Today I cast my votes in the Labour Party leadership elections.  These are both in the plural because, people may not realise, there were multiple candidates for Leader, Deputy Leader, a Conference Committee and so on.  It took some effort to read the candidates’ statements and, frankly, they were pretty useless.  Instead I relied on external commentators to fill in the background and, on the whole, they didn’t make very encouraging reading; very few candidates come out of close scrutiny with a resounding endorsement.  Some seem to be gaffe prone, others appear to have little experience.

The thing which bothers me most, and I’ve blogged about this before, is that nobody is talking about taking the fight to the Tories any sooner than 2020.  I seriously worry that there will be an election before that, perhaps in as little as 2 years, driven by the in-fighting in the Conservative Party over a referendum on EU membership.  The way things are going with mass migration (and UK immigration) rising to the top of the popular agenda I see an increasingly fragile Conservative majority in the House of Commons being tested by UKIP and their adherents.    If Labour aren’t ready for that, and as a consequence lose a snap election in 2017, they may not get another shot at power until 2022!

I’ve written to the present Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, and to all the leadership candidates to ask their opinion on this; I don’t expect a reply any time soon.  If I get one at all it might at least indicate whether the threat of years in the political wilderness is real, not because Jeremy Corbyn is, or isn’t, elected leader but because the leadership as a whole has taken its eye of the ball.

So now we have Andy Burnham saying what a clever chap Jeremy Corbyn is!  He praises him for energising the Labour electorate and bringing young people into politics!  No doubt this eel-like wriggling is intended not to win, because it probably is too late, but to make sure he gets to be in a position of influence in a Corbyn-led party.  And why would he do that?  Well, there is talk of a campaign to unseat Jeremy Corbyn if he were to win, and that will be something to do with it.  However I think there is something else;  readers of my blog may recall that I forecast a general election not in 2020, when it is due, but in 2017.  I believe that the Conservative government is less secure than its majority might suggest, and will become even less so with a referendum on whether we stay in, or leave, the EU.  Those Conservatives on the right of the party, and in the anti-European camp, will become increasing fractious and flex their muscles by voting down some policies.  David Cameron will risk going to the country.

I think Andy Burnham may well have an eye on leading the labour party into that election, whoever is leader at the end of September 2015.  I also think he wants to see what happens in Scotland, where a new Labour leader will be fighting the Scottish Parliamentary election in 2016.

Slippery, or what?

The increasingly strident chorus of senior Labour Party politicians denouncing Jeremy Corbyn is saddening.

The possibility that you might not like the result is a consequence of democracy but, in this case, it seems Cooper, Kendall, Burnham et al can’t accept it.  They not only question Jeremy Corbyn’s political soundness but also that of his supporters: if you vote for him you are voting to destroy the Labour Party.  They and others have also besmirched those who are joining the party as supporters or full members, in the thousands, as “non-Labour infiltrators” bent on wrecking the party.   We are told they are challenging whether these new members support Labour’s “core values”.  Well, forgive me, but for the last number of years we haven’t really known what they are.  Isn’t it just possible that a good number of these ‘new’ members are, in fact, former members and supporters coming back to a Labour party after years of disillusionment?

Corbyn’s detractors don’t seem tbe able to understand that these new members may have been energised by the prospect of, for the first time in a generation, having someone for whom they would vote.  They don’t seem to be able to recognise that one reason why Labour Party supporters leached away to other parties, or abstained (and in Scotland resulted in their electoral wipeout at the hands of the SNP) is because many traditional Labour supporters had been alienated by the way the Labour Party had turned its back on traditional left values in pursuit of power:  New Labour had become New Tory or New Liberal Democrat.  I would go so far as to say that if the Labour Party had been able to  offer a more radical agenda to Scotland’s electorate than Ed Milliband’s, they would not have lost so many seats to the SNP.  There might have been a different national result, there might even have been a Labour government right now.

Now we have the unedifying sight of a New Labour establishment (and their mentors including Mandelson, Campbell, Tony Blair and now Brown) frightened by the possible consequences of democracy!  They all say that Corbyn would make Labour unelectable, but Brown and then Milliband seem to have been unelectable too.  What they really fear is not the electoral destruction of Labour at the next election but the dismantling of THEIR version of the Labour party.  Well, tough.  They’ve made the voting processes “one man, one vote” and it’s not THEIR party but their members’ party.  If, as a result of Jeremy Corbyn being made leader, the Labour Party spends some years in opposition, so be it.  At least it will be a principled opposition rather than a bunch of more-or-less similar politicians running round the Westminster ‘playground’ after the ball and shouting “go on, lets us have a go”.  I didn’t come down with the last shower of rain and I don’t like being patronised: I’ll decide on who I’ll vote for, and why, thanks Messrs Brown, Blair and Mandelson.

 

At the moment one question, more than any other, exercises my political mind.  What happens to our country when the economy is finally “rebalanced”?

The Chancellor, George Osborne, is continuing to pursue his dismantling of the state economy with the stated intent of getting the national ‘books’ into surplus.  Cutting billions out of government spending, and selling off what little remains of state holdings in private enterprise, he expects that we will have a surplus of several billions per annum by 2018.  Assuming he is right, of course, what I really want to know is what do the Conservatives want to do with that surplus: what is their long-term vision for our country, our state funded society, beyond that date?

Will they restore cuts in benefits?  Will they overhaul, modernise and reinforce our justice system?  Will we get bigger pensions, more schools, better funded local government?  My instinct is that the answer to all these questions is ‘No’.  I believe they see the rump of the public sector forever small, dealing only with unprofitable parts of statutory provisions, while we are increasingly driven into the arms of the private sector for health care, education, housing, and so on.

I think they should tell us, don’t you?

Thousands of economic and political migrants have been casting themselves into the Mediterranean Sea, aided and abetted by ruthless criminal human traffickers.  many, though only God knows just how many, disappear.  This week we have been treated to the absurd spectacle of some of those that survive trying to get across the English Channel.  The British Government is standing on our side of the channel holding out it’s hands, Canute-like, and concentrating its efforts at control on the few recognised points of entry and departure: the channel tunnel and the ferry ports.

Given the desperation of the migrants, and the opportunism of the criminal traffickers, how long will it be before we see boat loads of people setting off from the nearer shores of continental Europe and chancing their arm to reach our unprotected coast?  Not long, I would guess, and how many will die in the attempt to cross one of the busiest seaways in the world?

The 2015 UK election has thrown up a result that few predicted (although I claim to have predicted a Conservative victory and the wipeout of Labour in Scotland).  The immediate aftermath has been more surprising, with the leaders of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all resigning immediately.

As I see it the Conservatives ran a professional focussed campaign with a leader who looked like he had energy and committment.  Labour, on the other hand, had a man who looked uncomfortable at every turn who seemed unsure of his core messages.  The Conservatives, backed by a solidly Tory press, had consistently undermined his credibility but his plan to “carve in stone” his promises, with a daft theatrical prop, was misguided and played into their hands.

The Conservative strategy of playing the ‘fear’ card of an SNP/Labour coalition worked, which goes to show how politically unsophisticated we are as a nation.  There never was any risk of Labour being coerced by SNP but it played on the smouldering anti-Scottish, or put another way pro-English, nationalism.  Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) proved to be both astute and charismatic, giving short shrift to the idea that the SNP victory in Scotland cost Labour the election: even had every seat in Scotland been won by Labour they would still have been a chasm away from a workable coalition.  The fact is that Labour failed to even win most of the marginal seats it needed in England.

The LibDems paid for going into coalition, and having supported some brutal anti-working class policies, with their collapsing vote going back to Labour or the Conservatives according to the underlying instincts of their voters.

The most interesting things to ponder (apart from just how painful the next five years will be) are whether a Conservative government with a working majority will now be beset by friction from within, what will happen to the Union (UK), how will Nicola Sturgeon manage Alec Salmond, and how will the Labour party react?  The right wing of the Conservative party, unfettered by considerations of survival, may well press for even more anti-working class policies and a more “robust” stance on Europe, immigration and security.  If Cameron is too accommodating to Scotland, effectively creating a separate country in all but name, he will run into opposition from his own party.  On the other hand if he frustrates the desire of Scotland for more devolution, as expressed by what promises to be a vocal cadre of SNP MPs, he may well provoke a second Independence referendum.  The SNP have proved that, in one part of these islands at least, there is hunger for a more left-leaning party: will Labour return to their core values?  They certainly will need a different kind of leader – I’d vote for Hilary Benn, but that’s not going to happen.

Personally, as a pensioner, I expect to be worse off in the next 3-5 years.  The unspecified £12 billion cuts to the welfare budget come on top of those already announced in the 2015 budget – but not yet in effect.  I expect several benefits to be means tested; will we lose our bus pass, our winter heating allowance, free prescriptions and so on?  In England we already suffer reduced health care from overstretched and underfunded GP surgeries and hospitals.  Local Authorities were already slashing bus services and support facilities for the elderly and other vulnerable groups.  The Conservatives are gambling (with our lives – they and their cronies will do OK whatever happens) that by 2017/18 our, and the global, economy will be ‘fixed’ and the brakes can come off again.  What if the world economy doesn’t recover as they hope.  Despite their propaganda, the last Labour government didn’t create the world crash and there are still signs that it could happen again and meantime the food banks will get more trade.

