The Left must not turn on itself over Europe

Until recently, much of the EU Referendum debate has been seen as a blue-on-blue matter. David Cameron on one side, and the person most keen to replace him, Boris Johnson, on the other. This has been the perception, but it hides a more complex picture under the surface.

Without a doubt, the Conservative Party is deeply split, and the rift could be very long lasting. Conservative MPs are evenly divided between Remain and Leave, and the membership similarly affected. No matter what the referendum result, the Conservatives will have to try to form a working Government with a tiny majority, hindered by the self-inflicted campaign wounds.

Labour also have difficulties. Their Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been a long term critic of the EU, but is supporting Remain alongside 90%+ of the PLP. Labour voters are far less supportive of the Remain camp than the Labour Party itself. The latest You Gov poll show support for Remain at 65% and Leave at 24%. There have been warnings from Labour Campaigners that in many areas of the country, Labour voters are not coming to the Remain side. If the country votes for Brexit, the vast majority of Labour MPs will have backed the wrong horse.

I support Green Leaves, a campaign group for Green Party members and supporters who wish to leave the EU. Labour also has a campaign to leave the EU. There is a substantial debate within the left about how to vote on the 23rd June. This debate has become more and more fractious, and has become very hostile in recent days, given the poll movements that have brought the chance of a Brexit vote becoming more likely.

Baroness Jenny Jones, Green Party Peer, has published a number of articles setting out a left-wing and progressive case for Brexit. I have seen comments about her that are utterly disgraceful, and disrespectful to a person who has worked for the Green Party and progressive causes for decades.

I know good left wing people, who were supporting Leave, but due to being tired of being called fascists, UKIP supporters, traitors and so on have switched their support to Remain under duress.

There are no certain outcomes, no matter what the referendum result is. There are a range of possibilities that exist, and it is for each person to evaluate the best way to vote for themselves. Supporting Leave does not mean supporting Nigel Farage or the Tory right. Leaving the EU does not mean workers rights being destroyed or environmental protections diminished. Should Brexit occur, our Government who has struggled to get fairly basic things passed with a tiny majority, will have even more difficulty removing holiday pay or others workers rights, given they will be in civil war. The Conservative Party has too many MPs in marginal seats, who will surely cave in under the pressure a constituency mail bag, threatening their seat at the next GE. And the power handed to UKIP? They have one MP now, and will still have one after June 23rd.

I ask that people of the left understand that voting Leave isn’t traitorous.

I ask that people of the left understand that voting Leave isn’t a sign of stupidity or character defect.

I ask that people of the left understand that given the same partial and ultimately subjective information, others may come to a different conclusion.

 

 

Cameron’s Mythical Dragons

You know a Government is in trouble when they start slaying mythical dragons.

David Cameron announced this week that immigrants families would face being ineligible to apply for a Council house for up to five years. The Prime Minister has been under pressure from Conservative MPs since their appalling Eastleigh by-election result, where they slumped to third behind UKIP. The UKIP campaign was based strongly on an anti-immigration and anti-EU stance.

With a background of a stalling economy, poor poll ratings, internal conflict and a stress-cracked Coalition, the omens for the next election look poor for the Conservatives. With under three years to go, it would take a remarkable and unlikely turn around to reverse the trend.

So how does such a Government in this mess move forward?

They roll out their mythical dragons to slay.

For the Conservatives these are the EU, immigration, the public sector, unions, the welfare state and the so called deficit. Each is chosen for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the myth must be commonly shared. It is useful if your friends in the media will propagate helpful stories, using one-off extreme cases to demonstrate the rule. For example, a single mother with eleven children was the centre of a media storm last month. This case was used to demonstrate the ‘failing of an over generous benefit system’ , despite being a highly unusual case that represents a minuscule percentage of benefit claimants. The domination of the right-wing press ensures that such issues are rarely portrayed accurately, or with a fair evidential basis.

Secondly, each dragon should represent a group that is vulnerable and weak. This applies to immigrants and welfare claimants. These groups do not have the influence to seriously fight back.

Thirdly, the concept of scape-goating should apply. Are immigrants responsible for the lack of social housing? No, the issue is decades of not building them, while simultaneously selling the stock off. Are people on Job Seekers Allowance holding back the country and responsible for their own worklessness? No, our economy is so configured to ensure a permanent high level of unemployment to create a downward pressure on wages, and transfer wealth to global corporations and the super-rich.  Scape-goating also helps to ensure ordinary workers focus their rage on those they should unite with. Why should the elite fight everyone else, when they can have ordinary people fight among themselves?

