As I have not commented on the Oldham by-election of last Thursday, just about everything that could be said may well have been said and I can imagine that a number of readers will fade out at this point. I, on the other hand, think that there are one or two points that are worth making.
First off, there was the extraordinary jubilation by Corbynistas and people who think they are cleverer than anybody else among the wider commentariat (not the same group, as it happens) because the result, according to them, proved that Corbyn is enormously popular with the electorate and his stance on Syria is supported by the country at large. In fact, next stop Number 10, if you listen to some of these people.
It is highly unlikely that anybody voted on Thursday on the basis of what they thought about a debate on Wednesday but it is possible that some voted because of Corbyn's reasonably well known attitude to extending the war on ISIS to Syria (nobody knows his attitude to the ongoing war against ISIS in Iraq, after all). It is, however, hard to argue that the retention by Labour of a very safe Labour seat with a smaller vote and smaller turn-out than the General Election proves anything very much except that .... ahem .... Oldham is a safe Labour seat.
Jim McMahon got 17,209 votes against Michael Meacher's 23, 630 in May but because the turn-out was 40.3 per cent against 59.6 per cent, his share of the actual vote cast went up from 54.8 per cent to 62.1 per cent. None of it, the retention of the seat or the lower vote and turn-out is anything but politics as usual and tells us nothing about Corbyn's appeal to the electorate of this country. The Conservatives did fairly badly, the Lib-Dims and the Greens appallingly. Let us turn to the only party for whom this result was an unexpected disaster: UKIP.
Given the results of the Danish referendum, the shift in German opinion about the euro and the French regional results where the Front National, a vaguely eurosceptic but definitely anti-establishment party is projected to win 40 per cent of the vote, it is pertinent to ask why on earth UKIP cannot manage to do better.
This question is of great importance in view of that party's desire to take a leading role in the forthcoming referendum campaign. They will not get the lead position and the attendant funding from the Electoral Commission as they are a political party but the intention often voiced by the Dear Leader and his attendant acolytes is to play a major part, particularly in North where, we were told not so long ago, Labour had betrayed the working class and a new party is needed. Some of the comments made in that article were unwise, especially two days before a by-election but then UKIP and its leader are given to unwise comments and to premature boasting. The truth is that the chances of UKIP taking Oldham from Labour were close to zero. What is so appalling is that they did not even manage to come a good second. The 2.8 per cent increase in the vote share is down to the lower turn-out. In fact, John 6,487 votes, fewer than Francis Arbour in May (8,892) and 10,722 fewer than the winner. Not a good sign of UKIP establishing itself as the leading party in the north or among the supposedly betrayed working classes anywhere.
I have been told that UKIP for some reason paid no attention to the postal voters and did not organize a significant campaign among them. If so, that was a grievous fault. The Dear Leader's comments about possible fraud because of the high level of postal voting may be written off as sour grapes but, in fact, it raises an important issue: extensive and unnecessary postal voting is open to fraud and there have been several cases when that was proven. If UKIP have evidence they should definitely take it to court. The suggestion that the voter fraud is particularly virulent in Oldham because of the ethnic make-up of the constituency is a slightly more difficult issue and one that needs a great deal more proof than Our Nige has managed to provide.
As so many times before we need to ask that question: what next for UKIP? The Labour party that proved absolutely nothing in Oldham can look after itself. But what of UKIP? Will they stop boasting and making self-satisfied statements about their position and campaign (not at the moment but likely to start again next week)? Will they rethink their main message, which has been concentrating more on immigration of all kinds (and that alone muddles issues) instead of the EU? Will they consider getting rid of their Leader for more than three days as he is not leading them anywhere near victory?
Showing posts with label Labour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2015
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Thankfully it is over
By this morning I was in such a catatonic state that all I could hope for was that 11.30 with the announcement of the Labour leader would come soon. It came in due course and the Labour party proved to be more docile than the electorate at large and voted the way the media had told it to do. Tom and Jerry are now the Deputy Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition.
The turn-out was 76.3 per cent, which makes one wonder about the 23.7 per cent who, though members of the Labour Party, do not care who their leader might be in a highly polarizing election. Of those who did turn out Jeremy Corbyn won 59.5 per cent of the vote, which makes one wonder about the Labour Party in general.
As I have pointed out before, Corbyn was until a few months ago a little known left-wing backbencher who appeared a great deal on RT (Russia Today as was) and on various rallies, usually together with terrorists, extreme Islamicists, anti-Semites and, sometimes Holocaust deniers. Very few people had heard of him. The amusing idea of nominating him for the leadership election in order to have a more interesting debate has badly misfired and there are, I suspect, a few MPs now in hiding from their furious colleagues. But, you cannot get away from the fact that the majority of the Labour Party members as well as the unions wanted this out of date socialist.
So what are his policies? As a matter of fact, he has none or none that anyone has managed to discern. Making fiery speeches about inequality (not in itself a bad thing, as he knows full well, earning as he does a great deal more than average, what with various expenses and so on) is not quite the same as having policies.
I am glad to say a friend of mine who lives in a very different country and, therefore, possibly finds this all a bit more interesting, unearthed Corbyn's "policy on the EU" and asked me "what will Corbyn really try to do re the EU". Anyway, here is the policy, as quoted from a statement Corbyn released to the Guardian on July 28:
The turn-out was 76.3 per cent, which makes one wonder about the 23.7 per cent who, though members of the Labour Party, do not care who their leader might be in a highly polarizing election. Of those who did turn out Jeremy Corbyn won 59.5 per cent of the vote, which makes one wonder about the Labour Party in general.
As I have pointed out before, Corbyn was until a few months ago a little known left-wing backbencher who appeared a great deal on RT (Russia Today as was) and on various rallies, usually together with terrorists, extreme Islamicists, anti-Semites and, sometimes Holocaust deniers. Very few people had heard of him. The amusing idea of nominating him for the leadership election in order to have a more interesting debate has badly misfired and there are, I suspect, a few MPs now in hiding from their furious colleagues. But, you cannot get away from the fact that the majority of the Labour Party members as well as the unions wanted this out of date socialist.
So what are his policies? As a matter of fact, he has none or none that anyone has managed to discern. Making fiery speeches about inequality (not in itself a bad thing, as he knows full well, earning as he does a great deal more than average, what with various expenses and so on) is not quite the same as having policies.
I am glad to say a friend of mine who lives in a very different country and, therefore, possibly finds this all a bit more interesting, unearthed Corbyn's "policy on the EU" and asked me "what will Corbyn really try to do re the EU". Anyway, here is the policy, as quoted from a statement Corbyn released to the Guardian on July 28:
Labour should set out its own clear position to influence negotiations, working with our European allies to set out a reform agenda to benefit ordinary Europeans across the continent. We cannot be content with the state of the EU as it stands. But that does not mean walking away, but staying to fight for a better Europe.As a left-wing journalist of my acquaintance said about another comment of Corbyn's, what a lot of waffly woo. At least, he is not so far in favour of Brexit. I rather dread that as Corbyn's support would lose us a good many votes. So far so good. Now, what about any other policy? Speaking at a rally, organized by the Stop the War Coalition, and saying that refugees are welcome here does not count as a policy or even as a political idea. Try again, Jeremy.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
"Well, at least he has principles"
Mostly what I want is for the Labour Party leadership election to be over. I no longer care who wins and by how much, I just want it to be over. Of course, there is some amusement to be derived from the Labour Party, once the proud purveyor of the "white heat of technology" and before that of what seemed like the most advanced democratic ideas marching back into the stone age of state owned economy and women only carriages on trains.
Ah but at least Jeremy Corbyn has principles, I hear from many sides as if that was somehow a good thing. Lenin had principles, I responded to one person who does not like Corbyn's principles but feels the need to acknowledge that he has them. Hitler had principles, said someone else in the discussion. We need to agree, said the first person, that Corbyn does not resemble any of history's great monsters. Ahem, I said, what makes you think that Corbyn would agree with that description of Lenin. He would probably be very proud to hear that people were comparing him to the founder of the monstrous Soviet regime.
Of course, if his principles are those you agree with: renationalization of the economy (hardly possible now), impossibly high taxation, cessation of all educational reforms and support for some of the nastiest oppressive and terrorist regimes, then you are obviously going to be rather glad that he has those principles and will very likely be in a position to do something about them. I notice that people who rejoice in Corbyn's principled stand often refuse to discuss it in any detail and, more to the point, still speak with loathing of Margaret Thatcher, generally regarded as a principled political leader.
So principles one agrees with seem a good thing. Let me just add for the benefit of eurosceptic readers of this blog that Edward Heath had principles, too. They were just entirely the wrong ones but they were genuine, nonetheless. For the benefit of the many Blair-haters I may add that he, too, had principles and his participation in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was based on his belief in liberal transnationalism. The man without too many principles, Harold Wilson, kept the UK out of the Vietnam war.
The question is whether that is the first thing to look for in a politician. Myself, I prefer to look at his or her political ideas and what I see in the case of Corbyn fill me with horror (on domestic matters) and complete disgust (on foreign ones). A man who habitually shares a platform with known terrorists, anti-Western fanatics, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers (even if his memory sometimes plays tricks on him) is not one whose principles I admire or want anywhere near the top of our political tree.
Nor am I particularly impressed by the principles of a man who, disregarding the tragic experience of the twentieth century, still mouths outdated economic and political principles that have been proved wrong over and over again and have led to economic stagnation at best and poverty, slavery and labour camps at worst. Principles like that we can do without.
Turning to more general matters, let us ask again: are principles and a staunch adherence to them is what we want in a political leader? Some principles, of course, but a complete disregard for anything else produces a politician who disregards the possibility that events and developments will change reality and imposing outdated principles will end in disaster. Such a politician has no interest in the fact that in a complex society different people will want different things and even members of his own party will see things differently. To some extent, of course, a leader has to impose his (and in one exceptional case her) ideas on the party and try to push them through in the country because that seems to be the best thing to do but there is also a need to trim sails and open up to other ideas. Thatcher did rather a lot of that and that is why she was successful on many fronts but, alas, not on all.
