Punch drunk….
Until yesterday, British political life had been pretty sleepy, drowned out by the Olympic goldrush for Team GB the silly season seemed to be pottering away minding its own business and rarely getting even close to a grabbing the headlines. However, that all changed with the resignation of Louise Mensch from her seat in Parliament, representing, in the loosest sense of the word, the people of Corby and East Northampton. Mensch’s resignation, something she put down to family concerns, probably had no small amount to do with the fact that she was obviously facing a re-selection (let alone re-election) crisis. Personally, I would be very surprised if many within her own Party didn’t privately share the same disdain expressed by Norman Tebbit in his Daily Telegraph blog.
The significance of Corby is that it is a key marginal which the Conservatives are going to face an up-hill battle to retain. If Corby is lost, already jittery and restive backbench Conservative sharks are bound to become even more jittery and all the more likely to be openly rebellious. If things do not show dramatic signs of improvement the fear of losing their privileged place may even embolden them to challenge an already tottering leadership.
News of Mensch’s departure was quickly followed by an even more dramatic development. Nick Clegg suddenly grew a political backbone, pronounced the cause of House of Lords reform DOA and withdrew the Liberal Democrats support for the governments proposed boundary review and furiously accused his already troubled bed-fellows of breaking the Coalition contract. Nick Clegg really had no choice but to do this, this is what convinces me he actually will follow through this time. Constitutional reform may be a cause that is a fringe concern for the wider electorate but it is a very dear to yellow hearts. It defines them in their own minds as a Party as much as our support for say the NHS defines us. Nothing has been achieved in that area now and still the Lib Dems languish in the polls, hemorrhaging activists and voters at a alarming (for them) rate. Clegg may well be stupid and short-sighted but every politician carries within them a finely tuned survival instinct and his must be finally kicking in now.
Clegg’s attack on Labour regarding reform of the other place are not entirely without justification but it was his decision to the lead the Liberal Democrats into a Faustian Pact with David Cameron that shattered the progressive electoral bloc which could have brought about the changes that he claims to want to see. Labour voters combined with Liberal Democrat’s could have easily outvoted the Conservative bloc barring change. Clegg however chose short-term gain over long-term strategic common sense. Now he and his Party must live with the consequences of that.
Menaced on the right by its own backbenchers, facing an increasingly belligerent Liberal Democrat Party on its left, the government is fast running out of friends. Labour is not the opposition force that will eventually bring it down (though it will play its part), it is its own internal contradictions that will destroy it. What does this mean for Labour? Most importantly, it means we have to be ready should an early General Election come our way. This prospect which was once the subject of idle speculation but is fast becoming a more than likely reality. This means getting ourselves in a state of organisational and political readiness and doing that in the most democratic but also efficient fashion. This government is imploding fast and we have to be ready to respond, whether we get back into government or not may well depend on it.
The NHS is a lightning rod issue….
In the course of any government you get issues that act as a lightning rod for wider discontent. Look at Iraq; yes, people were agitated by the issue but it was also symptom of a wider discontent with Blair’s style of government. The complete fabrication over Weapons of Mass Destruction was the epitome of the spin over substance that slowly hollowed-out Labour in government out from the inside-out. This is why it finished Blair, to be brutal.
So it is with the NHS and this government. It’s quite right that people are concerned and lacking trust when it comes to the governments handling of what many across the political spectrum regard as a national treasure, it’s also symptomatic of wider discontent over the cuts. The real problem for Clegg and Cameron is that even if major concessions do now follow, given this, its likely to the beginning of serious and widespread resistance to their whole economic program. In other words, it could become the significant victory that is needed to give the anti-cuts movement momentum and much wider traction.
Norman Lamb’s concern that the changes are too ‘risky’ and too much too soon pretty much sums up what people feel about the governments economic strategy. As the bad data keeps rolling-in and people become increasingly more desperate this will move from being jitters to open rebellion. So, if Clegg did authorise his outburst then, yet again, this is a fantastically short-sighted gambit by somebody whose political myopia seems to know no bounds. In fact, it’s another example of his visceral opportunism; not of genuine conviction. Clegg’s bible, the Orange Book, actually goes much further than these proposals so how he can justifiably claim he is against them is totally beyond me. Obviously, he thinks it will benefit the Liberal Democrats electorally in the short-term, on May 5th, but the chances are it wont and in the longer-term it will lead to the rolling back of the governments entire strategy.
