In the cold light of day, it is clear that the Conservatives' election strategy worked. Their aim - which seemed hopelessly fanciful when said by David Cameron during the campaign - was to win around twenty seats; what was need to achieve a bare majority. In that simple aim, the Tories were even able to exceed their wilder expectations (given the polls), producing a - precariously-small - majority government.
The Tories are masters at winning elections, having been doing it on a regular basis since the 18th century. For this reason, to many people, they seem the "natural" government. The thirteen years of Labour government could be seen an aberration, only achieved by the Labour leadership under Blair by accepting many of the basic tenets of Thatcherism, the Conservatives' longest-serving leader of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the "post-war consensus", that saw the Tories move closer to the left than they have ever been, could be seen as the Conservative Party showing its chameleon-like ability to adapt to survive. Then, when the economic crises of the 1970s happened, the Tories under Thatcher seized on the opportunity to re-define and remake their party in its more traditional guise, and quickly shedding its support for the "consensus". Whether or not these facts are "fair" or "just" feels like a trivial point. The hard truth for those on the left is that, when it boils down to it, England is a "conservative" country in many ways.
This is a simplification, though. As we have seen, the election has shown us that the UK in 2015 is now more politically-fractured than ever before. The main point is that in spite of the fracturing of the political faultlines, the Tories still - in spite of everything - know how to keep their nose ahead of the rest to get over the finishing line first.
All part of the game
This author has talked before about the plethora of "dirty tricks" and negative campaigning used by the Tories in the 2015 election campaign. And the nakedly-cynical "divide and rule" strategy over the "threat" of the SNP - which even some Tory elders were warning of the dangers of - worked with clinical effectiveness at the end of the day. In the end, it was the Tories' sway over the "marginals" that ensured that Labour's result in England was no better than what they got in 2010, putting Labour's number of English MPs on the same level as what they got in 1992.
A BBC "Question Time" special on the day after the election provided some particularly insightful moments of analysis. Paddy Ashdown agreed wholeheartedly to the brutally-effective supposition put to the panel that the LibDems were punished for the mistakes of the Coalition, while the Tories were rewarded for its successes. As Alastair Campbell put it more bluntly, the Tories won because they were "ruthless bastards". Francis Maude, the Tories' member of the panel, kept quiet while these points were being made. His silence told its own story.
The LibDems, post-election, are - ironically - now having their biggest surge in membership in living memory. A wit might argue that this was many English voters now feeling guilty for realising that they had been savagely punishing the wrong party for the Coalition's errors. Certainly, Paddy Ashdown's indictment of how his party was punished for doing what it felt had been the right thing for the country was a very powerful point.
While the "divergence" of the two Coalition parties had been going on more at least a year prior to the election, it was Francis Maude - the Tory - who complained of the Coalition partners not "being fair" to the government. He should have known better, and Paddy Ashdown put his squarely right in his place. The Tories - and Cameron in particular - were shamelessly claiming credit for popular ideas (such as raising the income tax threshold) that were really LibDem policies that had never been in the Conservative 2010 manifesto.
But this is part of a trend with the Tories: to stab you in the back, and later harmlessly claim it was "part of the game" of politics.
This attitude is symptomatic of how people like David Cameron and George Osborne see politics not as a force for good, but as "sport". The two of them have made duplicitous, cynical and savage attacks on their opponents (and segments of society), but later on brush it off being "heat of the moment" stuff. A common accusation made against Cameron is that in spite of appearances, he never seems to take things very seriously. This feeds into a feeling that many of the Tories involved in politics still think they are playing by "boarding school rules"; certainly, the way that some of their MPs in parliament behave at times reinforces the view that Westminster is all "old school tie" and a callous "establishment" that treats democracy as an inconvenience to be tolerated
With this level of cynicism evident in the ranks of the Tories, it is no wonder that more and more people see the electoral system as a "fix". When things are constructed like this, how can they lose?
Showing posts with label Coalition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coalition. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
George Osborne's budget and the recovery: flying with your eyes closed
George Osborne's recent budget has been considered much more accomplished than his infamous "omnishambles" budget of 2012. Then again, that wasn't difficult to achieve.
There are two stand-out changes brought in: the "reforms" to the pension system, that allow someone to "buy back" their pension once they reach retirement; and the the expansion of the ISA system to allow people to save more of their money at a higher interest rate each year. Also, the "help-to-buy" scheme is being extended further. More on that point later.
On the first two points, what's clear is that from these stand-out changes, Osborne is marking out his political territory quite ruthlessly, aiming for the "strivers" on one hand, and those reaching the end of their working lives with the other. The first problem with this approach is that it looks too obviously political in its motivation (as was with the budget this time last year), and more importantly, demonstrates how Osborne's sense of priorities are all wrong.
