Discussion - Is Labour wedded to authoritareanism? to be continued

Is the Old Labour right too wedded to authoritareanism? Have the Tories and Lib Dems outflanked Labour on Civil Rights and personal freedom? Is Labour too enamoured with Governmental interventionism to allow civil liberties to be paramount. Is the old labour right wing reflex of looking after the commective rather than the individual too strong to be changed?
Did the last Labour Government curry favour with the Police and the Security services because it feared being accused of being soft on whatever the Daily Mail decided was the issue odf the day?
Did Labour destroy its street credibility with young people by banning certain legal highs and upgrading cannabois back to class B.

EU CONSERVATIVES IN TOTAL DISARRAY

       BY TERRY MOORE IN BRUSSELS  25 October 2010   

This month's resignation by the Conservative's leader in the European Parliament (EP) has thrown Euro-Tories into a state of flux. In a wholly unexpected development, Timothy Kirkhope MEP stood down after five years in the post.

            Kirkhope states that he wants to spend more time developing the Tories' right-wing grouping in the EP, i.e. .the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The ECR is nicknamed by many as 'The Addams Family' of EU politics because of its motley collection of parties and partners.

            One Brussels-based wag has already commented that "it's like a weird echo of John Nott's resignation when he stated he wanted to spend more time with his family, except in this case it's the Addams Family that Timothy wants to spend more time with".

            This yet another example of the Tories' growing incoherence in the EP. The latest damming development; sees the new Latvian Government refuse to go into coalition with the Tories' Latvian allies 'For Fatherland and Freedom Party' because of their ultra-nationalist position.

            The new Latvian leadership said this week that "having the nationalists in the government would raise ethnic tensions and harm Latvia's image abroad". It appears that the Conservatives in the EP don't worry about associating with ultra-nationalists or about their image abroad, reputational damage seems to be acceptable.

            The ECR group has also had the embarrassing misfortune of having to "virtually defenestrate" the current Czech President from the website of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. The website has a picture of President Klaus as one of the five main images (another one was a youthful looking Margaret Thatcher). However, it was pointed out that Klaus is not a member of the AECR and it was entirely inappropriate to have his image on the website.

            Another minefield for David Cameron's regular breakfast meeting with ECR leaders when he came to Brussels for the European Summit (29-30 October). Last time Cameron met the leader of his Czech allies but snubbed the second largest party in the coalition, the Polish Law and Justice Party. However, it appears the Poles, led by their often absentee leader of the ECR, Michael Kaminski, will insist on Cameron meeting the volatile Jaroslaw Kacyński.

            Bets are now being taken on who will lead the Tories disparate band in Brussels. There are 25 Tory MEPs in the EP and it will be amongst those ranks that the new leader will be elected.  

            Early indications are that the leader will be one of six current MEPs, The daily Telegraph's blogger Daniel Hannan, a compromise candidate Struan Stevenson, Richard Ashworth, the aptly surnamed Nirj Diva and Mr Bean's (Rowan Atkinson) politically dyspraxic cousin, Martin Callanan.. An outside bet is Geoffrey Van Orden MEP (Vin Ordinaire to his critics).

CAMERON AND OSBORNE; HYPOCRICY KNOWS NO BOUNDS

Following from Gideon Osborne's avaricious announcement yesterday that families on benefits will only receive a maximum amount equivalent to the average family wage, this set me thinking.

Since the average family wage is believed to be £26,000 per annum, I remembered the taxpayer each year paying out an equivalent sum to Cameron and Osborne during the last Parliament.

When they both bought second homes after being elected to Parliament in 2001, they structured their financial affairs so that they could get their snouts into the trough for the maximum amount they could claim from the public purse.

i.e. These two independently wealthy people took out totally unnecessary mortgages so as to be able to claim public funds instead of using their own capital to buy their second homes. This enabled them to use the capital they didn't employ to invest in othe opportunities. For instance Samantha Cameron had a £300,000 bonus paid the same year that Cameron bought his 2nd home in Oxfordshire with a mortgage of £300,000.

Hence they have profited big time from house price inflation and on the returns from their investments whilst the taxpayer picked up the tab.

Cameron claimed over £141,000 over five years in second home allowances.

By the way, the amount claimed by both Osborne and Cameron was in excess of £26,000 per annum each, sounds familar, If the cap fits wear it.

RAMPANT CAPITALISM; TIME TO REIN IT IN

By Marjorie Smith

IT'S TIME TO REIN IN SOME OF CAPITALISM'S WORST EXCESSES

There is an opportunity for Labour to stand alongside its natural support-base and re-engage with voters who have real concerns about the impact unregulated or '''self-regulated” capitalism has had and continues to have on their daily lives.

It should be obvious that the way in which the private sector chased the short-termist holy grail of shareholder value so as to enrich themselves with self-determined bonuses has had a deleterious effect on our society as a whole. What a whole generation of business leaders did was to abdicate their fiduciary duty to their employees, their customers and, in reality, their shareholders, by pursuing business strategies that almost totally focussed on the bottom line, so that they could report record profits.

However, these record profits were, more often than not, recorded at the expense of medium and long-term commercial objectives. A whole culture of outsourcing of internal services, large-scale lay-offs, sale and leaseback of fixed assets etc. etc. allowed a large number of companies to have their asset value hollowed out all in the name of enhancing 'shareholder value'. The corporate parasites that undermined the host bodies they were supposed to be accountable to actually revelled in a climate of large bonuses and adulatory coverage from the right wing press, whilst all the time, the companies/conglomerates they were responsible for started to bleed red ink on their balance sheets.

The high profile casualties such as Enron, WorldComm, Northern Rock, RBS, Halifax, etc etc, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the utter commercial carnage unregulated/self-regulated capitalism has wreaked on business ethics in the Anglo-Saxon corporate world. You didn't a ludicrously over-priced Masters Degree in Business Administration to see that the prevailing ethos in the commercial world was being reduced to a simple continual driving down of costs (no matter how it was to be achieved or how commercially wrong-headed it was nor what the long-term outcome would be) all in order to increase reported year-on-year profitability.

What compounded this utterly wrong-headed strategy was the lionization of a golden circle of business leaders, who apparently could do little wrong and who moved from Chief Exec post to Chief Exec post.
All the time trousering huge and disproportionate bonuses as they downsized / outsourced /merged /acquired / lease-backed / etc. etc. Many of these self-same people have now been exposed for the charlatans they really were, yet they they were allowed to act like supernatural beings for far too long.

Any fool, with a modicum of knowledge of derivative trading, packages of securities mortgages and a scant knowledge of the sub-prime market in the USA could have easily predicted what would be the outcome of the reckless antics of US mortgage providers and the financial institutions that backed them, yet the regulators did nothing.

It didn't matter, to the City of London and the Treasury or City regulators that balance sheets and profit and loss accounts were becoming about as reliable as the reported figures contained within a Soviet five-year plan or that the long-term effects of such turbo-capitalistic corporate ethics would have a disastrous outcomes in a manner for many companies just like Mao's wrong-headed 'Great Feap Forward' had for China.

