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Cameron won't get as far as holding a referendum in 2017, as he'll have been shown the door long before then.
The reply “The Tories just feel like crap managers” was in response to my recent question, “Do you think people are excited about politics?” Suzanne Moore instead suggested, “Yes but not the political system or way it is represented.” Olivia simply replied, “If people were excited about politics wouldn’t more people vote? The fact that so few actually bother to vote, suggests that people are far from excited about politics.”
Unusually, somebody in her 60s last week told me that she and her husband were determined to vote in the General Election anticipated around June 2015. Vicky and John are not impressed by the current incumbents but feel passionately that any party is better than ‘this lot’. Returning to the answer, “The Tories are just crap managers”, there is an overwhelming feeling amongst my friends in real life, my 3000 friends on Facebook and 7000 followers on Twitter amongst both my accounts that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are playing for time. They offer no leadership, and are sub-standard managers.
They have bungled the forests issue, raised tuition fees, scrapped Building Schools for the Future, scrapped education support allowance, killed a growing economy from 2010, told Europe that they only wish to be in Europe on their own terms, unilaterally decided to scrap GCSEs, outsourced the NHS on the way to privatising it, produced a shambolic budget last year with numerous U-turns, and shut libraries.
The £3bn re-organisation of the NHS, which nobody voted for, was probably the pièce de resistance. The Conservatives have done a disgraceful job of explaining what these reforms mean, and the BBC have made no effort in explaining what is clearly a very significant issue of public interest. The public are none-the-wiser that NHS services have been completely thrown open to the private sector, such that you can walk into a walk-in centre with it having NHS branding but being run to maximise shareholder dividend for a private company. The medical Royal Colleges all opposed it, as did the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing. The marketisation of the NHS means that the service cannot be guaranteed to be anywhere near comprehensive, and already evidence is accruing of definite examples of rationing (e.g. in cataract surgery).
A similar disenfranchisement of key professionals was seen in the high street with the Government, the Conservatives enabled by the Liberal Democrats, ramraiding through the ‘Legal Aid and Sentencing of Offenders Act’ which has seen destruction of legal aid on the high street, killing off access-to-justice for social justice fields such as housing, immigration and asylum, welfare benefits and employment. The marketisation of law on the high-street means that the public are left with an incomplete fragmented service, and again these ‘reforms’ were officially opposed by the Law Society and the Bar Council.
A third disgrace has been the “reform” of GCSEs. Michael Gove barged through processes which meant that even examining in last year’s GCSE English ended up being a shambles, and had to go for judicial review in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. The teachers, notably the National Union of Teachers, were not consulted about the changes to the GCSE system, a completely ludicrous state of affairs that there are GCSE courses presently in progress.
The “political process” is the third arm of the long-awaited policy review of the UK Labour Party. Whilst millions will have been spent cumulatively on the Scotland referendum, and the AV referendum, and on the introduction of Police Commissioners, there is no doubt that the political process is broken. David Cameron’s talk of holding a referendum in 2017 shows complete contempt that he has disconnected him and his party from major areas of society. The list goes on – disabled citizens are sick of the welfare reforms in progress, with the disastrous introduction of the ‘Personal Independent Payment’ following fast after the pitiful administration of Work Capacity Benefits by the Department of Work and Pensions.
Cameron won’t get as far as holding a referendum in 2017, as he’ll have been shown the door long before then.
Does the UK really have an ability to opt out of law imposed by the EU? Guest blog by Matthew Scannell (@studentlawyer_)
At the present time, the European Communities Act [1972] provides that the UK is bound by law enacted by the European Union (“EU”), whereby provisions of EU law are superior to domestic law, in that EU provisions take precedent in circumstances where there is conflict between the two sources of law.
However, David Cameron’s recent proposal for a referendum to determine the UK’s future within the EU has fuelled questions as to whether the UK may finally ‘break free of the shackles’ that appear to have been imposed on it by the EU. Such a referendum could refine constructively the relationship between the UK and EU, and possibly reduce the effect that EU law has within the UK.
The first question to consider is whether the UK has the power to opt out of provisions of law imposed on it by the EU. In line with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, the UK Parliament has the ability to repeal the European Communities Act (the statutory instrument which brought the UK into the EU) and thus revoke its membership with the EU. This would mean that the provisions of law enacted by the EU would become void within the UK. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the UK may simply ‘pick and choose’ which provisions of EU law it wants to apply. If the UK attempted to take such a course of action, the EU may have the right to impose sanctions against the UK. I would suggest that the only way the UK may take free of provisions of EU law would be to legislate expressly for the revocation of its membership within the EU.
The UK’s ability to revoke its membership with the EU would then be dependent on whether a referendum such as the one proposed by David Cameron takes place, as well as the public voting against staying in Europe on such renewed terms. The second question to consider is whether the UK should merely make attempts to opt out of the law imposed on it by the EU, and what the consequences of such a course of action would be. The EU has limited law-making power within the UK, and so can only legislate in the areas that the treaties provide for. Therefore the consequences of such an attempt to remove the EU’s law-making power within the UK would be of limited effect.
