British Politics

Taking the long view

2007-07-24T09:25:00.001+00:00

It is quite something that waiting a month before trying to reach an assessment of our new government feels laggardly.

So quickly does politics move now, that already the phrase "The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown" elicits no shock. The opinion polls that suggested a ten point tory lead when camparing Cameron to Brown have been shown to be as pointless as the intelligent always said they were. Jacqui Smith seems to be taking the country by storm, despite that embarrassing photo of her playing a rather dull drinking game.

As an aside. I feel sorry for the first generation of Facebook politicians. Every single photo of you looking stupid, drunk out of your mind, snogging some poor unfortunate, all uploaded, tagged, saved and secure for posterity, and by your friends too. Still, at least we'll get used to it quickly enough.

So a month in and where are we?

David Cameron is having a minor leadership crisis. How strange that seems. A mere season ago, he was expected to crush all beneath him. Commentators curled up at his feet. Office appeared to be merely a matter of time.

Today Cameron is on the edge of becoming a figure of fun. He's the husky loving, floppy haired, baby hugging, sikh guru embracing toff who made the fatal mistake of believing that the vital task that faced the Tories was to make themselves look nice.

I shall say it one more time. It was not "nastiness" that cost the Tory party power, it was screwing with peoples lives. So, don't go off to Rwanda, no matter how decent or worthy your intentions are. Explain to people why you'd make their lives better in the here and now.

I believe Cameron is more Gaitskill than Kinnock. He's facing the right direction and is personally popuar, but has a narrow base of support in his own party so cannot confront the huge issues that make his party vrtually unelectable. Add to that a huge whole in his policies for spending and taxation (No cuts in the NHS ever and lower taxation? Shurely shome mishtake...) and I think Cameron's destined to fail.

For the Government, It seems fated to suffer terrorist attacks and natural disasters, and to handle them reasonably well. I do find it strange that it's more acceptable to criticise the Government for allowing storms to flood rivers than failing to prevent terrorist attacks. (It strikes me that only one of these two is withing the power of human intervention).

The new cabinet is being quiet, methodical and slightly dull. It's all rather mature. Denham, Balls, Darling, Hutton, Straw. It's a government of the quietly competent lieutenants. The governmet, drained of the bitterness of the last few years seems focussed on getting on with the job, suddenly feeling that if they just do what they're supposed to, The election will be theirs.

On the negative side, I worry that the Government is a little quiet on the issue of crime and anti-social behaviour. We easily forget how big an issue this is for people, and it's an issue that will not go away.

This is a government of serious, policy minded people, which means they might be a little too attentive to their statistics that tell them crime is falling, rather than to the marketeers and focus group merchants who tell them the public are concerned. Cameron's best moment in the last fortnight came on prisoner release. He'll be tempted back onto this agenda soon.

So one month in.

Things going pretty well.

A long way still to go.

Carry on, Gordon, carry on.

I'm not blogging about the new PM or the reshuffle..

2007-06-28T09:21:00.000+00:00

...because I'm sick of reading and listening to endless breathless reports about what might or might not happen, generally produced by people who know only a fraction more than their audience about what is happening.

Once it's done, and we know the shape of the Government there will be a lot to talk about, but until then, it's all so much froth and blether.

I think the content of the entire political coverage yesterday could be summed up as "New PM takes over. Old PM leaves, details to follow".

Until then I'm content to wish the Prime Minister well, and to say thank you to Tony Blair.

Quentin Davies

2007-06-26T16:17:00.000+00:00

Devastating stuff.

...Under your leadership the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything.It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda...

...The trouble with trying to face both ways is that you are likely to lose everybody's confidence. Aside from the rather significant issues of principle involved, you have of course paid a practical price for your easy promises...

...It is fair to say that you have so far made a shambles of your foreign policy, and that would be a great handicap to you - and, more seriously, to the country - if you ever came to power...

...One day in January, I think a Wednesday or Thursday, you and George Osborne discovered that Gordon Brown was to make a speech on the environment the following Monday. You wished to pre-empt him. So without any consultation with anyone - experts, think tanks, the industry, even the Shadow Cabinet - you announced an airline or flight tax which as you have subsequently heard from me in a long paper (which has never been refuted) and I am sure from many others, is certainly defective and contradictory - and in my view complete nonsense...

...Equally it seems that your hasty rejection of nuclear energy as a 'last resort' was also driven by your PR imperatives rather than by other considerations. Many colleagues hope that that will be the subject of your next u-turn...

...Of course I could go on - up to three weeks ago when you were prepared to stoop to putting forward a resolution on Iraq (demanding an inquiry while our military involvement continues) which it was admitted at a Party meeting the following Monday (by George Osborne in your presence) was motivated by party political considerations. That was a particularly bad moment...

...Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative Party to achieve...

...I do not intend to leave public life. On the contrary I am looking forward to joining another party with which I have found increasingly I am naturally in agreement and which has just acquired a leader I have always greatly admired, who I believe is entirely straightforward, and who has a towering record, and a clear vision for the future of our country which I fully share.

A wonderful day...

2007-06-25T12:09:00.001+00:00

We have a new leader who has the intellect, drive and passion to be a great Prime Minister.

We're ahead in the polls.

The agenda of housing, social justice and a focus on playing by the rules Gordon set out yesterday, is exactly where we should be.

I'm delighted by the thought Gordon's clearly put into revitalising the policy process, especially the suggestion of a final voice for the membership in policy decisions.

So I'm very, very happy.

It's cheesy but true.

Having got that fawning out of my system, On to the Deputy leadership election.

I'd rather Alan had won, but clearly Harriet fought a strong campaign, which is a good sign that she will be good at her job.

Obviously, I disagreed with Harriet's policy direction during the campaign, but she's an intelligent, capable politician who will give real focus on the issue of social justice while being very loyal to the leader.

Her victory in the members section of the ballot shows she's in real touch with the membership of the party.

