Dear All,
Just a note to say that, to mark the 3rd Birthday of my website, there are currently some major changes happening.
They will be ready as soon as the company that I hired to do them has done them. I don’t know when that will be.
So remember, there will be blogs. I’ve had a lot I need to write about recently too.
I started blogging officially on August 20, 2007, just a few weeks before I went to university. Now, just a few weeks before I enter my fourth and final year at the University of Bath, I’m pleased to say my site has come the distance with me.
My blog header is a photograph of the Assemblée Nationale ; the French Parliament.
Of course, the current incarnation of the site has not been the only one:
Like all rookies, I started out on Blogspot before moving to wordpress.com. Back then it was mainly a collection of articles I’d written in the print press.
After the site had a couple of breakthroughs (notably the ‘controversial’ review of the Sabb Election campaigns) I decided that for my 20th birthday it was time to “go it alone,” where I bought my first .co.uk domain and some hosting. Then, from scratch, I taught myself how to put everything together, and since then it has been my most marketable skill. The site then became too popular and the hosting company charged me extra.
That’s the technical side of things, but as you look back through the articles I hope there has been a marked improvement. You can also probably chart my politicisation.
So, what ideas do I have for Year Four? Well first of all I’m considering moving to hadleighroberts.com! Next, I think I’m going to devote more space to French politics, as there are hundreds of other blogs about British politics that are more widely read than mine.
I’d appreciate your comments on this post, as ever with any kind of feedback you can give.
Georges Frêche, the President of the Agglomeration* of Montpellier and President of the Languedoc-Roussillon Region, is well known for his “controversial” moments in the spotlight. After expulsion from the Parti Socialiste in 2007, having observed an “elevated proportion” of black players in the national football team, he insulted a (Jewish) socialist leader Laurent Fabius saying “I’d have to think twice before voting for him, he has an un-catholic face.”
Now, he’s revealed a new project for Montpellier, a series of statues from around the town of historical figures.
Georges Frêche and Vladimir Lenin
The bronze statues of 3.3 metres weighing between 850kg and a tonne include Jean Jaurès (the French left winger who founded l’Humanité newspaper), Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Franklin Roosevelt and Lenin. They will be officially inaugurated in mid-September.
Ten statues have been commissioned in total. Gandhi, Golda Meir, Gamal Nasser, Mao and Mandela should be ready at the end of 2011.
Despite the obvious criticisms to some of the more politically sensitive choices, the opposition in Montpellier has criticised mainly the cost of the operation, estimated at 200,000 euros a piece). The Greens have even threatened to unbolt the statues.
My personal PS contacts have additionally informed me that Frêche also ordered a statue of Stalin… the sculptor refused.
*The “Agglomeration” is a sort of political body for an urban community.
Some of my friends want to become journalists but I can’t think of a more depressing, meaningless and soul-crushing profession. Bear in mind that I work in politics.
A lot of the journalistic types go into the profession hoping to pose though questions, expose stories and fight corruption but before they know it, they’re speculating about whether Jordan is getting divorced from some bloke.
So here is a gripping illustration of journalism:
Before:
After:
Having finally finished my essay on the challenges (and their solutions) facing the Parti Socialiste, and therefore the definitive end to my Year Abroad, I’ve decided to take a break from the internets; blogging, twitter and even Facebook. (Sorry Rolfo, no more propaganda!)
I’ll still be checking my email accounts regularly though.
I’m going to try and keep away from social media for until about September 1st, with perhaps some slight blogging if something important comes up.
In the mean time, I’d just like to recommend to you some of the blogs I read:
Ed Balls, one of the Labour Leadership contenders, has published an article on his website (here) in which he talks about a few traps the Labour Party should avoid. A week is a long time in politics, apparently long enough to forget my Countering the Coalition series.
Obviously, I’m not claiming to have a monopoly on ideas, but see if you can spot the difference.
This is without doubt a new era in politics. The end of a Labour decade, the Liberals are back in government, and of course the start of a coalition.
The Education Secretary’s disastrous mishandling over the Building Schools for the Future program posed the question of how long the government’s honeymoon will last and there are multiple factors worth considering in response. The fact that this is a coalition opposed to a single party gives the coalition a certain novelty aspect, particularly so as it follows 13 years where Labour has had extremely large majorities, meaning that the public will be more inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.
