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I don’t agree with Ed Balls on everything, but he’s by far the best leader of the Labour party we’ve got on offer.

He’s also the best leader the Labour party has got to offer its more leftwing membership.

This is a bold claim, I recognise. Certainly, it’s not one I expected to be making when the campaign started in June, and it needs justification.

First and foremost, Ed Balls is an economist by training and trade, and understands better than any of the other candidates that at the heart of proper leftwing politics lies the question of the reordering of economic relations between the those with money, and those without.

2010, when Ed Balls seeks the leadership, is not 1994, when Tony Blair sought and won it.

In 1994, the economy was nearing its best point in the capitalist economic business cycle, and over the next few years new Labour had the luxury of, effectively, not having to worry about the economy as I went about its business.

Thus, we ended up with a Prime Minister who simply didn’t understand economics, and whose basic instruction to his new chancellor Gordon Brown was not to start tinkering with the current economic relationships between capital and labour, but just pass the readies over when they were needed.

Under Blair, income inequality and poverty became technical issues, not political issues. The establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit in 1997, with its 17 different ‘Policy Action Teams’ made up of a host of experts on housing, drugs, education etc., reflected this move to a technocracy operating within and never questioning the economic basics.

2010 is not 1994. Now there is a huge threat to the working class, but there is also an opportunity to put the economic relations between capital and labour back at the very heart of the Labour party.

To do this, we need to be clear right now about deficit spending, in the way that Ed Balls has become increasingly clear in recent weeks, culminating in this statement in the my interview with him:

I’m not sure that a deficit goal is the right goal. I think that maintaining confidence for servicing debt makes much more sense. The right way to do that is to have a strong and growing economy. That’s why I don’t think there’s a problem with deficit financing at this stage in the economic cycle.

We need to be even clearer.

Deficit spending is a supremely political act of democracy, because it shows that it is the democratically elected body of the state which directs – through its judicious manipulation of the money supply – the overall use of resources.

In taking this role away from capital – who have managed it so badly to date – there is a clear statement of who is in control. The economic becomes the political.

Of all the candidates, only Ed Balls understands this relation between the political and the economic (although I suspect he is still grappling with the consequences). It is only Ed Balls, therefore, who can be an effective opposition leader in the terms the Left wants opposition to happen – a serious challenge to the existing economic status quo.

And just as Brown was powerless to change the economic status quo (even had he wanted to) under the fundamentally conservative instructions of his political master Blair, so will Balls be powerless under the same kind of politics-without-the-basics leadership of either of the Milibands.

2010 is not 1994, and in some ways we are better for that, because the choice is clearer: we need someone who understands the politics of economics in the top job, not acting as a lackey to someone who doesn’t.

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A longer version of this article is at Though Cowards Flinch

The explosive New York Times story is mostly about the News of the World and its practices.

But it is also, perhaps more significantly, about Scotland Yard and how it conducted investigations during the episode. Here is what it has written about Scotland Yard (quoted from the paper, emphasis mine).

#1 Scotland Yard collected evidence indicating that reporters at News of the World might have hacked the phone messages of hundreds of celebrities, government officials, soccer stars — anyone whose personal secrets could be tabloid fodder. Only now, more than four years later, are most of them beginning to find out.

#2 Additional cases are being prepared, including one seeking a judicial review of Scotland Yard’s handling of the investigation. The litigation is beginning to expose just how far the hacking went, something that Scotland Yard did not do.

#3 In fact, an examination based on police records, court documents and interviews with investigators and reporters shows that Britain’s revered police agency failed to pursue leads suggesting that one of the country’s most powerful newspapers was routinely listening in on its citizens.

#4 Scotland Yard even had a recording of Mulcaire walking one journalist — who may have worked at yet another tabloid — step by step through the hacking of a soccer official’s voice mail, according to a copy of the tape. But Scotland Yard focused almost exclusively on the royals case, which culminated with the imprisonment of Mulcaire and Goodman.

#5 “There was simply no enthusiasm among Scotland Yard to go beyond the cases involving Mulcaire and Goodman,” said John Whittingdale, the chairman of a parliamentary committee that has twice investigated the phone hacking. “To start exposing widespread tawdry practices in that newsroom was a heavy stone that they didn’t want to try to lift.” Several investigators said in interviews that Scotland Yard was reluctant to conduct a wider inquiry in part because of its close relationship with News of the World.

#6 Scotland Yard’s narrow focus has allowed News of the World and its parent company, News International, to continue to assert that the hacking was limited to one reporter.

#7 Scotland Yard had chosen to notify only a fraction of the hundreds of people whose messages may have been illegally accessed — effectively shielding News of the World from a barrage of civil lawsuits.

#8 Scotland Yard also had a symbiotic relationship with News of the World. The police sometimes built high-profile cases out of the paper’s exclusives, and News of the World reciprocated with fawning stories of arrests.

#9 That fall, Andy Hayman, the head of the counterterrorism branch, was in his office when a senior investigator brought him 8 to 10 pages of a single-spaced “target list” of names and mobile phone numbers taken from Mulcaire’s home…. The prosecutor was stunned to discover later that the police had not shared everything.

