So the Tories have launched a full-scale attack on Labour's relationship with Unite, in an effort to counter the Ashcroft revelations. There are a few points they might like to bear in mind. All trade union members can opt in or out of their union's political fund as they wish. Those who choose to contribute do so freely and it's no secret that Unite is affiliated to the Labour Party. In addition, trade union political donations are just about the most open and transparent of all such contributions. Funny how the Conservatives, usually fundamentalists about the rights of people to do as they wish with their own money, find fault when members of voluntary organisations like Unite choose to send some of that cash Labour's way.
As an aside, it's clear that some sections of the media are trying to equate the trade union movement with the loony left. They'd do well to bear in mind that during Labour's wilderness years, the unions played a key role in the fightback of the moderates against the Bennite left; indeed the eventual victory of the Party's right would have been impossible without them. For anyone who's interested, Dianne Hayter's excellent 'Fightback!' and John Golding's 'Hammer of the Left' provide a thorough overview of this topic and are highly recommended.
Wednesday 17 March 2010
Monday 15 March 2010
Leafy Streets, Marginal Seats
There are nine parliamentary seats in Birmingham - ten if you include Sutton Coldfield (which we like to do, just to annoy them). Of these, eight are currently held by Labour, one by the Lib Dems and one by the Tories (that'll be Sutton Coldfield again). Up until recently, I lived on the outer reaches of Birmingham Ladywood; Clare Short's seat and a place where in 2005, 44.53% of voters plumped for Labour. But thanks to boundary changes in the city, I now find myself resident in Birmingham Edgbaston - about as vulnerable a Labour seat as you can get, encompassing comfortable, middle-class areas like Harborne and where all twelve local councillors are Tories. The Labour MP, Gisela Stuart, will go into the coming general election defending a very slim majority and has been more-or-less written off by just about everyone.
Certainly on paper, it doesn't look good. Gisela was returned to Parliament with a majority of 2,349 in 2005, a figure that looks even shakier when notional data from the boundary change is taken into account. The evidence out on the streets isn't much better either. For a Labourite more used to leafleting in places like Aston and Soho, seeing the size of some of the houses and cars is enough to make you think: 'we're f***ed'. The fact that the Tory literature being sent out is funky and glossy whilst ours is churned out of a temperamental black-and-white printer that no one can ever find enough toner for could also make you weep.
Not all, however, is necessarily blackness and despair. Far from it, in fact. For a start, I've never been part of such an active and motivated CLP. Whereas some local parties seem to spend their time in fruitless meetings, passing pie-in-the-sky resolutions that few will ever read, still less take any notice of, the good people of Edgbaston (and there are many) campaign hard and have been doing so long before I rocked up on the scene. We might be cash-poor, but we are activist-rich.
Furthermore, we have in Gisela Stuart one of the best MPs you could wish for, someone who is Labour to the core but thinks independently - but as a moderate, rather than one of the gang on the lunatic fringe. Deirdre Alden, the Tory candidate, might talk a good fight but she's not even in the same league. Gisela's local popularity is obvious in people's responses to canvassing and the election will largely turn on how much that encourages people to go out and vote Labour.
Finally, although the Tories held the seat from 1898 (1886 if you count Liberal Unionists as Tories) until 1997, the Birmingham of 2010 is a very different place even from the City in the 1990s. Despite the ethnic and cultural ghettoisation that is still Brum's particular curse, the City's well-documented renaissaince has made her character more akin to that of her Liberal, industrial heyday than the polarised, depressed city of the popular imagination. Whether you live in a working-class district or a rich one, you only have to walk half a mile from your front door to have the realities of inequality shoved hard in your face. The advantage of living in a city rather than some rural arcadia is that you can't pretend that such things don't affect you and actually have to make some considerable effort to talk yourself out of feeling a degree of empathy with your fellow citizens. If Edgbaston votes for itself in isolation, it'll turn blue. But if it votes as part of the wonderful city that it is a district of, it'll stay red.
Forward, and all that jazz.
Certainly on paper, it doesn't look good. Gisela was returned to Parliament with a majority of 2,349 in 2005, a figure that looks even shakier when notional data from the boundary change is taken into account. The evidence out on the streets isn't much better either. For a Labourite more used to leafleting in places like Aston and Soho, seeing the size of some of the houses and cars is enough to make you think: 'we're f***ed'. The fact that the Tory literature being sent out is funky and glossy whilst ours is churned out of a temperamental black-and-white printer that no one can ever find enough toner for could also make you weep.