When does a principled politician become a narrow-minded fanatic who will push through what he knows is best for everyone at whatever cost? Some people say that Thatcher did that (they are the ones who are rejoicing in the appearance of a "principled" politician) but no serious study of Britain before, during and after her premiership can do anything but agree that by 1979 there was no alternative to serious reforms and that the country, by and large, has benefited from them. There is no need to ask ourselves whether we would benefit from a government run on Corbynite principles - we can look at past experience and know what happened.
And now let me turn the subject around by just a few degrees: Jeremy Corbyn has principles and his politics is based on that. It is also true that his career has not been stellar and all he has done so far is shouted his principles from the back benches, in TV studios (largely RT until a few months ago) and on various platforms, which he shared with highly undesirable characters. Until recently few people knew anything about him beyond a general impression of someone from the loony left. Even now his pronouncements on such matters as the refugee crisis or Britain's membership of the EU (both important issues) consist of little more than predictable platitudes. What will happen to those principles if he does find himself leading Her Majesty's Opposition, having to keep together a fractious party and having to put together policies that can be offered to the electorate? Will the principles survive or shall we see many people weeping over the fall of their temporary idol?
Ah but at least Jeremy Corbyn has principles, I hear from many sides as if that was somehow a good thing. Lenin had principles, I responded to one person who does not like Corbyn's principles but feels the need to acknowledge that he has them. Hitler had principles, said someone else in the discussion. We need to agree, said the first person, that Corbyn does not resemble any of history's great monsters. Ahem, I said, what makes you think that Corbyn would agree with that description of Lenin. He would probably be very proud to hear that people were comparing him to the founder of the monstrous Soviet regime.
Of course, if his principles are those you agree with: renationalization of the economy (hardly possible now), impossibly high taxation, cessation of all educational reforms and support for some of the nastiest oppressive and terrorist regimes, then you are obviously going to be rather glad that he has those principles and will very likely be in a position to do something about them. I notice that people who rejoice in Corbyn's principled stand often refuse to discuss it in any detail and, more to the point, still speak with loathing of Margaret Thatcher, generally regarded as a principled political leader.
So principles one agrees with seem a good thing. Let me just add for the benefit of eurosceptic readers of this blog that Edward Heath had principles, too. They were just entirely the wrong ones but they were genuine, nonetheless. For the benefit of the many Blair-haters I may add that he, too, had principles and his participation in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was based on his belief in liberal transnationalism. The man without too many principles, Harold Wilson, kept the UK out of the Vietnam war.
The question is whether that is the first thing to look for in a politician. Myself, I prefer to look at his or her political ideas and what I see in the case of Corbyn fill me with horror (on domestic matters) and complete disgust (on foreign ones). A man who habitually shares a platform with known terrorists, anti-Western fanatics, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers (even if his memory sometimes plays tricks on him) is not one whose principles I admire or want anywhere near the top of our political tree.
Nor am I particularly impressed by the principles of a man who, disregarding the tragic experience of the twentieth century, still mouths outdated economic and political principles that have been proved wrong over and over again and have led to economic stagnation at best and poverty, slavery and labour camps at worst. Principles like that we can do without.
Turning to more general matters, let us ask again: are principles and a staunch adherence to them is what we want in a political leader? Some principles, of course, but a complete disregard for anything else produces a politician who disregards the possibility that events and developments will change reality and imposing outdated principles will end in disaster. Such a politician has no interest in the fact that in a complex society different people will want different things and even members of his own party will see things differently. To some extent, of course, a leader has to impose his (and in one exceptional case her) ideas on the party and try to push them through in the country because that seems to be the best thing to do but there is also a need to trim sails and open up to other ideas. Thatcher did rather a lot of that and that is why she was successful on many fronts but, alas, not on all.
When does a principled politician become a narrow-minded fanatic who will push through what he knows is best for everyone at whatever cost? Some people say that Thatcher did that (they are the ones who are rejoicing in the appearance of a "principled" politician) but no serious study of Britain before, during and after her premiership can do anything but agree that by 1979 there was no alternative to serious reforms and that the country, by and large, has benefited from them. There is no need to ask ourselves whether we would benefit from a government run on Corbynite principles - we can look at past experience and know what happened.
And now let me turn the subject around by just a few degrees: Jeremy Corbyn has principles and his politics is based on that. It is also true that his career has not been stellar and all he has done so far is shouted his principles from the back benches, in TV studios (largely RT until a few months ago) and on various platforms, which he shared with highly undesirable characters. Until recently few people knew anything about him beyond a general impression of someone from the loony left. Even now his pronouncements on such matters as the refugee crisis or Britain's membership of the EU (both important issues) consist of little more than predictable platitudes. What will happen to those principles if he does find himself leading Her Majesty's Opposition, having to keep together a fractious party and having to put together policies that can be offered to the electorate? Will the principles survive or shall we see many people weeping over the fall of their temporary idol?
Monday, May 18, 2015
Ten days after the constitutional non-crisis - 1
Ten days ago a constitutional crisis did not happen. Actually it was never going to happen as neither a minority government nor a coalition negotiated over some days do constitutional crises make. Now that I think of it this country has not had a constitutional crisis since the Abdication but try telling that to the average political hack or the average left-winger. To the latter a Conservative government (and I am afraid that is what we are going to have for the foreseeable future) is a constitutional crisis all of its own.
These ten days have been a little difficult. Every morning I sat down at my computer with the firm decision of doing this posting at last, then found that various stories just continued to emerge, if not about UKIP (stop sniggering at the back) then about the Labour leadership election (well, at least they are having one). So today I have decided to write a general piece about the election and its immediate aftermath and hope that nothing very serious happens in the next couple of hours while I work on it.
Is political life back to normal? Well, some aspects of it: David Cameron is putting together his first fully Conservative government and various media outlets are coming up with irrelevant facts about new Ministers that makes them look evil and sinister whereas they are no more that than any other politician.
For instance, we have found out that the new Minister of State at the Department of Work and Pensions, Priti Patel, has once expressed herself in favour of capital punishment, and is now refusing to talk about it, apparently under the impression that this has nothing to do with her new job. Michael Gove, the new Justice Secretary, as a Times columnist wrote that he was in favour of capital punishment and - shock, horror - criticized the Lawrence Inquiry. Could somebody pass me the smelling salts, please? Thank you.
Then there is the Equalities Minister, Caroline Dinenage, who is against gay marriage. She may or may not have done a U-turn on that but, either way, it is of little importance. You could say, as someone did to me, that this constitutes a clash of interests but, in actual fact, her private opinion makes no difference.
For the record capital punishment is not about to be brought back and gay marriage is not about to be abolished. (And we should not have something so preposterous as an Equalities Minister.) Therefore, what individual Ministers think on either of those subjects is irrelevant and not in the same category as the new Culture Minister's well-known view that the BBC's licence should be reformed out of existence. That is a matter for discussion (and this blog supports him) as it is a matter of policy. Private opinions on non-issues are not.
It never ceases to amaze me that the same journalists (and ordinary people) who complain about politicians being boring, lacking in real opinion, producing only PR sound-bites also get into an uproar whenever there is the slightest indication of one of those politicians not ticking all the "right" boxes.
EU "renegotiation" is back on the agenda or sort of, with Andy Burnham, the leading candidate for the Labour leadership (and the man who carries some of the blame for the mid-Staffs hospital scandal) is already urging (and here) David Cameron to conduct those supposed re-negotiations as fast as possible and have a Brexit referendum as early as possible. Well, I have always said that the earlier we have a referendum the more likely we are to lose, which explains Burnham's attitude but makes one wonder why Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader in Perpetuity should be so anxious to have one this year.
The election campaign was extremely dull as most people agreed and the appearance of daily opinion polls with minuscule and statistically irrelevant movements hailed as great news stories did not help. Of course, there were a few stories that enlivened matters.
There was, in case anyone has forgotten it, Harriet Harman's pink minibus, specially for women voters - so unthreatening to the little housewife. There was the famous EdStone with the six meaningless promises made by the former Leader of the Labour Party, which then disappeared and has now been found in some industrial warehouse. I am not sure the fact that the man who carved it and then felt sorry for Miliband is actually a Tory voter, is much of an issue. it raises a smile but not much more than that. Well, somebody had to carve it once the Labour strategists decided on having such a stupid gimmick and to spend about £30,000 on it.
A less entertaining story was the attendance by a number of senior Labour politicians, including Jack Dromey, husband of Harriet Harman at a political rally organized by Labour political activists which decided on gender segregation. Ms Harman, who would have been eaten for breakfast by some of those tough Labour ladies of yore, justified it all by rejoicing in the fact that at least the women were allowed to be present. (Goodness, I actually agree with Nigel Farage's comment at the end of that article.)
So, on to the various leadership elections (for those who are having them). For a boring election campaign it produced some wonderful results, not least the sight of three party leaders resigning within hours of the result becoming obvious. Well, OK, two party leaders resigning and one offering to resign with the obvious proviso that he will stand for re-election, then unresigning. Why it took Jim Murphy, the Leader of the Scottish Labour party to resign, given the catastrophic result he delivered is a mystery but getting immediately involved in a spat with the boss of Unite, Len McCluskey is providing the Scottish Labour voters with much needed fun. Roughly speaking they each think that the destruction of the Scottish Labour representation in Westminster is the other's fault and, anyway, they should separate themselves from the Labour party in London. This could run and run.
Oddly enough, neither of them mentions the fact that for years the Scottish Labour party allied itself with the SNP in order to drive the Conservatives out of the Scottish politics, even making that famous joke about pandas in Scotland. All I can say is that be careful when you start riding a tiger and remember what happened to the lady from Riga:
The came back from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
That is exactly what has happened to the Scottish Labour Party with the SNP playing the part of the tiger. For my readers' information there are two pandas in Edinburgh zoo so while it is fair to say that there are more of them than either Labour or Conservative MPs there are fewer than non-SNP ones. Some kind of an achievement.
So the Labour leadership contest: the media favourite Chukka Umunna, has dropped out of that election. He says that it is because he could not stand the strain of media attention, the media is speculating what it is he does not want anyone to find out.
