Saturday, 13 May 2017

The "Trespassing on others' territory" election - day 25


Catch-up

I've caught up with the full leaked Labour manifesto, and it's still causing ructions today.

It's actually quite an old joke, but a relevant one today:  The government (and most of the papers) are quite happy with state control of British industries;  as long as it's a foreign state.  Rail "renationalisation" is probably the easiest such proposal to achieve, though it does assume (at least) two Labour (or sympathetic) terms in government.  Who are the current franchise holders?


Abellio has three franchises or part-franchises and is owned by the Dutch government.  Deutsche Bahn, whose largest shareholder is the German government, owns Arriva, which has six franchises or part-franchises. Trenitalia has one franchise and is owned by the Italian government, and Eurostar is part owned by the French and Belgian governments.

Then there's energy.  Of the big six gas and electricity suppliers, EDF Energy's parent company is largely owned by the French government.  EDF and Chinese government finance are responsible for the Hinkley Point C project, and a Chinese government company has options on two further British nuclear plants.  And the Qatar state investment authority is a major share holder of the Spanish company Iberdrola, which controls Scottish Power.

Oh, and the British government is already part owner, with the Dutch government and two German power companies, of Urenco, which enriches uranium. 


Do other European countries, with their major state industries, live in the 1970s (© Telegraph, Mail and all points to the right)?  You know, that time when there were boy jobs and girl jobs.

The Daily Mirror has the latest in a series of similar polls which basically tell us that Labour's leaked proposals are popular but Corbyn isn't.

Is it because I is not a pacifist?


Emily Thornberry (Labour, Islington South and Finsbury, majority 12,708) put her name to a scene-setting article for Labour's day, while the party primed journalists with "what Jeremy Corbyn is expected to say", which boiled down to "I am not a pacifist".

The BBC's Norman Smith opined that Corbyn had voted against every military engagement imaginable, including the Falklands war... which happened the year before he was first elected (though I'm sure he would have voted against it). "Perhaps some preconceptions to clear up" on Corbyn's military stance, said newsreader Annita McVeigh later.

Corbyn's speech when it came was a thoughtful tour d'horizon of things defence, development and diplomacy.  He quoted Eisenhower's 1961 "military-industrial complex" speech and lamented the lack of progress on Ike's warning not to "let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes".  He observed that current thinking is presented as being either for or against strong defence, with anything but the former "unreliable".

He criticised Theresa  May for having a "coalition of risk and insecurity" with Donald Trump, and promised that under Labour there would be "no more hand-holding" with the US.


"The war on terror has not worked" was a main point, leading to a stress on diplomacy - fine, but several invocations of the United Nations were formulaic and uncritical.  Perhaps with the weight of leadership on his shoulders, perhaps with the weight of conference decisions contradicting his own views, Corbyn pressed for the 2% defence spending target to be maintained with a view to building troop numbers back up and looking after them better.

What everybody was waiting for was the passage on nuclear weapons.  The question "would you order use  of nuclear weapons" was "an extraordinary question when you think about it – would you order the indiscriminate killing of millions of people? Would you risk such extensive contamination of the planet that no life could exist across large parts of the world? If circumstances arose where that was a real option, it would represent complete and cataclysmic failure. It would mean world leaders had already triggered a spiral of catastrophe for humankind."

I hope it's hard to argue against that analysis objectively, but nuclear deterrence theory for NATO (and several other countries with nuclear weapons) has moved beyond "you hit me and I'll hit you back" to "you look like hitting me and I'll hit you first".

Many military operations might be judged to be war crimes but it would be hard to class a nuclear strike in any other way, if any courts survived.  As Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks, majority 19,561) has told us before today "In the most extreme circumstances, we've made it very clear that you can't rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike."


Corbyn left it to be inferred that he would never order such a strike, and explicitly stated the party's opposition to a first strike.


"A high level of strategic illiteracy" was the judgement of a former senior naval officer.  Declaring no first use is "absolute nonsense... the man can't be trusted".  Then, in order to appear "unpolitical" he observed that "even the present prime minister" isn't too good at stepping up to help the US.


Theresa May revisits an old stamping ground

#MrsME was in northeastern England, hoping to appeal to wavering Labour voters and those who had already transferred their support to UKIP.  Not that she was actually going to met any of them of course.  In her speech to Tories in Tynemouth she mentioned another election campaign in 1992, when she contested Northwest Durham against a young Tim Farron... and lost to Labour's Hilary Armstrong.



May, in Tynemouth, accused Labour of turning against the "proud and patriotic working class", but most of the speech was familiar stuff, much of it set out in the letter I discussed yesterday.  "The EU 27 are determined to work together,"  she says, and  "They mean business".  Can anybody be surprised by that?

Northern Echo chief feature writer Chris Lloyd told Sky News they're "on the cusp of something" with regard to Tories making progress in the northeast.  The election of a Tory mayor for Tees Valley, the effect of the Leave vote and the dwindling UKIP vote all mean that otherwise surprising seats being targeted.


Since coverage was going to be dominated by Corbyn's speech, May made a few soundbites available - Labour voters "are increasingly looking at what Jeremy Corbyn believes in, and are appalled" - an attack on Corbyn on defence, economy and leadership, very little actual Tory policy but #StrongAndStable™ generalities.


David Cameron appeared on the campaign in Chester to argue that May needs a big mandate to escape being manoeuvred into an “extreme Brexit”. David Davis on the other hand , claimed the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, was trying to force him out of his job.

The Economist analysed #MrsME's chances with the older vote (spoiler: it should be safe):
"Fortunately for Theresa May … her retirement-age base currently looks rock-solid. Before the Brexit referendum last year, around a fifth of over-60s supported the UK Independence party. But after the surprise vote to leave the EU stripped Ukip of much of its reason for being, nearly three-quarters of that group have abandoned the party, with the vast majority shifting their allegiances to the Conservatives. As a result, the Tories are currently some 50 points ahead of Labour among the old – an advantage roughly double the size of their already-large margin with that group in 2015. Labour may have chosen a relatively aged leader in the 67-year-old Jeremy Corbyn, but the polls suggest he shouldn’t count on his sexagenarian peers for any help."


