Tag: Labour

CAN LABOUR STOP A LANDSLIDE?

 

CHANCE TO VOTE FOR SOCIALISM!

Since 1983, socialists have craved a red meat Labour manifesto that they could vote for. Now is the chance for them to come out in their millions and ensure that Mrs May doesn’t achieve a landslide.

Labour has improved its poll rating since the election was called, but the gap remains large. There are many attractive features in the manifesto around energy prices, housing, university fees, nationalising the railways and world peace. Labour is tapping into a feeling that business and the rich should contribute more. After all it is ordinary people who have been paying for the excesses that caused the crash in 2008.

But the party remains vulnerable on the cost of it all. Salford MP Rebecca Long-Bailey is the Shadow Business Secretary, and touted by some as a future leader of the party. She will need to do better than in a radio interview on the manifesto launch day. She was asked how the ending of the benefits freeze, not raising the retirement age beyond 66 and scrapping the housing benefits cap was going to be paid for. In each instance, she casually said they would be subject to review when Labour was in government. It isn’t good enough. The party knew the Tory hawks would be looking for unfunded promises, but Corbyn has gambled that his vision for a socialist Britain will pay off.

Meanwhile the transformation of the Tory Party from an organisation run by posh boys to one where strong and stable Theresa is in charge is well under way. Pledges on workers rights, council house building and intervention in the energy market may seem brazenly opportunistic, but the Prime Minister has forged a link with northern working class people that may pay off spectacularly.

This is because the Regressive Alliance bringing the Tories and UKIP together was demonstrated in the recent local elections, whilst the Progressive Alliance of all those parties representing the centre left isn’t working so far. The rallying point should be around the Lib Dems call for a second EU referendum. Leader Tim Farron should stick to that. Putting the legalisation of cannabis in the manifesto just plays to his enemies stereotyping of the party.

SNAP ELECTION HISTORY.

What does post war history tell us about surprise General Elections? The story is mixed for incumbent Prime Ministers. Clement Attlee came a cropper when, having won narrowly in 1950, he called another election the following year to increase his majority and lost to Winston Churchill. As soon as Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill, he successfully went to the country in 1955 to get his own mandate, a course not followed by Gordon Brown when he took over from Tony Blair in 2007.

Harold Wilson performed the double election trick twice. He increased a small majority in 1964 to a large one in 1966. Then in February 1974 Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath went to the country in a similar manner to Theresa May seeking a specific mandate. Heath’s was to defeat the miners. He lost and Wilson, after a summer of minority government, gained a slim overall majority in the autumn.

More recently the Lib Dems could have refused to serve in a coalition in 2010 but the fear always was that David Cameron would have formed a minority government and won an overall majority in a quick return to the polls.

Would he have done? Will Mrs May’s landslide gamble pay off? We shall soon know.

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WHERE IS THE BRITISH MACRON?

 

THE EU STRENGTHENED.

The French people have turned the tide on the 2016 populist surge which led to reckless Brexit and reckless Trump in the White House.

Opponents of the European Union were forecasting it would break up following populist success in Hungary, Holland and France. All three countries have rejected a return to a nationalist Europe with all the potential consequences that could bring. With the UKIP style implosion of the Alternative for Deutschland Party in Germany I predict a victory for Angela Merkel this autumn. Then we will see how strong and stable Mrs May will be when faced with France, Germany and the other 25 European countries insisting that if you are out of a club you must have a worse deal than if you are in.

I saw a report this week on a Shropshire company that makes engine blocks. They must cross 5 European borders in ten days and time is vital. They are desperately worried about how they are going to operate outside the EU. That’s the reality facing business. Let’s hope Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to rule out staying in the EU wasn’t just another blunder, although the Lib Dems offer the clearest policy on a second referendum.

 

 

BACK IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT.

Geoff Driver is the great survivor of Lancashire politics. After a controversial reign as Chief Executive of Preston Council, he made a successful change to politics leading the Conservatives to victory in the county in 2009. Thrown out of office in 2013, he survived a leadership challenge, police dropped an investigation into him over the One Connect Ltd issue and last Friday I was in County Hall for his return to office.

