THE PORK BARREL ELECTION

SPEND, SPEND, SPEND.

The spending plans of both main parties are getting ridiculous. Do they think we are fools? After years of austerity, the taps are being turned on big time. We need big investment in the NHS, elderly care, the climate agenda and the Northern Powerhouse but the spending plans lack coherence and already bear the hallmark of reckless promises being made just to win an election.

It would be better if both parties had published their manifestos where we could assess the total picture. Instead we have a promise a day. This is apparently to feed the 24-hour news agenda. If everything was announced at once in a manifesto, there would be nothing to feed the media on a daily basis. What nonsense. The media would be able to fill each day with proper analysis of the party’s plans. Instead the manifestos will hardly be out before postal voting starts.

I’m very wary of spending promises on this scale. Brace yourself if Johnson wins and inflicts a Brexit recession on the country, for that to be used as an excuse to renege on a lot of these spending plans. Attention will return to getting our debt burden down. That’s the right policy. It’s just being forgotten about now for election purposes.

YOU STAND IF YOU WANT TO.

I don’t know why the Tory press is so terrified as Johnson seems on course for victory. But the Mail is so worried about the Brexit Party, that they published the e mail addresses of the party’s candidates in a swathe of northern Leave seats urging their readers to plead with them to stand down to give Farage’s party a clear run against Labour. The Brexit Braggard has already run up the white flag in Tory seats and decided not to face the voters himself, so it’s no surprise to see him resisting further concessions.

It was deeply disappointing that Labour were not prepared to join the anti-Brexit alliance. They are likely to have plenty of time to contemplate the wisdom of this in ten more years of opposition.

But even the Lib Dems don’t escape my criticism over seat strategy. It is silly of Joe Swinson to oppose David Gauke in Hertfordshire and Rosie Duffield in Canterbury.

STOP BREXIT…SAVE THE UNION.

It is clear that the Conservative and Unionist Party is no such thing. They want to put a regulatory border down the Irish Sea and take Scotland out of the EU against its will. If we stayed in the EU, the “material change” that Nicola Sturgeon refers to justify a second Scottish referendum would disappear.

MUSK AND TUSK

Elon Musk’s decision to build his car design centre in Germany because the UK represents too much of a Brexit risk is a sign of things to come unless we believe his near namesake, the retiring President of the EU Donald Tusk. He is telling British voters there is still time to save ourselves from becoming a “second rate player”.

Remainers are stirring, we have the biggest pro-European organisations in the 28 countries of the EU. The enthusiasm for Europe, that was lacking in 2016, has been stirred but it is in danger of being overwhelmed by the appeal of the fatuous “Get It Done” slogan.

 

LIB DEMS WERE RIGHT TO TRIGGER ELECTION.

 

SECOND REFERENDUM FANTASY.

Some Remain Labour MPs have criticised the Lib Dems for backing a General Election. They say support for a second referendum was growing and the parliamentary impasse would eventually lead to the government backing it. I’m afraid this a fantasy. Boris Johnson has embarked on a hard Brexit project and fears that a referendum would lead to a Remain victory, albeit narrow. He would have really died in a ditch rather than agree to it.

Furthermore, the Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, was right to draw attention to 19 Labour MPs who, far from moving towards a second referendum, voted for Johnson’s bad deal.

Swinson is now campaigning for a majority Lib Dem government to revoke Brexit. She can do no other, but as it is not going to happen, the BBC’s Andrew Neil was right to challenge her with the following uncomfortable truth. She, and all Remainers, are relying on a Labour minority government to get Brexit stopped. Hopefully Corbyn will have to work with 40 or 50 Lib Dem MPs, and 50 odd SNP MPs who will insist on a referendum choice between Remain and the softest of Brexit options being put to the country.

Although Corbyn will struggle to deal with the charge that Labour has been captured by the extreme left, it should be noted that in the last week two moderate MPs, Margaret Hodge and Diana Johnson have survived attempts to deselect them. It is perhaps a sign that there is sanity in the wider Labour membership that will resist Momentum.

JOE ANDERSON REACHING OUT.

Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson will be facing the voters again next year having fended off internal opposition and attempts to abolish the post, but next Wednesday he’ll encounter our CEO Frank McKenna at a Downtown event in the city. Ahead of that I’ve been listening to the key people involved in Liverpool’s future.

Anderson has his critics and acknowledged that recently in respect of the council’s first Inclusive Growth Plan for the city. He accepted that the Town Hall had not reached out enough to the public and stakeholders in its efforts to tackle the multiple problems the city continues to face.

He certainly needs all the help he can get now. Referring to the government’s claim that austerity was over, the city’s impressive new Chief Executive, Tony Reeves, has said “it doesn’t feel like it in Liverpool”. A Town Hall official tells me there are no reserves and there is an embargo on non-essential expenditure.

That said the mayor points out the positives. £58m more generated in the local economy than 9 years ago, the development of the waterfront with 70 cruise liners visiting the city.

 

Anderson claims the “Preston Model” of using local companies and people has been in practice in Liverpool too. He wants to use that approach in building schools. He wants a mutual bank to issue low deposit mortgages.

Tony Reeves observes that the city has some of the finest health expertise in the city’s universities and close by some of the worst life expectancy rates in the country. The new Inclusive Growth Plan aims to tackle that.

Michael Parkinson from the Heseltine Institute believes the time has come for the city to concentrate more on economic competitiveness than physical regeneration, the local economy being too small.