Normally, the level of individual rebellion by prominent figures we are seeing in this government would be associated with the decaying; fag-end stages of a government which has been in office for a good deal longer than this one has. I hope these proposals are stopped, not just because they are wrong, but if they are it will hasten the end of this governments entire economic strategy.
Why Liberal Democrats have passed the point of no return….
Yesterday was a perfect example of why those Liberal Democrats who think there is a way back for their Party are gravely mistaken. In what amounts to an act of charity, the government decided to give Nick Clegg a ‘plum job’ – launching a drive on social mobility; a subject likely to press all the right buttons for those Liberal Democrat voters queasy at sharing government with the Conservatives. However, within a matter of hours it was all going horribly wrong.
Up popped one of Clegg’s ex-interns, who was unpaid of course. This would have been embarrassing enough but by all accounts it seems this chap is actually much more articulate than the Deputy Prime Minister himself. Further was to follow as Clegg was forced to u-turn on ending unpaid Liberal Democrat internships by his own Party headquarters. Can it get worse? The answer is yes. Today, The Spectator has unearthed comments made by Clegg claiming credit for NHS Reforms he is now trying to tell us he is leading the fight against.
The media narrative is against them because in the public mind, the collective perception is that Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are either a) a joke and object of mockery or b) treacherous opportunists who are totally untrustworthy. I am genuinely not sure which is worse but the point is that neither is good and both are politically toxic. They are hated by the true-blue Conservatives because they are seen as a wishy-washy burden; they are obviously hated by the opposition, their ex-voters and the media.This is already so deeply ingrained in both the media narrative and the public psyche that short of a move which is seen as a wholesale change, and even here this would probably have to go as far as a organisational split, would offer any hope of rehabilitation.
In politics, a point exists from which there is no return and Clegg and the Liberal Democrats as they are passed that point a long time ago. Even if all their wildest dreams come true; the economy recovers and milk and honey flows through the streets, it won’t matter a jot because they have sunk so far in the public estimation. If that were to happen, its the Conservatives that would be credited not Clegg and his motley crew. Whatever happens they are heading into the electoral abyss; they have passed the point of no return and yesterday proves that.
Lansleys’ piece of pure theatre….
Andrew Lansleys’ ‘retreat’ on NHS Reforms today is pure theatre; a show put on to bewitch and bedazzle us. You don’t have to be particularly cynical or conspiratorial in your mind-set to follow the completely logical chain of events.
It was well trailed before the Liberal Democrat conference that the leadership was going to face a bumpy-ride on this issue so we can reasonably expect that Nick Clegg and other senior Liberal Democrats will have made their Cabinet colleagues well aware of this, and, since they will obviously want to assist Clegg and Co in maintaining their position, how to deal with this will have been discussed. At this point Lansley was primed to make his ‘retreat’ carefully choreographed to coincide with the end of the Liberal Democrat conference; thus making weary activists feel like they have achieved something and spreading a warm glow inside of them. Lansley was then activated the moment the vote went through.
Sadly though he couldn’t resist adding a little flourish which makes the stage-managed nature of this production blatantly obvious – saying the Liberal Democrats have made a ‘big difference’ to his proposals. Personally, I think it’s slightly disturbing if they make a bigger difference than the likes of the British Medical Association and actual healthcare professionals who Lansley has shown his tin ear too ever since they started criticising his brand of marketised madness.
This little episode is illustrative of a pattern which those opposing the cuts have to be aware of. First, we should be aware that a percentage of the cuts the government announces are in fact measures they never intend to take and whose sole purpose is to be retracted thus making the government look like its listening. I don’t know precisely how many or which ones but the proposed forest sell-off which never came to be strikes me as a possible candidate as do others like the attempt to cut Bookstart.
