This week in politics

It has been a strange old week in politics.

Those of us in the Labour Party are eagerly awaiting the result of the leadership ballot and wondering if our agonising over which of the earnestly fraternal candidates to support has had the impact we desired.  The entire contest was variously billed as ‘historic’, ‘vital’, and ‘an opportunity for renewal’, at which point the candidates differentiated themselves by placing different emphases on their degree of support for the New Labour project, with little substantive debate on any meaningful restructuring of the party. Lip service was paid to democratic processes yet none of the candidates felt able to even hint that the complete emasculation of Party Conference that paved the way for the metropolitan dominance of the Party needed to be reversed. In a broader political sense the candidates line up from all perspectives within the party from just right of centre to just a teensy weensy but left of centre.

First, there is the bookies, arms dealers and media moguls favourite, David Miliband, whom I had the misfortune to hear speak at an event last month. A more anodyne and meaningless political performance I have yet to witness. His speech was notable for lasting around thirty minutes and in that time the word ‘socialism’ was never mentioned, neither was the phrase ‘social democracy’. In stark contrast the nebulous word ‘progressive’ seemed to pop up in every second sentence, as did the phrase ‘responsible opposition’; not exactly rousing and banally prosaic. This is not to single out the older Miliband, rather it is to recount my experience of the only candidate I heard without the mediation of radio or television.

The second favourite is his younger brother, Ed. Now Ed wrote the Labour election manifesto so one would assume he took some pride in it. He seems, however, to have taken more pride in distancing himself from its contents the longer the campaign has gone on. He has, however made lots of new friends in the Trades Unions, and one wonders if any deals have been struck to secure some key votes. If they have it will interesting to see if Ed sticks to his side of the bargain should he be successful. He also seems to delight in not being an MP when we went to war with Iraq, so it isn’t his fault. Though differing in their emphases it does seem that filial affection outweighs sibling rivalry with the Miliband brothers; they are essentially Blairites with Ed leaning a tiny bit more towards a slightly more traditional Labour position.

Next we have the pugnacious yet disarmingly domestic Ed Balls. Ed aligns himself more closely with the Brown government than any of the other candidates and has made a much greater point of re-stating Labour’s achievements in office, associating himself extremely closely with Labour’s flagship achievement; Sure Start. In many ways he has appeared the most honest of the candidates and possibly the best equipped to creatively oppose the government. He is, nonetheless, like the Miliband brothers trapped in the past and is not critical enough of New Labour.

Then comes Andy Burnham. He is the most earnest of the lot, yet he has run a lacklustre campaign with no real coherent theme other than constant reference to his localness to his constituency and the need to ‘get back to core values’ without ever spelling out exactly what they are and how we should get back to them. He also, in agreement with the other male candidates has bought ‘hook, line and sinker’ into the concept of the need for the cuts, demonstrating the one really worrying aspect of the whole leadership election; the candidates lack of understanding of macro-economics.

Finally we have Diane Abbot, who is distinguished from the other candidates in several areas; notably in that she is a woman, she is black, and she was a constant opponent of the War in Iraq from the very beginning. Her campaign held the promise of a genuine voice from the Left that in the end failed to materialise. She has consistently showed a great deal more solidarity with the Trades Unions and a greater understanding of the problems that will face families in the wake of the coalition cuts than any of the other candidates, but has not made any viable proposals as an alternative. She has also been dogged in her attempt to represent Left thinking within the Party by the fact that she sent her child to a private school. Right or wrong her rationale that she was doing as all parents do, ‘her best for her child’, betrays her middle-class reality. A genuine person of the Left, especially a working-class single parent of the Left would NEVER use private education.

So, there we have it and our choices have been made. Make no mistake, any of them would make an infinitely better Prime Minister than David Cameron, but the Labour Party has missed a huge opportunity to revive itself. The Labour Party as a real voice for ordinary people is now but a distant memory. We will continue to work and support them but not with the enthusiasm and hope of decades gone by.

On the wider political front the Liberal Democrats have apparently been having a Party Conference. For the life of me I can’t see why. Head Boy Nick Clegg arrived with his trouser legs tucked into his socks for no apparent reason, gave a keynote speech in which he talked forever and said absolutely nothing, and then changed his suit and left. Vince Cable later talked of bankers as ‘spivs’ but was only allowed by George Osborne to do so by ‘balancing’ it by referring to some Trades Union officials as ‘Trotskyites’. He had been introduced to the gathering of the ‘radical centre’ as ‘our own economic guru’. As Alistair Darling noted in May “Vince has predicted ten of the last two recessions”. If Dr Cable is an economic guru, then I am fried egg. It transpires that any motions passed at Liberal Democrat conference become Party policy (Labour Party take note), but prior to the conference the leadership had said that the coalition agreement takes precedence over Party policy. Given this fact and the fact that they are the Liberal Democrats and therefore utterly meaningless, I took no further interest and have no idea what motions were passed and care not a jot.

Finally, and this for me has been the burning political issue since the election and Alistair Campbell’s hilarious wind-up of the execrable Adam Boulton, is what is to become of New Labour’s feuding superegos, Campbell and Mandelson. They appear to have competing memoirs or diaries out at the moment making excessive claims to being the power behind the throne in the Blair years. Quite why they would want to ‘cough’ for crimes against the Labour Party I am not sure, but so be it. Campbell seems to be of a mind to run for Parliament, but one would think he is already yesterday’s man, whilst Lord Mandelson has no need of voter approval, unless and until we get a democratically elected second chamber. If and when that point is reached I feel eventually his star will wane; and not before time. He does, however intrigue me. How does he always mange to keep his hair in place, and how does he manage to simply ‘glide’ over the ground without ever appearing to move any of his limbs? He even glides up and down stairs and in and out of scandal with never a blot on his character.