He faces big challenges to soften the cuts that Labour reluctantly made. Driver insists there will be no sweetheart deals with his government. A final word on this. Jeni Mein, the outgoing Labour leader was one of the most decent hard working politicians I had the pleasure to meet. Good luck to her successor, Nelson councillor Azhar Ali. He will prove a lively opponent for Geoff Driver.

MAYORS.

After snubbing Jeremy Corbin at a victory celebration, Andy Burnham was quickly down to work making two good deputy appointments. Sir Richard Leese is taking on the business portfolio. Does this show Leese is preparing to end his long tenure as leader of Manchester? Anyway, from Burnham’s point of view…..(fill in the tent and urination metaphor here). The other key appointment is Bev Hughes to look after crime and the police. The former Stretford and Urmston MP will be taking over from the ex-Police Commissioner Tony Lloyd who hopes to win the Rochdale seat.

That choice by a panel of Labour’s National Executive has been welcomed by the constituency whereas in Liverpool Walton the choice of a Unite placeman, Daniel Carden, at the expense of Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson has caused outrage. These panels should have the constituency chair as a member and certainly should not have a Unite member as was the case with Walton. But if a party is so dependent on one source of funding, this is what you get.

Joe heading for Westminster was a neat way of solving a

 potential conflict between him and newly elected City

 Region Mayor, Steve Rotheram. We’ll have to see if grown

 up behaviour prevails to the advantage of the city region.

 

GENERAL ELECTION POINTERS.

 

The local elections showed Labour’s fragility in the North

outside its urban heartland. A spectacular defeat to the

Tories in Derbyshire was followed by the loss of

Lancashire and largest party status in Cumbria. There are many marginal seats in these areas for the Conservatives to target.

 

The Lib Dems had a standstill election and will be hoping

for more support when the Brexit issue comes centre

stage in the General Election. UKIP had to rely on a

popular taxi driver in Padiham for their only council

success. They should have developed policies on non-EU

issues to offer a real alternative for blue collar Labour

voters in the North. Instead they squabbled over who

should be leader.

 

In Scotland, the Tories have become the rallying point for

opponents of a second independence referendum, and

even though the fall off in support for the SNP was slight,

that irresistible tide has peaked.

 

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MAYORAL CANDIDATES FIGHTING TO BE HEARD

 

GOOD TORY CANDIDATES IN MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL BUT LABOUR TO WIN.

 

Not for the first time Westminster has disrespected the local election process. The constitutional innovation of electing mayors for some of our great conurbations next Thursday should be at the centre of political attention at the moment. Instead it will be largely ignored as we focus on the June General Election. Theresa May is not the first Prime Minister to do this and won’t be the last.

It is difficult to judge what effect the calling of the General Election will have on the mayoral races in Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region (LCR)but it is unlikely to help turnout. In his blog this week Downtown’s CEO Frank McKenna says a poll of over 25% in LCR will give the winner credibility. It is a commentary on the low expectations we have of local democracy when such a case can be argued.

It has also been suggested that people will vote “down the ballot”. This might help the Conservatives, the argument being that people are making up their minds about where their political preference lies this summer. If they have concluded that Strong and Stable Government (I’m already fed up with it too) is the answer they will vote Caldera/Anstee in the mayoral elections and May in June. May in June! Boom! Boom!

Caldera is Tony Caldeira, the Cotton King of Knowsley. A successful soft furnishings businessman he has impressed people at the hustings. He stresses his contact with government ministers and his call for a register of brownfield sites for housing is a sensible one. Caldera is an example of a Merseyside Conservative in the tradition of David Hunt (ex Wirral West) or Malcolm Thornton (ex Crosby). He’s a One Nation Tory who doesn’t lay on his conservatism too thickly. I don’t think he’ll win but he deserves to be selected for a winnable seat in the General Election.

