to indicate the Labour landslide back in 1997 – stay Labour.
Nigel Farage. A plane crash at the general election, a train crash of a successor. Britain’s favourite little Englander still stands.
Political battle of the year
Winners:
Miliband vs Miliband. Part A river runs through it, part The Godfather II. It was what it was always going to be: two brothers divided by their determination to get the top job. It leaves a legacy. It must. But is there more drama to come?
Runners up:
Osborne vs Mandelson. You might think you know which one is the better politician, but only one of them masterminded their way into government this year
Balls vs Gove. Michael Gove’s early billing as a star of this Tory generation took a near fatal hammering from a brutal master of political pugilism, Ed Balls. Gove’s calamitous decision to axe the building schools for the future programme was made to hurt more than he ever imagined it could.
Adam Boulton vs Alistair Campbell. Did Sky want the Tories to win the election? At a corporate level we can be fairly sure that it did. At a journalistic level? Hard to say. But Boulton’s reaction shows that the accusation strikes close to the bone.
(Ex) minister of the year award
Winner:
Alistair Darling To emerge, as chancellor, from a beaten government and a tanking economy with your reputation enhanced is truly a remarkable achievement and the mark of a quietly brilliant man.
Runners up:
Kenneth Clarke The Tory right may be screaming for his head, yet his enlightened approach to prison reform may set penal policy in a direction that actually works. But will Cameron’s nerve hold and keep Ken where he is?
Bob Ainsworth An unlikely hippy, it’s safe to say, but his recent call for drugs reform was a significant intervention from a former minister who knows that the “war on drugs” was lost long ago. The number of people who secretly agree with him but would never dream of saying so is a small part of everything that is wrong with politics.
The Jo Moore award for PR disaster of the year
Winner:
Bigot-gate Gordon Brown’sdescription of Rochdale pensioner, Gillian Duffy, as “that bigoted woman” was the undoubted numero uno gaffe of the general election campaign. Few recall, however, that Labour took Rochdale from the Lib Dems on election night.
Runners up:
Fire up the Quatro poster. A spectacularly ill-judged Labour campaign which turned Cameron into one of the country’s most loved TV characters.
Airbrushed Cameron Equally backfiring idea, which showed Cameron to be even more plastic and artificial than he is.
Liam Byrne – His “there’s no money left” note to his successor, David Laws, was quickly used as a stick to beat him with. A colossal mistake by an otherwise smart man.
The fourth (rate) estate award
#Hackinggate Non-reporting of the biggest media scandal in decades. Guilty consciences all around Fleet Street as no-one seriously doubts that the culture of phone hacking goes well beyond one rogue reporter at the News of the World. We know this because people keep owning up to it in the Guardian. Yet, apparently, this despicable practice, the gross and illegal abuse of privilege, doesn’t warrant a mention in the vast majority of the press.
Runners up:
Nick Clegg’s Nazi Slur on Britain One of the most pathetic days in recent British journalistic history. Andy Coulson got exactly the headlines he wanted. Those responsible – editors and scribblers – damaged their own reputations to suck up to their future bosses, and Lib Dem central office wasted a day fighting fires started by lickspittle. Tawdry, tawdry stuff.
Kay Burley Sky News’s afternoon anchor. Just type her name in to YouTube. Enough said.
Prediction of the year
Winner:
DanHodges for his “David Miliband has won” prediction on Uncut, five days before the coronation ceremony. At which Ed was crowned.
So, Gordon Brown’s book Beyond the Crash is out today.
The former prime minister’s account of the global financial collapse deserves to make a significant impact on Britain’s collective understanding of what has happened to its economy in, and since, the crisis. It ought to cast in a different light a still-towering figure whose reputation has been trashed by all-comers since election defeat in May.
I say “deserves” and “ought”, rather than “will”, because the truth is that political orthodoxy has shifted so starkly since the election that Gordon’s account may struggle to achieve what it should – at least in the short term.
In the heady days of the London G20, when Gordon was rightly being lauded for his role in crafting an effective international response to the global meltdown, it would have been almost inconceivable that the ideas he was championing would fall off the UK radar in such a short time. (more…)
Those getting in a lather about Gordon Brown’s speaking record are ignoring tradition. The lore of the land. The former PM is behaving quite normally.
Winston Churchill spoke twice after stepping down as PM. The first time was four and a half years after leaving Downing Street, on 25th Nov 1959. Both interventions were to acknowledge birthday wishes.
Both Harold Macmillan and Mrs Thatcher spoke just four times after resigning as PM. Mrs Thatcher first spoke three months after her resignation.
After stepping down as leader of the Conservative party, John Major didn’t speak again for eight months.
Yet none of the above faced the barrage of venom which is being rained down on Gordon. Go figure. And tell your friends.
Ed Miliband is more like the early Tony Blair than either he or Tony would publicly admit. He is patient with his colleagues, considerate and engaging. He is irritated by complacency and policy inertia. And he is murderously ambitious for electoral success.
As Neil Kinnock once famously said “to lead a political party, first of all you have to establish whether the political party wishes to be led”. Ed’s got to put the band back together. Re-pitch the big tent.
And with what was a sublime re-shuffle – respect for defeated opponents, dignified exits for distinguished big beasts, early promotion of a cadre of new MPs – I think the band might soon, for the first time in many years, be playing in harmony.
