Category: Labour Party

POWERHOUSE SAVED BY TORY CONFERENCE

 

OFF THE RAILS.

After the shameful “pause” in electrifying the Leeds-Manchester rail link, we now have the shamefaced about turn.

In June when the “pause” was announced, I described it as one of the most disgraceful decisions ever made because it undermined the Northern Powerhouse based on connectivity, it undermined companies’ procurement plans and finally politicians must have known before the election about the crisis in Network Rail that caused the decision to be taken.

Be in no doubt that the decision to reinstate the electrification is directly related to the fact that the Conservatives are in Manchester this weekend for their annual conference. The Chancellor George Osborne will want Ministers to make frequent references to the Northern Powerhouse. He didn’t want critics asking how meaningful the concept could be without better rail links between the two principal cities of the Powerhouse.

Two independent enquiries had been set up after the “pause” was announced. The hapless Transport Secretary Patrick McLaughlin told us no decisions would be taken until they reported. But George Osborne, who I understand wasn’t fully in the loop on the “pause” decision, can’t wait for the enquiries and has ordered the go-ahead to be given.

All this faffing around comes at a price. It has delayed the project by three years so passengers can carry on standing until 2022.

DEVO DEALS.

I understand the Tory conference may also be used for announcements about devolution deals for Sheffield and the North East where agreement has been reached on elected mayors. The latter will be small consolation to the steel workers of Redcar.

JEREMY’S FINGER ON THE BUTTON.

At least the Tories are in power, Labour look a long way from it. That’s my conclusion after spending some sun drenched days in Brighton. The moon turned red but I fear that was more a sign of the Gods’ displeasure than a happy omen for socialism.

Much of the press coverage of the new Labour leader is over the top. Jeremy Corbyn has revitalised his party, he has caught the mood of public disillusionment with speak your weight politicians and some of his policies (housing and rail) have considerable merit.

But the Trident row has immediately highlighted the inherent instability of his leadership. In all honesty who really thought Prime Minister Corbyn would authorise the use of nuclear weapons? But by definitively saying he wouldn’t he has fatally undermined his chances of victory in 2020.

Most of the Shadow Cabinet criticised him as did the big unions whose members are employed in the nuclear industry. But most seriously Corbyn says repeatedly he wants the party to be more democratic. They voted, against his wishes, not to discuss changing the multilateral disarmament policy at the conference. Instead a defence review is under way when the issue of Britain, under a Labour government, becoming unilateralist would be discussed.

But what is the point of Maria Eagle, the Shadow Defence Secretary and Garston MP beavering away on her review when the would be Prime Minister has already told our potential adversaries that he will blink first?

Perhaps the truth is that Jeremy Corbyn is determined to shake up the Labour Party, give it back its socialist principles and then hand over to someone more electable in a few years time.

 

FREE DEBATE AT LABOUR CONFERENCE?

 

30 YEARS AGO……

Exactly thirty years ago Neil Kinnock launched his famous attack on Liverpool’s Militant Tendency at the party conference. His reference to taxis being hired by a Labour council to take redundancy notices to the city’s council staff has become legendary or infamous depending on your point of view. The speech marked the beginning of a necessary purge of Trotskyist infiltration. It also marked the last time the Labour conference was a showcase for disunity.

For over a decade the Labour conference had laid bare its divisions for the TV audience to see. That had to be stopped. However over the years, and particularly after Tony Blair’s public relations team took over in 1994, all dissent was marginalised. Real debate was discouraged and policy was formed in the National Policy Forum which was firmly in the grip of the leadership. It was an overreaction to the mayhem of 1975-85.

So what’s going to happen this weekend now that the party is lead by Jeremy Corbyn, the arch dissenter. He wants real debate in a democratically run party. Let’s hope we get it. The public might respond well. They seem to have liked his style at Prime Minister’s Questions. On the other hand a demonstration of total policy incoherence might turn them away. That was what worried the party managers under Kinnock, Blair, Brown and Ed Miliband.

