Ed Balls: Tories – party of ‘privilege & the rich’
The Times has a curious interview with Ed Balls today, who says he won’t fight a ‘class war’ while simultaneously branding the Conservative party “the party of privilege and the rich”.
“David Cameron’s and George Osborne’s vulnerability is not their schools or their background but that they are prioritising tax cuts for the richest estates ahead of spending on the key public services,” he said.
“They have designed an inheritance tax policy which costs billions but which won’t benefit a single lower or middle-income family in Britain but will benefit themselves and a tiny percentage of other individuals.”
You can call it whatever you like, but accusing the Tories of being the party of the rich is playing ‘class war’.
Claiming it’s not is fine with me – as long as the narrative still plays out.
He also, rightly, accused the BBC of playing it easy with the Tories:
He accused the BBC of giving the Tories an easy time, suggesting that interviews conducted with Mr Cameron, Mr Osborne and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, after the Pre-Budget Report had been soft. “It has been a bit back to the days of ‘What would you like to tell us today Lord Hailsham?’,” he said, urging the broadcaster to scrutinise the Tory policies on tax, spending and the economy.
The full interview is here.
What’s our argument against bombing Iran?
On Christmas Eve, a time ostensibly meant for peace & goodwill, the New York Times ran an epic op-ed arguing for military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear technology. Should you have the stomach to endure Alan Kuperman’s belch of war-baiting, you can go here; it’s some real Deck The Halls shit.
Because I’m not particularly interested in the substance of Kuperman’s argument (there are already some excellent rebuttals by the likes of Marc Lynch & Matt Duss), I’m instead going to note Stephen Walt’s reaction. For Walt, this is but the opening salvo of a concerted campaign to pressure President Obama into taking military action. He warns that opponents of this action should start refining their arguments now because the march for war may soon become a deafening din.
continue reading… »
Pics: Huge protests, riots in Iran; 10 killed
The NYT reports that around 10 people have reportedly been killed in the rioting in Iran:
The protests, during the holiday commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, were the bloodiest and among the largest since the uprisings that followed the disputed presidential election last June, witnesses said. Hundreds of people were reported wounded in cities across the country, and the Tehran police said they had made 300 arrests.
…
In Tehran, thick crowds marched down a central avenue in midmorning, defying official warnings of a harsh crackdown on protests as they chanted “death to Khamenei,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has expressed growing intolerance for political dissent in the country.They refused to retreat even as the police fired tear gas, charged them with batons and fired warning shots. The police then opened fire directly into the crowd, opposition Web sites said, citing witnesses. At least five people were killed in Tehran, four in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and one in Shiraz in the south, the Web sites reported. Photographs of several victims were circulated widely.
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More pictures at the Huffington Post and at the New York Times.
David Taylor RIP
David Taylor, the MP for North West Leicestershire, sadly died from a heart attack on Boxing Day.
Former Labour MP Harry Barnes left a moving tribute on his blog:
There is no-one I admired more. He was a dedicated, able and active MP. He showed everyone what a back-bench MP can achieve via an extensive and intelligent use of the formal and informal avenues that are open to them.
He was a committed democratic socialist who cared deeply about the well-being of his constituents and for underprivileged people throughout the world.
In 2007 he won the award of “Commons Backbencher of the Year” on the vote of his fellow MPs. Yet as a non-doctrinaire member of the Socialist Campaign Group he was not a natural for such a recognition. It was his dedication and serious intent (often with a tinge of humour) which came to impress those around him, many of whom did not share his views.
I met him before he became an MP, saw his impressive and regular output in the Commons when we were fellow members between 1997 and 2005 and last spoke him at St. Pancras Station in passing as he rushed to catch his train back to Leicester. For he was always as active in his Leicestershire Constituency as he was in the Commons.
If Parliament is to restore its reputation then we need MPs who follow the example he has left behind him.
Study shows hung parliament ‘likely result’
A survey for the Sunday Times shows that Labour’s vote is hardening, thus increasing the prospect of a hung parliament after next year’s general election.
The Sunday Times by-election model, constructed by Professor Colin Rallings and Professor Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University, is based on actual votes cast in the dozens of by-elections that take place for council seats each month.
Translated across the country on the basis of the new constituency boundaries that come into force in 2010, such a result would certainly see David Cameron installed as prime minister but heading a minority government. The Tories would have won over 60 more seats than Labour, with Labour losing more than 100 constituencies — nearly one in three of its current complement of MPs.
