Is Ed Miliband Too Intense?

There was an interesting piece in The New Statesman by Rowenna Davis, that examined the DWP report on Gordon Brown’s Future Jobs Fund, whereby young unemployed people were given a guaranteed 6 months work at minimum wage. Apparently this policy had a net benefit to society, for each young person enrolled, of £7,750.

The writer contacted Ed Miliband’s office to ask for a view from the leader’s staff, only to be told that, “it still does nothing for those people who are in work on benefits.”

I see Ed Miliband as a man who has a great conviction that there is something deeply wrong and unjust about the system. He desperately wants to find the answer, but can’t quite put his finger on it. It’s as if its there, but just out of reach. It’s good to have a leader who wants to make a real difference, rather than aspiring to coast through a term in office. However, he does sometimes look like he is chasing rainbows at the expense of doing the job.

How Cameron can beat Miliband in 2015

According to YouGov, David Cameron’s approval rating has shifted from -25 to -18 over the period of the recent tax avoidance story. This improvement flies in the face of the media view that Cameron would suffer the charge of hypocrisy for condemning Jimmy Carr, when so many Tory donors are guilty of the same.

It now seems that Cameron was in touch with the public mood. The media taunts on Cameron’s hypocrisy have served little other than to highlight the Prime Minister’s intervention, while swatting Ed Miliband into the shadows and out of public glare. The crackdown on tax avoidance is now a Tory issue to be grabbed, while Miliband has so far been uninspired on a territory that the public would expect to be owned by Labour.

Making Immigration Policy Tangible

A couple of years ago, following a spate of gang violence, I chaired a youth crime task force, where we strove to create workable ideas for providing employment and occupation to young white and black lads who were hanging about on the street corner, getting bored and getting into trouble. We found ourselves discussing the fact that east-end families used to go fruit picking in the summer, but the tradition seems to have been lost.

Did Cameron arrange the Cable Sting?

This is the dynamite question, the one that has the potential to bring down this government. Whose idea was it for The Telegraph to conduct a covert recording on Vince Cable in December 2012? Could it have been the Tory leadership? If this was demonstrated to be the case, then the Tories have deliberately destroyed the reputation of a Liberal Democrat colleague, and the coalition would immediately come to an end.

Honour and Shame in Tower Hamlets

We used to be proud of spreading our ideas around the world. Now we are confused about how we explain our identity to the people who have settled here.

The problem is that we need to understand their culture and identity, before we can explain to them our own. With 3,000 honour crime complaints to the police last year, maybe this is the issue that we’re failing to comprehend.

It would help to understand what happened in Tower Hamlets last year, when the Labour Party collapsed in on itself over the selection of Lutfur Rahman as candidate for Mayor.

It started out as a conversation about secularism, but we didn’t know it was about secularism, because in school we learn everything there is to know about Martin Luther King, but nothing about Martin Luther. We know about the rights of minorities, but not about the separation of church and state.

PMQs, 9th March 2011

Not the best PMQs since there was no clear winner, which is a bit surprising after the disastrous week the Tories have had. It was a perfectly respectable punch-up though.

The Real Ed Balls

During the leadership elections, Ed Balls was the only contender with the ability to engage Labour audiences emotionally. Early in the campaign, at the huge Fabian hustings, he attacked the Tories’ desire to end breakfast clubs by reminding us that for some of these kids, it will be the only square meal they’ll eat that day. The audience gave a gasp to this, and I thought they’d fallen in love with this guy, but the polls stayed stubbornly low.
No other candidate was able to remind us of why we became socialists. At another hustings, he told the story of some children who were so amazed by their new school that one looked up at him and said, “I never thought we’d be worth this much”. It was touching, and everyone was drawn in by him, but still the polls stayed stubbornly low.
I met him at some point, and found him to be a really nice, easy going guy. He seemed to be a people person, which is a major quality in a politician. But the low poll rating refused to budge. He wasn’t going to win.
Bill Clinton once said that if you want to run for President, the first thing you have to do is to get people to see you as President. It didn’t matter how much raw talent Ed Balls had, by this time, he was being seen as the loser. I started to hear people describe him as being the henchman of Gordon Brown. They associated him with division in Downing Street, and bad news in Tottenham.
At the time, I was on Oona King’s campaign as photographer and film maker but I was frustrated and felt like my ideas were being ignored, which was unfair, on reflection, as these campaigns tend to happen under the sheer chaos of pressure. But I wanted to help the underdog, Ed Balls, so I made contact and offered to make a film.

I was only peripheral on the Ed Balls campaign. It was a bit weird in that they had been together since the beginning, while I’d come along only once it was obvious he was losing. It was a tiny, close knit team, mostly very young. Ed once joked that he came in one day, to find the campaign office empty. When he asked why, he was told that school term had re-started. He was only half joking.
I didn’t much enjoy the leadership debates, because it was so woolly. Maybe I was unfair. If any of them had any good ideas then those would have been spent during the last government and as we know, that government had lost the election. So maybe I shouldn’t have had such high expectations. But still, it was woolly regardless.
But with Ed Balls, he’d always make you listen to him, because he had such conviction. A good politician doesn’t ask what you want him to stand for, he tells you what he stands for, and demands that you stand beside him. As far as Ed was concerned, it was a catastrophic mistake to end the fiscal stimulus.
A good politician doesn’t fear being vulnerable. When asked why is it that the last government’s policy was to end the fiscal stimulus, even though Ed was a part of that government, he simply said, “I lost the argument.” There was no shame and no bitterness. His conviction was not shaken. When asked to clarify, he simply said, “I lost the argument.”
I think what I got out of last year’s leaders campaigns, was to learn about myself. I felt as if photography was below me and that I should occupy some higher position on the campaign, but without experience of campaigns, I had no skills. I felt that I had ideas to offer, but it’s impossible to come into a campaign with ideas; there is no time to chew things over.
I decided I should go back to writing, which I’ve done. Also to accept that I know precious little about the actual business of politics, but that I’d like to learn. I think the whole experience made me more confident, while at the same time more humble.
The other thing I know from the Ed Balls campaign is that if, in time to come, there is another leadership election, then he should time it to be between terms. Those young, but committed campaigners would be needed again, but this time as managers.

The House is a Stage and You are..?

I’ve got my media hat back on this week, after watching the Labour backbenchers properly fired up at PMQs, as Ed Miliband listed the Tory promises at the last election and our MPs chanted “broken” to every item on the list.

I wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago, calling for them to shout Cameron down, after he made the mistake of accusing Labour people of being nasty. It’s worth revisiting that clip and analysing it in a little more detail before I continue my point about the lack of confidence of the PLP.

