Opposition - Labour Party

The Labour Party is suffering from an identity crisis. The party has been struggling since the New Labour project took a hit to its boundless confidence in the 2010 election collapse.

It has been struggling first to rebuild its 'economic credibility' (BBC, 2012), after a recession that began during Gordon Brown's Premiership - a struggle not made any easier by incidents such as Liam Byrne's flippant note - and the party continues to fear getting the blame for the present economic situation.

This has brought the parliamentary leadership head-to-head with the Trade Unions that form such large factions within the party. Indeed the votes of the Unions gave Labour leader Ed the edge over brother David in the party leadership election (Rogers, 2010).

By refusing to commit to reversing cuts when in office (Wintour, 2012), Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have alienated powerful vested interests within their party - and all in the name of regaining credibility.

There are some in the Labour party who believe Messrs Miliband & Balls have fallen into a trap by climbing onto the cuts bandwagon (McClymont & Jackson, 2011). The suggestion is that the cuts rhetoric plays into Tory hands by narrowing the political debate to the matter of 'economic prudence'.

In challenging Tory claims to 'prudence', Ed Miliband is risking a two front war - a public face-off with the Tories and an internal struggle with Unions.

In the face of that upcoming struggle, will Labour be able to reach the next election as the same party that contested the last?

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References:
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+ BBC's 'Miliband defends backing public sector pay freeze'; 15 January 2012.

+ Simon Rogers' 'Labour leadership result: get the full data'; in The Guardian; 26 September 2010.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband leading Labour to destruction, says union chief'; in The Guardian; 16 January 2012.

+ Gregg McClymont & Ben Jackson's 'How Labour can avoid the Tory trap'; in The Guardian; 28 December 2011.

Opposition - Green Party

The last UK general election was notable for many things - but one that is easily overlooked is the Green Party gaining it first seat.

Party Leader Ms Caroline Lucas was elected to the Brighton Pavilion constituency, just 2.4% ahead of her Labour opponent. Since her election Ms Lucas has been active in parliament, with well above the average number of contributions, and in public - being particularly prominent during the unsuccessful AV campaign. During the campaign she was highly visible alongside Mr Charles Kennedy of the Liberal Democrats and Mr E Miliband of Labour (BBC, 2011).

As for the Green Party itself, it claimed control of a local council for the first time in the by-elections of May 2011. As constrained by the cuts as other councils and with no clear majority, the Green group in Brighton & Hove have been forced to make some difficult decisions (White, 2011) - and haven't been able to keep  everyone happy.

However, with the exposure that they're receiving from Ms Lucas' work as an MP, and if they can turn control of Brighton Council into a success, then the next election may well be very interesting indeed for the Green Party. Particularly because of the upcoming Scottish Referendum.

Following what some have felt to be the Lib Dems' abandoning of its 'Left Alternative' position in order to govern, the SNP made massive gains in Scotland by taking on those voters (Watt et al, 2011). Reports suggest that a good number of those who voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 have either ceased backing or become undecided about the party (Duffett, 2012). And the SNP have used their huge swell of support to push for an independence referendum.

Whether the SNP Win or lose their referendum, the Green Party looks set to benefit. If the SNP win the Greens lose nothing. But if the SNP lose, the Greens could stand to benefit from a boost of support. Particularly from 'left alternative' supporters that backed Liberal Democrats in England in 2010 and switched to the SNP in Scotland in 2011.

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References:
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+ BBC's 'Ed Miliband launches cross-party alternative vote push'; 29 March 2011.

+ Nicholas Watt, Severin Carrell & Steven Morris' 'Lib Dem support collapses across north while SNP make gains'; 6 May 2011.

+ Helen Duffett's 'Comeback Clegg – the Times’ reasons to be cheerful about the Lib Dems'; in Liberal Democrat Voice; 17 January 2012.

SOPA/PIPA

Yesterday saw symbolic acts of self-censorship by various internet organisations in protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills that are currently working their way through the United States Congress.

Sopa and Pipa protests see the web go dark

The SOPA and PIPA bills, intended to combat piracy, have been condemned for being heavy handed and overly burdensome (Wales, 2012). The charge is that these bills fail to address the core of piracy and instead risk the implementation of censorship to tackle the symptoms - that is the individual downloaders.

