Lib Dem policy and the coalition

An interesting outcome of the coalition negotiations that produced the Cabinet and Ministerial teams across Whitehall is the noticeable absence of Liberal Democrats in a small number of Departments.

In DEFRA, DCMS and the Wales Office there is no LibDem representation at all, which must raise questions over the Party’s ability to retain an independent stance on policy in these areas.

The South West of England is Liberal Democrat heartland territory, and DEFRA plays a significant role in many people’s lives due to the rural agricultural nature of the region’s economy. The Liberal Democrats have to be seen to play a role in this area of policy. Who is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for rural affairs?

DCMS controls the budgets for the Olympics and tourism, has regulatory oversight for broadcasting and journalism, among many other areas. The 2012 London Olympics will continue to be controversial due to the huge sums of money and the national prestige at stake. Who is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for DCMS?

The answer to both questions is that there isn’t one.

The formal coalition that has been hammered means that the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party is bound into Government, regardless of whether they have members in each department. There will be no official spokespeople from the Liberal Democrat side of the house for these departments. As with any Governing party there will be backbenchers who express differing views to the Government, but no LibDem ministers to explain to their peers why a certain policy should be supported or otherwise. They now have no formal role in these areas at all.

Looking further afield, it will be interesting to see whether the LibDems as a party will continue to produce an alternative policy platform to the Conservatives in any areas of Government. It will be very difficult to retain an independently LibDem stance on any issue when they are a full coalition partner. When faced with the prospect of being totally subsumed into the Conservative party with regards policy, I wonder how long LibDem members, activists and their Councillor base will refrain from rocking the coalition boat.

What London Needs, What Labour Needs

You cant be Mayor and say you only care about a certain few in our city like Boris does. You cant be Mayor and ignore the difficulties that young people face in our city. You cant be Mayor unless you are willing to be an ambassador for London. And you cant be Mayor if London doesn’t believe in you.

Leadership candidates haven’t quite understood the lesson of immigration and the election

The latest leadership candidate to suggest immigration was a cause of Labour’s defeat at the polls on May 6th, today. Andy Burnham follows Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, and David Miliband. Diane Abbott has also commented on immigration, though with a different perspective.

I’ve had some thoughts rattling around my head so it was interesting to hear the issue discussed at a seminar featuring none of the leadership contenders (yep, such events do still exist) during Progress’ conference on Saturday.

First thing to say is that it is good the conference showed that we – left-wing activists and Labour’s political elites – are prepared to talk, on a wider scale, about immigration. But unfortunately, it is coming too late. In the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the general election, polling shows immigration as the second top issue, behind only the economy. Yet the national campaign and leadership said very little about it.

Between the campaign, the party machine, and the political leadership, the decision was clearly taken that set-piece events would, as much as possible, avoid the general public and significant efforts would be invested in filling rooms with (often young) enthusiastic party members. There was to be a distance between Gordon Brown and the undecided electorate. But if Labour is not willing to connect with the people of this country, and talk about the issues people are concerned about in their communities, then who is? Feeling this was the wrong approach, I grew frustrated some time before the Rochdale visit: when the problem blew up following Brown’s encounter with Gillian Duffy. She could have mentioned any issue and drawn a similar reaction from any of the party leaders, but what was very evident to me was the reluctance of our party leader to talk to ‘unvetted’ members of the public and an unwillingness to engage in significant conversation on an issue he himself appeared uncomfortable with. It was this, rather than the fact it happened to be immigration policy, that appeared to me to be most problematic.

Prior to this Saturday’s conference, with the prevalence of leadership candidates’ comments, I began to question which seats we actually lost because of immigration. Andy Burnham’s interview today suggests that “it was the biggest doorstep issue in constituencies where Labour lost”. I’d be interested to hear which seats he puts in this category. Because I think there’s plenty of evidence of constituencies where immigration is a big issue which returned Labour MPs. The two seats in Barking and Dagenham; Birmingham Hodge Hill where Liam Byrne doubled his majority; Slough; Leicester West – and so on.

So, when Ben Page of Ipsos-MORI told Saturday’s sideroom session that his polling did not show immigration as a big reason for voting Tory and that it was actually only the fourth highest issue on election day, I was not too surprised. The reason being that the effect immigration has on the Labour campaign was not necessarily a problem of policy but more likely one of the way we campaigned. That Labour’s punishment was for the unwillingness to listen, connect and engage – whatever the issue. Most people were not voting on immigration. But they were noting the way Labour’s leadership handled the issue and were making judgments on how the party might handle other big concerns. Those seats I highlight above can point to success despite this because candidates there were willing to talk about the issue and run strong local campaigns. They did not even do this in the same way as each other (Margaret Hodge and Jon Cruddas presented different analyses and approaches in the same borough) but they were open to talk about what their constituents were concerned about.

Sally Keeble, who lost her Northampton South seat, argued that we shouldn’t over-emphasise the impact of immigration as an issue in her defeat, and Liam Byrne told the audience that it was important to avoid reactionary conclusions on the effect of welfare and immigration. His research suggests that people had been feeling pressure on their earnings prior to the global economic crash for up to five years, causing people to be “living in limbo when looking for lift off”. (Peter Kellner, in the conference’s opening plenary, said that YouGov evidence, found BNP and UKIP voters feeling very similarly.) These people thought, Byrne’s analysis goes, that they could turn to the Labour Party to be on their side. The central thrust of my argument is that because of the way the national campaign was run, many voters were left wondering.

Clearly that’s not good enough and is something our next leader will want to think about.

Postscript:
Halfway through writing this post I cam across a news story from last week with the view of the last immigration minister, Phil Woolas, and some quotes from Patrick Diamond, who worked on the manifesto from No.10 (and was seen picking up a copy of the YF Fast Forward pamphlet on Saturday). It is worth a read. What Patrick says is not dissimilar from my argument; but where he defines the party’s ‘cultural ethos’ in terms of Labour issues and non-Labour issues, I am defining it as an approach to campaigning (and perhaps also governing).

Most of the leadership contenders have highlighted the need to look at how the party organises itself – the sooner the debate gets into detail on this, the better.

Who will beat Boris?

Many of us are just getting over the General Election and are only starting to get to grips with long Labour Party Leadership Campaign. So it just typical that another political contest has quickly emerged, one just as interesting as the Leaders’.

Yesterday the Guardian broke the story that Oona King is going to announce her desire to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor today.

Admittedly talk of mayoral candidates and campaigns might seem a little premature since Boris’ term runs till 2012. Back in March the NEC decided that the Mayoral candidate contest would start straight after the General Election. Despite wanting my fair share of the summer sun, I think that the real lesson from the General Election should be that the campaign do better the earlier they start. For me, the battle to win back the Capital cannot start early enough.

So far it has been taken for granted that the last Mayor, Ken Livingstone, will run. In fact some have argued that he’s been running a re-elect Ken campaign ever since he left office. Even so, Ken will have to face up to the many obstacles he currently faces. Like the General Election, this Mayoral candidate contest seems, on two levels, to fit the ‘change vs. experience’ model. The winning candidate will need to convince a Labour Party eager to regain political leadership role in the Capital and then convince Londoners; who seem worryingly ambivalent about the progress (or lack of it) that Boris has actually made since 2008.

In general “change is always a more powerful campaign theme than experience” and if one thing Oona immediately brings to the contest it is that offer of  big change for Labour. The Guardian’s Martin Kettle recently commented in public that what Labour needs now is a woman leader and whilst Diane Abbott many not fit everyone’s first choice for a Labour leader, Oona ticks a lot of boxes.

She has remained intensely popular in the Labour Party (as well as outside it) since she lost out to George Galloway in 2005. She is a personable, likeable and importantly human politician. Many in her shoes would have struggled to stay politically relevant. However anyone who was at Progress’ annual conference this weekend (and if you were did you visit our Young Fabian stand to say hello?) will have caught a sense of the buzz surround Oona as she took part in the conference  sessions on campaigning.

Those campaigning skills will be critical and will be helped, if she does become Labour’s candidate, by the already active supporter base that seems to have emerged around her – I overheard more than a few people talking about setting up grassroot campaigns to encourage her to run for Mayor.

That is not to say Ken is a pushover. His career shows just how much he thrives at being the political under dog. Don’t forget, whilst Labour spurned him as their official candidate he still ran as an independent in 2000 and won. Who is to say a third or fourth candidate might not emerge too. It is early days yet.

If anything this contest needs to be a contest of views, ideas and values rather than just a choice about who ‘looks’ like a winner. With transport costs rising, the aftermath of the Olympics to manage and a Capital struggling to balance cuts with investment needs, every candidate will have show more than their fair share of new ideas.

Moreover whoever wins their place in the contest will have to show serious broad appeal. The last Mayoral Election showed real political division in the Capital between inner and outer London, so an ability to unite the Capital could be all the difference.

A Party to come home to…

The events of this afternoon could not have been forecast. For those on the Left, we enter a new world of Opposition. It’s a strange world for many of us and will demand new efforts from Labour.

Yet whilst the UK media spent hours today picking at the bones of negotiations and uncertainty being played out at snails pace in the Westminster bubble, something incredible has been happening. Since Friday the Labour Party has seen an unprecedented number of people join the party.

New members, people returning to the party, whatever – since this afternoon it has reached such a frenzy that the Labour Party’s servers couldn’t handle the new member every 15 mins that were joining.

