Lost his fanboys/fangirls

Some of the most vocal supporters for Nick Clegg during the Lib-Dem election campaign were students. Many lib-dem constituencies have universities, and this was reflectd by Clegg visiting many uni's and having lots of snaps taken of him standing alongside students and holding his famous pledge to oppose any tuition fee rise.

We know now that Clegg was doing nothing more than electioneering. It's shameful that he was so good as to actually fool so many people. I mean, there's a big difference between Blair making promises in  1997 and not fulfilling all of them, and Clegg's down right lying.
Honestly, we've come to expect misery from the tories, but from a party that champions it's progressive attitude and policies, the self-proclaimed saviours of Britain and British politics... it's kind of sad to see how they really weren't any different. Had it been the case that I was in a liberal-tory marginal, I would have voted Lib-dem, which is what Lord Adonis advocated late in the election campaign, and that means it hurts for me too.

The only good thing to arise from this is that students seem to be finding their voice again. Since the shameful lack of action on  the trade union front, students appear to be 'leading the fight' as the guardian puts it.
This is all well and good, if overstated, but students alone isn't enough. Student action needs to increase, and increase by a lot, alongside trade union activity and the population in general.
If we don't act now, then they'll get away with this mutilation of Labour efforts, and I'm not just talking the last 13 years, I'm talking universal benefits, social care, work and pensions. The whole shebang. They're leaving no prisoners.
They're not operating inside of a mandate. The tories didn't achieve a majority. In 1997, Labour's victory was a clear mandate, and the 2001 election was a mandate to 'keep up the good work'. The reduction in seats in 2005 can be  largely attributed to the Iraq war and the handling of the whole thing. The point is that neither Cameron nor Clegg came even close to achieving that kind of mandate, so they're acting on ideology (well, the tories are... God knows what drives the 'Liberal' Democrats... either a misguided sense of 'What's best' or more likely power starved) and that's just wrong. The tories are nothing more than the largest minority.
So you're not a student? Why does that mean you can't protest? If we all looked at things from a selfish perspective society would get nowhere, we'd still have the death penalty, corporal punishment in schools, no NHS...the list goes on. the tuition fee battle has taken on the persona of the entire fight against cuts, we need to recognise this. If they win here, they could very well steam roll their way through opposition to other cuts and hikes. If you oppose any aspect of the ConDem coalition government and it's policies, then you need to back the students. I'll barely be affected by the tuition rise, but that doesn't mean I think everyone after me should have to be paying off their fees till they're fifty.

Back the students.

Comrade Cable

So I've devoted most of the text on this blog to bashing the tory party (and rightly so), but once again I find myself discussing the Liberal Democrats.

Not sure how many of you caught Vince Cable's speech today, but I was listening to it intently and he said some pretty important things giving some pretty powerful impressions. First up is that Cable placed himself to the far left of the lib-dem party, knowingly, and second is that both the lib-dem and tory leadership let him. He addressed the hall of people as 'comrades', obviously a poke of fun at his critics who cite him as being too far to the left, but what was vitally important was his very blatant criticisms of capitalism and his pointing out that currently 'competition' is only speeding up the crushing of new and small businesses, counter to right wing claims. But his solution is to correct this and make a fairer and 'more free' market, laissez faire, still a liberal economy, and hardly what Labourites and lefty lib-dems were hoping to hear, but then again, lib-dems are prepared to accept it as gospel.

I haven't fallen for it. I'd like to trust Vince Cable, heck I think he's a brilliant man and would love to see him as a labour minister, but even if this really are his own words - the fact that Dave and Gideon are happy for a major minister to blurt out policies and intentions (sometimes) counter to the official line is evidence enough that Cable is being used as a lib-dem 'leftist outlet' of sorts. It keeps enough of the further left lib-dems happy to let the con-dem's continue their work.
As ingenious as it is, it's also damaging. Damaging to the progressive liberal agenda and damaging to Labour's chances of converting leftist lib-dems.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/22/vince-cable-no-marxist