The Mail is suggesting that it has something to do with his father's mysterious death in a car crash in 1992 when he stood for the governorship of a Nigerian state on anti-corruption platform. There are suspicions that it may have been a political assassination. While accepting all of that it seems an odd reason. Surely Mr Umunna couldn't have recalled all this three days after he threw his stylish hat into the ring.
Then there are stories of his girlfriend, who appeared with him when he announced his candidacy, as well as his grandmother were hounded by the media. I'll give him the grandmother but the girlfriend, a lawyer, as so many Labour politicians and their partners are, has shown herself to be part of the campaign.
The Express is less generous: their theory is that Mr Umunna was afraid that his drinking habits will be revealed. I can't resist quoting three paragraphs from the article:
So he is out and Labour is not about to have a black Leader. Given past history, I assume that whenever we have a non-white Prime Minister, he or she will be a Conservative. Which reminds me of a small piece of news: we now have the first British Chinese MP, Alan Mak from Havant. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he is a Conservative. Did you expect anything else? His family background, education and professional career is well worth reading.
Meanwhile, the Labour leadership hopefuls, described by the Guardian as "spadocracy", all but one of the ones we know, being former special advisers or spads. Mary Creagh, the one non-spad, also has a different hair style from the others. Otherwise, diversity seems to be strangely absent in any way from these hopefuls as Guido points out. Scions of privilege he describes them, and that is what they are. None of them grew up in a flat above a small shop as did Mr Mak, the new Havant MP.
[To be continued ... and this time it will happen]
These ten days have been a little difficult. Every morning I sat down at my computer with the firm decision of doing this posting at last, then found that various stories just continued to emerge, if not about UKIP (stop sniggering at the back) then about the Labour leadership election (well, at least they are having one). So today I have decided to write a general piece about the election and its immediate aftermath and hope that nothing very serious happens in the next couple of hours while I work on it.
Is political life back to normal? Well, some aspects of it: David Cameron is putting together his first fully Conservative government and various media outlets are coming up with irrelevant facts about new Ministers that makes them look evil and sinister whereas they are no more that than any other politician.
For instance, we have found out that the new Minister of State at the Department of Work and Pensions, Priti Patel, has once expressed herself in favour of capital punishment, and is now refusing to talk about it, apparently under the impression that this has nothing to do with her new job. Michael Gove, the new Justice Secretary, as a Times columnist wrote that he was in favour of capital punishment and - shock, horror - criticized the Lawrence Inquiry. Could somebody pass me the smelling salts, please? Thank you.
Then there is the Equalities Minister, Caroline Dinenage, who is against gay marriage. She may or may not have done a U-turn on that but, either way, it is of little importance. You could say, as someone did to me, that this constitutes a clash of interests but, in actual fact, her private opinion makes no difference.
For the record capital punishment is not about to be brought back and gay marriage is not about to be abolished. (And we should not have something so preposterous as an Equalities Minister.) Therefore, what individual Ministers think on either of those subjects is irrelevant and not in the same category as the new Culture Minister's well-known view that the BBC's licence should be reformed out of existence. That is a matter for discussion (and this blog supports him) as it is a matter of policy. Private opinions on non-issues are not.
It never ceases to amaze me that the same journalists (and ordinary people) who complain about politicians being boring, lacking in real opinion, producing only PR sound-bites also get into an uproar whenever there is the slightest indication of one of those politicians not ticking all the "right" boxes.
EU "renegotiation" is back on the agenda or sort of, with Andy Burnham, the leading candidate for the Labour leadership (and the man who carries some of the blame for the mid-Staffs hospital scandal) is already urging (and here) David Cameron to conduct those supposed re-negotiations as fast as possible and have a Brexit referendum as early as possible. Well, I have always said that the earlier we have a referendum the more likely we are to lose, which explains Burnham's attitude but makes one wonder why Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader in Perpetuity should be so anxious to have one this year.
The election campaign was extremely dull as most people agreed and the appearance of daily opinion polls with minuscule and statistically irrelevant movements hailed as great news stories did not help. Of course, there were a few stories that enlivened matters.
There was, in case anyone has forgotten it, Harriet Harman's pink minibus, specially for women voters - so unthreatening to the little housewife. There was the famous EdStone with the six meaningless promises made by the former Leader of the Labour Party, which then disappeared and has now been found in some industrial warehouse. I am not sure the fact that the man who carved it and then felt sorry for Miliband is actually a Tory voter, is much of an issue. it raises a smile but not much more than that. Well, somebody had to carve it once the Labour strategists decided on having such a stupid gimmick and to spend about £30,000 on it.
A less entertaining story was the attendance by a number of senior Labour politicians, including Jack Dromey, husband of Harriet Harman at a political rally organized by Labour political activists which decided on gender segregation. Ms Harman, who would have been eaten for breakfast by some of those tough Labour ladies of yore, justified it all by rejoicing in the fact that at least the women were allowed to be present. (Goodness, I actually agree with Nigel Farage's comment at the end of that article.)
So, on to the various leadership elections (for those who are having them). For a boring election campaign it produced some wonderful results, not least the sight of three party leaders resigning within hours of the result becoming obvious. Well, OK, two party leaders resigning and one offering to resign with the obvious proviso that he will stand for re-election, then unresigning. Why it took Jim Murphy, the Leader of the Scottish Labour party to resign, given the catastrophic result he delivered is a mystery but getting immediately involved in a spat with the boss of Unite, Len McCluskey is providing the Scottish Labour voters with much needed fun. Roughly speaking they each think that the destruction of the Scottish Labour representation in Westminster is the other's fault and, anyway, they should separate themselves from the Labour party in London. This could run and run.
Oddly enough, neither of them mentions the fact that for years the Scottish Labour party allied itself with the SNP in order to drive the Conservatives out of the Scottish politics, even making that famous joke about pandas in Scotland. All I can say is that be careful when you start riding a tiger and remember what happened to the lady from Riga:
The came back from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
That is exactly what has happened to the Scottish Labour Party with the SNP playing the part of the tiger. For my readers' information there are two pandas in Edinburgh zoo so while it is fair to say that there are more of them than either Labour or Conservative MPs there are fewer than non-SNP ones. Some kind of an achievement.
So the Labour leadership contest: the media favourite Chukka Umunna, has dropped out of that election. He says that it is because he could not stand the strain of media attention, the media is speculating what it is he does not want anyone to find out.
The Mail is suggesting that it has something to do with his father's mysterious death in a car crash in 1992 when he stood for the governorship of a Nigerian state on anti-corruption platform. There are suspicions that it may have been a political assassination. While accepting all of that it seems an odd reason. Surely Mr Umunna couldn't have recalled all this three days after he threw his stylish hat into the ring.
Then there are stories of his girlfriend, who appeared with him when he announced his candidacy, as well as his grandmother were hounded by the media. I'll give him the grandmother but the girlfriend, a lawyer, as so many Labour politicians and their partners are, has shown herself to be part of the campaign.
The Express is less generous: their theory is that Mr Umunna was afraid that his drinking habits will be revealed. I can't resist quoting three paragraphs from the article:
The shadow business secretary, who dramatically pulled out of the contest to replace Ed Miliband, is a regular at the club, where steak costs £150 and a bottle of cognac is up to £4,000.Why should this matter, you might ask? Well, one of the issues the Labour party is agonizing at the moment is the perception that they are now a party of rather well off middle class toffs who have little if any interest in or ideas for what might be called the ordinary people of this country. A membership of such a club (I imagine it must be true or there would have been threats of libel action by now) would not go down too well, particularly as Mr Umunna has been described before as having as somewhat haughty attitude to the plebs.
He was seen at the M Den, an eel skin-lined room in central London, during the General Election campaign and last week he blamed the pressure of media scrutiny for his decision to pull out of the leadership race.
Described on the M restaurant’s website as a place where guests can “get up to mischief”, the club is so exclusive even celebrity status doesn’t guarantee access.
So he is out and Labour is not about to have a black Leader. Given past history, I assume that whenever we have a non-white Prime Minister, he or she will be a Conservative. Which reminds me of a small piece of news: we now have the first British Chinese MP, Alan Mak from Havant. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he is a Conservative. Did you expect anything else? His family background, education and professional career is well worth reading.
Meanwhile, the Labour leadership hopefuls, described by the Guardian as "spadocracy", all but one of the ones we know, being former special advisers or spads. Mary Creagh, the one non-spad, also has a different hair style from the others. Otherwise, diversity seems to be strangely absent in any way from these hopefuls as Guido points out. Scions of privilege he describes them, and that is what they are. None of them grew up in a flat above a small shop as did Mr Mak, the new Havant MP.
[To be continued ... and this time it will happen]
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
That campaign so far
Eight days to go to the European and local elections and I imagine that all readers of this blog have been overwhelmed by the glossy and meaningless literature that seems to be what election campaigns consist of these days. There is something to be said for abolishing that right to free postage so that parties start considering a little more carefully what they send out to stupefy the electorate. Of course, they can always hire cheap immigrant labour to deliver leaflets but they will not have that free post.
This year's crop has been outstandingly dire in both content and design. The first Labour leaflet I received had a big picture of Ed Miliband looking solemn and the message: "Only Labour will tackle the cost-of-living crisis". Reading this and glancing through the other items: NHS, "free" childcare, housing crisis and soaring energy bills, I could not help wondering whether the party in question had the first idea of which particular elections were coming up. For Mr Miliband's information, none of that can be solved in the European Parliament and very little at the local level.
Actually, tucked away in a corner there was a reference to MEPs who are fighting for jobs and growth (mostly their own jobs and the growth of their waistlines) because, forsooth, we would lose 3.5 million jobs if we left the EU. It seems quite extraordinary that anyone should come up with that particular chestnut still or to think that Britain's membership of the EU somehow depends on the MEPs.
Since then I have also received the Labour leaflet for the local election in which they promise to cut taxes (having clearly forgotten that when they controlled the council, our local tax rate was among the highest in London) and to protect the NHS or the local hospitals or something like that. Nobody, I may add, has been able to explain precisely what the plans are about local hospitals and what alternatives there might be to the projected rearrangements, known by some campaigners and the Labour party as cuts. Nevertheless, it is a bad sign for the Labour party that all they can campaign on is the NHS.
