Thursday, July 14, 2016 

Here we go gathering nuts in July.

Whenever journalists wet their pants over a speech, you can guarantee it will fall apart within hours.  They did it time and again over Tony Blair's conference speeches, ditto for David Cameron's, and especially George Osborne's budgets. 

Lord, did they repeat the Pavlovian routine last night.  Never mind that Theresa May's address outside Downing Street was almost word for word the same as the one she gave on Monday morning, only for it be immediately overshadowed by Andrea Leadsom's withdrawal from the race; here it was again, regurgitated and reheated, and still it was lapped up.  Never mind that every Tory leader starts out by promising to govern for the toiling masses, for the troubled and the woe begotten, to bring hope where there was previously despair; this time it will obviously be different.  How can Labour possibly hope to compete faced with a newly centrist government, led by a ruthless and yet still compassionate leader, now focused on improving the life chances of the squeezed middle and below?

Err, by meaning what they say rather than spinning a line, by chance?  Theresa's warm words have not exactly been reflected by her appointments to the cabinet; of all those promoted or brought in from outside only Damian Green can you call a true Tory liberal, and he's be given one of the shittiest sticks of all as work and pensions secretary.  Whether he continues with Iain Duncan Smith's cherished universal credit scheme, a clusterfuck of a programme if there ever was one, not to forget the other benefit cuts still meant to be coming into force will be one of the first signs of whether she intends to pay so much as lip service to what she said last night.

Before we continue, can we have a millisecond of silence for the Cameron set?  That's enough.  Again, the response to the sacking of Osborne, Gove, Crabb, Letwin et al has been to marvel at May's brutality and lack of sentiment.  A moment of thought would suggest now is the best time to get rid of the failures, as that's what they are by the goals they set themselves.  The Goves might not currently be speaking to the Camerons, but you can guarantee that now what's done is done it won't be long before the the hatchets are buried.  Moreover, Gove and Cameron had both signalled a shift towards the beginnings of criminal justice reform, something May has never shown the slightest interest in.  Keeping the Sun and Mail on side by junking it before such notions had even got off the ground makes perfect short-term sense for May, if none whatsoever in the longer-term when prisons are on the edge of anarchy.

Similarly, when better to get rid of the completely useless than now?  The bewilderingly over-promoted Nicky Morgan was a sacking waiting a reshuffle, while any worth John Whittingdale offered has long since evaporated, especially when at the outset at least it's an idea to get on the BBC's good side.  This obviously doesn't explain why Jeremy Hunt has stayed in position at health, one explanation being he's so poisoned the well that whomever drinks from it will be similarly afflicted.  Nor is it immediately understandable why Priti Patel has been given international development when only a couple of years ago she suggested abolishing the department, unless that's the idea, or why Andrea Leadsom, aka both the worst minister and leadership candidate ever has been given the environment brief.

As the idea that you punish someone by giving them a job they claimed they could do better when they clearly can't just doesn't work.  Brexit can't mean Brexit if Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox make a complete balls up of it.  Davis is a likeable character in many ways, principled and a sceptic of the securocrats when such a thing remains highly unpopular, but the best man to get the best deal from the EU when his claims are a slightly more sophisticated BUT THEY WANT TO SELL US CARS?  Where is the sense in creating a whole new department for the disgraced Liam Fox when he shouldn't be trusted in charge of a dachshund, let alone international trade?  Johnson as foreign secretary can only be May deciding to keep her friends closer and her enemies even closer, as Johnson is the obvious successor should she fall under a bus: better to have him next to her than scheming from the backbenches.  She also seems to be presuming that giving him a serious job will stop his clowning around, a forlorn hope if there ever was one.  Thinking the three Leavers will cop the blame if there is either no deal or a terrible one is a fantasy: the PM owns the responsibility.  As party management, it might work.  For the rest of us, it should fully underline how fucked we are.

We are then supposed to imagine a more egalitarian line is to emanate from a cabinet dominated by those on the hard right.  We are meant to expect a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few, when money will inevitably become tighter even than it was before.  We are told to put out of our minds 6 years of failure, the promises of strong, stable government, and instead rejoice in the opportunities coming our way courtesy of trade deals bigger than any we could possibly have contemplated, let alone made before.

Who wants to be the first to shout Mayday non-ironically?

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Tuesday, July 15, 2014 

All you need is Gove.

Government reshuffles are always over-analysed and often pointless affairs, especially in terms of what it means for the departments ministers are being shuttled between. You can take the view that moving someone from say their position as culture secretary, one of the more undemanding jobs, to being plunged in at education is damn stupid considering the level of expertise we should expect of those given the role, or you could instead reason that as the civil service does the bulk of the work anyway, given the outline by the minister, it doesn't really make much odds.