Dealing with the wrong problem
As Andy Burnham wonderfully pointed out on BBC's "Question Time" about the budget recently, these changes make it appear that Osborne thinks that the main problem British people have is not being able to make the most of their savings. In reality, many people are simply struggling each month to manage paying the bills and not get into debt. Many others cannot manage without using their savings, and for still others, living with debt each month is now the norm. For these people, Osborne has no answer.
In other words, Osborne's budget looks like it benefits those who already have a decent sum of money stashed away, but are unable to make the best use of it financially. These stand-out measures simply help most those who are already earning well above the average national income. To remind ourselves, the average national income is around £25,000 pa. For many people on that salary, it is near-impossible to save any serious amounts of money to start thinking about making better use of ISAs or buying back their pensions. These are the daydreams of the comfortably middle-class; not the average family.
These changes simply demonstrate Osborne's out-of-touch view of Britain, thinking that they could seriously benefit most people. In reality, they can only truly benefit (and politically influence) people who already vote Conservative, or may consider voting Conservative. This is the clinical political calculation behind these changes that Osborne has no doubt thought about: how will they go down in the marginals?
Not dealing with the real problem
Meanwhile, Osborne has further extended the "help-to-buy" scheme, another partly political ploy. The effect this has had on the property market is there for all to see: an out-of-control property bubble that is economically separating London and the South-east from the rest of the country. I wrote about this same topic in the article I wrote this time last year about Osborne's budget then. Since then, as experts have predicted, the disparity has grown further.
The statistics speak for themselves, in the link in the "Telegraph" article. Economically, Britain is two countries, which are getting further apart economically under the current housing and credit policy of the government. In some ways, the current property bubble (calling a "housing boom" just seems deluded and completely missing the point) is even worse than that which ended with the financial crisis. For a start, current London housing prices are twenty percent higher than they were in 2007, before the market crashed. This is insane. There is no economic logic to this whatsoever, other than that it is being inflated by artificial (and extremely dangerous) factors. People in London are not twenty percent richer than they were in 2007; practically no-one in Britain is. The only explanation for this is reckless speculation, rich foreigners inflating the average price, and Osborne's "help-to-buy" scheme.
Osborne's "help-to-buy" scheme is economically more dangerous than anything Labour did because it is essentially state-sponsored property inflation. This is the worst form of "help" imaginable for many people, especially in the South-east of England, where the property market is already far overpriced. It simply gives a green light for the market to "factor in" the extra cash available to buyers.
No-one in government seems to have the intellectual capacity, or political courage, to do the only thing that can make the housing market sane again: build lots more houses, and therefore bring down the price of property down .
The evidence suggests that Osborne simply doesn't want to go down the road of a state-sponsored house-building programme for three reasons: first, the effects would be long-term, and so there would be little short-term political benefit; second, it gives an open goal to Labour to call him a hypocrite; and thirdly, it would be electorally suicidal on the opinions of those who live in the "marginals".
Because property has become ingrained into British psyche as the ultimate "must-have" asset (as opposed to Germany, where no such attitude exists), people would find it hard to understand that more houses are a good thing for the country; they would only care about the effect it has on the value of their "asset". This pervasive mentality has also been the result of thirty years of right-wing neo-liberalism.
Britain as a one-trick pony
Thirty years of Conservative economic orthodoxy had their effect on Labour, because although they made some modest improvements to social affairs, from an economic point of view, they simply followed on much of what the Conservatives had done before. While its undeniable that Labour spent too much money, the Conservative implication that "they're paying down the debt that Labour left" simply misses the main point. Why did the financial crisis happen?
The Conservatives seem keen to play up the idea that the "austerity" that Britain faces is because of Labour overspending. It isn't. The "austerity" we're facing is because the financial system (in Britain as well as around the world) collapsed because the banks got into massive debts dealing with money that didn't exist. The banks ignored the first rule of economics, because they thought they were smarter than the system. They weren't, and now that the British Labour government bailed out the banks' stupidity, the taxpayer is left paying the bill in the form of "austerity".
The real mistake that Labour made in power was that, in terms of economic policy, they were too similar to the Conservatives. Labour wanted to out-do the Conservatives in kissing-up to the financial sector while in power, feeding it full of financial steroids and turning a blind eye to their conduct in order to cover over the lack of serious investment in others sectors of the economy. In this sense, Blair and Brown in power simply followed much of Conservative financial and economic policy. This is the truth that the current Conservative government cannot be seen to admit.
