November 6th, 2010 — Politics (general)
Even the most loyal Labour scribe (also known as Paul Geater) admits that there is an 11% cut in the nominal income for Suffolk County Council, and in a time or rising prices this is a far larger real cut. Suffolk County Council have a plan that they think will save the most services by drastically squeezing efficiencies and using the private sector.
You would think that this would put the Labour group in a quandry. After all if Unison get their way, and the plans are shelved this will mean that the cuts will have to be deeper than they are currently planned to cover for the administrative roles that Unison wants to save. That’s basic arithmetic. In Bridge and other Labour held wards the council services are far more used than they are in richer wards. So supporting Unison will mean hurting Labour constituents in return for rewarding Labour donors.
But Unison members are vastly over represented in both Labour Party membership and in Labour party funds.
So who do Sandy Martin and Dame Bryony represent, their donors or their voters?
Unison is the Countryside Alliance of the Labour Party, they may have money and activists – but you don’t really want to show them to the public. By all means let them help – but treat them like the junior partner that they are and don’t let them dictate policy as they have been doing locally. Unison need Labour in a way that Labour simply does not need Unison.
By not realising this Sandy Martin has proved that although he may be a good local representative he’s just not ready for the big time. Not ready in the slightest.
October 31st, 2010 — Politics (general)
- How not to get the protest votes. Image via Wikipedia
A couple of interesting posts surfaced today. One is from political betting which shows that a small majority of Labour voters support the housing benefit cuts and another is from Peter Black which points out that the cap on housing benefits was actually in the election manifesto. For Labour. (Guido Fawkes points out that Conservative Central office missed a trick on this, and it’s hard to disagree).
The opposition smacks of a party that has a lot of middle aged public sector middle managers and senior professionals who’ve flocked to property investing in the last decade. Let’s be honest, these will be the ones who really feel the pain of housing benefit cuts as they find that they have no choice but to cut the rents.
Of course you can sustain a political party’s membership on that narrow sociological base, but you can’t win a general election. So bringing us to the hiving off of services.
There is a lot to worry about from a left wing point of view, but the idea that it is bad because Unison say so will not really cut it with the electorate. Sooner or later the Tories, even the Suffolk Conservative group, will manage to work out that it’s possible to win votes by saying that Labour cares more about Unison members than it does about the people who receive or pay for the services. There’s no credible Labour plan and if they were to get in the whole place would collapse.
To be really brutal about it, Unison will have to take whatever crumbs Labour gives it. Where else can they go? Labour should be opposing selectively, while accepting the need for deep cost cuts. The fact that Labour have subcontracted their thinking about the direction of Suffolk County council to a group that in reality depends entirely on them for any influence at all is pathetic and shows that Sandy Martin really is not up for the job of Labour Group leader.
If you’re going to be pushed around by Unison, how are you going to stand up to people who don’t need you – like the government?
October 28th, 2010 — Politics (general)
With no MPs outside Luton, the Labour Party is relying on their sole MEP in the region, Richard Howitt, to put their message across. And what a confusing message that’s been. Child allowances for Wayne Rooney, higher tax funded rents for Michael Meacher, truly they have stopped being the people’s party and become the parasites’ party, a gaggle of public sector middle managers fearing accountability and budget cuts.
As if to hone that message, Richard Howitt has rebelled against the Labour whip to vote for more money for the European Union at the same time that Chantry and Stoke Park High schools have lost their capital injections.
Is this anything to do with the fact that he claimed £78,248.42 in expenses?
When there looked like a clean sweep of the East of England MPs I remember thinking that having Howitt around would be good for democracy. Now I wish UKIP got their third European seat here. Just as mad, but more entertaining.
October 28th, 2010 — Politics (general)
I well remember a dire leaflet given out by Labour which was wholly devoted to whether or not we would be in a unitary authority with Capel St. Mary. They were right on the issue, but far removed from the worries of the people in Bridge. Being a safe ward they thought they could get away with that sort of rubbish. And they did.
Well they’ve tightened up their act as their latest leaflet shows. They lead with local campaigns and they even have some big society sort of stuff on the back page. No mention of their belittling of all the community groups in Bridge. As Peter Mandelson points out attacking the idea of the big society is pure stupid, as Labour will find out.
I get the horrible sinking feeling that they will be back to ignoring Bridge if they ever make this ward safe.
October 27th, 2010 — Politics (general)
Firstly we had Labour’s outrage about high earners losing their child benefit. Why would they oppose something so outrageously popular? Universality of benefits was the line, but considering the means tested additions that they made to pensions that sounds hollow. Of course every MP is a 40% taxpayer by the very fact that they’re an MP. And so are most of their friends. They could not see that their outrage was not shared by their supporters.
