Labour party

Monday

David Blackburn

What Tory split?

He never deviates and he never hesitates; if he stopped repeating himself Brown could be the star of Just a Minute. He was at it again today: “We must reduce our deficits steadily according to a plan, but we must do nothing this year that will put our recovery at risk.” The cuts-investment dividing line has been nuanced into a question of timing. Brown cited Ken Clarke among the “major world leaders” who lend his policies authority. Brown has overreached himself. Clarke did not dissent from the party line; he stated the obvious truth that if cuts are too deep or ill-applied then recovery may be impeded: “It is no

James Forsyth

Nest-eggs for some pre-election goodies

Labour’s tax on banks that pay bonuses has failed to change behaviour and so will raise significantly more money, roughly two and a half billion more, than the Treasury budgeted that it would. How Labour uses this extra revenue will tell us a lot about how Labour intend to campaign and the balance of power within the government. At Brown’s press conference, Gary Gibbon pressed the Prime Minister on whether this money would all be earmarked for deficit reduction, the option that those close to Darling prefer. Noticeably, Brown failed to endorse that idea. He also would not commit to using any other extra revenue exclusively for deficit reduction. The

David Blackburn

Out of recession and into debt

The deficit is in the Tories’ crosshairs this morning. George Osborne pens an article in the Times, castigating Brown’s obsession with continuity: ‘We need a new British economic model that learns from the mistakes of the past. First, that new economic model requires government to live within its means. We entered the recession, after years of growth, with one of the highest deficits in the developed world and we leave the recession with our credit rating under threat. That will have potentially disastrous consequences for international confidence. If Britain starts to pay the sort of risk premiums that Greece is paying, the interest bill on a £150,000 mortgage would go

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Darling talks sense on public sector pay

How things change.  A few months ago, Alistair Darling would only go so far as to not rule out a public sector pay freeze.  By the time of the Pre-Budget Report, that became a 1 percent cap on pay rises.  And now, in an interview with the Sunday Times, he’s talking explicitly about public sector pay cuts.  He cites the example of the private sector, where workers have accepted cuts to hang onto their jobs. It certainly makes sense.  Wages make up such a hefty proportion of public spending, that any serious plan to cut the deficit will have to take them into account.  Besides, there’s the fairness point as

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Labour have Osborne in their sights (and on their fridges)

It’s only a small thing, but does anyone else find this detail from today’s Times interview with Alastair Campbell a little, erm, peculiar: “On the [Campbell] fridge is a Christmas card from David Miliband, a clipped photo of George Osborne in the Bullingdon Club shooting pheasant, a GCSE revision schedule. It is the type of handsome but unostentatious London professionals’ house that the Blairs once owned in Islington.” I mean, it’s no secret that the Labour hierarchy loathes the shadow Chancellor – but putting what I assume is this photo on your fridge?  Armchair psychologists, the comments section is yours…

Peter Hoskin

Don’t be surprised if Jowell is kept on by a Tory government

As Ben Brogan outlined in his Telegraph column last November, there are plenty of Tories placing a good deal of emphasis on the London Olympics.  By the time it comes around, they may well have spent two years cutting spending, raising taxes, and generally struggling against the fiscal problems that Brown has hardwired into our nation’s fibre.  A successful Games, the thinking goes, could be just the tonic for their midterm government – as well as for the country as a whole. Which is why today’s story about the Tories somehow keeping on Tessa Jowell, the current Olympics Minister, is unsurprising.  The thinking is clear: a bit of continuity could

Friday

Peter Hoskin

The public aren’t seeing Brown’s “green shoots”

We’ve been rather starved of opinion polls over the past week, which is probably no bad thing.  But this PoliticsHome poll on the economy has come along to give us at least something to mull over.  And its findings aren’t good news for Labour. First, only thirty-four percent of repondents think that the economy has turned a corner into recovery.  And, crucially, only 36 percent are willing to give Labour “a lot” or “some” credit for their handling of the recession (down from 40 percent last August).  That’s against 29 percent saying “not very much,” and 34 percent saying “none at all”. As we saw on Wednesday, Labour is eager

