The New Front Bench

“Fresh” and “new”, words being floated around regarding Ed Miliband’s appointment of his new Shadow Cabinet. 

It is a move which can only be seen as a further attempt to move himself away from the traditional turf-war political battles which have severely damaged the Labour Party in recent years. Bringing forward political figures who never managed to find a spot on Gordon Brown’s front bench, such as Diane Abbott who is well known for her work with Michael Portillo on the BBC’s ‘This Week’ and for running against Ed Miliband in the recent Labour leadership contest. Abbott will be working under John Healey in his role as Shadow Health Secretary.
For the upcoming economic battle, which is sure to be the issue at the forefront of British politics for the next five years, Miliband has sent Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor. A figure to appease those in the Labour Party who have tarnished him with the “Red Ed” moniker, Johnson was backing David Miliband. With the spending review rapidly approaching on the 20th October, Alan Johnson will face a baptism by fire as the Labour Party deals with the huge package of cuts being assembled by the Coalition government.
As for the rest of the cabinet, Ed Balls, thought to be the main player for the role of Shadow Chancellor, has taken the position of Shadow Home Secretary, something he most probably resents considering he seemed destined to end up in the Treasury (Alan Johnson even joked that his first job as Chancellor would be to “pick up a primer of economics for beginners”). And Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls wife, has taken the position of Shadow Foreign Secretary, considered to be one of the most popular figures in the Labour Party (she certainly would have given the Miliband brothers a run for their money in the leadership contest had she run). Harriet Harmen retains her position as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, a role she has retained since 2007. And Sadiq Khan one of the most high profile Muslim MP’s and an early backer of Ed Milibands campaign for the leadership, taking his position as the Shadow Justice Secretary.
Looking at the cabinet as a whole its a bit of a mixed bag, whilst Ed Miliband may be positioning figures such as Diane Abbott to the front bench in order to inspire the media to brand him as “new” and “fresh”. It is important to realise that much of Milibands cabinet is far from “new” or “fresh”, figures like Alan Johnson are very much continuing the ‘Brownite’ era of Labour Party politics. The test of the new Shadow Cabinet will be the Spending Review on the 20th, putting Milibands new team to the test whether or not they can form a strong opposition.

An Audience with Nick Clegg

I voted for Nick Clegg: I’m sure many of you did. Recently I’ve been feeling very disappointed with his input over the last few months. I’m sure many of you have been feeling the same. Last week I sat down with around 250 people, mainly students, and gave his an opportunity to recover my faith in him and his party. 

