I’ve read the now-famous Miliband artical and have caught up with the news. Unfortunately I am ending up agreeing with Michael Portillo, who was on Newsnight a few moments ago.
I don’t know if this is a coded attack on Brown (or Cameron) or if this is a very subtle leadership bid. But I do know that we now have a Foreign Secretary so strong that he can afford to do this, have Brown mis-interpret his comments and still stay in his job.
Whatever the hidden message of this article, the political message is clear: Miliband can be bold because he’s now totally unsackable.
In today’s Daily Torygraph, Mayor of London Boris Johnson writes of his 11pm realisation that Brown will hold his job – cheese in the fridge gave it all away. Boris argues that he could go on a diet, rather like Brown could be given the boot. But rather like starting his diet, he reckons that Labour MPs just can’t be bothered to start the process. I disagree.
I think that Brown will survive but for a very different reason; no senior level MP will wield the knife. The backbenches may want Brown to go, but they need some heavyweight support to do it. If any cabinet minister does that, then not only will the cash strapped Labour Party have to foot the bill for a contest (which they can’t afford) then they might actually become leader themselves. They would then have to go on to lose the next election, no matter who becomes leader, and take the blame for a drubbing. Now Jack Straw may be willing to do this, but no serious contender will. Now that the polls show Labour badly behind under all leaders, they are going to wait and let Brown fall on the grenade instead of them.
I may regret saying this, but the next Labour leadership contest will be held against the backdrop of Cameron’s first government.
Both this morning and late this evening I’ve been out and about helping our teams deliver a massive new survey across the City. The results are coming back fast; and the one strange aspect is the total lack of LibDem support. I’ve been arguing for a while that their support in Norwich is just seeping away and our survey proves just that.
Interestingly today Nick Clegg signalled that his party will now focus on the 50 most vulnerable Labour seats; finally taking notice of those both within and outside of his party who have said that to hurl themselves against the Tory brick wall was nonsense. Fighting Tory seats like mad when Cameron is riding high just made no sense; and now Clegg has admitted this.
However, one LibDem I spoke to today said that this strategy didn’t go far enough. He pointed out that in some seats where the Tories are third but with a large vote – such as Norwich South – that Cameron’s Party could still come through to either come second or even win. Certainly the Sunday Telegraph had Norwich South in the blue column as a result of their polling. My LibDem source says that they ought to target seats where the Tory vote is low and where Labour wouldn’t expect a challenge – a sort of Manchester Withington kind of seat, it was suggested.
Either way, Clegg is still polling lower than Campbell and is still struggling to control his fractious party. A change of electoral focus is a good start to turning that around.
Tonight I was chairing the latest Bowthorpe & Costessey SNAP meeting, held at St. Michael’s School in Astly Road, Chapel Break, and it was a good chance to hear some of the views about the local area from residents. In the end we created 3 priorities;
Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour in the Peverell Road area of Clover Hill – both in terms of long term strategy but also short term ways to tackle the problems.
Secondly working with South Norfolk Council to ensure a neighbourhood response to issues in Beaumont Road and Crown Road in New Costessey.
And also to look at innovative ways to solve the parking problems in Attesley Way, Chapel Break. This last one is a real tribute to one resident who has raised this issue again and again in such a decent and polite way that it marks her out as a remarkable campaigner.
Next meeting is 18th November, 7.30 at Costessey High School.
I am very pleased that the Tories and the UUP have been speaking about uniting for two principle reasons. Firstly that this gives Cameron an electoral boost and including the UUP talent in the party will give a clear one-nation sense to people. Secondly that this really does signal the start to normalised politics in Ulster and that has to be a good thing. Apparently 45% of people in NI would or would consider voting Tory if there was a candidate; another clever move then. My only concern is that the UUPs only MP currently is Lady Sylvia Herman, who usually votes with Labour rather than the Tories. Could this deal deliver the UUP to Cameron’s Conservatives but ironically no their sole parliamentary representation?