Over the last few days I've seen a few demands for more detail on Brexit (or indeed anything) but this one seemed to go well with May's criticism of Labour's policy costings.




Lib Dems on drugs

BBC World At One featured the periodic "debate" about drugs, prompted by a Lib Dem pledge to legalise cannabis.  The war on drugs has not worked,  so...





Saboteurs department

After Michel Barnier's speech to the Irish parliament yesterday, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator moved on to the border with the north to hear first hand how the wrong sort of Brexit would hit businesses and individuals in that area in particular.  He told us that some form of customs checking would be needed between an EU country and one outside.  Most of the proposals for this border seem to have been around since the referendum campaign a year ago.

"I'm not a super-technocrat from Brussels,"  said Barnier.  "I have been chosen for this extraordinary job - and I hope it remains extraordinary - because I'm a politician."  He continued,  "We want to find solutions without rebuilding any hard border."  The job is to maintain the Good Friday Agreement but it must be compatible with the single market.

Accused by a journalist of being an agent provocateur by approaching the border from the south (!) he shifted to diplomatic nothings, refusing to talk solutions, listening and showing he's totally involved.  "Everything is complicated...  There is always an answer..."  But of course the BBC cut away as soon as a French journalist started talking furrin.

At Barnier's right shoulder, Irish foreign minister Charlie Flanagan said, perhaps pointedly, that he hopes Article 50 talks can get underway "as soon as possible after June 8".

Meanwhile Tony Blair was addressing a European People's Party meeting in County Wicklow.  “A hard border between the countries would be a disaster,"  he said,  "and I am sure everyone will and must do all they can to avoid it...  Some disruption is inevitable and indeed is already happening. However, it is essential that we do all we possibly can to preserve arrangements which have served both countries well and which command near universal support.”

One thing I thought might blow up during the referendum campaign was the promise, led by Priti Patel, that Brexit would allow the UK to bring more people from the Indian subcontinent than at present.  In part this followed Eric Pickles' ill-fated attempt to train British curry chefs.  George Osborne's ever-helpful London Standard now reports that "Brexit ministers misled us over immigration, say furious curry house bosses".


Snippets

Thursday's cyber attack prompted Helen Jayne Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners to complain about NHS underfunding on BBC World Tonight and tech people to observe that a huge number of NHS systems are running Windows XP, which is no longer supported.  This could become an election issue.
Edward Snowden among others pointed out that the NSA had discovered this Windows weakness but not told people about it.

The final numbers show that UKIP is standing in many fewer constituencies than in 2015.






And the Greens will be seen in rather more places.




The effect of UKIP's choice's (though they might have been forced on the party by lack of time, willing candidates and money) could be serious for Labour.




And here's a beaut!  The conspiracy theorists will be out in force.



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Thursday, 11 May 2017

The "It all goes on around us while we look at other things" election - day 24

[Updated 12 May]

A letter


Having been mostly incommunicado today I might not manage the usual summary of the day's election excitements, so I'll have a detailed look at a letter which has fallen into my hands.  It was addressed to an elderly person, and I've redacted names, constituency names and details of the person's address in a pleasing Tory #MrsME blue.  It's signed - apparently - by Theresa May.

Page 1 -  click to read

It might be that every one of us will receive a letter like this, or it might be that different communications will be directed to different groups of voters.  Note, for example, the mention of a postal vote on page 2.

Page 2 - click to read

For a moment I thought it was Commons notepaper - it's the same colour - but it's lighter weight and doesn't have the letterhead.  The envelope shows it to be handled by UKMail (and delivered by Royal Mail).  [update] There is no other marking on the envelope.  The "if undelivered" address on the back of the envelope is CCHQ - Conservative central office.

The letter is "promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party" and printed in London, so I'll assume it isn't a constituency-related communication from the local candidate.  Names, addresses and whether a person has a postal vote is information from the electoral roll, which a few quick searches confirm is held by the electoral registration office of the appropriate local council.

I know there's a national system for registering online (remind everybody to use it if they might not be registered) and what's known as the open roll is available for general viewing.  A large number of people withhold their details from the open roll, and the recipient of this letter is one of them.

Gov.uk tells individuals that they can access the open roll by enquiring at the local council but another quick search yields a wide range of services allowing you to track people down using this information.  The names and addresses might be combined with other databases to provide other information - phone number, property price... - but not, surely, whether you have a postal vote.

The full version of the roll, with all the names and presumably postal vote requests, is available to local political parties and candidates to support their work during an election.  In this case it seems that the national Conservative party has access to the full roll.  I assume that's OK.......

And of course it will all be paid for by the national party account.  Won't it?



It's nice to be noticed

(and I know it's not the real one)







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Wednesday, 10 May 2017

The "This election will not be interrupted by court cases, I hope" election - day 23



Labour education day


Jeremy Corbyn addressed another friendly audience at Leeds City College on Labour's proposed National Education Service.  He namechecked the "brilliant" local MPs Richard Burgon (Labour, Leeds East, majority 12,533) and Hilary Benn (Labour, Leeds Central, majority 16,967) and hoped everybody in the hall and every student at the college was registered to vote.  "Use your democratic rights."

"The Conservative party looks after money and money looks after the Conservative party,"  he told them, while "the rigged system holds people back".  "Without an upgraded economy there can be no fairer Britain,"  he said, which sounds rather close to the Tories' "we can only provide the good services we want with a strong economy".

Today he was pledging to raise corporation tax to 26% over four years, which would still keep it the lowest in the G7 (not if Trump gets his proposals through it won't), which raised a lot of questions throughout the day.

Angela Rayner presented Labour's ideas for a National Education Service, from cradle to grave at the same meeting and in several media interviews in the morning.  The main points of the press release were:
  • Stop the cuts to school budgets with a real terms increase in funding
  • Reduce class sizes to under 30 for all five, six and seven year olds
  • Free school meals for all primary school children
  • Restore education maintenance allowance for college students
  • Restore student grants for university students
  • Scrap fees on courses for adult learners looking to re-train or upskill
She was confident that £6bn could be found for this by raising corporation tax, or rather for everything but the scrapping of tuition fees/restoration of grants.  For that we have to (all together now) wait for the manifesto.  That odd outlier suggests the party might still be fighting over a hot caculator.