I am certainly looking forward to my second visit to the south coast to see the rebel of thirty years standing now in charge. Some are speculating this will be his only conference as leader, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Over the next few months leading up to important elections next May, Corbyn has the ability to rally different sections of the electorate to his new way of doing politics. There are many Scots who deserted the party out of frustration with austerity rather than any desire for independence. If they come back in numbers in the Scottish Parliament elections, Corbyn’s critics will be muted. Then there are Green supporters impressed by his environmental policies and general radicalism. But the largest group of all are the young, the poor, people disillusioned with politics or who have never engaged. Some were mobilised by the Corbyn campaign. Will they stay around? Will others join them? Will they watch the coverage of a party conference for the first time?

LIB DEMS AND CORBYN.

Whilst Scots, Greens and radicals might rally to Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats were hoping this week that they could occupy, what they saw as, the huge gap opening up in the middle of politics. Although at one fringe meeting after another I heard speakers saying they weren’t in the centre, they were Liberals they nevertheless believe the Tories have swung right because they are no longer in Coalition with them. With Corbyn off to the left, they see an opportunity. What they must avoid is opening the door too easily to defecting Labour MPs. They mostly won’t be true Liberals, just careerists trying to save their seats.

If Labour’s conference in Brighton is going to return to real debate, it is only fair to point out that the Lib Dems have always maintained that tradition. The debate last Monday on the Trident nuclear weapons system was open and excellent.

Perhaps the Conservatives will try it in Manchester next month but don’t hold your breath.

 

FARRON IS WAITING FOR LABOUR DEFECTORS.

LESSONS OF HISTORY

Last time Labour elected a hard left leader in 1980, it was a matter of months before senior figures in the party broke away and formed the Social Democrats under the leadership of Roy Jenkins.

It initiated a very difficult period for the then Liberal Party, particularly when the SDP leader became David Owen. A more arrogant man than the emollient Woy (sic) Jenkins, the TV puppet satire show Spitting Image had little David Steel in Owen’s jacket pocket.

There were rows over which of these two centrist parties should fight which parliamentary seat in the 1983 and 1987 General Elections, after which difficult merger talks took place with much agonising over what was social democracy and what was Liberalism. It left the first leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, with what he describes as an asterisk in the opinion polls where the percentage supporting the new party should be.

Why am I boring you with this political history lesson? Because the chances are growing of Jeremy Corbyn actually winning the Labour leadership. Downtown’s Managing Director, Frank McKenna, argues powerfully in his blog this week that the party should be following the advice of Tony Blair to shy away from a left wing course. It may be good advice but should Blair have said it? Frank rightly points to Blair’s recipe for election success but also acknowledges that he is seen as a war criminal by some in his party. I’m afraid he is, and there is a danger that his intervention may strengthen Corbyn’s position not weaken it.

This is another reason why Blair is toxic to many activists. His time as party leader saw a huge centralisation of the party’s internal structure. Party conferences became rallies not occasions for real debate. Regional party officials, who had been a valuable source of authority with the ability to feed back to London what was going on, were neutered. Parliamentary selections were hijacked to put in Blair’s favourites, Ex Tory Shaun Woodward in St Helens being the most blatant. Part of what Corbyn is about is a demand from the foot soldiers to get their party back.

So if Corbyn should win will the newly elected leader of the Lib Dems, Tim Farron, present an appealing alternative for Labour moderates who conclude that their party is out of office for the foreseeable future?

And what will Tim Farron say to them? He should probably welcome them in. He shouldn’t tell them to form a separate SDP Mark Two party. The reasoning in 1981 was that a new party would make more of an impact than just admitting Labour defectors to the Liberals. But as I’ve illustrated above, it led to years of wrangles in the centre of politics while Margaret Thatcher kept getting re-elected.

