Coalition Tense Despite Miliband's Lack of Pressure

Today's return to the commons for Prime Minister's questions was a tense affair. Ed Miliband was particularly misfiring in both his focus and delivery as he struggled to press the Prime Minister on a summer of unrest. This summer should have allowed for stronger debate than ever in Parliament: there was unrest on British streets in response to police, economic unrest and unemployment; a surge for the Libyan rebels and the exile of the Gaddaffi regime and a crisis on the markets especially over the eurozone and America's credit rating.

The economy is still the critical issue however, today, as the Prime Minister pointed out, it was cuttingly omitted from the debate. Many suppose this to be a consequence of the former Chancellor Alistair Darling releasing his new book which openly accuses Labour of entering the last election without a credible economic plan. The hangover from their last period in power continues to stifle the opposition from amounting any real attack on the government's economic plan although many flaws can be picked out, most critically, a distinct lack of growth. So under this burdening shadow, Ed Miliband confronted the PM on two other central policies. He did successfully highlight the seemingly unnecessary 25 million cost of holding delayed elections for new police commissioners in November 2012. This was a result of Liberal Democrat interventions and Conservative backbenchers did later vent their frustration, for the first time, openly condemning the significance of the Liberal Democrat's role in government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14819550

 

Mr Miliband then switched to the government's reform of the NHS, especially picking out that the number of people waiting over 6 months for major operations having risen by over 60% in the last year. Not glowing statistics for the government on any level but the leader of the opposition failed to bring his point to bear with a weaker finish that lacked any critical climax. Futhermore, the PM won over the momentum by smartly pointing out the omittance of any questions on the economy on the day that the 50p tax rate came under greater fire from economists. The rest of the questions went through quietly with two important exclusions, the first as I have already included were more vocal calls from Conservative backbenchers for the Liberal Democrats to have smaller influence in policy decisions. The second was a call for a referendum on Europe which as the front cover of The Times explored today, is a growing concern for a number of Eurosceptics on the Conservative backbenchs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14810323

Risking it All for the sake of the Party

The United States of America is just 48 hours away from defaulting on its debts. The American government is fast running out of money to pay what it owes and even the most lenient estimates believe that at most the government could only survive an extra week. Let us just take a step back here and consider, the United States of America is the largest economy in the world, it is the most technologically advanced nation and the current military and cultural hegemon. America, the arrowhead of man's rise to rationality and civilisation is literally standing at the precipice.

But this is as much a political catastrophe as it is economic. Despite the claims of Michele Bachmann that the country's leaders are scaremongering, this really is a crisis. Should the government default, the consequences are too severe too consider, for the American administration; the American economy; the American people. The insecurity of this moment is also extremely bad news for global financial stability with America's triple AAA credit rating on the line and investers, markets and recoveries around the world bound to American business. The inablility of the two congressional parties to agree on a comprimise deal to raise the debt ceiling is a testament to the 'farce' of democracy as the Chinese government has called it. The deadlock of American politics is well known but this seems to be pushing that theme a little far.

President Obama's time in office has been nothing if not combatative. Although he approached his term welcoming a period of bipartisanship, Congress has never been more divided by party lines than now. From healthcare reform, to oil spills to budgets, the Republicans have been fierce in opposition and the Democrats stubborn in leadership. Obama's favour with the people was scorched by the dogged pursuit of healthcare ideals and many within his own party blame the Democrats losses in the mid-term elections to his narrow focus. But things were not going to get any easier and the incoming breed of young tea party Republicans were to make sure of it. And now, due to Republican refusals to raise taxes for the most wealthy, the fate of so many modest Americans and families are held hostage to the pride of a few high headed and power hungry politicians.

So does this prove anything about democracy? Perhaps that it lacks the conviction, authority and decisiveness that other forms of government prioritise so emphatically. This crisis has shown that party dogma and political elitism are very threatening aspects of our form of democracy. Acting in the public interest is meant to be the foundation of democracy, but although we know the list of issues that go hand in hand with its representative form is exceedingly long, the public interest is too often sacrificed for short term party and individual political fortunes.

The Emergency Debate: Questions of Regret, Judgement and Leadership.

