Tag: Lib Dems

FARRON IS WAITING FOR LABOUR DEFECTORS.

LESSONS OF HISTORY

Last time Labour elected a hard left leader in 1980, it was a matter of months before senior figures in the party broke away and formed the Social Democrats under the leadership of Roy Jenkins.

It initiated a very difficult period for the then Liberal Party, particularly when the SDP leader became David Owen. A more arrogant man than the emollient Woy (sic) Jenkins, the TV puppet satire show Spitting Image had little David Steel in Owen’s jacket pocket.

There were rows over which of these two centrist parties should fight which parliamentary seat in the 1983 and 1987 General Elections, after which difficult merger talks took place with much agonising over what was social democracy and what was Liberalism. It left the first leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, with what he describes as an asterisk in the opinion polls where the percentage supporting the new party should be.

Why am I boring you with this political history lesson? Because the chances are growing of Jeremy Corbyn actually winning the Labour leadership. Downtown’s Managing Director, Frank McKenna, argues powerfully in his blog this week that the party should be following the advice of Tony Blair to shy away from a left wing course. It may be good advice but should Blair have said it? Frank rightly points to Blair’s recipe for election success but also acknowledges that he is seen as a war criminal by some in his party. I’m afraid he is, and there is a danger that his intervention may strengthen Corbyn’s position not weaken it.

This is another reason why Blair is toxic to many activists. His time as party leader saw a huge centralisation of the party’s internal structure. Party conferences became rallies not occasions for real debate. Regional party officials, who had been a valuable source of authority with the ability to feed back to London what was going on, were neutered. Parliamentary selections were hijacked to put in Blair’s favourites, Ex Tory Shaun Woodward in St Helens being the most blatant. Part of what Corbyn is about is a demand from the foot soldiers to get their party back.

So if Corbyn should win will the newly elected leader of the Lib Dems, Tim Farron, present an appealing alternative for Labour moderates who conclude that their party is out of office for the foreseeable future?

And what will Tim Farron say to them? He should probably welcome them in. He shouldn’t tell them to form a separate SDP Mark Two party. The reasoning in 1981 was that a new party would make more of an impact than just admitting Labour defectors to the Liberals. But as I’ve illustrated above, it led to years of wrangles in the centre of politics while Margaret Thatcher kept getting re-elected.

Farron was the right choice for the Lib Dems in their parlous state. He got over 50% of the vote in his Cumbria seat in May and knows how to campaign from the bottom up. Grandees like Paddy Ashdown and Vince Cable might sneer at his judgement but at least Farron has a chance of being heard. If the other contender, Norman Lamb, had won, opponents would have felt they were being attacked by a dead sheep.

ENJOY THE BUDGET…THE BILL COMES LATER.

 

THE BUDGET

Even before Wednesday’s Budget, the pork barrel is very much in evidence in this General Election campaign. Energy prices frozen, tuition fees slashed, pensioner bonds and even an extra ten minutes at the parking meter. Don’t look for any great themes this time around, the politicians are appealing to your wallet and purse.

The Budget will be dominated by this thinking. George Osborne spends as much time in the Downing Street election strategy room as he does at the Exchequer. He is a highly political Chancellor and will want to use this last Budget of the parliament to bribe the voters and disguise what will come after if he’s still in charge.

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies reminds us the first year after each of the last five General Elections has seen net tax rises of over £5bn per year in today’s terms. It will be no different in 2016. Debt is set to peak at 80% of national income. The deficit is 5% of national income. Remember that as George delivers his good news vibes on Wednesday.

The problem for Labour is that the general economic mood is more optimistic. There is a widespread belief that the Coalition has turned the economy around. Unemployment is down, investment is up and here in the North the Chancellor is pushing the Northern Powerhouse. He may have more to say on that next week. Let’s hope there’s something in there for Leeds, Liverpool and Preston after the super serving of Manchester with money and powers.

