Guest Blog: What the French election means for the Left

May 5, 2012 by 2 Comments

Jasper Cox

Image © The Prime Minister’s Office

If, as is expected, François Hollande wins La Présidentielle this weekend, it provides a boost for Ed Miliband and Labour party: a sign that perhaps the Left in Europe is, unlike the economy, on the road to recovery. In the United Kingdom, from the marginal Occupy movement to disgust over bankers’ bonuses, there is emerging subtle dislike of unregulated neoliberalism (even if most people don’t know what the term means). Meanwhile, Miliband leads in the polls, by perhaps 11%,  despite being unpopular personally with voters. However, there is a danger that the correlation between the French election and the state of British politics today is overstated.

Firstly, when faced with criticism over their handling of the economy, David Cameron and his government have been able use two simple excuses: our economy is heavily affected by the Eurozone crisis; and over-spending by Labour makes austerity necessary. Sarkozy cannot do this. Sarkozy came into power in 2007, before France’s GDP fell, before France lose its AAA rating and before public debt rose significantly. He has been a key figure in determining Eurozone policies. Going further back, he was an interior minister under the last government, and the Right has been in power since 1995. This means neither he nor the Right can be given ‘the benefit of the doubt’, and so he has a harder challenge defending his economic policy in the presidential election.

The gripes with Sarkozy are not (just) about austerity, whereas anger in the United Kingdom at the centre-right administration is directed at cuts and public sector reforms predominantly. Sarkozy has introduced some reforms to the state but has also indulged in anti-immigrant rhetoric (the link is but one example) and “Countless voters have told pollsters that Sarkozy’s personality and style turned them off”. As The Economist, which has generally been supportive of the UK coalition government, despairs:

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Why did the Labour Party indulge Ken?

May 4, 2012 by 4 Comments

Frederick Cowell

Image © Amplified2010

If you are a Labour party member and disappointed at Ken Livingstone’s second defeat, go to a mirror, look at yourself – you are looking at one of the people responsible for his defeat.  Now, this article comes out before the official result; the Sack Boris campaign and the get out the vote drives undertaken by many local Labour parties could have helped turn the tide. But it is unlikely. So go and look at yourself in a mirror. If you are Labour you should use this as an opportunity to learn how to find a credible winning candidate – but then if you were part of the delegation that booed the mere mention of Tony Blair’s name last year you are a lost cause.

 In the primary election to be mayor two thirds of all London Labour members voted for Livingston over Oona King. Deep structural reasons and problems that go to the heart of the Labour party explain why this happened. King started her primary campaign late in mid- May 2010 when all the political action was focusing on the novelty of coalition government, whereas Ken had been unofficially campaigning the day after he was ejected from office in 2008. The primary also fell in the middle of the most contested Labour leadership contest for 30 years. Blame acting Labour leader Harriet Harman for that one – it is difficult to accept that someone of her political experience could not have foreseen that this would effectively make it a one horse race. King also had voted for the Iraq war in 2003 although, like many other Labour MPs, it was a decision she thought was wrong in hindsight and may have been less pertinent had she not lost her seat to George Galloway in the 2005 General Election. This gave a sense of permanence to her pro-war vote back in March 2003 so much so that seven years later it stuck with her as she tried to reach party members in the mayoral primary. Blame Tony Blair for that one – Blairites who bemoan the current state of the Labour party often have an attack of amnesia about the toxicity of the Iraq war and don’t seem to understand how much harm it did to an entire generation of centrist Labour MP’s. For example it did David Miliband’s leadership campaign no favours when he penned an article effectively asking people to ‘get over the Iraq war’.