"It appears that modern capitalism is developing a form of rapid behavioural convergence that completely contradicts the accepted norms of competition theory."

This degradation of business ethics also led to rampant totally illegal collusion in different business sectors, although the worst abuses took place in the financial sector. For example, the day before the infamous judgement by the Supreme Court over bank charges, the Chief Executives of all of the major banks in the UK held a meeting to discuss how they would deal with the outcome of the ruling. This in blatant disregard of the law about collusion between 'so-called' competitors. The self-same banks even had an illegal teleconference between themselves the very next morning to chart a way forward and how to have a coordinated response to the ruling.

Self-regulation in the City has also led to a plethora of anti-competitive practices in the financial sector as Banks copy and imitate each others' business practices (e.g. charges on customers, hard-sell techniques to sell other financial products etc etc) rather than find ways of competing by being innovative. Adam Smith's 'hidden hand of the market' has been replaced by the 'subtle underhand of the cartel'.

"These 'intuitive' cartels are intensely anti-competitive, they lead to abuse of their dominant position especially in relation to smaller competitors and they are usually an anathema when it comes to consumers interests."

It appears that modern capitalism is developing a form of rapid behavioural convergence that completely contradicts the accepted norms of competition theory.  In that companies in the same business sector imitate each others commercial practices so as to establish a de facto cartel without needing to covertly collude. All that is needed is to use information technology to get rapid feedback and continually monitor competitors' activities, prices and conditions of sale so as to constantly align oneself with the behaviour of your main competitors. It seems that the old rules of accepting that three or more large competitors will ensure competition no longer applies and the Banks are the greatest example of this.

These 'intuitive' cartels are intensely anti-competitive, they lead to abuse of their dominant position especially in relation to smaller competitors and they are usually an anathema when it comes to consumers interests. They need a fresh approach to competition policy that should ensure that the interests of the consumers come first and that no commercial institution is either above the law or 'to big to fail'.

Yet, this Conservative government expects the State to nationalise the losses of these massive financial institutions so that they can rebuild their balance sheets at the expense of the public purse and then   quickly return to a commercial normality that is completely opposed to the interests of most taxpayers.

Osborne and his ilk, have made no mention of the voracious appetite of the City of London for easy money and its role in incubating and sustaining the culture that led to the financial crisis. They instead intend to return to an era of 'light-touch regulation' of the financial markets, whilst all the time trying to blame the state of the public finances on Labour profligacy.

This a narrative that must not be allowed to become an accepted fact. Labour can still turn this crisis of post-industrial capitalism to its advantage and that is by being on the side of the people who have to pay the price for the naked greed of those who eagerly exploited the conditions created by Thatcher in the mid-eighties and who prospered because New Labour was in thrall to her heirs.

THATCHER'S HEIRS IN EUROPE TAKE A DANGEROUS NEW DIRECTION

Terry Moore

EXCLUSIVE (published in Tribune 1st October)

In an outstanding piece of political foolhardiness, Margaret Thatcher was yesterday (Thursday 30^th September) formally inaugurated as the founding President of the Conservative Party's group's political foundation in the European Parliament. The group has named the foundation 'New Direction' and is set to receive substantial funding.

In reality, Thatcher has allowed her name and reputation as a former UK Prime Minister to be directly associated with a motley ragbag assortment of right-wing fundamentalists that, in the main, hold trenchant views completely at odds with what Cameron claims his party supports. As one influential centre-right figure in the European Parliament, "the European Conservatives and Reformists are like the Adams family of the European Parliament and it appears that Margaret wants to be Morticia".

The New Foundation was formally launched at an evening reception in the City of London yesterday . However, it appears that the launch of the foundation has split the Tories' group in Europe. Only 44 members of the 54 strong group of MEPs have signed up to support it and 7 out of 25 Tory MEPs refuse to be associated with the foundation. Yet, the Tory Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox,will also attended the reception, in effect exposing the divisions over Europe that still reamin in the Tory party.

During the final days of the general election campaign last May, the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, described the Tories' allies in Europe as "nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes". Whilst the use of the word nutters may be unfortunate, there are serious questions to be asked about many of the Tories' group in Europe (included several Tory MEPs themselves).

What should also now concern Clegg is that whilst his Conservative allies MEPs and their EU colleagues are becoming more and more 'off the wall', his deputy and Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable hosted a lunchtime reception in Brussels, on the same day as the foundation was launched, in which he was attempting to present a moderate and constructive face to the European Parliament, As one seasoned observer of the Brussels political scene said “It appears that the supposed centre-left hand doesn't know what the far right hand is doing in this coalition”.

The Tories group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), recently showed their appalling lack of political judgement, by earlier this month, organising a meeting of the group in the Latvian capital, Riga. This despite the Latvian element of the ECR, the far-right 'For Freedom and Fatherland' having only recently forging a national electoral pact with the unapologetic neo-Nazi “All for Latvia” Group.

Cameron's pledge (backed by William Hague and used as a sop to right wing eurosceptic elements in his party) to leave the main (and mainly sensible) centre-right group in the European Parliament and set up his own nefarious right-wing group, was the first sign of extremely poor political judgement on his part and it looks like it will continue to haunt him.

Clegg was partly right to describe the group as “nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes”, he should also have added, quite reasonably, “Wafffen SS apologists, neo-nazi fellow travellers and extreme religious fundamentalists”. Is Thatcher really aware who forms a significant part of the foundation she has become President of.

TORY SPLIT IN EUROPE WIDENS

A journalistic colleague in Brussels informs me that the internal machinations of the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) in the European Parliament means it is not a happy or harmonious ship and more resembles a bag of ferrets.

It appears that there between seven and twelve Tory MEPs (out of a total of twenty five) who are becoming increasingly concerned about the political direction of their non-UK group allies and by the actions of two or three of their own MEPs. The Tories in the European Parliament are no longer a disciplined group and the situation is expected to worsen.

Not only has a split amongst the UK Tory MEPs allowed the largely absent leader Kaminski (him, from a very dubious political background and from the far-right Law and Justice party in Poland) to carry on as leader of the group, it appears that David Cameron has alienated most of his allies, by having a private meeting with the Czech PM and leader of the Czech group (the ODS) in the ECR.

This has alienated the Polish members of the group and raised suspicions considerably. This after some Tories in the ECR attempted a demi-coup in an attempt to claim joint leadership of the group.

What the Tories wanted to achieve was that their leader Timothy Kirkhope would be elected co-chairman of the group with equal standing with Kaminski (nicknamed the KK clan). However, because the Tory MEPs are not a homogeneous lot, the numbers did not stack up and Kirkhope and his allies had to back down.

Besides Cameron's clumsy intervention, what has also alienated the Tories' allies in the ECR is that they were not consulted in advance about Kirkhope's plans (almost certainly approved by Conservative Central Office) for a demi-coup and believe they were seen as mere voting fodder in a game of chess between Kaminski and Kirkhope.

THE TORIES' BIG LIE

How they are duping this country into massive cuts.

Marjorie Smith. (published in Tribune 24th September)


"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” – Jozef Goebbels.

