By Mark Wallace
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There are lots of interesting findings in the polls this week - most notably that the Conservatives are at level-pegging with Labour in several of them, a remarkable erosion of the Opposition's lead in recent months.
One of the underlying statistics in today's Sun poll left me absolutely gobsmacked:
"A massive 71 per cent of voters claim it isn’t clear what [Miliband] stands for — up ten per cent from last year."
That should trouble the Labour operation deeply. It isn't even that voters disagree with them - that would be a luxury by contrast - it's that they don't even know what Miliband is saying one way or the other. The more Ed talks, the less people understand.
By Mark Wallace
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The Lib Dem conference was never just going to be about Vince moaning and a plastic bag tax. Sure enough, Nick Clegg's big announcement is free school meals for all school children aged between five and seven.
As Robert Halfon MP notes elsewhere on ConservativeHome this morning, the sensible part of Clegg's proposal (that which gives equality on school meals to poorer students at FE and Sixth Form Colleges) is actually nicked from the redoubtable MP for Harlow, which is further evidence of the need for Conservatives to take full credit for our ideas.
But leaving that aside, two problems strike me with Clegg's headline policy of free school meals for all - one of principle, and one of practice.
1) Principle: In July, a politician made a bold attack on universal benefits, saying: "you've got to start at the top, you've got to start with welfare for the wealthy". The principle he was laying out was clear - it is wrong, particularly in a time of limited resources, to offer benefits and perks to those who could afford to get by without them.
That politician's name was Nick Clegg, and today he will be turning that principle on its head by proposing that the taxpayer provide free school meals for the children of well off families. Those in need already get free school meals - this extension is by definition targeted at those who don't need it, AKA "welfare for the wealthy".
Similarly, the giveaway clashes with the wider message about the public finances. The deficit may be reduced but it certainly isn't gone - only a couple of hours before Clegg's announcement was made public, Danny Alexander told the Lib Dem conference that "There’s no spending bonanza round the corner." If an unecessary £600m giveaway isn't a spending bonanza, I don't know what is.
2) Practice: One of the Lib Dems' proudest policy successes is the Pupil Premium, by which schools with higher numbers of impoverished pupils get extra funding. It has long been a flagship policy, and they regularly remind everyone of its implementation. There's only one problem - the amount of Pupil Premium each school is given is calculated based on the number of pupils who apply for free school meals.
Inadvertently, Clegg has just pulled the carpet out from under his main education policy. If all children in the first two years of every primary school are automatically on free school meals rather than those in need applying for them, where will the data come from to calculate the Pupil Premium? The only alternative I can think of is for schools to start collecting and verifying the income data of every parent of every child in those two years - an large extra administrative burden on schools and the Department for Education. Oops.
By Mark Wallace
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I wrote yesterday about the fundamental division within the Lib Dems between the Liberals and the SDP:
"Any political party is a coalition of sorts - we Conservatives certainly have plenty of tribes of our own, who disagree about plenty of issues. But Lib Demmery is a more divided creed than most.
Having been formed from a merger of two parties, it has never succeeded in bringing the left and centre any closer together. The rift extends to the social level as well as just the ideological - you don't see many deficit hawks hanging out over beers with the Keynesian wing of the party."
I didn't expect their conference in Glasgow to provide a more vivid demonstration of this than the economy debate, but an anonymous MP on the Liberal side of the divide has helpfully provided a confirmatory quote to The Sun's Tom Newton Dunn:
“We should boot out Vince Cable from the party. Him, and all the SDP lot. The merger hasn't worked."
Any party has its disagreements, but this of a different order - and it isn't going away.
By Harry Phibbs
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Watching the Lib Dem conference it is easy to sneer.
There is the self importance - which despite being a Party of Government still feels absurd as the tedious procedural amendments are deliberated upon.
There are all the contortions as speakers praise the Government but attack the Conservatives. There are all those speakers combining earnestness with eccentricity. There is something about the Lib Dem Party Conference which makes the jokes especially painful and indignation especially vacuous.
Yet beneath the surface an ideological contest is taking place which - curioiusly enough - the liberals seem to be winning.