What certainly is cretinous in this instance is having a major reshuffle this late into a parliament.  While David Cameron has at least refused the Blair tendency to move everyone around every poxy year, the only reason our dear PM is getting rid of so many on the liberal wing of the Tories while at the same time promoting as many loyal women as he can is for party political and presentational reasons respectively.  It's certainly not because Nicky Morgan will be a better education secretary than Michael Gove, although it's difficult to imagine how anyone barring a resurrected King Herod could be any worse, it's down to how Cameron has judged Gove to have become too much of an electoral liability in his current job.  Therefore he's absolutely the right man to be the "face" of the Conservatives in the media (is this right? Ed.).

No, me neither.  Gove's demotion will undoubtedly be presented by his allies in the media as the ultimate example of someone being a victim of their own success.  Sadly, there's also more than an element of truth in it.  Compare Gove's ramming through of the expansion of academies and setting up of free schools to Iain Duncan Smith's catastrophic attempt to introduce universal credit, and judged purely on that basis it's bewildering how the latter is still in his job.  Unlike IDS though, who has merely got into scrapes with George Osborne over whether or not he's a bit thick, Gove managed to piss everyone off at some point.  Not all his own work, with some of it being the responsibility of his just as combative former SpAd Dominic Cummings, most recently seen describing Dave as a "sphinx without a riddle", it's now time to take the battle to the other parties rather than your colleagues.  Hence Gove, although bruised, is apparently content to become chief whip and chief TV/radio mug.  Why those who didn't like him as education secretary will suddenly discover him to be charming and persuasive in his new role isn't clear, but it must all be part of Lynton Crosby's grand plan.

Also integral to Crosby's barnacle-shedding scheme is trying to end the impression Dave has a problem with women.  Rather than, err, change the policies women disproportionately oppose, far better is to promote a few more women to defend them, a ploy guaranteed to work just as well.  Apart from Morgan, also getting an office of state is Liz Truss, taking over as environment secretary from right-winger Owen Paterson, which predictably and despite all the other changes has still elicited moans from the headbangers.  Truss you might recall was the minister pushing for the ratio of young children an adult could look after safely to be increased, only for it to run into opposition from that other coalition, Mumsnet and Nick Clegg.  Esther McVey, once of GMTV, stays in her job but gets to attend cabinet, while Penny Mordaunt is rewarded for appearing on Splash! by becoming the first coastal communities minister.  Any suggestion the introduction of yet another ministerial post is designed to further reduce rebelling is cynicism of the lowest order.  Best to gloss over the rise of Priti Patel, lest I start to feel the urge to repeatedly slam my head against the wall.

Out then went a whole bunch of older white men, much to the discomfort of those older white men in charge of the country's newspapers.  Describing Ken Clarke as middle-aged as the Mail's front page did is also a bit of a stretch, although you have to remember Paul Dacre is determined to see off any attempt to retire him as the paper's editor, and he's 9 years Clarke's junior.  More pertinent is Clarke, Dominic Grieve, Damian Green, David Willetts and Alan Duncan have all gone, all of whom were dovish on Europe or liberal in outlook generally.  Along with Gove, the new foreign secretary Philip Hammond said he would vote to leave an unreformed EU, while the loss of Clarke, Grieve and Green suggests, as anticipated, the Tory manifesto will propose leaving the European Convention on Human Rights altogether.

The Conservatives seem convinced it will be the messengers as much as the message that will make the difference in 10 months' time.  Long-term economic plan; Miliband weird and not prime ministerial; and look at how completely normal and representative your fun, go-getting Tories now are.  It ignores how the Tories failed to win in 2010 on a centre-right but not right-wing manifesto, as the fresh-faced alternative to the disastrous tenure of the son of the Manse.  Regardless of the polls occasionally showing a Tory lead or the difference being within the margin of error, there's still nothing to suggest as yet they can win the election outright.  If this reshuffle was one of the first steps in an effort to alter that, the party seems set again on deluding itself.

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Monday, October 07, 2013 

Reshuffling for the sake of it. Mainly.

If there's one thing in politics that enthuses the lobby hacks and those within the Westminster bubble like little else, while leaving everyone else bored stupid, it has to be the yearly festival of inanity which is the reshuffle.  The only real function it serves is, that in the fashion of politics being showbizness for ugly people, it lets us know who's hot and err, who's not.  Or, as it's properly known, who's been doing the most brown nosing and who's been mouthing off.  Talent and ability only rarely enter into proceedings, such is the way our glorious party-based democracy works.

This is even more the case when the prime minister has deigned not to switch around his cabinet ministers.  It would be lovely to think this is the result of common sense: only in politics is it thought a great idea for someone to be (nominally) in charge of say, defence and then the next day find that they've been moved to health, having only a year earlier been at the helm in the Home Office, but one suspects it's more down to how Cameron genuinely believes he had the best possible team in place, or at least can't dispense with the services of a Theresa May or Michael Gove lest they become a rallying point on the backbenches.  You could then attempt to decipher what it means that such names to conjure with as Esther McVey and Sajid Javid have climbed slightly further up the ministerial greasy pole while Mark Hoban and Chloe Smith have been defenestrated, or you could do something more useful, like teach a pig to sing. The idea that anyone's going to notice this glorified game of musical chairs has made the Tory front bench very slightly more female, northern and working class is a touching one.

