Cutting with credibility

June 8, 2010 — simonashall

The PM speaking at MK

The PM’s speech in Milton Keynes was among the most important of his political career so far. It defined his position more clearly than anything previously on the defining political question of the decade – how to get Britain back into business.

We can take from it several things – firstly that the PM will lay it on very thick about the economic crisis being Labour’s fault. I think that’s no bad thing – particularly because they are starting to come out with some pretty outrageous criticism of the coalition on a situation they helped, at least, to create. But I think he’s got to be careful and not get too free with this tactic. He needs to be the consensus man, the leader, the unifier and the solution, not the “new” problem.

Secondly, the PM is happy to tell us just how bad it is, unlike Labour. Not everyone will agree with him but it is obviously in his interest to make things seem as bad as possible. I don’t think a great deal of exaggeration is necessary – things are very, very bad – but the openness he is in a political position to afford could be something of an advantage. I think if played well, far from Mervyn King’s prediction being correct, the public could be sympathetic to the Coalition for some time to come. Honest actions go a long way in politics nowadays and the public recognise favourably politicians who are prepared to do the right, if not popular, thing.

Thirdly, Danny Alexander will be right next to him – all the way. There’s no way that the Liberal Democrats are getting off the hook with this one as full members of the Coalition and I don’t think they want to. NC has said that there will be a “cut with kindness” policy that will shield some of the most vulnerable from the worst of what needs to be done but that can only do so much – they can’t be protected from council cuts in many areas.

Nor do I think it’s a good idea for George Osborne to widely consult the public on where to save money. This is a very risky strategy that could puta very considerable rod in his back when Labour organises a Twitter campaign to get people to respond in a particular way. The results could then be FOIed and may not be where the final decision needs to be made. It could look like the public has been consulted and ignored – not great PR.

The simple answer here is that, a bit like Masterchef, this new economic future is going to “change our life”. There are opportunities for efficiency, yes, and looking at different ways of providing services. But the bottom line is that we need to get a £170bn deficit down and there’s a lot of money to hack off budgets. It must be done, it must be done quickly and there is a certainly amount of political risk that is going to come as the pay-off of winning the election (sort of).

I think the Coalition needs to remember that the public has a great deal more of a problem with dishonesty than ineffectiveness. If the government tries to mask the problem, if it breaks its promises over what it is going to cut, if there is a suspicion that certain groups are being unjustly protected or if there is any underhand treasury regulation as with the last government, the considerable goodwill that the public holds will drain quickly.

If the government is straight, calls a cut a cut and acts responsibly for the best interests of the nation, it might just find itself laying down a legacy of decency – if not prosperity – and a chance in 2015 to lead the country properly back into the new world economy with its head held high.

Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, Economy, lib dems. Tags: , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Thoughts on Southport

June 7, 2010 — simonashall

Catching flies - Miliband won't be the threat Tories fear

Labour held its leadership hustings today in Southport and according to the BBC, which seems to be intent on pretending that Labour is still in power, this internal Labour Party process was an event that merited live TV coverage. In fact, the reason that the hustings were held at all seemed to me to be all about David Miliband in particular getting some welcome exposure.

Yesterday, the BBC news lead with the bare-faced revelation that Miliband was accusing the PM of “hypocrisy” on spending cuts and “broken promises”. The sheer brass neck needed to occasion such a piece of naked and mendacious opportunism is difficult to quantify with words alone – suffice it to say that the corporation seems to have decided that Miliband is the next Labour leader and they are determined to make him PM in 2015. Personally, I can’t see the British people going for it but there we go.

Today however and in front of the GMB, comrade Miliband was talking about “our people” and building Labour up “workplace by workplace“. And he’s supposed to be the Blairite – can we assume that the likes of Ed Balls, brother Ed and Diane Abbott would wish to be seen as even more substantially left? No doubt the coalition has pulled the Conservative Party to the left and the Liberal Democrats to the right to end up somewhere in the genuine centre rather than the centre-right with which many Conservatives would be more comfortable.

Is the only place for Labour to go back to the left? From 1994 onwards, Labour had a go at being capitalists but forgot that supporting and spending the proceeds of economic growth also entails a measure of responsibility and after 15 years of profligacy the money has run out. They can’t go to the right, they no longer look credible in the centre ground and so with Miliband heading back to the comrades for support, they can only move to that left ground vacated by NC. Fine by me.

Until today, I think most Conservatives were hoping that Ed Balls might get the leadership in an attempt to saddle Labour with a leader even more unelectable than Gordon Brown. However John McConnell seems to be intent on taking on that mantle after some very ill-judged comments about Lady Thatcher. I admire her in many ways; but not in others as I’ve said before. But the idea of assassinating political leaders is either puerile posturing or dangerous nonsense from a man who wants to become Prime Minister (presumably). Leaving aside the poor taste, if the best answer Labour has got to Britain’s problems is time travel back to the 80s and taking out the then PM – who for a greater part was simply sorting out the last mess Labour left – then their ideas barrel clearly has sprung a leak.

