Keeping the faith

March 2, 2010 — admin

Time for a decisive, DC - what's it to be?

It all seems as though it could go terribly wrong after a YouGov poll found that the PM was on course to claim another five years in power, something unimaginable even four weeks ago. DC gave his speech on Sunday in Brighton to a generally good reception but couldn’t avoid a look about him that was rather too close to someone living out their nightmares. I thought it was a solid speech and nothing more – designed to steady the ship and motivate the crew rather than inspire a nation through new discovery. But I remain confident that Cameron the performer will outshine either of his rivals whenever he gets the chance.

What he needs to start to do is give people a reason to vote Conservative – something I’ve been telling the party locally for a number of months now. Gordon Brown remains our biggest asset and I have no doubt that whatever the polls say, he will not win the election. But that doesn’t mean a Conservative victory – as the Times put it, it is isn’t that people don’t think DC is capable of being a good PM, it is that they don’t understand why he wants to do the job.

I know that DC feels the desire to reform our country, he is deeply interested in social justice, cares hugely about health and education and wants to address Britain’s copious social problems. He wants to foster an economy that allows people to reach their potential and steer a dignified course on the world stage. Why? Because it’s the British Way – fair play, compassion, reward for the successful and support for the struggling. I think the term “patriotic duty” was taken out of context by the press but it wasn’t the most wise; I know what he meant but I’m not sure it was the best way to express it. He needs to express it how the man on the street would ie the country at the moment is in a mess – unfair and injust after 13 years of Labour failure. DC wants to be the person to put that right.

But we need to spell out in practical terms what the Direction of Travel is and how that’s done. And we need to give people some reasons to vote Conservative as opposed to reasons to vote against Gordon. I think DC’s policy of attacking the PM has reached its optimum effectiveness and has now started to decline. I want to see less barracking and more focus on what a Tory government will deliver. Cllr Richard Lowe, an emminent Tweeter, collated the following:

1. A cut in net immigration of 75%

2. No more early release for convicted criminals

3. A two year freeze in council tax

4. The abolition of inheritance tax for all families except millionaires

5. Cutting politics with 10% cut in the number of MPs and 5% cut in pay

 6. Headteachers to be put in charge of school discipline

7. Restoring the link between the basic state pension and earnings

8. New laws that will give householders more rights against burglars

9. The budget deficit cut in half by 2014 so future generations don’t live in debt

10. Abolition of Labour’s expensive ID cards

I’m more comfortable with some things than others on that list but politics isn’t an all-or-nothing craft. These would be 10 reasons that if nothing else explain to a public fed up of waiting what the Conservatives stand for. And most of them represent current policy - not that you’d think it from our reticence in coming forward. So come on DC, let’s hear about them and let’s have a bit of fearlessness. Ignore those who say that we are losing support because we’ve gone to the left and keep to the centre ground. Stop bashing Gordon – tempting though it is – and start selling yourself, selling the party and its promises and selling a Conservative Britain as a place that has voted for change and is fairer for all.

I don’t believe that Labour will win the election, the polling in key marginals is still heavily in our favour. But we must show some mettle, some work ethic and a willingness to let people into our confidence if we are to finally summit the mountain we have struggled for so long to conquer.

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Direction of Travel

February 20, 2010 — admin

Come on David, it's not rocket science!

Last night was Woking Constituency Conservative Association’s annual general meeting at which Humfrey Malins gave his farewell speech and Jonathan Lord the first of what we hope will be many. During his speech, Jonathan talked about many interesting things, including references to helping the poorest in society that I think it does well for the grass roots to hear.

One of the subjects he touched on was this idea that the Conservative Party has no policies. I firmly believe that this is a message that Labour spinners, aided by the BBC, Grauniad and others are determined to repeat over and over for our consumption – that DC is a salesman with nothing to sell except the art of selling itself. A Blair mark two. Jonathan argued, quite rightly, that there are many examples of Conservative policy out there and that in-depth policy details are not the norm before a general election; Margaret Thatcher didn’t have them in 1979, nor Tony Blair in 1997. What the country understood about these two Leaders of the Opposition, Jonathan said, was their direction of travel.

