johninnit

Here’s a new toy for Friday. The TUC has been working on electoral reform issues again, after a break of 50 years. A motion at Congress this year called for the TUC to restart debate in the movement on a fairer voting system for UK elections.

There’s a new ToUChstone report out today on the background to the issue of electoral reform, and a roundup of the options on the table and the impact each might have (you can download it here), and you can also take a practical walkthrough yourself online with the electoral reform test. (more…)

Back to my roots in the Solent town of Gosport this weekend. It’s a quiet sort of place, 80,000 or so inhabitants, neighbouring and utterly overshadowed by Portsmouth. It’s one claim to fame of recent years is probably one it would rather forget – the town MP Sir Peter Viggers got caught out attempting to claim for a now legendary ‘floating duck island‘ on Parliamentary expenses. (more…)

Today’s Torygraph front page (look, I had to buy it for work, okay!), left me pretty speechless. The nasty party is well and truly back. Redwood and Osborne plan a new policy direction to launch on Friday, but it seems to be too juicy a story to keep wraps on.

The idea is that we could save a whole heap of money without a few little fripperies that no-one will miss anyway. Stuff like:

• Health and safety at work
• The Working Time Directive
• data protection
• Safe care homes
• ‘Best Value’ councils
• Home Information Packs (yes, well…)
• Food supplement regulations
• Venture capital regulation
• Money laundering restrictions
• Mortgage regulation
• Waste incineration regulation
• Unfair dismissal protection
• BBC services outside TV

I’m not sure whether to be happy about this. It gives us some pretty clear blue water to define ourselves against, makes Cameron look like a total charlatan for changing so dramatically, and will rally the Labour troops very nicely. On the other hand, it’s like something from a zombie film sequel – the stumbling nightmare has returned, and that is enough to scare me a lot.

Some of their points will go down better than they should with floating voters. Health and safety is very hard to defend against the braying anti-PC mob, as people don’t tend to notice the fact they haven’t lost any limbs recently. Likewise with the working time directive (everyone tends to think they’re the only ones working whilst everyone else is slacking off), even though this would really hammer millions of people in the worst jobs, who really need it to protect their vulnerable family lives from exploitative employers.

Maybe the things we need to focus on are the ones that scare people silly about their own financial situation. This might be moves to make it easier to fire you, or to transfer financial services regulation to some of the only people voters trust less than politicians – the banks. Add onto that a free hand for big finance, and the fact that without data protection regulation, the Tories’ sinister corporate pals will be able to snoop on you however they like. There could be a compelling argument about the Tories trying to hand us all over to the less trustworthy side of big business done up like a kipper.

Also good is the Liberal angle that the sums are wrong, topped with the fact they mightn’t be able to ditch the WTD without an almighty spat with the EU (they lost the legal argument last time they tried, so I don’t see how they can do it now. All that makes them look just a bit dim, and as though they’re playing to their true instincts rather than having genuine new ideas, or taking modernisation at all seriously.

Reaction to it going off half-cocked like this has so far been encouragingly bad, but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays across the Tory party. I wonder if this is going to get watered down come Friday?

At the NHStogether lobby today, where health professional union members were gathering to give their MPs a co-ordinated earbashing on NHS matters such as deficits, privatisation and consultation on change.

Wandering around with his dinky camcorder was none other than toryboy2.0 Sam Roake, trying to get vox pop interviews with health professionals for webcameron. He was being quite philosophical that nearly all the people he approached declined his offer of lasting fame, with quite a few of them declining in terms which I’m far too modest to print on this blog.

Anyway, you can see his results on webcameron here. His perseverence eventually paid off and he got a few interviewees. Well spin-doctored by calling it a protest and mixing it with shots of the Socialist Party’s “Sack Blair” march (claiming thousands of marchers – possibly the first time I’ve seen the Tories overestimate a leftie demo). Anyway, I reckon he deserves two cheers at least for being brave enough to venture into the unions’ den without cricket pads.

I wonder how the conversation went?

Dave: So, hey, looks like Blair’s going to get a kicking at the union lobby today, maybe we should get in on that.
Sam: But Dave, won’t they bite us and beat us with their whimsical folk-art banners as soon as we step in the door? At very least we’d probably catch MRSA or something.
Dave: A risk, certainly, but if we’re going to foster a new, mature and open approach to politics, we surely need to ‘be the change’ and reach out to everyone, no? A little personal danger is a very small price to pay for that.
Sam: Gosh, that’s very true. Maybe we could try to find out what they actually want then – Get some interviews with some real people – represent their concerns in a way that the news bulletins will just gloss over.
Dave: Yes, yes, and then trim out all the bits about extra funding under Labour and how bad we used to be and all that.
Sam: Er, okay. So shall I call us a cab?
Dave: Hmm… Actually, why don’t you go and just fill in for me? I’d love to, really, but these dishes aren’t going to wash themselves you know…

Still a lot of speculation about who will get the union votes in a Labour leadership contest – Amicus are cheering for Brown, and the non-affiliated RMT declared for McDonnell – Everyone else seems to be waiting to see the final cut, and maybe see what they might get from any of the candidates.

Whoever gets it though, and whoever promises unions the most, it’s nice to see we’ll all know very clearly who’s promising the least for people at work. This sort of thing should focus minds nicely come the next election:

Ridiculous Politics: David Cameron: I’ll make it easier for companies for fire you