The Conservatives know that organised labour remains a barrier to eroding employee rights and creating the  preconditions which would enable global capitalists to further asset strip the people of the United Kingdom. This is why the public sector and Unions are targets for slaying, not because they are bad, but for ideological reasons. The Miners strike in 1984-85 was a classic case of artificially constructing a fight, with the intention of destabilising the union movement and to justify a reduction in union rights.

The Conservatives always talk about the deficit as something Labour grew so large due to spending too much. This is nonsense, and even a cursory look at historical data blows this myth out of the water. The deficit is being used as a trojan horse to fragment and privatise our services for corporate profit.

So given the Conservatives inability to win the next election based on their performance or benefit they have brought to people, we can expect two years of further attacks on the classic Tory dragons.

Those on the left need to ensure that they fight every myth propagated by this Government, as it gets down and dirty heading towards 2015. No action should be done or speech made that gives credence  to these myths.

This lesson needs to be quickly learned by the Shadow Cabinet.

Are you listening Liam Byrne?

The Left Should Unite and Strike Now

“Anyone in this party who’s in any doubt who we should be fighting, what we should be debating, where our energies should be focused – I tell you: our battle is with Labour. This is a bunch of self-satisfied Labour socialists who think they can spend your money better than you can, make decisions better than you can and tell you what to do, and we should never, ever let that lot near government again.”

David Cameron, Conservative Spring Conference, 16th March 2013.

This passage from David Cameron reveals the hole in which he and his party find themselves.

The Conservatives surely never thought it could get as bad as this. Several things have come together.

Firstly, their key aim of this Parliament was the elimination of the deficit, an aim now stretched out way into the the distance. The austerity medicine delivered has killed patient. 2013, instead of seeing strong economic growth as predicted on 2010, is a zero growth struggling mess.The Government is actually more more money, not less, to plug that gap left by anemic economic activity.

Secondly, David Cameron policies have been a story of flip-flop, cock-up and disaster. The Coalition agreement always a back-of-the-fag-packet look about, and this has been borne out in practice Some policies such as NHS and education reform have been carried our despite deep unpopularity and the obvious fact they will not work. Other policies have been ditched for no reason other trying to popular after the event, such as the minimum price of alcohol.

Thirdly, they expected Ed Miliband to be a disaster. To their shock, Ed has not only not been a disaster, he is doing well. The Labour Party has not fallen apart, but has actually been a successful tactical opposition at least. This week’s PMQ’s, with Ed’s joke about organising things in a brewery, demonstrated the it is David Cameron, not Ed Miliband who appears on the back foot and struggling.

Not only does the Prime Minister have a united opposition to trouble him. The Conservative Party is split and ill-disciplined about issues such as gay marriage and Europe. Many Tory MPs see the Prime Minister’s stance as not Conservative enough, blaming the Liberal Democrats for unduly influencing the Coalition. This has created an opportunity that UKIP has taken with both hands. Eastleigh’s by election humiliation, where UKIP forced the Conservatives into third, was a stinging blow.

The polls also show no comfort either. A recent large poll by Lord Ashcroft showed how successful Labour could be in 2015 and how poor Conservative supporters thought their chances were. Polls have been showing a strong Labour lead of about 10 points for many months.

All these factors led David Cameron to his speech. He knows he is looking down the barrel of defeat if he gets to 2015 as leader. He also knows that he is polling the sort of numbers that Maggie Thatcher was when removed as leader. In addition, he knows that polling at the low 30’s is the irreducible core vote that they got at their biggest kicking in the modern era – 1997.

So should Labour prepare for Government?

Labour is in a strong position, yet quite frankly have done very little. To just allow the Government enough rope to hang himself is not enough. It is complacent and will not allow Ed to lead what would be needed in 2015 – a national renewal on the scale of 1945,

The real fear for Labour has always been stigmatised with being associated tax and spending. Virtually all we have heard from the Government since 2010 is blaming Labour for spending too much. Labour has meekly defended itself at best, and so it has stuck firmly despite being fundamentally wrong.

In addition, the signs are that Labour are drifting to the next election with caution, and a probability to match the Conservatives spending plans as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did in 1997.