Goebbels is not a person I feel most comfortable with when using quotations, but the quote is apt. Goebbels instinctively knew the power of propaganda, which at its basest level, was used to prepare people for unpalatable acts and unpopular decisions.

This current Conservative Government's chances of electoral success in the future is significantly dependent on the UK electorate accepting the big lie that current levels of public expenditure have got out of control.

It should not be forgotten that the one irredeemable economic fact of recent and present times is that due to a purely private sector crisis, the public finances have taken a massive hit due to the costs of the bail-out of banks and related economic stimuli measures and not because of public sector profligacy. However, the prevailing wisdom amongst the mainstream media and the' chattering classes' is that in order to put the public finances 'back in order', then the current level of public spending must be drastically reduced so as to lay the foundations for a sustainable recovery.

The cuts that will be implemented are of a draconian nature, not seen since the 1920s. An average of 25% in nearly all Government spending (NHS and International Aid excepted) will equate to a massive 10% decline in UK economic activity. Yet Alistair Darling has already laid out that cutting too fast and too deep is simply unnecessary and counter-intuitive. Cutting contracts and making people redundant does not boost economic activity, it compounds the damage.

Labour announced that it would have to cut Government spending by 80 billion pounds over five years because of the economic crisis caused by the atavistic activities of some banks (and their hangers-on) in the western world. The Tories, want to cut by 50% more and introduce those cuts twice as quickly. This has the disastrous effect of tripling the size of the cuts.

"Cameron has already given the game away by stating that the 25% of cuts expected in most Ministerial budgets will never be restored."


This is the current strategic achievement of Cameron and Osborne, they have redefined the political landscape, so that rapidly cutting the public deficit is the be-all and end-all of Government policy. We are constantly told that there really is no alternative and that we should prepare for a period of deep austerity so that the public finances can be restored and the country put back on an even keel. Consequently, they also claim it is time for the State to step back and empower people to rediscover a sense of community to fill the vacuum left by the retreating public sector.

They go further, the supposed 'perilous' situation we find ourselves in, is largely blamed on the Labour Government's profligacy, that the public purse is empty, that we can no longer afford our present level of commitments. The former Chief Secretary Liam Byrne's note to his successor was extremely unfortuitous. Telling David Laws (even in jest) that there was no money left, was a massive political gift to the slashers and cutters on the Tory benches and this was seized on with glee by George Osborne's ministerial team.

Today's Tory spinners and their willing messenger boys in the print media and the blogosphere may not always realise their gullibility is being exploited, but the constant repetition that the deficit must be overcome and that public expenditure must be slashed dramatically and immediately, is this coming decade's big lie.

It is also a big lie that now defines much political thought outside of Tory circles. Both the BBC and ITN now seem to accept that the Conservative's position on the deficit is the default position for the vast majority of the country. Hence all debate about economics and politics is framed around a central tenet that we must cut deep and we must cut fast.

I'm afraid elements within the Labour Party also carry a heavy responsibility in allowing the Tories so much political space to pursue their narrow Thatcherite view of cutting the size of the State. The argument between Brown and Mandelson about Labour's response to the medium to long-term fallout from the financial crisis (which Mandelson won on points) was the seed bed in which the Tories were allow to cultivate their big lie unhindered and unencumbered by social responsibility.

"….they are not cutting public expenditure because they have to cut, they are doing so because they want to cut."

This current Conservative Government (it may be a coalition of parties, but it is irredeemably Tory) is led by post-Thatcherite Tories (of which Clegg is one). They have thrown overboard Geoffrey Howe's Holy Grail of fixation with the money supply and Milton Friedman's political economy is now seen as rather passé in Tory ranks. However, they still perceive the State as a barrier to sound economics and liberal political economy and view some public expenditure as a necessity rather than a duty.

Cameron has already given the game away by stating that the expected 25% of cuts in most Ministerial budgets will never be restored. This is clear evidence that Osborne and Cameron's economic policies are ideologically driven, "cut, cut and cut and never restore" that is their maxim. This point needs to be emphasised, they are not cutting public expenditure because they have to cut, they are doing so because they want to cut.

The ring-fencing of the NHS and the International Aid budget is no acceptance that socialised medicine or externalised philanthropy are good things, but was the product of a cold public relations calculation that it would be the necessary cost (in the short to medium term) of detoxifying the Tories.

The major problem for Labour and the wider movement is that the political climate in which cuts are being discussed is far more fortuitous than it was when Thatcher came to power in 1979. For all Thatcher's rhetoric about shrinking the size of the State, she had to proceed cautiously because of significant internal opposition from 'One Nation' Tories in her own party. This internal opposition has been reduced to an ineffectual rump (and that includes so-called left-leaning Lib Dems) and Osborne and Cameron have free rein to pursue their ideological convictions.

However, the only way to fight this Government is to constantly remind people that at the heart of the Tories' core message is the big lie. The Tories will continue to argue that massive cuts are necessary because of the so-called 'structural deficit'. This they claim is so unsustainable that the coming cuts are necessary and that Labour's supposed mismanagement of the economy has seriously aggravated the situation.

However, the structural deficit is an artificial construct that invents a theoretical basis for Osborne's (and Alexander) tautology over the role of the public sector. It should a matter of Labour party mantra that that the structural deficit is not the actual deficit. The structural deficit relies totally on contentious assumptions that are interpreted in such a way that they are only taken account of if they support the hypothesis of a so-called 'unsustainable' structural deficit.

James Sassoon, the Conservative Government's Treasury minister, gave the real game away when he said in the House of Commons debate on the finance bill, "We cannot afford a public sector of the size to which it has grown" and there must be "a complete re-evaluation of the government's role in providing public services". This is not economics; this is neo-conservative prejudice writ large.

Labour was already cutting the deficit and Alistair Darling's March budget would have halved the deficit in four years. Even the Tories' newest pet quango, the Office for Budget Responsibility agreed this was the case.

It seems that Osborne's' cuts which will have the effect of reducing the UK's GDP by a massive 10% are to be compensated for by increased activity in the private sector as it takes up the slack left by the public sector. In other words the Tories are betting the shop on a false premise based on a hypothetical interpretation of an inane analysis.

Because of the Tories ideological commitment to shrinking the State, we are now embarking on an extremely perilous economic programme that has little chance of success, is against the recommendations of the G20 group of nations and almost certainly will terminate in a double dip recession.

The economic crisis was the fault of turbo-capitalism, it was hatched in Wall Street not 11 Downing Street, the City of London was a co-conspirator, not the Cities of Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham etc etc. The Big Lie will demand a high price and it will be those who have the least culpability that will be paying the highest price. "All in this together" -Don't make me laugh.

WHY ARE THE POLICE CONTINUING TO TRY AND SHUT DOWN THE COULSON/N.O.T.W. CASE

If the Police wanted to close down the case and put witnesses off and discourage others from coming forward then they are going about it in an exemplary manner.

Interviewing witnesses under caution is guaranteed to elecit the minimum amount of information . Any person with legal advice in this case will tell the police little if they are deemed to be a suspect. Interviewing witness under caution means they are a suspect.
 See http://is.gd/fblAr

Real witnesses do not get interviewed under caution, real witnesses are encouraged to come forward, not discouraged by believing that they will be treated as a suspect.