Cllr Mike Smith asked Jonathan what it was that bound these policies together, the central message to activists and candidates to sell on the doorstep. He, along with others including myself, don’t yet get the sense of an overarching theme to Conservative policy that defines a direction of travel.

It’s desperately needed if DC is to win a convincing rather than narrow victory. And it’s not rocket science. The concept that binds our policies together is three-fold; self-empowerment, opportunity and the fulfillment of aspiration. The credibility gap that the Conservative Party has is linking its support for the wealthy and Middle England, the encouragement of entrepreneurship and businesses and the rolling back of inheritance tax with its desire to help the poorest in society achieve a better life.

Our problem is that we only ever talk about one of these at a time. The first allows our opponents to claim we are the party of the few, not the many. The second provokes a reaction among grass roots that the party is abandoning its core voters. But these two flanks of the spectrum are inextricably linked and go hand-in-hand.

We want to allow people who have been succesful the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their success. We want the prospect of that enjoyment to be an aspiration that creates excellence in its pursuit. We believe that leaving an estate to the next generation is a self-empowerment that begets striving for success. And we will fight for the right of the well-off to enjoy their lives – as long as they pay a fair share to those less fortunate. The successful business creates employment, tax revenue and generates investment in this country – it is also key to our recovery from this dreadful recession.

Similarly, while I am not entirely comfortable with DC’s phrase Broken Britain, there are parts of Britain that don’t work. In some areas, people have poor life chances and little hope of being anything other than a criminal or lifelong welfare recipient. We have to show these people when they are young that we believe in them. We have to demonstrate through community policing, social services and educational opportunities that with hard work and self-belief, anything is possible. And we have to be serious about it, knowing that it is in society’s interests that we address this problem.

In between these extremes, there are countless other examples of people who want the government to help them achieve their aspirations through the tax system, employment regulations, adult education, public sector reforms and so on.  I’m not big on small government - the government should be there to help the people who elect it. I’m big on enabling government - a government that leaves people alone when they are doing well and picks them up when they need help.

But we need to hear more from DC and the party about the link between the two things above. We are not the party of the few,  nor are we the party of the many; we must be the party of everyone.

I believe that with the economy being how it is, voters will forgive a lack of specific, concrete promises. But they will not forgive a listlessness, a lack of direction. Now it is for DC to elucidate the various Conservative policies that are out there in these strategic terms – it is not only voters who need to hear it but his own party too.

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Constitutional choices

February 16, 2010 — admin

Away from all the excitement of electoral mud-slinging, there are some very important changes being debated at a meeting of full council on February 25. They surround whether a) the council should be run by a strong leader and cabinet or have an elected mayor and b) whether the council should elect all its councillors every four years or, as it does now, elect a third of councillors three years in every four.

Last week, the executive took the decision not to endorse any one of these options and to allow the full council to have a debate and free vote on the issues. The understanding I have formed from the discussions I have had is that councillors will not vote for change and will keep a strong leader model elected by thirds – but they could of course prove me wrong!

In the first matter, they are entirely correct to eschew an elected mayor, who would have the power to appoint members of the executive committee from any party regardless of the wishes of councillors. This is in fact nothing short of amateurish political engineering by Labour – hoping that they can claw their way back to power in local government by getting a few Labour (or “independent”) mayors elected in what usually amounts to a silly popularity contest and running the council contrary to the wishes of members genuinely elected locally by their communities.

In such instances, the mayor would be able to pack the executive with members of minority parties and potentially run councils with as little as 20% of the council membership. Clearly that sounds quite attractive to the PM, but has he thought about areas outside London that might be fruitful ground for the BNP and how this silly mayoral idea could help that party control its first council? I hope that members reject this senseless scheme outright – Woking simply doesn’t need and wouldn’t benefit from an elected mayor.

On the second issue, I believe there are compelling reasons to favour all-out, once-every-four-years, elections. It saves money, saves people voting every single year and gives administrations a proper four-year term to get things done rather than worrying about the electoral consequences all the time. In addition, it aids member independence and makes it more difficult for officers to start running the policy show.