It was a commanding performance by the Prime Minister in the hacking debate today that caused the summer recess of Parliament to be postponed. Recently returned from a tour of Africa that was cut short in response to this snowballing crisis, Mr Cameron needed to step forward to face the questions over his government’s handling of the scandal, to supply new leadership and account for its impact so far. Taking the initiative in his opening statement, the Prime Minister was quick to set out ‘cross-party agreement’ on the need for a full inquiry into the relationship between the media, the police and now, politicians too (many will raise their eyebrows over the extreme range of the inquiry). More significantly, Mr Cameron did openly apologise, in ‘hindsight’, for his appointment of Andy Coulson (the former editor of the news of the world who then moved to the heart of Mr Cameron’s PR machinery). So, crucially, it was an apology over how the progress of events has overshadowed his appointment of Mr Coulson and not of Mr Coulson’s conduct whilst in Mr Cameron’s employment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14218665

                                                                                

Quite simply, Mr Miliband replied, this was not good enough. Not only did Mr Cameron ignore several advisors who raised concerns over the employment of Mr Coulson but also, in doing so, he created for himself a conflict of interest as this story had progressed between public standards and the Prime Minister’s allegiance with Mr Coulson. Therefore, Mr Cameron not only made ‘a serious error of judgement’ in employing Mr Coulson but consciously ‘chose to ignore or hide’ from the facts of Mr Coulson responsibility for events within the News of the World. Mr Miliband’s second line of attack was to pressure the Prime Minister on his own relationship with Media big bosses and especially whether he was engaged in discussions with Rebecca Brooks or the Murdochs over News International’s bid to take over BskyB. This did seem to be the question that stuck most as Mr Cameron tacitly confirmed his participation in such discussions but claimed his involvement was on no level ‘inappropriate’. The Prime Minister tried to hit back by stating he was being by far the more transparent of the two main leaders over his meetings with senior executives of News International, listing his meetings back to the election unlike the leader of the opposition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14211397

Really the two main parties share an equally poor record in fashioning themselves to the most powerful media bodies really set in motion by Margaret Thatcher’s courting of Mr Murdoch Snr during the 1980’s and Tony Blair and Gordon Browns’ close relationship with News International throughout their time in office. Beyond the trade-off criticism between the two main parties, this emergency debate was more about which leader would assert final authority over the matter. Mr Miliband’s standing with the public has risen during his quick reaction to the scandal and Mr Cameron has been forced to prove to his backbenchers that he can still rally his government and assert his leadership. As many commentators argue, Mr Cameron is best in an emergency and when he is challenged and here, he did appear far more authoritative and commanding than his opponent.

Still, interestingly, despite the ongoing salience and public fascination and disgust with this story, today a number of MP’s expressed the growing view that this story is now being over-handled and is slowly losing its shock factor. With the Eurozone crisis still looming in Italy and Greece and with economic figures to be published shortly, expected to show unsatisfactory levels of growth in the last quarter, the domination of this story in political sphere may not be outright when Parliament reconvenes after the summer recess.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14214467

The result of the elections and referendum on Thursday 5th May could have significant and long term effects on the political status quo in the United Kingdom. The Scottish Nationalist Party has won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the nation has voted against the first referendum in a decade and probably our first and last opportunity to change the system by which MP's are elected to Westminster, and the national stability of the Liberal Democrat support base has been severely shaken.

Liberal Democrat Special

The coalition was meant to usher in an age of new politics, of consensus, of non-partisanship and greater cooperation and was meant to have signalled the end of the longstanding two-party system of British politics. Yet the local elections on the 5th May 2011 saw Liberal Democrat councillors being rejected all over the country. Many have attributed this to the perception that the Liberal Democrats have failed as a moderating force on the Conservatives in government and this was a rejection of their party by the whole nation. So what are the long term implications of this result on the Third-Party in British politics?

I would reject suggestions that this result was a punishment inflicted upon the Liberal Democrats by the general electorate. I would also ignore assertions by the Labour leadership that these elections are a clear critique of the coalition or more specifically, the failure of the Liberal democrats in pulling back the reins of the ideological 'cuts' agenda of the Conservative Party. I would argue that this can be shown in the simple fact that 65% of the Liberal Democrat manifesto has been implemented to only 35% of the Conservative's. Nick Clegg has accepted that there has been a massive failure on his party's part in shaping its role within the coalition and maintaining a distinguishable and varied identity to that of the Conservatives. This I suspect is largely a result of the leaders (Cameron and Clegg) fearing that the coalition would fall apart if it did not present a clear image of unity, too clear a distinction and separatism between the parties would have made it easier for the opposition to pull the coalition apart. However, this image of unity has punished the Liberal Democrats far more substantially than the Conservatives. While the Economic and budget agenda has dominated news headlines, political debate and public attention, Liberal Democrat successes such as the Pupil Premium, tax reform for the lowest earners and political reform have gone unnoticed and under-trumpeted by the Liberal Democrat leadership itself. So I would propose that the real signal of the local elections is that traditional Liberal Democrat voters have now abandoned their party in government.

