Episode 4: Student visas… I’m with Theresa May on this one
You can catch up with previous episodes here:
Episode 1: Welcome, Uncut readers, to the mind of Tom Harris
Episode 2: Should we abstain on the welfare reform bill?
Episode 3: How’s that working out for you Polly?
by Jonathan Todd
The current Spectator cover story claims that Conservatives are as struck by panic as they were in the autumn of 2007 when Gordon Brown seemed set to crush them by calling an election. George Osborne saved their bacon then and they look to him to revive them now. Everyone else is looking at Libya. Hence, the impact of the budget will be dimmed. But Osborne will try to pull a big enough rabbit out of his hat to wrest attention away from the middle east.
Osborne doesn’t begrudge Libya coverage, obviously; particularly not if it leads to his boss being seen as a competent and brave war leader. If – and clearly this is a massive if – a stable post-Gaddafi Libya emerges, then the earlier shambles will be largely forgotten and David Cameron will gain kudos, which will make him harder to dislodge from Downing Street. The resignation of Lord Carrington did little to dent the boost that the Falklands war gave Margaret Thatcher at the 1983 general election.
Osborne’s rabbit isn’t intended to divert eyes from Libya or the spotlight from Cameron. It will seek to disorientate Labour and have our leaders confuse tactics with strategy. Fiscal constraints limit the cards in play, but the cards available are all held by Osborne. He knows that he can use them to establish dividing lines that will set the terms of debate. He was as keen a student of Gordon Brown as either Ed Balls or Ed Miliband. (more…)
by Jonathan Todd
The longer Gordon Brown was prime minister, the harder it became, sadly, to picture him in post at the 2012 Olympics. His purchase on the future evaporated. Ed Miliband has to recover this to return to government. He has to convince that he has the answers to the challenges of 2015 and beyond. And personify these answers.
While his speech to the resolution foundation looked towards this, the past is always knocking incessant, trying to break through into the present. As Jim Murphy told the progress political school, in politics, the past is always the context, the future the contest. The spectre of Iraq hangs over Libya. The fiscal management of the last government colours arguments about the approach of this. In many areas – NHS, schools, welfare and, increasingly, foreign affairs – David Cameron presents himself as more heir to Blair than a return to the 1980s. Labour begs to differ. The public is uncertain.
What is not in doubt, however, is that the past has to be overcome to own the future. The 1997 victory couldn’t happen until Labour had outrun the shadow of its discontented winter. Tory detoxification hadn’t removed the stench of Thatcherism before 2010. That foul odour now emanates from Number Ten, in spite of Cameron needing Nick Clegg’s help to limp over the finishing line of the general election. (more…)
by Dan Hodges
In Saturday’s Independent, Robert Fisk, the venerable if jaundiced middle east sage, posted a missing persons bulletin:
“Why we have not heard from Lord Blair of Isfahan recently? Surely he should be up there, clapping his hands with glee at another humanitarian intervention. Perhaps he is just resting between parts. Or maybe, like the dragons in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, he is quietly vomiting forth Catholic tracts with all the enthusiasm of a Gaddafi in full flow”.
Unfortunately, about an hour after this latest condemnation of Western imperialism / inaction / barbarity / pusillanimity (delete as appropriate), up popped the man himself:
“The decision to impose a no-fly zone and authorise all necessary measures to protect threatened civilians comes not a moment too soon. It is a shift to a policy of intervention that I welcome. Such a policy will be difficult and unpredictable. But it is surely better than watching in real time as the Libyan people’s legitimate aspiration for a better form of government and way of life is snuffed out by tanks and planes”.
Fisk may know Libya like the back of Colonel Gaddafi’s hand, but he certainly doesn’t know Tony Blair. The clear implication of his jibe is that military intervention against Gaddafi is a rebuke to our former prime minister and his policy of enticing the Libyan dictator back into the international fold. A further shredding of his already tattered foreign policy legacy.
Robert, you couldn’t be more wrong. Libya isn’t an embarrassment for Tony Blair. It’s his validation. (more…)
by Tom Watson
David Cameron’s assured performance at the dispatch box during the Libya statement on Friday worried me. He was confident, authoritative and re-assuring. It was like watching Tony Blair introducing the debate before we went to war in Iraq.
I was concerned that there wasn’t sufficient support amongst our key allies and, crucially, arab states to make military intervention credible.
I asked the PM:
“Now that the UN has reasserted its authority with this resolution, it is important that Gaddafi be in no doubt that there is an overwhelming military force to carry it out. In that light, how many countries does the prime minister wish to provide military assets, and how many of them come from the arab league”?