But among political parties, it’s not so popular. It means that they get out of the campaigning habit and have to re-invent the wheel every four years. It also means that if any member gets voted out, they have to wait four years for another go – and the same goes for overall control of the council. Losing your seat in a local election contest is a grisly business – I’m beginning to properly understand the work that needs to be put in and for all that to come to nothing must be dreadful. 

But there are worse things than being in opposition as a councillor – it’s an opportunity to re-group, reassess the area’s needs and your policies and to come up with something worth fighting on. I’ve seen all-out work well in Surrey Heath, Guildford and Waverley and I believe it is right for Woking too.

Losing seats and control is all part of politics and members must make a decision on this for the good of the borough. My feeling is that four-year terms are conducive to better decision-making and member-led authorities. That may not be the decision that will be reached – but I hope that it if is not, it will be for concerns other than members of all sides fearing the effects of losing power. If that were the case, Woking would be missing an opportunity – and not for the best of reasons.

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Rogues’ gallery, allegedly

February 5, 2010 — admin

…Not that I am suggesting for an instant that they are guilty, of course, as it seems finally a court of law will get to decide on the MPs’ expenses scandal. While I remain sceptical about the moral posturing conducted about MPs by some of the equally morally dubious press, I have always said that cases where there was evidence of criminal behaviour should be dealt with.

Now we know four people will face criminal charges over misuse of public money. And each of their circumstances helps us paint a picture of what was going on with the Fees Office and MPs’ claims.

So as not to be biased, I’ll start with the Conservative member of the quartet, Lord Hanningfield. It is said that between March 2006 and May 2009, he submitted claims for overnight stays in London when he was actually driven home to Chelmsford. Earlier versions of the story in the media contained information that has subsequently been removed for Contempt of Court reasons. Suffice it to say that it appears from earlier quotes that Fees Office staff were informing those that they oversaw that charging for overnight stays and then sloping off back home – or staying the night with friends instead - was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Well it isn’t – and those alleged to have made such claims should clearly have known better. But it also serves to illustrate the catastrophic failure of the Fees Office to do its job – it has been seeking to run things for the benefit of MPs and peers rather than for the taxpayers that are its real masters.

Elliot Morley is charged with claiming mortage expenses during a three-year period on either a false basis or when the loan had already been paid off. He claims that he didn’t realise that mortgage had been paid off and he has repaid the money. It is also worth noting that the Fees Offices clearly didn’t see fit to check his claim over this long period of time. In my view, it is totally correct that these charges should be heard by a court. This is not the same as charging for a duck house or trouser press; the allegations – and they are only allegations – amount to something else entirely.

David Chaytor is charged with submitting false invoices and coming up with an ingenious scheme whereby a flat that he actually owned was “rented” from his daughter and mother in order to claim expenses on it. Again, these are only charges, but it seems to me that if MPs put half as much energy into lawmaking as they appear to have put into finding ways of maximising their expense claims, the country might not be in such a dire situation. And once again, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that somewhere along the line, the Fees Office knew of this arrangement and were happy to accommodate it. And if they didn’t, they should have.

Jim Devine took Robin Cook’s seat after the latter died in 2005 and is charged with using false invoices. His case is interesting because he became an MP only four years before the story broke. I refuse to believe that a man of previously good character - and who has been through a rigorous selection process – suddenly decides to come up with false invoices after only three years in the House of Commons.

I think that somewhere in all of this there were people assuring MPs that it was fine to claim for bathplugs, fine to claim for overnight stays and then go home, okay to put through a “replacement” invoice for one that was lost and no problem to use a variety of tricks to keep the expense payments as high as possible.

That doesn’t excuse the MPs, all of whom are guilty of poor judgement and avarice. But it does ask questions about the officials involved in this discredited process and whose names are not plastered all over the papers at the moment.

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Campbell’s contempt for the truth

January 12, 2010 — admin

Alistair Campbell isn't getting his picture here - instead this is the result of the dossier he denies influencing

There are lots of reasons to have a problem with Alistair Campbell. My main beef with him is that by becoming the most notorious of “spin doctors” his bullying, goading and arrogant manner has tarnished the entire PR profession with his chippy, chalky brush. Whenever I tell people that I’m in Public Relations, they think of Alistair Campbell and assume I spend all day yelling obscenities down the phone to journalists and anyone else who cares to displease me.