She deserves the support of every Labour activist, and I wish her all the best.

After all, those of us on the right of the party are known for demanding loyalty to the leadership. That works both ways.

I did put her 5th though.

A few quick points..

2007-06-21T21:28:00.000+00:00

it's been a busy, long day in the boring world of real work... so just a few quick points may expand upon on the morrow, though I might get dristracted by Big Brother, kittens, or watching iPhone adverts repeatedly (I waaaant one. I waaaaaaaaant it now).

1. It seems obvious that this was a real serious offer. I don't thinkk any Prime Minister has casually offered a cabinet job to a member of an opposition party. So here ends the Brown the control freak machine politician theme. This guy is serious about reaching out.

2. I fail to see what is dirty and underhand about offering a cabinet job to a member of an opposition party. I really don't. Briefing the press that your leader is an alcoholic is dirty politics, but offering some lords ministerial jobs? I mean, this all happened on Monday, and it took the Liberals until todday to get utterly horrified? Pleeeease.

This is obviously fake outrage, designed to save Ming Campbell from a mauling by rampaging herd (collective noun time- a Bore? a Beard? an Opik?) of Lib dem MPs - so treat it with scepticism. If it took Ming Campbells sources until now to be outraged by the offers, he aint that outraged.

3. What exactly do the Lib Dems want? Yes, yes, More votes and more seats. But for the exponents of consensus politics they seem to get pretty bolshy whenever anyone actually offers them a Consensus.

In the last three months alone they have, for reasons of high principle, turned down coalitions or jobs offers with the following parties: SNP, Labour, Conservative and Plaid Cymru. That is, you may have noticed, also a list of every other mainland party represented in the House of Commons.

Will the Liberal Democrats enlighten us to the nature of the party with whom they are prepared to have a consensus with? Would they agree to enter into government with the DUP, perhaps?

4. Where's the Labour outrage? I could imagine a time when the thought of a Labour Prime Minister, A Labour prime minister, scuttling around westminster in a Government car handing out job offers right left and centre would have summoned forth a lusty bellow of rage from the swamp primeval of the Labour heartlands. Today, apart from the mildest of criticisms from John McDonnell, we heard nothing.

I'm sure that some Labour activists are horrified, but the party has shown incredibly impressive discipline so far. Maybe, just maybe we're a party that really wants to stay in power. If so, that will make me happier than anything I can imagine. Apart from the aforementioned Iphone, obviously.

Fantasy cabinet!

2007-06-20T15:39:00.000+00:00

I know, people, it's hard hacking away when you don't know quite who to suck up to.

So why not play fantasy cabinet, a cute little game created by a lobbying company called four communications..

It's nicely done, although it's missing Caroline Flint, Jim Murphy, Dawn Primarolo and Bob Ainsworth. I don't think each of these are very likely, but they're just as likely as some of the names that are on the list....

I am a sage and a visionary.

2007-06-20T10:07:00.000+00:00

They laughed at me, they did. Well OK, they mostly ignored me, but I was right, oh yes, oh yes.

Oh, hello. Didn't see you there.

Today, I am talking to myself about Labour and the Libdems getting together and having a big party around the cabinet table, which is the subject of todays front page splash in the Guardian and a nice piece of catchupwork by the BBCs Nick Robinson.

Well it just goes to show that you should pay attention to me, because guess what I said, (to a storm of indifference) six months ago.

"political reality is more important than my hatred of the Liberal Democrats, and
reality says it might soon be time to reach a deal with them....
"...So why shouldn’t Labour offer left of centre Lib Dems a deal ahead of the next general election?
"We could offer either a coalition, or a deal with 30 or so Liberal Democrats interested in forming a Social Democrat caucus after the next General election...
"...If the offer were made from a position of strength, it would mean an unprecedented openness- shooting for good the idea that Gordon Brown would lead a Gormenghast administration.
"The Liberal Democrats would win by ensuring a secure place in Government, by securing a more European foreign policy and wining major policy debates on multilateralism, the environment, civil liberties and yes, Electoral Reform. "

Honestly, I don't think we're close to a coalition offer, or even a couple of cabinet places. The internal politics of both parties would make that very difficult. Yet the beginnings of a rapprochemont could well be good politics for both leaders.

Gordon Brown needs to spike tory claims he's a tribal, sour faced, grumpy man who wants to steal childrens sweeties. Ming Campbell needs to be able to offer the prospect of real power to his troops. After all, they're now in opposition in Scotland and Wales and the polls don't look stunning.

So, a senior LibDem playing a key role in Government? Well, there's the example of Lord Carlile. Paddy Ashdown is still very popular. Some kind of joint policy work? Perhaps opening debates on the constitution and civil liberties that Lib Dems care passionately about?

Whatever it is, this news indicates that Gordon Brown is very much thinking of the politics of the UK in the long term, and knows that building a progresive consensus is the key to victory. He also seems to understand the importance of dealing from strength.

Although I codially loathe and despise Liberal Democrats and am delighted they feel the same, I'm glad that Gordon Brown is able to see the bigger picture. I hope the same can be said for the rest of both parties.

Cameron 2 - The soundbite strikes back

2007-06-18T15:16:00.001+00:00

Are David Cameron's speechwriters trying to turn him into a parody of himself or a parody of Tony Blair at his most blethersome?

What a speech. What a crock. Cameron badly needs a new speechwriter.

First up, He keeps on with some horribly mixed metaphor.

"then, brick by brick, you build your house. That is the plan I laid out when I became leader of this Party and that is exactly the plan we’ve been following.

We started by preparing the ground. We stopped fooling ourselves that we’d get a different result with the same old tunes."

What is he talking about here? The barn raising scene in Seven brides for seven brothers?

Then neart the end there's this: "we can be clear about the shape of the house we’re building. It’s designed to deliver collective security, as the platform for individual opportunity." It's a safe house, with a platform for individuals to jump off? Will the platform be on the balcony?

