Monday, January 11, 2016 

The intrinsic irony of Labour's infighting.

There are a whole number of ways someone could respond to the resignation of shadow attorney general Catharine McKinnell.  You could for instance just say "sorry, who?" and leave it at that.  Kevan Jones is practically a household name in comparison to McKinnell.  Alternatively, you could cluck, point out that Corbyn's critics seem incapable of so much as synchronising their resignations, remark about piss-ups and breweries, and note how bad as Corbyn and his team are, the organisational skills of his deeply concerned and dignified opponents turn out to be worse.  Then there's a third way: giggling at the incongruous nature of McKinnell's resignation letter, where she records her distress at "the direction and internal conflict" within the party and her fears about the "increasingly negative path" it appears to be taken.  By resigning she obviously isn't adding to either of these problems, and is returning to the backbenches purely out of concern for her constituents.

In truth it's getting rather tiresome.  Had all those who've now resigned done so en masse, it might have had more impact, but doing so separately has also ensured there is not the slightest possibility the media will focus on anything else.  Admittedly, this has not been helped by the silliness of Seumas Milne complaining to the BBC about the co-opting of Stephen Doughty's resignation by Laura Kuenssberg and the Daily Politics.  Yes, it was on the brink of heading into outright bias, and had the BBC done similar with a government minister you can guarantee there would be screams of outrage from the Tories, yet it's not worth getting into a slanging match with one of the few media outlets that doesn't hate the Labour party for atavistic reasons over it.  Better time would be spent focusing on what it says about Doughty, Jonathan Reynolds and their politics.  The same applies to Alison McGovern, who announced her resignation from a review that hasn't even started yet on the Sunday Politics.  Objecting to John McDonnell daring to describe Progress as a "hard right" force within Labour, McGovern stated how she had been backed "into a corner" by a such a calumny and didn't want to be on TV but had been forced into making such a gesture.

We shouldn't ignore how some of the coverage is without question a direct result of Corbyn's questionable decisions and manoeuvres.  He does of course have every right to want to make the party bend his way; doing so over Trident is however asking for it.  Taxpayer's money could be sent on innumerable better things than a replacement for the four Vanguard subs, and there are outright alternatives to Trident that ought to be considered more seriously than has been by the government.  This said, rightly or not, there are reasons as to why adopting an unilateralist position as Corbyn clearly wants to is so opposed by others in the party, and not only by the usual headbanging suspects or those in the constituencies set to be most affected were a replacement not to go ahead.  Making Trident out to be the ultimate insurance policy is an easy sell; convincing voters why we should abandon it in a world where threats, both from state and non-state actors look to be increasing is far more difficult.  When otherwise loyal ministers like Owen Smith make clear how they would have to consider their position if policy is changed, Corbyn and his team ought to look again at the pace at which they are trying to push through their agenda.

McKinnell's resignation nonetheless all but condemns the party to another week of navel-gazing.  Considering Corbyn made a decent impression on this morning's Today programme, surprising some by not ruling out drone strikes like the one that killed Mohammad Emwazi, whether or not that was more Corbyn getting used to answering, or rather not answering "gotcha" questions, it's all the more disappointing.  It also leaves the Tories to carry on pursuing their partisan deconstruction of the country with hardly any real opposition.  David Cameron's announcement on rebuilding "sink estates", where anything up to 100 of these post-war developments will have £140m to share between them would be laughable were it not so transparent: expect repeats across the country of the Heygate estate debacle, where Southwark council sold it to private developers for a pittance, without putting any conditions on the purchasers Lend Lease to provide "affordable" housing themselves.

At the same time as junior doctors are getting smeared by Jeremy Hunt ahead of their first strike tomorrow, and three dates for further tube strikes have been announced, the government is set on making it as difficult as possible to withdraw labour in protest.  By the same token, Labour is also to be prevented from being funded as it has been for decades, as we can't have ordinary people donating to political parties.  Cameron himself meanwhile, unlike McGovern, genuinely has backed himself into a corner on Europe.  Just as only days ago he was making clear cabinet ministers would have to resign to campaign for an out vote in the referendum once he concludes his renegotiation, so now he protests should he lose the vote he will not be on his way.  Yeah, and the three bears.  If the prime minister is worried about how he's going to have to rely on non-Tory voters for an in vote, then he's not showing it.  Likewise, Osborne might be talking a mere six weeks after his autumn statement about an economic "cocktails of threats", and McDonnell might have made a fist of challenging him on it, but much of the rest of the party is more interested in getting rid of him than they are the actual chancellor.

I can't claim to have an answer.  Both sides could do with at least taking a look at Steven Baxter's advice, only the opposition to Corbyn shows no signs of recognising they aren't offering a viable alternative.  When they would counter by saying Corbyn isn't viable either, and it doesn't seem as though the passing of time is going to make them any more accepting of the leader, it's difficult to know how this can end without the party ending up even further from power.  Neither side seems to appreciate that irony.

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1/11/2016 04:49:00 pm | |

Wednesday, January 06, 2016 

Do they have an aim other than MAD?