As much fun as that sounds, it’s not the case. The second problem I have with him was perfectly illustrated by his appearance today in front of the Iraq Inquiry - that like his political master Tony Blair, he is incapable of admitting that he may have made mistakes while in his government position. We may have all swallowed the 45 minutes sophistry back in 2002 but it should be perfectly clear in 2010 that the dossiers of both September of that year and February 2003 were packed full of information that was at best selectively presented and leadingly phrased and at worst blatantly untrue.

Today, Campbell refused to accept any criticism of his role, he denied having over-ridden intelligence information with his own advice on “presentation” and said he totally stood by every word in the 2002 dossier. “You seem to be wanting me to say that Tony Blair signed up to saying, regardless of the facts and WMD, we are going to get rid of this guy,” he said. “It was not like this.” Well then, Alistair, exactly how was it?

Did Tony Blair not discuss regime change back in 2001 with President Bush? Was the emphasis of the dossier not changed from “may” have WMDs capable of a 45-minute launch to “has“? Lewes MP Norman Baker might be a little deluded about the death of Dr David Kelly (he thinks the government did it) but his interview on Sky News earlier (sadly not available on their website) showed just how discredited the Campbell sticking-to-the-guns stance is.

And while Campbell was confident and easily dealt with the tame questioning today from a panel whose body language reeked of mistrust for him, his “Je ne regrette rien” attitude doesn’t paint him in a sympathetic light. We can, no doubt, expect more of the same from Tony Blair when he appears in front of the inquiry too. He will say that he believed that the dossier was true, that the fact it has subsequently been shown to be a pile of fibs was not forseeable at the time and that he would probably have gone ahead in Iraq regardless of WMDs because he believe removing Saddam was the right thing to do.

Possibly it was, although it would be interesting to note the Iraqi people’s view on that subject, which has little to do on the whole with democracy and human rights and far more to do with tribal and religious considerations. But if getting rid of Saddam merited invasion, why are we not invading Zimbabwe, Iran, North Korea, Burma and, for that matter, China? Why don’t we intervene in Tibet or the drug wars of Mexico?

It is a shame that both Blair and Campbell are too battoned-down to understand that moral judgements are rarely applicable on a case-by-case basis; you either believe in a principle of removing dictators or you don’t – and if you do, you have to remove them everywhere. Unless there’s some other reason of course that we are not being told about. Surely not.

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Not so easy now

January 11, 2010 — admin

Reality bites - Nick Clegg has ditched some of his key promises

Writing in the Grauniad this morning, a smug Michael White claimed that DC’s appearance on the Andrew Marr Show had clarified nothing and that he had not been able to give firm promises on any of his draft manifesto commitments. Well, I can’t deny that DC is avoiding any more cast-iron guarantees but neither can Mr White deny that the reason he is doing so is because of the total and utter ruin to which the government his newspaper supports has brought the economy.

Furthermore, we know that the government is being deliberately obstructive of Conservative attempts to gain access to Treasury information – both to hide the extent of their failure and deny the opposition any advantage they may derive once in government. DC knows that things are bad but he isn’t sure how bad and until he knows he’s not making any promises. Is Mr White saying this isn’t sensible?

The Liberal Democrats have been busy making quite a bit of hay over that situation in the past. But now it turns out that they too have seen the absurdity of promising free elderly care and scrapping tuition fees when the money most obviously isn’t there to fund it. It’s not the first time they’ve decided they want to scrap some of their policies (Mansion Tax, anyone?) but at least Nick Clegg is shelving these because he can’t afford it, rather than because they are rubbish.

As ever with the Lib Dems though, they don’t have to be properly costed because they aren’t ever going to be enacted. But there comes a time when promising the earth just looks silly - even when you don’t necessarily know the details of the costs involved. Such a point has been reached and Nick Clegg is using the opportunity to launch his own austerity regime.

Which just leaves Labour. The Chancellor has promised cuts, the PM used the word once but thinks he got away with it and one half of the Labour party wants class war and investment and the other half wants the middle class vote and a pair of sharp scissors. It is clear that the government is in total disarray not about the economic policy needed – because both spending cuts and tax rises are coming without a doubt – but how to present this to voters.

