Michael Dugher « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Michael Dugher’

The weasel the government sneaked through during the phone-hacking frenzy

01/08/2011, 10:02:12 AM

by Michael Dugher

It’s fair to say that local government finance is not something that sets hearts racing. The complexity – or incomprehensibility – of the subject turns off even the most ardent policy wonk. In fact, some of you reading this article are already thinking about abandoning doing so, with a view to logging on later when hopefully Dan Hodges has written something more interesting. So when Eric Pickles made a statement in Parliament about local government business rate retention during the height of the phone-hacking frenzy, it was not surprising that the majority of the media gave it little attention. However, despite the lack of interest, these proposed changes that have slipped under the radar are extremely important and could be the government’s most damaging reforms to date.

At the moment, local businesses pay rates to the council, which are then pooled nationally before being redistributed to less affluent local authorities using a complex formula. This system generated over £19bn last year and is used to pay for crucial public services like the police and fire brigade. The government wants to change this. From 2013, it wants to “re-localise” business rates, meaning that councils will get to keep the money they receive from local businesses within their patch.

The government says this is all about “localism”. Eric Pickles claims that enabling councils to retain what they gather from businesses within their area will incentivise them to foster a more competitive business climate. The idea is that councils will try that much harder because they will be the ones that reap the rewards. Pickles has gone as far as saying that it will empower poorer councils to stop having to use their annual “begging bowl” in Whitehall.

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The week Uncut

23/07/2011, 10:00:51 AM

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

Michael Dugher takes us behind the scenes of PMQs prep

Dan Hodges Commons sketch: Cameron’s escape

Tom Harris stands up for the off the record whisperers and backroom briefings

Kevin Meagher says Cameron is on the ropes, but he’ll last the distance

Matt Cavanagh reports on Cameron’s broken policing promises

Peter Watt offers a very personal account of the need for a work/life balance

Atul Hatwal asks you to pick your hacking heroes

…and a letter from Tom Watson to David Cameron from last year over Mr Coulson

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Slow, weak and out of touch – Cameron needs answers fast

18/07/2011, 07:00:44 AM

by Michael Dugher

Incumbency in office provides tremendous advantages. The Tories have always understood this. Seeking out ways to change the rules of the game to benefit them in the future (boundary changes, proposals for changes in party funding, may all be cases in point). There are also public relations benefits of being in government too, as David Cameron understands very well. If you are the prime minister, when you organise a barbeque and invite the leader of the free world to share a burger or a banger, the pictures look great and they are beamed out by a grateful media. Also, in government, you make the news. In opposition, more often than not, you have to get into the news. But government can have its downsides too.

In government, it can sometimes feel like you are trying to steer a heavy goods vehicle, rather than drive a light and nippy sports car. Without strong leadership, there is always a danger, in managing the big beast that is Whitehall, that decision-making can be sluggish and slow, bureaucratic not political. No 10 can provide a great backdrop for a photo-op, but it can also sometimes be like a bunker (trust me on this).

As the “firestorm” surrounding phone hacking and news international has raged, Cameron has proved hopelessly slow to react. Worse, he has seemed unwilling to take necessary decisions quickly, to get a grip of the problem and to set the agenda going forward. Just 15 months after taking office, he has already become a prisoner of the civil service mentality, an approach that can – at its worst – be based on the premise that everything is terribly complicated and difficult and therefore it’s probably better not to say too much or get too involved. But most seriously for the prime minister, he has failed utterly to understand the depth and the scale of public anger and what therefore needed to be done as a matter of urgency. (more…)

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The week Uncut

09/07/2011, 02:00:20 PM

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

Atul Hatwal on the Lib Dem reaction to the NoTW revelations

Anthony Painter says News International needs to be broken up

Dan Hodges on the kaleidoscope of renewal

Michael Dugher says the govt must swallow its pride and adapt to the Arab spring

Jonathan Todd says as Huhne divides, Labour must conquer

Peter Watt asks; can trees really be more “sexy” than people?

…and this weeks PMQs sketch

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The govt must swallow its pride and adapt to the Arab spring

04/07/2011, 09:32:38 AM

by Michael Dugher

The foreign secretary, William Hague, has said that the impact of the Arab spring is potentially greater in significance than even the attacks of 9/11. After 9/11, Labour in government produced a “new chapter” to the 1998 defence review, precisely to face up to the shifting strategic landscape and emerging threats to the UK. A new chapter to the 2010 SDSR is desperately needed today. This would bring the review up to date and make a full assessment of the impact of the Arab spring on UK security. As Jim Murphy has said: “It’s not about looking backwards, but about turning hindsight into foresight.”

Lord Levene’s more managerial review into MoD reform was published last week. As far as it goes, it is good. Labour welcomed many of its recommendations. Indeed, Bob Ainsworth, Kevan Jones and others deserve much of the credit, as several ideas in the report stem from the defence green paper, adaptability and partnership, which the previous Labour government produced in February 2010. As the official opposition, it is as much our responsibility to support the government when its proposals are right as to oppose when they get things wrong.

Changes such as a smaller defence board inside the MoD, and greater clarification of responsibilities and the accountability for the individuals within the department, are much needed, not least to overcome the sometimes fractious command structure that has too often been based on inter-service rivalry. As Labour suggested in the 2010 green paper, the creation of a joint forces command in particular should help to change the face of our armed forces for the better and play a crucial role in helping them combat future threats to the UK. It will encourage more joint operations and enhance our ability to integrate out activities across land, sea and air, enabling joined up logistics and better communication.