Buyers Remorse

So it's the Liberal Democrat conference today (Sept. 19th), and it'll be Clegg's big task to lighten the mood, because at best, that's all he can do.
Vince Cable can put on a brave face, talk about 'necessary austerity measures', but as ex-Labour, and a man of the progressive centre-left, Cable will be cringing at every cut passed onto him from Dave and Gideon via Clegg. Lib-Dems are starting to speak out, because sure, they wanted to be in government, but they're realising that as junior partners they have less than a quarter of the power, but taking half the blame. The centrist lib-dem supporters will no doubt be praising their party, as they're not being mentioned in papers alongside the words 'failure' and 'a joke' for once. But the far left of their party (yes, apparently it does exist) are not so easily swayed by smooth talk and are beginning to question the policy of 'sell thine morals, for only good can cometh', and as a result have become the target of leadership candidates and brothers, David and Ed Miliband. David put forward his pledge to win thousands of lib-dem voters in the coming months, which may seem ambitious, but the natural trend so far has been a drifting of support, amongst the general public, away from the government, backed up by the influx of new Labour Party members in the aftermath of our election defeat (some 25,000 last I heard... which means maybe a few thousand more by now?) and the polls constantly showing increased support for the Labour party at the expense of the con-dems.

And considering the Labour Party doesn't even have a leader (although Harriet Harmen has done a fine job filling in) I can see things only getting better. I personally endorse Ed Miliband, but I'd be happy with David or Andy Burnham - all three are equally fit to lead. When the winner of the leadership election is announced on the 25th, they'll be quick to make sure any dissidents fall into line as the party unites behind them. We have no choice, if we don't unite and remain that way until the next election, then we might never recover from the defeat.
But if we can hold up our end, then chances are those floating voters will *fingers crossed* turn to Labour as a viable and proper alternative. The lack of satisfaction that many Liberal Democrats (MP's included) are feeling is leaving them with buyers remorse, which can be only to the detriment of the con-dem coalition. But you have to hand it to them, managing to stay inert and useless this long has to be some sort of record?

University for the rich, by the rich, of the rich.

Over the course of 13 years, Labour extended the franchise of higher education to everyone.
They improved the quality of teaching and the quality of Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Colleges. Opening up higher education by increasing the amount of young people entering Sixth Forms and Colleges with new courses whilst improving old ones. But most importantly, Labour opened up universities.
A university degree opens more doors in life than GCSE's or A Levels, in other words, it permeates class boundaries.

David Willetts has expressed today that university fees will rise Considering the average student debt is £22,000 upon leaving university, David Willetts words that students should consider university fees "more as an obligation to pay higher income tax" than a debt, are completely ignorant and misplaced. It is perfectly clear that Condem don't understand students and student struggles, their mummies and daddies paid for their education so I'm sure it must have been a terrible plight for them.

The "Liberal" Democrats come across as little more than weak, whipped liars. They gained votes among students (the student vote is a core section of their vote) on the promise of no tuition fees, so to then say that not only will it take 6 years (which, I should remind you, is longer than the maximum life of the current government) but that they will simply abstain from voting on the issue and let the Tories raise tuition fees shows a complete betrayal of progressive values. The wishy washy liberals strike again.

As a direct result of Labour's actions, more women are attending university than ever before, outnumbering men. University is now seen as the obvious next step for college students, regardless of race, gender, background or household income, as well as now being a viable option with support available for mature students.

What cannot be ignored is the implications of raising tuition fees. Do the Tories really expect people from lower income families and working class backgrounds to foot the bill for university if it's going to be hiked up? The answer - No, they don't.
And that's the point. Raising tuition fees excludes more and more people from university education. In other words, keeping the poor out and the rich in. Labour turned university into a right, and the Tories are turning it back into a privilege, for the privileged. The Tory party are preparing to oversee a return to an income based class system, re-initiating the cycle that stops people young people from low income families from breaking out of low incomes.

Electoral Reform

Well, after a late surge, Diane Abbott did receive the 33 necessary nominations to be a leader candidate, largely thanks to the John McDonnall dropping out of the leadership race last minute and urging his supporters to back Abbott (as well as several high profile MP's such as Jack Straw and David Miliband pledging their nomination to Abbott).

However, what I want to talk about is electoral reform.
Yes, in 1997 there was this 'promise' that electoral reform was on the agenda. And yes, some felt betrayed by Blair's lack of action on this. But if we keep looking at what he didn't do, we forget what we can and must do now. The Liberal Democrats have little choice, even if they decided they no longer wanted electoral reform as their heads swell uncontrollably because for once they're not a complete joke, many of their long term supporters want electoral reform, and they want it now. Lib-Dems are still the smallest party, in seats and membership, so they wouldn't dare risk betraying their supporters.