It apparently takes a Labour reshuffle to fully highlight the deficiencies of the new journalism.  Live blogs, tweeting, rather than add to insight they provide the opposite, keeping hacks from doing what they normally would have done, which is actually talk to the people involved.  We had nigh on two days of no one having the slightest idea what was happening, whether anything even was happening, and not all of that can be blamed on the slowness of Jeremy Corbyn making his decisions.  This piece by Chris Mason rather sums it up: it's not entirely fair to pick solely on him or the BBC for this, but reading it anyone would think we're more interested in his experience of the reshuffle as a reporter rather than what happened and what it means.  Instead it was left to Paul Waugh, of the otherwise execrable Huffington Post, to finally throw some light on proceedings this morning.

Whether Waugh's account can be relied on fully is unclear, as reading between the lines it seems to be informed directly by both Hilary Benn and Corbyn, or at least someone on Corbyn's team.  Contrary to all the speculation, Benn's position was never so much as threatened by Corbyn, nor has there been any grand deal between the two whereby Benn has been "muzzled".  Apparently agreed instead was Benn will not go out of his way to pick any fights, with Corbyn having overall control of foreign policy direction.  The discussions and reshuffle itself took so long as both men wanted to sleep on what they had talked about, only to find themselves tied up most of yesterday by urgent questions in the House.

As said, whether you believe all that is up to you.  Whether it always was the case the likes of Seumas Milne and others by Corbyn's side were arguing for him to dump Benn and briefing that to hacks, while Corbyn himself had not made up his mind or had no intention of doing so, we don't know.  Equally, we don't know whether Corbyn was persuaded against moving Benn by the potential for a mass shadow cabinet walkout, or if it was just another reason as to why he was always going to ignore the advice given him.

Certainly unhelpful to the arguments of the sacked Michael Dugher and others within Labour that this all links back to briefing by Milne or others within the Corbyn team though is Andrew Sparrow's assessment.  He denies he received any lobbying from the Corbyn team about "revenge reshuffles", while acknowledging there was always a plan for some sort of move in the new year.  Indeed, he points to the first major article talking of a "revenge reshuffle" originating in the Observer at the beginning of December, where the sources for the piece were clearly those "fearing" just such a move.

Enough anyway with the surmising.  The end result of the reshuffle is two shadow ministers sacked, and the shadow defence secretary moved sideways to fill the gap left at culture with Dugher gone. In other words, more shadow ministers have resigned over the party leader having the audacity to you know, act like a leader, than were dispensed with by the leader.  No one can decide whether this is weakness, strength, Corbyn attempting to take control of party policy or in fact still being too hapless to do so, or whether it matters in the long term.  We have nonetheless had the usual apocalyptic warnings of how all this means Labour is doomed to defeat, how Dugher, Pat McFadden and Kevan Jones were the finest of their generation, and so on.

What really offends is the disingenuousness, the outright obtuse behaviour of McFadden and his allies.  How could you possibly object to what I said, he wailed, along with Ian Austin, Liz Kendall, et al.  Yes, how could Corbyn possibly have thought McFadden's question to Cameron during the debate on the Paris attacks was directed at him?  After all, McFadden was merely asking the prime minister to reject the view "that sees terrorist acts as always being a response or a reaction to what we in the West do".  He only asked the question despite a certain Ian Austin making almost exactly the same point, despite others on the right of the party also standing up during that session and all but saying Corbyn was a dangerous lunatic, who in the words of Ben Bradshaw wasn't so much as sure if he'd "shoot dead genocidal fascists".

Context is everything, which is precisely what McFadden and the others don't want to consider or discuss.  McFadden is perfectly entitled to criticise Corbyn for his views on foreign policy; when however he did so in the Commons, and at the same time as others in the PLP all but declared open mutiny, then to feign surprise when it finally catches up him with him is facetiousness of the lowest order.  McFadden was making a straw man argument of the kind that led directly to Cameron deciding he could get away with calling Corbyn a "terrorist sympathiser".  It would also matter less if McFadden's rhetorical flourish was as compelling as he thinks it is.  The attacks in Paris were obviously not the West's fault, and the responsibility does solely lie with the terrorists responsible.  It is not to infantilise those responsible however to make the argument, as Corbyn did, that the past 14, soon to be 15 years of war have far from making us safer and the Middle East a better place had the opposite effect.  Agree with it or not, it's an entirely permissible view which is not to blame victims or do any of the other scandalous things those so disgusted by Corbyn's consistent view on foreign policy insist it implies.

Besides, McFadden can hardly say he wasn't warned.  Corbyn made clear to the shadow cabinet after Maria Eagle all but agreed with the Tories' tame general on Trident that he wanted an end to the disagreements in public.  In turn, Corbyn has removed the two ministers who most egregiously flouted that request, and shifted the minister who made him issue it in the first place.  Who here is being unreasonable exactly?  Let's remember how brutal Ed Miliband was with Emily Thornberry over her "snobbery" tweet, the kind of over-the-top act of media management which most agree turns ordinary people off from politics.  Few at the time stood up and said hang on, this is ridiculous and downright silly. They went along with it.  Now, when a shadow minister who implied his own leader had to readjust his entire world-view in a question to the prime minister no less is sacked, we have others who resign in protest, calling it "vindictive".