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The week Uncut

11/06/2011, 02:42:29 PM

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

Dan Hodges says it’s time for Labour’s flat earthers to get real

Matt Cavanagh on Cameron’s lies and betrayal on knife crime

Michael Dugher says the NHS changes tell us all we need to know about Tories

Peter Watt looks at Labour’s funding challenge

John Denham says Labour needs relentless focus on private sector growth

Anthony Painter reviews the Master Switch by Tim Wu

Atul Hatwal says our message on the economy isn’t cutting through

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The government’s NHS changes tell you everything you need to know about the Tories

06/06/2011, 08:29:05 AM

by Michael Dugher

When Parliament returns this week after the half-term recess, the spotlight will once again return to the battle over the government’s changes to the NHS. The so-called “listening period” is at an end and we will see if Andrew Lansley has really listened, or if the pause to the health and social care bill was merely a cynical, cosmetic exercise designed to shore up Nick Clegg’s position and maintain the coalition as a going concern. John Healey, Labour’s shadow health secretary, has done a brilliant job exposing the true nature of the government’s proposals for the NHS. He will table nearly 40 amendments once the bill comes back to the Commons to test the government’s willingness to listen and think again. But the government’s approach to the NHS tells us everything we need to know about the Tories and Labour’s attack might similarly apply to other areas of government policy too.

First, the changes to the NHS demonstrate that the Tories are reckless. Like in other areas – the so-called strategic defence and security review leaps to mind – the changes were rushed, careless and ill-thought through. The new bill is the largest legislative document in the history of the NHS. With its 136 clauses, the original text of the bill was so large that the chief executive of the NHS, David Nicholson, joked that it was “the only reorganisation you can see from space”. The coalition agreement stated that it was the government’s intention to “cut the bureaucracy at the heart of the NHS”. Yet the British medical association (BMA) claimed that the changes will “replace one bureaucracy with a perhaps even more dangerous one”. As John Healey has highlighted, the usual process for sound public policy, namely that of consultation-legislation-implementation, has been reversed.

David Cameron has tried desperately to “detoxify” the Conservative brand. He knew that central to the old image of the Tories as the “nasty party” was consistently polling so badly in the “who do you most trust to protect the NHS” question. Cameron has also read Tony Blair’s book. Blair once famously said: “Every time I’ve ever introduced a reform, I wish in retrospect I had gone further”. But when it comes to the proposed changes to the NHS, the Conservatives are guilty of seriously over-reaching themselves. They simply do not understand that the national health service is a cherished institution for the British people. We all want to see improvements – big ones – but all governments must proceed with care.

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The government’s policy on the armed forces: giving with one hand and taking with the other

23/05/2011, 12:00:33 PM

by Michael Dugher

After months of pressure from the Royal British Legion and others, including the Labour frontbench, and in the face of certain Parliamentary defeat, the government finally agreed to enshrine the “military covenant” in law. A year ago, Cameron had personally promised to have the covenant “written into the law of the land” in a big set speech on HMS Ark Royal, only to later back track on the pledge (and then scrap the Ark Royal for good measure). The government’s u-turn on the covenant is welcome. At a time when more is being asked of our armed forces, it is vital that we put the government’s obligations to the armed services on a proper legal footing. Yet the announcement is, sadly, only the latest example of the government’s approach to the armed forces: giving with one hand, while taking away with the other. Labour should expose this. We also need to recognise both the achievements, as well as the limitations, of our time in office. And we need to be at the forefront of argument that our forces and their families deserve the very highest levels of care and support.

The truth is that Labour should have taken the covenant out of party politics at the end of the last parliament. The opportunity was there to fully commit to enshrine the covenant in law, as we had already paved the way with some ground-breaking work on armed forces’ welfare. Labour was the first to deliver a cross-government strategy on the welfare of armed forces personnel. Bob Ainsworth, in particular, deserves credit for pushing through the publication of the service personnel command paper in summer 2008, when he was minister for the armed forces. This set out improved access to housing schemes and healthcare, the doubling of compensation payments for the most serious injuries, the doubling of the welfare grant for families of those on operations and free access to further education for service leavers with six years service.

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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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A postcard from the Leicester South by-election

11/04/2011, 03:30:39 PM

By Michael Dugher

Last week Ed Balls launched Labour’s by-election campaign in Leicester South. He did so from the same spot at De Montfort university where Nick Clegg, a year ago during the general election, restated his opposition to tuition fees and said that the Lib Dems had “real momentum…particularly with young voters”. He went onto pose the question: “Who do you trust to deliver the change and fairness you want”? If a week is a long time in politics, the last year feels like an eternity.

The Leicester South by-election was caused by the resignation of the sitting Labour MP, the respected and popular Sir Peter Soulsby, who will contest the first ever mayoral election in Leicester. For the small but dedicated group of Labour staff, this will be their third by-election in less than six months. Some of the hard-working organisers have barely had enough time to wash their smalls since leaving Barnsley.

But Barnsley Central is a very different type of constituency to Leicester South. Barnsley Central is a traditional Labour heartland seat, a stronghold that Labour has held without interruption since the inter-war years.

Leicester South, on the other hand, is a city seat that has changed hands on a number of significant occasions. In February 1974, the Conservatives won the seat with a 1,700 majority. Eight months later, Labour took it back with a 1,300 majority. When the Tories were riding high under Mrs Thatcher in 1983, Leicester South again narrowly elected a Conservative MP, with a majority of seven. Despite big majorities for Labour in the 1990s and in 2001, in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war in 2004, Leicester South was the scene of a major by-election win for the Lib Dems, as they took the seat with a majority of over 1,600. At the subsequent general election in 2005, Labour regained the constituency with a majority of more than three thousand. (more…)

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