The Leveson inquiry ongoing in the UK, has raised similar questions about how to defend free speech while still enforcing the law. As Ian Hislop put it in his testimony to the enquiry:

'Statutory legislation is not required and most of the heinous crimes that came up and have made such a splash in front of this inquiry have already been illegal - contempt of court is illegal, phone tapping is illegal... policemen taking money is illegal - all of these things don't need a code, we already have laws for them.'

In the US, there are already laws covering copyright infringement - and the SOPA/PIPA bills are designed to expand the powers available for enforcing them.

However, the legislation has been sullied from the beginning, whatever its merits, by the connection between money and politics. In the US these concerns centre on the big business of lobbying that is tied to these anti-piracy efforts.

In order to deal with both the illegal practices within the UK news media and with 'global piracy', both sides will have share the effort. Only collaboratively can both sides avoid damaging essential parts of  the freedoms of speech & information, as Mr Hislop put the case on the importance of a Free Press:

 'it is important, it isn't always pretty and there are things that go wrong, but I really hope this inquiry doesn't throw out the baby out with the bathwater.'

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References:
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+ Jimmy Wales in BBC's 'Viewpoints: Sites go offline in US piracy laws protest'; 18 January 2012.

+ Ian Hislop in BBC's 'Leveson Inquiry: Ian Hislop says new press laws not needed'; 17 January 2012.

Between liberals & conservatives

Last summer saw attempts at the European Union (EU) to raise CO2 emission reduction targets. Lib Dem MEP Mr Chris Davies (2011) wrote, rather scathingly, on the divide the issue was driving between the coalition partners.

Mr Davies was clear however that such a divide was not necessary, since the coalition agreement contained a resolved government policy on the matter (2010). It states that:

'We will push for the EU to demonstrate leadership in tackling international climate change, including by supporting an increase in the EU emission reduction target to 30% by 2020'

As it turned out, Mr Davies' concerns were accurate, as Tory MEPs did indeed vote against the increase - and against the agreed policy (Harvey, 2011).

Accompanying the CO2 reduction in driving a wedge between the coalition partners, are the EU's attempts at taxing air travel. These attempts provoked outrage - with the press happy to run the doom & gloom consequence stories, from fears of US punitive counter-policy (Millward, 2011), to outright refusal to comply by major Chinese airlines (Watts, 2012), to fears of rising travel costs (Massey, 2011).

And it's not just Britain where liberals and conservatives are being driven to hostility by divides over environmental issues. In Canada, the parties have also been at loggerheads over the withdrawal of the nation from the Kyoto agreement (BBC, 2011).

Conservative Federal Environment Minister, Mr Peter Kent, had been chastising the opposition for not taking part in the Kyoto proceedings in Durban - inspite of the fact that the governing Conservatives had banned non-government MPs form being part of the Canadian delegation.

This appears to have been more dishonesty than Liberal MP for Papineau, Mr Justin Trudeau, could stand (Fitzpatrick, 2011):

NDP MP Megan Leslie: The rest of the world is moving forward, building a new energy economy, but Canada is being left behind by this Conservative inaction. So why are they refusing to act?

Kent: Well Mister Speaker my honourable colleague, if she had been in Durban, would have seen that in fact [shouting] that Canada was...

Trudeau: [shouting from the backbenches] ...Oh, you piece of shit

Later Trudeau rose to say that:

'During Question Period the Minister of the Environment chided the Member of Parliament from Halifax for not having attended the conference in Durban, after he prevented any member of the oppositions from attending - therefore, I lost my temper and used language that was most decidedly unparliamentary and for that I unreservedly apologise and withdraw my remark'

Both in Canada & the UK, Conservatives have taken a very sceptical attitude towards reduction of carbon emissions. While in Canada the matter is a dispute between government & opposition, in the UK those differences are contained within the governing coalition.

The differences of opinion within the coalition on both Europe & the environment are well known. As such the coalition document was intended to be a jointly binding agreement, placing disputes out of the way for the sake of 'national stability'.