Which poses the question, what exactly do these Jonathan Reynolds, these Stephen Doughtys, these Kevan Joneses and all the rest think they are achieving by resigning to inflict the maximum damage possible, by carrying on the briefings, by making accusations that can't be substantiated, by doing interviews with more than sympathetic hacks, delighted that the feuding continues?  Do they really believe it will help Labour in the long term?  Do they genuinely think it will lead to Corbyn being deposed sooner rather than later?  Do they honestly imagine the Labour membership will realise their mistake and elect someone more to their liking should they succeed?

Let's put it this way.  I joined Labour as a registered member and voted for Liz Kendall.  I don't in my heart of hearts believe Corbyn can possibly win in 2020.  I think his performance in general has been barely adequate so far, and both he and his wider team have been woeful at the times they needed to radiate strength.  I thought I'd reached the point with the stupidity of the McDonnell Little Red Book stunt and the fact the party barely responded at all to the autumn statement/spending review where I couldn't really defend Corbyn and co any more.  The histrionics over the Syria vote, the obsession with Stop the War, which as we've seen today is still going on, the contempt for those daring to lobby Labour MPs over said vote, and now the reaction to what is the most meagre of reshuffles imaginable, it makes me, far from a "Corbynista", want to go on giving him the benefit of the doubt.  Not least when there is still no alternative and those on the opposing side are so petty, so intractable, so fatuous.  If that's what I think, what do the "Corbynistas", what does the wider membership, what does the public?  It's reached the point where some genuinely want their party to fail, imagining that by bringing it down, through the equivalent of mutually assured destruction if necessary, the party will be better off in the long run.  It won't.  Stop believing it will.

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1/06/2016 09:09:00 pm | |

Tuesday, January 05, 2016 

That reshuffle, and "low-level non-violent misogyny".

Are there a more benighted people in this country than the poor, suffering souls of the Birmingham Yardley constituency?  Up until May they were lumbered with the self-promoting Lib Dem John Hemming, who repeatedly made use of parliamentary privilege for his own ends, much to the delight of the press when it came to naming Sir Fred Goodwin for taking out a super-injunction, and much to the distress of others involved in legal proceedings involving Vicky Haigh.  Hemming made a habit of naming individuals who were meant to be protected as court proceedings were ongoing, including doing so on Mumsnet, where he was banned for doing so.  Fortunately, his constituents decided he should also be banned from representing them.

Less fortunately, they decided that Labour's Jess Phillips should replace him.  Phillips seems intent on following the Danczuk pathway to MP super-stardom, where the sufferer believes that constantly spouting what the media wants to hear will be enough to save them should their new friends eventually tire of the act.  As the last few days have proved, going down the Danczuk route only guarantees that eventually the media will turn on you.  They always will, they always do.  One minute you're earning thousands of pounds writing articles for the Sun and Mail outlining how your party leader is an idiot and it'll be when, rather if, you'll be sacked, the next those same newspapers have found a teenager who you sexted, complete with an (alleged) sideline in selling soiled undergarments, natch, and what do you know, that same party leader has found his excuse to get rid of you.  And it's the fault of everything except your being a priapic halfwit, obviously.

For now at least, Phillips gives great copy.  She'll stab Corbyn in the front if she believes he's harming the party's electoral chances.  Don't lecture her on how to vote on Syria, as even though she voted against, "people will die no matter what decision was made", responsibility when it's British pilots, planes and bombs involved apparently not making any difference to her thinking.  And while the rest of us can move on, her "card is marked", as Phillips is never knowingly under-dramatic.  Indeed, in keeping with that theme, she's now upped the criticism of her party leader for not giving a woman one of the four shadow "great offices of state" to being "low-level non-violent misogyny".  No longer is Corbyn merely sexist for his choices, it's proof he hates women.  At a low-level and non-violently, anyway.

It's worth keeping all this in mind when considering the quite believable stupidity of the coverage of the is it or isn't it reshuffle of the past 48 hours or so.  From the beginning some hacks and MPs have labelled it a "revenge reshuffle", which may or may not be attributed to briefings from Corbyn's head of communications Seumas Milne, but which nonetheless has turned out to be nothing of the sort.  First, what supposedly is Corbyn seeking revenge over?  If he really was intent on clearing the decks of everyone critical of him, let alone those who voted the other way on Syria, then it would seemingly require the entire shadow cabinet to go, such has been the leaking and whispers to the press almost since he became leader about how useless and what a liability he is.