Worth a smidgen more attention is Nick Clegg getting rid of Jeremy Browne, who the Tories liked as he was further to the right than some of them, and the promotion of Norman Baker, although mainly as that's alarmed the more easily bewildered, due to his previously espoused view that Dr David Kelly was murdered. The idea that he's suddenly going to turn the Home Office into a habitat for tinfoil hat wearers when Clegg is clearly set on the coalition staying in one piece till the bitter end just doesn't stand up to scrutiny, amusing as it would be.

The real "action", if you could really describe it as such, happened across the Commons. Not before time both Liam Byrne and Stephen Twigg were demoted, having been such successes in their shadow posts for work and pensions and education. It was Byrne's idea that the party shouldn't oppose the government's refusal to repay benefits to those illegally sanctioned, disgusting many, while Twigg didn't so much as oppose Michael Gove's education reforms as support them in his own constituency. Twigg's impact was so great that I have absolutely no idea what Labour's education policy is, and if I don't, what hope does the casual observer?

Not that their replacements are necessarily any better. Rachel Reeves takes up Byrne's post, fresh from her Newsnight "humiliation", so we can look forward to more interviews where nothing of interest whatsoever is said. Not that this is the final purge of Blairites the Tories bizarrely want to paint it as; giving Douglas Alexander and Charles Falconer, both Blair fans,  responsibility for the election is hardly the Red Ed Terror. As for bringing Len McCluskey into it yet again, the vast majority of the public will once more say who?

Nor are there 10 lessons to take from the reshuffling.  All it does in reinforce where we were after the party conferences: the leaders are all secure, the Lib Dems are in a world of their own imagining, the Tories are shifting to the right, while Ed Miliband is feeling out policies and imposing his authority fully on the party.  What's really going to be interesting this parliamentary session is how far Osborne is willing to turn the recovery into a mini-boom via Help to Buy, with all the potential implications inflating the housing bubble still further will have.  Nothing that happened today is going to affect that.

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10/07/2013 09:57:00 pm | | | links to this post

Wednesday, September 05, 2012 

On the road to nowhere.

I can't say that Hopi Sen is someone I always find myself in agreement with, but his analysis of the state of the Tories after the reshuffle is pretty much spot on. It has to be kept in mind that to a ridiculous extent David Cameron and George Osborne based their rebranding of the Conservatives on that process Labour went through after the death of John Smith, with the difference being that they never followed all the way through. Cameron may have hugged huskies etc, but there was no Clause 4 moment. More to the point, despite many believing that once in office New Labour would return to the left, the opposite was the case; Tony Blair repeatedly picked fights with his own party, effectively appointed the Sun newspaper as home secretary and after 9/11 was in cahoots with the most right-wing US administration in history.

With the Tories, Cameron's claim to be a liberal Conservative hasn't been borne out. True, with Ken Clarke as justice secretary the party hasn't been anywhere near as draconian on law and order as their manifesto suggested they would be, but this is about the only area in which this has been the case. Policies which featured in neither the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos, such as the NHS reforms and "free" schools were implemented almost immediately. Cameron spoke often of the need to mend our "broken society", and yet with the exception of in the aftermath of the riots, barely a squeak has been heard about it since. Indeed, the measures taken by the coalition have if anything widened the gaps: the cuts to welfare and the failure to get the economy moving have helped towards Save the Children today launching its first campaign on child poverty in this country. Rather than waiting for proper evidence on the 50p top rate of tax, George Osborne abolished it at almost the first opportunity.

As hopeless as Sayeeda Warsi was, bless her, when she argued her case for why she should stay as party co-chairman she put her finger on exactly who the Conservatives need to appeal to if they're ever going to win a majority, let alone win one in 2015:

If you look at the demographics, at where we need to be at the next election, we need more people in the North voting for us, more of what they call here 'blue collar’ workers and I call the white working class. We need more people from urban areas voting for us, more people who are not white and more women.

That she went on to describe herself as working class we'll gloss over, as her main point is backed up by Lord Ashcroft's studies for the party. Everything that the Conservatives have done so far is almost the exact opposite of what they need to be doing to appeal to those voters. Some will probably find the prospect of Chris Grayling at justice more appealing than the liberal Ken Clarke, but other than that the reshuffle will have said absolutely nothing to them whatsoever. At prime minister's questions today David Cameron was once again bested by Ed Miliband, who was left relying on a piece of Daily Mail fluff about Miliband supposedly having to always buy the coffee for the other Ed. "Not very assertive and butch of the leader of the opposition, is it?", to loud laughter from Miliband. Quite apart from the irony of Cameron suggesting someone else is a bit submissive and effeminate, it was but a distraction from his fundamental failure to explain where growth is going to come from. His biggest failure is to be unable to decide what he and his party are fundamentally for other than cutting the deficit, something that without growth they can't do. And without such leadership, there's even less chance those needed voters will come into the fold in 2015.

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9/05/2012 09:02:00 pm | | | links to this post

Tuesday, September 04, 2012 

Nowhere fast.

