Tag Archives: Natalie Bennett

Leader debate leaves public divided

The leader debate in a nutshell [Image: Lizzie Harvey on Twitter.]

The leader debate in a nutshell [Image: Lizzie Harvey on Twitter.]

What did people want from the televised political leaders’ debate?

It’s a question that has troubled this writer ever since it ended and the reactions started coming in.

The spin doctors and the hacks in the right-wing press claimed victory for the parties they support – of course. That’s why the front pages of The Sun and the Daily Torygraph proclaimed victory for David Cameron. They had been prepared before the debate had even finished because those rags were always going to make that claim.

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A significant number came out in support of Nigel Farage – the UKIP party faithful and those who believed his anti-immigration, anti-Europe spiel. Of course, they might have felt differently, had they known he only plans to reduce immigration by around 28,000 a year, but it’s easy to deceive someone who doesn’t want to know the facts.

Extreme: The signed version of the debate provided this interpretation of a Nigel Farage comment.

Extreme: The signed version of the debate provided this interpretation of a Nigel Farage comment.

There seemed to be a swell of support for the three female leaders. A knee-jerk reaction might be to suggest that this was simply because they weren’t men; this writer does not subscribe to that view. It is far more likely that people warmed to Natalie Bennett, Leanne Wood and especially Nicola Sturgeon because this was their first mass exposure to the British viewing (and voting) public. They head the so-called ‘minority’ parties and are often excluded from the national conversation by reason of their size.

Not only that, but they had a message that people wanted to hear: No More Austerity. It was pleasantly surprising to see all three pounding the message home against a defensive David Cameron – and it is in this context that we should measure the public’s reaction to them. This blog has stated previously that the larger parties cannot hope to gain popular support if they are offering only what they want, rather than what the people want. Now the people have found organisations that are offering what they want. This Writer feared that they would take votes from Labour, rather than the Conservatives; now that outcome seems less likely.

Nicola Sturgeon, in particular, is to be congratulated for her performance which has eased, somewhat, This Writer’s concerns about her party gaining influence in Westminster. She came across very well and seemed to be offering an olive branch to Ed Miliband in her opening statement, which included support for at least three Labour policies. However, there remains the question of how far she may be trusted; she repeated the lie that Labour had voted to support £30 billion of Tory austerity cuts when Labour did nothing of the sort (Miliband put her straight but the accusation always receives more attention than the rebuttal). And what of the rumour that the SNP is planning a Unilateral Declaration of Independence for Scotland – whether the majority of its people want it or not – after the election?

That leaves the three ‘main’ parties. Nick Clegg was a joke. Nobody agreed with Nick this time.

David Cameron also lost traction. He did manage to crowbar into the debate the messages this blog reported yesterday but nobody seemed impressed by them; Ed Miliband debunked the claims about Labour pretty sharpish and the public wanted to believe the ladies when it came to the economy. He scraped the bottom of the barrel several times – yet again quoting Liam Byrne’s ill-advised note about there being no money in 2010 as the reason austerity cuts had to happen (in fact, the UK was never in danger of bankruptcy but Cameron likes to make that claim, even though he knows better); and once more using his late son Ivan as his ‘human shield’ against attacks about the state of the NHS. The audience didn’t groan, but the country did. Asked where the £12 billion of ‘welfare’ cuts would be made, he again refused to answer, meaning the Tories are planning something extremely unpleasant for you, if they win. And – amazingly – he thinks ‘Free’ (in fact they are exorbitantly expensive) schools are a good idea!

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That leaves Ed Miliband. whose confident, fact-filled performance ensured he won the ‘snap’ poll conducted online immediately after the debate – if only by a whisker. He had plans; he described them. He apologised for the mistakes Labour has previously acknowledged; he didn’t apologise for the party’s current plans. He stared down Cameron when the Tory leader tried to accuse him of financial irresponsibility, and he had the country on his side when he did so, because Cameron’s party has doubled the national debt and failed to balance the books while inflicting a huge human cost on their fellow citizens. His narrow victory this week followed a narrow defeat last week, meaning his stature amongst the public is growing. People are starting to like this man. The more he mentions what he would do “if I am Prime Minister”, the easier it is for them to see him in that role.

So we return to the question at the top of this piece: What did people want from this debate?

Judging from the reactions as they developed, it seems people wanted something fresh and new-looking, that corresponded with their own desire – not just for an end to the oppression of the last five years, but for a reversal of it.

