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Where next for Labour on hacking? Follow the money Ed

15/07/2011, 09:46:57 AM

by Atul Hatwal

The wreckage of Rupert Murdoch’s empire floats in the political waters. MPs and journalists view a landscape transformed. But as the initial storm surge from hacking slows, Labour faces some tough new political choices.

Where next in the campaign?

By common consent Ed Miliband has had a good war. Should he now step back and let the Levenson Inquiry go about its business? Or should he keep on keeping on?

Around Miliband, two camps have rapidly emerged.

On one side are those advocating a Glee strategy – don’t stop believing.

If News International can be brought to its knees, what about the Daily Mail?

The Daily Mail is unique in eliciting the same reaction from Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell as the left of the Labour party. For this group, it is a once in a generation opportunity to fix one of Labour’s most implacable enemies and help create genuinely more open political debate.

The voices on this side of the divide include Ed Miliband’s base – his early and most enthusiastic supporters, new politics think-tankers and those yearning to move on from the technocratic managerialism of New Labour.

Belief is intoxicating. They want the moral crusade to keep rolling. This is the Ed they voted for.

On the other side are the old media hands. They have been out of their comfort zone for the past two weeks. Their world view involves dealing with the media to get Labour’s message across. War on News International was unthinkable ten days ago. War on the Daily Mail makes them feel ill.

Come what may, at some point, Labour is going to have to deal with the media.

The fall of News International might have taken them by surprise, but that doesn’t change the fundamentals of media management where some type of working relationship is essential, even with the enemy.

This group includes rafts of former advisers, members of the shadow cabinet and Labour-leaning journalists. It’s no coincidence that this nexus was also the source of Miliband’s recent leadership crisis.

But in the debate on resolving this dilemna, something’s been missing.

Neither camp has provided a cogent analysis as to why News International’s position collapsed so quickly. (more…)

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The government is spinning crime rates rather than tackling them

14/07/2011, 05:58:51 PM

by Matt Cavanagh

Earlier today the Home Office published the annual crime figures for England and Wales. The Spectator blog informs us that ministers are trying ‘to spin the figures as a vindication of their nascent reform programme’. This is foolish: their only big reform, elected Police and crime commissioners, will not come in until next spring at the earliest. The other policies ministers are fond of citing, like online crime maps, local beat meetings, and a reduction in top-down targets, are all broadly welcome but are incremental developments of initiatives begun under Labour.

Meanwhile, the only major changes in today’s BCS figures which the statisticians judge to be statistically significant are a 9% fall in vandalism – this is the extent of the good news – and a 14% rise in burglary, a 38% rise in assault with minor injury, and a worrying 35% rise in domestic violence. The raw BCS figures also show a 6% rise in all violence, and a 1% rise in overall crime, but neither is judged to be statistically significant.

It is too early to say whether these increases are blips; or a sign that the long downward trend in crime since 1995 has flattened out; or the start of a belated surge in crime associated with the state of the economy. The second is the preferred hypothesis of Home Office statisticians; the third has some grounding in past experience, in that burglary and domestic violence are particularly prone to rising in tough economic times.

At the start of the downturn in early 2009, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats reacted to a much smaller increase in burglary by, first, accusing Labour of complacency, and second, predicting a ‘recession crime wave’. They were wrong on both counts: far from being complacent, ministers had already been working with the police to try to pre-empt a rise in acquisitive crime; and the increase in burglary turned out to be a blip, in marked contrast to the pattern in the last recession in the early 1990s – as I set out on this site two weeks ago.

I hope these latest increases will also be a blip. But it would be more reassuring, as well as more consistent, if Tory and Lib Dem ministers showed the same concern as they evinced in 2009 in reaction to today’s figures, and rather less complacency. The real test of their reforms – and of the impact of their cuts – will come in the equivalent figures in 2012 and 2013.

Matt Cavanagh was a special adviser on crime and justice under the last Labour government.

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Labour, like Britain, must look to the future

14/07/2011, 11:30:09 AM

by Ian Austin

I’ve been really worried these past few months. People kept asking me what I thought of “all this Blue Labour stuff”.

I wasn’t sure what to say, but I knew it must be significant because it was creating such a buzz.

You can imagine my relief when they put together an “e-book” setting out the details.