If there's one thing that truly categorises a major government reshuffle, it's the quite incredible level of sycophancy displayed by lobby journalists, including those in the very top jobs. Nick Robinson last night did everything except lick the boots of David Cameron, so enthralled was he by the power being wielded by our glorious prime minister. He most certainly wasn't angling for a few tips as to who would be moving jobs, as that would be to suggest our top hacks colour their coverage according to the demands of the day, an absolutely outrageous slur I'm sure you'll agree. Elsewhere, there was a lack of honesty on the behalf of some of those called to pass comment: James Purnell and Danny Finkelstein both appeared on Newsnight's political panel, the latter without making clear his closeness to George Osborne, while the former only mentioned that he had been appointed work and pensions secretary by Gordon Brown. That he then stabbed the man who promoted him in the front, calling for him to resign, went unmentioned.

As per usual, there's a middle ground to be found between those saying that reshuffles mean little and those arguing the opposite. This particular reshuffle is clearly significant because it well may be the only one this parliament; whereas Tony Blair liked to change his ministers around yearly, often for no real purpose whatsoever but to great detriment to the government department that found itself having to work with someone new at the top almost every 12 months, David Cameron has at least resisted the temptation to micromanage. You could make a case that he's been too hands off, especially with Andrew Lansley, the latest politician to try to make the NHS his personal plaything, the end result being a welcome demotion to leader of the Commons. This said, it was Cameron who clearly give his blessing to yet another top down reorganisation of the NHS, despite both the Conservative manifesto and coalition agreement pledging no such thing would happen; and when Nick Clegg was presented with the opportunity to exercise a rare veto, he instead plumped for going ahead with Lords reform. Lansley was a disaster, his plans an expensive distraction, but the leadership went along with them.

The reshuffle also shows how Cameron is loyal to those who are willing to act as an effective shield for him. Not that there was any real danger of George Osborne being moved from Number 11, as that would signal the last two and a bit years have been an economic disaster of the government's own making, but any chance of his swapping jobs with say, William Hague, was trounced with the Olympic stadium's reaction to the chancellor last night. While everyone hates the supremely punchable Osborne and blames him solely for the double dip recession it keeps the attention away from Cameron himself. Likewise, we shouldn't be in the least surprised that Jeremy Hunt has been rewarded for his efforts in protecting the Dear Leader from assault on the Chipping Norton set front; the minister for Murdoch who so dutifully sacrificed his special adviser so that he could continue on at culture will now be secretary of state for privatisation of the health service. That Hunt clearly breached the ministerial code simply doesn't matter a fig.

As is also confirmed by the return of David Laws as education minister, replacing the lesser spotted Sarah Teather. Laws' breach of the rules on expenses was so serious, lest we forget, that he was suspended from parliament for seven days. What his return also signals is that there is no difference whatsoever between the Lib Dems and Conservatives on education policy - they're fully behind Gove's pet free schools project, the transformation of the academy system and the moving of the goal posts we saw last month on GCSEs. Soon to be announced is Gove's bringing back of O-levels, suitably updated for the 21st century so that this time the proles won't be left behind, honest.

The most apparent rightward shift is the expected dropping of Ken Clarke as justice minister, replaced by the truly lovely Chris Grayling, fresh as he is from insisting that unpaid work for dole money really does help all involved and not just the government and retailers who can't believe their luck. We shouldn't overplay Clarke's liberalising role, seeing as he failed to bring Cameron round to much of his thinking and his main idea for reform of prisons was to set the unfortunate inmates to work for an average of a £1 an hour, but his demotion to be effectively minister for television studios as he is without portfolio seems the worst of all worlds: unable to properly speak his mind for the few remaining one-nation Tories within the party and country at large. Equally telling of what's to come is the shift of Justine Greening from transport, a job she's held for a whole 11 months, to that of international development, where she most certainly won't be ostensibly in charge of airport policy. Anyone who's read Chris Mullin's diaries will note how intense the lobbying from BAA and the airlines was back then; one can only imagine how ministers are being bombarded with propaganda for a third runway at Heathrow now.

By contrast, not too much should be read into Iain Duncan Smith's apparent refusal to move from the DWP. Any idea that he's a greater friend to the sick, disabled and unemployed than Chris Grayling would have been is a fantasy, reported refusal to countenance a further £10bn in welfare cuts or not. We've yet to see whether the universal credit, a good idea in theory, turns out to be a bureaucratic nightmare in practice, akin to how tax credits were in their first few years of operation. You also suspect it will lead to yet another round of reassessment, exactly what those who are now going through the work capability assessment for the second or even third time need, although at least the person responsible for it will still be there to cop the blame should it go belly up.

Going further down the ranks, and trying not to snigger at Sayeedi Warsi joining Ken Clarke in attending the cabinet while essentially not having a job, we must note that Elizabeth Truss has also joined the education department. One of those in the 2010 intake describe as "talented", which translated means right-wing and never misses a chance to be on radio or TV, she also contributed to the "Britannia Unchained" book which so rightly described us as "among the worst idlers" in the world. Quite apart from the fact that this claim was factually inaccurate, it's always good to know what Tory MPs think of the hoi polloi, and indeed the million or so who desperately want to work longer hours but can't. Doubtless Truss is just the person to put in charge of early years development, and any suggestion this will involve the setting up of Ayn Rand schools for tots will clearly be well wide of the mark.

