The first public signs of the strain the coalition deal is placing on the Lib Dems came this morning with Charles Kennedy MP speaking out against the proposed cuts in public spending.
It is a first move, though significant enough to merit the front page of the Daily Record. (Which in turn led to the paper getting a mention on the Today programme -how often does that happen?)
In parliament yesterday fellow Lib Dem Bob Russell chastised George Osborne for "unethical" cuts to the welfare budget. These are cracks in the vase, the opening shots in what will become the battle for the soul of the Liberal Democrat party.
I don't expect there will be blood on the carpet at the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool next week. A bit like the TUC here in Manchester it will probably have a phoney war feel to it. The serious stuff comes when the cuts start biting next year.
Despite his personal life leading the headlines of late Kennedy remains a substantial political figure and a key player in determining the future of the Lib Dems.
Kennedy says he is reluctant to become an irritant, sniping at the government from the sidelines. But with Cameroonian outriders like Tory MP Nicholas Boles already calling for an electoral pact between the parties, the Highland MP may be stirred to defend his Jo Grimmond, left-of-centre, Liberalism from appropriation
Kennedy has lots of experience of party mergers, remember he started in the SDP and was one of the first movers for the creation of the Liberal Democrats.
It should also be remembered that it was during his time as leader that the party managed to gain a record 62 MPs and 22% of the vote, much more than Nick Clegg achieved on the back of his TV debate exposure.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Pensions and poverty powderkeg issues for TUC
Not even Bob Crow, the media's favourite left-wing militant, was going to take the bait on questions about a general strike against government cuts today, although that didn't stop us all from asking.
The line from all the union leaders, as we settled into Manchester and the TUC conference with a day of press briefings, was that general strikes against government policy is illegal but woe betide the coalition if government policy comes looking for trade unionists.
The preferred euphemism for union resistance to the cuts is "co-ordinated action" and the tinderkeg issue, that could see several public sector unions simultaneously, is reform to public sector pensions.
That's what took French workers onto the the streets in their thousands last week and the unions made it clear that any challenge to British pension rights could have the same effect. So far, all that is agreed is a national demonstration sometime befoe next March, but other work is ongoing.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, the civil service union, said that co-ordinated strike action with other unions like Unison was already being planned on issues like cuts in public sector pensions.
Serwotka said: “If the government announces a big hike in our pension contributions and a cut in our pensions scheme we are absolutely clear that every union affected should ballot for action together. You have a better chance of defending yourself like that.“
He added: “I think that industrial action on a large scale is inevitable unless the government changes direction.”
This is the first TUC since the new government came in and the mood seems serious. But the unions are holding back a lot of their fire until the October spending review and meanwhile emphasising their role as defenders of the poor and the vulnerable and going some way to countering the myth that cuts are "unavoidable" and somehow all the fault of the previous government.
Brendan Barber highlighted research showing how the planned spending cuts will make Britain more unequal, hitting the poorest 13 times harder than the rich.
But it was Serwotka, again, who showed the passion. He said: "The tone of the debate is actually disgusting. Millionaires lecture us on 'lifestyle choices' about living out of work - they are living in a bubble of privilege."
"It is not a lifestyle choice it is a depressingly real for them when there are 500,000 vacancies and 2.5 m out of work it is a bleak reality."
"To blame them is one of the worst things. We want to defend members, yes, but we also want to defend and stand with the unemployed, the elderly and the disabled who deserve better than they get and could not bear the brunt of some vicious cutbacks.”
“The militants in all of this are the right wing ideologues who are attacking the welfare state.”
Yes, that scraping noise you heard was the sound of battlelines being drawn.
The line from all the union leaders, as we settled into Manchester and the TUC conference with a day of press briefings, was that general strikes against government policy is illegal but woe betide the coalition if government policy comes looking for trade unionists.
The preferred euphemism for union resistance to the cuts is "co-ordinated action" and the tinderkeg issue, that could see several public sector unions simultaneously, is reform to public sector pensions.
That's what took French workers onto the the streets in their thousands last week and the unions made it clear that any challenge to British pension rights could have the same effect. So far, all that is agreed is a national demonstration sometime befoe next March, but other work is ongoing.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, the civil service union, said that co-ordinated strike action with other unions like Unison was already being planned on issues like cuts in public sector pensions.
Serwotka said: “If the government announces a big hike in our pension contributions and a cut in our pensions scheme we are absolutely clear that every union affected should ballot for action together. You have a better chance of defending yourself like that.“
He added: “I think that industrial action on a large scale is inevitable unless the government changes direction.”