As even the Economist noted at the time King was a good choice; her background reflected London’s nature as modern dynamic city, her policies were centre leftish and she was unencumbered by Livingstone’s foot-in-mouth tendency. Yet canvassing in the primary some workers for King noticed that a large numbers of Labour party members seemed to have a rose-tinted view of the race; a Tory PM promising cuts was in Number 10, wasn’t it time to get Red Ken back in city hall so he could fight them just like he fought Thatcher? Except this wasn’t 1981 it was 2012, and Ken lost to Maggie the first time round and is set to lose to Boris second time around. This is the answer to Dan Hodges, a Labour journo who took pride at voting Boris, but did quite sensibly ask the question – why does the Labour party indulge Ken? The new leadership aren’t really to blame; Ed Miliband was lumbered with him and as consequence had to defend him.  Instead party members decided to ignore the fact that in spite of a very strong first term record as mayor there were several features about his last two years in office, in particular his proximity with extremists, and the 2008 campaign that made him basically unelectable. This was known in 2010 yet members backed him – if you did that in 2010 look in the mirror today; you are responsible for giving the Conservative party a boost nationally in what should have been their worst election in a decade.

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Beware: Anti-politics

May 2, 2012 by Leave a comment

Frederick Cowell

Image © John Kirriemuir

With two days to local elections and four days to the anniversary of an unloved event, anti-politics is everywhere. The surprise from-behind victory of George Galloway in Bradford west and UKIP’s sudden surge in the polls are both symptomatic of a rise in anti-politics. The local election result are likely to result in the expected drubbing for the governing parties but also a boost for anti-politics candidates and well placed sources have detailed Labour’s panic at the thought of by-elections later this year, in particular in Birmingham Snow Hill which they fear could be lost to another Respect insurgency.

Anti-politics is becoming a feature of UK politics – Matthew Flinders of the University of Sheffield has identified a complex tendency among the public to dislike all political parties and politicians. To an extent voters should be healthily sceptical of politics and for many years those who have cared about the environment have voted Green, those who have cared about the national identity of regions have voted SNP or Plaid Cymru and those who have cared about immigration and race have voted BNP. Both UKIP and Respect make a different appeal to voters in that they deliberately stoke and then feed off the anger of anti-politics.

The ascent of UKIP in the late 1990′s was triggered by rage at the Maastricht generation of Tories and their 2010 election slogan “sod the rest – vote UKIP”, whilst a little to naked for many voters taste’s, basically described their electoral strategy for the previous decade. On the Left, the Iraq war provided the catalyst for the Respect Party to absorb those alienated by New Labour. To be clear, UKIP and Respect are single issue parties but the issues that both parties run on, Euroscepticism and anti-imperialism< are defined by the inability of the mainstream Left and Right blocs in British politics to fully absorb these issues. Both parties also mercilessly attack government as the great diluter of principles to create a betrayal narrative out of every decision that governments make, whether they be foolhardy (invading Iraq) or pragmatic (not pulling out of the EU).  This can poison political debates during local and city elections as the supposed betrayal of the former supporters of Labour and the Tories drowns out other concerns and scrutiny of local issues. Previously the Lib Dems benefited from this but after entry into government they are no longer able to take advantage of this phenomenon. A key part of the upsurge in both UKIP’s and Respect’s support in the last year is that they, like many other anti-politics parties across Europe, offer a rhetorically appealing account of how to fix the economic woes currently facing western economies. As appealing as these messages may be many of them are ultimately unworkable, socially divisive or both, but the fury many voters feel as living standards fall generates a lucrative gig for the Nigel Farages and George Galloways of this world.

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France’s General Election: Whoever wins, it won’t be for the right reasons.

April 29, 2012 by Leave a comment

Daniel Crump 

Image © Nicolas SAL1

For a time, it appeared as though someone was benefitting from the 2008 financial crisis. A perception that the political left cannot be trusted in times of recession meant that voters across Europe unseated left of centre governments in favour of the centre right. Put simply, it appeared as though the advocates of small government and austerity had won themselves at least a decade of uncontested control.

A mere two years later, it has become clear that this picture was never going to be as simple as it once appeared. Most opinion polls in Britain place the opposition Labour Party ahead of the ruling coalition. In Spain, strikes are as common as siestas, due to a widely unpopular €27 Billion austerity package. In the Netherlands, a major cheerleader of Merkel’s austerity drive, the government has lost majority support in parliament due to disagreement about budget cuts.

