Why Labour must learn from 'Duffygate'

Mrs Duffy is no bigot. However what her comments yesterday to the Prime Minister show is that it's time to address the underlying reasons why many traditional Labour supporters sometimes take refuge in the language, attitudes and policies of the far right. The increase in levels of support for the BNP raises all sorts of questions about how progressive politics deals with the rise of the far right in Britain. In the past Gordon Brown has argued that we need to do whatever we can to tackle xenophobia and racial hatred from wherever it surfaces. Perhaps if his defence yesterday had been along these lines he may have been able to salvage something from what was, as he rightly stated, a ‘disaster.’

What Mrs Duffy wanted was for the Prime Minister to stop simply talking about the symptoms of dissatisfaction and address some of the underlying causes that have resulted in traditional Labour supporters taking refuge in the policies of the far right. Parties like the BNP are often successful in so-called "forgotten" white areas where many traditional Labour supporters say they feel alienated from modern political discourse and that no one in the Labour party is listening to them. The BNP often finds support in a context of significant social problems: high unemployment, deprivation, lack of educational achievement, high crime rates, drugs, and people of different ethnic backgrounds living apparently separate lives. This encourages the growth of myths and rumour that people like Mrs Duffy eventually believes to be fact. BNP tactics focus on using this information to target people who traditionally have voted Labour and in many cases feel neglected by this government. Many of these people feel that they have only two places they can go. One is not to vote, the other is to vote for the far right. I think it is true to argue that all too often there is a lack of what might be described as a "safe space" for ordinary working people to air their feelings. People like Mrs Duffy often struggle to find the language to say what they want without being thought of or even accused of being a racist or indeed a bigot.



Addressing some of the genuine concerns of white working-class voters while at the same time openly challenging those concerns that have no factual or legitimate basis should be part of the core agenda of any centre-left progressive party. Instead of insulting life-long Labour supporters Brown should more openly take on the bigots and the bullies of the far right who exploit the genuine fears and anxieties of the Mrs Duffys of this world.

In praise of Jon Cruddas

'Ethical socialism' - I like the sound of this. On a long train journey home this evening I read this excellent piece in today's Times about Jon Cruddas. This piece in particular caught my eye:

'Mr Cruddas thinks of himself as an ethical socialist who trusts the people and contrasts himself with the state centralisers in his party. If the Labour Party enters a discussion about its future, Mr Cruddas’s voice will be needed in that throng.'

I for one am keen to hear more from the excellent Mr Cruddas.

Labour must add the future of Trident to the next Strategic Defence Review

One of the most interesting aspects of last week’s Leaders’ debate was the discussion about the need for the renewal of Trident. Both Cameron and Brown put the case for renewal with only Clegg prepared to argue against. I cannot help but believe that Labour should think again about its support for the renewal of Trident and that, as argued last week by CND Chair Kate Hudson, the scrapping of Trident could end up being a vote winner and not a vote loser. Today several former Generals have expressed their 'deep concern' about the need foe a Trident replacement with Lord Gutherie stating that a cheaper option to Trident should be considered, particularly as Britain strives for a world without nuclear weapons.


In the eighties and nineties, when the Polaris and its successor the Trident nuclear strategic defence system was brought into operation, its purpose was unambiguous. The missiles were targeted against the principal cities of the USSR, in order to deter an attack through the threat of an overwhelming response. It is probably the case that the balance of MAD (mutually assured destruction) did indeed prevent the cold war between the western and eastern blocs from breaking out into open warfare. However, the world has changed. In June 2006 the House of Commons Defence Select Committee published its report 'The Future of the UK’s Strategic Nuclear Deterrent'. It pointed out that deterrence against potential aggression might take various forms: economic, diplomatic, or through conventional forces. "The UK will need to examine whether the concept of nuclear deterrence remains useful in the current strategic environment." (para.55). The Ministry of Defence refused to take part in the proceedings of the Select Committee, and the report stated "We believe that it is essential that, before making any decisions on the future of the strategic nuclear deterrent, the MOD should explain its understanding of the purpose and continuing relevance of nuclear deterrence." (para.56).While the claim is that Britain must have its own independent deterrent, the truth is that as long as the UK uses Trident missiles as the delivery vehicle for its warheads, the system is hardly independent. The 2006 Defence Committee report distinguished between independence of acquisition and independence of operation (para.84). Britain does not have independence of acquisition and it is not clear whether we possess operational independence or not. The truth is renewing Trident will be massively expensive and militarily pointless as it will not deter terrorists or nuclear blackmailers and will make it far harder for Britain to encourage nuclear disarmament around the globe.