It was these voters who voted for the Liberal Democrats at the last election that are abandoning them now. They are disappointed in the failure of their party to moderate deep Tory cuts, to not implement a tougher policy on the banks, to raise taxes such as VAT that hurt the lowest earners the most, but most of all, to give up their pledge on voting against any raising of tuition fees. Now, despite the fact that the Liberal Democrat MP's ought to have been accountable to these voters and thus to have fulfilled the mandate they were given on the manifesto upon which they ran for office, the Conservatives were the largest party and were voted in by a majority of voters to fulfill their own pledges. Therefore, as the largest party the Conservatives would of course have wanted to dominate policy on the most pressing of issues, the economy, and I believe Nick Clegg correctly accepted that David Cameron and his party held the major mandate on this issue. This can explain why the policy on raising tuition fees proceeded as it did, because it wasn't an issue of educational reform but it was an economic matter: A question of balancing a severe short-fall in public funding. I think this is why Nick Clegg felt obliged to accept the policy which would offend and disgust so many of his traditional constituency. The question that faces the Liberal Democrats therefore, is whether they can reform the bonds with this old constituency and find a solution for the future that accommodates their ongoing participation within the coalition?

However, their old constituency was a mixed and rather divided group of Social-Democrat ideologues, disenchanted Labour voters and a disloyal section of tactical and young voters. I believe this is a constituency which maintained the liberal democrats as the minor and rather insignificant third-party of British politics, rather than presenting a credible alternative to the two main parties and disrupting the traditional two-party system. Instead they filled the vacuum of non-aligned voters and by the 2010 general election, the two main parties had failed to secure a majority of seats which placed the third-party uncomfortably into a position of power. As a result, the third-party became a party of government and had the opportunity to fashion for itself a real space in the future of British politics by what it did in this Parliament. This is where the Liberal Democrats have failed. They have failed to organise an image and vision which satisfies both their traditional constituency, but one that would also draw in new voters to a clear and distinguished Liberal Democratic identity. Thus forming a combined constituency of a credible party of government and a party that represented the future of British politics.

The Liberal Democrats had this opportunity and so far they have failed to grasp it , but these election results may have come just in time to shake the party into action. If the party decides to punish itself, namely through firing Nick Clegg as its leader, it is most likely that the next leader will champion the case of the disenchanted and ineffective traditional constituency of the minor third-party. But if the Liberal Democrats assert themselves more clearly within the coalition, present themselves to the public as an independent party alert to the concerns of the lower middle classes, and refind that spark that was Cleggmania just over a year ago, they could well steal a significant proportion of Labour's votes. For Ed Miliband has driven his party back towards the old constituency of the lower classes and, although Cameron has tried to expand the Conservative base to attract the more rightest, middle class voters of New Labour, Clegg could redefine his party on the Lower Middle classes of New Labour to bolster the support of his traditional constituency and form a new constituency appropriate for a party of government.

The result of the elections and referendum on Thursday 5th May could have significant and long term effects on the political status quo in the United Kingdom. The Scottish Nationalist Party has won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the nation has voted against the first referendum in a decade and probably our first and last opportunity to change the system by which MP's are elected to Westminster, and the national stability of the Liberal Democrat support base has been severely shaken.

AV Referendum special

It cannot be argued that the result of the referendum was not definitive. It is absolutely clear that the electorate do not want AV as the electoral system for elections to Westminster. Assessment concluded....well, not quite. There are farther reaching consequences to the defeat of the YES TO AV campaign than simply a loss on this topic of electoral reform. Referendums are particularly ambiguous and have a tendency to simplify rather than distinguish results. 

Firstly, constituted within the vote for and against AV was also a more general but hidden vote on the electoral future of our system. The debate on electoral reform is a century old, lasting back to the formation of the Labour  Party and before universal suffrage, but it has taken us until 2011 to have a national referendum on the issue. Political reform has always been a 'backburner' issue for many elected governments because economics, law and order, health or defence take precedence over it. However, with the election of New Labour in 1997 and the report of the Jenkins Commission on electoral reform, political and constitutional reform has grown in salience. There are many controversies in the political reform debate, but electoral reform was always one of the most pressing alongside reform of the House of Lords. So it makes an important point that, despite the recommendations of the Jenkins commission, the Labour government failed to fully address the issue until there thirteen years were up. Ultimately, parties in government with a majority are unlikely to want to shake up our electoral system because it threatens their vested interests in maintaining the status quo which has seen them into power. The strong prospect of a hung Parliament and the importance of electoral reform to the Liberal Democrats meant that the issue was set to resurface once again. So, with electoral reform proving to be a decisive factor in party negotiations, the three main parties recognised the time had come to finally put the debate to rest. On the 5th of May 2011, the British electorate did just that, and with some conviction smothered any argument in favour of electoral reform for the foreseeable future (much to the delight of the 'old' parties).

Secondly, this was the first truly national referendum since 1975 and opportunities for direct democracy don't come round very often, more so if five year fixed Parliaments are introduced. A highly common criticism of our political system at the moment is that MP's, politicians, parties and government are all out of touch with what the people want. That it is too easy for MP's to switch off to the concerns of their constituents and act according to their own interest or to their party's, especially in safe seat constituencies. These notions also form a large part of the reasoning for why the public are disenchanted with politics, why we react cynically to it and why there was a hung Parliament last year in one of the most critical elections since 1983. What a victory this referendum was for those vested interests and for governmental disengagement. By neglecting such an opportunity so negatively, we have signed the warrant for our own arrest.

