The Ultra-Blairites are calling for Labour to surrender

by Owen Jones

When I read an article by Labour’s former General Secretary, Peter Watt, calling on the party to accept the Tories’ cuts agenda wholesale, I was reminded about how much this has all been turned around. You could say: “The Tories move Britain towards more neo-liberalism, New Labour stands pat; and the next Tory Government moved the country a little further right. New Labour loosened the corset of neo-liberalism, they never removed it.” If the likes of Watt have their way, that is what will happen if Labour win the next election.

Watt is a curious individual. He was, frankly, a terrible General Secretary, but he was treated badly by Gordon Brown and his undoubtedly bullying henchmen. He was effectively made a fall-guy for Labour’s donors’ scandal, and that was wrong.

That did not in any way excuse his subsequent behaviour: right-wing Tory Iain Dale published Watt’s insider account in January 2010, full of all sorts of hugely damaging revelations about the behind-the-scenes workings of the Brown regime. Watt presumably felt he was entitled to get his revenge against his unscrupulous former employer: but all he did was feed the right-wing press (who were delighted) and contribute – in however small a way – to the defeat of Labour in May 2010. Why anyone in the Labour Party would have any dealings with such an individual ever again is completely beyond me.

Watt says a lot about the loyalty (or lack thereof) many Blairite ultras have towards the Labour Party. They led repeated attempted coups – based on personality, not policy – against Brown; which the left, so often accused of disloyalty, had nothing to do with. Indeed, I remember a debate at Poplar and Limehouse CLP in which Blairite rebel Charles Clarke (hic) suggested left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell leave the Labour Party because of his disloyalty. Clarke lost his seat in 2010; McDonnell increased Labour’s majority. Now Labour is out of office, the likes of John Hutton and Alan Milburn are working as advisors to the Tory-led Government.

The Blairite ultras were demoralised by the defeat of David Miliband in Labour’s leadership election: but don’t kid yourself, they’re still kicking about alright, and they’re waiting in the wings for Ed Miliband’s failure, which they both anticipate and desire. As far as they are concerned, only a pure Blairite formula can deliver electoral success, and they do not wish this narrative to be disproved.

Peter Watt is far from alone among Blairite ultras in calling for Labour to accept the Tories’ spending plans. The Great Leader himself, Tony Blair, effectively called for Labour to accept the Tories’ economic policies in his memoirs; he even advised Cameron to resist the Lib Dems’ ‘Old Labour’ tendencies. The likes of Dan Hodges – who edits the Labour Uncut website, and is a committed opponent of Ed Miliband – have similarly called for Labour to accept the Tories’ cuts agenda.

There are Blairite maneuverings against Ed Miliband at the top of the Party, too. Both Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy are positioning themselves behind the scenes. Miliband has few real allies in the Shadow Cabinet: they effectively boil down to Peter Hain, Hilary Benn, John Denham and Sadiq Khan. So much of the policy vacuum can be explained by the continued strength of the Blairite right, and the failure of countervailing pressure from the left that would provide a support base for a genuinely progressive agenda.

Have no doubt: Blairite ultras like Peter Watt want us to capitulate to the Tories. In his article, Watt says “the first thing that we should do is just accept the Tory spending plans as set out in the spending review”. It would, he believes, “be bold and brave and, at a stroke, we will give ourselves permission to be heard again on the economy.”

Why we would be heard on the economy if we’re just parroting the line of the Government is a bizarre stance. Labour might as well second its press officers to George Osborne.

Indeed, if Labour were to take Watt’s advice, it should just shut shop and be done with it. What would be the point of it if it was backing the centrepiece of the Tories’ domestic agenda, the most sweeping cuts for nearly a century? Our differences would purely managerial: over issues like competence. But, frankly, we could do that from within the confines of the Conservative Party.

Blairite ultras like Peter Watt put socialists like myself in a curious position, because they force us to defend New Labour’s economic record against, well, New Labour. Blairite ultras buy into the myth that the deficit was caused by Labour’s overspending, rather than by a financial crash which caused a collapse in tax revenues and increased benefit payments to those thrown out of work.

In doing so, they become useful idiots for the Tory party. As the Conservative Party press team gleefully tweeted: “Ex-Labour Gen Sec Peter Watt implores his party 2 ‘stop fighting the cuts’ + ‘start talking bout the future’…ouch” The Tories use the siren voices of ultra-Blairism to vindicate their ideological offensive against the welfare state: ‘even sane people in the Labour Party agree with us’, they say. And, above all, they are a block on Labour developing a genuine coherent alternative to the Tory cuts agenda.

I don’t know where the political journey of the Blairite ultras will take them. It’s worth looking at the history of the neo-conservatives in the US: they started out as Democrats. Even as they became disenchanted with the Democrats, they couldn’t bring themselves to join the Republicans for cultural reasons: many were from working-class backgrounds and had grown up regarding them as the political wing of the wealthy. They eventually got over it, though, and became the most ardent Republicans around.

I’m not that interested about whether some Blairite ultras end up jumping ship or not. But they are – inarguably – allied to the Tories’ economic agenda, and they are more committed to ensuring Ed Miliband fails than helping Labour to succeed. They must be defeated, and be seen to be defeated, if Labour is to offer a genuine alternative to this horrendous government.

Encouraging job figures – but not for women or the over 50s

The number of people in employment, 29.24 million, and the employment rate, 70.7 per cent, in January-March, were up from October-December, by 118,000 and 0.2 points respectively. This is the third successive quarter-on-quarter increase and employment is now 416,000 higher than it was twelve months ago; this is very similar to last month’s figure:ILO unemployment in January-March stood at 2.455 million; this was down 37,000 from October–December and the unemployment rate was down 0.2 points, to 7.7 per cent. Youth unemployment was down, only by 1,000 for 16 and 17 year olds (well within the statistical margin of error), but by a more substantial 29,000 for 18–24 year olds.

Unemployment is 56,000 lower than in January–March 2010; this is not as impressive as the increase in employment and the current level is still 841,000 above the April 2008 figure – just before unemployment started rising:In the past year, decent monthly employment figures have sometimes been the result of an increase in ‘atypical’ employment – part-time and temporary jobs and self-employment. But this month the number of employees working full-time grew by 146,000 – more than the total increase in employment.

The number of self-employed people actually fell and the increase in the number of full-time workers was almost four times as great as the increase for those working part-time:

There was, however, an increase in the number of temporary workers of 48,000 and the proportion of workers who are in temporary jobs also rose – from 6.2 to 6.3 per cent. On the other hand, involuntary atypical work declined – the proportion of temporary workers who are in these jobs because they couldn’t find permanent work fell from 37.6 to 36.0 per cent and the proportion of part-time workers in the same position also fell slightly, from 15.3 to 15.2 per cent.

Another cause for concern in the past year is what’s been happening to women’s employment. In recent months, good overall results have sometimes disguised the fact that what has happened to men and women have been very different stories; in particular, women’s unemployment has risen while men’s has fallen. That is less true this month, though there are still worrying differences between what is happening to men and women.

The increase in women’s employment is very welcome, but the fall in unemployment is quite anaemic and it is still true that, despite overall declines in joblessness, women’s unemployment is 57,000 (0.3 percentage points) higher than it was a year ago.

The claimant count measure of unemployment did not move in a positive direction. For the second month running, this measure – the number claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) – rose while the ILO measure fell. This probably has a great deal to do with the increasing numbers of lone parents having to switch from Income Support to Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Lone parents whose youngest child is aged over 7 have had no benefit alternative to JSA since October last year; previously the age limit was 10. The number of lone parents on the claimant count whose youngest child is over 7 and under 10 has risen in that period from 2,570 to 39,055.

The number of women on the claimant count rose by 9,300 – three times the increase for men and the claimant count for women is at its highest level for 15 years.

The policy of progressively moving lone parents onto JSA began under the Labour government. Whatever the merits this policy may originally have had, it was designed in response to debates that were current before the global financial crisis, the rise in unemployment and the spectre of public sector job cuts.

There must be a question mark about its relevance to a situation where women’s unemployment is still high and the forthcoming cuts will hit employment opportunities for women especially hard.

There are other aspects of today’s figures that suggest we are not out of the woods yet.

While youth unemployment came down, the number of unemployed people aged over 50 to 64 rose by 14,000. This is rather worrying, as older workers have not previously been as hard hit in this recession. In previous recessions, older workers were more likely to be made redundant and then found it harder to get back into employment, it would be very worrying if that were to happen again.