What about the politics of all this - would a nuclear disarmament policy be politically damaging to Labour? A poll last year clearly showed – by a margin of 58 to 35 per cent - that the public wants Britain to scrap the Trident nuclear missile system. Such a policy would not necessarily lead to a charge of being soft on defence, since a significant proportion of the saved resource could and should be devoted on enhanced expenditure on conventional forces serving in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

In my view, be it on military, political, economic, legal or ethical grounds, the case for the renewal of Trident lacks credibility. Labour - my party - should think again.

The wheels are coming off the Tory bicycle

April 15th 2010 could well go down in political history as the date when the wheels started to come off the Tory bicycle. They must be tearing their hair out at CCHQ. It was all going so well: ahead in the polls, a government in apparent disarray and a public seemingly desperate for change. Then came their leader's big chance to shine, the TV debates would surely give the ex-PR man a fantastic opportunity to further outshine the Prime Minister and that other leader, you know 'whatshisname', Clegg. Oops! What has happened these past few weeks is that the public has begun to see that the Cameron led Tory party lacks substance, coherence and conviction.

At the dinner held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister, Michael Howard (then leader of the Tory Party) stated: "What you stood for then, we stand for now." Would David Cameron have delivered the same line? I doubt it. Since hie election as leader Cameron has tried to portray himself as ‘new Tory’ not ‘old Tory’ as the ‘heir to Blair’ and not the ‘son of Thatcher.’ The difficulty is that he leads a party that is dominated by members who joined under Thatcher’s leadership, a membership that does not want to move to the centre ground of British politics. It almost makes you feel sorry for Cameron – few people can lead a political party which obstinately refuses to be led. The other major problem for Cameron is the fact that too many of his front bench come from privileged, wealthy backgrounds. For many of the the Eton educated Tory 'toffs' politics is a bit of hobby, something to do in conjunction with few non-executive directorships. The Tory commentator, Tim Montgomerie hit the nail on the head when (writing for the Guardian) he suggested that:"Too many of David Cameron's frontbenchers are part-timers. It was recently revealed that they hold 115 outside interests between them. They appear to lack the hunger to win that characterised Labour in the 1990s. Senior journalists complain that they hardly receive any calls from Conservative HQ but are constantly briefed by Team Brown." Contrast 'Team Cameron' with the likes of 'barrow boy' Tories like Heath, Thatcher and even David Davis. Could people like George Osborne or Oliver Letwin ever really have a 'bare knuckled fight' with anyone? Would they have the bottle - or even the desire? I think not.

If, as seems increasingly likely, Cameron loses the election on May 6th I think it highly probable that the Tory party will end up tearing itself apart and that we will witness the formation of a new centre-right party (led possibly by Cameron or Nick Herbert) leaving the 'traditional' Conservatives (led by David Davis) to plough a Thatcherite furrow that will eventually lead to electoral oblivion.

Was Blair right: is the era of tribal political leadership over?

Back in 2006 Tony Blair argued that the era of tribal political leadership was over in Britain and that "rampant cross-dressing" on policy was set to become a permanent feature of modern British politics. Blair was of the view that basic values, attitudes to the positive role of government and social objectives still divided along traditional party lines, but suggested that policy cross-dressing was rampant and would prove to be a feature of modern politics. Blair even stated that the "era of tribal political leadership is over. He went to state that: "Across a range of issues, there is no longer a neat filing of policy to the left or the right."

After a tumultuous week in British politics could it be that Blair was right all along? Is the era of political 'cross-dressing' a good thing for political in this country?

What do you think?

Labour's 'preferential option' for the poor.

Gordon Brown is right to portray the modern Tory party as right wing wolves in sheep's clothing. David Cameron has succeeded in modernising his party - back to the age of Thatcher. Since the advent of new Labour taking sides has been a rather unfashionable political stance. For many people the past few years has seen Labour, as a party of principle, disappearing into the soggy centre ground. Labour ministers have become administrators and technocrats - competent but uninspiring. In the next few weeks Labour needs to set out some of the key themes that a fourth term Labour government would set as priorities. I believe that one of those themes should be about the need for Labour to make a preferential option for the poor.

