Labour’s best local election result since 1995 and the Tories’ worst since 1996, yeah, we’ll take that

Ed Miliband in Birmingham yesterday with Birmingham Council Labour Group leader, Sir Albert Bore

That’s right, throughout Friday Labour saw it’s best performance in a local election since 1995 (all in proportion to how many Council elections were up for grabs as last year we gained more but far more were up for grabs). And similarly the Tories saw their worst local election result since 1996 and the Lib Dems now have dropped down below 3,000 councillors for the first time in the party’s existence.

This was a result that exceeded everyone’s expectations on all fronts. With most Tories attempting to spin the result to say we needed around 450 councillor gains to be seen as a success, we only smashed that with 823! When everyone expected Scottish Labour to lose Glasgow City Council we not only fought off a SNP challenge but took control of the council at the expense of the Lib Dems and Tories. When everyone said Labour would only win a slight majority in our very own Birmingham City Council, we smashed all expectations by gaining 20 councillors and winning a 34 seat majority. When it was expected Welsh Labour would fail in taking Cardiff City Council, we defied all predictions by gaining 33 councillors and winning a majority of 17! And we’re very proud of very nearly almost gaining control of the Greater London Assembly, falling short by 1 Assembly member.

This election wasn’t without its disappointments though. BULS’s very own Honourary life Member, Dennis Minnis, was unsuccessful in taking Edgbaston. And biggest of all, huge disappointment at Ken’s defeat. We are all glad Ken did defy most  (but not all, sadly) odds by not letting Boris have a shoe-in election by pushing the margin on the second round to a close 3%. Many Tories see Boris as the next leader and Prime Minister in waiting. “Wiff-waff” may well have edged it in London, don’t expect the country to do the same.

Of course, the results did see successes close to our hearts in BULS. Obviously there was turning Birmingham City Council red, but BULS saw former student of the University of Birmingham, Karen McCarthy, join former BULS Secretary, Brigid Jones, as a Councillor for Selly Oak. Quinton ward, where Grandee Nash played a large hand in, was also successful in electing Caroline Bradley.

All in all, while this was a brilliant result for Labour nationally we have to remember this has happened to opposition parties in the past. Hague, Howard and Kinnock all saw similar successes at mid-term local elections in their time in opposition. This was a much needed boost, not a prelude for the general election. Though it is safe to say, that the media, politicians and the wider public can no longer claim Miliband has no chance at 2015. There’s still a hell of a lot of work to be done, but we now know that we still do have a shot at 2015.

Max

The Bankers’ Budget

Nobody would expect a fair budget from George Osborne. The Chancellor was never going to give a budget that benefitted the many over the few, or one that put the realities of everyday life above right-wing economic dogma. Expectations suitably adjusted, we can perhaps take small comfort from the 50p tax band “only” being cut to 45p. Ed Miliband gave a sterling speech in response, and I raise a glass to the intern who wrote the jokes. Professional hacks will be casting their own analysis; what follows is my personal take on some of the details.

 

The Chancellor’s big spin on this budget is that it “rewards work”.  We already know that under-18s are to endure a cut in the minimum wage. In the UK it is possible to work a 40-hour week and still live in poverty. The way to make work pay is, surprisingly enough, to actually make work pay, by implementing a proper living wage. Today we heard no commitment on improving the pay of the low paid. It would be naive to ever expect one from a Tory Chancellor. Increasing the income tax threshold seems reasonable, but not when even the poorest are still hit by VAT, and duty on fuel, alcohol and tobacco. What Osborne gives with one hand, he takes several times over with the other.

 

Projections for economic growth and for a fall in unemployment are welcomed.I only hope they hold true. As far as I am aware the budget made no specific commitments relating to the latter. I fear that further cuts to the Department of Work and Pensions will only result in more inhumane box-ticking and the harassment of the vulnerable. The Government – as ever – has put all its faith in the hands of the wonderful private sector.

 

On the 50p rate, the detail most comprehensively leaked, news was always going to be disappointing. Having endured two years of the government chaffing on about deficit reduction, one could at least have assumed that they intended to maximise tax revenue. Basic maths will tell anyone that a 50p rate will raise more by its presence than its absence (“Laffer Curve” / wishful thinking / pseudoscience aside). Osborne himself stated that the rate raised around £1 billion. To me a lot, to him “next to nothing”. Cutting it will cost £100m. That’s a lot of disabled children who will have to go without.

 

The moral case for the 50p rate is even more clear cut – there can be no reason why someone “earning” in excess of £150,000 per year needs a penny more. Greed can be the only motive, and the one which leads to tax evasion and avoidance. It will be argued that such non-payment means that the tax rate might as well be cut. Just apply this same rational to other crimes such as burglary and murder – “You’re never going to catch every criminal, might as well legalise it!” – to see what a fallacy it is.

 

Tax evasion is “morally repugnant” according to Osborne. It is hard to shake off that dirty feeling that comes from agreeing with him – especially given those are often my own words. Tax evasion, and avoidance, are both morally reprehensible. They are as much a theft from the community as your typical off-licence robbery, in scale perhaps more so. The problem is that Osborne is the last person I would expect to do anything about it. I fear that despite pledges to the contrary, he will be all talk and no trousers. Every spending decision taken thus far by the government has convinced me that it is a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

 

Miliband’s best line came when he challenged the government front bench to admit who among them personally benefit from the budget. Furthermore it is worth considering how many prominent Tory donors will also benefit. Such borderline conflict of interest makes a mockery of democracy – and will certainly not be reported in the Tory press. The headlines will trumpet crumbs from the rich men’s table, and ignore the widening inequality that will be a direct result of Osborne’s decisions.

 

Labour should commit to restoring the 50p band, and to actually getting serious on tax fraud, just as we should commit to renationalising the NHS. Anything less will be to continue to concede to the rightward drift of our national political discourse.

By Chris Nash

Ich bin ein Trot

In the past week the “progressive” mask of the Tory party has all but disintegrated. Once again, boggle-eyed theories of “the enemy within” have been aired. By now most people in the country will be aware of the morally repulsive government scheme that is workfare. Anyone with a heart and a social conscience will be opposing it.

According to Grayling and IDS though, we opponents are just a tiny “unrepresentative” bunch of extremist “trots”. Ah yes, “trots”, meaning trotskyists; because if you can’t counter an argument with logic, reason and facts, then why not descend into slurs, name-calling and ad homninum? I have used the term “trots” in the past to refer to left-wing opponents. It was wrong of me then, being both ignorant and a lazy and knee-jerk form of argument. All in all its use by the government signifies an intellectual unwillingness to engage in the issues.

Yet what can we expect from men who so clearly do not know the difference between right and wrong? Already they have lied through their teeth about the “voluntary” nature of workfare. Government documents are, even now, being fabricated or hidden from official websites. The DWP, as always, peddles its Orwellian propaganda. Everyone who has first hand experience of the Job Centre and these schemes knows that Grayling and IDS are open liars. When brave individuals like Cait Reilly have dared to stand up against workfare, they have been mercilessly slurred and slandered in the Tory press. Now there are threats of a heavy police presence at future workfare protests – presumably to intimidate the vulnerable into compliance.

I am against workfare because I believe in a fair days pay for a fair days work. I oppose businesses exploiting the free labour of the unemployed. I oppose the unemployed being punished for economic circumstances beyond their control. I oppose undermining the wages of paid employees by working for free. I oppose already rich individuals and shareholders profiting from forced and unpaid labour.

According to Grayling and IDS, all this makes me an “extremist” and a “trot”. This being so, all hail Comrade Trotsky!

By Chris Nash

An Englishman’s Home is… beyond his wildest dreams

For some reason, going back into the mists of time, the British people have an obsession with private home ownership, even though most of us should technically never be able to afford one without borrowing. In Continental Europe, people are far more satisfied to rent, either from private landlords or more ‘trustworthy’ institutions – maybe there is some correlation between these statistics and the lower levels of stress and dissatisfaction there compared to the UK.

Nevertheless, we are where we are, and there is no going back on the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1981 however much we might want to reverse it (indeed, many of us may actually agree with it, being as it was extremely popular with the low paid, who for the first time had a stake in their council homes and some sense of freedom, however delusional). What we have now is a housing crisis coming at the worst possible time, during a dire economic climate caused by sub-prime mortgages themselves.

Tensions over housing and its’ availability have an effect on many areas of life, including levels of antagonism towards immigrants, the environment, growth, inequality in our cities, personal debt, and of course the Daily Mail and Daily Express front pages. We need to deal with this timebomb if we are to stem a rise in far-right politics and avoid a lost generation of young people. However, worryingly this government is going about it completely the wrong way.

Not only has it made squatting illegal when there are more empty properties than there are homeless people in this country, but it has appallingly placed a cap on housing benefit, effectively pricing the poor out of our capital city and entire swathes of the country – those parts of the country which have job vacancies. The government is slashing the public sector and saddling young people who go to university with ever higher debt, meaning their chances of even being able to look forward to putting down a deposit are negligible.

What our housing market needs is a Keynesian-style investment in house building and construction; not only would this lower house prices for first-time buyers, but it would also ease tensions in the community and increase demand in the economy generally, leading to growth and the beginning of the end of the deficit that the ConDems love to remind us about so much. As a bonus, it would even lead to a return of Location Location Location to our TV screens. Gordon Brown’s plan before the proverbial shit hit the fan in 2007 was to build 3 million new homes – we need this sort of commitment now, coupled with a healthy proliferation of 1940s-inspired New Towns (hopefully better designed than the likes of Milton Keynes) and more social housing. Today’s announcement from Cameron and Clegg about guaranteeing 95% mortgages may look like a repetition of exactly what went wrong in the first place, but should not be dismissed entirely, as it is the taxpayer, not the banks, helping first-time buyers, and there is real potential for an increase in demand as a result.

However it goes nowhere near far enough. If we can’t get people to fall out of love with the owner-occupier dream, then we need to build, build, build, spending more money in the short term to get us out of the mess in the long term.

That Old Chestnut

David Cameron has a nerve. Not only has he U-turned over his pledge in opposition to hold a referendum over the UK’s terms of membership of the European Union, but today he had the temerity to force Nicolas Sarkozy to back down and accept his presence at key Eurozone talks to try to deal with the Greek debt crisis on Wednesday.

Once again, only one year into the new government, a Conservative prime minister is becoming about as stable on Europe as Edwina Currie is on her feet. We all know deep down he is a staunch Euro-sceptic, so why doesn’t he have the guts to come out and be frank with the British people, and say that he would love us to turn our backs on our continental partners, but that he also loves us to lecture and patronise them on economic policy, despite the fact that UK growth is anaemic at best, and backwards at worst, thanks to his policies.