I was not altogether surprised to read that they are now behind the Conservatives in opinion polls, a most unusual situation at this stage of the electoral cycle. It made me recall the 1992 General Election, the first in which UKIP's predecessor, the Anti-Federalist League campaigned. (Yes, it has been around that long.) The day I realized that Labour would lose was when I was accosted by some supporter of theirs who solemnly argued that the real power in the land was the Monday Club. I put my money where my mouth was and eventually won £10 from a friend. Still, Labour can comfort themselves with the thought that opinion polls matter less than the actual election. At least, they might be able to comfort themselves with that thought until next Thursday.
Let's get the unimportant ones out of the way. I have not had any Lib-Dim literature but I gather that they are calling on all of us to re-elect the egregious Sarah Ludford, as ghastly a euro-weenie as I have ever come across and much given to hyperventilation. At one debate she became quite hysterical about people she described as climate deniers. I asked her whether these people actually denied that there was such a thing as a climate. She just gobbled.
The Greens are calling on me to re-elect Jean Lambert but for some reason all the policies are out and out socialist ones, thus proving that saying about watermelons.
Then there is something called the Communities United Party who desperately need a proof-reader to get rid of the inappropriate capitals in their leaflet though I hope they keep the fierce eagle. I am not altogether sure what they are campaigning about as they seem to think all sorts of issues can be solved in the European Parliament and I am not certain that their slogan, Strength in Unity, is entirely appropriate. Reminds me of all those fly-by-night parties that used to appear just before European elections with much fanfare, putting forward "real people" as candidates who invariably demonstrated their reality by knowing nothing about the European Parliament for which they were standing. Mind you, I think that the Communities United Party is against Britain's withdrawal from the European Union though I am not sure I can quite work out their argument.
So we come to the Conservatives, whose local election leaflet does not mention Charing Cross Hospital, possibly because that has more to do with the near-bankrupt Imperial College Healthcare than the local council or possibly because they have some guilty secrets there. They have a certain advantage over the Labour candidates in that they can actually point to a reduction in Council Tax and in debt plus a few achievements that are almost impossible to check. What does 25% reduction in crime mean? Are there really 44 extra police officers in the borough and what do they do? Still, I am reasonably pleased with the 6 new free schools, assuming they have actually opened and the 1,000 affordable homes to buy, assuming they do actually exist.
The more general communication that is aimed at the European Election proves without any doubt that the Conservatives are also using the campaign to fight next year's General Election. On the cover, a picture of their leader, our Prime Minister, the Boy-King himself, speaking rather than looking solemn. Well, looking solemn as he is speaking. What is he offering? A stronger economy at home, renewed respect abroad, real change in Europe. Two out of three are so vague as to be incomprehensible. How do you define renewed respect or real change. Experience with "Europe" tells us that the only real change we ever see is movement towards greater integration.
Moving on into the leaflet, I find out that these are the most important European Elections in a generation as for the "first time since the Eurozone crisis you get to have your say on Britain's relationship with Europe". I am not sure where to start in analyzing that particular piece of nonsense. We get our say on our relationship with Europe by voting for a certain party to send its members to the European Parliament, an institution of the European Union, of which we are a member? Just writing that sentence makes my head spin. Later on we are told that they are fighting to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU which makes about as much sense as people fighting to renegotiate Herefordshire's relationship with the United Kingdom.
Apparently, if we send in the Conservatives, fundamental changes will take place in the EU. Just to prove that we have a pretty picture of the London team with the Leader. Well, to be fair, the Conservatives are the only ones who have a picture of the whole team, regardless of whether they are likely to get in or not. (I doubt if numbers 6, Sheila Lawlor, or 7, Glyn Chambers, will.)
I left UKIP to last, partly because from the point of the view of this blog that could be said to be the most important party and the biggest missed opportunity and partly because it is still possible that they will come top. The great thing about the European Elections is that, because of the list system, nobody really wins but almost everybody does. So, UKIP coming top in the Euros will not produce a political revolution in this country any more than them coming second last time did. In fact, it will do very little unless they can parlay that into some seats in the General Election next year or one or two by-elections before that, of which there is no chance.
So, first things first, the news that Gerard Batten's home was attacked in the early hours of this morning is completely outrageous, regardless of what one thinks of the party. If, indeed, this is part of an organized campaign to intimidate UKIP (just as there was an organized campaign to intimidate the BNP) then it is also incredibly stupid. Do these people really not understand that this sort of violence merely gives their target group extra support? No, I don't suppose they do. At present, the police are investigating the attack so any other comments from me would be superfluous and quite probably factually wrong. (Here is another article that concentrates on Farage and his fears.)
Back to UKIP election literature of which there is more than from any other party. Either they have had another influx of money or what we are seeing is the well-known Farage strategy of throwing everything at one aim and to hell with the future.
To date, I have had two glossy and one newspaper-type leaflets. Mostly they say the same thing over and over again: there are people coming into this country to take away jobs, accommodation and the country in general. That is the main message with all other issues, including actual membership of the EU, becoming subordinate. That is something of a risky strategy: what if, despite being worried about mass immigration, the electorate of this country reacts badly to this kind of naked fear-mongering and hatred of the outsider?
One glossy leaflet had a big picture of the Great Leader on one side and a much smaller picture of Gerard Batten, the London MEP, on the other. It is, of course, important not to have a bigger picture of yourself than that of the Leader, not to have one above that of the Leader and not to look as if you were taller than the Leader.
On the Batten side (small photograph) we have a good deal about "4,000 people a week" coming to live in Britain from the EU and the cost in British jobs, pushed down wages and pressure on schools, health, welfare. I presume that means that people coming from outside the EU do not have that effect. What, I wonder, about the large number of French people who tend to get jobs in the higher ranks of the economy? Not all. Plenty of French work in catering as do plenty of Poles, Spanish (highly incompetent) and others. Also many Brits and Antipodeans. But, undoubtedly, there are pressures on school, health and welfare, all of which need root and branch reform, strongly opposed .... by .... yes, you guessed it, UKIP.
On the Farage side (big picture) we get a paragraph about immigration and then one that makes me think that UKIP could do with some editors:
The other glossy leaflet concentrated on UKIP's image as the radical, non-political party (just as their Leader is a non-political politician who is really rather a good bloke). Another picture of Nigel Farage inviting us all to join his team and informing us that "we are all going UKIP this year" because of Labour failure on immigration, Tory failure on planning (not strict enough), Liberal (ahem!) sell out to the EU and Green energy price hikes. Note, please, that the EU as a whole comes in third and is attributed only to the Lib-Dims. At least, I assume they do not mean the Liberal Party that is still in existence and is furiously opposed to the European project.
Examples of the "all" are shown by 18 small photos on either side of the Leader, implying that these are people who have seen the light. A quick look through and I recognized about a third as members, activists, candidates and employees of UKIP of long standing, including Sanya-Jeet Thandi who has since left the party. Ah well. Can't win them all.
So, UKIP is not entirely honest in its election literature. So what? Is any party? No, of course not and I think I have made that reasonably clear above. The point is not that UKIP is no worse than anyone else, despite the prevalence of troglodytes among the members, but that their USP, apart from the fear of incomers, is that they are different: not political, not corrupt, not dishonest. Not like the other parties, in other words. That is why it is so damaging when they behave exactly like the other parties and politicians.
Similarly, it would not be a newsworthy item that UKIP employed Latvians at what one assumes were rock bottom wages to deliver their leaflets if their campaign had not concentrated on the subject of immigrant workers taking British jobs and depressing British wages.
Finally, there is the UKIP News, the newspaper-style leaflet, that covers a few issues, the biggest one of which, the one that has the huge main headline: Britain Faces Fresh Wave of Immigrants. Everything else, effect on the City, the European Arrest Warrant, scandalous waste of EU aid projects (as if foreign aid that we give directly was not scandalously wasted and misused), all pale into insignificance.
Do I think this is racist? No. Furthermore, the cries of racism help UKIP in that they can preen themselves as people who are unjustly attacked by demented lefties. As a consequence, they never really have to explain their policies or their statements or how has a party that is supposedly a free-market, vaguely libertarian entity become protectionist, big statist (just read what they say about planning) and backward looking to a rose-coloured view of that tiresome decade, the fifties.
This year's crop has been outstandingly dire in both content and design. The first Labour leaflet I received had a big picture of Ed Miliband looking solemn and the message: "Only Labour will tackle the cost-of-living crisis". Reading this and glancing through the other items: NHS, "free" childcare, housing crisis and soaring energy bills, I could not help wondering whether the party in question had the first idea of which particular elections were coming up. For Mr Miliband's information, none of that can be solved in the European Parliament and very little at the local level.
Actually, tucked away in a corner there was a reference to MEPs who are fighting for jobs and growth (mostly their own jobs and the growth of their waistlines) because, forsooth, we would lose 3.5 million jobs if we left the EU. It seems quite extraordinary that anyone should come up with that particular chestnut still or to think that Britain's membership of the EU somehow depends on the MEPs.
Since then I have also received the Labour leaflet for the local election in which they promise to cut taxes (having clearly forgotten that when they controlled the council, our local tax rate was among the highest in London) and to protect the NHS or the local hospitals or something like that. Nobody, I may add, has been able to explain precisely what the plans are about local hospitals and what alternatives there might be to the projected rearrangements, known by some campaigners and the Labour party as cuts. Nevertheless, it is a bad sign for the Labour party that all they can campaign on is the NHS.
I was not altogether surprised to read that they are now behind the Conservatives in opinion polls, a most unusual situation at this stage of the electoral cycle. It made me recall the 1992 General Election, the first in which UKIP's predecessor, the Anti-Federalist League campaigned. (Yes, it has been around that long.) The day I realized that Labour would lose was when I was accosted by some supporter of theirs who solemnly argued that the real power in the land was the Monday Club. I put my money where my mouth was and eventually won £10 from a friend. Still, Labour can comfort themselves with the thought that opinion polls matter less than the actual election. At least, they might be able to comfort themselves with that thought until next Thursday.