[Note: Andy Hayman has since written on several occasions for the Times]

#10 Scotland Yard officials ultimately decided the inquiry would stop with Mulcaire and Goodman. “We were not going to set off on a cleanup of the British media,” a senior investigator said. In fact, investigators never questioned any other reporters or editors at News of the World about the hacking, interviews and records show.

#11 The woman and other potential hacking victims said that by sitting on the evidence for so long, the police have made it impossible to get information from phone companies, which do not permanently keep records. “It was disingenuous, to say the least, for Scotland Yard to say that,” the woman said.

#12 Three plaintiffs are jointly seeking a judicial inquiry into Scotland Yard’s handling of the hacking case.

West Bromwich East MP Tom Watson yesterday declared that his second preference would go to Ed Miliband.

Tom Watson has been a key ally and supporter of Ed Balls from the start of his campaign.

He tweeted yesterday:

I want a society where Freedom of Information Act is just the start. Thought long and hard. Am backing @Ed_miliband with 2nd preference.

He later added:

It’s a tough call but he’s open minded, good with people and proved his strength.

The mention of FOI is likely to have been about Tony Blair (who implicitly endorsed David Miliband yesterday) declaring that he regretted the FOI Act.

YouGov’s daily tracker of the Coalition’s approval rating yesterday dove sharply to -4% (approve 38%, disapprove 42%).

Voting intentions were at: Con 43%, Lab 37%, LD 12%

It’s the first time that the Coalition’s negative rating has fallen beyond the 3% margin of error.

And yet not a single media outlet or right-winger is asking whether the Coalition has over-reached itself and is turning of independent voters. Bizarre, they seem to do that quickly for their political opposition.

Conservative voters have broadly remained loyal to the government’s ideological agenda.

It’s the Libdems who keep bleeding support. Which begs another question: at what point do they accept something needs to be done to rescue their own electoral position?

The New York Times has published a long investigative piece into the News of the World and Andy Coulson’s phone-hacking scandal.

The scandal was first unearthed by the Guardian earlier this year.

Today the NYT has published an extensive 7 page story into the ‘Tabloid Hack Attack‘.

It mentions early on the reluctance of the police to take any action:

“There was simply no enthusiasm among Scotland Yard to go beyond the cases involving Mulcaire and Goodman,” said John Whittingdale, the chairman of a parliamentary committee that has twice investigated the phone hacking. “To start exposing widespread tawdry practices in that newsroom was a heavy stone that they didn’t want to try to lift.”

Several investigators said in interviews that Scotland Yard was reluctant to conduct a wider inquiry in part because of its close relationship with News of the World.

Then on page 3 of the report it states:

Sean Hoare, a former reporter and onetime close friend of Coulson’s, also recalled discussing hacking. The two men first worked together at The Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits. Coulson “actively encouraged me to do it,” Hoare said.

Hoare said he was fired during a period when he was struggling with drugs and alcohol. He said he was now revealing his own use of the dark arts — which included breaking into the messages of celebrities like David and Victoria Beckham — because it was unfair for the paper to pin the blame solely on Goodman. Coulson declined to comment for this article but has maintained that he was unaware of the hacking.

The Guardian has already leapt on the story tonight as evidence that its original investigation was justified and needed to go further.

contribution by Bensix

As Tony Blair lines up against the ranks of hard-nosed critics, John Rentoul attempts to throw an early sucker punch…

What people believe is not that Blair lied, but that he was so desperate to keep in with the Americans that he exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein. That has the advantage of fitting with what was the conventional view, that the British interest is best served by a close alliance with the US, but overlooks the more obvious reason for assuming the worst of Saddam, namely his previous history of concealment.

Imagine that a bank’s been robbed in full view of CCTV.

Messrs Tom and Dick are witnessed threatening accountants before making off with sacks of loot. “Ah,” says one grizzled detective, “But this overlooks the fact that Mr Harry is more of a bank robber than Tom and Dick”. “Yes, perhaps,” you grant, “But there’s footage of them doing it”.

“Hrm,” he muses blithely, “I don’t think they’d rob the place in daylight”. “But the vide…” “Oh, and there’s no way they’d leave the vaults untouched. I think Harry is our man.” In this case you’d think the copper, reeling off a priori surmises even as the facts are broadcast right before him, was a dunce.

Here, it’s plain that Saddam’s threat was hugely overblown: the facts are there and handily accessible for all. Yet, somehow, as Rentoul casts aside the evidence and offers empty, flaccid guesswork, he adopts a pose of scepticism.

Rentoul feels that notions of malign intent or action in or by the government are “conspiracy theories” and for a depressing number these “conspiracy theories” are so foolish one can shed one’s objectivity and standards of analysis.

Well, such attitudes are wrong. And damned unimaginative.

Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists’ biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative.

For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter.

After years of legal entanglements arising from environmental messes and increased scrutiny of banks that finance the dirtiest industries, several large commercial lenders are taking a stand on industry practices that they regard as risky to their reputations and bottom lines.

In the most recent example, the banking giant Wells Fargo noted last month what it called “considerable attention and controversy” surrounding mountaintop removal mining, and said that its involvement with companies engaged in it was “limited and declining.”

But the policy shift by Wells Fargo follows others over the last two years, including moves by Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citibank, to increase scrutiny of lending to companies involved in mountaintop removal — or to end the lending altogether.

HSBC, which is based in London, has curtailed its relationships with some producers of palm oil, which is often linked to deforestation in developing countries.

…more at the New York Times

A growing number of people in the UK are also taking action against banking groups such as RBS over similar concerns.

The first extracts of Tony Blair’s memoir “A Journey” have been published on the publisher’s website, and are the major story in Wednesday’s newspapers.

The Guardian has a print interview with Martin Kettle, which focuses on Blair’s comments about Gordon Brown, and how not being New Labour cost the party the 2010 election.

Blair writes in the book that “”Labour won when it was New Labour. It lost because it stopped being New Labour”.

“Had he pursued New Labour policy the personal issue would still have made victory tough, but it wouldn’t have been impossible. Departing from New Labour made it so. Just as the 2005 election was one we were never going to lose, 2010 was one we were never going to win — once the fateful strategic decision was taken to abandon the New Labour position.”

“The problem, I would say error, was in buying a package which combined deficit spending, heavy regulation, identifying banks as the malfeasants and jettisoning the reinvention of government in favour of the rehabilitation of government. The public understands the difference between the state being forced to intervene to stabilise the market and government back in fashion as a major actor in the economy.”

But can that argument be sustained? I think it is very difficult to stand up.

Firstly, this argument is much more plausible if it makes the difference between Blair and Brown one of personality – so that the critique is of Gordon Brown’s performance, his ability to communicate through the media. Yet Blair is clear he is not arguing this – he insists “that the argument is not about personalities”, as Kettle writes.

Yet, for all of the internal arguments between Blair and Brown, the story of New Labour from 1997-2007 was one of Blair-Brownism, which delivered rather more than the personal relationships might suggest, particularly in the first term. After a first, rather dysfunctional year of the Brown premiership, Brown chose to steadied the ship, essentially seeking to replicate the old winning formula, creating a new Brown-Mandelson axis which dominated the 2008-10 government and the strategy for Labour’s 2010 election bid.

Secondly, it is very difficult to find substantive evidence of a significant policy shift from New Labour under the Brown administration after 2007 – still less one which would be electorally crucial.

This was a large part of Gordon Brown’s problem. Having run on change, he failed to define it. The only broken New Labour mantras was the adoption of the 50p rate on earnings over £150,000, presented as a reluctant response to circumstances. I very much doubt this was a significant electoral problem for Labour: the 68% support for the policy was reflected in the Tories’ unwillingness to actively oppose it. (It was also one of the few comprehensible policies which Labour had in 2010).

The most significant broader policy development was the more interventionist approach to political economy, overseen by Peter Mandelson at the Business Department.

And Blair’s own comments are rather imprecise when it comes to the response to the financial crisis. My reading of “the public understands the difference” is that he supports the significant policy decisions – such as the bank bailout – yet worries about the “narrative” which went with them. It is not particularly clear how much of substance hangs on this. Moreover, Alastair Darling’s sober reluctance to engage in banker-bashing largely reflected similar instincts to those set out by Blair.

Blair’s “legacy” instinct before 2007 was mostly to worry about “the pace of public service reform”. The idea that Brown ditched this reflects media perceptions, not policy, where a lot of emphasis was placed on extending GP opening hours, for example, perhaps over-selling this as a flagship policy. The condition of public services matters a lot to voters, and the policy debate about how to improve them matters. To some extent, New Labour in its second term, over-emphasised the extent as to how far reforms like Foundation Hospital status were central to driving the quality of public services.

Thirdly, the 2010 campaign was New Labour to its fingertips

The Brown-Mandelson axis put together New Labour’s fourth term bid, with all of Blair’s old allies reunited for a final push. Brown’s was a continuity premiership in large part because Brown was schooled in and had been central to shaping New Labour’s winning electoral formula. Whatever he might have imagined he would do while waiting to succeed between 2003 and 2007, he proved unable to find a viable alternative. Like Blair, Brown’s politics turned out to be shaped primarily by the experience of the 1992 election defeat. (Brown largely rejected advice – from people like me, arguing that New Labour, having begun to shift the Tories at last, would not maintain its own electoral coalition if it relied almost exclusively on a “keep the Tories out” argument).

I spoke to Patrick Diamond, who worked for Blair and Brown in Downing Street, when writing about the election debate. Diamond says “we very quickly reverted to a New Labour formula”. Despite an awareness that Labour had to contest the argument on “change versus change”, the argument became about the risk of the Tories.

Others who worked in number ten and on the campaign talk about how the most significant arguments over the manifesto often reflected not only policy debates, but also New Labour instincts. Peter Mandelson’s support for Heathrow’s third runway, and resistance to extending maternity and paternity leave was not only about Business Department policy. It was rooted in the electoral rules of the New Labour playbook: being on the wrong side of business, whatever the cause, would repel crucial swing voters, not just the CBI. (Mandelson prevailed in most of these policy arguments, though they were significant in shaping Ed Miliband’s belief that New Labour was too wedded to outdated mantras because, on these issues, as on ID cards, the centre-ground was no longer where New Labour imagined it to be).

Finally, Blair risks being too complacent in suggesting that New Labour ran into trouble only after 2007. It means he ends, perhaps inevitably having been at the helm for a decade, as rather more of a “consolidator” than a moderniser.

Blair’s comments again reflect, as I set out for the New Statesman, how the current 2010 inquest divides most sharply over what the 2005 election meant – whether this should be seen as simply the third triumph, or an important warning of just how much Labour’s electoral coalition had fractured.

The party won brilliantly in building a broad nationwide appeal in 1997. It was a major achievement to repeat the landslide in 2001, if on much reduced turnout, and against weak opposition. But New Labour was in quite a lot of trouble by the time it was returned with a solid majority in 2005 – but with 35% of the vote, just 3% ahead of an opposition led by Michael Howard. Those who conducted focus groups for the party talk about how Labour retained (somewhat grudging) respect for its strong economic record, but how the unelectability of Michael Howard was an absolutely Godsend when it came

Tony Blair had enormous success as Labour’s most successful election leader. Four of the five million voters who left Labour between 1997 and 2010 did so by 2005. Labour’s strategy for winning elections can not be to hope that Norman Lamont can be drafted into a Michael Howard role as a future Tory leader.

On issues like immigration, crime and welfare, which were difficult for Labour in the election, it is difficult to show that Labour’s arguments in 2010 were particularly different than in 2005. The tightening of immigration policy, through the points system, replicated the desire to close down immigration and asylum as issues in 2005.

Right-wing think tank Institute of Economic Affairs warns its readers that voting reform will make it harder for “radical free-market economic reforms”, such as slashing social benefits, to happen. Such reforms, they argue, will only ever be supported by a minority of people, and under a preferential voting system it would have been harder for someone like Thatcher to get elected:

“AV is not a good way to elect Members of Parliament who will support radical free-market economic reforms. Why is this? In the United Kingdom today almost 50% of the population rely on the government for a sizeable portion of their income, and even more receive some money in the form of tax credits or old-age support.

In the most recent General Election, the British Conservatives (not exactly running on the most radical free-market platform) polled 36% of the vote. Just over a third of British voters were willing to give their “primary vote” for a party willing to cut the deficit quickly and enact the beginnings of free-market school reform.

Any party that wishes to become government under AV will be elected on the second, third or fourth preferences of those parties who finish lower down the ballot paper. If a large proportion of the population receive money from the system, then it is difficult to imagine them placing their second preferences for a party that will withdraw social benefits, ahead of one that pledges to retain them. To put it another way, a lot of those on the left would give their preference to a social democrat candidate, but few on the right would give theirs to a free marketeer.

Market liberals need to remember that Thatcher won 42% of the vote in 1983 – and it is highly unlikely she would have gained a lot of second preferences. Changing the voting system may be good for other reasons, but it makes a government that will be willing to enact radical free-market reform less likely.”

Blairism’s greatest triumph was shifting the centre ground to the left.

In the last election Cameron competed with Clegg and Brown to argue who was the most reverent protector of the NHS. The language of the Coalition centres on “progressivism”. Thatcher did not feel the same kind of need to couch her reforms in the language of the Left.

We’d never have seen her cycling to work and stressing her environmentalism or play down her support for elitist institutions.

The challenge for Labour is to provide the most authentic voice on the values now seen as most important.

- Transparency – a need driven by the lies around Iraq and the expenses scandal.

- Protecting the most vulnerable – a need that was reinvigorated conceptually by Labour’s triumph in 1997 and has only gained in importance with the worst global downturn since the Great Depression.

- Job creation – one hopes a temporary need, but one that is self-evident in figures showing a deficit of over a million jobs when we compare those out of work with the number of jobs available.

It is then not for me a question of personality or who looks most Prime Ministerial. When Cameron ascended to the Tory leadership he was derided for his lack of experience and his lack of gravitas. And yet he was the right person at the right time. He was a fresh-faced environmentalist that spoke the language of compassion more clearly and compellingly than we did. Not enough fell for it for them to win outright.

It is not the right place to argue if the electorate was right or wrong. I was hugely disappointed with the result despite the candidate I was working for as Head of Policy & Communications winning his seat – Hammersmith – comfortably in one of the big surprises of the night. And against a classic Cameroon Tory – a black social worker who grew up in poverty and ran a charity trying to get kids off drugs and into work. How many of those did Thatcher have?

The question should be: who can win in these times? What will be needed in five years time? Well, the economy will have most likely recovered to a large extent but in a way that has extended inequalities, damaged social cohesion and favoured large business through a wrong-headed corporate tax cuts regime without the capital investment required to support our entrepreneurial infrastructure.