This would be very bad, as the clear aim of Cameron’s Government has been to privatise health and education, destroy the public sector and dismantle the welfare state. Another five years of following this Governments spending plans would make these changes permanent. What is required is a clear and loud rejection of austerity, and a laying to rest the economic myths that have now sadly become unquestioned. Anyone who thinks that these myths are true, don’t listen to amateur left bloggers, read the works of Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winning economist) and others.

Given the weakness of the Conservatives, now is the time to strike and strike hard. Labour now has only a few years to set out an alternative economic agenda. It will take time to blow away the myths, and this conversation may not be easy.

Labour needs to articulate their plans for health and education, and on how key services can be better by not auctioning them off to highest bidder. We need to accept that the treatment of the poor, frail and elderly in the UK is a disgusting abuse that shames us all. Vulnerable people need the dignity and care they deserve in a civilised society.

The need for not just growth, but the right growth should be made. We don’t need everyone to buy a new TV or pile money again into a housing bubble, we need to grow by building low carbon energy technologies that supply us for decades cleanly and safely. We need to build in infrastructure – better, cleaner transport and high-speed broadband – that can be the backbone of future businesses. We need to ensure we build enough high quality housing to ensure that everyone can live in a modern, energy efficient home that ordinary people can afford.

The values of our society need to be challenged. As a nation we simply cannot accept the inequality hard-wired into our economic system. Work should earn a living wage, and excessive salaries by the elite should be both limited and action taken to ensure they are not squirreled away in off-shore tax havens.

These are the bold messages that Labour should be shouting from the roof tops now, and every minute up the next election. Labour are well placed to lead a coalition of the left, and with the agenda set out here would surely drive Cameron and company out of Downing Street and deliver a society we could all be proud of.

David Cameron’s UKIP Conundrum

The Eastleigh by-election can described as a hard fought win for the Liberal Democrats or a sign that Ed Miliband’s one nation message has travelled no further south than the Watford gap.

However, the second place by UKIP, dumping the Tories into third, has brought home to the Conservatives the fact that UKIP are a dangerous threat to them winning the next general election. This is the big message from Hampshire.

Eastleigh by-election, 2013
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Mike Thornton	13,342	32.06%	-14.44%
	UKIP	Diane James	11,571	27.80%	+24.20%
	Conservative	Maria Hutchings	10,559	25.37%	-13.93%
	Labour	John O’Farrell	4,088	9.82%	+0.22%
	Independent	Danny Stupple	768	1.85%	N/A
	National Health Action	Iain Maclennan	392	0.94%	N/A
	Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party	Ray Hall	235	0.56%	N/A
	Christian	Kevin Milburn	163	0.39%	N/A
	Monster Raving Loony	Howling Laud Hope	136	0.33%	N/A
	Peace	Jim Duggan	128	0.31%	N/A
	Elvis Loves Pets	David Bishop	72	0.17%	N/A
	English Democrats	Michael Walters	70	0.17%	-0.33%
	TUSC	Daz Procter	62	0.15%	N/A
	Wessex Regionalist	Colin Bex	30	0.07%	N/A
Majority			1,771	4.26%	-2.9%
Turnout			41,616	52.8%	-16.5%
	Liberal Democrat hold		Swing	-19.2

The effect of UKIP has been to divide the right. Mirroring the impact the SDP had on Labour in the eighties, UKIP is taking crucial votes from the Conservatives.

Below is a graph showing the percentage lead in each seat the Conservatives won in the 2010 election over the second place party.

 

As can be seen, if just 10% of the Conservative vote goes elsewhere and the second placed party just stands still, the loss of seats would be around 80. Is this possible or likely?

Below is a chart showing the change in vote share for the Conservatives and UKIP in the by-elections they have fought this Parliament.

Of course, by-elections can exaggerate the sort of changes seen in a general election. However, the Conservatives are not only under threat from UKIP. In the north and urban areas Labour is moving strongly against them, without the sort of splits that divided them in the eighties. Eastleigh demonstrated that Liberal Democrat heartlands have a tough core.

There is irony in that two euro-sceptic parties have split the vote, allowing a pro-European party to win the seat. One might think that an electoral pact would help to ensure a bigger voice for euro-sceptics. This is unlikely for several reasons in my view.

Firstly, Nigel Farage, UKIP Leader, now has almost a cult following. He is driven and motivated, and the smell of fear from Conservative HQ will be too strong to resist.

