Are the leadership candidates being asked the right questions?

Yesterday’s Times leader (I would provide the link, but it’s inconveniently placed behind the Times’ paywall) sets out an interesting problem for the five Labour leadership candidates.  Despite months spent answering questions, the paper’s view is that it counts for nothing as they aren’t being asked the right questions. After over fifty hustings across the country that is quite a disappointing prognosis.

Is the plethora of husting events producing better questioning of the candidates? If the Party had to do it over again then I think there would be a serious rethink of the hustings calendar. Regional and local Labour parties, socialist societies, unions and other groups forming part of the all important ‘Labour family’ eagerly grabbed their own personal opportunity to quiz the candidates. (Sympathies go out to the campaigns’ diary secretaries!) But the result has been near identical Q&A sessions being asked up and down the country.

My colleague David Chaplin had a point in suggesting that hustings could have been better orgainsed around distinct policy lines. The likely bun fight between areas wanting to hust the candidates on particular policy areas would have been an issue, but it would have helpfully broadened out the questioning and focused on policy.

A good idea has been to encourage like minded groups to come together to do joint hustings (like the joint Young Fabians/LCID/SERA/Co-Op Youth hustings on Labour in the World). Similarly we’ve been organising webchats with individual leadership candidates, to give Young Fabians across the country a chance to put their all-important question direct to each candidate, no matter what the topic (you can join with the the first is tomorrow with Ed Miliband at 12.30pm here).

Still, we need to focus on the right questions being asked. Everyone will have their view; my three all important questions which the next leader of the Labour Party needs perfect answers for are:

1)    What will be your immediate priorities be post this long leadership contest: The Coalition have managed to grab a 100 days of government free from any meaningful opposition. What will you spend your first 100 days focusing on?

2)    How will you unify the party and more importantly the Shadow Cabinet: Alistair Campbell’s diaries continually point to disunity at the top of the Party threatening to hamper a return to power – how will you stop this happening again?

3)    How are you going to attract the broadest support amongst the voting public: Both the left and the right of the Party argue that Labour lost the support of respective left/right sections of the public. How are you going to deal with that situation?

You can join our lunchtime webchat with Ed Miliband tomorrow , 12.30pm, here. You can also submit a question in advance by emailing me at vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk.

We can reach the moon, but you can’t vote on weekends.

Over at Left Foot Forward, Will Straw has highlighted the issues MPs are currently debating given the content of the Government’s Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. Labour will be rightly worried that the proposals of a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) system is being used to push through proposals that will restrict electors representation and gerrymander constituencies to the benefit of the parties in power rather than the electorate as a whole.

Whilst I think it is important stuff, I do wonder whether this is what the average voter on the street worries about. I suspect the ‘average voter’ has more simple electoral questions on their mind (whenever elections do pass through their minds):

Currently these simple, practical questions are rarely discussed. Why do we seem to have ignored the debate? Everyone is focused on what system of voting we should be using with no real attention given to what could be done to radically overhaul the way the vote is actually conducted in the UK.

It is easy understand why. The move to include postal and proxy voting proved hugely contentious for John Prescott when he introduced it for the Labour Government in 2001. Since then scandals and fear of manipulation have meant there has been little will to push innovation further. Yet everyone agrees about the importance of voting and the need to get people voting in elections, especially since voter turn-out has dropped since the early 90s.

I have some sympathy for those responsible for the system. It isn’t the easiest of subjects to try and tackle. The fact is that helping 29,691,780 people put an ‘x’ on their ballot paper to vote for one of the 4,150 candidates that contested the this year’s General Election, in a single day, is an incredible feat of modern administration.

But there’s something disappointing in the fact that people can travel to the moon, regularly and comfortably move vast amounts of money across the world through telephone cables, and choose in their millions their favourite X-factor contestant by text, but making it easier for people to vote for their MP seems beyond us.