The NHS will most likely be misfiring on all levels. I was admitted to medical school in 1996 after two decades of Tory under-investment. The service was in an unholy mess. With the same people, the same idiotic obsession with market mechanisms (a trend I despised in our party and the single most important reason I can’t support the former Health Secretary despite his admirable understanding of regionalism and the Lancashire roots that I share), I can see the same happening over the next five years.

And at the same time I cannot see any situation in which the Liberals have not seen their support eviscerated. They have made a huge tactical misstep – as a former Liberal Democrat myself I know how serious this is and that there is no way back. We win enough of those and we don’t have to worry about Tory suppression. The Liberal squeeze alone can win it.

So tacking to these core concerns, we need someone with an economic policy that can rebuild societal cohesion and reduce inequalities. That is not ashamed to support, when most sensible, explicitly statist solutions for key mechanisms in social mobility and poverty reduction – education, job creation and healthcare.

With the personal qualities to appeal to those that want Labour to ring true to its principles of compassion and solidarity, but can appeal to Liberals who want less government intrusion into our personal lives.

There is only one candidate that is speaking that kind of language and has the gravitas and intellect to win. That person is Ed Miliband. And that’s why in a few days’ time he will be getting my vote. I urge you to do the same.

One of the problems with the Labour leadership election is that because there is little polling on how candidates are impacting audiences, speculation is exaggerated.

Each campaign wants to push the line that their candidate has all “the momentum” because they want to convince wavering MPs that they should stick with the candidate most likely to win.

But there are questions the media isn’t asking: why has David Miliband’s stock – who was way ahead of the others when starting out – fallen so much? Why is he running neck-and-neck and not way ahead?

First, remember that it was widely expected he would hoover up support from MPs and CLPs. We wouldn’t have known how they developed if it wasn’t for LabourList keeping a running total. In the event, Ed Miliband was uncomfortably close on both fronts. That changed the main narrative.

Second, what about sentiment among grassroots members? The only consistent polling here is that by LabourList – which has polled its readers four times. What’s interesting is that as the race has progressed – sentiment among Labour members actually shifted to Ed Miliband while David Miliband’s stock declined.

None of the media has picked up on this change (though they’ve been happy to report LL polls).

Results: first, second, third, fourth

These aren’t scientific polls. But the numbers correspond with how the race started out and it shows how sentiment amongst an overwhelmingly Labour audience has changed.

Once the race was narrowed down to 5 candidates (as ‘other’ declines to zero), support for Ed Miliband jumps a lot more while it eventually falls for David.

In the last two polls for LabourList, Ed Miliband picked up the most second preference votes when they were counted. The above graph just relates to first-preference votes.

(Note: I’m not taking a personal dig at David Miliband, just pointing out an observation that the media has studiously ignored. Intellectually, I think he is an impressive candidate and not the die-hard ‘Blairite’ he’s painted by some. I justdon’t think he can deliver a Labour victory.)

At least one in 10 people will be unemployed in half of UK regions by 2015, an economic think tank has forecast.

According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), the unemployment rate will exceed 10% in Wales and the North of England.

The CEBR blamed expected huge cuts to public sector jobs.

London and the South of England are expected to escape the worst of the job losses, however.

The report warns unemployment could reach as high as 11% in Wales and the North East of England – both regions where many people are dependent on the public sector for work.

However the researchers predict south east and south west England will see jobless rates peak at 7% and 8% respectively.

…more at the BBC

The Spectator’s Peter Hoskin doesn’t like the idea of extending the 50p top rate of tax to earnings over £100,000 (rather than £150,000) though he rather jumps the gun in suggesting that “it’s fairly probable that this will be official Labour policy in the not-too-distant”.

Hoskin suggests that Ed Miliband has joined Ed Balls and Diane Abbott in advocating this policy. In fact, he hasn’t, despite that claim erroneously appearing in one New Statesman editorial which the Coffee House blog links. What Ed Miliband has said is that he would make the 50p rate at £150,000 “permanent“, rather than temporary, but has yet to go further than that.

Hoskins’ substantive argument continues the tradition of right-of-centre media commentators warning centre-left parties not to desert the centre-ground on higher taxes at the top, when they would do so with only the company of a substantial majority of the voters as consolation.

Of course, every right-of-centre commentator believes this (and David Miliband might well agree with Hoskin about the politics). But would it be impertinent to ask for some evidence? Hoskin is sure that the proposal would send aspirational voters running for the hills, so he must expect to find that it sharply divides opinion across classes, regions, parties and between lower and higher earners?

Which it doesn’t.

If a proposal can get 60% support among ABC1 voters, with 21% against, and 63% among C2DE voters, with 13% against, couldn’t you more plausibly argue that it has “broad coalition (centre-right commentators excepted)” written all over it.

Indeed, when a 50p tax rate on earnings of £100k+ can generate 57-27% support among Tory voters and 69-13% backing from LibDems, along with 68-11 support among Labour voters, it begins to look like the very model of a modern coalitionist centrism. Support does fall very slightly in London and the South: in both regions, 58% are in favour (with 19-20% against), compared to 62-66% support across the midlands, Scotland and the north. Still, I seem to recall that 58% came out as a much “broader” section of southern opinion than 20% last time I did the maths on that.

