Coalition tensions will still be there in 2015

John Redwood has used a blog post today to highlight a problem that I've mentioned before: that the Conservatives are allowing the Lib Dems to portray all the positive coalition actions as stemming from their influence. Redwood calls this trend a 'new narrative' and, claiming that the notion that the Lib Dems have come into Government to 'bridle the instincts of Conservatives' is wrong, and he goes on to list policies - like the pupil premium - that should be credited to the Tories.

The problem is that the Lib Dems are struggling in the polls. To counter this they are trying to get credit for policies that will get good press, and the Conservatives are letting them do it. It is a good policy for the Lib Dems, because it's a narrative that is easily understood by the public. The Conservatives probably think that it's a short-term piece of political expediency for the sake of the coalition, but it could have dangerous long-term repercussions for the Tories.

Come 2015 the Conservatives will have problems if the Lib Dems can claim that every good bit of legislation was down to their influence, holding the nasty Tories at bay. But while this issue is easy to identify, it is much more difficult to resolve. The coalition will come under stress in 2011. And 2012. And 2013, 2014 and 2015. It will prove very tempting at a number of points throughout the life this Parliament to allow the Lib Dems to claim that they are a moderating influence on tough Tory policies so that they can try and improve their poll ratings. There is no period when things will get easy for this Government. 

But Conservatives do not need to be that worried. The deficit reduction plan is their idea and, if it works, they should be able to make it clear at an election that Britain's prosperity is down to them. This should count for more with the electorate than the Lib Dems' suggestion that some social policies are a little different because of their influence. 

Public Spending 2014/15 - Telegraph Graphic

Here's a great little graphic from the Telegraph illustrating the spending power that each department will have after the cuts in 2014.

Would you join Labour for a penny?

So Labour are offering a 1p membership to anyone under 27. I started writing a post on this the other day but couldn't really be arsed to finish it. And it seems that I wasn't the only one lacking any enthusiasm, because today the Guardian revealed that the offer had brought in just 400 new members.

400 people paid a penny to join Labour, so they could have the honour of having Ed Miliband voice their concerns to the nation. Now, I'm pretty confident that the admin on 400 new members is going to cost more than the £4.00 that Labour have made this week. And that these bargain hunters may prove fickle when they get asked for the full £39.00 next year. It's also made me more certain than ever that Labour's claim to have had 50,000 new members since the election is likely to prove an exaggeration.

I wonder why people didn't take up the offer? Maybe it's because although the 'young' are perceived to be against some of the coalition's policies, they still realise that Labour are not yet a credible alternative. These young people also aren't quite young enough to have missed the fact that Labour were the ones that introduced tuition fees in the first place. And they won't have missed that Labour itself has absolutely no credible policy for higher education. They will also be suspicious that having Ed Miliband as a spokesman isn't necessarily the best thing, given that he can't seem to get any media coverage at the moment and the PLP thinks he's useless.

Which begs the question: why now? A reduced membership rate is a great one-off gimmick that has the very real potential to raise membership numbers. But you have to already have forward momentum. A cheap membership rate when you've no policies, have just been beaten in an election and have a weak new leader will not turn things around. Now they're in an even worse situation, because this poor response has just confirmed to the public that no-one wants to join their party. If they'd done it in three years' time then it could have been hugely successful. But I really think they've jumped the gun. 

The Telegraph's Cable Cables

The Telegraph's sting this week has upset Vince Cable. Speaking to his favourite local paper, the Richmond and Twickenham Times, Cable claimed that the sting had caused 'great damage' to the relationship between MPs and constituents. 

This response is really pathetic. First, he's trying to deflect attention away from what he has said and onto the means which the journalists used to obtain it. Secondly, there will be no damage to the relationship between MPs and their constituents. To realise this you only have to look at what has been published: it's all headline stuff about national politics. The Telegraph went looking for concrete evidence that senior Lib Dem MPs were proclaiming their loyalty in public and were then openly critical behind closed doors. They found it, not because they were duplicitous, but because some Lib Dems ARE saying one thing in public and another in private. 

The only 'great damage' done is to an MP's ability to fob off constituents by saying that really he opposes everything nasty that his Government has done but that he had to do it or he'd get sacked. 

And really there is very little in these tapes that should surprise anyone. 

Jeremy Browne called the Conservative's EU allies 'quite nutty' and 'an embarrassment'. Well, they sort of are aren't they? Cameron's decision to ditch the mainstream right-of-centre EU block in favour of the smaller ECR group, which includes some pretty controversial individuals, has surely been one of the strangest decisions he's made as Tory leader. It's hardly surprising that the Lib Dem's leading foreign policy man should be critical. 

He also said that the Lib Dems were a softening influence on the Tories' Europe policy, and that the EU was relieved that they were tempering the anti-EU side of the Conservatives. Again, this is hardly news. It's very obvious to anyone who looks at the UK's foreign policy for more than five seconds. The same applies to the comments he made which claimed that the Tories' immigration policy was driven by 'uncharitable' instincts. This is pretty much what the Lib Dems and Labour said about the Tories before the election. 

Other things we already knew include:

Paul Burstow saying that he didn't want voters to start trusting David Cameron, and that Cameron hasn't suddenly become a 'cuddly Liberal'.

David Heath claiming that George Osborne 'gets up your nose' and that he didn't understand what it was like to be poor. (I'd never heard this argument before.)

Vince Cable bragging that he thought he was important enough to bring down the coalition with his 'nuclear option' of resigning.

Michael Moore saying that he didn't like the plans to scrap Child Benefits to some families and that he doesn't like Liam Fox. 

Norman Baker saying that there were some Tories he liked and some he didn't, the former including Ken Clarke and the latter category including George Osborne. 

Ed Davey claiming that changes to Housing Benefit could be problematic.

Steve Webb stating that the Lib Dems needed to assert their identity more within the coalition. (Shocking.)

and Andrew Sturnell claiming that he didn't know if Cameron was 'sincere', and saying he was a 'very skilled' political operator. 