Some of the biggest headlines of 6/7 May were of the queues outside 27 polling places across the UK as people scrambled to make their vote, albeit in some instances at the last possible minute. 1,200 votes were affected across 16 constituencies. Small fry given the number of successful voters but surely a rationale for looking seriously at some new ideas?

So I feel this year’s report by the Electoral Commission on the 2010 election was a missed opportunity. The Chair of the Electoral Commission, Jenny Watson, did not use her interview on yesterday’s Today programme not to put forward a radical plan but simply suggested that voters who have joined the voting queue before 10pm should have the legal right cast their vote. Simple to understand, but hardly radical.

Credit where credit’s due, the Electoral Commission had been successful in increasing voter registration. Their “About my Vote” campaign successfully produced 700,000 new electors between December 2009 and April 2010. But the majority of these new voters are presumably more comfortable with the smart phones, Internet and mobility that is part of their modern lives. Voting doesn’t compare, so is it any wonder that  the highest rates of non-turnout are with voters under 34.

There is no point in trying to argue that all non-voters don’t vote because they are uninterested in politics (for instance, the LSE found that voters were as interested in the battle between Gordon Brown and David Cameron as they were between Wilson and Douglas-Home). But modern, busy lives mean that our pre-21st system of casting your vote on paper and in person makes less and less sense to these non-voters and makes it harder for them to cast their vote.

I know that people need to trust our voting system and in many cases innovation has led to scandal. But if our elections are going to be more contentious, with ever closer results and if truly believe in making ‘every vote count’ , then shouldn’t we also aim to get almost everyone voting?

Fair pay please

I want a pay rise.

It’s easy to admit that reading today’s Guardian and realising that there are 170 senior civil servants who earn more than £150,000 left me feeling more than a little jealous (especially when you consider that the national average wage is a paltry £21,320).

To put this in context, these civil servants earn more than the prime minister’s wage with the most expensive being the Chief Executive of the Office of Fair Trading who is in the ‘respectable’ bracket of between £275,000-279,999.

Obviously we are all outraged and of course something must be done. Painfully the Coalition Government say that they are on the case.

Today was just a taster before they seek to publish the job titles and salaries of all civil servants earning over £58,000 next year. If you’re thinking “why are they doing this” then Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude popping up and rattling off something about wanting to “pull back the curtains to let light into the corridors of power” is all you’re going to get.

And it is at that point that I would say “hold on a minute”. I’m with the General Secretary of the FDA union for senior servants who pointed out that “Before this goes further we need to have a serious discussion about what it is ministers are seeking to achieve”; except I’m pretty certain what it is the Government is trying to achieve.

This is a massive case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The Coalition Government is not doing this to champion transparency. It is no surprise that the Conservatives want to cut public spending and need an excuse to keep wages down or cut them.

During the election the Conservatives touted their 20:1 plan for the public sector, the highest paid in should get no more than 20 times more than the lowest paid. And they were clear that the scheme would mean that the policy was “designed to drive down high salaries rather than necessarily increase lower salaries”. Now that the election is over, Will Hutton has been appointed to lead this “commission into fair pay (sic) in the public sector”.

But it is duplicitous to call this a programme for ‘fair pay’ when the objective singly ignores the need to raise the pay of those languishing on low pay. If you look at the private sector the case for change is even greater.

If the bar for a well paid job is the prime minister’s salary then how do we feel about the finance director of Greggs earning £260k? When we consider that the ratio of pay in the private sector is as much as 80:1 or more then why have the Government not appointed the chair of a similar private sector ‘ fair pay commission’? Typically the Government (of this current hue at least) is making a misguided distinction between the private and public sectors, instead of treating them the same. The public sector has benefited from pulling in expertise by offering roughly comparable wages to the private sector. But the private sector has been allowed to accrue a ridiculously top-heavy salary structure.

When it comes to pay we need to go back to first principles. The strength of public anger was palpable when ordinary people realised what bankers in the city paid themselves in bonuses. The calls for windfall taxes and caps of bonuses were unanimous. And the minimum wage was only ever supposed to be an unbreakable legal floor for pay.

So between the criminal and the down right greedy there is the unfair, yet nobody is certain yet how to define it. I’d like to earn £100k+ and be able to buy that Ferrari I’ve always wanted but the key word has to be ‘earn’. Who am I to say that the Finance Director of Greggs isn’t worth every penny of his £260k, but is that wage really justified even if it is just on the basis of the ‘going rate’?

I wish Labour in Government had done more to tackle the incredible disparity between those who struggle on that minimum wage and those that count their salaries of 6 or more digits. But I’ll settle for a proper fair pay commission now and some real ideas of making pay fairer.

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….

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?!)

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

Lib Dems Manifesto – Not a promise, a plan. (We…er…promise)

Finally the long wait is over; the Liberal Democrats have published their manifesto! What you missed it? Where were you?!

I sometimes find myself feeling sorry for the Liberal Democrats. Today’s launch of their manifesto, at Bloomberg in Central London, was previewed as a ‘no-frills event’ in contrast to the other two main parties. Sky’s Adam Boulton quickly put down the party’s effort as “a pamphlet which looks like the sort of thing you’re sent by mortgage lenders”.

But it doesn’t help when you leader  Nick Clegg needs to be constantly flanked by party colleagues to give him a sense of stature, Vince Cable and Sarah Teather especially (stop sniggering at the stature comment…).

Despite a hesitant introduction to the manifesto Clegg soon found his voice as he went through the motions of what the Lib Dems are offering – apparently it is a promise to ‘hard-wire fairness’ into British society. (Yes I know that Labour have already stolen a march on the ‘fairness agenda’, but let’s leave that to one side.)

Fairness, how will they do it you ask?  Simples, through four steps which confusingly amount to not a ‘promise but a plan’ fulfilled through Lib Dem manifesto ‘promises’….ummm.

Despite that I’m going to say something that may be controversial. I quite like chunks of the Lib Dem manifesto. I like promises (or…eh.. plans?) for:

• £10,000 floor for income-tax coming out of a crack down on tax dodgers;
• A promise to not to do a like-for-like replacement for Trident;
• Allowing individuals to save through a UK Infrastructure Bank for long-term returns;
• Scraping tuition fees for first time HE students, including part-time degrees; and
• End the detention of children in immigration detention centres.

But then again I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like Government to do these things.

Having said that if you take out those chunks then so much of what is left is either guff statements: “Make Network Rail refund a third of your ticket price if you have to take a rail replacement bus service” (why? where’s the money going to come from?) or half-thoughts: “Help protect children and young people from developing negative body images by regulating airbrushing in adverts” (How?).

And some pledges need to be seriously questioned, for instance Stuart White over at Next Left has asked what is progressive about the pledge to get rid of the Child Trust Fund?

Whilst there was a lot of talk about ‘elephants in the room’ (some sort of Vince Cable joke…who knows…See Gary Gibbon’s blog), the obvious problem is how are the Lib Dems going to pay for all this ‘fairness’ whilst still tackling Government debt. Remember Government debt? It seems to be a big election issue for the other parties…but doesn’t seem like a big issue for the Lib Dems and has been hardly mentioned!

On the issue of paying for fairness the Lib Dems seem to have seen the question coming (probably for the first time in an general election). Helpfully put together the costings ‘line by line’ in the back of their manifesto (n.b. there isn’t a deficit line). So far the Guardian is hesitantly giving their sums a ‘kinda solid’ judgement, but we’re waiting for the venerable IFS’s verdict. Obviously this’ll need some serious scrutiny, silly little questions I’d personally be asking:

• why is the ‘levy on bank profits’ a ‘saving’ rather than a ‘tax proposal’?
• do they really think that their mansion tax will raise almost £2bn?
• Why does their Eco cash-back scheme cost nothing in subsequent years?