Secondly, the Euro elections loom next year. Given the proportionate system used to elect MEPs and subject being UKIP’s key issue, they are very likely to kick the Conservatives hard. With less than 12 months before the general election campaign, a bruised set of Tory backbenchers will be very nervous about their future. They will be in no mood to talk deals with the very party who threaten them.

Despite claims that the Eastleigh by-election was just another mid-term protest vote, I think the roots of the defeat of the Conservatives in 2015 are growing strongly.

Really, I want the Lib Dems to do well in Eastleigh…

On Thursday the most interesting by-election of this Parliament takes place.

Eastleigh, recently vacated by the disgraced Chris Huhne, sees the two Coalition parties fight it out. It is a Liberal Democrat stronghold, held since 1994. Even Labour’s 1997 landslide resulted in only a third place with 26.8 % of the vote.

Here is the 2010 result:

General Election 2010: Eastleigh
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal Democrat	Chris Huhne	24,966	46.5	+8.2
	Conservative	Maria Hutchings	21,102	39.3	+2.1
	Labour	Leo Barraclough	5,153	9.6	−11.5
	UKIP	Ray Finch	1,933	3.6	+0.2
	English Democrats	Tony Pewsey	249	0.5	N/A
	Independent	Dave Stone	154	0.3	N/A
	National Liberal Party – Third Way	Keith Low	93	0.2	N/A
Majority			3,864	7.2
Turnout			53,650	69.3	+4.9
	Liberal Democrat hold		Swing	3

This by-election raises issues for left-leaning voters. Who do you vote for when the only real contenders are in Government delivering policies that are diametrically opposed to your principles?

This is the dilemma that  First-Past-The Post poses across the country. It turns the decisions made in elections from working out the best choice to calculating the least worst. Framed in this fashion then, what is a Labour and Green supporters least worst option, assuming your priority to to remove this Government?

The answer is quite clear – vote Liberal Democrat. That’s right – vote Liberal Democrat.

In 2015 the Liberal Democrats will be fighting 57 seats. Of these, in 38 the Conservatives are the second place party and Labour are runners-up in 19.

Below is a table with the effect of different swings from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives and Labour on the seats that Liberal Democrats would lose.

1. Liberal Democrat
2. Conservative
3. Labour

Swing Achieved	Gain for Conservative	Gain for Labour
5 %	15	0
10 %	30	2
15 %	37	5
20 %	38	18
25 %	38	34
30 %	38	38

For example, should the Conservatives get a swing of 5% from the Liberal Democrats in these seats, they would take 15 seats. Should Labour get the same swing in the same seats, even a static Conservative vote would result in no gains whatsoever.

Next, seats where Labour are second:

1. Liberal Democrat
2. Labour
3. Conservative

Swing Achieved	Gain for Labour	Gain for Conservative
5 %	7	2
10 %	13	4
15 %	17	9
20 %	18	16
25%	18	18
30 %	19	19

Here a 10 % swing from Liberal Democrat to Labour would gain Labour 13 seats, and the same swing the Conservatives with a static Labour vote would win 4 seats,

The end goal of removing the Conservatives in 2015 is hampered seriously if the Liberal Democrats lose ground in the south, south east and south west where Labour are not contenders. Every seat the Conservatives win makes the job of Labour harder.

By-elections since 2010 strongly suggest that the Liberal Democrats have suffered serious swings to Labour, enough to virtually eliminate them from most urban areas, the north and the regions. Labour have also gained on the Conservatives.

The pincer movement of Labour gains in the north and urban areas and Liberal Democrat holds in the south would be fatal to David Cameron’s attempt to even be the largest party. UKIP making taking Conservatives votes would simply compounds the Conservatives in a triple squeeze

So if you live in a seat Labour are a poor third, allowing the Conservatives win by not voting Liberal Democrat really is cutting of your nose to spite your face.

Perhaps you should try one of Polly Toynbee’s nose pegs?

The economy will doom the Tories if Labour can come up with a plan

The recent downgrading of the UK by Moodys from it’s AAA credit rating will certainly create problems for the Government.

It will make little difference to the UK financially. The UK’s financial position is well known and money markets will have been building this into prices for some time. Similar downgrades in the US and France have not made a real difference to their borrowing costs.

