Ed Miliband

Ed Miliband shifts Leftwards at conference but Rightwards in the PLP

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Ed impressed me at his conference. Looks like he’s two-faced in the tradition of Labour party leaders: They tell you what you want to hear. Original with comments is at: http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/10/ed-miliband-shifts-leftwards-at-conference-but-rightwards-in-the-plp/.

What sort of party does Miliband really want? The signs are confused because his radical stance at conference in taking on corporate power has now just two weeks later been followed by a distinct turn to the right in the reshuffle. How a programme of transforming capitalism is to be carried through by a Labour front bench which is largely made up of people wholly opposed to any such project is hard to see.

The Opposition shadow cabinet plus attendees is now composed of 12 Blairites, 4 Brownites (who together make up a majority), plus 9 centrists, and 6 on the left or left-inclining. Ed Miliband has constantly asserted that he wants a united party which balances the various factions and interests. In no sense can this reshuffle be said to achieve this. Leaving aside the centrists whose politics cannot readily be identified, the right outnumbers the left by almost 3 to 1. That is contrary to Ed’s instincts proclaimed at conference, contrary to the balance within the Labour Party as a whole, and contrary to the spirit of a shared unity which Ed professes to believe in.

One wonders who actually made the selections. What role was played by Ed’s office which is almost unanimously Blairite or right-wing? Who decided to drop Diane Abbott, a candidate for the leadership in 2010 and one of the small minority on the left who remained in the shadow cabinet?

Who decided to remove Lisa Nandy, one of the very few on the left in the 2010 intake and perhaps the most prominent, from her shadow responsibility for child care policies at which she was performing so well?   Who decided to drop or move such prominent campaigners as Chris Williamson and Jack Dromey, and why?

Of course it is true that Miliband demoted three prominent Blairites, but they were replaced by persons of similar ilk. It is also true that the reshuffle in the junior ranks overwhelmingly favoured the Blairite faction whilst not one of the 2010 left intake was singled out for the front bench. This whole picture leaves a puzzling impression, that Ed Miliband’s political instincts are quite radical, yet in the PLP he errs towards placating the dominant faction, even though that makes it difficult if not impossible to achieve his political ambitions. It is hard to understand how he thinks he can achieve his vision when he suppresses or marginalises the very people who can create the political space for him and who would support him when times get tough, as in politics sooner or later they always do.

Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits, promises new welfare chief

 

Labour will be tougher than the Tories when it comes to slashing the benefits bill, Rachel Reeves, the new shadow work and pensions secretary, has insisted in her first interview since winning promotion in Ed Miliband’s frontbench reshuffle.

The 34-year-old Reeves, who is seen by many as a possible future party leader, said that under Labour the long-term unemployed would not be able to “linger on benefits” for long periods but would have to take up a guaranteed job offer or lose their state support.

Adopting a firm party line on welfare, the former Bank of England economist stressed that a key part of her task would be to explode the “myth” that Labour is soft on benefit costs, and to prove instead that it will be both tough and fair.

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Daily Mail

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The Daily Mail has been almost universally condemned for attacking Ed Miliband through attacking his long-dead father. Ralph Miliband was a Marxist academic and activist, a Jewish immigrant to evade the Nazis and served in the British Royal Navy during the Second World War. He was accused by the Daily Mail of hating Britain when he actually hated many aspects of bigoted right-wing ideology in Britain.

There are similarities between the Daily Mail and this blog. We both have a huge online readership and influence and we both attack politicians. The Daily Mail is traditionally more open to conspiracy theories which I find refreshing.

The differences are ideological and that I often attack people who have already attacked me e.g. Tony Blair, David Blunkett and all the has-been old New Labour Home Secretaries and of course Ian Blair. My attacks on family members have probably only extended to Cherry and she was very closely associated with Tonee. I could very easily hint at obvious, acknowledged issues about the Blair ‘family’ as I’m doing right now. I very occasionally get the wrong target but I do apologise for it.

A comment made it through the spam filter today. It was spam. Please feel free to comment – it’s likely to be published so long as it’s not spam.

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UK politics news review

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Labour Party leader made a well-received speech at their conference at Manchester yesterday.

