Tag: MP

A DISMAL TIME FOR POLITICS

THE RESHUFFLE.

I would have backed Preston North MP and Security Minister Ben Wallace to be the new Defence Secretary. He was in impressive form at a terrorism seminar I attended during the Tory Party conference in Manchester. He probably lost out to Gavin Williamson because he was a staunch supporter of Boris Johnson in last year’s Tory leadership election.

But at least we have seen the promotion of another North West MP. Esther McVey was reflecting recently at a Downtown event about the fluctuating fortunes of a political life. Defeated in Wirral West in 2015, she was back representing Tatton after this year’s General Election. Now she is promoted to Deputy Chief Whip, a key post in a hung parliament where the government is trying to drive through our exit from the European Union.

THE SCANDAL.

The reshuffle was made necessary by the resignation of Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon as the crisis over MPs sexual behaviour began to unravel.

The reputation of our MPs has never recovered from the 2009 expenses scandal. The disillusionment, which partly explains the Brexit vote, was still with us as the latest revelations about sexual misbehaviour and misogyny broke. It affects all political parties so hopefully we can be spared party point scoring. The solution will require MPs to loosen further their adherence to the view that, as independent legislators, they must be free of outside regulation.

But the damage is done. It remains true that most MPs enter public life to make society a better place, but the cynics who have always claimed that they are in it for what they can get out of it feel vindicated. The critics who say MPs adopt a high moral tone in debates which is not matched by their private behaviour, have been proved right in some cases.

BEYOND PARODY.

The toxic chemistry of people with power being near young employees desperate for jobs is also present in the media.

So, it jarred with me that Radio Five Live’s Pienaar’s Politics recently had the presenter discussing MPs inappropriate behaviour one minute and following it immediately with a feature where a female MP was invited to say whether she would “snog, marry or avoid “a series of male politicians.

While I’m at it here’s another “beyond parody” moment from my week’s radio listening. Footballer Joey Barton, banned from football after betting on games he was playing in, was giving expert analysis on a talkSPORT commentary of Leicester v Everton where his fellow commentator was giving frequent plugs for betfair.

THE ROSCOE LECTURES.

Sticking to the media theme, I attended a lecture by the BBC Director General Tony Hall this week in Liverpool. He was the latest speaker in the Roscoe Lecture series promoted by Liverpool John Moores University. All credit to them for the events they mount in the impressive St George’s Hall.

The DG was worrying about the growing spending power of Netflix and Amazon. The bigger danger to the BBC comes from the constant sniping of the Murdoch press trying to bring down one of our few remaining assets that is the envy of a world where trash programmes peppered with advertising are the norm.

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LIVERPOOL BUSINESS WANTS END OF POWER BATTLE

An agonised call for the elected mayors of Merseyside to stop their power battles and get on with promoting the city region was made at a Downtown event in the city this week.

Many of the movers and shakers in the area were kind enough to give their time to look at the city’s development in the ten years since Capital of Culture and what the next decade has in store.

The overriding desire was for Liverpool City mayor Joe Anderson and City Region mayor Steve Rotheram to end their rivalry, agree on who does what, and get on with attracting business and tourism to the area.

The main frustration focuses on the many agencies that are doing bits and pieces to attract jobs and visitors. The demand is for one point of contact, particularly for tourism. The consensus was that this is a job for the city region. Acknowledging that Liverpool is the brand, it was felt that the city region should have this strategic role.

The way in which successive governments have devolved power in the UK is partly to blame. At the Downtown meeting, it was pointed out that the Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly could put major funding into attracting business and tourism. Aberdeen and Cardiff are building new conference centres on the back of that. In England, limited power and money has been given to a complex model of Local Enterprise Partnerships and Combined Authorities. In Merseyside and Greater Manchester, the structure of elected city regional mayors over the top of the proud cities of Manchester and Liverpool is a recipe for rivalry. There are some signs of tension in Greater Manchester but the ten districts generally rub along together. Merseyside on the other hand has had a controversial history at local government level with Wirral and Southport wanting to break away, not to mention the Militant era. The business community had hoped all that was well in the past. Liverpool is transformed compared to twenty years ago but this model of city and city region mayor couldn’t have been better designed to revive the old dysfunctional problems.

