The Leaders’ Debates: My Verdict

The impact of the Leader’s Debates has been far greater than most people had predicted. I always thought they were going to be important. I just didn’t realise that they would become the backbone of the General Election campaign. For the last three weeks the debates have dominated the headlines. From the build up, to the debates themselves, to the blow by blow post-analysis.

What has struck me most of all is simply how many people have been watching them. Every part of Cheltenham I go to whether it’s St Mark’s or Oakley, Leckhampton or St Paul’s, people are tuning in. That can only be a good thing for democracy. The Leader’s Debates have reengaged a cynical public in the political process. At such a critical moment for our politics that is crucial.

But what I have most valued about the debates is that they have focused on the substance. They have offered a welcome change from the yah boo politics that has characterised British political life for far too long. Four and half hours of detailed policy debate – a real change from the tit for tat of Prime Ministers Questions.

I hope these debates mark the start of a new more nuanced political debate in this country. On the doorstep people tell me that they want the detail. The popularity of the debates highlights just how things can change when politicians begin to give it to them.

James Green is Anticipations Editor and Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Cheltenham. He blogs at www.jamesgreen.org.uk.

Join us for the final leaders’ debate

Tonight we have events in London and Manchester where live screenings of the final Leaders’ debate will take place.

As with the last two debates, if you can’t make it along to one of our live screenings, then please contribute your thoughts on the Leaders and their responses to the public’s questions by joining the Left Foot Forward-hosted live chat, which you can access below from 8pm, or alternatively leave a comment on our blog.

Anything you can do, we can do… (better?)

The Debate Watch parties we’ve been organising with partners across the Left in London have enabled young supporters from around the capital and across the movement a chance to get together and celebrate, analyse and pick at these historic debates.  This week sees the last debate and the pressure is on! Should only Young Fabians in London be having all the fun? We thought not, so we put a call out to to some of our members up north to put on their own Debate Watch party – here Sam Bacon, Kevin Peel and Grace Fletcher-Hackwood from Manchester answer that call:

So the Leaders debates.  Finally we catch up with our American cousins and subject out leaders to the scrutiny of the TV debate, and what a remarkable effect it has had on this election.  And with two down, one to go, in this rollercoaster ride that is the 2010, I’ve no doubt that the third leaders debate next Thursday will be just as exciting, unpredictable and influential as the first two have been.

If you’ve been in London on the past two Thursdays, there’s been some exciting events you could have attended to watch these great matches of oratory skill.  And as the first leaders debate was here in Manchester, we did have a little shindig, with the Prime Minister popping by to party, as well as Sarah Brown, Lord Mandelson, Douglas Alexander and Ben Bradshaw.

Now, those big hitters were great and all, but it did mean we couldn’t have an open guest list.  So for the third and final debate, as we’ll be short a Prime Minister (and cabinet colleagues), we want to invite you all to make up for it!

Manchester has never been known as a shy and retiring place, and we never knowingly turn down a party (remember: Manchester was the birthplace of the modern DJ, and clubbing in the UK!).  So, on Thursday the 29^th of April, Manchester Young Labour, the Young Fabians, LGBT Labour NW, Co-Op Youth NW, Progress , Labourlist  and Compass are holding a Final Debate Party and Campaign event.

The plans will be similar to the London event:

6:30 – 8pm Phone banking at the Labour offices in the Express Networks building on Anacoats Road, Manchester - This will be the last Manchester Young Labour phone banking of the 2010 Election campaign, so it’s absolutely vital we get as many people as possible along!

8 – 10pm Watching the debate in Bar 38: Bar 38 Pavillion, Great Northern Warehouse, Peter Street, Manchester, M2 5GP

10pm Onwards – celebrating Gordon Brown’s magnificent performance late into the night…

As per the London events there will be food available, drinks, Leaders Debate Bingo and people will be blogging and tweeting as the debate happens live.  And just to make things a little interesting, we’re challenging the London event to a little friendly competition – who can make the most contacts that night (per person!). So for the sake of Northern Pride, come out and help us secure a little one up on our comrades down south!

Sing up via our Facebook Event and for more information email us at mancyounglabour@googlemail.com -  help us show that anything London can do, we can do…(better?!)

Vote for substance. Vote Labour.

As we enter the final two weeks of the General Election campaign all is still to play for.

Labour were the underdogs at the start. Now, following the Leader’s Debates, all bets are off. We are in unchartered waters. The only thing that’s certain is that this will be a transformative General Election.

Labour have been talking about the big issues from the outset and that is what we must continue to do. The twin crises of MPs’ expenses and the credit crunch provide the backdrop for this General Election campaign. People want substance not spin. They want practical measures to fix our broken politics and bold action to secure the economic recovery. Rarely has the outcome of an election been so important.

Labour are on the right side of these arguments. On political reform we are have pledged in our manifesto to hold a referendum on changing the voting system. This could herald the most substantial reform to Britain’s electoral system since women got the vote. On the same day we’ll hold a referendum on a fully elected House of Lords. My view is simple – if people make our laws they should be elected. And we’ll set up a Royal Commission to lead the way to a written constitution. People demand more than soundbites when it comes to constitutional reform. Labour’s manifesto is rammed full of substantial policies.

Yet, despite their rhetoric, on all these issues the Tories fall short. They talk about giving people greater power but refuse to back Labour’s plans to change the voting system. They talk about being progressive but blocked Labour’s efforts to remove the final hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Gordon Brown put it best when he said “the future will be progressive or conservative, but it will not be both.”

And on the great challenge of our time, securing the economic recovery, the Tories would put the long-term future of Britain’s economy at risk. The growth figures released last week showed that, while we are coming out of recession, the recovery is still fragile. If we make the wrong decisions and cut too early, as the Tories would have us do, we could risk falling into a double dip recession. Yet the Tories promise a new tax giveaway seemingly every week. Taking £6 billion out of the economy in National Insurance is the wrong thing to do. As is giving a £200,000 tax cut to the country’s 3,000 richest estates. The Tories priorities aren’t Britain’s priorities.

The decisions that are made in the next Parliament will shape life in Cheltenham and across the country for a generation. We need to make the right calls. The Tories were wrong on the recession and they are wrong on the recovery. They were wrong on the causes of our broken political system and they are wrong about how to fix it.

There is a real choice at this election. Vote for substance. Vote Labour.

Liberals would be mad to coalition with the Consevatives

As the Liberal Democrats maintain their rating in the polls, with Nick Clegg flying high having lived up to heightened expectations in the second leaders’ debate on Thursday night, attention has inevitably, even more so than last weekend, turned to the question of who the Lib Dems would join forces with in the event of a hung parliament.

So what is new, what have we learnt in the past seven days that we didn’t know before, and where does this leave Nick Clegg and his party, whose approval he must gain were he to enter into government – 75 per cent of Lib Dem MPs AND 75 per cent of the federal executive OR two thirds of delegates to a special conference OR 50 per cent of the entire membership – the so-called “triple lock” which could take months to pick.

But I digress; assuming the general election results in a hung parliament, who should the Liberal Democrats join forces with? Well, of course you’d expect me to say Labour, and so I will – Labour makes sense not just for us (obviously), but for the Liberals themselves. On some of the key dividing lines, they are much closer to Labour than they ever will be to the Conservatives: on Europe, climate change, equality, the Tory flagship marriage and inheritance tax plans and on the biggest issue of all – the economy.

Ken Clarke, in an interview with the Telegraph, has today revealed for the first time that the Conservative Party was drawing up plans for a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The shadow business secretary said:

“Our starting point would be to say to the other two parties ‘you know you have got to control the deficit and debt’, and have a plan our creditors believe for getting rid of the structural deficit over the next parliament. If they just sit there and say ‘that’s just your party platform’, my own view is that the economic consequences of abandoning that would be catastrophic.

