Friday, March 19, 2004
I read the news today oh boy..
Actually, I didn't read the news. Sans newspapers, sans internet, I watched BBC News 24 and Sky News for an hour, from which I learnt precisely none of the following things.
Lords reform has been delayed again. This is a victory for the Noble Lord Strathclyde, who, if you remember these things, resigned as Tory leader in the House of Lords after agreeing to the deal that kept 92 hereditary peers in the Lords. Interim measure it may have been, but they'll be there until someone finally grasps the nettle and pushes through reform. Since everyone disagrees about how it should be reformed, this might be some time yet.
Iain Duncan Smith (remember him?) did use government funding to pay his wife for not very much work. End the Welfare state says I.
Douglas Alexander revealed to MEP's that he is not an idiot.
Specifically, If MEP's are surprised by the shock news that they may not win as many seats as they did 5 years ago when there are less seats to be contested and Labour has been in power for 7 years, they have once again lived up to their reputation as the most politically unastute (or whatever the correct antonym for astute is) elected representatives in the Labour party.
Oh yes. I can see the headlines now."Labour win June elections by landslide- "it's a triumph for the European Social Model" say jubilant MEP's."
Personally, I'm more on the Philip Gould scale of projections.
As an aside, can I get in another dig at former Labour Euro leader Glyn Ford, who has produced another puff piece for Kim Il Jong in this weeks Tribune (sadly I can find no link)- this article is actually less objectionable than past efforts, but it still rankles that he can talk about North Korea in a semi-positive way without once mentioning the Slave labour camps, the police state and the fate of dissidents.
(Someone reminds me that I promised a piece on Gordon Brown and the leadership. I did indeed, and as soon as i can think of anyhting to say apart from "The Budget further strengthened Gordon Brown's position as heir apparent" I will. However, I am considering whether that short statement is the truth and the whole truth and nothing more can usefully be said)
posted by 4:42 PM |
Thursday, March 18, 2004
The Budget
Personally, I found it quite dull, but then I suffer from financial ennui. In other words, money bores me. This is probably why I am poor.
Have you ever held a budget in your hands? It's a huge thing. It's basically a coffee table book filled with statistics, data, impenetrable text and those incredibly detailed, very small graphs that economists love (you know, the ones that look more like the results of a lie detector test than any graph you ever drew at school). As soon as I saw that, I had the sudden realisation that no-one who comments on the Budget has read it.
So everyone you see on TV is operating on only a little more information than you are. If you actually read a briefing note, or read the speech, you're probably ahead of the game, because virtually no-one else has, they've just ripped the summary sheets they get handed by press officers, boiled it down to a few points and hoped to wing it. At the same time, they're half listening to the speech while trying to work out what to say about it.
All of which means that the actual real financial implications of the Budget are only going to be understood by some accountant sitting in a darkened room three weeks later. All anyone else can do is make some rough guesses on impact. For example, every newspaper reports that sacking 45,000 civil servants will pay for the increased investment in education. I'm sure it does, I just don't believe anyone who wrote that has asked about the redundancy costs, how the savings can be regarded as permanent and so on.
So let's concentrate on the politics.
First of all, it's put the Tories in a very uncomfortable position. They can't really rage about Whitehall red tape while the media is full of complaining benefit clerks. Second, it limits Conservative room for manoeuvre to the point where Tory spokesmen are touring the TV studios saying "There will be tax rises under a third term Labour government". Not so hot on the old self confidence then.
There is a substantive criticism here, but the trouble is, I can't see how the Tories are able to make it. They are in effect saying that the budget deficit is so big, so frightening and so heavy a burden on the British economy that cuts in Public services have to be made now top eliminate that deficit. Trouble is, in percentage terms, it's not that big a deficit. It's smaller than most other Western countries and it fits within economic cycles. Finally, if markets aren't panicking about unsustainable spending, why should voters? The Tories are in effect going to campaign on a "the sky is going to fall in" platform. Unless people can see the cracks when they look up, I don't see that as a winner.
Even assuming that the public agrees with the Tory "imminent economic collapse thesis" then what will the Tories propose doing? This is what their cuts plan/Spending freeze plan is all about.
Except that of course, they can't propose cutting schoolsnhospitals, as that would be electoral suicide. They ring-fence that, So it has to be Defence, Overseas aid, Home office, Trade and Industry, Pensions. And so on. Which means Tory MP's have to sit their and sit on their hands while a Labour Government taunts them by funding defence more than the Tories would.
So what is the Tory platform going to be? They can still talk about crime and asylum, which takes them back to the glory years of William Hague. Otherwise, they need a recession, or total disenchantment with public services. The latter is their best hope, but it isn't enough.
