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Is Blue Labour the anti-thesis of New Labour?

by Chris Dillow    
July 3, 2011 at 5:18 pm

Although he never says so directly, Owen Jones’ Chavs shows us the economic base of Blue Labour.

Much of his book is a description of how economic change in the last 30 years – deindustrialisation and the rising power of capital – has destroyed the livings standards and communities of the old working class.

Of course, if your experience of change has been pretty uniformly of change for the worse, then you will come to value tradition, to favour the known over the unknown, and to be sceptical about such change. You will become small-c conservative.
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Will Ed Miliband’s looped interview hurt him? I doubt it

by Sunny Hundal    
July 2, 2011 at 10:30 am

Of all the things to complain about on recent events, I’m rather puzzled so much has been made about that interview by Ed Miliband where he responds to four questions with the same answer.

The rationale is simple, and I have little doubt his team mind the interview getting out there.

What does bother me however is the sanctimonious attitude of some broadcast journalists.
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Ed Miliband needs to be braver, by supporting the union strikes

by Sunny Hundal    
June 29, 2011 at 8:40 am

I was disappointed by Ed Miliband’s unwillingness to support the unions yesterday, in their fight to maintain pension schemes.

I’m sure the unions expected it, since they did not offer any criticism in response. But this is an electoral mistake for the Labour leader.

And it ignores the very analysis that he offered during the Labour leadership.
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Ed Miliband should get rid of Labour’s Clause I

by Paul Cotterill    
June 27, 2011 at 8:55 am

I am quite taken with Sunny’s recent notion that Ed Miliband need more ‘stunts’ to raise his profile:

Ed Milband says he hates stunts – he’s just not that kind. I agree. But the pendulum has swung too far the other way – he needs to avoid looking too invisible. And a flurry of speeches alone won’t do the job – he needs symbolism.

Miliband seems to be trying precisely that with his Shadow Cabinet election-removal controversy thing, but that just makes him seem inward-looking; no-one beyond the Westminster Village really cares. So here’s something else to rival Blair’s Clause IV moment. It’s Miliband’s Clause I moment.
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Refounding Labour: how the party needs to change

by Rowenna Davis    
June 25, 2011 at 10:21 am

Labour councillor Rowenna Davis was one of those who submitted her suggestions to the ‘Re-founding Labour’ iniative. Here, she outlines how she thinks the party needs to change.

The first thing we need is more diversity – and I say that as a white middle class councillor in the heart of Peckham.

Labour has always been able to celebrate the fact that it has a more diverse membership and elected representative base than any other mainstream party, but it needs to do more to engage a wider range of people into politics.
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A radical proposal for Ed Miliband on shadow cabinet elections

by Guest    
June 24, 2011 at 3:40 pm

contribution by Mark Thompson

I’m not altogether surprised Ed Miliband has decided he wants to abolish shadow cabinet elections. Perhaps what is more surprising is that Tony Blair allowed them to remain. But to be fair, he only had to put up with them for less than 3 years and once Labour was in government .

It is in some ways understandable that the new leader wants to stamp his mark of authority on the party and he may well feel frustrated that his hands are tied at the moment in terms of who he has to appoint to the shadow cabinet.

But that is where the big problem with what he is proposing lies.
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Ed Balls’ speech: Will Osborne the Ostrich fly?

by Ellie Cumbo    
June 16, 2011 at 5:00 pm

It was a speech about risk that took several risks of its own.

Ed Balls opened his first major speech since becoming Shadow Chancellor in January not by attacking the Osborne plan, or presenting his alternative, but by revisiting the events that led to Black Wednesday nearly twenty years ago.

He went on to accuse the Chancellor of putting short-term political interests (such as a possible pre-election income tax cut) before the long-term health of the economy, and then proposed an emergency reverse to the VAT rise that could potentially lay him open to the same charge.
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How Liam Byrne could help save his career through welfare reform

by Don Paskini    
June 14, 2011 at 2:30 pm

Liam Byrne is currently one of Labour’s most important politicians. He combines his role in co-ordinating the party’s policy review with leading for Labour on Work and Pensions. His hobbies include “banging on” about immigration, deficit reduction and welfare reform.

But in fewer than eighteen months, his political career is almost certainly going to be over. Here’s why and how the principles of responsibility and reciprocity could help him save his job, while at the same time helping reform the welfare state for the better.
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The “bad thing” theory of opposition politics

by Adam Lent    
June 14, 2011 at 9:15 am

Anybody who has been involved in party politics at the national level will know that many, many hours are spent discussing the minutiae of political strategy, tactics and policy.

The very great part of this is probably generated by nothing more than nervous energy and has a negligible impact on votes.

The truth that few professional politicians and their advisers rarely admit, usually until they have been out of office for some years, is that there really are only three rules in the game of opposition party politics.
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Ed Miliband doesn’t need more speeches, he needs interventions

by Sunny Hundal    
June 13, 2011 at 1:14 pm

Ed Miliband’s response to the media-hyped “crisis” of the last week is somewhat worrying: he’s making speeches on policy. He is signalling a change in Labour’s approach to high executive pay and to people who abuse the benefits system today.

