Susan Boyle, Wild Horses

My goodness there has been an awful lot of drivel written about Susan Boyle. Just listen to her new song, listen as though you did not know who was singing it. It is excellent - good luck to her.

The Tories and the police - trouble is brewing

Sir Hugh Orde is a police officer with a reputation for integrity, honesty and competence. When he makes a bold, uncompromising statement like the one he made on the Today programme earlier today you take notice. Sir Hugh, who is currently the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the BBC that his colleagues would resist Tory proposals for the reform of the police that would result in his senior colleagues being told how to protect the public by locally-elected leaders. Sir Hugh warned that in his view democracy would be undermined if there was even a "perception" of political influence over chief constables. He stated that "operation independence is absolutely critical," and that the perception that a local police service was under political influence would be a sad day for democracy.

When asked if he personally would quit if faced by the Conservatives' plans, he said: "I don't, sadly, have a police service anymore.

"But if I was a chief officer and was subject to direct political control, I absolutely would."

Is this really a fight the Tories want to pick? I doubt it is one they can win - nor should they.

Votes for 16 year olds

The voting age in Britain was last reduced nearly 40 years ago. Since then, there have been major changes in society's expectations of young people, and in young people's contribution to their local communities and wider society. Currently, 16 and 17 year-olds can work, pay taxes, join the armed forces and get married. They are often invited to set up school councils and youth councils, urged to take part in consultations, sit on local government and Ministerial boards, volunteer in their local community, keep out of trouble and work hard at school. Many will have caring responsibilities, a lot will have a job, some will be parents, and a minority will be leaving care or custody – but they cannot elect those who govern them.

A few years ago the Electoral Commission carried out a public consultation on the voting age which found that 72% of respondents were in favour lowering the voting age to 16. Interestingly the consultation attracted huge participation including 8,000 young people which suggests that when issues are made relevant to them, young people are more likely to vote and engage in matters of public importance. If the Government is to successfully deliver on its promise of helping to create more sustainable communities then it must ensure that all members of the community are fully engaged in the shaping and delivery of local services. Young people represent an important proportion of that agenda.I strongly believe that as a nation we must take the aspirations and desires of young voters much more seriously. Rather than young people being disinterested in politics (as opposed to voting), the more real danger is that we have become uninterested in them. We bolt on campaigns for young voters rather than build them into what we do. This needs to change, and we now have a once in a generation chance to make that change and listen to what young people are saying. We should dispense with old political assumptions and acknowledge that we are dealing with a different generation.

A first-time voter in a 2010 general election was leaving nursery school when Labour came to power in 1997. To them we seem like the establishment. I also believe that the divide between organised politics and young people is a symptom of a wider disenchantment. People who feel alienated have little trust in the institutions of our society. This adds to the wider sense of disaffection and makes it more difficult for our politics to work. Surely young people’s belief in politics could only be helped by them knowing that they had a direct influence in choosing who represents them. In Austria - where they recently lowered the voting age to 16 - in the last local and regional elections the turnout amongst 16 and 17 year olds was close to 75%.

The most effective means of achieving all of this is to lower the voting age to 16 and the sooner we do so the better.

At our best when at our boldest

At our best when at our boldest!

The clip below was played to this year's Labour conference prior to Gordon Brown's speech and will be Labour party political broadcast after Wednesday's Queen's speech.

Purnell is right and Wheatcroft wrong

Labour in government "contributed almost nothing new or imaginative to the pool of ideas with which men seek to illuminate human nature and its environment". You may be surprised to learn that these words were not written recently but were part of a 1954 New Statesman biographical piece about Clement Attlee and the 1945-1951 Labour government. Just imagine - contemporary Labour figures lambasting its own government for its lack of ambition and for it not being "socialist" enough. Over 50 years later and the New Statesman has Geoffrey Wheatcroft despairing at the 'moral and intellectual vacuity of the "New Labour agenda." In fairness, it is not simply the usual suspects who are lining up to trash what they see as 12 wasted years of Labour rule. Some ordinary, or what Alastair Campbell might describe as "bog-standard", Labour members and supporters have concerns that "we" haven't done enough, that "we" haven't been radical enough. The problem with this is that in truth most Labour members and supporters have opposing requirements. We want our party to be both passionately principled and sensibly pragmatic: to be a party that proudly honours its past while it shapes it and the nation's future; to champion the state while being part of the market; to tackle poverty but to also support aspiration.