When you hear the chant begin, see Nick Clegg lean around Cameron to look at where it’s coming from. However, when Cameron realises something’s happening, he looks toward the Labour benches, and with that, Labour MPs fall silent, and Cameron recovers his composure.
This is the power and the authority he has over them. David Cameron can silence the entire Parliamentary Labour Party simply by casting an eye in their direction. How shameful. David Cameron; the Tory leader whose A-List of selection candidates excludes 90% of the MPs behind him. The PLP cowers in his presence. The PLP need to better understand their role at Prime Minister’s Questions.
You are not there as innocent bystanders to cast judgement on Ed Miliband; you are there to fire him up, and that includes the bad days, as well as the good. Right now, Ed is delivering, but what about on the days when he’s not? Are we going to see our MPs cowering on the back benches, frightened in case David Cameron thinks they are not being sufficiently respectful towards him? When we, the grass roots, lose an election, we don’t cower; we go home and get a good night’s sleep, then the next day, we’re back, ready for the next fight.
I’m not saying that we have no analysis; of course we do, but we don’t focus our minds on the negative, because we are not a bunch of losers. If we were thinking like victims; if we were frightened of the Tories, then I can guarantee that you lot would not be MPs anymore, because you would never get elected.
Imagine a great rock band, let’s say The Who, on stage at a major concert. Roger Daltrey is tired and he’s had some bad news, so he simply hasn’t got his mind on his performance. Does Pete Townsend also get depressed and not play with the energy we’ve come to expect? Would Keith Moon tap his drums with no passion, because Roger isn’t leading him well?
No! Absolutely not! That band behind Roger Daltrey would play with double passion and energy, because they know that they have to inspire Daltrey to come out of his depression. And you know what? It would work. With that sound coming out of them speakers, Roger Daltrey would find his energy and forget his problems and give the concert of his life. This is what the Labour leader needs from the backbenchers at Prime Minister’s Questions.
So when you, as MPs, walk into that chamber at the next PMQs, and you hear that voice in your head asking, “Will Ed do well today?” Correct yourself! The question you should be asking is, “Will I do well? Will I do my job of encouraging Ed? Will I… will we fire him up and give him the Labour Party spirit that will down these Tories, so easily, when it’s energised?”
If you’re in the lobby before PMQs and you hear Labour MPs questioning whether Ed’s going to deliver today, you tell them that they’re the ones expected to deliver. Tell them that they were selected by their Labour Party members to go in that chamber and cheer on that Labour leader, as if the World Cup depended on it.
And on those days when everything’s going against us, when it seems like we just can’t win, remember this one fact that will always give Ed Miliband an advantage over this particularly nasty Tory leader. Remember that no matter how much you hate David Cameron and everything he stands for, it is nothing compared to how much his own backbenchers hate him.

On this one, Cameron is our Leader!

 Before the Olympic vote, I would have agreed with Ken Livingstone, that it would be better to put off this broadcast till after the vote. After all, there is corruption in the world and we do our bit to discourage it. It’s probably asking a bit too much to ask us to be martyrs for the cause. I’m sure you agree.

But how do you feel since the vote?

How do you feel, since they taught us a good lesson?

Do you feel chastised?

Having had your wrists slapped by FIFA, do you feel sufficiently regretful? Perhaps we should apologise to them? Admit that we were wrong to allow the BBC to behave in such a critical manner to the good people of FIFA? Perhaps we should promise never to do it again? Do you think so?

I don’t think so.

 You wanna know what I feel; I’ll tell you…

!!!!!!    HOW…..      DARE…..       THEY?   !!!!!!!

How dare they treat us with that shear level of utter contempt?

That we should go away with our tails between our legs, having learnt our lesson?

HOW DARE THEY?!

That we should be humbled? Harried? Humiliated?

I’m with David Cameron on this one. I’m a Labour bloke, but political parties don’t come into it on this one. As far as I’m concerned, when I saw him humiliated, I felt humiliated. I felt my country humiliated. I felt every British citizen had been humiliated.

And that was the point. They wanted us punished for the audacity of criticising their corruption. As if we were arrogant, to believe that it was for us, the pompous British, to criticise theft, the stealing of money? Because that’s what corruption is. Theft! Pure and simple! Theft! We had the audacity to criticise a bunch of thieves and for that we should be taught a lesson, by that same bunch of thieves.

Well I say this, I’m with you Cameron.

I’m with you and so is the whole of the Labour Party. Every MP, every councillor, every party member. We’re with you on this one all the way. You’re the leader and we look towards you. So now show us… now we’ve been publically humiliated in front of the whole world, show us what you’re gonna do about it!

Come on Prime Minister. Come on Mr Cameron, we’re waiting and we want to know. What you gonna do about it?

Home Secretary’s Quote

Where did the Home Secretary get the inspiration for this quote?
“The most basic human right is the right not to be blown up by terrorists while walking along the street or flying in a plane.” Jackie Smith, House of Commons, 7th Jan ’09.
“It is the single most important human right; the right to get the bus to work without being blown to pieces by a fanatic with a bomb in his rucksack. It is the right to work in a tall building without air-liners being flown into it. It is the right to travel on a plane without a south-London drop-out sneaking explosive on board in the heel of his shoe.” Dan McCurry, Progressonline, 4th July ‘08.