David Blackburn

Dirty tricks are off and running

The Tories are bracing themselves for an election campaign of smears and dirty tricks. Today the sniping begins. Attack dog Liam Byrne has criticised Cameron’s ‘Broken Britain’ speech in the following terms: “I think when people read what Mr Cameron is saying today they will see that it is quite an unpleasant speech…Mr Cameron is seizing upon one appalling crime and almost tarring the people of Doncaster and the people of Britain.” Cameron is not tarring anyone; he is clear that Doncaster was one of a number of extreme incidents (Baby P being another) that exist alongside a groundswell of anti-social behaviour. The terms ‘Broken Britain’ and ‘moral recession’ are

David Blackburn

Obama is playing politics<br />

FDR was plainly confident when he indicted the “practices of unscrupulous money lenders” during his 1933 inauguration address; Obama’s speech yesterday was scented with desperation. He exchanged eloquence for provocation. “If these folks want a fight a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.” Bankers do not want a fight with a President seeking cheap political capital; they want to turn profits and do business. Obama’s proposals frustrate that aim – by carving up corporations and neutering investment banking on the grounds of excess risk. As Iain Martin notes, Obama has departed from the G20’s emerging narrative, and though the details are imprecise there is no doubt of the

Thursday

James Forsyth

Confusion surrounds the Tory position on the Muslim Council of Britain

The government broke off relations with the Muslim Council of Britain over Daoud Abdullah, its deputy secretary-general, signing the Istanbul declaration, which the government believed encouraged attacks on British forces if they attempted to enforce a weapons blockade on Gaza. Last week, the government retreated; inviting the MCB back in despite Daoud Abdullah’s signature remaining on the document. The question now is whether the Tories are going to go along with this surrender. The first test of this is a fundraiser that the MCB is holding on the 22nd of February. The invitation boasts that Jack Straw and Nick Clegg will be attending and says that Chris Grayling has been

Peter Hoskin

Forget inheritance tax – Tory marriage policy is Labour’s new favourite target

For some time, Labour has been trying to push the line that behind the Cameron facade there’s an old-school, “nasty” party waiting, drooling, for an opportunity to engineer the country as they see fit.  Over the past couple of days, it’s become clear that they’ve struck on a new variant of that attack. Yesterday, we had Ed Balls on Today saying that the Tories’ marriage tax break was a “back to basics” policy.  And, today, as Paul Waugh reveals, Harriet Harman described the same agenda as “modern day back to basics. It is back to basics in an open-necked shirt.”  The reference, of course, is to John Major’s ill-fated, relaunch

Wednesday

James Forsyth

What will Labour do with the extra £1.5bn?

Labour’s tax on banks that pay big bonuses was budgeted to yield £550 million. But because the tax has failed to change behaviour it is going to bring in far more than that, at least 2 billion according to recent reports. This raises the question of what will Labour do with the extra 1.5 billion? The responsible thing to do would be to use it for deficit reduction. We can expect, Darling who has said that his “number one priority is to get the borrowing down”, to take this position. But we can expect the more party politically minded members of the government to want to use this money for

Peter Hoskin

Still divided

Another snippet from Jonathan Freedland’s column which deserves a separate post: “Labour has a harder task [on the economy], pressing voters to engage with the abstract arguments, asking them to accept that the deficit is not the only threat that matters. That effort is undermined by interviews like Alistair Darling’s with the FT [yesterday], in which he promised swingeing cuts to reduce the deficit. ‘Ridiculous,’ fumed one cabinet colleague. ‘That’s the Tory position, not ours.'” As I blogged last week, there are still clear divides in the government’s position on the public finances – and that despite Alistair Darling’s strengthened position after the Hoon & Hewitt coup attempt.  It hardly

Peter Hoskin

The worries behind falling unemployment

Expect Labour to make much of today’s employment figures, which show that unemployment fell by 7,000 in the three months to last November.  Already, Yvette Cooper has claimed it as a success for “government investment”.  While Gordon Brown will surely repeat that message in PMQs. But is it really testament to government action?  Or is it a result of a naturally improving economy (which, let’s not forget, is taking longer in the UK than most other developed nations)?  Well, a study commissioned by the Spectator from Oxford Economics found that Brown’s “investment” would “save” around 35,000 jobs in 2009 – but then destroy considerably more jobs from this year on. 