I would then suggest that the extent to which the law would change if the EU was no longer recognised by the UK as a superior source of law would be dependent on the current status given to that law by the EU. Essentially there are two broad types of EU law; regulations and directives. Article 189 of the Treaty of Rome provides that regulations are binding on all member states and all members have to accept the same definition. This is in contrast to directives, where member states have scope to adjust or tinker with the definitions of such directives so that it may fit in with the requirements of national law. I would therefore suggest that it is less likely that directives, such as the Working Time Directive, would be subject to wholesale amendment or repeal, as such provisions of EU law have been read in such a way which ‘fits’ within national law.
However, if the UK was seen to split from the EU then there would be less regulation over the laws that are enacted by Parliament, as the UK would be moving towards a theory of parliamentary sovereignty outlined famously by AV Dicey. The only real protection that could then be used to safeguard against Parliament abusing its power is the political safeguard of democratic elections, although the judiciary also provides protection through the “separation of powers”, which offers useful “checks and balances”. This worry is compounded by the fact that laws enacted by the EU, such as the Working Time Directive, are necessary and proportionate, safeguarding against potential abuses by certain interest groups. If the UK Parliament was afforded the power to legislate for areas in relation to the work place, this could quite potentially result in the exploitation of certain citizens within society.
In my opinion, then, the only feasible way that the UK opt out of specific provisions of EU law would be to expressly state that they are making a move away from the EU by repealing the European Communities Act. Proposals for a referendum may have politically “lined the stomach of the UK”, but this is only the first step on the road to a different relationship between the UK and the EU – and there are certainly several crossroads to be negotiated along the way.
David Cameron's red meat to the Euroskeptics
‘positive vision for the future of the EU – a future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part’
Currently, the EU is positive. David Cameron throwing tantrums (sic) and walking out on negotiations simply gives the perception of an arrogant Little Englander who has no sense of solidarity in the European Union. The European market is built on the social and legal basis of giving no party unfair advantage, which is why many citizens in the UK do not agree with any stance that we should opt out of discrimination legislation, or have ‘special rules’ for the City compared to the rest of the world. The rest of the world are equally successful, if not more successful. We in the UK are about to enter a triple-dip.
‘The next Conservative manifesto in 2015 will ask for a mandate from the British people for a Conservative government to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next parliament.’
It is well known that the chances of a Conservative victory in June 2015 are vanishingly small. Even if you take the view they can take seats off UKIP, currently UKIP are projected to get zero seats.
‘holding an in/out referendum now would be a “false choice”
No business would willingly defer drafting up a business plan until 2017, for fear of uncertainty. This knocks dead Cameron’s “false choice”argument.
‘And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum.’
Cameron is currently set to have bargained a referendum on Scotland as well as AV. These referenda cost millions of pounds. He never offered a referendum on the privatisation of the NHS, which is currently in progress.
‘will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit’
Currently, there is more of a question of Nick Clegg drifting towards the exit, taking his Liberal Democrat party with him. His position and that of his party, having sold out on libraries, the economy, the NHS and welfare, is irrelevant.
‘Today, public disillusionment with the EU is at an all-time high’
The ‘democratic deficit’, with laws and policies being implemented which nobody voted for, such as the privatisation of the NHS and the scandal of the fiasco of disabled benefits, means that disillusionment with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is at an all-time high.
‘People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is.’
People do not object to protection from racial discrimination, or being sacked without warning. The European Time Directive serves a purpose of stopping doctors making decisions which compromise patient safety, for example, and it is entirely up to our Government how it wishes to implement it in any case.
The European Union that emerges from the eurozone crisis is going to be a very different body’
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been wishing for the European economy to implode, so that it can deflect attention from their mismanagement of the economy. The UK in May 2010 had fragile growth, totally throttled by killing off UK infrastructure investment and murdering consumer demand.
‘And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in/out referendum’
It is necessary to have the precise terms of this referendum urgently, prior to any talk of the electorate deciding on the ‘yes/no’ on the basis of these terms.
‘Legislation will be drafted before the next election. And if a Conservative Government is elected we will introduce the enabling legislation immediately and pass it by the end of that year.’
As above.
‘And we will complete this negotiation and hold this referendum within the first half of the next Parliament.’
As above.
‘I believe something very deeply. That Britain’s national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union. And that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.’
Cameron was equally passionate about ‘no further top-down reorganisations’. It therefore does not matter at all what he believes deeply in, or not.
‘Over the coming weeks, months and years, I will not rest until this debate is won. For the future of my country. For the success of the European Union. And for the prosperity of our peoples for generations to come.’
Cameron is doing this entirely to save face in his Party. The European Union can easily continue without him, but Cameron’s political gamble will unfortunately be putting real people and their jobs at risk.
David Cameron's red meat to the Euroskeptics
‘positive vision for the future of the EU – a future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part’
Currently, the EU is positive. David Cameron throwing tantrums (sic) and walking out on negotiations simply gives the perception of an arrogant Little Englander who has no sense of solidarity in the European Union. The European market is built on the social and legal basis of giving no party unfair advantage, which is why many citizens in the UK do not agree with any stance that we should opt out of discrimination legislation, or have ‘special rules’ for the City compared to the rest of the world. The rest of the world are equally successful, if not more successful. We in the UK are about to enter a triple-dip.