However, the Chancellor and the Government have had their credibility damaged. The perception of lost credibility is very dangerous, and once lost is hard to get back. In September 1992, just months after a remarkable election victory, Black Wednesday damaged the Major Government permanently.

George Osborne was already looking in a poor position, with his Austerity programme being stretch way beyond the period promised in 2010. Growth has stalled badly.

‘It’s the economy stupid’ is the political reality. It sums the fact that a Government need not be that popular, if the public feel that their jobs and economic future looks secure with them. Analysis of YouGov data since 2010 on this very issue paints the Government in a poor position. YouGov run a tracking poll that asks respondents which party is best for the economy in general. In June 2010 the Conservatives topped the poll with 37% vs Labour’s 26%. However, the poll in February 2013 showed a fall down to 27%. The data is plotted below:

The same data has been plotted on a CUSUM chart. This essentially shows the trends beneath the noise:

What is clear is that the Conservatives have been in free fall since around March 2012. This is a reference to the ‘omnishambles’ budget, and they have not recovered since. What is also noticeable is the fact the Labour has not felt any benefit, merely moving from 26% in June 2010 to 28% in February 2013.

The notable beneficiary of this has been ‘None’, moving from  7% to 13%. Quite simply increasing numbers of people feel that no party offers any prospect of improving the economy. They have lost faith in the Conservatives, but don’t feel Labour offers anything better. This finding is demonstrated by the correlation between the Conservative figure and the none figure (-0.75). The correlation of the Conservative to the Labour figure is a much worse -0.29.

The outlook for the UK economy is currently poor for the next few years. There looks to be no prospect of a change in economic fortune that would restore credibility back to the Conservatives. Our main trading partners in Europe are suffering very badly, and the overall picture is one of bouncing along the bottom of a long period of low or no growth.

Labour does have a open goal here, if they can have faith in plan not based on Austerity, but one of serious and sustained investment. The last few months has seen some speeches where Ed Miliband has begun to articulate an alternative, yet this embryonic economic plan needs much more flesh and bone. This plan cannot be Austerity-lite, but something different. The price of not creating and articulating this vision could be to enter the next election giving the Conservatives a chance it simply does not deserve.

Labour failing to beat the Conservatives in 2015 would be unforgivable.

 

The horse meat scandal – our food culture is to blame

The horse meat scandal grows bigger by the hour. As the number of products and retailers caught up grows wider and deeper, who really is to blame? Did Tesco and Aldi not check their suppliers well enough? Did the FSA fail to conduct their regulatory functions? Did someone somewhere fraudulently put horse meat into the beef food chain? Only time will answer these questions. However, there is a more fundamental issue at stake – is our food culture to blame?

The nature of the food we buy, how we buy it and the extended supply chains involved are in my view highly culpable. Most failures of this nature are not isolated blips, but are the logic result of a complex sequence of events. The different pressures and forces that apply create the motivations, incentives and possibilities  for such failings to occur.

A generation ago food was produced and sold locally by independent butchers, bakers and greengrocers. The local high street was full of independent retailers. The rise of the supermarket simply blew them all away. The selling of locally sourced produce stopped, to be replaced by a range goods flown, shipped and driven in from every corner of the globe. The carbon footprint of your green beans and bananas is huge.

Maintaining food safety over such a long supply chain is near to impossible. The food affected so far has included lasagna sold in the UK, made in France and based on Romanian meat. Tesco had issues with burgers produced in Yorkshire from Irish meat. While various codes of conduct and certification schemes exist, they cannot guarantee everything is as it should be. Documentation stating what frozen meat is delivered to the burger factory is wide open to corruption and abuse.

The rise of supermarket has led to the pooling of buying power. Big supermarkets screw suppliers to floor on price, while being really demanding. This pressure creates a motivation to break the rules. If a company is only making a few pence per burger profit, taking shortcuts on raw materials becomes tempting. The whole buyer/seller relationship is grossly biased in favour of the supermarket. Just ask a dairy farmer about milk prices.

Modern lives have shaped the way we buy food. People are busy and want speed and convenience. This means that driving into a free car park and filling your trolley with convenience meals you can heat up in five minutes is popular. The habit of actually cooking food from fresh ingredients is missing from the lives of many people.

We have also become very distant from food production. Little cellophane packets with portions of meat sliced up bear no relation to the rearing and slaughtering of animals. Bags of weighed and washed carrots of a nice even size are a long way from the varied, crooked and muddy vegetables that are pulled out the ground.