In general, I would say the dummy cuts are the ones where the amounts saved are small. The government thus ostensibly stands to lose more in political capital than it stands to gain in financial capital by making them. A campaign is then given a decent run, attracts star support and some momentum, and a u-turn is duly announced. This is then filed away for a rainy day in the run-up to the next election or a period of an acute governmental crisis to be part of a ‘yes it was tough but look what we saved’ narrative.
However, this strategy is far from foolproof. In fact, in the end it could backfire rather badly because it obviously conflicts with the line that the ‘cupboard is bare’ (thus terminally undermine the public support for cuts as being ‘necessary’) and/or could build the confidence of the anti-cuts movement to the point where it wins a significant victory which turns the tide decisively and irreversibly against the government. If this happens then the Conservative right, already irked beyond belief by a government they see as weak may move to effect a quick termination. That’s the gamble. That’s the chance Cameron and Clegg are taking. Whether it will pay-off or not is very much up in the air.
Perhaps the most decisive upcoming battle will be over the Hutton Report because it is the one which is most likely to see the government directly confront the unions and also consequentially cause immense problems for Labour. Some minor concessions will be announced during the consultation and then when the unions strike the ‘we did everything we could’ meme will be spun to high-heaven.
Of course, it will be said all this is conjecture and that’s largely true. None of this can be really definitively proved. In A Very British Coup, Harry Perkins is told by his Press Secretary of the conspiracy against him of which no proof exists since ‘these people do not sit in committee planning the downfall of the elected government, there are no minutes’; the point however, is not to prove its happening at all but to ‘know it is’. Similarly here, none of this can be definitively proved but all that is required in order to beat the government at its own game.
Want to save the NHS Lib Dems? Then join the opposition….
Larry the Cat stares sadly out the window as Clegg has forgotten to feed him AGAIN....
Go on, you can be candid here, admit it. You laughed like I did when you saw Nick Clegg’s solemn pledge to ‘protect the National Health Service from the profit motive’. That Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are hated and reviled is pretty much a given but soon they will be subjected to a much worse fate; they will exist only as objects of mockery and merriment. How can we take seriously a Deputy Prime Minister who sincerely opines that he ‘forgot’ it was his ‘turn’ to run the country? This quote is priceless and should be chiseled on the political tombstone that is currently being carved for Mr Clegg and his Party:
Asked if he was in charge of the nation, Mr Clegg told Metro: ‘Yeah, I suppose I am. I forgot about that.’
Clegg is also a proven serial political opportunist and liar. Why on earth would we trust this man again? I am sure the massed ranks of Liberal Democrats want too but that is because realistically they have no choice. They must be thrilled with the motion that they passed on the NHS – shame it doesn’t mean anything in the real world. Resolutions passed at a Liberal Democrat conference serve one purpose and one purpose only and that is to make their activists feel better about themselves, like they have sufficiently salved their social consciences. You want proof? Well, remember Free Schools which got them in an awful tizzy? They even went so-far as to rebel and pass a motion against them. Very noble. An act which the Liberal Democrat MP’s and leadership promptly ignored by sending the good ship Gove and his Free Schools sailing merrily through the Commons with a comfortable majority.
Similarly with this motion, all Clegg has promised to do in response to the motions call to halt the “damaging and unjustified” shake-up of GP services in England is ‘study this call carefully’. In other words, he will mouth platitudes exactly like the ones above and do nothing except deposit the motion in the nearest trash-can or maybe in Larry the Cat’s litter tray. He will do nothing because a) he believes in these changes and b) in any case, nothing is the sum total of what he is capable of doing. All those years spent mocking the impotency of the Labour membership is coming back to haunt the Liberal Democrat membership in spades as they are karmically repaid with banishment from effective control over their own party. Who says the universe has no sense of irony?
Comrades in Labour still mooning over a potential alliance with this spent political force are, to not put too fine a point on it, as politically spineless as the yellow peril themselves. Being used and abused obviously isn’t enough to hammer home reality to these people. In Leeds we know how it is, the charlatan Liberal Democrats attack a Labour council for making cuts while at the same time sitting in a government cutting central government funding to the bone. Danny Alexander tried a similar trick today; criticising Labour councils for not spending their cash reserves to protect vital services:
“You are seeing Labour councils up and down the land making all sorts of decisions where they deny the deficit on a national level but seem to be wanting to make very painful choices at a local level. On both counts, they are doing the wrong thing.
