Ministerial Conduct.

Vince the man with the Plan

Whatever you may feel about the issue at hand (Murdoch’s takeover of Sky) it is clearly entirely inappropriate for a Minister to be prejudging such an important decision. For Cable (or any minister) to talk in terms of a “war” on a particular company; when said minister has to have a semi judicial role in a process is profoundly undemocratic; and it raises serious questions about due process. Put simply if you have any sort of judicial role you *have* to put your personal prejudices aside and be impartial.

Imagine if this was the “Hulture” secretary prior to a publication of an independent review on the future of the BBC saying he had “declared war on the BBC and public sector broadcasting, I think we will win the licence fee is going” then I for one would be furious and up in arms. Clearly there will come a point when ministers and government would have to make a political judgement; but Vince Cable was not in that place yet.

Further to talk so frankly, and candidly with total strangers about ministerial business (rather than constituency issues) does display a shocking lack of judgement from one of the most senior members of the cabinet.

I think if any minister in the last Government had done this, any Tory in the current government, or even most of the Liberal Democrats (that don’t need to be there for the sake of party unity) then the outcome would have been dismissal. Vince Cable is a lucky man to still be in a job if you ask me.

The Undercover Sting.

One thing I must say I am profoundly uncomfortable about was the nature of the sting. As far as I can see the reporters in question had no real indication of what they might get and were just on a “fishing expedition” to see what they could get.

Now I don’t have a problem with doing this in principle but I do think worry about the venue. I think there is a general problem of “trust” in politics, almost everyone would like politicians to be more candid with electors. I rather think that the privacy of MPs surgeries ought to be respected by the media. If an MP does not feel comfortable talking to constituents frankly, then this will make it much harder to voters to interact with their MPs. The last thing we want is for MPs, even in private with constituents, watching every word that they say and giving “politician” answers. David Allen Green has an interesting take on many of the issues on his blog at the Staggers.

Sunder at Next Left has a different take on this, in which he explains that he thinks there is a legitimate public interest in hearing what the Liberal Democrat ministers have to say about the government in private that is well worth a read.

Murdoch Empire.

Soon to be supreme leader of UK

As I write this it has appeared on twitter that the Hulture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has stated that in his opinion as News International already effectively have a controlling stake in BSkyB then the ownership change makes little difference.

I would beg to differ, there is a massive imbalance in the UK media market. News International is already quite dominant in the UK newspaper market. Were they to control 100% of Sky (with revenues double that of the BBC licence fee) then this would give them a dangerously strong hold on the UK media market.

Further so much of our media having such concentrated ownership is by nature anti-competitive. There is little regulation of either the press media or cable TV. In my view it could be very dangerous for our democracy if there are not better checks and balances. There is a good take at Left Foot Forward on this here.

My biggest worry on this is that even if the Tories wanted to try and clip Murdoch’s wings (and lets be honest as fan boys they surely don’t) then this scandal will make it politically difficult for them to not give him what he wants.

So in reality I think Vince Cable was right about the need to do something about Murdoch, but he used the wrong avenue to try to achieve this.

Liberal Democrats further diminished.

Talking of clipped wings it is really striking the degree to which the Lid Dems have been utterly outclassed by the Tories. Whatever you think of the Politics of Osborne and Cameron I can’t help thinking that you have to admire they way they have handled and marginalised their coalition “partners”.

They have managed to make the Libs there human shields, escaping blame whilst Clegg et al take all the ire for Tory policies (And man the Left really has to wake up on this, really focus on the Tories….), and the Libs are now effectively locked into a death embrace.

Further with Huhne in an important (but marginalised) role, and Cable now diminished the Left of the Libs is now even further marginalised.  It is surely only a matter of time before David Laws is bought back. I am struggling to think of a single thing the Government have done, not in the coalition agreement, that the Tories would not have done if in power solely.

1. First up would be the state of the Labour Party finances. At the 2010 general election Labour were in a large part hamstrung by the state of their finances. There was simply no ability to compete with the millions poured into the general election campaign by Lord Ashcroft.

   Subsequent to the general election Labour’s financial position is even worse, there is no realistic possibility of Labour at this juncture being able to finance a rigorous general election campaign; this leaves the somewhat unsettling possibility of short-term timing actually benefiting the Tories rather than the left.