The majority of activists still lean towards state control rather than free markets. But the classical liberal fight back continues. It began with the publication of the Orange Book essays in 2004 and was boosted by the coalition agreement with the Conservatives in 2010.
This year it has been given further impetus with the publication of Coalition and Beyond: Liberal reforms for the decade ahead. It includes a mildly encouraging foreward from Nick Clegg.
It is full of radical proposals. For example Nick Thornsby calls for a regional minimum wage as "setting an artificially high minimum wage in the poorest areas, where business activity already tends to be limited, makes workers in those areas less attractive still to businesses looking to recruit: it weakens their comparative advantage."
Alison Goldsworthy calls on the state to go on "a progressive diet" slashing welfare payments to the rich including Child Benefit and the Winter Fuel Allowance.
Lib Dem MP Stephen Lloyd urges his Party to back the Work Programme and a further emphasis on reducing benefit dependency and to present this in positive terms.
The Lib Dem councillor Tom Papworth calls for the repeal of the Town and Country Planning Act and to replace it with a greatly liberalised and highly localised regime.
Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute has a piece on "bleeding heart libertarianism" including drug liberalisation, freer migration and negative income tax.
In the opposing camp are the Social Liberal Forum. This is the faction for the egalitarian, social democrats.
They like to talk a lot about William Beveridge implying (surely falsely) that he would resist scaling back of the welfare state from the extraordinary size it has reached. Their council includes the Lib Dem MPs Julian Huppert, Adrian Sanders, John Pugh and Andrew George.
Last year the SLF published a paper with a foreward by Will Hutton claiming that free market capitalism was "dead" and that a "Plan C" was needed. They were quite clear that economic growth would not be achieved otherwise:
"Because it focussed narrowly on direct measures to reduce the deficit and did not attempt to address the underlying causes of weak growth in jobs and output. The precipitous falls in tax receipts during and since the recession will continue unless a stimulus that outweighs the austerity and the ‘automatic stabilisers’ such as increased welfare spending is forthcoming."
Only a "significant departure" from the spending cuts being undertaken would allow growth to return. This was due to "the effects of spending cuts themselves – including job losses, increased welfare spending and reduction of aggregate demand."
Another paper they produced declared that "competition as a driver for school improvement" was being pursued "through costly structural changes to schools in England." The paper said there was no evidence it would have "impact on overall pupil attainment...Yet competition can increase stakeholder anxiety, impact negatively on teacher morale and pit school against school."
As the ideologists continue there argument the disadvantage for the SLF crowd is that events are proving them wrong. The policies they opposed are ones that have produced achievements for the coalition government of which their party is a member of. The spirit of William Gladstone and Jo Grimond is being revived.
By Mark Wallace
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Further evidence of Ed Balls' miserabilist tendencies in today's Mail on Sunday:
Defence spokesman Jim Murphy threw down the gauntlet by insisting that the party had to revise its message now that the economy was clearly recovering.
He clashed with Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls by insisting Labour could no longer argue the economy was ‘flat-lining’ – a taunt made famous by Mr Balls.
Sources say the Shadow Chancellor retorted that there was no guarantee the economic upturn would last.
That's right, the man setting Labour's economic policies sees the UK's failure as key to his own success. Stick to the same old line and hope for the worst.
No wonder he seemed overjoyed when times were bad - and he seems so frustrated now that the economy is ticking up.
By Mark Wallace
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Our deadly enemies good friends over at LabourList have just put out an appeal on Facebook. They're holding a karaoke night at Labour Conference and are inviting suggestions for top tracks to sing, so I thought ConHome could make a few suggestions to help them out.
It's a tricky task. A year ago, I imagine Plan B was pretty popular, but now he's off the playlist for obvious reasons.
Instead, here are the top ten tracks to really encompass the spirit of the Labour Party in 2013:
10) Red Red W(h)ine
Ok, so I've taken a small liberty with the spelling, but since when did good English have to stand in the way of a worthwhile pun?
It used to be Cameron going red in the face at PMQs while the Shadow Chancellor did that "flatlining" gesture - now it's Ed Balls blushing on the economy.
8) You Won't Get Me I'm Part of the Union
Two months ago, Unite's behaviour in Falkirk was the "death throes of the old politics", according to Ed MIliband. Now the suspended union officials are restored, the union is cleared of all charges and everything is fine. Teflon doesn't come close.