Overall, while not much has been changed, the general sense of direction is clear. While there was never going to be the full absorption of the David Davis agenda, the cabinet has noticeably shifted to the right. We can expect movement on a third runway at Heathrow, to the anger of Boris Johnson who wants to plant an entire new airport in the middle of a nature reserve instead, and a shift to the right on crime and prisons in an attempt to somewhat appease the likes of the Sun. What hasn't been altered is that announced plans for infrastructure aside, all of which will take years to have an effect, the coalition remains wedded to an economic policy which will almost certainly this year result in no growth. Return to David Cameron's new year message, a gift that keeps on giving, and there's talk of doing "everything it takes to get our country up to strength". Three quarters of the year gone, and we can see where the coalition has got us: nowhere fast.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2010 

The shape of the Con-Dems to come.

The more you look at this Conservative-Liberal Democrat deal, or ConDem as it's bound to become known by its detractors, the more you wonder what on earth the Liberal Democrats have gotten themselves into. To say that the Conservatives are going to be holding the whip hand over a party that has little more than subjugated itself in an act of collective lust for power is not even close to being an exaggeration.

Nick Clegg emerges as by far the biggest winner, at least in the short term. Quite how often he's going to be appearing alongside David Cameron is impossible to tell, but he's the only one from his party to be even close to having a job that will make any great difference. Not because he's deputy prime minister, which has always been a vanity title, but through his apparent role in spearheading reform. Even that though is not going to be all that it seems: apart from fixed term parliaments, the only real reform which is already being set in any kind of motion, and the already agreed referendum on the alternative vote which the Liberal Democrats haven't got the slightest chance of winning, the rest is either thin or likely to be delayed indefinitely just like so much was under Labour. There'll be yet another committee on Lords reform, reporting by December but which you can bet will be put further back than that, yet another committee on the West Lothian question, and only then at the very bottom is there "then the radical devolution of power" which both have spent so much time promising. Not very encouraging just how far down the list it comes in reality, is it?

An indication of how far this is likely to be two parties working together in the "national interest" in practice is shown by the complete absence of Liberal Democrats from the great offices of state. This would have been a further encouraging concession to the party, being prepared to sacrifice a major position to show just how far they're willing to go to make this work. Instead, despite the rumours whirling around last night we have Theresa May as home secretary, which while an improvement on Chris Grayling is not even close to being Chris Huhne. Frankly, I didn't believe for a second that Huhne was ever going to be acceptable to the likes of the Sun, and so it has proved. May is however a complete unknown quantity, having never shadowed any sort of minister in the Home Office. Even more enlightening as to how the Conservatives are likely to shape law and order policy is how it doesn't even begin to rate a mention in the draft agreement - expect the party to be just as up the arse of the tabloids on the matter as New Labour ever was, and don't believe for a second that the Liberal Democrats will be able to temper them on it. Also worth noting that as well as home secretary May will also be minister for women and equality, which shows just how high up the government's agenda those two things will be - not even worthy of a full time job, and given to someone who has one of the most difficult portfolios of state.

Of the jobs which the Lib Dems have been able to snatch, the best of the bunch is undoubtedly Vince Cable as business secretary, but how he's going to work under the charmless and completely inexperienced George Osborne is anyone's guess. Alongside him for comfort will be David Laws, another of the "Orange Book" liberals that have so spectacularly triumphed and who will doubtless find themselves right at a home in a Conservative-run treasury. As for the two other cabinet positions which were made available to them, you can't really get a more uninspiring or thankless position than minister for Scotland under an erstwhile Tory government, and making Chris Huhne energy and climate change secretary is a masterstroke - all the blame can be laid on the Lib Dems for their failure to make any progress on either, while the Tories can happily ignore all of its previous commitments on the environment, which are naturally left until last in the draft agreement.

You need only look at the positions which have been filled by those from the right of the Tory party to see where the centre of gravity on so many issues is going to stand. It was always expected that William Hague would be foreign secretary, but as Nosemonkey points out, he's likely to be the most strongly Eurosceptic politician to have ever held that office, having ensured that the Conservatives left the mainstream EPP grouping in the European parliament and joined up with a band of minor right-wing parties described by none other than Nick Clegg as "a bunch of nutters, antisemites, people who deny climate change exists, [and] homophobes". Hague was strongly in favour of the Iraq war, and along with Liam Fox, the new defence secretary, is a member of the Atlantic Bridge, a neo-conservative organisation that recently celebrated the achievements of that well-known pacifist and humanitarian Henry Kissinger. Again, despite speculation that David Laws might be education secretary, Michael Gove ascended to his natural place from where he will attempt to institute the "free schools" plan that Sweden is in the process of doing away with because of the corresponding drop in exam results. Oh, and he's another member of the Atlantic Bridge and probably the most staunch neo-con of the whole bunch, having written the perfect counterpart to Melanie Phillips' opus Londonistan, Celsius 7/7. Those on benefits almost certainly have the most to fear, though: not just Iain Duncan-Smith as Work and Pensions secretary, but Chris Grayling as his underling, and with a section in the draft agreement which shows that the Liberal Democrats having completely acquiesced and given the Tories free rein to introduce their plans for welfare reform. If you thought Labour through their rigging of the successor to incapacity benefit were bad, as those terminally ill are currently being declared fit to work, then you haven't seen anything yet. The most vulnerable and those who can't help themselves that Cameron promised repeatedly to look after seem certain to be the very first to suffer under the Con-Dem coalition.

