January 1st, 2011 — Politics (general)
Labour is ahead of the Conservatives in the polls by 2% or so. The coalition of Conservatives AND Liberal Democrats is seeing overall levels of dissatisfaction around 10% or so. What’s going wrong?
My view was that Ed Miliband would tack to the left to win the Labour leadership and then veer sharply to the centre, with a dash of populism. But that’s not proved to be the case. On a whole range of issues the Labour party has backed the government if it can’t oppose it from the left.
Prison reform – backing the government
Civil liberties – jettisoning their own election rhetoric
Europe – refusing to deal with Tory rebels
Immigration – quiet backing of Vince Cable’s numerous handbrake turns
In each case they are losing massive vote winning policies as well as turning down opportunities to make the coalition far more shaky than the tuition fees debate did.
There seems to be a view that Margaret Thatcher laid out her stall and the country came to her, and that Ed Miliband could do the same. The only problem is that the Tories had laid their stall out, in the Selsdon Park Hotel meeting in the late 1960s and the country rejected it. It was the national bankruptcy, and not the persuasive powers of Thatcher that turned the country right, just as the economic recovery of the 1990s turned the country slightly leftwards as they thought they could afford to spend a bit more on schools and hospitals.
Ed Miliband’s tries to appear like an Old Testament prophet while instead looking like King Canute. At least Canute was having a laugh about it, and he got off the beach before it got too wet.
October 6th, 2010 — Politics (general)
The deficit needs to be cut. The government is in the strange position that Labour is being blamed for the cuts, so there is a very real prospect that severe cuts – particularly if Labour act like a bunch of spoilt teenagers – could actually increase the government’s popularity.
However we need to keep economic activity up in order to soak up the unemployed and create the tax that will help us out of the hole. To do this we are playing Russian roulette with the money supply by expanding it and studiously talking about deflation when shop prices are rising at a fair clip. That can’t go on forever, and loosening the money supply now will mean a sharp correction later.
So what’s left? Deregulation. There’s no doubt that Labour never got small business, and there’s plenty of damage that’s being undone. How’s that doing?
We’ve had Lord Young‘s report on the Health and Safety culture, which even the Today programme seemed to like. And that was good.
But at the same time we had an Act coming into force that will threaten employers with court action from overheard office banter. How’s that supposed to encourage employing people? (Telecommuting may become far more popular with employers).
What were the coalition doing? Why didn’t they at least suspend this for a year.
A great deal was made about how we had to push the schools reform through, a good policy and far less radical than the rhetoric, but still there was obviously some parliamentary time to suspend this act. Even a year while the MPs looked at it again would have been a good idea.
The coalition relies on private business to pick up the economy. Stop treating private business as if it just turns up by magic. That was Gordon Brown’s job.
September 30th, 2010 — Politics (general)
From the Labour Party website, how the Ipswich Labour Party voted on first preferences:
ABBOTT, Diane 3.86% (National 7.34%)
BALLS, Ed 14.29% (National 10.11%)
BURNHAM, Andy 3.86% (National 8.55%)
MILIBAND, David 51.74% (National 44.06%)
MILIBAND, Ed 26.25% (National 24.93%)
In Ipswich
David Miliband ran home on the first round, considerably better than the national showing. Ouch. That must hurt. Is this the time for a new
SDP? Dame Bryony would then have some chance to represent where she lives.
It is interesting to see how Ed Balls, who like David Miliband paid some attention to the Labour Party in Ipswich came off quite badly. This is especially so when the whole Chris Mole gang threw their weight behind Ed Balls. Chris Mole, John Cook and Adam Leeder (candidate for the wholly owned
Suffolk Coastal subsidiary). After all that he only did marginally better than he did among the nationwide membership of the party.
It looks like a lot of people who were around Chris Mole are going to be thinking carefully about what this shows about Chris Mole’s influence in the party. Although you can never really get an accurate measure of an hysterical crowd, this seems to sink him. Looks like John Cook will be even more explicit in his bid for the Ipswich nomination.
Mama Bryony Rudkin must be feeling pleased, David Miliband’s most prominent Ipswich supporter from the start, and shows she has a constituency within the party. The Chris Mole / John Cook “no compromise with the voters” stance has been widely rejected. However her
result for the National Policy Forum (a reasonably narrow miss) was not so good. A shame really, as although I can’t pretend to rate her as a councillor, she’s a reasonably sensible – for Labour – voice in a party that needs a lot of sense at the moment.
David Ellesmere’s dithering was no credit to him. I’ve not heard much good said about his stance on this election and there does seem to be a sneaking realisation that he had some responsibility for the loss of the seat. Looks like wielding the knife won’t win the crown for the group leader. And even that’s in Martin Cook’s gift, so they say.
Ed Miliband scored a broadly in line with his showing among the nationwide membership, which probably makes no difference to the Tory dream of Labour running a suicide mission by putting up Sandy Martin.
By the way is the person who came last in the poll for the Eastern area in the National Policy Form vote, ”MACDONALD, Neil”, related to the Ipswich councillor?