Peter Hoskin

The Brown brand

How do politicians achieve that “unspun” look?  Why, by emulating the spin of a soft drinks company, of course.  This from Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian: ‘[The Labour campaign team have] taken a look at the branding of Innocent smoothies, hoping the authentic, unspun look might fit their own ‘unairbrushable’ product, G Brown. They were heartened by the reaction to the retouched Cameron poster, which suggests people are sick of the slick trickery associated with the age of Blair.’ In which case, here’s the Innocent website so you can get an insight into the Brown brand (although I doubt he’ll provide two of your five-a-day).  If Labour persist down this

David Blackburn

Drink isn’t the curse of the working classes, but its easy availability is

It must be stated from the outset – most drinkers are responsible and drink only on special occasions, with other people or by themselves. However, binge drinkers, or that caste of drinker whose evening is neatly rounded-off with a stomach pump, are a minority, albeit a growing one. Relaxed licensing laws and the government’s refusal to strong-arm the drinks industry have led to roving bands of Sally Bercows traversing town centres, and who end the night by falling out of their dresses and into a taxi, or onto a pavement. Readily available alcohol has over-stretched the NHS’ dwindling A&E resources and the police’s time – Alice Thompson discloses that alcohol

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Darling struggles to find consistency

Alistair Darling’s got an interview in today’s FT, and you know the story by now.  Yep, the government thinks that borrowing needs to come down drastically; extra growth would go towards cutting the structural deficit; there’ll be the “toughest settlement” on public spending for twenty years, only it shouldn’t be introduced too quickly; those bankers aren’t quite as evil as previously suggested; and so on and so on.  As we’ve said before, it’s certainly an improvement on that fatuous investment-vs-cuts line.  But you’ve got to wonder whether the public will find it credible, in view of what Brown & Co. have said, and done, in the past. Reading the complete

Peter Hoskin

Another name for the hat

First there was Ken, then Peter Mandelson, and now Jon Cruddas is the latest name to be linked with Labour’s campaign for the London Mayoralty.  According to the Standard, the Dageneham MP is winning “high level backing” to take on Boris in 2012. As James said last week, there’s every reason to believe that Cruddas will play an important role on Labour’s post-election stage.  Sure, his thinking is diametrically opposed to that of most CoffeeHousers – but at least he has some sort of political vision, more or less well-defined.  That alone distinguishes him from many of his colleagues.  Then throw in his general affability, and it’s understandable why Cruddas

David Blackburn

Labour’s IT bungles cost taxpayers £26bn

This morning’s Independent contains an almost incredible splash that £26bn has been wasted on IT projects over the last decade. It’s a litany of binary bungles – the incompetence: staggering; the forecasting: inept; and the planning (or lack of it): simply shocking. Contending with such absurdity whilst staring down the barrel of a £175bn deficit, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Let me take you on a whistle stop tour of dud investments made on our behalf. The major culprits are the NHS’ national IT programme (over budget and late at £12.7bn and used by only 160 health organisations out of £9,000), the MoD’s defence information infrastructure (over budget

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Burning bridges

A noteworthy point from Tim Montgomerie in ConservativeHome’s latest general election briefing*: “The Daily Mail continues to blast Labour for neglecting marriage, as in an editorial today. It accuses Labour of being ‘deluded’ and ‘opportunist’. The Conservative policy is praised as ‘creditworthy’. The family is one of the top concerns of the paper’s Editor, Paul Dacre. Brown is undermining the last hope he had with Dacre by allowing Ed Balls to trash the Tory plan to save the two parent family.” Of course, no-one really expects the Mail to turn out for Labour come the election, but – after the attack they launched on Cameron before Christmas – the Tories