If this is some sort of strange new modern form of political protest then it will probably be short lived. It could be the shock of a new Conservative Government, a knee jerk reaction similar to Clegg’s debate performance. But if it isn’t then the Party will have to get it’s house work done quickly if it is to be a suitable home for a new politicised force.

The challenge will be to provide a political home to those that want to make a difference, to give a voice to those who have been left voiceless and a vehicle for those who want to fight for fairness. It will have to be a home for new ideas that will push forward the values on which the party was founded and find new ways to reach out to people everywhere.

Even in the ashes of a Government ended, the Party seems to be getting started again. I can’t wait to make it the best Party ever.

But that’s work for the morning, tonight let’s give the last word to Gordon.

The road ahead…?

Despite the huge statement that has just been made by the Prime Minister this evening, the reality is that a deal with the Liberal Democrats still has to be made. It’s obvious that Gordon Brown’s future as PM has been removed as a perceived ‘road block’ but what will form the basis of that coalition beyond the foundations of economic stability, electoral reform and deficit reduction is still up for grabs.

A stable, strong and principled Government has been the watch words across the commentary and coverage, providing a blueprint of where we want our politics to be. The coalition may give us none of this.  Coalitions are precarious and there are more questions left about the future than answered.

But despite all his ‘image’ problems, Gordon Brown has managed to stay above the fray and come over as a Statesman and a leader. And now, according to the FT, his decisive move means it’s ‘game on’. That puts pressure on Nick Clegg who has been allowed to flitter between suitors for longer than principles should have allowed.

The PM has set down a marker, he’s set out a timetable that will work towards stability in coalition and lead Labour to a newly-elected leader. But it also opens up the possibility about wider and deeper discussions about the direction of our movement.

As others have highlighted, a leadership election in the party will necessitate a longer, harder look at the party as a whole. Both the Next Left conference and the  Compass’ conference over these coming months will need to revive and rejuvenate the direct of our political project. Whilst these turbulent times offers a chance for our own Young Fabian Policy Development groups to inject new ideas and thinking the youth of the movement.

So, yeah, this is an intensely exciting and important time, where the left could – perhaps – come together to change British politics for ever. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: can a deal be reached?

And you thought the excitement was all over….

A Clegg-Cam deal could consign the Lib Dems to history

With it looking more and more likely with each passing hour that the Liberal Democrats will do a deal with the Conservatives, huge opportunities have opened up for the Labour Party – opportunities which if seized could propel us back into power in a matter of months.

The Fabian Society has today published a briefing paper outlining the potential for a revitalised Labour party to take full advantage of the discord, disillusionment and downright anger amongt Liberal Democrat voters – many of them Labour supporters who switched tactically – and win a second election within the year, in the event of a highly unstable Lib-Con alliance falling.

The reasearch shows that 18 of the Lib Dems’ 57 seats are prey to a Labour surge were just one in four Lib Dem voters to switch. If one in ten switch, the most achievable aim, eight seats will fall – Norwich South, Bradford East, Brent Central, Manchester Withington, Dumbartonshire East, Birmingham Yardley and Edinburgh West.

The Liberal Democrats are also vulnerable in Lib-Con marginals. In the south west of England, where 13 of the Lib Dems’ 57 MPs were returned, the Tories finished second in all but one of those contests. A swing of only 2.5 per cent from the Lib Dems to Labour would see the Tories take six of those seats, with a swing of 5 per cent resulting in the Lib Dems losing all but two of their seats in the region.

As I argued on these pages two weeks ago, it just doesn’t make sense for the Liberal Democrats to join forces with the Conservatives. On a whole range of policy issues, from Europe to equality, from climate change to the economy, in opposition to fox hunting and the Tories’ regressive inheritance and marriage tax plans, the Lib Dems are much much closer to Labour than they are Tory, their activists and those who voted tactically even more so.

But it is on electoral reform that they are most at odds with the Conservatives. As the graph below illustrates, the Liberals were even more screwed by the first-past-the-post system this time than in each of the past three elections, losing five seats in return for an increase in their vote of nearly 850,000:

The ball now firmly in his court, wooed by everyone, the world at his feet, it’s the moment he’s waited his whole life for, but in his haste for power, and his desire to “do the right thing” – even though he’d be doing nothing of the sort – could Nick Clegg be opening his side up for attack from left and right, and from within, and in so doing signing his own political death warrant and consigning his party to another 90 years in the wilderness.

It’s high stakes poker with the dice loaded in his favour; the question is, will he roll ’em or be rolled?

Amidst uncertainty, Young Fabian success

Whilst we wait and see what arrangement emerges to govern the country, it’s worth reflecting on the impact of Young Fabians during (the first?) general election of 2010.