So what can we expect in the Chancellor’s sixth budget? The headline grabber could be £11,000 as a starting rate for income tax instead of the planned £10,600. This would have the support of the Lib Dems who’s policy this is. It would save basic rate tax payers £160 a year. For all his Etonian background, Mr Osborne knows the working man likes a pint. Expect 2p off beer and a cut in the rate on scotch, although that is unlikely to stop 40 SNP members in the next parliament. The Chancellor would catch the public mood by measures to crack down on multinationals who don’t pay their taxes in Britain.

Wednesday’s budget will be a challenge for Labour at a time when there are signs that the traditional pre election surge that governments get is beginning to show. The polls have been stuck for months showing Labour and Tories expecting to get about 285 MPs each. Newsnight’s pollsters now have the Tories on 295 and Labour on 267.

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has made blood curdling prophesies that the Tories would make £70bn cuts after the election. He is exaggerating and we need to remember Labour would be cutting public spending too. But Balls is right to focus on the grim years ahead for all departments that are not ring fenced, particularly local government. Remember that when Osborne speaks next week.

CONSTITUENCY FOCUS: CHEADLE.

This seat will test the Lib Dems hope that they can defy their dire poll ratings where a hard working incumbent is facing a challenge from the Tories, not Labour.

Mark Hunter has been the Lib Dem MP for Cheadle since a by election in 2005. He held it last time with a majority of 3272. The seat has a history of Liberal support going back to the days of the Granada TV doctor Michael Winstanley.

It is an indictment of the Tories who should perform better in a seat which is the most socially upmarket in Greater Manchester. Hoping to restore Tory fortunes is former South Ribble Conservative councillor Mary Robinson.

 

EVEN UKIP CAN’T WISH AWAY THE DEFICIT.

 

 

Readers of my blog will not be surprised by Labour’s desperately close shave in Heywood and Middleton. It was just as important a result as Clacton because of its implications for Labour across the North. As in Scotland Ed Miliband is not cutting through and it’s too late to remove him. Clacton gives UKIP their first MP but Douglas Carswell was the popular incumbent.

 

Following these results it is increasingly difficult to predict which combination of parties will hold power after the General Election. What we can be certain of is that they will face a deficit north of £75bn.

 

Assurances were given in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow that balancing the books was the aim. However the pressures of the forthcoming election have led to the usual sweeteners for the voters and some small measures to increase taxes. Nobody dares tell us what governing after 2015 will really be like.

 

Labour is still just in the lead in the opinion polls and yet had the most downbeat conference. The Conservatives convinced themselves Ed Miliband was not going to make it to No 10 and staged a premature celebration. There weren’t a lot of Lib Dems in Glasgow. I know that because a steward ordered me off the balcony seats to make the stalls look more crowded! Those that did turn up appear to have concluded that things couldn’t get any worse and the only way was up.

 

If the General Election was not just months away, Nick Clegg would surely have been held to account for the complete decimation of his councillor base in the North along with the party’s MEPs this summer. Many victims of the Town Hall massacre hadn’t the stomach to come to Glasgow but Chris Davies, the defeated North West Lib Dem MEP, was there and plans to head up the North West Party Association soon.

 

Only Lib Dem MPs have so far been spared the wrath of the voters. They were elected on the very day that the party began to negotiate with the Tories, a toxic deal for many of their followers. Next May they could lose so many seats that their credibility as a coalition partner could be called into question. There was talk in Glasgow of Labour winning most seats, the Conservatives most votes, UKIP coming third but the Lib Dems still being in government with Labour. Would people feel that was legitimate?

 

Nick Clegg will probably take his 2010 stance that he will work with whoever gets the largest number of seats but his activists were pressed to come off the fence at a key fringe meeting. Neil Lawson is in charge of a think tank called Compass. He is Labour but not tribally so. He challenged the Lib Dems to come off the fence and acknowledge their “progressive” nature. Lawson’s key point, which I think has merit, was that faith in the old party structure is breaking down to such an extent that Labour, the Lib Dems,Greens and progressive nationalists are all going to need to get together after future indecisive election results.

 

Nick Clegg pleaded with voters to forgive the Lib Dems for the one promise they had broken (tuition fee rises) and credit them for raising the tax threshold for 25 million people, the pupil premium and keeping right wing Tories in check.

 

Clegg reminded his party that it had split asunder under the strain of coalition in the 1920s and that had not happened this time.