It explained that a series of seminars had been held in London and Oxford to “open up the Labour tradition to new syntheses of meaning, and so to originality and transformation.”

The introduction said it would discuss the “relationship with tradition and modernity, nation and class, labour and capital, community and the individual, society and the market, the state and mutualism, and between belief and empiricism, romanticism and rationality, obligation and entitlement.”

Fortunately, help was at hand in the form of an interview a week or so ago with Lord Glasman, the leading figure behind our new approach.

“There are three poles,” he said, when asked to explain Blue Labour. ‘”First: a conception of the common good. That comes from Aristotle. Second: an impulse to organise labour. That comes from Minsky and Alinsky. And third: decommodification. That means stopping things that were not produced for sale being sold. That comes from Polanyi.”’

Of course we need seminars as well as conversations on doorsteps, but it’s where the theory takes us that worries me, not the inaccessibility of the language.

Elsewhere we’ve been told the new big idea is based on the insight that New Labour’s response to globalisation failed to value and protect local and community services like post offices and pubs and the traditional high street, or failed to recognise the value of the human relationships that underpin our communities.

The danger, as Mary Riddell pointed out recently, “lies in a neverland inhabited by superannuated pigeon-fanciers who like Woodbines and Watneys and don’t think much of foreigners.” She was absolutely right to warn that “Britain is not a museum of nostalgia but a forward-looking country.” (more…)

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Peter goes to the palace

14/07/2011, 07:58:01 AM

by Peter Watt

I think I am going all Blue Labour. All that longing for the lost icons of a simpler more communitarian age; it warms the fraternal cockles of my nostalgic heart. Or am I mixing my popular political philosophies? Anyway, it doesn’t matter because on the whole they’re all gobbledygook! But what I do mean is that whilst I am all for modernisation, I also happen to think that there are some more traditional aspects of life that are also worth preserving. They provide us with a feeling of stability and security whilst all around is changing. One of those traditional aspects, that many on the left struggle with, is the royal family.

A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace. It was a fantastic experience. There were several thousand people attending from all walks of life. Charities, the military, business, politics all gathered as a recognition for their, or their organisations’ work. The focal point was Her Majesty and Prince Phillip who made themselves available to meet and greet their guests. Their energy levels at their age were really incredible. And the guests had of course all dressed up, with a handy protocol card sent in advance ensuring that the ladies wore hats and gentlemen morning or lounge suits. The national anthem was played and people mingled. My only complaint was that we missed out on the cakes and sandwiches because by the time we got to the tea tent there was none left. I couldn’t help but notice that there were plenty of other guests with very full plates. I tried not to be bitter about their gluttony.

There was lots of the choreography and so on that I didn’t really understand. The Yeoman of the Guard; the men in top hats who seemed to be in charge of the walkabout; all of the titles of the various palace officials and the heraldry. It did all feel a bit ‘olde worlde’ and yes there were an awful lot of very posh voices. But do you know what? It didn’t matter because it was an honour to be there and it felt special. This was the royal machine delivering an event in the same way that it probably has for 100 years. I bet that the Royal and diplomatic tea tents are in exactly the same place, tea served at exactly the same time and the running order is pretty much the same as it was in 1911. And that to me is quite simply fantastic and something to be proud of.

I accept that intellectually the hereditary principle is a little at odds with notions of equality. But I don’t care. The alternative to a royal head of state is an elected one. Quite frankly, I can think of little worse than an elected head of state. Another powerful, elected, party political politician. Another point of political friction taking on those in the Parliaments. Try selling that one to the public; good luck. (more…)

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BSkyB bid dropped – now we must push for media ownership reform

13/07/2011, 03:22:48 PM

by Anthony Painter

It would be lovely to think that the BSkyB bid has been dropped because of Parliamentary unity and clarity of voice. Unfortunately, this is not really the case. The reality is that two other factors are likely to have led to this decision.

The increasing political and media attention on the scandal in the US and the impact of this focus on News Corporation’s financial standing is undoubtedly a major factor. Questions posed yesterday by Senator Jay Rockefeller who has insisted that allegations that victims of 9/11 had their phones hacked should be investigated have forced the Murdochs into a rear-guard action. BSkyB is no longer the focus- News Corporation itself is the concern and the corporate share buy-back yesterday indicates the emerging crisis for the company.

