It's time to revisit the unavoidable horizon of lesser evilism, albeit from a completely different perspective. Traditionally at election time people like me have to lecture comrades on the left to think deeply about their ill-fated electoral interventions and/or abstaining and vote Labour to keep the Tories out. As I've been a party member for seven years, that has meant urging a Labour vote despite Ed Miliband's immigration mug and the disaster zone that was Gordon Brown's premiership. Even before, all through my time as a Trot, it was obvious that a Labour government, regardless of the fact that it undermined the constituency it was set up to represent, is always preferable to a Conservative government. How things change. The left have captured the leadership, the left is running the election campaign, and the well-received manifesto is a document of the left. This time it's entirely unnecessary to bother with the few folks determined to lose their deposits. On the whole, most of the extra-Labour left are now on board. They may have criticisms of Corbyn but overall the party is heading in the right direction. Yet there are some Labour people, some former activists and members, who have left the party and are determined not to vote for Labour. Some have gone because of Brexit, even though Labour accepting the result appears to be vindicated by the polling. And not a few vanished because of Jeremy Corbyn and all the reasons that got a full airing during the two leadership contests. And so to these people - you know who you are - this is for you. A few have even joined the Liberal Democrats. I say this in the same way it was sais to impatient lefties in the past: get a grip. This election is not about you, it is bigger than whatever criticisms you may have. Just look at what is happening. Every time Theresa May opens her mouth about Brexit, the more likely we will crash out of the European Union without a deal. Because, true to form, the short-term headline-driven interests of the Tory Party is what comes first and foremost in every Conservative leader's mind. Their record this century on this score speaks for itself. Fine, you don't like it that Labour trooped through the aye lobby for triggering Article 50, or that the party is now committed to the end of free movement, but the choice is very clear. It's a choice between a likely no deal or a very bad deal negotiated by the clowns May has put in charge of Brexit, or a Brexit that preserves as much of the status quo as possible. Two evils, one is less damaging than the other to our people. Which is it to be? Should we mention the security situation again? Okay, you don't like Jeremy Corbyn because of his past associations, his lefty record, his stance on nuclear weapons. It's unlikely a sentence or two expended to persuade you otherwise is going to change your mind. Instead, look at it this way. Under Theresa May, you know as well as anyone else that police numbers were substantially cut, depriving the security services of crucial community-level intelligence. In her speech responding to Saturday's terror attack, May not only unveiled a counter-terror strategy doomed to failure, but even now won't rule in extra police resources or rule out further police cuts. Meanwhile, Jeremy and the party have pledged 10,000 more coppers - a partial reversal of Tory cuts - and whatever it takes to keep the people of Britain safe. Which then is the lesser evil? Having someone you have political differences with as Prime Minister who would nevertheless address the terror threat, or a complacent Conservative government who've presided over three attacks after a period of defunding counter-terror policing? Which is the lesser evil? Let's have a think about aspiration seeing as it got bandied around with much gusto in the immediate aftermath of the last general election. I'm going to define aspiration quite simply. It's something much more basic than "second home ownership, two cars in the driveway, a nice garden, two foreign holidays a year, and leisure systems in the home such as sound, cinema, and gym equipment", as Scottish Labour once put it. For too many of our people, it's the aspiration of having a regular job with regular hours, of getting work in which one can exercise their full talents, of buying their own home, of a life free of debt, of not getting hounded by the DWP for a few quid overpayment, of not having to face the humiliation and fear of the work capability assessment, of going into overcrowded hospitals and not having to wait for hours in pain, and the aspiration of living in a society that has left behind dog-eat-dog attitudes and is offering something better for everybody, be they poor or better off. Fine, you don't like how Corbyn supporters have talked down achievements of past Labour governments, but what is important is happening now. You can support a Prime Minister elected on a manifesto that will address all of these, or vote for a party that talks about a fairer society, but will leave social care unattended, the NHS in a mess, the disabled in crisis, and disproportionate numbers locked into low paying insecure jobs. This isn't even a lesser evil question, it's a simple yes to a positive programme or the acceptance of a miserly, grey patrician vision of a Tory Britain. There really is no contest. These are the choices you have to weigh up. Does your dislike of Jeremy Corbyn trump the transformative programme Labour offers? Does your dislike of Jeremy Corbyn mean you'd rather see a Conservative government that's reckless with the wellbeing of its citizens, reckless with Brexit, and reckless with our safety? And, seriously, what is better for the centre left politics you're committed to - a government that seeks to put the values you hold dear into practice or one that is their very antithesis? Are you prepared to see the Tories win just so your centrist purity remains unsullied? Think about the others who need a Labour government. After all, it's a line you have used with others before. So if you don't like Jezza, put on your nose peg on Thursday and do your duty just as many others have done for previous Labour offerings.