The only seriously interesting revelation was of just how idiotic Cable could be. Not just in his naive claim that he could bring down the Government but also by saying that he was trying to 'wage war' against Murdoch, and that in doing so he might actually seek to bring his office into disrepute by not being objective. Now it's pretty common for left-wingers to dislike Murdoch, but to risk your professional career in order to prevent a takeover takes things to another level. 

It's also such a cliché that these middle-aged politicians were stung by two younger female journalists (Holly Watt and Laura Roberts - above L and R). I'd love for it to have been a coincidence, but given that the two journalists' investigative strategy basically consisted of giggling, I'm pretty confident that it was not. 

As a final point, it was very revealing to see the Telegraph shamefully fail to report Cable's comments about Murdoch. The Telegraph stands to gain from any curbs on Murdoch's empire and so didn't report what Cable said. Instead, some brave journalist leaked it to Robert Peston at the BBC and it was left to that organisation - one which, like the Telegraph, competes against Murdoch - to tell the truth. The BBC is to be highly commended for its reporting and the Telegraph should be ashamed. 

Celebrity News?

Apparently, Vince Cable's car crash of a ministerial career is one of the Telegraph's top three 'celebrity news' stories today.

The paper left the sage of Twickenham out of its front-page politics section and gave him a berth in its celebrity news section instead - which apparently covers everything 'from the Hollywood homes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to the chic nightclubs visited by Kate Middleton and Prince William and the holiday beaches favoured by the Beckhams and the Sarkozys.'

I'm not sure that people take Vince Cable seriously. His forthcoming performance on Strictly Come Dancing - the subject of this 'celebrity' article - is coming at a pretty bad time. He could really do with keeping his head down for a while after making a total idiot of himself earlier in the week. It's sort of all his own fault though really, so I've got little sympathy.

What I will say is that while it was a controversial move to keep Cable in the Government and not to have forced him to resign - as Cameron and Clegg would have done to almost anyone else - keeping him inside the tent does mean that he can't start stirring the pot on the backbenches. And that has to be better for the long-term health of the coalition.

Anyway, it's sad about Ryan and Scarlett, isn't it guys?

Boxing Day Tube Strike

Is this a good idea? Unions exist to get the best deal for their members by bargaining collectively. Tube drivers want to be paid triple and get a day in lieu for working on December 26th. So will going on strike on Boxing Day get drivers these concessions?

No. It's pretty certain that they won't. Tube bosses have seen off quite a few strikes recently and they're unlikely to buckle over this one. The reason? The public has very little support for the strikers. Why would they? The strikers cost businesses in London millions of pounds. They cause misery for millions of people who are trying to get to work or to see loved ones. This strike could upset what is one of the most important days of the year for retailers. 

I do understand that the drivers want these concessions. But I think that unions have lost perspective on what should be cause for a strike. You really can't expect to have all, or even most, of your demands met: you are not in charge. Going on strike is a nuclear option. It should only be used in the most extreme circumstances. This really is not one of those circumstances. Neither was it when the London Underground management chose to restructure the staffing at tube stations. That was their prerogative. 

If you go on strike too often then your management will simply think you're being unreasonable. And so it will stand up to you. And once it has realised that it can do that, and that when it does the public does not blame it but blames the unions and the strikers, then they will never give in to strikers. And your most powerful negotiating tool is rendered useless. 

This is even more pertinent because unions managed to continue striking even when the economy was in good shape. Now that it isn't, and the Government's cuts are about to hit the public sector, we're probably about to see more strikes. These would be a lot more effective in changing public opinion if unions were able to convince people that they only went on strike for serious reasons. But because of strikes like the one on Boxing Day they won't have the effect they might have done. 

Problems with the Browne Review are a missed opportunity for the Lib Dems.

I have written before about the Browne Review and the coming changes to the way universities are funded, making it pretty clear that the deal was actually better for students than the one they get now. But two areas I didn't touch have been troubling me. First, I didn't look at the principle of whether students should have their university education funded. Secondly, there is one area on which Browne's reforms are very weak and the Lib Dems are fools for not noticing it.

Britain's current problems have arisen from a noble goal: to make university accessible to all. A consequence of this has been that the number of people going to university has increased. A lot. This may have been great for social mobility (debatable) but it was awful for the government's finances. There are now more people going to university than the state can afford. On the surface - and I think that this is where people are looking - this looks unfair. Before the expansion of HE students, who were rarely from poor backgrounds, got free higher education. Now university is open to all it suddenly isn't free.

The simple fact is that students never deserved state help. There is no reason why taxpayers should fund students. Why should the poor fund your university experience? Or rather, why shouldn't you pay for it yourself? You get a hell of a lot out of it - all the statistics suggest that graduates earn more than non-graduates. So why should non-graduates subsidise your education so you can earn more money?

They shouldn't. You should pay for your own studies.

My second point is this: there is a big problem with these reforms, but it's not with the top-up fees. That £9,000 figure has distorted the debate. Everyone is focussed on it. But the reason why £9,000 isn't a problem is because the government pays it for you up front, and you pay back when you're earning. If you do the sums, you'll see that someone paying back their loan earning £25,000 a year at the 9% rate on income over £21,000 will have to find just £360 per year. It's not the thing that makes university unaffordable.

The killer is what you have to pay UP FRONT when you're there. That is supposed to be covered by a maintenance grant and a means-tested allowance. But there is a real argument to say that the sums offered are not enough. For those with a household income less than £25,000 there will be a grant of £3,250. This is supplemented by a loan, which is to increase to an unspecified amount probably dictated by inflation and likely to be a little higher (for those with a household income of less than £25,000) than the current maximum of £3,497.

That's a little more than £6,747 a year. You can easily spend well over £4,000 on rent alone, particularly in London, leaving you with less than £3,000 to spend on food and clothes and heating all year. It's not enough. Most people will manage it because their parents will help them, which completely defeats the point. It's important to note that this isn't a new problem, it was part of Labour's initial reforms too: Browne's review just hasn't rectified it.

So students have focussed on the wrong thing. They've got caught up in an unwinnable debate over the £9,000 level and rejecting the bill outright, and have missed a real chance to make university more accessible to all. By lobbying hard students could have pressurised the government into increasing the maintenance grant and maintenance allowance.

