Tag: MP

PEOPLE, NOT POLITICIANS, LEAD ON TAX

Demands for people and companies to pay their fair share of tax, and for company chief executives pay and bonuses to be capped is being led by the grass roots not their leaders.

It’s all very well for David Cameron to jump on the bandwagon and pick on comedian Jimmy Carr’s tax avoidance scheme, but the Prime Minister joins most politicians in failing to address this issue for years.

The Labour Party should have taken a lead while it was in office for 13 years but Tony Blair was so focussed on being “business friendly” that there was little pretence that the party was going to be true to its socialist grass roots and narrow the gap between rich and poor through the tax system. Indeed Lord Mandelson said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.”

It’s unlikely the public was relaxed, even during the economic good times. They certainly aren’t now as the recession bites hard.

It should now be clear to politicians that there are votes in fairness. There is nothing incompatible between fair taxes, bonuses and salaries and a competitive society. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about our top entrepreneurs being poised with their passports ready to flee Britain for some low tax foreign paradise.

There are a few who are prepared to endure boredom in boiling Qatar or humid Hong Kong. Good luck to them. We must have fairness in Britain and politicians of all parties with the guts to outsmart the clever accountants and their tax loopholes.

THE SECRET POLICE ELECTIONS

It seems as if the government is hell bent on ensuring a low turnout in the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners.

These are entirely new posts that the public have no experience of. Voting will take place in November when the weather is likely to be even worse than it is at the moment. Finally there will be no freepost for the parties to communicate with the public.

If you are tempted to run as an independent in say Merseyside, you will need £60,000 to contact every elector.

At the moment we only know the Labour candidates in the North West. I went along to their launch this week and encountered two familiar faces, Tony Lloyd and Jane Kennedy.

Tony was returned unopposed by the Greater Manchester Labour Party and will shortly stand down as MP for Central Manchester.

Jane Kennedy, a former MP, won a bruising contest with another ex Liverpool MP, Peter Kilfoyle, and the chair of the Merseyside Police Authority Cllr Bill Weightman. Bill opined that the Commissioner role should not be a bolt hole for former MPs.

That was a mild comment compared to Jane Kennedy’s criticism of Peter Kilfoyle for suggesting that being born in Liverpool was a key qualification for the job. She described that to me as the “little Liverpool campaign” and was glad Labour members had rejected it.

Mayor Joe was at the photo call having surprisingly intervened in the selection process to back Kennedy. He justified his decision with a rambling analogy related to choosing cakes. I wondered whether he’d have been present if Kilfoyle had won to which his response was “We’ll never know now.”

Anderson is clearly happy to continue mixing it in the political field. Earlier in the campaign he’d told the Leigh MP Andy Burnham not to interfere in a Merseyside election when the Shadow Health Secretary had given his support to Kilfoyle.

Labour made its choice in Lancashire in a more seemly manner. Lancashire County councillor Clive Grunshaw from Fleetwood is a member of the current Lancashire Police Authority. He may be up against Geoff Driver if the current Conservative leader of Lancashire County Council decides to go for the Tory nomination.

In Cheshire Labour has chosen Halton councillor John Stockton. He may face Baroness Helen Newlove for the Tories. Her husband was murdered by three youth in Warrington in 2007.

There are a number of issues to return to about these new posts as we run up to November including their effectiveness, their relationships with the Chief Constables and what it tells us about the attitude of the the Tories (the traditional party of law and order) and the police.

MANCHESTER CENTRAL: ANOTHER CHANCE FOR RESPECT?

MANCHESTER CENTRAL

Could the drama of Bradford West be rerun in Manchester Central?

Labour chooses its candidate next Monday to replace Tony Lloyd who is set to resign to stand for Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester.

Manchester Central has some of the characteristics of the Yorkshire seat that saw George Galloway’s shock victory for Respect at the end of last month.

Nearly 30% of the electorate is non-white and many feel this would be an appropriate constituency for Labour to choose an ethnic minority candidate. It is long overdue for Manchester to end its white male monopoly representation at Westminster.

If that is to happen then Patrick Vernon is the man. He is Chief Executive of the Afiya Trust, one of the leading race equality health charities in the country.

However he faces an uphill task. He is a Londoner facing three experienced Manchester politicians.

Party bosses are hoping that Lucy Powell will be chosen. She is a close aide of Labour leader Ed Miliband but failed to dislodge the Liberal Democrats from the neighbouring Withington seat two years ago.