A referendum on EU membership now would of course be absurd, but having called for one in opposition, the PM should stick to his guns and create a disunited and discredited government, and do us all a favour by breaking up the coalition and triggering a general election. You can’t have your bun and eat it, and you can’t be half in, half out, of the EU – leaving the Eurozone (or more accurately, Germany) to do all the hard work and then turning up to talks this week to act as one of the key players while facing a referendum proposal at home from your own backbenchers is hypocritical and downright embarrassing for Britain.

It was Ed Miliband, incidentally, who called on Cameron to give up his trip Down Under and attend the meeting, therefore whether or not you agree that Cameron has a right to be there, it is clear that the Labour leader is ahead of the curve on this one, as he was on phone hacking and as he was at PMQs this week.

It might sound like a cheap shot from the comforts of opposition – and we all know Blair and Brown disagreed over the Euro – however it is clear that yet again the Tories are divided over Europe. Europhile or Europhobe, this is one of the few reliable constants of the European project.

In light of recent events

In light of the NHS reform bill being pushed through the House of Lords, I’d like to draw attention to what many Tories may be thinking now because of it.

Enjoy

Max

 

Sex is not the enemy

David Cameron is set to announce a new set of proposals for child-proofing the internet. A new opt-in scheme to be unveiled today would have internet providers blocking access to pornographic material to all but those users who request it. Clearly children, some teenagers and even adults can be shocked and upset by explicit imagery.

I don’t think we should run (seek to understand exotic acts and complex power games) before we can walk (understand a basic ideal of sex between adults who respect each other). But wouldn’t it be nice if the government were to replace one (misleading, fantasy-based) source of sex information with another (safe, inclusive) source?

The classically repressed British are living proof that ignoring sex does not make STIs or unwanted pregnancy go away. Only proper education, support networks and open adult discussion can do that.

I think we have some things to learn from our friends down under: http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/policies

Suzy

Priorities please

It was announced yesterday (I think) that the UK has rejected a call by the EU to implement a financial tax of a mere 0.01% on bank transactions which could raise £50 billion a year.

I’d like to draw your attention to a video posted on this blog before about the absurdity of the Coalition decision to oppose the so-called ‘robin-tax hood’.

Enjoy

Max

 

Clegg is Not For Turning

Yesterday Nick Clegg made a speech to the Liberal Democrat conference which was steadfast and robust in defence of the coalition’s economic policy, despite the depressing evidence this week that the economy isn’t changing course either from its current trajectory of nowhere. He promised there would be no turning back on the cuts and auterity, however many jobs are lost and however many people struggle to make ends meet thanks to the VAT rise and inflation.

Does this sound familar? It should. For although it is right that things never completely run in parallel, it is indeed the case that history may never repeat itself, but it rhymes. It was around this stage in the political and economic cycle – at a party conference – that Margaret Thatcher made the infamous ‘Lady’s not for turning’ speech. Then the UK witnessed riots on the streets, rampant unemployment, a royal wedding, a foreign intervention and a belligerent government hell-bent on destroying the fabric of our society. I barely exaggerate. Even shoulder pads are making something of a comeback in 2011.

However, maybe now is more like 1931, with a prolonged slump looming, a currency mechanism collapsing at the same time as the US economy, a rise in far right extremism and little help for the poor and jobless.We seem to be heading for continued gloom because of the Con Dems’ obsession with cutting the deficit too far and too fast, stifling growth and productivity and making the situation worse for all of us. Although they have won welcome concessions from the Tories on some issues, on the fundamentals Nick Clegg needs to wake up and pull out of this marriage of convenience for the sake of his party in future but also for the country. Just as in 1981 and 1931, ordinary people feel that overall Britain is going in the wrong direction or is in the doldrums – the only thing that would change that elusive yet crucial feeling of a lack of confidence is investment on Keynesian terms to jump-start the economy, a fall in VAT and a slower trimming of the excess we built up saving the banks from collapse. Unfortunately though it seems the Cleggy’s not for turning.

9/11 Ten Years On, Coalition Politics and Blood Donation

9/11 – A Warning from Recent History

For someone of the age of the current crop of Labour Students, it is particularly difficult to believe that it is ten years tomorrow since the lives of millions were changed forever on September 11th, 2001. Most of us were still in primary school at the time, and it is perhaps apt that our generation – one that was constantly told we were growing up too fast – had our innocence of the world around us robbed so suddenly on that bright Tuesday morning. Hearing and seeing the images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center still transfixes all of us, and as much as we might want to look away having seen enough, we can’t quite bring ourselves to stop watching.

However it is our generation – the 9/11 generation – who will be the politicians and headline-makers of the coming years, and if anything good can come of the last decade, it is surely the lesson  that those in power have a responsibility not to overreact when faced with such onslaughts. Our party’s most successful leader (in electoral terms) no doubt had good intentions, but made the grave error of marching the troops gung-ho into an unplanned and illegal war, probably creating a whole new generation of terrorists in the process, while at home him and those around him were complicit in eroding many of the freedoms we were meant to be protecting, including detention without charge and freedom from torture. If the horror of terrorism reaches us again, we must pause and assess the causes before acting. The same rule should apply for other crises, like the riots this summer.

Backbench Tories Have Nothing To Worry About

Today is the final day of the Plaid Cymru autumn conference in Llandudno, north Wales. The outgoing leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, made his final conference speech yesterday after an electoral drubbing for the nationalist party in the Welsh Assembly elections in May. Unlike in Scotland, where the SNP have been successful, he argued that coalition government in Cardiff Bay (of which Plaid was the junior party) meant Plaid’s achievements in government were smothered by Labour, and that the party was punished by voters for not claiming credit for them.

Aside from the fact that Plaid achieved very little in government in a time of economic turmoil other than a referendum with poor turnout which managed to bore even political anoraks, their experience in coalition should serve as a lesson to Westminster politics. This week Tory backbenchers, angry over law and order, Europe and abortion, moaned that the Lib Dem ‘tail’ was wagging the Tory ‘dog’ and that Nick Clegg was being given too many concessions by the Prime Minister. However come the election in 2015, the Tories will have nothing to worry about, as the voters are likely to give them sole credit for any successes – particularly if the economy picks up (not a given considering Osborne’s slash-and-burn approach) – and they will certainly not be looking to make some sort of permanent alliance with the Lib Dems, contrary to what some commentators are predicting. The coalition dog will probably have his tail docked when the voters are next given a choice.

About Bloody Time

This week the ban on gay and bisexual men giving blood for life in Britain was finally overturned (although you’d be forgiven for not noticing the leap forward because the BBC thought Strictly Come Dancing was more important on the news bulletins that night). This is a triumph that equality campaigners have been working tirelessly for for years, and at last gay men will be able to save lives and help tackle the urgent need for more donors. No more will the official policy imply that gay men cannot be trusted to practice safe sex and ‘probably have HIV’.

Although the ban was only replaced with a one-year time lag since a donor’s last encounter, it is still progress, and puts us more in line with the situation in similar countries.

Why Turn Blue When Just ‘Labour’ Will Do?

As Ed Miliband gathers opinions and considers the future policy direction of the Labour party as part of the Policy Review, there has been much debate recently about whether or not to pursue ‘Blue Labour’, as proposed by the academic and Labour peer Maurice Glasman. Blue Labour, a response to ‘Red Toryism’, aims to put co-operatives and the community at the heart of the lives of ordinary British people, and is a rebuttal of New Labour’s strangling embrace of neo-liberalism, which left swathes of grassroots Labour supporters feeling alienated and ignored by the party leadership.

Glasman has a point, for throughout the history of the ‘people’s party’ there has been a split between liberals, state socialists and those who favour co-operatives and more local organisation – many Labour MPs today are also members of the Co-operative Party, and since its inception at the turn of the twentieth century the Labour movement has been associated with local organisation and mobilisation.

Martin Pugh in his 2009 book “Speak for Britain: A New History of the Labour Party” argues persuasively that the real dilemma for Labour through its history has not been attracting liberal support, but attracting hard-working but low-paid voters from the temptations of the Conservatives: many ordinary working class communities share the Tories’ patriotism; love of the armed forces (many of them have close relatives or friends serving in Afghanistan); desire for home ownership and a tough stance on law and order – why did so many vote for Margaret Thatcher in 1979, read the Daily Mail, and in a few cases drift to more extreme parties through fear of their jobs because of immigration and globalisation? Pugh stresses that when Labour came into being many voters were torn between it and the Tories because of these economic concerns, plus social beliefs like temperance or the role of the Church in schools.

Where Glasman takes the wrong path, in my view, is in his attempt to respond to Cameron’s Big Society by mimicking it and advocating a further retrenchment of the state, along with a return to a 1950s-style focus on the family, the flag, and feminism being almost unheard-of. That’s not ‘Blue Labour’, that’s just conservatism. If we as social democrats want to see equality of provision across the board, we need to expose the Big Society for what it is: a cover for cuts dreamt up by Steve Hilton when the Tories needed to be seen to be shedding the aura of Thatcherism.

If Labour is to win elections again without ditching our principles – to do so would be an insult to people like the families of those killed in Norway – we need to ‘re-connect with the grassroots,’ to use the spin-doctors jargon, by addressing, or at the very least appreciating, the legitimate concerns of the hard-working folk who keep the economy growing and keep money coming into the Exchequer. Instead of Big Society initiatives, we need to take the lead on key issues like housing, providing ample employment for deprived communities and young people generally, and not simply dismissing people’s concerns about migration and welfare dependency. That does not mean leaving the EU, saying we should only have British jobs for British workers, or undertaking humiliating fit-for-work tests like those currently going on under Iain Duncan Smith. It just means listening to those too well-off to be on benefits but on low wages, as well as staying true to  proud values like tolerance. If we go some way to pointing out these worries in opposition, whilst criticising the Con-Dems’ unfair cuts, the sought-after swing voters will follow, and we may just wake up to find ourselves in government again.

Gove Could Learn A Lesson or Two

The papers today report that Education Secretary Michael Gove is asking school leaders to recruit members of the “wider school community” to take over the job of teachers striking on Thursday, the implication being that it is better for parents and governors to take classes for one day then see the school close. Aside from the bad logic that if the main aim is keeping the school open so as not to incovenience working parents, then there won’t be any parents available to teach Henry VIII’s six wives, this policy demonstrates the Big Society is a means of undermining unionised labour as well as a cover for cuts. The only positive thing that could come of this ludicrous suggestion is that parents who do act as supply teacher on 30th June may get some idea of just how difficult a profession teaching really is.