Having seen and read a lot, I’d set the following bars:
SNP; winning the seat would be a fantastic result and a political earthquake. Coming within 2000 votes would be good, 3000-2000 Labour majority fine. If Labour hold on by more then there may be some sould searching.
Conservatives: They start 4th with only 7% of the vote and should be squeezed in classic by-election style. The Tories should be happy with 6-8% of the vote and more than 10% of even coming third would be an excellent result.
LibDems: Once again there has been lots of LibDem ramping. An utter disaster would be coming 4th, an OK result would be holing their share of the vote and any increase can be spun as good.
Labour: A tough one; a low turnout will cut Labour’s majority but they must win here by more than 3,000 or so for them to have a good result. A three figure majority or less will be poor for the party and losing it would be a disaster.
There will probably be some light blogging because the school holidays started last Friday. That evening we went to the Brooke School Carnival and enjoyed some good weather and dancing through the village.
We were lucky enough on Saturday to have Baroness (Gillian) Shephard speaking at a Norwich Conservatives Garden Party; we managed to dodge the rain and had some superb strawberries and scones. There was a large crowd and Gillian made it very clear that Gordon Brown had gone from the “great clunking fist” to a “great girls blouse” in just a year. She was in fiesty form and left the membership in great spirits for the upcoming elections.
On Monday I joined a group of campaigners at the Planning Committee site visit of the new City College Development. It was fascinating to see how the plans would look on the ground (thanks to some yellow paint) and also think about the height and density of the buildings. I still have grave concerns over the suitability of the eco-building given that it is in a conservation area and don’t feel it will blend into the community very well. The brillantly organised CRC campaign group will no doubt keep local people informed in a way that others have not.
I then went on to meet some residents regarding the parking situation on Dereham Road and had organised some council officers to meet them. There are so many different factors at play – not least who owns the highway that many of the ideas people have for dealing this situation aren’t possible. Most importantly we all agreed on the need to ensure safety and will be working hard to achieve this.
Tuesday night was Full Council night at City Hall, where we debated a Green motion on renewable energy, but the set piece event of the night was the administration’s review of the boundary commission’s report on unitary. I think that Steve Morphew actually managed to hit the right tone in his words, but LibDem Leader Brian Watkins seemed to go into full Churchill mode urging everybody to unite around the City. It was a bizarre piece of work and in the fullness of time Brian may regret his words.
Yesterday and today were family days; yesterday spent in Bury St Edmunds and today on the North Norfolk coast.
We are currently in the process of delivering a major city wide survey and I have a breakfast meeting to discuss our campaign tomorrow. Apologies if blogging is light in the days and weeks to come…
If the Tories had proposed the document launched by Nick Clegg today, to reduce tax and cut the overall level of government spending, then my blog post title is exactly what Labour and the media would have run with.
In fact, no matter what Hague, IDS or Howard said about taxes, Labour would translate that directly into numbers of nurses sacked or children in a class. But now, I believe that things have changed; firstly people have accepted that we are taxed too much, secondly people know that Labour’s throwing money at public services hasn’t worked and thirdly people know there is so much waste in public services that you can cut tax, reduce spending and not impact on frontline service delivery.
So well done Nick Clegg – you are saying what people are thinking and I strongly urge the Tories to make clear their committment to cutting tax and reducing waste. Now is the time to do this. But is it too late for Cameron with Clegg moving onto this turf?
No – for two reasons Principally the tax cut, less government gene is in every Tory and people know we are committed to it, whereas the LibDems seem to have discovered this after being thrashed in by-election after by-election. And also, if Cameron said this then his party would cheer him to the rafters; when Nick Clegg does it the left of his party nearly choke on their breakfast cereals. Clegg may have to fight for this every step of the way with his own party.
So Cameron still has time to make this issue his own.
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Posted by antonylittle 