He will also makes pledges on delivering housing.

I don’t have anything against policy speeches per se, but they are not what Ed Miliband needs. What he needs are ‘interventions’. And the two are very different.
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Labour has an affordable housing problem, not an immigration one

by Éoin Clarke    
June 12, 2011 at 7:11 pm

Labour lost almost half its private renting voters between 1997 to 2010. The largest loss was at the last election dropping from 36% to 25%.

Bearing in mind that 18-35 are the ages people are most likely to rent privately, it should be no surprise that they were also the age categories who deserted in the largest numbers. In fact 46% of Labour’s lost voters where aged 34 or younger, too young to have voted in any General Election before 1997, thus they are first generation Labour voters.

We stopped attracting young private rental voters.
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Labour should take a stand on its principles

by Guest    
June 11, 2011 at 9:30 am

contribution by Ivo Petkovski

Earlier this week, Liam Byrne outlined the results of a new policy review to the Labour front bench.

While the results are fairly predictable, the recommendations Byrne is making should cause alarm to anyone hoping that Ed Miliband won’t follow the New Labour approach of trying to be all things to all people. As Don Paskini pointed out on LC, the views expressed in the review aren’t really aligned with New Labour policy or ideology.
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More on Tory plans to character assassinate Miliband as “odd Ed”

by Sunny Hundal    
June 8, 2011 at 11:00 am

I want to come back to Tim Montgomerie’s article in the Mail on Sunday where he reveals:

When Ed Miliband first became leader, Conservative HQ decided to paint Gordon Brown’s successor as Red Ed — a high-taxing, high-spending prisoner of the trade union movement. Research reveals that voters haven’t rejected this Red Ed label — but larger numbers have now decided that he’s Odd Ed.

The retort that ‘voters are saying this, not us, honest‘ is an old trick when doing character assassinations.
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Helpful advice for our critical friends at Labour Uncut

by Don Paskini    
June 7, 2011 at 2:51 pm

They rode into town on their white chargers, the men who would save the Labour Party in its hour of need. Armed with their new website, Labour Uncut, they planned to win the civil war which they knew was coming against the Left of the party, elect their man David Miliband as leader and restore the golden days of New Labour.

They aimed to be like Sir Galahad, knights in shining armour, and ended up like Don Quixote, tilting unsuccessfully at windmills.

So what went wrong?
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Apparently, Purnell and Blears are Blue Labour’s leaders

by Don Paskini    
June 6, 2011 at 2:20 pm

Lord Maurice Glasman has had another go at explaining Blue Labour, to an Italian audience.

His analysis and discussion of the problems facing the Italian Left are very interesting. But the bits of relevance to British politics are more troubling:
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Who should Labour’s next General Secretary be?

by Don Paskini    
June 2, 2011 at 3:40 pm

Labour is currently recruiting for a new General Secretary.

This is the person who will be responsible for employing staff; campaign and media strategies; running the Party’s organisational, constitutional and policy committees; organising the Party Conference; ensuring legal and constitutional propriety; preparing literature etc. A tough job, but a crucial one.

So, what are the key qualities which Labour should be looking for?
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The case for raising taxes

by Don Paskini    
May 31, 2011 at 1:19 pm

Rob Marchant, arguing that Labour should pledge to keep to Tory spending limits, made the good point that “a convincing counterargument… – that is, a case for raising taxes going into the next election – is yet to be put forward.”

Let’s have a go at doing so.

Firstly, I’m sure there are examples of the case for raising taxes which I haven’t seen. But just to consider two which have been suggested.
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Is the Labour shadow cabinet half-asleep?

by Sunny Hundal    
May 31, 2011 at 9:05 am

Not long after Ed Miliband took over as Labour leader, he started getting warnings: “Labour must not be a party of protest,” with reference to the growing student and UKuncut movements. He must choose “between protest and power” said some solemnly.

The very serious people nodded their heads vigorously. Of course no one was going to take Labour seriously if didn’t lay out a comprehensive plan for what it would offer voters in 2015. Why is an opposition party getting all oppositional anyway?

But it seems this idiocy is being taken seriously.
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Lessons on how to beat the Tories

by Guest    
May 26, 2011 at 8:40 am

contribution by Ben Singleton

From the way the media and unfortunately many people in the Labour Party itself are talking about the local elections, you’d think that such novel things as campaigning had nothing to do with election results.

“Labour did well in the north because the north is Labour and the south is Tory.” Or: “Labour did well against the Lib Dems because their national poll share collapsed but the Tory vote held up.” These comments look correct if you’re being remarkably lazy, like most of the media. But that is no basis for learning lessons about how to successfully gain the trust of the electorate and therefore win.
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Why Labour should continue demanding Ken Clarke’s resignation

by Sunny Hundal    
May 23, 2011 at 11:10 am

Harriet Harman has written an open letter in the Guardian today, criticising Ken Clarke again. On Saturday, Ed Miliband was asked about Clarke and once again he defended his call for the resignation.

Some media commentators have disagreed with this. Steve Richards on Thursday, Andrew Rawnsley yesterday and Jackie Ashley today. But Labour should carry on criticising Ken Clarke.
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