Further to my blog a few weeks back, “Unite Behind the Unions”, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are still pandering to the right-wing media by warning the unions that striking would be unwise and counter-productive, while Tony Blair on the BBC’s Politics Show today refused to be drawn on any domestic policy issues, except to say that the unions are small ‘c’ conservatives who should learn to ‘modernise’, whatever that means. But then Blair never pretended to be on their side.

I do not dispute the fact that pensions need to be reformed in line with the ageing population and gender equality, while many in the private sector would be dancing all the way to the bank if they had pension schemes like those of some public servants; nevertheless what is going on at present smacks of the 1980s, and the threats of changes to union legislation mooted by Gove are deeply worrying.

The art of the U-turn

We’re all very aware of the Tory-led Coalition’s spree of u-turns which numbers around 15. Naturally then it was a matter of time before Cameron would attempt to spin what had been going on. Yesterday in a press conference Cameron claimed that a u-turn (although under this government they have regarded them as “policy rethinks”) was a “sign of strength”. Now in part, I agree with that sentiment. It is far better to consider alternative views and opinions and it is not a sign of weakness if you genuinely change your mind or if the evidence shows other-wise to your own beliefs in the long-run.

However, it’s far far better to get it right first time round. We all know this government is Maoist in terms of the speed of reform and this has clearly been shown through the sheer number of u-turns. Things are not thought out and the public will eventually catch on. It’s all very well to be a “listening government”, but I believe it’s far better to listen before you are made to.

We’ve come along way from the “lady’s not for turning”.

Max

15 and counting

Just a quick blog before bed (the morning will feature the Republican Presidential Nomination race) and I’d like to thank Planetpmc for pointing out the 15 major U-turns the Tory-led government has had to make in the past year. Enjoy:

1.  NHS Direct ‘not being scrapped’ – http://bit.ly/lAdTjv

2.  Government confirms re-think on school sport funding – http://bit.ly/mtyFFH

3.  Downing Street rejects child milk scheme cut suggestion – http://bbc.in/k1NoGE

4.  Sale of forests in England scrapped – http://bbc.in/jCmqmT

5.  Plans to grant anonymity to rape case defendants scrapped – http://bit.ly/ketJd1

6.  Government backtracks on Bookstart – http://bit.ly/j1AvuP

7.  Housing benefit cap to be postponed until January 2012 – http://bit.ly/iIrrD1

8.  Government admits defeat on immigration target – http://bit.ly/lU5nHV

9.  Military covenant to be enshrined in law after months of criticism – http://bit.ly/mQKfUC

10. UK coastguard station closure plans ‘scaled back’ – http://bbc.in/lE0VHs

11. Government ‘abandons’ plans for weekly rubbish collection – http://bit.ly/mveDsv

12. Cameron tears up Ken Clarke’s “soft” sentencing policies – http://bit.ly/iFGA0a

13. David Cameron denies ‘humiliating U-turn’ on NHS – http://tgr.ph/kryKEU

14. Treasury backtracks on Danny Alexander’s pension reform plan – http://bit.ly/lVocDX

15. Ken Clarke forced to abandon 50% sentence cuts for guilty pleas – http://bit.ly/iz4qZA

Unite Behind The Unions

This week, the ominously-titled Business Secretary, Vince Cable, quickstepped down to Brighton to address the conference of the GMB Union, and calmly warned delegates, in no uncertain terms, that they can either lay back and take the savage cuts from the coalition government or face the consequences, which will take the form of more draconian anti-union legislation than even Maggie could dream of.

The coalition’s plans to pre-empt any upcoming Seasons of Discontent include only allowing official strike action to be valid where over 50 percent of members vote to withdraw their labour. This despite the fact that turnout in May’s AV referendum was only 42 percent; if the rules being drawn up for the unions were applied to that particular plebiscite we would now be going through that shambles of a campaign all over again. Perish the thought.

However over the last twelve months we have come to expect this sort of hypocritical posturing from the government, aimed at punishing the ordinary working man and woman for the 30-year poker game that took place in the City of London. We have even got used to the fact the the Liberal Democrats are happy to do all the dirty work while the Tories get on with the more important matters of screwing up the NHS, the Royal Mail, higher education and so on.

What is most worrying is the deafening silence coming from the Labour party over the last week.

It seems Ed Miliband, frightened by the response of the reactionary media after his speech at the March for the Alternative in Hyde Park earlier this year, has taken cover in the vain hope that all will blow over and the coalition will make itself so unpopular by 2015 that he will be swept to number 10 to save the day. It is not going to blow over. The Con-Dems will continue on their crusade against the public sector in the coming years, and can be forgiven for believing they have no effective opposition – when the only public figure speaking up for public sector workers is the Archbishop of Canterbury, you know Labour is in a bit of a pickle.

It’s time we got over the 1983, defeatist attitude and spoke up for ordinary working people who face falling wages, living standards and an uncertain future. This does not mean retreating into an unelectable, hard-left cocoon; it means not forgetting those who founded the Labour party in the first place over a century ago.

The problem with listening

If there’s one thing politicians need to do above all else is listen. Listen to experts, listen to other opinions irrespective of political allegiance and most importantly of all, listen to the people. Naturally then, I do welcome the pause in the break to the NHS reforms to allow Ministers to listen. Now, I’m not going to go onto the NHS reforms themselves as I’ve mentioned them enough on previous blogs. But, what I will blog about is the listening exercise itself.

After the Royal College of Nurses voted in favour in a vote of no confidence on Andrew Lansley a few days ago, the Health Minister claimed “I’m sorry if what I’m setting out to do hasn’t communicated itself…Listening to the vote this morning, if I’ve not got that message across then I apologise.”. Usually, I welcome apologises. Rather than showing a sign of ‘weakness’ they actually show a sign of humility and maturity. However, this so-called ‘failure to communicate’ is nothing less than patronising. What this is really saying is that we have failed to simplify the argument enough for you to understand, but we are still right and you are completely wrong. This don’t forget was just after 99% of delegates at the Royal College of Nurses conference deciding to vote in favour in a motion of no confidence in Lansley.

If the Health Minister is truly arrogant enough to believe that the Royal College of Nurses are too stupid enough to understand his proposals, he really has another thing coming.

Max

They Just Don’t Get It

I’ve now returned to Birmingham after a week in which the Coalition managed to look incompetent and shambolic as well as cruel. We’ve had Willetts admitting he is content to see poorer students having to settle for a degree at their local sixth form, rather than enjoying the full university experience; Norman Tebbit joining the near-univeral coalition against the NHS transformation; U-turns on defence spending and health to add to the growing list which includes school sports and buildings, forests, and even the Downing Street cat; and of course Nick Clegg. When he hasn’t been complaining that he is the nation’s ‘punchbag’ or facing criticism from his own son, he has been making some interesting comments about social mobility.

I am not going to slam the Deputy Prime Minister for having had a leg-up from his neighbour (a peer of the realm) in order to get an internship at a bank (it had to be a bank), because I challenge anyone reading this – assuming I have a readership – not to have seized the opportunity in the same way if they were in Nick’s position. A Labour party which wants social justice and equality of opportunity from birth should not be blaming someone for a background thay had no control over, and that even includes Cameron who had someone put a word in from Buck House. However, Clegg’s attempts at addressing the age-old problem of the ‘It’s who you know’ culture were embarrassing, coming at the same time this government is slashing Sure Start centres, EMA, univeristy budgets and allowing socially divisive ‘free’ schools to blossom up and down the country.

I spoke to people this week in the valleys who have Masters’ degrees who have spent over a year unemployed – young people with ambition, drive and what should be a promising career ahead of them. I overheard sixth form students on the bus complaining that they had not been accepted for any of their UCAS choices, despite the prediction of 4 As at A-level. I have personally had difficulty finding summer placements when I am not lucky enough to be able to work unpaid for six months in central London. Nick Clegg’s diagnosis was correct, but there is far more to it than setting an example to almost-bankrupt businesses by paying interns at Lib Dem HQ.

We need a new cultural shift in this country, brought about by government, where the disadvantaged are caught as soon as possible and at every stage of their lives are helped to gain the same opportunities as the better off. This should not involve positive discrimination or handouts, but should involve investment in our young people which other European countries manage while they bail out their neighbours, but we seem to think is unaffordable. A national internship scheme or national bursary programme, complementing investment in careers education (which at the moment is dire) to inform young people that they are just as talented and ambitious as the more privileged, and what opportunities are out there for the taking, is desperately needed. The underlying factors, such as affordable transport, need to be subsidised so someone who lives in the middle of nowhere with no ‘contacts’ can get work experience in a city near them.

There are important elections coming up in the devolved nations and local councils in England. Young people should be demanding better from the government and their local councils at the ballot box, and should express their dissatisfaction with the Coalition, which just doesn’t get it.

So much to talk about

Apologises for the lack of  blogging lately. Been rather busy with essays, football match against BUCF (kinda) and general stuff back up north. Anyway, in that time there have been HUGE events in which I’d like to focus on. The NHS reforms (naturally), Portugal bail-out (naturally again) and University Minister, David Willetts, on Feminism.

First off, all I have to say on the NHS reforms is, thank god! No one wants these reforms. The BMA opposes it, the Lib Dems oppose it, 60% of GPs oppose the reforms and none other than Lord Tebbit opposes the reforms. If your too right-wing for Lord Tebbit, you know your policies have huge issues. Ian Duncan-Smith (IDS) even admitted that waiting times were already rising due to real term cuts to the NHS. Lansley has been hung out to dry by Cameron, lets only hope his reforms can also, permanently.

Now, naturally with the announcement of the bail-out for Portugal, Gideon jumped on the austerity bandwagon to claim that the cuts were right to prevent a similar situation occurring here in the UK. But if you stop, think and compare us, Portugal and other nation-states that have been bailed out you’ll see that this isn’t the case. For one thing, it’s important to note that prior to the bail-out, Portugal had had two austerity measures and three rises in VAT. Similarly, Ireland had been praised by the IMF in 2008 for “courageous” action for its austerity measures in an attempt to deal with its deficit. This naturally says something more about the problems of austerity than the problems of deficit/debt. For another thing, to say that Britain’s economy is anyway similar to Portugal’s/Ireland’s/Greece’s is absolutely ludicrous. We for one have a far, far larger economy than that of those countries, we have far more time to pay back our debts and most plainly of all, we’re not in the Euro so we can devalue our currency raise and lower interest rates. So please Gideon, don’t jump on the scaremongering bandwagon.