   There is little value in bringing down the government if we do not have some sort of confidence that it will bring forward a better one. If the left is completely unable to fight a general election and have prospects of victory because we simply do not have the money; then the time is not right to force the end of the coalition.

2. Next the Labour Party has not yet had sufficient internal debate about the reasons why we lost, the election, the battle of ideas and its activist base. I have previously blogged about how I definitely felt the Labour party have lost its way, I found it more difficult to vote Labour at the 2010 general election than I ever have done before.

   On a range of issues, from the Iraq war, to Civil Liberties, taxation policy, the Private Finance initiative, trade union legislation and how the party deals with internal democracy.

   Until such a time as the Labour Party has elected a new leader, and had its important internal philosophical discussions about what kind of party it wishes to be; then I think it is very unlikely that the Labour Party will be in a position to win a general election.

   After 1997 the Tories spent a long long time believing all they needed was one big push of more of the same to come back into power. The Labour Party has to learn the lessons of this, for the left to win we need to understand the reasons why we lost, we need to understand how we can start winning again, we need to regain a sense of the mission and purpose in the values of the party and the movement. I don’t believe the Labour Party is yet in that place.

3. Now we move on to the issue of cuts, the economy and the budget deficit. I think it’s quite easy to the left at this juncture to engage in some collective amnesia, to either forget, or pretend to the contrary, that the Labour Party had every intention of making cuts had they won a fourth term of office.

   We have to be absolutely clear that the balance of how the deficit would have been arrested within very different under a Labour government. The pace at which this happens, the balance between increased taxation and cutting spending, and where increased taxation will fall and on what gets cut, would all have been very different.
   
   

   But despite all of that cuts would have been coming. The wider left, trade unionists et al, would no doubt have been very unhappy at many of the fiscal policies that a fourth term Labour government would have engaged in. It would have absolutely been better if this had happened, no matter how unpopular this made the party, because we would not have the almost class warfare the coalition has waged on the poor.
   
   But given that the last election was lost a silver lining surely has to be the way in which right will be tarnished and tainted by the fact that it is they who have been carrying out the cuts.
   
   Further if, as is seeming increasingly likely; bad economic calls by the Tories push us into a double dip recession, or a least a slower and more sluggish recovery. Then this has to help the left as and when a general election comes naturally.
   
   

4. Lastly, and most importantly the polls. The reality is that at the moment the poll information does nothing to suggest that the Labour Party are likely to be able to imminently win a general election. In fact looking than most of the polls the likelihood is that quick an early general election would probably result in a Conservative majority.
   
   Things are close, and I am not Nostradamus, and we all remember from 1992 how badly wrong in the polls can get it. But is it generally received wisdom that the opposition need to have a healthy poll lead going into a general election. As the left does not have this I think this is the strongest argument for why the coalition hanging together, at least for the time being, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
   
   

Almost certainly a degree of clutching at straws here from me, I don’t want the ConDemNation in power, I really wish that they would go away and us have something better in place. Every time it looks like there is going to be a close division, where the government might lose an embarrassing vote, I am obviously going to be cheering for that to happen. All the same it does in hurt to think with your head and not your heart about these things.

Much of this debate focussed on the need to attack the coalition to try and bring it down as quickly as possible. Now I cant say that this would be anything other than a hot damn good thang! But I feel the need to write a couple of quick blogs about firstly how likely I think this is later how desirable it would be right now….

So first of all a “few reasons why I think the coalition will last”.

1. The Liberal Democrats simply cannot afford to be in a general election any time soon. With poll rating around 13-15% at the moment the Liberals could face being wiped out if an election was called in the near future. Whatever the morals, ethics or conscience of a particular vote bringing down the government at the moment would likely put many Liberal Democrat MPs out of a job.

   Now Turkeys may sometimes vote for Christmas, and I have no doubt there are a fair few MPs who would happily give up their jobs for a principle…. but I for one would not bet on enough of them doing that to topple the government any time soon.

   Much more likely if you ask me is that having taken the hit in terms of public opinion for the negative impressions of the coalition the Liberals are tied into hoping that their popularity increases if and when the economy starts an upturn.