Long-term unemployment continues to rise – the number of people unemployed over 12 months rose by 20,000 and the number unemployed over 24 months by 47,000.

And there are still major unemployment blackspots where there are 20 or more unemployed people chasing every job vacancy. Anjum Klair has produced a list of the ten worst in this month’s figures – more than two thousand unemployed people and just 63 job vacancies in Merthyr Tydfil!

Probably the most worrying item in today’s figures is the falling number of job vacancies: the provisional figure for January–April is just 469,000, a decline of 30,000 from the November-January figures. Although the overall picture today is quite encouraging this is a worrying marker for the future.

Most major recent reports suggest large-scale public sector job losses are in prospect:

• The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development’s Labour Market Outlook (pdf) reports that “near-term and medium-term employment prospects remain uncertain and subdued compared with pre-recession levels” and “together with the onset of public sector cutbacks, the risk of an employment slowdown appears finely balanced”.

• The Bank of England’s Agents’ summary report (pdf) describes “steady” employment growth in manufacturing and “gradual” growth in business services, but elsewhere, a great deal of uncertainty related to the prospects for household incomes and public sector cuts.

• Markit’s Report on Jobs is probably the most positive, but even they describe a “two-speed jobs market”, and are unable to say “whether the private sector can create enough jobs to offset the expected job losses in the public sector”.

Previously, I have suggested that last month’s overall good results were a blip. It’s still a finely-balanced question.

WCA is simply not fit for purpose

A major component of the ‘New Labour’ government and the current coalition government’s radical welfare reforms has been the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) for disabled people. But the assessment has been made much more stringent, with people with often multiple impairments being found ‘fit to work’ through the test. This has led to much debate about the efficacy of the WCA and today the Work and Pensions Select Committee will hear evidence from Atos Origin on the very subject. Members of the Select Committee might like to take a moment and read this short article before the cross examine their witness.

From now until Spring 2014 all those who are receiving Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance and Income Support paid on the grounds of illness or disability will be assessed for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), undergoing a stringent Work Capability Assessment (WCA) carried out by the French Company Atos who are contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

First introduced in 2008, the much criticised WCA has become even more punitive since changes in the 2011 edition of the training manual for assessors. Pilots in Aberdeen and Burnley have raised more criticisms of the process adding to the raft of criticisms from the British Medical Association, GPs, Citizens Advice Bureaus (CABs), Members of Parliament and disability organisations.

Those going through the test can be put into one of three groups: ESA Support Group not required to undertake work-related activity – but will be reassessed continuously; ESA Work Related Activity Group, for those deemed fit for work with support and preparation. It will be limited to just 12 months before ESA is stopped, and also may be subject to reassessment in the 12 month period; or Fit for Work, not entitled to ESA but transferred to a lower amount on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Case studies have repeatedly shown the inhumanity of a system based on government targets and the pain and misery of the increasing stringency of these tests. One example from the 2010 Citizens Advice Bureau’s report on ESA and WCA testing procedures highlights the experiences that someone considered ‘fit for work’ through WCA might endure:

She was in a great deal of pain in her muscles and joints and had extreme fatigue. At times her balance was affected and she could not walk without someone to support her. Sometimes she lost sensation in her legs, and on her worst days she could not walk at all. Any exertion such as walking 40 or 50 metres led to days in bed. She had had a bad reaction to some of the treatment and an ECG showed her heart muscle had been damaged. Her husband had to come home from work each lunchtime to help her. Her immune system was weakened, so she had to be careful when mixing with others.

She claimed ESA but was given six points in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and found capable of work. Her doctor supported her claim and she is currently appealing, but under Incapacity Benefit she would probably have been exempt and would have avoided this process.

There are many other stories like this. There are also increasing stories of suicides committed by people left without any means of income fighting and winning appeals, only to find they are called for WCA reassessments shortly after. As part of the recognition of the increasing trend of those going through assessments to take their own lives Job Centre Plus staff have been issued with guidelines on how to deal with people who they think might be suicidal because of the WCA testing.

One estimate claims that up to 500,000 people have been wrongly denied Incapacity status. In the Guardian, Amelia Gentlemen reminds us that since its rollout people with terminal illness have been found ‘fit for work’, those with mental health issues have said the system cannot appreciate complexities of mental health, and others that the tick box system is unable to cope with any nuances of long term impairments or illness.

Citizens Advice Scotland reported that under incapacity benefits, 37 per cent were found ‘fit for work’. Under Work Capacity Assessment, the figure had soared to 66 per cent. In 2008 The DWP and Atos were severely criticised by Robert Martin, the President of the Appeals Tribunal Panel, a position now abolished:

Criticism was made of ATOS Healthcare medical practitioners who did not appear to pay sufficient attention to the appellant at the medical examination and who produced findings in medical reports based on observations that were inconsistent, or recorded in the medical report findings that were contradictory

In a later 2010 independent review of the WCA tests Professor Harrington concluded:
There is strong evidence that the system can be impersonal and mechanistic, that the process lacks transparency and that a lack of communication between the various parties involved contributes to poor decision making and a high rate of appeals.” and that “evidence has consistently and regularly highlighted problems with each stage of the WCA process, which limit both the assessment’s fairness and effectiveness.

Moreover Atos’s own staff have said the assessments are too harsh. Prospect, the trade union who represent 135 Atos doctors, has also stated that the target of seeing ten or more people a day is unrealistic and will lead to wrong assessments, especially in complex cases.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that WCA was not working, Atos were awarded a further 3 year contract by the DWP at the end of 2010, with a contract for £300 million based the perceived expertise of a software system LiMA, which comprises the central part of the WCA testing.

There has been a 56 per cent increase in ESA appeals with figures up from 25,700 in the second quarter of 2009/2010 to 52,000 in the same quarter of 2010/2011. Almost half of cases are overturned at appeal. Paul Hoggarth of Burnley Citizens Advice said that as many as 80 per cent of those supported in their claims to overturn a ‘fit for work’ decision win. Figures from the DWP show that of those declared ‘fit for work’ by the WCA system, just 13 per cent are in employment. The ‘fit for work’ myth does not convert into any form of reality.

A representative survey carried out by Ipsos MORI and reported in ‘Employment and Support Allowance: findings from a face to face Survey’ commissioned by the DWP, found that nearly a third of those going through the WCA process were described as having ‘literacy problems’. A further six per cent ‘problems speaking English’ and 11 per cent had ‘numeracy problems’. Twenty two percent were described as in one or more disadvantaged groups including those with mental health issues, ex-offenders, and those with perceived learning difficulties.

An overwhelming 69 per cent of those going through the WCA process had ‘multiple health conditions’, with 81 per cent of people receiving medical treatment for their condition and 38 per cent waiting for treatment or additional treatment in all ESA groups. These statistics do not present us with a set of fraudsters pretending to be sick or disabled, nor a set of individuals who have been languishing on incapacity benefits for years; in fact 71 per cent of applicants to ESA were new claimants making their first ever claim.

The WCA is not really about assessing fitness for work, nor supporting people into work. The ‘capability’ tests were always part of a mutual interdependence between successive Governments’ need to reduce social claims on the state and business identifying financial benefit in such a process. The misery it causes is deemed irrelevant by all parties.

The 2011 manual issued by the DWP to Atos provided new regulations including:
…infrequent loss of consciousness would not substantially impact on a person’s ability to work and therefore only those experiencing weekly or monthly episodes of loss of consciousness will be awarded scoring descriptors.

Thus if you spontaneously lose consciousness once every five weeks, you will be assessed as ‘fit for work’. This is one example of the non reality of new WCA ‘fit for work’ standards. It undermines the logic, and the economic and social realities of any reasonable employment criteria. The WCA is presented under the guise of state and market efficiency. It serves neither criterion.

More inequality in Labour constituencies

If you are born in some Labour held seats, there is a 1000% higher chance of unemployment than if you were born into some Tory heartlands

The study below shows how ridiculous the notion of 'equality of opportunity' is. You inherit inequality. You start from the back of the grid with a half tank of fuel if you are lucky. There is a Ferrari on row one and it is roaring to go. That's the way life works. The national unemployment rate as of September 2010 was 7.2%. Above is the top 15 Parliamentary constituencies with the highest unemployment rate as of then. The main finding is that the regional disparity in the UK unemployment rate is vast. For example, in the case of Birmingham Ladywood the rate is nearly 350% higher than the national average. Labour represent 14 out of the top 15 seats with the highest unemployment.