So 60 minutes later, had Mr. Clegg changed my attitude towards him?
Much of my disappointment arises from the key policy pillars upon which my vote for the Liberal Democrats was based, but which were removed from the party’s manifesto once the coalition formed, electoral reform and the abolition of tuition fees.
Although running late, the deputy premier arrived with an energy that took me back to the election TV debates upon which the Lib Dem’s gained so much of their new found support. The Liberal Democrat leader handles a charisma foreign to many politicians and a skill in public speaking which far surpasses the monotony of Gordon Brown or the textbook style of David Cameron. Lets call it the ‘human touch’. The last time British politics had a leader who had policies and natural charisma was Tony Blair; the American equivalent is Barack Obama. Interestingly, the latter is facing similar problems with popularity that the Liberal leader is. But this ‘human touch’ is what transforms what could be a mundane 60 minute Q&A into a very personal experience.
Nick Clegg opened with a monologue to deal with the elephant in the room: the deficit. It was an impassioned call to arms that “we’re not gonna repeat the mistakes of the 1980’s” but at the same time we can no longer live in what Mr. Clegg called the “never-never-land economy”. And that we don’t want our children to have to pick up the tab for the mistakes we made, like the last generation did.
A fair comment, but unsurprisingly once the floor opened for questions Nick Clegg still faced scrutiny regarding the cuts expected to come on 20th October. Many people seemed concerned that Wales, having been hit by cuts in the ‘80s, would once again face substantial job losses. To this Mr. Clegg affirmed his belief that people are being over-reliant on public sector work, and that the Liberal-Conservative coalition was not about to repeat the mistakes of the Thatcherite government and have the “rug pulled out from under the feet of industry”.
Further delving into the issue of the deficit a question was asked regarding front-line services, and whether they might be hit by the attempts to cut the deficit. To this, Nick Clegg stated his belief that local communities should be able to allocate finances where they see fit, albeit with a smaller budgets for allocation, but a move he described as “quite radical”.
On the subject of defence Nick Clegg, in an especially passionate call whilst speaking to someone from a military family, argued that “we’re not gonna pull [financial] support from them, its simply not going to happen.” Stating that money is never well spent on big budget defence projects, he promised that the whole nation would be kept aware of how the money is being spent. Maybe have a word with Mr. Cameron about that big budget defence project, you know, Trident?
Although there were surprisingly few questions regarding students and student life, thankfully a few people sought answers to important issues. In response to a question regarding student debt, Mr. Clegg answered that the coalition was working to prevent students from being discouraged from going to university because of the levels of debt involved. Dropping hints as to the plans for some form of graduate tax imposed on students upon them leaving university, he refused to offer any details instead stating that details would be made available in coming weeks.
And what about the electoral reform promised by the Lib Dems at the election? Well for now we’ll have to be content with the recently passed bill on constitutional reform, which Nick Clegg seemed positive would calm our concerns with an equalling of constituency sizes and a commitment to a referendum on the alternate vote (a referendum with ever-diminishing chances of success). The deputy Prime Minister argued that these moves would destabilise the so-called MP’s ‘jobs for life’ and offer more turnover in constituencies, something which would bring about a more accountable Parliament.
Then came the question that I would have asked had I not been hurriedly writing down everything which Nick Clegg was saying. The gist of it “I voted Liberal, and I’m disappointed, was my vote wasted?” and his reply, “Judge us by what we do, not what the tabloids say we do.” To that he added that the wider picture was often obscured by those same media outlets. He then listed what he sees as the Liberal-Conservatives successes over the past four months. Legislation to reform the House of Lords; legislation to bring about electoral reform; bringing 900,000 people out of poverty by raising the tax thresholds for the poorest; introducing the Pupil Premium; linking pensions back with earnings and inflation (something scrapped by the last Tory government); introducing a levy on banks, and improving the protection of civil liberties. Quite a laundry-list of achievements, and something that the Liberal leader seemed openly proud of.
Nick Clegg’s replies were obviously short of actual figures, those being reserved for the announcement in mid-October. It will be interesting to compare the (mostly) vague answers given to the actual policy which emerges from Westminster. But one comment that suck with me was his belief that this wasn’t the ideal time for a party to come to power, and more so, to come to power as a coalition. But what the Liberal-Conservative coalition are bringing around is what Mr. Clegg describes as “plural diverse politics”.
So what do I think of Nick Clegg having seen him in action? Have I been converted back to ‘Cleggmania’? Well its quite amazing to hear how much he has done in only a short few months in government, and even more amazing to think that he is still being given such a bad name from his once loyal supporters. In my opinion Nick Clegg has made the decisions that just about anyone would have made in his position, the best decisions. Would we instead have preferred him to form a coalition with Labour? Or refuse to form a coalition at all, and open up another round of election campaigning? I think that sometimes his energy gives him the impression of being out of control, but after seeing him speak it reminds me of the quote “If you want a job done, get a busy person to do it”.
I can safely say that Nick Clegg has been very busy over the last few months and I’m looking forward to his achievements in the next few. Yea, he won me over...

A little controversy goes a long way

The pastor from a little-known extremist Baptist church in America took to the streets of Washington and burned a copy of the Koran, posting a video of the event on Youtube.

But this isn’t 2010, this is 2008, when the congregation of Westboro Baptist Chuch, Kansas (notorious for their homophobic picketing of the funerals of US soldiers), decided to bring further controversy to their church. However, this event attracted little media attention, no international outrage, no press conferences, no comments from the president. Nothing.
Sometimes it is good to give controversial, extremist figures a platform on which to hang themselves. I’ll point to last years spectacle of the BNP’s Nick Griffin on Question Time as a prime example, a party which was seeing a certain amount of popular growth, but failed to gain traction in the popular vote.
However, in this case the media has taken what should have been a sad and embarrassing display of religious extremism, Pastor Terry Jones burning a Koran alone in his back garden alone, and instead given Mr Jones a voice and a credible platform.
The rest of the story as they say is history, protests in Afghanistan, political outrage and finally insurmountable pressure on Mr Jones to cancel his hateful act against the worlds 1.2 billion Muslims.
But if he had not decided to cancel, it is safe to assume that lives would have been lost. And in my opinion, the media would have been to blame. Actions have consequences, and sensationalist headlines written purely to cause controversy and gain attention often lead to real people suffering.
And here’s the real issue, the media has great power in the modern world, but with this comes a responsibility as well. Sometimes the media stands on the right side of this line, allowing figures such as Nick Griffin and David Irving, a proponent of holocaust denial, to have their share of the limelight as it is often the best way to discredit them. Both figures had a radical reputations and controversial beliefs, both of which failed to stand up to scrutiny. However giving these figures a moment in the spotlight is not always the best way to deal with them, sometimes they just need to be ignored.
Want another example of the media hyping controversy? The recent debate over the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ has once again ignited an international debate. This is despite the fact that this Islamic Community Centre is being built two blocks away from ground zero, yet the media still refer to it as being a ground zero mosque’. And finally the media might want to remind themselves that there was a Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the World Trade Centre’s second tower, because some of those hard-working American men-in-suits who lost their lives on September 11th were in fact Muslim.
Now we all know that the media love a sensational story, however it is important to keep perspective. The tabloid headlines from these two stories have led to real-world suffering, peoples lives have been affected by the events caused by the media's hunt for sensationalism. When the countries 'free press' is largely comprised of re-written press releases handed out by a few large organisations such as the Press Association, the lack of actual journalistic research is staggering.
The message here is not to assume everything you read has been researched as thoroughly as you might have thought.