I know he hasn't been Prime Minister for three years, but it was too good an opportunity to miss.
Just look at that poll, Ed. Ouch.
Canadian one-hit-wonders they might be, but the perfect title/band name combo. I would have gone for the punk band McClusky, but none of the songs are publishable on a family website.
See 5)
3) Money's Too Tight to Mention - by Simply Red
I'm pretty sure Mick Hucknall didn't have the GMB affiliation fee in mind when he wrote this, or when he named his band, but if the cap fits...
2) Wannabe
Prime Minister? Zigazig-no.
Because they can, right? Right?
By Mark Wallace
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Readers may recognise the two faces above. One is an ancient, grumpy and rather self-centred creature which claims to know secrets unavailable to ordinary mortals. The other is the Psammead, from Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It.
The cantankerous Psammead promises its audience that their fantastical wishes can come true - and then brings them crashing down to earth within a few hours. His uneasy coalition with the five children who discover it living in a sand pit is an uneasy one - without him, they would never be able to go on their adventures, but in return they have to put up with his constant grumblingand the limits of his powers.
I suspect you're starting to see that the resemblance with Vince extends beyond the eyebrows.
The Business Secretary is playing out his Psammead role again today. Only a couple of days since George Osborne's positive headlines about the progress the economy is making, and there is more good news from the employment statistics today, but Vince has brought the dark clouds rolling back in.
He has taken up Labour's line of warning about Government complacency, an implicit criticism of George Osborne, and repeated his demands that the Coalition pursue his preferred industrial strategy. Not content with deliberately raining on the Chancellor's parade (which was nowhere near as wildly optimistic as Vince suggests), he would only say that Ed Balls was wrong on "much" of his critique - and that as a reluctant response. Is it really so hard to say that Balls has been wrong on every point - or is Cable trying to keep his options open for a later date?
Cable then went on to back Sarah Teather and criticise Theresa May's immigration policies.
The thing with Psammeads is they are always difficult to please. In the film adaptation of Nesbit's tale, he tells the children:
"I will grant you your wishes. But I have a list of demands. My needs are minimal, but what I need is a state room, with a sunken bath, and those taps that go backwards and forwards. And I need a toothbrush made of gold. Not the bristles, of course, but the bit you hold. Gold bristles would hurt my gums, you see. Did that once. Anyway, I'd like white sand spread on the floor, preferably sand from the Bahamas. And a shower cap."
Perhaps if George Osborne could provide that modest list, our wishes might start to come true.
By Harry Phibbs
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It is difficult to say how anyone could regard the Labour leader Ed Miliband's speech to the TUC this morning as a triumph. How wasn't cheered enough - the reception was lacklustre. So he could not claim to be inspiring and motivated his core supporter.
But now was he booed enough either. This wasn't a Kinnock moment - of the type when his predecessor confronted the Militant Tendency.
The only really rousing point came when a questioner said he was confusing.
I got under way with a reference to the Conservative Prime Minister Lord Derby legalising the trade unions. He was the 14th Earl of Derby said Mr Miliband pointedly. (When you think about the Labour leader is the 14th Mr Miliband.) But Lord Derby name was Edward. Would he be called "Red Ed" today for saying trade unions should be legal. Er, no.
Mr Miliband went on to say he was "proud of the link" with the trade unions but then said he wanted the Labour Party to have the "courage to change it":A new relationship with individual trade union members.
Some people ask: what’s wrong with the current system?
Let me tell them: we have three million working men and women affiliated to our party.
But the vast majority play no role in our party.
They are affiliated in name only.
However he didn't set out any more details on the terms for "opting in" rather than "opting out" of the political levy. How would it work?
As I understand the change proposed by Mr Miliband means that somebody who chose not to opt in would not be able to keep their £3 a year which was hitherto going to the Labour Party. The money would continue to go into the union's political fund. It could still end up funding particular Labour candidates or campaigns - but only those a union approved of. It is just that it wouldn't into general Party funds. That was Michael Gove's interpretation and is has not been seriously challenged.
Another subject of the speech was zero hours contracts. Mr Miliband said a Labour Government would restrict them. But he didn't say they would abolish them. Nor did he address he question of why wait for a Labour Government? Why don't Labour councils, such as his local council Doncaster, get on with it? After all they top the league for using these contracts - including in the ways that he apparently wishes to end.
During questions he was asked about free schools and said:
"Let's be clear we are not going to have new free schools under a Labour Government."
Is that clear? Not really. Unless the policy has changed since June it is to have more of them but that they should be called "parent-led academies."
That muddle from Mr Miliband is typical. The result is exasperating even for his own supporters.
By Mark Wallace
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Ed Miliband's increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the unions has many facets: the potential perverting of democracy, the gloomy prospects for Labour's finances, the insights into Miliband's weak character and weaker authority, the list goes on.
Left wing optimists would argue that in the long run it makes little difference to the electorate. "It's a Westminster bubble story", Owen Jones mutters to himself as he tries to sleep.
That may be true in part. The story has many twists and turns, claims and counter-claims, and most people have more important things to do than follow it closely. However, Falkirk worried Miliband enough to try to tackle it, so even Labour think the issue has some cut through. By the same token, his failure in attempting to deal with the problem will reach some of the electorate and cause damage.
Whether people follow the detail or not, though, the symptoms of the row will reach everyone.
A clear, direct strategy is absolutely essential in any communications, but particularly in politics. Blair's New Labour strategy was written on one sparse page - from its overriding message to the tactical messages that flowed from it. Election winners tend to be able to sum up what they are about in one sentence - and that clarity means everyone else, friend or foe, can do so, too.
A clear strategy makes a campaign focused, concise and free of stumbling blocks.
The union row, and his failure to emerge from it victorious, means Miliband now cannot create and pursue such a strategy (even if he was capable of doing so in the first place).
He knows that for a strategy to be created in simplicity and to remain so when it is implemented, there must be a clear chain of command with one ultimate authority. His need to keep the union leaders happy, and the ever-present threat of them intervening publicly, makes such organisation impossible.
He knows that the messages used must be in keeping with the strategy and targeted at the right audiences. But his internal political and financial conflictsforce him to adopt messages that the public dislike, such as on welfare reform.
He knows that the troops implementing a strategy on the ground must be loyal to its architects and its aims. But Unite and others now boast of "their" MPs, and have reportedly tried to seize ever more influence within a number of Constituency Labour Parties.
There is an old military maxim: order plus counter-order equals disorder. Thanks to his failure to deal with Labour's trade union problem, Ed Miliband is about to demonstrate how true that saying is.
By Paul Goodman
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The deal seems to be that Karie Murphy is reinstated as a Labour member (which pleases Len McCluskey), that she withdraws from the contest for the Party's Parliamentary candidacy in Falkirk (which pleases Ed Miliband) and that Labour says that there is no proof of wrongdoing either by them or Unite - which will delight McClusky and embarrass Miliband, who denounced Unite's behaviour in Falkirk as "a politics that was closed. A politics of the machine. A politics that is rightly hated. What we saw in Falkirk" - the Labour leader concluded, as recently as July - "is part of the death-throes of the old politics".
To which the only proper response can be that the old politics seems to be alive and well this morning. Michael Crick's tweet at the top of this piece reports that witnesses to wrongdoing were allegedly persuaded to withdraw evidence under pressure: Miliband will be well aware of these claims. He evidently decided that, with the TUC Conference looming next week, it was better for him to suffer a final embarrassment over Falkirk yesterday than remain exposed to it during the coming week. And as Dan Hodges points out, "the Falkirk constituency stays in special measures, McCluskey’s favoured candidate will not be contesting the seat". So although Miliband is embarrassed by the deal, he isn't humiliated.
The problem for the Labour leader is that voters, in so far as they are following the Falkirk story at all, won't grasp the niceties: all they'll see is that Miliband said something was badly wrong in Falkirk...and that Labour has now told the world to move on - as far as Falkirk is concerned - and that there's nothing to see. The whole sorry business doesn't exactly project an image of strength, exactly the quality Miliband will need to see his proposed union funding reform plans through; exactly the quality which, on immigration and welfare and Leveson and Syria, he hasn't convinced voters that he possesses.