‘The next Conservative manifesto in 2015 will ask for a mandate from the British people for a Conservative government to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next parliament.’
It is well known that the chances of a Conservative victory in June 2015 are vanishingly small. Even if you take the view they can take seats off UKIP, currently UKIP are projected to get zero seats.
‘holding an in/out referendum now would be a “false choice”
No business would willingly defer drafting up a business plan until 2017, for fear of uncertainty. This knocks dead Cameron’s “false choice”argument.
‘And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum.’
Cameron is currently set to have bargained a referendum on Scotland as well as AV. These referenda cost millions of pounds. He never offered a referendum on the privatisation of the NHS, which is currently in progress.
‘will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit’
Currently, there is more of a question of Nick Clegg drifting towards the exit, taking his Liberal Democrat party with him. His position and that of his party, having sold out on libraries, the economy, the NHS and welfare, is irrelevant.
‘Today, public disillusionment with the EU is at an all-time high’
The ‘democratic deficit’, with laws and policies being implemented which nobody voted for, such as the privatisation of the NHS and the scandal of the fiasco of disabled benefits, means that disillusionment with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is at an all-time high.
‘People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is.’
People do not object to protection from racial discrimination, or being sacked without warning. The European Time Directive serves a purpose of stopping doctors making decisions which compromise patient safety, for example, and it is entirely up to our Government how it wishes to implement it in any case.
The European Union that emerges from the eurozone crisis is going to be a very different body’
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been wishing for the European economy to implode, so that it can deflect attention from their mismanagement of the economy. The UK in May 2010 had fragile growth, totally throttled by killing off UK infrastructure investment and murdering consumer demand.
‘And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in/out referendum’
It is necessary to have the precise terms of this referendum urgently, prior to any talk of the electorate deciding on the ‘yes/no’ on the basis of these terms.
‘Legislation will be drafted before the next election. And if a Conservative Government is elected we will introduce the enabling legislation immediately and pass it by the end of that year.’
As above.
‘And we will complete this negotiation and hold this referendum within the first half of the next Parliament.’
As above.
‘I believe something very deeply. That Britain’s national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union. And that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.’
Cameron was equally passionate about ‘no further top-down reorganisations’. It therefore does not matter at all what he believes deeply in, or not.
‘Over the coming weeks, months and years, I will not rest until this debate is won. For the future of my country. For the success of the European Union. And for the prosperity of our peoples for generations to come.’
Cameron is doing this entirely to save face in his Party. The European Union can easily continue without him, but Cameron’s political gamble will unfortunately be putting real people and their jobs at risk.
David Cameron's PMQs are nothing short of a disaster, but provide useful clues about Tory Britain
I went to Lady Thatcher’s last ever Prime Minister’s Questions in 1990. I remember the experience well, and of course I didn’t actually know it was her last ever PMQs at the time. The thing that struck me was the House of Commons debating chamber is like a TV studio, or film set, or at least seems that way from the public gallery. In a sense it is, as it is a set-piece spectacle for the media, almost as firm a ritual as Coronation St. or EastEnders. That it is supposed to hold the Government to account is not really what most of us are interested in. It’s a barometer of the important issue of the day, whether Ed Miliband can deliver an effective punch, and whether David Cameron will be ‘on the ropes’ or respond with a counter-hook of his own.
From the perspective of the media managers such as Craig Oliver and Nick Robinson, a concern will be how the exchange will be reported on the 6 o’clock news or the 10 o’clock news. There will have been some of us who witness the ex change live, and we will happily provide instantaneous feedback with our hashtag #PMQs. Media commentators will usually give a decisive result, such as “Miliband triumphant” or, rarely these days, “Cameron floored that”. For all his quips about how Ed Miliband “practises” in front of a mirror – and David, the one olds aren’t really your best – Cameron is neurotic that his Party comes across well in the whole performance. Conservatives are, it is reported, even sent memoranda reminding them of the need for barracking and heckling the opposition.
The advantage of Prime Minister’s Questions is of course that questions can be asked of the Prime Minister under parliamentary privilege. Lord Neuberger, former Master of the Rolls and President-Elect of the Supreme Court, and Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, are rightly keen that parliamentary privilege is not abused in the House of Commons. However, it is perhaps worth noting that the content of the answers often are poor in comparison to the question being asked. For example, Debbie Abrahams in her question asks simply, “Can the Prime Minister explain the relationship between Virgin Care donations to the Tory party, the number of Virgin Care shareholders on clinical commissioning group boards and the number of NHS contracts that have been awarded to Virgin Care?” In science, there is often no relationship. That is indeed the null hypothesis for all experiments ever conducted in scientific research, so, strictly speaking, all that David Cameron had to do was provide that there wasn’t significant evidence that there wasn’t no link to support his thesis (if you pardon the double negative). Ian Lavery MP’s question provides another interesting example.