Second, his moves so far, regardless of whether it was the intention to begin with or not, have been to move those most serially disloyal and critical.  Michael Dugher has been practically asking for it Danczuk-style for months.  Back in September (!) he was saying how self-indulgent it was to carry on with the navel-gazing, and boy did he not take his own advice.  Maria Eagle meanwhile likely sealed her fate when she practically agreed with General Sir Nicholas Houghton's comments on Trident on the Andrew Marr show.  Disagreeing with the leader on nuclear weapons is one thing; all but backing up a general intervening in party politics to implicitly criticise that leader is another.

If this has nonetheless been an example in how not to carry out a reshuffle, it's also been a case study into how not to report one.  First it was definite Hilary Benn was being sacked, then it wasn't, then it might be back on, now it isn't again, or maybe it is.  Who knows?  Who by the time it happens will care?  If this was meant to be a revenge reshuffle, as they were so convinced, why it hasn't it turned out that way?  Have they been played by Corbyn's team, or have they just believed everything they've been told or picked up as being gospel truth because they can't stop tweeting or updating the live blogs?  As increasingly is the case, it's also become about them: we might have hyped this whole thing up to absurd levels, but why can't it now be over?  What are we still waiting for?  Then, finally, there's the we were right smugness, as displayed last night by Laura Kuenssberg: hyuk hyuk, so much for a new, honest politics, allowing for dissent and openness.

As Owen Jones points out, rightly for once, no other Labour leader has or would have tolerated the level of criticism, of near mutiny as Corbyn has the past 4 months.  Michael Dugher's claims of merely responding to briefing against Benn, Eagle and others, of practising straight, honest politics is absurd, as though this has been a one-sided operation.  Reading all the tributes paid to him for no longer being shadow culture secretary, you would have thought he'd died.  Yes, we all know Jeremy was a inveterate rebel, and so can't expect the level of loyalty past leaders have, but he is perfectly entitled to want his shadow ministers for foreign affairs and defence to back him, if not always agree with him.  As it is, he looks to have come to some sort of agreement with Benn, even if it might only delay the inevitable.  No one can say that he hasn't tried to make allowances, regardless of the way it has and is being spun.

Equally, you can't pretend this is anything other than the worst possible way for Labour to start the new year.  The media are determined for their part to make sure the infighting continues, not least when some are set on causing mischief for their own reasons, but complaining about it is all but pointless.  Today ought to have been solely about how Cameron can't whip his cabinet into supporting him on Europe, a measure of weakness that says much about his position, the manoeuvring of those who want to take over from him, and the impact it could have on our staying in the EU, with all a Brexit would entail for our economic and national security, as the Tory messaging would have it.  Both critics and supporters of Corbyn have repeatedly said it's long past time when the focus should be on the government's failings rather than Labour's own.  Surely now we've reached the point where both must practice what they preach.

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1/05/2016 09:22:00 pm | |

Tuesday, July 15, 2014 

All you need is Gove.

Government reshuffles are always over-analysed and often pointless affairs, especially in terms of what it means for the departments ministers are being shuttled between. You can take the view that moving someone from say their position as culture secretary, one of the more undemanding jobs, to being plunged in at education is damn stupid considering the level of expertise we should expect of those given the role, or you could instead reason that as the civil service does the bulk of the work anyway, given the outline by the minister, it doesn't really make much odds.

What certainly is cretinous in this instance is having a major reshuffle this late into a parliament.  While David Cameron has at least refused the Blair tendency to move everyone around every poxy year, the only reason our dear PM is getting rid of so many on the liberal wing of the Tories while at the same time promoting as many loyal women as he can is for party political and presentational reasons respectively.  It's certainly not because Nicky Morgan will be a better education secretary than Michael Gove, although it's difficult to imagine how anyone barring a resurrected King Herod could be any worse, it's down to how Cameron has judged Gove to have become too much of an electoral liability in his current job.  Therefore he's absolutely the right man to be the "face" of the Conservatives in the media (is this right? Ed.).

No, me neither.  Gove's demotion will undoubtedly be presented by his allies in the media as the ultimate example of someone being a victim of their own success.  Sadly, there's also more than an element of truth in it.  Compare Gove's ramming through of the expansion of academies and setting up of free schools to Iain Duncan Smith's catastrophic attempt to introduce universal credit, and judged purely on that basis it's bewildering how the latter is still in his job.  Unlike IDS though, who has merely got into scrapes with George Osborne over whether or not he's a bit thick, Gove managed to piss everyone off at some point.  Not all his own work, with some of it being the responsibility of his just as combative former SpAd Dominic Cummings, most recently seen describing Dave as a "sphinx without a riddle", it's now time to take the battle to the other parties rather than your colleagues.  Hence Gove, although bruised, is apparently content to become chief whip and chief TV/radio mug.  Why those who didn't like him as education secretary will suddenly discover him to be charming and persuasive in his new role isn't clear, but it must all be part of Lynton Crosby's grand plan.