NEXT: Gordon lays claim.. again.
posted by 4:32 PM |
The Budget post is coming..
but god, I'm finding a lot of reasons to write about almost anything else. I don't know, It's almost as if I don't want to tell you all the blindingly obvious facts that
a) Gordon Brown has really screwed the Tory election campaign.
and
b) Gordon Brown has even further established himself as the heir-apparent, presumptive and crown prince (insert own inheritance based phrase here).
Frankly, politically speaking, everything else about the budget is just blather.
posted by 2:53 PM |
Obey, cringing minions.
Some new Blogs on the Blogroll. I command all my readers to read them all and fall deeper into the pit of never doing any work and eventually being fired from your job.
Chris Brooke's excellent Virtual Stoa. See, a Stoa is where ye olde worlde brainboxes gathered for a natter and a gossip. Academics were wasters and parasites back then too. Bring back the hemlock incentive system says I.
Socialism in an age of waiting is a Blog from the Marxist left which is both erudite and informative.
Finally, after much gentle reminding by Norman Geras the link to his blog now actually works.
posted by 2:48 PM |
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
4 good reasons to join the Labour party on Budget day.
Stable economic growth.
Lowest Unemployment in two decades.
Lowest Inflation for a generation.
Increased investment in Health and Education
So, Join the Labour Party today.
PS: I had to invent my own Join Labour button (it should be to your right) and it's not very good. Anyone want to make a better button?
posted by 12:25 PM |
Stickin'
Polly Toynbee on why Blair deserves your support.
posted by 11:35 AM |
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
What is Peter Hain talking about?
So Peter Hain wants to introduce the Alternative Vote for Westminster? Well fair enough, but his reasoning is nonsensical.
His reasons are:
1. Political Expediency: " At the next election, tactical voting by the progressive vote may actually hand seats to the Tories"
2. Turnout and political involvement "A new system like AV will, I believe, improve the incentives to vote and remove many of the barriers that are inherent in our current system. Crucially, AV will give voters a greater sense of influence and ownership over the political process" He also point out that turnout was higher in more marginal seats.
3. The need for more changes to MP's: "The vast majority of voters are in seats where a change of MP is unlikely and are increasingly realising that their vote will make very little difference to the outcome of a general election. So they are simply not bothering."
There are good reasons to support propotional representation, but Hain's are not amongst them. In fact, AV isn't really a proportional representation system.
How can Hain logically claim that a) introducing AV will protect Labour MP's and at the same time assert b) AV will knock out more current MP's?
In addition, there's no real evidence that Proportional representation increases turn-out. AV will likely increase turn-out is if it increases more close races, which means more hard fought races, which kind of ruins the theory that it would protect Labour seats.
Ahh, Hain might say, Labour will disproptionately win the LibDems second prefernce vote, thus squaring the circle. This might have been true in 1997, but as this Charter 88 study shows, AV just benefits the winning party. If Labour were to become unpopular, Labour MP's would get a slaughtering. It's scale, not fairness.
In any case, there's no chance of AV being adopted, as it would be rejected by the Liberal Democrats on principle (and expediency) and the Tories on expediency (and principle). They'd be able to do so, becasue the Jenkins commission on Proportional representation totally blew AV out of the water.
In fact, one of their particular reasons for rejecting AV is a direct assault on Hain. Jenkins says that under AV, "In particular, there would still be large tracts of the country which would be electoral deserts for major parties" while Hain is reported as saying "that there are large parts of the country where voters do not contribute to the outcome of an election, citing Surrey, where there are no Labour seats despite more than 20 per cent of its citizens voting for its candidates." Would Labour gain a seat in Surrey under AV?
I very much doubt it.
posted by 5:19 PM |
There's one born every minute..
This Independent profile made me laugh out loud. Shahid Malik's brave stand against the government on Iraq has aparently made him persona non grata with the leadership.
...and I have a bridge Paul Vallely might want to buy.
PS. I actually don't have the dislike for Shahid that some people do- his point that he's no more of a carpetbagger than many before him is absolutely true. Mark Seddon's put in as many seats as Shahid. But the idea that Shaihid Malik is some kind of rebel is so ludicrous it's comical.
posted by 4:17 PM |
Monday, March 15, 2004
On Spain…
I just want to say a few things about Spain. I'm no expert, but some of the things being said on blogs and in the media seem so over the top and unsupported by evidence that some caution is required in reaching judgement.
For example, take the leader of the Blog world, Andrew Sullivan. In his post on the Spanish election results he says "in yesterday's election victory for the socialists, al Qaeda got even more than it could have dreamed of. It has removed a government intent on fighting terrorism and installed another intent on appeasing it. For good measure, they murdered a couple of hundred infidels." I doubt he'll be alone in the sentiment.
