By Simon Heffer
|
The bickering this week among Labour grandees about whether Ed Miliband is fit to be leader follows three years of drift and confusion under a man the public increasingly think is from another planet.
The concerns of the so-called 'grey beards' also reveal that Labour — like the Tories — fears that neither main party will win the 2015 election outright.
The Tories are unhappy about this prospect because the Prime Minister hints he might want another coalition with the Lib Dems. However, for Labour, the failure to secure victory would be a catastrophe.
The bickering this week among Labour grandees about whether Ed Miliband is fit to be leader follows three years of drift and confusion under a man the public increasingly think is from another planet
In the latest opinion poll, Labour has 37 per cent and the Tories 34 — a lead much reduced from the yawning gulf that has existed for much of the past three years. Indeed, a three-point gap represents the Tories holding up quite well — but is truly dismal for Mr Miliband and his friends.
If the Tories can't win an overall majority, they could try to govern as a minority if Mr Cameron's backbenchers refuse to allow the forging of another coalition. If they are once more the largest single party (which is quite possible), the PM will remain in his job until he chooses to resign — and he may well choose not to.
He can even try to stay at No 10 if he has fewer seats than the main opposition party — which is what Gordon Brown sought to do, after all. After the election, the Lib Dems are likely to be greatly reduced in numbers, shell-shocked, and cautious of another coalition that further wrecks their power base.
The Tories are managing expectations about this far better than Labour has — for it is a nasty shock to the party that Mr Miliband is getting them nowhere.
Many in his ranks have been taking outright victory for granted. After all, the party won 258 seats in 2010, having been a disastrous government led by a man many voters thought was going off his rocker. Surely a return to power was possible?
Through fear that neither main party will win the 2015 election outright, the PM has hinted that he might want another coalition with the Lib Dems. However, for Labour, the failure to secure victory would be a catastrophe
But that is not how it looks now, and the party knows it. Things are so bad that former ministers such as John Prescott, David Blunkett, Alan Johnson and Frank Field have gone public on the need for Mr Miliband to get a grip, get some policies, but above all to be coherent.
And one well-respected former minister, Brian Wilson, has even told Mr Miliband that he should take a long look in the mirror and ask himself whether it would not be better if he handed over to someone else.
Mr Wilson is likely to be disappointed: the belief among most Labour MPs is, as one put it to me, 'Ed is going to have to be allowed to lose the election before we dump him'.
What should the Labour leader do? His trump card is that there is no obvious person to replace him.
The lack of a genuine rival only buys Mr Miliband time rather than solves the problem of his lack of policies and public appeal
After all, to resort to the titanic self-regard of business spokesman Chuka Umunna or the sententiousness of Yvette Cooper would simply be to hand the party over to another divisive upstart.
And to give the job to Ed Balls would be to consign Labour to five more years in opposition on the spot.
The lack of a genuine rival only buys Mr Miliband time rather than solves the problem of his lack of policies and public appeal. He could do worse than take David Blunkett's advice of hauling in some figures from the past to put their experience to the party's service.
He should be careful about calls for former chancellor Alistair Darling to return, though. Mr Darling was one of those who presided over our debt-crazed economic disaster until 2010, and the Tories would have a field day.
However, a return to high shadow office for Jack Straw, Alan Johnson and possibly even Mr Blunkett himself could transform a group of non-entities into a Shadow Cabinet that might just be able, legitimately, to aspire to office — even with Mr Miliband in charge.
As for the poor old voters, it looks as though they must resign themselves to a longer period of either coalition or minority rule. Sadly, this would probably give the Lib Dems — who have proved dishonest, untrustworthy and incompetent in office — more opportunity to exert an undeserved influence.
Labour now needs not so much a re-launch as a resurrection.
And with the Prime Minister apparently happy to sell his own grandmother to cling on to power, it promises to be a rocky party conference for the floundering Miliband Minor.
Don't be world's bully boy
Bradley Manning was wrong to leak American state secrets and, especially as a serving soldier who knew the rules, deserved stiff punishment, not least to deter others.
However, 35 years for his crimes is excessive. He is a young, naive man who has been manipulated by others, not least the alleged rapist Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. He may be out on parole within ten years; but the U.S. has sent out a signal not about its determination to protect itself, but about its heavy- handedness and lack of perspective.
America has acquired the habit of making more and more enemies around the world. Its friends wish it would stop.
HS2 is going off the rails
Readers will be aware that I'm not in the George Osborne fan club: our recession could have ended much earlier if he had been a properly radical Chancellor, implementing serious tax and spending cuts. But I start to feel he has taken leave of his senses.
Even though the Treasury itself now thinks the HS2 rail link will cost 73 billion rather than the 32 billion originally claimed, Mr Osborne refuses to be deterred from supporting it
Even though the Treasury itself now thinks the HS2 rail link will cost 73?billion rather than the 32?billion originally claimed, Mr Osborne refuses to be deterred from supporting it. I know he will suffer a grave loss of face when the project is abandoned, as I'm sure it will be. But why delay the inevitable?
The German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble dropped a clanger this week by admitting Greece would require another bailout — an embarrassment to the eurozone's masters in Berlin, ahead of the likely re-election of Angela Merkel next month. Greece's level of debt is simply unsustainable.
Herr Schauble must go a step further, and pull the plug.
It's all about the grammar, stupid
Minister Nick Hurd observed this week that some people lack grit when applying for jobs. But it's more than that. It's also basic skills of communication, thanks to a betrayal by our education system.
The order has gone out that pupils should be penalised for poor grammar in their GCSE examinations in subjects other than English — not before time. So-called 'educationists' regard grammar as 'elitist' and those who advocate teaching it as something approaching fascists.
But many employers are put off by an inarticulacy that suggests stupidity — and which schools have a duty to stop.
It sounds a jolly wheeze to link benefits to good behaviour, as Ed Miliband has suggested in an attempt to find something interesting to say. What, though, does he propose to do with the people who don't behave well and so get no benefits? Will they be made to sleep on the streets? Will they face either prison or starvation? It's a sign of panic that Ed's talking tough on scroungers, but he should at least consider the consequences first.
Jurors over 70 is the right verdict
It's a superb idea to require people aged up to 75 to serve on juries. With much longer life expectancy, we must adjust our view of older people, and use their experience and wisdom. There's no reason why the retirement age shouldn't be moved to 70, to help defuse the pensions timebomb and the otherwise ruinous costs to the State of a long old age.
And, in a week when Ed Miliband has been told to surround himself with some older, wiser people, we should remember that most politicians only become sensible when they get the wrong side of 60.
Why are we so tolerant of anti-fracking protesters, many of whom apparently are rent-a-mob anarchists imported from abroad?
Why don't we just recognise them for what they are — anti-capitalists who would happily see our country reduced to the industrial and financial equivalent of Albania? These people are usually Leftists: yet they would condemn the poorest people in society to hugely expensive energy bills.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario