“Time to ‘Consider Your Careers’, ‘Nameless’ Labour Briefers” by @MagsNews& BevClack

Appeared on the Labour Left website October 2014 

It’s rare for us to blog twice in a week, but, hey – a week is a long time in politics, and even more so in the current climate.

Our recent blog hit Twitter and Facebook around the same time as another article, rather different from ours. It suggested that Labour MPs were “in despair” under Ed Miliband’s leadership. It told of briefings by ‘nameless MPs’: a theme that we keep hearing and reading about. No, we’re not going to post a link to that piece, or any other such piece, because they won’t be good for your blood pressure; nor, in our humble opinion, do they deserve further exposure. But boy, our blog received more retweets and mentions than we’ve had in the whole time we’ve been writing together.  It struck a nerve and we’ve decided to oblige again!

We have been reliably informed that these ‘un-named MPs’ – who have been happy to utter their messages of discontent to the usual journalists always on the look out for such negative stories – amount to less than a handful.

Yes, that’s right: less than a handful!!

So few making so much noise. Why don’t they just pick up the ‘phone and have a chat with Ed?

Hardly likely, as we gather that their aim is to bring down Ed Miliband! Fair enough: political parties always have their malcontents. Well, we have news for you – you might think you are speaking for ‘The Party’ but you don’t!

We’ve both received messages from party activists who are concerned at the detrimental effect these few individuals are having on the party in general.

For the purpose of this blog, let’s refer to these un-named MPs as ‘strangers’ as this is what they appear to be and, indeed, clearly wish to be. 

We doubt that they are in touch with the grassroots members of our party. If they were, they would recognise the importance of Labour winning at the next election. Bev is a councillor and knows just how destructive Tory cuts have been for local communities and the hard work that so many Labour councils are doing to try to protect people from the affects of these cuts. If these strangers were sure of their ground they would speak out publicly. Instead, they hide and choose to speak ‘off the record,’ wishing to remain anonymous. Perhaps they should have the courage of their convictions and go on the record; maybe they should take to Twitter?

To counter these negative messages, we need to hear from other MPs. Party activists look to them to speak out, and they need to do so again, again and again. Knocking on doors and telephone canvassing can be a weary task. It’s always good to know that our elected members are supporting us!  We read of disenchantment with politics: again in light of the by-election results in Clacton and Heywood which show people turning to UKIP.  Silence in the face of this threat is not an answer.

We gather that the strangers are ‘worried about their careers’.

Oh dear. Poor them.

We’d like to think that they’re shouting loud and clear for those who try to exist on low wages or benefits, who have no food and/or no heating, who live on the edge possibly in poor housing, who pay high rents, who have trouble finding money to pay the mortgage, who are fearful of losing the roof over their heads, who are struggling to keep their families together. All of these people are victims in one way or another of policies advanced by this Tory-led coalition government.

After all, we all are in it one way or another!

How often we hear members, former members, those who are considering becoming members of the party acknowledge that Labour could and must be the party to form a government. We’re all so tired of the current rotten government that has no trouble advancing their policies to support the rich and powerful that they represent.

Some voters are just unsure: unsure about whether Labour really speaks for them, or shares their concerns about what’s happening in their daily lives.

They need to know that Labour is with them.

These are the young graduates trying to find employment apart from stacking shelves;  the young folk who haven’t a clue what the future holds for them;  the one parent families;  families who have extended families;  carers – sometimes carers are children and teenagers; the disabled and chronically sick;  those professionals who work in the public sector whose jobs are disappearing and find they have to start bidding for work due to the privatisation agenda of this Tory led coalition government. And the squeezed middle. The fact of the matter is that we are all being squeezed!

This brings us to the general election.

As Labour, we need to step up and attack this Tory-led government as well as taking every opportunity to talk about the repeal of the NHS Bill, the end of the Bedroom Tax, additional childcare  – just three Labour policies that will make differences to people’s lives. We hear very little of taking the fight to the Tories. The tax breaks they are offering if they are – god forbid – returned at the next election may sound attractive but no-one has said yet how these are going to be paid for.  Do the Tories even know?  And then there’s UKIP – they’d certainly continue NHS privatisation!

Again, the silence from too many of our MPs is deafening. We need them to confront the Tories and to push our policies in as robust a manner as we would expect.  

Most importantly, Labour must stop being brow-beaten over the economy. The economy was growing when the coalition walked into No 10 – keep reminding people of that simple fact. The debt is now growing beyond anyone’s imagination – remind people that that is the case. Billions of pounds of our public money has been paid into NHS privatisation: remind people of that. And once again we see Tory privatisations putting money going into the pockets of Tory donors: remind people of that. And keep reminding them. Again, again and again!

We are furious that the attacks from those strangers, those anonymous briefers, these ‘less than a handful’ of un-named MPs, are silencing the debate that we need to be having. This can’t be allowed to happen.