In this case, getting Commander John Yates to reinvestigate his own investigation (or lack off) seems to be like asking Dr Freddy Patel to carry out a second post mortem on Ian Tomlinson.

TORY BOYS' ELECTORAL STITCH-UP

Why Cameron's and Clegg's attempt to fix the next election is fundamentally undemocratic at so many levels.

A version of this article appeared in Tribune (published 17/09/10)

Marjorie Smith

Despite claims to the contrary, this Conservative Government's attempt to remake the electoral map of the UK is a blatant attempt at trying to stack the electoral odds in its favour. If successful, it will severely restrict Labour's chances of ever ruling as a single governing party in the future (which of course, as well as trying to shore-up this Government, is its man aim).

Firstly, the proposals top reform the voting system; reduce the number of MPs and change the size of constituencies is nothing more than opportunistic gerrymandering. This squalid and seedy attempt to radically shift the electoral balance in this country is simply an attempt by the two Tory boys, Clegg and Cameron, to ensure that their type of politics is almost always guaranteed to have an influence in governing this country.

Remember, there is no electoral mandate for this Conservative government to railroad it through the House of Commons. There is no part if the Conservative Party's manifesto that mentions such radical constitutional changes that will have a massive psephological effect. This Government simply does not have a mandate to do what it proposes to do.

Any attempt to radically reform the electoral map of the UK will have no credibility unless it is as a result of a Royal Commission.

The Government's plans are deficient at several levels. Firstly the idea that a referendum of such constitutional importance is not important enough to have a stand-alone referendum is deeply worrying. Clegg and his ilk bleat on about the cost, but who said democracy was cheap. To hold the referendum at the same time as local elections is to demonstrate the lack of confidence the Government has in the electorate.

One of the major flaws in Clegg's plans for a referendum on electoral change in 2011 is that it will not be a level playing field. Local elections in England next year are not taking place universally, so any attempt to piggyback a referendum on such elections that take place will, in effect, produce a distorted outcome and discriminate against a large swathe of voters.

Furthermore, not only is there discrimination between voters in different local authority electoral districts in England, where only 33% of voters will have the opportunity to go the polls but also with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where 100% of the electorate will have additional motivation to cast their vote both in an election and in a referendum.

 The projected choice to be offered to voters is also discriminatory between possible systems of counting votes and is a take-it-or-leave-it choice about the Alternative Vote system.

A dead vote can still be a dead vote under AV. What if one doesn't want to transfer? I should imagine there are a significant number of Labour voters who no longer wish to see the Lib Dem vote enhanced by their transfers and do not ever want to see their vote ultimately transfer to a Tory.

Why should a vote be viewed as something vague that cannot be taken at face value, depending on the outcome of the totality of votes. No doubt, the big campaign in constituencies where the Lib Dems are second will be persuading to transfer, but why should they? For instance, why should hundreds of thousands of Labour votes in areas that have a Tory majority be viewed as transferrable votes to the Lib Dems?

Why is there not a system of equalization, whereby voters' intentions are still accounted for even if they are not for the winning candidate in a specific constituency? Why can't first preferences be totalled regionally so that a system of proportionality is introduced, but this is based on primary choices rather than second choices.

In many respects AV is as fraught with the same imperfections as first-past-the-post is, in that if for example you live in a constituency where Labour is in third place, your vote for Labour is totally disregarded and has no effect (concerning Labour), it is reduced to a full value vote for the Lib Dems, if you transfer your vote to them. A dead vote (i.e. one you choose not to transfer) is still a dead vote

Proposals about the North of Scotland as an exception so that three Lib Dem MPs with large constituencies but sparse populations, are ring-fenced from the proposal is a squalid scam, based purely on the self-interest of this opportunistic Government.

The proposals to reduce the number of MPs and equalize constituency size is another sordid manoeuvre to tilt the balance so far away from Labour , so as to make it extremely difficult to have a Labour Government with a working majority.  Make no mistake Cameron and his Tory backwoodsmen will be the main beneficiary of this so-called reform. Constituencies should be based on population, not on the electoral role.

It is the Tories exploitation of the electoral role as a base for calculation that gives credence to their proposals. Yet, it is also their greatest weakness; size of population should be the common denominator in these discussions. The electoral role, plus local Government and central Government records should all be used to calculate the size of constituencies. The results maybe extremely beneficial to Labour, in not just blunting the opportunistic aspects of the Tories proposals but actually identifying urban areas where mass-action campaigns to get people registered could produce highly beneficial effects.

Why not move elections to Sunday, so that the majority of working people have the same opportunity to choose when they vote as the rest of the electorate.  The concept of equality of constituency size, based on population and not the electoral roll, should never be considered until this levelling of the playing field is introduced.

Look to motivate and facilitate non-voters not tinker with an anti-working people system. Sticking with the tradition of holding Parliamentary elections on a Thursday is highly discriminatory in favour of the leisured classes and should be changed to maximise both turnout and non-registered peoples' interest.

This, of all choices surrounding the conduct of polls, should be a level playing field, i.e. hold elections over a full weekend with polls opening at 7.00 am on Saturday and closing 7.00 pm on Sunday.

It is the 'benign neglect' attitude of the right and centre-right in this country when it comes to increasing voter registration that is purely self-serving. The Tories know that the disenfranchised are more likely to vote for left-wing or centre-left parties if they are subsequently registered, hence the Tories' self-regarding disinterest in this issue.           

            The disgraceful scenes of voters being turned away in several constituencies at the last general election should never be allowed to re-occur.  This issue should not be allowed to be forgotten; a report by the Electoral Commission based on the information provided by returning officers said it was not a major problem. That's like accepting a report from the Metropolitan Police that the policing of demonstrations has the popular support of the people of London

The Labour movement as a whole should actively oppose this squalid and opportunistic gerrymandering by Clegg and Cameron. No reform of the voting system in this country should be carried out until it has been the subject of a Royal Commission and proposed changes are included in party manifestos.

IF COULSON KNEW, WHO ELSE AT NEWS INTERNATIONAL KNEW?

If one accepts the premise of the New York Times that Andy Coulson has blatantly lied about knowing anything about phone-hacking, this raise several very disturbing questions and has deeply worrying ramifications and possible consequences at many many levels.

Andy Coulson is no lone rogue who went off-piste when he was editor of the News of the World. He was at the heart of Rupert Murdoch's News International operation in the UK. Like the current News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks (formerly Wade), he had front-line high level experience both at the Sun and the N.OW. Both of whom would have reported directly the previous Chief Executive of News International's UK operations, Les Hinton.

When Coulson's time at the N.O.W. first became a matter of political controversy, News International launched a coordinated campaign to rubbish accusers, belittle witnesses, pay-off those who had deep pockets and generally try and stonewall a House of Commons Select Committee. The Coulson Affaire should now move on to include the senior staff at News International (i.e Wade and Hinton and to treat them as hostile witnesses.