Of course, on reading this you may think that in fact, public opinion was expressed quite decisively and as I stated at the start of this piece, voting (especially tactical voting) in this referendum had far more motivations than just whether you believe AV to be the right electoral system for our national elections. I will address these alterior motives and the consequences of the result in these respects, largely on the liberal Democrats, in my next piece. However, the point still stands that even if we were not aware of it, for our MP's, the NO vote held far reaching implications about the salience of the electoral reform debate and public attitudes, and we voted these subjective, self-interested observations through quite contently.

The result of the elections and referendum on Thursday could have significant and long term effects on the political status quo in the United Kingdom. The Scottish Nationalist Party has won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the nation has voted against the first referendum in a decade and probably our first and last opportunity to change the system by which MP's are elected to Westminster, and the national stability of the Liberal Democrat support base has been severely shaken.

Scottish special

The political system of the United Kingdom was changed hugely during the process of devolution. There are various debates about the benefits and disadvantages of the process but the system will be changed and tested by the fact that the SNP now hold a majority in the the Scottish Parliament. With the clue in the name, the SNP advocate greater autonomy and independence for Scotland although they accept that full independence could only be achieved by a referendum to show absolute support. It looks likely that this referendum will take place now the SNP have a majority. However, current polls suggest that it is unlikely Scottish voters will support a full break away form the UK. This was not the pledge that the SNP was voted to a majority for. In these difficult times, voters are most acutely aware of the scarcity of funding and financial backing and the Scottish public realise that the SNP will be the strongest, most representative and most accountable to their hopes of sustaining funding for Scotland. This is why they were elected to a majority, to fight tooth and nail for every pound of Scottish funding.

There is great controversy within the relationship between Westminster, Scotland and England. Thanks to devolution, the Scottish Parliament does have numerous powers to legislate in many of the key policy areas including education. However, Scottish voters also vote for representatives in Westminster which dictates policy all around the UK. Thus, controversially, Scottish voters have almost a double vote in electing a Parliament specific to Scotland but also to vote for decisions affecting England. Simultaneously, Scotland is devolved large sums of fiscal responsibility by Westminster in an unproportional exchange.  The continuing issue of tuition fees for university demonstrates this dramatically. While tuition fees in England continue to rise in England, most ominously to 9,000 pounds next year, Scottish students can attend Scottish universities for free. This system is largely funded by the UK taxpayer as the funding is directed from Westminster. Therefore, English and Welsh taxpayers subsidise Scottish tuition. Although, this seems a shocking proposition it is far more complex and indirect than the extremely simplified presentation I make here. But the point stands that there is a basic political and economic inequality in the devolved relationship. An imbalance that is far more likely to be exposed and either exploited by a nationalist party, elected for exactly that purpose.

Furthermore, the SNP leader and now First Minister for Scotland, Alex Salmond, is the loudest advocate of Scottish interests and he appears almost to savor the conflict it creates within the system. Just a year ago, when he demanded his party and the other nationalist parties such as Plaid Cymru, be allowed to participate in the general election television debates, you could almost laugh at the man for his bleating when his party received only 1.7% of the vote. Now, despite only commanding a majority of four seats, he is already asking Westminster for more sweeping powers over taxation. Backed by his 'renewed and strengthened mandate' he hopes to rally the Scottish public to his nationalist cause and maybe even to independence in a couple of years time.

However, if the change between last year and today shows anything, it is that political fortune can disappear from under your feet just as quickly as it lifted you up. David Cameron will not be the warmest sympathizer to Scottish national interests and the SNP can barely count on the support of the opposition Labour party, disgruntled and resentful itself of losing ground in its heartland. As extended as their hopes for Scotland may be, it seems rather difficult to imagine them retaining their new found position when the Labour Party eventually finds resurgence and the tenser times of economic recession soften and leave the nationalist voice all that bit less resounding.

That's what its all about

As another set of figures on the economy's performance over the last quarter comes out, just one week ahead of  the referendum, it is becoming increasingly clear that the fortunes of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats will be largely dependent on how the economy progresses. With the No campaign gaining ground as we approach the referendum, Liberal Democrats' hopes for reforming the electoral system, not only to solidify the ground underneath their supporters' feet, but also for changing the system away from the grip of the two major parties vested in the FPTP system look set to fail. If those hopes die, his and his party's political future will be decided entirely by the legacy they leave behind. That's the choice they made after the Hung Parliament and the decision they sealed in the coalition agreement. If growth can be restored, I believe much of their original support will too.