Political Point Scoring... The Worst Kind.

It must be said that many are stuck in the 80s, whilst it can be claimed that the Tories are using 80s ideology many on the hard left are stuck in a romanticised-fictional world where the miners strikes achieved their goal...

As a left winger it is often frustrating to watch the left wing tear itself apart (as it frequently does), whilst the vast majority of us want to win the debates to stop the cuts in a peaceful and democratic manner there are many determined to repeat the tactics from the 80s... for reasons that are not altogether clear. I am not Ed Miliband's biggest fan, however I can't bring myself to criticise him for telling the unions that strike action might not be the answer.

Direct and Physical action is only effective with a large majority of the population DECISIVELY on YOUR side, not a Labour lead in the polls ;-). If we look at the 80s miners strike and the 2010 student protests there are many parallels, significantly both failed in their goals and the government achieved what they wanted to do with the miners/students coming out worse in public perception. Both wasted time with rallies that only engaged people who were already involved and allowed protests to become pitched battles between protester and police.

Many people will criticise me for saying that the failure of the student protests was not because of the NUS, despite the many failings of the National Union of Students, instead the various movements led by Marc Bergfeld e.g. Education Activists Network caused major divides amongst the movement by launching scathing attacks not against David Cameron and Nick Clegg but on Aaron Porter, the President of the NUS. The sit ins at various universities alienated many students, caused conflicts between students and lecturers and pushed public opinion away. The attack on the Conservative Headquarters was another naive example where a small group of people felt that the "revolution had come". Whilst these actions are admirable, they are ineffective and play right into the government's hands.

There are far more effective, and far more appropriate methods, of swaying public opinion and changing government plans than sitting in a room telling each other about how the leader of your union has "betrayed you". How many people thought to actually engage the public, you know the old fashioned way; grabbing a phone book, a map and a notepad and actually door knocking, making phone calls, creating petitions, talking to people on the street. If you want to get high-tech, we could have produced databases, twitter campaigns, on-line viral campaigns... I can tell you that no-one really went for it. Which is a shame, we were quite close to embarrassing the deputy prime minister by getting enough people to sign a petition saying he needed to face a by-election (forcing him to break another promise), we could have swayed public opinion decisively in our favour as the government would not have been prepared for such a campaign.

You know... maybe we could do this now, our generation; go out and canvass the populace telling them how  the youth of Britain is being shafted, that tuition fees will be too high, that our generation will never afford to own a home, that nearly 1 million (more than 20% of) 16-24 year old's are unemployed. Maybe that's what we could do on the Day of Action that's scheduled for 30th November. You know... get some public support!

Or we could wait for the revolution to come whilst we march down a street shouting slogans at each other.

Just a thought.

Where are the Liberal Democrats?

Right now? Birmingham. Their popularity is the same as it was in 1996, they're in government and have achieved... what? It is unlikely that Nick Clegg will be able to fulfil his promise of double the number of seats the Liberal Democrats have by 2015, unlike Paddy Ashdown's achievement of doubling the number of Lib Dem seats in 1997, Nick Clegg will not be able to achieve the same feat with a drop of 1% in polls, let alone the halving of support. Not just because of broken promises, the poor state of the economy and general unpopularity but because his party is now in Government and must defend it's record.

Nick Clegg is still criticising government decisions as evil, extremist and horrible... but he must know that he is largely responsible for those measures. The Conservatives will never have been able to push through most of what they have gotten through without the Lib Dem coalition, a minority Conservative government would have been far weaker and have been forced to make deals with the other parties.

There is no doubt that the Liberal Democrats are going to have to do a great deal of work in order to reclaim the trust of their former supporters. I, an individual who considers himself a leftist, already found Nick Clegg hard to trust after his attempts to change certain Lib Dem policies e.g. tuition fees. When Nick Clegg mentions he promises X, Y or Z just gives the impression that it isn't going to happen. I very much doubt that the Liberal democrats will be able to stop the conservatives dropping the 50p tax rate, there are enough Lib Dem MPs who agree with dropping the 50p tax rate for the Conservatives to get it pushed through with, or without the LDs help.

The problem the Liberal Democrats face is the fear of the polls, they fear triggering an election as they know that they're going to suffer; so the Conservatives are able to take advantage of this. If the Liberal Democrats leave the government it will not be as (if at all) damaging for the Conservatives as the damage the Liberal Democrats will suffer. But would it? The Liberals have, thus far, failed to use any of the small windows of opportunity have been given to them.