In further contrast, it is almost certain that the centre right will be the ones who are defeated in the second round of the French Presidential election a week today, in favour of a self professed socialist. If Mr Hollande does what many are expecting him to do and unseats Sarzoky, he will be bringing with him a radically different set of policies from ones we have come to expect in times of economic stagnation. He has promised a 75% top rate of income tax, a reversal of Sarkozy’s rise in the retirement age and a separation of retail and investment banking to curb France’s dependency on the financial sector.

To make matters a little more complicated, the perception of economic credibility does not appear to be translating into overall public support. The unpopular British Conservative party continues to lead Labour on questions about economic competency. They score 44% in opinion polls as opposed to Labour’s 31%. A similar picture is found in France where the otherwise trailing incumbent leads Hollande by 14% in terms of ability to make difficult economic decisions.

The French election gives some insight into why such a confused picture has blanketed Western Europe. Several economic commentators, including the Economist, have been arguing for some time that the Presidential contenders were all doing a brilliant job of avoiding the existential problem that France is facing. France’s public spending accounts for 65% of GDP as opposed to an OECD average of 43%. Public debt is slowly reaching 90% and could conceivably reach 100% by next year. Once one takes into account France’s lack of competitiveness, in terms of exports, social charges and youth unemployment, it becomes utterly baffling that perceived economic competency is not translating into votes for France’s centre right President. Instead, they prefer to see a reversal of Sarkozy’s modest economic reforms and yet more public spending, paid for by taxing 75% of the earnings of the wealthiest few.

Put bluntly, Europe’s politicians are failing to convince their electorate of the long term necessities for economic reform. Their chosen economic philosophy, which they presumably believe in wholeheartedly, is failing to persuade citizens. As a result, far too many European elections are becoming either referendums on personality or unnecessary, unhealthy and divisive squabbles over class or race.  Read more of this post

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Are you with U.S or against US?

April 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

Daniel Crump 

Image © eltiempo.com

Some may view the behaviour of the US secret service agents this week in Colombia as a further sign of the growing discontent between the US and the rest of Latin America. The sheer audacity of these professional individuals, tasked with securing the safety of President Obama, carries with it an ugly reminder of the disrespect that characterised US attitudes towards Latin Americans in a period of time thought to be long resigned to history.

A recurring theme at this year’s Organisation of American States (OAS) was the ever- growing divide between North and South America, ranging from issues such as the British claim over the Falkland Islands, to the de-criminalisation of the drugs trade. This is in line with the economic dissociation that has seen the decline of US influence in the region and the gains made by China as a result. Chile and Peru, along with Brazil, the economic powerhouse of the continent, now have closer trading links with the Chinese than the US, with Colombia and Argentina likely to follow suit. Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank stated in a pre-summit report that ‘”Most countries of the region view the United States as less and less relevant to their needs and with declining capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern them.”

For instance, South American leaders argue that the legalisation of drugs would put a large dent in the profits made by the trade and help to reduce drug related violence that has crippled South American economies and deprived them of much needed foreign investment. Predictably, any hopes of US enthusiasm for the policy were soon dashed, but Obama did concede that the United States is the region’s biggest consumer of illegal drugs and has a responsibility to reduce demand.

Also, on the 30th anniversary of the conflict, Argentina’s request for a negotiation of the Falkland Island’s sovereignty from Britain was supported by a handful of leaders including Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro who said ‘there should be no colonial possessions in our America’. Again, the US opposed this sentiment.

Perhaps most significant of all was the debate surrounding the makeup of the organisation itself. Rather unsurprisingly, Cuba was ostracised from proceedings as it has been since the birth of the OAS. A more surprising development was the Bolivian President Eva Morales’s claim that this ought to be the last OAS summit without Cuba. Latin America is largely united in their opposition to the US trade embargo of Cuba, and the absence of Castro provoked Ecuador to boycott the summit altogether. Read more of this post

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How to ruin the Party

April 11, 2012 by 1 Comment

Daniel Mann

Image © Don Shall

It’s another slightly grey Monday here, and things seem as they always are. The city wakes up to a new day and a new week. As ever, Labour has control over the City Council, and down in Westminster, the ConDems are as muddling and incompetent as ever. To a certain extent, I think we in the Labour Party still don’t entirely understand why we’re in opposition, at least not from an internal perspective. But I’ll get to that in just a minute. First, let me introduce myself. I’m Dan, 21, BA in International Relations and currently an MSc student in Social Change at a certain North West redbrick university that’s a part of the Russell Group. It all sounds straightforward, right?