After thirty years of neo-liberal economic policy, Britain is now so reliant on the London-centred financial sector, those in Westminster don't know how else to run the country.
Britain now has one of the highest household credit problems in the Western world, due to a combination of high cost of living, a "credit card culture", and the ease of getting credit from banks and people like "Wonga", even after the lessons of the financial crisis. The "recovery", as people in the know are aware, is a London-centred affair, dependent on a weakness for credit, which acts as a fuel on spending. Where does all this "money" come from?
Like many people spending in the high street, George Osborne doesn't seem to fully know where the "recovery" has come from. Like many others, he is flying with his eyes closed. He should look for the wall that may be fast approaching...
There are two stand-out changes brought in: the "reforms" to the pension system, that allow someone to "buy back" their pension once they reach retirement; and the the expansion of the ISA system to allow people to save more of their money at a higher interest rate each year. Also, the "help-to-buy" scheme is being extended further. More on that point later.
On the first two points, what's clear is that from these stand-out changes, Osborne is marking out his political territory quite ruthlessly, aiming for the "strivers" on one hand, and those reaching the end of their working lives with the other. The first problem with this approach is that it looks too obviously political in its motivation (as was with the budget this time last year), and more importantly, demonstrates how Osborne's sense of priorities are all wrong.
Dealing with the wrong problem
As Andy Burnham wonderfully pointed out on BBC's "Question Time" about the budget recently, these changes make it appear that Osborne thinks that the main problem British people have is not being able to make the most of their savings. In reality, many people are simply struggling each month to manage paying the bills and not get into debt. Many others cannot manage without using their savings, and for still others, living with debt each month is now the norm. For these people, Osborne has no answer.
In other words, Osborne's budget looks like it benefits those who already have a decent sum of money stashed away, but are unable to make the best use of it financially. These stand-out measures simply help most those who are already earning well above the average national income. To remind ourselves, the average national income is around £25,000 pa. For many people on that salary, it is near-impossible to save any serious amounts of money to start thinking about making better use of ISAs or buying back their pensions. These are the daydreams of the comfortably middle-class; not the average family.
These changes simply demonstrate Osborne's out-of-touch view of Britain, thinking that they could seriously benefit most people. In reality, they can only truly benefit (and politically influence) people who already vote Conservative, or may consider voting Conservative. This is the clinical political calculation behind these changes that Osborne has no doubt thought about: how will they go down in the marginals?
Not dealing with the real problem
Meanwhile, Osborne has further extended the "help-to-buy" scheme, another partly political ploy. The effect this has had on the property market is there for all to see: an out-of-control property bubble that is economically separating London and the South-east from the rest of the country. I wrote about this same topic in the article I wrote this time last year about Osborne's budget then. Since then, as experts have predicted, the disparity has grown further.
The statistics speak for themselves, in the link in the "Telegraph" article. Economically, Britain is two countries, which are getting further apart economically under the current housing and credit policy of the government. In some ways, the current property bubble (calling a "housing boom" just seems deluded and completely missing the point) is even worse than that which ended with the financial crisis. For a start, current London housing prices are twenty percent higher than they were in 2007, before the market crashed. This is insane. There is no economic logic to this whatsoever, other than that it is being inflated by artificial (and extremely dangerous) factors. People in London are not twenty percent richer than they were in 2007; practically no-one in Britain is. The only explanation for this is reckless speculation, rich foreigners inflating the average price, and Osborne's "help-to-buy" scheme.
Osborne's "help-to-buy" scheme is economically more dangerous than anything Labour did because it is essentially state-sponsored property inflation. This is the worst form of "help" imaginable for many people, especially in the South-east of England, where the property market is already far overpriced. It simply gives a green light for the market to "factor in" the extra cash available to buyers.
No-one in government seems to have the intellectual capacity, or political courage, to do the only thing that can make the housing market sane again: build lots more houses, and therefore bring down the price of property down .
The evidence suggests that Osborne simply doesn't want to go down the road of a state-sponsored house-building programme for three reasons: first, the effects would be long-term, and so there would be little short-term political benefit; second, it gives an open goal to Labour to call him a hypocrite; and thirdly, it would be electorally suicidal on the opinions of those who live in the "marginals".
Because property has become ingrained into British psyche as the ultimate "must-have" asset (as opposed to Germany, where no such attitude exists), people would find it hard to understand that more houses are a good thing for the country; they would only care about the effect it has on the value of their "asset". This pervasive mentality has also been the result of thirty years of right-wing neo-liberalism.