At time of writing we are a week and a day away from polling day, and the political parties are becoming ever more desperate.  There’s a kind of barrow boy hawking going on, each trying to get your attention with ever more ludicrous, never-to-be repeated, buy one-get one free offers.  If you can’t make up your mind whose offer to take up bear in mind they are all (Greens excepted) liars – if I can use that term for not telling the truth by omission.

Please bear in mind the following:

The LibDems chose, CHOSE, to go into a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010.  They could have chosen Labour but didn’t.  They promised no tuition fees for Tertiary education and reneged on that promise.  They have had a senior figure, Danny Alexander, hand in hand with George Osborne paring back the economy for the last 5 years.  The LibDems now claim they are responsible for all the good things that have happened but none of the bad.  I’m afraid that doesn’t wash.  Meanwhile we have the obscenity of homelessness juxtaposed with promises of extending the Thatcherite “Right to Buy”; food banks, juxtaposed with more billionnaires per capita than anywhere on the planet; cuts in all sorts of social provision; the NHS dismantled and privatised from the inside by a pointless restructuring.  Bed blocking, resulting directly from cuts to social care budgets causing so-called ‘black’ emergency conditions in hospitals.

The Conservatives try to alarm us by saying the SNP will (somehow) coerce a minority Labour administration into dropping the Trident missile programme.  Quite apart from the mathematical nonsense (there are 600+MPs, most of whom want Trident to be renewed), who was it that emasculated our armed forces in two successive hatchet jobs of so-called Strategic Defence Review?  The Conservative and LibDem coalition, in case you’ve forgotten.  They scrapped the Nimrod programme, actually breaking up completed airframes; admittedly the project was massively over budget and years late but it was about to bear fruit.  In the face of warnings about the unpredictability of world politics, and in particular the certainty of a de-clawed Russia not being a threat, they scrapped another wonderful and proven aircraft, the Harrier (which, by the way, the American military love and use), along with the aircraft carriers that carried them, and then ordered two massive new ones for £6 billiuon or so which don’t have planes to fly off them!  In case you didn’t know we, along with a lot of other countries, are buying into an Amercian ‘plane, the F35, which is riddled with problems and so far non-operational in the maritime context.  Meanwhile we have Russian ‘planes and submarines probing our borders day and daily.  The SNP, by the way, are promoting strong conventional forces – saying that there are 200+ countries in the world and only a handful have “the bomb”.

Labour, at leadership level, either don’t know or won’t say what they really want.  Are they so desperate to get back into power that they would present themselves as ‘pink’ Tories (which is where the LibDems used to be), or are they really that right wing?  The SNP have shamed them with their vision for a socially just society and it will be interesting to see what happens if Labour, along with the last Tory standing, are wiped out electorally in Scotland.  I have a theory that parts of the Labour elite don’t want to win this election: they want the Conservative / LibDem coalition to finish ‘fixing’ the deficit, and taking tough decisions that simply couldn’t be entertained by a Labour administration, letting them take the blame for all the pain they cause, and getting in next time around.  Even if there wer a Conservative majority my theory goes on that following a failure to win in 2015 Ed Milliband, Labour leader, will be replaced and we will struggle on to 2017 when the ‘hokey cokey’ EU referendum will cause another election.

Now for the rag-bag of assorted right and ultra-right people who are UKIP.  Despite all the hype, I don’t expect UKIP to get more than 20 seats, probably a lot less.  Don’t vote for them; they only have one policy that is worth the paper it’s written on – we do need more robust control over our borders and better arrangements for managing immigration.  Otherwise, don’t go there; I’m not old enough to remember first hand but I certainly know about the rise of the far right in Europe in the 1930s and you don’t have to look far to see the shadow of fascism in Russia, the Balkans, even France (where 25% of the electorate voted for Marine LePen).  The socio-economic background isn’t so very different now in Britain in the 2010s.

Finally, please also bear this in mind: over recent years we have got used to policy changes being ‘trailed’ and announced well ahead.  By the time the change actually happens we’ve been softened up, or got used to the idea, and don’t notice (they think).  This year we have already had a number of announcements about fiscal and other changes which amount to cuts.  These cuts haven’t happened yet but we are told to expect more of the same, much more, going on to 2018 when (allegedly) the books will be balanced.  No wonder the Conservatives don’t want to tell us where the knife will slice – we are already into the bone on many public services.  I’m completely with the parties who (as Labour said at the last election too) want to slow the rate of cutting even if it means extending the date by which we will be free of National debt.

There’s a whole heap more to say, but not now, about energy policy, sustainability, proportional representation and so on.  If I were in Scotland I’d vote SNP.  Vote with your conscience, but at all costs vote.  There is no likelihood of unseating the Tory in my own constituency but I’ll be voting Green because I believe in their message.  Just know that whoever you vote for you are going to get something else.