It takes chutzpah to suspend national campaigning and then give a political speech about Saturday night's terror attack. But this is Theresa May and the modern Conservative Party has no qualms when it comes to turning a crisis into an opportunity. Naturally, May and her advisors are wily enough not to play the big P politics card but you have the genesis of a simple, touch-sounding black and white position they will use to browbeat voters into backing them as we enter the final stretch. This morning May said "enough is enough", implying that Britain has been a soft touch for Islamist radicalism which, if that was the case, means she oversaw a dereliction of duty for the last seven years. But she doesn't mean that at all, it signifies a serious and potentially calamitous switch in direction when it comes to counter-radicalism and anti-terrorism. This is plain to see in all of her proposed four changes to policy. She said:
They [the terrorists] are bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism ... it will only be defeated when we turn people's minds away from this violence and make them understand that our values - pluralistic British values - are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate.
Well, yes. But no. The problem is this comes from the Douglas Murray/Henry Jackson Society's Islamism for Dummies guide. As Murray is bound to say something on this topic again soon, we'll save up a polemic until then. For the time being, it is enough to note that showing off British values to a bunch of befuddled thugs and telling them they are superior to the idiocies of Islamism isn't going to work. May is firmly on the terrain of the ideas delusion, that ideas in terms of elaborate and sketched out ideologies are the prime motivators of jihad. Yes. No. Why does a minuscule subset of Muslims find these views compelling and convincing? What is it about them that makes sense according to their everyday life? How are emotions - anger, frustration, anxiety, companionship, hope - fermented by Islamist ideas into intoxicating zealotry? Why is it men, and young men in particular, are the ones carrying out acts of violence informed by this crackers creed? After all, no women have undertaken Islamist terrorism in the West. And what of those who turn to Islamism without becoming ideologues, without chowing down on the virgins-in-the-afterlife hook? Homing in on just the ideas effaces individual biographies of jihadis, of the material circumstances of their life and their positions in the fabric of social life. We make our own history, but not under the conditions of our choosing as someone once said. Focusing on just Islamism is tantamount to saying Islamists are Islamists because Islamism. Not helpful, and it doesn't bode well for May's first "change". Her second argument flows from the first. Islamism should be denied the safe space it needs to incubate, and that means governments should work in tandem to "regulate cyberspace". She'll be calling for traffic stops and toll booths on the internet superhighway next. Retro (out-of-touch?) buzztalk aside, this is more evidence of the ideas delusion. Jihadi content is easy to access with a little bit of Google wizardry. The violent imagery and propaganda vids of IS certainly act as bridging tools for some would-be Islamists. However, it's not the case that an exposure to this material causes Islamists. If you start watching this stuff rooting for IS indicates something else has already gone on. Mobilising people for any kind of politics is a process. Ideas have efficacy if, as we've already noted, it speaks a truth about someone's individual existence. Of crucial importance are the networks and relationships one has, and real or imagined grievances. The reason jihadi propaganda slides off most people is because those things do not align. Indeed, for a large number of young people who watch them, IS propaganda vids are merely an edgy subset of gross out videos. In short, for all sorts of reasons governments want tighter control of the internet and bedroom radicalisation offers a handy pretext. Third, May wants to take on the real world safe spaces in which Islamism thrives. That means more bombing abroad, because that is sure to kick away a grievance prop jihadism draws upon, and taking the fight to Islamism at home. She said "there is - to be frank - far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society." What on earth does this mean? Is she thinking about the Birmingham Trojan horse scandal, which was shown to be rubbish? Is she expecting educators to police the classroom to root out would-be jihadis from among the student body? And how about the safe space she reserves in Downing Street for delegations from Saudi Arabia, whose largesse for Wahhabism in the West is so well known that the EU officially regards it as the primary wellspring of Islamist terror. This is just incoherent and hypocritical nonsense playing to the gallery of newspaper editorials and the inchoate notion that "they", the public sector lefties, the cultural Marxists and the race relations professionals are destroying the fabric of Britain with liberal tolerance. Getting tough here is code for kicking experts and intellectuals, traditional hate figures for Tories and right wing hacks. Her last pledge is to review the counter-terrorism strategy, which is just about the only thing I do agree with. Though you might have thought what with the security of the people at stake, this would be under constant monitoring and review. Therefore May would look at introducing new powers for the intelligence services and police, which takes us back to more monitoring, more surveillance. However, there is something very clearly missing from her pledge: more police. With 20,000 fewer coppers on her watch and firm refusal to rule out more recruitment or even further cuts, this is not a serious strategy for dealing with the problem. As former Met officer Peter Kirkham argued this afternoon, the government are lying about the number of armed officers and their funding, and no full well the removal of community constables has hampered the intelligence capabilities of our counter-terrorism efforts. In short then, May's proposed strategy from the off is not interested in understanding the radicalisation process, thinks clamping down on the internet will fix it, and giving the security services new powers - and presumably new responsibilities - without reversing the cuts she personally oversaw and implemented. It's a bloody shambles, offers no improvements over what already exists that I can see, and one doomed never to work. A recipe that promises security, but will do nothing to stymie Islamism.