That’s all very well, but those aren’t the qualities that are needed to run a country successfully. A national leader needs a cool head and the stamina to see long-term matters to their conclusion, for the sake of the whole nation.

The evidence on display yesterday suggests that Ed Miliband has what it takes. Slow and steady may win the race after all.

But will the public be too dazzled by the others to realise this?

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Will the smaller parties use the TV leader debate to chase phantoms?

Will the leaders of the smaller parties (Plaid, Green, SNP) open the back door for the Conservatives to be re-elected - by eroding Labour's vote with lies?

Will the leaders of the smaller parties (Plaid, Green, SNP) open the back door for the Conservatives to be re-elected – by eroding Labour’s vote with lies?

This writer has spent a lot of time, over the last couple of days, debunking myths about the Labour Party.

People reading the Vox Political Facebook page will have seen a lot of verbiage showing that Labour did in fact vote against the Bedroom Tax, that claims about Johann Lamont being told to keep her opposition to it quiet until Ed Miliband had decided to do the same were based on nothing more than gossip put out by “a source” in a newspaper story… even that Labour has never advocated the slaughter of innocent people in the Middle East (as one commenter claimed – no, really, they did! They reckoned Labour actually said innocent people in the Middle East should be killed).

There have been other smears – and it is possible that even more will be broadcast on ITV this evening, starting at 8pm, when the leaders of the smaller ‘left-wing’ parties take part in a televised election debate.

Judging from their past record, it seems entirely likely that the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party leaders (Nicola Sturgeon, Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett, respectively) will fling falsehoods about Labour – because they think they can steal left-wing votes from the bigger party.

They will be doing David Cameron’s job for him.

If you can’t see why, here’s the explanation: In constituencies where Labour and the Conservatives are both contesting a seat, with candidates from the Green Party and either Plaid or the SNP, any vote taken from Labour to boost the non-Tory parties will mean that the Conservatives have a better chance of winning* – none of them are trying to take votes from the Tories, remember. Conservative voters regularly turn out in large numbers to support their candidates, even though this means lower living standards for everybody.

It seems clear that the SNP, Plaid and the Greens are too timid to tackle the Tory wolf at the door.

Instead, they’ll carry on chipping away at Labour with stories about imagined crimes.

Like the proverbial blind person in the story, they are happy to stay in a darkened room, looking for a black cat – that isn’t there.

*Some might say this does not count in Scotland, where the SNP is polling more strongly than Labour. While this is correct (at the time of writing), this blog has shown that much of the SNP’s support is based on exactly the kind of lies about Labour that This Writer has been having to debunk. Any political organisation that deliberately lies to the electorate in order to gain votes does not deserve even to participate in the process.

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Cowardly Cameron flees head-to-head TV debate with Miliband

This would have been a great opportunity to us the picture of a chicken appearing at the debates next to Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband - but this illustration from the Daily Mirror depicts the situation just as well.

This would have been a great opportunity to us the picture of a chicken appearing at the debates next to Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband – but this illustration from the Daily Mirror depicts the situation just as well.

What are we to conclude from David Cameron’s cowardly refusal to take part in all but one televised leader debate ahead of the general election – and said this must be with no less than six other party leaders?

That he’s running scared from Ed Miliband after coming off the worst in all their recent Prime Ministers Questions clashes?

That he hopes sharing the platform with people like Natalie Bennett means he won’t be the only person putting his foot in his mouth on the night?

That he knows he doesn’t have anything to say that the voting public wants to hear?

Cameron’s office has said he will agree to only one debate, before March 30, and he wants the Democratic Unionist Party to be considered for inclusion, meaning seven other leaders would be vying for attention and he could stay in the background.

This is a strategy that has been tried out in Vox Political‘s local area. In a recent Powys County Council budget debate, televised on the Internet, Tory Parliamentary candidate Chris Davies did not say a single word.

He knew that keeping his mouth shut (and letting people think he was a fool) would increase his chances of election more than opening it (and proving them right).

Other party leaders have hotly criticised Cameron for trying to hold the debates to ransom and for trying to bully TV broadcasters.

“This is an outrageous attempt from the Prime Minister to bully the broadcasters into dropping their proposals for a head-to-head debate between David Cameron and Ed Miliband,” said Douglas Alexander, Labour’s chair of general election strategy.