The other candidates are Manchester councillors Mike Amesbury and Rosa Battle.

If Lucy Powell is chosen, will she face a similar challenge from Respect that Labour failed to withstand in Bradford?

Probably not as Manchesteris a city well run by Labour without a hole in the ground where a shopping complex was meant to be, as was the case in Bradford.

But there will be nervousness about the timing of the contest after Galloway’s victory and because by elections that are caused by party manoeuvrings, rather than the death of an MP, often annoy voters and lead them to punish the party that held the seat.

FROM PRISON TO TOWN HALL?

The government hoped that a different type of person would stand to be elected mayors instead of the usual political suspects.

Well they have certainly got what they wished for in Salford. Paul Massey hasn’t got a political record, but he certainly has a criminal one. In 1999 he was jailed for 14 years for stabbing a man in the groin. Mr Massey will give a whole new meaning to the description “independent candidate” when he stands against the likely winner, ex-Labour MP Ian Stewart, in the poll next month.

There are ten candidates in Salford but a full dozen in Liverpool where the race will be on to stop the Joe Anderson political bandwagon.

One blow for the current council leader will be that he will not appear at the top of the voting paper.

Normally alphabetical order prevails but there appear to be different rules for this new post. Election officials carried out a ballot which resulted in Joe being placed second behind the National Front representative.

There are a number of quality candidates including successful businessman Tony Caldeira for the Tories, experienced Richard Kemp for the Lib Dems and Tony Mulhearn who has stuck to his socialist principles all his life.

But the independent candidate Liam Fogarty should be given serious consideration. Liam was my producer at the BBC and has been campaigning for an elected mayor forLiverpool when most of the other candidates were still pouring scorn on the idea.

Nominations are now closed for the two mayoral polls and the local elections across Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The parties are all likely to be affected by three extraordinary weeks in politics.

GALLOWAY: THE POLITICAL TROUBADOUR

By all means the major political parties should beat themselves up over the result in Bradford West. They need to ask themselves how a political maverick and a powerful social media campaign among the Asian community of that city, left them floundering.

However it is likely to be one of those by election soufflés. We have seen a few of them in the North West.

Shirley Williams was elected at the height of the surge of the Social Democrats in 1981 as MP for Crosby, but dismissed by the fickle electorate two years later. The SDP had a similar experience ten years later when Mike Carr won Ribble Valley on the back of poll tax anger. He lasted a year.

Chris Davies managed just two years as Lib Dem MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth from 1995-97 following a by-election.

By-elections, like the European Parliament elections are classic opportunities for otherwise serious voters to let their hair down and give the major parties a kicking knowing that the government of the country is not at stake.

Bradford West was a bit different because of the complex world of Asian politics which mixes uneasily with the traditional politics of Westminster.

We saw that in the 2010 General Election in Oldham East and Saddleworth where old Labour party apparatchiks answer to Muslim voters drifting to the Lib Dems was to “get the white vote out”.

But there was was no sign of the dodgy leaflets in Bradford that did for Phil Woolas in Oldham.

One suspects that in Bradford a fairly complacent Labour machine felt they just had to put up a well known member of the Muslim community and job done. But Galloway has been riding political bandwagons since 1987 when he defeated the leader of the Social Democrats, Roy Jenkins, in Glasgow Hillhead.

After saluting Saddam Hussein and getting expelled from the Labour Party, Galloway was at it again defeating an excellent MP, Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005.

People made the mistake of thinking that pretending to be a cat slurping milk on Big Brother would do for him. But the Muslim community of Bradford West appears to have turned a blind eye to such decadence.

Certainly the younger members of that community have anyway, because there is evidence that a frantic surge of tweeting in the final days caught the main parties napping. The doorstep encounter is no match for the iPhone amongst the young. That’s something all parties will now have taken note of.

So where have all these events left the parties in our patch with a three weeks to go to the local and mayoral polls?

Despite Bradford, Labour is set to do well. We are now deep into mid term and that is usually a bad time for the party in power. Nowadays the government is both the Tories and Lib Dems, so it’s a win win for Labour. Also Labour did really badly in this round of elections in 2008 and can regain lost seats relatively easily.

For the Tories we only have to put together a few bizarre phrases to identify their short term problems.