Not all, however, is necessarily blackness and despair. Far from it, in fact. For a start, I've never been part of such an active and motivated CLP. Whereas some local parties seem to spend their time in fruitless meetings, passing pie-in-the-sky resolutions that few will ever read, still less take any notice of, the good people of Edgbaston (and there are many) campaign hard and have been doing so long before I rocked up on the scene. We might be cash-poor, but we are activist-rich.
Furthermore, we have in Gisela Stuart one of the best MPs you could wish for, someone who is Labour to the core but thinks independently - but as a moderate, rather than one of the gang on the lunatic fringe. Deirdre Alden, the Tory candidate, might talk a good fight but she's not even in the same league. Gisela's local popularity is obvious in people's responses to canvassing and the election will largely turn on how much that encourages people to go out and vote Labour.
Finally, although the Tories held the seat from 1898 (1886 if you count Liberal Unionists as Tories) until 1997, the Birmingham of 2010 is a very different place even from the City in the 1990s. Despite the ethnic and cultural ghettoisation that is still Brum's particular curse, the City's well-documented renaissaince has made her character more akin to that of her Liberal, industrial heyday than the polarised, depressed city of the popular imagination. Whether you live in a working-class district or a rich one, you only have to walk half a mile from your front door to have the realities of inequality shoved hard in your face. The advantage of living in a city rather than some rural arcadia is that you can't pretend that such things don't affect you and actually have to make some considerable effort to talk yourself out of feeling a degree of empathy with your fellow citizens. If Edgbaston votes for itself in isolation, it'll turn blue. But if it votes as part of the wonderful city that it is a district of, it'll stay red.
Forward, and all that jazz.
Liberals: Back To The Future
Loathe as I am to link to an article in The Spectator, Fraser Nelson's interview with Nick Clegg highlights a number of interesting issues, not least of which are the positions adopted by each of the three main parties in relation to tackling the structural deficit. As you'll no doubt be aware, these break down roughly as follows:
Conservatives: Tax increases: 20%. Cuts 80%.
Labour: Tax increases: 33%. Cuts: 67%
Liberal Democrats: Tax increases: 0%. Cuts: 100%
The thing that strikes you immediately about these figures is the rightward-shift in Lib Dem economic thinking. For a long time the ex-SDP wing of the Lib Dems was in the driving seat (as personified by Charles Kennedy). Now with Clegg and the 'Orange Book' faction in the ascendancy, it seems like classical liberalism, red in tooth and claw, is back with more force than most people would have thought possible.
If there was ever any doubt, these figures starkly demonstrate which party are the real progressives - the real believers in social democracy (hint: it's Labour). Whilst almost everyone agrees that some cuts in public spending are necessary and unavoidable, the Tories and Lib Dems seem intent on cutting deep into public services and relying on the voluntary sector to pick up the pieces of an emasculated welfare state. In case they've forgotten, both their parties advocated such an approach in the 19th century and it failed then as it will fail now. Labour was founded to challenge such thinking and the challenge remains the same today; 'A Future Fair For All' is more than just a slogan.
So there's just one more little piece of motivation to get out, pound the streets and fight the good fight!
Conservatives: Tax increases: 20%. Cuts 80%.
Labour: Tax increases: 33%. Cuts: 67%
Liberal Democrats: Tax increases: 0%. Cuts: 100%
The thing that strikes you immediately about these figures is the rightward-shift in Lib Dem economic thinking. For a long time the ex-SDP wing of the Lib Dems was in the driving seat (as personified by Charles Kennedy). Now with Clegg and the 'Orange Book' faction in the ascendancy, it seems like classical liberalism, red in tooth and claw, is back with more force than most people would have thought possible.
If there was ever any doubt, these figures starkly demonstrate which party are the real progressives - the real believers in social democracy (hint: it's Labour). Whilst almost everyone agrees that some cuts in public spending are necessary and unavoidable, the Tories and Lib Dems seem intent on cutting deep into public services and relying on the voluntary sector to pick up the pieces of an emasculated welfare state. In case they've forgotten, both their parties advocated such an approach in the 19th century and it failed then as it will fail now. Labour was founded to challenge such thinking and the challenge remains the same today; 'A Future Fair For All' is more than just a slogan.
So there's just one more little piece of motivation to get out, pound the streets and fight the good fight!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
