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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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:
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!'
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