Paul Johnson of the IFS judges that Labour's sums in this case add up (not including the tuition fees bit I think) so long as they don't spend it 11 times of course, which the Tories and Lib Dems are still teasing them for.  But he warned that such a large increase in corporation tax would have consequences, taking money out of investment:
Two important things about corporation tax – first, it’s not a victimless tax. This would increase taxes by about 1% of national income, so it would leave us all in the long run about 1% worse-off.

And of course, it is people in the end who pay it and it would reduce incentives for companies to invest in the UK ....

The risk is that whilst this would raise knocking on for £20bn in the short run, it’s probably going to raise rather less than that in the long run as companies invest less and take other opportunities to reduce the amount of tax they pay. So the long run behavioural effect of this tax would result in revenues being less than the immediate headline increase.
Even if you take it back it back up to 26%, as the Labour party are suggesting, it would not be particularly high by international standards.

But there have been other increases - not to the main rate of corporation tax, but to other elements of corporation tax - over the last few years and whilst we have a low headline rate, we have a very broad base. So the effective rate of corporation tax in the UK would start to look relatively higher by international standards. In a world where we are particularly worried about investment into the UK, and a Brexit situation, to significantly increase the rate of corporation you would have to say is taking some risk with the productivity and investment in the economy over the next decades.

Johnson's IFS put out briefing notes on education spending  ("it will make a positive difference") and corporation tax.

There are questions about the effects of the corporation tax changes on small businesses, as they have been told different things recently.  The Tories jumped on this, naturally.  The Federation of Small Businesses was "pressing Jeremy Corbyn to honour the commitment he made when he met with FSB members last month, for no increases to corporation tax for small businesses under a future Labour government."  The IFS puts it like this.


Labour had countered the IFS warnings by the end of the day, arguing that the stronger (and probably more stable) education and training their scheme would support would contribute to productivity improvements.

LibDems 

Tim Farron (Lib Dem, Westmorland and Lonsdale, majority 8,949) did the interview rounds in the morning, then was pictured in various southwestern locations, making jam tarts in a primary school among other things - always a great idea when wearing a dark suit.

It was striking that Farron was happy with his party's increase in vote share last week, despite their loss of 40 council seats.  He was also content to campaign to be (part of) a strong opposition, assuming that the Tories were on their way to a large majority.  I'm not sure that's a great tactic Timmy lad.

The Lib Dems propose to raise corporation tax as well, though only to 20%, and scrap the married couples' tax allowance to bolster the education budget.  Farron argued that the sums added up, not least because, "unlike Labour", they had only promised to spend this money once.

More controversial for some is the Lib Dem assumption that the UK will stay in the single market as the only way to keep the economy strong enough to guarantee the continuing tax take.


A policy announcement slipped out separately was to instruct the NHS to supply pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to those "at risk of HIV" as is already available in Scotland.  NHS England is reluctant to do this at present because of cost implications (and perhaps also concern that they will be accused of supplying "lifestyle drugs") but it should save money in the longer run. Prevention is cheaper than treatment and all that.



Tories


#MrsME was touring workplaces again, including Mansfield (pictured), delivering THAT speech.  She must be gaining in confidence, though, because real people were allowed to ask questions again, before the journalists.  Judging by the bits the TV will show before it all gets too boring and familiar, that confidence isn't really justified.  And she will keep on claiming to be out and about, meeting real people.

Captivated or captive

One question was on homelessness.  She quoted the spending promised by the current government and some vague ideas about preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place, but strangely neglected to mention the Homelessness Prevention Act, a private member's bill helped through by the government.

We're all used to the way #MrsME (and many other politicians) answers questions by not really answering the question but spouting a half-relevant formula.  If enough people see her doing it to real people that might eventually tell against her.


Earlier in the day #MrsME met Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, in Downing St as he requested extra troops for Afghanistan.  I bet the other NATO members were contacted by phone. Perhaps #MrsME invited him over for the cameras.  It's always good for a prime minister seeking re-election to be seen doing the big, important things.

When I saw Andrea Leadsom's name I wondered whether she had actually been allowed out, but no, she'd just written a letter to reassure fishing leaders that the UK will “look to disapply” the most unpopular parts of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) when the UK exits the European Union.  The Press Association reported:

"In a private letter to the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), Leadsom said 'no decision has yet been made' on the extent to which the CFP would be incorporated into British law post-Brexit.

"She pledged that as the UK leaves the EU 'we will look to disapply the key elements of the CFP that are most unpopular and unworkable for the UK as a coastal state' - with this including the EU quota-setting regime and the right of European boats to fish in UK waters.

"'It is essential that we take the opportunity to develop a fisheries regime that is better-suited to our seas and industries,' the environment secretary said.


SNP and UKIP spokespeople, from different viewpoints, both predicted a "gigantic sell-out".  Eilidh Whiteford (SNP, Banff and Buchan, majority 14,339) said:

"The letter couldn’t be clearer - for all their rhetoric, the Tories are planning to incorporate key parts of the CFP ‘into domestic law’.

"They are also ‘committed to ongoing co-operation with other countries over the management of shared stocks’.

"That means that they are planning to use Scottish waters and our fishing industry as a Brexit bargaining chip.

"In doing so, they are also taking an enormous gamble with the livelihoods of those fish processors that depend on European exports by jeopardising our position within the single market."

Not being in either party I'm not as frightened of cooperating on managing shared stocks, but one day some actual proposals will emerge.
 


Not so presidential today?


But another one of those "we have no plans to..." answers sparked a lot of concern.



Court news

The CPS put out a statement on the year-long election expenses investigation.  Apart from one case which was still being considered, there would be no prosecutions.  That case concerns Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, South Thanet, majority 2,812) and is larger and more complex.

Official responses started with Patrick McLoughlin:

"After a very thorough investigation, we are pleased that the legal authorities have confirmed what we believed was the case all along: that these Conservative candidates did nothing wrong. These were politically motivated and unfounded complaints that have wasted police time. We are glad that this matter is finally resolved.

"A number of false and malicious claims continue to be spread on the internet. People should be aware that making false claims about a candidate’s personal character and conduct is an electoral offence, as well as being defamatory.

