Jim Hancock

THE ECONOMIC ELEPHANT AND VOTER BRIBES

Each party conference was marked by a headline catching bribe for the voters. Nick Clegg’s was child care. George Osborne made an unfunded promise to freeze fuel duty and most tempting of all Ed Miliband went to war with the gas and electricity companies.

But we shouldn’t be distracted by these give-aways. We need to remember what the Chancellor said about the economy. The battle to turn it round was “not even close to being over.” So the downward pressure on public sector spending would continue. Within a day the Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson was warning that within two years the city would only be able to run mandatory services. Other councils across the North privately fear the same thing.

I have attended a dozen fringe meetings in Glasgow, Brighton and Manchester over the last three weeks. The one that made the deepest impression on me was one addressed by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Here are some of the startling observations he made. It will be 2030 before we get debt levels back to where they were in 2008. By next year we will only be half way to budget balance. Total spending is not falling. In the past we have been used to two years of cuts, soon we will have had eight.

People at the fringe meeting called for party conferences to conduct fundamental debates about public sector pay, tax levels and the funding of health and schools and not to be occasions for a Dutch auction of promises about relatively small amounts of money. Some hope.

With the exception of the Lib Dems, party conferences are a showcase for Ministers and Shadow Ministers and an opportunity for lobbyists and journalists to get out of London for a few weeks. It was particularly noticeable in Manchester how the Tory grass root members have been marginalised. That may explain their enthusiasm for the meeting in Manchester Town Hall addressed by Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader.

So where has the conference season left us? Ed Miliband is strengthened by his promise to freeze gas and electricity prices. People understand the concept and it chimes with his campaign on squeezed living standards.

Nick Clegg has got his party used to its role in government. No more jokes about sandals and beards. The party now favours fracking, nuclear power and austerity. Vince Cable is a somewhat diminished figure.

Blue water has opened up for the Conservatives. Choosing the conference slogan “For Hard working People” Cameron staked out his position and with Ed Miliband moving to the left, we might have an old fashioned election battle.

TORY CONFERENCE GOSSIP.

Tory councillors from Lancashire and West Cheshire at the conference were distracted by noises off. GEOFF DRIVER, leader of the Conservatives at County Hall narrowly avoided a no confidence vote by his own group just after conference. Meanwhile MIKE JONES leadership of West Cheshire and Chester Council is hanging in the balance. Councillors of all parties last night rejected plans for a major student village development on the outskirts of Chester. Although councillors made their decision on planning grounds the issue has deeply divided the ruling Conservative group. More on both these issues on my blog next week.

UKIP are expected to get at least two MEPs in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber next May, so top slot on the party list is more important than ever. Merseyside based MEP JACKIE FOSTER has topped the poll among Conservative North West members, with SAJ KARIM MEP in second place. The Tories will have a real battle on with UKIP to get a third MEP but that would be Penrith farmer Kevin Beattie.

Tories in Hazel Grove are talking up their chances because, as forecast here recently, ANDREW STUNELL confirmed he would be standing down as Lib Dem MP. Will the new candidate, local woman Lisa Smart, be able to prevent the seat returning to the Tories after two decades?

And finally the Mayor of Oldham JOHN HUDSON (Tory Saddleworth South) says he’s not dismayed to lose high flying Chief Executive CHARLIE PARKER to Westminster Council. Parker is credited with turning the council around. Hudson believes they will get some good applicants on the back of that.

TORIES CAN BE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS

I never expected to say this after Eric Pickles destroyed our regional development agencies, but the party has a chance next week to position itself as the defender of the North.

The private consensus in Brighton was that Ed Balls was preparing us for a Labour government to scupper HS2. His remarks, and those of other party spokesman after his speech on Monday, went beyond legitimate worries over escalating costs. Balls has got his eyes on the £50bn projected cost of HS2 for other projects. The problem is that in practice that money has been assembled for this scheme and would not automatically be available for health or schools.