Finally, probably the least well known of the issues I’m focusing on is David Willetts’ comments on Feminism. Now, if you’ve been living in a cave the last couple of weeks what he said was that feminism was the “single biggest factor” for the lack of social mobility in Britain, as women who would otherwise have been housewives had taken university places and well-paid jobs that could have gone to ambitious working-class men. Now this is wrong and completely degrading on so many levels. Don’t get me wrong, Labour really didn’t do enough to tackle social mobility while in government. But feminism is in no way the cause of the problem. The true problem is the lack of aspiration from schools and deprived regions of the country to want young people to aim higher and also the problems of money that entail that. These comments also leave a more distasteful message. It is the assumption that women are out there, taking men’s jobs. Willets’ idea that women’s primary place is in the domestic household represents nothing less than a subliminal form of sexism. This is only exacerbated when he went onto excuse his comments with “It is not that I am against feminism,”.

This hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for the coalition.

Max

To AV or not to AV? That’s not the Question…

 

So the eagerly awaited and oh-so exciting AV referendum is now in sight, with Ed Miliband today setting out the Labour leadership’s opinion on one side, and many other Labour MPs and party members saying why they will be rejecting the proposal on the other. It does seem that the party is split down the middle – not a great position for an opposition party reassembling itself after electoral defeat. Incidentally, it is perhaps not the most shining example of ‘new politics’ or maturity when our leader refuses to unite with Nick Clegg because of his new status as Public Enemy Number One – surely there would be less cynicism in the electorate if we as an opposition party took each issue exclusively, instead of pointing the finger at the Tuition Fees Bogeyman.

The arguments for or against the Alternative Vote aside (I’m personally in the ‘Yes’ camp for want of something marginally further down the road to Proportional Representation), what strikes me the most after the disheartening advertising tactics of the ‘No’ camp (I’m sure you’ve seen the baby-in-incubator and soldier billboards) is the lack of interest amongst the wider electorate. Today I asked a friend of mine whether he had yet considered which way he would vote, and the reply was that it would make no difference to the political scene, so why should he bother? I wanted to answer his rebuttal, but found to my horror that I couldn’t. Whether or not we stick with First Past the Post or adopt AV will have little bearing on electoral outcomes on a national scale, only at constituency level (where AV would make elections far more interesting, as those who witnessed the Guild election results will testify), therefore the best we can hope for is the lesser of two evils, while those running for office continue to make vacuous or downright deceptive pledges in their election manifestos e.g. the marketisation of the NHS and tuition fees.

The real question on the ballot paper should not be ‘AV vs FPTP’, nor even the far more deomcratic ‘AV vs FPTP vs AV+ vs STV vs AMS…’, but something which reads less like a mathematical formula and more like a choice between two fundamental democratic frameworks that disillusioned voters can really get their teeth into. We need a choice over whether or not we want to overhaul the House of Lords (a process which has thus far taken a century); whether or not we want to de-throne and de-robe the monarchy; whether or not we want to reduce the stranglehold of the elites over our economy; in short, whether or not we want a new constitution. That is not to say the previous government had a gleaming record on constitutional affairs, although devolution and removal of hereditary peers were a good start. But by throwing a bone for the Lib Dem poodle in the form of a paltry referendum on AV, the Tories have got away with it again, whichever way we vote on May 5th.

The deficit blame game

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the biggest fan of the Head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, but I do recognise he still know (at the very least) a fair bit about the economy. Now one of the reasons why there has been such little apathy or support for the cuts so far is that the Coalition has been always been able to simply say “Well we are just cleaning up the mess left by the previous Labour government.” which I can say if repeated as often as they do say, does make an impact and it does stick with you. But, that may well about to change.

Although he supports the Coalition’s current policies to cut the deficit (which I’ll disagree with, rightly so), he also over last weekend during the Tory’s spring conference in Wales stated that the real reason for the deficit was in fact not because of the last Labour government. Rather, like what we have been saying for the past two and a half years it was the fault of the banks and more stingingly of all that the action taken to address the financial crisis, in 2008 and 2009, “prevented a repetition of the Great Depression”.

Yes that’s right, the Governor of the Bank of England stated that 1. the deficit is not the fault of the last Labour government and 2. the economic stimulus was the right thing to do. If you’ve watched Question Time result over the last few weeks, the ‘deficit blame game’ is really not working.

Max

The Last Chapter for Libraries?

It was reported this week that our dear PM performed yet another U-turn (to add to the ever-growing list, which includes forests, school sports and even getting Larry the Cat) on the proposal to close a local library in his Witney constituency by Oxfordshire County Council, as reported in this week’s Independent on Sunday.

Not only is this flagrant hypocrisy given the closure of libraries on which local communities depend up and down the country, it is also ‘pork-barrelling’ of the lowest kind and an example that we are not in fact “all in this together”. The prospect of libraries being closed by local authorities who are facing savage cuts is deeply depressing – I, like so many other young people, relied on my local library for computer access growing up, but more importantly I was regularly able to borrow up to ten books at a time (some regrettably I forgot to return), discovering chuldren’s favourites like Jacqueline Wilson, Roald Dahl and Mark Twain in the process, alongside history books and encyclopaedias.

Not only is it divisive and running directly against the government’s intentions to mend our apparently ‘broken’ society, it is morally wrong to target the cuts on the poorest, the elderly and most importantly children, who have no vote and no say in how resources are allocated. Priorities have to be made, but library closures cannot even be justified on crude market terms, because they are still being used widely and are a lifeline for so many. It seems that the local lending library could be nearing its epilogue if we do nothing about it, with disastrous consequences for childhood literacy and social mobility.

Luke

1m young people unemployed: A price worth paying?

‘Unemployment is a price worth paying’ were the words that showed millions of Britons what the Tories really know about ordinary people. As unemployment rises again, and youth unemployment in particular is about to hit 1 million, my belief is that the people, and the Big Society, are better off when we are in work. It is especially important for young people to get a foothold in work and is certainly in the interest of both society, and HM Treasury to ensure that as many young people as possible can get work, or continue in further education.

There is a fundamental contradiction in Tory rhetoric about worklessness. At once they are carving a deep wound in our public services, and ‘cutting’ the jobs, and therefore the lives, of thousands of public sector workers. They cut the Future Jobs Fund, a vital programme which provided 18-24 year olds who had been out of work for six months with temporary employment. They abolished Education Maintenance Allowance, which provided thousands of less well off children the chance to afford further qualifications to help them compete in the labour market.  And they quashed the opportunity for 10,000 young people to go to university this year. At the same time the benefit budget is slashed and the coalition promise to get people off benefits and back into work. Where will these jobs come from? And what do those unable to find work, or unable to work at all, do when their benefits are reduced?

The Tories believe the private sector will provide these jobs, that private businesses will create well over 2 million jobs in the next few years. When the private sector created little more than 300,000 jobs between 1993 and 1999, I think everybody can see this for the nonsense it is.

But what would Labour do? The pathetic Tory response to all the criticism has been to point at the lack of concrete policy detail from Labour. They might say that this was a tactic we used while in Government. The fundamental difference is that Labour showed the Tory manifesto up for what it was. Lies, dishonesty, manipulation and branding with barely a sniff of the horror that a Tory government would really unleash. Labour were right.

This is what Labour would have done. We would have kept Education Maintenance Allowance, as Michael Gove promised before the election, thereby helping thousands of young people stay in education and encouraging aspiration. We would have given those 10,000 young people the chance to go to university, the chance to better themselves and more than pay off the cost of their education to the tax payer. And we would have protected the Future Jobs Fund, a scheme which helped 50% of young claimants move off benefits after their placement, and which the coalition advisor Frank Field called “one of the most precious things the last government was involved in, a lifeline that no amount of ‘New Deal’ rhetoric ever offered the unemployed”.

The Tories don’t understand people. They don’t care about people. Otherwise they would realise that every job cut is an assault on a family, every child that has to drop out of college is a slammed door on the future of this country, and every moment a person spends fearful of their prospects will eat away at our ‘big society’.

Jake

Stagflation?

Growth stalling, inflation rising and unemployment rising, for all the Tories comparison themselves and 1979 coming in “to clean up Labour’s mess”, it seems this government more reflects the 1970s than did Labour. Now, in BULS we’re wise enough to recognise that this ‘stagflation’ is not due to the cuts (as they are still yet to take fully effect yet) but rather the ending of Darling’s economic stimulus.

Up until the growth figures came out last month I personally very much doubted that the UK would actually slip into a full blown double-dip recession, but rather ‘bump along the bottom’. Since these figures have been produced, I fear there is a very good chance now. If this continues and even if worsens when the cuts bite (which I have a feeling they will do) Labour will have the sad duty of saying “don’t say we didn’t warn you” as throughout the election we campaigned to keep investment in the economy until 2011. But, I hope for the sake of the people of Britain, that day never comes.

Max

Not another CRB check

As being someone who has regularly worked with and volunteered for children organisations (Beaver Scouts, Young Amateur Swimming Clubs, etc) you would have thought I’d be over the moon with the Coalition’s plan to reduce checks to child workers. But what you’ll find is something rather mixed.

After completing countless CRB clearances for numerous organisations I do recognise the sheer scale of requirements needed, at times it really is just excessive. But, as much as I like the idea of removing so-called “red-tape” I’m equally aware of the present dangers this entails. Unlike buisnesses that complain about “red tape”, the importance of this “red tape” everyone should hold in a much higher importance given the potential dangers of child abuse.

It’s like when you go through security at an airport, yes it’s tedious, yes it takes forever and yes bits here and there are a tad unnecessary, but you feel a lot safer once you are in the air. The same is for CRB checks, yes bits are a bit unnecessary, but overall as the old saying says “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”.

Max

Beginning to see the light

Like most in BULS, I for one have lost a lot of respect for the Liberal Democrats for numerous reasons. But as of yesterday, some faith has been restored. Nothing short of 90 Liberal Democrat Councillors of which 18 are leaders of local authorities wrote into the Times criticising the Coalition of the pace of the cuts.

Lib Dem Communities Minister Andrew Stunell had the cheek to urge his party members not to “fall out” over “pointless debate”. A “pointless debate”! There is nothing “pointless” about the Governments austerity programme. You may believe it is the right course of action, but this is so far from “pointless”.

This also feeds into a wider reality of Coalition of hypocrisy, the creation of the “Big Society” (however much a nice idea it may be) amongst a deep austerity programme. This is most symbolised in the scrapping of many libraries up and down the country which are bastions of localism.

Today my faith in one section of the Coalition was (ever so) partially restored; the same can probably never be said for the other section.

