Tag: Labour

‘ELF AND SAFETY JOKE ANYONE ?

 

CHANGING TIMES.

The General Election result indicated a turning of a corner in the sentiment of the nation, the reaction to the dreadful Grenfell Tower fire, confirmed it.

The tide of anti-State, anti EU feeling is on the ebb. People are beginning to realise that a lot of “red tape” is there to protect people and keep them safe. I doubt if ministers will be calling for three regulations to be abolished for every new one in the future. That’s not to say business should not continue to identify silly or bureaucratic impediments to commercial transactions. But where regulations are in place to protect people, we should recognise their purpose and remember the poor victims of Grenfell Tower.

On Europe, a YouGov poll this month showed most people now think it was wrong for us to vote to leave the EU.

Tory and Labour politicians need to take this changing world into account. There are signs from the Queen’s Speech that the Conservatives will modify their austerity agenda and use some of the £23bn slack in the government coffers available to 2021 to fund schools and public sector pay rises.

It is going to be down to Labour to reflect the changing sentiments on Europe. Apart from that poll, there were two developments this week which show the stupidity of leaving the EU. On the very first day of the Brexit talks we had a taste of the EU’s strength. The idea that we could negotiate future trade in parallel with the divorce terms was blown out of the water. Then came the Queen’s Speech and the revelation that eight huge pieces of legislation are going to be needed over the next two years to implement this wholly negative exercise.

So, whilst we fail to deal with pressing issues like the future of social care, MPs will be up all night repatriating powers over nuclear waste or money laundering which having a glaring need to be done across the EU.

THE CROWNLESS QUEEN.

The low-key State Opening of Parliament seemed appropriate. The Queen didn’t ride to Westminster in her golden carriage and the crown rested on a table beside the monarch as she delivered the paired down proposals of the government. She looked as if she was being delayed in getting to Ascot and the whole occasion which usually anticipates a new government with interesting proposals was flat and dreary.

There is considerable anxiety that government momentum behind the Northern Powerhouse has drained away. We’ll get a better sense of that following an important transport conference in Manchester on Monday. But in the Queen’s Speech I only noticed a bill to extend HS2 from Birmingham to Crewe and a reference to the new industrial strategy.

Business needs to speak out about issues around skills, productivity and the Northern Powerhouse. I don’t know if bosses felt restrained by the election campaign. They shouldn’t have been because that is the very time to speak out. Anyway, the net result has been that business and the economy were topics that dare not speak their name.

Theresa May could stumble out of office at any time but I still think she’ll last two years. People who think Boris Johnson is the answer should listen to his car crash performance on “PM” on Radio 4 on Wednesday. His “wing it” approach to policy was effectively exposed. The nation should tire of this clown.

 

MAY TO LAST TWO YEARS ?

 

 

WHO WANTS THE JOB NOW ?

Theresa May could remain as Prime Minister for at least two years. Does Boris Johnson, David Davis or most likely someone we’ve never considered really want the job at the moment ?

The Brexit talks will be long, tiring and are very unlikely to end well. There will be vicious recriminations from both sides in two years’ time. The hard Brexitiers are already expecting betrayal. The open Brexitiers won’t satisfy us Remainers even if they get some compromise on the single market and customs union. Whoever is Prime Minister in March 2019 will not receive the plaudits of a grateful nation but will be blamed as the country expels itself from the European Union in economic uncertainty and mutual recrimination.

So, it looks as if Mrs May will stagger through with the help of her friends from the Democratic Unionist Party. Jim Callaghan survived in minority government for three years in the seventies as did John Major when the Tory Euro rebels made life hell for him. How right Lord Heseltine is, Europe is the cancer at the heart of the Conservative Party.

There is talk of an all-party effort to try and reach consensus on what Britain wants in the Brexit talks. I think it unlikely Labour will enter that trap partly because hard left politicians never like to do deals with Tories and because Labour’s position on Brexit is confused. The party needs to realise that a lot of their new young supporters would prefer to stay in the EU. In these fluid times Kier Starmer, the able Shadow Minister for Exiting the EU should position the party so that if it becomes clear to most people that Brexit isn’t going to work, Labour can say that whilst they respected the 2016 vote, circumstances have changed so much that another vote is needed. This could provide the basis for a popular alliance when the next election comes.

FIRST PAST THE POST STRONG AND STABLE?

Once again, our first past the post (FPTP) system has thrown up monstrous unfairness with the SDP being generously rewarded with 35 seats for a million votes and the Green Party getting just one for their half million votes.

The Conservatives are the greatest defenders of FPTP saying it gives us stable government. Well that’s been blown out of the water by the 2010 and 2017 results.

The Tories would have won if just 401 more people had voted for them. They lost four seats by less than 31 and another four by less than 250. So, bring on those boundary changes! Remember the constituency boundary map was going to be redrawn for 2020 and would have helped the Tories. An election pundit friend of mine said it was “madness” for the Conservatives to go to the country again on boundaries containing undersized Labour seats.

The problem now is will Mrs May dare propose the changes in next week’s Queen’s Speech or will it be ditched like most of the manifesto.

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FINAL SURGE TO MAY ?

 

THE LAST LAP.

The Prime Minister didn’t expect it to turn out this way when she called her snap election in April. The campaign was meant to deliver her a majority of 100+ so that she could go and sock it to those arrogant Europeans.

In fact, there has been very little discussion about what sort of deal we might get from the EU negotiations. We can’t get past the slogans of hard and soft Brexit. That’s deliberate as Mrs May wants to go off for two years negotiating with little challenge from a parliament with a thumping Tory majority. Her speech in the North East on Thursday, specifically on Brexit, clarified little.