Make or Break for Labour

The former government have a new leader: will he be the icon that they need? Olly Smith looks at what the future holds for the Labour Party.

Last year I described Ed Miliband as the brother with “less experience”, however he has now quickly overtaken his older brother in the party hierarchy. David Miliband’s younger, ‘geeky’ brother has beaten him to the lead role in the Labour party following a hard fought leadership campaign, one of the closest ever in a party leadership contest.
But who is “the other Miliband” and what are the views of this political figure who constantly played second place behind his more popular and successful brother?
Ed entered the Labour party as a researcher and speechwriter for Harriet Harmen and subsequently Gordon Brown in 1994, gaining the branding of a ‘Brownite’. Whereas his brother entered the party as Tony Blair’s head of policy, a ‘Blairite’ if you like. This divide placed the two brothers on the opposing sides of what would become one of politics biggest soap-operas over the next decade. However these turf-wars helped develop Ed as a skilled diplomat, earning him praise in the ways in which he defused rows between the Treasury and Downing Street.
Eventually Ed made it to the cabinet under Gordon Brown’s short premiership eventually taking the position of Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change in 2008. In this role Ed developed a green following as he pushed for an almost radical stance on environmental policy, promising an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases and opposing a third runway at Heathrow.
And then came the leadership contest: the main pillars of Ed’s campaign revolved around the idea of a ‘living wage’ of more than £7 an hour, higher than the minimum wage of £5.85 an hour. Scrapping tuition fees to make university more affordable and available, but replacing them with a graduate tax, developing further environmental policies and protecting civil liberties. Because of his seemingly centre-left leadership promises many of the tabloid press has nick-named him ‘Red Ed’ and political commentators warning of a “lurch to the left” which Ed rejected in his first speech as the new Labour Party leader.
With the press favouring David Miliband as the front runner in the leadership struggle Ed’s chances looked slim, however after managing to secure the backing of the three biggest trade unions (GMB, Unison and Unite) and their voting members he just managed to beat his brother in the final round of voting.
So what does this mean for Politics and the Labour Party in general?
Whilst David Miliband’s leadership would probably have meant a continuation of New Labour, the Labour Party’s future under Ed Miliband is far less certain. All indications suggest that he will take it more towards the center-left than it was previously, this is probably the reason why Ed was able to gain such an impressive amount of union backing..
And what about parliamentary politics: will this new Labour leadership be able to stem Labours downward spiral of support in recent years? Gordon Brown’s premiership only a short while ago was largely accepted as a disaster for Labour, and the subsequent formation of the Liberal Conservative coalition gave everyone a party that no one wanted. I would argue that British Politics has shifted so far centre that the parties have collided, and a shift to the left for Labour would be no bad thing in terms of choice for the everyday voter.

Kim Jong-Who?

He came to power with a campaign that attributed him with superhuman powers (including the ability to manipulate the time and weather), he technically rules via the wishes of his dead father (whom he is a physical incarnation of) and he recently opened an account on twitter… Yes its Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader”. 

Now approaching 70, speculation is rife that Kim Jong-il is poised to name his son Kim Jong-Un as his successor, but who is this mysterious character that is set to take over one of the worlds 9 nuclear-equipped states.

As with all figures in North Korean politics, very little is known about Kim Jong-Un, few photos even exist of the young ruler-to-be and even his birthday (either 1982 or 1983) is a mystery. What is known of his history is that he studied at the International School of Berne in Switzerland under a false name and now works for North Korea’s national defence commission as well as being a member of parliament, again both under false names. And as for his personality, most of the information about him comes from Kim Jong-Il’s former sushi chef Kenji Fujimoto, who described him as “exactly like his father” sharing his “violent temper”.

Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un recently returned from a trip to China, being one of North Korea’s most important allies, it is believed that this trip was to seek support for Jong-Un to become Kim Jong-Il’s successor from the Chinese government. At the same time back in North Korea, Kim Jong-Il has been busy creating the same cult of personality for his son that surrounds him. From declaring his son’s birthday as a national holiday to encouraging his citizens to sing a ‘song of praise’ to his son, the newly declared “brilliant comrade” of North Korea.

With so little known about Kim Jong-Il and even less known about Kim Jong-Un, North Korean politics can sometimes feel like a bit of guesswork. However what experiences with other non-democratic regimes have taught us, Cuba being a prime example, is that with new leadership sometimes comes new direction.