In the same edition of the New Statesman James Purnell responds to Wheatcroft's piece by pointing out that when Labour took office in 1997, Britain was suffering from what Blair later described as a "progressive deficit". The constitution was failing, with Scotland and Wales denied proper government and hereditary privilege still the foundation of the House of Lords. Unlike many of our European neighbours, Britain lacked quality childcare and universal nursery provision or schools and hospitals with proper equipment and enough well-paid staff. In the years up to 1997, Britain was a country that had spent billions of pounds keeping able-bodied people idle because of boom and bust, where unemployment often exceeded three million, and where the absence of a national minimum wage condemned millions to poverty pay. Labour's mission over the past 12 years has been to address this progressive deficit. On the constitution, Britain has now developed as a modern pluralist democracy - devolution for Scotland and Wales, mayors for London and others cities, House of Lords reform, freedom of information and the Human Rights Act. For working people, Labour has now delivered progressive rights that many other countries took for granted - a minimum wage, four weeks paid holiday, better maternity and paternity rights, the basic right to join a trade union. For communities and families torn apart by crime, anti-social behaviour, racial intolerance and drugs, Labour has established major programmes of inner city regeneration, excellence in cities for schools, Sure Start, and additional investment in youth and sport facilities.

All of the modernisation has been for a purpose: to renew our public services and keep them faithful to the ethos and values of public service, while at the same time making them responsive to the individual needs of the people they serve. We needed to create a patient-centred NHS and a pupil-centred school system, moving beyond a monolithic NHS and a uniform secondary school system. We needed to do this in order to further extend opportunity and social justice.

Purnell is right to point out that all too many of the changes Labour has made these past 12 years - on the constitution, economic policy, the minimum wage and public services - are likely to last. The challenge for future Labour governments is to make even more of our progressive agenda irreversible; changes that cannot be rolled back by a future right wing Tory government that wants to dismantle most, if not all, of the things that have been achieved. If we fail to further reform public services then one day the Tory right will come back and demolish the very ethos on which they are built - with more charging, less investment, good services for the well-off and second-class services for the rest.

Wheatcroft is wrong and Purnell right. Britain is doing better in 2009 than it was in 1997. We are a more progressive country today than 12 years ago - our constitution, our economy, our public services are all in better shape. We have achieved much in the last 10 years - but much remains to be done.

David Cameron: Who are the “fruitcakes", "loonies" and "closet racists" now?

In an interview with LBC radio in 2006 David Cameron described the UK Independence party as "fruitcakes", "loonies" and "closet racists". Eric Pickles, the then deputy chairman of the Conservative party, backed Mr Cameron at the time, saying he had a "legitimate point" and UKIP had had "too easy a deal". Yet when compared to some of the Tories new allies in the European Parliament, UKIP looks positively mainstream and normal. Mr Cameron and his shadow Foreign Secretary (William Hague) have decided to partner themselves with some rather awful characters on Europe's far right. How, one might legitimately ask, would the Mr Cameron of 2006 have described the 'For Fatherland and Freedom' party in Latvia that has participated in an annual event commemorating the Latvian Waffen SS, the Lettish legion. How might the 2006 Cameron have defended any alliance with Mr Kaminski, a member of the far-right Polish Law and Justice Party, who was and is openly opposed to the apology by his countrymen in 2001 for the massacre of hundreds of Jews in Jedwabne in July 1941. So according to the Tories of 2009 UKIP are still a bunch of "fruitcakes" but those that argue that global warming is a lie, that homosexuality is a "pathology" and that Europe is becoming a "neo-totalitarian" regime are respected partners who will help them shape the Europe of the twenty-first century. Is this really what compassionate Conservatism is all about? As David Miliband has recently pointed out, the Conservatives refuse to disown people that in Britain they would almost certainly not want to be associated with.

David Cameron's avowed aim since being elected Tory leader has been to take his party back to the centre in every policy area with one major exception: Europe. In his four years as Conservative leader, Cameron has never attended a summit of national leaders of the old EPP, the biggest grouping in the parliament, which routinely brought together around half the heads of government in the EU - including Merkel and Sarkozy. Cameron claims that in establishing a new alliance in Europe he is defending UK sovereignty. In practice he is jeopardising any British influence on matters of international importance like climate change and financial regulation. Under the Tories Britain could well become a marginal player in the EU where irrelevance as a major player will almost certainly lead to irrelevance elsewhere in the world - particularly with the US, India and China.

I am confused David and William: just exactly who are the “fruitcakes", "loonies" and "closet racists now?

If I could speak at Labour's conference...

I am unable to be at conference (I find having to hold down a full-time job something of a hindrance in terms of being able to be as active politically as I would want). I have never spoken at annual conference and it may well be that I never will but if I were to speak this year this is what I would say:



Mike Ion
Wrekin CLP


Conference

When Labour took office in 1997, Britain was suffering from what Tony Blair later described as a ‘progressive deficit.’ Some twelve years on and Gordon Brown recognises that today’s Labour party needs to renew and rebuild if it is to avoid its own ‘progressive deficit.’ What Gordon recognises– unlike David Cameron and the Tories - is that ‘change for change’s sake’ is not enough. The forthcoming election will be one of ‘big choices’, one that will shape the future direction of our nation for the next 20-30 years. It is for this reason that we have to be bold as a movement; bold in our ambition and bold in our strategy for how we achieve it.

Most of us here today joined the Labour party to help change the world not to change the minutes of the previous meeting! In seeking further change for the future however we must not forget what lies in store if we fail and surrender that future to Cameron’s Tories. We must not forget that the public sector experienced massive, near-fatal under-investment during 18 years of Tory rule in the 1980s and 1990s. The return of a Tory government would inevitably see the return of a two-tier system in terms of public services with, for example, the ‘best’ schools being either private or in the most affluent areas and access to the best healthcare determined not by need but by wealth. Let us remember that under the Tories the highest crime areas were in the lowest-income neighbourhoods; and public transport was most deficient in serving the most deprived housing estates. In Cameron’s Britain the affluent and the well educated will be given the choice to buy their way out of failing or inadequate provision and universal services will be replaced by services for the poor which will inevitably result in poor services.

Yet still the real challenge to the continuation of the pursuit of a progressive political agenda comes not from a resurgent Tory party but from the defeatists, pessimists and cynics that exist within our own movement. If Labour is to secure an unprecedented fourth term then it must urgently set about renewing itself, its message and its organisation. A renewed party needs to reflect the aspirations of ordinary people but it also needs to be realistic about the challenges that lie ahead. Ambition, hope and aspiration are far more appealing than a constant reciting of the achievements of the past ten years - telling the electorate that things are much better than they were in 1997 is the political equivalent of living in the past.

So if a fourth term is to be achieved Labour must continue with its progressive reform package, stop fretting about the opinion polls and how often Gordon smiles and above all else it must not (as it has so often done in the past) end up defeating itself.

Thank you

scrap hospital car parking charges

More than half of cancer patients do not get free or discounted parking on hospital visits, contrary to government guidelines according to a poll carried out by Macmillan Cancer Support.

The founding principle of the NHS was that it would offer free-at-the-point-of-delivery healthcare. Surely this should apply whether you go to hospital as a patient, as a visitor or a member of staff. It's simply not fair to expect patients or visitors to have to pay when they come to hospital, when they may be suffering personal anxiety, stress or grief. For this reason I welcomed last year's announcement by the Scottish government (following on from a similar announcement by the Welsh Assembly earlier in the same year) to scrap car parking charges at the vast majority of its hospitals - 3 hospitals will be exempt because of PFI agreements and please don't get me started on that one!

It is hugely disappointing that the DoH does not believe it would be a "sensible use of limited resources" to subsidise car parking at hospitals in England. Really? The NHS ended this financial year with a £1.75 billion surplus, surely it would not be unreasonable to use a small amount of this total surplus to offset the £95 million that NHS Trusts took from car parking charges in 2006-2007?Government guidelines on car parking charges "strongly recommended" that NHS bodies introduce some kind of "season ticket" arrangement and allow free or reduced-price parking for patients with a long-term illness or those with serious conditions who require daily or regular treatment, and their prime visitors. The government has also suggested a weekly cap on parking charges at hospitals. One option that needs urgently to be looked at is the provision of free hospital parking and help with travel costs for all cancer patients. The other option is to scrap the charges in England completely.