The second issue is the ticking time-bomb of the Ofcom ‘fit and proper’ test. If they fail that, then not only would the bid have been stopped in its tracks, if may have had to divest itself of its existing highly lucrative 39% shareholding.

There is an important caveat to this. Rupert Murdoch is nothing if not tenacious. His thinking will be that this is the end of the battle but not the war: stabilise the situation in the US and come back later. So be it. However, next time the rules of the game must be different. This is not about one individual or a family or a single company. It is about understanding how we’ve been shown the consequences of allowing large concentrations of power to swell- corruption. Now we must say: never again.

It would be astounding in reality if News Corporation was able to launch another bid in the foreseeable future whatever Rupert Murdoch may be hoping. Nonetheless, if it does it should be on different terms. The Communications Act 2003 is now looking like a highly flawed piece of legislation: most particularly, its public interest test is too narrow. It is not good enough to wait for the public inquiry to report- we need to draft some amendments to our media ownership laws immediately. The following would seem to be sensible:

– Ofcom should be asked by the secretary of state to continue with its ‘fit and proper’ assessment of News Corporation executives with the evolving criminal investigations taken into consideration.

– ‘Fit and proper’ itself must be reviewed to ensure that it encompasses executives presiding over the types of malign and illegal behaviour we have seen within News International over the past few years.

– Cross-media ownership should be more heavily restrained. 20% ownership is the current limit. It should be reviewed with a view to lowering it and it must be revisited should a media company exceed the new limit even after a takeover has occurred.

– Content provision and carriage should be separated. In other words, no company should be both a content provider and media infrastructure service provider.

– The BSkyB plan could ultimately evolve its digital television into a walled and bounded internet platform- this is anti-competitive and should not be allowed. If a company provides access to any of the internet, it should be obliged to provide access to all of it on an equal footing (ie same ease of access and download speeds etc.)

These changes will ensure that corporate media power will be heavily constrained. It will not hamper free, fair and determined journalism which is a public good. It will create an open, diverse, and dynamic information market.

We can’t drag our feet in diluting concentrations of media power. We now have the opportunity to act with clear heads.

News International is the power lever; BSkyB is the cash machine. At least the bid has been stopped in its tracks. We are at the end of the beginning of this scandal. Now we can push for an open, competitive, plural, transparent, and dynamic media and an enriched public and commercial space. Time to get on with it before it’s too late again.

Anthony Painter is an author and critic.

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Commons sketch: PMQs

13/07/2011, 01:53:18 PM

by Dan Hodges

Westminster. Noon. Prime minister’s questions.

Or was it? The Commons was agog with anticipation. Would he show or wouldn’t he?

David Cameron once bestrode the chamber like a colossus. Back when the News of the World was Britain’s best selling newspaper, the Metropolitan Police was still renowned for its tenacious and fearless pursuit of criminals, and Kay Burley and Adam Boulton were united in mutual professional respect.

Not any more. Over the past week there’s been more chance of spotting a unicorn standing at the House of Commons dispatch box than the prime minister.

Some wild rumours were flying. David Cameron would be unable to attend because of a pressing prior engagement; like a speech on the big society, or washing his hair. William Hague would be standing in. Or poor Jeremy Hunt.

Personally, I was hoping he’d send Andy Hayman. “Nah, nah. I’m not ‘aving it. I’m not letting the right honourable gentleman get away with that”.

Sadly it wasn’t to be. Just before twelve a familiar figure appeared and took his seat on the government benches.

At least, it appeared it be a familiar figure. It looked like David Cameron. Spoke like David Cameron. Went pink in the face like David Cameron.

But could it really be him? Only the week before the old prime minister had accused Ed Miliband of opportunism for attempting to link phone-hacking to Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB bid. Yet according to the new guy “It has become increasingly clear that while everybody to start with wanted in some way to separate what was happening at News International and what was happening at BSkyB that is simply not possible. What has happened at this company is disgraceful, it should be stopped at every level, and they should stop thinking about mergers and sort out the mess they’ve created”.

Old Dave had refused to call for Rebekah Brooks to resign. The new fella seemed to think she’d already done so, and what’s more, he welcomed it; “She was right to resign. That resignation should have been accepted”.