You will notice the sombre mood of the House, as is indeed fitting as this precise theoretically could have happened to any sitting MP of the House of Commons. This is where it is more fitting to think of ‘grading’ PMQs not as a “knockout boxing match”, but a Finals exam script. The default option is a II.1, unless a really good answer merits a First, and a really appalling answer merits a Third. Cameron’s answers are normally in the safe II.1/II.2 category, although he sometimes fails to answer the question altogether. Here the answer is a II.2 really in all honesty, because, while he uses the opportunity to praise a policy which is on the ropes, i.e. the large number of benefit claimants having their original (adverse) decisions overturned on appeal, he in no way addresses the main point. The issue is, of course, put in a strong way that, “austerity kills”, as serious academics address the point in peer-reviewed medical journals whether the austerity agenda of countries including the UK has had an adverse effect on citizens. Take for example this excellent paper from Prof Martin McKee’s laboratory here in London on the “failed experiment” of austerity, in the peer-reviewed ‘Clinical Medicine’, the official journal of the Royal College of Physicians.
Unfortunately, we have all become accustomed to the non-answers given by the Prime Minister during PMQs, but this, in all fairness, is not drastically different from other Prime Ministers in the past, arguably. If the answers do not provide much detail about fine detail, they can possibly throw some light onto the operational smoothness of the running of the Government, and the degree to which they have insight into how seriously the public take their policies seriously. The “Big Society” has had more relaunches than most PR people would like to contemplate, and here is David Cameron trying to shoehorn the relevance and importance of the Big Society into the Tory Britain of David Cameron.
Whilst in no doubt well intentioned, the problem with this answer encapsulates the whole thrust of the main criticism of the Big Society. People have discussed how the Big Society is merely “a cover for cuts”, and it exposes in all its glory how David Cameron has simply has no answer for the failure of market economics. Ed Miliband wishes to advance the notion of a ‘responsible State’ working for the greater ‘public good’, so is able to provide a rebuttal of Cameron’s answer mocking how voluntereeism is not a solution for child malnutrition. This of course plays right into the hands of Labour MPs, and many Labour activists, who feel that Cameron’s Tory Britain has seen a return to Victorian values, in extreme painted as a picture of workhouses and poverty. The implementation of workfare has lent some support to the idea of people being taken advantage of, and the subtext here is that there are some people who have drawn substantial benefit from this culture of ‘using’ labour. The problem with David Cameron’s “something for nothing” jibe is that it can be easily answered with the chaos over workfare, and reports of issues such as George Osborne’s paddock. That large corporates have more of a say in David Cameron’s Britain is a picture which is easy to paint without any effort, such as McKinsey’s being chief “players” in the NHS restructuring (ahead of the BMA, RCN or medical Royal Colleges, for example), or Serco “winning big” for the National Citizen Service contracts. The idea of ‘flexible labour’, i.e. a workforce where job security is nil, could go a long way to explain the record levels of people seemingly in employment (and a equally comparable record number of people with little job security). The problem is that, when Cameron makes another gaffe, legions of Labour activists respond by saying on Twitter, “that’s what he really meant”.
That was the natural conclusion, for example, of this gaffe:
We do not get much of a chance to enter the mindset of David Cameron and his Tory-led Cabinet, and we equally do not have an accurate picture of what is reported from the Tory-led BBC and others, many believe. However, hearing certain things ‘from the horses mouth’ is indeed revealing. If David Cameron had answered his final scripts in the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Psychology and Economics for Brasenose College Oxford, he would have erred into II.2 territory, not because of his lack of preparation and well-researched material, but his simple failure to answer the question. The answers, however, do offer clues for me as to how he thinks about what sort of Society he wants, and what sort of people he values in Society.
David Cameron's PMQs are nothing short of a disaster, but provides useful clues about Tory Britain
I went to Lady Thatcher’s last ever Prime Minister’s Questions in 1990. I remember the experience well, and of course I didn’t actually know it was her last ever PMQs at the time. The thing that struck me was the House of Commons debating chamber is like a TV studio, or film set, or at least seems that way from the public gallery. In a sense it is, as it is a set-piece spectacle for the media, almost as firm a ritual as Coronation St. or EastEnders. That it is supposed to hold the Government to account is not really what most of us are interested in. It’s a barometer of the important issue of the day, whether Ed Miliband can deliver an effective punch, and whether David Cameron will be ‘on the ropes’ or respond with a counter-hook of his own.
From the perspective of the media managers such as Craig Oliver and Nick Robinson, a concern will be how the exchange will be reported on the 6 o’clock news or the 10 o’clock news. There will have been some of us who witness the ex change live, and we will happily provide instantaneous feedback with our hashtag #PMQs. Media commentators will usually give a decisive result, such as “Miliband triumphant” or, rarely these days, “Cameron floored that”. For all his quips about how Ed Miliband “practises” in front of a mirror – and David, the one olds aren’t really your best – Cameron is neurotic that his Party comes across well in the whole performance. Conservatives are, it is reported, even sent memoranda reminding them of the need for barracking and heckling the opposition.
The advantage of Prime Minister’s Questions is of course that questions can be asked of the Prime Minister under parliamentary privilege. Lord Neuberger, former Master of the Rolls and President-Elect of the Supreme Court, and Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, are rightly keen that parliamentary privilege is not abused in the House of Commons. However, it is perhaps worth noting that the content of the answers often are poor in comparison to the question being asked. For example, Debbie Abrahams in her question asks simply, “Can the Prime Minister explain the relationship between Virgin Care donations to the Tory party, the number of Virgin Care shareholders on clinical commissioning group boards and the number of NHS contracts that have been awarded to Virgin Care?” In science, there is often no relationship. That is indeed the null hypothesis for all experiments ever conducted in scientific research, so, strictly speaking, all that David Cameron had to do was provide that there wasn’t significant evidence that there wasn’t no link to support his thesis (if you pardon the double negative). Ian Lavery MP’s question provides another interesting example.
