Germans back Pirates to protect liberties
Since 2009, Germany has been run by a Christian Democrat/Liberal coalition. Going into government quickly led to a collapse in support for the liberal Free Democratic Party, whose support plummeted from 14% to around 5%.
FDP politicians might have assumed that things couldn’t get any worse. But in recent elections in Berlin, the FDP lost all of their seats in the state parliament, and were overtaken by the Pirate Party, which won 9% of the vote and fifteen seats.
Opinion polls since the Berlin elections have seen a total collapse of the FDP vote – down to just 2% – and the rise of the Pirates. The Left Party (die Linke) has also lost support to the Pirates, who in the most recent poll were backed by 7% of Germans.
The Pirate Party’s main policies are around defending civil rights and privacy in telephony and the internet, and increased transparency of government by usage of open source government. They are part of an international movement, which also has strong levels of support in Sweden, where there are two Pirate MEPs, and Somalia.
It is probably too much to hope for something similar in Britain, where voters take revenge on Nick Clegg by replacing him with a Pirate. But we can hope.
After Ed’s speech, what Labour needs to do next
There is a principled debate which it is possible to have about Ed Miliband’s idea that people who “contribute” should be given priority in social housing allocations over those whose need is greater, but who do not “contribute”. The key thing to remember about this debate, however, is that in practical terms it is utterly irrelevant.
To understand why, let’s look at how this policy actually works in reality. continue reading… »
Labour best on jobs and economy, say voters
New polling by Lord Ashcroft reveals that the number one issue for voters is jobs and the economy – and that voters think that Labour would do best in dealing with this issue. Ashcroft’s polling also showed Labour well ahead in marginal constituencies which were won by the Tories in 2010, and found that Lib Dem support holding up strongly in marginal constituencies where they are the main opposition to the Tories.
Ashcroft argues that voters “struggle to see” the connection between deficit reduction and economic recovery, and that, “It seems to many that we are pursuing deficit reduction at the expense of growth and job creation (and other things they think are important) rather than as a means to it.” This will be rather a surprise to Westminster bubble commentators who regularly assert that voters’ top concern is the deficit.
Amongst the other findings:
- Labour are ahead of the Tories on “shares my values” and “on the side of ordinary people”, whereas the Tories are felt to be stronger on “willing to take tough decisions” and “competent and capable”.
- The top issues for voters are jobs and the economy, NHS, immigration, deficit and education. Issues such as “reducing welfare dependency”, Europe and the environment are lower priorities.
- Voters felt that Labour had the best policies on the economy and jobs, NHS, education. The Tories were ahead on defence, crime, immigration, the deficit and Europe, though their advantage on crime was much lower than in previous surveys. Voters backed the Lib Dems on one policy area – the environment.
- David Cameron was preferred as best Prime Minister to Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg.
The full results can be found here.
Book Review: The Purple Book, and moving on from New Labour
Ahead of Labour Party conference, a new book has been published, which aims to set out the way forwards for Labour.
It proposes a range of new taxes on the rich to help fund a multi billion pound expansion of the welfare state. It calls for tough new regulations on landlords to protect renters.
And it calls for Labour to recognise the failure of the neoliberal ‘what can be measured can be managed’ approach to delivering public services, in favour of promoting the ethos of public service and allowing workers to have the time and ability to build relationships with the people who use their services.
The name of this socialist call to arms? The Purple Book.
continue reading… »
Revealed: the secret leader of Labour’s New Entryists
Over at Labour Uncut, Dan Hodges is concerned that the Labour Party is being taken over by political entryists, ranging from “Flat-earthers. Liberal conspirators. Ivory tower intellectuals. New politicos. Community cultists. Direct action die-hards.”
These entryists are worse than Militant were in the 1980s, because at least Militant believed in something whereas these people just want to march the Labour Party round in circles. But like Militant, we don’t know who their leader is. And their diabolical plans to sideline Labour Party members and trade unionists are already influencing the Labour Party leadership.
Now you might expect that over here at Liberal Conspiracy, we’d deny all of this. But, actually, it’s all true.
continue reading… »
Why Labour shouldn’t just listen to “commuter belt” voters
Shadow Minister Gareth Thomas and pollster Peter Kellner recently wrote a pamphlet called the Politics of Anxiety, setting out how Labour can win the support of ‘commuter belt’ voters who live in Outer London and the South East.
Their ideas were reported in the Independent last week and on the Progress website.
