The Thin End

Labour has rarely been kind to the party's former leaders.   The memberships, or activists at least, are quick to slate them as 'traitors'.  Decades later, the view is different. This was certainly so with Harold Wilson who was despised on the right of the party and abandoned by the left.  Labour tends to over-state its failures and minimise its successes.   Now we look back and see how successful Wilson was in the circumstances of his time. This has also been so with Tony Blair.  The record of Tony Blair's government is remarkable by any standard.  His sin, for the left of Labour, was that he hunted with the hare and the hounds.  He set out to make capitalism work better.  It was a laudable aim and his achievements were considerable. Blair's government massively increased funding of the NHS and waiting lists and times tumbled.  It made inroads in reducing child poverty with targetted policies.  It reduced pensioner poverty.  ...

Boris Johnson is running from an interview with Andrew Neil on BBC.  He also strangely avoided an interview on Channel 4, the climate debate, and is also declining interviews on ITV. The truth is, we are not seeing that much of Boris Johnson.  He prefers the set-piece photo opportunity, spending more time talking to infants than to voters.   On several occasions when he has met voters, they have taken him to task over the Tory record in government. It is little wonder he is avoiding debate. In Andrew Neil's interview with Nigel Farage, the point was rightly made by Farage that Boris Johnson's Brexit 'deal' was not being debated in the election.  Indeed, although Boris likes the slogan 'getting Brexit done', he avoids talking about his deal. There are good reasons for this.  It is a bad deal.  He knows it, and Farage tells him it is.  It is a bad deal whether you want to remain in the EU or leave it.   It is yet another issue about which Bo...

The establishment is rattled, not so much that they believe Jeremy Corbyn will win the general election, but that the circumstances might arise where he leads a minority administration and gets the keys to Downing Street. The Tories have a substantial lead in the opinion polls, but Corbyn appears to be edging up. The establishment don't like it. It makes them nervous. The wealthiest are threatening to leave, just as Corbyn challenges their ascendancy. The wealthiest are called 'wealth creators', the poorest are called...well we can leave that to the Tories, but remember the division they tried to create between 'strivers' and 'skivers'? It is, of course, the Tories who are 'unfit' to govern because they don't govern for everyone. They are happy to keep in place a system where inequality and poverty benefit the wealthiest. That is now the establishment. If Corbyn edges up in the polls, the more likely it is that demographic difference...

The poll that matters in this general election is the one on the 12th December when voters go to the polling stations or vote by post.   The opinion polls are unlikely to be giving an accurate reflection of what that vote will be. The country is more divided now than at any time in a generation.  Indeed, it is divided generationally.   Younger voters tend to be more radical and internationalist than the older generation.     How these voters vote, and whether they do vote, may determine the outcome.   Labour has a big lead amongst younger voters.  The Tories have a big lead amongst older people. But the country is also divided geographically.  This is why taking samples across the country and weighting them is more tricky than ever. What can be discerned is that the Tories are picking up Brexit party voters.  The drop of support for The Brexit Party is mirrored by the increase indicated for the Tories in polling.   But how that imp...

Being 'neutral' in any people's vote may be a game-changer. We suspect there is a nervousness creeping into the Tory party election HQ.   They have, it seems, a commanding lead in the opinion polls.  It should see them through.  Could Jeremy Corbyn's Labour pull it back? If you set out to paint your opponent as 'unfit' to be prime minister, this creates a problem when the more voters see him, he comes across as eminently reasonable.   This is what happened with Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.  It could happen again, and the next week will indicate whether this is happening. Since the election was called,  Labour has been closing the gap, slowly.   Their manifesto launch went well, and Jeremy Corbyn has performed well in both the head-to-head debate with Boris Johnson and on  BBCQT.   Boris bumbled his way through.  There wasn't exactly a knock-out blow, but focusing on Brexit is wearing thin when voters are beginning to express concern abou...

A deal is still the best way forward.  A no-deal Brexit would threaten the United Kingdom itself.  Scotland is more likely to break free. Northern Ireland, if it hasn't fallen back into the chaos of the "troubles", will likely seek closer ties with the Republic. Boris's substitute for the backstop would hand control of our relationship with the EU to the Northern Ireland assembly, which in any event is currently suspended.  But at least it acknowledges the need for a deal, even if it is a cynical ploy to put the blame for rejection on the EU.   We could say "so what!" to all this. Let the United Kingdom break-up. But this was surely not what the EU referendum was about.   None of us voted for a constitutional crisis.  Yet, we are in the midst of one.  We are forever told that the United Kingdom voted "as a whole". Nothing could be further from the truth. There was nothing "whole" about it.   We are now a fragmenting country, ...