Urban Splash boss Tom Bloxham once observed that it takes 30 years to become an overnight success. Joe Anderson hasn’t that long, but he is on the journey.

 

 

GENERAL ELECTION ONLY HOPE FOR REMAIN.

WILL NORTH REALLY VOTE TORY?

It seems the only hope we’ve got of staying in the EU is by electing a government of parties committed to doing so. This parliament will not vote for a second referendum and the government would not pass the legislation and grant the money to do so. It would also make the current vicious political atmosphere even worse and would likely bring a tight result that would settle nothing.

The hope must be that in a General Election, the Tories will be wiped out in Scotland, the Brexit Party weakens the Conservatives in England and the Lib Dems make significant gains in the south of England. Then we come to the crucial question. Will Labour voters in the North really overturn a hundred years of voting behaviour and elect Conservatives who have taken workers rights out of the Withdrawal Agreement?

We must hope that all these voting patterns fall into place which will, in all likelihood lead to another hung parliament. It is a hope because frankly Labour are in no condition to fight a General Election. Their poll ratings are poor, Jeremy Corbyn has the lowest leader ratings in polling history, moderate MPs are facing trigger ballots that could remove them and anti-Semitism remains unresolved. Despite this some of Labour’s policies (ending austerity and reigning in capitalist excess) are popular. Maybe they can repeat the campaign boost of 2017. In those circumstances Labour will probably be the largest party and will want to put their Brexit deal versus Remain in a referendum. At least that way we get a chance to stop Brexit.

The reasons to stop Brexit have become much stronger since the publication of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. It introduces a bureaucratic and costly nightmare for business traders in Northern Ireland. It leaves open the possibility of No Deal in December next year and gives ministers draconian “Henry VIII” powers.

For Leavers who want a clean break, it is an absolute joke. At least £33bn payments to the EU. The European Court will remain supreme during the transition. EU rules (including new ones) in force until possibly 2022 and an independent authority on citizens’ rights.

Despite this Rosie Cooper (West Lancs), Jo Platt (Leigh), Laura Smith (Crewe) and Lisa Nandy (Wigan) joined 15 other Labour MPs in voting for the government’s bill. Interestingly Graham Stringer (Blackley) a long-term leaver did not. Nandy says she voted to open detailed discussion on the bill and her final support is not guaranteed. It is one aspect of this wretched business to see this articulate, compassionate MP wrestling with the problems of representing a leave seat.

It is expected the EU will grant an extension tomorrow, but the French are running out of patience. Who can blame them when they see their northern neighbours, once renowned for stability and sense, casting it all away so that we can throw ourselves into the arms of Donald Trump, a man who is beginning the formal proceedings on withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

 

 

JOHNSON DEAL AND HUGE CHALLENGES FOR LABOUR

JOHNSON AND ELLMAN PROBLEMS FOR LABOUR.

There is now huge pressure on MPs to approve Boris Johnson’s EU deal on Saturday. As I write the DUP are holding out, but even if they vote against, their 10 votes might be overwhelmed by Labour rebels.

The authority of Jeremy Corbyn to whip against the deal and for a second referendum has been shot through. He has been deserted by some of his closest Shadow Cabinet colleagues but more serious is the resignation of Liverpool MP Louise Ellman.

Ellman has given her political life to Labour. She was an outstanding leader of Lancashire County Council. Lancashire Enterprises was a ground-breaking exercise showing how local government could be a big player in economic regeneration. It is a common place concept now but at the time it was highly controversial.

In retrospect that was the high point of her career. I always thought it was curious she decided to take a Liverpool seat. The city’s politics are always turbulent, and so it has proved. It is widely rumoured she was blocked from ministerial office because of clashes with Jack Straw when he was MP for Blackburn.

But that was nothing compared to what has happened to her in recent years as she became one of the many Jewish MPs subjected to vile anti-Semitism. Her resignation letter makes it clear that, despite repeated assurances, nothing effective has been done to curb it. She makes clear she thinks this is partly because Jeremy Corbyn “consorted with anti-Semites”. She shows her underlying loyalty to Labour by making clear she would be happy to return under different leadership.

But how likely is that? Just look at the situation with the city’s MPs. Luciana Berger (Wavertree) was driven out by anti-Semitism and moderate Stephen Twigg (West Derby) is going for personal reasons.

It will be interesting to see if Cllr Barry Kushner, who is Jewish, is chosen to succeed Twigg.

This latest eruption of the anti-Semitism row shows how ill prepared Labour is for a General Election. They would be well advised to try and keep Boris Johnson turning on the Brexit spit, rather than passing his deal when they would be under huge pressure to agree to an election, they have pretended to want for the last two years.

JOHNSON AND THE NORTHERN POWERHOUSE.

It is easy to forget that there was a Queen’s Speech this week with promises of a white paper on devolution and a new infrastructure strategy.

In his short time as Prime Minister, Johnson has been a frequent visitor to the North. He has spoken about unleashing the region’s potential and retained in his administration Rossendale MP Jake Berry as Northern Powerhouse Minister.

It is clearly part of Johnson’s strategy to woo voters in Leave voting northern seats and we will see if it all adds up to more than a row of beans.

However, under Theresa May devolution, and to some extent the Northern Powerhouse, was off the agenda, so one must live in hope that government interest in the project is being restored.