 

It remains to be seen if this was the last time the Lib Dems will hold a party conference while in power for another ninety years.

 

 

 

 

 

A CHANCE FOR A REAL E.U. RENEGOTIATION

E.U. TREATY TALKS

While the Lib Dems implode after their disastrous election results, let us look forward to the implications for next year. I have thought for some time that the Tories would be the largest party after the General Election. Labour’s under performance in the North last week has strengthened my view. Therefore there is a reasonable prospect that David Cameron will be in a position to try to renegotiate our treaty arrangements with the E.U.
Up to now I had thought that his demands would be unacceptably high even for our German and Swedish allies. This is because the Better Off Out wing of the Conservative Party is exerting increasing pressure on him. The result would be that Cameron would come back with a weak package of concessions that he would try, and fail, to sell in an in/out referendum in 2017.
However the scale of hostility to the E.U project across a large number of countries is such that the impetus for change has grown and Cameron may be able to get meaningful concessions. These could cover immigration controls, the working time directive, benefit tourism and the “ever closer union” clause of the Treaty of Rome. If all this happens, then the chances of the British people making the disastrous decision to come out of the E.U may be avoided. But don’t hold your breath. Hostility to the E.U is running high in this country.

 

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESULTS IN THE NORTH

In the North West it was sad that Lib Dem Chris Davies lost his seat and that the Green’s able candidate Peter Cranie just failed to secure a position. The region would have been better represented by a wider range of MEPs.
Of those who were elected, I have to say the UKIP team impress me. I don’t agree with their policies but Paul Nuttall from Liverpool, the party’s Deputy Leader has developed well as an articulate and friendly spokesman for his party. Then there are the new North West UKIP MEPs. Louise Boers, the former Brookside actress, has a very warm personality and gave her best on the BBC’s Question Time this week alongside Piers Morgan and hard tackling footballer Joey Barton. Finally Steven Woolfe, the party’s economics spokesman will have a hard task when UKIP’s right wing policies on cuts and the health service come under scrutiny.

Labour’s team in the North West are all new and untried. Teresa Griffin has been preparing for this moment for four elections and said all the right things in her victory speech in Manchester Town Hall on Sunday night. Afzal Khan is a very pleasant man, let’s see if he can make a practical difference for the region in Brussels.
The big question mark centres on Julie Ward who has not held elected office before and hails from Bishop Auckland in the North East. She was originally in fourth place on the Labour list and thus very unlikely to win a seat. But the late decision by Arlene McCarthy to withdraw pushed her up to third place. There are fears in Labour circles that she may defect to the Green Party
For the Tories the feisty Jackie Foster starts her third term representing the North West and Saj Karim just held on to his place.
Labour topped the poll in the North West but in Yorkshire and the Humber, it was UKIP. With the controversial Godfrey Bloom gone their brand new MEPs are Jane Collins, Amjad Bashir and Mike Hookem. The other MEPs are all experienced Brussels hands. Linda McAvan and Richard Corbett for Labour and Tim Kirkhope for the Conservatives.

 

LOCAL COUNCIL RESULTS IN THE NORTH

Labour underperformed in key parts of the North, raising serious questions about their ability to win next year. Even the unambitious “35%” strategy to just get across the line is undermined with their 31% projected national vote share in these elections.
Failing to take Trafford into no overall control and to win in West Lancashire where the Mayor will keep the Conservatives in control, were major disappointments. Targets were also missed in Kirklees and Calderdale, although Bradford was won. In Leeds there were no Labour gains to strengthen the party’s majority.
UKIP found the North West hard going with a smattering of seats in Oldham, Hyndburn and Bolton but east of the Pennines the nine gains in Rotherham caught national headlines.
The Greens are now the official opposition in Liverpool, although their leader John Coyne tells me he may not occupy the Town Hall office reserved for him on cost grounds.
Let’s finally turn to the Lib Dems. There has been much reporting of their implosion in Manchester, Rochdale and Liverpool but in Stockport they will still run the council with ratepayers support and in South Lakeland they had no losses at all.
Next stop, the Newark by election on Thursday.