An amendment of this sort would have been politically acceptable, in a way that rejecting the bill never could be. Not only would this have been a great benefit for students, it also would have been great for the Lib Dems, who are crying out for something positive to mask the bitter taste of this bill. I hope they realise it before it's too late.

As a footnote, I've read with some amusement that students at my former university UCL have been occupying a room (or something) in protest at the tuition fee increases which will be voted on in the Commons on Thursday. Some of the brave souls have come up with this song to mark the occasion. Favourite lines include (and I apologise in advance for the swearing, but it is, apparently, how you show solidarity, or make a valid political point, or something):

"We're all in this together as the proletariat." Sung while wearing a cricket jumper.
"The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains, working men of all countries unite." Impressed they got a melody out of this line. 
"Fucking Tories." So edgy. 
"Theresa May is a whore", which seemed a bit excessive to me. 

Anyway, decide for yourself if you think people on the lowest incomes should subsidise this lot:

PMQs - 1st December 2010

What is Ed Miliband doing? His performance on Wednesday was awful. I know people sometimes have bad days, but frankly he'd lost the argument before he even set foot in the chamber.

Here's a quick and by no means comprehensive list of the things I would have considered talking about at PMQs:

The ill-advised comments of Howard Flight, which had made the Tories seem out of touch and callous. The continuing concerns about the way the NHS is being restructured. The Lib Dems were/are in disarray over whether to vote for, against or abstain over tuition fees - even Vince Cable, who is in charge of the bill, hadn't then decided what too do. There had been more protests over the fee increases. Wikileaks had just released documents suggesting the Governor of the Bank of England thought Cameron and Osborne weren't up to the job. The plan for elected Police Commissioners looks to undermine the impartiality of the police force.

So what does he ask about? The OBR report. Which said that growth this year will be better than expected and that 160,000 fewer jobs than expected will be lost through public sector cuts.

So he got torn to shreds. He questions had no direction. He didn't build momentum. Cameron couldn't believe his luck, it's hard to see how Ed Miliband could have made it any easier for him. And to top it all, he used a tired line about Thatcher which Cameron had obviously anticipated and deployed the headline-grabbing retort: 'I'd rather be a child of Thatcher than a son of Brown!'

Easy Cameron win.

Wilful provocation or political naivety? Both.

Two comments have caused much consternation this weekend. The first was from Enterprise Tsar Lord Young on Thursday evening, and led to his resignation on Friday afternoon. The second was from Vince Cable on Sunday morning. Both showed a combination of political naivety and wilful provocation.

It has been pointed out by many (see here and here for starters) that Lord Young's comments that people have 'never had it so good' during this 'so-called recession' contained an element of truth. Low interest rates are good news if you've got a mortgage and still have your job. But that doesn't mean he was right to say it.

Lord Young was probably fed up with generalised comments about the recession and how it was affecting people. So he sought to tell it as he saw it. But in doing so he made a sweeping, generalised comment of his own which undermined the government's narrative that its deficit reduction plan - and the job losses that will accompany it - is the only responsible way to deal with the effects of the recession. They also play in to people's ill-founded yet genuine concerns that the Tory party is the party of the rich, and that it doesn't care - or won't even notice - if they suffer. Any comment that undermines the government, however economically accurate it may be, is a foolish comment to make. It is right that he has resigned.

Vince Cable has also made comments that are totally accurate and completely foolish. Speaking to the BBC's Politics Show, he said that, on tuition fees, the Lib Dems 'didn't break a promise. We made a commitment in our manifesto, we didn't win the election. We then entered into a coalition agreement, and it's the coalition agreement that's binding upon us and which I'm trying to honour.' Spot on; but what on earth is he thinking?

The Lib Dems need the debate about tuition fees to go away. As quickly as possible. It is turning voters against them. So why would one of the most senior Lib Dems come out and deliberately provoke their (very noisy) opponents on this issue? Last week the CCHQ building was trashed by part of a 50,000 strong demonstration against this legislation. All he's done is start another round of media interest in the subject. NUS President Aaron Porter is back on the airwaves, calling the comments 'insulting'. Cable gains nothing from this. Neither does his party - in fact it just highlights the same 'broken promises' that Clegg talked about (see below) before the election. Sometimes, even if you know you're right about something, you should just bite your tongue and shut up about it. 

Labour's leading poetician

So, National Poetry Day was ages ago, and I missed it. I know you did too. But one man who didn't was Chris Bryant, Labour MP and, apparently, wannabe poet. Here is his political poem. In many ways it's wonderful that, in this age of twitter, online media, and 24 hour news, an MP can be bothered to imitate Keats in order to take a political swipe at the government.


To Autumn

Season of trysts and pomp-full conferences
When politicians, in three hordes uncouth
Assemble in up-market hotel foyers
To gossip, flirt, conspire and take the hand
Of every willing voter in the land;
To argue for their version of the truth,
To battle for the future of our schools
Our hospitals, police and uncared youth;
Just sometimes to put forward their pet scheme
For rescuing Britain; and perchance to dream
Of greasy poles they yet aspire to climb.

But now the champagne flutes are passed their time -
And late-night, lightweight, internecine strife.
The autumn parliamentary term commences
With all eyes fixed on Osborne’s pending knife.
Statistics, figures, numbers stride the land,
Brought forth by each to stay the other’s hand.
Some worship at the shrine of deficit reduction,
They see a chance to slash the state, scot-free,
They eulogise the Big Society
But in their hearts they make a grand deduction:
Let Alexander, Clegg and Cable take the rap.

It’s true, perhaps the sea of faith was full once;
The faith that all our dreams could be enacted by
The simple, legal application of the democratic will;
That honest, good and independent people
Could change the world by sheer determination;
That work for all would pay a living wage,
That poverty, ill-health and destitution
Would be abolished – here and in every nation.
But now the voters issue a redacted sigh
Their trust in politics of every hue in rage
They fear that they will pay a hefty bill.

Which leaves us with the task we set ourselves:
To live within our means but go for growth;
To struggle for the cause of common sense,
Since rapid, ill-considered, swingeing cuts will lead us hence
To double-dip recession, not to economic health.
The songs of Spring still stir our anxious bones,
With echoes of the age-old oath
(Albeit in a voice and accent of today)
To fight for freedom, fairness, and the common wealth.
The people watch, the media barons neigh
And gathering members twitter on their phones.