The chart also shows those seats with the lowest unemployment rates. 6 seats unemployment rates were that low they could not be included on the graph but as we can see in the case of Wiltshire, Henley and Cambridge their unemployment rate is more than 300% smaller than the national average. As a young person growing up, the greatest postcode lottery of our age is whether or not you will get a job. Forget ability and work ethic, if you are born into certain parts of Birmingham and Nottingham your chances of being unemployed are nearly a 1000% higher than if you were born in Henley. The governments harshness on benefit claimants should be more reflective of the fact that work is hard to find in some areas.

This massive disparity distorts people's views on unemployment and general notions of benefit scrounging. There are areas of England where work is just scarce. It is too simplistic to say that people are lazy or unwilling to work. The Tory party is traditionally firm some might say unduly harsh on tackling benefit fraud. But I wonder if the key is convincing them to be just as dedicated to job creation.

National Insurance Holiday – a feeble start

Ed Balls was very effective yesterday, ridiculing George Osborne’s National Insurance “holiday.” This is one of the government’s new employment programmes, letting new businesses off paying National Insurance Contributions for the first 10 employees hired in their first year. Back in 2009, the Conservative Party claimed that it would create 60,000 jobs in two years, but by the time of last year’s Budget this had risen to 400,000 businesses (and presumably more jobs) benefiting. The government was so worried that this offer was going to be over-subscribed that they excluded businesses in London, East Anglia and the South East, and even so, budgeted to spend £50 million in 2010-11, rising to £370 million in 2012-13.

Well, how’s it going? As Mr Balls pointed out, figures the Treasury tried to slip out on the quiet showed that the actual figures so far are 3,000 businesses and an estimated 6,000 workers. Total cost so far? £5 million.

Ahem …

The TUC has argued for some time that the government has talked up the National Insurance holiday to a ludicrous extent. It isn’t actually harmful – some jobs will be created, but it doesn’t come anywhere near matching the scale of the problem. And it certainly doesn’t compensate for the vandalism of closing down the Future Jobs Fund. Of course, it’s possible that this is just a slow start, eventually it’ll be a great success and I’ll have egg on my face.

But somehow I don’t think so.

Why Labour still have it wrong on ESA

Readers may not have had the chance to read an excellent posting by Sue Marsh (Diary of a Benefit Scrounger) yesterday. Due to the significance of the piece it is reprinted in full.

If threats of suicide over sickness and disability welfare reform were not enough to depress me (see earlier article) then news that The Public Bill Committee on Welfare Reform voted on Tuesday to keep time-limiting as part of the Bill added fury to the mix.

Rhydian Fon-James outlines the next steps in this brilliant piece for Broken of Britain and rightly points to Stephen Timms passionate attempt to oppose the plans, but finding myself on a long and boring car journey to Devon over the weekend, I took the time to read the transcripts from the committee and my sense of frustration and anger rose with every mile.

Of all the proposals to cut social security for the sick and disabled, I am totally clear that time limiting ESA is the single biggest threat to the dignity and financial stability the most vulnerable people in our society face. Why? Because it is absolute. Once our year is up, no matter what our conditions, no matter what our family incomes or levels of poverty, we will be cut adrift. If, like me, your partner works him or herself into the ground to maintain a degree of financial independence, you will face a total loss of all support. We will become chattels, totally at the mercy of the goodwill of our loved ones. Worth nothing in the eyes of society, anyone with a progressive or degenerative condition who has not found some miracle cure within one year will be cast off.

Even a causal reading of this article makes it clear that this will present a massive dis-incentive to work. It will simply bankrupt us and force us into claiming 100% state support.

It is also a dis-incentive to be honest. I could side-step this proposal by getting a divorce and indeed, many people like me may simply be left with no other alternative.

It breaks any covenant between the state and dreadfully unwell people. People who may have paid into the same system all of their lives but find that when life becomes impossibly hard, they are all alone.

The transcripts show that other than cancer and to a lesser degree, mental illness, our politicians - of all parties - have no concept at all of what they are about to do. Mr Timms suggested that 90% of all claimants put into the Work Related Activity group will be affected by this change. From now on, if you get sick, you have just one year to get better or you will lose everything.

The Labour amendment suggested that time limiting should be set at at least two years. Mr Timms did ask for much more information and research on just how many people will actually have found work in that time, but it appears the DWP have no idea. So far studies show that of those being transferred from Incapacity Benefit to ESA, just 9% are "helped" into work within a year. What will happen to the other 81%? Nobody knows and it is abundantly clear that nobody cares.

There is no evidence to suggest that ministers have looked into exactly how much working partners earn. Can they actually afford to support their unwell or disabled partners without facing bankruptcy? With the limit set at just over £5000 per year or 24 hours a week, virtually all families will be affected.

The vital and depressing part is that despite asking for clarification on some issues and asking for a longer limit (the proposal was rejected) Labour still totally support the concept of time-limiting ESA. There were many references to how it has worked with those on Jobseekers Allowance but no concept at all of why the same mandatory approach cannot possibly work for those who are unwell.

All the while Labour refuse to listen and the Lib Dems support the Conservative proposals, sick and disabled people have no voice at all speaking out for them. How dare Labour decide that one year is too short, but two will probably be fine, with no details or facts at all to back up their claim? What kind of society and democracy are we living in if the opinions and voices of sick and disabled people are totally ignored? If those making the decisions are so keen to save money that they ignore all evidence, all pleas, all sense?

How totally out of touch are our politicians if they believe that cancer is the only condition that might not get better in a year? Have they honestly not heard of conditions like Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, Bowel Disease, Heart Disease, Lupus, Kidney Failure, Bi-Polar, Schizophrenia or the countless other degenerative, progressive or auto-immune conditions that may make it impossible for people to work? ALL of these people routinely go into the Work Related Activity Group and it is very unlikely that many of them will be able to "work" at least in the way expected by the DWP.

On 14thy May 2010, Mr Timms was stabbed by a constituent, suffering "potentially life threatening" wounds - lacerations to his liver and a perforation to his stomach. A senior police officer said that he "was extremely fortunate not to have been killed."

Just a millimetre either way could have seen Mr Timms disabled for life. He could have been left without a bowel, leaving him dependent on a feeding tube for the rest of his life. He could have suffered liver damage that left him in need of a transplant. That spare liver may have taken much longer than a year to appear. The knife could have severed his spinal cord leaving him paralysed.

Whilst I'm extremely thankful that no such disaster ravaged Mr Timm's life, the words "There but for the grace of God go I" must surely have occurred to him? Surely, he of all people must be able to see that life can change in a heartbeat and setting a stopwatch may not be appropriate to recovery?

No matter how big the stick, no matter how hard politicians try to use that stick to beat us with, some conditions just won't get better. Some will be made worse by working. A political class that chooses to ignore those simple facts, using a mid 90s definition of illness is in a very dangerous place indeed.

Which way for Labour?

Anyone who has read my comments on here will know I am no fan of Citizen Dave or the Tories but, in fairness it has to be conceded they fought the borough elections well and the resul reflects some disturbing realities for Labour. The biggest of these is that Miliband and the party hierarchy are not getting the message across that Labour offer a real and effective alternative to the 'cut and burn' approach of the Tories.

Secondly, although electors should vote on local issues, we know they use it to endorse, or protest aganst a sitting government. Since last May, Citizen Dave has presented a slick and statesmanlike behaviour as prime minister. Compare this with the meagre attempts by Ed Miliband and there is further cause for concern. No wonder Labour didn't sweep away many vulernable Tory councils.

Nor was last night's substantial vote against AV good for Labour. The party has historically opposed PR and its recent conversion to AV came as a shock to many die-hard lefties. Miliband hung his colours on the "Yes" campaign and with a vote of 2 to 1 against, it brings a further dent to his leadership.

Labour now need to reflect on these results and question why they are not in control in Scotland or Wales. They also need to look at the role of Andy Burnham as campaign manager - a job he handled with anonymity and without passion. Similarly, the autopsy should question the leadership style of Ed Miliband. His "I want to appear as unfazed and likable" approach isn't working and it obviously isn't convincing the electorate.

The Lib Dems are in disarray and it will take them months, perhaps years to recoup after their recent defeats. This isn't the case with the Tories and labour will need to work swiftly if they want to be seen as a credible opposition force.

The clouds in last night’s silver lining

With results from parish, borough and AV voting now declared, the guest writer today continues the autopsy on Labour's performance in local elections. The guest writer today is Atul Hatwal, associate editor of Labour Uncut.

As Ed Miliband surveys the results after his first major test as leader he will have mixed emotions. Great in England, good in Wales, bad in Scotland and rapidly forgotten on AV.

A curate’s egg, whatever one of those might be.

While the dynamics of devolved government mean the results in Scotland and Wales are driven by regional factors, and AV is done for a generation at least, it’s the English local elections where the tea leaves for the next general election can be best read.

England is where Labour needs to win the key seats, and its England where Labour has proportionately lost most voters since 1997. Ostensibly, the results give a sound basis for hope.

Not quite street party territory, but at least a couple of glasses of sherry.

On this happy path, the numbers of new Labour councillors elected take Labour back to respectable mid-2000s levels of representation in local government. Gains in a single election on this scale have not been seen since the mid-1990s.

This is not to be lightly dismissed. Revival in local government is an essential pre-requisite for national success.

Then there’s the overall vote share. While not spectacular, it was much improved over the election last year and progress at this rate would lead to a solid Labour majority at the next general election.

But still, there’s doubt.

Can a national result be extrapolated from local elections? Is this really a foundation for victory built by winning back Labour sceptics? Or a house of cards made from passing protest votes?

A few months ago in this column, I highlighted Labour’s poll challenge by looking at three specific questions asked intermittently by YouGov in their daily and weekly polls, and tracked their responses over the previous three months. These questions examined voters’ attitudes to the defining issues for the next general election.

The updated results to Labour’s poll challenge hold the key to interpreting last nights mixed election results.

The three YouGov questions look below topline voting intentions to reveal how voters feel the government is hitting them in the wallet, their view of how the government is cutting the deficit and who they prefer as a leader – David Cameron or Ed Miliband.

The public’s answers over this year have involved responses from tens of thousands of people and give a clear view of the scale of the problem.To misquote William Cobbett, I defy you to agitate a man on a full wallet. The higher the wallet line, the better things are for the government. Because it focuses on peoples’ perceptions of their own financial future it gives quite a different response to doom and gloom about the general economic state of the country.

The wallet line has remained largely constant this year. In January, 74% of people didn’t view the coming year as posing a major financial drama. In April this had risen a little to 75%.

In key Labour battlegrounds such as London and the Midlands, there are the early rumblings of actual optimism. The latest figures show that well over 40% think the worst is over and that the situation will either get better next year or at least stay the same.

That’s three-quarters of Britain thinking that things aren’t actually so bad and almost half of the public in key English regions, rich with key seats, thinking things can only get better.

This doesn’t suggest an electoral situation ripe for people to reverse their vote from the general election last year.

But, while worry about personal finances is often a driver of change, it is not sufficient alone. Winning the economic argument is what is needed, and can make the difference on its own.

This is what the middle band on the graph tests. The deficit is the defining economic issue of the day and the public’s attitude to how the government goes about cutting it will be a key determinant in how people vote at the general election.

The results here for Labour are worst of all.

On this central economic argument, Labour has not only failed to make ground, it has fallen further behind. At the start of the year, the majority who felt the way the government was cutting the deficit was necessary compared to unnecessary was 17%. In April, this had grown to 28%.

Well over 50% of the public consistently believe that the government approach to cutting the deficit is necessary.

And voters remain in no doubt as to who to blame for these cuts.

In January, 41% of voters blamed the last Labour government for the cuts, compared to 25% blaming the current government and 24% blaming both. In April, it was virtually the same. 41% blamed the last Labour government, 25% the current government and 23% both.

The public’s basic position is that Labour is responsible for the deficit and the government’s cuts are necessary. If anything, people are becoming more, not less, convinced of it over time.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of economic policy, purely in political terms this is a huge problem. From the mid-1980s through to 1992, Labour made an economically cogent but politically suicidal case for higher taxation.

The deficit is this decade’s tax.

Ed Balls is a big beast who knows how to take the fight to the Tories. He’s added vigour and aggression to Labour’s attack on the economy. But when he became shadow chancellor, he set himself the measure of putting Labour “on the front foot” on the economy.

Three months into his tenure, beyond the rough and tumble of day to day debate on the economy where Labour’s performance has improved significantly, the party is now more distant than ever from being trusted on this defining economic question.

Perceptions of Labour as a realistic government in waiting are further undercut by the leader gap.

At the start of January, Cameron’s lead over Miliband as peoples’ preference for PM was 12%. By the end of April, this had been pegged back slightly to 10%.

While this measure is going in the right direction, the level of reduction in Cameron’s lead begs the question – why so little?

Miliband’s press operation has been much sharper since the appointment of Tom Baldwin and Bob Roberts at the start of the year, he has been getting the better of Cameron at prime minister’s questions on an increasingly regular basis and the government has gifted Labour a conveyor belt of gaffes and U-turns.

Forests, defence, the NHS, schools, universities – virtually no corner of public policy has been left without a government crisis entirely of its own making.

If, after all that, Cameron still has a double digit lead among voters as the preferred PM, its hard to think what will shift the numbers decisively.

Looking at the three elements of the graph in the round, the overall picture is not a pleasant one for Labour.

It describes an electorate for whom the personal financial salience of the cuts is limited. Where Labour is seen as the cause of the problem and opponents of the solution. And where leadership is something only Cameron can provide.

In this context, the happy path that starts with these English election results ultimately leads back to the general election of 1992, or maybe even 1987.

The reality is that yesterday’s result in England was a blind trail of protest votes. People aren’t enamoured of this government, and showed it. But the local elections weren’t a choice between Labour and Conservative; they were a chance to vent at the government.

Based on the underlying factors picked-up by the wallet line, the argument gap and the leader gap, any pressure on Labour in a real election and the poll lead will collapse. Unless Labour can shift these key drivers, future mid-term victories or upturns in the headline polls will just be more false hope.

The sad truth is, one year on from the start of the Tory-led coalition, Labour’s journey has taken it back to square one.

Not a great night for Labour

If early results prove to be representative of the national trend then tonight may not be as good for Labour as their spokespeople will suggest later today.

Of course it is good that votes have moved from the Lib Dems to Labour. This will come as no surprise whatsoever and should be welcomed. However, Labour’s failure to take control of Holyrood is devastating news and undoubtedly will demand the resignation of the leader of the Scottish labour Party.

In Wales, early signs are that Labour has done well and seems set for overall control of the Principality. Good news for Labour, but even here there has not been a huge swing and it remains touch and go as to whether an overall majority takes place.

In England the Tory vote seems to have largely held, although their Lib Dem partners are taking a severe bruising at the polls. Predictions indicate that if the English results were extrapolated into a General Election result it would mean Labour would have 340 seats (and an overall majority), Conservatives with 264 and the Lib Dems on 21.

All this indicates how Labour are failing to get their argument across effectively. Undoubtedly Lib Dem voters have switched, but most of these tend to be progressives and their discontent was already widely known. Tory voters on the other hand have remained faithful to their party and, in large part their vote has held.

In other words, Labour will need to do far more to convince Tory voters to switch to them when the General Election is called.

I have long argued that the Labour front bench need to up their game and Miliband must be more proactive in attacking Cameron at PMQs. Their rather wimpish style has proven to be ineffective and the vote today will be taken by the Tories as an affirmation that the majority remain content with the way the Tories are handling the economy.

As much as I hate admitting it, they are right. Labour has done too little to bring about a change of hearts and minds. Over the coming months they will need to do far more to bring Tory voters into the fold and guarantee a Labour victory. In particular, they will need to show Tory voters that Labour has an effective economic strategy that can address the deficit and that the party is capable of stabilising the economy and attract new industries and new business to this country.

In other words, before Labour start popping the champagne corks they need to look long and hard at the figures – if they are honest they will admit yesterday’s election has shown there is still a great deal more to do.

Time to teach the Tories a lesson

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that today I am urging you all to vote for your local Labour candidate. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting they, or the Labour party as a whole have all the answers. Indeed they have a lot to answer for given our current economic situation. But voting Labour offers the best opportunity to give the Tories and their Lib Dem puppies a bloody nose.

In hundreds of wards throughout the country Labour are facing opposition from Tory, Lib Dem and Independent candidates. With The Tories and Lib Dems we all know where we stand – more cuts and the closure of many of our treasured frontline services. I may not like or agree with them, but at least they are honest(ish) about their intentions.

This isn’t the case with many Independent candidates, many of whom are little more than Tory apologists who didn’t have the guts to stand under a Conservative banner. They will try to tell you local government should not be about party politics.

Nonsense!

It has everything to do with party politics – from the development (or lack of it) of suitable social housing, through to maintenance of our road and leisure facilities – all these issues easily split along party lines.

Moreover, the Independents and Tories will tell you that Labour is the party of tax and spend. That argument is really becoming quite tiresome and is fundamentally untrue. Noticeably, no-one complains when frontline services were being maintained and jobs were secure. So, let me emphasise once again – our current economic crisis did not happen because of poor fiscal management, it occurred because of an international banking issue. Now, you may condemn Labour, but would you have wanted your bank to fail and loose all your savings or pension?

Given this, the only alternative is to go out today and en masse show the government we will not stand for their cuts, we will not accept the decimation of our services and we will not tolerate the mass redundancies and increased unemployment the Tories want to see.

Use your vote wisely and vote for a clear political force that can bring an end to Tory oppression of the working class.

Cash-strapped BNP 'turns to racist hardcore'

The Independent yesterday published a very good article exposing our favourite right-wing thugs, the BNP. For those of you who missed it I have published it in full. Please excuse the use of swear words. I would normally not have printed them but fascists have no idea of either decorum or decency. For those who might be offended I have used asterisks to obscure the word whilst retaining the content.

The Independent by Oliver Wright
The BNP was last night accused of turning to "a hardcore group of neo-Nazis and racists" to stand as candidates in next month's local elections.

The anti-BNP campaign group Hope not Hate said it had compiled a dossier of extremist postings of candidates standing on 5 May, either in council elections or those to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Among the postings the group collected from Facebook pages were:

* One BNP candidate in the North of England who posted on his Facebook page a mock advert for the gas Zyklon B – used in the Nazi extermination chambers of the Second World War – captioned, "Try Zyklon B. It's a gas!"

* One candidate urges his followers to "Stamp out diseases today. Spray pakis and poofs with hydrochloric acid".

* An activist in Wales, who has a photograph of his endorsement by BNP leader Nick Griffin on his Facebook page. Underneath it reads: "My grandfather was killed in Auschwitz. Apparently he got p****d and fell out of the watchtower!"

The candidate also posted, "Just popped round to see my Muslim neighbour's new baby. She asked me if I wanted to wind it but that seemed a bit extreme so I gave it a dead leg instead."

* A woman, describing herself as a "a big supporter of the BNP leader Nick Griffin", responded to a protest by Muslims Against The Crusades by saying: "They should all be burned."

* Another candidate posting about his arrest for "an out of date bus ticket", says: "They [police] have just made me hate them even more. From now on I will be celebrating the death of serving police officers when they are announced on the news. May sound a bit extreme but I hate them that much." He also posted that Labour's newly elected MP for Barnsley Central, Dan Jarvis, a former officer in the Parachute Regiment, "should have been shot from behind while facing the enemy".

Overall the BNP will be fielding just over 200 candidates in next month's elections – nearly 500 fewer than the in 2007. It said it "was having to cut its cloth" because of the amount of money it had had to spend defending a legal action against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Hope not Hate said: "As his party crumbles, Nick Griffin has been forced to turn to what even by BNP standards, is a hard core of neo-Nazis and racists. These are not just activists, but people Griffin is putting forward as candidates for elected public office. They are literally the best the BNP now has to offer."

Hope not Hate, which is funded by the trades union movement, said the party had become hopelessly split – with many members defecting to the English Democrats and the breakaway party British Freedom Party.

The BNP has been engaged in a long-running court battle with the EHRC over its policy of restricting membership to "indigenous British people". It scrapped the rule but the Commission accused Mr Griffin of failing to comply with an order to remove potentially racist clauses from his party's constitution. In December Mr Griffin fought off an attempt to have him declared guilty of contempt of court at the High Court – which rejected the EHRC's attempt to seize the party's assets. Costs were awarded to the BNP but deputy leader Simon Darby said the battle had affected its ability to recruit members and had cost a huge amount in legal fees which had yet to be reimbursed.

Mr Darby said: "Unlike the Labour Party we cannot afford to be £19m in debt and we have had to cut our cloth accordingly." He said the unsavoury postings could be fakes to discredit the party.

'BNP postings' on facebook

* "7/7 – keep trying ya raghead b*****ds. This is our country our England our rules. Time2 packup and get the f**k out of dodge."

* "Fly your flag! no excuses. We stock them. £5 to p**s off your Muslim neigbours off big style. What a f*****g bargain."

* "Going to the polling station was a day out for the lazy African population as they don't work."

* "Unless we stand up and are counted then it's bye bye England."

A good reason to vote "Yes"

According to research undertaken by ippr the alternative vote system would not hand undue influence to the BNP. Their study looked at results in all constituencies if the last election had been run under AV. Researchers at the think-tank ran a series of tests on two different facets of the claim by those who oppose the move to AV that the BNP would be able to "pick a winner". IPPR looked at whether there could be a mass transfer of BNP supporters' votes pushing one candidate over the 50% threshold, and that BNP voters' second preferences could overturn a favourite and help someone placed second or even third to come first. The research comes as both the “No” and “Yes” campaigns mark the four-week countdown to the AV referendum. The “No” campaign have previously aired concerns that a change in the voting system would boost minority parties, with their campaign director, Matthew Elliott, saying recently AV would "[give] BNP supporters more power at the ballot box". In an AV system, voters rank candidates instead of voting only for their chosen one. If no single candidate has secured 50% of the vote immediately, the candidate who has received fewest first preference votes is eliminated and the second preferences of their voters are redistributed to other candidates. The “No” campaign fears the second preferences of those eliminated – likely to be those who back minority parties – could go on to have profound effects further down the reallocation process. They have published a list of 35 seats in which the BNP's share of the vote was greater than the winner's margin of victory. Now researchers have looked at this assertion in two ways. They show there to be 56 seats where the share of the BNP vote exceeds the gap between the first-placed candidate and the 50% threshold they need to cross and where, if all BNP supporters transferred their second preferences as a bloc, it could help the lead candidate win. They then showed that the 2010 British election survey – which asked 13,356 people to take part in a mock election run under their AV system – found the number of seats where the second preference of those voting BNP push a winning candidate over the 50% threshold fell to 25. However, the IPPR researchers demonstrated that in all 25 seats the second preferences of the BNP are not "decisive" and the second preferences of others just as critical. They explain that in the 25, the first-placed candidate is within "spitting distance" of the finishing line and the average gap between the first and second placed candidate is 24.52%, which they say is "larger than the share of the vote of any third-placed candidate whose votes would be needed to change the result". "In other words there is no chance that BNP second preference votes could alter the outcome in any of these seats. In all of them the winner on first preferences will be the winner once votes have been reallocated in subsequent rounds irrespective of the role played by BNP votes." The IPPR researchers also dissected the idea that BNP voters could change the balance of power in constituencies by pushing a second or third place candidate into first place and over the 50% threshold on the back of its transferred votes. Results from the 2010 election show that there is not one constituency where the BNP vote share is larger than the margin between 50% and that received by the runner-up. Their researchers say: "Given the marginality and distance from 50% for both the first and second placed candidates it is true that BNP supporters' second or third preferences will be counted in the 35 seats listed by the 'No to AV' campaign. "However, the BNP vote is still very small in each of these seats, averaging a vote share of just 4.5% – yet the average distance from 50% for the winning candidate is 11.3% and 14.2% for the runner-up. Even if we assume all BNP preferences go to a single candidate (which they wouldn't) they would still require more than twice the number of BNP supporters to win under AV. BNP voters cannot therefore single-handedly change a result." The IPPR details some high profile cases: Barking The IPPR said: “The constituency [in] which the BNP has its highest proportion in vote share, it is a clear safe seat for Labour achieving over 50% of all votes and very unlikely requiring the need for 2nd preferences. All additional party votes summed – including the Liberal Democrats – would not be enough to elect the Conservative runner-up”. Morley and Outwood IPPR argued: "The BNP additional vote preferences would be counted but as the race is highly marginal – both winner and runner-up maintaining votes shares in the mid-30s – the race will be decided by the 16.76% Liberal Democrat supporters whose second preferences are more likely to go to Labour than the Conservatives." Burnley On this constituency ippr argued: "The race is between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The BNP additional vote preferences will likely be counted but the 16.61% of Conservative voters will be the decisive group who strongly favour the Liberal Democrats over Labour thus, likely retaining the seat in Liberal Democrat hands". The “No” campaign maintain that BNP voters will still have undue influence in any AV election compared with those who vote for one of the three main parties. Recent research by them showed that if the 2010 general election had been run under AV, in 70% of seats those who backed the three main parties would have been unlikely to get a second vote. Launching that research, Matthew Elliott said that in some constituencies supporters of the BNP would have had their preferences counted six times before a winner was declared. All of which assumes that those second, third, fourth and fifth preferences would go to other extremist parties. The reality is the far right are extremely sectarian and many BNP voters would rather vote Labour or Conservative than put their second vote with an NF candidate. Given this, there seems little to worry about regarding the distribution of BNP supporter second preferences. With a few weeks to go the “No” campaign has been insipid and fundamentally dishonest. They have so failed to answer the claims made by the “Yes” campaign that a move to AV would produce a fairer electoral system. This blog has been reluctant to support the “Yes” campaign because of my passionate belief that the correct voting system would have been the Single Transferrable Vote STV). This is not going to happen, so we must make full use of the opportunity to dump the defunct First Passed The Post system and change it to a more democratic approach that allows voters the opportunity to elect members of parliament who more fully represent the views of the majority. Given the options, the Alternative Vote is the only way forward and I would urge readers to vote “Yes” on May 5th

From bleak mid-winter to a cold Spring

Reports yesterday indicated the UK economy shrank by less than previously thought in the last three months of 2010 and that, according to fresh data from the Office for National Statistics, gross domestic product (GDP) slipped by 0.5% in the period. Its initial estimate for the quarter suggested that the economy had contracted by 0.5% - with heavy snow blamed for the slump. The 0.5% fall is the largest quarterly contraction since the second quarter of 2009. At the same time as the economy was shrinking, unsecured debt rose by £768m in February, driven by an increase in personal loans and overdrafts, whilst the number of remortgaging loans approved stood at 35,725 in February, the Bank's figures show. This was up from 33,972 the previous month, slightly up on a previous high in November, and higher than the average of the previous six months of 31,674. What does this tell us? Well what it indicates is that more and more people are finding it hard to live within their means. Rising prices and Government cut backs mean nearly 50% of mums say they'll be forced to use savings, earmarked for their family's financial future, to cover household bills over the coming year according to research from Family Investments. The research revealed a staggering 47% of mothers will be cutting their family savings by nearly £400 and channelling the cash into covering their day to day living expenses. And in order to 'balance the books' they will be slashing savings in three ways. Firstly short term savings, typically the money normally saved in instant access accounts, (for this summer's holiday or emergency car repairs); this will be cut by £240 a year. Then there are cuts to the kids' savings by £60 a year; and parents will also be sacrificing their pension savings, which for nearly 20% of us average around £160 a month, in order to boost the household piggy bank. This means a combined total of over £1 billion will be cut from family savings across the country as households struggle to meet spiralling costs on everything from food and petrol to energy bills. And it's those energy bills that are creating the biggest headache; up around £37 a month, with over three quarters of adults worried about how they'll pay them. Over one third of us worry about covering the cost of that weekly supermarket bill which has gone up faster than the rate of inflation, according to research from investment bank UBS, adding another £35 a month to our household spending. And filling the car for the daily school run costs more too; with petrol prices hitting a new record high now topping £6 a gallon, and with the current situation in Libya and the Middle East worsening it means we're unlikely to see pump prices slashed in the near future. For many, things are only going to get worse. Each day we are hearing about redundancies. 1. Sheffield Council are planning 273 redundancies; 2. RAF are predicting 11,000 redundancies 3. Hampshire County Council will lose 1,200 jobs 4. London Midland will lose 1,200 jobs 5. Warwickshire County Council will shed 1,800 jobs 6. Meanwhile in the Royal Mail, two London mail centres could close as part of a Royal Mail restructuring plan, which puts over 700 workers and 1,000 managerial jobs on the chopping block. A further 1,700 head-office posts could go in a future review. 7. Northern Rock is to make 680 more redundancies this year – meaning nearly 4,000 will have been axed since its crash in 2007. The list just goes on and on and on. And what is Cameron’s solution? A nothing budget that will do little to stimulate growth. As for building business? Well Citizen Dave had this to say: "This government is backing small firms, it's getting behind the start-ups, it's getting behind the doers and the grafters who are going to get our economy moving and create the jobs and the wealth and the opportunity that we need." Pretty words Dave, but where is the evidence? You’ve taken away the Regional Development Agencies, you’ve taken away superb organisations like the West Midlands Observatory … and the other observatories around the country, you have done nothing to encourage the construction industry which contracted 2.3% last month alone. Even the service sector – noted for being a substantial employer throughout the country experienced hardships, with a 0.6% contraction last month. What will it take to knock into Citizen Dave, the people’s toff’s head the fundamental notion that is strategy just isn’t working and it is hurting people. The answer may be simple. On May 5th the people will have the opportunity to go to the polls and voice their discontent. In that election I urge every voter to vote for the candidate best able to knock out the sitting Tory or Lib Dem councillor. In wards where the Labour candidate has the highest chance, vote Labour. But if the Green, or Independent candidate is better positioned to win, then vote strategically. Naturally I draw the line on asking anyone to vote BNP or for any of the neo-fascist parties that will put themselves up in May. If we can force Cameron to face a loss of over 1,000 councillors and the loss of all seats in the Welsh and Scottish assemblies he could be forced to review his position. We have a golden opportunity ahead of us – we must not waste it.

What is happening to Labour?

What is happening to the Labour Party? News today that members of the public registering as individual supporters could be given the vote in leadership elections and at Party conference is an outrage. It makes a mockery of all those people, like me, who have religiously paid our annual subscriptions for membership of a political organization. It makes a travesty of those members of trade unions who have, over the years, consistently supported the Party by paying the political levy.

Peter Hain, the architect to the plan says the plans “… are designed to give Labour the chance to leapfrog the other parties and become a new party for a new political age.” So, the late 1990s we had the “New” Labour project – and that failed, and now we are going to have the “Squeaky clean, very New” Labour Party and guess what folks … it will fail too.

Those in favour of this approach argue it is because union affiliated membership has halved over the years and this will give ordinary working people a ‘say’ in the running of the Party. How short is the human memory? Last Saturday, 500,000 angry people marched through London calling for this Tory government to bring an end to the cuts. These people are our life-blood, our electorate – and many were students, pensioners, trade unionists and socialists – we cannot dismiss them so readily.

Hain goes on to say “If unions could rebuild their membership, they would speak with a stronger voice in society. Despite improved union recognition rights under Labour, they have been unable to do so.”

This is a fundamental bending of the truth. Since the May elections, trade union membership has dramatically increased and continues to grow. Daily, workers are recognizing they need the protection of working together under a trade union banner to protect their jobs, their pay and their rights. With each new member coming through the door, Labour has the chance of a new recruit. The fact the Party has been unable to attract large numbers of supporters says more about how we present Labour to the public than the demise of unionism.

Miliband has argued “The Tory-led government and its current alliance of power with the Liberal democrats does not change my belief that there is a progressive majority in this country.”

I confess I am not so sure. I think at the moment, many people are far more right-leaning than he gives credit for and in his naiveté, assumes Labour is on a roller coaster ride to sudden electoral victory. Well, we thought we would win under Kinnock and we failed. We should have won under Foot and we collapsed totally. The historical evidence tells us the British people are far more conservative. The right have long argued Labour is the natural party of opposition and the Tories, the natural party of power. It should be the job of Labour to reverse this, by educating and informing the electorate about socialist ideals and principles.

Giving a vote to members of MumsNet (however worthwhile the organization) is not the answer, nor is the notion of allowing floating voters who, on a whim, call themselves Labour supporters the opportunity to change policy. I have canvassed on doors before now and heard Labour supporters call for the return of hanging, tough immigration restraint and the castration of paedophiles. Do we truly want this kind of influx into our party?

Miliband must stamp on this report and throw it out. There can be no place for these principles in our great Party and should be shunned at all costs. If we fail, we might as well say goodbye to all vestiges of being a socialist party.

Instead, we should be helping to build trade unions and party branches so they become an effective resistance to this government’s uncaring, right-wing ideology. We should be a political vanguard pushing the cause of socialism on every front.

Above all, we must never lose our dedication to socialism and the trade union movement.

Libya - an expensive price for Tory jingoism

Every day the government tell us the country was close to collapse when Labour left power. They insist the only way out of this ‘mess’ was the introduction of some of the most stringent cuts the country has seen since the days of Margaret Thatcher.

Already thousands have been affected and have either been reduced to short time or worse, have been made redundant as companies try to cope with a changing economic climate where the rate of inflation is now beyond the estimates the government made and a number of skill sectors find themselves either stagnant or in decline.

Meanwhile, unemployment exceeds 2.5m and more are likely as the year progresses. The Tories keep saying there isn’t enough money, so they cut essential services like Sure Start; they take away essential financial support for college students and they increase the cost of going to university threefold. In case that wasn’t enough, they sell off our beloved NHS and allow private enterprise to cream off profits from our sickness and ill-health.

They say we have no money in the coffers, but we have the funds to fire missiles on the people of Libya. The Ministry of Defence, in marked contrast to the Pentagon and the French armed forces, declines to say how many bombs or missiles have been fired from RAF Tornados or how many Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired from HMS Triumph (a Trafalgar-class submarine which the MoD declined to identify until David Cameron named her in the Commons). However, defence sources say a total of seven Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired from Triumph, compared to at least 168 fired from US submarines and ships.

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said Tornado aircraft on Thursday launched “a number of guided Brimstone missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles which were threatening the civilian population of Ajdabiya”. He described Brimstone as a “high-precision, low collateral damage weapon optimised against demanding and mobile targets”. This was the first time the Tornados had fired weapons at Libyan targets since Saturday, the first night of the campaign.

Four Tornados were involved, probably firing no more than two bombs or Storm Shadow missiles each. The following night, the Tornados’ bombing run was aborted because a number of civilians, later identified as including western journalists, were found to be in the “intended target area”, the MoD has said. It is possible that no more than about eight bombs or missiles had been fired from RAF Tornados before the Brimstone attacks on Thursday night.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said on Thursday that the RAF had flown 59 missions over Libya. The large majority have been reconnaissance missions. They have also included what the MoD emphasizes were the first Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft deployed in what it described as “hostile airspace”. The 10 Typhoons are only suitable for air-to-air combat, according to the MoD. The ground attack version apparently is not ready to take over the Tornados’ role – though defence sources point out that the high profile the Tornados are enjoying will make it much harder for the government to scrap them as soon as it would otherwise like to.

Now, if we take these estimates of weapon use – and they seem reliable, if not rather conservative, this would imply 15 Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired at a total cost of £15m, four Storm Shadow cruise missiles costing £750,000 each – a total cost of £18m in missile use. Add to this the estimated 60 to 150 fly hours used by our aircraft for the 59 missions they have flown and this adds at least a further £4m to the cost.

Then you have our naval involvement. The Ministry of Defence has been reluctant to reveal how many ships are engaged in military activity, but we know of at least one submarine and there are almost certainly going to be others. Assuming only two ships are involved and only one of these is a submarine, then this increases the cost so far by a further £32m.

In other words, we have probably already spent betwee£25m and £60m on fighting this war in Libya. Looking at the situation over there logically, it is probable that our forces will be engaged in military activity for a few more weeks, because Gaddafi has made it abundantly clear he will not stand down. This could involve the use of our land forces to quell any resistance he might offer – all at an extra cost to the UK tax payer.

Now, before readers accuse me of over-exaggerating the costs, these figures are extremely conservative estimates, based on the very small amount of information coming from the MoD. The actual cost could be much higher.

You might ask why we are doing it – why are we spending so much of our money at a time when we are so hard up? It’s a good question. Fundamentally, the answer has nothing to do with humanitarianism, or the upholding of democratic principles. Since when have the Tories developed a penchant for supporting popular uprisings? They were silent when Castro fought Batista and they said little to support Ho Chi Minh when he took on the might of the US military. Similarly, Cameron and his cronies have never offered any kind of encouragement to ETA and the Basque separatists, or the IRA and their opposition to British colonialism.

No, the answer lies in oil! Osborne needs that to flow again so he can count on the UK economy growing again. If it doesn’t, inflation will increase and unemployment will rise. Indeed, without oil flows starting again there is a very real danger Labour could be proven right and we could slip into a double dip recession. Already Greece, Ireland and Portugal have become vulnerable and other countries could also fall.

The bottom line is this. We need to pull out of our involvement in Libya – we simply can’t afford it. If we can’t give our pensioners a decent income and offer them a robust health service, then we surely can’t afford the luxury of a jingoistic foray in the deserts of Libya.

Unfortunately, as always, the UK ignores the please from the left – until the body bags start coming back. We saw them coming from Iraq and we see still coming from Afghanistan. There is a very real danger we will soon see them coming from Libya.

We must do all we can to prevent another serviceman or woman dying on foreign soil.

TUC - Job vacancies twice as sparse in Labour held constituencies

There are almost ten dole claimants for every job vacancy in Labour held constituencies, more than double the rate in Conservative seats, according to a TUC analysis published last week, just ahead of the latest unemployment statistics.
The TUC analysis finds that there are 9.8 Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimants per vacancy in Labour held constituencies, compared to a ratio of 6.1 in Liberal Democrat seats and 4.5 in seats with a Conservative MP.

Across the UK, there are 6.3 dole claimants per job vacancy.

Of the 50 constituencies with the toughest job prospects - the highest number of dole claimants per job vacancy - 43 are Labour, four are Liberal Democrat, two are Conservative and one is held by the Scottish National Party (SNP). Forty one of the 50 constituencies with the most buoyant job prospects - the lowest number of claimants per vacancy - are Conservative held.

Now, call me cynical if you will, but doesn't this sound like a strategy to run down Labour constituency and cream all the pickings so they go to Tory ones? Nah - the Tories would never be so low as to just look after their own .... would they?

Wanted: a political programme for the anti-cuts movement

One of the things that the anti-cuts movement is conspicuous in lacking currently is a political programme. An economic programme it has some suggestions of, but a political one, it totally lacks. This may seem insignificant but it is actually far from it.

For example, one of the reasons we have struggled to win any support for our call for Labour councils to refuse to implement the cuts is the legal situation that local councils find themselves in. It’s all very well calling for councils to set illegal budgets, but doing so does nothing to address the democratic deficit that is inherent in the position that local councils face, which is very real and tangible.

Democratically speaking, is it right that if elected local representatives vote to implement a budget that is not defined as ‘legal’ by the central authority then central government has the power set and impose a ‘legal’ budget of its own choosing through the Council’s Chief Executive? Of course it isn’t but where and when have you seen a demand from the anti-cuts movement that this power be removed from the arsenal of central government? Nowhere is my guess.

This is because the leadership of the anti-cuts movement wants a movement that is ‘broad’ and has determined, as the left usually does, that broadness requires unity at the lowest common denominator. Political demands, like a programme for local democracy and to end the situation described above, are therefore deemed as inappropriate because they carry within them the risk that they will ‘divide’ the movement because obviously they are harder to agree. Although this approach may partially succeed in establishing a ‘broad’ base of unity, that unity will always be shallow and brittle. Besides, in the case above, we can see where it is actually exclusionary because it offers no solace to Labour councillors who would face fines and losing a job they probably love if they acceded to the demands of the anti-cuts movement.

Another more sinister reason exists for this self-limitation. It allows the left-wing corpuscles that predominate within these movements to establish a division of labour where they are the ones that ‘do’ the politics while the movement is what essentially provides a pool of possible recruits. People who enter into it and become newly politicised are of course likely to be impressed with people who provide answers to political questions, and therefore a gravitation in the general direction of these groups is to be expected. The united front long ceased to be a serious political strategy, and is most definitely now a serious recruitment strategy, maybe this is why it’s often deemed to be of such a ‘special kind’?

When it comes to the achieving actual victory though this somewhat self-interested approach is less than helpful. It disarms the movement and sends it into numerous cul de sacs where the void is filled with a odd brand of zealotry hyperactivity. At a meeting of the Leeds Labour Representation Committee one comrade opined that they felt they were becoming ‘professional demonstrators’. I can see why. Not a day goes by without a demonstration being called and slowly but surely the numbers are cut to the bone and even the faithful eventually no longer attend. Of course, demonstrations have their place but they cannot be a substitute for a strong political campaign which pursues other avenues of exerting pressure. However, this necessitates having a political programme and as we have already established this is something the anti-cuts movement is solely lacking.

A sour taste after the Barnsley vote

Labour has won the Barnsley by-election and in the process given the LibDems and the Tories a bloody nose – no great surprises there. In the general election last May, Labour managed to achieve 47% of the vote, whereas last night they secured 60.8%. So inevitably, Labour have put out the bunting, blown up the party balloons and hailed the result a tremendous success.