It is a wonder then how the Conservatives have flaunted the document. The Tory rebellion on CO2 emissions broke one small commitment the party had made. Yet it was a commitment signed nonetheless. And when combined with incidents such as the Euro 'veto', where the Tories left their partners high and dry (BBC, 2012), it builds a picture of broken trust.

The Tories failed to get a majority at the 2010 election. As such they must govern in coalition with another party - the only likely party being the Liberal Democrats - if they wish to govern at all. It seems beyond belief that they can hold together a coalition for another three years with so much broken trust to repair.

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References:
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+ Chris Davies' 'Conservatives and climate change – Tuesday’s revealing vote in Strasbourg'; in Liberal Democrat Voice; 4 July 2011.

+ The Coalition's 'Our Programme for Government'; May 2010.

+ Fiona Harvey's 'EU votes against reducing carbon emissions by 30%'; in The Guardian; 5 July 2011.

+ David Millward's 'EU green tax triggers fears of aviation trade war'; in The Telegraph; 23 December 2011.

+ Jonathan Watts' 'Chinese airlines refuse to pay EU carbon tax'; in The Guardian; 4 January 2012.

+ Ray Massey's 'Now Brussels clobbers British holidaymakers with a green tax on flights: Family of four forced to pay £80 more to fly to America'; in The Mail; 22 December 2011.

+ BBC's 'Canada withdraws from Kyoto pact'; 13 December 2011.

+ Meagan Fitzpatrick's 'Justin Trudeau apologizes for swearing at Kent' on CBC News; 14 December 2011.

+ Sarah Montague & Nick Clegg on 'Today'; on BBC Radio 4; 5 January 2012.

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Labour have at last revealed an insight into their policies for government. On the Andrew Marr show (BBC, 2011), Mr E Miliband backed his shadow chancellor Mr Ed Balls' statement that the Labour party cannot promise to reverse cuts made by the coalition (Wintour, 2011).

Has Labour disregard for its supporters really become so entirely expected that nobody can be bothered to be outraged any more?

The Liberal Democrats and Mr Nick Clegg were crucified for their 'U-turn' on tuition fees.

Yet when the Labour Party has attached itself to anti-cuts protests (Meikle, 2011); when Mr E Miliband has stood on podiums and made sanctimonious speeches; and then directly contradicts those actions & words, contradicts those entire movements - why hasn't there even a murmur of outrage? Where is the consistency?

Has the fear of the (specifically Tory party) right become so great that Labour can do whatever it wants with impunity - knowing it will get the votes anyway?

Only months ago, Mr Balls took to the pages of the Guardian to promote a budget Plan B - an alternative to the ideologically conservative cuts program (Balls, 2011):

'Going for broke with a rapid deficit reduction plan – too far and too fast – was always a gamble for George Osborne. His reckless decision has choked off the British recovery, leaving us badly exposed if things now go wrong in the Eurozone and the US. So we need an urgent change of course – a Plan B on growth, jobs and leadership.'

What happened in the meantime?

When the Liberal Democrats where forced to postpone - yes, postpone (BBC, 2011) - their commitments to a phased abolition of tuition fees, they at least displayed the evidence motivating their decision. Namely, discovering once in government that all public estimates of the state of the UK's economic situation had been entirely too hopeful (BBC, 2010) and the proposals of the labour commissioned Browne review (2010) into higher education funding, combined with the negotiation of an alternative that would be acceptable to both parties within the coalition.

Issues are rarely clear cut. It is possible to oppose one cut & approve others. But the oppositionist rhetoric - absolutely condemning the governments cuts with one breath and then announcing that you support them and will keep them in the next - is dishonest.

Mr Clegg has been branded, chastised and pigeon-holed by the media. He has become the whipping boy for the nations' disillusionment with its Tory led government. Its a bandwagon that Labour have been happy to jump on and exploit to promote the image it likes to portray - as the bastion against Thatcherism.

Yet today we have another example that the Labour party has long since lost its way. It can no longer be trusted to be a bastion against the right.

It was given the chance following the last election of being just that - by finding a compromise that allowed a rainbow coalition that put the clear progressive parliamentary majority in government. Even before negotiations had really begun Labour threw in the towel. Backbencher after backbencher appearing live on the BBC to denounce staying in office, before slinking away to the opposition benches - taking with them any right the party retained to claim they were the red brick house that keeps the Thatcherite wolf at bay.

