Neil MacDonald

The Phoney War is over

Politicians are always campaigning for re-election and indeed the campaign for the 2010 General Election will start with the victory speeches in the early hours of 6th May.  It is good that the election has been called as we can now get on with the campaign.  The public are certainly more interested now that there is an election in prospect.

The term "Phoney War" was used in the Second War War to describe the Western Front in 1939-40 when nothing much happened.  This was rudely ended by the German Blitzkrieg.  Politicians will all be hoping for a blitz that will lead them to victory.

Sunny Jim

Why is Jim Callaghan remembered so widely with such warm affection? Tributes seem to be pouring in. I was still at school when he was Prime Minister but even then most people thought he was doing his best. As the years have passed we recognise more and more how he combined compassion and integrity.

There's a lesson there for every budding politician.

Bloggers4labour

My fame has spread - received an email from Bloggers4Labour, which I have pasted below.  More Labour blogs than you can shake a stick at!

The site is hosted by eblogger which presumably provides the advert for the LibDems!  That needs to be replaced with www.libdemwatch.co.uk !

Hi Neil,

Thought I'd let you know that I've added your rather fine blog to the list
at Bloggers4Labour and mentioned you in today's post.

Bloggers4Labour website

If you haven't come across Bloggers4Labour before, it's a project to bring
together all Labour-supporting bloggers under one roof, to get them more
publicity, and provide them with some useful resources.

Good luck with your campaign!

Blog of the Year?

I have been shortlisted by the Guardian for their political weblog of the year.  I nearly fell off my chair when I saw my name.  My fifteen minutes of fame start here!  Surely the victor will get their own column?

If you haven't voted on my behalf then please do so at Guardian weblog

At this point in time, it looks like it's between Peter Black, a member of the Welsh Assembly and me.  Peter has been blogging for a couple of years and has an extensive, well-established site.  Presumably he has an Agent and secretary - he has two offices anyway - which will make it easier to find time to write.

One of the other sites up for an award is LibDem Watch - I'm sure Peter is an avid reader!

Truth about the Tories cuts

Howard Flight has done the country a favour by being an unwitting whistleblower on the scale of cuts being planned by the Tories.  It is unfortunate for him that he has been fired by Michael Howard and de-selected by his constituency party already.  All he did was tell the truth!  The 21st Century Tory party moves fast.

Mr Flight said: "The potential for getting better taxpayer value is a good bit greater than the James findings".  What he really means is more cuts in services.

The gap between Labour and Tory spending plans is already a chasm.  More money needed in the NHS to treat an ageing population, in schools to provide pre-school and after-school clubs and to provide sufficient neighbourhood policing teams.  Tory cuts will mean an end many front line services.  Mr Flight will have opened many eyes.

Mr Incredible

This made me chuckle, Gordon Brown as Mr Incredible!

It's from the Daily Mirror - www.mirror.co.uk

Gordon Brown's Budget

There is a media frenzy over the budget so I'll just make two points which interested me:

Firstly the UK has a stable economy with historically low levels of debt.  Back in 1994, 75% of all new public spending went to debt interest and social security - paying the price of economic failure. Today, 75% of all new money goes to investment in hospitals, schools and public services. 

As Brown himself put it: "With living standards since 1997 rising on average by 3% each year, Britain has today the best combination of low inflation, high employment and rising living standards in a generation".

Secondly, I was very pleased to see the commitment to a free local bus pass for pensioners and even more pleased to see the treasury stump up £420 million to make it happen.

The key thing is that Brown has delivered a stable, growing economy - best in the developed world - and some sweetners for key voter groups.  An excellent  pre-election budget.

Arsenal

Arsene Wenger was in the news this week for fielding a sixteen man squad of foreign players in a Premiership match against Crystal Palace.  This is the first time that a squad has had no English players and of course Wenger himself is French.

I saw Wenger on Football Focus on Saturday and he said "When you work with players every day, you don't care where they come from.  You just pick the team".

A tremendous attitude - the attitude of a proven winner.

A fight worth having

I attended the National policy Forum last Saturday.  It was not really about policy, it was an opportunity for the leaders of

the party to make speeches to set the direction of the general election campaign and inspire the troops.

Tony Blair launched Labour's election campaign with a confident speech - much more confident than his performance at conference.  He attacked the Tory cuts as "savage cuts to front line services" and gave many examples of Labour successes: £1000 more in real terms per pupil since 1997 was just one.  The general election campaign will be "a fight to spread opportunity" but its "a fight worth having".

After a brief pause to "allow our friends in the press to leave" there was a Q&A session.  Tony says it's hard to make progress on climate change with the USA but "worth endeavouring with".

Gordon Brown is on second.  He speaks without notes and gives an excellent and passionate speech mainly about his recent trip

to Africa. He says that the Tory cuts are not just a few paper clip counters but equivalent to sacking every teacher in the UK or every nurse in the NHS. He then stressed "unity of purpose" with Tony and was given a standing ovation.

He gives an insight to his African trip.  He was shocked by a 12 year old girl, one of 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa,  "Her eyes were dead. She had lost the sparkle in her eyes".  A man dying of AIDS said " are we not all brothers?".  Gordon says that Labour is leading the international efforts to help Africa with debt relief and more aid.

Something to chew over lunch, where I swapped campaigning ideas with other PPCs.

Alan Milburn takes us through the campaign plan.  Some good ideas.  We must emphasis the excellent state of the economy he

says: low mortgage rates, two million new jobs, employment has gone up every month of the Labour government etc.

I then had a short session with Hazel Blears, a minister at the Home Office.  I asked her about police response times

in rural areas.  There are less police in rural areas, because there is less crime.  Unfortunately, this leads to a fear of

crime because of the lack of a visible presence.  Blears says that she is determined that every community will have a local

policing team made up of police officers, CSOs and special constables.  In high crime areas the policing teams will be mainly

police officers and in lower crime areas there will be more CSOs and Special Constables.

Prescott rounds off with a speech to rouse the activists, which is his forte.  I've still got my battle bus he says but warns that Labour were 16% ahead in the polls in 1992 and look what happened then.

At the end of the day I am definitely motivated to start "the fight worth having".

Resevoir Dogs

The news films of Brown, Milburn and Prescott at the poster launch reminded me of the film Reservoir Dogs, where a group of sharp suited men are seen walking towards camera. 

I laughed when I spotted that Simon Hoggart's sketch in the Guardian picked up on the same theme! The three men we not starring in the latest Tarantino epic, but were charged with reinforcing the strong state of the economy:

Britain's lowest unemployment figures since 1976

The lowest UK inflation levels since the 1960s

The lowest mortgage rates for 40 years

The longest period of sustained economic growth for 200 years - 50 quarters of uninterrupted growth