Added to the structural problems we have two strong personalities. Joe Anderson, passionate for his city, has done great work since 2010 but he wanted to move on to the wider city region stage. In his way was his old friend Steve Rotheram. A way out would have been for Joe to take over from Steve as MP for Walton. That elegant solution was blocked by Unite The Union who wanted their man in Walton.

Now business people in Liverpool are confused about the powers of both mayors at a time when they know that more will be expected of them in terms of promoting jobs and tourism as the cuts continue to bite in the public sector.

The Downtown event concluded that the next ten years are going to be harder after the rapid progress of the last decade. Specific attention was paid to the continuing problems of accessing the city centre from the M62 and the need to fill hotels during the week. In this respect the city seems to have an opposite problem to many other places who find attracting weekend guests a challenge.

One of the most striking views at the Downtown meeting was that, in respect of tourists visiting Britain, the national image was being tarnished by Brexit. It was thought this could be an opportunity for the Liverpool City Region to promote itself separately.

Let’s hope the mayoral problems can be sorted out because the meeting agreed that the Liverpool City Region with that to-die-for waterfront, friendly people and the enduring power of the Beatles gives it potentially great prospects for the future.

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“MP ON THE MAKE AND ON THE TAKE”

FORTRESS WESTMINSTER.

I first worked at Westminster as a journalist a year after Airey Neave was blown up in New Palace Yard, the very place where brave PC Keith Palmer was stabbed to death on Wednesday. Security was tightened after that incident in 1979 and progressively since. But the gates where the terrorist gained access to the parliamentary estate remains a “weak point”. What to do about the access point where MPs rush through to vote in divisions goes to the heart of the balance between security and allowing democracy to flourish.

Cars may be banned from part of Parliament Square or a cumbersome double entry lock for cars put on the gates. That would be a big problem for the number of ministerial cars that head for Westminster when a vote is called, but we shall see.

Meanwhile we must continue to defend our democracy and defy the terrorists.

“MP ON THE MAKE AND ON THE TAKE.”

Those were the words of barrister George Carman at a libel trial involving the former Tatton MP Neil Hamilton who was accused of taking cash for asking parliamentary questions.

Twenty years on the current Tatton MP, George Osborne, is gaining the same image by his vast accumulation of extra parliamentary work.

He does not face the direct corruption charge that Hamilton failed to remove in two libel actions against Harrods’s owner Mohammed Al Fayed, but there is widespread concern that Osborne’s actions since being sacked as Chancellor are reinforcing that old charge against MPs that they are in it for themselves. Around 200,000 people have already signed a petition against five jobs Osborne.

This is a list of the extra parliamentary work that Osborne was engaged in even before he took the Evening Standard job. £771,000 from public speaking engagements, £650,000 for advising Black Rock Investments, and £120,000 from an American think tank.

He has now taken the editorship of the London Evening Standard on a reported £200,000 salary. I was surprised he hear that he applied for the job rather than being approached by the owner anxious for a marquee signing.

Some argue that the well heeled constituents of Tatton don’t have the caseload to keep the MP occupied. Not all Tatton is leafy Cheshire countryside and I thought we’d passed the time when MPs used to visit their seats once a year to receive the acclamation of the grateful voters. Besides an MP is expected to play a role on parliamentary committees at Westminster.

The Evening Standard editorship has been a step too far for many people. Apart from the fact that he has no journalistic experience, editing a paper is a full-time job. Can you imagine the workload in the Standard office this week dealing with the terrorist crisis? Supposing Osborne had been on a speaking engagement or think tank duties in America?

Of direct concern to us in the North is his Northern Powerhouse Partnership. Its purpose is to argue for a fairer share for the North. The editor of the Evening Standard will be promoting London’s case; a clear conflict of interest.