As I said Coulson was no maverick working for Murdoch, every juicy story that the N.O.W. published during Coulson's time in the editor's chair, would have been seen by Coulson and he would have had to satisfy the veracity of the story, the legality about publishing the story and as part of both consideration, what was/were the source(s) of the story.

Coulson's obfuscation and sophistry cannot be allowed to continue and the trail shouldn't end with his resignation. Furthermore, David Cameron's judgement is in question as he continues to duck and dither about what to do next.

I wonder how much pressure was put on the Press Complaints Commission by Murdoch's henchmen to only conduct a token investigation.

Are PPC documents/correspondence covered by the Freedom of Information Act?

Is Deputy Commisioner John Yates becoming "Slippery of the Yard"?

TORIES' GROUP IN EU IS AN "UTTER SHAMBLES" AND NOW HAS NEO-NAZI LINKS

Terry Moore, Brussels
A version of this article will appear in Tribune Magazine to be published on Friday 10 September

One of David Cameron's first actions when he became Tory leader back in 2005 is rapidly turning into a farce of epic proportions five years later. It amply demonstrates that he puts rank pragmatism before high principle and raises uncomfortable questions about his judgement.

It is abundantly apparent to some seasoned observers in Brussels and London that the Tories' decision to split from the mainstream centre-right group and form their own right-wing group, has been a massive strategic error.

The Tories erstwhile EU allies in the the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group are shifting ever rightwards, whilst Cameron et al try to present a moderate face to the British public and their Lib Dem allies. There is also growing concern about the quality of the leadership. There are even well-founded accusations that a very senior staff appointment in the Group was as a result of a personal relationship with a former Czech Prime Minister.

Poland's Law and Justice party (the PiS), who are the only other significant party in the bloc, are now set on a course of right-wing populist nationalism underpinned by religious fundamentalism.  The PiS have just expelled one moderate MEP (Marek Migalski) because he publically expressed concern about their rightwards political direction, whilst hardliners continue to publish crude homophobia immune from any sanction by the party.

Richard Legutko MEP, writing in the Wiadomosci Gazeta, claims that "Homosexual activists are running a brutal campaign in order to blunt our sensitivity and humiliate critics". He claims that Europride "is an extremely stupid name" and that the recent Europride parade in Madrid was "a repulsive sight".

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Another influential PiS MP Antoni Macierewicz, who is a trusted confidante of his leader Jarosław Kaczyński, was previously a member of an electoral alliance with the Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski (National Rebirth of Poland – NOP), whose leader is Adam Gmurczyk.  This predominantly neo-Nazi group is linked to the fascist International Third Position in the UK and the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in Germany

These are not the only major issues confronting the Tories' group. The journal New Europe, has this week exposes the deep dissatisfaction with the Group's often absent leader and PiS member, Michal Kaminski. The Tories are trying to stage a demi-coup (without informing their other allies in the group) whereby their leader, Timothy Kirkhope aspires to become joint-leader of the group with Kaminski. Wags in Brussels have already christened it the KK clan.

Besides often being absent from Group, Committee and European Parliament plenary meetings, Kaminski has a dubious history as a former member of nefarious extreme right-wing groups and having espoused anti-semitic sentiments in the past. Kaminski now claims in his defence that he is a great supporter of Israel (as does Nick Griffen). However, it is not mutually exclusive to be an anti-semite and take a pro-zionist viewpoint.

This on-going attempted demi-coup by the Tories has also deeply unsettled the Czech members of the Group (ODS) and they are also considering lobbying for a joint-chairperson position.

The Czech ODS also have their skeletons in the cupboard, with the ex-girlfriend of the recent former Czech PM, Mirek Topolánek (and former disgraced ODS leader) being safely ensconced as Deputy General-Secretary of the ECR group, a scandalous move in which the Tories have failed to block or question. Adela Kadlecova's affair with Topolánek has been widely (un)covered in the Czech press (e.g. www.Blesk.cz.)

All this has come about because Cameron and Hague have wavered and vacillated and continue to duck and dither about what to do about the group because of the fear of a right-wing backlash from trenchant eurosceptics on the Tory backbenches and in the ECR group (e.g. Daniel Hannan and Roger Helmer, their very ECR H-Block).

A seasoned observer of the Conservative Party's activities in Brussels recently described the ECR group as "an utter shambles".

All eyes will now turn to Riga where, Cameron's Conservatives are soon set to rally with their Latvian allies, the For Freedom and Fatherland/LNNK party. The ECR group have arranged study days for their MEPs on the 14-17 September in Riga.

Besides being apologists for the Waffen SS, the For Freedom and Fatherland/LNNK have very recently formed a close electoral alliance with the neo-Nazi "All for Latvia" group in an official and formal alliance called, Visu Latvijai – Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK. "All for Latvia" are an extreme nationalist group with a penchant for Nazi-inspired regalia and symbolism.

DID HAGUE RECOMMEND COULSON TO CAMERON?

Rumours are swirling around that it was William Hague who recommended Andy Coulson to David Cameron as his Communications Chief. Hmmmmm?

WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT THE PHONE-TAPPING AT THE N.O.T.W STARTED UNDER COULSON?

It seems to me that the only rational explanation for Coulson accepting that he didn't need to know what the source of the phone-hacked stories were is because the system was all pervasive before he became editor.

In other words, when as any reasonable editor would ask, what's the source(s) of this scoop, the journo with the story would have to stand it up. In this case, could it be reasonable to assume that the hacking was already so pervasive that Coulson only needed to know a code word to know the veracity of the story.
 i.e. Q. What's the source, can we stand it up? A. 100% it's kosher from our listening pals.

Now all that explains such a scenario is that the same circumstances pertained under a previous editor AND that senior staff at News International could brief about it. Les and Alison have a few explanations to make?.
Hmmm, who was editor at the N.OT.W before Coulson? Did the same methods go to another national newspaper in the same stable? Surely Rebbecah, Les and Alison knew?

NEXT WEEK ON THE TORIES' GROUP IN EU

Read about their Polish partners ideologically exploding with the latest homophobic remarks from the Tories Polish friends and the expulsion of one of their more reasonable MEPs. The Polish Law and Justice party is the only other significant party in the group and is now set on a course of right-wing populist nationalism underpinned by a religious fundamentalism.
Read about how a high level post in the Tories group was given to a person who had an affair with one of the groups' party leaders when he was PM.
Read about the latest development about their neo-nazi friends (by association) in Latvia. Find out how they are one of the very most unedifying right-wing parties in Europe.
All this because Cameron and Hague have vacillated about what to do with the former shadow Europe Minister, Mark Francois' baby.

For the week after that a truly stunning revelation of a much more UK-relevant story, that will go to the very core of the Conservative Party. (Hague? Coulson? Liam? George? et al? who knows just yet)

CAMERON'S TORIES IN NEO-FASCIST LINKS

CAMERON'S TORIES IN NEO-FASCIST LINKS

CAMERON'S EU GROUP HAVE NAZI ALLIES

ANOTHER EMBARASSMENT FOR WILLIAM HAGUE

EXCLUSIVE  A version of this article was published in Tribune Magazine this week (03/09/10) 

Terry Moore, Brussels

In an astounding development, key allies of David Cameron's Conservative party have lurched to the far-right and made a faustian pact with odious elements of the Latvian extreme right.