Chris Bryant MP

PMQs - 10th November 2010

Following the disunity displayed by the PLP on Monday this could have been a very difficult outing for Harriet Harman but her relentless focus on tuition fees left Nick Clegg struggling.

Harman's prepared jokes were excellent and she was on the front foot throughout. She began with a simple question to Clegg, asking if he could update the House on how his plans to abolish tuition fees were going. This brought howls of laughter from the Labour benches. Nick fought back with those tired lines about the deficit and the legacy of the previous government.

She pushed again with a Clegg quote from the election campaign in which he called the prospect of £7,000 fees a 'disaster'. Clegg started to warm up and retorted that the system was fairer than anything under Labour and that it would help part-time students 'shamefully treated' by the opposition.

Labour's Deputy Leader then landed the best line of the exchange about Clegg meeting some 'dodgy bloke' at freshers' week and doing something he'd regret. The backbenches on both sides were laughing now - even William Hague couldn't hide his smirk (see above).

Clegg hit back by arguing that Labour was far from the party of students, pointing out that Labour had introduced tuition fees after opposing them in 1997 and introduced top-up fees after opposing them in 2001. They also set up the Browne Review and now disown its findings. He then asked Harman if she'd be going outside to explain to demonstrating students what her party's policy was.

Then Harman got to the real meat of the debate, and hammered home what should be a central part of their attacks on the coalition. Fee increases for students are not to increase funding for universities, but to cover the money that the government is cutting from universities. 'What is the cut to the university teaching grant?' she demanded.

Nick lost his bearings. He'd been defensive but generally assured until this point but here he started mumbling about the Labour party's plans to make massive cuts, which he couldn't be specific about because Labour don't even know what they are.

Harman came straight back at him, asking if he'd been taking lessons from the PM on how not to answer questions. She said the cuts to the university teaching grant were a 'staggering 80 per cent' and that the government had 'pulled the plug' on university funding. By now Clegg's responses were incoherent, as he said something generic about being progressive and fair.

Labour's Deputy Leader finished by mocking the Lib Dems' pre-election pledges. Clegg then tried to cram in a joke about the PLP's Mutiny Monday, but it was way too late and totally off topic. He looked completely lost, complaining that before the election he didn't know how bad things would be in government after Labour.

It was a big surprise to see Clegg so weak in debate, given that it's supposed to be one of his strong points. He didn't really land a single attack on Labour, and his Mutiny Monday joke was deployed out of desperation. Harman, on the other hand, was assured and relentless in her attack on the Lib Dems leader. In truth she has an easier time attacking the Lib Dems than Miliband has with Cameron, because they are so vulnerable on the compromises the are making. Even so, she defeated Clegg with some panache yesterday, matching excellent prepared jokes and quotes with points of real substance.

Solid Harman win. 

Left-wing blogs silent on CCHQ violence

The left wing of the political blogosphere has let itself down today. Almost every blog has either ignored or glossed over the violence seen yesterday at CCHQ's Millbank Office as the work of a few or as a distraction, and most seek to absolve the demonstration and the NUS of any responsibility for it. 

Political Scrapbook's runs with 'What you didn't see on Sky News: student protesters booing those who threw fire extinguisher'. Thus the site's only mention of the violence is an attack on Sky, accusing the broadcaster of misleading reporting because it failed to show footage of protesters booing the student who dropped a fire extinguisher on the police. It makes no criticism of the violence, only calling the guy on the roof an 'idiot'. 

Labour List's Mark Ferguson says 'Young people are angry, do you blame them?' His first paragraph contains some criticism of the violence as 'Inexcusable, self-defeating and plain wrong' before quickly absolving the protest of any responsibility for it. It's clear from this and the rest of his article that he's more concerned about the damage done to the image of the protest than he is about the attack on CCHQ. 

Left Foot Forward manages to call the violent protesters 'idiots' and link to NUS President Aaron Porter's tweeted criticism of the violence before, like Labour List, launching into a paddy about how this will distract from the real issues at stake. And like Labour List, this is a blog post about the fee increase with a cursory mention of the violence, rather than a flat condemnation of it. 

Sunny Hundal on Liberal Conspiracy goes so far as to urge his fellow lefties to stop 'self-flagellating' about the violence (I'm not sure what he's been reading because I can't find any such 'self-flagellation'). Deciding not to offer any criticism, he instead sounds giddy as he contemplates the beginning of a nationwide campaign of local protests against the coalition. Then, in this astonishing comment, he laughs off the violence and describes the media, police and Tories as 'wusses'.

Dave Osler on the same site gets nostalgic for the glory days of the 1980s and again offers absolutely no condemnation of the violence, instead postulating that some of the protesters might be the children of the miner's strike and poll tax. As he says: 'You only need a couple of hundred of us and - let the state be in no illusion about this! - we are more than capable of organising civil disobedience.' 

Next Left has absolutely no mention of the protest, just like prominent MP blogger Tom Harris and former spinner Alistair Campbell. Maybe they've got better things to write about, or perhaps they decided that if they couldn't write anything criticising the violence then they'd better not write anything at all. 

Only James Forsyth over at Coffee House, the Spectator's blog, manages any outright criticism of the violence. He unambiguously states that 'It's essential that those responsible for today's violence feel the full force of the law.' Good on him. 

It has been noted that this year left wing sites have risen in prominence and, according to the Total Politics Blog Awards 2010, now occupy 4 top ten places, compared to to one last year. Yet these blogs seem to be far less critical of their own side than blogs on the right. Leading right wing bloggers Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes are totally unafraid of attacking the right when they see fit. Conservative Home is similarly unafraid of saying what it thinks about the Tories. Why is this so hard for those on the left? It should be pretty easy for them to find the courage to openly and unambiguously condemn this violence, but for some reason it isn't. 

Tory ambitions in Oldham East by-election

Obviously we won't know until Monday if there will be a by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth, but it seems as if the Tories fancy their chances and are already looking to steal the seat away from both Labour and the Lib Dems. 