Second, stop this horrible meaningless soundbite overload.

"this amazing country, in this amazing century"
on this amazing planet, in this amazing galaxy.

"Our Society. Your Life."
Our House. Your Wife.
Our Money. Your Life.
Our Pistol. Your Knife.

"what a life it can be if we enable people to make the most of the modern world."
Also, I believe that children are the future. Treat them well and let them lead the way.

"Your life is just that – yours, not mine."
So we can't swap?

"Stand Up, Speak Up."
If you're going to quote Marley, It's "get up, stand up". Or is Cameron copying Nike's anti racism Campaign?

Also, please stop it with the weirdly sweeping statements.

Did you know that "There are technologies that will give us the energy to power the world without wrecking the planet"?
Where can we get these then? I have literally no idea what technology this is. Cold fusion? Windmills? Nuclear power? Giant Cows producing Methane?

I also didn't know that "We have communications which overcome every obstacle not just of distance but of culture – making one world." We do? Really? So If I want to talk to a Korean but I can't speak Korean, we can chat away merrily?

Next, please don't critique your opponents for one thing, then do that self same thing a few moments later.

Here Cameron critiques Labour for policymaking in response to bad headlines:
"We’ve had ten years of short-term initiatives announced to get headlines in the papers. People have had enough of Labour’s fast-food politics: they want something more serious and more substantial. "

Yes! Enough of policy making on the fly. Get a policy right and stick with it. Whatever you do, don't make up a new policy in response to bad headlines. Like on Grammar schools. Stick with the tough policies.

What's the latest line on that by the way, Dave? We're not going to redo our policies to get a headline are we?

"More setting and streaming, with a ‘grammar stream’ in every subject in every school." .

Oh, right.

Even worse, he then does it again- within two sentences.

"Not copying New Labour, but learning from its mistakes."

Yeah! No copying New Labour!

"Not abandoning Conservative principles, but applying them in new ways to new challenges."

Yeah! Copying New Labour's "traditional values in a Modern setting"!

This speech is just blether. If this is his renewal, he's in worse trouble than I thought.

The Cocktail party

2007-06-15T09:41:00.000+00:00

Last night I decided not to watch the Labour deputy leadership husting on television and toddled off to drink cocktails instead. I felt suave and sophisticated and elegant, even when I fell off my chair.

Yet I felt a little guilty for my alcoholic exploits. The bitter taste of angst intruded into each chilled glass. Instead of sipping expensively mixed drinks, should I have been supping the ales of the people? If Harriet Harman disapproves of expensive handbags would she also frown at the cost of a well put together cosmoplitan?

Whisper it, but the Left is not quite comfortable with spirit based debauchery, preferring more proletarian methods of intoxication.

A social democrat can drink eight pints and be the toast of his fellows, but let him ask for a Dry Manhattan and eyebrows are raised. Looks become quizical. Inferences are made.

Sadly, we are a beer party. Up with this I will not put. I declare firmly that it's good to be a Prosecco progressive or a margarita marxist. Let us proclaim loudly that under socialism, it'll be Cosmopolitans all round.

I am biassed in this argument, because I am an apalling beer drinker. I can't stomach the stuff. I don't mind the taste, it's just that after the second pint I begin to feel queasy. If for some dreadful experiment I am forced to drink three, I need to go and have a nice lie down while gurgling incoherently. In other words, I become a big brother contestant.

The stronger the drink, the more I can sup. Wine is tolerable, while spirits slide down nicely. The problem is that raw sprits taste foul. (I'm looking at you, Whisky connisseurs), So I end up drinking cocktails.

Cocktails have an air of dissolution and decadence to them. This is exactly what is needed in an alcoholic drink. Clean tasting, fast acting and a measure of elegance as you careen headlong towards intoxication.

Now, this is not to support conspicuous consumption. I abjure the loutish type who waste good drink on a treasure chest. That's not just bad taste, it's a bad cocktail, which is unforgiveable.

Still despites the foolishness of the crass and tasteless, we must stand up for cocktails for the left.

After all, if we let the right be the people with the good drinks, all we'd have left with is real ale, leaflet rounds and worthiness. It'd be like being a liberal democrat. If that doesn't make the case for a lunchtime bloody mary, nothing will.

Round and round the parcel goes..

2007-06-13T10:55:00.000+00:00

So, another twist in the never ending saga of the Welsh Assembly Government. Apparently, now Labour and Plaid are talking.

I'm no expert in welsh politics but electorally speaking I can't see how Labour can lose from the various prospects ahead of them in Wales. (Of course, Wales could lose from bad policy, bad leadership and bad ideas, but that's the realm of the serious policy people and I am a mere hack)

Scenario one- Rainbow alliance. Labour would be by far the largest party but in opposition, which would fire up our vote and our activists, while a disunited coalition tries to implement a populist political programme. The price might be PR in local elections, but the prize would be the ability to peel off almost all anti-Tory LD and Plaid seats at the next election.

Scenario two- Labour and Plaid govern together. Politically this damages Plaid much more than Labour for the simple reason that they will have to bear the burden of Government unpopularity. I'd expect to see a much stronger Welsh Conservative party as a result. That would give labour the chance to pick up floating Liberal and plaid voters who wanted to keep the Tories out in the next General Election.

Of course, the big prize for Plaid is to be in government and that's more important than any narrow electoral consideration. However, they're in a very different place to the SNP, who have taken ofice on the back of a narrow victory and can therefore claim a mandate of sorts and can govern alone and confidently.

Plaid don't have that option. For them all roads ahead involve messy compromise and responsibility for failings that are not of their own making. Indeed, they'd probably be better off in opposition for another 4 years with the objective of making a serious and sustained assault on Labours status as largest party.

You might say that the SNP seem to be popular in office, so why not Plaid? Well, its easy to be popular as a new government three months after an election. It's harder 4 years down the line.