The unashamedly neo-fascist "All for Latvia" is now an official political partner with the Tories' Latvian allies. "All for Latvia" platform is one of extreme nationalism and is inspired by Nazi ideology and imagery. Its logo appears to be a deliberate echo of the swastika.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_For_Latvia!_logo.png

The logo for the electoral pact between "All For Latvia" and Cameron's Conservatives' allies the For Fatherland and Freedom/ LNNK party appears to be no better in hiding their 'artistic' and political inspiration. See 'All for Latvia's' website.

http://www.visulatvijai.lv/images/vltblnnk_logo_sm.jpg

 

The Official Latvian section of the Tories European Parliament (EP) group is made of the For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK party (TB/LNNK), which has one MEP in the the Parliament. The Latvian party has consistently been attacked for closely allying themselves with Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS veterans who fought for Germany in the Second World war.

The UK Conservatives have always sat uneasily in their political grouping in the European Parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists. Beside the Tories, the rest of the group is made up of the mad, the bad and the truly awful. Or what Nick Clegg called a group of "nutters", "homophobes" and "anti-semites".

Now Cameron's Latvian allies have gone one step further and established a formal electoral alliance with Latvian neo-fascists. The TB/LNNK is now part of an electoral coalition with the "All for Latvia" party.

The "All for Latvia party" is led by Raivis Dzintars, an unreconstructed neo-nazi populist. Amongst Dzintars beliefs are that the common interests of the nation have a higher value than the interests of individual people.

http://visulatvijai.blog.com/files/2010/06/dzintars6vg.jpg

Raivis Dzintars (bottom right of picture) with 'supporters'.

Eric Pickles, the Conservative's Communities Minister has previously defended the TB/LNNK's actions in support of SS war veterans, claiming that they were Latvian patriots and has accused critics of recycling “old Soviet smears” about the Latvians. It now appears that the then Conservative Party Chair, Eric Pickles was naïve in the extreme.

The current Foreign-Secretary, William Hague, even went do far in defending the Latvian For Fatherland and Freedom Party last autumn, by attacking David Miliband, “David Miliband’s comments about the Conservative Party and their European allies are frankly preposterous. His suggestion that the membership of the European Conservatives and Reformists are anti-Semitic and Nazi sympathisers is unfounded and outrageous.

Hague's robust defence of the Tories' allies appears now to have been both unwise and a hostage to fortune. It is quite clear by the electoral pact established in Latvia that the Latvian far-right are anti-semites and Nazi sympathisers.

The far-right 'heroes' of the  Latvian Waffen SS had a founding ethos of direct involvement in the holocausts with the Latvian Sonderkommando Arajs, acting under German orders, directly murdering 26,000 Latvian Jews. It was the veterans of the Sonderkommando Arajs that were the founding fathers of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS.

The Tories appear powerless to control their far-right allies in the EU and because of the European Parliamentary arithmetic it seems they cannot afford to lose their support. Financial support for political groups is quite generous in the EP, however if the Tories were to expel their Latvian allies that would jeopardise the viability of their group and risk the ending of EP funding. It appears that Cameron, Hague et al are prepared to sacrifice their consciences for a few euros of lucre.

David Cameron must bear sole responsibility for the appalling political consequences of his decision (and it was his decision alone) to quit the mainstream centre-right grouping in the European Parliament (The EPP) and set up the new right-wing group.

The unholy alliance is due to contest the Latvian Parliamentary election on Saturday October 2^nd, just one day before the 2010 Conservative Party conference starts.

http://www.visulatvijai.lv/news.php

CAMERON 'S USEFUL IDIOTS (PART 2)

Why Coalition suits Cameron and the Conservatives

Marjorie Smith

            When David Cameron won the leadership of the Conservative party in late 2005 he promised to make people, "feel good about being Conservatives again" and said he wanted, "to switch on a whole new generation", this helped him to be seen as the fresh-face of  a new form of Conservatism. The Tories trusted him to make them electable and to win back power after three successive Labour victories.

            In fact the only obstacle to Cameronism becoming a notable political phenomenal was that he became the leader of a party that was utterly unelectable, rightly identified as a group of obnoxious reactionary right-wing ideologues. The Conservative party pre-2006 really was a motley collection of unpleasant right-wingers who had retreated to a core vote strategy many moons before. Their major problem was that the same core vote (like the Daily Telegraph readership) was slowly eroding as the core was dying out.

            Cameron's tight little leadership clique readily understood why the Tories had been unelectable for so long. It didn't need leopard skin shoe-wearing empty vessels to point out that the Tories were seen as the 'Nasty Party'. Cameron readily acknowledged that detoxifying the Tory brand was to be the core of his electoral strategy because it was his greatest hurdle in pursuit of regaining power for the Tories.

            However, it should be noted that party activists have always looked at him, purely as a tool to win an election. The Tories historical raison d'être has always been to represent the class interests of their backers. In Cameron they clearly had a thoroughbred leader whose background, upbringing and hinterland were firmly embedded in classic Conservatism. It is only because of his Conservative credentials that he has been able to take the party with him on a successful journey to deceive the British electorate.

            Ha and his cohorts such as Osborne, Gove, Steve Hilton, Edward Lewellyn and others recognised that they needed to define the Thatcher era (and its political legacy) as an interrregum that was far too driven by solely focusing on neo-liberal economic thinking at the expense of other more traditional Tory values.

            Intelligent Tories realised therefore that they had to not just adopt policies that echoed the concerns of the electorate (especially those in the middle ground) but also change the perception of their party as a right-wing, ideologically-driven, Thatcherite rump that had learned little from three successive election defeats.

            Perversely, the present-day Conservative Parliamentary party is probably much more Thatcherite and hence, ideologically-driven that it was, even when Thatcher was at the peak of her powers. It is though, a monument to the success of the Cameron project that the Tory backbenches are pretty mute, even if they have to accept that some Ministerial posts have to be reserved for Cameron's useful idiots.

            In fact, early on under this Conservative Government, many Thatcherite sympathizers clearly identified David Laws as one of their own and there was genuine sadness amongst the Tories about his defenestration. Law's appointment as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and his subsequent harsh pronouncements about public spending was the keystone moment that cemented the deal that has produced a Conservative Government.

            Discontent may well be brewing on the backbenches, but the Tories are now in the back seat of Ministerial cars and whilst kow-towing to a few Lib Dem civil liberty issues may be the price of power, it is a relatively trivial price to pay. This is not only because the present-day Tory parliamentary party is overwhelmingly libertarian and hence pre-disposed to support such civil liberty issues, but because they can see that the economic policies being driven forward by Osborne and other ministers are, at their core, anti-statist, pro-market and fundamentally unreconstructed Thatcherite in sheep's clothing.

            The great success of Cameronism is that what could be termed as mainstream right-wing forces are now intertwined with the acceptable face of the centre-right in a coalition of interests that is fronted by an apparent duopoly of reasonableness serving in the national interest. This is the big lie at the heart of this current administration. It is also the conceit that the Tories as well as Clegg and his cohorts want to continue to persevere with to the detriment of this country's medium and long-term interests.