“The core problem is the debt and the deficit, and the Conservatives have been the most consistently sensible on that. I don’t think it would be in the national interest to resile from that… You’ve got to ask yourself, would either of the other parties be prepared to do that?”

Well, there you have it, leaving aside the Tory leadership’s – and even more so the Tory membership’s – regressive hostility toward Europe, tackling climate change and gay, gender and race equality, on the economy, their plans to withdraw £6 billion from the economy and start slashing public sector jobs (see last night’s Jeremy Paxman interview with David Cameron for more), there will be no compromise.

On the Liberals’ other key platform, their raison d’être in many people’s eyes, constitutional reform and a change to the voting system, it would be utterly incomprehensible for them to do a deal with the Conservatives. The Tories, though, have been panicked into announcing some reform measures – but there are no plans to change the way MPs are elected. The BBC website has more:

“The Tories would not allow an unelected prime minister to hold office for longer than six months, David Cameron is to announce in a speech [today]. Their policy would force a new prime minister without a mandate to hold a general election.

“Mr Cameron will say that three of the last five prime ministers, including Mr Brown, have been unelected, but that Tory John Major won his own mandate after taking up the position. He will also outline plans to select parliamentary candidates through postal primaries.”

The plan for primaries is indeed progressive, the presidentialisation of the office of prime minister less so – we elect parties not prime ministers in Britain, and it is for the party most able to form an administration to decide who the prime minister should be. The party’s mandate is already there; Gordon Brown’s mandate came from the 2005 general election, which Labour won, by 66 seats.

As the graphs below show, since the war, the Liberals have suffered the most from the current first past the post system, Labour and the Conservatives benefitting greatly:

This is more starkly illustrated in looking at the difference between the percentage of the popular vote each party has received and the proportion of seats in the House of Commons they win:

As Jeremy Vine explained on last night’s Ten O’Clock News on BBC One, under the current system, it is possible for a party to finish second in every seat across the land, win more votes than all the other parties combined, get over 50 per cent of the vote, and still end up with no MPs. Fair? I think not.

Under the Tories, with a majority or in coalition, there will be no referendum on electoral reform, no chance for the Liberals to secure a fairer voting system and exert the power their polling figures warrant. Only with Labour can they achieve that fairer future, and realign the left after a centruy in which the right has dominated; better together than apart, for the many, not the few.

Join us for the second Leaders’ debate

Tonight we are hosting another live event in London where the second Leaders’ debate will be shown on a big-screen. The event is in conjunction with LabourList, Progress, Compass, and LGBT Labour, and will take place in the Old Crown (33 New Oxford Street, London, WC1A 1BH) from 7pm till late.

If you can’t make the event then you can still share your views on the leaders debate by joining the Live Chat hosted on this site below run by our friends at Left Foot Forward. The Live Chat starts at 7.30pm.

Executive members David Chaplin and Vincenzo Rampulla will be live-Tweeting the event. Their tweets will feature in the live chat, or you can follow them by adding @chaplindavid and @vmrampulla to your follow list on Twitter.

My concerns about the Tories’ new European friends

Today’s Leader’s Debate, taking place here in the South West, will focus on foreign policy. I hope Gordon Brown will take Cameron to task about his friends in Europe.

Cameron’s decision to leave the mainstream centre right grouping in favour of a fringe group including homophobes and far right nationalists shows a serious lack of judgment. The views of his new partners on homosexuality, anti-semitism and climate change are massively out of kilt with the mainstream British majority. My outrage is likely only matched by that of the Tories’ old partners. Why Cameron would choose to abandon Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy for his current friends I will never understand.