Max

Granted it’s a slight improvement

Now here in BULS we are willing to give credit where credit is due, however slight it is. The Coalition has recently decided to raise the bank levy to £2.5 billion, up by £800 million. However, this is still not enough despite the improvement as the banks still face a tax cut of around a £1 billion when compared to the bankers bonus tax last year and that’s not even including the cut in corporation tax which means even with the bank levy the banks break even.

I’d also like to tackle the issue or argument that if you tax the banks too much they will move abroad. Well if you make it explicitly clear that this levy is just merely for the Parliament, even if the corporation tax cut doesn’t include the banks and the levy is higher, banks are not going to move abroad given they know it’s just for one Parliament, i.e. five years. So need to get into a big fuss.

Max

There’s No Such Thing As (the Big) Society

In an echo of the early years of the Thatcher government, where Michael Hestletine tried out some of his ‘experiments’ on the good people of Merseyside – culminating in the Toxteth riots and three million unemployed nationally – Liverpool has been at the centre of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ pilot scheme. Until today that is.

The leader of (admittedly Labour led) Liverpool City Council today wrote to the Prime Minister explaining that it could not continue with the pilot as planned, because the money simply wasn’t there and key volunteering schemes are likely to be axed as a result. This is about as surprising a development as a premiership footballer being transferred to another club for an astronomical sum; it also demonstrates that, as predicted by many (including the general public, according to opinion polls) the Big Society will be stillborn.

How can the government expect people who work fulltime with children and cannot afford childcare (or even the bus fare) to run their own local services and volunteering projects, when there are no funds to back them up? This is set against the backdrop that the biggest cuts to local authorities are coming in places like Liverpool and Tower Hamlets rather than Witney and Cheshire. There are many people who are already overstretched from all ends of the income scale who give up their time to do good deeds in their local community, and these people should be praised. However if a youth drug rehabilitation centre is being run by people from the local community, who fills in and delivers this vital service when those who run it are either starved of funds or leave the area? The Big Society will lead to patchy and intermittent provision and disparities across local areas.

Less than a year since the election, and already the Big Society is being exposed for what it really is: at best, an ill-thought through policy written on the back of an envelope by someone who’s never been to areas of deprivation; or at worst, a cynical cover for an ideological slashing of spending on local authorities.

Luke

Uni’s Not For Me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12324225

It took me a long time to decide which issue to discuss on my first blog for Birmingham University Labour Students, as there are a myriad of things to be angry and anxious about at the moment thanks to the Con-Dem coalition. I pondered the dismantling of the NHS; the upcoming AV referendum and the scrapping of EMA, however an article which popped up on the BBC News website meant it had to be the tuition fees rise and its ramifications – BULS is, after all, a university society.

The latest development in this sorry saga is today’s latest UCAS admissions figures for 2011 entry, the last year before the trebling of fees in many instances alongside the ten per cent rise in salary of our Vice Chancellor. They reveal the stark reality that – despite what the government assures us – people are being turned off the idea of higher education in large numbers, most of whom will undoubtedly be from less privileged backgrounds. In the year that was supposed to be the ‘boom’ year of applications to beat the raising of the threshold in 2012, the number of applications only rose by five per cent, which in comparison with recent years and predicted trends is a sharp decrease in interest in degree courses.

Most disturbing of all was the plummeting of applications to -2 per cent in December, as the protests raged in central London and the heir to the throne’s wife was nudged with a stick. A brief fillip this may have been, but it demonstrates clearly that sixth-formers and school-leavers are seriously reconsidering their futures, weighing up whether it is really worth that much in debt only to come out jobless at the end of it. Just like the growth statistics, the figures are shocking, but not surprising considering the coalition’s arrogance and dogged determination to see through their most regressive and unpopular policies – which affect the poorest hardest – before the public realise what has hit them.

By Luke Jones, Communications Officer-elect

Double dip?

Now, I’ve never really been one for thinking that the government’s austerity programme would actually throw the UK back into a double dip recession. What was always my belief, and the belief of many others is that the economy would merely ‘bump along the bottom’ and have only a bit of growth and then begin to take off a few years down the line. What has happened and very unfortunately is that growth in the final quarter of 2010 actually contracted by 0.5%. That’s right, the economy shrank by 0.5%.

Now unlike the Tories during the recession in 2008 and 2009 I accept there is more to this than merely blaming the government of the day. The global economy is still in a very fragile state (something we argued during the general election) and the severe weather during December will have played it’s part. But, this is where my sympathy falls short. One of the biggest contributor’s to the contraction was the construction industry, shrinking by 3.3%(!). And why is this you may ask? Well, of course one of the major reasons was the ‘Emergency Budget’ and the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future.

It seems the Tory-led Coalition seems completely incapable of realising the links between the public and private sector. If you cancel contracts, it will hit the private sector. If you do little to tackle the slowly rising unemployment, then where will the demand for the private sector come from? And if you think this is the end of if, you’re in for a disappointment, as soon the true effects of the savage cuts of the Comprehensive Spending Review will begin the to bite the real economy.

Britain is still not fully in recession yet, as two quarters of contraction are needed for that. But, if a full recession comes to pass next April then the Coalition will have no option to change course and re-think it’s economic strategy. While we in BULS and Labour as a whole will have the sad duty of saying “We told you so.”. But let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.

Max

Labour now has the Balls

Now, I’m not going to focus on Alan Johnson, Suzy has already dealt with that, but I just like to say he’ll be surely missed from the front-line politics.

Anyway, we move onto Johnson’s successor, Ed Balls. Now to many Tories, they will regard this as a late Christmas present. The well oiled Tory party machine has already been making well-directed attacks towards Gordon Brown’s former chief economic’s adviser and playing at his past which was so intertwined with the Blair-Brown feud. Yes, Balls was a major figure during the feuds, but as a wise Baboon once said “Oh yes, de past can hurt. But the way I see it you can either run from it, or learn from it.” (the wise Baboon being Rafiki from the Lion King……..BULS draws wisdom from many walks of life). Yes, Balls’ part in the feud was far from his finest hour and many of the economic policies did contribute to the financial crisis (will come back to the latter part later). But, this is a time for Balls in particular to shape his own image and reputation. As Shadow Chancellor, with his deep knowledge of economics, he will be able to establish at least a broad thinking idea of Labour’s alternative and most likely rip Gideon to shreds in the process (I particularly like the idea of the latter).

With growth beginning to slow, inflation and unemployment rising, there has been no better time to be an “attack dog”. But the Tory-led Coalition is quick point out the failures of economic policy Labour made. We did make great progress under ‘New’ Labour, but we also made grave mistakes. But, to counter the Tory-party machine, we do need strong responses in order as well as humility about our record. When Cameron (or indeed anyone) criticises Labour failing to regulate the banks, quote back Gideon and Cameron’s years of calling for further de-regulation. And when Cameron claims Labour’s spending caused the deficit, don’t forget to remind them that Conservative spending policies before the 2008 crash would have rigidly stuck to Labour’s. The Tory-lead Coalition’s deceit cannot last forever and hopefully, Ed Balls can dispel the rhetoric as soon as.

Max

Adios EMA

And so it has now been confirmed after a final last ditch attempt in the House of Commons this evening, EMA is to be axed. Another broken promise from Cam/Clegg putting another nail in the nearly sealed coffin of the aspirations of the young people in this country. Already, the tripling of tuition fees will mean that those from poorer backgrounds won’t be able to go to university. Now, after the scrapping of EMA, those in this same group who may have been unsure if they could afford the cost of university won’t even be able to afford to stay on and learn at college or sixth form. It’s nothing short of disgraceful that the futures of our younger generation have been shot down in this way in just over 8 months. The good work of the last Labour government undone so quickly and with such little consideration as to the consequences it will have for them, the future of this country.

One of the reasons I’m Labour is that I recognise that the initiatives set up such as EMA and Aimhigher meant that I was able to go to this great university. I honestly don’t think I’d be here without them. I received EMA while I was studying my A-Levels a few years ago. I had no choice but to go to an inner city college 4 miles away from my house. My school’s sixth form closed down while I was there because the demand was so low for it. I was left with the cost of transport to pay, which was about £40 a month. I had the other expenditures such as stationery and food to consider on top of that which soon adds up, trust me! The argument by this government, that somehow this money is being wasted by students, just doesn’t wash with me I’m afraid. There was very little left over for to be spent on ‘social costs’ or whatever else they want to think it is spent on. I understand this may not be the case for everyone receiving EMA but the vast majority of students need this money to stay on and study. For me, and like with so many others, the simple fact was my parents wouldn’t have been able to help me out financially. So to put it bluntly, I would have been a bit buggered. Come the summer, so many will now be.

And on today of all days, the final decision comes: on the same day that the worst 16-17 unemployment figures are released since records began. A staggering 1/3 of young people in this age group are out of work, with the story being far gloomier in certain parts of the country. The shocking reality is that this will only get worse thanks to the abolishment of EMA coupled with the tuition fee rise. More young people will be condemned to the dole queue with such low prospects for the future. This is not how the government should be treating the next set of workers and great contributors to our economy. Labour gave the younger generation like me a leg up but, sadly, today this Tory-led government have decided to push them all back down to the ground.

Oliver Cosentino

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it

Now, I’m not usually one for using conservative language, but in regards to the new NHS reforms, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Now of course we all remember the famous airbrushed poster of DC and his pledge for a real terms increase in the NHS budget and no top down reorganisations which were both broken. Now if you thought this was bad enough, this bill coming into parliament is something more deeply disturbing.

For a start, shifting the £80 billion budget onto GPs is just something clompletely ludicrous, no patient wants their GP to be distracted from their real task of helping their patients. But, sadly enough, it goes deeper than that. For the first time in it’s entire existance, the NHS will be subject to EU competition law, that’s right, subject to competition law. The NHS is a service, it is literally in the name, nothing less. When it comes to people lives and health it´s intrinsically wrong to have price competition to ordain which sevices live or die.

Labour made huge improvements in the NHS over 13 years in government. Yes, it is still far from perfect, but these reforms could well destroy the Coalition. But this is what can happen when you gamble with people’s lives and health.

Max

Bankers bonuses

I’m not going to delve too much into the Coalition’s U-turn on restricting bankers bonuses (literally found in first paragraph of Coalition agreement) as I ironically have a conservatism essay to do. So I though I’d let this video explain that in fact, bonuses, of any kind (except for ones which people’s income depend upon) just don’t work. Much to my surprise as well.

Max

Equality and education

First of all I’d like to apologise for not blogging much recently, I’ve been travelling a lot and trying to get all my essays and presentations done for Humboldt, which is taking twice as long because they’re all in German!

During the holidays I’ve been talking to people in Sweden and Germany about schooling. I find it a really easy political topic to engage young people on because it’s a common and recent experience and a lot of us are concerned by the state of flux the system is tumbling into.