In today's modern world there is still an unjust distribution of goods and services whereby a relative minority of wealthy groups and ruling classes use their power and influence to perpetuate macro-economic and political structures which exploit the labour and lives of the vast majority of the planet’s population. Gordon Brown is well placed both at home and internationally to advance a new politics of liberation, a politics that offers hope. This is not a jam tomorrow kind of hope, rather the hope that the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard described as the ‘passion for the possible.' Politics that seeks the liberation of people from poverty, injustice and persecution can be a powerful force for change.

At home and abroad perhaps it is time for Brown to be Brown, time for Labour to make a preferential option for the poor. It is time to take sides and end the political cross-dressing of the 1990s.

Labour campaign leaders need to use the last few weeks to articulate who we are as a party, who we were historically and what we want to become in the future. In doing so we should make clear that we can abandon certain parts of the middle ground and win but we can never, ever abandon the poor.

Why the Tories don't want to talk about class

So the Tories are losing the ‘battle’ over class. Apparently over a third of voters see the Conservatives as the party of the upper classes. So whatt I hear you cry, class matter anymore, or does it? Back in 2008 Labour’s shambolic 'Tory toff' campaign prompted a plethora of articles and comment about whether class was still a major issue in British politics. The truth is that Britain remains a nation that is still dominated by class division. A couple of years ago in an ICM poll for the Guardian 89% of those surveyed thought that people are still judged by their class - with almost half saying that it still counts for "a lot". Over 50% of people said that class, not ability, greatly affects the way they are seen. Despite more than a decade of Labour in power social mobility in Britain has decreased, in fact the British middle classes are operating what is, in effect, a closed shop. For example our top universities are still, in the main, the preserve of a rich, well-connected elite. You may well remember the furore a few years ago when Bristol University was accused of gross discrimination and unfairness - spurred on by several influential columnists and leader writers - for introducing a 'fairer' criterion for admissions that would benefit pupils from poorer backgrounds. Often the real reasons why many left leaning journalists and politicians end up sending their sons and daughters to fee-paying schools are not based on the raw results of the local state schools but on a desire to ensure that their child has access to what the local comprehensive cannot provide: privilege, advantage and the opportunity to network. British public schools have always been a production line of the class system. They employ some of the best-qualified teachers, can raise their fees steadily, select their pupils, enjoy a growing endowment income from their benefactors and offer some of the most impressive sporting and extracurricular activities in the country. What's more they now recruit from a middle-class obsessed by perceived educational and social advantage. Parents who are willing to take the bold decision to become part of the problem, rather than seeking to be part of the solution. I often hear some of my friends and fellow "comrades" attempting to ease their conscience by announcing that the local comprehensive school is simply not good enough and justify their decision to go private in the name of parental responsibility.

Sometimes I cannot help but feel that the perpetuation of class divisions in Britain really is part of a 'liberal conspiracy.' It seems clear to me that those who do have influence, those who really do have a "voice" in our society have such a high stake in the current order that they will seek to mobilise and organise in order protect it. It must surely be true for example that when middle-class parents abandon the state sector in favour of the private, it is conservative and not progressive politics that triumphs.Suspicion of the wealthy, the privileged and of the 'upper classes' is hardwired into the DNA of those who espouse left-leaning ideas and policies. Why? Because most believe that the inevitable consequence of a politics that espouses equity and fairness is that it will give comfort to the afflicted and end up afflicting the comfortable. For example the majority of ordinary people watch on in disbelief when Bankers attempt to paint themselves as noble and public spirited by limiting their annual bonus to ‘only’ a million pounds.

What people want, demand almost, is that the ‘super rich’ should pay more and that those that got us into this mess should shoulder the responsibility for getting us out of it. The subtext behind the polling is that many people associate class with wealth and see the Tories as the party of the rich, the party that will help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

In the final few weeks of the campaign Labour will seek to portray the Tories as the party of the elite, a party that is out of touch with High St Britain, out of touch with the needs and aspirations of hard working families on low or moderate incomes. Is this class war? No, just an end to the political cross-dressing that has for too long blurred the political landscape.

Tory manifesto launch

Tory manifesto: An invitation to join the government of Britain: White tie only. Only married couples need apply. Fox hunters fast tracked.