Baroness Warsi - whose job title appears to be Party Chairman with special responsibility for relentlessly attacking the opposition - has come out and said that the Conservatives will field a candidate and will not stand aside for the Lib Dems. 

The Lib Dem candidate who brought the action against Labour's Phil Woolas, Elwyn Watkins, lost by only 103 votes. The Conservative Party candidate, Kashif Ali, was a further 2310 votes back. See the table below:

So do the Tories really have a shot at winning this seat?

First impressions would be yes, because in May this election was a three horse race, and it is conceivable that if Ali stands again and runs a good campaign he could take 1000 votes from Watkins and 1000 from Labour and win. 

But on closer inspection there is much for the Tories to be wary of here. The swing towards the Conservative candidate was a huge +8.7 per cent at the last election. He would have to not only maintain this but improve on it to win.

Much of that swing was at the expense of Phil Woolas, the Labour candidate and a former Home Office minister, who suffered a -10.7 per cent swing. He will (almost certainly) not be standing again in the by-election. Instead there will be a new Labour candidate, who will distance themselves from Woolas and the previous government. 

They will also benefit hugely from Labour being out of power and in opposition. There is no groundswell of anti-Labour - and perhaps as importantly, anti-Brown - sentiment like there was in May. Expect the new candidate to be very much part of Ed Miliband's 'new generation'.

The issue is complicated by the Lib Dems' poll ratings, which have crashed since the election in May from around 27 per cent to a paltry 11 per cent. This suggests that the Lib Dems will do very badly. It would obviously be premature to write them off, but I think that Elwyn Watkins will struggle to achieve 31.6 per cent of the vote again. This, of course, means that there are disaffected Lib Dem voters that can be targeted by Labour and the Conservatives. 

So what are their chances? The national political issues clearly favour Labour in opposition, and looking at the results in neighbouring constituencies I think Ed Miliband has every reason to be confident. This is a seat that will be receptive to Labour's messages about cuts and the government attacking the poor. Oldham East and Saddleworth is at the eastern edge of a belt of solidly Labour seats stretching over from Manchester to Liverpool, and just to the west of a block of solid Labour seats in the Midlands and Yorkshire. Phil Woolas has been the Labour MP there since the seats' inception in 1997. 

The seat was created in 1997 by merging an Oldham constituency, which had a strong Labour past, with Saddleworth, which since its creation in 1983 had been both Tory (12 years) and Lib Dem (2 years). Since 1997, the Conservatives have never polled higher than the 26.4 per cent Ali achieved in May. 

Furthermore, the collapse in Lib Dem support is because of the coalition. It is reasonable to suggest that the 11 per cent of people still supporting the Lib Dems are happy with the coalition and positive towards the Conservatives. Even so, they will likely vote Lib Dem in this by-election. If local politics mirrors national politics then the 16 per cent of Lib Dem voters who have lost faith in the party nationally will not likely vote Conservative, as it is the alliance with that party which has caused them to become disillusioned. Lib Dem voters are likely, if they move, to move towards Labour. 

So looking at the local history of the seat and its surrounding area, the likely effects of the collapse in Lib Dem support, and how receptive the locals will likely be to the Labour message of government cuts, it will be hard for the Tories to win this seat. It is Labour's seat to lose. 

As an interesting final point, it is not hard to see why Woolas felt that campaigning on immigration and alleging his opponent was soft on Islamic extremism could prove a successful tactic. In 2001 the seat gained notoriety when the BNP candidate Michael Treacy won over 5,000 votes, an 11.2 per cent share. Despite being right-wing, the BNP tend to do well in Labour areas rather than Conservative ones, which again points to the difficulty the Tories will have winning this seat. 

Press before Parliament

I've blogged before about the eternal struggle some wage to stop the government trailing their policies in the press before they announce them in Parliament. 

I'm pretty unconcerned about it. Frankly, I think that because it is unrealistic to assume that the government can keep major policy initiatives totally secret it is inevitable that they will release details themselves so that they can try and control the press agenda. Doesn't make it right, but it doesn't mean they are disrespecting Parliament either. 

I bring this matter up again because on Wednesday the details of David Willetts' announcement on university fees - made in Parliament directly after PMQs at 12.30pm - was all over the papers that very morning. 

The point I'd like to make is that I believe debate in the Commons benefits from these briefings. Politicians on all sides have the chance to prepare their questions and are not forced to react instantly. Surely it is the information that is important here, and the sooner MPs (and the public) know about it the sooner they can prepare their arguments. 

Prisoners, Europe and the Right to Vote

I would like to make two points. The first is about the law, and the second is about the man who's brought about our current impasse. 

The current legal situation is messy. On the one hand, you've the law passed by Parliament which removes the right to vote from prisoners. On the other, the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights which said that this law was superseded by another law the UK signed up to, the European Convention on Human Rights. This plays into a much larger - and for the coalition government, potentially very toxic - debate about the UK's role in Europe and the effect of European laws on our sovereignty. 

UK law currently states (Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983) that "A convicted person during the time that he is detained in a penal institution in pursuance of his sentence or unlawfully at large when he would otherwise be so detained is legally incapable of voting at any parliamentary or local government election."

I think that most people in this country would agree with that. If you commit a crime and are punished with a prison sentence then, for the duration of that sentence, you lose some of your rights, and one of those should be the right to vote. Voting is one of the privileges of being a citizen of a free country. People will certainly be repulsed at the prospect of prisoners voting in their constituencies, and politicians having to court a 'prison vote'. 

The British Courts certainly agreed. In 2001 the High Court ruled that there was a spectrum of opinion of prisoner's votes and Britain fell into the middle. It stated that the country's "position in the spectrum is plainly a matter for Parliament, not the courts." So it deferred to Parliament and the 1983 Act mentioned above. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) disagreed. In 2004 it said that UK law breached the European Convention on Human Rights, a decision that was upheld on appeal in 2005. It noted that "The removal of the vote... runs counter to the rehabilitation of the offender as a law-abiding member of the community and undermines the authority of the law as derived from a legislature which the community as a whole votes into power." This was based on Article 1, Protocol 3, which states that "The High Contracting Parties [i.e. the UK] shall hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of people in the choice of the legislature."