I disagree with The Observers political editorial today which seems to be claiming that the Liberal Democrat position isn't that bad after all, they've survived several by-elections and in Farron's seat people like their local MP... it is a little unfortunate that the Observer's political editor feels that he should use opinions of random people in Liberal Democrat safe seats to portray his point. He hasn't looked at any polls, which have the Liberal democrats and their leader in the same position they were in February... it's only ICM that has the Liberal democrats in the teens, YouGov have had them in single figures for much of the last year.

I suspect that were there a general election in three months time that the Liberal Democrats would probably return a 17-18% in the polls... but this would put them back in the position they held in 1992 setting them back by 20 years. Nick Clegg is not a strong card for the party and it is hard for him to look like the "honest" route.

Interestingly in today's article in the Observer today was this quote;

"I think Nick Clegg sold out and with the Tories in power people are suffering," says Johnson. "My dad is on disability benefits for multiple sclerosis, but what he can claim now is a lot less and it makes it very difficult."But I understand it is a difficult time and Tim Farron is excellent, he listens to people. I don't really know who I would vote for in a general election. I suppose if Farron was there, I would probably vote for him."

I would not say that this quote is encouraging for the Liberal Democrats, the fact is the man like the MP not the Liberal Democrats as a whole and seems to have accepted the Tory line that the cuts are necessary.

Unfortunately The Observers editorial today is typical of much of the press... presenting one viewpoint and not even attempting to balance out the argument.

Admittedly the Liberal Democrats are not in the same position they were in last winter, this is not too heartening for them but is a start. They can fix their position, but it will not be easy; particularly because they are a small party fighting against two behemoths with much more experience. They also have the problem that they didn't begin the coalition haggling process from the correct position, the conservatives went for the most right position and have gotten much of it because the Liberal democrats started from a position to the right of their own too early talking about how compromise is important.

There is only one thing that I am certain of, which is that I am disappointed by every major group on the left. The unions are hell-bent on repeating the 80s with strike action etc. despite knowing full well that strike action is unpopular and was completely unsuccessful in the 80s, the Liberal Democrats are hugely in denial and Labour is fighting a battle within itself. We're all fighting each other. It is important that we all fall under one banner, I have allied myself with Labour because it is the most united... despite it's major divisions.

All too often we fall into bitter arguments with name calling, generalisations and genuine prejudice. There are many things I disagree with that the last Labour government did, but I'm still Labour because I am part of the left-wing and understand that the reason that Labour has moved towards the right is because left-wingers keep leaving the party meaning that there are fewer of us to make the arguments. There is also the very good point that the Liberal Democrats have also moved towards the right and the Greens are more like a splinter group.

It is time that those of us on the left realise that the Conservatives are winning because we argue and divide ourselves. When the SDP left Labour and joined the Liberals it meant that the Conservatives would remain in power for 18 years last time around, the Liberal Democrats must not allow the Conservatives to do the same again.

There's a reason why polls say women don't like you Mr. Cameron and it isn't school holidays.

"I’m not sexist but..." is how I imagine David Cameron started many debates in his youth, the way he and his party perform speeches, form policy and generally behave makes me wonder whether they experienced the last half a century. There are multiple reasons why women do not support the government as much as men (according to reason polls by YouGov, ICM and Ipsos Mori)*.

The way David Cameron addresses women from all sides of the house is simply astounding, constantly brushing them aside as if they are a joke. Take for example:

Or

Whilst I think Nadine Dorries' question was somewhat foolish there is no reason as to why David Cameron should be allowed to get away with simply dismissing her as a joke. This kind of behavior is deeply patronising and made worse by the fact that it seems to be targeted at women. This is as damaging as newspapers like the Telegraph publishing articles about cleavage in the house of commons ironically posted on the same day as the "calm down dear" quip.

It can be noted that David Cameron talks down to members of the house on a regular basis, rarely ever answering a question if it doesn't suit him and sticking to pre-prepared statements; including pre-prepared statements criticising Ed Miliband for using pre-prepared statements (oh how mature our house of commons is!). But it does appear that David Cameron's method of dealing with difficult questions or comments by female MPs is one of disdain.

Sexism in government is not a new thing, indeed our one female prime minister spent most of her time making herself more masculine; using a deeper voice to such a stage that when Spitting Image came round to representing her she was voiced by a man; Steve Nallon.

Our Government: Spotted the white middle class men yet?

Admittedly our government have identified in this leaked document some genuine reasons for why it's unpopular noting that the government has a very white middle class face with Lady Warsi apparently being pushed on as many PR stunts as possible as their token "Female-Asian", they've also identified that women have been hit particularly hard by the recession and the cuts; all perfectly adequate explanations. So let us assess the actual response drawn out in the letter...