New Labour introduced a lot of initiatives and revolutionised the school system in many ways. These changes were not always popular with parents and teachers but the central aim of each one was greater equality. The general coalition push for the re-introduction of grammar schools and the sponsoring of free schools does not have the same aim and will not produce positive results.

Germany has had a 4-tier system in place for several decades, in which 10-year-old children are separated into achievement-based groups and sent to either a Gymnasium, Realschule, Hauptschule or Forderschule. Those who try to sell such systems as meritocracies overlook the real input and output of pupils, and the uncomfortable statistics that show that selection hits the most vulnerable hardest.

The PISA Study (Programme for International Student Assessment) was first carried out by the OECD in 2000 and showed Germany to have a highly unequal and unfair system, with bright non-native speakers of German being relegated to the Forderschule, which is essentially a school for the mentally disabled rather than those of another nationality. As British studies have shown, bright students from poor families lose out in the current system to averagely gifted children from rich families, because the parents themselves are often more highly educated, better informed, and more driven.

In Sweden independent schools set up by groups of parents resorted to television advertising to drum up interest. This was very successful in a many areas, but produced the unfortunate result that state schools had to spend taxpayers’ money on running expensive advertising campaigns in order to be able to compete.

We don’t need to worry about the high achievers, but the children who fall through the cracks. Becoming resigned to a low social strata so early in life is damaging and leads to serious consequences later in life.

Suzy

Doesn’t it seem that everything happens when you’re away

Sorry on behalf on all of the bulsonline team for the lack of activity lately. The end of term shenanigans have kept us all busy these past few weeks and I personally have been away in Edinburgh for the past few days.

Anyway, first thing on my blogging list to write about is, yes you guessed it, the Cable incident. In some ways, like potentially many Lib Dem grass-root members, I’m quite glad that Cable is fighting his own corner for the Lib Dems (it sure is a better alternative to the other option). In some respects, I can sympathise with Cable. Like I said on the whole Mervyn King incident via the wikileaks, people often let slip their own personal view points, we are human after all. However, that is where my sympathy stops. A Business Secretary has to rule on each case on the facts and evidence, you can’t go in with a pre-existing views. This applies to every case, despite the idea that “declaring war on Mr Murdoch” is something I very strongly sympathise with. It is a direct breach of the ministerial code and should result in nothing less than resignation. This is where the double standards come in.

I’ve always been rather sceptical about the Coalition claiming to “come together in the national interest” (naturally). But, it certainly seems in this one case that what happened was that DC’s decision not to sack Cable was in the Coalition’s interest rather than “the nation’s interest”. It’s blatantly clear, if this had been a Tory Minister, they would have been left out to dry long ago. What is also interesting is that Cable described the Coalition as “Maoist”, given that he believed they were trying to push through too many radical changes at once, many of which he disagreed with. Which neatly leads onto the next event I missed.

Apart from taping Cable’s views on the Coalition, the Daily Telegraph also recorded Scottish Secretary Michael Moore, Business Minister Ed Davey and Pensions Minister Steve Webb doubts over the Coalition’s claim to “fairness”. They criticised Child Tax Credit reforms and the Trebling of fees. Now rather than criticising the Lib Dems as a whole for supporting these measures, we should be working to encourage not only Lib Dem MPs, but party members and voters to think again about the Coalition and whether it is truly taking the right direction (although with the latter part, little needs to be done there). This is why I welcome Ed Miliband’s move to start calling the Coalition a “Conservative-led Coalition”. Also, I welcome (more or less) the reduction party membership fees for Young Labour members (15-27…ish) from the already ridiculously low £1 to 1p(!!). I know if Labour wants to increase membership amongst the younger generations sound policies are far more important, but you can’t say it wont help a bit.

Finally, on a completely different note. Yet even more genuine change has come to America. The old “don’t ask don’t tell” policy on banning gay people in the armed forces in the USA has finally, been repealed! Now some may say this won’t be good for the army as it’ll stir up homophobia, but if it is stirred up because of this at least it’s tackling homophobia. Consequently, because of this logic, not repealing this ban would have meant homophobia culture would have gone unchecked and unchallenged in the US armed forces.

Overall though, a rather good few days….shame I missed it all.

Max

Coastguards and Lib Dems

It’s always easy to kick someone when they’re down. We all know it and we’ve all done it, metaphorically. Before, it was Gordon Brown and before that it could be argued it was John Prescott. But it seems now it’s the Lib Dems, or more specifically, Nick Clegg (Cleggy). And yes, the 90% of the population (approximately) agree with the “kicking”. Like John Denham (Shadow Business Secretary and now boss of former-BULS Chair, Tom Guise, well done on the job), we should rise above this natural instinct to further lambast Lib Dem MPs and supporters and resist being a “tribal” party. For this is what the true “new” politics, rising above petty point scoring and reaching out to disenchanted voters and MPs in a hope to win them round. On Thursday, the Lib Dem elite threw away any chance of being progressive. With 70% of Lib Dem party members regarding themselves to be on the left, this could not be a more opportune time build a broad progressive church to argue against the real enemy (so to speak).

Now that optimistic note is out of the way, I can now return to being generally p****d off with the government on the whole. How better than to point out cuts to the number of coastguard control centres. A report recently stated that half of the 19 centres could close. That’s right, half of the centres!! The necessity for deep cuts can be argued for (though I’d have to disagree), but cuts to services that literally save lives is downright disgraceful. These centres probably save hundreds of lives every year in some of the harshest conditions known to man (and woman) kind. So to almost half the number of centres is nothing less than a travesty.

I only hope to god that the Coalition rethinks this particular policy.

Max

Good and bad news

Great news (well, I think it is personally)! Alan Johnson has decided he will now support a graduate tax. Not only does this mean that Labour can no longer be accused of being disarray over higher education funding, but it means we are presenting the true progressive alternative on higher education funding. A tax that charges more the more you earn, rather than the flat rate level of interest under the proposed system and one that isn’t at completely extortionate levels of £9k a year. Hopefully, this could be the stepping stone to the scrapping of fees entirely in the (hopefully not to distant) future.

And now for the bad news. If you’re not aware already, Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and the Aim Higher Programme are both being scrapped. Now whatever your views on the proposals on the trebling of fees, I will admit, however much I disagree with them, it is an arguable position. But, scrapping EMA and Aim Higher!? These are two bastions of social mobility. Yes I know EMA for one isn’t without its flaws, but to completely scrap it is completely indefensible. When the department that runs EMA messed up a few years ago when I was at College, hundreds of thousands of students nationwide struggle to makes ends meet (really need to look that saying up, could be “meat”) when it came to paper, books, etc or even simply making their way into college.

To put the bad news into context. Even Birmingham University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Eastwood, who was on the Browne committee arguing for higher fees, said at a debate last night that scrapping EMA and Aim Higher was a disgraceful decision. It is an area that has had little coverage given the over-hanging shadow of the tuition fees debate, but it is easily just as important.

Max

The Special Relationship

The BP oil spill was a massive PR disaster for Britain, not least in the hearts and minds of ordinary America.ns. The latest Wikileaks report that Mervyn King described the ConDems as economically “out of their depth” makes us look more like the embarrassing friend or silly little brother than a special partner.

But all is not lost. Tory europhobia likely chimes in quite nicely with a USA that routinely censures EU trade protectionism, and as we know from transatlantic politics the Tories can present themselves as having quite a lot in common with both parties, as they are right-wing but as a rule a lot more moderate and civilised than many Republicans, and by and large approve of Obama’s health reforms.

And what with La Roux storming the charts, Russel Brand marrying showbiz royalty and Vernon Kay, Cat Deeley; Len Goodman, Piers Morgan and maybe even Cheryl Cole presenting primetime shows we might be gradually getting to the stage where, as the guardian puts it, our accent is no longer just for aristocrats and villians.

So where do we stand now? Will the special relationship take us as far as Iran? How will it affect our relationship with Europe? And come 2012 will Palin and Cameron egg each other on to even bigger cuts?

Suzy

Bumping along the bottom

Yesterday the Office for Budget Responsibility  published it’s new growth and unemployment forecasts. If you’re not aware (given the news is now non-existent on the BBC website), growth forecast for 2010 was raised and job losses were slashed (which we welcome, although for the latter we’re hearing numerous other figures so retain the right to stay sceptical). But, once again, growth expectations for 2011 and 2012 have been lowered and OBR added that the government had a “better than 50%” chance of meeting its mandate to wipe out the structural deficit – the gap between spending and taxes – by 2015-16.

So what are we seeing here? Well the growth figures for this year have been raised due to the action taken by the last government over a number of months, the coalition may claim that this is there doing, but as every economist knows (though I can’t say I’m one) there is always a lag effect between a governments decisions on economic policy and it eventually effecting the real economy. And what of 2011 and 2012? Well this is there own doing, as this is the second time the OBR has slashed its growth forecast due to the policies the Coalition is implementing. Now I don’t think we’re going to see a double-dip recession (though with the continuing economic climate I wouldn’t rule it out) but what we will probably see is Britiain “bumping along the bottom” (if that’s the correct saying). We hope not, but still fear it all the same.

Max

Fees, fees and more fees

Would you pay £9k a year to go to University? I would’ve had serious doubts about coming to Birmingham University if that was the case then. Now many reading this may turn around and say “but didn’t Labour treble tuition fees?”, “didn’t Labour start the Browne report?”. Did we do those things, yes. Am I going to blog here and defend them, absolutely not.

However, it is now irrelevant what happened ten years ago, what matters now is what happens, well, now and in the immediate and long-term future. And what we’re seeing is the trebling of fees (more or less) to create the most expensive state University system in the world!! (Given the likes of the USA’s Universities are in the private not state sector).

Shame, shame on you Cleggy. We all know it’s tempting to say whatever you want when you’re the third party and have no chance of winning power. But given everyone knew that the most likely outcome of the general election was going to be a hung Parliament there was every chance you would have to compromise on this policy. A cast iron guarantee for the abolition of tuition fees was a ridiculously stupid given the context of the election. Don’t worry, I want tuition fees scrapped in the long term as much as any average student (favouring a Graduate tax in the meantime), but don’t even attempt to justify or pitifully dress this hike as “progressive”.

Finally, shame on you the Conservative party for forcing the Lib Dems and more importantly, future students into this. You rightly once opposed tuition fees, where has that once fleeting soul disappeared to?

Max

We’re warning you

Many of you will have heard about the 490,000 job losses in the public sector from the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). But what if that number is wrong? The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has predicted that in fact things are about to get worse. From the spending cuts and the rise in VAT, they predict around 1.6 million job losses in the next five years from the public and private sector (900,000-Private, 750,000-Public).