"Notwithstanding these false claims, Conservatives want to strengthen election rules to safeguard electoral integrity – in light of the real and proven cases of electoral fraud exposed in Tower Hamlets in 2015."

The "Conservative candidates did nothing wrong" theme was the baseline of all Tory responses. Not all of them repeated McLoughlin's apparent threat to tweeters and others who might make the #ToryElectionFraud theme more personal, but some turned the heat up higher.


Corbyn was "interested and surprised" by the decision but strongly supported electoral law and the independence of the electoral commission and CPS.  Farron said:  "The observation I would make of the Conservative party is it appears to have stayed on the right side of the law by the letter of it, but has driven a battlebus and horses right the way through the spirit of it.   It’s a shame.  In one sense, it would appear there is a cloud hanging over British politics."

The Electoral Commission has already fined the national Conservative party £70,000 for failing to properly declare £275,000 of election spending.  Much of this wrongdoing concerned incorrect classification of spending as national rather than local.  Many payments should have been reported by the local candidate and agent but were recorded centrally or not at all.

But the way UK election law works means that local cases have to be reported to the police and evaluated against a strict, criminal test of knowing dishonesty.  Each local party was supplied with a "comfort letter" stating that the payments in question were not their responsibility.  This seems to have resulted in the CPS's decision that, though constituency spending declarations “may have been inaccurate”, there was insufficient evidence to prove dishonesty.

The account by Morecambe and Lunesdale MP David Morris is illustrative.

 





Last summer David Allen Green, the FT’s legal commentator, posted a lengthy blog explaining why he thought prosecutions relating to the election over-spending allegations were unlikely.
And today he posted a series of tweets in response to the CPS decision

To quote an extract:  "That there was wrongdoing was beyond doubt - but this fell to the Electoral commission to deal with by fines. Which it did.  This would leave the police/CPS to deal with offences which required proof of dishonesty.  As election law is a muddle (even to election lawyers) it was going to be difficult to have sufficient evidence to show dishonest intent."

#MrsME's repeated line that the candidates have done nothing wrong and that the Conservative party has paid its fines is, shall we say, disingenous.  They played the system, paid the fine (=cost of doing business) and supplied each local party with a letter telling them that the battle bus expenditure would be declared on the central party returns.

Now all they need is the Thanet case to be decided on.  Oh, and the treasurer at the time of the 2015 election is still being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

Another public lawyer put it quite simply.





Stop press, er... blog


The Labour manifesto has been leaked to theTelegraph and Mirror. That'll be tomorrow's story.
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The "Lynton Crosby's hidden hand" election - day 22

The Me Show


It's as if somebody is actually planning #MrsME's election.  The latest episode of the "ruthless, scripted campaign" (Norman Smith, BBC) was a "Meet the Mays" session on the One Show couch.  Luckily I was doing something else at the time and didn't even have to decide not to watch it.





“There’s boy jobs and girl jobs, you see,” said Theresa May, prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  And "I quite like ties, jackets, stuff like that."
A lot of people watch the One Show, and their defences will be down, at least in comparison to the Six o'clock News audience, and there are other audiences to exploit.






Labour

It was campaign launch day and somebody had driven a big red bus into an exhibition hall in Salford to kick things off (as if it hasn't been going on for weeks already).  Ian Lavery (Labour, Wansbeck, majority 10,881), one of the election coordination twins, took the stage to thump a few tubs in front of an enthusiastic Labour audience.

Lavery referred to "Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party", which seemed to ape the #MrsME approach, and used "it doesn't have to be this way", which reminded me of Ed Miliband.  At least some of it came from the heart:  "They don't call it the struggle for nothing".

The gossip among journalists was that Andy Burnham had taken a seat in the front row alongside Lucy Powell (Labour, Manchester Central, majority 21,639).  These are the two who were reported missing when Corbyn visited Manchester on the day of Burnham's election as Manchester city region metro mayor (it's important not to say just "Manchester mayor"; there's a lot of worry that the centre will get all the attention and the money).

Corbyn called Burnham onto the stage.  "Andy will be a great mayor," he said, "but think how much better with a Labour government."  Then began the Corbyn speech - not as tedious and shallow as #MrsME's but still much the same every time.


Corbyn didn't answer questions after his speech but went on to do TV interviews and a session with journalists.




On presidential elections


A series of tweets from Michael Crick was worrying.




Then, as Andrew Sparrow reported in the Guardian,


I imagine this made Crick less likely to be called to ask a question later in the day.


Campaign snippets

The local UKIP candidate in Clacton, blessed by Arron Banks on his flying visit two weeks ago, has been rejected by the party's NEC "after social media messages emerged from accounts linked to him which disparaged Muslims".

The Greens on the Isle of Wight derided the Tories' "cruel shock therapy" of the NHS.

NATO has asked the UK for more troops to perform training roles in Afghanistan.  When asked, Corbyn told reporters he would reject such a request if it came to him.

The fallout from #MsME's energy price ban continued, with Martin Lewis (moneysavingexpert) telling the BBC that Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells, majority 22,874, currently Secretary of State for Business etc) was a disgrace for recommending that we should all switch energy suppliers even if he'd never got round to doing it himself.

Labour complained that their policy has been nicked, and their 2015 manifesto did indeed have a very similar policy.  LibDems say the cap will hit investment and raise prices (if the variable rate is held down, suppliers will raise the fixed deal tariffs to maintain their profits). The industry agrees with the LibDems.


Perhaps Ofgem could establish a real price comparison site.  You know, one which isn't actually an agent or broker for energy supply companies who pay the right fees to get preferential placings.




Progressive Alliance news

Labour has expelled three members for joining a campaign to replace Jeremy Hunt with an National Health Action party MP.

The Greens are standing aside to help Labour win Ed Balls' old seat from Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative, Morley and Outwood, majority 422).  They're also giving Mary Creagh (Labour, Wakefield, majority 2,613) an easier run, and supporting the Women's Equality Party's Sophie Walker as she stands against Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley, majority 9,624).