But before they gloat too heavily, a couple of factors need to be considered. Firstly, the poll in the by-election was only 36.5% - not good, even by normal standards. This kind of poor turnout at a time when the Tories and LibDems are incredibly unpopular in working class areas is disturbing and reflects the fact that the vast majority of voters have yet to engage with the Labour message. They may not trust the Tories, but they aren’t too keen on Labour either.

This point is reflected in the fact that 30.95% of the vote yesterday went to lesser known, or minority parties. Of course, there is some sense of the inevitable about this, as voters often feel more able to deliver a protest vote in a by-election. However, it is clear from the results that whilst this may be the case, voters in Barnsley did not opt for left-wing or radical policies.

Indeed, there were no “socialists” or “communists” standing in this election, so voters could either vote Loony Party or for a lesser known right-wing candidate. Why the left failed to put up an alternative candidate remains to be seen, but even if they had, there seems to be a strong likelihood they would have faired badly.

In 2008 Barnsley was hailed as the fascist capital of the world, with the BNP winning quite strong support during local council elections, achieving 17.13% of the overall vote. This led Paul White to write in Red Pepper

“In the build up to the recent elections in Barnsley, we distributed both UAF and Hope Not Hate leaflets to a much larger section of the electorate. These were the standard-issue 'Vote Anyone but Nazi' literature, highlighting the Nazi backgrounds and criminal activities of the BNP's leading members and candidates. In addition, we held two rallies in the town centre as part of our 'Reclaim our Town for Democrats' campaign. This was a response to the BNP having had a regular presence in the main shopping precinct for the past few years on a Saturday, with a stall distributing literature and selling their newspaper. On top of all this, we had established a regular Love Music Hate Racism event at a local club in an attempt to bring young people into the campaign, and to raise awareness.

“Despite our best efforts, Barnsley has found itself labelled the fascist capital of Britain, with the BNP achieving its highest percentage of the vote here. Disregarding the factor of the collapse of the Labour vote, it became obvious that simply saying 'don't vote BNP/they're Nazis' plainly hadn't worked - again!”

In the General election BNP polled 8.9% and since then organisations like Hope not Hate has had even more time to trash their fascist ideology. Despite this, the BNP vote has largely held and with local elections coming up in the next couple of months we can be certain Nick Griffin and his stormtroopers will set their sights firmly on certain key wards in the constituency.


The bottom line of this is that despite our best efforts, the far-right are not being beaten. Indeed, it rather looks like they are holding their own, even despite the onslaught coming from Hope not Hate and other anti-fascist organisations. This concerns me, because if we believe we have put across a consistent message to voters and they continue to vote for the far right, then what does that tell us about the electorate?

It suggests that some of the fundamental issues being raised by the BNP are hitting nerves amongst a small group of the electorate and the mainstream parties need to address these concerns. Of course I am not suggesting that Labour, or even the Conservatives should start talking about repatriation, or stopping the flow of asylum seekers. It is to our credit that we have opened our doors and allowed our society to accept these varied and wonderful cultures.

But there is an underlying sense amongst some that in the process we have lost some of our British identity. Here I am reminded of a wonderful tune by the folk band, how of Hands, whose song “Roots” reflected some of the discrepancies between cultures in this country. A typical British pub now is no longer a community centre, it’s a gastro-pub churning out microwaved food. If you plant an English flag in your garden on St George’s Day you are accused of being a member of the English Defence League. Similarly, if you raise the Union Jack on Armistice Day to commemorate soldiers who have died, you are though to be bringing politics into a time of grief.

I could go on, but I am sure by now you have your own examples. So, perhaps the only way to beat the far-right is to take away from them the one thing they have tried to usurp – our love of our national identity. I make no apology for being proud of my Welsh background – and Wales is part of the UK, so I am, by default British. I admit to being a republican, so the notion of Queen and country does little for me, but the hairs do go up on the back of my neck when I see Morris dancers, or thousands of vets marching passed the cenotaph on a cold November morning.

Does that make me a right-winger? No, it makes me a hardline socialist who wants the best for this country and wants us to reclaim our culture. I want to see a society where there is no place for the intolerance and bigotry of the far right. And I want a country where men and women of different views, different beliefs and assorted attitudes live in harmony, mutually accepting that all are welcome and all are equal.

Is that really so bad?

No tears for Eric Illsley

This morning Eric Illsley is waking up in a small cell, where he will languish for the next few months. Now, I like to think myself as a caring person, so I am really trying hard to feel sorry for him. Unfortunately, I am failing dismally.

Let’s look at some of the facts – he first entered parliament in 1987, but his political career was never that much to write home to granny about. Sure, he sat on the front bench for a short time, but he was soon consigned to the back benches when Labour came to power.

As for his voting record? Well, he grumbled a bit about Iraq, but at the end of the day went along with the Blair government. On identity cards, he voted in favour. He supported the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill when it came before the house. On asylum seekers, he voted for stricter controls and he voted against laws to stop climate change.

Yup, this sounds like a real good socialist here. I can see he will be sadly missed in the party. (Do you detect a hint of cynicism?).

Even when he comes out of nick he won’t fair too badly. I mean, let’s face it he’s been on quite a nice little number for the last 23 years. The pays pretty good and he clearly thought the expenses were decent. On discharge he’ll probably right a book or two about his experiences – Jeffrey Archer seemed to do quite well out of that little activity. Then there’ll be the occasional TV appearance.

No, I won’t shed too many tears for Mr Illsley – I think he’ll cope quite nicely, thank you very much.

Musings of a new granddad

Recently I became a grandfather and since the birth I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the kind of society young Zach will inherit as he grows up. A chance to also consider whether all those changes I dreamed of and campaigned for as a young man have happened.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s we were going to change the world. Our heroes were radicals with exotic names – Tariq Ali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mao Tse-Tung. We fought on the streets, on campuses and in the back rooms of dingy pubs, all in the belief that any day the old order would fail and we would herald a new age. An era with equality for all, an absence of poverty and above all, freedom from the threat of nuclear war.

Forty years on, it seems to me very little has changed. Our revolutionary leaders either conformed to the “system”, or have been discredited. Tariq Ali became one of the leading lights of mainstream Labour party politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit joined the Greens and sits in Strasbourg as a member of the European Parliament and Mao has been thoroughly discredited and found to be far more authoritarian than all our worst nightmares.

In the 60s and even in the 70s, we marched against a variety of wars, including the Six-Day war and Vietnam. Today we oppose conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forty years ago, we marched from Aldermaston to London in opposition to nuclear weapons. Nowadays, we stand silently as the government announces there will be a replacement for Trident.

As a young man and eager member of the Communist party, determined to change the world I stood horrified as the Berlin wall was raised, and watched the oppression in Czechoslovakia. There is no Communist party today – well there is, depending on whether you want to look at the Communist Party of Great Britain, the New Communist Party or the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The revolutionary road has been largely superseded by the democratic path but, just like in the 1960s there is little or no money in the coffers, so most of the hard left find it hard to stand candidates.

The Labour Party back in the 1960s was led by a one-time lefty, who swung to the right once he took over the leadership. Those on the left in those days had held much hope in the leadership of Harold Wilson, only to find him slipping away from the fundamental values outlined in Clause lV of the Constitution of the Party. In 2011, there is no Clause lV – well that’s not strictly true, but there is no longer any requirement for the party to seek control for the means of production and distribution. Blair and his New Labour project effectively put paid to that idea. The latest incarnation of leadership in the Labour Party is a product of the New Labour project and despite being nicknamed “Red Ed”, his pronouncements against strike action to oppose the cuts are reminiscent of the words of Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock.

In the 1960s, we rediscovered the notion of poverty and began to realize there is an ‘underclass’ in modern society – a sector who earn less than 60% of the national average income. Fourteen years ago, New Labour declared war on poverty – they failed – we still have an underclass and little, if anything has changed. The top elite still own the vast majority of the wealth in this country. A carer will still live on a substandard income whilst a banker can earn an annual income in excess of £8m

So am I cynical? Yes – and I think I have a right to be. My generation let our young people down. We sold out our values for the comfort of a modern three- or four-bedroomed semi in the ‘burbs. We satisfied our idealism with pay increases and a more comfortable life. When Maggie set about dismantling the unions we didn’t cry out in horror and when Blair finished the job we sniffed and said: “So what can I do about it?”

In short, my generation doesn’t have much to be proud of. A lot of failed ideals and trashed values. So my prayer for my young son is simple. Learn from us – don’t sell out, don’t give in and don’t trust those who tell you that sooner or later the system is about to change. It isn’t. The system will never change – you have to change it.