“Their irresponsibility on a national level is matched only by the sorts of cuts they are making on a local level.
Ed’s dangerous liaisons with Nick….
So, apparently our illustrious leader has been having secret meetings with Nick Clegg. Apparently they are not discussing the finer points of leadership (which, given their respective popularity ratings, they probably should be) but how Labour and the Liberal Democrats can work together on areas of ‘mutual interest’. In a style that we have come to expect from this leadership this is in some regards brazenly arrogant and presumptions. How, when it comes to AV, can Mr Miliband offer our ‘co-operation’ when supporting AV is not the Party’s policy but his own and the leaderships?
Nonetheless, I am sure all this will please the literati that lives in the pages of the liberal press. However, Labour members have every reason to feel, well, a little ticked-off especially as a fair proportion of them are about to enter bruising election campaign against the Lib Dems and are probably sick of hearing the ‘yellow peril’ trash Labour’s record on everything from here to eternity. First it must be pointed out that this is yet another Ed Miliband u-turn. Here is what Ed thought of Nick just a few months ago:
Nick Clegg,” he says icily, “is a betrayal of the Liberal tradition. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are texting each other like teenagers in love because they agree with each other. It’s not some forced marriage, they ideologically agree with each other.
Reading this you can’t help but think, in his head Miliband imagines himself as the ‘unbroken thread’ of ‘liberal tradition’ as opposed to the traitor Clegg and in actual fact, Labour tradition as well. I digress. Even if we accept Miliband is entitled to change his mind, which he is, it would be nice to have an explanation and for him to drop the pretence this has been his attitude all along. The only time I have been in favour of such a union is when, as a Liberal Democrat, I desperately wanted to leave and return to Labour but wasn’t quite ready to make the leap. So, psychologically, arguing for the two to unite made sense in a way that only denial really does.
Ed’s attitude however, makes no kind of logical sense. In general, his attitude towards the Liberal Democrats as a Party and indeed Clegg personally is becoming a huge embarrassment for Labour. He is beginning to make himself look like a lovestruck puppy that attaches itself to any old passing leg and clings on for dear life in hope more than expectation. I suspect this is amusing for Liberal Democrats but less so for Labour members. One group that definitely is laughing are the Conservatives – read this in The Spectator if you don’t believe me.
Of course, we want the support of ex-Lib Dems but one wonders why people who have just been rather sold down the river would want to see Mr Miliband swooning at feet of the person who just so viscously abused their political trust. They probably don’t and this is why we recruited more ex-Lib Dems when we reflected the pain they felt at the betrayal they had just suffered. Given that Miliband’s advances make little sense in this respect they tend to illicit the nagging suspicion the real agenda is to have a serious go at severing Labour’s historic links with the labour movement. Not even Tony Blair was stupid enough to have a real go at this particular wheeze but then again he did have a coherent vision for the Party and the country, love it or loath it, and that gave him a sight more about him than Miliband possesses.
What peculiar kind of madness makes Miliband thinks he can succeed? Again, perhaps its desperation. Perhaps he wants this to be his ‘legacy’. Sadly, its a comment on his complete lack of political judgement that he wants to tie Labour to the political equivalent of the Titanic and seems to feel this is a somehow ‘inspired’ move.
EMA and the crisis of democracy….
So, EMA has been scrapped. Sadly, not entirely unexpected. No doubt there will be bitter recriminations and rightfully so; both the government and the critics of EMA boarded the last train out of the real world some time ago. Tales of feckless students ‘living it large’ on a whopping £30 per week really sound as fantastical as they no doubt are. Obviously the people who make these bold claims simply don’t go out at all if they did, they would know that living the high life on £30 per week is pretty much impossible.
However, its now true that students have been subjected to the same treatment that is meted out to the socially excluded and marginalised more generally. A stereotype is created which has just enough purchase in reality (exceptions exist to every wild generalisation) to gain currency amoung the wider populace. This is then used as an excuse to beat you down, marginalise you and generally disenfranchise you. Your opinion doesnt count for much and nobody listens; then people act surprised and shocked when, having had enough, you start ‘acting-up’.