Over the short campaign, we led YF members to a series of campaign days – and we can see some excellent results and a 100% record:

In Walthamstow, after mid-campaign concern of a post-debate Clegg effect, Labour-Coop candidate Stella Creasy won with a swing in her favour.

Jeremy Corbyn held the safe seat of Islington North – I’ll report later on how the Young Fabian council candidates we supported that day in marginal wards got on.

Our driver for the Hope Not Hate day of action in east London, Jon Cruddas, saw off the threat of the BNP and Conservatives to be elected MP for Dagenham and Rainham.

In one of the worst results of the night for David Cameron’s Conservatives and Michael Ashcroft’s wallet, Karen Buck held on to her Westminster North seat from a much-flouted Cameroon despite difficult boundary changes.

Rushanara Ali took back Bethnal Green and Bow for Labour with a 5 figure majority that helped push Respect into third place.

And our final campaign day – in Harrow West – saw another Conservative disappointment and the return of Gareth Thomas.

Congratulations to all the candidates, and to all the Young Fabians who joined our campaign days over the last month or so for an immense amount of hard work and enthusiasm – it made a difference. Other good news comes from Airdrie and Shotts where Young Fabian executive committee member, Pamela Nash was elected, winning more votes than John Reid had in that seat in 2005 – well done Pamela! As the first ever current Young Fabian executive member to sit in parliament, we are sure Pamela will bring something special to her role of Parliamentary Officer. Elsewhere on our executive committee, in one of the last results to be announced, James Green put in a good showing in the Lib Dem-Tory marginal of Cheltenham – the seat saw a considerable swing to the Lib Dems, suggesting many of James’ supporters opted to vote tactically. And Rebecca Rennison, standing in South West Wiltshire did well to keep the Labour to Tory swing below the national average in this Conservative stronghold.

It’s particularly pleasing for me personally to see members of the Young Fabian delegation to Obama’s presidential campaign, which I organised, go from strength to strength. Both Pamela and James were there as were others who have stood for election and re-election to local government. No doubt they put to use some of the ideas and inspiration from Ohio in their own campaigns. I’m sure we’ll hear more from many of these people soon.

Congratulations again and thanks to all. It is beginning to look as though we will know quicker than I had expected how the new government will be formed. Let’s hope that the values we hold firm as Fabians are central to whatever programme emerges, and are carried forward by a Labour-led government.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that ahead of each of the telephone debates we undertook telephone canvassing. For the first two debates this was to Tooting, and for the final event, Hammersmith. More success! Sadiq Khan and Andy Slaughter held off high profile Tory challengers.

UPDATE 2: News from Islington as promised. Congratulations to former Young Fabian chairs, Kate Groucutt (who finished top of the ballot in Mildmay ward where Joe Calouri was also elected for Labour) and Jessica Asato (who was elected as a councillor for St George’s ward) and commiserations to another former chair, Conor McGinn and friend of the Young Fabians, Alex Smith of LabourList, and his fellow candidate Gary Heather, who missed out in the two wards we visited last month. It was a good might in Islington though with Labour regaining control of the council with just shy of three quarters of the seats. And congratulations also to Mark Rusling, another former Young Fabian chair, who was elected to Waltham Forest council – it was Mark’s ward we campaigned in when we visited Walthamstow right at the start of the short campaign.

This is where you should campaign tonight and tomorrow

Good luck for the final 28 hours for those of you hitting the campaign trail for Labour, especially those who are candidates themselves.

We’ve listed the seats that need your help on the Young Fabian website. There are key seats nationwide. If none of those listed are within easy travelling distance then you can enter your phone number on the Labour Party website, and someone will give you a call to help you out.

Offering even a short amount of your time will be appreciated by the local campaign teams, whether it is your first time or you have been campaigning for all of the last few weeks.

Do let us know how you get on …

A reminder of what this election is all about

Yesterday all three party leaders attended the Citizens UK May Day assembly. The biggest meeting of the General Election campaign, it is testament to the power of community organising to influence the decision making process. The meeting was attended by 2,500 people from 160 community organisations including churches, mosques, synagogues and trade unions.

I was fortunate enough to visit a Citizens UK meeting a few months ago. I had become interested in community organising following my time on the Young Fabians trip to Ohio for the Obama campaign. Barack Obama had been a community organiser in Chicago before running for the presidency and had talked on many occasions about the role that it can play in engaging communities in the issues that affect their lives.

At that meeting I was struck by just how powerful community organising can be. The room was rammed full of residents, passionate about bringing about change in their local communities. I met Muslims, Jews, Christians, Trade Unionists and many others. Few belonged to a political party but all were deeply involved in politics.

The Citizens UK assembly serves as a pertinent reminder of what this election is all about. In recent weeks there’s been a great deal of talk about which party is up and which party is down. But this election isn’t about the parties. It’s about the people. With polling day now on the horizon it’s important to remember that.

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