Britain as a one-trick pony
Thirty years of Conservative economic orthodoxy had their effect on Labour, because although they made some modest improvements to social affairs, from an economic point of view, they simply followed on much of what the Conservatives had done before. While its undeniable that Labour spent too much money, the Conservative implication that "they're paying down the debt that Labour left" simply misses the main point. Why did the financial crisis happen?
The Conservatives seem keen to play up the idea that the "austerity" that Britain faces is because of Labour overspending. It isn't. The "austerity" we're facing is because the financial system (in Britain as well as around the world) collapsed because the banks got into massive debts dealing with money that didn't exist. The banks ignored the first rule of economics, because they thought they were smarter than the system. They weren't, and now that the British Labour government bailed out the banks' stupidity, the taxpayer is left paying the bill in the form of "austerity".
The real mistake that Labour made in power was that, in terms of economic policy, they were too similar to the Conservatives. Labour wanted to out-do the Conservatives in kissing-up to the financial sector while in power, feeding it full of financial steroids and turning a blind eye to their conduct in order to cover over the lack of serious investment in others sectors of the economy. In this sense, Blair and Brown in power simply followed much of Conservative financial and economic policy. This is the truth that the current Conservative government cannot be seen to admit.
After thirty years of neo-liberal economic policy, Britain is now so reliant on the London-centred financial sector, those in Westminster don't know how else to run the country.
Britain now has one of the highest household credit problems in the Western world, due to a combination of high cost of living, a "credit card culture", and the ease of getting credit from banks and people like "Wonga", even after the lessons of the financial crisis. The "recovery", as people in the know are aware, is a London-centred affair, dependent on a weakness for credit, which acts as a fuel on spending. Where does all this "money" come from?
Like many people spending in the high street, George Osborne doesn't seem to fully know where the "recovery" has come from. Like many others, he is flying with his eyes closed. He should look for the wall that may be fast approaching...
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Zero-hours contracts and employee rights: Why the Coalition's dishonest austerity strategy is working
I wrote an article the other week about how a government's self-confidence can easily fool the electorate that its strategy is working, regardless of the facts.
An article by Owen Jones in "The Independent" reiterates the point I mentioned: that it's difficult for an opposition to have a coherent strategy when the government's strategy is about having a simple, dishonest and distracting message, and repeating it again and again. As Owen Jones says, the government's devastating and disorienting line against the opposition is:
"We’re clearing up Labour’s mess. Labour overspent and now we’re balancing the books. A national deficit is like a household budget. Welfare is out of control and lining the pockets of the skivers. The unemployed person or immigrant down the road is living off your hard-earned taxes. Labour is in the pocket of union barons".
This is politics at its most cynical and divisive, not to mention dishonest. The reality of the Coalition's strategy is very different, as Seamas Milne says here. Austerity Britain is really about:
"payday loans, food banks, the bedroom tax, G4S and... zero-hours contracts"
This is all part of the government's plan. The Conservatives' plan is nothing less than a revolution by stealth; to undo the social progress that was made through the "postwar consensus", and a final completion of the Thatcherite (Neo-liberal) economic vision. It is a vision of hell for many employees.
The systematic erosion of employee rights is part and parcel of that. Anecdotes about the reality of zero-hour contracts abound: about how it is creating a growing workforce of virtual slaves, on top of the culture of internships that has proliferated.
The Tories claim that unemployment is going down and that the economy is improving. Even if this claim was taken at face value, there is a very simple reason why that might be true: because employers are offering jobs at far worse conditions than before, and with the ever-increasing cost of living, the unemployed have little choice. This is especially true of young people. So employers are able to "create" four jobs on zero-hours contracts, for example, where one "real" job would have existed before. This is the basis of Britain's so-called "recovery". So companies are improving their books by creating a new type of working regime.
The article about zero-hours contracts also describes the type of working regime. It has been said that private companies operate like dictatorships; it is government regulation that forces them to abide by humane and fair working conditions, otherwise it is a matter of the employer's whim. With the Conservatives intent on throwing those "restrictive" regulations out of the window, it is clear that employees working on zero-hours contracts are working in companies that operate like miniature Fascist dictatorships: where an employee's hours from one week to the next depend on currying favour with the boss, and a wrong word can get your hours and pay reduced to zero (while still being "employed"), until you are back in the boss' good books. Employees therefore need to compete with each other to get the most hours, while the employer treats his employees like serfs.The employee's contract bans him from finding other part-time work elsewhere to boost his earnings, so the only option he has is unemployment (and then having to explain to the job centre why he voluntarily gave up work).