Just think of a granny munching on an ambient temperature pasty while trying to fill a jerry can and you have identified that the Conservatives have temporarily lost the plot. They are heading for the mid term hammering that they avoided last year. But petrol and pasties will be forgotten if the underlying economic woes can be sorted out in the next couple of years.

The Lib Dems are perhaps staring down the barrel of a pistol rather than a double barrelled shotgun this year, but it stlll looks pretty dire for them. Local elections used to be great for their party. They were grateful recipients of the votes of people fed up with the government. But they are the government now and will only be saved in some places by the individual work put in by councillors in particular wards.

WOMEN IN POLITICS: MORE TO DO

Would Emmeline Pankhurst be proud of the progress that Blair’s Babes, Gordon’s Girls and Cameron’s Cuties have made in breaking the glass ceiling in British politics?

One thing’s for certain the Suffragette leader of a hundred years ago would be appalled that the popular press can still get away with the sexist headlines that so often accompany commentary on the role of our female MPs at Westminster.

Despite women only shortlists and determined drives by political parties to rectify the problem, there is still a lack of women in leadership roles at Westminster and in our Town Halls.

You would expect that the greater the number of women MPs and councillors would lead to more of them emerging into top jobs, therefore the following statistics are worrying.

Men outnumber women 4 to 1 in Westminster, at this rate it will take another fourteen General Elections for parliament to reflect the population it purports to represent.

Only 5 out of 23 cabinet ministers are women. Just 31% of councillors are female and 13% of local council leaders are women.

The Town Hall figures contradict the notion that women find it easier to be involved in local politics. The argument goes that as the activity is local it is easier for women to manage the demands of work and family.

We can all recall some formidable female local government leaders in the North West and more widely. Louise Ellmann, the current MP for Liverpool Riverside, had her most prominent years in politics as leader of Lancashire County Council.

At County Hall in Preston in the 1980s she developed the then pioneering notion that local government could be a partner with business in creating jobs. Lancashire Enterprises was her vision.

Politicians on police authorities have recently been accused of being low profile. That charge could not be laid against Margaret Simey in Merseyside and Gay Cox in Greater Manchester. In the troubled early 1980s these chairs of their respective police committees were more than a match for powerful Chief Constables Ken Oxford and James Anderton.

Turning to the present, Marie Rimmer gives robust leadership to St Helens council, fiercely protecting what she sees as the interests of her town from the potentially overbearing influence of Liverpool.

But these women are the exception. Down the years and across the region the vast majority of Town Hall leaders are men.

When it comes to the Chief Executives of our local councils, the position is very different. Salford,Wigan, Trafford, St Helens, Knowsley and Cheshire East are among the authorities with a woman on top.

The reason for this perhaps gets us to the heart of the problem of why there aren’t more prominent women in politics.

Although Chief Executives work hard, they owe their positions to competitive interview. It’s a process that generally leads to appointment on the basis of ability. Once in post, the employment contract goes a long way to protecting job security.

To become leader of a council, you first have to get selected by your party, then elected to the council, then get elected by your group to the position of leadership. It involves the sort of 24/7 commitment that few women can contemplate. It is also often a very male world of clans, macho politics and the pub.

I realise I am generalising here. I have personal knowledge of men who have taken on domestic responsibilities to allow their partners to pursue a political career, but they are the exception.

Now let us turn to Westminster where some parties have introduced artificial methods to boost the female count. Labour’s women only shortlists and the Tories A-list of candidates being the most promising examples.

In the eighty odd years between 1918, when women first stood for parliament, and 1997 when MPs first entered parliament from women only shortlists, progress was slow. Parliament remained largely male, pale and stale.

However those women that did break through made a big impression. It may be their rarity value that drew the public’s attention but the North West had a remarkable collection of women MPs amid the massed ranks of the men in the post war years.

Leading the way was Barbara Castle. The MP for Blackburn for over thirty years. In her ministerial posts she introduced seat belts, the breathalyser and earnings related pensions. As First Secretary she fought a mighty battle with the unions on curbing wildcat strikes.

She thrived under the patronage of Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, one of the few holders of that office to actively promote women. She was sacked by Wilson’s successor Jim Callaghan, a product of the male and stale trade union brigade.

Bessie Braddock was elected at the same time as Red Barbara and although she never held ministerial office, she was a major figure inLiverpool politics for thirty years. Gwyneth Dunwoody served Crewe for even longer and made ministers that appeared before her Transport Select Committee tremble. Angela and Maria Eagle have made their mark in the last fifteen years representing Merseyside seats.