Despite all that, the manifesto (and accoridng the the FT the party’s campaign itself) is gaining a positive view from the voters. Channel 4’s poll has the Lib Dems way out in front on manifestos: “Lib Dems leading 56%, Cons 34% Lab 9% and 1% to none of the above.”

On a final note – whilst the conservative had a lovely hardback edition of their manifesto, the Lib Dems have put real thought and effort into their online manifesto. You can even watch videos with Nick Clegg explaining it all to you, with nifty/dodgy lift/workout background music included for free!

Ok, on a second look it reminds me of QVC.

Tory Manifesto launch: “Do it yourself Government?”

There’s been a flurry of manifestos being launched today – UKIP, Plaid Cymru but the main event was obviously the Conservatives manifesto launch this morning at Battersea Power Station.

As Anthony Painter has pointed out the Tories have form when it comes to Battersea Power Station, broken promises and unfinished enterprises.

As for the manifesto itself, if Labour was supposedly looking towards North Korea for inspiration for its manifesto cover then Cameron was perhaps looking for the Thatcher touch. In hardback and costing £5 from all good stories that would sell such things, the Tory manifesto is a hefty 131-page tome. This is probably where a couple of short videos could have come in handy to explain what the booklet is about!

Don’t worry, you can even listen to audio recordings of it.

If the launch was supposed to convey a vibrant party entering into the election with energy and conviction then, perhaps, having a launch where members of the shadow cabinet were rolled out to individually give their five minute pitch for a Conservative Government was not the best approach. In fact the BBC online seemed to get bored with in and cut the live feed till the Cameron main event. It all seemed a bit 2005, they even continued with then slightly pained ‘rent-a-crowd’ behind Cameron.

Ideas like the National Citizen Service (that will be £800m please) and the marriage tax break plan (but big KC doesn’t seem to think much of it) all point to a party going backwards in order to seem current.

Ok, what about the manifesto itself? Well the big idea is ‘The Big Society’, it is the centrepiece of the Conservatives agenda which underpins all their policies. Except it isn’t very new or very well developed. Sunder over on Labourlist has pointed out that this all sounds less ‘SamCam’ and more blue rinse Thatcher.

The idea is that the Government is going to do less, but you’re going to have to make up the shortfall. If you want a good school, run it yourself. If you want public services, start your own. The Tories seems enamoured with the idea that ordinary people have endless time and resources to invest in the running and providing leadership of services. And it fails to address the key question of what happens if people just decide not to get involved? Or worse?

All the parties talk about localism but the Conservatives are not talking about alternatives, they are talking about substitutes. It isn’t the only place where the policies seem weak. The Conservatives’  politics around democracy and young people look especially lacking when compared to any of the other major parties.

The rest of the manifesto is, as the FT has pointed out, a rehash of previously announced policies:

• Sack your MP. Tories would give power of “recall” to let electors throw out MPs. Parliamentary Privilege Act to stop MPs evading prosecution.
• See how government spends your money. Central government job vacancies to be published online. All major contracts of £25k-plus to be published on line. In local government all items and contracts over £500 to be published.
• Pensioners. A promise to protect the winter fuel payment; free bus passes; free TV licences; disability living allowance and attendance allowance; and the pension credit.

Commentary seems to be lukewarm with Gary Gibbon from Channel 4 asking whether Tories’ manifesto had been designed by Smythson and the Independent rushing to tell us that Keane’s drummer was ‘horrified’ that they had used on their songs as at the launch. The Institute of Fiscal Studies puts a big question mark over the idea that the Tories won’t have to raise taxes and points to the lack of any further detail on their tax and spending plans for the lent hog the Parliament. Interestingly I could find only Johnthan Freedland on the left who seemed to think that Cameron gave a ‘commanding’ performance and ‘beginning to seal the deal’.

But the real question is why is where is the Party really focused (as Sky points out): both Parties are talking up the economy but, for the Tories, if the idea is to do something about the deficit faster and harder than Labour, then why all these whet spending promises?