What do Battersea Power Station and the modern Tory party have in common?

DAVID CAMERON once said that he sometimes feels like shaking Gordon Brown. The Prime Minister need not be too worried, since the Tory leader should be more concerned by his own involuntary quivering. In fact, he has not stopped wobbling for months. In fairness, Cameron’s task is a monumental one. He leads a party desperate for power. Since his election as Tory leader in 2005 (yes, it really was that long ago), he has set out to show he is a winner, that he can modernise his party and restore it to its position as the natural party of government. However, he is now having to come to terms with the fact that initiating and instituting change is a long, slow and often bloody process.

Recent events suggest Cameron may be less the Tory heir to Tony Blair and more like the Conservatives’ equivalent of Neil Kinnock. And that is an unfair comparison. Kinnock ended up helping to make Labour electable again. He was willing to take tough decisions and displayed genuine real leadership in the face of huge and often very hostile opposition. It is easy to forget that the enormous and necessary task of ditching some of the most unpopular Labour policies of the 1980s was carried out, not by Blair and Brown, but by Kinnock. It was Kinnock who first challenged Labour to dump policies and commitments that had helped to create the image of a party soft on crime and addicted to the imposition of punitive taxes.

Cameron regards himself as a politician of the digital age, a bold leader unafraid of taking risks. However, most of the changes he has made to his party have been cosmetic (a new headquarters and a new logo) or short-lived (the “A” list of candidates). Cameron’s Conservatives are made up of the “right kind of people” – his people: privately educated and from a background of immense wealth and privilege. Under Cameron, the Tories still believe the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their own particular political, economic and social outlook. In 2007, Cameron told his party’s spring conference that it needed to change and the changes needed to be “faster, wider and deeper”. Nearly three years later, change in the Tory Party looks to be slower, narrower and shallower.

Tomorrow the Tories will launch their election manifesto at Battersea Power Station -an impressive structure from the outside but hollow and empty within. When I heard that the Tories have chosen this setting I was reminded of the words of the former Conservative (now Labour) MP Quentin Davies who, in his letter to Cameron outlining his reasons for leaving the Tories to join Labour, Davies wrote: “Under your leadership, the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything or to stand for anything. It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda.”

For-profit schools: is this really what progressive Tory education policy looks like?

Can you run a school for a profit? The Tories seem to think so, well they would, wouldn't they. What is clear is that in the US the for-profit Charter schools have been a huge disaster for the children in the cities where they were imposed. In 1997 the US Congress passed the Charter schools act pushing local school districts to let private enterprise take over or create schools.
The justification for this was that the competition of "market pressures" would force these schools and the public schools to perform and deliver a quality product. The track record has shown otherwise. For example in Michigan 75% of Charter schools are run by for-profit companies. These schools are paid with public education funds, but they are not controlled by the public. Because these schools are run by private companies, they don't have to reveal how they have used their money, or how much profit they have made. As far as the communities are concerned, the schools are just big holes that the money gets poured into. Companies like Edison find many ways to make their profits. Schools are set up shop in abandoned premises like supermarkets or large office complexes or old school buildings. These buildings are often owned or leased by a management company that is owned by the for-profit Charter school company. The charter school, run by the same company, gets state education money for each student – $8,000 in Michigan. The school then pays the management company hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in rent. The educational quality in most cases is worse than in the public schools, for example students at the Charter schools around the Detroit area have scored lower than Detroit public school students on the Michigan statewide test.


How could it be otherwise? The profit taken out of these schools is money NOT spent on the education of students. So for-profit schools end up having a high number of unqualified teachers; a high turnover rate, with sometimes several teachers teaching the same class in a school year; and even classes taught by a string of temporary service employees. It was recently confirmed that in the ten schools run by one company, Charter School Administrative Services, 62% of teachers were unqualified. This is a private company that received over $40 million from the state of Michigan in 2008. This is money that did not go to the public schools. And that's just one company, running ten schools. There are over 200 charter schools in the state of Michigan alone.

Eeven more worryingly a recent report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that nearly 80% of Michigan’s black Charter school students attend intensely segregated minority schools. Why does this matter? Research shows that attending racially diverse schools significantly improves students’ academic achievement, graduation and college attendance rates. In 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1) held that, along with achieving diversity, reducing racial isolation of students of colour in schools is a compelling state interest. Yet black and Latino students attending Charter schools are more often typically in schools where 90% or more students are non-white than are their counterparts in traditional public schools.

