Tag: Jeremy Corbyn

A DREADFUL WEEK IN BRITISH POLITICS

 

CABINET SPLITS ON EU.

What an appalling start to the New Year it has been for British politics.

David Cameron’s decision to allow Cabinet members to split on the E.U Referendum is a flat contradiction of what he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr a year ago. The Prime Minister is a brazen pragmatist. What he said yesterday does not matter. He can busk it with his effortless Etonian charm. Now we must wait and see how many Cabinet Ministers take the opportunity to rubbish the deal Cameron gets from his negotiations. If Home Secretary Theresa May, and careerist Boris Johnson join the perennial anti EU Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling then the Prime Minister has a serious problem and so do those of us who want to stay in. Cameron will deserve it if the campaign becomes acrimonious and the Tory Party is split for a generation.

LABOUR BETRAYAL.

That is what happened to Labour soon after Harold Wilson allowed his Cabinet to split on the 1975 referendum. Within six years Cabinet members who had campaigned to stay in formed the Social Democrat Party whilst the Labour Party descended into faction fighting. It vowed never to return to those days when it won power sixteen long years later but this week we have seen in the longest reshuffle in history that Labour is going to be unfit for office until 2025 or 2030. What a betrayal of working class people! From the Blair-Brown feud to the current shambles, both left and right in the party have let ordinary people down big time.

THE YEAR AHEAD.

Apart from the EU Referendum which is likely in June, what else have we to look forward to this year?

THE AMERICAN DYNASTIES TO CONTINUE.

Kennedy, Bush, Clinton; it is amazing that in a country of 320 million people that it is quite possible that between 1989 and 2024 either a Clinton or a Bush will have been President of the United States apart from Barack Obama.

It looks almost certain that Hilary Clinton will win in November because the Republicans have narrowed their support base at a time when America is becoming more multicultural. It is possible the Republicans will choose Donald Trump but even if it is Florida senator Marco Rubio, they are still likely to be handicapped by their reluctance to accept the USA as it is.

CARRY ON CORBYN.

Labour are likely to be heavily beaten in the Scottish government elections but if they can win the London Mayor race and hold their very strong position in local government in the North, there will be no immediate pressure on Jeremy Corbyn.

Locally interest will focus on Liverpool where Joe Anderson is due to stand again for mayor of the city. As he has recently taken over as chair of the Liverpool City Region which is due to elect a mayor for the wider area next year, he may stand down. It is difficult to see how elected mayors in Liverpool and Salford will sit happily under mayors for the larger combined authorities.

Meanwhile Leeds, Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumbria will be looking to conclude devolution deals.

 

CUMBRIA PAYS THE PRICE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

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THE DENIERS.

I would like to see the ex Chancellor Nigel Lawson and his fellow climate change deniers walk down the streets of Carlisle, Keswick and Kendal and tell the stricken residents that climate change is a myth.

If the floods aren’t enough to convince him, perhaps he could note the summer like temperatures we are having or the fact that plants have spring buds on them already.

There is nothing we can do to avoid “100 year rain events” happening every decade for our lifetimes. Let'[s hope the decisions taken at the Global Climate Change conference in Paris can stop things getting worse for our grandchildren.

There were many firms lobbying the conference and rightly so. The business opportunities for green and renewable industries is huge although it would help if the government didn’t keep interfering with the economic profitability of the market in this area.

MICHAEL JONES: A POLITICAL COMET.

Michael Jones, the larger than life leader of Cheshire East Council has resigned. It happened to be over a personal matter but one always felt the career of this controversial politician would end like this. He didn’t let people get in his way and whilst this led to a number of positives for his council including the Crewe HS2 hub and the rescue of jobs at Alderley Park, he also made enemies with his autocratic behaviour.

It’s a shame because local government needs visionary and colourful characters but they need to know the limits.

JIM TOLD ‘EM OLDHAM.

Talk amongst Blairite Labour MPs of ousting Jeremy Corbyn has been muted since the party’s victory in the Oldham West and Royton by election last week. It failed to provide them with the narrative that Corbyn was such a liability that even safe northern seats would reject him.

It has to be said that Jim McMahon was an ideal safe candidate. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Corbynistas took over the National Executive by election candidate selection panel and chose an ultra leftist from London for such a contest; what would happen.

But for now we must conclude that some people like Corbyn’s principled approach, his unspun image or just want to give him a fair chance. The next challenge will be the London mayor. I met the Tory candidate, Zac Goldsmith, this week. He is pleasant enough, without Boris’ flamboyance and none the worse for that. He will give Labour’s man Sadiq Khan a run for his money.

Meanwhile UKIP showed their nasty side. Nigel Farage’s “bloke in a pub” image was replaced by a snarling implication that there had been mass fiddling by the South Asian community in the postal vote. The party infighting is taking its toll and they may be in decline. The sad thing is that their legacy may be our leaving the European Union.