Also integral to Crosby's barnacle-shedding scheme is trying to end the impression Dave has a problem with women.  Rather than, err, change the policies women disproportionately oppose, far better is to promote a few more women to defend them, a ploy guaranteed to work just as well.  Apart from Morgan, also getting an office of state is Liz Truss, taking over as environment secretary from right-winger Owen Paterson, which predictably and despite all the other changes has still elicited moans from the headbangers.  Truss you might recall was the minister pushing for the ratio of young children an adult could look after safely to be increased, only for it to run into opposition from that other coalition, Mumsnet and Nick Clegg.  Esther McVey, once of GMTV, stays in her job but gets to attend cabinet, while Penny Mordaunt is rewarded for appearing on Splash! by becoming the first coastal communities minister.  Any suggestion the introduction of yet another ministerial post is designed to further reduce rebelling is cynicism of the lowest order.  Best to gloss over the rise of Priti Patel, lest I start to feel the urge to repeatedly slam my head against the wall.

Out then went a whole bunch of older white men, much to the discomfort of those older white men in charge of the country's newspapers.  Describing Ken Clarke as middle-aged as the Mail's front page did is also a bit of a stretch, although you have to remember Paul Dacre is determined to see off any attempt to retire him as the paper's editor, and he's 9 years Clarke's junior.  More pertinent is Clarke, Dominic Grieve, Damian Green, David Willetts and Alan Duncan have all gone, all of whom were dovish on Europe or liberal in outlook generally.  Along with Gove, the new foreign secretary Philip Hammond said he would vote to leave an unreformed EU, while the loss of Clarke, Grieve and Green suggests, as anticipated, the Tory manifesto will propose leaving the European Convention on Human Rights altogether.

The Conservatives seem convinced it will be the messengers as much as the message that will make the difference in 10 months' time.  Long-term economic plan; Miliband weird and not prime ministerial; and look at how completely normal and representative your fun, go-getting Tories now are.  It ignores how the Tories failed to win in 2010 on a centre-right but not right-wing manifesto, as the fresh-faced alternative to the disastrous tenure of the son of the Manse.  Regardless of the polls occasionally showing a Tory lead or the difference being within the margin of error, there's still nothing to suggest as yet they can win the election outright.  If this reshuffle was one of the first steps in an effort to alter that, the party seems set again on deluding itself.

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7/15/2014 11:59:00 pm | |

Monday, October 07, 2013 

Reshuffling for the sake of it. Mainly.

If there's one thing in politics that enthuses the lobby hacks and those within the Westminster bubble like little else, while leaving everyone else bored stupid, it has to be the yearly festival of inanity which is the reshuffle.  The only real function it serves is, that in the fashion of politics being showbizness for ugly people, it lets us know who's hot and err, who's not.  Or, as it's properly known, who's been doing the most brown nosing and who's been mouthing off.  Talent and ability only rarely enter into proceedings, such is the way our glorious party-based democracy works.

This is even more the case when the prime minister has deigned not to switch around his cabinet ministers.  It would be lovely to think this is the result of common sense: only in politics is it thought a great idea for someone to be (nominally) in charge of say, defence and then the next day find that they've been moved to health, having only a year earlier been at the helm in the Home Office, but one suspects it's more down to how Cameron genuinely believes he had the best possible team in place, or at least can't dispense with the services of a Theresa May or Michael Gove lest they become a rallying point on the backbenches.  You could then attempt to decipher what it means that such names to conjure with as Esther McVey and Sajid Javid have climbed slightly further up the ministerial greasy pole while Mark Hoban and Chloe Smith have been defenestrated, or you could do something more useful, like teach a pig to sing. The idea that anyone's going to notice this glorified game of musical chairs has made the Tory front bench very slightly more female, northern and working class is a touching one.

Worth a smidgen more attention is Nick Clegg getting rid of Jeremy Browne, who the Tories liked as he was further to the right than some of them, and the promotion of Norman Baker, although mainly as that's alarmed the more easily bewildered, due to his previously espoused view that Dr David Kelly was murdered. The idea that he's suddenly going to turn the Home Office into a habitat for tinfoil hat wearers when Clegg is clearly set on the coalition staying in one piece till the bitter end just doesn't stand up to scrutiny, amusing as it would be.

The real "action", if you could really describe it as such, happened across the Commons. Not before time both Liam Byrne and Stephen Twigg were demoted, having been such successes in their shadow posts for work and pensions and education. It was Byrne's idea that the party shouldn't oppose the government's refusal to repay benefits to those illegally sanctioned, disgusting many, while Twigg didn't so much as oppose Michael Gove's education reforms as support them in his own constituency. Twigg's impact was so great that I have absolutely no idea what Labour's education policy is, and if I don't, what hope does the casual observer?

Not that their replacements are necessarily any better. Rachel Reeves takes up Byrne's post, fresh from her Newsnight "humiliation", so we can look forward to more interviews where nothing of interest whatsoever is said. Not that this is the final purge of Blairites the Tories bizarrely want to paint it as; giving Douglas Alexander and Charles Falconer, both Blair fans,  responsibility for the election is hardly the Red Ed Terror. As for bringing Len McCluskey into it yet again, the vast majority of the public will once more say who?