If Ed Miliband was fazed by the appearance of this prime ministerial doppelganger he didn’t show it. Then again, he’s undergone a bit of transformation himself. This time last week many in his own party were accusing him of being the new Ramsay McDonald for his betrayal of striking public sector workers. Today the public sector workers could go hang. The only pensions the Labour party was interested in were those of Murdoch and Brooks. And it wanted them drawing them in double quick time; “It would be quite wrong for them to expand their stake in the British media”, Miliband said, “Rupert Murdoch should drop his bid for BSkyB, should recognise the world has changed, and he should listen to this House of Commons”.

New Cameron agreed. He welcomed the cross-party approach being adopted by the leader of the opposition.

Ed Miliband rose again. This time he was wearing an expression of almost pained sincerity that left no one in any doubt that the time for cross party consensus was over. Could the prime minister clear up one specific issue. Why was his former press secretary Andy Coulson a liar, a cheat, a blagger, a bounder, a baby snatcher, a forger, a cattle rustler, a grave robber and a teller of tall tales. Oh, and why had the prime minister been so unbelievably stupid in employing him?

Last week this sudden switch from civility to attack had thrown David Cameron. But that was a lifetime ago. And New Cameron was ready.

When Coulson had been employed he’d given him assurances. Not only that, he’d given those same assurances to the police, a select committee and under oath to a court of law; “if it turns out he lied it wont just be that he shouldn’t have been in government, it would be that he should be prosecuted. But Mr Speaker, we must stick to the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty”.

It may be that Ed Miliband was expecting a more evasive response. Or that in the excitement of the last week, he’s begun to believe Cameron was a broken opponent. For whatever reason, the confidence visibly began to drip away from him; “Mr Speaker, he just doesn’t get it”, he said, falling back on that well worn phrase he uses when he can’t think of a more spontaneous riposte. The Tory back-benches, sensing it, bayed in relief.

“I’m afraid, Mr Speaker, the person who is not getting it is the leader of the opposition”, responded New Cam. “What the public want us to do is address this firestorm. They want us to sort out bad practices at the media. They want us to fix the corruption in the police. They want a proper public enquiry”.

The world had indeed changed. But maybe not quite as much as we thought.

Dan Hodges is contributing editor of Labour Uncut.

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We are communitarians, so Miliband can lead us as Cameron can’t

13/07/2011, 08:10:46 AM

by Jonathan Todd

“We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality”.

Denis MacShane sought to console speaker Martin by writing to him with the words of Thomas Babington Macaulay at the height of the expenses scandal. But was this quotation really appropriate?

Weren’t the British people right to be aggrieved by elected representatives defrauding them? Aren’t they also legitimately angry with, as Ed Miliband put it, “bankers who caused the global financial crisis” and “those on benefits who were abusing the system because they could work – but didn’t”? And can there be any doubt that the revulsion of the public against the News of the World is justified?

The spikes in outrage against fiddling politicians and phone-hacking journalists, as well as the slower burning resentment at welfare cheats and fat cat financiers, makes a nonsense of Macaulay. The people he mocks instinctively know right from wrong. And in this intuitive grasp we see ourselves for what we are: communitarians.

The philosopher Julian Baggini foreswore ivory towers and spent six months with the people of Rotherham before concluding that this is the philosophy of the English. It was, incidentally, in the same town that Gerry Robinson tried to “fix the NHS” and Jamie Oliver “taught the poor to cook”. This is a worldview that stresses the responsibilities of the individual to the community. Membership of the community entitles rights and privileges but responsibility demands that these be reciprocated.

We are a nation that wants to see itself made up of; hard working families who play by the rules. We want those who play by the rules to be supported and to get on. We want those who don’t to be punished. The ascendency of Thatcherism, with its win-at-whatever-cost individualism, has obscured the extent to which we see ourselves as members of social groups to which we owe allegiance and the execution of responsibility.

Those who can work have a responsibility to do so. Those who can work but don’t should be penalised. Law makers have a responsibility not to be law breakers. Just like everyone else, including journalists and bankers. And they should feel the full force of the law when in breach of it. These professions are, however, held to more exacting standards of responsibility than legal compliance alone. Their integrity demands more than this. The irresponsibility of hacking the phones of grieving families is about much more than breaking the law.