That numb, helpless anger you feel when a group of innocent people have been murdered in another jihadi attack. This is quickly followed by contempt for those who try and hijack the tragedy for their own ends, be it for self-publicity or political grandstanding, whether at home or overseas. Once this has passed, reflection sets in as folks try to grasp what's going on, because understanding is the prerequisite of doing something that prevents future radicalisation, and therefore future plots. We - the public - know nothing about the attackers yet, except they shouted for Allah as they attacked people, according to multiple witnesses. We know from the photos that at least one of the dead terrorists is a young man of Arabic or Asian descent. And we know their MO fits the pattern of other Islamist outrages here and elsewhere - the attempt to inflict as many casualties they can without any regard for their own lives. This still begs the question why. At the beginning of Ramadan, IS called on its followers to wage all-out war on the West, but what are they hoping to achieve? After all, war always has objectives in mind. Given IS territory is under siege in Syria and Iraq, and concern has been voiced over the "ungoverned spaces" in Libya thanks to the connections Salman Abedi had with them, how do outrages here, and across Europe and the Middle East help IS build its twisted caliphate? While it might appear to be terror for terror's sake, mass casualty events serve two distinct purposes. Just as terror bombing of civilian centres during WWII were designed to sap the morale of enemy populations, IS are trying to accomplish the same thing with sneak attacks and seemingly random eruptions of violence. Choosing the softest of soft targets - pedestrians on a bridge, kids at a concert, Londoners on a night out - are attempts at sedimenting simple, mundane pastimes with a layer of threat. A society ill-at-ease, that cannot relax and must be on its watch, is a frightened society, an anxious society clamouring for security and safety. And the traditional (and hoped-for) response is to ratchet up authoritarianism. More gun-toting police, more jailings, and, crucially, more scapegoating. Whenever reports filter through of mosques daubed with racist graffiti, of Muslim women spat at in the street and forcibly uncovered, of politicians and pundits stirring up trouble for Muslims at large, be it the dog-whistling of a Douglas Murray or a "Muslims must do more to tackle terror in their communities" of practically every mainstream MP, it suits IS. It helps IS. Every curtailment of freedom, every spike in hate attacks creates the kinds of circumstances that nudges young would-be Islamists a little bit further down that road. The likes of IS don't hate democracy because they despise freedom and tolerance (though they do detest those things), they hate it because, among other things, democratic societies are much harder to penetrate into and recruit from. The torture chambers of Gaddafi, Ben Ali, and Mubarak/Sisi are the factories of Islamist radicalism, and is where IS and other jihadis have drawn sustenance for decades. Two attacks to have taken place during election campaigning is no accident or coincidence, then. With politics in the air, as terrorism is political violence it can't not raise political issues. These attacks were made with a view to bending the election course down a more authoritarian route, to try and shift policy in one or both the main parties and boost support for racist, Islamophobic politics. It goes without saying that freedom and democracy happen to be the values most associated with the powers that bomb IS and have, since the First World War, been overtly involved with the politics of the Middle East. In the jihadi imagination, mass casualty attacks are payback for (secular) dictatorships backed, for giving Israel carte blanche in the occupied territories, for bombing civilians with no come-back, interfering in civil wars, plundering oil wealth - the list of historical grievances go on. Consider, for example, the coverage in British media of an attack here or in another Western country versus the death of innocent families at the hands of bombing raids and drone strikes anywhere in the Middle East. Individual motivation of jihadis in mass casualty suicide attacks always have an element of this emotional connection to a perceived injustice, and a desire to redress the score by visiting terror and death on the citizens of Western nations. Lastly, terror attacks such as we saw last night are a symptom of IS weakness. Leaving aside the Manchester attacks where the full details about the sophistication of the bomb used has not been made public, this, the Westminster Bridge attack, and the murder of Lee Rigby were all primitive affairs with motors and knives. As their hellish caliphate contracts the routes into their territory are blocked, would-be fighters are left to skulk about their bedrooms and closed jihadi forums. To their mind, this justifies their assaults of civilian targets - because they can't get to the battlefield, they have no choice but to "defend" IS by targeting defenceless people and murdering them, and they will use whatever comes to hand to achieve this murderous end. IS are a bunch of murderous thugs. Their values are antithetical to secularism and democracy, but that does not make them unknowable. There are plenty of people writing and working in this field who know full well how IS thinks and why they do what they do, as well as the processes underpinning and conditioning why someone decides to go down this path - despite it also being antithetical to Islam itself. And with that understanding, strategies aimed at undermining and disrupting the path to radical extremism can and are employed by a variety of agencies. As we enter the final days of the election campaign and reaction to this outrage casts its shadow over campaigning, we will see who wants to deploy this understanding of IS to stop them, and who wants to ignore it to score political points.
Something's in the oven about the return of two-party politics. The problem when you're doing a long read is it's always a long write. Until the post appears I have a little classy dancey number for you. The video has absolutely nothing to do with the WipEout series of games, oh no.
The pundits muttered dismissively about YouGov's shock poll putting the Tories just three points ahead of Labour, suggesting the election's outcome is edging toward a hung parliament. Reportedly, Jim Messina, the Conservatives' stat whizz on loan from the liberal heroes at Team Obama threw his head back and laughed. Just like someone else we know. And then today Ipsos Mori dropped their bomb: Tories 45%, Labour 40%. The unweighted poll (i.e. not controlling for differentiated turn out) actually puts Labour three points ahead. I can feel hope cloying its way into my heart. This is no substitute for analysis, however. Cool heads are essential if the newly mobilised aren't to suffer disillusionment and despair if, after everything, the polls are proven wrong and Labour does worse than now expected. On this score, there are two tallies we need to keep an eye on: perceived economic competence and leader ratings. Since these questions have been asked, no party has won a general election who are behind on both. And, unfortunately, Labour is. That said the volatility of politics are proving Theresa May's undoing as her ratings plummet and Jeremy Corbyn's rocket upward. It is quite possible over the weekend the sliver of a gap between them vanishes and starts opening up on the other side. This. Election. Is. Killing. Me. After an excruciating week for May that saw her nearly crumble in front of a below-par Jeremy Paxman, refuse to take part in the leaders' debate and sent a grieving Amber Rudd in her place, turn down Woman's Hour, rule out any local radio interviews for the remainder of the campaign, and now reeling under the news that the CPS are charging Craig McKinley, his South Thanet agent, and "campaign specialist" Marion Little for alleged electoral expense fraud, May had to really pull it out the bag for tonight's Question Time special. For his part, Jeremy's insurgency is assuming juggernautish properties. Unlike May, he's not under siege from a collapsing campaign nor a simmering rebellion, and a strong and stable performance in front of the Question Time audience would be the icing on the cake for a brilliant week. Who remembers Tuesday's stumble in the Radio 4 studio now? May came first and needed to knock it out of the park. The first thing to remember is while May isn't comfortable in front of the public, tonight was her 24th appearance on Question Time. If she's no good with that format now, she never will be. And, overall, I think she came off alright. There were no stunning rhetorical flourishes, nor were there any big stumbles. It was competent enough - not polished, plenty vague, but little to frighten away the already committed Tory voter. The problem, however, is with the large numbers of undecideds out there. Here we have someone hyped by the media as the supreme politician, as a grown up versus the seat-of-the-pants juvenilia of Dave and Osborne. Coming across well matters. Relatable matters. Warmth matters. And she just can't do it. Asked about the public sector pay freeze for nurses, there was little sense of sympathy. Confronted by a woman with mental health difficulties and was dragged through a work capability assessment, there was no compassion in her response - just a technocrat's answer. As a rule, electorates are okay with people who don't connect as long as they understand ordinary people's problems, and unfortunately for May she tanks this every time. Jeremy Corbyn on the other hand had a much better time of it - for the most part. He was more relaxed, more assured in his answers, more interested in listening to what people had to