But what I fear is that they'll settle for scraps from the Tories, and there's no evidence to suggest they'll put up any real resistance to savage right wing policies.
AV is scraps.
When I say electoral reform, I mean a real proportional system, and I mean reform in the house of Lords, reform to factor in new forms of participation, reform on representation.
I want reform on spending, so that no longer does spending mean that Scotland and Southern/middle England receive too much money while the likes of the North and Wales receive far too little.

This kind of reform is unheard of in the Tory ranks, and spoken only in whisper from a brave Lib Dem in the Condem coalition government.
Labour needs to stand tall and commit to reform, regardless of the past and regardless of other parties positions. I want to see a Labour led left wing alliance in government, and a proportional system will nurture the conditions to allow other parties to grow, and not to Labour's detriment, but to Lib-Dem and Tory detriment, because the left's main weakness is it's multitude of divisions.

And when the UK embraces electoral and governmental reform, we can stand in the EU and UN knowing that we're a true democracy, and not a military superpower like the US (I say this because the only reason they are a superpower is their missiles and the ease with which their president can launch them at any time).

Cuts , cuts and cuts! ....same old Tories.

Well, we're just far enough in for the Tories to reveal their actual policies, i.e. not the ones David Cameron talked about.

For those of you who didn't take a look at the budget, it's looking grim. Talk of 'efficiency savings' by lowering public sector jobs equates to freezing employment in the north-East, where 1 in 3 are employed in the public sector. The cuts are harsh and in some cases ruthless (Wales, for example, is already massively underfunded). They say we must all tighten our belts, but cutting regulation in schools is not something parents want to see.

They say something that on the surface sounds good, like they want to give more power back to head teachers, but what they actually do is just take power away from the likes of Ofsted and abolish the General Teaching Council - both of whom keep uniformity in education, trying to keep schools to a good standard. Organisations such as these have been hugely important in Labour's turning education around, for the Tories to now come and unpick Labour's 13 years of hard work.... they can claim they have a mandate to provide change of direction, but not to undo 13 years of progress.

And Academies are the Tories way of cutting state schools without technically cutting education..... The Condem government stated recently (via Michael Gove) that they would not be opposed to the idea of businesses who back the academies making a profit on children's education. This is disgustingly absurd!

After what I said in my last post about how government should not be treated like a business, they are now deciding that children's education is something that can be auctioned off to the highest bidder to try and make money from.

When we talk about investing in children, we didn't mean put them on the stock exchange.

I already disapprove of this privatisation of education ideologically and morally. It is simply wrong, and there are no two ways about it.

So to summarise;

• Condem making cuts sneakily by disguising them -  Same old Tories.
• Privatising education as a way of saving money at the cost of children - Same old Tories.
• Lib-dem ministers whipped by Cameron, or just playing the nodding dog. - Same old Libs.

Con-demned

"Labour has done nothing for this country, so I support the Con-Dem coalition".

Labour has done so much for this country it's unreal.
I wasn't alive under Thatcher, and only young under Major, but I know perfectly well the state the country was in.

The NHS for example - you could expect to wait over a year for diagnosis, even longer for treatment. Survival rates were horrendous, people literally being treated in hallways.
Now, Labour reformed all of that, 2 week cancer guarantee ring any bells? Cervical cancer campaign? Prostate caner treatment campaign? Testicular Cancer campaign?  Did the massive cancer campaign movement mean nothing? As Cancer awareness grew thanks to government action, so to did cancer survival rates which sky rocketed.
Teenage pregnancies are down. Immigration down. Knife crime down. Down from under Major and Thatchers governments.

Labour bolstered the welfare system. Introduced a minimum wage so huge swathes of people could begin living above the poverty line, as well as boosting state pension so that unlike under the tories, the elderly weren't living in poverty if they didn't have a private pension. Labour introduced affirmative action schemes to stop minority children slipping through the net. They brought in the New Deal that guarantees jobs for 18-24 year olds. GUARANTEES.
More people going to university from more backgrounds than ever before. And now, for the first time, most of those are women.
Labour introduced the  Human Rights Act, so that we actually had the basic human rights like the rest of the developed world. Labour brought peace in Ireland, ending hundreds of years of conflict, when the tories aggravated the situation and induced some of the most horrendous massacres in Irish history.
Labour gave Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland their own parliaments, so that England didn't just tell masses of people to simply take their medicine.
Labour supported families like never before, with schemes such as SureStart which give children a helping hand from day 1.
Labour gave us almost 10 years of unprecedented economic prosperity.

Labour created a golden age of British History. And for now, it's over.
Please, never tell me Labour did nothing.