Three homes Meacher for leader (please)

ConservativeHome has decided to nail its colours to the mast and give Michael Meacher its full backing to become Labour's next leader.  His article in today's Times - 'No More New Labour' - spelt out his manifesto:

• A return to the politics of old-style redistribution;
• A reversal of Michael Howard's 'prison works policy' through a "drastic" reduction in the prison population;
• Parliamentary ratification of all Prime Ministerial appointments to the Cabinet;
• The ruling out of the military option against Iran;
• A minimum 60% cut in carbon emmissions by 2050.

It'll be as if Tony Blair never happened.  Mr Meacher is typical of the 'others must live more simply environmentalism.'  The Daily Mail has previously exposed how he has three homes for his own personal use within a large property portfolio.  This is what he wrote twenty years ago:

"Housing is not, or should not be, a status symbol, an object of conspicuous consumption, or a source of market power or wealth.  It is a place where individuals and families should be able to live and inter-relate in mutual happiness.  Too many people have second homes or too large homes for their needs, while too many others are homeless or overcrowded or even lacking basic facilities."

Incredible hypocrisy.

Blair - our deadliest-ever political opponent - has confused the electoral landscape for more than fifteen years.  The end of his time in Number Ten will be a huge opportunity for Conservatives if Old Labour views come to prominence during the leadership election.  Labour still do not appreciate how central he was to their success.

Iain Dale has more on the increasingly negative race for the Deputy Labour Leadership.

Comments

[malcolm]

Poor old Meacher has no chance at all despite the backing of Conservative Home for which I assume he will be profoundly grateful!
Even 'though he's a hypocrite with all his homes compared to Blair and Brown he's an honest man. I hope the end of the Blair era will lead to a more unspun brand of politics in this country.
PS I thought I saw a pig flying over my office this morning.

[Sean Fear]

"Mr Meacher is typical of the 'others must live more simply environmentalism."

Prince Charles and Al Gore also fall into that category.

I partially agree with Meacher, to the extent that there are an awful lot of people who agree with what he claims to believe in, and they are currently disenfranchised. However, there aren't enough of them to win a Parliamentary majority.

If he were prepared to marry left wing beliefs on issues like redistribution, with right wing social beliefs, on immigration, for instance, he might be able to achieve that majority.

[Andrew Woodman]

What was that about long suicide notes!!

[Conservative Homer]

I concur. I could quite happily stomach upto 2 years of Meacher if only for the fact it practically guarantees 20 years of conservatism.

[comstock]

The above is a very one sided condensation of the article.I'll just take two of those.

A return to the politics of old-style redistribution
You don't say why, the answer being

The average pay of the chief executives of the top FTSE 100 companies is now £46,150 a week, 250 times the minimum wage and 500 times the state pension,

That is over 2 million a year! Quite frankly, if that figure is anywhere near true we should hang our heads in shame.

You were criticising local govt fat cats only the other day. A FTSE CEO would out earn the fattest of them in 3 weeks.

A reversal of Michael Howard's 'prison works policy' through a "drastic" reduction in the prison population;

Replacing it with secure units in the community where lesser offenders are required to attend compulsory courses on anger control, money management and parenting, and also to receive education and skills training and treatment for drug addiction and mental health needs, and are made to do unpaid work to repay the community.

I'm totally against being soft on crime, but this could be more effective than prison in some cases.'Prison works' in the sense of incapacitating the criminal, but I'm less convinced it works as rehablitation, nor am I that conviced of its deterent value.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Sean Fear, your last para, that is exactly what the BNP are doing, with some success.

[Sean Fear]

Comstock, high marginal tax rates (which I assume is what Meacher is proposing) don't catch the really rich - as they move offshore, engage in complex tax planning schemes etc. They do, however, hit the sort of people who are earning twice average earnings - to the detriment of the economy.

There is *something* in what Meacher says, insofar as a high concentration of wealth turns society into an oligarchy, and retards social mobility. However, the sort of policies Meacher likes would certainly entrench social immobility.

[Londoner]

It's very irresponsible of ConHome to back Meacher as he was obviously a red hot favourite to win before your backing, and you have now ruined his chances. Another example of self-indulgence on this site.

He would also have been a popular choice of Cabinet members because they had heard he had a nice home already and so thought he would have no need of No 10 or Chequers - but by showing that he COLLECTS homes it is now obvious that he would relish having five or six. Bang goes that top level support from all the Deputy Leadership contenders. The "Benn backs Meacher" headline from 1983 (?) will have to be put away again - is ConHome so primative that it doesn't even consider the devastation its recommendations will have on the best re-cycling initative since the Scots decided to recycle all that English money?