The SNP have a tough road ahead keeping their support together, and they're in a far stronger position than Plaid. There are already Labour MPs who feel happier not having to defend the Scottish Executive each day. By the time of the Next General election Labour might even be able to run an opposition style camapign in Scotland (as long as we don't fall into the trap of letting the SNP portray us as the big "No").

Another self absorbed look at the media and the internet (part 1)

2007-06-12T14:41:00.000+00:00

The departing, outgoing, soon to be former, retiring, stepping down, Prime Minister made a speech today about the relationship between the media and politics.

The speech is important because Tony Blair is probably the most masterful media operator in contemporary politics, and hearing him question the system he’s won repeated victories by exploiting is pretty important.

It’s like hearing that Pete Sampras wrapped up his final Wimbledon championship with the confession that the reign of the power server had been bad for Tennis.

Blair argues that a combination of fragmented news sources, intense competition and a sharper understanding amongst editors about what readers want to hear fuels a race to the bottom amongst the mass market, and at the same time changes in media structures forces an intensity of coverage amongst the news market competitors that ensures everything is covered in great intensity but little depth.

This combination of disinterest and hyperactivity puts incredible pressures on politicians and journalists alike- leading to ever more cynicism about both politicians and the media.

Thirty years ago, political coverage was decided at a national level by four TV news programmes that everyone watched, a few review programmes with audiences in the 5 million range and about fifty lobby correspondents who wrote the national political stories that everybody read.

Today, there are two 24 hour news channels with tiny audiences. The actual BARB data is here, with Sky News’s top programme last week getting 94,000 viewers. Audience figures like that put it up there with the Broadcasting juggernaut that is UKTV style (+1).

Each of the News channels has three or four political correspondents. I’ve worked on political campaigns, and you would not believe how much time is spent dealing with the 24 hour news channels, despite their statistically insignificant audiences.

You work to their needs because they’ve got the resources to cover everything, and because you know that’s what people are watching in campaign HQ and in newsrooms.

You also work to their needs because their coverage is the access point to the Big TV News shows, the Six and the Ten. These have much bigger audience- between three and 5 million on a daily basis. Then there are about 10 different political shows of varying levels of intellectual self regard, all with audiences in the 1 million and below camp.

These are profoundly irritating programmes, because with the exception of Newsnight and the Sunday morning shows, they’re not big enough to make news but they must be supplied with fodder.

All of these shows audiences have been falling steadily over time. People used to watch the news because they had to. Now they don’t have to.

So what do editors do to try and recover audiences? They find out what audiences want and give it to them. Horrid, isn’t it?

They discover that gossip is interesting, scandal is shocking, disgust is compelling and tragedy makes great viewing. Combine this with the need to keep coverage easy to assimilate because attention spans are low and the need for reporters to convey that they are sharing secrets worth knowing and you have the recipe for the most confrontational and yet oddly empty coverage possible.

This process is not a foolish or an idiotic one, it’s the same reason why Guido Fawkes and his blog of scurrilous tat gets many thousands more readers than any number of worthy emo-blogs like mine.

At the same time as the “national” news agenda becomes ever more ephemeral, the new technologies allow incredibly intensive coverage. We’ve already got 24 hour news. Soon, there will be twenty-four hour politics coverage as bloggers will make their living covering politics. They won’t be traditional journalists, they’ll be people like Iain Dale or Alex Hilton, Mike Smithson or Philip Cowley.

They’ll be insiders, “experts”, people focussed on very particular points of interest- moving easily between covering politics and working in politics. They’ll be totally focussed on inside politics and utterly boring for everyone else

They’ll be desperate for information, will cover inside politics obsessively and will have tiny, tiny audiences- but will break real, important stories that will occasionally go meta.

How do politicians respond to this? When politicians began to be torn apart for gaffes they responded by building a strong public image and stuck to that image. Every appearance had to be controlled, every word measured, every appearnce delivering the message because they knew that mistakes and misteps would be ripped apart by a media interested in scandal and division as much as substance.

Tony Blair was and is the greatest politician in these terms. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make a gaffe, lose his composure or misjudge the media coverage. Name the great Blair gaffes? The only one I can think of is Yo Blair- and that was because Bush had left his microphone on.

To do this day in day out is almost impossible. It requires an iron discipline. If even Tony Blair feels it can’t be maintained, I don’t think anyone can do it.

So what now?

My feeling is that the impact of new media and narrowly focussed media coverage meeting the needs of tiny audiences will be to give us a flowering of gossip in the first instance, as we suddenly get to learn all the embarrassing things we never wanted to know about politicians- which ones are shagging their cousins, which ones enjoy the odd sherbert. Which ones are crossdressers. All that stuff.

Then that ease of access to politicians will make them seem less unapproachable.

Politicians will learn that people don’t care about their private lives. They only care if they seem to be hypocrites.

At the same time that’s happening whole communities will grow up focussed on important policy areas. There will be a move back to policy and content driven by the fact politicians will be able to communicate to 10,000 people who really care about Bank charges, the 5,000 who are concerned by school facilities. The 2,000 who are obsessed by technology issues.

The politicians that are able to string these tiny fragmented coalitions together, not by promising everything, but by actually engaging and gaing credit for understanding, will be the ones who win. They’ll be able to use the insights they gain from in depth understanding to connect with what will be the holy grail of politics, the mass audience.

So meet the next generation of politician.

The one who’s relaxed about their sex life being gossiped about because they know no-one cares really.

The one who builds their career through building in depth relationships with narrowband audiences and who never stops communicating directly with them, who realises that authenticity is the key to trust. (Oh, and who has the resources to spend time building relationships- let's not forget that this means legions of communications staff)

The one who is canny enough to use their knowledge of real issues to connect with what remains of the mass audience.

The one who is able to keep utterly focussed on the concerns of the coalition of voters behind them and knows that by communicating directly to them they can regards the daily ebb and flow of the no longer mass media with rather greater detachment- and therefore is less obsessed by the teeming multitudes in the lobby.