On the Conservative side Margaret Thatcher had to battle male prejudice before rising to the top job as did Lynda Chalker in Wallasey and Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman in Lancaster, one of the last Tory dames to grace the back benches.

It was always said that Conservative women were the main block on female advancement in the party, believing for a long time after it became publicly unfashionable, that a woman’s place was in the constituency helping her male MP husband. That way they got two for the price of one.

The lack of women MPs has been a severe problem for the party that should find it most easy to select females, the Lib Dems. They have 7 women MPs out of 57 and they are all in marginal seats. 2015 could see the party with no female representation at Westminster at all.

Sporadic attempts to introduce quotas or women only shortlists have been thwarted by activists who have argued that such methods are fundamentally illiberal.

Will women make the breakthrough to equality of representation at Town Hall and Westminster? It is difficult to be optimistic particularly because one senses an irritation when the issue is mentioned. There’s a feeling that the matter has been dealt with or not enough qualified women put themselves forward.

The only hope lies in a fundamental shift in the way we do politics. The Bradford West by election showed that there isn’t much enthusiasm for the conventional parties or the way they do politics. Perhaps a breakdown in traditional allegiances will lead to new parties with greater appeal to women to put themselves forward.

EUROFIGHT ON AND MANCHESTER “YES” TO MAYOR?

The aerospace industry is vital to the North West economy, so the chance to partly assemble 126 Eurofighter Typhoon jets for the Indian Air Force must be fought for.

On a visit to Westminster this week I gained evidence that much is going on behind the scenes even though preferred bidder status has been given to the French.

Ben Wallace, the MP for Wyre and Preston North, along with his colleague Mark Menzies (Fylde) met the Prime Minister on Monday. Eyebrows had been raised when news came through that the French had stolen a march on us, because David Cameron visited India with a big trade delegation soon after coming into office.

Now more details are emerging about the situation which could have implications for the workforce at Salmesbury, Warton and beyond. The strength of the French bid apparently lies in their tie up with the Reliance Group, India’s largest private sector conglomerate. With annual revenues of $58bn it is far larger than Tata, the Indian company which owns the Jaguar plant at Halewood.

However this deal is far from done and with David Cameron on the case, efforts will be made to expose the weaknesses of the French position. I’m told Reliance has no track record in aerospace and there is very little detail on price which could be significant as the French are desperate to get a foreign order for their Rafale jet. 700 of the Eurofighters have already been sold.

Ben Wallace emerged from his meeting with the PM confident there was all to play for. Apparently in similar negotiations for these aircraft the preferred bidder has been overtaken on six occasions.

Wallace is a Conservative MP in the tradition of former members like David Trippier (Rossendale) and Malcolm Thornton (Crosby). They are Tories that believe that to be successful in the North West; it helps to come from the liberal One Nation part of the party.

Wallace has been in the House since 2005 but faces a brutal internal party battle to maintain his political career. Boundary changes are likely to see him, Mark Menzies (Fylde) and Eric Ollerenshaw (Fleetwood and Lancaster) competing for just two seats.

During our time together at the Commons we bumped into Wallace’s neighbour Jack Straw (Blackburn). Jack seems to be almost equally concerned aboutIranand Blackburn Rovers these days. He feels his successor as Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is underestimating the growing crisis surrounding Iran.

On the crisis at Ewood Park Jack had made an unusual move for an MP, in calling for manager Steve Keen to go. He seemed unimpressed when I remarked that Rovers had been doing a bit better recently.

Around the Commons corridors much of the talk is about elected mayors and Police Crime Commissioners. Ben Wallace told me he’s lining up an ex-soldier colleague of his to contest the position for the Lancashire Police Authority.

On the mayoral front I had an interesting chat with former Labour Minister and Wythenshawe MP Paul Goggins. There has been a general feeling that Manchester will vote “no” in the May referendum on whether to have a directly elected mayor with council leader Sir Richard Leese being against the idea.

However Goggins does not rule out a “yes” vote in Manchester pointing out that in neighbouring Salford last month every ward voted “yes” in a referendum triggered by a local businessman. So although the turnout was low, support was consistent across that city.

Following the “yes” vote, candidates have piled in to be the Labour nominees. The former Eccles MP Ian Stewart, has been joined by Salford council leader John Merry and former Labour National Executive Committee member Peter Wheeler.