No, it isn’t. You see, I’m American by birth, but British by choice. I grew up in New York, but this is the second occasion that I’ve lived here in the UK. I wasn’t here for the 2010 election but, when I was living in London soon afterwards, I witnessed the numbness that we as a Party found ourselves in, having joined in mid-June of that year. But I digress. When I moved back ‘across the pond’, several months ago, I did the natural thing and plunged headfirst into local Party activities here, and I haven’t looked back. One such activity has been my involvement with my local Constituency Labour Party (CLP).

Quite recently, the CLP had its Annual General Meeting (AGM), which was, as ever, held in our Town Hall, an appealing Gothic edifice overlooking the city. As was expected, a great deal of members showed up, including quite a few whom I’d never seen at CLP meetings previous, all but one of which I’ve attended.

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A message to President Santos: If it ain’t broke…

April 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

Daniel Crump 

Image © The Christian Science Monitor

Despite high approval ratings, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was constitutionally barred from running for a third term in office in 2010, leading to his Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos being voted in off the back of a largely Pro-Uribe mood, nationwide. After an initial period of continuity, time seems to have polarized Colombia’s once popular political double act. A former Aide of Santos has even accused the President of camouflaging himself as an ‘Uribista’ to get himself elected and describes the last few months of the Presidency as a ‘great betrayal.’

It cannot be denied that Alvaro Uribe’s security drive, spread over his eight years in office, helped to transform Colombia from an almost failed state, riddled with civil war, drug cartels and regular kidnappings, into an international player experiencing huge economic prosperity. Uribe’s uncompromisingly tough stance towards the Left-wing FARC rebels paved the way for his pro-market economic policies and investor-friendly reforms, which helped reduce overall poverty in Colombia by 20% and unemployment by 25%. As a result, he has enjoyed approval ratings of between 70-80% making him the most popular Latin American leader of the 2000’s. The effects of Uribe’s tenure are still being felt today. The IMF forecasts Colombia’s GDP growth rate to be 4.5% for 2012, three times that of the US.

There are obvious differences, in both personality and political hue, between President Santos and his predecessor. The former, arguably less media friendly than the folksy former President has reversed a handful of Uribe’s measures, including the cancellation of tax breaks for companies designed to encourage investment and a move to de-criminalise the possession of personal amounts of recreational drugs. Santos is also one of many Latin American leaders leading the debate around de-criminalising the entire drugs trade in the region, a stance never adopted by Uribe.

Yet, it is in security that Santos’ reforms might touch closest to the nerves of many Colombians. The Presidency of the last six months can be described as an attempt to lay the groundwork for further peace talks with FARC. Santos has proposed the decreasing of prison terms for any FARC member who agrees to peace negotiations. He has also directed the Colombian army towards more mid-level attacks on guerrilla field units rather than directly attacking high level FARC commanders, a policy preferred by Uribe. A bill that aims to offer reparations to victims of violence at the hands of the Colombian security forces as well as the FARC has broken an eight year tacit agreement to frame Colombia’s troubles as a ‘terrorist threat’ rather than an ‘internal armed conflict.’  Read more of this post

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Guest Blog: The third of May will be a decisive day

April 6, 2012 by Leave a comment

Image

Image © Matt Hobbs

Tom Vine

The week did not begin well for the mayoral contest. After a debate on radio channel LBC, Boris distastefully called Ken Livingstone a “f***ing liar” after Livingstone accused him of using similar tax arrangements as have been causing much controversy over Livingstone’s candidacy. Livingstone was quoted afterwards saying he and Boris are in “exactly the same situation” concerning their earnings.