Farron was the right choice for the Lib Dems in their parlous state. He got over 50% of the vote in his Cumbria seat in May and knows how to campaign from the bottom up. Grandees like Paddy Ashdown and Vince Cable might sneer at his judgement but at least Farron has a chance of being heard. If the other contender, Norman Lamb, had won, opponents would have felt they were being attacked by a dead sheep.

LABOUR KEEP DIGGING THEIR HOLE.

 

 

LEADERSHIP DISTRACTIONS.

I wonder if anyone in the Labour Party or UKIP has noticed there’s a Queen’s Speech on Wednesday. They are both so busy tearing lumps out of themselves that they will have little time to critique the legislation being proposed by the first all Conservative government in 18 years.

We can expect a hefty programme of legislation if the pattern of the last parliament is anything to go by. The Coalition put through most of its major legislation in the first two years leaving us with a zombie parliament in 2014-15. So we can expect bills on important things like a British Bill of Rights and the right to buy housing association properties. Then there is the Budget in July with the prospect of swingeing cuts in welfare. All this needs the attention of the Labour Party otherwise the Scot Nats will do it for them.

The other danger in Labour taking its eye off the ball is a repeat of what happened in the summer of 2010. While Labour was distracted electing Ed Miliband as leader, the Tories were discovering notes left by outgoing Ministers saying there was no money left and blamed Labour for the financial crisis. It was a charge that stuck right through from 2010 till this May.

UKIP is engaged in an even more damaging internal conflict. Having confirmed Nigel Farage as leader, they have now sacked two of the people who were capable of softening their image as a pack of old lads yearning for Britain as it was in the fifties. Economic spokesman Patrick O’Flynn and particularly policy chief Suzanne Evans provided an alternative to the brash Farage. They were never filmed in pubs but now they are gone from the leadership circle.

NEW FACES.

Last week the Gorton MP Sir Gerald Kaufman briefly took the chair as the new House of Commons met. He is Father of the House because he signed the member’s book in the House of Commons just ahead of Oldham West’s Michael Meacher in 1970. His job was preside over the re-election of John Bercow as Speaker, so not too onerous a task. This is just as well because the MP for Gorton is 84 and will be touching 90 when the next election comes.

But let’s move on from yesterday’s man to the 15 new faces from the north who will be attending their first Queen’s Speech on Wednesday.

A number of prominent councillors have taken the Westminster Way. Kate Hollern, the former leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council is the new MP for Jack Straw’s old seat. Will she enjoy as long a tenure as her predecessors Mr Straw and Barbara Castle who between them represented the town since 1945.

Peter Dowd, the leader of Sefton Council has taken over from the veteran Joe Benton in Bootle whilst Julie Cooper the leader of Burnley Council ousted the Lib Dem Gordon Birtwistle to represent the East Lancashire town.

Justin Madders who led the Labour group on Cheshire West and Chester Council is the new MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston whilst senior Manchester councillor Jeff Smith has made the Labour takeover of Manchester complete by taking Withington from the Lib Dems.

Other new Labour faces include Angela Raynor in Ashton and Rebecca Long-Bailey who succeeded the colourful Hazel Blears in Salford. Then we have the three new Labour MPs who helped to temper a bad night for the party by ousting Tories. They are Margaret Greenwood, Esther McVey’s nemesis in Wirral West and Chris Matheson in Chester. Finally keep an eye on Cat Smith the new MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood. Her early pronouncements indicate she is from the hard left wanting nothing to do with austerity cuts.

Our five new Conservative MPs divided their victories over Lib Dem and Labour incumbents. The most spectacular scalp went to Andrea Jenkyns who defeated Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls in the Leeds suburb seat of Morley and Outwood whilst Chris Green took Bolton West from Labour. The delightfully named Antoinette Sandbach has replaced Stephen O’Brien as the Tory MP for Eddisbury. Sadly the town of Sandbach is in the neighbouring seat of Congleton.

The long Liberal presence in south east Greater Manchester is over with William Wragg becoming the first Tory MP since Tom Arnold in Hazel Grove whilst Mary Robinson took neighbouring Cheadle.