Here is my plan to improve our food culture:

• Ensure planning regulations give small businesses a better chance over supermarkets
• Introduce lessons on cooking and where food comes from at school
• Encourage and celebrate seasonal, locally produced food
• Encourage co-operative food groups to work in poorer areas, where diets are often worse and good fresh food is less available

So before a scapegoat is found, we must remember our whole food system is currently dysfunctional. Only by tackling these systemic issues can we have a healthier and more sustainable food supply chain.

The New Housing Plan is Flawed

This week the Government announced a series of measures designed to boost the building of new houses. Sadly, but predictably, they completely fail to address the housing crisis facing millions of ordinary working people, especially the young.

One of the proposals is to reduce the number of affordable houses that local authorities often tab onto the planning permission of new housing projects. This will have the consequences of reducing the number of affordable homes built in the real house price hot spots, such as London.  Developers would love to not have to build properties that  are affordable, when instead they will be able to build more homes aimed at the richest in society. The clear profit motive will drive this. Expensive areas will become increasing devoid of anyone but the very wealthy.

A second proposal is to allow the building of house extensions, with little or no planning permission required. This has a number of problems. The people who have the type of property and the equity or finances to do this will not be young people or first-time buyers. The current constraints on mortgage criteria means that once again only the wealthy will have the means to pursue this option. Once their house is larger, its value will rise. The rise in prices will further increase the lack of affordability that is a real barrier to first-time buyers.

First-time buyers are critical. The housing ladder is like a food chain. Fresh buyers need to come into the market at the bottom to get the housing ladder moving. They buyers are seriously constrained by the tighter mortgage criteria commonly in place. How many young people can raise a sum, often need around £ 30,000, to get a deposit together?

Crucially, when are we going to ween ourselves off the idea buying a house is something that must be done, and they must rise in value – that being a good thing? This view has led an asset-bubble that has driven house prices way beyond increases in wages:

In 2001 the average price of a home in England was £121,769, and the average salary was £16,557. In 2011 the price of the average home was £236,518 – an increase of 94% – while wages had risen by just 29% to £21,330, the National Housing Federation said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/aug/17/house-prices-rise-faster-wages

There is a clear need for an expansion of homes for rent in the UK. As social house building has declined sharply in recent years, the private sector has provided an increasing number of homes to rent. There are some terrible private Landlords, providing slum dwelling to the most vulnerable in society. This private sector is highly deregulated, and much the worse for it. A boom in house building at affordable rents would be best performed by either Councils or Housing Associations.

Another source of housing is the refurbishment of empty properties. In November 2011 Homes from Empty Homes reported that 720,000 homes were stood empty. 279,000 had been empty for more than six months. Legislation exists that allows these to be taken in local authority hands, but is barely used. Also, many former industrial or business premises exists, closed and dilapidated. For example, where I live in West Yorkshire, lay a number of old mills that could be converted in literally scores of new flats. This creates homes, jobs and clears up environmental eye sores.

These new homes could be build to high environmental standards, reducing energy consumption – good for the pocket of their tenants and good for the slowing down global warming. Another benefit would be the driving out of slum landlords over time.

The financing of this building boom is important. I have proposed brick bonds in a previous post, based on raising the money from savers.  One could also mention that billions of pounds are being lent to the banks at very low interest rates. It would a worthy use of this money to spend on social housing and affordable home to buy.

It must be remembered that house building creates jobs, from brick layers to apprentices and the whole supply chain, and this brings money into the Treasury. Benefit payments fall. Councils and Housing Associations have capital assets that will create income year after year.

So this week’s proposals on offer are not a solution to the UK’s housing crisis.

So what are they?

I suspect they are no more than a gimmick to make middle-class home owners feel better, and hopefully buy off those votes.

A Shuffle to the Right

The Cabinet reshuffle has set the tone for the second half of this Parliament, and gives a guide to the shape of the next General Election.

By leaving George Osborne in place, the Prime Minister has set out his stall to stick to an economic approach based on cuts and Austerity. This plan is now set in stone, and the Coalition is firmly chained to it.