If Labour is sensible it will elect David Miliband as leader – but I’m not sure Conservatives should be too worried by that prospect.

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Glad not to be Grayling

April 4, 2010 — simonashall

Close your mouth, Chris. No, close it. Before you say anything else.

Personally, I blame David Davis. When he went off on his strange flight of fancy over the 42 days detention extension, he prompted a flurry of activity to try and fill his place as Shadow Home Secretary. Davis is on the opposite side of the party to me but he’s an able, likeable man and possesses support from sections of the party that DC could do with right now. But his visible rejection of DC’s leadership and the shocking manner in which he chose to express it was a selfish act that debarred him from high office for the forseeable future.

While the shadow ministers in the treasury are a strong team and William Hague great in foreign affairs, we’ve struggled through Dominic Grieve and Chris Grayling to find someone of Davis’s stature to fill the role at the home office/justice department. My feeling is that Grayling has always been on the edge of his envelope as Shadow Home Secretary and his ill-judged and utterly stupid comments about the rights of Bed and Breakfast owners to turn away gay couples are indicative of this. It’s not the first time he’s opened his mouth without thinking and caused problems for the leadership.

I’m not going to argue about the moral rights and wrongs of the B&B issue because they are not the point. We have laws in place that mark the boundaries society has laid down. Occasionally they change and occasionally people get left behind but we all have to obey them. Chris Grayling knows this and suggesting that B&B owners ought to be able to turn anyone away is almost giving them carte blanche to break the law, which says quite rightly that businesses must offer services without prejudice to anyone.

I don’t believe faith groups - or anyone else - ought to be able to “opt out” of the law on grounds of “conviction”. The “I don’t need anyone to tell me what to think, I’ll do what I want” attitude is one of the root causes of so many problems in society – from the young people who won’t respect authority to the uber-wealthy who think that money will exempt them from accountability. Conservatives don’t support the anarchists at G10 meetings who want to opt out the legal framework capitalism lays down because of what they believe - nor should we support individuals who want to opt out of the European Convention of Human Rights because of their beliefs. The ECHR has a lot of nonsense in it – but not in this area.

Grayling was attempting to curry favour with the Daily Mail view that Christianity is being persecuted in Britain and offer succour to those people of faith who feel that they are being led along into a secular society that no longer recognises their values or gives them leaway to put their faith first. I have some sympathy with that view – but not where it impedes on the rights of others acting within the law. That Grayling doesn’t see a distinction here makes me believe that his intervention was ad hoc and not properly thought out.

To sack him now would be an over-reaction and would be interpreted by the right of the party as an attack by the leadership on free speech. But I sincerely hope that if we have a majority on May 7, DC will look elsewhere for his Home Secretary. I believe Iain Duncan Smith would be superb choice for the role if he feels able to. If not, Nick Herbert has impressed me greatly as Defra shadow and such a promotion would be entirely appropriate in my view.

Either way, gaffe-prone Grayling has got to go.

Posted in Conservatives, Justice, news. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

Community Question Time

March 19, 2010 — simonashall

It's no good looking down on Woking - people want a dialogue!

I went along to the Community Question Time held at HG Wells on Wednesday night, which promised to allow residents the chance to quiz members of a panel including WBC chief executive Ray Morgan on matters of interest within Woking. It didn’t quite work out that way and by the time I had to leave at 8pm to attend another meeting elsewhere, not a single question had been asked.

Identifying the problem was not difficult. Unfortunately there is a tendency among many organisations to believe that talking to people is the same as communicating with them. They say they’re very keen on communications and what they mean is that they are very keen on talking about themselves. That’s not communciation; what matters is the dialogue and while I know some questions were answered after I left, mine and many others weren’t and the balance of the meeting proved all wrong.

On the plus side, I think that a Community Question Time is a great idea, whether as part of the Tune In process or on its own. I would like to see them held quarterly – or twice a year if take-up isn’t good – and travel around the borough with a panel that varies according to the geography. It could be chaired by the MP for Woking and would be totally devoid of councillors (who should be in the audience asking questions on behalf of residents rather than on the panel batting residents’ questions away on behalf of the council).

There could be a podcast, a Twitter feed and perhaps IT facilities for live blogging. Schools are an obvious venue option and one of the question times each year could be dedicated to engaging young people and feature members of the Woking Youth Council on the panel. It would be a useful exercise for all politicians in the borough to guage opinions on their policy decisions as well as a democratic opportunity for residents and a small step to help re-invigorate politics locally.

Meanwhile, I look forward to an answer to my question appearing on the Woking Borough Council website, which I will duly address once it appears.

Posted in Community, Woking Borough Council, news. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Winterton of discontent

February 18, 2010 — admin

Another day, another Conservative MP rolls up to the Stephen Nolan show on Five Live to commit political self-immolation. This time it’s Nicholas Winterton on trains and Pete Waterman he ain’t.