“They think they are born to rule.” … “Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, U-turning, pledge-breaking, make-it-up-as-you-go-along, back-of-the-envelope, miserable shower?” Miliband is here referring to class and/or private education (known in the UK by the misnomer ‘public school’) which is recognised to be much the same thing i.e. to be privately educated is to be ruling class and to be ruling class is to be privately educated[*1]. Private schools teach being ruling class, how to succeed in life by being a ***t [take your pick ;), to lie and cheat and to have an unflinching belief in your own innate superiority and righteousness.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt makes loads of money for nothing and has charged the public purse for Mandarin lessons. How do Mandarin lessons benefit his constituents or the public? Talk about benefit scroungers …

A railway omnishambles proves Miliband’s point

One of the most powerful sections of Ed Miliband’s speech came when, with remarkable fluency, he declared of the government: “Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, U-turning, pledge breaking, make it up as you go along, back-of-the-envelope, miserable shower?” Less than a day later, ministers have demonstrated exactly what he meant.

The Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has announced that the decision to award the West Coast Main Line rail franchise to FirstGroup has been cancelled after the discovery of “significant technical flaws” in the bidding process. The government will no longer challenge the judicial review sought by Virgin, the current operator, which has long argued that the process did not adequately assess the risks of competing bids (it warned that FirstGroup’s £5.5bn bid was a recipe for bankruptcy). According to McLoughlin, the reopening of the bids will cost the taxpayer “in the region of £40m”.

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How GM crops have increased the use of danger pesticides and created superweeds and toxin-resistant insects

Planting GM crops has led to an increase rather than a decrease in the use of pesticides in the last 16 years, according to US scientists.

The researchers said that the plants have caused superweeds and toxin-resistant insects to emerge, meaning farmers have not only had to use more pesticides on their crops overall, but are also using older and more dangerous chemicals.

The findings dramatically undermine the case for adopting the crops, which were sold to farmers and shoppers on the basis that they would reduce the need to be treated with powerful chemicals.

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*1. This is not exclusively so. Ed Miliband attended Oxford University after his state schooling and was born to intellectual pretend-Socialist parents. While he missed out on public school, he did have the rest of the ruling class treatment. Does it make him semi ruling class or something similar? Notably, Miliband – just like his brother David – studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Virtually all UK prime ministers follow this course. Isn’t it strange that two brothers follow the same University course? Is there something [not] going on?

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UK politics news review

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A brief post today as I can’t spare the time.

The Liberal-Democrat-Conservatives’ party conference at Brighton has finished. The Labour party conference at Manchester has started. Ed Balls scored two goals (the second is disputed by claims that he faked a foul leading to a penalty and goal) and Andy Burnham scored one against the Press XI. Ed Miliband makes a speech suggesting the return of the 50% tax rate that the ConDems’ abolished and telling the banks to sort themselves out. Two policies that I agree with. Clearly, if the banks are too big to fail then they need to be made smaller. There is not a commitment to undo the ConDems’ privatisation and demolition of the NHS.

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News review

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  • ConDem Conservative and Liberal-Democrat Conservative coalition government protects Tony Blair by refusing to release pre-Iraq war cabinet minutes
  • The corporate press promotes Tony Blair

Tony Blair’s Iraq meetings to remain secret after government veto

The government has vetoed an order by the independent freedom of information watchdog to release the minutes of cabinet meetings held immediately before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The decision was announced on Tuesday by Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, the only minister to have access to papers of a previous administration, in this case Tony Blair’s Labour government.

Grieve said he issued a certificate under the Freedom of Information Act vetoing disclosure after consulting former Labour ministers, his cabinet colleagues, and the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband.

He described the case as “exceptional” and one where, in his view, the public interest demanded the papers should be kept secret. He says he took into account “serious potential prejudice to the maintenance of effective cabinet government”.

The attorney said he also considered the fact that “the issue discussed was exceptionally serious, being a decision to commit British service personnel to an armed conflict situation”, that the issue “remains the focus of both domestic and international interest”, and that “Iraq remains very much a live political issue in its own right” with links to the “overall security situation in the Middle East and the perceived link between the terror threat to the UK and military action in Iraq”.

Grieve noted that most of those present at the cabinet meetings in March 2003 were still MPs or “otherwise active in public life”.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, had argued that the “exceptional gravity and controversy” of the matters discussed meant that minutes of the cabinet meetings on 13 and 17 March 2003, days before the invasion, should be disclosed.

One of the reasons Grieve gave for vetoing disclosure was that the Chilcot inquiry meant the invasion of Iraq was still a “live” issue. Yet the panel chaired by Sir John Chilcot is being prevented by Whitehall mandarins from disclosing key documents relating to the decision to invade Iraq.