Tim Farron (Lib Dem, Westmorland and Lonsdale, majority 8,949) has "made it very clear" that there will be no pacts or coalitions.  But he's "relaxed" about local parties deciding to stand aside somewhere like Brighton Pavilion and less relaxed, by the sound of it, about Vince Cable's support for Rupa Huq (Labour, Ealing central and Acton, majority 274).

Heading in the opposite direction, are rumoured "potential mass defections" from Labour, as reported by the Telegraph and denied by a likely "suspect".


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Tuesday, 9 May 2017

The "Every day seems like the last" election - day 21

The BBC came out to tell us about TV "debates".

Tuesday 9 May: Theresa May and her husband Philip interviewed together on the One Show.
Wednesday 31 May: Mishal Husain chairs a seven-way debate with senior figures from the Conservatives, Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, the Green and Ukip.
Friday 2 June: David Dimbleby hosts a Question Time leader special with May and Corbyn facing audience questions consecutively.
Sunday 4 June: Dimbley hosts a second Question Time leader special with Tim Farron and Nicola Sturgeon.
Andrew Neil will also be conducting a series of one-to-one interviews going out on BBC One at 7pm with May, Corbyn, Farron, Sturgeon and Paul Nuttall.

 At first some of it looked high value, but then...


The pre-manifesto pledges kept coming - Tories waking up their "tens of thousands" pledge on immigration, Labour talking about junk food advertising  and car park charges!  But the progressive alliance didn't seem to be getting anywhere - Labour and the LibDems not playing, Caroline Lucas for the Greens pleading.  There is a handful of local initiatives, the latest with the National Health Acton party against Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey, majority 28,556).


Tories

May was out at another standard campaign meeting in Harrow West (Gareth Thomas, Labour, majority 2,208), with candidates from London and the southeast leaping obediently to their feet when #MrsME entered the room.


Laura Kuenssberg reminded us of what we've been discussing from the start.



May: we remain committed to reaching 100,000 but I won't say when and I won't commit to ending free movement at Brexit.  She maintained that Corbyn wants to keep free movement as it is, for which there seems to be very little evidence.

Here are extracs from a couple of Tory manifestos.




Labour and the LibDems criticised the immigration proposal for being inflexible, unachievable and unfair as you'd expect.  Some Tories don't like it but won't say much. The Institute of Directors said

"A target is a poor substitute for a proper immigration policy. All parties should instead see Brexit as an opportunity to come up with a new system that is good for the economy, but also addresses voters’ concerns.

"The next government must improve the education system so young people are ready to fill roles in developing industries, and workers of all ages can re-train as needed to find fulfilling jobs. This is the only sustainable way to reduce the demand for skills from abroad."

Asked about the nurses' pay cap, May responded with her "Some nurses have had big rises because of progression pay", avoiding, of course, the point that every new intake of nurses at low grades is poorer than the last.

One of the questions she answered concerned the le Touquet agreement on border controls between the UK an France - an odd thing to explore in a campaign Q&A.  What had she talked about with Macron the night before?




The stump mantra is evolving.

"A vote for me and my team is a vote to secure strong and stable leadership through Brexit and beyond.

"A vote for me and my team will strengthen my hand in the Brexit negotiations.

"A vote for me and my team will lock in economic security for our whole country.

"The alternative is to risk making Jeremy Corbyn our prime minister ...

"We must take nothing for granted, leave no stone unturned, no door un-knocked on.

"It is only by working flat-out, every day, from now to 8 June that we can gain the trust of the British people and earn their support on polling day."

She had earlier suggested she wanted a mandate as strong as Macron's, (a 66% vote share seems unlikely in this country), though of course the intended structure of the talks doesn't include country-to-country negotiation.


Labour

John McDonnell attracted criticism yesterday when he responded positively to Andrew Marr's Sunday questions on Karl Marx, but he was also criticised by former Corbyn adviser Richard Murphy for being not left-wing enough.  Murphy is no longer one of the crowd, but lamented McDonnell's restraint.  Don't forget that McDonnell is proud of quoting his record of balancing the books at the GLC under Ken Livingstone.

Labour have adopted a Philip Davies/UKIP policy - ending NHS parking charges.  They feel they have to say how they'll fund it, this time by increasing insurance premium tax on private healthcare insurance.  Last month, a Freedom of Information request by Unison revealed some hospitals are charging staff, including nurses struggling with low wages, nearly £100 a month to park, resulting in reports of nurses having to rush out in between appointments to move their cars and avoid fines.


Jeremy Corbyn is enjoying his first general election as Labour leader, and he wants to "make something very clear":  he intends to remain in the job, even if he doesn't win.  "I was elected leader of this party and I’ll stay leader of this party," Corbyn told BuzzFeed News during his visit to Leamington Spa, referring to himself again as "Monsieur Zen".




News from France



Following news from the Macron camp that there did appear to be a Russian angle to the leaks of emails, and that campaign staff had been subverting the attackers, we were told that Facebook is moving to suppress fake news during the election.  You might wonder how they hope to close certain newspapers down, but...





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Thursday, 4 May 2017

The "There are local votes as well, you know, so let's get them out of the way" election - day 17


Election day (local)

Off to the shops, hoping to return in time for shock announcements from the palace.  Speculation ranged from reduncancies or a pay freeze, through royal stuff like abdications and weddings, to really important possibilities like the first royal Dr Who or...






Discussing mothers and anniversaries with the taxi driver.  It's 41 years just about to the day since I encountered my first computer, and nearly 40 years since he arrived from Pakistan.  He sets a good example - "Will you celebrate?"  "I celebrate every day."

The Stockport Express was an impulse buy - I've been picking up a few examples of the dead tree press recently, just to check what you see if you don't get all your news online.  And that wrap-round!  The only election here today is for the Manchester "metro-"mayor, which doesn't get a mention.  Apart from the promoter's message in tiny light grey letters, the word "Conservative" doesn't appear until page 4.

      

Somehow I didn't get round to voting for HER candidate locally.




On my return I discovered what the royal news is.  Somewhere mid-range on the scale I mentioned above, but not at all surprising.  A boon to the TV news schedules though, filling hours in which they would have had to explain repeatedly why there's nothing about elections on today.  Adam Boulton regaling Sky viewers with observations about the royal black cab hardly excited anyone, but then he has been sounding bored with everything recently.