Unfortunately for her other issues have intruded into the campaign. Tragically terrorism and security came to the fore after the Manchester outrage, but also the future funding of social care. She came a cropper on this issue and there seems to be a lot of support for a general sharing of the cost of care above £72,000.

Then there’s Jeremy Corbyn who has campaigned well with policies that are individually popular. Also, bullying questions from Jeremy Paxman and daily vilification in the Tory press have provoked a closing of the polls.

All that said I think wider truths will bring a Conservative majority of around 50 next Thursday. Labour cannot be serious in asking the British people to elect as Prime Minister a man with an ambiguous attitude to IRA terrorism. Also, nobody believes Jeremy Corbyn would ever launch our nuclear weapons. He has very honourable feelings about the issue, but the whole concept of deterrence would be undermined with Corbyn in No 10. Personally disorganised, he does not have a credible team of Shadow Ministers around him to form a government.

Perhaps reluctantly the British people will elect Theresa May hoping that she can display the strong and stable qualities that she has not projected during this campaign

THE NORTHERN BATTLEFIELD.

So, which seats should we be watching out for in Downtown areas of the North? The gloomiest of Labour insiders think any seat with less than a 10,000 majority is potentially vulnerable to the Tories. Those would include Huddersfield (welcome back to the Premier League by the way), Leeds North East, Lancashire West and Ellesmere Port and Neston. In relation to the latter I have picked up strange rumours that Justin Madders with a six thousand majority could be in more trouble than Chris Matheson in neighbouring Chester on ninety-three.

If we come on to constituencies with a Labour majority of less than 5000 they include the popular Deputy Speaker of the Commons, Lyndsay Hoyle, in Chorley, Bolton North East which is being heavily targeted, Wakefield and Wirral South where Alison McGovern is putting up a determined fight.

Right in the front line is Chester which I have already mentioned. The city is on the up, symbolised by the recent opening of the brilliant Storyhouse theatre complex. The seat went against the trend of the Cameron victory in 2015. Could it possibly stay Labour this time? Nearby another constituency that went against the trend was Wirral West. The 417 Labour majority should be overwhelmed by the able and popular Tory candidate, Tony Caldeira.

Other seats held on slim majorities by Labour include Lancaster and Fleetwood. The incumbent, Cat Smith, is a big Corbyn supporter which certainly can’t be said of John Woodcock in Barrow. His leader’s views on nuclear weapons are toxic in the submarine building town which went Tory in 1983 when Michael Foot was in charge of Labour.

I had hoped the Lib Dems would do well with their promise of a second EU referendum. It appears they have been squeezed as people polarise between Labour and the Conservatives. This means the Lib Dems are unlikely to reclaim Burnley or Cheadle. Indeed, they look likely to lose Southport where they only have a 3% majority over the Conservatives and have been damaged by the decision of the long serving MP John Pugh to retire.

FINAL THOUGHT.

Might this happen on Thursday night?

BONG

It’s ten o’clock and the BBC predicts the Conservatives have won the General Election with a comfortable majority.

BONG.

Jeremy Corbyn vows to fight on for socialism.

BONG

Tony Blair and Nick Clegg announce the launch of a new centre party for Britain.

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MAGNIFICENT MANCHESTER

 

TONY SPEAKS FOR THE CITY.

Not for the first time a Tony speaks for Manchester. Ten years ago, it was the late Tony Wilson who could express the character of this kind, gritty city. On Tuesday it was poet Tony Walsh. His composition “This Is The Place” read out to a huge crowd in sunny Albert Square was just what was needed to try and pierce the blackness and fear caused by the abominable attack on young people at the Manchester Arena.

Terrible events bring out the best in the vast majority of us. If only, if only it wasn’t needed so often these days. But there it was for the world to see. The interviews with the young people who were at the Arena, and survived,were eloquent, thoughtful and sensitive. What a world we are handing over to them. We don’t deserve them. Then there were the Asian taxi drivers, waiving their fares to get people home and the takeaway shops throwing open their doors. That’s the answer to the so-called Islamic State’s attempt to divide us.

BACK TO THE ELECTION.

Terrorists hate democracy and therefore I agree, for once, with UKIP who were first to resume campaigning. It is a difficult matter to balance respect for the searing pain the bereaved and injured will be suffering and the need to demonstrate that we will not be prevented from our democratic business.

What effect will the terrorist attack have on the election? Casual and cynical observations that it will help the “law and order Tories” are offensive. Conservative candidates are overwhelmed with sadness in the same way as anyone else; and Mrs May has the burden of this tragedy being on her watch. There is a perception that people will swing to the right under terrorist provocation. That did not happen in France, although Marine Le Pen was a far less palatable candidate than Mrs May.

I’m sad to say that Labour could suffer from this terrible event, not because of a natural swing to the right in such circumstances, but because Jeremy Corbyn continues to be damaged by past ambiguous answers on his attitude to the IRA.

WOBBLY MAY.

Until Monday’s atrocity, Theresa May’s assertion that her strong and stable leadership was just what was wanted for those Brexit talks, was looking far less credible.

I don’t want antagonistic negotiations with 27 countries that should still be our partners in building an ever closer union. However, that ship seems to have sailed. If voters are looking for a Prime Minister who knows her mind, thinks things through and isn’t blown off course by the first whiff of trouble, why would you vote for May?

She called a General Election that she vowed not to do. She raised National Insurance contributions for self-employed workers and then back tracked. She then proposed a system whereby long term dementia sufferers could pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in home care fees before announcing a cap four days later. The EU negotiators must be rubbing their hands.

A final point, I gave some stick to Labour last week for uncosted manifesto promises. The Tory manifesto is also littered with them. The cost of cutting immigration, the £8bn for the NHS, and the cut off point for winter fuel allowances all have no price tags. Perhaps they are going to pay for it with rises in National Insurance and Income Tax!

 

 

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