say. On every indicator, he as the anti-May. He showed command of his brief and was able to talk in detail about policy areas, which, considering May is the incumbent and offered vagueness and generality, is a key difference between the two and reflects terribly on the PM. This was especially the case on Brexit - May wouldn't be drawn on no deal, while Jeremy talked about the need to protect jobs and building a more equal society. Brexit means Brexit for May, for Corbyn Brexit means the fight for more and better jobs, and a more pleasant, safer, fairer Britain. A key difference. Jeremy was doing extremely well until we came to Trident and nuclear weapons. He answered the points on Trident and the first use of nuclear weapons sensibly, on the importance of talking and diplomacy to ever avoid a situation where atomic warfare is a possibility, but some in the Tory third of the audience were determined to get blood and kept asking him whether he'd press the button. He wobbled and didn't offer a clear answer. There are various ways he could have answered it without a straight yes or no, like keeping all options open, doing whatever it takes to defend the country, listening to what the military experts say, and what not. But the audience member who came in after to attack the others who were gleefully criticising Corbyn for refusing to aggressively incinerate millions of people just about spared his blushes. However, the job was done and the press have got their meat for the weekend. Which, to be honest, is hardly news. Later on the IRA came back up and this presented him no difficulties whatsoever, revealing that he had defended Ian Paisley when moves were afoot to bar him from Westminster on the grounds that all voices needed to be party to a peace process, not just the ones you agree with. In all a good performance, sans the handling of the nuclear issue. Who won? As a Labour supporter I'm obviously going to say Corbyn. But where it counted - on character, on giving a vision, on policy detail he was much better, clearer, and more serious than the Prime Minister. Nukes presented him a problem but his attitude is already baked into nearly everyone's choice, though that won't stop the press from using it to mobilise the Tory vote and try and snatch back some of the volatile ex-kippers that are slipping toward Labour. But even if he gave a totally flat performance, he still would have won. Theresa May strikes as an unsympathetic figure, and she needed something special tonight to try and put her crisis-ridden campaign back on course. She wasn't able to do that. Labour goes into the final weekend of campaigning with the wind in its sails. All the Tories have is scaremongering. It worked in 2015, will it work now? Or can Labour confound all the sage expectations - including my own - and deliver the biggest, most surprising, and sweetest victory in our party's history?
Brexit is calamitous and regressive. But do you know what would be even worse? Ignoring a democratic vote and staying in the EU. That is why Labour were absolutely right to ignore the siren calls of the hard remainers, and why it will oversee Brexit if we're able to pull off the biggest political upset since 1945. However, the polls are against us still so I want to concentrate on the imminent danger: Theresa May's approach to Brexit. Not because she won't get a better deal than Labour. It's far more likely that she won't get a deal at all and crash us out of the EU. A disaster that doesn't bear thinking about. In her trailed speech today, May returned to the Brexit theme. Anything to put distance between polling day and her abject cowardice. She talked about the "national mission", of talking up the opportunities of Britain and seizing a place for it in the international firmament. This will be a Britain that matters again, a Britain free to make its own opportunities and its own success. In her usual projection tactics straight from the Tory playbook, Labour "haven't got a plan", "doesn't have what it takes" and, bizarrely, "doesn't respect the decision made by the British people". The Maybot is clearly malfunctioning. May's speech was a word stew designed to make good gravy for the right wing press and shore up her fracturing coalition. Unfortunately, her hardcore vote would guzzle up the Brexit dumplings rather than choke on them. But, again, that ominous and moronic phrase - no deal is better than a bad deal - keeps getting repeated. Like so much of the Tory manifesto, she refused to put specifics and a cost on what this actually means when she faced Paxo on Monday. And it's this vagueness that is so dangerous and makes the possibility of crashing out more likely. Want my workings? Here you go. Repeatedly, the Tories have shown themselves utterly unfit to be the custodians of the interests they represent, let alone preside over the rest of the country. Since 2010, for example, the Tories cut public spending when the economy was crying out for