You will notice the sombre mood of the House, as is indeed fitting as this precise theoretically could have happened to any sitting MP of the House of Commons. This is where it is more fitting to think of ‘grading’ PMQs not as a “knockout boxing match”, but a Finals exam script. The default option is a II.1, unless a really good answer merits a First, and a really appalling answer merits a Third. Cameron’s answers are normally in the safe II.1/II.2 category, although he sometimes fails to answer the question altogether. Here the answer is a II.2 really in all honesty, because, while he uses the opportunity to praise a policy which is on the ropes, i.e. the large number of benefit claimants having their original (adverse) decisions overturned on appeal, he in no way addresses the main point. The issue is, of course, put in a strong way that, “austerity kills”, as serious academics address the point in peer-reviewed medical journals whether the austerity agenda of countries including the UK has had an adverse effect on citizens. Take for example this excellent paper from Prof Martin McKee’s laboratory here in London on the “failed experiment” of austerity, in the peer-reviewed ‘Clinical Medicine’, the official journal of the Royal College of Physicians.
Unfortunately, we have all become accustomed to the non-answers given by the Prime Minister during PMQs, but this, in all fairness, is not drastically different from other Prime Ministers in the past, arguably. If the answers do not provide much detail about fine detail, they can possibly throw some light onto the operational smoothness of the running of the Government, and the degree to which they have insight into how seriously the public take their policies seriously. The “Big Society” has had more relaunches than most PR people would like to contemplate, and here is David Cameron trying to shoehorn the relevance and importance of the Big Society into the Tory Britain of David Cameron.
Whilst in no doubt well intentioned, the problem with this answer encapsulates the whole thrust of the main criticism of the Big Society. People have discussed how the Big Society is merely “a cover for cuts”, and it exposes in all its glory how David Cameron has simply has no answer for the failure of market economics. Ed Miliband wishes to advance the notion of a ‘responsible State’ working for the greater ‘public good’, so is able to provide a rebuttal of Cameron’s answer mocking how voluntereeism is not a solution for child malnutrition. This of course plays right into the hands of Labour MPs, and many Labour activists, who feel that Cameron’s Tory Britain has seen a return to Victorian values, in extreme painted as a picture of workhouses and poverty. The implementation of workfare has lent some support to the idea of people being taken advantage of, and the subtext here is that there are some people who have drawn substantial benefit from this culture of ‘using’ labour. The problem with David Cameron’s “something for nothing” jibe is that it can be easily answered with the chaos over workfare, and reports of issues such as George Osborne’s paddock. That large corporates have more of a say in David Cameron’s Britain is a picture which is easy to paint without any effort, such as McKinsey’s being chief “players” in the NHS restructuring (ahead of the BMA, RCN or medical Royal Colleges, for example), or Serco “winning big” for the National Citizen Service contracts. The idea of ‘flexible labour’, i.e. a workforce where job security is nil, could go a long way to explain the record levels of people seemingly in employment (and a equally comparable record number of people with little job security). The problem is that, when Cameron makes another gaffe, legions of Labour activists respond by saying on Twitter, “that’s what he really meant”.
That was the natural conclusion, for example, of this gaffe:
We do not get much of a chance to enter the mindset of David Cameron and his Tory-led Cabinet, and we equally do not have an accurate picture of what is reported from the Tory-led BBC and others, many believe. However, hearing certain things ‘from the horses mouth’ is indeed revealing. If David Cameron had answered his final scripts in the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Psychology and Economics for Brasenose College Oxford, he would have erred into II.2 territory, not because of his lack of preparation and well-researched material, but his simple failure to answer the question. The answers, however, do offer clues for me as to how he thinks about what sort of Society he wants, and what sort of people he values in Society.
The Obama victory is a rejection of the philosophy of David Cameron
The Conservatives ARE LYING. They are claiming that Obama’s situation is fundamentally different, as the Conservatives inherited a mess from Labour. They LIE, LIE and LIE even more, and simply do not care. Unfortunately, the public are not stupid. In 2008, the then Shadow chancellor George Osborne has committed the Tories to matching Labour’s public spending totals for the next three years. Osborne said the 2% increases in the financial years 2008/9 to 2010/11 would also allow “sustainably lower taxes” as the economy is expected to grow faster than public spending. The shadow chancellor said triumphantly in a newspaper article: “I can confirm for the first time that a Conservative government will adopt these spending totals.” He then continued: “Total government spending will rise by 2% a year real terms, from £615 billion next year to £674 billion in the year 2010/11. Like Labour, we will review the final year’s total in a spending review in 2009. Just in case you were in any doubt, “The result of adopting these spending totals is that under a Conservative government there will be real increases in spending on public services, year after year. And why did Labour have to spend so much money to increase the deficit? To stop the banks from imploding, as an emergency measure. The Tories would have done the same had it happened on their watch. Fact.