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like what influenced the judges in Strasbourg was the prospect of an unrepresentative legislature, rather than the prospect of prisoners having their rights infringed. Either way, the upshot was that the court decided that the UK was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

So does the government have to allow all prisoners the vote? Well, maybe not. The debate is nuanced by the fact that the court said that the blanket ban on voting was unlawful. It did not say that a partial ban would be unlawful. This appears to be the line the government is taking. They are naturally very anxious at allowing serious offenders the vote so will seek to stop them from voting while allowing those convicted of less serious crimes the vote. 

Yet this will surely only be a temporary fix. The man who brought this case to the ECHR was convicted of manslaughter and served 25 years. A serious offence. He made it clear today that he believed there was no room for a partial ban, suggesting he is prepared for further legal action. 

So that is the problem. The UK had a very clear position on this matter but, in voluntarily signing up to the European Convention on Human Rights, it muddied the waters by agreeing to a document that flatly contradicts its previous position. 

This leads to the bigger debate about the effect of European laws on the UK and what some perceive as a threat to the UK's sovereignty. It is clearly a part of national law that the legislature - in the UK's case its Parliament in Westminster - is the highest law-making authority. Yet the advent of supra-national structures like the EU and UN have created bodies whose legal decisions are deemed to take precedence over national decisions. 

The issue is all about balance. If we want to be part of these organisations because of the benefits they offer - and we entered the EU and UN voluntarily, just as we signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights voluntarily - then we have to find a way to maintain the sovereignty of our own country at the same time, in order to ensure that our country remains responsive to the needs of its citizens. We must ensure we retain our independence and that other states retain theirs: there is nothing noble in having a homogenised Europe.

So there there is now a legal wrangle going on which is trying to work out the jurisdiction of the ECHR. Because the Human Rights Act of 1998, which forms the basis of the Court's decision, states only that we must "take into account" the decisions of the ECHR. This is vague enough, some argue, to mean that it is not totally binding. On the other hand, a much stronger argument is put by those who point to Protocol No. 14 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which says "The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgement of the court in any case to which they are parties." 

Yet to really understand why this is such an emotive issue, we have to look at it hypothetically, because the Liberal Democrats believe the 1983 law is wrong. Yet they will not get the chance to challenge it in Parliament. If we step back and re-examine the issue without the revulsion to the edict from Strasbourg we can ask: would the government legislate for change or keep the existing provision? 

I believe that the reason for the outcry is that the answer would most emphatically be NO. I don't believe there is any great movement for change on this issue within the UK and I believe that the 1983 law is an accurate reflection of the wishes of the people this country. 

So without a judgement from a court outside this country there would be no change in prisoner's voting rights. This could become a totemic issue for many who resent the subordination of our Parliament. I expect the Conservative Party backbenchers will make a lot of noise on this issue and I don't see many on the Labour benches opposing them. In fact I'd expect them to agree. 

I also expect people to resurrect calls for a British Bill of Rights, which could seek to insulate the UK from European legislation. Completely un-twining our country from Europe would be very difficult and counter-productive, but creating some sort of legislation that reasserts Parliament's sovereign right to make final decisions on legislation and the right of the UK's legal system to have a final say on the superiority of either European or British legislation is surely possible and overdue. It's all about finding a balance. 

On to my second point. John Hirst is the man who brought the Hirst v UK (No 2) case to the European Court of Human Rights. It is unfortunate for other prisoners that he is an unpleasant man, because they could do with someone who isn't aggressive and totally lacking in remorse to argue their case. This video of his interview with Andrew Neil on the Total Politics programme today reflects that. A more eloquent advocate would have a much better chance persuading people to support his cause. 

PMQs - 3rd November 2010

Today's outing was totally lacking in direction - Ed Miliband appeared not to know which topic to ask questions about. Problem was that Cameron didn't get into a groove and made some odd jokes which didn't really land in return. Ed started with two questions on Yemen and the recent terrorist plot involving cargo flights into the UK, which were interesting, but lacked a cutting edge as he was just asking for information.

He then switched to Tuition Fees, which was today's big news, and asked two questions about that. First how the government was going to balance its commitment to build trust in politics with election promises not to raise tuition fees and secondly, and much more effectively, by pushing at the Lib Dems by questioning how this policy would go down in Sheffield (Nick Clegg), Twickenham (Vince Cable) and Eastleigh (Chris Huhne).

Cameron wasn't in full flow at this point at all. He came up with some weak line about how the policy would create strong, well funded, and independent universities before making a very lame joke about the 'Milibandwagon', which didn't even make sense. But he picked up, accusing Ed Miliband of breaking his word by going back on the Labour manifesto and asking the Labour leader to join the consensus on university reform and stop playing games.

But then Miliband again switched direction and asked if, in a time of austerity, it made sense for the PM to put his personal photographer on the civil service payroll. He made his best attack of the afternoon with a gag about the photographer 'doing a nice line in airbrushing' (which was hilarious) next to his worst line, a rehash of the old 'I ask the questions' from four weeks ago.

This got Cameron a bit flustered, and he responded by saying that Ed Miliband hadn't got any answers, which didn't make sense as he'd asked him a question about his photographer and this is Prime Minister's Questions. He rolled out some figure (£5oo million) as an example of how much Labour spent on communications in government, and then proceeded to talk about how Miliband was dodging the debate on Tuition Fees.

The debate ended with Miliband pushing on the photographer and accusing the PM of causing Broken Britain by breaking his promises on VAT, Child Benefit and Tuition Fees. Cameron pulled out one of his better lines by accusing the Labour leader of being opportunistic, full of 'lame soundbites', against everything and for nothing.

What I don't understand is why Miliband didn't push further on Tuition Fees. He could have raised a cheer from his backbenches with a line about the poor being squeezed out, or about the rich being able to pay up front and avoid debt, but he didn't. In a way it helped, as the photographer joke was his best of the exchange and salvaged it for him, but it was a pretty directionless performance against a Cameron who was not on top form and really could have been beaten today.

A score draw.

Students! Stop and think: Browne's reforms are great!