The 50p on £100k question has not been polled very often: there has been no post-election polling on the question.

• YouGov polling for the Fabian Society in December 2008 found that the 45% rate on earnings over £150,000 (which the government had proposed) was backed by 76% (45% supporting it strongly). At that time, polling the idea of a 50% rate on earnings over £150,000 was backed by 52% to 28%, with strong support at 29% and strong opposition at 9%. The class and party breaks can be found in this earlier post.
• An April 2009 poll found 61% supported and 18% disagreed with the statement that “the government should break its 2005 manifesto commitment not to increase any rates of income tax and immediately introduce a new top rate of income tax for those earning above £100,000 a year”. (The break figures above come from this poll). The question – with the manifesto pledge mentioned – would be more likely to reduce than increase support.
• A November 2009 poll found very similar support (62% against 25% opposition) to a 4-point package including a 50p rate at £100k, higher NI on the top 10% and capital gains, in order to bring back the 10p rate.
• Public advocacy of the case for 50p on over £100k could also have an impact. For one thing this “we’re all in it together” Coalition would not relish a public fight with Labour about tax at the top, with the Conservatives having ducked out of arguments over increases to 45p and then 50p on earnings of £150,000 in opposition. (50p on £100k was LibDem policy for a long-time until dropped by Ming Campbell after the 2005 election).
• When Alastair Darling announced the government’s new policy of a 50p rate over £150,000, there was a sharp rise in support for the 50p rate on earnings over £150,000, with 68% support in YouGov’s post-budget poll in the Telegraph.

My strong hunch is that those 2009 polling numbers probably somewhat understate support for the policy now.

At that point, there were important pressures on the public finances – but nothing like the same awareness of the scale of cuts to public services which will be proposed this Autumn.

A cross-class and cross-party pattern of support for higher taxes at the very top is a consistent feature of poll findings on the subject.

—–
A longer post is over at Next Left

On 9th September local elections in Norwich could lead to Greens becoming the largest party on a Principal Authority Council.

If they then form a minority administration, it would be the first time they would have an opportunity to govern in their (in our) own name.

OK, it would would be a minority Green administration in a City Council with relatively few powers and desperately strapped for cash. Challenging times. How would the first Green administration in Britain attempt to rise to the challenge?

I’ll give the two top examples of how.

Top of the Norwich Greens’ agenda is their plans for making Norwich an ‘Open Council’. Green councillors will make decisions in public more than has ever happened in Norwich before. See our manifesto on that promise. Participatory budgeting will be just the beginning of this.

And a Green-run Council will seek to create a Council-run Energy Services Company, offering local people the chance to choose green energy without having to pay an exorbitant price, or being pestered by every energy or renewables company that comes knocking on their door, is also high on the Greens’ agenda. (See here for a precedent).

Again, this can be done for very little money, because the ‘ESCo’ takes the financial risk, while citizens (and the Earth) gain.

If you are interested in the details of all this and more, then see the manifesto for yourself here.

Lefties, progressives and g/Greens may not have seen this coming, but Sept. 9th might just end up being as significant a day for the ‘liberal conspiracy’ in Britain as was General Election Day this year.

After all, a Green Council will presumably be able to achieve more than a lone Green MP can do in practice.

The Telegraph reports on its front-page that “a Cabinet minister is ready to take legal action to halt a series of increasingly lurid but baseless rumours sweeping Westminster over his sexuality … Friends of the minister have warned that he will not hesitate to take “action” should unfounded allegations that he is homosexual, which are circulating on the internet, appear in mainstream media”.

The minister, not named in this report, is clearly Foreign Secretary William Hague.

His identity would be considerably more closely guarded from Telegraph readers if the newspaper had not already placed itself at the forefront of those using online sources to spread innuendo about Hague, doing so with the subtlety of a brick in its Mandrake diary column on Wednesday.

The Telegraph was quoting a Freedom of Information request from Paul Staines, blogging as Guido Fawkes, who has led the online charge, slightly bizarrely claiming that answering it “amounted to an official inquiry”. Paul Dacre’s Mail titles have also shown some interest since the weekend.

It now appears that Hague is (probably sensibly) not threatening legal action against blogs, but seeking to warn newspapers not to follow up the online reports. It is not entirely clear whether the route would involve injunctions (which could well prove counter-productive) or rather threats of subsequent PCC or legal action against false or libellous reporting.

It might simply be that the generic threat and strength of denial are intended to provide an effective deterrent to reporting in mainstream outlets of rumours and innuendos which the minister dismisses as simple falsehoods.

It is a strategy which depends on maintaining the rather blurred boundaries between news outlets, blogs and social media; the dilemma being how to deny the rumours most effectively without fuelling them further.

The Guido Fawkes blog has just come top of Total Politics’ libertarian blogs category. The enthusiasm with which it would seek to “out” a Minister perhaps sits oddly with that. (Whether it does so erroneously in this case, while important, is not the central point there).