The one who doesn’t try to set up a plastic outer shell to protect their real selves from the media.

Funnily enough, against this standard it’s the media obsessed, soundbite focussed, image manipulating, mass media, political editor courting David Cameron who’s the analogue politician in a digital age.

This is just a test

2007-06-11T13:26:00.001+00:00

So why is Peter Hain kicking off?

2007-06-11T09:28:00.000+00:00

Reports indicate Peter Hain is beginning to swing wild and free at various targets.

Why now? Well, Peter knows his deputy leadership campaign is in trouble. Cruddas from the left and Bann and Johnson from the right are squeezing him to death, while Harman is busy stealing his "radical insider" posture.

On top of that, He's not got a historically strong relationship with Gordon Brown (suggesting taxes should be raised when it's not government policy tends to annoy Chancellors), so without a strong showing in the Deputy Leadership election he could well be toast.

So he's realised he's got nothing left to lose. As Kris Kristofferson correctly noted, that's synonymous with freedom.

Only problem is, it's about six months too late. Cruddas has been saying the same things for six months, and because he's a nobody (surely you mean "unfettered by office" - Ed) hasn't caused a row in doing so.

My prediction? Hain to come next to last and to be joining John Reid on the backbenches, where Hain will be able to rediscover his radicalism in time for another leadership job bid if we lose the next election (which we won't).

Stop it Hertz.

2007-06-08T14:11:00.000+00:00

Last night I watched a soft left intellectual travel round Premiership football training grounds asking wealthy young men to give up a days pay to help “the nurses who are having such a hard time”.

I should have been delighted, I suppose.

Instead my reaction was one of inchoate rage. I frothed. I fumed. I found myself in the sort of mood that leads retired colonels to write letters to the Daily Telegraph.

The set up of the programme was “the Nurses” were having a tough time, with low pay and not enough jobs, and needed more funding. The way to get this extra funding was for Dr Noreena Hertz to get the readies for the nurses from premiership footballers.

In the end, she got various clubs and players, attracted by the possibility of good publicity (and perhaps fearing bad) to donate £750,000 toward a hardship fund.

More importantly, she also got a primetime slot on channel 4, tens of guest appearances on other tv shows and lots of newspaper articles about the process.

Let’s pause for a moment and focus on the prime time TV programme. If Channel 4 had sold the hour of airtime taken up by Dr Hertz’s programme for advertising, she’d have made more money than she did from the footballers.

So let’s not pretend that the money was the point of the exercise.

The money was the hook to get the media coverage. To be fair to Dr Hertz, she seemed to understand that and not try to hide it, being happy to use the footballers as pawns in getting attention for her campaign.

My problem with the programme and with Dr Hertz was not the campaign, but the total refusal of the show to engage with the issues she was campaigning on.

The annual NHS budget in the UK over a hundred thousand million pounds (up over thirty thousand million pounds under Labour, but that’s a different story).

So the money Dr Hertz was trying to raise would be equivalent to one hundred thousandth or 0.00001% of the total yearly NHS budget.

Even the last Nurses pay deal, the one that was so paltry that nurses are threatening to strike over it, and which led Dr Hertz to launch her crusade, is costing the Government £750 million.

Let’s assume that at a minimum, Dr Hertz wants a 6% pay increase for Nurses this year.

That wouldn’t even come close to funding the pay gap closure she wants, but it’s a start. That would requite an additional investment of somewhere in the region of £1.5 billion.

On top of that, Dr Hertz wants to guarantee every Nurse who trains in the UK a job. OK. Let’s say there are 20,000 more nurses training each year than are offered jobs and the average cost of employing them is £25,000. That’s an extra £500 million a year.

Just to start getting close to progress two out Dr Hertz’s five demands would cost two thousand million a year.

So these are huge numbers and this is a big issue.

That’s fine.

It could be the right thing to do. Nurses are important.

The Government has increased investment in the NHS by thirty thousand million over the last ten years, and maybe it’s right that more of that – (say two thousand million?) should go direct to Nurses.

It’s certainly legitimate to use a stunt like raising a million pounds from footballers to highlight some of the big issues around healthcare funding. But they key word is highlight. There are real questions that need to be answered.

For example, given there are more nurses training than we can employ at the moment. Is increasing nurses pay a bigger priority than buying more MRI scanners, or funding local Accident or emergencies? Or should we do all three and increase taxes to pay for it? Or is the overall Tax burden too high?

But Dr Hertz didn’t do that last night.

Instead she allowed herself to be portrayed as an Angel’s angel, the saviour of nurses and gave the impression that the issue of underpaying nurses could be solved easily and without any real cost to anyone, other than footballers and later, “the government”.

That’s not just wrong, it’s delusional. It removes the possibility of intelligent debate because who can say “Stop raising money for the Nurses?”.

It replaces policy debate with crude emotional blackmail. It paints politicians who wrestle with these issues every day in a less positive light than a cartoon thug like Mohammed Al-fayed. (who will avoid all the tax he can, but can’t resist a photo opportunity).

Above all it leaves the boring task of actually persuading people into making a right choice on policy matters far behind, replacing it with the far more attractive prospect of solving problems by emoting on TV.

Is this idiocy new Labour’s fault? Alistair Campbell’s fatherly presence seemed to indicate so. He certainly knows how to get the attention of the media. Yet I can’t quite but feel that New Labour’s fabled mews management has merely been an attempt to catch up with this trend towards the facile and emotive.

Perhaps I’m wrong and it is all our fault, but I don’t think so. In any case I think it’s time politicians stood up to the culture of the easy answer. Al Gore wrote a book about the kind of shoddy political discourse exemplified by Dr Hertz’s programme.

It’s called the assault on reason.

I hope she reads it before launching her next campaign. After all, it just doesn’t do for an intellectual to play a major part in dumbing down political discourse.