- Decreasing the length of Summer Holidays.

- Introducing an all women business meeting in No 10
- Putting pressure on all parties to ensure women are standing in the city mayors/police commissioners, new positions specifically being set up by the current government.

These positions do not treat women equally to men, and are immensely patronising. These ideas do nothing to challenge the reasons why women dislike the government. Decreasing the length of summer holidays is pandering to traditional values, and has little consideration towards the effect on children and the relationship with their parents nor does it consider the economic effects and costs. All women business meetings will have little effect and, much like all women conferences in academia; will only further segregate women from the political processes and is, once again, targeted at the rich. The efforts to ensure women are standing for roles as police commissioners and mayors are simply an action to promote the conservatives own agenda and also to unload women onto less important positions.

Actions such as these will not improve the governments image for women, will not promote feminism, will not benefit women in any way. So David? going to try again?

Holding the Country to Ransom

This man took twelve times the cost of the London Riots out of the economy and didn't pay a penny of tax .

George Osbourne, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, the Financial Times and the country’s top 1% of earners are all telling us that the 50p tax rate for the country’s top earners should be removed else those same top earners will leave the country and move to Switzerland or Monaco. Tax Havens.

The top earners in this country are effectively holding the country to ransom despite the fact that these people have become the bane of our global economy. There is a near-global debt crisis which has severely damaged a very large number of economies and is threatening to push us back into recession, the stock markets have been incredibly shaky and many countries have been experiencing little growth.

Our government claims that the 50p tax rate is putting a strain on our economy and isn’t getting us all that much money so we might as well get rid of it.

But lets look at the rich poor divide, you may have noticed that with high levels of unemployment, weak growth, large cuts to public services and a rise in VAT that we are all a little bit less off... Well unless you’re in the top earners bracket, take the UK’s top 1000 earners who increased their wealth by 18% in the 2010-2011 financial year.

The problem is that we have suffered a 1929 style recession and are now in a depression, except that the world has not learned from the mistakes made back then. In the UK we are making heavy cuts in every sector, reducing consumer confidence, increasing unemployment and fuelling stagnation. In the US Obama has been attempting Keynesian economics, but has been largely thwarted by the Tea Party in doing so; with large scale projects failing to come to fruition despite billions of dollars being thrown at them meaning that the large construction and infrastructure projects are not happening.

The problem is that many countries have the same problem regarding tax havens, to the extent that this is an international scandal. Countries with 0% Income Tax have put such a strain on western economies that it’s become almost a crime against humanity. Take Monaco, for example, the “country” relies almost entirely on France for it’s existence to the extent that it’s railway it run completely by the French State-run railway operator SNCF, the country has a population smaller than Oldham and is only beaten to the title “smallest country in the world” by the Vatican. This country is instrumental in allowing Phillip Green to avoid paying taxes in the United Kingdom; in 2005 Phillip Green gave himself a £1.2 bn pay cheque when he declared a dividend payout in his company the Arcadia Group, this was technically paid to his wife who is officially a resident in Monaco meaning that he avoided £285 m of tax in a single payout.

This tiny country with a population of 80,000 costs the UK economy billions every year, more than we spend on wars!

So, a single British man in charge of a British Company who has earned all of his money in Britain, has been given grants by the British Government, been given security by the British Police Force, been educated by the British state education system, used roads and airports paid for by the British tax payer and has a vote in Britain avoided £285 m of tax, enough to build more than 10 brand new secondary schools, in one day whilst removing £1.2 bn from the British economy.

Let’s put that £285 m into perspective; the London riots will cost the tax payer around £100 m with several hundred if not thousands of people being punished severely for those actions with jail sentences left, right and centre. So a man who has deliberately avoided paying nearly three times that figure gets off free, and even gets to have personal chats with our Prime Minister and occasionally (okay only once so far!) gets brought in on certain jobs making our government “more efficient”. And he's one of the people telling us that the 50p tax rate is too high!

Naturally Phillip Green is only one man and punishing him would not solve this problem, if we are to solve the £120bn/year tax avoidance problem in this country we must look at the tax havens and find a way of solving this problem. It may well be necessary that the U.N. should be involved in the matter, or maybe the G8 needs to find a way to ensure that tax havens are not given an easy break any more.

However, more realistically, we need to look into our home affairs. If we remove the 50p tax rate now at a time when VAT is at 20% then this country will have given in to the elite it will have given them an even greater opportunity to suck more of this country’s wealth and to give them more power over us. This is crucial, if we allow the top 1% of earners to have more control over our money we are giving them more power, giving them more opportunities to demand X, Y and Z else they’ll “leave the country” else before long we’ll be saying good bye to far more than just our money.

