TOP 100 NEWSPAPER SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Risky business The dangers facing Russia's human rights groups news.bbc.co.uk |
Violence marks India new state strike The start of a two-day strike by supporters of a planned new Indian state, Telangana, brings violence to the region. news.bbc.co.uk |
Jackie Ashley: Labour and the Tories want the same thing: Nick Clegg As the gap between the main two parties narrows, the Lib Dem leader has changed status – from wallflower to hot dateIf there is one word that is meaningless in politics, it is speculate, as in "it's pointless to speculate". Almost all politicians speculate all the time, gameplanning ahead for likely, and unlikely, outcomes. And as election year starts, they are at it like fury. This week's speculative game? The hung parliament of May 2010.Gordon Brown let more than a little ankle show when asked yesterday about his attitude to the Liberal Democrats. Once, he would have contemptuously squashed them. When he and Tony Blair were sitting on New Labour's first landslide victory, nobody was more hostile to a deal with Paddy Ashdown than Brown. He may have had private friendships with the odd Scottish Liberal over the years, but he has always been thoroughly disdainful.Now, it seems, he finds all sorts of common interests, from the reform of the voting system to the environment, from "fairness" to public services. The prime minister's intervention follows Lord Adonis, a one-time protege of Roy Jenkins and former Lib Dem himself, declaring that he, Brown and Nick Clegg are pretty much on the same ideological page, and that he could envisage a progressive Lib-Lab coalition.Before you cry "shameless", remember that David Cameron has been up to a similar piece of political tickling, emphasising over the new year that there is "a lot less disagreement than there used to be" between Tories and Lib Dems. Clegg's staff were quick to protest about "vacuous spin", but the Lib Dem leader must feel that he's gone from wallflower to hot date.In truth, these are dangerous waters for the three main parties. Clegg has already suggested he would feel obliged to support whichever party "won" an indecisive election. It's unclear (and could matter) whether he meant won the most votes or the most Commons seats, but this seemed to make him a potential Tory partner. His own party loathes that idea and, privately, Clegg himself much prefers a Labour deal. Yet could he possibly prop up an unpopular, tired-looking Labour prime minister who had failed to win a clear mandate? That seems unlikely.These are not just the hot date's dilemmas. Cameron is struggling to ride an unstable coalition of different kinds of rightwing thought. He needs his Eurosceptic, fiercely Thatcherite backers, already getting edgy, as well as the smooth metropolitan liberals who surround the Notting Hill set. As the likely winner of the current electoral system, Cameron cannot offer the Lib Dems real reform there. And if there is one issue he can't go soft on, it's the one that matters so much to Clegg's party: Europe. Those two things would seem to preclude Cameron being able to conclude a deal with Clegg. Put simply: can you imagine a coalition that included people such as Lord Ashcroft and Daniel Hannan – and Clegg and Chris Huhne?Labour's problem is even more intriguing. Yesterday Brown repeated his conversion to voting reform. But he means by this only the alternative vote – not a fully proportional system, and legislation some time after the election. That is not tempting enough to win over Lib Dems because it doesn't give them the breakthrough they need. Only full proportional representation does that. Nor would Clegg find it easy to agree a power-sharing deal with Brown himself: the gap in style and age is just too great.So Labour ministers are talking of a scenario in which, if no party won the election, Brown might stand down quickly. He would then be replaced by a more Lib-friendly leader, prepared to go further on constitutional reform; and a deal would be agreed, leading to that "realignment of the left" that has long been a staple of Guardian columns.Question: have there been conversations over the Christmas and new year hiatus between cabinet ministers and senior Lib Dems on this very subject? Answer: is the pope Catholic?Up to now, all that has been pooh-poohed because it could not possibly happen quickly enough to affect the chaotic aftermath of an indecisive election. But if we look at the Scottish parliamentary model, there's growing support for the idea that a "semi-victorious party" (there, the SNP, but in this model, the Tories) should be allowed to try to govern as the largest minority in parliament. Purists and nostalgists for the British constitution say this would produce mayhem. The Scottish example suggests it ain't necessarily so.This is intriguing because it would confront Cameron with a potentially difficult position. As prime minister, he would be obliged to try to make his cuts, and raise taxes, and deal with Eurosceptics, while the other parties quietly prepared to bring him down. As soon as any Lib-Lab deal was agreed Cameron would be forced to call another election, perhaps under much worse circumstances.All this is being talked about by those very politicians who publicly sniff at "silly speculation". But on the Labour side, it depends on Brown stepping down immediately after the election, if not before. Once again, in the words of a senior minister, the holiday phones were red-hot with conversation about a putsch against Brown. There's deep, deep gloom. Yet no possible alternative contender has dared to put his or her head above the parapet. So I don't see it happening. They still don't seem to have the nerve, however despairing Charles Clarke and the other anti-Brownites get.This takes us back to Brown himself. Inevitably, he dodged the issue of election timing yesterday, but it's perhaps his last really big decision. His instincts, as ever, will be to go long. If the polls narrow, he'll think: "Maybe they'll narrow more; I'll wait." If they don't narrow, he'll think: "Maybe they will, and in any case, I am still in office; I'll wait."But there are some hard tactical reasons for going early. The Tories still haven't sealed the deal; better have the election while voters are still dubious about Cameron. Again, does he really want a final budget, laying bare just how bare the cupboard is? And finally, for a leader constantly taunted for having lost the initiative, and who has nothing left in the bank, here is the one area where he can still surprise.It's a very strange situation. Brown, who seemed down and out, is still squatting centre stage, able to dominate for a little while yet. But even now, with talk of a hung parliament and a Lib-Lab arrangement, Brown must worry that the next parliament won't involve him. Just who the key players in a Lib-Lab government might be will give us plenty to speculate on in the months ahead.Nick CleggDavid CameronGordon BrownLiberal DemocratsLabourLabour party leadershipGeneral election 2010Jackie Ashleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