Well, where to start? We should perhaps point out that it was the voters of Spain who "installed" the Spanish socialists in office, and that they might resent being called agents of Al Qaeda. We might continue by saying that in his first speech after the election, socialist leader Zapatero said that his first priority would be to combat terrorism. He just draws a distinction between combatting terrorism and invading Iraq. (also, note that the "withdrawal" he proposes is dependent on the UN refusing to ratify the new Iraqi regime by June 30th, a deadline set by Bush).
Finally we might add that when an administration says that a terrorist attack is carried out by one group, despite evidence that it was carried out by another, it's legitimate for voters to question whether they are the right people to tackle a serious threat.
For example, If Bush had claimed that the September 11th attack had been carried out by the Saddam Hussein, a claim that would serve his own political ends, he might have some severe credibility questions to face. Umm. OK. Better not dwell on the point.
Give the new Socialist leadership a chance. they've inherited a country in grief. They have to find a way to channel that anger into action. I've little doubt thay will want to tackle terrorism, their election has been predicated on doing so, against the right target.
There one other psephelogical point to make. It is that it is entirely possible the Spanish election results had much less to do with the politics of the Madrid bombing than many are saying. Early campaign opinion polls indicated that the Popular party might win c168-72 seats, while the socialists would win c140-45. In the end, the Socialists got 164, the PP 148.
Crucially, turnout leapt from 69% to 77%. The reason for this could simply be a sense of civic responsibility in the wake of disaster. That alone could account for much of the socialist victory, as voters who don't usually vote trend to the left (they are usually younger and poorer) . That is, if they do vote, they're more likely to vote socialist. The bombings may simply have brought thousands more socialist voters to the polls.
In which case, this is not a victory for terrorism, but a victory for democracy.
posted by 3:04 PM |
Friday, March 12, 2004
How to end Ferrrari dominance of Formula One
If there is one thing that is universally acknowledged in sport it is that Formula 1 drivers have the best names. When I was a child, I was convinced that you could not be a formula one driver without an exotic name.
Fittipaldi, Fangio, Senna. These are great names for sportsmen. Even amongst the journeyman drivers we find names like Mika Salo, Jos Verstappen and the wonderful Zsolt Baumgartner. On the other hand footballers have no use for fancy names, as all footballers are only capable of using a one syllable nickname with the suffix "–ey".
Sadly, some of today’s drivers don't cut the patronymic mustard. This cannot be allowed to continue. I hereby propose selecting Formula One drivers on the basis of their names. If a current driver doesn’t have a good enough name, he should be replaced by a footballer who does.
Here then is my proposed starting grid for the top six teams for the Malaysian Grand Prix. Suggestions are welcomed to fill up Jordan, Jaguar, Minardi and Toyota with names fit to sit alongside Zsolt Baumgartner on the back row of the grid.
Ferrari
Zinadine Zidane and Rubens Barichello
If there was ever a name that cried out for Formula one recognition it is that of Zinadine Zidane. A commentator's joy and a marketer's dream. How can this man not be a worthy successor to Fangio?
Williams
Juan Pablo Montoya and Antti Niemi
While Williams are doing well, where’s no doubt that they lack a flying Finn in the team. Southampton's second choice goalkeeper will fill that gap admirably.
Mclaren
Kimi Raikkonen and Lomana Lua Lua
David Coulthard is an accountant's name. Lomana Lua Lua will provide the flair McLaren so badly need. Also, he does summersaults.
Renault
Fernando Alonso and Kaka' Ricardo Izecson Santos Leite
The young Milan striker's name assures him a place in an up and coming Renault line up and deserves consideration as a replacement for the ageing Zidane.
BAR
Takuma Sato and Robert Savage
If Renault must have an Englishman in the squad, Robbie Savage has a name for all seasons.
Sauber
Fisichella and Massa- no change.
Boring team but good names. Kudos to the Swiss Ferrari-alikes..
posted by 5:18 PM |
Thursday, March 11, 2004
A British 527?
For those of you who are ignorant of American politics, a 527 is a group able to raise money to spend on advertising and campaigning in a US election. Examples include moveon.org, and America Coming Together. They use this money to pay for advertising campaigns, grassroots voter mobilisation efforts and so on. They are doing so extremely successfully. My favourite grassroots example is truthandhope.org, which raises money from Dean supporters to place pro-Dean adverts in media markets even though Dean has withdrawn from the presidential race. It's a grassroots one man band (mixed metaphor alert) which helped win Howard Dean the Vermont primary.