In contrast to Iain Duncan-Smith and Dr Liam Fox who were actively helping the Romney campaign, it is no secret Labour were helping the Obama campaign. “It matters because America is the last superpower where who wins a leadership election really matters – it affects the whole world,” said Simon Redfern, chair of the Walthamstow Labour Party. Simon just returned from ten days of campaigning for Mr Obama in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of a 30-strong British delegation. He explained: “I was given the opportunity and I just jumped at it. In the Labour Party we’re trying to emulate many of the things the Democrats have been doing with community activism, so it was a real education. Simon added, “Getting people involved and battling cynicism has really been [Walthamstow Labour MP] Stella Creasy’s mission. Things like the pop-up respite centre during the riots last year are an example of that type of community, grass-roots involvement.” That, I think, is precisely it – instead of asking for votes by scaremongering over impending bankruptcy like Greece, losing our gold studded triple A rating, talking about spending sprees with the public finances, Obama uniquely offered hope not hate. It is therefore little wonder then that American President was left rather underwhelmed after a private discussion with Mr Cameron in 2008 and his impressions of the Conservative leader were reported in a confidential cable sent by US officials back to Washington. David Cameron was regarded by Barack Obama as a “lightweight” politician following their first meeting, the leaked documents have disclosed apparently. The embarrassing memo is among more than 1,000 documents from the American embassy in London that have been leaked and been publicly released, consequently. According to the Daily Telegraph, American officials had already warned Downing Street over the contents of the diplomatic cable. It is thought that they have stressed that Mr Obama’s opinion of Mr Cameron has changed as the two men have got to know one another better.
At least Obama was able to say last night that “Our economy is recovering”. Indeed in 2010, George Osborne inherited an economy that was growing at 0.7 per cent. Later that year he ignored the advice of many economists and set out plans to close the deficit within four years rather than eight. He also failed to set out a coherent growth plan, predicated on investment and jobs in the green economy that his party once championed. The result of Osborne’s slasher-nomics has been, as entirely predictable, that borrowing that is rising rather than falling. In this year’s budget, the Chancellor was forced to admit that public sector net borrowing (PSNB) would be 8.3 per cent in 2011-12 rather than 7.9 per cent as he’d predicted a year before. Since then, the situation has deteriorated. The most recent ONS release showed that the PSNB is up nearly 22 per cent in the first five months of the financial year compared to the same period last year. Borrowing is going up even as the departmental spending cuts continue apace.
It is thought that Cameron will seek to “seek change” in 2015 even as the incumbent candidate, but a François Hollande proved, it is possible for one-term oppositions to exist. Obama said last night, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.” Meanwhile, here in the UK, ATOS has conducted about 738,000 work capability assessments on benefit claimants in the past financial year. However the assessments have been widely criticised and it has emerged that 40% of people appeal against the decisions – with 38% of those successful. The cost to the taxpayer of the tribunal system alone is £50m, around half of the amount spent on reassessment. In sharp contrast to Miliband’s “One Nation”, charities say jobcentre staff have been shocked “when someone who is clearly unwell turns up having been told that they are fit for work”. In May 2012, GPs called for the assessments to be scrapped. Tom Greatrex, whose investigation into Atos led to the National Audit Office this month calling for an overhaul of the government’s medical testing contract with the company, said the firm “would not fix its reputation by sponsoring the Paralympics”.
“Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together.” We in Labour support him, as we always have done.
Meanwhile, this Twitter exchange from last night sums it up nicely.
David Cameron and the Conservatives should be given credit for a challenging, if inaccurate, speech at their Party Conference
I think the main danger in misinterpreting David Cameron’s speech, written by Clare Foges and colleagues of the Conservative Party (including presumably David Cameron), is to do so without viewing it from the perspective of a potential Tory voter.
Individuals who are ardent Conservative voters, one assumes, are not distracted by factual inaccuracies in the narrative (such as how many people on housing benefit are unemployed, or how much borrowing this current government is doing). Certain things might have stuck in the minds of potential voters, such as the idea of an unemployed person in a bedsit queue-jumping in the housing ballot ahead of a person who’d dedicated his or her life for decades. To such people, the prevalence of benefit fraud is immaterial. Cameron tried to produce a narrative of the rich being punished for being successful, in his characteristically patronising explanation of how income tax works for Miliband’s benefit. A caller on Iain Dale’s show last night on lbc considered that he might vote for the Conservative Party, having voted for decades for Labour. He felt that his ambitions as a worker had not been recognised by the Labour Party, and was sick of it. Rather than blaming Cameron and his team for tapping into this ‘aspiration’, Labour runs a genuine risk of pursuing evidence-based politics while simultaneously failing to capture the sentiment and feelings of workers of this country.
How this situation has come about is interesting, but it is patently obvious that it has not come about overnight. Cameron indeed would be right in thinking that such a voter is not overly concerned about what Prof Michael Sandel or Prof Jim Hacker have to say about public good or predistribution particularly; the mental masturbation over intellectual sociological ideas might lead to an even greater disconnect between Labour and its missing voters. It is clearly of concern that there are millions of voters who cannot remember why they did not vote in the 2010 general election, but it is fair to say, probably, that not all of them produced a protest vote on account of the expenses scandal. While talk of whether Andrew Mitchell will survive is of immense interest to the Westminster village, it is curiously not the allegation that he may have said “fucking” or “pleb” that is the problem with the focus groups, but the fact that the Conservative Party do not consider themselves at one with the general public.
