UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
Best of Britain: War and peace
Two events highlighted the past week’s Best of Britain photos: Remembrance Day and the protests that made their way inside the Conservative Party headquarters. In a simultaneous mirror of war and peace, there were the somber Remembrance Day vigils honoring those who’d given their lives in war, contrasted with the chaos of student protesters, angry at the Conservative Party’s plans for higher tuition fees and cuts to education.
Also included are photos of a girl celebrating Diwali and a scientist showing a new high tech material that can manipulate visible light.
from MacroScope:
‘Ken Clarke for Chancellor’ is no joke
Ken Clarke shouldn’t underestimate how strongly the city economists polled by Reuters last week want to see him serve as Britain’s finance minister next term.
The Conservative shadow business secretary and one time ex-Chancellor gleaned a few laughs from Thursday’s BBC Question Time audience when asked about the poll, saying: “There’s a limit to how much of a glutton for punishment you’re going to be.”
But economists would dearly like to see the 69-year-old’s appetite for punishment return soon. No-one came close in the Reuters poll to touching Clarke for popularity. Some 16 out of 29 economists picked him as their first choice for Chancellor.
This was more than twice the number of economists who want to install second-placed Vince Cable, the experienced Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman whose quick wit has made him a public favourite.
For Clarke to serve, Conservative leader David Cameron would first have to dump the party’s likely choice for finance minister George Osborne – a decision that would mean Cameron had gone “slightly off the rails”, according to Clarke.
On Question Time, Clarke was loyal and wholesome in his support for Osborne, who fared poorly in the Reuters poll. He finished fourth from the five choices on offer and behind the current Labour incumbent, Alistair Darling.
from The Great Debate UK:
Old traditions die hard in UK election campaigning
A study of constituency-level campaign techniques undertaken by Brunel University ahead of a general election expected in early May shows that direct mail is by far the most common method of contact used by politicians to reach potential voters.
Of the 27 percent of the electorate contacted by one of the three main political parties in February, about 90 percent received some form of communication through the post via direct mail, the study shows. Some 92 percent said they had been reached through mailings from the Liberal Democrats, 89 percent from the Conservative Party and 81 percent from the Labour Party.
Although a lot of people have spoken about this being the first new media election in the UK, and there is some evidence of email and Facebook being used, traditional campaign methods are still dominant, says Justin Fisher, director of the Magna Carta Society at Brunel University in West London.
"What we can say about social media is that it may enhance or complement more traditional forms of campaigning, but the idea that it's going to replace traditional campaigning at least at this stage is very wide of the mark," Fisher said.
Just over 1,000 people were interviewed for the study.
The Conservative Party, which needs to gain 116 seats in the election to win a majority of 1, have been most aggressive in their campaigning, reaching 60 percent of those polled, compared to 44 percent reached by Labour and 43 percent by the Libdems.
Overall, Labour are making most use of the telephone, the Libdems are making most use of direct mail and the Conservatives are making most use of email in reaching out to the electorate, according to the study.
Odd isn’t it, that suddenly all the political parties want me as their new best friend, and are really keen to find out my concerns and views. They haven’t cared a jot for the last five years, but now they are falling over each other to write to me and ask for my opinions and support.
Does it never occur to these people that the voters are not mushrooms they can shine a light on at election time, and the rest of the time keep in the dark and ignore?
There’s a political fortune waiting to be claimed by the party that actually talks and listens to voters as a matter of course, regardless of the proximity or otherwise of an election.
from The Great Debate UK:
Tariq Ali on how unions fare under Labour rule
Amid a stand-off between British Airways and the Unite union, the Labour Party's main financial supporter, Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a planned strike by BA cabin crew workers "unjustified and deplorable" last week and said both sides should return to talks.
Rail signal workers in the RMT union are also threatening to strike, but haven't announced a date.
The Conservatives have tried to make political capital out of industrial unrest ahead of a general election expected to be called for May 6, accusing the Labour Party of being in the pocket of the unions.
But how much political leverage do trade unions in Britain really have?
Unions are still burdened by the steps former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took to crush the labour movement in the 1980s, says political commentator Tariq Ali, who has written more than 30 books, including "Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror" in 2006 and most recently a novel titled “Night of the Golden Butterfly".
The Labour Party, founded in the early 20th century by trade unions to represent workers in parliament, has done nothing to reverse the consequences of a protracted coal miner's strike under Thatcher which, combined with de-industrialisation and privatisation, weakened the power of trade unions in Britain, Ali told Reuters in a recent video interview at Verso Books headquarters in London's Soho.
"When New Labour was elected in 1997, Tony Blair, the New Labour leader, made it very clear that he wasn't going to change anything that Thatcher had done," Ali said. "They used to boast in those early days -- that not only will we not change, we will go beyond Thatcher."
Cameron survives Lewisham lion’s den
On the face of it, the booing suffered by David Cameron at the hands of a boisterous group of students and job-seekers at a London college is not a good news story for the Tories.
Facing loud accusations of being a Thatcherite clone and jeers of “No Tory cuts” is presumably not what the Tory spin doctors hoped for when they organised this merry jaunt to Lewisham College.
Indeed, the sight of a frantic Tory press officer bobbing between students, mouthing “Take another question, take another question” to Cameron while he was being heckled would suggest it wasn’t in the script.
But one couldn’t help feeling admiration for Dave (as Sam Cam told ITV she refers to hubbie) as he handled the jibes with apparent ease, telling an audience increasingly emboldened by their 15-minutes in the election spotlight, that he wasn’t scared of “telling the truth”.