Lack of control is the key to fear. In "Austerity Britain", the rise of unpaid internships and the instability offered by zero-hours contracts are symbols of the government's attack on employees' rights. While the economy might be technically "improving", the figures say nothing about how the "recovery" is made possible: by destroying employees' rights. As always, when those at the top screw up, it's those at the bottom that take the hit. This is what can also be called "Corporate Socialism".
The financial crisis was seen by Neo-liberal supporters as a failure of government interference, rather than the true corruption of the market system created by globalisation, that gathers control in markets into huge cartels of multinationals, unaccountable to government. As this system creates a cartelisation of the world market on a macro level, it creates an incentive to make labour markets more and more flexible, and more and more uncertainty for employees. And creating uncertainty is the key to power.
The financial crisis therefore serves two useful purposes: as a way to instill fear and uncertainty (i.e. compliance) into the workforce; and as an opportunity to erode employee's rights.
The Neo-liberal model that the Coalition supports therefore has used the financial crisis as an opportunity to further extend the Neo-liberal "revolution". While the British economy may make some small recovery on paper, this hides the truth that the UK economy is massively weighted in favour of the financial and service sector in the South-east of England, as I've said before. The neo-liberal model is naturally weighted against all other parts of the country, as the various regional economies have never been able to fully adapt after the collapse of Empire fifty years ago. Parts of the north resemble parts of the former Soviet Union because some towns and cities (like in the USSR) specialised in one industry.
So while those responsible for the financial crisis - the corrupt financial institutions who created a credit time-bomb - remain unpunished, they pass the debt burden onto the taxpayer (via the government), who is then told that in this new regime, government cannot afford to do what it did before, and that employees must accept increasingly serf-like working conditions (that financially benefit those responsible for the financial crisis).
But this is ignored by many. As long as capitalism provides new forms of technology to pass the time between the destruction of their human rights, who cares?
An article by Owen Jones in "The Independent" reiterates the point I mentioned: that it's difficult for an opposition to have a coherent strategy when the government's strategy is about having a simple, dishonest and distracting message, and repeating it again and again. As Owen Jones says, the government's devastating and disorienting line against the opposition is:
"We’re clearing up Labour’s mess. Labour overspent and now we’re balancing the books. A national deficit is like a household budget. Welfare is out of control and lining the pockets of the skivers. The unemployed person or immigrant down the road is living off your hard-earned taxes. Labour is in the pocket of union barons".
This is politics at its most cynical and divisive, not to mention dishonest. The reality of the Coalition's strategy is very different, as Seamas Milne says here. Austerity Britain is really about:
"payday loans, food banks, the bedroom tax, G4S and... zero-hours contracts"
This is all part of the government's plan. The Conservatives' plan is nothing less than a revolution by stealth; to undo the social progress that was made through the "postwar consensus", and a final completion of the Thatcherite (Neo-liberal) economic vision. It is a vision of hell for many employees.
The systematic erosion of employee rights is part and parcel of that. Anecdotes about the reality of zero-hour contracts abound: about how it is creating a growing workforce of virtual slaves, on top of the culture of internships that has proliferated.
The Tories claim that unemployment is going down and that the economy is improving. Even if this claim was taken at face value, there is a very simple reason why that might be true: because employers are offering jobs at far worse conditions than before, and with the ever-increasing cost of living, the unemployed have little choice. This is especially true of young people. So employers are able to "create" four jobs on zero-hours contracts, for example, where one "real" job would have existed before. This is the basis of Britain's so-called "recovery". So companies are improving their books by creating a new type of working regime.
The article about zero-hours contracts also describes the type of working regime. It has been said that private companies operate like dictatorships; it is government regulation that forces them to abide by humane and fair working conditions, otherwise it is a matter of the employer's whim. With the Conservatives intent on throwing those "restrictive" regulations out of the window, it is clear that employees working on zero-hours contracts are working in companies that operate like miniature Fascist dictatorships: where an employee's hours from one week to the next depend on currying favour with the boss, and a wrong word can get your hours and pay reduced to zero (while still being "employed"), until you are back in the boss' good books. Employees therefore need to compete with each other to get the most hours, while the employer treats his employees like serfs.The employee's contract bans him from finding other part-time work elsewhere to boost his earnings, so the only option he has is unemployment (and then having to explain to the job centre why he voluntarily gave up work).
Lack of control is the key to fear. In "Austerity Britain", the rise of unpaid internships and the instability offered by zero-hours contracts are symbols of the government's attack on employees' rights. While the economy might be technically "improving", the figures say nothing about how the "recovery" is made possible: by destroying employees' rights. As always, when those at the top screw up, it's those at the bottom that take the hit. This is what can also be called "Corporate Socialism".