The Conservatives went for honesty at their conference last year and it went down well at first but started to wobble once the government comms department got hold of it. The Lib Dems tried honesty, the party didn’t fancy it and so they went back to investment but now Nick Clegg has obviously put his foot down for the sake of credibility – as far as it goes, good on him.

But Labour – Labour is a complete and utter shambles with PM, Alistair Darling and Milipede pulling one way and Balls/Cooper the other. Most of the cabinet seem to have given up, obviously completely bemused with the whole situation and the shattering lack of leadership.

They didn’t go into politics for this. Hopefully, they’ll be put out of their misery before too long.

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Sky is the limit

January 1, 2010 — admin

Only class war to offer voters

No such slacking over at Sky News, where clearly the fact that the company doesn’t get a £3.5bn windfall from the government every year means that journos have to be in over the New Year period.

It doesn’t seem to have made them any less subservient to the PM though as they dutifully report his pitiful whingeing about what he thinks the country would look like under the Conservatives. I’m happy to quote:

“The Prime Minister says he was resolved to delivering “radical” public service reform, “a new, cleaned-up politics” and tackling terrorism as priorities in the new year. Mr Brown also promises to publish the first part of a “prosperity plan for a successful, fairer and more responsible Britain” later in the week. The proposals include investment in high-speed rail, aerospace, the digital economy, clean energy and other “industries and jobs of the future”.”

Radical public service reform went out of the window with Frank Field in 1998, his talk about cleaning up politics would be more believable if it were backed up with action and, er, I thought that we’d been tackling terrorism since about 1969. And we know that Labour tackling terrorism is code for taking away more civil liberty.

As for his prosperity plan, we’ve had stories about high-speed rail before, aerospace is anyone’s guess, clean energy is nothing new and the “other” stuff is just bluster. Investing in all of these things is easy to announce – far more difficult to deliver on time, to specification and to budget. Government, particularly during the Labour tenure, has a dreadful record on overspend and delayed capital projects from the MoD to IT systems across all government departments.

And where is all this investment going to come from by the way? It’s just nonsense. Labour has nothing new to offer apart from class war and divisive rhetoric. I hope the public votes for an alternative  – and frankly that includes the Lib Dems in northern inner-city seats where the Conservatives won’t win – to deliver a strong verdict against this shambles of a government that has led Britain to the brink of bankruptcy and hastened our decline.

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Something Astor give

December 1, 2009 — admin
Nancy Astor

Nancy Astor

It is 90 years ago to the day that Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. It’s fair to say that her political career was a good deal less significant than her electoral achievement – given the accounts of the time, not something that can entirely be explained away by the difficulties she faced in a house full of men.

Ninety years on, we have 125 women out of 646 members of parliament, which is better but represents only one fifth of parliament representing more than half the population. Needless to say, the worst offenders are we Conservatives, with just 18 out of 193 seats (less than one in ten), then the Liberal Democrats (one in six) followed by Labour, which actually does rather well with 98 out of 349 (two in seven). 

There are those who say that all of this is the fault of women for not coming forward in greater numbers, that women don’t want to be MPs. I suspect the truth is that women don’t feel an environment that continues to be male-dominated is an attractive prospect and while they would like to be active in politics, they take the decision to do something equally constructive in another field of life.

I don’t think that helps parliament or the country. We have come a certain distance in statistical terms since Nancy Astor but depressingly little has changed in the corridors, stairways and offices where the real power to make decisions lays.

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UKIP’s major point

November 28, 2009 — admin

An interesting story in The Times today about the relationship between UKIP and the Conservative Party, which threatens to become even more bitter than that between the Tories and the parties of the left.

The story says that UKIP offered to not fight the general election if the Conservatives gave a written guarantee (as opposed to a cast-iron one) that a referendum would definitely be held after the election and that its MPs would be given a free vote in a Commons ratification. He got no answer, although both the BBC and The Times say that Lord Strathclyde acknowlegdes the meeting have taken place.