“That it comes only hours after Ed Miliband called David Cameron’s bluff and said he would debate him any time, any place, shows the lengths David Cameron will go to run scared of a debate with Ed Miliband.”

It seems David Cameron is telling us he has nothing to say.

In that case, why give him your vote?

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What’s missing from this party’s campaign launch? The GREEN

Off-message? Natalie Bennett launches the Green Party's election campaign on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Off-message? Natalie Bennett launches the Green Party’s election campaign on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Environmental issues were startlingly absent from the Green Party’s election campaign launch today (February 24).

Instead, party leader Natalie Bennett concentrated on policies that encroach into traditional Labour territory – a wealth tax; increasing the minimum wage to £10 by 2020; half a million new social rented homes; nationalising the railways; scrapping tuition fees; and a people’s constitutional convention “with the aim of achieving democracy for everyone”.

Of course, Labour has already announced plans for a wealth (mansion) tax; would increase the minimum wage (although not as high as £10 per hour); wants to build 100,000 homes a year (making 500,000 in a five-year Parliamentary term); would launch a national rail company to compete for franchises with the private firms; would reduce tuition fees; and wants a constitutional convention to sort out the democratic issues that have been debated since the Scottish independence referendum.

You see, the differences are all a matter of degree. The Greens would do the same as Labour, only more so. The only question is, who will provide the money?

Where were the policies to reduce pollution with green energy?

Why did the Green Party not restate its position on fracking?

Does it have policies on animal welfare (Labour does)?

What about defence?

Why only nationalise the railways, when other privatised utilities have been misbehaving left, right and centre?

So many unanswered questions, yet this is a party that has grown exponentially over the past year. Doesn’t it owe its new members better?

One thing that won’t be part of the current election campaign is the Green Party’s aspiration for a “citizens’ income”, replacing personal tax allowances and most means-tested benefits with a £72-per-week basic payment for all citizens, regardless of income.

Green leader Natalie Bennett was unable to explain how such a policy would be funded in a previous BBC interview. On Radio 4’s Today programme this morning she said it won’t be something for the 2015-20 Parliament, but added: “A commitment to the citizen’s income will be in our manifesto… it’s a massive change in the welfare system and it’s something we want to consult on and offer over time.”

She said it was a long term policy idea, “moving towards a system, getting away from where we are now, where so many people are living in fear of not being able to put food on the table, not being able to keep a roof over their head. Citizen’s income is an important way of moving forward with that.”

Perhaps sensitive to criticisms that she could not explain how it would be funded, she said: “We will be releasing a full costing before the election. The costing won’t be part of the manifesto. The costing will be before the election but the commitment to it [the policy of a citizen’s income] will be in the manifesto.”

Moving to Radio 5 Live, the Green leader discussed her commitment to enforcing a maximum wage ratio between the highest and lowest paid within a company. This is another good idea which Vox Political supports.

Asked whether some kind of wage cap would prevent organisations attracting the best staff, she said, “I think you have to look at how much money motivates people” – implying that the amount of money people are paid is less important to them than people are led to believe.

Moving over to LBC radio, she floundered when Nick Ferrari asked how much a plan to build 500,000 social rental homes would cost.

“We want to fund that particularly from removing tax relief from mortgage interest for private landlords,” she said. Apparently she thought that would rake in no less than £6 billion a year – but fell back on her line about “a fully-costed programme” to be released before the election.

Someone should have warned her that she can use that line too often – especially when taking it in conjunction with fellow Green member Jenny Jones’ comment at the press conference that followed: “You can ask as many questions as you like about our manifesto but we won’t be answering them today.”

So why hold the conference – and the launch – at all? Press teams left confused at the behaviour of a party that trailed so many juicy-looking policies but was either unwilling – or unable – to provide the essential details that could make them seem workable.

The BBC’s Norman Smith (whose own credibility was dealt a serious blow by Ed Miliband at a Labour campaign conference a few weeks ago) summed up the general feeling by questioning the validity of a Green Party that was no longer significantly “green”.

“Most of the things they are focusing on have nothing to do with greenery,” he told the BBC News website.

“Transport, housing, tuition fees – yes – but saving the planet seems to have been shuffled off to the side a bit.”

Won’t that alienate the Greens’ traditional constituents?

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Searching for silver linings in the Euro election’s purple cloud

No cause for celebration: This man is now the leader of the largest British political organisation in the European Parliament.

No cause for celebration: This man is now the leader of the largest British political organisation in the European Parliament.