Michael Kaminski, who leads the Tory MEPs in Europe, spoke out against the commemoration of the brutal massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jebwadne during World War Two. Members of the same party have described homosexuality as a “pathology” and are outspoken climate change deniers. And what of Cameron’s other partners? His Latvian allies join in the annual commemoration of the Waffen SS. Concerning to say the least.

From climate change to terrorism, from international crime to the financial crisis, the great challenges we face go beyond our borders. We can face them alone, consigned to the fringes of Europe, with the Tories. Or continue to punch our weight in a crucial partnership with Labour.

Last week’s debate showed that, while Cameron may be able to do the set piece speeches, when pressed on the issues that matter he falls short. There is a real choice at the next election. I hope today’s debate will highlight that even more.

James Green is Anticipations editor and Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Cheltenham. He blogs at www.jamesgreen.org.uk.

What I’ll be looking out for in tomorrow’s debate…

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to get to a meeting of the Young Fabian’s Future of Finance Network only to find everyone talking about what surprises tomorrow’s debate might deliver. Last week’s first Leaders’ Debate managed to throw the Liberal Democrats into the spotlight, and the latest polls seem to be directing us into uncharted waters.

This makes the remaining the politics of the two debates even more exciting. The critical thing will be whether the policies/issues maintain the audience’s attention. Whilst as a country we’ve shown huge interest in foreign affairs it has usually been to show shared compassion or anger in the face of international disasters.

A key area is Europe. Yet this is where the Leaders will probably aim to secure debate points rather than talk turkey about the issue itself. Why? Well say for arguments sake that another 9.4m viewers tune into tomorrow’s debate – how many will care about Europe beyond the shallow concerns that the media portray….3,000?

Anyone who disagrees should explain why turnout for the European elections was so low and why the campaign rarely mentioned Europe. Both do not point to an engaged electorate at large, ready to discuss the UK’s role in European affairs.

So what should we be looking out for in the debate? Here are the three things I’ll be looking out for:

1. To build Trident, or not to build Trident: The Lib Dems have tried to make much out the savings that could be achieved by not building Trident (possibly). And they’ve also committed themselves to doing a full 360 defense spending review.  The simplest angle would be to question their commitment to a nuclear deterrent in the face of supposed unilateralism. But I’ll be look for someone to pick up whether the Lib Dems have already spent the supposed savings without having committed to the Trident U-turn.
2. Special Relationships: We’ve heard much about Clegg’s “Europeaness”. But earlier on this week he told an audience: “”We’re going to have to release ourselves from the historical spell of default Atlanticism that guides us in the world… We’ve been joined at the hip but those days are past”. Whilst that’s something that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee might sign up to, it does open up a flank for debate (especially following Cameron’s gaffe in the earlier debate about protecting us from Iran and China) – can either of the Opposition parties show that they have what it takes to work with the world community as a whole on the big Global issues that Brown thrives on?
3. Afghanistan: There is an incredible amount of political meat on this 9 year old bone. Military funding and supplies, the cost of the war, the limits of humanitarian intervention, the constant rise in military casualties all hang off this issue and generate immense feeling around the country. But I’ll be looking out for the politically risky temptation to make a firm commitment on a solid date when our troops will leave Afghanistan and come home.

So I’m going to be a bit cynical and say that we won’t hear much about actual foreign policy in this debate. But we will hear a lot about “values” when it comes to Britain’s place in the world.

More importantly the three issues about won’t be enough to win me a prize in tomorrow’s Young Fabian Debate Bingo when we once again team up with LabourList, LGBT Labour, London Young Labour, Compass and Progress for a special debate watch party and campaigning session. But there are prizes to be won!

We’ll be blogging, tweeting (follow #leadersdebate) and discussing the debate as it happens right from the venue, so there’s every opportunity to get involved.

However there is also still time to join us this Thursday, April 22nd, for our special event:

2nd Floor, Old Crown Pub,

33 New Oxford Street, London, WC1A 1BH from 7pm

If you want to know more just contact me at vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk

Hope, Heat, and challenging Hate with 3000 leaflets – next up fighting Tory Cash

The biggest Young Fabian turnout yet last Saturday for our weekend campaign days – this time as we headed out to Transport House, Dagenham and the home of the Hope Not Hate campaign.

