Monthly Archives: May 2011

Red Ed’s big day. He’s got a few more to come.

by jakelambertonline

Congratulation to Ed Miliband and his partner Justine, who were married today. Or as the Mail put it ‘finally found the time to wed the mother of his two children’. Ed’s leadership has taken something of a beating in the media and in Westminster circles, especially since the local and devolved election results. Today, however, I’m writing in support of Ed’s leadership, at least to an extent.

I must first admit Ed was not my first choice for the leadership job, I supported Andy Burnham and I still believe we would have performed far better under his leadership in the local elections. Burnham recognised in his leadership campaign that the London-centric approach of the Party has led to a significant and dangerous degeneration of CLP’s outside the major cities, where it is far harder to maintain a vibrant and involving political atmosphere. Far more needs to be done to encourage and support Labour members across Britain to become active and encourage others to be active. That’s another story.

As most now (finally) recognise, the leadership have failed to land any convincing blows on Cameron and his Tories,  who have happily taunted like John Cleese’s frenchman in The Holy Grail from behind their Lib Dem flavoured Star Wars defence system. The shadow cabinet need to find a way to puncture this insulating Chris Huhne balloon, and to capitalise on the evident chaos within the coalition. They’ve had more gaffes in the last few months than we managed in the entire Brown premiership. That is a role for the shadow cabinet, especially in the areas where they clearly have far more competence than their opposite numbers. Think Balls v Osborne, Cooper v May, Burnham v Gove.

Ed, on the other hand, should keep doing what he’s doing. His leadership style has been characterised by his honesty, forthrightness, clarity and lack of showmanship. Polling has supported the idea that Ed is developing a reputation for honesty, when he talks people feel they can trust him. PMQ’s has been the best expression of this. Faced with a public school bully, short on facts, ideas, or manners, Ed has done his job, representing the opposition to scrutinise and criticise the coalition, without resorting the ad hominum attacks that the public hate.

I hope it stays that way, despite advisors worrying about the polls. It may not be good for the party right now, but it’s good for politics. The personal vitriol that the media thrives on goes a long way to alienating people from the bunch of middle class rich boys squabbling in a big palace. It may take some time for the media to adjust, but I hope Ed sticks to his guns. I accept this must be balanced with a strategy across the shadow cabinet to beat the coalition and Ed will need to improve to show he can beat the Tories as well as win our trust.

He should talk about how the coalition are hurting ordinary people, and outline a Labour vision for the future, but deal with issues and policy, not with personalities. The public will thank him for it.

Congrats Dear Leader

Jake

A congratulations is in order

by maxattacks

Justine and Ed Miliband

Now sorry for the lack of blogging lately, we have all been massively pre-occupied with exams and the like. I myself will commence normal blogging levels after the 3rd June or so.

But anyway, I’m sure everyone in BULS and the wider political spectrum wishes Ed and Justine the very best in their marriage and wish that they have a long and happy life together.

Max

You know what they say about blokes with big guns

by maxattacks

Hey ho! Just a quick blog as a break from revision (how committed am I!).

Anyways, today was announced that the Trident renewal is to go ahead, which if you know me well enough is the biggest waste of money since Chelsea bought Torres for £50 million (still only scored a single goal for those who are not that football literate). This is not the Cold-war era; there are no two major rival super-powers. And for those who claim that we cannot know the future, well if you distrust the future, if you treat nation-states with suspicion, then distrust and suspicion is what you’ll receive.

Yes, the nuclear arms have acted as a deterrent for now, but you know what’s a far far better deterrent? Not having the means to deter either side in the first place. Here’s another way of putting it, I’ve never had crack cocaine for breakfast, one because I would never take crack cocaine, but more importantly, I don’t keep it in my fridge. Equally, my slaves have never initiated a violent and bloody uprising by simply not having slaves.  It’s like a deterrent, only safer and a hell of a lot cheaper.

One problem I also have with the whole deterrent idea is that if one nation does launch its missiles, there’s no one all. If one side launches their missiles, what will you gain by indiscriminately achieve by killing millions of people you’ve never met?

Trident is political not military tool as expressed by most high ranking Generals. And you know what they say about blokes with big guns…….I’ll leave those thoughts with you.

Max

BULS Supports a YES Vote in the Guild Referendum 2011

by bulsonline

On Wednesday 9nd March at an open meeting, BULS held a vote as to whether we as a society should support both the UCU in any future strike action and also the two Guild Council motions relating to the issue (8a & 8b) that went to Guild Council on Tuesday 15th March 2011.

A unanimus result in favour of YES was reached and for that reason BULS fully supports the YES campaign in the Guild of Students Referendum that is currently taking place regarding the Guild’s postion and future strike action by the UCU.

We are fully aware that this is a very late declaration but this is largely down to being unaware that we as a society of the Guild of Students were able to openly support a side (which is different to usual Guild election rules).

If you havent voted yet in the referendum, we urge you to vote YES to both questions to ensure that the union movement at this University is cemented by the Guild standing side by side with our lecturers and other teaching staff in their grieviences with the University of Birmingham. The case of the UCU members can only be strengthened by assistance and support from the Guild and this will only happen with a YES vote! Finally a vote for YES is just as much in the interests of students as it is for UCU members. We need well paid and well respected professionals teaching us and helping us through our degree studies. If we have a disgruntled workforce at Birmingham, there is the possibility that teaching standards will drop. And in turn, OUR overall learning experience may suffer in the long run.

For more information on the YES campaign, please visit: http://goo.gl/i30YF

And in the interest of fairness, more information on the NO campaign can be found here: http://goo.gl/bbzsL

Voting is done at my.bham and closes at 4pm today! And remember BULS says YES in the Guild Referendum 2011!