Unfortunately Meather doesn't have the PR flair to leak the unattributable comment suggested to him yesterday "Two 17 year olds - good God at his age I managed four or five, and used to pass the ugly ones onto John Prescott. What are young politicians made of these days?". Until he does, his campaign is doomed.

[comstock]

Labour still do not appreciate how central he (Tony Blair) was to their success.

Ah come on. You are not seriously trying to suggest the Tories could have won in 1997 if it wasn't for Blair? John Smith was totally electable, had he lived. Had Kinnock taken another 7 or 8 seats in 92 he might have stayed on and won the election which could not have been long in coming.

All pie in the sky now of course, but Labour is bigger than one man.

[john mcregor]

if you were from a long away planet, had just popped on to earth for lunch,and read that meacher was standing for the labour leadership,you would be laughing uncontrollably.returning to your planet with the news earth had gone stark raving mad.

if anybody watched the re-run of the 1992 election on bbc parliament,they will,if conservative by nature,feel that earth is a good place to be at the moment,and history does and will repeat itself.
the loony left are back,brown looks clapped out and he has not been pm yet.what fun.

[William Norton]

So we've given up on the "Draft Prescott" idea then?

[Oberon Houston]

Interesting that with the prospect of Blair going, the left, after 10 years wallowing in the power Blair handed them, feel the moment to get arrogant with public opinion and preach their predudices has come. Didn't thatcher once say that nothing has been so tested to destruction like socialism? Only those with a kind of religous zeal could delude themselves like this. The more they talk in public the happier I am!

[TFA Tory]

Those "Meacher" policies are disturningly similar to those proposed by David Cameron and Oliver Leftwing.

[Michael Rutherford]

I would like to confirm my support for Michael Meacher to be Labour leader.

The Labour left are particularly effective in hypocrisy. It is one negative thing that cannot be levelled against most Tories, Labour do excel in it.

I find it remarkable that any Labour MP could not realise that Blair is the best thing that ever happened to them.

[Anon.]

TFA Tory, if you honestly believe that Meacher and Cameron are similar, you're on another planet. There is moaning about how the party is not fascist and there is sheer ignorance.

[fair play]

Why should Des Browne get all the flak for the hostage mess, anyone in government will tell you he takes his orders from Gordon Brown.

[Umbrella Man]

Doesn't everyone, fair play?

[George Hinton]

Meacher is the old style apparatchik of those lovely Stalinist days....don't do as i do, but do as i say. Hypocrisy and cant go hand in hand with people of his ilk.
His election would do wonders for the collapse of Labour support, one just hopes that it doesn't go to the Lib-Dems.
I am pleased to hear that CH.com will be supporting his leadership campaign...it has my full support.

[Yet Another Anon]

After 2 or 3 years of Michael Meacher, David Cameron would either spend most of the following parliament reversing most of his nationalisations and expansions of spending, either that or he might even go all Heathite and on election actually build even further on what Michael Meacher had done, surely Conservative Home should be backing Charles Clarke who probably doesn't stand much more of a chance of becoming Labour leader and wouldn't particularily enthuse the General Public, but who wouldn't set about the sorts of radical reversals of Labour's 1997-2007 legacy and the previous legacy of 1979-97 that the other 2 current contenders to Gordon Brown would do to varying extents.

There would be defections in parliament if Michael Meacher was leader, but not enough to bring down the government early.

The signs still are that Gordon Brown will become leader (John McDonnell failing to get on the ballot leaving Charles Clarke and Michael Meacher scraping on but getting hammered, I imagine that Charles Clarke will retire as a n MP at the 2009 General Election) and that both main parties will increase their votes and numbers of seats and the Liberal Democrats will have a major setback when it comes to the 2009 General Election.

[Yet Another Anon]

The "Benn backs Meacher" headline from 1983 (?) will have to be put away again
Tony Benn is campaigning for John McDonnell to win the Labour leadership, in 1994 he came out and said Roy Hattersley should be Labour leader, think he backed John Smith in 1992.

[Phil Whittington]

Surely ConHome appreciates that every Prime Minister needs a London home, a constituency home and an Alec Douglas Home?