The financial crisis was seen by Neo-liberal supporters as a failure of government interference, rather than the true corruption of the market system created by globalisation, that gathers control in markets into huge cartels of multinationals, unaccountable to government. As this system creates a cartelisation of the world market on a macro level, it creates an incentive to make labour markets more and more flexible, and more and more uncertainty for employees. And creating uncertainty is the key to power.
The financial crisis therefore serves two useful purposes: as a way to instill fear and uncertainty (i.e. compliance) into the workforce; and as an opportunity to erode employee's rights.
The Neo-liberal model that the Coalition supports therefore has used the financial crisis as an opportunity to further extend the Neo-liberal "revolution". While the British economy may make some small recovery on paper, this hides the truth that the UK economy is massively weighted in favour of the financial and service sector in the South-east of England, as I've said before. The neo-liberal model is naturally weighted against all other parts of the country, as the various regional economies have never been able to fully adapt after the collapse of Empire fifty years ago. Parts of the north resemble parts of the former Soviet Union because some towns and cities (like in the USSR) specialised in one industry.
So while those responsible for the financial crisis - the corrupt financial institutions who created a credit time-bomb - remain unpunished, they pass the debt burden onto the taxpayer (via the government), who is then told that in this new regime, government cannot afford to do what it did before, and that employees must accept increasingly serf-like working conditions (that financially benefit those responsible for the financial crisis).
But this is ignored by many. As long as capitalism provides new forms of technology to pass the time between the destruction of their human rights, who cares?
Friday, May 4, 2012
Mid-term Blues or Long-term Denial?
It's the night after the day of the morning after the night before.
The 2012 local elections are done and dusted, and it's time to take stock. The basic story is this: Labour have regained pretty much all of the ground lost in the disastrous local elections during Gordon Brown's premiership, and are now back where they were during Tony Blair's tenure. The Conservatives have had their artificially-high water-mark of Brown's time brought back down to earth with a thump. And the LibDems just keep on reaching new lows of despair.
That's the broader picture, but there are many sub-plots. The turnout was low (as is often the case), but the local elections are a barometer of where Cameron's government, his party and his personality stand with the public after two years.
Baroness Warsi, the Tory chairperson, said (rashly, as it turned out) that Labour would be doing well if they won more than 700 council seats. In fact, they gained more than 800. It's true that Labour were starting from a low base, but what's also noticeable and significant is the breadth of their success: stealing councils from the LibDems in the north and midlands, and the same from the Tories in the midlands and south. These are exactly the places they need win councillors in to be in a good position for a national election.
In terms of the popular vote, Labour scored about seven percent higher than the Tories, 38% to the Conservatives 31%. Political experts point out that this not a significant advantage for an opposition be in mid-term: during Blair's tenure as PM, the Tories were often as far ahead, but failed to win the national election later, and the same was said of Kinnock against Thatcher in the eighties. That may be true, but they're also forgetting something important: the Conservatives are not in a majority government. Also, Blair and Thatcher presided over a boom; the Coalition is in a sustained period of economic stagnation.
In other words, this local election is taking place in a situation that hasn't existed in living memory. If the Conservatives are in government now, and their high watermark is as sharing government as a minority party, then Conservatism as a political force in the UK is effectively moribund.
This is not just "mid-term blues" for the Conservatives; it would be a long-term denial to think of themselves any more as the "natural party of government".
No-one in the UK seriously expects the economy to fully recover by 2015, except those fantasising in George Osborne's Treasury. As the vast majority of the cuts have yet to take place, the only way that the economy could possibly have a chance to recover in time for the next national election would be if the Coalition made a complete about-turn on its policy of cuts and adopted Labour's own economic strategy - investing in jobs and growth and having a more long-term deficit reduction plan. But that would be a political humiliation for the Cameron, and give even more ammunition to Labour, to add the the growing amount of political open goals from the government already.
So the local election results effectively give Labour a large advantage over the government for the future national election.
The Conservatives' position in government is complicated, first of all, because the local elections saw a rise in the vote of UKIP. In some cases, Labour gained councils from the Conservatives because disaffected Tory voters chose UKIP instead, therefore reducing the Conservative vote by a margin high enough to swing council seats the other way to Labour. This is a small-scale version of what is likely to happen in the French elections this weekend - far-right supporters abstaining instead of supporting Sarkozy in the run-off, giving the Socialist, Hollande, the presidency. In the aftermath of the local elections, Tory politicians are arguing that Cameron must be more supportive of traditional Conservative values and causes in order to re-capture the trust of those migrating ultra-Conservative voters.