So why isn't there anything equivalent being planned in the UK? The legislation is clear enough, third party organisations are able to spend up just under a million pounds in the year before a general election to oppose or support specific candidates. That could make one hell of a difference in the top 40 marginal seats.
It wouldn't even be that hard to set up. All you'd need is a website, a campaigner, a bank account, a registration with the electoral commission and once a media buyer. Of course, you'd need some seed-corn money, but 50k would be quite enough for that, and the possible rewards would be huge.
So why hasn't anyone set one up? More importantly, why isn't anyone even thinking about the impact this could have on the next general election? Anyone want to start one with me?
posted by 5:52 PM |
What if... Blair and Brown both left?
Inspired by newspaper reports saying Gordon Brown might be off to join the IMF, Jason from Andstuff seizes on his one-time role as commissioning editor (he won a competition, ages back) to ask for some well chosen and apposite words on what would happen to TGMOOO (this great movement of ours) if the number 12 bus took a fatal wrong turn into No's 10 and 11 Downing street.
I love this kind of speculation. (Thanks Jason), but to make it work, you need to make assumptions about circumstances. Let's assume that Labour win the next general election with a working majority. A year or so into the new government Blair resigns. Gordon Brown has made it clear that the Presidency of the World Bank or MD of the IMF is what he wants (or has already gone), so a leaderships election takes place without the two titans of new Labour.
Which candidates would emerge? Here is a brief summary- for all candidates, reduce their probability of success by 90% if Brown chooses to stand.
Tiresias the Authoritarian.
David Blunkett
Blunkett is the leading Labour figure next to the Big Two. However, his relentless authoritarianism as Home secretary has led him to be distrusted by many in the party. On the other hand, he has the most inspiring life story of any Labour politician, strong roots in the party and despite his unpopular brief, has maintained decent relationships with many in the PLP.
The Mollifying candidacy of? Jack Straw
Will win if the Labour party is in danger of descending into civil war. No chance otherwise.
The Blairite continuity faction
Alan Milburn or David Miliband
The shock troops of New Labour will face a setback under this scenario. Their best and brightest will have either left the cabinet or have only just arrived. Milburn would be seen as Blair II, and would likely suffer from the comparison (if he even ran) and the support of some of the New Labour Gang would be a hindrance rather than a help.
Miliband, presumably in his first cabinet job and aged around 38, would be seen as too young and too green. Would he have the guts to stake a claim for the leadership of the party? I've often argued that Miliband needs a political fixer with union and party connections to get him up the greasy pole. Paging Fraser Kemp, paging Fraser Kemp?.
The champion of the soft left and the permatan- Peter Hain
He might annoy Old Queen Street, but he warms the cockles of the Guardian's heart. Popular amongst activists, disliked by the machine, He's ambitious enough, but he's never run a big delivery department, isn't that big a public name, and who knows what the unions make of him. Would likely run as a semi-insurgent, cloaking himself in the famed "mantel of Nye", which is the traditional path to? the deputy leadership.
The real rebel - Robin Cook
There's no doubt his stock in the party has never been higher. Cook on the backbenches is proving more popular than Cook in office. But would he really look a credible candidate? His election would represent a total repudiation of the party leadership and I suspect that the party might shy away from this. Also, Cook has real enemies. If he's up against Gordon, that's not a problem, but against anyone else, his candidacy loses some of its force. Personally, I think Cook might prefer to manage another candidate (Hain again?) and secure his future that way. After all, it worked for one T. Blair.
Heavy Hitting Kinnockites-
Charles Clarke/John Reid
The bruisers of the party. If Labour are behind in the polls and think they need someone tough to bring them through the next election, Clarke and reid might appeal. Of course, their chances depend on their success in their departments, which means reid's NHS is in slightly better shape than Clarke's education (the funding going into the NHS over the next few years will be phenomenal) If Reid can stick around in a single job for more than a month. However, a more likely route would be for them to secure their role as the foremost Barons in the Labour court.
Token Women
Tessa Jowell/Patricia Hewitt
Will be running more for the honour of their gender and a senior cabinet job. A couple of years later and Kelly, Cooper and Blears might join the list.
My tips
Well under those circumstances, Blunkett wins with the establishment support, after a strong challenge that leaves Hain (backed by Cook) Deputy leader with a guarantee of either Foreign Secretary's job or control over the party machine.
Blunkett's campaign manager, perhaps John Reid, becomes Chancellor. Cook returns to the Cabinet in a senior role and returns to Carlton Gardens in triumph. Miliband becomes the heir apparent and takes a top job, perhaps Home secretary.
That was fun to write - any other people got articles they'd like to see? Let me know and I'll try and oblige.
posted by 3:40 PM |