In 2008 the Conservatives called the VAT tax break a bombshell, claiming the Labour government was going to increase it to 18.5% at a later time. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats increased this to 20%.

WTF?!?!?! 10 Years on.

I was sat in a classroom, aged 13 and a little bit unimpressed by the actions of my classmates in my year 9 English class, this was the moment that I will always remember, because it was at this time that the world changed. It is a cliché to point out that there are moments in history where you'll always remember where you were, but this was certainly one of them; it was a tragic and horrible moment that would resonate and define the next decade. I am, of course, talking about the September 11th attacks on the World Trade centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

It is not always clear what the exact effects of major events are, and this was no exception, the direct consequence could arguably be the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but it was also the change of attitudes and the introduction of a new villain in western culture. The “terrorist”, this other became an undeserved stereotype; anyone of middle-eastern descent or links to Islam have become viewed with suspicion. The right wing American media likes to talk about President Barack Obama's middle name (Hussein) as if it has anything to do with anything suggesting that the man had links to terrorism, which he clearly doesn't.

This racism has become a major part of our society, anything linked to Islam is viewed as potentially “extremist”; and ironically many examples of “extremism” that are given are just as much the case in American Christianity. If you're not a Christian in many American states then you are always treated with suspicion, ostracised and occasionally you might well be the target of assassins.

Dr George Tiller murdered in a church in 2009 for running an abortion clinic.

Senator Gabrielle Gifford's was the intended target of an assassination attempt earlier this year...for being a Democrat.

Ironically the labelling of Muslim's as being “terrorists” has created a self-fulfilling prophecy on a large scale with many individuals across the United Kingdom, the United States and other western cultures feeling that they need to join the 'jihad' because they have become accustomed to the media telling them that is what they expect them to be doing. This is mostly the reason behind things like the London bombings. The constant ostracising of the Muslim community in the media has acted as a very strong stimulus and fuel for those most extreme individuals who feel that killing off non - Islamists will get them into paradise.

Recently the government introduced a new set of measures that allow lecturers to report individuals of the Islamic faith to be monitored if they “look down” and that individual will likely be monitored for a while. This isn't fiction or a small scale thing, it's happening right now. The fact is that we have sacrificed too many civil liberties for the sake of a bit of security and this is completely wrong. The reforms that have been put in place over the last ten years have been pretty awful, however we are now starting to see a new phase of laws and reforms to the justice system that will be worse still.

The recent riots in London resulted in a major public backlash against the rioters with a very large number of individuals calling for harsher and harsher punishments for the rioters. The courts visibly enacted very harsh punishments on individuals for very little, the example of a mother who has been jailed for two years because she received a looted t-shirt was particularly prevalent. What terrified me the most was the polling on the number of people who wanted the use of water cannon, CO2 canisters and the army to be brought in, there were even calls for live ammunition to be used. If what the polling has suggested is right then I feel very sad that the British public are so willing to allow such a dramatic removal of civil liberties. David Cameron has even been mentioning that he wants to be able to block social networks during future riots, a tactic being used by the despots in the Middle East and North Africa as they desperately cling to power.

Of course , both of these events are very different with a contrasting set of complex problems associated with them. But what they both have in common is the reaction of the public and by governments, both had reactions that revolved around punishing the group of people responsible and not trying to address the problems that resulted in the act. If you can justifiably take away or lessen the reason to protest then you are going much further down the path to solve the problem in the long term than if you seek to punish those responsible. If we are to learn anything from the last ten years it is that retribution will not solve the problem, we are still fighting a war in Afghanistan because the Taliban and Osama bin Laden were given a greater justification and reason to fight. If greater diplomatic pressure were put on resolving the situation in Israel and Palestine then we may not have seen much of the bloodshed from the last ten years.

If we apply this to the recent events in London and several of Britain's major cities then we should be paying attention to the fact that we have produced ghetto-like communities, have made our benefits system into one that fails to actually give people the support they need to get a job and instead spends most of it's time trying to find ways of removing benefits from those receiving it, we are withdrawing much of the youth service which is so important in ensuring many young individuals have the support they need outside of school hours. We need to look at the reason why so many families in this country are struggling to move up in society and why they are becoming demotivated.

Punishing these families and making it even more difficult for them to get jobs by giving them a criminal record is only going to make it easier for them to justify similarly violent actions in the future and will not act as a deterrent.