Victory in the Liverpool City Region will almost certainly go to Labour candidate, Steve Rotheram, representing “the place I love”. His central policy aims are the reregulation of buses, drives for skills and affordable housing and zero carbon city region by 2040. It had been expected that Rotheram’s victory would have started a running battle with the city of Liverpool’s elected mayor Joe Anderson who wanted the city region job. It now looks possible that Anderson will succeed Rotheram as MP for Walton if Labour’s National Executive doesn’t prefer Seb Corbyn, the party leader’s son.

Greater Manchester also has a good Tory candidate. As leader of Trafford Council, Sean Anstee was a significant broker between the Tory government and Labour controlled Manchester Council in drawing up the devolution deal. While all the other candidates criticise plans to build houses in the greenbelt, Anstee points out that tearing up the Spatial Strategy will allow speculative development to continue.

The likely winner, Labour’s Andy Burnham, says there has been too much concentration on building luxury flats in the city centre and executive homes on the main roads. He wants free bus passes for 16-18 year olds and improved connectivity between the outer boroughs.

There’s plenty of time for the General Election campaign after May 4th. Next Thursday let’s concentrate on who would be best to run the county of Lancashire and the city regions of Liverpool and Manchester.

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ARISE THE SABOTEURS!

 

THE PURPOSE OF PARLIAMENT MRS MAY.

We really are in worrying times. I suppose I shouldn’t rise to the bait of the Daily Mail who have characterised this opportunistic General Election as an opportunity to “crush the saboteurs”. (That’s all of us who believe that Britain should remain in the EU and those who at least want the Single Market). After all the Mail has form. They recently dubbed judges “enemies of the people” for insisting Parliament have a say on Article 50. But in their dark past they published a headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts”. That was a reference to Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts.

But if we can regard the Mail as being the mouthpiece of an ugly middle England which we rather didn’t exist, the really worrying development is the attitude of the Prime Minister to dissent. She is going to the country because the opposition parties in the Commons and Lords are doing their job in scrutinising the Brexit process. She says while the country is “increasingly united, Westminster remains divided.” The country is not united, 48% of us voted to remain and Westminster should be divided, it’s a place where parliamentary debate should be taking place for heaven’s sake.

Mrs May says Westminster is holding up her plans for Brexit. The last time I looked MPs gave Article 50 a thumping majority. Since then preparations were underway for the Brexit talks to begin.

All was calm until another set of opinion polls showing Labour in a dire state destroyed May’s claims to be a calm honest woman and showed her as a political opportunist. This election is all about cutting and running ahead of economic shocks ahead and a Brexit negotiation which will leave us with a whacking bill, immigration still high and a worse trade deal with Europe than we have now. Mrs May wants to be able to stay in power till 2022 to try and ride out the storm of unpopularity that will follow Brexit. That is why she has gone to the country now and that is why those who want to stop Brexit in its tracks now have a slim chance of doing so.

It is a slim chance because Labour are hopeless on this issue. Corbynistas secretly hold their 1980’s belief that the EU is a capitalist club. Labour moderates have failed to leave and form a pro-European centre party. Most Labour MPs have voted for Article 50 and the early General Election. There was a case to be made for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Do we really want to go back to the time when the final two years of a parliament is dominated by endless speculation about when the General Election is going to be held? Why didn’t Labour say this and speak up for the people who are sick of trekking to the polls?

We are told this is because they would be voting to prolong a Tory government till 2020. Well by voting for May’s cut and run they have probably extended Tory rule till at least 2022.

Only massive support for the Lib Dems can thwart May’s plan. Tim Farron’s party are the brave clear standard bearers for Europe but they have a huge task. Have memories of their time in Coalition faded? If so some Tories are vulnerable to them, not so much in the far South West which voted Leave but in the West country around Bath and South West London. The Lib Dems lost a lot of seats in Scotland but winning them back from the SNP who share their views on Europe is going to be very difficult.

BRING BACK MARTIN BELL!

And finally, did you notice that George Osborne has decided not to contest Tatton. I wonder how his local party, which only recently pledged their support for him, feel now? The constituency needs the return of Martin Bell. They voted for him twenty years ago.