Yet, what is frightening about this whole situation is not the fact that these men are choosing to pay corporation tax on their earnings over income tax but that our current Mayor of London feels he has the right to call Livingstone, let alone anyone, a “f***ing liar.” What’s also coincidentally convenient for Boris is the way in which the contest has been transformed into criticising Livingstone over taxation on his earnings. Admittedly, I felt as though Livingstone had, in a way, betrayed the left. But as I began to doubt the security of my Ken Livingstone vote, I realised how puny this issue is compared to what really matters for Londoners: housing, crime levels and the amount it costs you to get to school or work each day.

These are the very issues the mayoral candidates (of which a full list can be found here) have been debating for the past few weeks in an attempt to win our votes. These are issues which effect us Londoners directly. Knowledge of Ken and Boris’ tax arrangements isn’t going to reduce my tube or bus fares, so why should I care?

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Why I’ve joined Liberal Left

March 15, 2012 by 3 Comments

Mathew Hulbert

Image © Brett Patterson

This week, I’ve joined Liberal Left.

I’ve done so, having first expressed considerable reservations about the group when it first formed a few weeks ago, even going so far as to set them out in a lengthy blog post for Lib Dem Voice.

So, why the volte face?

Well, for a number of reasons which I want to set out here.

Before I do that, however, let me address a couple of questions which were immediately posed to me when I announced my joining of Liberal Left on Twitter.

Do I still support the Coalition Government?

I’ll be honest with you, this is a tricky one.

I supported its formation and have defended it ever since, but there’s no denying that, as time has gone on, I’ve become more and more disillusioned with the direction of travel.

I guess the best way I can describe my current position is as follows: I support Liberal Democrats in Government making and taking decisions that are in accordance with our stated values and policies as a Party.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me, however, to hear that I hate us being in Coalition with the Conservatives and I also feel greatly saddened when it appears that our Ministers have capitulated to the Tory agenda, as – I’d argue – they’re doing by supporting the Health and Social Care Bill currently going through Parliament (though I still hold out a hope that it will, even at the eleventh hour, be stopped.)

Do I want to see the Coalition Government end before 2015?

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This Game Really Does Have New Rules

March 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

John Paul Shammas 

Image © Mamamia

In the voice-over introducing his video “Kony 2012,” narrator Jason Russell tells a worldwide audience, “The game has new rules”, and he’s right.

There was a brief lull around campuses and student bars this week when students had momentarily halted from watching a baby monkey ride a pig on Youtube. Instead, their internet activities had moved on to something else, and the conversation had moved towards the infrequently visited topic of African warlords. The Youtube phenomenon Kony 2012 is a short campaign film by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous. Not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent that through social media, we can mobilise our youth to influence our political discourse in order to bring bad guys around the world to justice. Sounds great, right?

The truth is that social media is an incredible mechanism for connecting ideas, including bad ones. Helping people is a complex business, something this viral video doesn’t communicate. Consequently, campaigns such as this one have a distorting impact which encourages the conversation (and the money) in the wrong direction. For example, 69% of the money received by donations and Kony 2012 related purchases aren’t going towards helping anyone. Instead, it is going towards Invisible Children promotion campaigns which ultimately perpetuate a self-promoting cycle for the company to go and make more viral hits without investing the bulk of their profits into local communities and aid. This fact is made even more repulsive when the content of the video is a journey with a self-absorbed narrator who unashamedly indulges in hero-worship of himself, attempting to seem paternalistic, but coming across as simply neo-colonial and deceptively populist.

George Clooney features in the video briefly, calling for warlords and tyrants to be made as famous as he is. The sentiment here is basically calling for the many atrocities and injustices in the world to get increasing levels of exposure within the public domain, which is something we can all get on board with. The issue however, which is inherent throughout this Kony 2012 debacle is the misdirection of our discourse and the misdirection of our culture. We should be addressing why we value George Clooney as so essential and immediate to our consciousness, not calling on the media to equate his exposure with human rights violations – that’s a consumer choice issue of which the buck firmly stops with us, the consumer. Read more of this post

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