Labour Pains

The Labour Party’s travails continue. The French call it the ‘parti travailliste’ which seems particularly apt these days. Though the Labouring Party works as well.

The latest blow is the departure from parliament of Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland in Cumbria. It’s a blow not because he’ll be particularly missed – I’m sure I’m not alone in having reacted to hearing his name with the word “who?” No, the damage is that it forces another by-election on the Labour Party, and a difficult race.

The odd thing is that he justifies his decision to leave parliament, for a job in the nuclear industry, by claiming it will allow him to do more for his community than he could as a Labour MP. That feels to me like arguing that burning down a house is the best response to not being able to fix the leak in the roof. But Reed came from the nuclear industry in the first place and he may view it as less toxic than I do.

Sellafield, in Jamie Reed’s county of Cumbria
An easier place to help the Community, apparently, than Parliament

He says it’s not about money. His pay will be higher than as an MP, but only marginally, he claims. Some cynics, however, have suggested that it may be more a matter of job security. The rumours persist of a possible snap election in May and it’s possible Reed is so uncertain of winning his seat back that he prefers to take a job with a better guarantee of tenure.

Others might feel that the people who say that aren’t so much cynics as realists.

There are two reasons to feel a little concerned about a possible snap election.

The first is that, as many commentators have pointed out, it’s likely to be first and foremost a Brexit election. We know where UKIP stands on Brexit: they want Britain out of the EU the hard way – out of the Customs Union and Single Market as well as the European Union itself, bravely forging ahead in a world where foreign nations will applaud British grit, see the far greater opportunities offered by a 70-million strong population over half a billion, and rush to sign new trade deals on terms massively favourable to the UK.

The Tories are far from clear where they stand, except that they’re absolutely resolute that Brexit means Brexit. But since no one know what Brexit means Brexit means, supporters of the hard position can fancy the Tories are on their side, but so can supporters of a softer exit, with Britain staying at least in the Customs Union, possible even in the Single Market. All things to all voters, or at least all Brexit voters, an enviable position.

The Liberal Democrats have also come out for an explicit position. They oppose Brexit altogether. It’s a courageous stance, since it appeals only to the 48% of the electorate who voted to stay in the EU. Still, they’re alone in taking that position, so that trend in the electorate’s all theirs, and when you’re on 8% in the polls, 48% must look highly attractive.

That leaves Labour. Its spokesman on Brexit, Keir Starmer, has taken a highly intelligent position. He accepts the electorate voted to leave and accepts we therefore must. He however feels we can sensibly argue for a soft exit which will damage the economy least.

Unfortunately, his position is not being echoed at the very top of the Party. The leader, Jeremy Corbyn, maintains a Trappist silence. His closest ally, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell, says little though a few weeks ago he did talk about the great opportunities offered by Brexit.

Those cynics we were talking about before, among whom on this occasion I count myself, suspect this is because they are temperamentally inclined to the Leave side, but had to hide the fact since they were at the top of a party committed to remaining in the EU. However, these are people who make it a point of pride to be strictly honest in politics, so the cynics like me must surely be mistaken.

Sadly, though I know that, I can’t free myself of the nasty suspicion.

The result is that the top of Labour Party, which is the bit most voters look at, is firmly glued to the fence. They neither back Brexit nor oppose it. That means they take a symmetrical position to the Tories: rather than all things to all voters, they are no thing to any of them. And it shows.

At this stage of the 1992-1997 parliament, Labour had a lead of 20% in the polls. It went on to win a comprehensive victory at the next election.

At this stage of the 2010-2015 parliament, Labour had a lead of around 2 or 3%, but went on to a depressing defeat.

A few days ago, a fellow Labour Party member took pleasure in pointing out to me that the Conservative lead had fallen to a mere 7%.

There’s a great line in the film Sully about everything being unprecedented until it happens for the first time. All the precedents may be against Labour winning from this position, but the unprecedented can always happen.

Still. Sounds like Jamie Reed doesn’t feel that way. But maybe he’s a rotten old cynic.

Born to lead, apt to fawn

Hasn’t it been demeaning, the spectacle of David Cameron and George Osborne down on their bellies before Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, begging him to buy up bits of Britain?