I'm Back (again)

2007-06-08T14:02:00.000+00:00

Yeah, peripatetic doesn't even cover it.

Stand by for long, boring screed.

A thousand impossible things on the Breakfast news.

2007-03-08T12:50:00.000+00:00

The reporting on Cash for Honours has been coming thick and fast that it's hard to keep up. So I thought I’d helpfully sum up the stories that have appeared in the national news media so informed observers can see all the reports together, and thus understand the truth.

So here's what our media have been telling us over the last few days. I’ve excluded blogs, because blogs are hysterical, poorly sourced and too quick to write up gossip as fact.

First, Ruth Turner sent an e-mail to Jonathan Powell about cash for honours. Except she didn't send it and it wasn't an e-mail.

The e-mail was leaked either by the Police or by Downing Street or by both. On the other hand, the e-mail wasn't leaked at all as journalists were just told about a spoken summary.

Then the Government got an injunction to stop this being published to protect Lord Levy*, while the Police asked for the injunction in order to protect their investigation.

At the same time the police don't leak and so they have told journalists the direction of their enquiry, which isn't the Turner document at all, but a series of meetings. Or some other documents. Or Levy bullying Turner.

Oh, and the Government have abandoned Lord Levy and are trying to pin the blame on him and so they are publicly backing him.

Still at least the enquiry is almost complete and a breakthrough is imminent or will continue into April, although it will also last well until May.

So that’s all sorted out then.

*No links for this one, but it was the thrust of the initial broadcast media speculation, before the Police made clear they’d asked for the injunction.

Lord Levy, An apology

2007-03-06T18:52:00.000+00:00

Over the last year, we, like other blogs, journalists and ~~online witchhunters~~ citizen journalists have run articles with headlines like "SLEAZY LEVY", "THE LORD OF SLEAZEY SLEAZINESS" "COPS SAY LEVY IS BENT" "COPS TO CART OFF LEVY IN CUFFS", "LETS DO THE PERP WALK AGAIN" and "SLEAZY, SLEAZO LEVY IS SLEAZOID SLEAZE"

These headlines may have given readers the mistaken impression that sources close to the police were informing us that Lord Levy was as guilty as hell and an untrustworthy little shit to boot.

This impression may have been strengthened by ourt constant references to "Police sources", "Sources close to the prosecution", "Top Cops", "Yates of the Yard" and "Scotland yard tecs"

Since Lord Levy has protested that his treatment in the media is defaming him, it has now become clear to us that our sources were in fact Lord Levy, dressed up as a policeman, in a cunning ruse to wreck any prosecution by ruinging any possibility of his prosecution.

He took us in by wearing a police uniform and sayng "Ello, Ello, Ello" a lot.

This only goes to show that Lord Levy is a sleazy little shit, who shouldn't be trusted.

(Oh, I should say since I used to work for the labour party, that, No, I've never met Lord Levy, but I have been in the same room as him. Which means his sleaziness may have infected me, virulent as it is)

I find your suggestions intriguing, Mr Campbell

2007-03-05T13:10:00.000+00:00

Yesterday Ming Campbell opened a door into the thinking in the Lib Dems in his speech to the Lib Dems spring forum and revealed a seething mass of contradictions, bitter infighting and personal rivalry.

Breifings were given, contradicted, withdrawn, re-emphasised. IT all seemed to revolve on whether or not the Liberals still cared about PR.

However, despite the post-speech chaos, what Campbell actually said was pretty interesting.

At one level, Campbell's "five tests" for Gordon Brown were a simple restatement of liberal Policy. End ID cards, Focus on Climate change, Focus on Pensions and Child Poverty, End Council Tax and have a pop at George Bush..

Yet textually there's more to it than that.

Campbell roundly attacks Blair and Cameron, but only questions Brown.

He has one attack on Brown, which is:

"This Chancellor of the Exchequer has had more control over the direction of government policy than any Chancellor in living memory.

This man, who has written the cheques since 1997, has had unparalleled influence within Whitehall.

Why on earth should we believe that Britain will be better governed if he moves from No 11 Downing Street to No. 10?"

but only a few paragraphs before, 3when looking at the New Labour record, he said:

"To be fair, first, on the plus side. Much-needed economic stability brought by independence for the Bank of England – a Liberal Democrat proposal.

"At last, the necessary investment in our public services – a Liberal Democrat priority."

Which answered his own question.

It's impossible not to read Campbell's questions, challenges, tests for Brown and his repeated emphasis on his interest in Governing as an opening for Gordon Brown to respond to, an opening noticeably not left open to David Cameron.

I doubt he'll want to respond just yet, but this debate is only just beginning...

News presenters solve problems of obese child

2007-02-27T11:38:00.000+00:00

24 hour News channel reporters today solved the problems of an obese eight year old, according to reports.

The 14 stone child, who was being mocked at school and was suffering acute psychological problems that drove his compulsive eating has benefitted from havintg his bizarre condition repeatedly discussed by attractive journalists and news presenters.

Presenters as varied as Natasha Kaplinsky, Kay Burley, Anna Jones, Charlotte Hawkins and Jane Hill have made the poor, fat child a national celebrity.

Expert media correspondent Phil Miegob said "If there's one thing this severely emotionally damaged child needs, it's repeated exposure on National and International TV for his freakish and unnatural obesity. "

Hill, Kaplinsky, Burley, Hawkins, Jones and the obese kid they've helped

"I'm particularly glad he'll benefit from the fact that everyone he ever meets will have the image of his enormous quivering boyflesh seared into their retinas. Whoever asked the greasy tub of lard to take off his shirt for an interview so everyone could see exactly how gross he was made an inspired decision that can have nothing but positive consequences.

"Furthermore, the fact that attractive, educated presenters with no medical expertise have speculated on the hour every hour about the causes for his obesity has enlightened parents across the nation, and turned what could have been a simple freakshow into an informed debate on why lardy fat kids are so lardy and fat.