Staines has also again proved willing to host long threads spattered with homophobic comments – some very vile – on his blog. No doubt he would offer a free speech defence of that.

It might reasonably be questioned whether that fully addresses the enthusiasm with which they are encouraged and in effect celebrated – such as with special caption competitions in effect offering a green light to further rounds of homophobic comments. (I’m not calling for Staines to be banned from doing this: we are simply publicly criticising him for being willing to so actively encourage homophobic attitudes, when these are thankfully much more marginal than they were a decade ago).

Tom Freeman has crunched some numbers and come up with some figures on the voters Labour has lost since 2001.They are broken down by socio-economic group, or class as those dastardly Marxists call it, and they are grim reading for Labour Party members (among whose number I do not count).

He has produced absolute numbers of voters lost, but I think something relative is more useful. Think about it, Labour has always attracted more votes from class DE than from AB, so any general declines will show up as a larger absolute figure even if the trend for each class is identical.

Like Tom, “I’ve assumed a consistent electorate for all three elections of 2010 size and social structure: 44.4 million people, of whom 27% are social group AB, 29% C1, 21% C2 and 23% DE.”

After producing the above graph Tom concludes that “Over the two parliaments, Labour lost about 80,000 ABs, 560,000 C1s, 990,000 C2s and 650,000 DEs.” Quickly crunching some numbers myself, I work it out as the loss of 13% of the AB vote they secured in 2001 relative to now, 26% of C1 votes, 41% of C2 votes and 27% DE. These swings look large tp so I may need to revisit this; however to me they pass the sniff test, 2010 was bad and 2001 was good for Labour.

There has been an across the board decline in pro-Labour sentiment but it has been particularly concentrated towards the middle and bottom of the income scale, particularly C2 voters.

While we shouldn’t give too much weight to these clumsy formations of class, Labour cannot deny that its decline from popularity seems to vindicate those who claim it deserted those who traditionally relied on the Party. No matter who becomes the leader, the Labour Party have a large hill to climb to regain the trust of those who have deserted it, identifying who they are, and why they did it will be important.

However, too much introspection can be a bad thing, especially with a Government in power intent on radical (and largely regressive) change. Labour must work out why people left and what to do about it by the next election if they want reelection, there are no quick fixes and it must be a parliament long process local process. In the mean time inaction is not an option, so they must fight the coalition wherever necessary as continue present their best alternative plans wherever possible.

The Spectator magazine publishes this today:

Stephen Pollard and the Spectator apologise for the unintended and false suggestion in a blog published on 15 July 2008 that Islam Expo Limited is a fascist party dedicated to genocide which organised a conference with a racist and genocidal programme. We accept that Islam Expo’s purpose is to provide a neutral and broad-based platform for debate on issues relating to Muslims and Islam.

It has also published an unrelated apology on the same day regarding this:

The Spectator apologises to Professor Moore for certain postings by contributors using pseudonyms “CWBPI” and “Michael” under our “Questioning the Aids Consensus” blog in October 2009. The comments were removed following a complaint by Professor Moore. We are happy to accept that these comments were both abusive and untrue. The Spectator has agreed to make a donation to a HIV/AIDS charity.

Regarding the first apology, a press release by Islam Expo states:

On 15 July 2008, the Spectator website published an article by Stephen Pollard (editor of the Jewish Chronicle) entitled “Demos and Genocide”. That article unfairly and falsely referred to Islam Expo as a racist, fascist and genocidal organisation. As is well-known, we at Islam Expo host exhibitions which explore a wide range of issues relating to Islam and Muslims and which seek not only to educate visitors about the positive and progressive aspects of this religion, but also to provide a neutral and all-inclusive platform in which people of all races, religions and viewpoints can gather to discuss topics relating to Islam without fear of reprisal or restriction. The Directors and organisers of Islam Expo had worked, and continue to work, hard to establish a good reputation for providing a venue where people can attend our events and debate openly, building an understanding and mutual tolerance. These events are also attended by a wide range of leading academics, politicians and journalists.

Islam Expo was therefore justifiably outraged and dismayed to learn that we had been referred to in this way. As neither Mr Pollard nor the Spectator agreed to our initial request for an apology, we had no option but to seek vindication via litigation.

It’s also worth noting that Stephen Pollard referred to material first published on the Harry’s Place blog in that post.

via @earwicga

The Guardian reports today:

David Miliband poses the greatest threat to the Conservative party of all the candidates in the Labour leadership contest, David Cameron has said in private remarks that could change the dynamic of the campaign just days before millions of ballot papers are posted.
…
A well-placed source told the Guardian: “David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband.”

Isn’t it convenient the “well placed source” said that just when the ballots go out? If I was that journalist I’d think – ‘hmmmm, is there an agenda here?‘

Either Nicholas Watt is gullible enough to actually believe this is true, or it fitted right in with his political agenda.

I think I’m far more likely to believe James Forsyth, political editor of the Spectator, when he writes:

The Coalition believes that David Miliband will find it particularly hard to deny culpability for Labour’s failures in office. His problem is summed up by a picture of him from the weekend before the 1997 Election, which shows him sitting at a table with the spin doctor Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair. Miliband was there at the beginning and the end. If he wins the leadership contest on September 25, expect to see this photograph all over the newspapers on the 26th.