Just where then are all the concessions that the Lib Dems were so certain they had grabbed? They got their pupil premium, somewhat got their raising of the income tax threshold to £10,000 which is going to be achieved in stages which might yet be delayed, but what else is there? They certainly haven't got a guarantee that the inheritance tax threshold won't be raised later, they're allowed to abstain on the marriage tax allowance, which will mean it will almost certainly get passed, they've got nothing on Trident, which seems to have been one of their first sacrifices, only an independent commission on breaking up the banks, nothing on immigration other than a welcome end to the detention of children for immigration purposes, but that's another thing to be believed once it happens, and only a guarantee that they'll be able to abstain on the possible raising of tuition fees. So much for abolishing them, even as an aspiration! It's true that we can't ignore the incredibly welcome section in the agreement on civil liberties, but even parts of that are flaky. They've also given in on the DNA database by agreeing on adopting the Scottish model, which will mean that the profiles of the innocent will still be added to it, just for 3 years instead of Labour's proposed 6. There's also something missing from the section on civil liberties: the Human Rights Act, which the Tories promised to repeal. That it isn't mentioned is deeply worrying. As is the complete absence of anything on media policy: the support of the Murdoch press for the Tories won't have come cheaply, and the cutting of the BBC down to size is an even grimmer prospect of what might be to come.

Where does all this leave the Liberal Democrats? At a stroke they've lost the biggest reason for students to vote for them, while in Scotland their chances of keeping their seats must be growing dimmer by the hour. After all, if a Lab-Lib coalition would have had no legitimacy in England, then a Con-Dem equivalent has even less in Scotland. They haven't even got a completely fireproof agreement to fall back which guarantees this coalition will last for the full term: even with the change to 55% of parliament having to vote for an election in order to get one, should the Tories fall out with the Libs they'll easily get a dissolution with the support of Labour, who must be ecstatic with how things have turned out, almost guaranteed that they'll pick up seats at the expense of a party which has had its head turned by the very first glimpse of power. Nick Clegg seems to have been dazzled by the supposed concessions, and by the chance of being deputy, but that doesn't excuse the entirety of the parliamentary party which also went along with him. The activist base, the parts of it that haven't instantly defected, must be terrified at what lies ahead for them whenever this agreement breaks down, especially if it does last the full 5 years and the cuts are every bit as harsh as they promise to be. If the 1983 Labour manifesto was the longest suicide note in history, then the Con-Dem deal might turn out to be the one which takes the most time to be acted upon.

As for our new double act and who they most resemble, you can't help but predict that they might well turn out to be Steptoe and Son, with Cameron as Albert and Clegg as Harold. Everyone knows that the central arc of the show, that Harold couldn't escape however he tried from his father, turned into life imitating art when Harry H. Corbett became typecast in his role and found himself stuck alongside a man who he genuinely couldn't stand, resulting in a disastrous Australian tour. Cameron clearly has nothing to lose, and his party is unlikely to be too damaged by any deal, its base still there, while Clegg is putting absolutely everything at risk by joining a partnership which he has next to no control over. He faces being stuck in the shadow of Cameron for the rest of his life, having acted as his fluffer while potentially consigning his own party to oblivion. Will it be worth it, either for the policy concessions he's achieved, or for the good of the country, as is if that ever really came into it? We might know far sooner than Clegg has to hope we will.

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5/12/2010 10:04:00 pm | | | links to this post

Friday, October 03, 2008 

Reshuffling towards oblivion.

It's difficult to overstate just how desperate the cabinet reshuffle shows Gordon Brown as being. Desperate both to win the next election and desperate also to attempt to show that there really isn't any difference of opinion any longer between the Blairites and the Brownites. Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but the rehabilitation of Peter Mandelson, who for over a decade could not stand the sight of Brown, let alone work with him, was not the way to go about it.

This is not because Mandelson is the uber-Blairite, that he was one of a whole bevy of habitual liars, that he, more than Alastair Campbell, helped to establish the current political culture of spin that has so demeaned politics in the eye of the public, but because he is simply the wrong man at the wrong time. Very few dispute that Mandelson as a minister was effective and good at what he did, whether he was at business, his old and new job, Northern Ireland or as European Commissioner, but there is one quote that more than ever suggests that this is not his moment. He, along with Blair, declared to the City that he and New Labour were "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich." Well, they did, while everyone else didn't, and now this is the man to spearhead Brown's new regulatory agenda. Jesus wept.