The Green credentials of this Government, already looking very shabby, have been firmly cast away. Justine Greening, firmly opposed to a third Heathrow runway, has been removed as Transport Secretary. The Government is already talking about reviewing Airline capacity in the UK, a real insight into their current thinking. The Coalition agreement does include a no third runway clause, but increasingly that whole document is looking as durable as one of Gerald Ratner’s earrings. In addition, the Conservative back-bench rebellion over wind farms have borne fruit. A wind farm sceptic is now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

David Cameron is shaping his Cabinet to supply the red meat that Tory back-benchers and local activists are demanding. I believe we will see further benefit cuts, more anti-ECHR rhetoric, additional curbs to union rights and range of other policies to keep the Tory faithful cheering. He has realised he cannot win the election on the economy, so a line up of traditional dragons the Tories can slay is being prepared. David know full well he can cut back the public sector, attack benefit claimants and when the left stands up to this, he has created a common enemy. With the media largely behind him providing PR support, it could be an effective strategy.

The Liberal Democrats are in an appalling position. They know they have the power to pull down the Coalition. They also know they are politically dead whenever the General Election happens. David Cameron can push and push, and if they complain too much they will be left with a single-shot revolver on their desk. If they don’t like it, they know what the alternative is. Every time Nick Clegg’s MPs have caved in – the health bill for instance – they become weaker and weaker. They are now pitifully weak.

This shift has serious consequences for Labour. Labour has in effect been shadowing much of the Conservative’s policies. When the Coalition promises Austerity, Labour hasn’t fully rejected it. Labour simply says it would cut a bit less sharply and more fairly. When major cuts to disability benefits are on the cards, Labour says that they do need reform, but they wouldn’t do it quite like that. The timidity in offering a principled alternative is something that Ed Miliband may regret in the future. He has been good tactically, but on the strategic aspects of creating a credible alternative Government in time for the 2015 General Election, he has done much less well. How will Labour handle a media-led campaign against the ECHR, and a new populist attack on benefits? The record to date suggests very passively.

To conclude, this reshuffle is a serious game changer. Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats that haven’t yet turned into invertebrates need to work hard together to challenge what David Cameron wants to offer the country. If they don’t, Britain may be sleep walking into a nightmare.

The election of Natalie Bennett shows the Green Party is a southern, white, middle-class party

The election of Natalie Bennett confirmed something the Green Party knows about itself. It confirms what people outside the Green Party think about it – it is a party of middle-class white people, who principally live in the South East.

This is not meant to be negative. I am sure that Natalie is capable and compassionate leader who wants to see the lives of those in the UK and abroad improved in a sustainable way, ensuring we have a planet worth handing over to our children. I am sure she gets as angry about inequality as everyone else.

What concerns me is the political class has become so controlled by white, mainly male, privately-educated people from a very narrow band of careers. Parliament is full of identikit Politicians who seem to be either Lawyers or from the Media.

Over time this has led to the real detachment of politics from the lives of millions of ordinary people. This has led to the decline in turnout at general elections. In 2010 24% of the socio-economic class AB did not vote. By comparison 42% of C2s did not vote, alongside 43% of DEs. The evidence is clear – Bus Drivers, Nurses, Cleaners and most other working people do not identify with our national party leaders. When David Cameron and his cabinet of millionaires say ‘we are in it together’ who believes them?

The irony is the Green Party is best placed to address the issues in everyday life that people struggle with – jobs, housing, schools for their children and so on. Only the Green Party really understands that it is the system we live under that generates the problems that people face. If you don’t change the system, you won’t change the outcomes.

Being financially limited makes green choices hard. A family struggling on a modest income may love to trade in their old car for an efficient hybrid one, but they don’t have the money. Public transport itself is very expensive too. They may not like buying imported school trousers for £3 from a supermarket, but they have no choice. Organic produce looks good, but when the weekly food budget for a family of four is £50, it is out of the question. Switching fuel supplier to a 100% renewable one could add £200 to their annual bill.

These reasons are why the Green Party struggles to break-through well into the areas where a living wage, affordable decent housing and good public transport would revolutionise their lives. The party needs to fight hard on these social justice issues first and foremost to win support beyond a middle-class with the financial means to make green choices. These measures would not only be popular, but help a sustainable economy too. Tell them you want them have a living wage and a good quality house first before telling them about melting glaciers.

This group is a huge army of current non-voters, looking for some inspiration and a vision. Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have left them behind. The Green Party has the vision to offer them.

This is why the Green Party needs a leadership that can appeal to the back streets of Leeds, Birmingham and Hackney. A leadership that talks their language and understands their lives.

This is Natalie Bennett’s biggest challenge.