What you have here is someone who wants the Labour party to believe this stuff.

The Coalition wants him because it’s far easier to associate David Miliband as heir to the failed Labour government of the last 13 years.

Rather conveniently, someone then feeds this story to the Guardian at the right time just to make sure they get the man they want. They want to be assured of the right target on 25th September.

It’s a shame the Guardian fell for such an obvious ruse.

Right-wing think tank boss Neil O’Brien writes that:

“If you give people more benefits, they will be better off today. But if that encourages them to stay on benefits, rather than find work, they will be poorer tomorrow. “The question to ask,” as Nick Clegg wrote, “is what its dynamic effects are, particularly across the generations. How does it increase opportunities? Will it unlock the poverty trap or deepen it?”"

Let’s have a look at what these dynamic effects might be.

Between 1996 and 2009, benefits for lone parents were increased substantially. So according to the Clegg/O’Brien theory, we would expect more of them to be encouraged to stay on benefits. Over the same time period, benefits for single adults of working age decreased in real terms. The same theory would suggest that this would lead to more people finding work.

Here’s what actually happened:

In 1996, during a time of economic growth, 45% of lone parents were in work. In 2009, when Britain was in severe recession, 57% of lone parents were in work.

In 1999, 30% of single adults without children were in “workless” households. In 2009, 29% of single adults without children were in “workless” households. If you look at a longer time period, the value of out of work benefits has nearly halved over the last forty years, and unemployment has more than doubled.

If you give people more benefits, they will be better off today. But what the evidence shows is that higher benefits also helps people to find work, increases opportunities and unlocks the poverty trap.

If you are a millionaire politician, this might be hard to understand, particularly when it is politically inconvenient to grasp the point. But it’s not that difficult.

If the government pursues a strategy of class warfare, of demonising poor people and cutting their benefits, then people will concentrate on day to day survival, on trying to keep a roof over their heads and coping with ill health and all the other problems that are caused when you don’t have enough money to live on. In consequence, they will find it harder and harder to get a job or stay in work. And, in any case, there will be fewer jobs in their community as benefit cuts suck money out of the local economy.

In contrast, if the government provides everyone with a decent safety net and enough money to live on, then more and more people will be able to think about and plan for more than just getting through to the end of the week. They’ll get the confidence to apply for jobs, they’ll be in better health and even have a little bit of money to spend on studying and developing their skills. They’ll see their friends and neighbours getting jobs and help each other to be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

This isn’t some wild-eyed theory, this is what actually happens in the real world. And Clegg’s comments and those of his right-wing supporters just show, yet again, that they are the ones in denial.

contribution by Tim Fenton

Yesterday also has brought news that an independent review of his finances has cleared Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of financial wrongdoing.

The review, undertaken by KPMG, has concluded that Pachauri, who has been accused of abusing his position as head of the IPCC, has been scrupulously honest and has not been making the millions of pounds that had been suggested. He does not even get a salary as head of the IPCC.

There need not, of course, have been any need for the review, had the Maily Telegraph bothered to fact check the article they published back on December 20 last year, by Richard North and (yes, it’s him again) Christopher Booker, who made the initial allegations.

The article has been removed from the Telegraph website.

Moreover, the Telegraph has apologised for publishing the article. This is as a result of Pachauri being forced to resort to legal means in order to get a retraction from the paper: the costs of the action, presumably to be borne by the Telegraph, have apparently run into six figures.

Resorting to law may seem a tad strong, until it is realised that Pachauri had approached the paper and requested a retraction, only to have his request repeatedly declined.

Even so, as Guardian man George Monbiot has said, the smears against Pachauri will doubtless continue.

Richard North continues to insist that he was right, despite the legal setback. Christopher Booker is still, on occasion, whining about climate change, while the Telegraph’s wayward sneer merchant James Delingpole keeps up his attack on global warming.

The thought that we might discuss and debate the subject of man made climate change in a rational and reasonable way, without invention, smears and downright dishonesty, does not, for some, seem to enter.

Paul Krugman at the New York Times made a very astute observation yesterday.

He pointed out how the fortunes of Irish and Spanish economies show that immediate, deep cuts doesn’t necessarily bring market confidence.

A couple of months back I asked, does fiscal austerity actually reassure markets? I noted there the curious case of Ireland, which embraced savage austerity early on; quite a few press reports declared that this had gained it the confidence of markets, but the actual numbers said otherwise.

And I noted the contrast with Spain, which has been relatively slow and reluctant to embrace austerity, but has been treated no worse by investors.

Look at the contrast between the two economies.

He adds:

Now, this isn’t a clean experiment: Ireland had an even bigger bubble than Spain did, so you could say that’s the issue. But since austerians were claiming bond market approval as a sign of its policy success, it is worth pointing out that dutiful Ireland looks as if it’s entering a runaway debt spiral, while malingering Spain is looking considerably better.

Indeed.