But then there is a second problem: the personality of Boris Johnson, who narrowly retained the Conservative hold on the London mayoralty, while Conservatives around the country were being punished hard by Labour. Some Tories are saying that Cameron has to be more like Boris in style and thinking in order to win over the affections of the people. With Boris being effectively the second most powerful Tory in the country, and certainly with more popular support with his eligible voters than Cameron, it puts the Prime Minister in a further fix. Because Boris is something of a maverick (whose ideology seems as incoherent as some of his sentences), "learning lessons" from Boris is something Cameron would likely be reluctant to do. Nevertheless, some Tories would be calling more something to change from Cameron's way of doing business. But what?
Cameron's last (and potentially biggest) headache is his Coalition partners, the LibDems. Having lost, in two years of successive local elections, a vast number of council seats, the LibDem leadership in government would be pressed to make significant changes in their approach to Coalition - more independent of the Conservatives, and more obviously left-wing and progressive. This means that, like after last year's local elections, Cameron may feel obliged to cut the LibDems some slack over policy. But when looking at the two points already mentioned, we see the obvious problem.
With both the Conservatives and LibDems under pressure from their party base and MPs for respective "red meat" policies, there is now the serious danger of the Coalition being put under intense pressure in the coming weeks, months and years till the next election.
Nick Clegg seems the most likely of the two Coalition's party leaders to compromise, and support the government come what may. Clegg has now trapped himself in what looks like a self-defeating vicious circle: in spite of whatever damage is done to his party at the grass-roots, he feels obliged to see the Coalition through to the end, in the belief that voters will eventually give them the benefit of the doubt once the economy improves. But for the last eighteen months, that belief has looked more and more like a daydream. So he manages to stay as leader till 2015, his party will be hammered. If he pulls out of the Coalition early and forces an early election, his party is still likely to be hammered. If his party de-select him as their leader and their new leader pulls out of the Coalition early, the party may still be hammered. The LibDems are trapped in a burning building with no safe exits: they know it, and Cameron knows it.
If, however, Cameron repeats his compromises of last year for the benefit of the LibDems (though it seems politically more difficult now he's been punished at the polls), the murmurings within the Tories will increase. Already with a question over Cameron's judgement, more appeasement to the LibDems may well lead to a rebellion and a leadership challenge from a more right-wing candidate. The consequences of that on the Coalition are obvious.
So from now on, things are going to get even stickier within the Coalition, while Labour look on and reap the rewards. Politics is a funny old game. Two years ago, the Two Eds, Milliband and Balls were tarred with the brush of Brown, and were all punished at the polls. Their message on growth versus cuts was seen as discredited.
But now, with the experience of the Eurozone in the news every week, the arguments that the Conservatives made for cuts in 2010 look old hat. Brown and his disciples are vindicated. Their message hasn't changed; they are largely repeating Brown's response to the financial crisis - an Obama-style stimulus, inspired by FDR's strategy to tackle the Depression. In 2012, the man who "saved the world" in 2008 isn't looking quite so out-of-touch. Not compared to "arrogant posh boy" Dave Cameron.
Come back Gordon - all is forgiven!
The 2012 local elections are done and dusted, and it's time to take stock. The basic story is this: Labour have regained pretty much all of the ground lost in the disastrous local elections during Gordon Brown's premiership, and are now back where they were during Tony Blair's tenure. The Conservatives have had their artificially-high water-mark of Brown's time brought back down to earth with a thump. And the LibDems just keep on reaching new lows of despair.
That's the broader picture, but there are many sub-plots. The turnout was low (as is often the case), but the local elections are a barometer of where Cameron's government, his party and his personality stand with the public after two years.
Baroness Warsi, the Tory chairperson, said (rashly, as it turned out) that Labour would be doing well if they won more than 700 council seats. In fact, they gained more than 800. It's true that Labour were starting from a low base, but what's also noticeable and significant is the breadth of their success: stealing councils from the LibDems in the north and midlands, and the same from the Tories in the midlands and south. These are exactly the places they need win councillors in to be in a good position for a national election.
In terms of the popular vote, Labour scored about seven percent higher than the Tories, 38% to the Conservatives 31%. Political experts point out that this not a significant advantage for an opposition be in mid-term: during Blair's tenure as PM, the Tories were often as far ahead, but failed to win the national election later, and the same was said of Kinnock against Thatcher in the eighties. That may be true, but they're also forgetting something important: the Conservatives are not in a majority government. Also, Blair and Thatcher presided over a boom; the Coalition is in a sustained period of economic stagnation.