The PM replied:
“The hon. gentleman makes a good point. Obviously, we want the widest alliance possible. I do not think it would be right for me to name at the dispatch box those countries that are considering participation, but there is a wide number. Clearly, at the heart of this are the Americans, the French and the British, but other European countries are coming forward, and there are also some in the arab league, including a number I have spoken to, who have talked about active participation – about playing a part in this. One of the purposes of the meeting tomorrow in Paris will be to bring together the widest possible coalition of those who want to support it, and I believe, particularly as this has such strong UN backing, that it will be a very wide coalition indeed”.
I left the chamber with a lot of unanswered questions:
1.What are the objectives of this mission?
2.What are the limits of the UN resolution?
3.What is our exit strategy?
4.How much is it going to cost?
5.Have we the appropriate military capacity?
6.How strong is the international coalition? (more…)
by John Woodcock
In other news, Labour is launching a transport policy review today.
Something tells me that global events may deprive the review, Britain Better Connected, of the attention it would otherwise merit.
But the questions it is asking nevertheless remain important:
· for families facing a cost-of-living squeeze exacerbated by Conservative decisions to impose a VAT hike on fuel and allow an inflation-busting increase on train fares;
· for the next generation of high-skilled workers essential to our economy, whose future is being put at risk by widespread local decisions to abolish help with travel to college, forced by the scale of the cuts imposed on local authorities;
· for older people angry that their free bus pass is of little use when the service they rely on has been axed;
· for motorists who want to drive more greenly and have more public transport options but who, no matter how much the government whacks up duty on fuel, are never going to swap their car keys for a bus timetable or push bike;
· and for a country that must examine how its transport infrastructure should change over the next decade to deliver the basic objective of sustainable growth in a world where global competition gets ever more fierce and our environmental targets ever more pressing.
We got a hell of a lot right in the major transport decisions we made during our time in government. Improvements in train lines substantially reduced journey times and improved links between towns like mine and larger centres of economic growth (in fact I am benefiting from one such improvement, the west coast main line, as I write this on the way down to London, thanking my lucky stars that I got a seat). Investment to increase the uptake of low emission vehicles like electric cars was an important step in the process of ensuring motoring can meet its environmental obligations in future decades. And we understood that UK businesses and jobs would lose, with no overall gain for the environment, if Britain sent elsewhere the global aviation growth made inevitable by the economic rise of the east.
But in the Labour government’s early years, we should recognise that we did not do enough to combat the wholly inaccurate impression that we were evangelists, determined to force people to travel more greenly rather than making it easier for them to do so. That zeal of the first term has left a lasting impression on many who now suspect that every new transport strategy, from whatever side, is something bad that to be imposed on them, rather than a measure designed to help them.
As well as dispelling that notion for good, the programme we devise for the next decade must be prepared to equip our already straining rail network to accommodate the predicted passenger demand in future years. And, crucially, it must understand the limits of price as a mechanism to change people’s behaviour. Most people have little option but to pay increased charges, be they from higher rail fares or more expensive fuel, increasing the risk that each new hike primarily just makes people poorer rather than reducing carbon emissions.
That is why shadow secretary of state, Maria Eagle, is focussing our review on affordability, on the steps we need to take to make transport more sustainable without pricing those on low and middle incomes out of the travel they need to make the best of their lives. And it is why I will be considering the steps needed ultimately to put a low emission vehicle within reach of the majority of car owners, not just the early adopters with sufficient means to pay the premium.
None of this will compete for space in the news agenda with the momentous and distressing events in Libya and Japan – rightly so. But the transport decisions we take over the next decade will have at least as great an impact on people’s daily lives. Do get involved and have your say.
John Woodcock is Labour and Cooperative MP for Barrow and Furness and a shadow transport minister.
by Sally Bercow
With the amount of cereal my kids get through, action was required. Out went Kellogg’s Frosties at £2.69, in came Essential Waitrose frosted flakes at £1.69. The kids objected at first – not on taste grounds, mind, but because they missed seeing Tony the Frosties tiger cavorting about on the box. Happily though, as own-brand fish fingers have passed unnoticed, no such bond appears to have been forged with Captain Birdseye. Indeed, our cupboards are now heaving with Essential Waitrose and I’ve cut my weekly Ocado shopping bill by around a quarter (and, yes, I know I’d save even more shopping at Tesco or Sainsburys but, the last time I looked, neither would deliver to Parliament – apparently because it’s a business address).
Now I’m not going to pretend that switching from Kellogg’s to own brand means I’m in the same boat as families whose very existence is a struggle to make ends meet. But squeeze on living standards (the biggest in 90 years) is hitting everyone – even those, like David Cameron and George Osborne, multi-millionaires by birth, with rather a lot of cushioning and very little idea of what life is like for those who struggle to eke out an existence. Inflation is rising twice as fast as pay and the Chancellor is only making matters worse – adding to the squeeze with his 2.5% VAT hike in January.
That’s why Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are right to say that this country is undergoing a “cost of living crisis” and to call on George Osborne to use his second budget to help hard-pressed families, starting at the petrol pump. If Osborne thinks that merely cancelling or postponing the annual 1p-a-litre tax rise on petrol will be a sufficient sop to beleaguered motorists, he’s gravely mistaken. Instead, he needs to go beyond this and reverse the VAT rise altogether, by using the extra £800 million brought in by the bank levy. (more…)
by Tom Watson
Now that we know what we know about Iraq I vowed I’d never take a prime minister on trust again. Yet this is what I’m going to have to do tomorrow. My vote will be with Sarkozy and Cameron – and the united nations.
I have huge reservations. I have little choice. I have to believe that they’ll be true to their words: there won’t be a ground war. There won’t be an occupation. There has to be a plan, right? Parliament will be consulted regularly.
Cameron assured the House that the arab league states want this. I have to believe him.
And given that allied forces are already shooting out tanks, airfields and strategic targets, a vote against military intervention on Monday only undermines our country’s political strength on the world stage.
I have an ominous déjà vu feeling though. I asked the PM to say which countries were providing military assets to the coalition. He couldn’t tell me, or perhaps chose not to. Either way, it doesn’t instill confidence that this mission is entirely thought through. But I also understand the need for speed. When innocents are getting bombed there is little time for debate.
The UN resolution wasn’t supported by our key allies the Germans. It’s a cause for concern.
I’m extremely concerned that other dictators will use the focus onLibya to brutalise peaceful protests in their country. 45 protestors were shot dead in Yemen on Friday, for example.
We don’t know what Libya will look like if we can’t rid the country of Gaddafi. We don’t know what it will look like if we do.
There are hazardous times ahead. The future is uncertain. Cameron gets my vote tomorrow, but please God let this be over swiftly.
Tom Watson is Labour MP for West Bromwich East.
By Atul Hatwal
It’s been a tumultuous week. Quite rightly, the attention of the nation has been fixed on developments in Japan and Libya. Domestic politics has seemed less important.
But something big did also happen over here – and it wasn’t the launch of Labour’s opposing, yeah-but-no-but, AV campaigns.
On Monday, the two Eds gave a press conference on Labour’s tests for the budget. In the midst of what’s happening around the world, it didn’t get acres of coverage.
Setting aside the sight of head girl Justine Greening leading the Tory response, talking about “gi-noor-mous” holes in credibility on the BBC, presumably before returning to the treasury for lashings of ginger beer, the exchange seemed unremarkable.
But underneath the prosaic was something quite important. Labour developed its approach on the economy.
Before Monday, the position was straightforward. The government is cutting too far, too fast. Labour’s alternative is the Darling plan, halving the structural deficit over four years. In comparison, the Tory plan is to fully eliminate the deficit over a similar period.
So over the course of the parliament, Labour’s policy is for spending to be higher than the Tories to the tune of 50% of the structural deficit. This might not help reassure the 41% of voters who solely blame spending by the last Labour government for the cuts, but it is at least clear. (more…)
by Kevin Meagher
I have a picture above my desk; a copy of a Punch cartoon from the 1840s. It depicts a monkey-like figure, in ragged clothes, a crumpled hat on its head, long arms thrashing around in the air. The creature smokes a small pipe, a menacing grimace for a face. Underneath, the caption reads: “The Irish hod-carrier. Lower than a Negro”.
It may not be pleasant. And, indeed, it may be a work of its time; but as the son of a bricklayer – and erstwhile hod-carrier myself – that picture is a constant reminder of who I am and where I come from. The struggles and insults that Irish people have endured for generations; depicted, as we were, as sub-human creatures of uncertain temperament.
It helps explain the indifference of a British ruling class to the Irish famine of the late 1840s, where a million people starved to death and a million more were forced to flee the country. But similar views were fashionable on the left too. Check out Friedrich Engels’ The Conditions of the Working Class in England. This otherwise estimable tome sees poor Irish immigrants to Britain blamed for the “filth and drunkenness they have brought with them”. Engels adds: “The lack of cleanliness…is the Irishman’s second nature”.
March 17 – St. Patrick’s day – is another reminder of who I am, though a happier one.
It may have become popularised in recent years by Guinness’s tawdry marketing – those ridiculous drinking hats a throwback to depictions of the Irish in those wretched Victorian political cartoons – but St. Patrick’s day still means something more significant to the Irish wherever we are scattered. (more…)