"We now all know that the causes for the freaky fat child's grossly overblown stomach could include eating too much, having crap parents, being a greedy little sod or being a bit mental. That's information we all need to know."

Charlotte Hawkins enjoys sport, in particular skiing and horse-riding. Kay Burley was voted What Satellite TV’s Most Desirable Woman on TV for three consecutive years. Jane Hill is a keen supporter of the arts, particularly theatre, and enjoys food, wine - and going to the gym. Anna Jones is a well known business journalist. Natasha Kaplinsky is a well known dancer and journalist.

Why Labour aren't panicking 2

2007-02-23T13:55:00.000+00:00

Who's afraid of Davey C?

Not the Labour party. Yes, people murmur. He's not done badly. He looks like a normal human being. They've done well on that environment thing. He has a good eye for a soundbite. Good photo-ops too. Wons some people back I shouldn't wonder.

But there's contempt in the analysis too. He's not changed their policies. He's shallow. His message doesn't play in Oglethorpe. The rest of the tory team are crap. "Sharing the procceds of growth" will still mean cuts, while the Tories are busy making spending commitments hand over fist. In the end, these chickens will come home to roost.

By the time of the General election people will have to make a big choice and "not being as bad as Iain Duncan Smith" won't cut it as a reason to vote. People will look at the conservatives and wonder- "and what would you do instead?" The answer to that, so satisfyingly blank today, will be one of the defining features of the next election. Labour think the Tories won't have a good enough answer.

Complancency? i don't think so. Labour know we're in a fight this time. We just think it's a fight we can win.

Guido misses the real story...

2007-02-22T17:41:00.000+00:00

Guido Fawkes exposes the terrible secret cabal at the heart of the Labour party today, in a piece will have the Brownite cult in disarray.

As a former staffer, I can reveal that the truth about the Brownite "party withing a party" is worse than even Guido knows.

Guido seems to think that the Labour party is split down the middle between Brownites and Blairites, with nothing but suspicious glances, vicious counter briefing and whatever between the two.

This is absolutely true, but it is not the whole story.

It's time the truth was told, so today I can exclusively reveal that there's a Brownite secret ceremony too.

To become a fully fledged Brownite you first enter a darkened room, led by the keeper of the Holy Whelan and are blindfolded with a tablecloth from Granita. Before an image of the all-seeing eye of Gordon you swear to abjure the evil lord Lynton and all his works.

If you repeat the oath of eternal loyalty without a flaw, the secret words of power are whispered into your ears. As the cult repeat "Neo-endogenous macro-Economic Growth" again and again in an ever rising pitch, the high priest intones that you are a now a Brownite, and shall take thy orders from the king over the water, and none other.

You are then given a code name. Mine is fiscal framework. Then, eyes blinking, you are expelled into the bright light of day, sworn never to repeat the secrets you have learnt that day. You are told nothing else but to await the day when you will be needed.

At least, that's what I've heard. From my sources.

Oddly, the only people who have ever asked me if I'm a "blairite" or a "brownite" are either journalists or people not involved in the Labour party.

Of course, a few junior people (like me), fall in love with our own self importance and give the impression that we know all the secrets of the labour party, and other people fall for it. There's nothing more fun than nodding knowingly as someone asks you to confirm some piece of gossip. "Ah," you might say "Well, It would be terribly indiscreet of me to comment".

Of course, at a senior level there will be tensions, rivalries and debates, but honestly, some people shouldn't believe everything they read. The boring truth is that Labour party people come in all shapes and sizes. The vast majority of Labour people respect Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, disagree with one, theother or both on certain issues.

You'll be shocked and amazed to learn that people who are close to Gordon Brown are also friendly with people who aren't that close. You'll be horrified to learn that these people drink together, go to meetings and seminars and conferences together. You'll be disgusted to learn that they want to win the next election. Worst of all, you'll find that they agree about most things, and are on the same side. that of progressive politics and social democracy.

Funnily enough, I have this feeling that it's these latter two things that most irritate Guido and his "sources".

Meacher memories...

2007-02-22T11:03:00.000+00:00

Well, Michael Meacher will stand for leader of the Labour party.

I think we should welcome the entry of a man who thinks that both 9/11 and Pearl Harbour were deliberate acts of the US government to allow attacks on their on own people.

"It is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance. There is a possible precedent for this. The US national archives reveal that President Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Some advance warning of the attacks was received, but the information never reached the US fleet. The ensuing national outrage persuaded a reluctant US public to join the second world war."

And let's look back fondly to the days when a Labour minister could be quoted approvingly in militant for the following statement:

"We are at the end of the capitalist road... The economy has moved from one crisis to another. We have tried different remedies... we now have the lowest strike record in Europe, still no solution... we have the lowest unit costs in Europe, still no solution. It’s reckoned with even three million unemployed that there will no solution of the economic problems. It’s not the fault of the working class, it’s the fault of the system.

Talk about campaigning on the Governments record there, Michael (It was the 1974-79 government andMeacher was a trade minister).

Five Reasons why Labour aren't panicking.. Number 1:

2007-02-21T17:05:00.000+00:00

My posts have been getting longer and longer. So here's an attempt to break an argument down into handy bite size pieces.

Labour's polls are poor. Journalist headlines scream disaster. Yet labour MPs seem set on continuing with the same stategy they've had in place for the last five years- replace Blair with Brown and keep with New Labour. Wilful head burrowing? Perhaps, but here are the first of of five reasons why Labour people are keeping their heads about losing their seats.

Number One: It's the economy, stupid.

Why have British Governments lost power? Economic failure. 97 (Black Wednesday and recession), 79 (Winter of Discontent), 74 (Strikes, decline and the three day week), 70 (devaluation), and 1951 (loads of things) all followed economic storms.