These cowardly strangers who won’t go on the record must be reminded that they don’t speak for us.

We have a message for these strangers:  it’s time to support the party and to speak up for the country. We’re seven months away from the general election. This really isn’t about you: it’s about the rest of us – all of us who stand to lose so much if the Tories are elected in 2015. There’s a Big Picture that you should be looking at and it’s called ‘the United Kingdom’.

Oh. Sorry. We forgot. It’s your *careers* that you’re really bothered about!  Maybe time to consider that and to consider whether the Labour Party is really the best place for you.

#EM4PM 

Ed Miliband’s Leadership: Or, What Do YOU Really Want? by @bevclack & @MagsNews

Appeared on the Labour Left website 9 October 2014

We’re 7 months away from the General Election and it’s time to get serious. We are way beyond the Silly Season and fast approaching Make Your Mind Up Time.

And it comes down to this simple choice:

What government do you want to be living under this time next year?

Do you want a Tory government (possibly propped up by Nigel Farage’s UKIP) and led by David Cameron; or do you want a Labour government led by Ed Miliband?

The mainstream media have spent the last few months following the agenda set by Cameron’s new campaign advisor Lynton Crosby: attack Miliband and smear him at all costs. The aim of this exercise? To make sure that you don’t take a Miliband-led Labour Party seriously.

This campaign of smear and misinformation has reached new heights following Labour’s conference.

It says volumes that this campaign is so lame in its focus. The best they’ve come up with so far is Ed ‘forgetting’ a section of his conference speech (given, remember, without notes), and a series of pathetic schoolboy attacks on his looks (yeah, right) and his inability to eat a bacon sandwich with decorum (who in practice can?).

Why is the focus on pitiful things like this? Because that’s all they can come up with when attempting to smear a clever, decent, thoughtful man like Ed.

It’s not difficult to see why members of the press are so keen to attack him. They are employed by the very people whose cosy lives would be upset by a genuinely radical Labour government. We are talking here of the Murdochs, the Dacres and the Beaverbrooks of this media world.

But the attacks on Ed are also meant to do something much more straightforward. They are meant to divert attention from anyone examining too closely the failings of David Cameron, the man who couldn’t win an election first time, and is hoping to do it second time round.

Let’s buck the trend and look at Cameron’s failings, for he seems to have got away from Tory Party meltdown with a conference speech well-received by the press. (Surprisingly little attention was given to his Freudian slip about ‘resenting the poor’; but hey! Who cares! Anyone can make a slip while giving a speech. Oh.)

If only Cameron’s failings were as insignificant as how he looks or howhe eats a bacon butty.

What we have in David Cameron is a man without a sense of judgement.

The most glaring example of this was undoubtedly when his Director of Communications Andy Coulson was sent to prison this summer.

What we expect from our politicians, what we demand of our political leaders, should be that they have at the very least a good sense of judgement.

Whatever way you cut it, Cameron’s failure to address Coulson’s past life in relation to the phone hacking scandal shows a startling lack of that quality.

If only this lack of judgement was in relation to one individual’s appointment.

Cameron’s lack of judgement was also on display over the presidency of the European Union. The marginalisation of the UK that he has pursued since the start of his premiership means we have no voice in shaping the future of the EU.

And closer to home we have the disastrous top-down reorganisation of the NHS that has wasted £2bn and that has left the NHS with a massive financial blackhole.

Let’s not forget that the National Statistics Authority has called him out  – again -  on quoting dodgy stats in relation to the deficit!  This is the serious stuff.  This is the stuff that ‘misleading the electorate’ is made of!  But hey!  Let’s not bother too much about that.  Bacon butties are far more important!

Do you really want another five years of the same lack of judgement and mismanagement?

What could you have instead?

It’s time to look beyond the desperate attempts to deflect attention from a failing Prime Minister and his government, to the man who is waiting in the wings.

Carefully, patiently, Ed Miliband has put in place the pieces for a radical Labour government.

Diagnosing the problem of a society defined by growing inequality, his Labour party is putting forward policies that will address the gap between rich and poor and the struggles of the majority – not just the city men in sharp grey suits – to live well. We already know something of what this offering will look like: a living wage, repealing the NHS Act that put the Health Service up for sale, votes at 16, a commitment to real jobs and training for 18-21 year olds, reducing student fees, a national care service, a mansion tax, 1 million new homes over the next five years, more powers for local authorities.  A more equal society.

And Ed has shown that he has the character necessary to make this happen.

He has shown himself prepared to take on the energy companies, the banks, Murdoch, and the right-wing press. He also has the humility to admit when he has made a mistake: he did this with his immediate and full apology after posing with the Sun’s World Cup edition.

When it comes down to it, in 2015 the choice will be stark. More of Cameron and Crew or a chance for a different, a better, a more equal Britain.

Put like that, the choice is really quite simple, isn’t it?

#EM4PM in