 

OLDHAM BY ELECTION CHALLENGE FOR LABOUR AND UKIP.

 

The first eagerly awaited test of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party is likely to come next month. Party chiefs are likely to move quickly to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Michael Meacher. They won’t want UKIP to gain momentum (sorry to use that word, labour moderates) in a constituency perilously close to Heywood and Middleton where Nigel Farage’s outfit nearly beat them in a by election a year ago.

How will the Labour voters in this deprived working class seat react to Jeremy Corbyn. They have been content to elect Michael Meacher twelve times with thumping majorities and he was always on the left of the party being a close ally of Tony Benn when Labour was in a very similar position to where it is now in the 1980’s.

The choice of Labour’s standard bearer will be very interesting. On a personal level the leader of Oldham Council Jim McMahon has an important decision to make. He is a rising star and leads the Labour group on the Local Government Association. He is spoken of as a possible candidate for elected mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017. Unless a Labour government is elected and he rises to Cabinet rank, he would be more likely to have real power up here rather than at Westminster. McMahon may not want it or might not be selected. Momentum is the new Corbynista activist group in the Labour Party. Moderate MPs think there agenda is to start deselecting people who don’t agree with the Labour leader. How influential will they be in the choice of the Oldham candidate?

UKIP do face an uphill task in the seat. Meacher had a majority of nearly 15,000. It has a large south Asian population and the party is preoccupied with infighting about which pressure group is going to leader the EU Out campaign. Nevertheless a divided Labour Party with a poor candidate, an anti Corbyn backlash and a low turnout could produce a surprise.

I referred to Michael Meacher’s dozen victories between 1970 and this May but he began with a defeat. In 1968 the Wilson Labour government was deeply unpopular. So much so that Manchester City Council was controlled by the Conservatives! In a by election in this seat that summer the Conservatives won the seat beating the young Michael Meacher.

We do seem to be getting more than our fair share of by elections in the North West. This will be the fifth since 2010. Oldham East went to the polls after Phil Woolas was unseated in 2011. Tony Lloyd’s resignation to become Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester sent Manchester Central voters to the polls in 2012 and the deaths of Paul Goggins and Jim Dobbin caused further by elections in Wythenshawe and Heywood in 2014.

POWERHOUSE SAVED BY TORY CONFERENCE

 

OFF THE RAILS.

After the shameful “pause” in electrifying the Leeds-Manchester rail link, we now have the shamefaced about turn.

In June when the “pause” was announced, I described it as one of the most disgraceful decisions ever made because it undermined the Northern Powerhouse based on connectivity, it undermined companies’ procurement plans and finally politicians must have known before the election about the crisis in Network Rail that caused the decision to be taken.

Be in no doubt that the decision to reinstate the electrification is directly related to the fact that the Conservatives are in Manchester this weekend for their annual conference. The Chancellor George Osborne will want Ministers to make frequent references to the Northern Powerhouse. He didn’t want critics asking how meaningful the concept could be without better rail links between the two principal cities of the Powerhouse.

Two independent enquiries had been set up after the “pause” was announced. The hapless Transport Secretary Patrick McLaughlin told us no decisions would be taken until they reported. But George Osborne, who I understand wasn’t fully in the loop on the “pause” decision, can’t wait for the enquiries and has ordered the go-ahead to be given.

All this faffing around comes at a price. It has delayed the project by three years so passengers can carry on standing until 2022.

DEVO DEALS.

I understand the Tory conference may also be used for announcements about devolution deals for Sheffield and the North East where agreement has been reached on elected mayors. The latter will be small consolation to the steel workers of Redcar.

JEREMY’S FINGER ON THE BUTTON.

At least the Tories are in power, Labour look a long way from it. That’s my conclusion after spending some sun drenched days in Brighton. The moon turned red but I fear that was more a sign of the Gods’ displeasure than a happy omen for socialism.

Much of the press coverage of the new Labour leader is over the top. Jeremy Corbyn has revitalised his party, he has caught the mood of public disillusionment with speak your weight politicians and some of his policies (housing and rail) have considerable merit.

But the Trident row has immediately highlighted the inherent instability of his leadership. In all honesty who really thought Prime Minister Corbyn would authorise the use of nuclear weapons? But by definitively saying he wouldn’t he has fatally undermined his chances of victory in 2020.

Most of the Shadow Cabinet criticised him as did the big unions whose members are employed in the nuclear industry. But most seriously Corbyn says repeatedly he wants the party to be more democratic. They voted, against his wishes, not to discuss changing the multilateral disarmament policy at the conference. Instead a defence review is under way when the issue of Britain, under a Labour government, becoming unilateralist would be discussed.

But what is the point of Maria Eagle, the Shadow Defence Secretary and Garston MP beavering away on her review when the would be Prime Minister has already told our potential adversaries that he will blink first?

Perhaps the truth is that Jeremy Corbyn is determined to shake up the Labour Party, give it back its socialist principles and then hand over to someone more electable in a few years time.