But maybe we shouldn’t be thinking of George Osborne as one of our own anymore. His Tatton seat is being abolished and maybe this is all about him heading south to park his tanks on Theresa May’s lawn. The Standard could adopt a Remainer critique of the government prior to Osborne launching a bid for Mayor of London or even the Premiership.

One North West Tory MP has told me he is convinced Osborne harbours Tory leadership ambitions. Well he’s going a funny way about it. At the moment, many Tory MPs see him as an embarrassment and as the man whose threats about an emergency budget did terrible damage to the Remain case.

BOUNDARY CHANGES MAY NOT GO THROUGH

UNSAFE SEATS.

I was in the Commons this week when the new parliamentary constituency map was announced. It was generally expected that Tory MPs would be jumping for joy. The shake up aims to even up the size of constituencies which currently do not reflect the move of people from the cities (Labour) to the suburbs (Conservative). It is true that the plans could cost Labour roughly two dozen seats, but the change also has another purpose.

David Cameron, the here yesterday and gone now, MP for Witney thought it was a clever response to the MP’s expenses scandal to “cut the cost of politics”. You would have thought he might have decided to trim the size of the House of Lords which is not elected and is nearly 900 strong. But no, Cameron decided to reduce the number of elected MPs from 650 to 600. Therefore this shake up has led to the creation of huge constituencies in rural areas and disruptive change in the conurbations of Leeds, Liverpool and especially Greater Manchester. This aspect of the change will not just affect Labour MPs, but Tories too.

The plan may go through, especially if the Scottish Nationalists do not vote on this English issue, but I found many northern Tories unhappy with both the changes and the principle of downsizing the Commons. It was David Cameron’s idea. He’s not even an MP now and his policies are being comprehensively trashed by Theresa May.

A brief look at the new constituency map for the North shows how sitting Labour and Tory MPs should be worried. Conservative Party rules giving MPs with a large chunk of their old seat safe selection may mitigate blue on blue contests. However they’ve created of a huge North Lancashire seat stretching from the Scottish border to the suburbs of Preston. The consequential scrapping of the Ribble Valley constituency affects Ben Wallace (Preston North) and Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley). Bury will have only one seat threatening Tory David Nuttall in the northern part of the town. Chris Green’s marginal Bolton West gets more Labour wards. Then we come to the decision to cross the Greater Manchester-Cheshire border in two places. George Osborne’s Tatton disappears into a seat including Altrincham. There is the possibility of a fight for the new seat clash between the ex Chancellor and the grammar school supporting Graham Brady. The fortunes of politics! From Chancellor to an MP without a seat in three months.But Osborne’s new Northern Powerhouse think tank suggests he is going to stay and make mischief for Thesesa May. The other cross border constituency is Bramhall and Poynton damaging Lib Dem prospects in the Cheadle and Hazel Grove area.

But Labour will lose seats too. Alison McGovern’s Wirral South disappears as does Ivan Lewis’s Bury South and Jim McMahon’s Oldham West. Leeds West goes as does Yvette Cooper’s Pontefract constituency .The greatest danger to sitting Labour MPs will be the need to hold selection contests on new boundaries. The left wing Momentum organisation will be given the perfect opportunity to punish opponents of Jeremy Corbyn.

THE PENDULUM HAS STOPPED.

I had a chance to question ex Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg on the eve of his party’s conference this week.

He was in downbeat mood saying that the normal pendulum of politics had stopped. Normally there was an expectation that it would swing against the government. However with Labour decimated in Scotland, plunged into a civil war in England and with his own party so weak there was every prospect of lengthy Tory rule. The only cloud on that horizon, said Mr Clegg, was the possibility of tensions over Brexit. He identified a fundamental division between Tories who knew the value of the Single Market and sovereignty fanatics.

However when I asked him about centre left unity, he went over old grievances about how Labour had let the Lib Dems down over voting reform before acknowledging that bridges had to be built. Let’s see if the new leader Tim Farron will be more up beat in Brighton.

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