Democratically, however, this creates severe problems because representative democracy starts, slowly but surely, to become well errrr less representative. And this is what is happening now coupled with a slow-burning crisis of faith in the entire premise of the system. Of course, politicians don’t mind this as long as they can still get elected. However, they should beware because this disaffection, this crisis of faith, will result in a backlash. It’s only a matter of time. I call the tidal wave of sometimes highly irrational anger over the MP’s expenses system as my first witness that attests to this inevitability.
The government will only make this problem worse. This problem has always afflicted the poorest, most vulnerable in society who are made so partially by their lack of interested representation. Labour, incidentally, does nothing to change this; it’s as obsessed with the middle classes as the Clegg’s and Cameron’s of this world. However, this government is distant even from them and its not long before they will experience things that have previously been reserved for ‘benefit scroungers’. Soon, they will be as marginalised and demonised as the rest of us and then when that process if complete the crisis will reach tipping point. You can already see the beginnings of this in the fees debate (something that hits hard against aspirational middle class homes as it does poor, working class ones).
How can David Cameron and Nick Clegg even begin to comprehend the worries of the insecure middle classes let alone societies poorest? The simple answer is they cannot. They can talk the talk but never walk the walk. Similarly, Labour currently offers them nothing apart from cold comfort and deliberately vague and vacuous promises. It simply can’t provide a platform to ensure their stability because the social system can’t provide that anymore. Capitalism is cannibalising the middle classes and that presents a huge opportunity for the left.
We have a huge opportunity to reinvent democracy and in doing so society. This isn’t an abstract matter of aspiration but a necessity; we need a democracy that serves the interest of all the people and the only kind of democracy that does that is direct democracy. It’s not inevitable that the current crisis of representative democracy will resolve itself positively. Equally a possibility is that it can be resolved negatively as the tendency towards political nihilism by those dispossessed by this rotten system shows. The first step to winning this battle is not committing the cardinal sin of seeing everything as being economic and realising that the cuts agenda, the marginalisation of the unions, the debt panic are all part of a crisis of a wider crisis of democracy caused by an anti-democratic and barbaric capitalist system.
Desperation thy name is the Liberal Democrats….
So, Labour won the Oldham East and Saddleworth by election with a majority of over 3,500. You might think this would be a time for sober reflection within the huddled ranks of Nick Clegg’s diminishing yellow army. In fact, most have taken the opportunity to bury their head much more firmly in the sand. Understandable in a way; the reality is obviously far too much for these fragile souls to bear. Traumatised by double-crossing themselves and the increasingly hacked-off people who voted for them the last thing they now want to deal with is the slow, painful, extinction of the party they are clinging for dear life too.
However, that is what is happening. Yes, the Lib Dem vote *share* went up 0.3% in Oldham East and Saddleworth. Two things caused this though; neither of which will ever be repeated again. One was understandable residual sympathy for Elwyn Watkins who was somewhat unfairly deprived of his moment of glory by a racist bigot who was economical with the truth. The second thing is the tactical votes of Conservatives.
The first thing wont last for ever, even if Elwyn runs again. He lost fairly and squarely this time around. Besides, what are you going to do? Take every Labour candidate up-and-down the land to court so you can play the martyr in every corner of the country? I think not.
Now, I have a little puzzle for our yellow friends. I am loaned £1 million am I a millionaire? Obviously not but according to the tortured logic of the Lib Dem desperados I obviously am. For the slow-of-thinking let me explain this simple truth – those Conservatives wont vote for you at either the local elections elsewhere or the next general election whenever that may be. You lost over a 1/3rd of your vote to Labour in OES and that was with the ’empathy for Elwyn’ cusion. What do you honestly think is going to happen elsewhere?