By the end the prime ministerial hopeful received a polite round of applause from the 100 or so students, even though most of them will probably not put an X next to a Conservative candidate’s name when, or indeed if, they decide to enter the ballot box.
It may be a naïve hope, but could it be that Cameron’s willingness to stand up in a large room full of unfriendly voters heralds a new beginning for British electioneering? Maybe the era of the pre-scripted news events perfected by New Labour, to the increasing dismay of voters and media commentators, is over, for this year at least.
As a former PR person himself, Cameron knows that despite his partial success in ‘detoxifying’ the Tory party, politicians of all colours are more unpopular than ever. The expenses scandal has left Parliament’s reputation in tatters and Cameron understands that serious work is required to engage disenchanted voters in the forthcoming campaign.
‘taking the boo-boys head on’ as apose to Blairs taking them on from behind? We should dig deeper on these scandals.Lies are not to be tollerated any longer.
Mandelson slip-up confirms eurosceptics’ fears
Business minister Peter Mandelson built his reputation as a sure-footed communicator for the Labour Party, but the former EU trade commissioner suffered a rare slip-up on Friday when he confirmed many eurosceptics’ fears that the European Commission relished its lack of democratic accountability.
“The best principle of the European Commission ever invented was that it should not be elected — that it was remote, unaccountable, a major bureaucracy that could do good for Europe and can take the risks of saying things and doing things that are not as easy to do in the member states,” said Mandelson.
The remarks to French students in Paris were at least partly in jest, and prompted laughter.
Talking more about the benefits of working for the Commission, Mandelson went on: “We’re not elected, we don’t have to think: ‘Oh my God, what are we going to say and do because the public are going to turn us out of office?’”
Not, of course, that Mandelson was suggesting this is the position Labour finds itself in now, with an election due by June and the Conservatives ahead in the polls.
The comedy of this is overshadowed by the fact that as more and more of us are realising, we are heading towards a very dark place if we stay in the EU. What happens when these faceless individuals are no longer such “nice” people as they may be now? Surely this is a blueprint for the most evil empire since the demise of the Soviet Union? Specifically with regard to the euro, I have never understood why so many people seem to think that the fact that the most benefit you can derive from a club is obtained if a lot of other people join it but you don’t, is a compelling reason to join it.
Relaxed Brown up for election fight
He’s 10 points behind in the polls but Gordon Brown is clearly not going down without a fight.
With an election likely in less than 90 days, the Prime Minister seems to be relishing the prospect of taking on the Conservatives and he thinks he can win.
The Conservatives have got it all wrong and people are beginning to question their judgment, he told me as we flew back from an EU summit in Brussels on a tiny hired jet — plans to travel by train having been abandoned after major delays on the Eurostar.
Warming to his theme, nothing was going to get in his way.
As the plane neared London, aides motioned the interview should come to an end.
He wasn’t having any of it. Brown just carried on, attacking the Conservative position on Europe which he calls a “terrible mistake”, leaving his handlers standing in the aisle looking helplessly on as the plane began its descent.
Brown looks visibly better and more relaxed than he has in recent months. The improvement in the economy seems to have given his careworn face a real lift. And the narrowing in the Conservative poll lead must be helping too.
Tony Travers on challenges the parties face
Although the Queen’s speech on Wednesday is a formal occasion to outline the government’s agenda for the new parliamentary session, with less than six months to go before a general election, commentators are viewing it as the unofficial launch of Labour’s campaign.
Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, outlines some of the challenges the parties face before elections, which must be held no later than June 2010.
from The Great Debate UK:
Brooks Newmark drops a debt bombshell
Britain's national debt is far higher than Prime Minister Gordon Brown is willing to acknowledge, Conservative MP Brooks Newmark argues in a new paper published by the Centre for Policy Studies.
The true level of government debt is not 805 billion pounds as currently reported by the Office for National Statistics, Newmark says, calling for an independent audit of the government's books.
"The lax control of public money over the last decade has created a catastrophic level of debt, now equivalent to 2.2 trillion pounds - or 157.2 percent of gross domestic product," he writes. "This is an increase of 346 billion pounds since last year, when the true level of government debt was 1.85 trillion pounds (or 126.9 percent of GDP).
Newmark, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, discussed "The Hidden Debt Bombshell" with Reuters:
This must be true of the UK due to the non transparancy of accounting for Government liabilities in for example Private Funding Initiatives.
Smoke and mirrors…and we are not alone – what about the unfunded liabilities in the US?
The UK exhibits all the failures of the World’s largest economy but without the benefit of having the World’s Reserve Currency ATM.
Who knows where this will end? The IMF?
Live blog: Conservative Party conference
The Conservatives will get a chance to show they are ready for office at their annual conference in Manchester. After 12 years in opposition, the party could be on the verge of returning to power in an election due by next June.
Conservative leader David Cameron has said they will set out plans this week for reducing the country’s gaping budget deficit and unveil a “massive” programme to cut unemployment.
Our team of reporters will be looking for details of what a Conservative government would hold in store and aim to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the conference. Comments are open so please share your thoughts and opinions!
George Osborne should freeze the public sector’s pay indefinitely until such time as the private sector can be assured of their own employment and pension prospects. The private sector should not be funding the public sector, nor should they have to continue to work until they are 66 years old when the public sector can retire much earlier.
Maybe George Osborne should keep his £65,000 salary and live off it rather than claiming massive expenses and second home mortgage interest as he has been doing. Multiply George Osborne’s cost to the taxpayer and multiply it by the number of politicians and then see where the savings could be. Not a “cat in hell’s chance” I’d say.
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The Wall