Nor are there 10 lessons to take from the reshuffling.  All it does in reinforce where we were after the party conferences: the leaders are all secure, the Lib Dems are in a world of their own imagining, the Tories are shifting to the right, while Ed Miliband is feeling out policies and imposing his authority fully on the party.  What's really going to be interesting this parliamentary session is how far Osborne is willing to turn the recovery into a mini-boom via Help to Buy, with all the potential implications inflating the housing bubble still further will have.  Nothing that happened today is going to affect that.

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10/07/2013 09:57:00 pm | |

Wednesday, September 05, 2012 

On the road to nowhere.

I can't say that Hopi Sen is someone I always find myself in agreement with, but his analysis of the state of the Tories after the reshuffle is pretty much spot on. It has to be kept in mind that to a ridiculous extent David Cameron and George Osborne based their rebranding of the Conservatives on that process Labour went through after the death of John Smith, with the difference being that they never followed all the way through. Cameron may have hugged huskies etc, but there was no Clause 4 moment. More to the point, despite many believing that once in office New Labour would return to the left, the opposite was the case; Tony Blair repeatedly picked fights with his own party, effectively appointed the Sun newspaper as home secretary and after 9/11 was in cahoots with the most right-wing US administration in history.

With the Tories, Cameron's claim to be a liberal Conservative hasn't been borne out. True, with Ken Clarke as justice secretary the party hasn't been anywhere near as draconian on law and order as their manifesto suggested they would be, but this is about the only area in which this has been the case. Policies which featured in neither the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos, such as the NHS reforms and "free" schools were implemented almost immediately. Cameron spoke often of the need to mend our "broken society", and yet with the exception of in the aftermath of the riots, barely a squeak has been heard about it since. Indeed, the measures taken by the coalition have if anything widened the gaps: the cuts to welfare and the failure to get the economy moving have helped towards Save the Children today launching its first campaign on child poverty in this country. Rather than waiting for proper evidence on the 50p top rate of tax, George Osborne abolished it at almost the first opportunity.

As hopeless as Sayeeda Warsi was, bless her, when she argued her case for why she should stay as party co-chairman she put her finger on exactly who the Conservatives need to appeal to if they're ever going to win a majority, let alone win one in 2015:

If you look at the demographics, at where we need to be at the next election, we need more people in the North voting for us, more of what they call here 'blue collar’ workers and I call the white working class. We need more people from urban areas voting for us, more people who are not white and more women.

That she went on to describe herself as working class we'll gloss over, as her main point is backed up by Lord Ashcroft's studies for the party. Everything that the Conservatives have done so far is almost the exact opposite of what they need to be doing to appeal to those voters. Some will probably find the prospect of Chris Grayling at justice more appealing than the liberal Ken Clarke, but other than that the reshuffle will have said absolutely nothing to them whatsoever. At prime minister's questions today David Cameron was once again bested by Ed Miliband, who was left relying on a piece of Daily Mail fluff about Miliband supposedly having to always buy the coffee for the other Ed. "Not very assertive and butch of the leader of the opposition, is it?", to loud laughter from Miliband. Quite apart from the irony of Cameron suggesting someone else is a bit submissive and effeminate, it was but a distraction from his fundamental failure to explain where growth is going to come from. His biggest failure is to be unable to decide what he and his party are fundamentally for other than cutting the deficit, something that without growth they can't do. And without such leadership, there's even less chance those needed voters will come into the fold in 2015.

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9/05/2012 09:02:00 pm | |

Tuesday, September 04, 2012 

Nowhere fast.

If there's one thing that truly categorises a major government reshuffle, it's the quite incredible level of sycophancy displayed by lobby journalists, including those in the very top jobs. Nick Robinson last night did everything except lick the boots of David Cameron, so enthralled was he by the power being wielded by our glorious prime minister. He most certainly wasn't angling for a few tips as to who would be moving jobs, as that would be to suggest our top hacks colour their coverage according to the demands of the day, an absolutely outrageous slur I'm sure you'll agree. Elsewhere, there was a lack of honesty on the behalf of some of those called to pass comment: James Purnell and Danny Finkelstein both appeared on Newsnight's political panel, the latter without making clear his closeness to George Osborne, while the former only mentioned that he had been appointed work and pensions secretary by Gordon Brown. That he then stabbed the man who promoted him in the front, calling for him to resign, went unmentioned.

As per usual, there's a middle ground to be found between those saying that reshuffles mean little and those arguing the opposite. This particular reshuffle is clearly significant because it well may be the only one this parliament; whereas Tony Blair liked to change his ministers around yearly, often for no real purpose whatsoever but to great detriment to the government department that found itself having to work with someone new at the top almost every 12 months, David Cameron has at least resisted the temptation to micromanage. You could make a case that he's been too hands off, especially with Andrew Lansley, the latest politician to try to make the NHS his personal plaything, the end result being a welcome demotion to leader of the Commons. This said, it was Cameron who clearly give his blessing to yet another top down reorganisation of the NHS, despite both the Conservative manifesto and coalition agreement pledging no such thing would happen; and when Nick Clegg was presented with the opportunity to exercise a rare veto, he instead plumped for going ahead with Lords reform. Lansley was a disaster, his plans an expensive distraction, but the leadership went along with them.