Only in 1964 has a government gone into an election claiming that the Economy had done tolerably well and still lost, and even then, there was the unpopular 1961 wage freeze and an increase in unemployment in 1963 which led the government to go for a reflation led boom through 1964- a boom which nearly won them the election but led to a balance of payments crisis after the election.

Compared to that, Labour's economic record has been stunning. ten years of economic growth, low interest rates, low inflation and high employment. Labour's next Prime Minister is the Chancellor that delivered all that. Surely, Labour people calculate, a general election will focus minds on what really matters- their jobs, their mortgages and their lifestyle. Who will they trust with that economy- the leader 0f the first British government since the war to never suffer a recession, or a shiny faced PR man?

Cameron and the politics of the semi-intelligensia

2007-02-19T16:13:00.000+00:00

A few days ago I wrote that David Cameron's problem was not that he had smoked cannabis as a teenager but his privileged upbringing, and that this priviege and comfort led to a fundamental weakness at the core of the "new Conservative" project: an obsession with the wrong issues and the wrong people.

The new Tory analysis seems to be this: At the end of the Major years it became socially unacceptable in "nice" circles to admit to being a Conservative. A combination of grasping materialism, economic incompetence, political maladroitness, unfasionable and unpleasant socially conservative morality and a seeming monomania on Europe all combined to contaminate the Tory brand. A swathe of prosperous, degree-educated, home-owning, share-owning people deserted the Conservatives and never returned. The purpose of New Conservatism is to bring those people back.

So let's look at what Cameron's focus has been on, and what it reveals about what he believes are the main concerns of the people.

First, Cameron has avaided any significant statements on the big issues. The Economy, Healthcare, Education policy have all been consigned a a box marked "We agree with the Government where it's doing the right thing but reserve the right to criticise it". This leads to a degree of creative ambiguity.

The new Tories know that they should be for fiscal stability, but at the same time they should be for freeing the taxpayer from the burden of Tax. So they support doing both at the same time.

On Housing the New Tories are for more liberal planning laws while being against more housing. They are for spending more money on social housing and at the same time in favour of opening private social housing to right to buy.

On The NHS, they know they should support the NHS, but they want to critique it's ineffiency. So they say the NHS is broken _and_ they say they won't change anything.
So Cameron attacks the government for wasting money and demands that hospitals stay open, then he says he won't carry out any more reforms and that local surgical decisions must be respected. He decries targets, then says he'll impose his own.

This is the famed _and_ theory of conservatism. So why is it so irrational?

These incoherent policies are not evidence of stupidity, but rather represent a party trying to work its way toward a new definition of acceptable conservatism in order to appeal to what they see as a crucial group of voters. The incoherence is an acceptable price to pay for gettign their support.

I believe the Conservatives have decided they need the support of people who pay lip service to caring about the big political issues, but _actually_ care about other issues.

They need the support of people who _say_ they care about tax and the NHS and Schools, but since they have a decent income, kids at good schools and either good healthcare or private medical insurance, _actually_ care about their own tax burden, the quality of their food, the sexualistion of their children, the price of petrol, the cost of paying for their child's deposit.

So the Tories pay lip service to policy development on the traditional policy agenda, but the real emphasis in policy and political strategy lies elsewhere.

Let's take a few examples of the policies that David Cameron has staked a firm position on, where he want's the political agenda to be.

He's staked a firm position on unhealthy food for children. He's made sure eveyone knows he's against chocolate oranges,

He's made it clear he is for windmills, cycling, "the environment" and against global warming.

He's set out a strong position on slow food, organic farming and against air miles.

He's worried by big business but not if they show good social responsibility.

He's made it clear against revealing clothing for children and in favour of tax relief for married couples. He's made it clear he's in favour of civil unions, for the family unit and supportive of parental authority.

He's made it clear he's no Neo-Conservative. He's used the word liberal approvingly.

All these positions say something interesting about David Cameron, but say nothing meaningful in terms of political action. They fulfil one crucial function, which is to put David Cameron firmly on the right side of the sort of issues that are discussed at dinner parties up and down the nation. They address the concerns of educated, professional homeowners.

I call this group the semi-intelligensia. You know the type. Univesity educated. Working in a professional job. Weekends that feature a quality newspaper. Home owners. Possible hoping to inherit half of their parent's house, which will help them pay off their enormous mortgage. Two holidays a year. They have broadband and they don't use it to watch porn.

It's no suprise therefore that this strategy has got a good press - after all the UK media is made up almsot exclusively by members of this group. They earn good money, have a reasonable lifestyle and tend to be even more well off because they are disproportionately dual income households. Those in the media who have not warmed to cameron tend to be those who don't come from this background, and therein lies the problem.

The trouble is that this narrow audience is precisely the wrong target audience for the Conservatives. The people who are secure, well fed, well-educated, content with their economic status and therefore primarily concerned with lifestyle issues as their primary political focus are far fewer than you might think, coming from a background of univerwsity educated, professional comfort (you are reading blogs, I feel confident in my bet).

To put it another wayy there simply aren't that many "people like us". There are far more people who are striving for economic security, concerned about schooling, worried about the NHS, and desperate to materially improve their lives. These people are not happy, or content and they are not interested in lifestyle politics. The conservatives simply aren't talking to these people in the way Wilson or Thatcher or
Major or Blair did.

It is perhaps fitting that the Conservative party has been fooled by ten years of Labour prosperity and comfort into believing that everyone is prosperous, educated and comfortable. They aren't, and a political stragy based on a fundamentally incorrect assumption like that, will sooner or later hit a very large bump.

(this post is a work in progress- it may well be edited for sense, argument and flow)

Hello Beeb people...

2007-02-19T13:47:00.000+00:00

I've just checked my sitemeter numbers and intrigued to see that almost a quarter of my reads come from BBC addresses.

So, BBC types, please say hello, and do let me know how you found this site, whether you like it and what's crap about it.

(More substantial post to follow later, by the way.)