[IRJMilne]

Meacher has no chance because:

1. He is too left wing for the right of the Labour Party
2. John McDonnell is a more credible figure on the left of the party and got his campaign off the mark first
3. Michael Meacher is a fundamentally risible figure

On his policies as summarised meanwhile;
redistribution is always Labour policy; a reduction in prison population would theoretically be desireable, though I wouldn't believe he could sensibly do it until it was clearly demonstrated that I was wrong in my assumption that this is impossible. Parliamentary ratification of all Prime Ministerial appointments to the Cabinet would be a formality, and less sofa-style presidential government might not be a disaster. Ruling out the military option against Iran is a pointless thing to do, though it wouldn't be very harmful, as the US would still threaten Iran; a minimum 60% cut in carbon emmissions by 2050 is an uncosted "politician's promise", the failure of which would not be apparent til long after Meacher left office.

[Angelo Basu]

And a Willy?

[Editor]

Thank you Phil! Thank you Angelo!

[Yet Another Anon]

Parliamentary ratification of all Prime Ministerial appointments to the Cabinet would be a formality
If there is a vote on each one then there is the possibility of parliament, even one where one party has a majority, rejecting some of the choices - Tony Benn and Norman Tebbit might both have found people in their own parties voting against them being included in the cabinet, in a situation in which there is a minority government it could make things almost impossible - George W. Bush and President Ahmadinejad have both found their chosen candidates vetoed by respectively the US Congress and the Iranian Parliament.

[IRJMilne]

Fair point. It struck me immediately as a non-idea aimed at addressing the pressing need for votes from those unhappy about the sort of government Blair runs. Obviously, it wouldn't address that but I thought that's the target Meacher was aiming at. It would hardly be in his interests as a "left-winger" to encourage a system likely to see him and his ilk excluded from government.

[Matt Davis]

"Parliamentary ratification of all Prime Ministerial appointments to the Cabinet would be a formality"

"If there is a vote on each one then there is the possibility of parliament, even one where one party has a majority, rejecting some of the choices"

Not with the inevitable three line whip imposed there isn't I'm afraid. This is a non promise that will change nothing at all but looks good on a manifesto. Much like Labour in general really.

Obviously though we would like to see a left wing Labour leader since they are at their least electable with a left winger at the helm and, like so many of the left, they just don't seem to be able to learn the lessons of history and accept that fact.

Oh and btw Comstock there really is nothing wrong with FTSE top execs earning a lot of money since they are the people who create the wealth that pays all of the people who work for them and which the likes of you love to overtax and then waste so lavishly, mainly on yourselves. The difference between wealth creators like those you criticise and Local Govt fat cats is that without the wealth creators there is no economy and no decent society for people to live in, as experienced by all those subjugated in the communist and socialist "paradises" of eatern and central europe. The wealth creators are essential to that general wellbeing but the local govt bigwigs are not generating very much at all useful and they do it all on other people's extorted money.Ultimately your argument that there is anything shameful about FTSE top 100 executive pay is simply the deeply distasteful and small minded politics of envy and nothing more than that.

[Yet Another Anon]

Not with the inevitable three line whip imposed there isn't I'm afraid. This is a non promise that will change nothing at all but looks good on a manifesto.
At the moment there is little that the House of Commons can do with regard to individual ministers as they come as part of a package with the PM, if the House of Commons can accept or reject individual ministers then there will be bigger votes for or against particular ministers in the belief that the government would not make it a matter of confidence in the government, some parties might allow a free vote on the selection of ministers.

[comstock]

the wealth creators are essential to that general wellbeing but the local govt bigwigs are not generating very much at all useful and they do it all on other people's extorted money.

Try living for a month without supporting, directly or indirectly,any FTSE 100 company. You will see that the senior directors wealth is actually based on our hard work, not the other way around.

[Mark Fulford]

"You will see that the senior directors wealth is actually based on our hard work..."

Everybody’s wealth is paid for by other people. Your point seems to be that FTSE 100 directors get paid too much for what they do.

In my opinion, I need to buy food, power, medicines, etc – and that’s what my hard work pays for. The directors at the FTSE 100 get paid by maintaining a successful company in a competitive environment. If you look at the facts, you’ll find that they do so at less senior-management overhead than most smaller companies. Take Tesco as an example:

Tesco directors were paid £12.6 million in 2006.
Tesco employs around 380,000 people worldwide.
The cost of directors per employee is £33 per annum.

The left should be arguing that the bigger the company, the less fat-cat directors per noble employee.

That said, I don’t disagree that the link between pay and performance is sometimes lost at the top.

[Conservative Homer]

Maybe ConHome could set up a 'Tories for Meacher website' a bit like 'libdems for cameron'?

[Ash Faulkner]

"All pie in the sky now of course, but Labour is bigger than one man."

I think you'll find that isn't the case. Who else in the party has the leadership quality and political skill of Blair? None of them do. When Blair leaves, the ship will start sinking...though I fear the blue ship put in it's place won't be much different.