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References:

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+ BBC's 'Miliband defends backing public sector pay freeze'; 15 January 2011.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Balls risks union anger in push to bolster Labour's economic credibility'; 13 January 2011.

+ James Meikle's 'Labour defends Miliband's cuts rally role and condemns "hooligan" minority'; 27 March 2011.

+ Ed Balls' 'Repeat the bank bonus tax'; in The Guardian's 'My plan B for the economy'; 27 July 2011.

+ BBC's 'Hughes says Lib Dems still want to scrap tuition fees'; 31 March 2011.

+ BBC's 'Liam Byrne regrets writing "flippant" Treasury note'; 30 May 2010.

+ Lord Browne's 'Securing a Sustainable future for higher education - An independent review of higher education funding & Student finance'; 12 October 2010.

Tories, Tariffs & European Trade

The latest coalition fracas occurred in December at the congress assembled to discuss ways to save the Euro. The 'veto' incident acted as a provocation, triggering the re-emergence of an old and deep-seated divide between the coalition partners.

Protectionism & Import Tariffs

In 1906, the UK saw the last of an endangered species of event - a Liberal Party gained a landslide majority. Campbell-Bannerman led a Liberal Party that included Asquith, Lloyd George and Churchill, to victory in an election that revolved around the issue of Tariffs.

It was a battle of free trade against protectionism - a debate over whether to tax imports in such a way as to make home based industry more competitive.

The Liberals' victory owed much to the fact that the Tories were split on the issue - thanks to Liberal Unionist leader & Tory ally Joe Chamberlain. Despite his barnstorming campaign, filled with slogans, attack posters and rallies, Chamberlain was defeated by the solidly delivered bland statistics of future Prime Minister HH Asquith (Marr, 2010).

The Situation at Present

Today the issue has risen again, due to a surge in the economic power of countries such as China and India - countries outside the scope of the employment laws of the European Union. Being on the outside allows these nations to undercut the production costs of those businesses within, due mostly to far lower pay, but also far less protections and insurance, for workers.

This is indeed a serious issue. In 2000 the Council of Europe gathered in Lisbon and agreed a mission statement, declaring that Europe must prepare for 'the transition to a competitive, dynamic and knowledge-based economy' - if its member states were to compete globally.

In the middle of this are the attempts to save the Euro. British Premier Mr Cameron & his negotiating team used a so-called 'veto' in order to gain assurances on protections for financial centres such as London - which considering that international finance is in peril and financial services make up a such a large part of British business, it was an acceptable negotiating position. However there have been accusation of blundering in the use of that negotiation position as a 'take it or leave it' proposition (Alexander, 2011), and suggestions that those tactics may have alienated the Deputy Premier & his Liberal Democrats (Tall, 2011).

This wedge created, Labour have been quick to try and capitalise; but shadow foreign secretary Mr Douglas Alexander's extended hand of alliance to Liberals is not so sure - Labour have plenty of their own internal debates about the wisdom of European integration (Stamp, 2011). This leaves us with the Tories against Europe, the Liberal Democrats for and Labour in the middle unable to decide which or why.

So what about our relationship with the European Union?

As one of the UK's biggest customer bases, it is of undeniable importance. The figure thrown around, that 3 million British jobs depend on European customers, reflects the extent to which the UK depends upon the common market.

And free trade is also undeniably good, enabling innovation and economic freedom, but only when it applies to all elements of the means of production. That means resources, goods, capital and labour. When an imbalance of power occurs, in the favour of capital as accused now or labour as it was accused in the 60s & 70s, it creates conditions ripe for exploitation.

A realistic look at  international politics shows the difficulties involved in pursuing such consistency on a global scale through the UN - and so protectionists will claim setting up barriers and intervening through import taxation, even reducing employee protections, as acts not only necessitated by the production-power of cheap labour nations like China, but a pragmatic solution.

Yet that comes across as a negative & defeatist policy.

Free trade - especially when coupled with positive liberty inducing labour laws - is an immensely positive force; the problems we encounter are the results of the inconsistency between the application of those laws across jurisdictions.