From the BULS Committee

The AV result

by maxattacks

02.05.2011: Martin Rowson on the electoral reform vote

First off. I’d like to point that I respect the decision of the people of Britain in a resounding ‘No’ vote to AV. It’s a shame further electoral reform has been buried for a century, but I’m not a Lib Dem so I’ll get over it. But, I would like to explain why ‘No’ won.

The primary reason for a ‘No’ victory was Clegg’s insistence in holding the referendum on the same day as local elections across England, the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Irish Assembly elections. Because of this the people regarded the referendum as one on Clegg rather than a change to the voting system, consequently, due to Clegg’s unpopularity the referendum could have never been won. The coinciding with the local elections was further capitalised on by the ‘No to AV’ campaign, blatantly spreading personal attacks on the Lib Dems and more specifically Clegg himself. Admittedly, I myself am not the Lib Dems biggest fan any more and the ‘Yes’ side was not perfect either in the campaigning, but the Tories completely refusing to discredit the personal attacks which only gave them legitimacy.

This was because the ‘No to AV’ campaign, despite all the publicity of its Labour supporters, was in effect another Tory ‘No to AV’ group and any attempt to deny this is just misguided. The ‘No to AV’ group was 90% funded by Conservative donors and famously in areas of London ‘Labour No to AV’ leaflets had to be withdrawn because of printing at the bottom that read “produced by the Conservative party”. The ‘No to AV’ campaign went even further down the line than merely personal attacks, they also went on a blatant lying spree with famously the £250 million and vote counting machines claim. The reason why we now no this was a blatant lie was because prominent Labour supporter of ‘No to AV’, David Blunket, actually admitted that the £250 million claim was a figure they plucked out of the air. Now while it was a blatant lie (coupled with the “If you vote Yes this baby/soldier will die” lie) it was an effective lie.

This then leads finally onto the effectiveness of the ‘Yes’ campaign which was nothing less than a shambles. There was no coherent and simple message to sell to the British people and their entire campaign group was made up of Lib Dems and a number of charities, with the former being only good at localised, targeted campaigns.

But anyway, electoral reform is now buried for another century, it was good while it lasted, but it’s time to move on.

Max

The pains of my inner Scot

by maxattacks

If you’re confused by the title of this blog, my last name is Ramsay, the same as famous Scot, Gordon Ramsay. But anyway to say that the Labour result in Scotland was nothing less than disastrous is completely misplaced. It’s not the fact that we did badly that bothers me personally, it’s rather the fact that around 9 months ago Labour was well placed to re-establish themselves as the largest party in Holyrood.

This is primarily the fault of Ian Gray and without a doubt, he will have to go as leader by the end of the week. But, we must not leave out the Scottish and National Labour party. We were complacent, I know I certainly was, everyone assumed we would easily win back Edinburgh, but we didn’t count on the effectiveness of Salmond’s SNP campaign which did strike a progressive and positive tone. This is in stark contrast to Scottish Labour’s negativity.

If there’s one thing we can learn from Scotland, negative, attacking politics doesn’t work. The only time Labour succeeds electorally (1945, 1964 and 1997 nationally and 1999 in Scotland and Wales) so this is something we will need to replicate nation-wide.

Max

Elections – A Glass Half Empty View

by labourluke

First of all, congratulations to Brigid Jones, the new Councillor for Selly Oak.

It’s been a fascinating night (if a bit slow), and there is still the jaw-dropping news that Britain has rejected the Alternative Vote system amongst an abysmal turnout yet to come, however what is really intriguing is where Labour did not do so well, rather than where it made gains.

Once North Wales has decided it can be bothered to start counting, Labour looks set to make gains in Wales, possibly securing a working majority, while in the local elections in England the Lib Dems have suffered their worst result since the party’s formation – all of these could have been easily predicted 24 hours ago. However, in Scotland, you could be forgiven for thinking Labour is in government and has just announced swingeing cuts or banned tartan by the disappointing result and the triumph of Alex Salmond’s SNP, who have capitalised on their narrow success in 2007. Scotland has traditionally been a Labour country, however this result demonstrates a new confidence and is evidence of maturity among the Scottish electorate – they clearly differentiate between Westminster polls and those to Hollyrood. Although it is premature to say Scotland is on the road to fully endorsing indepedence – as Labour leader Ian Gray learned, Scottish voters have more pressing issues on their minds – it does demonstrate a worrying trend towards ever-further detachment from the rest of the UK, with a completely different political culture with different trends. That  pizza-slice analogy Andrew Marr spoke of is becoming more realistic every year.

Meanwhile, what is also worrying is how the Conservatives are getting away with blue murder in the local elections. Their vote has held up, possibly because Tory voters tend to turnout in higher numbers in local polls, possibly because of local issues, but almost certainly because Cameron has cleverly allowed Nick Clegg to become a scapegoat for the Con-Dems’ worst policies. Labour needs to wake up from this, admit we are only at the very start of a long long road to Downing Street, and attack the Tories, instead of reminding everyone about Clegg’s betrayal of the left – the voters don’t need to be reminded of this.

It’s been a good night on balance, but there are some worrying signs in these results (never mind the depressing conservatism and apathy over AV), and there now needs to be a change of strategy at Labour HQ.

Luke

Vote Labour and Yes

by maxattacks

Today you have a chance to achieve two significant outcomes. First, if you believe the First Past The Post voting system no longer works and is completely indefensible then please vote ‘Yes’ in the referendum today for fairer votes and an end to tactical voting and wasted votes. Please do not base the AV referendum on petty party politics of Clegg/Cameron/Miliband.  Please leave that for the local elections, the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections as that is true place to tell the Coalition that they are cutting too far and too fast and to give you a voice in tough times through the Labour party.

Max