In case anyone didn’t know, UKIP elected a new leader last week, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, to take over from Nigel Farage. This is obviously his attempt to make some headlines and announce his presence on the scene and that’s all fine. I’m glad that six months ago, the Conservatives had the foresight to see that Lisbon might be ratified ahead of an election and that this delicate siutation required careful planning, not more rash promises. In addition, a pact with UKIP endorses an openly Eurosceptic view, which may have caused further conflict within the party. We were right to reject their silly politicking.

What is interesting to me is the idea that, this one policy demand satisfied, UKIP was prepared to stand down from elections. In addition, Lord Pearson continued:

“And then when we had the referendum – which we believed we would win – we would then be out of the European Union and then at that point UKIP, well it would have been up to UKIP, but it would probably have disbanded because its major point would no longer be in existence.”

I thought this was a major party with policies on a range of issues. It appears, in fact to be a single-issue pressure group that stands for election and paradoxically ends up taking votes from the one mainstream political party that can deliver its single issue objective. It’s an incredibly short-sighted organisation.

If, as I hope it will, Britain ends its membership of the European Union within the next 10 years, there is a great deal that will have to be planned for to ensure that we remain competitive and politically engaged inside and outside the EU. For 35 years, our politics has operated on various fringes of Europe and to place ourselves outside that will require plenty of adjustments. Adjustments for the better, perhaps, but adjustments nevertheless.

But as soon as the exit from the EU is achieved, that appears to be UKIP’s tipping point to disband according to its new leader. Never mind the implications of the exit, never mind the work that follows it – we’ve got we wanted and now we’re off. This group doesn’t know the first thing about running a country – it’s only interested in tunnel vision politics and single issues. Successful politics understands that issues tend to happen simultaneously and everything, as Lenin once said, is connected to everything else.

So if you aren’t that keen on Europe and are thinking about voting for them in Woking or anywhere for that matter, try asking this of your UKIP candidate when they come knocking – what happens during life after the EU? Then ask yourself whether you really want people bought into a party with no concept of strategy to be your MP or local councillor.

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Blair ditches project

November 19, 2009 — admin
Herman's not a German but he's supported by them

Herman's not a German but he's supported by them

It’s okay, panic over – Tony Blair will not become President of Europe and we can all sleep a little easier. I don’t imagine for a second that the “winning candidate” – and I use the term advisedly given that I don’t remember receiving a polling card for this particular “election” – is going to do a vastly better job. Herman van Rompuy seems like a unpleasantly devout federalist who talks about standardised taxation and exectly the sorts of things that will have people running to UKIP.

It reinforces my belief that the UK and the EU are increasingly incompatible in terms of their future direction. What pro-EU Conservatives and Liberal Democrats don’t seem to get is that the European ideal is a Franco-Germanic concept designed to ensure those nations’ national interests remain predominant. I don’t blame them for that – for 200 years Britain pursued often brutal foreign policy to ensure our national interests were enforced – but we are surfing over a waterfall if we don’t recognise where the EU path is leading us.

The most scary thing for me is not the single currency, tax regime, foreign policy etc – it is the idea of Mr Rompuy being “named” as the EU leader and “chosen” by other leaders. This is exactly the kind of thing that the Politburo used to announce through Pravda and identical to the way that the Chinese president is “elected”. For me, the worrying thing about the EU is that it is sucking up the democratic mandate further and further from the people it seeks to govern. I can’t accept that this makes Europe safer, more harmonious or prosperous.

Tony Blair as EU President would have been a dreadful thing precisely because he holds the sort of centralising, anti-democratic tendencies that would re-inforce this worrying trend. Voting by region every five years is not democracy – no-one should sit in the European Parliament unless they have been directly elected by voters and I’m still not sure why if the European Commission is necessary it cannot be chosen out of the parliament in the same way as the cabinet in Westminster.

A separate EU presidential election ought to occur if we are to have an EU president. But since the chairman or woman of the EC ought to wield sufficient power, I cannot accept that a president is necessary in addition.

There is so much waste, so much interference and so much anti-democratic instinct in Brussels that DC should ignore it altogether for six years. Then, two years into his second term, he should hold a full EU membership referendum – once Britain has built up her economic and social strength once again – to settle this question once and for all. A strong Britain needs Europe and vice-versa – but my view is that leaving the EU would make us focus on what we as a nation want to be in 2050 and beyond.

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