It hasn’t been published yet, but we got hold of a copy and thought we’d have a look at it.
continue reading… »
Government’s Work Programme at risk of collapse, say experts
The Social Market Foundation, a think tank which helped develop the ideas behind the government’s Work Programme, have just published a report claiming that it is at risk of collapse. Their analysis suggests that:
• The Work Programme will get around one in four adult Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) clients into work,
significantly below the rate needed to meet the DWP’s expectations for minimum performance;
• Providers will fail to meet the minimum performance expected of them by the DWP by around 30,000
jobs over three years;
• Providers will also undershoot what the Government anticipates would have happened if no welfare
to work scheme existed at all, suggesting that the Government’s analysis of this ‘policy-off’ scenario is over-optimistic;
• Based on FND performance levels, over 90% of Work Programme providers will be at risk of having
their contracts terminated by DWP even by year three of the scheme;
• This under-performance means that funding per jobseeker will be significantly less than anticipated,
threatening the financial viability of providers.
In order for the government to save their flagship jobs programme, Social Market Foundation recommend that the government increases the payments to providers, publishes the data about how they are performing, revises the assumptions about how many people will be able to get jobs now that the economy is weaker, and investigates the impact on sub-contractors to make sure that they aren’t forced out of business.
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It is no great surprise that a department led by Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Freud managed to introduce a multi billion pound jobs programme funded on the basis of wishful thinking and over optimistic predictions. It is still pretty extraordinary that the Social Market Foundation is predicting that fewer people will get jobs as a result of the Work Programme than government believes would have done if no welfare to work scheme existed at all, and that within three years the programme will bankrupt more than 90% of all specialist organisations which support people to get jobs, unless the government gives them more money and lets them reduce their targets.
A copy of the full report is available here.
Why “tough love” won’t help families
Deborah Orr sets out a “tough love” approach which she believes the Left should take towards young people living in poverty in London. Her plan is to close down pupil referral units, children’s social services, youth projects and give the money which this saves to Camilla Batmanghelidjh to run a network of “family therapy centres”.
She argues that a failure to stigmatise unemployed people has helped cause a social crisis, and that setting up family therapy centres and stigmatising the poor will persuade neoliberals to support higher wages for low paid workers.
I’m sure the intentions are good, but I don’t agree with any of this. continue reading… »
#somethingniceforashraf raises more than £22k
One of the most sickening scenes in the riots in London was the video of Ashraf Haziq, a Malaysian student, being mugged by rioters who pretended to help him.
In response, the “Do Something Nice for Ashraf” website was set up by people who were disgusted by the shameful way that he was treated, to raise money to do something nice for him.
This appeal has now closed, having raised more than £22,000 which is, as the organisers say, “a cracking effort from everyone”.
Do Something Nice for Ashraf is one of the main online efforts to help victims of the riots. You can donate to others, including the House of Reeves furniture store, Aaron Biber and Siva Kandiah.
Kids Company founder: cuts contributed to riots
Camilla Batmanghelidjh is the founder of the children’s charity Kids’ Company, which helps tens of thousands of exceptionally vulnerable children. Her work has been praised by David Cameron, she contributed to their Social Justice policy group, her charity was one of the inspirations for the government’s “Big Society” (she was one of the main guests at one of the many launches of the Big Society), and she is an adviser to the Centre for Social Justice, which was set up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.
Civil Society interviewed her yesterday, and here’s what she had to say about the relationship between spending cuts and the riots:
“Youth services were “at breaking point” even before cuts to their funding and were unable to provide the support needed to prevent this week’s riots, according to Camila Batmanghelidjh.
Speaking to civilsociety.co.uk, the founder of youth charities the Place2Be and Kids Company (pictured) said young people need to feel as if they “belong somewhere” where positive behaviour matters.
“If organisations that kids can belong to have been diminished through the cuts and there’s no secure base or a healthy group for kids to belong to then they’ve got nothing to lose.
“The services were at breaking point anyhow, and to be honest with you, most of them didn’t have sufficient resources to deal with these types of kids in the first place.
“Lots of the youth provisions had become very dangerous because they were too understaffed and the kids’ destructive and savage behaviour set the agenda.
“The counter-action coming from these agencies couldn’t be strong enough because it was too under-resourced.”
She added that the government should lay down a vision for disenfranchised young people which should be wide-ranging but should include additional resources for charities.”
*
Conservative Home argues that Right wing politicians will only gain a political advantage from these riots if they “win the battle” and defeat “the idea that cuts are to blame for our social crisis”. The New Statesman thinks that “it is too simplistic to blame the coalition’s cuts for the riots”.
But there’s nothing “simplistic” about the analysis of people like Batmangheldjh, which comes from years of experience of working directly with vulnerable young people. And rather than thinking about how his party could exploit the riots to win support, Tim Montgomerie and other Tory politicians should listen to what she is saying.
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