It's quiz time What did a New York cabbie say to earn him praise? news.bbc.co.uk |
Zoom in on Team Cameron. At best it's a blotchy close-up | Jackie Ashley A mood for change has allowed vast holes in Tory policy to go unexamined. It is in everyone's interest to turn up the lamplightIt's too early to say Tory policies are unravelling. But there are loose threads showing, and a bare patch or two. For months, Labour people have been complaining the opposition isn't put under the scrutiny it deserves as favourite to win, and that, close up, Team Cameron looks much less impressive.First, the kerfuffle over marriage, over which Cameron admitted he had "messed up". You might have thought there was nothing easier for Tory strategists than devising a robust pro-marriage policy. For Conservatives to favour marriage is bland, comforting, apple-pie-and-custard politics, about as safe as it gets. Nor has there been a shortage of time to tinker with the cost of it.Yet the minute the cost of married couples' allowances was fingered as a problem, Tory high command seemed to panic. It seems that some basic thinking just hadn't been done. The result is a non-policy policy, the assertion that the importance of marriage will be strongly recognised in the tax system but, erm, we're not sure how or when. A bit of extra cash is not the reason most people decide on marriage, so the sums involved have to be substantial. Except that, for the time being, they won't be.It gets worse. As David Davis demonstrated at the weekend, many thinking Tories are concerned about introducing a new tax policy that damages single parents who are single through no fault of their own – the Afghan soldier's widow, the divorcees who have escaped abusive marriages, and so on. How does the Tory emphasis on rewarding marriage square with their professed new liberalism about gay couples and sympathy for social victims? What seemed a simple and safe policy isn't.There are plenty of other examples. Take "Green Cameron", the enthusiastic environmentalist of not so long ago. Recently, the website Conservativehome polled 250 Tory candidates in the most winnable seats about their political priorities; 141 replied. Cutting the budget deficit, reducing red tape, and slashing the cost of welfare were the three most popular priorities; the environment was at the bottom. "Reducing Britain's carbon footprint" was the top priority of just eight candidates, as against, say, 45 choosing the repatriation of powers from Europe, and 43 cutting immigration.A skim through the Conservative press and blogosphere reminds you just how unpopular anything to do with global warming is. The Tory party's intellectuals are clambering on the "global warming isn't caused by mankind" bandwagon with as much enthusiasm as they used to oppose the Maastricht treaty or speak up for apartheid South Africa. Displaying contemptuous scepticism for climate change science has become the right's new badge of honour.It seems as if Tory candidates are rejecting green issues, just as the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, and others have sharpened up Labour's environmental credentials. So where do the Tories stand on something millions of voters consider the biggest policy challenge of all? We really don't know.Did I mention Maastricht? Europe hasn't gone away as a policy headache for Tory high command, even though Cameron successfully slipped off the hook of his earlier promise of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. He has promised vaguely that powers will be repatriated without explaining which, when and, above all, how. It is, like the support for marriage, a fuzzy warm fug instead of a policy. The Conservatives may be revolutionary on Europe, or they might (my hunch) be all words and no action. But it's quite a big issue. Tory candidates are simply biding their time.Another recent issue is defence cuts. There are a substantial group of Tory MPs and candidates who are outraged at the idea of cutting back on the armed forces while the war in Afghanistan rages on, and who would vote against a George Osborne budget that involved serious reductions in defence spending. Conservative rhetoric has been highly critical of Labour for failing to provide enough equipment, including helicopters, and for failing to "back our boys".Despite a recent speech from Cameron implying he'd like to concentrate more on home defence, he is just as committed to the same conflicts as Gordon Brown. So how are the numbers supposed to work? It's the kind of conundrum the Tories' defence minister in waiting, the former army chief Sir Richard Dannatt, might have been expected to resolve – except that he had to retreat from his new Tory role after an outraged reaction from other senior military chiefs and former mandarins. On the same theme, will Britain's aid budget be taken over by the Foreign Office under the Tories and be used for quasi-military work? And if so, what does the Tory aid team think of that? Again, good questions, minus good answers.I began by saying it was too early to announce the unravelling of Conservative policy-thinking – but in many cases it's partly because the policies haven't been ravelled in the first place. Given the money and advice apparently available to Cameron, the PM to be, that is astonishing.The reasons are familiar to those who watched New Labour in the old days. First, Cameron is trying to appeal to the maximum number of people while not alienating his party loyalists; and this is providing policies that make a decent headline but blur, and become bland, by the second paragraph.Second, he is operating with a small team of people and not really opening up his policymaking to a wide range of colleagues. That's bound to create resentment – as was shown in complaints over the weekend about communications chief Andy Coulson apparently making up prison policy on the hoof. Just as the Chilcot inquiry is throwing harsh new light on Tony Blair's version of sofa government, the Tory version is becoming apparent – a rather nice, natural wood Notting Hill kitchen table, perhaps.People are seemingly so fed up with Brown and Labour that little of the above is resonating. The media and perhaps the public seem to have decided it's time for a change, and that while it may be interesting there are holes in Tory policy, that won't change their vote. If so, we are all creating the conditions for disappointments, outrages and failures in the next parliament – the same tension between an inner clique and the rest of a party, the same unresolved choices carried into government, the same "they're all useless" reaction from voters.In the interests of politics, and even of David Cameron, not merely of Labour or the Lib Dems, it's time to turn up the lamplight on the Tories. In a few months' time it will be too late.ConservativesDavid CameronLabourJackie Ashleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |