Uncut « Labour Uncut

The government is set to break its promise on Equitable Life, says Stephen Timms

23/09/2010, 09:00:08 AM

Tory and Lib Dem MPs are about to betray a big group of supporters. The government will shortly announce compensation for people who lost out in the failure of Equitable Life ten years ago. Before the election, David and Nick promised the earth, claiming people would get a better deal by voting for them. But – and this is becoming a trend – they are going to break their pledge.

The pledge was drawn up by Equitable Life members action group (EMAG). It was signed before the election by the prime minister, deputy prime minister and chancellor.

But the pledge – like, I fear, many others – will not be fulfilled. EMAG was led up the garden path by Tory and Lib Dem MPs to increase their vote before the election.

The scale of the betrayal became clear in a Commons debate last week. Pre-election, the pledge was signed by all but 26 Tory MPs and all but six Lib Dem MPs. (It was also signed by a much smaller number of Labour MPs – 42.)

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Eric Joyce on his journey to the shadow cabinet elections

22/09/2010, 09:00:27 AM

It’s often said that there are too few MPs with backgrounds other than purely politics. At first glance, the CVs of most former Labour cabinet ministers seem to confirm that. In fact, the Parliamentary Labour party is packed with people with other life experiences, from ex-miners like David Hamilton to teachers, social workers and – OK then – lawyers.

I think this largely unfounded perception of MP unwordliness stems from the way technocratic skills fuse with political patronage in contemporary government. That is not necessarily to be adversely critical; perhaps there is no other way. Tony and Gordon needed people in their cabinet with practical experience of how 21st century government works and naturally turned to people they’d trained up themselves. And while it’s been often remarked that it seems a bit strange for the Labour leadership to be contested by four people with essentially identical trajectories, two of them actually brothers, it’s fair to say that these people and others like them turned out to be very good at the job. (more…)

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David Miliband has won, says Dan Hodges.

21/09/2010, 09:00:32 AM

This Saturday David Miliband will become leader of the Labour party. He will have won a majority of his Parliamentary colleagues and the wider membership, along with sufficient support from unions and other affiliates to secure not just victory but an overwhelming mandate. The New Labour era will be over.

A few months ago I wrote that this leadership contest would tell us more about ourselves as a party than it did the candidates contesting it. It has. Less an election, more an exercise in psychoanalysis, we’ve delved into the deepest recesses of a party’s soul. Remorse, guilt, envy, hatred, love, fear, hope. Above all, hope.

We wept for the supporters abandoned to the government’s tender mercies. Felt shame for the crimes we committed in our own ruthless pursuit of power. Looked jealously upon those who wrested it from us. (more…)

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Give us leadership, not dictatorship, says Michael Dugher

20/09/2010, 11:36:10 AM

For backbenchers, especially for the non-aspirant or the new intake, the election of the shadow cabinet is an entertaining process. Perhaps this is why so many of us voted for it. Wannabe shadow cabinet members clog up the email inboxes of hitherto ignored Parliamentary colleagues with their CVs. Backbenchers eagerly await the ‘personal notes’ from candidates to arrive in the post – handwritten to demonstrate the new closeness of the relationship.

Election friends are easily won. But when the next leader of the party says that he or she is “one of a team, not a team of one”, this time they will have to mean it. Labour needs not just a new leader, but new leadership. A different style and approach is required, including to policy-making and to working with colleagues.

All leaders, and especially aspirant leaders in the middle of a leadership election, talk about the need to do things differently, to be more inclusive, to work better with colleagues, and to more closely engage with the Parliamentary and wider party. The difference this time is that the new leader will have little choice but to do things differently. (more…)

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Shadow cabinet elections are stupid enough without voting stupidly too, says Lesley Smith

17/09/2010, 11:37:01 AM

Has anyone thought to ask why we are having shadow cabinet elections? Is it to achieve the best possible team to lead our parliamentary party? Is it because elections unite the mass base around their demonstrably popular and talented leaders? Is it a sure fire way of finding a brilliant team that will row in harmony behind whomever a different process elects leader? Is it guaranteed, or even likely, to select people who will work well as a team and share the objectives of that leader?

Well. Nope. ?Or is it, as some say (idiotically) “to act as a counter balance to the leader”? So we go through three months of agony (when we could have been building a strategic and effective opposition to the Tories) to elect someone whose authority we wish the PLP, many of whom have only been there for three minutes, to be able to undermine? If you wanted to sabotage a new leader’s chance of running a half way decent strategy, this is how to do it. (more…)

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Making childish noises at the unions is not the way to lead Labour, says Dan Hodges

16/09/2010, 09:00:56 AM

Re-watching Tony Blair and Andrew Marr earlier this week reminded me of Denis Healey’s classic put down of Geoffrey Howe, in which he compared an attack by the Tory grandee to being savaged by a dead sheep. Perhaps Marr had on off day, or maybe he’s mellowed since his forensic and rigorously sourced examination of Gordon Brown’s mental health. Whatever the reasons, it’s safe to assume that ‘Marr/Blair’ will not be appearing at our cinemas any time soon.

But one exchange was revealing. When asked about his dalliances with business, Blair replied:

“I had far more trouble, if I may say this to you, with union leaders demanding something back than I ever did with high value donors”. (more…)

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We need a more sophisticated response to the big society, says Peter Watt

15/09/2010, 09:00:11 AM

I know what is best for me and what is best for my family. You don’t.

I suspect that most people in the Labour party feel the same about themselves and their families. By and large, we are a pretty independently minded bunch which doesn’t take kindly to being told what to do, how to think and how to vote in (say) internal elections. Presumably this is because we think that we are intelligent, capable of free thinking and able to take decisions for ourselves?

So why do we think that voters want us making so many decisions for them? We have set rules about what school people can send their kids to; what, when and how their home-support services are delivered if they are infirm; when they can visit the GP; which part of town they can live in and even what sort of food they can eat or feed to their families. Of course if you are wealthy enough then you can bypass the rules that we set and decide for yourself. No, our rules are very inequitable and only apply to those who can’t afford to buy their way out of sticking to them. Understandably people are beginning to say “enough – I want to make some decisions for myself.”

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Blair was always the cynical grit in Labour’s oyster – which we still need, says Kevin Meagher

14/09/2010, 09:00:58 AM

“A cynic”, the American critic Ambrose Bierce noted, “is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.”

Tony Blair has been called a lot worse than a blackguard. He may well be a ‘faulty visionary’. He is, however, certainly a cynic; a 100% signed-up viewer of the motives of men as inherently base and self-interested.

As he briefly floated in and out of our parochial little orbit last week, our emeritus PM, now peacemaker-at-large and aspirant bookseller, had no shortage of cynical observations to dispense.

In his new memoir, A Journey, he breezily trashes signature Labour policies like the ban on fox-hunting and the freedom of information act. The former, in his view, unworkable, the latter too unpredictable. In a familiar riff on the obsolescence of ‘left’ and ‘right’ he even concedes that he does not consider himself on the left any more. He goes on to warn that voters do not want the state becoming a “major player” in the economy and that a drift leftwards will consign Labour to two terms in opposition. (more…)

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Bring back Peter Mandelson, says John Woodcock

13/09/2010, 09:00:07 AM

So, another Labour Party election process is getting underway as the finish line finally comes into view for the main race.

And now we know that the whole shadow cabinet will be elected, those of us in the Parliamentary party who aren’t putting ourselves forward are girding our inboxes ahead of the ballot in conference week.

Having myself been clogging up said inboxes during the select committee elections earlier this year, it ill behoves me to complain about people having the temerity to communicate their qualities to their colleagues ahead of this enormously important vote. (more…)

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Ed Balls may be winning the economic argument – but he could still be wrong, says Anthony Painter

10/09/2010, 02:22:53 PM

The consensus – and a fair consensus at that – is that Ed Balls has had a good war. He has punishingly exposed the illogic and perverse masochism of the school building cuts. Michael Gove, who before entering the department for education was the government’s highest flyer, now seems sheepish and cautious. He’s still standing but his confidence has taken an enormous knock.

And then came the Bloomberg speech. Widely lauded by some of the leading economics columnists including Martin Wolf and Samuel Brittan of the FT, its core plea for the government and British economics establishment not to repeat the deficit denialist errors of the past has struck a nerve. (more…)

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The government is set to break its promise on Equitable Life, says Stephen Timms

Eric Joyce on his journey to the shadow cabinet elections

David Miliband has won, says Dan Hodges.

Give us leadership, not dictatorship, says Michael Dugher

Shadow cabinet elections are stupid enough without voting stupidly too, says Lesley Smith

Making childish noises at the unions is not the way to lead Labour, says Dan Hodges

We need a more sophisticated response to the big society, says Peter Watt

Blair was always the cynical grit in Labour’s oyster – which we still need, says Kevin Meagher

Bring back Peter Mandelson, says John Woodcock

Ed Balls may be winning the economic argument – but he could still be wrong, says Anthony Painter

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