He’s made some spectacularly audacious and very clever appointments that make it just possible for this happen. Anne McGuire joining the team as his PPS is an act of genius. She’s canny and well-respected by MPs. (more…)
Osborne & Cameron face backlash over child benefit grab
There was a massive backlash because the cut targets stay-at-home mothers, who protested they would be unable to cope and would be better off divorced. That is because two working parents can get more than £80,000 between them without being hit, while next-door neighbours with one earner on £45,000 will lose out. Shadow work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper said yesterday: “This is a shocking attack on children. Families of all incomes are being hit hardest. “Government Ministers clearly have no idea of the pressures ordinary parents face and how hard people are working to support their children.” – The Bristol Evening Post
The coalition talks about creating a fairer tax and benefits system… then allows a couple earning £86,000 to keep payments someone on £44,000 would lose – and produces a marginal tax rate which means a £1 wage rise could cost a dad of three £47.10 a week. Panicked Cameron is suddenly disinterring a married couples tax allowance. Forget for a moment the injustice of penalising unmarried mums and dads – where, pray, would he get the cash to pay for it? Rob Peter to pay Paula? Suddenly George Osborne admits £11billion cuts in the Budget hit the poorest hardest to justify the child benefit lunacy. The Chancellor denied that very charge a few months ago. – The Mirror
There is that storm on the horizon, the hurricane conjured by Mr Cameron himself and his apprentice, George Osborne. You could call it Grandson of Poll Tax. It does not mean, this time, that an economic experiment will be visited on Scotland first. But amid a Scottish election campaign, and amid the ensuing debate, that’s how it will feel. Received wisdom has long held, of course, that “the cuts” were ominous for Tories and Liberal Democrats alike with elections due in May. What was overlooked was the precise nature of the losses, their specific geographical – and devolved political – circumstances. The north of England is to catch hell: so much has been noticed in parts of London. But the defence review looms large, for better or worse, the length and breadth of Scotland. The Scottish grant, by its very nature, will raise a slew of issues as Mr Osborne sets merrily to work, not least for Scotland’s Tories and LibDems. – The Herald
David Cameron will today try to bribe married Tory voters with a tax break to make amends for his ruthless child benefits axe. After the chaos and anger over his slash-and-burn attack on the welfare state, he will offer the compromise to try to win back middle Britain. His keynote speech has been hastily rewritten to stop the Tory annual conference being wrecked by the move to cut child payments for 1.2million families where one person earns over £44,000. But the Prime Minister’s tax break for high-earning married couples is also set to spark fury as it discriminates against single mums and families where both husband and wife work. – The Mirror
As Ed Miliband prepares for the speech of his life tomorrow, Uncut understands that he has received support from a surprising quarter. Team Ed has asked for – and been granted – a copy of the speech David had prepared in the event of his own victory. Uncut assumes that, as we write, Ed’s wordsmiths are beavering away, frantically translating David’s words into fluent human.
Good luck guys. And be grateful you didn’t just beat John Prescott.
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Uncut bows to none in our admiration for that legendary storm-trooper of spin, Charlie Wheelan. But we understand that Charlie’s claim to have personally switched half a dozen MPs to Ed Miliband in the final days of the campaign may be something of a smoke screen. Uncut has it on good authority that it was not Charlie, but Gordon Brown himself, who was hitting the phones for Ed in the last fortnight of polling. Having kept a dignified distance from proceedings, the interventions of Tony Bair and Peter Mandelson are believed to been the spur Gordon needed to enter the fray.
* * *
Ed Miliband leader. Ed Balls shadow chancellor. Nick Brown Chief Whip. Will reports of the death of the Brownites turn out to have been exaggerated?
* * *
While we at Unuct retain our affection for Charlie, the same cannot be said of some of his brothers in the movement. Two senior trade unions officials we spoke to yesterday were slightly miffed at the suggestion that CW single-handedly won it for their man.
“What’s Charlie doing”? asked one. “He’s out of control”.
“You know what he’s doing”, replied the other: “He’s got a book to plug”.
Too true. And Uncut expects a corker.
* * *
As Ed Miliband continues his victory tour, the intense figure of Mike Joslin can be seen ploughing the road as point man. Uncut has two words of advice for this intrepid staffer: slow down. You’ll get there. And smile. You’re doing a great job, and you’ve won. Enjoy it.
ALL THE LABOUR leadership candidates have dared to disagree with Tony Blair that we lost the last election because we weren’t sufficiently New Labour. In yesterday’s Observer, Andrew Rawnsley lamented this lèse majesté.
Memoirs and diaries, especially from former prime ministers, are important. After ten years in office, with three general election victories under his belt, Tony Blair’s deserve to be read. But what is disappointing is that Blair is so palpably out of touch when it comes to understanding why we lost in 2010 and how Labour can win again in the future.
Much of what Rawnsley writes I agree with. He is quite right that Tony Blair “understood how to communicate with the public; he grasped that parties must constantly renew themselves to keep up with events, the world and the voters”. He is equally right that it is “foolish to fashion the party’s future policies or presentation as if the dateline were still 1994 rather than 2010”. And that Blair understood that “the centre-left wins and holds power only by creating a broad appeal which embraces not just their natural and traditional supporters, but voters without tribal allegiances to Labour”. (more…)
Next month, a special election court will rule on whether Phil Woolas’ 103 vote general election victory in Oldham East and Saddleworth will stand. The verdict will hinge primarily on a number of leaflets distributed during the campaign, which were the subject of a complaint by Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins. The leaflets themselves, which were doing the rounds on the internet and Twitter over the weekend, relate to the ongoing debate over race migration and religious fundamentalism, and given the sensitive nature of the allegations. It would be inappropriate to go into details here.
However, the Oldham case has thrown into sharp focus one of the most difficult, controversial – and in my view defining – issues we face as a Party. Our stance on immigration.
Some cards on the table. I’ve known Phil Woolas for twenty years. He was in the front line campaigning against racism and prejudice long before he sets his sights on a Westminster seat. I saw first hand how, behind the headlines, as a home office minister he tried to push the case for a fairer, more progressive immigration and asylum system. Those people trying to pin Phil to the wall are missing the bigger picture.
