Uncut « Labour Uncut

Small man, big world

30/05/2011, 12:00:52 PM

Jonathan Todd

The financial crisis was unprecedented and complex. But the left’s interpretation of it tended to be straight-forward. Banks and bankers were bad. Government and politicians were good. Government saved the banks from themselves and would stimulate economies. This enlarged role for government made a “progressive moment” inevitable. Yet government is now being scaled back and the left is out of power across Europe.

The left must move beyond its misconceptions to recover. While Labour’s plans to close the deficit concede limits to government’s size, George Osborne was much quicker than Gordon Brown to acknowledge such limits. The lesson of the debate on the deficit during and after the general election is that the left cannot be abashed by fiscal reality. It must confront it squarely. This is a lesson that Barack Obama might now reflect upon as debate in the US on the size of government moves to a similar place to that in the UK in the six months or so prior to the general election.

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Shoesmith outrage: a pox on all their houses

30/05/2011, 09:21:39 AM

by Dennis Kavanagh

Sharon Shoesmith addressed the assembled media last week, fresh from her court of appeal success and promptly rammed her foot so far down her throat it’s a wonder she didn’t knock her teeth out.

“I don’t do blame”, she revealed, seconds before blaming the police and health departments for the Baby P scandal. “You cannot stop the death of children”, she told the BBC later, an extraordinary statement from someone whose department was supposed to do exactly that. My personal favourite was “I haven’t thought about compensation”; maybe she was asleep while her barrister and the court of appeal discussed damages and remedies before remitting the case back to the administrative division of the high court to settle exactly that question.

If she was never “in it for the money”, as she assured the Guardian later, presumably we’ll see a whacking donation to childline or NSPCC. That at least would put a fitting stop to the merry go round of public money behind two lots of high court hearings, representation of three public bodies and enormous sums in court time.

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Shadow cabinet league table: Murphy opens up clear lead

27/05/2011, 07:39:34 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Bottom three adrift as Uncut readers vote on whether there should be relegation from the shadow cabinet

Jim Murphy has opened up a commanding lead over Douglas Alexander at the top of the league. Following a month in which he landed yet another urgent question and was a fixture in the media, there is now a gap of 74 points between first and second.

The gap is all the bigger because of an uncharacteristically quiet month for Alexander. For the first time since the shadow cabinet was formed, he didn’t put out a single press release in the month. Based on his performance in May, Alexander was the eighth hardest working member of the shadow cabinet.

He has never been this low in a monthly ranking.

It’s too early to tell whether this is the start of a decline in his work rate, but with the conflict in Libya, upheaval in the Middle East and the Taliban’s summer offensive underway, this is hardly time for a dip in activity.

In third, Sadiq Khan posted another solid month. He stepped up his media output, issuing four press releases, double the number of any previous month. In previous months, this media profile has been a weakness for Khan. Increased press work will help establish him as a major Labour figure in his own right, beyond having been Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign manager.

But, for Khan, there were areas for improvement that highlighted the difference between being third and what it takes to be number one. (more…)

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Don’t forget the old git vote

26/05/2011, 07:19:05 AM

by Peter Watt

I was on a train the other day when a couple of kids got on acting like total muppets. They were shouting, running up and down the carriage, throwing rubbish and swearing. Selfish and self-centred, they had no consideration for anyone else on the train. They acted as if the world revolved around them. The guard asked them to calm down and they let fly a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse. The rest of us kept quiet.

I considered the possible impact of low incomes and deprivation on their lives. How this had probably lead to feelings of helplessness, low levels of aspiration and the resultant attitudes and behaviour that we were experiencing.

Except that that is not what I was thinking at all. What I was really thinking was, “bloody yobs”, “kids of today: I blame the bloody parents”, and best of all, “it wasn’t like that in my day”. I really was the proverbial old git. It wasn’t just this incident; I increasingly find myself saying to people that my own children don’t know lucky they are:

“They have lots of toys, get to go on holidays and never really want for anything. But it never seems to be enough. When I was younger I was always grateful for what I had, knowing that I was more fortunate than many others”.

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Brown haters remember: what goes around comes around

25/05/2011, 07:00:17 AM

by Kevin Meagher

So George Osborne is to officially nominate French finance minister, Chstistine Lagarde, to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the international monetary fund.

In the process, Gordon Brown’s potential candidacy for the role has been banjoed before it even (officially) began. His pitch well and truly queered.

The black spot was pushed across the table to him last month when Cameron said he “might not be the most appropriate person” for a role “work[ing] out whether other countries around the world have debt and deficit problems”.

A bit rich, perhaps, coming from the former special adviser to Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday, but there you go.

Now it is suggested that David Cameron intends to champion Peter Mandelson for the soon to be vacated role as director general of the world trade organisation; suitable political cover, he no doubt thinks, for not backing Brown’s IMF bid.

Now there’s nothing wrong with a bit of tribal disdain for your political opponents. In fact, I would go further; it is impossible to hold ministerial office without doing some things badly and having at least part of your record that deserves to have rocks thrown at it.