stimulus. That meant jobs lost unnecessarily, hard times inflicted on millions, and a further deterioration of Britain's competitive position in world markets. Then we had Dave gamble Britain's future on a minor threat to the Tories in a handful of constituencies - and lost. And now May and her car crash election, wasting Article 50 negotiation time just to wrack up a few score more seats in the house. Petty minded and stupid about sums this lot up. They are not to be trusted. With 'no deal is better than a bad deal', May has painted herself into a corner. Consider for a moment, who gets to define what is a good or bad deal? One that sees Britain hand over an annual sub for tariff free access to the single market, plus cooperation on science, security, trading standards and so on seems totally reasonable to me. However, May and her ghastly Brexit team - Boris Johnson, David Davis, and disgraced serving minister Liam Fox, are operating according to a different set of stakes. Details of the negotiations are going to leak like Trump's White House and the government are in for constant badgering by the right wing press. As soon as costs come in, they will splash them, particularly if the sums are large - which they will be. Ditto with Britain's Brexit bill. May will be under constant pressure to reject them. Furthermore, as she has set herself up as a "bloody difficult woman" the temptation to grandstand the EU27 will be too much. Thatcher had her Falklands moment, and May is not averse to cast herself as the mother of the nation standing up for British pluck against the continental monster. Never mind that she can't even stand up to Woman's Hour on Radio 4. The sad truth of the matter is all the pressures on May, all the political capital she can reap will come from refusing to sign a deal. What small details the interests of our people and the health of British capitalism are compared to favourable Daily Mail headlines and wrapping the Tory party in the flag of British intransigence. The additional danger is the stupidly bellicose rhetoric indulged by the government is setting up the same dynamic for the EU27 negotiators. If May is behaving like a petulant child, so the political benefits of collapsing the talks and booting Britain out grows. Here too, remember, for their own short-sighted reasons the EU were (and still are) happy to destroy Greece's economy even though the interests of EU capital-in-general was and remains in a speedy return to solvency, not eternal debt and austerity. These are the stakes then. It's not inevitably, but the stars are aligning for the most ruinous of Brexits and no deal with the EU. That will damage economies across Europe, but would prove to be a catastrophe for our faltering recovery. A Conservative government led by Theresa May makes this all the more likely, and why she must be stopped.
Here's what did the business last month. 1. May vs Corbyn: The Verdict 2. Explaining Laura Kuenssberg's Bias 3. What is the Dementia Tax? 4. Emmanuel Macron and Neoliberalism 5. A Note on the Labour Vote Goodness me, what a month. Even with an election looming I wasn't expecting huge numbers. Then again, given what's happened during the course of May, the start of the month is a foreign country. Overall, we saw just shy of 126,000 page views last month, making it the third best ever. Can these fortunes continue? Well, whatever happens in the election in eight days' time there will be plenty of things to discuss and analyse. There will be fall out for the Tories. There will be fall out for Labour, and I'll be there sifting through the bones and looking and what could happen next. Turning back to May 2017 for the last time, is there anything here that deserves a second look? I'm going to throw two your way. The first takes a break from politics, well, politics here by looking at the relationship between economic anxiety and Donald Trump. The second is an examination of the gross exploitation of tragedy by assorted commentators and social media wannabes.
The very moment Jeremy Corbyn confirmed he would be attending this evening's BBC Election Debate in Cambridge, Theresa May lost the night. Whether the last day of May will, um, prove to be the end of May remains to be seen. Yet to hide from a debate and sending a subordinate to do it for you is a catastrophic mistake, especially as your pitch is all about your super-duper leadership. I hope it will erode her strong and stable branding among those kippers, normally-Labour-but people, and soft Tories set on giving "her team" a punt. And so, straight away, without Amber Rudd uttering a single word on her boss's behalf, the Prime Minister is wounded and her party is down on points. Only something exceptional could have won it for them. Nevertheless, this debate was not without risk for the Labour leader. In 2015 when Ed Miliband appeared alongside the leaders of the other parties, minus Dave, it arguably fed into the coalition of chaos narrative the