I wouldn't be surprised if this Gordon Brown snippet gets deployed ad nauseam between now and the next election: "[Brown] described Labour as the party of 'prosperity not austerity'" If so, it's worth noting that it's a phrase that Ed Miliband used in several speeches last year (e.g. here, here and here). But, whoever its author, it's hard to imagine it working for a governing party which has presided over one of the most spectacular busts in our history.
East Surrey will be the first seat where Tory central office gets to impose a shortlist of three candidates on a local association. Peter Ainsworth, its MP, has today announced that he is stepping down and because he has waited until the New Year to make this announcement CCHQ’s emergency candidate selection rules now apply. The first thing to watch for is whether the Tories go for an all women shortlist. When Cameron said in October that the party would have some “all-women shortlists to help us boost the number of Conservative women MPs” there was a furious reaction from some sections of the grassroots. There was even talk of setting up a legal fighting fund to challenge the decision.
The party that nearly bankrupted Britain has bankrupt itself. The Times reports that, once again, Labour’s coffers are bare and that the party is technically insolvent. David Blunkett, chairman of Labour’s election development board, is unequivocal that Labour cannot withstand an interminable election campaign, which is precisely why the stinking rich Tories have opened one. The money men have backed the Tories, which in itself is significant as money invariably gravitates to the coming power and vice versa. Historians of New Labour’s spectacular demise will argue that it was not the recession but the cash for peerages scandal that demolished the party’s electoral supremacy, forcing it back into the arms of the unions.
Yesterday was all Labour, Tories, Labour, Tories. So, today, enter the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg has an article in this morning's Times which, to be fair, is actually quite noteworthy. His main point? That the Lib Dems are a party in their own right, and will not be engaging in "under-the-counter deals" with the Big Two: "This year’s general election is likely to be the most open and unpredictable in a generation. So you have a right to know where we stand. I can promise voters wondering whether to put an “X” against the Liberal Democrats that there are no backroom deals or under-the-counter “understandings” with either of the other two parties." You can see why Clegg is broadcasting this message.
During an election campaign, the press like to obsess about who won the day. Up until 3pm, the consensus was that the Tories had. The media was pointing out just how absurd it was for Labour to criticise another party for having black holes in its fiscal plans. But then came David Cameron’s marriage gaffe which has evened up the coverage on the evening news broadcasts with the Six o’clock news going particularly hard on the issue. Cameron’s credibility is central to the Tory campaign so anything that depletes that is bad news for them. But in the long term, I think the most significant development today is one that is not getting much coverage on the TV news: Darling’s refusal to commit to not raising VAT.
Say what you like about the Cameron project, but at least they are strongly committed to marriage. Aren’t they? Well, it seems, not now. I always suspected that the wonderful strength of Cameron’s rhetoric on marriage was not really matched by his policy – a rather paltry tax break. Now, it seems not even that is certain. "It's something within a parliament I would definitely hope to do," he said today. “We're not able to give people absolute certainty on everything.” Well not on everything – but what about on the few hard pledges that have actually been made? Or is Cameron really cowering in the face of Labour attacks that they would propose tax cuts for “the few” - a category which includes married couples?
The Tories today rolled out the first section of their manifesto this morning, the chapter on health. The reason the Tories started with their plans for the NHS, as they did when setting out their priorities for government last autumn, is quite simple: the leadership thinks that every time Cameron talks about health the party goes up in the polls. Certainly, one of the achievements of Cameron’s leadership has been to cancel out Labour’s traditional advantage on the question of who is most trusted on the NHS; Labour’s lead on this question has been a statistically insignificant one percent in the last two polls on the subject according to Anthony Wells of the indispensable UK Polling Report.
The Toryies are busy rebutting Labour’s claim that there is a £34bn black hole in their tax and spending plans. The most striking thing is how strong the language Conservative sources are using is, Labour's document was described to me as ‘a “dodgy dossier” full of lies’. It is quite remarkable that Labour has the gall to criticise the other side for unfunded spending pledges and the headline Tory objections are fair enough. The document says the Tories would let married couples transfer their tax allowances, when they haven’t committed to that. It also claims that the Tories are pledged to abolishing the 50p rate before the end of the parliament which the Tories are not.
Localism and results-based healthcare are central to the Tories’ NHS reform measures. They plan to arrest the widening gap between the life expectancy of rich and poor by introducing a Health Premium, a new policy, to direct funds to the poorest communities. The second new initiative is the creation of ‘maternity networks’, which will link hospitals, doctors, charities, volunteers and consultants, replacing top-down management with co-operation in a bid to widen expertis, improve services and lower costs. This reflects the belief that local solutions can have national benefits and concurs with the broader aspects of Tory policy regarding the state and welfare provision.
Today is a taste of how politics is going to be until the election: competing Labour and Tory events, claim and counter claim. Alistair Darling kicked off proceedings with an event setting out the supposed £34 billion black hole in the Tory’s plans for the public finances. This took some chutzpah considering how vague Labour’s own spending plans are, there are currently no departmental budgets, and how big the balck hole in Labour’s plans is, remember how Brown implied on Marr yesterday that tax rises on the rich, the National Insurance hike and lower than expected unemployment would be able to take most of the strain of halving the £178bn deficit. Judging from the questions at the Darling event, the press aren’t buying Labour’s line.