The March 2003 cabinet minutes are believed to be among them. The continuing dispute between Chilcot and Whitehall officials over disclosure is a main reason why his report has been delayed.

In a separate move last week, the Foreign Office appealed against a judge’s ruling that extracts of a conversation between Blair and George Bush days before the invasion of Iraq must be disclosed. It argued that revealing Blair’s comments to Bush on the telephone on 12 March 2003 would present a “significant danger” to UK-US relations.

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Tony Blair and Ed Miliband

 

The Return Of The King – Tony Blair And The Magically Disappearing Blood

By David Cromwell

How many war crimes does a western leader have to commit before he is deemed persona non grata by the corporate media and the establishment? Apparently there is no limit, if we are to judge by the prevailing reaction to Tony Blair’s return to the political stage.

On July 11, it was announced that Blair would be ‘contributing ideas and experience’ to Labour leader Ed Miliband’s policy review. He will apparently provide advice on how to ‘maximise’ the economic and sporting legacies of the 2012 London Olympics.

The Guardian described the announcement mildly as a ‘controversial move’; not necessarily in the country at large, the paper claimed, but ‘perhaps especially within the Labour party’. One Guardian headline declared ‘Return of the king’.

The ‘left-wing’ John Harris did his bit in the Guardian to smooth Blair’s path:

‘He’s only 59, the picture of perma-tanned vitality and keen to “make a difference”. Could a fourth stint in No 10 even be on the cards? We shouldn’t rule it out.’

Harris declared ‘that for all his mistakes, transgressions and howling misjudgments, there remains something magnetic about his talents.’

Blairs and Milibands
Blairs and Milibands

When Blair appeared at a Labour fundraising dinner at Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, Harris noted that:

‘He was greeted by the obligatory crowd of protesters, still furious about his role in the Iraq war.’

That’s the curious thing about peace protesters; endlessly ‘furious’ about the country being dragged into an illegal war that led to the deaths of around one million people, created four million Iraqi refugees, devastated Iraq’s infrastructure, generated untold suffering and burned obscenely huge sums of public money in times of ‘austerity’. Perhaps we Brits should simply display that famed stiff upper lip and move on. Certainly that’s what Richard Beeston, foreign editor of The Times, suggested in 2009:

‘All this happened six years ago. Get over it.’ (‘The war went wrong. Not the build-up. Stop obsessing about the legality of invading Iraq. The campaign itself was the real disaster’, The Times, February 26, 2009.)

A recent Times editorial welcomed Blair’s return:

‘Labour is coming together, drawing on its best available talent and starting to get serious again. (Editorial, ‘A year in politics’, The Times, July 14, 2012)

The second coming of Blair was launched by a friendly chat on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. Marr, of course, is well-known as a totally impartial political analyst and a ‘congenial and knowlegable [sic] interviewer’ (to quote a cable from the US embassy in London to Hillary Clinton).

The PR onslaught continued when London’s Evening Standard published an interview with the former PM on the day he ‘guest-edited’ the paper. Would he like to be prime minister again one day? ‘Sure’, he replied. A supportive Financial Times interview with editor Lionel Barber proclaimed:

‘Five years after leaving power, Tony Blair wants back in. He is ready for a big new role. But what exactly is driving him? And can he persuade the world to listen?’

Unnamed ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ were quoted, no doubt passing on the Blair-approved message:

‘Friends say he is desperate to play a bigger role, not because he has any ambition to run for high office but because he wants to be part of the argument. “He would really like to be the centre of attention again,” says one long-time ally.’

A Guardian editorial did its bit to help:

‘he seems to have mellowed a touch since his book [‘A Journey’, published in 2011]; maybe he’s even learnt a little respect for international law.’ (‘Unthinkable? Tony Blair for PM again.’)

The paper continued:

‘Besides, this is no time to fret about the policy details – there is the showbiz to consider. In 2007 John Major likened Mr Blair’s long goodbye to Nellie Melba; the coming comeback must demonstrate he is more like Sinatra and Elvis. There can only be one true heir to Tony Blair, and that is Tony Blair II.’

Could the vanguard of British liberal journalism really be making an editorial call for the return of Blair? It shouldn’t be a total surprise. Recall that even in the wake of the supreme international crime of invading Iraq, the Guardian still called for its readership to re-elect Blair at the 2005 general election.

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