This is why Cameron’s pitch was effective, as it was ‘levelling’ with the public in a way that they largely comprehend. Labour has its own arguments why it increased public spending, but it seems that there is no appetite for such a technical debate; however much Labour wishes to debate it, the Labour Party are generally not trusted with the public finances. While ‘One Nation’ talk might be appealing, even after the forty-sixth repeat, if Labour cannot be trusted to be in control of the public purse, the most they can hope for is a Lib-Lab pact. The dynamics of a potential future Lib-Lab pact are interesting, in that the vast majority of Labour voters would not wish to enter into a pact with Nick Clegg still at the helm of the Liberal Democrat party. It becomes 50/50 if it’s any leader but Nick Clegg, and still most Labour voters stubbornly feel that Labour politicians are better at running the economy than the Liberal Democrats. It can be tempting for Labour members to think that the NHS is a ‘make or break’ issue, but this policy has been evolving for some time, especially under New Labour, with the emergence of NHS Foundation Trusts and clinical commissioning. Labour voters are not likely to get angry over the pay packets of private directors of healthcare companies at the ballot box, but are more likely to resent the Health and Social Care Act if quality is seen to suffer. While the NHS remains branded as an unitary NHS, this is unlikely to be the case, and the Conservatives can justifiably continue, perhaps, with their strategy of either not mentioning it, or describing it as a ‘modernisation strategy’.
The legal aid cuts might be a more productive way for Labour to reach out to the strivers. For example, due to the managed decline of law centres on the high street, access-to-justice for housing, immigration, asylum, welfare benefits, and employment advice, inter alia, is compromised. This is hardly in the best interests of strivers? Strivers are unlikely to be impressed by trading off their rights not to be unfairly dismissed for some shares in a company which cannot produce a dividend unless it has distributable profits. It might be that strivers do not particularly care whether the Human Rights Act is abolished or not, although its abolition might help to return a Conservative government. Individuals may be inclined to think that so long as he or she is not affected by torture, privacy, or freedom of expression issues, they are unlikely to be touched by the Human Rights Act, especially if legal aid for such matters is abolished. Cameron has also perhaps succeeded in painting the Conservative Party as firmly footed in the “real world”. There are two major issues for why Ed Miliband has trouble on this: the spending of Labour “even during the good times”, and the thirst by Miliband for the application of sociological theories which have yet to be tested in practice. The empirical evidence for ‘Nudge’ of course has never been compelling, but there is a sense that the standards that Conservatives apply for themselves are not the ones they apply to Labour.
So it comes to something when David Cameron calls trade union leaders “snobs”, but no amount of hatred for inverted snobbery will deliver Miliband a landslide for the 2015 general election. Practical problems emerge if Ed Balls signs up for an austerity agenda indistinguishable from the Conservatives, not least in the sense that workers will wonder why on earth they are still supporting Labour. Miliband does not want to be seen in the lap of ‘vested interests’ codeword for ‘trade unions’, but likewise he has not embraced a redistributive tax system targetting the very highest earners yet. Trade union members contribute up to 40% of the funding of the Labour Party, but, like the debate on public purse handling, Miliband is unlikely to sway the minds of voters on this. It is not improved aspiration from the middle class and centre that will win Miliband the 2015 general election, but it will be working class leaving Labour in droves in finding their aspirations unaddressed. One term oppositions are extremely rare, and Labour finds itself in a difficult position in perhaps having to rely on the Liberal Democrats to form a government having spent the last five years in slagging them off. Cameron’s speech yesterday was full of statements all good lefties would have found contemptible, but it was clever in that it was sufficiently practical (for example, not mentioning the ‘bash a burglar’ policy) that it did offer a course for government. As others have pointed out, this is not a speech that Cameron can ever give in future, if he fails to deliver. The starting gun for the 2015 general election has most definitely been fired, and the first ‘hurdle’ takes the form of the OBR assessment in a few weeks time about the UK deficit. Cameron has given himself in a sense a suspended sentence, but there are strict conditions for his future behaviour.
Despite the inaccuracies, Cameron's pitch was sufficiently effective to be of concern
I think the main danger in misinterpreting David Cameron’s speech, written by Clare Foges and colleagues of the Conservative Party (including presumably David Cameron), is to do so without viewing it from the perspective of a potential Tory voter.
Individuals who are ardent Conservative voters, one assumes, are not distracted by factual inaccuracies in the narrative (such as how many people on housing benefit are unemployed, or how much borrowing this current government is doing). Certain things might have stuck in the minds of potential voters, such as the idea of an unemployed person in a bedsit queue-jumping in the housing ballot ahead of a person who’d dedicated his or her life for decades. To such people, the prevalence of benefit fraud is immaterial. Cameron tried to produce a narrative of the rich being punished for being successful, in his characteristically patronising explanation of how income tax works for Miliband’s benefit. A caller on Iain Dale’s show last night on lbc considered that he might vote for the Conservative Party, having voted for decades for Labour. He felt that his ambitions as a worker had not been recognised by the Labour Party, and was sick of it. Rather than blaming Cameron and his team for tapping into this ‘aspiration’, Labour runs a genuine risk of pursuing evidence-based politics while simultaneously failing to capture the sentiment and feelings of workers of this country.