Yes, that’s right, 1.6 million! Of course it’s not without it’s flaws, Chief Economist at the CIPD, John Philpot, predicted unemployment would reach 3 million, thankfully the action Labour took in it’s last months in office has so far prevented this. But, 1.6 million!! This without doubt destroys any idea that the private sector will magically be able to create around 2 million jobs and is clear indicator to Cleggy, DC and Gideon, that you should not have your plans firmly nailed to the mast.

Max

A big bumbling Tory, yes, completely lacking a heart, no

I’m sure you are all aware of the proposed housing benefit cap proposed under the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Labour officials were quick to criticise the policy as a ‘cleansing’ of the poor from the cities, much to the outrage of the Coalition. But, it seems we are not the only ones saying these borderline truths, London’s Mayor, Conservative Boris Johnson, today said he will not accept “Kosovo-style social cleansing” of the capital due to the cap in housing benefits.

Firstly, this is taking a step further than Labour did in its description, but it shows that those in charge of the actual cities will see the true mantra and devastation this will cause. London Councils estimates 82,000 families could be made homeless. 82,000 families(!), not people, families. And that’s not including, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and many more cities. Now credit where credit is due, (even though I do want Ken back as Mayor) I totally agree with Johnson on this issue. You know when these plans are heartless and a part of a ‘cleansing’ programme when even the the Tory’s own London Mayor opposes them.

The Coalition’s prime-time TV critique

Some very good ideas me thinks.

Max

Entirely welcome

Today was published the latest growth figures of the third quarter between July and September. 0.8% which was twice as high as the expected 0.4%. Now, don’t forget though, this is still primarily due to the last Labour government, the Coalition had been in power for four months and this is before the CSR. I’m going to say that the final quarter will mainly be the cause of the last government as it will take a while for the CSR to effect, so anything that happens in 2011 will be the credit or failure of the Coalition as the CSR begins to bite. However, most economists are still arguing that the economy is still fragile, so don’t place your bets yet, and it is still warning for the governments deficit reduction plan, don’t be nailed to the mast.

Max

Will someone please think of the children!!

Since day one, the Coalition’s economic plans have been argued over their fairness and their progressiveness (if that’s even a word). We’re all very familiar with the IFS and their take, but I thought it be more appropriate to focus upon the Coalition’s shifting reasons for their policies “fairness”. To begin with it was the idea that the burden of the cuts were to fall upon the higher earners (though of course it turned out to fall upon more on the poorest, women, the ethnic minorities, etc, but I won’t go into that again), but recently, Cleggy in particular shifted the argument to that this crisis shouldn’t be left for our children and that they shouldn’t bear the brunt. This argument in itself is a reasonable enough, but that of course assumes that your children are NOT effected by the problems caused by the current generation’s problems in the future AND now.

This was something I realised the Coalition was failing (again) upon when a very angry bloke (youngish and I think he was ginger, rather aggressive to about 19 mins in) pointed out the sheer contradiction between this argument and reality on last Thursday’s question time. The IFS worked it out to show that the average family with children will have 6.7% drop in income compared to 2.7% with families with no children, that’s a whole 4%! This is all from cuts in tax credits for poorer families, scrapping child benefits which will hit those whose families are just above the £45k threshold when one parent stays at home, an actual real term drop in investment into schools (due to an increased number of pupils), scrapping the building schools for the future programme and most relevant for us students, raising tuition fees to £7k a year. Cleggy once agreed and respected the IFS, but how times change and how politicians (who supposedly represent “new” politics) often disregard their once respectable views to justify their actions.

Max

Record breaking

Last June, around 48 hours after the announcement of the ’emergency’ budget the well respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) slammed the Coalition’s claim that the budget was ‘progressive’. It seems that the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) has smashed all records to be proved false; this time it only took the IFS around about 24 hours to slam the claim, again, that the CSR was regressive.

Many Tories last time around were quick to argue that the IFS is in the pocket of Labour, which is hugely untrue given they were highly critical of Labour’s policies on Child Poverty. And if anything shows how regressive the nature of the CSR is you look no further than Carl Emmerson, acting Director of the IFS: “Our analysis continues to show that, with the notable exception of the richest 2%, the tax and benefit components of the fiscal consolidation are, overall, being implemented in a regressive way.”.

There will come a point in the Coalition’s future where they will no longer able to say “this isn’t our mess” and “there’s no other option” because no, there is always an alternative and at some point in the not too distant future the public will realise that these are not “Labour’s cuts” but rather those chosen by the Coalition at a rate and speed they chose.

Finally, the only slim claim that the reason for the Coalition’s economic policies being fair was also destroyed yesterday. Both DC and Cleggy have argued that it’s not fair to leave the debt onto the next generation. Apart from raising tuition fees to £7k a year it is now revealed that despite the Pupil Premium for the poorest of pupils at primary and secondary schools, 43% of pupils in less deprived parts of the country would be hit by 5% cuts or more. That seems to me like that the debt is being shifted onto the next generation.

Max

Divided we fall

I admire Laurie Penny. I really do. But her latest blog on the New Statesman is counterproductive. Labour are NOT taking this lying down. Labour is the natural home for those who have been left out in the cold by the cuts, but more generally everyone who hasn’t been taken in by the talk of necessity must unite to oppose the spending review.

As the official opposition ours must be the loudest and most credible voice, the most potent ideas in creating alternatives, the bravest actions defending those who need to be defended. We must work together with the Lib Dem rebels when they emerge, with the unions, with the sensible media, the organisations facing decimation and the local councils. Because the Tories’ real mantra is not “we’re all in this together” but “Divide and Rule”.

It’s a clever strategy because stricken groups have started thinking “it’s us or them”. So the owners of art galleries might argue their case at the expense of theatres or museums. The NHS can campaign as being more essential that higher education. Those struggling to get onto the housing ladder can blame all those “benefit cheats” they’ve been hearing about.

Meanwhile we’ve been “benefitting” from a little Lib-Dem devolution in which local councils can decide exactly which services to cut from their budgets. This may lead to competition, but is more likely to lead to poor management and bankruptcy.

From division by group in society to division by area of the country the coalition has got us covered. But the protests are just beginning…

Suzy

The day the poorest were to get poorer

Osborne announced £81 billion reduction in public expenditure

As George Osborne ploughed through the list of ‘efficiency savings’, it seemed as though he struggled to iterate what he was orchestrating. Almost with a guilty conscience, he reached for his glass of water after every departmental shrinkage plan. The monetary arm of the state is no longer the source of promise that has rescued those trapped on the peripheries of society, it has now turned away. With this it has put the futures of a generation at risk:

• It has forced those who work so diligently to offset their well-earned retirement plans, by increasing the retirement age. This is compounded by a further £3.5 billion worth of contributions that have to be made by public sector workers for their pension schemes.
• The departmental cuts total £46 billion, including 27% from local government, 29% from the environment and 23% from the Home Office.
• It has taken a further £50 a week from those who genuinely claim incapacity benefit, and has stripped another £7 billion from the Welfare budget (the equivalent of £1000 a year from 7 million families) on top of the £11 billion cuts announced previously. Those depending on tax credits and housing benefits will now get a significant amount less or nothing at all.
• 40% cut in Higher Education- stifling the chances of many innovative and bright young people to excel in the world of academia. My thoughts on this are in a previous blog written recently.
• The Ministry of Defence will face an 8% reduction in funding which equates to the loss of 42,000 army personnel or civil servant jobs over the next five years.
• He announced that the commitment to the renovation and new building of social housing will be cut by 60% over the next four years.

The list is endless. To take £81 billion out of the budget through depreciating government spending in the vital services and help that our society necessitates over the next four years is without question showing a complete disregard for the poorest and most vulnerable in society. It is widening the gulf between the top of the social ladder and the bottom, and it recklessly diminishes the future prospects of those not even born yet. And as the Tory backbenchers praised and cheered their man’s vast Spending Review it got me thinking- this ties in with traditional and recurring Tory principles- to hold the poorest at arm’s length, and let the rich get richer.

Kieran

The end is nigh

So here it is, after over 5 months of build up, the spending review is here, of course we don’t know everything that Gideon is going to cut yet (and I’m not going to cover the spending review fully, Kieran said he would do that). Average spending cuts of 25% to most Whitehall departments (with some suffering 40%) over 4 years and around 500,000 job losses over that same period (which the private sector will magically pick up after).

The Coalition has for a long period constantly lambasted the public that the scale and speed of these cuts “is necessary and unavoidable” and yes admittedly we’ve been stuck in a leadership election but it’s now our job to say, “No! There is always an alternative”. The Coalition has often used the comparison between a household budget and that of the structural deficit, and in this case we should do the same (bear with me), as when a family goes into debt, yes they need to balance the books but you never see a house do everything they can to reduce the debt as quickly as they possibly can by selling the furniture, the kitchen, the TV, etc until you leave the house completely bare.

Even though I sincerely doubt it, I do hope the Lib Dems will have softened the blow Gideon is going to make, but again, hugely unlikely.

Max

Guess the caption, spending review special…

On the eve (almost) of the spending review, I thought it would be appropriate to have some fun out of the misery Gideon Osborne (or Boy George, take your fancy) is going to make with all of us dismayed as he throws any chance of recovery out of the window. Enjoy.

Max

Credit where credit is due

“We will agree with the Coalition where we see the merits…” are the words from both Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman over the type of opposition they are hoping to build. And in this instance, we have actually found common ground with the Coalition. It was revealed yesterday that the schools budget is to escape cuts from the spending review. This was a campaign pledge of one of the three main spending protections Labour was going to make during the election. At this, we thank the coalition on this particular issue. Realising and recognising that your wrong on an issue is not a weakness at all and is what the true “new” politics should hold dear.

Max

Education is essential

The sharp prospect of the governmental chopping blade is a frightful thing, but its something we will all endure. Whether the coalition are right to cut so deep, so quickly, is a matter that can be debated for ages, but the unsavoury realisation is that it is going to happen and we are powerless to stop it. However I believe the one department that should be protected more so than others, is education.

We all realise that in order to maintain our proud position on the international stage as a hub of potential, promise and initiative, we need to sort our finances out. Yet within this lies the problem of why reducing the reach of the state’s monetary arm especially in education is counterproductive. Education is the bedrock of social mobility, the generation of new ideas, and the advancement of understanding. So reducing the finance it receives, reduces its importance in the eyes of young people, and starves them of realising not only their full potential, but that of our nation.