It's so predictable though, stepping down from public duties to avoid the appalling Trump in October.


Saboteurs department


#MrsME's outpurst yesterday attracted a varety of responses from the other side of the negotiating table.  The EU commission's chief spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said:

"We are not naive. At the moment there’s an election taking place in the UK. People get excited when we have elections. The election in the UK is mainly about Brexit. We here in Brussels are extremely busy with our policy work. We have too much to do on our plate."

In other words... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

EU Council president Donald Tusk, reported to be sombre (he does sombre well), said:

“These negotiations are difficult enough as they are.  If we start arguing before they even begin they will become impossible.

 “The stakes are too high to let our emotions get out of hand because at stake are the daily lives and interests of millions of people on both sides of the Channel. We must keep in mind that in order to succeed we need today discretion, moderation, mutual respect and a maximum of goodwill.”

A measure of patronising disappointment then, but the message is definitely "when you've finished messing about with your election, we've got things to do."
Does anybody remember?  The Tories have MEPs in Brussels and Strasbourg to represent their parts of the UK (the actual tally is UKIP 24, Labour 20, Conservative 19, Green 3, SNP 2, LibDem 1 - use now, while stocks last).  Unfortunately it was one of David Cameron's bright ideas to leave the main conservative grouping in the EU parliament, so #MrsME's contacts over there are more likely to be with the Ordinary People's Party of Slovakia than the parties of Tusk, Juncker and Merkel.


This could be why #MrsME is treading less than carefully in her speeches from the middle of Downing St (or it could be that she just wants to ride roughshod over good sense and maximise the size of her One Nation Party to make a One Party Nation), but her placeman Syed Kamall should at least have briefed her on the European People's Party's Brexit redlines.






Back to electioneering tomorrow!

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The "This election is at the mercy of evil foreigners" election - day 16


Old-fashioned campaigning

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge, majority 22,134) and David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden, majority 16,195) came out with a very familiar pictorial backdrop to illustrate Labour's latest "tax bombshell". You have to get these things in at the right time, before the opposition manifesto is out, to fix the idea of their irresponsibility in people's minds.

Needless to say, some of the policy items which contribute to the "£45 billion black hole" (they could do these events in their sleep) won't actually be in the manifesto when it comes, but the number will stick.  John McDonnell (Labour, Hayes and Harlington, majority 15,700) can splutter about "lies" all he wants, but he'll have to brief his fellow spokespeople better to have a chance of countering these stunts.

Hammond and Davis didn't point to their own record, and many Labourites will probably forget to mention it as well.



Meanwhile, nominations for constituencies in Northern Ireland suggest that the various Unionist parties have agreed a deal to allow a single candidate a free run in each of "their" seats.

And the BBC has been out vox popping again, finding people (8 out of 30 interviewed) who don't know there's an election in June.


The Michel Barnier Show

The EU's lead Brexit negotiator came out for a press conference in Brussels to introduce the documents released by the Commission today which define a negotiating process in two stages.  Pointedly, Barnier only has a mandate for the first stage, plus the responsibility to recommend when "sufficient progress" has been made on stage 1 to proceed to stage 2.

Stage 1 - elements necessary to ensure an orderly withdrawal
  1. Citizens' rights
  2. Financial settlement
  3. Northern Ireland
  4. Governance and dispute resolution
Stage 2 - framework for a future relationship, and transition to it

To these I'd add a Stage 0, in which the two sides will argue about whether this structure is acceptable.  May &co have maintained that the future UK-EU relationship must be negotiated in parallel with the withdrawal agreement if not actually as part of the same process.  Any change would presumably need the approval of the EU Council, so we could see weeks of negotiating time taken up by talks about talks.

Barnier said at least twice that the British referendum had led to ten months of uncertainty, which needs to be resolved as soon as possible.  He warned that leaving the EU would have consequences, in the personal, social, financial, legal etc fields, and that the British "know the complexities".


Issues to be resolved on citizens' rights in the UK and the rest of the EU include the cut-off date (EU wants rights for anybody making the move up to the date of withdrawal;  various earlier dates have been mentioned in the UK), how long the rights should be protected (for life is the EU demand) and which law should enforce them (May &co aren't going to accept the ECJ).  We could end up with some people in the UK who retain free movement rights and EU citizenship protections and some (merely British citizens) who don't.


Barnier denied that the financial settlement being requested is any kind of punishment or "exit tax".  It's just "settling of accounts" based on commitments already made.  He refused to mention any particular figure - not the "up to €60bn" hinted at by Ivan Rogers, or the "maybe €100bn" floated by the Financial Times on Wednesday morning - but insisted that a "methodology" for the calculation must be agreed as a precondition for moving on to any later discussions.


Little was said about the other main objective of stage 1 - Northern Ireland - but Barnier said he would be in Dublin next week.


Several questioners mentioned the leaks from last week's dinner but Barnier talked of that evening being the first time he had "had the honour" of meeting Theresa May and that he had attended with the attention of establishing an entente cordiale.

Sky's commentators on the session included Yanis Varoufakis, who recognised the Brussels technique - you give us everything we want, then we'll talk about what you want - and Gisela Stuart who said there is pressure from countries including Ireland and Holland which would ensure that trade is discussed earlier than the current EU timetable would allow.


The Theresa May show


#MrsME seems to have a cunning plan (thanks to @davidallengreen for the initial idea).
  1. Kick off the Article 50 process at a time of your own choosing.
  2. Call an election at a time of your own choosing.
  3. Invite Juncker and Barnier for dinner to show you're still doing the important things.
  4. Worry them with apparent unpreparedness so that they brief newspapers (this might not have been planned).
  5. Dismiss the leak as "Brussels gossip".
  6. Go to see the queen (those important things again) so the cameras are all following you.
  7. Make a speech complaining about interference in your election (no longer just "gossip" apparently) by an EU negotiator who's carrying on with the process you started at 1.
  8. Wait for the howls of outrage and endless TV repeats which that nice Mr Crosby assured you would come.
Job done!  "Standing up to Brussels" is now established in the public mind along with "Vote for ME and MY candidates".  The cult of personality must be worrying even some Tories.




Saboteurs department

Osborne's at it again.  The Standard looks likely to become required reading for a while at least.



The Economist's man in Berlin, Jeremy Cliffe, who brought us an account of the dinner leak story in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung queries the declared purpose of #MrsME's election.  Others have observed that a bigger majority would give her more chance to compromise with those evil, election-fixing foreigners, while yet others fear that all the new Tory MPs will be ardent young Brexiters.



Not everything is going #MrsME's way.  Let's see whether ITV have the guts to go through with this one.




And I'm not alone in putting #MrsME in the saboteur column.


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Wednesday, 3 May 2017

The "I just can't write another 1500 words today so here are some pictures" election - day 15

Tory campaign


Amber Rudd was very positive on Today, about very little.  She put on her best stentorian tones to remind those EU wallahs that the question of expats' rights should be a top priority in the Brexit negotiations.  It's as if she hasn't read the EU negotiating guidelines, which put it at... top priority.

She also mumbled spomething about this election being called to avoid having to fight one in the middle of Brexit negotiations.  The government line is that everything will be done, dusted and tied up in sparkly bows byMarch 2019, and "we're going to make a success of it".

Success or otherwise is a matter for later evaluation, but nobody outside the UK believes in the "everything in two years" idea, so this might be a rare bit of honesty - fear of an election in the middle of a transitional period which the voters had been told wouldn't happen and when many things have yet to be finalised.

But very odd to come out with it.  Not #StrongAndStable™ at all.



Labour campaign


The main story of the whole day though, and it's probably already lined up for the first three slots in the review of 2017's news, was... a Diane Abbott brain fade.  I heard her on Today, then saw/heard her on Nick Ferrari's LBC programme.  Repeatedly.  She was weak on the former and, honestly, seemed to have lost it on the latter.

But first item on every BBC news bulletin for the rest of the day, plus analysis on Daily Politics, PM and Newsnight?  Is there really nothing else going on?  Abbott was doing the rounds to promote Labour's proposal of 10,000 new "bobbies on the beat", a truly New Labour combination of tradition and community.  There's some strong police support for the idea, and some warnings that any extra money might be better directed.

Abbott didn't have her numbers ready to put the obvious questions down and move on to the guts of the policy, so mostof the news didn't go on to the guts of the policy.  The number the party finally came out with - £300 million - might be enough to pay 10,000 police officers, but it isn't enough to recruit, train, equip and employ them.

@DannyShawBBC @BBCWorldatOne Around 60k per capita plus recruitment, equipment and training cost - around £700m
There are serious worries that a long period of general decline in crime figures is coming to an end, especially for violent crime, and that hitherto uncounted sexual, fraud and online offences need attention, so Abbott & co will have to do a lot better than this.


I'm sorry, even Corbyn's first eleven isn't much good, but constant reports of Abbott "appearing to be confused" abvout the numbers are disingenuous attacks.




Theresa May goes to Cornwall




Is there a Theresa May impersonator out there?  Surely Lynton Crosby wouldn't allow this to happen. 

When you really love chips...















Jennifer Williams from the Manchester Evening News recalls a piece she wrote in 2015 about cutting real people out of election campaigning, then muses "Mind you 'effective' and 'democratic' are not always known to go hand in hand."


And Ed Miliband shows them all how it's done.



At some point during the day there was a security lapse and Theresa May actually encountered a voter!


And which party is #MrsME standing for?



George Osborne new job - as saboteur



Osborne finally clocked on at the Evening Standard, 30 minutes later than his predecessor was wont to do.  Was this all his own work, or did they have today's headline in the bank already?


London cabbies came out to protest outside demonstrated his reportedly corrupt closeness to Uber and the Committee on Business Appointments ("toothless" - Private Eye) has told Osborne that he's a very naughty boy.

“The committee is very concerned that despite the press statement noting you were still seeking the committee’s advice, you subsequently signed a contract of employment with the Evening Standard on 20 March - without having received the committee’s advice.

“It was not appropriate for you to do so.

“You did not disclose any intention to do so to the committee when you originally submitted your application, nor have you provided an explanation for this during the course of the committee’s consideration.”


Saboteurs department

Watching Jeremy Corbyn mixing with people, while May avoids us, is educational.  If he had time to meet everybody in the country Labour might have a chance.  Except maybe in Barrow, where John Woodcock (Labour, majority 795) has declared himself an anti-Corbyn Labour candidate.  There have always been Labour candidates trying to get elected without taking much notice of the leader (Corbyn used to be one), but making it a central part of your campaign, including TV interviews, is a novelty.

The government has finally given in to a court decision and will issue its air pollution strategy next week.  A good opposition would pick that up for the election campaign, especially if it doesn't figure in the Tory manifesto.  A good opposition.

Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London told Daily Politics that May will benefit from German reports of the leaks about a Downing St dinner.  She'll be happy to be seen standing up to those nasty Brussells bureaucrats.

Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Gloucester, majoority 7,241) is not a widely known figure, but he might get noticed this week.

One of my favourite (largely because his voice reminds me of Ivor Cutler) MPs Roger Mullin tried to point out potentially corrupt Tory money dealings while he still had access to Commons headed notepaper.




David Allen Green, law and policy commentator at the FT, put out a Twitter thread (16 tweets) on #MrsME's problems with expats' rights (you might have to do a bit of clicking if the thread seems to end prematurely).

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Monday, 1 May 2017

How is this Brexit negotiating thing going to happen? Two views

Notes from a dinner


An account of last Wednesday's Downing St dinner has been leaked to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and picked up by some British media outlets, including, rather belatedly,  the BBC.  Downing St "doesn't recognise the account" of what they say was a "constructive" meeting.

The report is summarised nicely by Judith Knott, with links to other, fuller accounts, so there's no need to present it all again here.  Ms Knott enters the caveat that this has clearly been briefed by the European Commission, but most people seem to be taking it fairly seriously.  The Economist's Jeremy Cliffe, who brought the story to many people, agrees.  In interviews through the day he's said it's obviously one-sided, but at the very least it "talks to a perception" in many EU countries that May's expectations are unrealistic.

Suffice it to say, there seems to be a failure of comprehension between the UK (Theresa May and David Davis in this case) and EU (Jean-Claude Juncker and Michel Barnier), which should worry us all, whether we're pro- or anti-Brexit (apart, perhaps, from the UDI brigade, for whom the negotiations are no more than a distraction).