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The Twitterati have made an ass of the law

24/05/2011, 05:19:59 PM

by Dennis Kavanagh

If you asked John Selden back in the 1600s what he thought of super-injunctions, he may well have said: “Equity is a roguish thing: for law we have a measure, know what to trust to; equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor”.

He went onto say that he didn’t know the length of the chancellor’s foot and that’s a bit like an uncertain law. Times change, and with all due respect to Johnny, I’m not sure I want to ask our lord chancellor, Ken Clarke, what his shoe size is in case he thinks I’m coming onto him. Our modern day answer to Selden came in the form of John Hemming MP yesterday when he revealed that Ryan Giggs had secured a super injunction against a former Miss Wales.

He justified the intervention on the basis that Giggs’ lawyers were going for the Twitterati, and managed to upset the Speaker, Nick Clegg and the high court in the process. Upsetting Nick Clegg is a noble goal, it is a shame that this important constitutional debate is circling round the tabloid drain of “guess who’s sleeping with whom this week”. That said, before we walk away from the tabloid sewer with our noses held tightly, it’s worth recognising that some serious issues are at stake.

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Lessons from Ken week: the fake allure of “false choice”

24/05/2011, 07:00:41 AM

by Dan Hodges

“It’s a false choice”, we were told. Labour could let the liberals have their cake, and allow the squeezed middle to gorge on it as well.

Those warning that their party must decide between appealing to the “progressive majority”, and our lost small “c” conservative base, were trouble makers. Jaded soldiers, trying to fight the last war. Blairite “ultras”, unwilling or unable to come to terms with the brave world of the new politics.

There was no need to choose. To do so would be painful and divisive. Premature. We have had our fill of pain and division. Surely we’ve earned the right to rest awhile?

So rest we did.

Until last Wednesday. When the justice secretary barged in on Victoria Derbyshire, told her to stop being such a silly girl, and blithely explained that some rapes were worse than others and letting out the perpetrators half way through their sentences was a jolly good thing for their victims, and a jolly good thing for the country as well.

At which point, the centre-left rose as one. Took a deep breath. And went screamingly, maniacally, insane.

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The positive alternative to just denouncing cuts

23/05/2011, 03:00:42 PM

by Jessica Asato

I don’t agree that Labour should stop fighting the cuts as Peter Watt wrote last week. But in the furore surrounding his audacious suggestion, most people seemed to miss a sensible point. That the public still blames Labour for overspending and is aware that, had we been elected, would be making cuts too, seems lost on the wider party.

On the doorstep, the overwhelming impression I get is that people are indeed angry about the cuts that are threatening their communities, but don’t believe Labour has yet set out a credible alternative. The question – so what would you do differently – has become as tricky on the knocker as taming a tetchy pitbull.

It is because we have such trouble answering this simple request that the cuts have become our single narrative. We cling to the belief that as people see services falling away they will repent of ever doubting Labour. They’ll flock back to the true righteous path and thank Labour for spending their money on great things. Except, they won’t. No matter how much we shout “international global financial crisis”, the public believes that Labour got the country into a financial mess like they always do and don’t know how to get out of it.

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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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Looking to 2014, not 1974: the case for spending limits

23/05/2011, 07:00:17 AM

by Rob Marchant

During the last two weeks, pieces by Uncut columnists Atul Hatwal and Peter Watt seem to have caused something of a controversy in Labour circles by suggesting that Labour keep to Tory spending limits. Peter’s piece was followed by a passionate defence of the current position by LabourList’s Mark Ferguson; not to mention a more wild-eyed, man-the-barricades-the-Tories-are-coming, ad hominem attack from Owen Smith.

So before making our minds up, perhaps we might take a cool, detached look at the case for change. The question of tax and spending limits is not new: indeed, it was raised on these pages back in March. However, given that spending is arguably the most critical question to answer before the next election and will quite possibly decide its outcome, it is important to construct the case clearly and calmly, brick by brick.

Historical evidence on beating incumbent governments: Since 1974, from the table below, no party has challenged an incumbent on a tax-raising platform, and won. In contrast, we challenged three times 1983-1992 on such a platform and lost each time.

UK changes of government after 1974

Year	Winning Challenger	Manifesto pledge
1979	Tory	Pledged to cut taxes, although raised VAT and arguably did not carry out the pledge. Cut spending.
1997	Labour	Pledged to keep to Tory spending limits for two years, and did. Pledged balanced budgets and no increase in income tax for 5 years, and kept them.
2010	Tory (in coalition)	Pledged not to raise NI and cut spending to reduce debt.

The tough questions: a. by 2014, why do we think that a political approach which hasn’t worked electorally in 40 years will work for us then? Especially when, in the political climate of the 1970s, people were demonstrably warmer to the idea of higher taxes in return for a larger public sector? And b., if it was felt necessary to do this in 1997 (growing economy) to get elected, why do we think raising taxes in 2011 (stagnating economy) a good idea? (more…)

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