How depressingly familiar all this is. I thought the Olympics marked an end of timid party squabbling Britain unable to take the big decisions at the right time. In fact we are late with this scheme. The West Coast main line is already over capacity south of Rugby. That’s why places like Blackpool are denied a direct service. North of Rugby HS2 would connect our great northern cities like Leeds and Manchester and crucially allow the existing rail network to improve the service to towns and cities not directly on the HS2 line.

There are broadly three groups opposed to HS2. There are the small but vocal number of people directly affected by the line who’s homes are already blighted. We must sympathise with them and compensate them very generously. I know how it feels. My home was demolished for a roundabout in the 1960s.

There is the London lobby already campaigning for Crossrail 2 oblivious to the historic scandalous imbalance in transport investment between the capital and the rest of the country.

And now we have elements of the Labour Party and others who want to spend the money elsewhere. Their argument ignores the point I made above that £50bn won’t be available to be transferred, and it fails to answer the question of what will happen when we are trying to use a Victorian railway two hundred years after it was built.

So in Manchester next week I would suggest the Tories seize the initiative. They will be meeting in a building that symbolises the need to move on when it comes to rail investment. Manchester Central station closed in 1969 and is now their conference centre. The government are investing in the Northern Hub, the Ordsall Chord, and electrifying the Liverpool to Manchester line to dramatically improve services on the existing network across the North.

The Transport Secretary Patrick Mcloughlin should burnish his credentials as a former miner and claim that it is the Tories who have the best interests of the North at heart in backing HS2. They certainly need some arguments after Labour’s conference in Brighton.

RED ED.

I asked last week for some distinctive policies for Labour to campaign on and to be fair we got some. The promise to scrap the bedroom tax and the energy price freeze are the best indications yet of how different an Ed led party is from how his brother would have run things.

These are concrete proposals with a definite left wing thrust. The more the energy companies squeal the more will people identify with Ed. The claim that, in response to world market forces, energy prices go up like a rocket and down like a feather rings true with hard pressed families in the North.

The question is how broad this appeal will be? Are there enough struggling voters in the South to join Ed’s crusade or will they be frightened off as they were when Neil Kinnock was in charge?

TIME TO NEIGH MR ED!

LABOUR IN BRIGHTON

Why should I let Labour back so soon? That’s the question floating voters will expect an answer to from Brighton next week. We need exciting policies that really differentiates Labour from the Coalition. Perhaps its time for a bit of socialism. For instance take the bedroom tax or spare room supplement. Labour rail against it, there’s a shortage of smaller houses for the folk affected to go to. So will they promise to scrap it….no.

I don’t think we will be inspired by Brighton. Mr Ed is reported to be frightened of disclosing his hand too soon or of having policy ideas blow up in his face. The problem is that people are beginning to make their minds up about the next election. Some have already concluded that Mr Ed is a bit odd, betrayed his brother or the memory of the last Labour government is too green.

Then there is the modest upturn in the economy. That presents a problem for Labour. The Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls is now being depicted as a prophet of doom who’s been proved wrong and Coalition Ministers are saying there has been gain from the pain. The answer to this in Brighton will be that despite the upturn people are still getting worse off because inflation is ahead of wage rises. Who will win this argument?

It’s not all gloom for Mr Ed. Arguably he helped create the breathing space for an alternative solution to air strikes in relation to Syria’s chemical weapons Also I don’t expect the conference to be derailed by a row with the unions. Mr Ed is on to something in wanting real Labour supporters involved in the party rather than being token ones on union membership lists. Whatever the merits of the issue, a floor fight was averted at the TUC and it surely will be in Brighton.

FREE SCOTLAND.

I’ve been north of the border this week and have got the full force of the Scottish independence debate. With a year to go until this decision is made I went to the old fruit market in Glasgow where my old Radio Manchester colleague Victoria Derbyshire was conducting a debate. She had supporters of both sides and a large number of people undecided because in their heart they want to be free but fear cutting ties with England might hit their living standards.

In the debate broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live, passions were highest amongst those wanting independence and their indignation about being ruled by Conservatives at Westminster when they are virtually non existent in Scotland was a major cause.