The reshuffle also shows how Cameron is loyal to those who are willing to act as an effective shield for him. Not that there was any real danger of George Osborne being moved from Number 11, as that would signal the last two and a bit years have been an economic disaster of the government's own making, but any chance of his swapping jobs with say, William Hague, was trounced with the Olympic stadium's reaction to the chancellor last night. While everyone hates the supremely punchable Osborne and blames him solely for the double dip recession it keeps the attention away from Cameron himself. Likewise, we shouldn't be in the least surprised that Jeremy Hunt has been rewarded for his efforts in protecting the Dear Leader from assault on the Chipping Norton set front; the minister for Murdoch who so dutifully sacrificed his special adviser so that he could continue on at culture will now be secretary of state for privatisation of the health service. That Hunt clearly breached the ministerial code simply doesn't matter a fig.

As is also confirmed by the return of David Laws as education minister, replacing the lesser spotted Sarah Teather. Laws' breach of the rules on expenses was so serious, lest we forget, that he was suspended from parliament for seven days. What his return also signals is that there is no difference whatsoever between the Lib Dems and Conservatives on education policy - they're fully behind Gove's pet free schools project, the transformation of the academy system and the moving of the goal posts we saw last month on GCSEs. Soon to be announced is Gove's bringing back of O-levels, suitably updated for the 21st century so that this time the proles won't be left behind, honest.

The most apparent rightward shift is the expected dropping of Ken Clarke as justice minister, replaced by the truly lovely Chris Grayling, fresh as he is from insisting that unpaid work for dole money really does help all involved and not just the government and retailers who can't believe their luck. We shouldn't overplay Clarke's liberalising role, seeing as he failed to bring Cameron round to much of his thinking and his main idea for reform of prisons was to set the unfortunate inmates to work for an average of a £1 an hour, but his demotion to be effectively minister for television studios as he is without portfolio seems the worst of all worlds: unable to properly speak his mind for the few remaining one-nation Tories within the party and country at large. Equally telling of what's to come is the shift of Justine Greening from transport, a job she's held for a whole 11 months, to that of international development, where she most certainly won't be ostensibly in charge of airport policy. Anyone who's read Chris Mullin's diaries will note how intense the lobbying from BAA and the airlines was back then; one can only imagine how ministers are being bombarded with propaganda for a third runway at Heathrow now.

By contrast, not too much should be read into Iain Duncan Smith's apparent refusal to move from the DWP. Any idea that he's a greater friend to the sick, disabled and unemployed than Chris Grayling would have been is a fantasy, reported refusal to countenance a further £10bn in welfare cuts or not. We've yet to see whether the universal credit, a good idea in theory, turns out to be a bureaucratic nightmare in practice, akin to how tax credits were in their first few years of operation. You also suspect it will lead to yet another round of reassessment, exactly what those who are now going through the work capability assessment for the second or even third time need, although at least the person responsible for it will still be there to cop the blame should it go belly up.

Going further down the ranks, and trying not to snigger at Sayeedi Warsi joining Ken Clarke in attending the cabinet while essentially not having a job, we must note that Elizabeth Truss has also joined the education department. One of those in the 2010 intake describe as "talented", which translated means right-wing and never misses a chance to be on radio or TV, she also contributed to the "Britannia Unchained" book which so rightly described us as "among the worst idlers" in the world. Quite apart from the fact that this claim was factually inaccurate, it's always good to know what Tory MPs think of the hoi polloi, and indeed the million or so who desperately want to work longer hours but can't. Doubtless Truss is just the person to put in charge of early years development, and any suggestion this will involve the setting up of Ayn Rand schools for tots will clearly be well wide of the mark.

Overall, while not much has been changed, the general sense of direction is clear. While there was never going to be the full absorption of the David Davis agenda, the cabinet has noticeably shifted to the right. We can expect movement on a third runway at Heathrow, to the anger of Boris Johnson who wants to plant an entire new airport in the middle of a nature reserve instead, and a shift to the right on crime and prisons in an attempt to somewhat appease the likes of the Sun. What hasn't been altered is that announced plans for infrastructure aside, all of which will take years to have an effect, the coalition remains wedded to an economic policy which will almost certainly this year result in no growth. Return to David Cameron's new year message, a gift that keeps on giving, and there's talk of doing "everything it takes to get our country up to strength". Three quarters of the year gone, and we can see where the coalition has got us: nowhere fast.

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9/04/2012 04:51:00 pm | |

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 

A welcome back to Ken Clarke.

Probably the most astonishing thing about the last few months politically has been one of the things that has been barely touched on: just how badly the Conservatives have been doing when they should be, by rights, decimating Labour in the polls and potentially getting ready for government. By badly we have to keep things in perspective: at no point has Labour actually regained the lead in the opinion polls, although it has come strikingly close to it in some. Looking back historically however, Labour after the 92 election consistently led the Conservatives in the polls, sometimes by ludicrous figures of 25%+. The Conservatives for a while managed comparable figures in the middle of last year, before the second Brown bounce after the bail out took full effect.