Tories ran with deadly effect. Having Rudd turn up loses that advantage - but there were still two possible difficulties Jeremy had to avoid during the debate. The first was Rudd herself. Unlike May, Rudd appears to relish these kinds of events and by sending her along the Tories thought Labour would put Diane Abbott up - in fact, she was daft enough to say so herself. Nevertheless, Rudd is a shouty, aggressive debater who goes straight in for character attacks. The way she filleted Boris Johnson at last year's referendum debate gave us an idea of what might have been in store. The second problem is how the tri-force of the Greens, SNP, and Plaid will play (seriously, why even is UKIP there?). Rudd was bound to talk up the possibility of coalition, so did Caroline Lucas, Angus Robertson, and Leanne Wood oblige the Tories and challenge Jeremy to take them up on it? Again, Nicola Sturgeon's coalition gambit in the 2015 debates inadvertently helped Dave get his message across. Similar talk hasn't bedeviled Jeremy anywhere near to the same extent, so you had to hope he had something prepared on this. With those dangers in mind, the objective for Jeremy tonight was to squeeze the non-Tory vote as much as possible and start making inroads into the Conservatives' electoral coalition. Inducing a few cracks in it so the support starts trickling away from May and towards the smaller parties (or suppressing a despairing Tory vote) is, at this juncture, helpful. In the end, there was no need to be worried. It was a scrappy debate as voices were raised and they tried drowning one another out. It meant Rudd's hyper aggression didn't materialise and her attacks on Labour barely registered either in the studio or the audience. This played to Dave's advantage in 2015 because he was able to assume the mantle of outsider, as someone picked on by the nasty SNP and the others. Rudd, on this occasion, wasn't able to strike the underdog pose. Having your boss arrogantly refusing to take responsibility was always going to do that. She had a go with the coalition of chaos nonsense but it fell flat. Dave succeeded because in making it about leadership he did at least turn up to one debate, and was able to let his opponents do the rest for him. This time there wasn't too much bickering between the anti-Tory parties. Leanne Wood laid a glove on Jeremy over Labour's record in Wales and its record in voting down progressive initiatives brought to the Assembly, but that was as far as it went. Angus Robertson wisely toned down the Scottish independence angle, even to the exclusion of mentioning another referendum, thereby denying the Tories a helpful attack angle and irritating English voters who, well, find it very irritating. What would the take homes be? I think the small parties will all be pleased with their performance. Even Nuttall turned in a pitch his dwindling band of kippers would find cheer in, even if he was at one point reduced to shouting "What about Hamas?". Tim Farron had a good night with some of the best lines, such as "Where is Theresa May tonight? She might be outside your house, sizing it up to pay for social care." And I think the standout performances came from Caroline Lucas and Robertson - the latter for her enthusiasm but effectively targeted passion, the latter for his forensic dismemberment of the Tory record. The ones that mattered were, of course, Jeremy's and Rudd's. As I said, Rudd was drowned out and when she was given space to speak her attacks were blunted and rendered ritualistic by weeks of robotic repetition without anything positive to offer. How would it have played among the undecided at home? It's unlikely to have stiffened the resolve of voters thinking of voting Tory. Perhaps Rudd wasn't on form, she is recently bereaved after all, which makes May's decision to send her along not just cowardly, but heartless too. Likewise, while the format didn't allow Jeremy to be as effective as his Paxo grilling, it was strong and stable, to use that phrase again. He got in attacks on food banks and homelessness, education, and was given opportunity to set out Labour's stall on terrorism and security. There were no wobbles, no difficulties, no sign of the alleged weakness attributed him by others. He set out and did what he needed to. Will this debate have a material effect on the election outcome? If it does, it will impact most on the Tories. To have all the party leaders attack May for being frit is sure to put doubt in some minds. Cracking her coalition is the game, and at this stage every vote that drains away from the Tories makes the prospect of an overall majority, let alone a landslide, recede into the distance. No clear winners then, but one very obvious loser.
Or, to give the full title, Ferry Corsten presents Gouryella - Venera (Vee's Theme). This is included on his latest album, Blueprint (a sci-fi concept album, no less). Perhaps I'll write about it once things have died down. Anyway, enjoy!