Just so he knows what it’s like in second class these days, I went into the City earlier on South West Trains and had to stand next to the toilet due to the volume of people aboard. It’s pretty difficult to get your laptop out or start leafing through reports when you’ve go no seat to use, despite paying the same fare as the people who have got seats. So I hope he’ll forgive me if I don’t share his “outlook on life” when on the train, it’s just that usually I’m having to listen to kids noisily playing I-spy or someone sitting across from me using a personal music device that’s anything but personal.

I’d love to have a “business environment” in which to work, but sometimes you just have to share your world with other human beings and make the compromises that that inevitably entails. He should try it sometime. My company doesn’t pay for me to travel First Class – and neither should taxpayers pay for MPs to do the same. Give them the regular fare – if they want to top it up from their considerable wages, so be it. But I suspect that some of them could do with a bit of second-class travel.

On the way back, I did manage to find a seat, open my laptop and do a few emails before the train pulled into Woking. You see, Sir Nicholas, some of us carriage-classers are capable of doing work on the train, despite being a different type of person. There’s no reason that MPs can’t do the same at certain times of the day.

There are many issues with our trains and overcrowding and punctuality are just the surface of a deeper problem, which the Wintertons might like to look into and lobby Andrew Adonis about. The fact that the most pressing problem in Sir Nicholas Winterton’s mind is that he wants to travel first instead of second class just demonstrates how much better off Parliament will be without him.

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May still a long way off

February 17, 2010 — admin

Teresa - know what you are going to say and what might be said back before you say it!

I drove out to Dorking this morning along the A25 via Send for a business meeting. The road, which I know very well from reporting days and past lives, is in a truly awful, appalling state. But that is Guildford and Mole Valley’s issue – the reason I mention it was that I was stuck for about ten minutes in the aftermath of a nasty car crash (at which I hope no-one was seriously hurt) that seemed to mirror what I was listening to on the radio.

Teresa May, shadow employment secretary, appeared on the Stephen Nolan Show, BBC Radio Five Live (you can listen here but need to fast forward), to talk about today’s unemployment figures (notice how the BBC allows Lib Dem Steve Webb to get in a pop at cutting the deficit at the bottom - no bias my foot), which are mixed. It is good that overall unemployment is down – but with the number of Jobseekers’ claimants up and long-term unemployment up it is difficult to argue that it’s a great day. Teresa presumably went on the air to point out the mixed message – specifically that the number of “under-employed” people – where they have been forced into part-time and reduced-hours work – stands at almost three million.

Instead, she allowed herself down a classic funnel by stating that Labour has closed Job Centres at the average of one a month since 2008. There was no need for her to go there – all she needed to do was talk about the Work Programme, express sympathy and understanding and stay calm. By raising the matter of closures, she prompted the inevitable comeback “so would you re-open them?”, to which she had no answer.

The funnel happens when you’re drawn to a pinch point from which the interview cannot go forward without an answer, usually a yes or no question. “I’ll ask you again, if you say that Labour was wrong to close the Job Centres, will you commit to re-open them?” Again she evades – it sounds very poor. Now she’s struggling because once you’re in the funnel, it’s difficult to climb back out again. “Look, you are hoping to become the next government in three months’ time, I think people have a right to know whether you will right a wrong that you say Labour has committed – so yes or no, will you re-open the Job Centres?” Crash, bang.

It’s not the point she has come on air to make (if it was, it was extremely ill-judged and poorly prepared). So why does an experienced politician like Teresa May allow herself to be dragged into the funnel so easily? By the time Labour minister Jim Knights is introduced into the proceedings, he could have danced around like a chicken and sounded more credible than Teresa. To be fair, she improved towards the end but the damage was done. And I don’t blame the BBC for being hard on her – if you make such basic unforced errors, you get what you deserve.

So how to get out of the funnel? Firstly, avoid going there in the first place. Why bring up the mistakes of government on such a peripheral matter? The essence lies in Conservative policy, which in this case is very credible. Once you’re in, there are only two options – attack the basis of the question or tell the truth. In Teresa’s case, she could have done either.

Attack the basis of the question: “I understand why you as a journalist are asking me that question but whether or not we commit to re-opening the centres is not relevant. The damage has already been done and the people who those centres could have helped have not been helped, which adds to the problems that we face now. The time to save those centres was 2008, not 2010. Instead of talking about committing to re-open those centres, we have adjusted our policy to suit the needs of today’s unemployed people.” If nothing else, it looks less evasive and puts you back in control of the issue, dismissing the question as outdated.

Tell the truth: “I think it’s important to give an honest answer to you and that answer is that we are not in a position to re-open those centres given the state of the public finances. If they had been kept open in 2008 we wouldn’t now close them because that money would already be in our budgets. This government has ruined the economy and left us with huge debts and that means that as much as we’d like to, we simply can’t go and undo this and many other bad decisions that Labour has left us with. In the light of these tight resources, it’s important that we target them properly and that is what our new programme is designed to do.”

Neither answer gets you off the hook completely but it allows you to move on. There’s nothing the public hates more than politicians that blatantly won’t answer questions and evasiveness is not a good thing for voters or party members to hear. I don’t know who’s advising Teresa May on dealing with the media but they clearly have a lot of work to do.

Posted in Conservatives, Economy, news. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »
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