Negotiating positions


Let's look at the negotiating guidelines agreed in Brussels on Saturday and compare them with what the UK government has said about its approach.  The Telegraph has reproduced the guidelines document with annotations to explain changes made in the run-up to Saturday's council meeting.  The guidelines respond to the letter Mrs May sent on 29 March to trigger the Article 50 process.


In case you hadn't noticed, Mrs May wants to agree a "deep and special partnership" with the EU.  The phrase is used seven times in a six-page letter, usually followed by some version of "taking in both economic and security cooperation".  It's as if she really has little to say.

A striking quality of May's letter is her repeated praise and promotion of European cooperation (and the EU does agree it wants the UK "as a close partner in the future").


First, what do the two sides appear to agree on?


Both sides advocate cooperation and certainty during the talks, and both use similar language on the evils of disruption and cliff edges, and therefore the need for an implementation/transition period (the EU calls it transition because they don't feel the need to pretend everything will be agreed by March 2019 and then it just needs a bit of implementing).

Security is on the agenda. For the EU it's something to be considered along with judicial cooperation, law enforcement, the fight against terrorism and international crime, defence and foreign policy.  For May "in security terms a failure to reach agreement would mean our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened" which some, including the more strident UK press, took as a threat.


The rights of citizens (and their businesses) are a high priority, and agreement on the millions of expats must come early (though "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed").  May's letter observes "there is obvious complexity in the discussions we are about to undertake" when she argues that the interests and rights of expats should be put first (contrasting with her reported hope to clear up residence etc rights over the weekend of the next EU summit).

The objectives for Northern Ireland seem pretty well identical, based on avoiding a hard border, though the EU will work "respecting the integrity of the [European] Union legal order" and "recognise existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between the United Kingdom and Ireland which are compatible with EU law" which means it's not just a bilateral thing between UK and Ireland.

The EU guidelines note that May doesn't want to be in the single market or customs union, and that there can be no cherry picking (both documents use the phrase).  They work on from there (though there's some push back on the ECJ, which will no doubt cause some wrangling).

And what do they disagree on?

The EU intends the negotiations to be transparent.  We know from many sources that May & co want nothing known until the end.  Feedback and consultation between the bodies of the EU has been written into the process for a long time now, so May will be disappointed.  For a rather overblown view of the way the EU sees the process, click on this diagram to enlarge it.


The various lines labelled "reports" and "informs" show official information flows, and leaks can't be ruled out (one of the recipients of information is one Nigel Farage, as leader of a party group in the parliament.  Can he keep his mouth shut?)


The EU27 say nothing about May's sudden and inexplicable decision to withdraw from Euratom.

May intends to negotiate withdrawal and the future UK-EU relationship in parallel negotiations.  The EU27 don't ("giving priority to an orderly withdrawal").  May argues (twice) that it should be easy because we are currently aligned and "only" need to "prioritise how we manage the evolution of our regulatory frameworks to maintain a fair and open trading environment, and how to resolve disputes."  Here is the relevant paragraph from her letter:

"We recognise that it will be a challenge to reach such a comprehensive agreement within the two-year period set out for withdrawal discussions in the Treaty.  But we believe it is necessary to agree the terms of our future partnership alongside those of our withdrawal from the EU.  We start from a unique position in these discuss ions - close regulatory alignment, trust in one another's institutions, and a spirit of cooperation stretching back decades.  It is for these reasons, and because the future partnership between the UK and the EU is of such importance to both sides, that I am sure it can be agreed in the time period set out by the Treaty."

One straw in the wind for May might be EU27's "In accordance with the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, individual items cannot be settled separately".  She might take this to include the future trade deal, but to the EU27 the Article 50 process is only about the withdrawal agreement.

The EU guidelines identify separate processes:
  • negotiations on an orderly withdrawal
  • preliminary and preparatory discussions on the framework for a future relationship
  • [discussions of] any form of transitional arrangements

In EU thinking the integrity of the single market means there can be no sector-by-sector approach, and to preserve the rights of the Union, no separate negotiations with single countries are allowed.  Both approaches have been raised from time to time as desirable to the UK.

The question of a financial settlement is a major difference between the parties.  May's letter says they must "discuss how we determine a fair settlement of the UK's rights and obligations as a departing member state.  The EU says there must be a single financial settlement taking into account "issues" from the multiannual financial framework (pre-agreed budget and priorities for 2014-2020), the European Investment Bank, the European Development Fund and the European Central Bank.

If we give any credence to the leaks about the dinner, May believes there's nothing to pay because there's nothing about it in the treaty.  Is there anything in the treaty about expats' rights?  It seems a strange argument.

The order of discussions in the EU guidelines is:
  1. citizens' rights, and "guarantees must be effective, enforceable, non-discriminatory and comprehensive";  some countries are reported to be concerned about holding the UK to commitments over time.
  2. financial settlement, with the loss of the UK contribution to what is in fact quite a small EU budget being a major concern
  3. Northern Ireland
  4. Other aspects of withdrawal, including rules for handling outstanding ECJ cases
  5. Then... when the EU Council decides enough progress has been made to be sure that a withdrawal agreement will be forthcoming, the shape of a future relationship and transitional arrangements until it is negotiated can be talked about - "preliminary and preparatory discussions on a framework", as they put  it.
It must be noted that any future deal will have to include rules on state aid and who sets rules on things like financial services - if you want good access you have to agree to behave.  And any dispute resolution system has to be equivalent to the ECJ (that's going to be a battle)

The requirement to agree any deal involving Gibraltar with Spain is still there, and the EU talks about Cyprus, where the UK maintains military bases with many Cypriot staff and with a free and easy arrangement on borders/periphery.

Another thing about the EU document is that it simply covers more.  Article 50 is their process, so they've thought through the implications.



When does it all start?

While we're having an election the EU27 will be agreeing further detailed instructions for Michel Barnier (see the arrow feeding in to the top of the central circle in the diagram above).  We should actually see the talks start some time before the end of June, leaving perhaps 15 months before we really have to start putting agreements together and getting approval from assorted parliaments.




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