Some years ago Lehman Brothers (remember them) issued a report in which it said, "the education industry may replace health care ... as THE focus industry." In the US that's exactly what for-profit Charter schools are: private industry taking over public education, squeezing out all the profit they can – and leaving children with an even worse education. Do we really want such institutions setting up here in the UK? Is this really what progressive Tory education policy looks like?

Possibly the best political advert ever

I saw this a few years ago - it really is excellent.

Stoke Central: Why I believe Mark Seddon is wrong.

Mark Seddon is a man I respect and admire but his piece in yesterday's Guardian about the selection of Labour's candidate for Stoke Central is unhelpful, distracting and, in my view, just plain wrong. Like Mark, I too put my name forward to be Labour’s candidate for Stoke and like him I was unsuccessful. I was born only a few miles away from the city, have written various pieces about the politics of the city in the past few years and have been a PPC for the marginal seat (Shrewsbury) in 2005. I was hopeful of making the shortlist and disappointed when informed that I would be taken through to the final stages. Do I believe that the shortlist was probably ‘engineered’ to ensure that Tristram Hunt won the nomination? Yes, I do. Does this annoy, frustrate and disappoint me? A little bit. Do I think this the fault of Tristram Hunt? No, I do not. Do I think Tristram will make an excellent constituency MP? Absolutely.

The thrust of Mark’s article is that Labour’s selection of Tristram Hunt has made a BNP victory in Stoke more, not less likely. The truth is that Hunt’s selection will make little, if any difference to the result in May. We have known for months that the BNP has been busy exploiting the present economic crisis. Last year in an article for Tribune (once edited by Mark Seddon) I suggested that one reason for the BNP's growing support in areas like Stoke has been its ability to respond to and exploit genuine local grievances. Since then we have had the debacle of MP expense claims, which will only end up exacerbating people's distrust of the political establishment and could help turn even more people toward the far right. What I found most disappointing about Mark’s piece was that it offered no route map as to how the many decent, hard working Labour members and supporters in Stoke might fight back and counter the depressing, hateful and bigoted message that the BNP is set on spreading. The people of the Stoke have a fine and distinguished record in promoting and defending equality (it is the birthplace of Hugh Bourne the 19th century campaigner for education for children and for treating women as equals). Labour’s tactic of simply talking about how it recognises the various symptoms of dissatisfaction is not enough. As a political movement the left needs to address some of the underlying causes that have resulted in traditional Labour supporters taking refuge in the policies of the far right. Mark is right when he argues that the BNP is often successful in so-called “forgotten” white areas where many traditional Labour supporters say they feel alienated from modern political discourse and that no one in the Labour party is listening to them.

A well used BNP tactic is to focus on people who traditionally have voted Labour but now feel neglected by this government. Many of these people feel that they have only two places they can go. One is not to vote, the other is to vote for the far right. All too often there is a lack of what might be described as a “safe space” for ordinary working people to air their feelings - they often struggle to find the language to say what they want without being thought of or even accused of being a racist. In the likes of Stoke the BNP is developing a network of supporters who are now openly willing to admit to not only voting for a racist and bigoted political party, but are doing so with pride and patriotic fervour. Too many Labour MPs have been too quiet on the issue of the BNP, Gordon Brown included. Brown would send out a powerful message to his party’s core supporters if he were to personally throw his weight behind a call for a new “coalition of the willing” that will help to blunt the advance of the far-right in this country by addressing some of the genuine concerns of white working-class voters while at the same time openly challenging those concerns that have no factual or legitimate basis.

Stoke is just the sort of place where local people want to be treated - and want their neighbours to be treated - fairly. They don't want favours and they don't want special treatment. Mark Seddon is a decent, thoughtful and able individual. I would personally like to see him in parliament one day and am confident that he will continue to make a significant contribution to the debate that surrounds the future direction of left of centre progressive politics. He, like me, knows that the majority of people of Stoke hate what the BNP stands for and would just love to get back to voting for Labour out of conviction and not simply out of convention.

Our efforts in the coming weeks should be directed towards securing the fourth term for Labour, at this stage all else will appear more than a little self indulgent.