Cameron, however, with just 311 seats, would be 15 short of the 326 needed for an overall parliamentary majority.
Why could the polls be hardening? The professors offer their thoughts:
Measures in Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report, particularly the windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses, were well received by voters, and Labour’s “class war” attack on Cameron and George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has put the Tories on the back foot.
Cameron looks rattled by class war strategy
Iain Dale has the text of Cameron’s New Year speech up. Quite rightly the media will be paying particular attention to this short but important little snippet:
But let’s make sure the election is a proper argument about the future of the country, not some exercise in fake dividing lines.
Cameron recognises here what Tessa Jowell misses in her nonsense about ‘hideous’ ‘class war’. By playing the one nation card at this stage, he is effectively admitting the Tories are deeply rattled by the prospect of a Labour move towards a class-based electoral strategy.
He’s seen the opinion polls, he’s seen the financial context in which such a strategy might be implemented, and he’s afraid.
continue reading… »
Cruddas / Umunna launch ‘Tory Stories’ website
Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas MP and Labour Parliamentary Candidate Chuka Umunna today launch a new website to “scrutinize the activities of Conservatives who already hold power”.
The Tory Stories website, running the tagline ‘Change We Can’t Believe In’, will focus on Cameron’s Conservatives outside of Westminster and try to highlight how Tory reality contrasts with Cameron rhetoric.
Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, said:
In this campaign it is right to present the General Election as a choice between a Labour government that will act to support people through the recession and a Conservative administration ideologically opposed to intervention but, in so doing, it is crucial that we shine a light on what the Tories are already doing with power where they have it.
We must look beyond Westminster to the Town Halls and regions where Conservatives presently hold power, as opposed to simply revisiting the actions of Tories in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Chuka Umunna, candidate for Streatham, added:
Many of the new generations of voter are already living under Tories locally – their local Conservatives provide important pointers as to what a national Cameron government would do when they consider how to cast their vote.
The website will aim to act as a depository for researched and evidence based articles on what Conservatives in local and regional government are doing.
Both Cruddas and Umunna are members of the management committee of centre left political pressure group, Compass
From a press release
Watch: Hannan again! Slams ‘inferior’ NHS
Daniel Hannan MEP, anxious to grow his profile in the United States, keeps giving interviews to right-wing nuts in there slamming the NHS, this time as ‘demonstrably inferior’ to the United States system.
[via Dave Cole]
Long live the Class War strategy
Yesterday the Independent ran the “exclusive” that Gordon Brown had declared class war on fox hunting, which boiled down to a re-stating of long held Labour policy.
God forbid the environment secretary Hillary Benn launch a campaign to highlight that Tories are planning to repeal the hunting ban!
As pointed out over at Frank Owen’s Paintbrush, it is surely instructive the Tories and Countryside Alliance consider this issue more important than: “post office closures, house prices turning the countryside into the preserve of the rich, unemployment, pensioner isolation and poverty, and a host of other serious problems afflicting people in rural areas.”
But no. Pointing that out would mean ‘class war’ and today the Sunday Telegraph, which obviously has New Labour’s interests at heart, has an interview with Tessa Jowell where she apparently urges Brown to drop this “hideous” strategy and reveals that “she was pushing for reform of public services to be at the heart of the Labour manifesto“. Yup. Now that’s what you call an exciting and clearly defined electoral strategy.
continue reading… »
Merry Christmas and Happy Winterval* readers!
A big Merry Christmas to all our readers and hope you don’t get caught in the middle of the M25 with tons of snow all around you. I’ve done about 4 Christmas dinners so far and have another 3 coming up. The next time you see me I’ll look 6 months pregnant.
Thank you to all our writers and readers who have made this Britain’s biggest left-wing blog over the last year. Thanks to all our right-wing detractors that make it easy for us to remember the kind of stupidity we are up against.
I would have done an end-of-year roundup but that requires too much effort and we’re not finished for the year yet. There’s going to be a smattering of articles right until the end of the decade and then plenty more in 2010. In fact we have big plans for 2010 – this site will expand to include new sections, new writers and a subtle change in direction for the Liberal Conspiracy. Until then: hope enjoy the glorious family orientated consumerist fest that is Christmas.
* for the Richard Littlejohn hating, PC gawn maaad embracing, sandal wearing, muesli eating types among you. Big up yo’selves!
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» Even by economic standards Hester’s £1m bonus is unworthy
» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
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