This is the first TUC since the new government came in and the mood seems serious. But the unions are holding back a lot of their fire until the October spending review and meanwhile emphasising their role as defenders of the poor and the vulnerable and going some way to countering the myth that cuts are "unavoidable" and somehow all the fault of the previous government.
Brendan Barber highlighted research showing how the planned spending cuts will make Britain more unequal, hitting the poorest 13 times harder than the rich.
But it was Serwotka, again, who showed the passion. He said: "The tone of the debate is actually disgusting. Millionaires lecture us on 'lifestyle choices' about living out of work - they are living in a bubble of privilege."
"It is not a lifestyle choice it is a depressingly real for them when there are 500,000 vacancies and 2.5 m out of work it is a bleak reality."
"To blame them is one of the worst things. We want to defend members, yes, but we also want to defend and stand with the unemployed, the elderly and the disabled who deserve better than they get and could not bear the brunt of some vicious cutbacks.”
“The militants in all of this are the right wing ideologues who are attacking the welfare state.”
Yes, that scraping noise you heard was the sound of battlelines being drawn.
TUC attack on Academics (subs pls chk)
Just what is it that the TUC has against university lecturers?
I suspect stall 49 at the TUC conference in Manchester will become the Anti-Academies Alliance by the time it opens for business tomorrow morning. If not it will be terribly embarrassing for the National Union of Teachers on the next door stall>
Darling toasts Blair and warms his own memoirs
Alistair Darling's review of Tony Blair's Journey in Saturday's Guardian turns out to the be the calmest and most even handed reaction to the tome yet.
He disagrees, very politely, with Blair over the need to cut the deficit immediately and suggests that his critique of Labour's response to the financial crisis is off-beam.
Darling writes: "He is wrong to suggest that those of us who supported a Keynesian response to the economic crisis thought "the state was back in vogue". It is an incontrovertible fact that in times of such crisis only the government can step into the breach. That is quite a different thing from suggesting that the state should do everything. Some may take that view, but many of us don't. And to characterise Gordon as having taken that view is wrong."
Well, Darling should know - he was there for the banking crisis and Blair wasn't. All of which just whets the appetite for the Edinburgh MP's own account of that momentous journey begun in the autumn of 2008 when he predicted the worst financial crisis in 60 years.
Darling said last week that after 23 years on the frontline of politics he was going to take a year out and is expected to stand down from the shadow cabinet. Pity, over the summer only he and Ed Balls have made a fist of defending the party's record in office and countering the Tory/Lib Dem narrative that the deficit is a result of the Labour government's decisions rather than the biggest economic crisis in a generation.
Still, if he gives us a good book, I suppose we can excuse him duties for a while.
He disagrees, very politely, with Blair over the need to cut the deficit immediately and suggests that his critique of Labour's response to the financial crisis is off-beam.
Darling writes: "He is wrong to suggest that those of us who supported a Keynesian response to the economic crisis thought "the state was back in vogue". It is an incontrovertible fact that in times of such crisis only the government can step into the breach. That is quite a different thing from suggesting that the state should do everything. Some may take that view, but many of us don't. And to characterise Gordon as having taken that view is wrong."
Well, Darling should know - he was there for the banking crisis and Blair wasn't. All of which just whets the appetite for the Edinburgh MP's own account of that momentous journey begun in the autumn of 2008 when he predicted the worst financial crisis in 60 years.
Darling said last week that after 23 years on the frontline of politics he was going to take a year out and is expected to stand down from the shadow cabinet. Pity, over the summer only he and Ed Balls have made a fist of defending the party's record in office and countering the Tory/Lib Dem narrative that the deficit is a result of the Labour government's decisions rather than the biggest economic crisis in a generation.
Still, if he gives us a good book, I suppose we can excuse him duties for a while.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Davidson steals PMQs from defensive Clegg
Happy Birthday to Ian Davidson MP and congratulations on bringing some wit and cheer to what was in danger of becoming a sombre and dull Prime Minister's Questions.
The Glasgow South West MP encapsulated his favourite themes - defence jobs in Govan, his renowned anti-Europeanism and his own cheeky self - in a great off the cuff question to Nick Clegg, who stood in for David Cameron while the Prime Minister attends his ailing father.
Davidson raised an immediate laugh when he asked if the Deputy Prime Minister was aware that today was his birthday.