In other words, this local election is taking place in a situation that hasn't existed in living memory. If the Conservatives are in government now, and their high watermark is as sharing government as a minority party, then Conservatism as a political force in the UK is effectively moribund.
This is not just "mid-term blues" for the Conservatives; it would be a long-term denial to think of themselves any more as the "natural party of government".
No-one in the UK seriously expects the economy to fully recover by 2015, except those fantasising in George Osborne's Treasury. As the vast majority of the cuts have yet to take place, the only way that the economy could possibly have a chance to recover in time for the next national election would be if the Coalition made a complete about-turn on its policy of cuts and adopted Labour's own economic strategy - investing in jobs and growth and having a more long-term deficit reduction plan. But that would be a political humiliation for the Cameron, and give even more ammunition to Labour, to add the the growing amount of political open goals from the government already.
So the local election results effectively give Labour a large advantage over the government for the future national election.
The Conservatives' position in government is complicated, first of all, because the local elections saw a rise in the vote of UKIP. In some cases, Labour gained councils from the Conservatives because disaffected Tory voters chose UKIP instead, therefore reducing the Conservative vote by a margin high enough to swing council seats the other way to Labour. This is a small-scale version of what is likely to happen in the French elections this weekend - far-right supporters abstaining instead of supporting Sarkozy in the run-off, giving the Socialist, Hollande, the presidency. In the aftermath of the local elections, Tory politicians are arguing that Cameron must be more supportive of traditional Conservative values and causes in order to re-capture the trust of those migrating ultra-Conservative voters.
But then there is a second problem: the personality of Boris Johnson, who narrowly retained the Conservative hold on the London mayoralty, while Conservatives around the country were being punished hard by Labour. Some Tories are saying that Cameron has to be more like Boris in style and thinking in order to win over the affections of the people. With Boris being effectively the second most powerful Tory in the country, and certainly with more popular support with his eligible voters than Cameron, it puts the Prime Minister in a further fix. Because Boris is something of a maverick (whose ideology seems as incoherent as some of his sentences), "learning lessons" from Boris is something Cameron would likely be reluctant to do. Nevertheless, some Tories would be calling more something to change from Cameron's way of doing business. But what?
Cameron's last (and potentially biggest) headache is his Coalition partners, the LibDems. Having lost, in two years of successive local elections, a vast number of council seats, the LibDem leadership in government would be pressed to make significant changes in their approach to Coalition - more independent of the Conservatives, and more obviously left-wing and progressive. This means that, like after last year's local elections, Cameron may feel obliged to cut the LibDems some slack over policy. But when looking at the two points already mentioned, we see the obvious problem.
With both the Conservatives and LibDems under pressure from their party base and MPs for respective "red meat" policies, there is now the serious danger of the Coalition being put under intense pressure in the coming weeks, months and years till the next election.
Nick Clegg seems the most likely of the two Coalition's party leaders to compromise, and support the government come what may. Clegg has now trapped himself in what looks like a self-defeating vicious circle: in spite of whatever damage is done to his party at the grass-roots, he feels obliged to see the Coalition through to the end, in the belief that voters will eventually give them the benefit of the doubt once the economy improves. But for the last eighteen months, that belief has looked more and more like a daydream. So he manages to stay as leader till 2015, his party will be hammered. If he pulls out of the Coalition early and forces an early election, his party is still likely to be hammered. If his party de-select him as their leader and their new leader pulls out of the Coalition early, the party may still be hammered. The LibDems are trapped in a burning building with no safe exits: they know it, and Cameron knows it.
If, however, Cameron repeats his compromises of last year for the benefit of the LibDems (though it seems politically more difficult now he's been punished at the polls), the murmurings within the Tories will increase. Already with a question over Cameron's judgement, more appeasement to the LibDems may well lead to a rebellion and a leadership challenge from a more right-wing candidate. The consequences of that on the Coalition are obvious.
So from now on, things are going to get even stickier within the Coalition, while Labour look on and reap the rewards. Politics is a funny old game. Two years ago, the Two Eds, Milliband and Balls were tarred with the brush of Brown, and were all punished at the polls. Their message on growth versus cuts was seen as discredited.
But now, with the experience of the Eurozone in the news every week, the arguments that the Conservatives made for cuts in 2010 look old hat. Brown and his disciples are vindicated. Their message hasn't changed; they are largely repeating Brown's response to the financial crisis - an Obama-style stimulus, inspired by FDR's strategy to tackle the Depression. In 2012, the man who "saved the world" in 2008 isn't looking quite so out-of-touch. Not compared to "arrogant posh boy" Dave Cameron.
Come back Gordon - all is forgiven!
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