 

 

 

Like most of the world I was repelled by the murderous terrorist attacks in Paris last week. My sinking heart went out to the dead and their families. Now my overwhelming emotion is one of contempt for the magazine Charlie Hebdo, and their defiant adherence to a creed that they have an inalienable right to offend, come what may. I find it as disgusting as that of the so-called Muslim /Islamist attackers and unmasks Charlie Hebdo as self-obsessed and self-important. The kindest interpretation of its actions is that working in a political and artistic bubble isolates them from wider society.
The printing of 3, and then 5, million copies of their latest issue – complete with another front cover depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed – is no more than a cynical milking of the genuine outpouring of support for the dead and bereaved but portrayed as unqualified support for the magazine itself.
It is ironic that a publication so niche, so marginal in France that it was allegedly on the brink of financial disaster and selling less than 60,000 copies per issue normally, has been saved by this unique, and hopefully, short term spike in sales. Copies of the latest issue are already changing hands on e-Bay for vastly inflated prices, which calls into question the motivation of some who queued to, allegedly, express their support for free speech by buying a copy. Perhaps some, like Charlie Hebdo itself, were just out to make a quick Euro.
If you look at back issues of Charlie Hebdo, which you can do online, you find a magazine with many graphics that are more caricature than cartoon: drawings which depend on, and reinforce, the worst racial and cultural stereotyping to make a point. Take the so-called cartoons of Prophet Mohammed: there are no reliable images of him (just as for Jesus Christ) so the lazy cartoonists depict him as a fat lipped, boggle eyed, bulbously or hook nosed man with a turban. The depiction of a Jew is the same, except for different headgear and hair curls. Irrespective of the religious offence they cause, they are offensive in themselves, full stop, and in my opinion are borderline racist.

Our concentration on Charlie Hebdo has, regrettably, distracted attention from a coincident attack by Boko Harram, another murderous gang pursuing what they claim is an Islamic agenda, killing 2000 not 14 – but then they are Africans killing Africans in Africa, not Parisians.
A BBC journalist reported that the latest, first post-attack, issue of the magazine carried a defiant message which said that if you weren’t ‘with’ Charlie Hebdo then……..

He declined to repeat what it actually said on air as it was too explicit to broadcast. You can imagine what Charlie Hebdo said.
Well, I’m not ‘with’ them: Je ne suis pas Charlie.  Are you?

I’ve been watching bits of media coverage of the 2014 LibDem conference in Glasgow. Danny Alexander’s (Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the coalition government) claims to ‘own’ the so-called recovery plan: “it wasn’t Cameron and Osborne (Conservative Prime Minister and Chancellor respectively) it was Nick and me” (Nick Clegg is LibDem leader /coalition Deputy Prime Minister) . Meanwhile Nick is trying to disclaim responsibility for the negative effects!  I’m sorry, Nick but “we did the good bits but not the bad bits” won’t wash. The LibDems chose to go into coalition with the Tories, not Labour, they chose to go along with policies they now find repugnant.  Now there is an election looming they are suddenly more like Labour really, all warm and socially cuddly. They are even suggesting they lean toward policies that are oddly reminiscent of Labour proposals they rejected in order to gain power with the Tories!  My late, lamented, Mum used to say “scratch a Liberal and you’ll find a Tory underneath.”: she was no fool.

The referendum on Scottish independence seems to have produced a clear majority against the proposition that Scotland should be an independent country.  It is regrettable that the post-vote analysis, the fall-out and the genuine sense of grief that some feel, is overshadowed by allegations of irregularities: vote rigging.  As I write this there has been no official response to the claims, some apparently supported by video “evidence” posted on the internet, but I doubt that any irregularities would be proved to be part of an organised and widespread attempt to fix the election.  Most likely they are the work of misguided individuals, and I also doubt if they would have altered the result overall.

What is much more worrying is the way in which the referendum was stolen by the established mainstream parties: the Westminster establishment.  It is no surprise to me that the UK Labour Party was, and is, against Scottish Independence:  it has abandoned defence of working people across the country, and has failed to offer a genuinely radical alternative vision, in pursuit of power.  The final result was undoubtedly affected by a last-minute pledge, largely driven by Labour, to deliver additional powers to the Scottish Government – more devolved powers.  As such they have fallen into the trap laid for it by the Tory party, they are now scrambling around trying to meet this commitment which is undeliverable in the context of demands by Tory right-wing and eurosceptic MPs who are demanding English devolution: having English MPs only voting on English matters.  If this happened the loss of a large number of Scottish-elected MPs in the voting lobbies would emasculate any Labour-led (even Labour majority) government.

The best thing that Scots can do now is vote for the SNP at each and every election – local, national and European – and wipe Labour off the Scottish electoral map in the way the Conservatives have been.  Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.