He went on: "Would he agree to give me a present of a couple of aircraft carriers. None of your foreign rubbish, I want British ones, and I don't want to have to share them with some French bloke. If he had it Monday to Wednesday and I had Thursday to Saturday and we share weekends we'd have to get the permission of the Child Support Agency if we wanted to make any change to that."
He finished with a flourish: "All of this could be paid by cutting our contribution to the European Union."
The Lib Dems, anxious about the performance of their golden boy, and even the grouchiest of Tories had a laugh at that.
Clegg was happy to give him a gift but not quite in the size or shape he had requested.
The Glasgow South West MP encapsulated his favourite themes - defence jobs in Govan, his renowned anti-Europeanism and his own cheeky self - in a great off the cuff question to Nick Clegg, who stood in for David Cameron while the Prime Minister attends his ailing father.
Davidson raised an immediate laugh when he asked if the Deputy Prime Minister was aware that today was his birthday.
He went on: "Would he agree to give me a present of a couple of aircraft carriers. None of your foreign rubbish, I want British ones, and I don't want to have to share them with some French bloke. If he had it Monday to Wednesday and I had Thursday to Saturday and we share weekends we'd have to get the permission of the Child Support Agency if we wanted to make any change to that."
He finished with a flourish: "All of this could be paid by cutting our contribution to the European Union."
The Lib Dems, anxious about the performance of their golden boy, and even the grouchiest of Tories had a laugh at that.
Clegg was happy to give him a gift but not quite in the size or shape he had requested.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Stornoway - the brand, not the band.
A blog I drafted on holiday but didn't have the know how to post until now
I'm in H&M, in Marseille as it happens, and an over-familiar song that I don't quite recognise comes over the sound system. As I am at an age when trends pass with the speed of the French TGV train that took me here, I'm about as familiar with pop music as the stock of fashion stores. So, it's no surprise that I can't name that tune.
There's something oddly persistent about the melody though, something personal that I can't quite put my finger on. Then, third verse in, it dawns on me why the music feels so hardwired - I'm listening to Stornoway, not the place, but the Oxford indy band who've gone to the verge of being very big by trading on the name of my home town.
The band has no association with the place, apparently they just liked the
name and it worked for them. "I saw you blink", the track I heard, is a fairly harmless piece of balladeering.It was the memorable power of the name that made me recall the performers.
And as I stray out of the shop along the quays and alleyways of this port city I start to wonder if we've done enough with Stornoway, the name, as a brand.
Stornoway - it's easy to pronounce, delightfully so, memorable, familiar from the top left corner of every weather report. And, rather like Marseille, it carries an echo of maritime heritage and seafaring romance across the oceans as a global waymark and a safe harbour.
For us maws, who grew up beyond the pale, it's hard to think of "Coatbridge on Sea" as the Mercedes Benz of the Hebrides, and for some it has associatoons with presbyterianim and nothing else, but marketing men would pay good money for the kind of product associations that the name Stornoway can stir.
The band, who've decorated their album in suitably oceanographic iconography, aren't the only people to stumble across the marketable quality of the town. You can have your Landrover Freelander in "Stornoway Grey" (silver really), and though it's ankle-biting cut isn't for me there is a Stornoway suit in Derick Walker's Harris Tweed collection. The famous Stornoway black pudding has already blazed a culinary path and is heading for EU protected status. There's branding to build on.
If it sounds daft to try and create a quality image on the back of a harbour name remember the luxury cachet of Dunhill began by being associated with humble car covers.
So, perhaps it is time to think again before stamping everything out of the Western Isles with Outer Hebrides, Innse Gall, Na Eilean Siar or suchlike when a far more powerful brand, albeit not an entirely Gaelic one, lies dormant at our doorstep.
Footnote: Check out Jay Rayner's review of Digby Chick in last Sunday's Observer which compares the Stornoway restaurant to an outpost of Islington. One day, maybe.
Meanwhile I hear that the Criterion, Stornoway's best bar which is two doors along from Digby Chick, is for sale. It wouldn't take much to turn it into an understated outpost of, er, Stornoway. A fireplace, an upstairs lounge, and some Hebridean tapas is all it needs.
I'm in H&M, in Marseille as it happens, and an over-familiar song that I don't quite recognise comes over the sound system. As I am at an age when trends pass with the speed of the French TGV train that took me here, I'm about as familiar with pop music as the stock of fashion stores. So, it's no surprise that I can't name that tune.
There's something oddly persistent about the melody though, something personal that I can't quite put my finger on. Then, third verse in, it dawns on me why the music feels so hardwired - I'm listening to Stornoway, not the place, but the Oxford indy band who've gone to the verge of being very big by trading on the name of my home town.