I wanted to begin by saying that I really don't understand why students dislike the Browne proposals. But the truth is that I do understand. I understand that students have seen the figure of £30,000 widely quoted and correctly worked out that this is more than they pay now. It then occurred to them that there would be no way for poorer students to afford that because they don't have £30,000. Then they heard someone mention a 'free market' and 'choice', and that made them really mad. So they decided these reforms are regressive, bad Tory cuts which will harm the poor and make university elitist.

They've thought about it for about as long as it took you to read that paragraph. Which is a shame. Because Lord Browne's reform is excellent.

The most important part is that you don't have to repay your loan until you earn £21,000 a year. That is brilliant. I wish I was that lucky. This measure, on its own, removes any argument that this reform unfairly impacts the poor. Because if you're poor all your fees are covered, and you don't pay back until you earn over £21,000. And if you're earning more than that you're not really poor any more are you! You've succeeded: you've come from a poor background, gone to uni, got a degree and got a good job after it. Well done.

And if you don't, then you don't pay. Your education will be free. FREE! What a great deal. £21,000 is so much fairer than the current £15,000, which almost all graduates will achieve. Yet even then, you don't just get a bill for the whole amount, you have a small percentage taken from your wages before you even see them. It will also increase with average earnings, so will not be fixed at £21,000 forever.

That leads into the second point about this system: you don't miss money you never had. The system will mean that university is FREE AT THE POINT OF USE. You will never see the money used to pay your fees, and you will never see the money that gets taken from your wages when you reach the threshold and start to pay your loan back. So much gets taken off in tax and NI anyway that having a little extra disappear to repay a loan - that helped you get your job earning over £21,000 - won't make any tangible difference. No-one is going to become destitute because of these repayments.

As I mentioned in my previous post, fear of debt has not put off poorer students from applying to university. In fact the opposite is true. Application numbers have increased dramatically. People clearly believe that university is a good path to success.

The problem with Browne's report is simply presentational. Using the words 'debt' and 'loan' makes students think, naturally, of a bank loan they must repay come what may. But this is not the case. It's not real debt, because if you don't earn over £21,000 it doesn't exist and whatever you haven't paid after 30 years gets written off.

There will also be more generous maintenance grants of £3,250 for students who come from households with incomes of less than £25,000. The upper threshold for students receiving partial maintenance grants will increase from £50,020 to £60,000, meaning more families will be get financial help. This will be supplemented by a flat-rate £3,750 maintenance loan which will no longer be means tested (yay!) and won't be paid back until you earn over £21,000.

The reforms also allow for funding to be extended to those completing part-time courses, who are not supported by the current system. This will make such courses much more appealing and will extend educational opportunities to millions of people who work and would like to do a part-time course but can't currently afford it. 

Browne's reforms also call for the universities to change some of their practices. For example they will be required to inform students up front how many contact hours they will have each week, so they can make informed decisions. There is also the hope, which may not be fulfilled, that universities will become more responsive to the needs of undergraduates. While this may not happen it is worth a shot, because at the minute they are not responsive and, frankly, inaction will not bring change either. 

Students will get their university experience totally free at the point of use and only have to pay money back once they earn over £21,000. Far from being penalised, the poor will be able to get the education they want knowing that it won't hurt them or their families financially. 

Today David Willetts will unveil the plan, and announce that when the reforms come in in September 2012 there will be two thresholds: £6,000 and £9,000 a year. Universities can charge what they like up to £9,000, but over £6,000 they have to demonstrate to the government that they are proactively encouraging students from poorer backgrounds. 

It already looks like one Lib Dem, Jenny Willott, MP for Cardiff Central and PPS to Chris Huhne, will resign over the matter. This is probably pretty helpful to the Lib Dems. Because of their election promises they can't be seen to totally support these measures even if the leadership does, and as their success in university seats is threatened they probably need a resignation to show students they care. It's a good move for her (she has a university seat in Wales) and for her party. I wouldn't expect to see any others go though. 

Analysing PMQs - How to win

The simplest way of looking at the new, developing relationship between David Cameron and Ed Miliband is to watch PMQs. Every Wednesday, the two leaders face off against each other in what is the most entertaining weekly part of our political cycle. But how exactly do you 'win' PMQs? What exactly is PMQs for? And what does the public really gain from these brief encounters? I'll be looking at these three questions separately, and in this blog post focussing on how politicians 'win' PMQs.

There are two important aspects to PMQs. The first is style. The second is substance. The most important thing to remember is that you don't have to win on both. Winning, or losing, one of them by a large enough margin will negate the other. So when Gordon Brown slipped up and said he 'saved the world', instead of 'the economy', he lost PMQs on style. It didn't matter what points of substance he raised in response to Cameron's questions. The Commons was in uproar, the debate was lost, and tomorrow's headlines had been written.

Ed Miliband's first performance was also judged on style. He managed to make Cameron seem patronising. Miliband's quip that 'despite being new to this, I'm pretty sure that I ask the questions' flooded the Labour benches with relief - that he (and, in electing him, they) wasn't going to screw up - and a belief that he could compete with and beat Cameron in the future. Yet it was also coupled with a line of questioning which had some substance - on the 'unfair' way Child Benefit is to be withdrawn from higher rate taxpayers.

David Cameron similarly joined style and substance last week when he defended the cap on Housing Benefits. It was an area which could have troubled him, but he was unequivocal in his support for the cap, saying clearly and directly that when the government is prepared to offer £20,000 a year towards rent no family should go without a home, and that to offer more would be unfair on working families that can't afford to live in those areas. He combined this policy defence with a joke about a leaked Labour document advising Ed Miliband on how to plan for PMQs: 'He's got a plan for PMQs but not for the economy.'

Winning purely on substance is rarer. In fact it is really impossible because delivery in such a charged environment will always be important and so a certain amount of style becomes a necessity. What is possible is to win on substance without landing a killer joke or getting your troops excited. But this actually comes across as a failure, because if you're winning on substance and fail on style you're missing an open goal. Without his jokes at Ed Miliband's expense, David Cameron's efforts defending the Housing Benefit cap would have ended in a draw with the Labour leader, not a victory. That this joke was a gift from Labour rather than of the Tories' own making shows how the substance of the Housing Benefit debate is yet to be won convincingly.