Brown's lack of new ideas could not be more summed up by this latest relaunch. It's almost as if it was 1997 again, just with Brown in Blair's position: we've got Derek Draper back advising, Alastair Campbell quite clearly helping out but doing so from the sidelines and Peter Mandelson, ennobled and in the cabinet. All we need is for Brown to bring back Lord Levy to glad-hand the business folk and it'll be as if we've gone back to the future. Nick Brown, the uber-Brownite to the Mandelson's uber-Blairite, is even back as chief whip. The problem with it is obvious: 1997 is long gone, and so are the benign circumstances of that year.

The counter to that argument has been the setting-up of the economic council, half-stuffed with somewhat sympathetic businessmen, but still those that got us into this mess, and the other half with the, err, politicians that got us into this mess. The disastrous appointment of Digby "sod the workers" Jones as the minister for trade, now to be the council's ambassador, hardly inspires confidence that this will be anything more than a talking shop where the most limited possible re-regulation will be rubber-stamped, all while sticking two fingers up at the PLP, just as Jones's initial appointment did.

If that wasn't rewarding failure enough, then Margaret Beckett's appointment as minister of state for housing is almost tragicomedy. Having presided over the cocking up of the CAP payments to farmers while head of DEFRA, whilst being easily the worst foreign secretary of Labour's reign, she will doubtless have much to offer just as the repossessions spiral out of control. John Hutton, who was reprising Mandelson's filthy rich line earlier in the year moves to defence, while Des Browne returns to the backbenches, quite possibly because like Ruth Kelly he intends to vote against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill when it comes back before the house. Kelly incidentally is standing down as an MP as well, probably because she knows full well the Tories will be taking her seat in any event.

Jon Cruddas, meanwhile, heavily tipped to take the housing job, apparently declined because Gordon was unwilling to countenance the council house building programme which Cruddas believes necessary. Downing Street has denied he was offered any job whatsoever, which ought to tell its own story.

Whilst the day's manoeuvrings do show just how desperate Brown is, they also prove that for now the attempts to overthrow him have been delayed, if not put entirely on ice. Whether it was because he did enough at the Labour conference or because of the financial meltdown earlier this week, which even prompted the Conservatives to come over all bi-partisan, is less clear. If the rumours that Hazel Blears and especially the female ministers in the cabinet were the ones moving to wield the knife, they still all remain except for Kelly, but have been undeniably weakened. The next big challenge is the Glenrothes by-election, which few still believe that Labour can hold. It may well come down to how big the defeat is that decides whether the move is back on, but no one can claim the Brown is anything other than further personally weakened by having to bring the old team back together.

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10/03/2008 11:59:00 pm | | | links to this post

Friday, June 29, 2007 

Cabinet resnore part 2.

There's only thought which comes to mind when examining Brown's full reshuffle. Christ, if this is a government of all talents, then what would a government of no talents look like?

Let's begin with the elevation of a true cunt of capitalism, "Sir" Digby Jones, former head of the Confederation of British Industry, as well as a former director of iSoft, the company which has so comprehensively failed to deliver the National Programme for IT either on time or on budget. It's not his fault though, and neither should he have known about the accounting irregularities at the company, because "there is a limit to what independent directors can know." He'd also rather that no one had ever found out about those problems in the first place: he dispatched legal letters to the Grauniad suggesting that the paper's enquiries were damaging the company. More recently, despite being the supposed skills envoy, he proposed the rewriting of the dictionary definition of a McJob, because McDonalds argue that err, a McJob isn't a McJob and it's also "insulting". Certainly a noble cause.

Still, he'll doubtless be a revelation as trade minister. According to the BBC:

He said Labour would "increasingly" become less "in thrall" of the unions, who he hoped would "get into a 21st century agenda".

As in roll over and die. Those expecting even the slightest improvement of the relationship between the government and the workers can therefore go hang.

Next up we have Lord Stevens, who's going to become Brown's adviser on international security matters. Judging by his fine body of work as a News of the Screws columnist, this will mostly involve blaming the Muslims and saying they've got to sort it out rather than anyone else. David Davis seems to be highly optimistic in suggesting that his appointment will somehow result in a "more measured" response.

Of the other "outside" appointments, two Liberal Democrats have ignored Campbell's eventual decision to deny any of his actual MPs joining the cabinet, with Baroness Neuberger (who?) advising on volunteering (why?) and Lord Lester giving his thoughts on constitutional reform. Mark Malloch Brown has been talked up as an Iraq-war critic, and the Scum has denounced him as anti-American, but as his profile on the Grauniad notes, he counted such quite wonderful people as Paul Wolfowitz and Elliot Abrams as friends, even at the time as that other delightful personality John Bolton was condemning him. A surgeon you've never heard of, Prof Sir Ara Darzi, has become a health minister dealing with patient care, and another heavily titled military man, Admiral Sir Alan West, has become a Home Office minister for security.