Let's get the unimportant ones out of the way. I have not had any Lib-Dim literature but I gather that they are calling on all of us to re-elect the egregious Sarah Ludford, as ghastly a euro-weenie as I have ever come across and much given to hyperventilation. At one debate she became quite hysterical about people she described as climate deniers. I asked her whether these people actually denied that there was such a thing as a climate. She just gobbled.
The Greens are calling on me to re-elect Jean Lambert but for some reason all the policies are out and out socialist ones, thus proving that saying about watermelons.
Then there is something called the Communities United Party who desperately need a proof-reader to get rid of the inappropriate capitals in their leaflet though I hope they keep the fierce eagle. I am not altogether sure what they are campaigning about as they seem to think all sorts of issues can be solved in the European Parliament and I am not certain that their slogan, Strength in Unity, is entirely appropriate. Reminds me of all those fly-by-night parties that used to appear just before European elections with much fanfare, putting forward "real people" as candidates who invariably demonstrated their reality by knowing nothing about the European Parliament for which they were standing. Mind you, I think that the Communities United Party is against Britain's withdrawal from the European Union though I am not sure I can quite work out their argument.
So we come to the Conservatives, whose local election leaflet does not mention Charing Cross Hospital, possibly because that has more to do with the near-bankrupt Imperial College Healthcare than the local council or possibly because they have some guilty secrets there. They have a certain advantage over the Labour candidates in that they can actually point to a reduction in Council Tax and in debt plus a few achievements that are almost impossible to check. What does 25% reduction in crime mean? Are there really 44 extra police officers in the borough and what do they do? Still, I am reasonably pleased with the 6 new free schools, assuming they have actually opened and the 1,000 affordable homes to buy, assuming they do actually exist.
The more general communication that is aimed at the European Election proves without any doubt that the Conservatives are also using the campaign to fight next year's General Election. On the cover, a picture of their leader, our Prime Minister, the Boy-King himself, speaking rather than looking solemn. Well, looking solemn as he is speaking. What is he offering? A stronger economy at home, renewed respect abroad, real change in Europe. Two out of three are so vague as to be incomprehensible. How do you define renewed respect or real change. Experience with "Europe" tells us that the only real change we ever see is movement towards greater integration.
Moving on into the leaflet, I find out that these are the most important European Elections in a generation as for the "first time since the Eurozone crisis you get to have your say on Britain's relationship with Europe". I am not sure where to start in analyzing that particular piece of nonsense. We get our say on our relationship with Europe by voting for a certain party to send its members to the European Parliament, an institution of the European Union, of which we are a member? Just writing that sentence makes my head spin. Later on we are told that they are fighting to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU which makes about as much sense as people fighting to renegotiate Herefordshire's relationship with the United Kingdom.
Apparently, if we send in the Conservatives, fundamental changes will take place in the EU. Just to prove that we have a pretty picture of the London team with the Leader. Well, to be fair, the Conservatives are the only ones who have a picture of the whole team, regardless of whether they are likely to get in or not. (I doubt if numbers 6, Sheila Lawlor, or 7, Glyn Chambers, will.)
I left UKIP to last, partly because from the point of the view of this blog that could be said to be the most important party and the biggest missed opportunity and partly because it is still possible that they will come top. The great thing about the European Elections is that, because of the list system, nobody really wins but almost everybody does. So, UKIP coming top in the Euros will not produce a political revolution in this country any more than them coming second last time did. In fact, it will do very little unless they can parlay that into some seats in the General Election next year or one or two by-elections before that, of which there is no chance.
So, first things first, the news that Gerard Batten's home was attacked in the early hours of this morning is completely outrageous, regardless of what one thinks of the party. If, indeed, this is part of an organized campaign to intimidate UKIP (just as there was an organized campaign to intimidate the BNP) then it is also incredibly stupid. Do these people really not understand that this sort of violence merely gives their target group extra support? No, I don't suppose they do. At present, the police are investigating the attack so any other comments from me would be superfluous and quite probably factually wrong. (Here is another article that concentrates on Farage and his fears.)
Back to UKIP election literature of which there is more than from any other party. Either they have had another influx of money or what we are seeing is the well-known Farage strategy of throwing everything at one aim and to hell with the future.
To date, I have had two glossy and one newspaper-type leaflets. Mostly they say the same thing over and over again: there are people coming into this country to take away jobs, accommodation and the country in general. That is the main message with all other issues, including actual membership of the EU, becoming subordinate. That is something of a risky strategy: what if, despite being worried about mass immigration, the electorate of this country reacts badly to this kind of naked fear-mongering and hatred of the outsider?
One glossy leaflet had a big picture of the Great Leader on one side and a much smaller picture of Gerard Batten, the London MEP, on the other. It is, of course, important not to have a bigger picture of yourself than that of the Leader, not to have one above that of the Leader and not to look as if you were taller than the Leader.
On the Batten side (small photograph) we have a good deal about "4,000 people a week" coming to live in Britain from the EU and the cost in British jobs, pushed down wages and pressure on schools, health, welfare. I presume that means that people coming from outside the EU do not have that effect. What, I wonder, about the large number of French people who tend to get jobs in the higher ranks of the economy? Not all. Plenty of French work in catering as do plenty of Poles, Spanish (highly incompetent) and others. Also many Brits and Antipodeans. But, undoubtedly, there are pressures on school, health and welfare, all of which need root and branch reform, strongly opposed .... by .... yes, you guessed it, UKIP.
On the Farage side (big picture) we get a paragraph about immigration and then one that makes me think that UKIP could do with some editors:
We have no control over our borders, but we also have no control over who we trade with, how much we pay to heat our homes and feed our families or how we just get on with our lives.To think that Mr Farage attended Dulwich College, the alma mater of two of the best twentieth century stylists: P. G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler.
The other glossy leaflet concentrated on UKIP's image as the radical, non-political party (just as their Leader is a non-political politician who is really rather a good bloke). Another picture of Nigel Farage inviting us all to join his team and informing us that "we are all going UKIP this year" because of Labour failure on immigration, Tory failure on planning (not strict enough), Liberal (ahem!) sell out to the EU and Green energy price hikes. Note, please, that the EU as a whole comes in third and is attributed only to the Lib-Dims. At least, I assume they do not mean the Liberal Party that is still in existence and is furiously opposed to the European project.
Examples of the "all" are shown by 18 small photos on either side of the Leader, implying that these are people who have seen the light. A quick look through and I recognized about a third as members, activists, candidates and employees of UKIP of long standing, including Sanya-Jeet Thandi who has since left the party. Ah well. Can't win them all.
So, UKIP is not entirely honest in its election literature. So what? Is any party? No, of course not and I think I have made that reasonably clear above. The point is not that UKIP is no worse than anyone else, despite the prevalence of troglodytes among the members, but that their USP, apart from the fear of incomers, is that they are different: not political, not corrupt, not dishonest. Not like the other parties, in other words. That is why it is so damaging when they behave exactly like the other parties and politicians.
Similarly, it would not be a newsworthy item that UKIP employed Latvians at what one assumes were rock bottom wages to deliver their leaflets if their campaign had not concentrated on the subject of immigrant workers taking British jobs and depressing British wages.
Finally, there is the UKIP News, the newspaper-style leaflet, that covers a few issues, the biggest one of which, the one that has the huge main headline: Britain Faces Fresh Wave of Immigrants. Everything else, effect on the City, the European Arrest Warrant, scandalous waste of EU aid projects (as if foreign aid that we give directly was not scandalously wasted and misused), all pale into insignificance.
Do I think this is racist? No. Furthermore, the cries of racism help UKIP in that they can preen themselves as people who are unjustly attacked by demented lefties. As a consequence, they never really have to explain their policies or their statements or how has a party that is supposedly a free-market, vaguely libertarian entity become protectionist, big statist (just read what they say about planning) and backward looking to a rose-coloured view of that tiresome decade, the fifties.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Commenting on news items
This blog seems to have very tolerant readers. I can understand them not complaining about the paucity of posts - a blessing in disguise to many - but not even mentioning the Brexit Prize and why have I not said anything about it is tolerance beyond what I can really expect. The reason is quite simple: I have not had time to read the winning three entries and do not feel qualified to comment on them until I do so, which will happen very soon.
In the meantime, I noticed a couple of items in the media, which made me snort with disgust and then laugh. The first was, naturally enough, Ed Miliband's sudden conversion to Judaism from the previous secular atheism and his announcement that he was hoping to become Britain's first Jewish Prime Minister. That would be the Ed Miliband who made some claims recently about the Labour Party being the party of One Nation, referring back specifically to Benjamin Disraeli who, as it happens, never used that phrase and was not interested in the concept.
What does he think Disraeli was? Clearly Mr Miliband has not ambitions to become a historically knowledgeable Prime Minister. (As it happens, I do not think he will become a Prime Minister of any kind but that is a separate issue.)
There is a good deal of discussion about whether Disraeli really was Jewish, having been baptized at the age of 12 and having been a practising Anglican in his adulthood. Well, yes, he was as Jewish as the completely secular atheist Ed Miliband, that is through his race and family. Furthermore, Judaism continued to be important to Disraeli, while Miliband has never referred to it until now. Does he really think this nonsense will win him the election?
The other item was Michael Rosen's Open Letter to the new Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, who, incidentally, will be the first Cabinet Member of Asian background. In it Mr Rosen casts doubt on Mr Javid's qualifications because, forsooth, he has not worked in culture but in banking for most of his life. So what does he know of culture? Well, the same might have been asked of T. S. Eliot who worked for some years in Lloyds Bank and, indeed, of a number of other writers and artists.
Guido Fawkes also points out that Rosen himself, apparently, thinks that he, a poet of moderate calibre (that is my view not Guido's) is entitled to have opinions about banking and pronounce them pompously in public.
My own view is that we do not need a Culture Secretary or a Department of State devoted to culture (or sport or media) and, therefore, that job is completely redundant. But if we are going to have somebody there it is much better to have someone who does not "work in culture" as Michael Rosen describes himself. The sign of a democracy, after all, is that civilians control all our the armed forces.