Could the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership be sunk off the coast of a new, anti-federalist Europe?

It seems like a natural consequence of the election victories enjoyed by Eurosceptic and far-right parties across the continent – and one of the few reasons to be optimistic about the result.

We don’t have all the information yet, so it is impossible to be sure, but it does seem likely that people who won popular support by emphasising national sovereignty against that of the EU will be against a trade agreement that suppresses nations’ rights to make their own laws, and puts multinational corporations above countries.

Unfortunately UKIP, the British Eurosceptic party that has won 23 seats (so far), seems more likely to support the agreement that would force British workers into lowest-common-denominator working conditions and pay deals, in a betrayal of the populist promises it made to get elected.

Nigel Farage’s campaign took a leaf out of the Conservative Party’s book by hiding some of UKIP’s most unpalatable plans from the electorate; now that he has what he wants, will we see UKIP working to ensure, for example, that National Health Service privatisation is locked into British law? That would require support for TTIP.

If Farage’s party doesn’t support the controversial plan, they’ll probably stay away from the vote (as they do in most matters; UKIP has one of the worst attendance records in the European Parliament).

Of course the European Parliament doesn’t work the same way as the UK Parliament; UKIP may have won the most seats but this does not automatically hand it power – 23 UK seats is only one-third of those available, not a majority, and it will have to join a larger grouping in order to make its voice heard.

UKIP’s choices over the next few days and weeks will be crucial, as they will allow us to form opinions about how the party’s victory will affect life here in the UK.

The Eurosceptic party’s victory – the first time in more than 100 years that an election has been won by someone other than Labour or the Conservatives – means the other British political parties have more soul-searching to do.

Labour came second, defying right-wing pundits on the BBC and elsewhere who were hoping to see “weird” Ed Miliband suffer. But his lead over the Tories is just 1.5 per cent – hardly a ringing endorsement.

Clearly the British people were not convinced by his offer and Labour must revise its position on Europe or prepare to lose the next general election.

A good starting-place for the Party of the Workers would be a promise to halt the flow of migrant workers from EU countries with weaker economies by pushing for a change to the rule allowing free movement between countries – ensuring that this only happens between states that have comparable economies.

This would put an end to the economic opportunism that has caused the perceived flood of migrants from the poorer countries of eastern Europe, and make it possible for British people to get better jobs, offering more working hours – and negotiate for higher pay.

It isn’t rocket science, but Labour has failed to grasp this concept. One has to wonder why. Maybe Labour is still a bit too fond of Conservative-style neoliberalism. Is that it, Ed?

Labour’s problems are nothing compared with those of the Conservative Party. David Cameron wagered that his promise of an in/out referendum on the EU, to take place in 2017, would win him the next UK general election – but this result has shown that the British people don’t believe a word of it.

Rather than be held to ransom by an over-privileged nob, they have turned to an untried party of even more hard-line right-wingers who would probably create worse problems for working Britons than even the Tories, if they were ever elected into office in Westminster.

That is the message David Cameron has to swallow today: We don’t believe him. We don’t trust him. We don’t want him.

Yet his party seems unrepentant. Prominent members have already rejected calls to strengthen the referendum offer, for example.

The loss will make Cameron more likely to seek a deal with UKIP – and one is already in the offing, if we are to believe the denials coming from other leading Tories. This would be to UKIP’s disadvantage as Farage only needs to look at Nick Clegg to see what will happen.

Clegg should be a broken man. Not only have the Liberal Democrats haemorrhaged local councillors, but now he also has to face up to the fact that he has lost all but one of his party’s MEPs.

The BBC said the survival of Catherine Bearder in the South East region prevented a “humiliating wipe-out” – but isn’t the loss of no less than nine MEPs humiliating enough?

Clegg is already facing calls for his resignation amid claims that nobody wants to listen to him any more. This means the turnabout from “I agree with Nick” in 2010 is now complete. Anyone considering going into coalition with the Conservatives (Farage) should pay close attention. The British voter hates traitors.

There is one more matter arising from this result; a fact that you are not likely to hear on the mainstream media, but one that seems increasingly important, considering the demise of the Liberal Democrats.

The Green Party was fourth-placed in this election. Its 1,244,475 (so far) voters mean it had two-sevenths of UKIP’s support, while the Conservative Party – the party in power here in the UK – had only three times as many supporters.

Expect Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas to capitalise on this for all they’re worth.

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