So to win PMQs it really is important to have both a good style and some substance to what you are saying. It is more common to win on style, because the highly pressured 20 minutes where the two leaders face one another is not really a conducive arena for serious policy debate. In the end, both sides usually attack each other's policy positions (which are mostly entrenched and will not change on the basis of one PMQs) with style not substance, hoping to land jokes and jibes that rally their supporters.

Over time, you would look to make your tactical victories part of a larger narrative. This is what Ed Miliband was trying to do by asking simple questions and provoking Cameron's faux indignation and condescending answers. He want's to present the PM as arrogant to the public. That's what he's doing to win on style. To win on substance over time he's seeking to hammer home his key message about the unfairness of the Coalition's spending plans. That's why he focussed on Child Benefit and Housing Benefit.

Cameron, on the other hand, is seeking to win on substance by making the most of Labour's ambiguous (at best) policy positions, and to keep reminding everyone that Labour put the country in this position. This is linked to personal attacks on Ed Miliband as both a union appointee, and as the author of Labour's election manifesto. Both could prove very damaging to Ed Miliband if they stick. These overall narratives are possibly the most important parts of the debates, because the generalised caricatures of the leaders are what filters down to the majority of the public, who are turned off by the weekly 'Punch and Judy politics' of PMQs.

Tony Blair famously remarked in A Journey that PMQs were the most nerve-racking part of being Prime Minister, and that he still gets nervous every Wednesday in anticipation. That such a capable politician and debater as Blair should say that about PMQs demonstrates how difficult they are to navigate, and how hard they are to 'win'.

Credit where credit's due

One of the most important points made at the Tory Reform Group (TRG) conference on Saturday was the need for the Conservatives to ensure that they get the credit for the government's liberal and progressive policies. The simplistic view that has arisen, in part because the Lib Dems have promoted it, is that the work of the Conservatives to cut the deficit, reform the health service and the education and welfare systems has been tempered by the guiding hand of the Lib Dems.

This is not true. The policies being enacted by this government are mainly Conservative ones and the party currently has a moderate leader in David Cameron, who is in reality politically very close to the Orange Book group in the Lib Dems, led by Nick Clegg. The Tories need to work harder to promote this side of their work, and to ensure that the Lib Dems don't get all the credit.

As key note speaker Damian Green said:

What is absolutely clear to me is that the Conservative Party must retain its own capacity to be moderate and progressive. We must not sub-contract the need to keep the Government in the progressive space to the Liberal Democrats. It would not only be bad for the Government to think that progressive policies must come from the Liberal Democrats it would be flatly untrue.

So the role of the TRG is more important than ever under the Coalition. We need to retain a strand of thought which is recognisably moderate and reforming, but also recognisably Tory. Because we are not Liberal Democrats. We do look first to the market, to the voluntary sector, to the individual. We glory in the history of our country. 

A successful Coalition government will make real the argument... that a combination of Tory realism and progressive idealism gives us the right kind of government, the right kind of politics, and most importantly, a country we can be proud of. 

TRG One Nation Day - Keynote from Timothy Barnes on Vimeo.

Cameron's EU-Turn

Europe just never brings good news for the Tories, and many of their grass-roots members will be as unhappy as Tim Montgomerie is over on Conservative Home. Last week the government was aiming to keep the EU's budget at exactly the same level in 2011: a zero per cent increase. This week, David Cameron announced that he has 'succeeded spectacularly' by preventing a 6 per cent increase. Instead, he's got agreement from eleven states to support a 2.9 per cent increase. 

That's a definite U-turn. It's not that 2.9 per cent is good or bad (which I'll discuss later), it's just that you can't say you've 'succeeded spectacularly' when you've changed your position as obviously as he has. It's awful politics. His narrative is shot to pieces. Indeed, so obvious is this that I'm genuinely amazed that the PM has used such strong language. Because he knows that there is no group that will accept this decision. 

So Labour will attack him for his U-turn - which is an easy story to sell to the press because 2.9 is so obviously not zero let alone the 25 per cent cuts our domestic budget is facing. Which is why Yvette Cooper has pointed out that Labour made it clear at the election they would not support a rise and said that the PM was 'grandstanding' over a 'complete failure'. And Tory Euro-sceptics will complain that he abandoned them and was weak because he promised a zero per cent rise last week. So we heard Norman Tebbit saying that anything other then zero per cent was a 'Vichy-style surrender'. 

Even if it was a negotiating tactic - the EU wants 6 per cent, we want zero per cent, lets meet in the middle at 2.9 per cent - the fact that Cameron publicly went for zero per cent when 2.9 per cent was already on the table was a tactical error. Because that 2.9 per cent rise is the same 2.9 per cent rise that was agreed months ago by a larger number of EU states. And this group includes Germany and France, whose leaders carry a lot more weight in Europe than Cameron does, which makes it hard for him to claim that this is his success. Even the supposed panacea to the right, Cameron's claim that from 2012 onwards the EU's budget will be linked to the budget's of member states that are planning austerity measures, looks weak. Why 2012? Why not now? And how will that work when states have very different budgets and benefit from EU spending in different ways?

As for whether or not 2.9 per cent is a good deal, it both is and isn't. Because in so far as the EU wanted a 6 per cent rise and it does need a rise if it is to fulfil its ambitions and keep up its development then yes, 2.9 per cent is a good deal for Britain. But in so far as the fact that the ambitions the EU has and the goals it sets are totally inappropriate and lacking in democratic legitimacy from the British people, it is obviously not a good deal. 

But in reality, Cameron is in a coalition with a Liberal Democrat party that is pretty pro-European. He is not from the right-wing of his party and is, at heart, a moderniser and pragmatist. It is possible he moved from zero per cent because he had to give concessions to the Lib Dems, but it's unlikely because the Lib Dems are facing a local election nightmare and more money for the EU isn't really going to help them very much. 

Frankly I think the coalition would be happy if the EU would just keep quiet for the next five years so they won't have to deal with it. Yet if Cameron hadn't made such a simple political error in driving for a zero per cent rise he could never get then things would be looking a lot better for the PM right now.