Liberal Conspiracy » Douglas Johnson

TODAY’S TOP STORIES / 5th November

Douglas Johnson — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:36:46 +0000

And more…
Brown hails ‘inspirational’ Obama
Why Obama won
GOP: Deep in the Wilderness
Times: Full video and text of speech

Elsewhere…
UN caught in new DR Congo clashes
Stocks rise after Obama victory
Trauma rife in Afghanistan troops
Devolution body to take evidence

Election Netcast Special / by Douglas Johnson

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! (Ahem.)

Next Left - tries to find the essential reads of the election.

Shiraz Socialist - The Reagan Coalition is dead. At last!

Plattitude - exercises the inner Obama.

Penny Red - rather sums up how I felt last night.

Pickled Politics - has pictures from an Obama office on election day, and a fitting reaction to victory.

Bob Piper - wishes that we had the same chance to vote for change in 2010.

Socialist Unity - Obama isn’t Blair, and this won’t be a New Labour style disappointment; the campaigns were different, and so will be the terms.

Stroppyblog - Melanie Phillips isn’t happy. Oh dear. (YES!)

The Yorksher Gob - has three pleasing open letters.

Rayyan Mirza - has some thanks to say.

Daily Kos - has pretty pictures.

More later, when I’ve had some sleep. Tips very welcome in the comments!

What to Expect in 2010

Douglas Johnson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:20:09 +0000

Boris Johnson made his first conference speech as Mayor of London yesterday. In it, he made the proud boast that:

“…for the first time since the GLA was created, for the first time since London has had a mayor. I will not be coming back to the people and asking them for more money in tax. There will be no increase in our share of the council tax next year…”

He justifies these cuts with the claim that we must cut tax, because the credit crunch pinches hard on wallets. That’s an odd defence. To fund the hole in the GLA’s budget the cut makes, Boris will no doubt need to cut public services and increase fees for those that remain; putting pressure on incomes, just in another place.

It’s an especially odd defence when you consider that, in fact, Boris raised London’s public transport fares by some 11% recently. Hardly a move likely to aid those commuters suffering from the economic downturn that Boris claims his policies will make easier. Many who regularly use public transport use it because they must; either a car costs too much, or is simply impractical.

So, the claim that these cuts come because it’d be criminal to foist yet more money from Londoners during a financial crisis wears very thin; as, actually, he will take more money from other Londonders, elsewhere. As Mr. Stop Boris points out:

By taking disproportionate sums of money from public transport users in order to keep Council Tax down, rejecting the option of spreading the pain relatively fairly among all Londoners in favour of penalising those using public transport, Boris is benefiting those in suburbia with big houses and cars, who could best afford to pay more, at the expense of those living in poverty and reliant on the buses to get around.

The money for the council tax cuts won’t come from fare-rises, which come from another pot with other holes in it. But they will come from cuts to other public services used just as much as the buses by those who can’t afford anymore.

Boris tells us this is the most fundamental illustration of what a Tory does in power. Perhaps we should take note of what that is then; a series of policies whereby the wealthy pay less and the poor pay more. Osborne proposed similar cuts in council tax at the Conservative Conference today. If Johnson’s example is anything to go by, they’ll come from public services whose users just can’t afford that. Which first, I wonder?

The View Outside Labour’s Bubble

Douglas Johnson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:29:45 +0000

A Blairite acquaintance languishing at the Labour Conference reports:

Conference is generally quite upbeat and behind Gordon. My less confident attitude hasn’t been too popular!

This just before another text asking me whether I’d seen yesterday’s poll in the Observer confirming Labour’s impending electoral annihilation. These delegates know how dire the situation is, and yet they refuse to act against it. A conference packed with loyalists.

Compare that with a confirmed socialist’s verdict:

Last night I went to a party, drank four glasses of free champagne and compared dresses with important political ladies for a set period of time before going outside to smoke with the other interns and attempt to throw up my own lungs in a paroxysm of horror. What on earth happened to the Labour party? What happened?

(I spent the rest of the evening shouting about the RMT to Boris’ transport minister and attempting to get people to stand on chairs with me and sing ‘the red flag’. I’m not sure I’ll be invited back.)

At every event they’re edging closer to coming out and admitting that Labour has abandoned the grassroots. Peering out from their glittering Westminster bubble, even the chummy delegates and media flunkies here in Manchester are starting to get a little bit worried. If they don’t mobilise, if they don’t involve the communities and do more to address the needs of the people who vote for them and buy their newspapers, the number of expensive dinners on their horizon looks to significantly dwindle.”

There we have it; “Labour has abandoned the grassroots.” Conference exists in a gossipy bubble which bears little relation to the outside world; ministers grandstand on stage to choreographed applause. And the only reports which make it out are of that gossip – who spoke to whom, where, when and how that won’t make any difference anyway as they’re all so scared the party will come crashing down around their ears. A far cry from the political extravaganza Diane Abbott recalls from her earlier days.

Party conferences exist as the democratic interface between the membership and the hierarchy. Members spread out across the country can’t play a daily part in a centralised national party; but they can ensure its accountability at regular, democratic meetings. They use Conference to vote on policy, and on those to articulate it, and the party should remain true to its membership.

Except that patently doesn’t happen at Labour Conferences anymore. The grassroots and delegates have little or no influence on most party business. They vote on motions, they vote for committees of now-questionable potency – and they listen to speeches. They have no means of holding those speakers to account, as they’re appointed by the leader.

And they have no realistic means of holding that leader to account, given the tortuous process whereby sufficient MPs must first squabble and acquire signatures before the general membership is even consulted. Power has accumulated into the hands of a small party elite, and that elite has gradually closed off any paths by which it might be challenged; leaving the grassroots with nothing.

Even sheer physical protest at this strangulation of internal democracy is difficult. At any time that matters, the Conference floor finds itself carefully managed to the point that even MPs cannot register their views. My friend (a minor staffer, for the sake of as much disclosure as he’ll allow me) informs me Siobhan McDonaugh attempted to lead a walk out of Brown’s opening speech; but her seat had already been surrounded by party staff to reduce its effectiveness to naught.

Labour Party loyalists inform disillusioned progressives that we must support this government, however much we hate it, or face a decade of Tory rule. But when we loathe so much of what that government has done, and have so little chance to influence it, what, really, is the point? The death of internal democracy signalled the death of Labour’s membership; there’s little point signing up to an organisation whose pronouncements you just can’t control. The party would do well to realise that if it ever wants its mass support back.

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