In the meantime, I noticed a couple of items in the media, which made me snort with disgust and then laugh. The first was, naturally enough, Ed Miliband's sudden conversion to Judaism from the previous secular atheism and his announcement that he was hoping to become Britain's first Jewish Prime Minister. That would be the Ed Miliband who made some claims recently about the Labour Party being the party of One Nation, referring back specifically to Benjamin Disraeli who, as it happens, never used that phrase and was not interested in the concept.
What does he think Disraeli was? Clearly Mr Miliband has not ambitions to become a historically knowledgeable Prime Minister. (As it happens, I do not think he will become a Prime Minister of any kind but that is a separate issue.)
There is a good deal of discussion about whether Disraeli really was Jewish, having been baptized at the age of 12 and having been a practising Anglican in his adulthood. Well, yes, he was as Jewish as the completely secular atheist Ed Miliband, that is through his race and family. Furthermore, Judaism continued to be important to Disraeli, while Miliband has never referred to it until now. Does he really think this nonsense will win him the election?
The other item was Michael Rosen's Open Letter to the new Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, who, incidentally, will be the first Cabinet Member of Asian background. In it Mr Rosen casts doubt on Mr Javid's qualifications because, forsooth, he has not worked in culture but in banking for most of his life. So what does he know of culture? Well, the same might have been asked of T. S. Eliot who worked for some years in Lloyds Bank and, indeed, of a number of other writers and artists.
Guido Fawkes also points out that Rosen himself, apparently, thinks that he, a poet of moderate calibre (that is my view not Guido's) is entitled to have opinions about banking and pronounce them pompously in public.
My own view is that we do not need a Culture Secretary or a Department of State devoted to culture (or sport or media) and, therefore, that job is completely redundant. But if we are going to have somebody there it is much better to have someone who does not "work in culture" as Michael Rosen describes himself. The sign of a democracy, after all, is that civilians control all our the armed forces.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
The last political "realignment"
There is some talk going on about the need for a political realignment, for new parties to make a break-through, for old parties to split according to ideas and even ideology - it seems to be leading nowhere. What with the talk and with the many reminiscences of the seventies and eighties that followed Lady Thatcher's death this is undoubtedly a good time to recall the last time an attempt at political realignment seemed to fail though it probably succeeded in the long run and in an unexpected fashion.
In 1981, two years after what turned out to be one of the most significant elections of modern British history, dissatisfied members of the Labour Party, led by the "Gang of Four", Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers, set up a new party, which, they hoped, would carry on the more Social-Democratic tradition of the Labour Party, which had been, in their and many others' opinion, taken over by left-wing Marxist activists.
While David Owen and Bill Rodgers were still sitting MPs, Shirley Williams had lost her seat in 1979 and Roy Jenkins had more or less opted out of British politics, which was becoming unpalatable to him in 1977, when he became President of the European Commission. After January 1981 Wembley Conference, which committed the Labour Party to unilateral disarmament, they finally faced up to the fact that they had only two choices: either conform with the left-wing Marxist movement that was taking over the party or to break away and form a new one.
The summary of the party's history on Wikipedia is, in fact, quite good, though many of the details and twists and turns necessarily had to be left out.
The new party formed an electoral alliance with the Liberal Party very soon after its formation and this continued till 1988 when the two parties merged more formally, the mould not having been broken though somewhat dented. As Charles Moore points out in the first volume of his Thatcher biography, the Gang of Four had not been paying enough attention to what was going on in the Conservative Party, underestimating Thatcher and her increasing influence on British politics. One could say that they had made the decision to break away from the Labour Party too late. If only they had done so when the first calls for a new, centrist, Social-Democrat party had started in the mid-seventies ....
For the story of that attempt at political realignment goes back to some years before 1981, though many of the players are less well remembered than the Gang of Four and their followers. There is the story of the Social Democratic Alliance, a group of Labour politicians at various levels who struck out boldly against the extreme left-wing infiltration of the party and what they saw, with a good deal of justification, as the pusillanimous behaviour by the party leadership and its Gaitskillite social-democratic wing. Though there was half-hearted support from Roy Jenkins, the other later "rebels" shied away from the fight. Indeed, I recall Shirley Williams appearing on TV to tell us all that she could not understand what the SDA's members were complaining about: she could see no extremist infiltration and Militant was not a problem. She might have been that stupid (you can never tell with Baroness Williams as she is now) or she might have been frightened to tell the truth or she might have thought it was a clever manoeuvre.
Then there were the deselection fights in several constituencies with moderate or right-wing MPs, which were painful and long-drawn with varying results. The most important of these was in Newham North-East where the battle against Militant and various Trostskyist infiltrators was fought by the man who probably did more than anyone else to bring the truth out into the open and whose apparently hopeless struggle produced a curious success eventually: Reg Prentice.
It is wonderful to find that his name is being restored into its rightful place in modern British political history by Geoff Horn's new biography, published by Manchester University Press, called Crossing the Floor - Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy.
Dr Horn, an expert on social-democratic politics in the Labour Party, has produced an exhaustive and detailed account of the gradual disintegration of that party in the seventies and eighties and of the gradual control exerted over trade unions, local party organizations and, eventually, the national organization. Perhaps, it is a little too detailed for a non-geek. After a while, one gets exhausted by the account of all the meetings and all the resolutions but it is worth persevering as much of what happened afterwards in British politics is rooted in those apparently boring squabbles, hastily called meetings, dubious votes, legal injunctions and, most of all, inability on the part of Labour's right, the Gaitskillites to throw off their political paralysis.
There were exceptions to the latter and one of the most important ones was Reg Prentice, a man of impeccable socialist credentials who, nevertheless, stood up against union violence, political intimidation and extreme left-wing ideology, proclaiming over and over again the need for law and order, for sensible economic compromises, for parliamentary democracy. For his pains he was deselected in his constituency and was subjected to a good deal of harassment. He tried to fight back but did not succeed, thought of standing as an independent when he realized that his idea of a new, social-democratic party was not being taken up by his colleagues and, eventually, crossed the floor and joined the Conservative Party.
Prentice was a decent and honourable man though not an easy one to deal with. Men who feel inspired by a political mission rarely are and if they are losing the battle even less so. For all of that he was right as many in the Labour Party recognized too late.
The book tries to be objective but one cannot help feeling some contempt for the so-called Right in the Labour Party, the supposed Gaitskillites and self-defined social-democrats who did not have the courage to back either the rebels of the SDA or Reg Prentice when these tried to persuade the grandees that the Labour Party had to split and a new political alignment was needed. Nor does Dr Horn spare the two leaders of the time, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan who turned out to be incapable of dealing with the clearly evidenced infiltration. Their punishment was to watch the Labour Party's decade of growing political irrelevance.
The realignment did not happen as envisaged even when the new party was formed. By this time many of the electorate who might have supported it in the mid-seventies had decided that they quite liked Thatcher's Conservatives and voted accordingly. The left-wing activists of the Labour Party were right in one thing: the post-war consensus was failing the country and changes were needed. They simply were wrong as to which kind of changes and the Labour establishment was powerless to fight them.
It would not be correct to say that there was no realignment at all. After a decade or more of progressive destruction and disintegration, after the split that created the SDP, after Michael Foot's spectacularly inept leadership of the party, there was a concerted effort to sort the mess out. It took a few years and a good deal of money but Militant tendency was defeated and its influence in the party negated. It took another few years for the policies to be changed and for the party to become electable under the much disliked yet highly successful Tony Blair.
Dr Horn discusses briefly whether New Labour is, in fact, the social-democrat party that Reg Prentice and the others would have liked to see. Perhaps it is. But one can also argue that we now have two or even three social-democrat parties and, confusingly, the electorate do not seem to like any of them all that much.
Geoff Horn:
Crossing the floor - Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy
2013 Manchester University Press
In 1981, two years after what turned out to be one of the most significant elections of modern British history, dissatisfied members of the Labour Party, led by the "Gang of Four", Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers, set up a new party, which, they hoped, would carry on the more Social-Democratic tradition of the Labour Party, which had been, in their and many others' opinion, taken over by left-wing Marxist activists.
While David Owen and Bill Rodgers were still sitting MPs, Shirley Williams had lost her seat in 1979 and Roy Jenkins had more or less opted out of British politics, which was becoming unpalatable to him in 1977, when he became President of the European Commission. After January 1981 Wembley Conference, which committed the Labour Party to unilateral disarmament, they finally faced up to the fact that they had only two choices: either conform with the left-wing Marxist movement that was taking over the party or to break away and form a new one.
The summary of the party's history on Wikipedia is, in fact, quite good, though many of the details and twists and turns necessarily had to be left out.
The new party formed an electoral alliance with the Liberal Party very soon after its formation and this continued till 1988 when the two parties merged more formally, the mould not having been broken though somewhat dented. As Charles Moore points out in the first volume of his Thatcher biography, the Gang of Four had not been paying enough attention to what was going on in the Conservative Party, underestimating Thatcher and her increasing influence on British politics. One could say that they had made the decision to break away from the Labour Party too late. If only they had done so when the first calls for a new, centrist, Social-Democrat party had started in the mid-seventies ....
For the story of that attempt at political realignment goes back to some years before 1981, though many of the players are less well remembered than the Gang of Four and their followers. There is the story of the Social Democratic Alliance, a group of Labour politicians at various levels who struck out boldly against the extreme left-wing infiltration of the party and what they saw, with a good deal of justification, as the pusillanimous behaviour by the party leadership and its Gaitskillite social-democratic wing. Though there was half-hearted support from Roy Jenkins, the other later "rebels" shied away from the fight. Indeed, I recall Shirley Williams appearing on TV to tell us all that she could not understand what the SDA's members were complaining about: she could see no extremist infiltration and Militant was not a problem. She might have been that stupid (you can never tell with Baroness Williams as she is now) or she might have been frightened to tell the truth or she might have thought it was a clever manoeuvre.
Then there were the deselection fights in several constituencies with moderate or right-wing MPs, which were painful and long-drawn with varying results. The most important of these was in Newham North-East where the battle against Militant and various Trostskyist infiltrators was fought by the man who probably did more than anyone else to bring the truth out into the open and whose apparently hopeless struggle produced a curious success eventually: Reg Prentice.