However, the conditions that prolong the government’s honeymoon like the ‘time for a change’ feeling are likely to dissipate very quickly. As cuts begin to impact on frontline public services people will inevitably become less sympathetic, in addition to this we have had a few minor political scandals with David Laws and Chris Hunhe, and now a larger competence-based scandal surrounding Michael Gove, which will accumulate and test the public’s patience.
Labour has to act in two stages, the immediate term and then a deeper approach. The timing of this falls along two parallels, primarily with the duration of the government’s honeymoon period and secondarily the long process of the Labour Leadership election.
The Tory strategy is almost crass in its execution; Labour left us in this mess, but we are clearing it up. They gibber about the deficit and they panic over national debt, completely neglecting the economic recovery and, even more surprisingly, forgetting the massive global financial crisis that Labour had to deal with to stop the economy collapsing.
True or not, fair or not, their criticism has a bold simplicity. Our argument is more evolved than theirs which means it is more difficult to understand and therefore less popular. It operates under what I call the “Garden Shed Principle,” which is to say that normal people understand how their household finances work, and how to use bank overdrafts, and so it resonates when Cameron uses such an analogy. Nobody knows whether saving the banks is worth trillions and billions because nobody can really understand whether it is value for money. Yet the anger was so much more explosive during the expenses scandal because people know the price of a garden shed, and when an MP claims several thousand pounds for a duck house, they can see the injustice.
The solution is to disarm the government of the argument. The Tories are in the same mode as they were before the General Election in that they are trying to frame the debate around what happened in the past instead of policies for the future. We have to move the debate forward by “accepting and moving on.” Harriet Harman as acting leader is in the perfect position to act as a lightning rod and clear the ground ready for the new leader to make a fresh start without so much baggage left over from the credit crunch.
A strategy of Soft Opposition currently seems the most appropriate for Labour. My example to follow is how Zapatero conducted his party before becoming the President of the Spanish Government in 2004. His prescription was to be as calm and constructive as possible, even going so far as to offer pacts to the government of the time, which under Aznar was as equally dangerous as ours is now.
Zapatero was famous for this almost bipartisan style of opposition, for which the British public seem to have an appetite at present. Although some would suggest that the Socialist victory in Spain was as an indirect consequence of the Madrid bombings, the evidence showed a firm, slow but steady improvement for the PSOE in the polls. This is exactly the kind of foundation we need to lay over the next four years.
In contrast, the bland and non-confrontational style of Zapatero in opposition, which I must say suits perfectly all five Labour Leadership contenders, made his attacks against the government much stronger. Labour will look so much more competent and even statesmanlike than Cameron did when he was constantly on the offensive like the noise of WWI artillery.
To conclude this series, I hope that I have demonstrated some of the key features of the new government and set out a plan for Labour to proceed in opposition. The coalition showed that the Tories could not win a majority by themselves even in such favourable conditions. Labour needs to use this to our advantage in order to shrink both the Tories and the Lib Dems into a co-dependent state. The Tories lose their teeth and the Lib Dems lose their independence.
The coalition will survive for the duration of the Parliament; the conditions are right for it to last because we have seen just how willing the Lib Dems are to throw away their principles. The government is structurally sound because the Tories do not depend on the Lib Dems to be in power, but for the Lib Dems this is their only chance.
The fact that the coalition will go the distance is good for Labour as we can occupy a broader space on the centre-left. It is important to stick the other two parties together, which is why we are better off referring to John Major’s government and its divisions over the callous spending cuts of Thatcher.
In doing so, we must move away from the line that the Lib Dems betrayed their voters. If the voters feel betrayed, we cannot mock them if we want their support, this is why it is better to dismiss the Lib Dem leadership as useful idiots or even hostages in some cases, while we concentrate are arguments against a typical Tory government.
However, we do need to understand that the game we play with the Lib Dems has changed, or perhaps it would be better to say ‘exposed.’ This is why we have to resist the obvious temptation to mock their hypocrisy.
Finally, Labour needs to accept responsibility for its record in government and act accordingly. We have to show that the party is not bitter and can be constructive, but that we are always ready to right for those who need help. It is a case of picking battles carefully.
The coalition does not represent New Politics, but as the Labour Party it is our duty to come up with new ideas.
In the days following the General Election, the Liberal Democrat Party changed drastically. In Part Four, I looked at how Labour should treat the Lib Dems in a temporary coalition, now in Part five I intend to look at the party in the longer term.