The rest of the junior ministerial appointments have been delayed by the discovery of the car bombs, with only a few other jobs announced, but with Jim Murphy, another execrable Blairite keeping his job, there seems to be little to get excited about. Jon Cruddas may additionally disappoint some people by apparently turning down a job, but he may well have more of an influence campaigning outside the ministerial tent rather than having to compromise inside it.

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6/29/2007 11:01:00 pm | | | links to this post

Thursday, June 28, 2007 

Cabinet resnore.

Around the only real surprise appointment in Brown's new cabinet was Jacqui Smith as Home Secretary, which resulted in both the nation and hacks asking "who she"?

In line with the last three home secretaries, Smith is both a bruiser and a Blairite, coming from her previous job as chief whip, itself previously occupied by that other aggravating Blairite, Hilary Armstrong. Her only real interaction with the public at large has been on Question Time, where she proved herself just as bad as her predecessor and fellow minister Hazel Blears at actually answering questions, instead of just spouting New Labour rhetoric. Her last appearance was noted for her egregious support of the Iraq war, using both the worthless if we hadn't acted Saddam would still be in power argument, followed up by the chestnut about everyone believing that Iraq had WMD, despite Robin Cook for one mentioning in his resignation speech that he didn't believe Iraq had WMD which was actually usable, as well as others such as Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector who said that Iraq had been effectively disarmed. Doubtless she'll be expected to follow the hard line set out by Blunkett, Clarke and Reid, appeasing the Sun first and thinking about the consequences second, although with the creation of the Ministry of Justice, handed over to Jack Straw, she'll have a lot less to do than they did.

Speaking of Jack Straw, a former Blair ally who saw the way the wind was blowing and swiftly ingratiated himself with Brown, his appointment is despite his blatant lies over what he and the government knew about extraordinary rendition, denying that the government had been involved in the programme whatsoever, something subsequently proven by the EU report into rendition as completely untrue.

Keeping with liars and links with extraordinary rendition, Geoff Hoon has been made chief whip, despite his execrable performance both at the Hutton inquiry, which proved that while he was defence minister the MoD left David Kelly out to dry, contributing to his subsequent taking of his own life, and when he gave evidence to the EU investigation into rendition, which subsequently described him as distinctly unhelpful and evasive. More recently he gave an interview to the Grauniad which was notable only for its ignorance and belated conclusion that he and the rest of the government ministers had no influence over US policy on Iraq whatsoever. It only took them 4 years to admit it.

The Tory turncoat Shaun Woodward has been made Northern Ireland secretary, which should be a nice reward for 6 years of complete loyalty to the Blair regime. Hazel Blears, quite possibly the worst politician to ever hold a government post of any sort, despite her well-deserved drubbing in the Labour deputy leadership election, moves from party chair to communities and local government secretary, which must have mayors and councillors across the country groaning/reaching for the cyanide pills. Everyone's favourite member of Opus Dei, Ruth Kelly, moves from that job to transport secretary, where her religious beliefs shouldn't interfere too much, at least compared to when she was disgracefully given the equality brief.

For some reason known only to Brown, Tessa "I've never met my husband" Jowell, despite being removed from the culture secretary job, keeps her role in cocking up and increasing the cost of the Olympics, where she'll hopefully be more inquisitive about the figures involved than she was with the paying off and taking out of mortgages on her home.

About the only really welcome addition was John Denham's return from the wilderness after he resigned over Iraq, no doubt frozen out by Blair for daring to disagree with him in such a manner. He becomes secretary of state for the new department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, when he would have been much better suited to be either home secretary or justice minister, considering his well-respected chairing of the home affairs committee. As expected, Brown promoted the most obsequious hangers-on/friends of his, Ed Miliband the new Duchy of Lancaster, Nick Brown becoming deputy chief whip and minister for the north, Ed Balls to schools, Douglas Alexander taking over from Hilary Benn at international development, with Alastair Darling the new chancellor, while Des Browne stays defence secretary.

Despite the spin about Brown's government being one of all talents, so far only that wonderfully successful businessman "Sir" Alan Sugar has been appointed as "business adviser", which the Scum has already capitalised on with its quite brilliant witty take on the cabinet appointments, with Brown saying "you're hired!". I wonder how long it took them to think that one up?

Like yesterday, the whole thing was a predictable let down, which has left the BBC sexing it up by screaming "biggest cabinet change since second world war!" and "surprise changes!". Some of the Blairite deadwood might have been removed, but some has inexplicably escaped the chop, probably only not to cause immediate ructions between the warring factions.

As for that invisible member of the cabinet, the Sun has already told Brown what his immediate priority should be. Schools? The NHS? Pensions? Iraq? Immigration? Housing? Err, no.

In the first days of his Premiership, Gordon Brown must decide how to deal with the controversial treaty.

How so?

And if the new Prime Minister means what he says, he will trust the British people he so admires.

In a referendum on Britain’s future role in Europe.


Ah yes, with the people reliably informed by the nation's favourite and most truthful newspaper. Heel, Gordon!

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6/28/2007 09:09:00 pm | | | links to this post

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