Labour’s rapid rebuttal service will respond to the Tories’ policy blitz by questioning George Osborne’s spending pledges, of which more later. No objection can be raised against this action except that the government enlisted the Treasury to deliver very detailed costings under the Freedom of Information Act. The Times reports that the Tories are understandably livid: impartiality has been compromised. A spokesman said: “We are concerned at any collusion and abuse of the FOI system which has involved ministers requesting costings of what are complete misrepresentations of Conservative policies, which were subsequently released.
After the platitudes in David Cameron's speech yesterday, comes the bluntness of Ken Clarke in today's Sunday Telegraph. Interviewed by the paper, the shadow business secretary says that it would be a "folly" to rule out tax rises: "It is something that every Conservative tries to avoid but I didn't avoid it when I was getting us out of recession before. Coming out of a recession when you have such a severe deficit you can't rule out putting up taxes." He's right, of course. The mammoth size of the deficit, and the lag before many spending reductions take effect, will mean that the Tories shouldn't rule out tax rises. More than that, in fact: they'll certainly have to introduce them. As we already know, plans are afoot to increase VAT to at least 20 percent.
David Cameron can give rousing, mature, insightful speeches. Yesterday’s was not one of them. It used the word ‘hope’ 7 times and ‘change’ 27 times and that, I suspect, was its entire purpose - because there was precious little content in it otherwise. In the News of the World today, I describe the speech as vapid nonsense. Here’s ten extracts which show why. 1. “It’s because we are progressives that we will protect the NHS…We recognise its special place in our society so we will not cut the NHS; we will improve it for everyone.” Come again? Refusing to cut the NHS reflects its ‘special place’? Herewith the poisoned logic of Brown: that love means never having to say ‘cut’.
There is a fascinating glimpse at the tensions inside the top echelons of the Conservative party in The Times today. Francis Elliott reports that Steve Hilton is trying to veto the appointment of James O’Shaugnessy, head of policy for the party, as head of the Downing Street policy unit should the Tories win the election. Francis writes that tensions between Hilton and O’Shaugnessy have been exacerbated by disputes about what should go in the initial slice of the Tory manifesto which will be published on Monday. O’Shaugnessy is one of politics' nice guys. But he has been the focus of negative briefing in recent months. Back in early September, I was told that Hilton was casting around for other candidates for the job in government.
First she loved him. Then she hated him. Then she seemed lukewarm towards him. And, today, she's gone back to hating him more than ever. Yes, Polly Toynbee's latest column is another marker stone in her oscillating relationship with Gordon Brown, and it doesn't contain any minced words: "Cancel new year, put back the clocks and forget the fireworks. There is nothing to celebrate in the dismal year ahead. The Labour party is sledging down a black run, eyes tight shut, the only certainty the electoral wall at the bottom of the hill. In five months David Cameron will be prime minister and Gordon Brown will be toast. Remember him? The man who crashed his party. Remember them? The death-wish brigade that let him do it.
Woah, hang on there. A Labour and Conservative coalition in the event of a hung Parliament? Crazy talk, surely? But that’s what Martin Kettle devotes his column to in today's Guardian. It’s only unthinkable, he writes, “until you start thinking about it.” Hm. So rather than dismissing the prospect out of hand, I thought I’d register one particular complaint against it. While many of Kettle’s arguments about the fracturing of the party system and the blurring lines between the main parties make sense, the idea that they might coalesce in the aftermath of this year’s election ignores one crucial factor: the Labour leadership.
As we’re still in that period of the year for looking back as well as forward, I thought I’d share with CoffeeHousers a political timeline I put together. It’s not everything which happened in the political year, mind – but rather the important events in the debate over spending cuts. This debate has, at very least, been in the background to almost every political discussion in 2009, and it will dominate the years ahead – so this kind of exercise probably has some posterity value. But, aside from that, you can also draw a couple of conclusions from the timeline (and I do so below).
Clear your diary, invite the relatives over, and huddle around a computer: Gordon Brown will be delivering his New Year’s message – via podcast, on the Downing St website – this evening. Just in case you’ve got other things to be doing, this article in the Telegraph gives you a good taste of what to expect. In summary: dividing lines and optimism. There’s plenty on how the Tories are planning for “a decade of austerity and unfairness” – in contrast to our glorious PM, who predicts falling unemployment, more new businesses and prosperity for all. Indeed, the snippets that the Telegraph carries indicate just how eager Brown is to deploy a green shoots strategy.
The next time your four year old nephew smears chocolate over your trousers you are to congratulate him. According to government guidance, soon to be issued to nurseries by Dawn Primarolo, the glibly smirking illiterate would have been writing. Yesterday’s Independent reported that in response to evidence that the gender gap between children under the age of five has widened in writing, problem-solving and personal development, the government believe that boys should work harder. This seemingly impossible task will be eased by ‘making learning fun’: boys will be allowed to graffiti any given surface with chocolate and coloured sand. What a way to begin the new decade: by creating a mass of juvenile Banksies.
Make a note, CoffeeHousers: Labour won’t be fighting a class war against the Tories, after all. That’s what Ed Balls tells us in this morning’s Times – so it must be true, mustn’t it? Erm, well, perhaps not. This is how the Schools Secretary continues: “‘David Cameron’s and George Osborne’s vulnerability is not their schools or their background but that they are prioritising tax cuts for the richest estates ahead of spending on the key public services,’ he said. ‘They have designed an inheritance tax policy which costs billions but which won’t benefit a single lower or middle-income family in Britain but will benefit themselves and a tiny percentage of other individuals.