            Both Cameron and Clegg all too readily understand that their 'arrangement' means that they are inextricably linked until at least the lead-up to the next election and probably beyond. Only by having an electoral pact not to stand against each other can they hope to continue down the political path they have chosen. For Cameron, that path can continue as before or lean ever rightwards. For Clegg, there is no choice, his political career entirely depends on Cameron's fortunes (both nationally and internally in the Tory party).

            Hence Clegg's room for manoeuvre is extremely limited, with his political career entirely dependent on the good grace of Cameron and on the electoral fortunes of the Conservatives. It should be no real surprise, considering his background, that Clegg seems extremely comfortable with the current arrangements. He has assumed a self-confident pomposity that is already emerging as he preens himself at the dispatch box.

            Therefore, what we have is a Tory-led administration that is Conservative in all but name and that will attempt to shift the political debate rightwards as it seeks to embed a centre-right political philosophy as the pole by which political discourse in the UK will take place. Cameron and Osborne have already had some success in undermining electoral support for the public sector as part of this approach.

            However, as Cameron has rightly tried to detoxify the Tory brand, there are valuable electoral lessons to be learned from his approach and apparent success. There is undoubtedly a residual toxicity about the Tories. The mere fact that they could not win a clear majority speaks volumes as to their electoral appeal. Despite the most fortuitous political circumstances and a pliant media on their side, the British electorate refused to give them a blank cheque.

            It is quite apparent that the word Conservative is still laden with appalling folk-memories for a large number of people and that their perception of Conservatism is still largely negative. There is a residual belief that a central tenet of modern day Toryism is that it is brutish and harsh. However, a major consequence of the current administration is that behind the mask of the coalition, Osborne and his ilk are able to slash public expenditure by an amount not even dreamt of by Thatcher.

            This is why, at every turn, this coalition of class interests, should be portrayed for what it is, namely a Conservative Government. Any continued reference to 'the Coalition' only serves to camouflage what this Tory dominated Government is all about. Make no mistake, this Tory Government is red in tooth and claw when it comes to the public sector. It must be portrayed for what it is.

If the Labour party refuses to acknowledge that this is anything but a Conservative Government, there is also a further positive side effect for Labour's pursuit of disillusioned Lib Dem voters. In that ignoring the Lib Dem element of the coalition avoids provoking knee-jerk defensiveness from Lib Dem loyalists, this in turn helps to negate any motivation such activists could feed off. Direct attacks on the Lib Dems only serve to encourage a siege mentality which leads to a binding together of most of their party, it raises their profile in the media and it gives the false impression that the Government is actually a true coalition of common interests, when it quite clearly is not.

It is the Tories that are in power in reality, not the Lib Dems, we have to take the fight to the Tories.

CAMERON'S USEFUL IDIOTS (cover story, Tribune magazine 13/08 issue)

By Marjorie Smith

            As Parliament rises for the summer recess one or two important highly negative pointers are already emerging about our new Government and we have also learned that the Labour Party has made little impact since the election.

            The savagery of the proposed cuts is startling and the lies about ring-fencing the NHS and Education are already exposed as deceitful untruths that spilled so easily from Cameron's mouth during the general election campaign.

            However, there is one vital but simple political lesson to learn already and that is that the Lib Dems are a strategic irrelevance. We have a blatant Tory-led administration in which Clegg and his cohorts are willing supplicants to Cameron's Conservatives.

            Direct attacks on the Lib Dems are becoming pointless, a waste of political capital and self-defeating. If they continue they will make the Labour party and its leaders look small and bitter in the future and play completely into the hands of the Conservatives. It will also help to define the Lib Dems as a political party of substance that should be taken more seriously than they are now, or previously have been.

            The scorn of many Labour activists was quite rightly directed at the Lib Dems in the days after the last election and in the first few weeks of the coalition. There did appear to be a chance that a sufficient number of supposed 'left-leaning' Lib Dems might be shamed into refusing to work closely with the Tories and therefore help to undermine the coalition or at least significantly weaken it. That is clearly no longer the case they have made their own bed, let them lie in it.

            It doesn't need the Labour leadership to undermine the Lib Dems they are doing it to themselves. It is quite clear that they are already seen by the electorate as Tory lackeys. Nick Clegg needs no help from Labour in portraying himself as 'Cameron Lite', in fact he is doing a sterling job in portraying himself as just another public school 'Tory boy' .

            The latest poll results in a YouGov tracking poll taken last week gave the Lid Dems a paltry 13% of the national vote, which would only give them 18 seats in Parliament. The converse of this is of course the continuation of the political honeymoon for the Conservatives, still riding high in the polls at 44%, nearly three months after the general election.

            The central political lesson to be learnt from the past three months is that the Lib Dems are a convenient lightning conductor for the public's dissatisfaction. They are and will increasingly become the scapegoats for this administrations savaging of the public sector. Cameron's has so far got off very lightly due to the political attention the Lib Dems have received.

            The long Cameron honeymoon is also partly due to Labour's dismal reaction to the general election defeat. An incoherent front bench and demoralised parliamentary party has understandably, but mistakenly, still reserves its greatest ire for the Lib Dems. Whilst the seemingly interminable Labour leadership election campaign lazily meanders its way to a conclusion, the Tories are making massive cuts in public expenditure and Labour is hardly landing a glove on them.

            Absenteeism from the front bench in Parliament by much of the shadow cabinet and former senior ministers (due to memoiritis?) only aggravates a rapidly worsening position for the public sector. The Tory lie that the NHS and Education would be ring-fenced from cuts is already exposed as the Big Lie it always was going to be. This is no Big Society it will be a Rigged Society.

            All of the Lib Dems in Parliament have adopted a siege mentality, most Lib Dems are currently in deep denial, accepting the conceit that they are making a real difference as to how Britain is governed. Accusations of careerism and selfishness will have no traction, these are the brickbats that all politicians get (even from within their own party/faction)

            Labour needs to adopt a fresh approach to this Government, one that places the Tories at the heart of it (which they are) and portrays the Lib Dems as an irrelevance (which they are increasingly becoming). The party needs to understand that we are living under a Conservative Government and should not only be treated as such but reffered to as such at every turn. Every time somebody refers to the coalition allows the Tories to hide themselves behind a vacuous political construct that only serves to disguise what this Government is really about.

            Every Labour MP, activist and member should only refer to this Government as a Conservative Government. The Lib Dems should be denied any recognition that they are making any positive difference. At every turn Labour should patronise the LibDems and merely ask them what will the Tories will decide.

            Make Cameron the architect of the cuts – Cameron has managed to construct two line of defence around his political appeal – one the fall guy Lib Dems and the fallback from that is Osborne and the right of his party. If Cameron is not nailed to the mast of this Government then he could disown the lot of them and win a second term for the Tories, campaigning on a neo-liberal economic platform.

            The Tories are already thinking of ways to raise the profile of the Lib Dems, in order to try and continue the usefulness of Clegg's idiocy in the furtherance of the Conservative party's base self-interests. Tory strategists know that a badly wounded and enfeebled Liberal Democrat party is of no use to the Conservatives until at the most six to twelve months from a general election.

            As the deserved backlash hits the Lib Dems, they will cling ever closer to the notion that coalition with the Tories was the right thing to do. The current Lib Dem leadership has nowhere else to go but remaining as junior partners to the Tories. The rest of the Lib Dem Parliamentary party have already demonstrated their weak and craven attitude and although there will be defections from the coalition in the future, it is now quite apparent that they will become increasingly insignificant.

            In dealing with the Lib Dems the party's mantra should be "I want to speak with the organ grinder, not the monkey". Diminish them with disdain.

THIS BUDGET IS LABOUR'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO START TO SPLIT THE COALITION

Why examining the coalition's DNA reveals the seeds of its own destruction

Marjorie Smith

One of Labour's main strategic pre-occupations has to be how to unpick this coalition of parties (if not of interests).  Any hope of returning to Government has to be dependant on the Tories and the Lib Dems either hanging separately or being hung together. Either the coalition splits, or it becomes overwhelmingly unpopular at the next election.

Whilst an extended marriage of convenience, at first glance, may well be in Labour's interest, with the probable deep unpopularity of this coalition becoming a political fact. It would also mean five long years in opposition and having to fight the next general election with a new 'reformed' electoral system stacked against the party.

The budget of Gideon Oliver 'George' Osborne (heir to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor), presents a golden opportunity for Labour to point out the massive internal contradictions that are presently submerged in this coalition of self-interest, exemplified by how so-called 'progressive' politicians are being mealy-mouthed in the face of a Tory ideological drive to reduce the power of the State.

Make no mistake, the sheep's clothing of a small rise in personal allowances for a few, does not disguise the devious impact of the 2.5% rise in VAT for all, the massive cuts to the public sector (both in terms of financial and personnel resources), slashing housing benefits and cutting future pension rights. This is a budget of deceit, sophistry, obfuscation and political fraud. Already, those on low incomes, benefits and state pensions will be hammered by the rise in VAT with no compensatory action to increase their incomes.

Nick Clegg may spuriously claim that these cuts are 'progressive' but the truth will be radically different for the many millions, both directly and indirectly, who depend on the public sector for their livelihoods. For example, a one year freeze in council tax allied to a 25% cut in central Government grants to Councils will guarantee massive cuts in jobs and services by local councils.

Since Tories like Cameron and Osborne can afford to opt out of Council provision (e.g. free education) so do not have to avail themselves of Council Services (beyond having their bins emptied and the odd PC to wander past their Special Branch-guarded residences), they like most of the rich in this country, will be able to remain completely unscathed by the cuts to come.

Furthermore, the claim that the coalition will be able to ring-fence budgets relating to health and education is mere window dressing, more designed to appease Liberal Democrats in Parliament than to convince the population as a whole.

Vince Cable's claim that the Lib Dems have tempered Tory policies by persuading them to raise tax allowances for some of the low paid in the country is a deceit. Like Lenin's 'useful idiots', the Lib Dems are being drawn into a glaring trap. Not only has it allowed Osborne the political cover to freeze child benefits for 3 years but it has also allowed the numerate Tories in the Cameron leadership clique to be happy to go along with the Lib Dems aspiration of a move to a minimum income tax allowance of £10,000 for a particular reason.

That is because both Osborne and Cameron are committed to the ideological prize of introducing a flat tax (in the region of 22% for all tax payers, including the mega-rich). Right-wingers see this as the holy grail of tax reform, whereby the rich and high-earners are able to insulate themselves from the needs of the population as a whole. Make no mistake Cameron and Osborne are committed to a flat income tax rate for all.

The introduction of either a Flat Tax or large rises in the threshold for Inheritance Tax (or both) will represent the greatest example of self-serving class interest at Governmental level since Robert Peel's 1845 administration, when the landed gentry fought tooth and nail to keep the pernicious Corn Laws in the teeth of evidence that it was the poor who paid the highest price for such iniquities.

Osborne's token gesture of a net rise of income for lower paid people is £170 per year, this will be completely wiped out by the rise in VAT. To put £170 into context it is the equivalent of two days tuition fees at Eton College, we are manifestly not in this together. The changes to the budget will not affect, by one iota, the family trust funds of the Camerons or the Osbornes, but millions of ordinary people will lose out.

Whilst most of the Mainstream media in the UK seems to have meekly accepted that the recent compact between the (what is now quite apparent) two UK parties of the centre-right is a sustainable concoction. The DNA of the two parties is still radically different, as any perfunctory analysis of the make-up of either party reveals.

The coalition's leadership may well sit (and fit) comfortably with each other, after all they share common backgrounds, common schools, common universities, all very different from the experiences of the common man. There is very little political capital to be made out of trying to divine differences between Clegg and Cameron (paternalistic 'One Nation' Tories in all but name). However, there are also significant elements in both parties, presently marginalised, that are as different as chalk and cheese. 

For simplistic (but pertinent) purposes, it is highly revealing to examine the two extremes of the coalition. If one accepts that there are still some well-meaning centrist, or even some who would claim they are of the centre-left, then they are to be found in the Beveridge Group of Liberal Democrat MPs. Whilst many of those on the right of the Tory party are members of the Bruges Group, a radically eurosceptic group that also appears to share a deep and abiding belief in free market fundamentalism with libertarian tendencies.

It is into these obvious fissures that Labour has to drive home the opportunities presented by this budget, at every opportunity, by exposing the crass hypocrisy that is so blatantly obvious in the make-up of the coalition. The idea that Lib Dem figures such as Simon Hughes and Don Foster can sit comfortably on the government benches with the likes of Bill Cash, John Redwood and the odious David Heathcoat-Amory is a vacuous illusion that deserves to be shattered.

The social market values that the Beveridge group used to share is a total anathema to most Tory MPs (including most Ministers) and that is why most of the Lib Dem MPs belonging to the group have been deliberately ignored for Ministerial posts (even at junior level). This faction of the Lib Dems should be a rich source of discontent and internal unhappiness with the direction of the centre-right coalition.

In Prime Minister's Questions, Deputy PMQs, Ministerial Questions, speeches in the chamber, Select Committee meetings, appearances on TV, radio etc, i.e. at each and ever opportunity, Labour has to focussing on exposing and magnifying the discomfiture of Beveridge group Liberal Democrat MPs. The idea that there is a permanent air to this coalition needs to be exposed as a lie as soon as possible. It is beset with strange bedfellows and internal contradictions.

Most Tories are virulently anti-statist and instinctively opposed to nearly all aspects of public expenditure (except for the Ministry of Defence obviously). The Conservative Parliamentary party is the most eurosceptic it has ever been and the most Atlanticist (in a neo-con sense) ever. This exposes a rich seam of discord that Labour must exploit mercilessly.

Every Labour party member and supporter has an opportunity to contribute to undermining this real threat to labour's interests by foreshortening the lifetime of the coalition by helping to spread a growing discord amongst its supporters and members, thereby establishing an irresistible momentum that will destroy this iniquitous government.