It's a misnomer to describe this as May vs Corbyn seeing as it's not a head-to-head debate, but it is true that tonight's Battle for Downing Street could settle the question of who-to-vote-for for millions of undecided people. As anyone who's been out canvassing in this campaign will tell you, there are plenty of them about. For each leader their encounter with Paxman relates to their campaigns differently. For Theresa May, whose strategy and messaging has collapsed, it's about turning round the Tory party's fortunes. They still command leads in the polls but have lost ground thanks to three things: the dementia tax, a rubbish, arrogant campaign, and the strong campaign Labour has run. While for May tonight was about salvaging a victory from the mess, for Jeremy Corbyn it has to be on building on Labour's dynamism and carry the poll surge upwards. Success for either leader can be measured by how convincingly May depicts Labour as a security risk, and how Corbyn paints the Tories as a risk to self-security. Paxman's job, meanwhile, was to get under their skin and show up the contradictions and problems of both. How did it go? Like last time, each 45 minute slot was broken into two parts - questions from the audience (one third Tory, one third Labour, one third undecided), and the second half a grilling from Paxman. Corbyn went first and took questions on the IRA and nuclear weapons - following a path firmly trod by a right wing media and a government increasingly desperate to weaponise any old rope against him. Unexpectedly, he received applause for setting out Labour's position on immigration (which subordinates numbers to perceived economic necessity) when, previously, this has was regarded a major Achilles Heel. He took a question from an alleged former Labour supporter who owned a small business and was worried about a rise in corporation tax, plans to introduce VAT charges to his children's school fees, and zero hour contracts. Very sensibly Corbyn hit the one nationist high road to talk about how spreading fairness was in everyone's interests, and that businesses like his would benefit from operating in a more benign environment. Not the class struggle Trot response many Tory supporters, and no doubt the questioner himself was hoping for. Also asked on his fitness to lead, he replied that telling people what to do isn't a sign of leadership - listening is. As he put it, "You should never be so high and mighty that you can't listen to someone else and learn something". It was a very strong performance that attracted praise from across the commentariat, including unlikely plaudits from your Dan Hodges and Nigel Farages. We then moved into the grilling from Paxman and, to be honest, Corbyn looked just as unruffled as he was during the first half. Some frustration did get the better of him as Paxo kept jumping in without giving him chance to answer a question. And what questions. Considering this man used to be regarded as Britain's best political interviewer, he wasn't on form tonight. Totally misunderstanding how Labour's manifesto is put together and having no clue about our traditions of collective discipline made him look bad and ill-tempered. You knew Paxo was in a sticky wicket when he was berating Corbyn for not getting the abolition of the monarchy and scrapping Trident into the manifesto. Bizarre. He then reverted to IRA/Hamas and state security matters. Corbyn is so practiced now at handling these sorts of questions that an interviewer of Paxo's experience should perhaps have focused on other things instead. Nevertheless, Corbyn escaped unscathed without a single glove landing. A commanding performance. Strong and stable, you might say. We all know Theresa May avoids the public like a vampire recoils from garlic, so in many ways she approached this as an unknown quantity for millions of people. And how did she do? With the audience she took questions on police numbers, the NHS, and the dementia tax. While some were hoping for a collapse that didn't happen, but her approach wasn't relaxed either. It was classical Westminster: you take the question and make a real meal of it, refusing to answer and covering up gaping chasms with vague generalisations and padding in the hope of crowding further questions out. I didn't find it convincing, but then I know what to look for. The method aims to convey the impression that the speaker knows what they're talking about and draw any controversial sting from it. Here May performed competently enough, though a quick aside on the "uncosted" Labour manifesto drew snorts of derision and mocking laughter from the audience. How did she do with Paxo? Remarkably, or not considering he is a self-confessed one nation Tory, the question style was a relaxed but occasionally awkward chat. Less politics, more the analyst's couch. There were next to no interruptions and May was allowed to waffle on as she pleased. However, she almost came unstuck at this more sedate pace. She was troubled by the dementia tax, repeating her pat answers of the last week. She was taken to task for going back on her word over calling the general election and was challenged over Brexit. As Paxo had it, the people in Brussels would look at Theresa May and see "a blowhard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire". Unfortunately, his loyalties got the better of going for the jugular and she was given the space to row back and waffle some more. In sum, she didn't perform badly but almost came undone under the gentlest of pressures. Not a good look. While it didn't have any material outcome on the 2015 election, The Battle for Number 10 was part of the theatre of that campaign. David Cameron was slippery and slick, yet mostly able to look the part - which was his sole discernible talent as Prime Minister. And Ed Miliband came over as passionate but a little bit awkward. Remember "hell yeah I'm tough enough"? It confirmed opinions already baked into voters' decisions. Tonight? Most people have an opinion about Corbyn, for good or ill, thanks to the blanket coverage he's received for nearly two years. And after his exceptional performance, some may have had their expectations confounded. May on the other hand can give good speech at set piece events without questions, but did she look like someone who can cope with criticisms? Did she look like someone competent enough to oversee the Brexit negotiations? To Labour people and others who follow such things, obviously not. It is to be hoped that after tonight many millions more have drawn a similar conclusion.
