Party Political Animal

Do have the millions that the CWU pump into the Labour party finally paid off? If this story of a 6.9% rise over 3 years is to believed then the answer is yes. An end to beer and sandwiches at Number 10? Maybe everyone should start to worry about what other deals have been done in return for the Unions bankrolling the Labour party.

When Labour came to power on that sunny May morning 13 long years ago, they had several clear pledges – among them was a pledge to democratise the House of Lords; another was to end the anomaly of non-dom tax status.

Neither have been done. Thirteen years after a Labour government was elected with a massive majority, we still have unelected tax dodgers passing laws for the rest of us. Who is really to blame?

The Conservative slogan which Dave’s teeming multitude of marketing and PR people have come up with  for the election is, we are told, to be ‘Time for a Change!’

Brilliant? Original? Come on Dave – can’t you give us a bit more to vote for? A reason to vote for you rather than just voting against the other mob would be nice.

The past few days have seen two in effect state-owned banks announce multi-billion pound bonus pools for their key staff, despite those banks making multi-billion pound losses -  again.

The excuse is that the banks made profits in their investment banking arms – as opposed to retail, mortgage or commercial divisions – and they need to retain “brilliant” talent to ensure they prosper in future.

Right. Let’s leave aside that investment banking prospered in the decade up to the credit crash largely due to loose government money policies – and since then they have benefited massively from billions of government  QE cash; let’s also leave aside that investment banking has distorted the British economy and enriched a few thousand people at the expense of the rest of us; let’s further leave aside that banks have over the past decade somehow contrived to be the only industry where up to half of profits go in bonuses to a few staff, while shareholders get skinny dividends – if any.

The real point is that there is little evidence that if no bonuses were paid and all of those brilliant bankers really did flee to Zurich or Zug tomorrow, there wouldn’t be lines of equally capable people eager and able to do do their jobs at half the cost.

Then there is the BBC – which also loses no opportunity to inform us of it’s brilliance. They contrived to spend £2bn on building projects, much of which appears to have been wasted.

That will not surprise anyone who has watched over the last few years as shiny blocks sprouted along London’s Westway at BBC City – many of which remain empty – or the glossy extension of Broadcasting House to envelop roads which have been blocked from public use for the benefit of our public-service broadcasters, not to mention all of those new buildings in the North, Scotland and Wales. Any commercial broadcaster would have long been bankrupted by such excesses. But our BBC can just go on dipping its hand into our pockets.

There were also reports that the BBC may be about to rein in its web business and close a couple of radio stations – the fact that one is Radio 6 says it all. God know how many stations the BBC runs in total, but do we really need a state-owned broadcaster to run six national radio stations – or is it seven?

For years the BBC has been spreading itself almost unchecked, using its licence to trouser our money to extend into overseas TV stations (mostly a joke and cross-subsidised by license money), film production (loss making), web sites (good, but ridiculously expensive), property development (’nuff said) and oh yes, travel guides (Lonely Planet).

Most of this is unnecessary, little would survive the rigours of real-world cost analysis and much of it crowds out private sector broadcasting, cramping our culture into a BBC vision of what’s good for us.

So what is the Tory response to our brilliant bankers and BBC? Cameron has changed the tone of the Tory party and that it good news – although I don’t always agree with the way he has gone about it.

But Mrs Thatcher, remember, took on powerful vested interests which ripped off ordinary people. She gave the impression, at least, of being on the side of the little man  – and woman. Now I don’t see any similarly compelling Tory narrative, no real reason to vote Conservative – apart from they’re not the other lot.

In a desperate attempt to differentiate themselves from Labour, George Osborn did try to say he would be tougher on the fiscal deficit – then had to perform a screeching U-turn. As the IFS pointed out last week, Darling already plans cuts far in excess of Callaghan’s in the mid ’70s – which, as has been stated in this blog many times, were greater than anything Thatcher achieved.

Cameron’s new Tories have been as lucky as Blair was 13 years ago – luckier, actually. Brown and his mob seem to hate each other even more than the voters do. Yet Cameron’s lead over Labour is in singe figures – and apparently shrinking.

Cameron and his close friends need to look deep inside themelves and ask whether they have been too superficial, too media-driven, too managerial, too worshipful of Blair’s model of politics.

Should they not have been more prepared to take on the vested interests of the bankers and the BBC, to champion the little man, to believe in something apart from power as the end in itself?

They may yet be saved by the government’s ineptitude, but they may also live to regret not using opposition to think more deeply about policies, politics and the real reasons for being in the game.

The last time a PM called a Chancellor “brilliant” he was sacked a few days later. That was Nigel Lawson in 1989. So when Gordon Brown referred to Alistair Darling as “brilliant” yesterday, it might send a shiver down the Chancellor’s spine – except that this time I suspect it will be the voters, rather than the PM, who’ll do the sacking.

Matthew Shaddick from Ladbrokes has recorded an exclusive podcast for Tory Radio on the latest from the political betting market.

Will they be more accurate than the pollsters?

They have individual odds for each of the the 632 GB seats. So far, from that market they have come up with an expected seat total for each party which, at time of writing gets is:

Cons 333
Lab 219
LD 62
Others 36

Tory majority 16.

To listen to the podcast click this link

For all their moaning about Lord Ashcroft – Labour happily gloss over who their paymasters are, namely the Union. And just how much money has Unite coughed up for the cause?

Last year Unite gave the Labour party £3.6 million. How very nice of them.

And now we learn that an event due to be held in Parliament has been cancelled due to a complaint made by Eric Pickles about a Parliamentary Room being used for party campaigning purposed.

Apparently invitations to Unite members made clear that the purpose of the event was to campaign for Labour in the General Election:

‘Unite is campaigning for a Labour win in the parliamentary and local government elections later this year.  Our members are convinced this is the right thing to do and are inviting you to play a part in our campaign… To get things moving on the campaign, we are inviting you to a reception at the House of Commons.’

‘Your MPs and Counsellors [sic] will be there, as well as senior union representatives.  More importantly, other members will be there from Unite and the unions we are campaigning with.’

With all that money sloshing around you really would think Unite could afford a room, even if the Labour party, given the state of their finances, can’t.

Did Brown and Darling kiss and make up. Did David Cameron stick the proverbial boot in? If you missed the latest Prime Ministers Questions you can listen to the full podcast by clicking this link.

No it isn’t a former employee. No it isn’t a Conservative politician, but apparently its the current Chancellor of the Exchequer.

So to recap. When Brown has Chancellor relations with the Treasury and Number 10 were awful. When Brown is PM relations with the Treasury and the Chancellor are awful.

Remind me what the common denominator in all this is. Sorry I forgot.. he is just an impatient man keen to get things done. Yeah, more like something rotten at the heart of Government I think!

Well it’s over, but having watched Tower Block of Commons are we left any the wiser. I have to say I did find it interesting, but perhaps for some of the wrong reasons. As I have written before I thought Austin Mitchell came over as awful, whereas the other MPs involved did themselves justice. I particularly thought Tim Loughton came across very well.

The programme still left me with a few unanswered questions. Am I right in thinking that each estate was situated in a Labour helf constituency, and shouldn’t the existing MP and local Council be pretty ashamed about themselves?

Secondly – if any MP needed to go on a show to see there are estates like that up and down the UK I am not sure they are living in the world I live in. I have already written about how in one area I was campaigning last year, Mopeds were chained up inside the house with rather aggressive dogs chained in outside (when you may expect a dog to be inside and a moped to be left outside).

Thirdly – what was the shows objectives? Partially to try to make MPs seem out of touch? I think there was a bit of that? But what was the point? I feel like I am none the wiser?