Still when all else fails there is always the ‘blame game’ and as LabourList reports it seems to be the new Lib Dem ‘strategy’. One that is so complex it seemingly can be contained on a roughly A5 size piece of card. The Lib Dem high-command obviously does think their voters are stupid. So stupid in fact that they will forget who is in national government and who is slashing the grant from central government to councils with abandon. Maybe this is an extension of the pathetic whining that is always used to excuse a Lib Dem poor performance – lack of media coverage and exposure (this laughably started to appear as soon as the LD poll rating started to plummet). The Party which holds the Deputy Prime Minister post and senior ministerial positions simply must be starved of media coverage. The poor lambs. Maybe they do wish they could vanish into thin air but guess what? We wont let them.
Incidentally, after 5 years (or however long) of countering this garbage I would expect no Labour member with an ounce of self-respect to want anything to do with this pariaiah party – led by Calamity Clegg or not. The demise of the Liberal Democrats as a political party will not just rid of us those risible bar charts but also bring the frankly alarming state of high self-delusion amoung Liberal Democrats to a cruel but necessary end. Sometimes cruelty is kindness and these people deserve at least to be put out of their misery and be allowed to take their place in the real world.
Which way will Oldham East and Saddleworth go?
A nation is on tenterhooks for the answer to this question. Well, maybe not quite but as a 3-way marginal it is by some considerable degree the most interesting of the now three by-elections on the cards. Turnout, incidentally, will probably give us a very early indication of the way it will go; a low turnout and it’s bad news for Labour. A high one will almost certainly indicate a good result. Polling close is just over an hour so let’s try and look at the only 3 outcomes I feel are now ‘in-play’.
A Liberal Democrat win.
This is, in my eyes, improbable but not impossible. If at 10 the turnout is confirmed as being very low then I suspect this is the way things will go. It’s all down to voter motivation you see. The Liberal Democrat vote, were it not for the Coalition, would be highly motivated and on-top of the local factors would most likely form a highly energised minority. As it is, the size of this vote will in my eyes be reduced (not having enough switchers from the Conservatives to compensate for their loses). Nonetheless it will remain highly motivated so a low turnout could see Oldham East turn yellow on the backs of a highly energersied minority and some tactical voting by erstwhile Conservative voters.
Labour Majority of between 1 – 2000.
The question here will be how large the majority is; if its a reduced one, even with a Labour win, it will be a very bad result for Labour. It will move the focus of the media narrative away from ‘Lib Dem crisis’ to Ed Miliband’s crisis very quickly indeed. A majority of between 1 and 2 thousand will be a solid but not spectacular performance. The media focus will remain on the Liberal Democrats and their problems but you cant help escaping the feeling we could have done a little better. Nonetheless, those who feel we should will be drowned out by the rejoicing…
Labour Majority of 2000+
Again, its a question of degrees but as soon as we enter this area we are into more impressive territory. This is meltdown time for the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg because a Labour majority of over 2,000 in the context of a seat where they had alot of local factors running their way will be crushing for the morale of not just local but also national activists. May and its potential massacre will start to loom large and the drip-drip of council defections may well become a flood as former Liberal Democrats dash to save their seats. If the Labour majority exceeds 5,000 then expect major ructions within the Liberal Democrats, starting tomorrow morning.
My Prediction: Labour Majority between 1,500 and 2,000. A solid but not spectacular result which is the minimum we should expect in the national climate.
Lib Dems in Oldham are polls apart from reality…..
The Deputy Director of Campaigns for the Liberal Democrats in the North and seeming Oldham stalwart, Dave McCobb obviously gets his opinion polls mixed up quite easily. His latest email includes this howler:
The latest opinion poll for the Mail on Sunday showed there was just 1% between us and Labour.
Actually, the ICM poll in the Mail on Sunday has Labour 17% ahead of the Liberal Democrats. The only poll to show the small gap given is the Survation one which has several problems; not least a very small sampling size (just 225 people took part) and high rejection rate (47%). Incidentally, as far as I know this has led to the Survation poll not being actively taken-on by any of the heavyweight newspapers. Really, we know things must be getting desperate at Lib Dem HQ but a) you should perhaps clean your email lists a bit more assiduously (been a Labour member for over a year now) and b) before you go mouthing off about ‘Labour lies’ you should get your own facts straight….
Moments of Clarity 
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