But the housing benefit situation is less explicable. As John Rentoul, a New Labour man to his marrow, says:
I suspect Miliband conveyed the wrong message to the country, which simply cannot understand why so many billions of taxpayers’ money is poured into such a badly-designed benefit that undermines work incentives, profits landlords and keeps property prices higher than they would otherwise be.
Spot on. Hopefully Labour activists aren’t still so obsequious that they are hiding the fact that the voters really, really hate being taxed for benefits – and large single parent families in mansions are riling people up.
So why is Labour seemingly keen on re-inventing themselves as the party of upper-upper-middle-class privilege?
It may be the second part of this “profits landlords and keeps property prices higher than they would otherwise be“. MPs, Conservative and Labour like Buy To Let, you only need to look at the register of member’s interests. But its also a sign of where the Labour Party is now compared to even twenty years ago. They are older on average than they were (as are all three main parties) and they are also considerably more middle class (here we could name, but won’t a few councillors). The comfortably off public sector middle manager approaching retirement will have some spare money. They didn’t join the Labour Party or the public sector due to an interest in accounts and economic data, so they will be looking for an investment they understand. And it won’t be the stock market.
Tories buy shares, socialists buy houses. It’s not the cleaner that they’re worried about, it’s the over priced house with the over priced rent.
October 7th, 2010 — Politics (general)
Is Silent Street changing hands, perhaps to the National Labour Party? Could someone who knows please email me.
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 28th, 2010 — Politics (general)
For reasons that puzzle me I am still getting gossip from the Ipswich Labour Party. Two different facts from two different people:
1. The Ipswich Labour Party could not get a stand together for the Suffolk University College freshers’ fair. The Tories did. The Lib Dems did too, during their party conference week. A couple of left wing students are mighty annoyed, apparently.
2. Membership figures have been shown to me which show that while there are 16 members who are “young” (under 28) there are 98 who are pensioners. The Ipswich Labour Party is more than six times as likely to be eligible for a free bus pass than a young person’s rail card.
These two facts are not inconsistent.
Bridge Ward News. You’re go to site for Ipswich Labour gossip.
September 18th, 2010 — Politics (general)
I was canvassing with Ben Gummer and quite a large group of us on the Maidenhall Estate, and I was shocked not at the hostility to the cuts – which is still not there, although the fear certainly is – but at an anger that people still have with Labour for lying to them about the finances. When you’re being compared to Greece you’re in trouble (actually that wasn’t this week, but it’s been heard many times before).
As some of my Labour readers have still not yet decided how to vote I will just point to that anger and also point to the best way to get yourself out of a hole is to stop that Ed Balls with his bloody big excavator. Which is why it can’t be David Miliband. He will allow Ed Balls in as the shadow chancellor and it will simply be telling the British public that they need to borrow more to spend on sundry Labour donors. We Tories are going to be merciless if you do that.
Ben Gummer said that my previous endorsement of the younger and less odd looking brother was “the worst piece you’ve ever written”, which is saying something as that includes my pieces on Europe. I would like to point out that David M got in trouble around about the time of Ben’s endorsement, and yet Ed started to pull away when I endorsed him. A tribute to the influence that Bridge Ward News yields that even surprised me.
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September 17th, 2010 — Politics (general)
Labour are really confident that they will get Bridge next time, despite the fact that they lost by 13 votes at the last County Council election. I have been given a copy of their internal newsletter. As far as I can see it’s published on the internet so I’ve put it up here: Ipswich Labour Internal Member’s Newsletter.
Of course there’s the lie that Ben Gummer (or Benedict as they keep on calling him) does not have a constituency office – saying that his lack of a shop front means that there’s no office at all. I can almost understand them trying to scare their own voters due to poor turnout, but lying to their own membership? Doesn’t show a healthy street presence if they need to do that.
Their main point seems to be about the leadership election. From the pictures and the tone it seems that there is an Ed Balls supporter is editing it, and sure enough John Cook is the main contact on the leaflet. I wonder what happened to his undying love for Norwich North? Surely it can’t be the 4,000 Tory majority?
But there’s an interesting note about the candidate selection which is Saturday 18th September in the Ipswich Labour Club, 33 Silent Street. It’s closed to all but paid up members, but members from outside Bridge are perfectly entitled to select Phil Smart, I’m sorry decide the Labour candidate for Bridge. Anyway, this is the order in which the seats will be selected:
- Gainsborough
- Gipping
- Westgate
- Priory Heath
- Bridge
- St John’s
- Sprites
- Whitehouse
- Rushmere
- Alexandra
- Whitton
- Stoke Park
This means that this is the order which they expect to win the seats. That’s because Labour like to put their council leadership people into seats where they don’t have to campaign or do casework. They thing that Gainsborough and Gipping are ultra safe, but then they have Westgate, Priory Heath and Bridge. We’re safer than Sprites (where a large chunk of the Chantry Estate is).
One thing that drives me to distraction is how Labour thinks that the only thing that the people of Bridge should do is shut up and vote Labour.