Turnout for the day was so high that the Valence ward pre-assigned to the Young Fabians had been delivered to already by the time we arrived

This was far and away the single most impressive campaign day I’ve seen in the UK – and ultimately the most reminiscent of the various campaigns I’ve taken part in in the US. It wasn’t so much about sophistication as style, scale and very good organisation.

The scale spoke for itself – over 540 volunteers and over 90,000 HNH newspapers delivered across the whole of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and into neighbouring Havering. And Young Fabian members more than played their part, forming part of the small group that stayed out in the unseasonal heat into the afternoon, and delivering almost 3,000 copies of the literature to households facing the hate-fuelled and hate-fuelling onslaught of the BNP.

Local Labour MP, and former candidate for deputy leader of the party, Jon Cruddas was driver for the day for part of the Young Fabian campaign team

Style-wise, this day of action was about solidarity, about feeling part of something big, and about being inspired. Inspired by the cause, but inspired by the hundreds of other people who’d given up their Saturday for it. Instantly upon arrival we felt part of something big and important and were driven to get out and contribute to the mammoth efforts of the day. It was exciting in the extreme and reminded me very much of the feelings of many of the Young Fabian members who took part in the delegation I led to Obama’s campaign in Ohio in 2008. But also, the style was one of supporting volunteers, making them feel welcome, helping them to do what they came to do, and thanking them for their efforts. I’ve written much about the importance of people-focused campaign organisation and the little things on Saturday – the one page of briefing and tips handed to volunteers – and the big things – providing lunchtime curry for 500 to accompany a set by activist musician Billy Bragg – really did make a difference to the experience, and therefore the collective achievements of the day.

Next up we’re hitting Westminster North to help Karen Buck in her central London fight against well-connected Tory Joanne Cash and her temperamental local Conservative Association. Hope you feel inspired to join us whether you’ve been out already or not.

Just what is Liberal Conservatism?

This week is set to be the International week of the 2010 Election campaign. So in theory, we should all understand a little more of what William Hague’s Liberal Conservatism is all about. Ahead of the week I’ve just read the Tory manifesto International affairs section and am still puzzled. I’m hoping, but not expecting a little more clarity during the week.

Rightly, the manifesto identifies that more than ever the interests of nation states are interconnected, economically and politically.  But the policy solutions still seem ideologically unclear and unsound.   

While the answers to Britain’s domestic challenges are met with a shrink-state response, the manifesto calls for “a concerted response from the state” in its international chapter.

There also seems to be a glaring contradiction in Conservative policy to the European single currency, varying between forthright hostility to a guarantee for the public to have their say:

“a Conservative government would never take the UK into the euro.”

And later “We will ensure that by law no future government can hand over areas of power to the EU or join the Euro without a referendum of the British people.”

Now, I’m not advocating that now is the right time to join the Euro, but a manifesto is always the right time to be clear what your position is.

The document is unclear of what One World Conservatism is or what Liberal Conservatism would achieve. But from the Tories foreign policy record, I don’t relish the prospect of these ideologies guiding British foreign policy.

Let’s not forget these things as we move into the international week of this election David Cameron went on a free trip to South Africa, funded by a lobbying group founded by a former member of the South African military intelligence to bust sanctions against South Africa. Let’s also not forget that when Labour took office our international aid budget was in decline and we where losing a beef war with Europe. And today in the European Parliament, the Tories lose more legislative proposals than the Liberals, Greens and Communists because of Hague and Cameron’s self-imposed exile from the mainstream grouping.

In the week ahead let’s continue to take a long hard look at the Tories and ask Cameron and Hague, just what is your vision for Britain in the world and where would we be if we took your advice?