In today’s news a leaked source suggested that there could be funding cuts of up to £4.2 billion for universities in the next Spending Review. A few days ago Lord Browne’s report suggested that education will now become a prospect for the wealthier classes. And the threat of many universities caving in is one which has gathered speed. Politicians scrap over the definition of fairness, this isn’t fair- this is placing education on a pedestal and kicking the less well off further into the wilderness.

Kieran

The first of many to come…

When David Cameron (DC) and Nick Clegg (Cleggy) first had their first press conference in the No. 10 garden last May, they urged the reporters there and the wider public that this is the new politics, “co-operation in the national interest.” which no one can deny is not a good thing. But, a new politics that breaks with the past is a politics that leaves behind the petty point scoring and squabbling of the House of Commons that has plagued most notably PMQs since the late 1960s and particularly since the 1980s.

This is something DC failed to demonstrate today in (Ed Miliband’s very first) PMQs as the Coalition’s new politics often very much looked, sounded and seemed like the old. After five years of complaining that his predecessors did NOT answer the vast majority of his questions, DC seemed very unable to answer Ed Miliband’s questions on Child Benefit. What seemed to happen in the end was DC questioning Miliband on his own policies to which quite rightly he didn’t answer to (to simple fact that this is Prime Ministers Questions) instead brilliantly replying “I may be new to this game, but if I remember rightly it’s my job to ask the questions.”.

Ed Miliband was at least trying to break this mould, let’s only hope the Coalition follows suit.

Max

Do the right thing Vince!

*Tenuous analogy coming up*

Just as King Canute (probably) once stood on the beach at Southampton and tried to turn back the tide, so Vince Cable, if he really possesses the social conscience and belief in fairness for which he gets so much credit, will battle this month against the rising tide that threatens to drown Britain in Murdoch-owned media.

News Corporation has proposed to buy up the remaining 60% of Sky in order to gain full control over the company.  As Business Secretary Cable has the mandate to legislate on grounds of free competition, and is being called on to do so by nearly every other British media company, Slaughter & May, and the European Union.

This could be a chance for the Lib Dems to claw back a bit of credibility by sticking to their guns. The pre-coalition speeches of Clegg and Huhne on millionaire tax avoiders and the phone-tapping scandal suggest that the party’s core would agree with Cable’s views of laissez-faire capitalism killing competition by creating monopoly. On the other hand it’s sure to cause further coalition cracks, considering The Sun’s and the News of the World’s powerful pro-Tory stance, as well as Cameron’s links with Andy Coulson.

It’ll take a brave politician to do it since, as Neil Kinnock discovered to his cost, making an enemy out of News Corporation is not going to win you any elections.

Suzy

The new party of students

“I feel sorry for the Lib Dems now as they are completely rendundant”-Dan Harrison on Radio 4. As of an hour ago I couldn’t agree more. Vice Cable has now dropped his graduate tax plans for England. The once cherished held belief of nearly all Lib Dems, the abolition of Tuition fees has all but evaporated. It is now Labour’s job to pick up this mantle and now become the true party of students as we now campaign for a graduate tax (and hopefully one day, in the not too distant future, the abolition of tuition fees).

Max

It’s short-sighted to slam the lib dems now

Let’s be clear this is a Conservative lead government implementing predominately Tory policy bar a few half-hearted attempts at Lib Dem fig leaves, such as the referendum on AV. Recently there has been a lot of anti Lib Dem rhetoric thrown about by the Labour leadership candidates, especially by Ed Miliband who I support incidentally. This kind of rhetoric against the Lib Dems in government, in my opinion is short sighted, too tribal and ignores the true architects of the cuts regime: the Tories.

It will get a loud cheer from the Labour party faithful and applause from the gallery but anti liberal democrat rhetoric places the Labour party in permanent opposition if it continues on this path. As a party we have to be ready to talk and work with other parties on the left as most of the wider public now like coalitions and politicians working together. Of course as a party we should focus on winning a majority at the next general election but after such a heavy defeat in the spring and the way this has election panned out I believe that will be difficult to achieve in only one term. However we should be ready, unlike in May, for a coalition government, we should be looking to work with the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and others on the pluralistic left to make sure a Tory government is a thing of the past. With a progressive alliance we can place the Tory’s in opposition indefinitely.

As well as Labour swallowing its tribal instincts, this kind of politics is very much dependant on the electoral system. I would be in favour of a more proportional system possibly in the form of AV+ however this is not on the referendum ballot paper although I hear Caroline Lucas is mounting an amendment to add it on. Despite the A.V referendum being placed alongside the gerrymandering of constituencies in the same bill, the next leader, whoever it is, should campaign for a ‘yes’ vote. The alternative vote would make coalitions governments more likely and be a step in the right direction to making parliament more representative and go a way to gaining lost trust in the political system. In May as a Labour party we should show the public we are grown up politicians, ready to be an effective opposition but more importantly a credible government. That means as Martin Kettle states in his draft Labour leader speech in Friday’s Guardian, and I paraphrase ‘I will stand shoulder to shoulder with Nick Clegg on this issue’

Come May 2015 the electoral map will look very different, and a Lab-Lib coalition might be very much on the cards. The Labour party has to swallow its tribal instincts and be ready for coalition. Coalitions are here to stay; the country and the labour party can’t afford to be prevented from going into government because it can’t accept a pluralistic vision of politics. Labour needs to not retreat into the introverted tribalism that has marked some of the last five years of power. To avoid a prolonged spell in the wilderness, Labour must look to the wider public and move to a more pluralistic form of doing politics.

Sam Murphy @Murphys_Law19

Student and Labour party activist, South Staffordshire District council candidate in May.

Osborne’s vision for the future

Contrary to the pre-election promises of both the Tories and the LibDems that child benefits were not to be called into question, they are now to be cut to all those individuals earning over the 40% tax rate. Obviously these middle to high earners won’t miss the hundreds or thousands of pounds they should have been entitled to as much as lower earners. This child benefits cut is therefore “not as bad as it could have been”, as opposed to those that will follow it, which I fear will be bad, worse and ugly.

While this policy compares favourably with Victorian conservatism, when the lower classes were discouraged from having children in order to leave greater space and resources for the “better quality” middle class offspring, it doesn’t show much of a departure fro recent Tory policy. It still manages to hit women hardest, especially by discriminating against single mothers. The massive loophole meanwhile, maintained for purposes of “simplicity”, allows for high earning couples to benefit, as long as each partner earns less than 44 thousand alone.

It also leaves the coalition sending the public yet another mixed message – marriage is good, raising children is bad. I’d be excited to find out the rest of Gideon’s plans for our families, if I wasn’t too busy quaking in my boots.

Suzy

Unity is Essential

“Oh, who would ever wanna be King?” Chris Martin of Coldplay wailed out over the Labour conference after Ed Miliband’s acceptance speech as the new leader of our party. And as his elder brother David may now testify, he has a point. After creeping home thanks to our system for electing the leader (the Alternative Vote, which we will probably have to sell to the wider electorate in a referendum), Ed arguably has a far more difficult task ahead of him than his brother would have had, thanks to our hostile media which takes the Blair view that only “a millimetre to the left of new Labour” would spell doom for our electoral prospects.

However, if he is savvy and true to his instincts, Ed can reconcile the interests of working people who face losing their jobs in the eye-watering Con-Dem cuts and charm the “squeezed middle” voters (according to the BBC this week, a wage of £78,000 per annum is somehow middle class) by using the charge that “it was the unions wot won it” to his advantage. If it was indeed the unions who pushed Ed over the fifty per cent threshold rather than there merely being a majority of Labour members who would have preferred him to David – as was the case, when second preferences for the other defeated candidates are accounted for – then Ed can rightly say that the unions cannot rebel against the line he is taking, because they backed him above everyone else after all. This would allow him to present himself as a credible alternative to the coalition; a mature politician who appreciates that there needs to be cuts and it is wrong to oppose for its own sake, but that the way the coalition is going about them is appallingly unfair and regressive in the extreme.

As for the shadow cabinet, it would be a shame and a disaster for the country if recent history were allowed to repeat itself and we ended up with another feud at the top of the party, where the man who assumed he was headed for the top job was usurped at the last minute by a charismatic young contender. I hope that David can stay in the shadow cabinet and serve under his brother, as he is clearly talented and formidable. I hope his backers can live with that and keep quiet.

However, enough post-match analysis. After all, there are jobs and livelihoods at stake; there is a realistic prospect of a market in universities; the NHS is being practically privatised and the police is about to be run by partial and elected commissioners, in an ideological crusade against the welfare state and a sense of community. It is imperative, more than it has ever been since the 1980s, that Labour unites as a party – not old, not new, not next, not anything – and goes on to win the next election. It has the leader, with charm, insight and a sense of social justice; it has the unions on side, most of whom appreciate that strikes unless absolutely necessary get us nowhere; it has an increasing membership and of course the Liberal Democrats, who make life much easier for us by spitting in the face of most of their core supporters. We must not pander to the media and their absurd analysis of “Red Ed” and fraternal hatred, and instead pander to the people.

Luke Jones

Not so top of the mornin’

As you may be aware the IMF recently endorsed the Coalition’s deficit reduction plans, much to the glee of those in BUC”F”, etc. However, similar compliments were said to that of the Irish Government’s austerity actions two years ago. Now no one is saying that the UK and Irish economies and their features are the same (unlike the DC, Gideon and Cleggy who hopelessly used Greece and Canada as examples to justify their austerity measures in a downright scare campaign), but it does give a tell tale sign of what MAY happen if you slash spending, force thousands more to the unemployed register and consequently lowers tax receipts.

Also, if you were watching tonight’s Question Time, the IMF’s credibility was absolutely decimated. Given it was pointed out by members of the audience and the panel that they are totally inept at understanding the social impacts of any real policy they support and how little progress they’ve made with child poverty in Africa.

Max

An inevitable outcome, but, not an inevitable result

In tomorrow’s Sun is published a significant result for the Labour party. For the first time in three years the Labour party is ahead in the polls http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2814 at Lab-40%, Con-39%, LD-12%. Yes, it is the tiniest of margins and yes it may be even a freak poll, but it is as significant as the Coalition’s approval ratings slipping into negative for the first time and the public disapproving of the Government’s austerity measures for also the first time last month.

However, do not get complacent! While we may be ahead in the polls a large amount over the next five years, it is certainly no guarantee of victory. Just look at Thatcher’s first term in office, hugely unpopular for most of her term and then went onto win a landslide (though admittedly it is unlikely the Coalition will have any Falkands War to help save them). Labour must be the clear, viable alternative to the Coalition, or else who knows how big the “Big Society” will be or how long will the new age of austerity last as nothing in Politics is inevitable or definite.

Max