How this situation has come about is interesting, but it is patently obvious that it has not come about overnight. Cameron indeed would be right in thinking that such a voter is not overly concerned about what Prof Michael Sandel or Prof Jim Hacker have to say about public good or predistribution particularly; the mental masturbation over intellectual sociological ideas might lead to an even greater disconnect between Labour and its missing voters. It is clearly of concern that there are millions of voters who cannot remember why they did not vote in the 2010 general election, but it is fair to say, probably, that not all of them produced a protest vote on account of the expenses scandal. While talk of whether Andrew Mitchell will survive is of immense interest to the Westminster village, it is curiously not the allegation that he may have said “fucking” or “pleb” that is the problem with the focus groups, but the fact that the Conservative Party do not consider themselves at one with the general public.
This is why Cameron’s pitch was effective, as it was ‘levelling’ with the public in a way that they largely comprehend. Labour has its own arguments why it increased public spending, but it seems that there is no appetite for such a technical debate; however much Labour wishes to debate it, the Labour Party are generally not trusted with the public finances. While ‘One Nation’ talk might be appealing, even after the forty-sixth repeat, if Labour cannot be trusted to be in control of the public purse, the most they can hope for is a Lib-Lab pact. The dynamics of a potential future Lib-Lab pact are interesting, in that the vast majority of Labour voters would not wish to enter into a pact with Nick Clegg still at the helm of the Liberal Democrat party. It becomes 50/50 if it’s any leader but Nick Clegg, and still most Labour voters stubbornly feel that Labour politicians are better at running the economy than the Liberal Democrats. It can be tempting for Labour members to think that the NHS is a ‘make or break’ issue, but this policy has been evolving for some time, especially under New Labour, with the emergence of NHS Foundation Trusts and clinical commissioning. Labour voters are not likely to get angry over the pay packets of private directors of healthcare companies at the ballot box, but are more likely to resent the Health and Social Care Act if quality is seen to suffer. While the NHS remains branded as an unitary NHS, this is unlikely to be the case, and the Conservatives can justifiably continue, perhaps, with their strategy of either not mentioning it, or describing it as a ‘modernisation strategy’.
The legal aid cuts might be a more productive way for Labour to reach out to the strivers. For example, due to the managed decline of law centres on the high street, access-to-justice for housing, immigration, asylum, welfare benefits, and employment advice, inter alia, is compromised. This is hardly in the best interests of strivers? Strivers are unlikely to be impressed by trading off their rights not to be unfairly dismissed for some shares in a company which cannot produce a dividend unless it has distributable profits. It might be that strivers do not particularly care whether the Human Rights Act is abolished or not, although its abolition might help to return a Conservative government. Individuals may be inclined to think that so long as he or she is not affected by torture, privacy, or freedom of expression issues, they are unlikely to be touched by the Human Rights Act, especially if legal aid for such matters is abolished. Cameron has also perhaps succeeded in painting the Conservative Party as firmly footed in the “real world”. There are two major issues for why Ed Miliband has trouble on this: the spending of Labour “even during the good times”, and the thirst by Miliband for the application of sociological theories which have yet to be tested in practice. The empirical evidence for ‘Nudge’ of course has never been compelling, but there is a sense that the standards that Conservatives apply for themselves are not the ones they apply to Labour.
So it comes to something when David Cameron calls trade union leaders “snobs”, but no amount of hatred for inverted snobbery will deliver Miliband a landslide for the 2015 general election. Practical problems emerge if Ed Balls signs up for an austerity agenda indistinguishable from the Conservatives, not least in the sense that workers will wonder why on earth they are still supporting Labour. Miliband does not want to be seen in the lap of ‘vested interests’ codeword for ‘trade unions’, but likewise he has not embraced a redistributive tax system targetting the very highest earners yet. Trade union members contribute up to 40% of the funding of the Labour Party, but, like the debate on public purse handling, Miliband is unlikely to sway the minds of voters on this. It is not improved aspiration from the middle class and centre that will win Miliband the 2015 general election, but it will be working class leaving Labour in droves in finding their aspirations unaddressed. One term oppositions are extremely rare, and Labour finds itself in a difficult position in perhaps having to rely on the Liberal Democrats to form a government having spent the last five years in slagging them off. Cameron’s speech yesterday was full of statements all good lefties would have found contemptible, but it was clever in that it was sufficiently practical (for example, not mentioning the ‘bash a burglar’ policy) that it did offer a course for government. As others have pointed out, this is not a speech that Cameron can ever give in future, if he fails to deliver. The starting gun for the 2015 general election has most definitely been fired, and the first ‘hurdle’ takes the form of the OBR assessment in a few weeks time about the UK deficit. Cameron has given himself in a sense a suspended sentence, but there are strict conditions for his future behaviour.
Hours of fun now that David Cameron is on Twitter!
Whoever needs to switch on a TV set, buy a e-book on Kindle or an iPad, or go to cinema, ever again, when you’ve got hours of fun now that David Cameron is on Twitter?