As Ed Miliband’s advisor Greg Beales tweeted last Wednesday: “Today Ed Miliband spoke for the country because David Cameron can’t. Very important moment”. Tony Blair drew applause from a Progress audience last Friday by saying: “Ed Miliband has shown real leadership this week”. (more…)

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Two kinds of brave

12/07/2011, 11:30:01 AM

by Rob Marchant

Steve Richards in the Independent – what seems like an age ago but in reality only last Thursday – defended yesterday’s Labour politicians from the easy criticism that they should have acted against Murdoch. Oh how Blair and Brown bowed and scraped, some are saying. Rubbish. They saw the world as it was, and they prioritised getting and maintaining a Labour government over dealing with a longer-term and mostly intractable problem, the risible regulatory framework which exists around the British media. As had all the other governments before them. Perhaps they shouldn’t have: but it is equally plausible to say that the opportunity to take on the empire just didn’t present itself. It has now.

And the game is changing so quickly, hour by hour, that it is safe to say that no-one, on any side of the debate, really knows how it’s going to end. The astonishing thing is that it could really be anything across a very broad spectrum, starting at dirty tricks bringing down a Labour leader or other key protagonists, and finishing at the other end with the fall of a government. For this reason, the British media has gone into headless-chicken mode and is looking on impotently.

Ed Miliband has done a first-class job in playing the hand he has been dealt. His Monday commons performance against Jeremy Hunt, for example, was well-planned and well-executed. Tony Blair said on Friday he has “shown leadership” and he is right.

Where the esteemed Mr Richards’ analysis falls down is in one phrase: “For the first time…Miliband could display authentic anger without fear of retribution from News International.”

So, you think News International is suddenly going to roll over and die after a few bad days in the press? Er, no. Even if the Armageddon scenario for Murdoch – a meltdown of his empire – is a possibility, it is by no means a guaranteed one at this point. (more…)

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Phone-hacking is not the magic bullet

12/07/2011, 07:00:49 AM

by Dan Hodges

It was the Sunny ‘wot won it. “We killed the News of the World!”, screamed Liberal Conspiracy on Thursday afternoon, via a headline, replete with slammer, of which Rebekah Brooks would be proud. “Vindicated – a win for Labour MPs and the left online”, gushed the slightly more restrained Labour List; “Uncovering the catalogue of misdeeds by the paper, and the work in recent days to encourage advertisers to distance themselves from the News of the World, has been nothing short of inspirational”.

Thanks. I’ll find my inspiration elsewhere.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle over the ruins of what, in my unfashionable view, was a once great British newspaper, perhaps it would be a good idea to step back. Actually, screw it, let’s not. Let’s have a quick dance on the rubble before we get another News International title in our sights.

We may not be any good at winning general elections, but boy, are we good at shutting newspapers. Not that we actually wanted to. When we called on advertisers to boycott the paper, and then threatened those that wouldn’t, we didn’t want anyone to lose their jobs. They’re unfairly paying the price for the greed and excess of others, you see. It was Murdoch that closed the News of the World, not us. What do you mean we said we killed it?

Enjoyable though the spectacle of the British establishment eating itself alive may be to some, we are heading in to dangerous waters. And by ‘we’, I mean the Labour party. (more…)

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Give Ed credit – his leadership has just changed gears

11/07/2011, 01:00:14 PM

by Kevin Meagher

Last week was a watershed for lots of reasons. It saw a recalibration of the relationship between the tabloid media and politics. It spelled the end of Rupert Murdoch’s infallibility; with the media Mephistopheles left looking vulnerable and hopelessly out of touch. And it marked the point where David Cameron’s teflon coating started to rub off. The familiar attacks on his poor judgement and his arrogance fusing in one perfectly resonant episode.

But it saw something else too; the point where Ed Miliband looked, sounded and acted like a leader. He was not the architect of the events that unfolded last week – opposition leaders seldom make the weather like that – but he has become the first leading politician in living memory to get up off his knees and challenge the malign hold Murdoch and his acolytes have on British politics.

Tentative at first, by the end of last week his positioning was assured. In calling for Rebekah Brooks’ head, the scrapping of the press complaints commission and then pressing for the appointment of a judge to lead the hacking-gate inquiry, Ed was on the front foot throughout. His robust performance at this morning’s press conference further evidence that this episode marks a change in gear for his leadership. (more…)

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