Things have since improved, the gloom of January, the ever rising toll of job losses, and now increasingly the beleaguered nature of both Brown and Darling, no longer looking like they know what they're doing, or rather at least not radiating the confidence which infected the former during the initial stages of the banking crisis, all coming into effect.

Less immediate will be the impact of the bringing back of Ken Clarke, a move long mooted and encouraged but which still seemed unlikely. Looking at the Conservative front bench today, excepting Clarke, it was impossible not to see a group of grey men, one which you'd find it difficult to have any confidence in. The wider Conservative reshuffle, and Cameron's strange refusal to bring back the irascible David Davis, still apparently smarting from his decision to resign and fight for a principle, said much the same: for all the boasts that Cameron's shadow cabinet now contains more women than Brown's, all, except for perhaps Theresa May, moved to Shadow Work and Pensions, are in the jobs which rarely result in them appearing on our screens. Similarly mystifying was the move of Chris Grayling, a true grey, underwhelming man if ever there was one, to shadow home secretary. When we have a government which is so apparently wedded to the casual dilution, even evaporation of our civil liberties, you want someone in the seat opposite to have something approaching credentials for fighting against such policies. Say what you will about Davis's support for capital punishment and hard-line approach to immigration, you knew where he stood on ID cards, 42 days and everything in-between. His first replacement Dominic Grieve, moved back to his former job as shadow justice secretary, was never likely to live up to Davis's success in outliving, even bringing down consecutive home secretaries, but apart from his supposed libertarian leanings he made truly abysmal speeches and comments on the Human Rights Act and came across as having been promoted above his competence.

All the immediate comparisons regarding Clarke's re-entry to the shadow cabinet were to Brown's far more surprising offering of a job to Mandelson, to whom Clarke will shadow, but to compare the two any further than that is more than a disservice to Ken. Both might be widely disliked amongst the parties' respective core supporters, but Clarke is lovable, affable and endearing when Mandelson is a person you suspect only a mother could truly love. Doubtless that is part of the reason why Mandelson succeeded in most of what he did outside of his resignations; even those that loathed him seem to have a grudging respect. Clarke on the other hand has always been, along with Alan Duncan, regardless of his involvement with Vitoil, the "acceptable" Conservative, the ones that don't instantly set your teeth on edge. Compared to George Osborne, supposedly having lessons in how not to make people resort to violence on hearing or seeing him, there simply isn't a contest. It helps also that as Cameron retorted at PMQs today, he has something of a shining record as the last Conservative chancellor.

It might well have been coincidence, but today was also the first PMQs for quite some time when Cameron comprehensively scored a victory. Brown was so desperate to change the subject away from the economy that he brought up the completely irrelevant fact of Clarke's differences with most of his Tory colleagues on Europe, when surely more damaging would have been Clarke's also apparent agreement with Brown on the need for a stimulus, that the VAT cut wasn't completely idiotic or a "bombshell" as the Conservatives portrayed it, and that anyone going into the next election promising tax cuts was asking for trouble. For someone who appeared to be finally getting better at the dispatch box, it was embarrassing, and the silence on the Labour benches was eerily apparent.

When criticising Conservative politicians you can't of course ignore the fact that there are much the same problems on the Labour benches, with the added disadvantage that these less than promising individuals are actually in power. The only consolation is that we know the Conservatives would introduce even more swingeing reforms of benefits than James Purnell is proposing; there is however no one quite as pompous or over-promoted on the opposite side as Geoff "Buff" Hoon, and that only Harriet Harman could possibly be so utterly stupid as to try to block freedom of information requests on MP's spending in the current economic situation. Not that the Tory shadows would be much better in the same jobs, and indeed, the idea of George Osborne being chancellor is terrifying in the extreme. Likewise, Eric Pickles, the new party chairman, who is doubtless very popular with the Tory grassroots, seems such a throwback to Thatcherite days that he appears to have the exact same bulk as the pre-diet Nigel Lawson.

The bringing back of Clarke bears further comparison to Brown's strategy for a further reason: while Brown has been apparently desperate to put back together the original New Labour coalition, sans Blair, with the equally dislikable Alan Milburn also brought back into the fold, Clarke is from an even earlier era. The difference is that his stretches in Thatcher's government, and spell as, however humourously aesthetically, health secretary, have been all but forgotten. We instead remember him as chancellor, as the successive leadership challenger that could have restored the Tories' fortunes earlier if only he could have closed the chasm between himself and the rest of the party over Europe. Mandelson and the rest just remind us, quite rightly, of spin and the decadence now in retrospect of the early New Labour years. He might well be, as Lord Tebbit characterised him, lazy, but his laziness might just be the thing that convinces those uncertain of the economics of Osborne that there is something of substance there after all.

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1/21/2009 11:59:00 pm | |

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