STRAIN ON THE CABLE.

The Business Secretary Vince Cable got a taste for the spotlight when he did that Strictly cameo in 2010. He spent the whole of last week in Glasgow drawing attention to himself. He was going to stay out of the economic debate, then he arrived surrounded by cameras. Then he was rude about the Tories to the consternation of the right of his party, and he finished up saying the Coalition might collapse before the election.

Anyway my time in the Scottish capital was not wasted, so here’s the gossip.

I heard a rumour that the LIVERPOOL ARENA has extracted generous compensation from the Lib Dems following the party’s decision to pull out of their planned conference in the city next autumn because of a clash with the Scottish Referendum…….opinion is divided on whether North West MEP CHRIS DAVIES can hold his seat against the UKIP onslaught in next May’s European elections……HAZEL GROVE Lib Dems are warning party HQ not to interfere if Sir Andrew Stunell stands down and they have to choose a new candidate…..and CLLR BILL WINLOW is enjoying his role as Scrutiny supremo at Lancashire County Council. The Lib Dems are supporting the minority Labour administration and according to Bill he gets first sight of most of the policy ideas.

Now let’s see if Brighton rocks!

ARE WE AT THE END OF OUR TEATHER WITH LIB DEMS?

Last year in a Scottish local council ward a penguin got more votes than the Liberal Democrat candidate.

Actually it was an independent dressed in a penguin suit, nevertheless across the country they lost 74 councillors in elections that mirrored their performance in recent polls across the north of England.

Whether the site of sassanach Lib Dems heading for Glasgow this weekend for their party conference will appease the Tartan Army of Scottish voters remains to be seen.

The decision of the “catastrophically depressed” Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather to quit at the next election might be dismissed as a fit of pique by a sacked minister, but her declared reasons for going bear some examination. This is because they address the major problems Lib Dems have had in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester since the coalition was formed.

Before 2010 the party managed to be an organisation that disaffected Tories could vote for in the South while fed up Labour voters could switch to the Lib Dems on the basis that they were sort of on the left and were reasonably progressive.

Now in office the Lib Dems have been tainted in many of their ex supporters eyes by the difficult decisions of government. It will ultimately be a decision for the whole electorate in 2015 whether the pupil premium, lifting the poorest out of income tax and other Lib Dem backed measures will be enough to save them from electoral oblivion, but Teather has highlighted some problems they will face in getting a reasonable vote in the North and Scotland.

Her central charge is that Nick Clegg’s party no longer fights hard enough on issues like social justice and immigration. She cites Lib Dem support for a cap on welfare, a £1000 visa charge plan for immigrants and the government’s vans touring London urging illegal immigrants to “go home or face arrest.”

A large number of Lib Dems are deeply worried about association with the Conservatives but feel it is a price worth paying to have some influence in office. However one has the impression that there is a faction who have enjoyed their time in office and are quite happy with the party moving right.

The Lib Dem conference is by far and away the most democratic of the three gatherings we shall witness this autumn. It remains a place where real policy is made but there is nothing on the agenda about the strategy for the crucial period coming up for the party.

Do they stick with the coalition till the end? What will they do if the Tories emerge as the largest party in 2015?

There will be plenty of talk about this in the bars of Glasgow but on the conference floor the theme will be the creation of jobs. The Lib Dems say a million have been created since 2010 and they want a million more. They want to double the number of businesses and train the apprentices for them. They will be debating an end to Britain’s four boat Trident nuclear submarine fleet and only want an in/out EU referendum if more powers are planned to be devolved to Brussels.

Good progressive stuff but the hand of the party’s right can be seen in the resolution on whether to restore the 50% tax rate for those earning £150,000. Conference can vote to endorse George Osborne’s cut to 45% or go back to 50% only if a review indicates that the tax take would exceed the cost of its introduction.

The improving economy is strengthening the position of right wing Lib Dems who would feel quite comfortable with another deal with the Tories, but that approach will be hard to sell in working class areas of the North.