2. This coalition is a once in a generation opportunity to try and get electoral reform. Nick Clegg recently claimed that electoral reform is not the be all and end all of Lib Dem policy, but the reality is it always will be due to the way First Past the post punishes third parties. For the Lib Dems (and for that matter and aspiring new party) changing the voting system is vital to them having any real prospects of influence.

   So it is of vital importance that the Liberals keep the coalition together to deliver a referendum on AV. If they pass up the opportunity to try and fight a referendum on this they might as well pack up their bags and go home.

   Combined with low ratings in the polls, if the Liberals cannot make the coalition delivery electoral reform, then they risk becoming a marginalised irrelevance for 20 years or so. I don’t think there is any realistic possibility of them taking this risk.

3. The Liberal Democrats need to be able to demonstrate that coalitions can work. As far as I can see there are very few people outside of the most tribal and blinkered Labour and Tory diehards who do not at least acknowledge that FPTP is unfair. But despite this many people have objections to the adoption of electoral reform on other grounds.

   One of the principal of such objections is the fear that coalition government is inherently unstable, weak and indecisive. People look at countries (usually those who operate straight party lists systems like Israel, Belgium or pre 90s reform Italy) and feel that coalition governments are necessarily flakey and prone to dissolving at the first sign of trouble.

   Again the Liberals have a once in a generation opportunity to try and change perspectives on this. Even if they suffer in the short term by making this coalition work, and last, they have the potential prize of demonstrating that a hung parliament is not a bad thing and can work. This, in the long term, is central to their chances of being an influential and successful political party in Britain over the long haul.

4. Next it is clearly suiting David Cameron having the Liberals forming something of a bulwark against the hard right within his own party, at least in the short term. A big risk of Cameron was always that the extreme of the party would be very unhappy with his urbane “Notting Hill set” style of leadership and political instincts.

   Being in a coalition allows him to be able to blame any such policies on the Liberals and the coalition even if he privately supports them and would have tried to do it even if the Tories had won the election outright.

5. The Liberal Democrats are providing a handy pressure valve for the Tories. It seems that the majority of the backlash, and negative feelings toward the Government are being held toward the Libs. They are being blamed for the bad stuff, and the left is focussing most of it’s ire on them (wrongly in my opinion).

   Insofar as this continues the smart tactic for the Tories is to maintain the coalition and hope that if things improve in the run up to the next election, then it will be them and not their coalition partners that ream the reward.

I have long thought for these reasons it is fundamentally wrong headed to assume that it is going to be easy to bring down the government. I find it hard to imagine a situation in which an early election is going to be good for the Libs, and it can’t see the Tories wanting an election unless it starts to look like a shoe in that they are going to win the next election.

So anyway that is part one, next blog about why I am not even sure it is desirable, right at this moment, to bring down the coalition.

For my money the Liberal Democrats really didn’t have too much choice after the election given the mathematics of the parliament. There really wasn’t a credible possibility of a workable Lib/Lab coalition and for the Liberals they only really had an option of a coalition with the Tories.

I don’t think there is any particular need for the left to focus it’s attentions on the Liberal Democrats. Simply by getting into bed with the Tories they have caused themselves terrible problems at future elections. We won’t need to work hard on attacking the Liberals to pick up the votes of disillusioned left leaning Lid Dem voters. That is going in part to happen as a matter of course as the pain of the Government cuts starts to bite.

Labour can also achieve far more on this front by stopping being so profoundly illiberal on civil liberties; and no longer following such a hawkish, US aligned foreign policy. Addressing the reason why so many progressive people abandoned the Labour party will do more to attract new activists and voters than attacking the Lib Dems.

The truth is that the enemy are the Tories, they are the ideological drivers for the savage cuts, the Tories are the people who have an in principal, belief led, commitment to the idea of the maintenance of an unequal and unfair society. The Tories are the people the left need to be focussing our ire and energies on.

Labour, Unions and the wider Left cannot afford to let the Tories off the hook for what they are doing, and focussing on the distraction that is the alleged “betrayal” by the Liberal Democrats is meaning the left is wasting valuable time and energy.

Lastly the other thing we cannot ignore is that it is quite possible that there could be another hung parliament after the next election. These are unusual times, and if the Arithmetic is stacked slightly differently next time, a Labour win the most seats and the biggest share of the vote but not a majority we may well need to form some sort of a pact with the Liberal Democrats.