In a Politics Show debate between the three prospective chancellors, Andrew Neil asked a flailing Vince Cable “Isn’t the greatest myth of this election your reputation?” In some respects, he was right, because when the Liberal Democrats joined the Tories in government several myths surrounding the party were proven and others were dispelled.
It has now proven beyond doubt that the party is a broad grouping of people from across the political spectrum, or a rag-tag mob of unprincipled opportunists, depending on your register. Clearly, however, it can no longer be suggested that the Lib Dems are somehow more to the Left than the Labour Party because with the exception of a few collaborators like Frank Field a Lab-Con pact is unthinkable let alone a full-blown grand coalition like in Germany.
Gone too is the myth that the Liberal Democrats are “equidistant” between Labour and the Tories as Paddy Ashdown had hoped. They best they can hope for now is to be known as watered down Tories, but considering that they are making up the numbers in a Tory government (as I set out in Part Four) this will be unlikely to comfort Labour tactical voters or anyone who voted Lib Dem to stop the Tory candidate.
Most importantly, we can no longer say that it doesn’t matter whether you vote for them or not because “they’ll never get in.” We now know that they can get ‘in’ and after all the interfering in the electoral system, it is quite possible that a permanent feature of government will have the Lib Dems ‘in’. Fortunately, though, it is still true that whether you vote for them or not, their policies will never be implemented, just those of the party with which they side.
This presents an extraordinary opportunity for Labour. As the one and only party of opposition (ignoring ‘others’) we can legitimately and effectively steal what made the Lib Dems unique as a party, which is to take away the catchphrase of “the other two parties.” Throughout the debates, Nick Clegg tried continuously to emphasise or create similarities between Labour and the Conservatives. With the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives together, both of which will be, defending their identical record in government (taking credit themselves for successes and blaming the other party for failures) the work is already done for us.
The Lib Dems threw away their independence as the third party; they are no longer a protest vote and can no longer claim to be an alternative, real or otherwise. It is now clearer than ever that it is up to Labour to resist the damaging austerity of the new conservatives, and the ones Cameron is leading as well.
The idea of the Lib Dems as an alternative to the Tories as a kind of Labour substitute is an important one. It leads me to explain in more detail a point I made briefly in part Four, which is to examine the case of the MoDem in France.
The MoDem is almost identical to the Lib Dems, from its orange/yellow colours, to its centrist rhetoric to its composition of left and right factions. It also provides an interesting precedent for what might happen to the Lib Dems in Britain from which we may draw some conclusions.
In the Presidential elections in 2007, the MoDem leader Francois Bayrou won a surprisingly large 18% of the vote. This gave the party a certain element of confidence before the local elections in 2008, at which he tried to assert his party’s independence as the ‘third force’ in French politics. The strategy was to refuse ‘bipolarisation’ and make deals on a case-by-case basis. Depending on local factors, the MoDem decided either to go it alone, campaign alongside the Socialists or campaign alongside the conservatives. Consider the difference between what Lib Dems say and do in the North with the words and actions of Lib Dems in the South.
The strategy was confusing and opportunist, and showed just how little independence it really had as a third party, provoking internal dissent (notably in Lyon, a large socialist city) and their vote fell considerably.
The decline continued in the European Union Parliamentary elections in 2009, where the MoDem vote dipped from 12% to 8%, and it officially lost its ‘third force’ status to the Greens. There were two main criticisms that explained such a failure. The first was the MoDem’s lack of an ideological spine; the second was that the campaign focused itself too much on the personality of its leader. The parallels for Britain should be evident. Finally, in the Regional Elections in March 2010, the MoDem secured its worst score ever of 4.2% leaving the movement essentially moribund.
The MoDem lost because they failed to win credibility. The question we have to pose is whether the act of being in government makes the Lib Dems more credible, to which I would say no. Though they have a little bit of experience for a handful of ministers, they have lost or thrown away everything the party had tried to establish since the 1980s. They abandoned their position on Tuition Fees, they abandoned their position on cuts and it can only be a matter of time before the voters abandon them.
If Labour lost its soul during its period in office, the Lib Dems have sold theirs for a few ministerial cars (which Cameron then took away). Our job now is to make sure Labour remains credible in Opposition, which I shall discuss in my sixth and final article.