The band has no association with the place, apparently they just liked the
name and it worked for them. "I saw you blink", the track I heard, is a fairly harmless piece of balladeering.It was the memorable power of the name that made me recall the performers.
And as I stray out of the shop along the quays and alleyways of this port city I start to wonder if we've done enough with Stornoway, the name, as a brand.
Stornoway - it's easy to pronounce, delightfully so, memorable, familiar from the top left corner of every weather report. And, rather like Marseille, it carries an echo of maritime heritage and seafaring romance across the oceans as a global waymark and a safe harbour.
For us maws, who grew up beyond the pale, it's hard to think of "Coatbridge on Sea" as the Mercedes Benz of the Hebrides, and for some it has associatoons with presbyterianim and nothing else, but marketing men would pay good money for the kind of product associations that the name Stornoway can stir.
The band, who've decorated their album in suitably oceanographic iconography, aren't the only people to stumble across the marketable quality of the town. You can have your Landrover Freelander in "Stornoway Grey" (silver really), and though it's ankle-biting cut isn't for me there is a Stornoway suit in Derick Walker's Harris Tweed collection. The famous Stornoway black pudding has already blazed a culinary path and is heading for EU protected status. There's branding to build on.
If it sounds daft to try and create a quality image on the back of a harbour name remember the luxury cachet of Dunhill began by being associated with humble car covers.
So, perhaps it is time to think again before stamping everything out of the Western Isles with Outer Hebrides, Innse Gall, Na Eilean Siar or suchlike when a far more powerful brand, albeit not an entirely Gaelic one, lies dormant at our doorstep.
Footnote: Check out Jay Rayner's review of Digby Chick in last Sunday's Observer which compares the Stornoway restaurant to an outpost of Islington. One day, maybe.
Meanwhile I hear that the Criterion, Stornoway's best bar which is two doors along from Digby Chick, is for sale. It wouldn't take much to turn it into an understated outpost of, er, Stornoway. A fireplace, an upstairs lounge, and some Hebridean tapas is all it needs.
Monday, 6 September 2010
Coulson - bad news when the spin doctor becomes the story
Back at Westminster for a two week period that will see the bill on AV voting and constituency reform pushed through the Commons, and probably ambushed in the Lords.
The Scottish angle isn't just that the proposed referendum will be held on the same day as the Holyrood elections. The equalisation of constituencies without public appeal could see up to eight Scottish seats disappear, most of them in urban, Labour held areas.
Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland have been guaranteed by the deputy Prime Minister that they will continue as distinctive and tiny constituencies.
Cameron is breaking of paternity leave to cast his vote on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill tonight but, hey, why should we worry about policy today.
Most of the parliamentary drama will be around Home Office Questions and an emergency question tabled by Alan Johnson over the ongoing News of the World phone-tapping scandal.
Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister's Communications director, was really the only subject raised at today's parliamentary lobby. The Prime Minister's Spokesman was asked if Mr Cameron "entirely believed" Andy Coulson's denials that he knew nothing about phone-tapping at the NoW while he was editor.
The Prime Minister should worry, as someone asked at lobby, that Coulson "has become the story". Survivability comes to down to whether there are further revelations and any moves against Coulson from either the Lib Dems or the Tories. Either way the Prime Minister's judgement is called into question for taking Coulson across the threshold of 10 Downing Street.
The Scottish angle isn't just that the proposed referendum will be held on the same day as the Holyrood elections. The equalisation of constituencies without public appeal could see up to eight Scottish seats disappear, most of them in urban, Labour held areas.
Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland have been guaranteed by the deputy Prime Minister that they will continue as distinctive and tiny constituencies.
Cameron is breaking of paternity leave to cast his vote on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill tonight but, hey, why should we worry about policy today.
Most of the parliamentary drama will be around Home Office Questions and an emergency question tabled by Alan Johnson over the ongoing News of the World phone-tapping scandal.
Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister's Communications director, was really the only subject raised at today's parliamentary lobby. The Prime Minister's Spokesman was asked if Mr Cameron "entirely believed" Andy Coulson's denials that he knew nothing about phone-tapping at the NoW while he was editor.
The Prime Minister should worry, as someone asked at lobby, that Coulson "has become the story". Survivability comes to down to whether there are further revelations and any moves against Coulson from either the Lib Dems or the Tories. Either way the Prime Minister's judgement is called into question for taking Coulson across the threshold of 10 Downing Street.
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