So lets forget Clegg, Cable et al, and start using our gun powder on the real bad guys. The PM, Michael Gove, Lord Ashcroft and most of all George Osborne.

1. The Tories didn’t win.

This election was there for them, the Labour party had been in power for 13 years was becoming deeply unpopular. There was on the doorstep that feeling of “time for change”, which is so hard for a ruling party argue rationally against. We were in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s, and incumbent governments will always get the blame. The right wing press were as rabidly behind the Tories as they have been in a generation and across the media we had a hugely difficult environment.

But despite all of this, despite this gaping own goal, the Tories somehow conspired to mess it up, and the reality is they are not going to be able to wield absolute power (more on that later). On top of that far from being wiped out the Labour party still has 250 odd seats and will be able to mount an effective opposition.

2. The Labour party have lost their way.

I didn’t want the Tories to get in, and I had (have) no doubt that in a Tory Britain things would get worse for working people. But, I also know that “The enemy of my enemy” only goes so far. The reality is for me 13 years of Labour government has been a crushing disappointment. Despite some early successes (minimum wage, signing the social chapter) in the main the Labour government has not lived up to what I had expected, hoped for and dreamed for growing up in Thatchers Britain.

As a keen student of the history of British politics I had hope for a genuinely radical, transformative agenda such as the Atlee post war government, or Roy Jenkins social reforms in the 60s. Fundamentally we didn’t get that, unfortunately the score card at the end of our most successful period of electoral history, three consecutive governments and 13 years or rule reads:-

The gap between rich and poor got greater, draconian trade union legislation remains in place and the biggest erosion of civil liberty in living memory took place….. And IRAQ.

Losing is never good, but if the Labour party can re-find some of the balance it lost around the turn of the Millennium, then it can refresh and renew and be electable. If nothing else it does afford the opportunity to remember why we are in politics and what the aim is. Harold Wilson said that the Labour party soars best when both its left and right wings are strong. Since Mandleson came back there has only been one game in town and if the Labour party wants to win again we need to change that.

3. It’s a coalition, Not Thatcher with a massive Majority.

We all like to imagine the worst, and for Political reasons it made sense for us to spend the whole election evoking memories of the Worst of Thatcher and Thatcherism. But in the same way as Labour governments are different so are Tory ones. Cameron isn’t Maggie and would have been a different type of leader even if he had won outright.

But the fact that they are in coalition means that they will inevitably have to make compromises, and whisper it, but some of the things that the Libs might get in we might even like. I, and most on the left I imagine, will (though perhaps secretly) cheer form the rafters when ID cards get scrapped, and if they repeal some of the worst aspects of the authoritarian legislation our lot put in.

4. Electoral Reform.

Change needs to happen, our political system is broken. Not only is it manifestly unfair, but the electoral maths of FPTP elections system skews the whole political system in favour of a narrow band of people. Put bluntly middle England, middle class, swing voters in swing seats decide elections. And the whole public policy agenda is therefore focussed on this narrow band of interest.

If we want the possibility of radical, transformative government who will make the world a better place, then the truth is we need to change to rules of the game.

And with this election result it looks like we are going to get a referendum on the Alternative Vote. I don’t think the AV system is fantastic, it is not what I would personally advocate (I am a fan on the STV) but it is definitely a step in the right direction. A small step like this could change politics in the UK forever and for the better. And for me this is a definite silver lining.

5. The Liberal Democrats tarnished.

As a general rule of thumb parties rarely get * more * popular as a result of being in Government. On the contrary normally the opposite is the case. The Libs have clearly benefited from being seen as “outsiders” and “different” and not tarnished by peoples memory of the Tories under thatcher or the current Labour government. This will change, the Liberals are in government. The cuts, and the pain, will be their cuts and their pain.

People often saw them as a “safe” vote if you hated the Tories but couldn’t back Labour. People will surely for a generation not vote Liberal to keep the Tories out again. What this means is that Labour are the only opposition, that if you disagree with the Government you cant vote Liberal or Tory. There is only one credible place to go. It becomes a fantastic opportunity for the Labour party to recover providing the party boxes clever and does not implode. In future when Labour people on the doorstep say “Vote Liberal, Get Tory” people will believe it. And that can only help the Labour party at the next election.

So there we have it things are bad, but maybe not the end of the world. There are 5 reasons for us on the left to be optimistic.