It is wonderful to find that his name is being restored into its rightful place in modern British political history by Geoff Horn's new biography, published by Manchester University Press, called Crossing the Floor - Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy.
Dr Horn, an expert on social-democratic politics in the Labour Party, has produced an exhaustive and detailed account of the gradual disintegration of that party in the seventies and eighties and of the gradual control exerted over trade unions, local party organizations and, eventually, the national organization. Perhaps, it is a little too detailed for a non-geek. After a while, one gets exhausted by the account of all the meetings and all the resolutions but it is worth persevering as much of what happened afterwards in British politics is rooted in those apparently boring squabbles, hastily called meetings, dubious votes, legal injunctions and, most of all, inability on the part of Labour's right, the Gaitskillites to throw off their political paralysis.
There were exceptions to the latter and one of the most important ones was Reg Prentice, a man of impeccable socialist credentials who, nevertheless, stood up against union violence, political intimidation and extreme left-wing ideology, proclaiming over and over again the need for law and order, for sensible economic compromises, for parliamentary democracy. For his pains he was deselected in his constituency and was subjected to a good deal of harassment. He tried to fight back but did not succeed, thought of standing as an independent when he realized that his idea of a new, social-democratic party was not being taken up by his colleagues and, eventually, crossed the floor and joined the Conservative Party.
Prentice was a decent and honourable man though not an easy one to deal with. Men who feel inspired by a political mission rarely are and if they are losing the battle even less so. For all of that he was right as many in the Labour Party recognized too late.
The book tries to be objective but one cannot help feeling some contempt for the so-called Right in the Labour Party, the supposed Gaitskillites and self-defined social-democrats who did not have the courage to back either the rebels of the SDA or Reg Prentice when these tried to persuade the grandees that the Labour Party had to split and a new political alignment was needed. Nor does Dr Horn spare the two leaders of the time, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan who turned out to be incapable of dealing with the clearly evidenced infiltration. Their punishment was to watch the Labour Party's decade of growing political irrelevance.
The realignment did not happen as envisaged even when the new party was formed. By this time many of the electorate who might have supported it in the mid-seventies had decided that they quite liked Thatcher's Conservatives and voted accordingly. The left-wing activists of the Labour Party were right in one thing: the post-war consensus was failing the country and changes were needed. They simply were wrong as to which kind of changes and the Labour establishment was powerless to fight them.
It would not be correct to say that there was no realignment at all. After a decade or more of progressive destruction and disintegration, after the split that created the SDP, after Michael Foot's spectacularly inept leadership of the party, there was a concerted effort to sort the mess out. It took a few years and a good deal of money but Militant tendency was defeated and its influence in the party negated. It took another few years for the policies to be changed and for the party to become electable under the much disliked yet highly successful Tony Blair.
Dr Horn discusses briefly whether New Labour is, in fact, the social-democrat party that Reg Prentice and the others would have liked to see. Perhaps it is. But one can also argue that we now have two or even three social-democrat parties and, confusingly, the electorate do not seem to like any of them all that much.
Geoff Horn:
Crossing the floor - Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy
2013 Manchester University Press
Friday, March 1, 2013
So where are we?
The Eastleigh by-election has confounded everybody, particularly the experts. I am rather glad I made no prediction and, indeed, took little interest. For, in the end, it is not a make-or-break by-election though things will go badly for a while for Cameron and his team, particularly Grant Shapps.
So here are the figures: turn-out was higher than we have been used to in by-elections at 52.8 per cent. The Lib-Dims, whose vote collapsed in the last several by-elections held the seat easily with 13,342 votes, down considerably from Chris Huhne's 24,966. Second: UKIP, for the third by-election, with 11,571 votes, third Conservatives with 10,599 and it is the Labour vote that collapsed: 4,088. As the Boss says in his far earlier posting (he actually stayed up being that kind of a person):
The fact that this time the Lib-Dims held on to the seat after a number of catastrophic results while the Labour vote collapsed not only confounded those experts who said that the party was finished but shows a somewhat scatter gun approach by the electorate. We can draw no conclusions for the next General Election , which is two years or so away.
As for UKIP, despite their achievement in coming second yet again (and as late as 1 am last night Farage was saying that we may well see the first UKIP MP) they are now in no-man's land. Still no seat in Westminster, still not getting more than just over a quarter of the votes cast, still not achieving the position in political life, as opposed to the media they ought to have. Their plan to become the third party after the Lib-Dims has fallen by the wayside through the latter's victory in Eastleigh and they cannot pretend that they are the second party in the country with no MPs and very few councillors. So, despite the undoubted rejoicing in the UKIP ranks and despite the nauseating plaudits that will be heaped on the Dear Leader, the fact remains: after 20 years and in the most propitious circumstances they remain, as I say, in no-man's land.
So here are the figures: turn-out was higher than we have been used to in by-elections at 52.8 per cent. The Lib-Dims, whose vote collapsed in the last several by-elections held the seat easily with 13,342 votes, down considerably from Chris Huhne's 24,966. Second: UKIP, for the third by-election, with 11,571 votes, third Conservatives with 10,599 and it is the Labour vote that collapsed: 4,088. As the Boss says in his far earlier posting (he actually stayed up being that kind of a person):
Mike Thornton's vote of 13,342 votes compares with Chris Huhne's 24,966 in 2010, yet Thornton talks of a Lib-Dem "mandate", having dragged in pitiful 32 percent of the votes cast, and 17 percent of the electorate of 78,313. UKIP's great victory amounts to 28 percent of the votes cast, or 14.8 percent of the electorate.I am not sure this tells us anything new. People are not turning out to vote for any of the candidates (a spectacularly unexciting lot in Eastleigh) for a number of reasons.
The fact that this time the Lib-Dims held on to the seat after a number of catastrophic results while the Labour vote collapsed not only confounded those experts who said that the party was finished but shows a somewhat scatter gun approach by the electorate. We can draw no conclusions for the next General Election , which is two years or so away.
As for UKIP, despite their achievement in coming second yet again (and as late as 1 am last night Farage was saying that we may well see the first UKIP MP) they are now in no-man's land. Still no seat in Westminster, still not getting more than just over a quarter of the votes cast, still not achieving the position in political life, as opposed to the media they ought to have. Their plan to become the third party after the Lib-Dims has fallen by the wayside through the latter's victory in Eastleigh and they cannot pretend that they are the second party in the country with no MPs and very few councillors. So, despite the undoubted rejoicing in the UKIP ranks and despite the nauseating plaudits that will be heaped on the Dear Leader, the fact remains: after 20 years and in the most propitious circumstances they remain, as I say, in no-man's land.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Jack Straw does not go far enough
A little late in the day but some Labour politicians have been making noises about the democratic deficit at the heart of the European project. Jack Straw, speaking at Labour's favourite think-tank, the IPPR, said that had the peoples of Europe been consulted about the euro, many of the stresses could have been foreseen.
Actually, had the peoples been consulted, there would have been no eurozone. Greece might have voted for it but not Germany or such countries as the Netherlands.
Furthermore, added Mr Straw, former Foreign Secretary, the European Parliament needs to be overhauled and the farce of direct elections abolished. Of course, that does not go far enough, in my opinion. The European Parliament needs to be closed down for good. Enough of this expensive toy parliament whose dual role is to provide some kind of a democratic mask to the whole project and to tighten up the Commission's proposed regulations.
The European Parliament was not always directly elected. It started off as a Parliamentary Assembly and its members were chosen by the member states' parliaments, that is elected indirectly. This did not change till 1979 and I recall Lord Stoddart of Swindon telling me that he had opposed that change, not wishing to give the European Parliament or any European institution the semblance of a democratic institution. He and his cohorts were absolutely right.
Since 1979 the European Parliament has acquired more power with every new treaty, though the Commission remains the sole proposer of legislation in the EU (that includes every form of it, directives, regulations and all others) and the Parliament is neither a debating chamber or a legislating body in the way we understand it. It does tend to be more extreme in its demands for regulation of whatever is on the table than the Commission or the Council. Some dim understanding of this has filtered through to the various countries' electorates and with every new acquisition of power the European Parliament has lost voters. The turn-outs have been sinking over the years.
Here is a somewhat misleading account of what the European Parliament can and cannot do.
It is idiotic even to suppose that one can have European democracy or accountability when there is no European demos, no European understanding even of what such a beast might look like. And let us not forget that candidates are chosen by the various parties in closed lists. Time to stop pretending that the European Parliament is in any way a parliament. We can go back to the old system of deputies being chosen by the various legislative bodies across the EU. Or we could just simply scrap it as a first step towards scrapping the whole project. This one will be easy as the Toy Parliament's disappearance will affect no-one except its members and employees.
Actually, had the peoples been consulted, there would have been no eurozone. Greece might have voted for it but not Germany or such countries as the Netherlands.
Furthermore, added Mr Straw, former Foreign Secretary, the European Parliament needs to be overhauled and the farce of direct elections abolished. Of course, that does not go far enough, in my opinion. The European Parliament needs to be closed down for good. Enough of this expensive toy parliament whose dual role is to provide some kind of a democratic mask to the whole project and to tighten up the Commission's proposed regulations.
The European Parliament was not always directly elected. It started off as a Parliamentary Assembly and its members were chosen by the member states' parliaments, that is elected indirectly. This did not change till 1979 and I recall Lord Stoddart of Swindon telling me that he had opposed that change, not wishing to give the European Parliament or any European institution the semblance of a democratic institution. He and his cohorts were absolutely right.
Since 1979 the European Parliament has acquired more power with every new treaty, though the Commission remains the sole proposer of legislation in the EU (that includes every form of it, directives, regulations and all others) and the Parliament is neither a debating chamber or a legislating body in the way we understand it. It does tend to be more extreme in its demands for regulation of whatever is on the table than the Commission or the Council. Some dim understanding of this has filtered through to the various countries' electorates and with every new acquisition of power the European Parliament has lost voters. The turn-outs have been sinking over the years.
Here is a somewhat misleading account of what the European Parliament can and cannot do.