The Government Position

The government's actions have been split. The coordinated Tory driven policies - combining the eurosceptic favoured repatriation of social & employment laws and the 'veto' demands that protection of financial centres be ensured, with homefront clashes over pensions - suggest a treasury strategy designed to ease the burden on businesses by drastically rolling back employee protections.

A particular example are the proposals for virtually eliminating unfair dismissal, while increasing the window within which employees can be layed off without payouts (Landau & Snowden, 2011).

More positive were the proposals of the coalition's junior partner Liberal Democrats - a three part strategy for dealing with the 'irresponsible & unjustifiable' gap in pay between the lowest paid workers and the top executives (BBC, 2011). Yet once more this could be a situation where Mr Clegg gets to announce a positive policy, that is simply undermined later by a counter policy from the Tories.

In this case the increasing the power in the hands of employees on matters of executive pay or bonuses may matter very little if those employees are busy working two or three jobs - something that more & more people may need to do to make ends meet, if labour costs are forced down.

Conclusions

The reoccurance of this debate is unsurprising in the current climate. As former Italian Premier & President of the European Commission Romano Prodi (1975) described, protection can be very useful for dragging organisations, market sectors or even an entire economy upwards.

However, positive solutions are needed if  the hard earned reforms to the entire nation's welfare are to be defended  from surrender to the crisis of the day.

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References:
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+ Andrew Marr's 'The Making of Modern Britain'; Macmillan 2009.

+ Douglas Alexander's 'Labour will make a big, open offer to the Lib Dems on Europe'; in New Statesman; 12 December 2011.

+ Nicholas Watt & Helene Mulholland's 'David Cameron to face down Tory Eurosceptics over new EU treaty'; in The Guardian; 6 December 2011.

+ Stephen Tall's '"An inept negotiating strategy placed in the hands of an inexperienced prime minister" – behind the scenes of Cameron's "veto"'; in Liberal Democrat Voice; 13 December 2011.

+ Gavin Stamp's 'Tory MPs seeking Labour dialogue over "EU overhaul"'; on the BBC; 7 September 2011.

+ Philip Landau & Graham Snowdon's 'Employment law: what the changes could mean in the workplace'; in The Guardian; 23 November 2011.

+ BBC's 'We will "get tough" on excessive boardroom pay - Clegg'; 4 December 2011.

+ Romano Prodi's 'Italy'; in Raymond Vernon's 'Big business and the state: changing relations in Western Europe'; Harvard, 1975.

What's in store next season?

2011 was an action packed year. In Roman tradition, thanks to the God Janus, January is the time to take stock of the previous year. So in the coming weeks, we will be looking back at some of the political happenings of 2011 - and how these events sit in ongoing political narratives.

We will look at Conservative European policy - where the struggles between the coalition partners have caused strains at home.

We will look at green politics, a particular battleground for the Liberal Democrats & Tories - assessing how the Green Party in the UK has faired in its first full year of parliamentary representation.

And we will look at Labour in opposition - what the party's approach has accomplished and where it goes next.

Further down the road we will look into the role of semantics in politics - from the importance of being careful with words & meanings to what happens when those meanings shift over time.

Looking forward, in 2012 the UK is going to see the resolutions of several sagas, not least the ongoing investigations into newspaper reporting practices. The matters weighing heaviest will be the efforts to overcome the financial crisis - a matter bound together with the debate about who or what caused it and how to respond.

It will be of particular interest to see whether the latest Liberal Democrat policy proposal in this area will come to fruition. The Lib Dems have so far struggled to make their few policy successes capture the public imagination. But the success of proposals to give shareholders & workers more say over executive pay could improve their standing (Sparrow, 2011).

They will be aligned, at least temporarily, with the protests against global capitalism - that will have to move into a new phase in the new year - due to the clamp downs across the US and a lack of media time as the cycle of press coverage moves on.

In all it looks like 2012 will be the sequel to 2011, where the ongoing narratives will finally be tied off.

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References:
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+ Andrew Sparrow's 'Nick Clegg vows to get tough on excessive executive pay'; in The Guardian; 4 December 2011.