Another opportunity missed? It seems that opposition parties still cannot agree on a possible caretaker prime minister in the event of Boris Johnson losing a confidence vote in parliament. The failure to put aside party advantage is decisive.  Constitutionally, it would be right for the Queen to ask the Leader of the Opposition if he could form a government.  The Labour party received 41% of the vote in the general election.   By all accounts, the SNP would support him. It is easy enough to conjure alternative names out of a hat: Margaret Beckett, Ken Clarke.  But these are desperate attempts to avoid Jeremy Corbyn entering No 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. Why should they want to do that?  Isn't stopping a 'no-deal' Brexit more critical? Jo Swinson, the LibDem leader, says it is because "he is unfit to govern."   One wonders why she considers Jeremy Corbyn less able than Boris Johnson, or even herself.  No, it is for party advantage. ...

Boris Johnson is accused of using divisive language and stirring up hatred.  He doesn't care, because the division is precisely the current Tory strategy.   The Johnson strategy is the country will divide on Brexit lines; yes, he could lose some soft-Brexit Tories, but they hope to sweep up those who voted for The Brexit Party.  It is a strategy of going for broke.  What they lose on the swings they hope to gain on the roundabouts. The LibDems have also gone for broke.  They hope to gain from the division on Brexit lines, with Remainers deserting Labour.   Labour it is feared will be squeezed in the middle. Labour's only hope in a general election is that a sufficient number of remain voters will see that the only way to stop Brexit is to have a people's vote.  For that, a sensible and credible deal is needed. So, currently, the proposition for voters is: Vote Tory for a no-deal Brexit; vote LibDem to stop Brexit; or vote Labour for a negotiate...

The sovereignty of parliament is at the heart of the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom.  It is the key element of our democracy as it has evolved.  We elect our representatives to hold the government to account, and the government is accountable to parliament for its actions.   Parliament is our legislative body.  Governments are formed from parliament and are answerable to it. This is not an invention to thwart Brexit.  It is how our democracy works.  At the last election, all the major parties campaigned accepting the vote to leave in the EU referendum, but they also were committed in their manifestos to doing so with a deal that would protect jobs and our security.   The majority voted for parties committed to a Brexit deal.  Labour's was a customs arrangement and alignment with the single market.   The LibDems offered a similar approach. Accepting the EU referendum result and outlining the type of arrang...

Jeremy Corbyn's position on a Brexit deal is a sensible one, whether or not people agree with it.  But no doubt it will be criticised from all sides.  Corbyn is set to frustrate those who wish for an entrenched position on either side of the fence. They want it all to be simple.  Either you are in or out.  Corbyn now asks an interesting question: shouldn't we wait and see what deal can really be achieved with proper negotiation?  He also dares to suppose that, with the right kind of arrangement with the EU, we "could be" better off out.   Note that he doesn't say we would be.  He simply thinks we should consider it.  After all, if we could get a "good" deal, it might make it possible to heal a divided country and rescue the United Kingdom from a constitutional crisis. Today on BBCs Marr show he teased out the distinction between those who support the EU as a matter of principle and those who want to remain but do not like the move to...

Brexit negotiations have begun?  That seems an odd question after three years of negotiation and a deal that was struck.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks of non-existent reopening of these talks.  Yet, nobody in Brussels has seen any plan.  No details have been offered, other than a demand that the EU 'drop the backstop' for the Irish border, and this is all typical of the deception that is Boris Johnson.   He blusters in the House of Commons accusing others of 'betrayal' or 'surrender'. The problem is not that politicians lie to us. The problem is that they have not the courage to tell us what we don't like to hear. The government knows Brexit will hurt millions of people in the UK, but they won't acknowledge it. They know it is set to seriously harm our economy and competitiveness in the world but won't tell us. They can't tell us the reality because it would destabilise the markets. So we are stuck in fantasy land. We go on with the b...

The UK government is to ask the Queen to prorogue parliament. It is another move in the game of chess that is Brexit. The stakes are high. Yesterday opposition leaders in parliament agreed to find ways to take hold of the parliamentary agenda so that they could pass legislation to halt a no-deal Brexit. No deal is the default position. All Boris Johnson needs to do is to sit tight and prevent parliament from voting and there will be a no-deal Brexit on 31 October. There is a lot of shouting about parliamentary coups and constitutional crisis. No doubt there will be a legal challenge in the courts. But the sad truth is No-Dealers have the upper hand. That is why Boris Johnson is in No 10 as Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the opposition scurries around and, frankly, can't get their act together. They are still too busy moving their pawns around and ignoring the possibility of CheckMate. What Johnson is doing by proroguing parliament is castling to defend his position. That is...