It is idiotic even to suppose that one can have European democracy or accountability when there is no European demos, no European understanding even of what such a beast might look like. And let us not forget that candidates are chosen by the various parties in closed lists. Time to stop pretending that the European Parliament is in any way a parliament. We can go back to the old system of deputies being chosen by the various legislative bodies across the EU. Or we could just simply scrap it as a first step towards scrapping the whole project. This one will be easy as the Toy Parliament's disappearance will affect no-one except its members and employees.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Well now, should I care?
Frankly no. Or not yet. Let us see how Ed Miliband shapes up. The fact that he won because of a fiendishly complicated electoral system is not something the Cleggeron Coalition should be making much of. Are they not wishing to impose a fiendishly complicated system of elections on the whole country?
Yes, he won with the support of the trade unions. Well, that's just the way it goes. To argue as Damian Thompson does in the Telegraph that this means Ed Miliband has forfeited his right to lecture us on democracy is to miss the point. As long as Britain is an enthusiastic member of the European Union with the more than enthusiastic support of all the main party politicians none of them have the right even to speak of democracy. Not even when they are offering cast-iron guarantees.
My last thought on the subject is that the Cleggeron Conservatives who are rejoicing in Ed Miliband's election and crowing that he will be a walk-over may well be in for a nasty surprise. They thought Blair would be a walk-over and he was anything but; even Brown turned out to be a far harder nut to crack and, in the end, they did not win that election. Miliband, an intelligent if dishonest politicians (and while there are many dishonest ones there are few intelligent ones), a new face who might enthuse the party, may well turn out to be a very tough opponent. But we shall see. At some point we might have to care.
Friday, February 12, 2010
So true
When did I last disagree with anything Victor David Hanson wrote? Hmmm, let me think. Must have been the 12th of Never. Anyway, here he is providing the best and pithiest insight into why President Obama's political behaviour is causing such ructions.
At a lower level the same thing happened to Tony Blair and his government (though the Conservatives seem unable to take advantage of the situation). Back in 1997 I recall saying repeatedly that I did not think it was such a very good idea for Labour to campaign on the whiter than white platform. White tends to go grey very quickly in politics and it then looks much worse because of the promises of being so much cleaner than the other guy. In particular, in was not a great idea to use that as a campaigning slogan by a party where corruption went quite high up. Well, it all came to pass.
The problem with Obama’s new hedging on taxing those who make below $250,000, or his administration’s taking credit for victory in the Iraq war that they so once fervently tried to abort, or the flip-flop on renditions and tribunals, or the embarrassments over closing Guantanamo and trying KSM in New York or Mirandizing the Christmas Day bomber,or trashing/praising Wall Street grandees, is not that presidents cannot change their minds as circumstances warrant, or even that all politicians are at times hypocritical. No, the rub is that Obama is not merely flipping and triangulating on issues in a desperate attempt to shadow the polls, but he is doing so on matters that he once swore were absolutely central to his entire candidacy and his signature hope-and-change agenda, critical to the future of the U.S., and proof of his opponents’ either ignorance or disingenuousness.It is always a mistake to pretend that you are the knight in shining white armour who will rid politics of all its incubi, especially if you happen to be a Chicago politician who had risen through the machine with the help of some very dubious associates. Sooner or later the truth will rise up and bite you, after which it becomes very difficult to claim that behaving like a politician is no big deal.
At a lower level the same thing happened to Tony Blair and his government (though the Conservatives seem unable to take advantage of the situation). Back in 1997 I recall saying repeatedly that I did not think it was such a very good idea for Labour to campaign on the whiter than white platform. White tends to go grey very quickly in politics and it then looks much worse because of the promises of being so much cleaner than the other guy. In particular, in was not a great idea to use that as a campaigning slogan by a party where corruption went quite high up. Well, it all came to pass.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Non-story of the day
It was my intention to brighten up my readers' day by putting up a video of Moira Shearer dancing in "Red Shoes", a wonderful Powell and Pressburger film, which I finally saw last week. (Three cheers for the National Film Theatre.) Sadly, it has proved to be impossible to embed the central ballet sequence, not, I may add, because of my incompetence but because of somebody's control freakery.
As I have no desire to post comments about the snow or the coldest winter since .... ooooh at least 1982 .... or any of the usual gumf about transport breaking down, schools closing down (that happened in 1987 or 1988, as I recall) and everything coming to a full stop. That leaves me with the biggest non-story of the day: the plot to oust Gordon Brown, its entirely predictable failure and the flap the Conservatives, politicians and commentators have got themselves into.
This morning everyone (well, about three dozen people) became very excited because a couple of Labour has-beens, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon, sent an e-mail to every MP in which they called for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown as leader. Of course, this disregarded several matters: the Labour Party's structure and constitution are such that it is well-nigh impossible to oust a leader who does not want to go; the last time they could have done it was at the Conference and they did not; nobody in their right mind would start a leadership election so close to a general election unless they absolutely had to and the Labour Party does not.
For several hours everyone (well, about fifty people) was on tenterhooks: will this succeed? No Minister has come out to support Brown, we were told breathlessly by one of the Tory bloggers (and I forget which one). This will lead to an early election, was the opinion heard everywhere (well, on Tory blogs and Facebook pages). Brown will have to go; Brown is a coward because he will not go; Brown .....
Well, there we are, ladies and gentlemen. By this evening two leading Labour Minister, David Miliband and Harriet Harman have come out in support of Brown and the crisis, it would appear, is over. Here are a few links that give the story in greater detail. ToryBoy blog tells us what Conservatives want from the Snowstorm plot (oh dear, the wit), then tells us that Hoon and Hewitt agree with Cameron that "we cannot go on like this", then assures us that the snowstorm in the teacup will be wonderful news for the Tories (having told us that if it succeeded it would have been wonderful news for the Tories).
Iain Dale spent most of the day updating the story with the odd interruption for the Peter Robinson story, which really should be of no concern to any journalist and blogger. (A politician's wife has an affair and tries to commit suicide is not something we all have the right to know about.)
I have no problems with wishful thinking; indeed, most of politics is wishful thinking. Therefore, I accept that the Tories got all excited because the Labour Party was about to tear itself to pieces over a leadership challenge. It might have been a good idea for them to find out whether this challenge ever had the slightest chance but that would have been realism not wishful thinking.
However, there are a few points one needs to make. In the first place, it might be a good idea for the Tories and their various bloggers to make up their minds whether they want Gordon Brown as leader or not and whether his presence is a good thing from their point of view or not.
Then it might be a good idea to make up their minds whether having an early election (which we shall not have, as this blog and EUReferendum have consistently predicted) is actually such a good idea from their point of view. Would calling an election in the middle of a really cold winter (an insane thing to do) make people feel warm about politicians at all?
Thirdly, the Tories should look outside the Westminster bubble. As far as most people are concerned today's non-events were of precious little interest. At present the Tories' lead is not so spectacular in the opinion polls as to justify their complacency and if this is the best they can do by way of political campaigning, they are not going to attract many more votes.
Fourthly, it is time to understand that the election will solve nothing. Regardless of who wins the most seats, the government in Brussels will not change any time soon.
As I have no desire to post comments about the snow or the coldest winter since .... ooooh at least 1982 .... or any of the usual gumf about transport breaking down, schools closing down (that happened in 1987 or 1988, as I recall) and everything coming to a full stop. That leaves me with the biggest non-story of the day: the plot to oust Gordon Brown, its entirely predictable failure and the flap the Conservatives, politicians and commentators have got themselves into.
This morning everyone (well, about three dozen people) became very excited because a couple of Labour has-beens, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon, sent an e-mail to every MP in which they called for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown as leader. Of course, this disregarded several matters: the Labour Party's structure and constitution are such that it is well-nigh impossible to oust a leader who does not want to go; the last time they could have done it was at the Conference and they did not; nobody in their right mind would start a leadership election so close to a general election unless they absolutely had to and the Labour Party does not.
For several hours everyone (well, about fifty people) was on tenterhooks: will this succeed? No Minister has come out to support Brown, we were told breathlessly by one of the Tory bloggers (and I forget which one). This will lead to an early election, was the opinion heard everywhere (well, on Tory blogs and Facebook pages). Brown will have to go; Brown is a coward because he will not go; Brown .....
Well, there we are, ladies and gentlemen. By this evening two leading Labour Minister, David Miliband and Harriet Harman have come out in support of Brown and the crisis, it would appear, is over. Here are a few links that give the story in greater detail. ToryBoy blog tells us what Conservatives want from the Snowstorm plot (oh dear, the wit), then tells us that Hoon and Hewitt agree with Cameron that "we cannot go on like this", then assures us that the snowstorm in the teacup will be wonderful news for the Tories (having told us that if it succeeded it would have been wonderful news for the Tories).
Iain Dale spent most of the day updating the story with the odd interruption for the Peter Robinson story, which really should be of no concern to any journalist and blogger. (A politician's wife has an affair and tries to commit suicide is not something we all have the right to know about.)
I have no problems with wishful thinking; indeed, most of politics is wishful thinking. Therefore, I accept that the Tories got all excited because the Labour Party was about to tear itself to pieces over a leadership challenge. It might have been a good idea for them to find out whether this challenge ever had the slightest chance but that would have been realism not wishful thinking.
However, there are a few points one needs to make. In the first place, it might be a good idea for the Tories and their various bloggers to make up their minds whether they want Gordon Brown as leader or not and whether his presence is a good thing from their point of view or not.
Then it might be a good idea to make up their minds whether having an early election (which we shall not have, as this blog and EUReferendum have consistently predicted) is actually such a good idea from their point of view. Would calling an election in the middle of a really cold winter (an insane thing to do) make people feel warm about politicians at all?
Thirdly, the Tories should look outside the Westminster bubble. As far as most people are concerned today's non-events were of precious little interest. At present the Tories' lead is not so spectacular in the opinion polls as to justify their complacency and if this is the best they can do by way of political campaigning, they are not going to attract many more votes.
Fourthly, it is time to understand that the election will solve nothing. Regardless of who wins the most seats, the government in Brussels will not change any time soon.
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