Please, sir, do help yourself. It's all for sale...
Cameron, born to lead, is in his element fawning on the powerful

The thing about Cameron and Osborne is that they come out of what people like them like to think of as “the top drawer” of British society. Cameron inherited money; he was educated at Eton, the very top of the British public school system, and Oxford University; George Osborne is in line to inherit a baronetcy and become the eighteenth holder of the title; he was educated at St Paul’s School, only marginally less prestigious than Eton, and of course Oxford.

Both young men distinguished themselves there as members of the Bullingdon Club. With the future Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, they left a trail of havoc through repeated evenings of drunkenness and vandalism. The damage, for instance to restaurants they trashed, was paid for by one Daddy or another. Johnson even put a flowerpot through the window of an Indian restaurant, an offence for which a poorer perpetrator would probably have served time, or at least probation, and would have found distantly career-limiting.

This background classifies such people as members of the old English ruling class. You understand that you don’t actually have to be good at anything, or particularly competent, or even particularly hardworking – you just have to be what you were born. There are enough voters prepared to give you their preference simply on that basis – “you’re in the ruling class, so you should rule over us.”

This, you might think, would make them imperious and arrogant. As indeed it does, but only to people below them in the social scale. George Osborne, for instance, is overseeing the introduction of massive cuts in the system of tax credits which allows the working poor to pay survive on low incomes. The policy was the subject of a high-profile attack on live television recently, in which a woman who'd voted Conservative wept as she accused the Party she’d supported of breaking its explicit word not to make these cuts – “Shame on you,” she called out.

But Osborne feels no such shame. He’s described himself as “comfortable” with the policy. Well, why wouldn’t he be? He’s been comfortable since birth. By birth, indeed.

Where all trace of arrogance disappears, and indeed all pride, to be replaced by the most obsequious subservience is when such people meet others wealthier or more powerful than they are. And that is the sight we’ve enjoyed with the Chinese leader.

No other country in Europe, and certainly not the United States, is prepared to open up its nuclear industry to the Chinese. Simple security considerations rules such a notion out – the Chinese are trading partners, but they are also formidable adversaries of the West.

One might imagine the British Conservatives would feel the same way. After all, they criticise the views of the opposition Labour Party as inimical to national security. You might therefore expect them to be highly touchy on the subject of Chinese control on matters so sensitive.

Indeed, it’s interesting that Germany, the most successful economy in Europe, has not only not allowed foreigners to control its nuclear industry, it is moving rapidly towards eliminating any nuclear power stations at all. Far from suffering by this policy, Germany has become more prosperous and more powerful still by taking a dominant position in renewable energy technology.

Cameron and Osborne, on the other hand, have been pleading with the Chinese to make serious investments in British nuclear technology. The main business of the visit by Xi Jinping has been to tie up that deal. So not only do we remain dependent on dangerous technology, we’ve made it still more risky by giving a measure of control over it to a nation with little in common with Western values. And all this has been done in response to the supplication of our leaders-by-birth.

There were also other deals, of course. One involved an agreement not to carry out cyber attacks. Since many of the cyber attacks around the world originate in China, this sounds terribly like the kind of deal that’s struck with someone in a long overcoat and a fedora hat: “give us a piece of your nuclear industry, and nothing nasty will happen to your computer systems. Just remember: we know where you live, and some of my associates are far less scrupulous than I am.”

Meanwhile, there are other issues that need dealing with. Cameron has spent so much time wining and dining Xi Jinping that he has found it difficult to turn his attention to them.

For instance, the NHS is under pressure to generate savings of £20 billion. It spends some £5.1 billion annually on treating the effects of obesity. In an intelligent move, Public Health England was asked to investigate the problem and come up with suggestions. It has produced a report one of whose principal recommendations is a tax on high-sugar food and drinks. The researchers found that consumption of such products is sensitive to tax levels.

Cameron’s response? To rule out such an option. And, as he admits himself, without even reading the report.

He has, no doubt, been too busy doing what he does best – hanging around with the rich and powerful, flattering them and enjoying sumptuous banquets. Actual work has had to be rather sidelined.

You see? You don’t have to be particularly able. You don’t have to be particularly assiduous. All you need to rise to the top in Tory Britain is to have been born and brought up in the right circles.

And know how to fawn on wealthy autocrats.