Values Voters

Since 1997 Labour has only been consistenly ahead in one poll. When voters are asked "Which political party most shares your values?", Labour comes out on top every time. If we are to prevent a Tory landslide we must reconnect with our values voters. Time is running out.

Norwich North by-election, 23 July 2009
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Chloe Smith	13,591	39.54	+6.3
	Labour	Chris Ostrowski	6,243	18.16	-26.7
	Liberal Democrat	April Pond	4,803	13.97	-2.23

General Election 1997: Norwich North[4]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Ian Gibson	27,346	49.7	+6.9
	Conservative	Robert Kinghorn	17,876	32.5	-10.8
	Liberal Democrat	Paul Young	6,951	12.6	-0.3

In the Norwich North by election the Conservatives received 4000 less votes than they did in 1997. Labour's vote dropped by 21,000. It's not so much that turnout is down overall, it is that our turnout has been decimated. People are not switching to the Tories, they are switching off all together.

Across Norwich in deprived wards like Crome, our voters stayed at home. Did they fail to vote because they thought that Labour was too left wing? Did they decide to not turn out because they thought that we were too anti business? Did they stay at home because they believed that public spending was too high? No. These 21,000 lost values voters did not vote Labour because they do not believe we are on their side. We must convince our lost millions that we are.

Labour has to stop talking about "winning middle england", stop trying to appear tough on crime and terror with hopelessly unpopular schemes like ID cards and start putting all our energies into helping those who have been left behind in our decade in power.

Here are two ways we could reconnect with these values voters tomorrow:

1. Index link all state benefits and the minimum wage to RPI by law. Inflation will rise again and we must show we are committed to ridistributing wealth and helping people in need get by.
2. Levy a tax on second homes (which artificially inflate property prices) and use this money to build social housing on a massive scale. In 1945 government debt was far, far higher than it was today and yet the Atlee government rebuilt almost a tenth of city housing in the UK. We must set our sights high and enact housing plans just as ambitious.

To reconnect we must fight the good fight; not the politically convenient one. I hope we're up to the challenge

Left behind. Why can't we sound like social democrats when we talk about economics?

Success! Hurahh! The stock market is rallying. Business confidence is up! GDP is shrinking less fast!

Its about to get to a point in this reccession where we start hearing Stephanie Flanders talk about green shoots, government ministers patting themselves on the back for averting a crisis and the traditional working classes flocking back to Labour in thanks for helping them through the tough times. Except one of those isn't going to happen.

While we insist on determining whether economic policy is successful based on arbirtrary indicators, rather than the experiences of real people, we will fail the people we are in politics to help.

In 2007,after years of sustained economic growth, UNICEF declared Britain one of the worst places to be a child in Europe. After years of economic growth under a Labour government inequality was worse than ever. After years of economic growth, a whole NEET generation had emerged, left behind from New Labour's meritocracy.

When we as social democrats are asked the question "is the economy doing well?" let's not mistake it for "is the FTSE going up or down?". People on low incomes feel disconnected from all discussion in the media and by politicians about economics. We need to make sure we reverse the impression that policy in this area is directed at the company directors.

A thought experiment: Which of these two people is more beneficial for the UK economy?

1. An investment banker who earns millions but keeps his money in off shore accounts and spends the rest on himself?

2. A newly qualified science teacher who earns modestly but whose contribution to society ensures innovation and excellence in the future.

If you use the language of the right, #1 is far more important for the UK. He adds far more to our GDP and his investments make the arrows on BBC Business news go green.

If you are a social democrat however, you'll understand that it is far more important to make sure we have as many #2s as possible. Whether they are doctors, teachers, nurses, social workers or even stay at home mums or dads, there are millions of people who make a giant contribution to our society without adding much directly to economic indicators.

If Labour is going to reconnect with all our voters who fall into the second catergory, lets make sure we make absolutely clear that they are the focus of economic policy.

In a few days time thousands of activists will descend on London to take part in Climate Camp 2009. Have a look at my open letter to the Home Secretary requesting that the police act with restraint in managing the demonstrations, avoiding the disgraceful violence seen at the G20 protests in April.










Fighting climate change will be the key global challenge in the first half of this century and global warming is a disaster that is happening right now. While there are some extremists in the environmental movement, the vast majority of protesters at camps like these are prescient in understanding the vital importance of their cause and peaceful in the way they wish to express their opinions.

To survive and grow after the next general election the Labour Party must become the 'Labour Movement' once again. We are the progressives on environmentalism and our coalition must include those groups who are today raising the alarm about climate change. Alan Johnson would be well advised to act decisively to make sure that the police do not overreact to what will, overwhelmingly, be peaceful demonstrations.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it
Joseph Goebbels.

Heres a nice big whopper from Tory HQ then; "Vote Blue, Go Green".
Cameron's slogan from the 2008 local elections see here, this out and out lie is one being pushed through meaningless stunts rather than policy commitments.

The Tories were exposed on Tuesday by Vestas as little England, NIMBYist climate change deniers, whose record in local government has caused a "collapse" in demand for wind farms in the UK.


Greenpeace notes that Tory councils block three times as many wind farms as they approve, failing to explain how this squares with a commitment for 20% of energy in the UK to come from renewable sources by 2020.

For anyone with any doubt about how committed Conservatives really are to climate change, have a look at their delightful MEP Roger Helmer at the European Parliament.

A Conservative government is a climate disaster waiting to happen. NGOs and green groups need to speak to expose the hypocrisy of the Tories now before its too late.

Two highly flawed ways to beat the BNP.

1. Shout a lot, march a lot, swear a lot.




Notice the locals by the side of the road. Utterly unimpressed by the sight of UAF's rally which made no attempt to reach out to them and every attempt to play to the cameras filming the rally itself.

It's a good idea to protest against the BNP, but travelling round the country shouting "Nazi Scum" is not going to cut it I'm afraid. Where the BNP are a physical threat to ethnic minorities, the police need to be there defending them, not counter protesters. UAF's protest in Birmingham turned into a full scale riot, allowing the Daily Mail to post these pictures.



2. Allow the BNP to have an equal footing with other parties; as if violently racist opinion was somehow an equal contribution to a debate over immigration.

This was the stupid approach taken by Luke Tryl by inviting Nick Griffin to speak at the Oxford Union and at Bristol University, by the Conservative Club who passed a disgusting "pro platform" motion through Union AGM.

To engage with Andrew Brons, the BNP MEP who shouts "kill jews" at rallies, on immigration policy is akin to discussing with Osama Bin Laden the finer points of Iraqi election law. The BNP lie and lie again, inventing attacks by immigrants, stirring up racial hatred inciting violence against ethnic minorities. The correct response to Hitler would not have been "lets discuss the merits and demerits of your final solution project" and the correct response to the BNP is not to pretend that their positions are not based on hate fuelled deceit.


What we really need to do:

The only way to really beat the BNP is have a community wide exposure of their lies and a clear campaign against them. We need to show them for what they really are, not shout at them or listen to them. Hope not Hate in the run up to the 2009 Euro elections launched a massive campaign, which I was proud to be a part of, engaging with people in the communities that they target and explaining that their policies are based on hatred. Nick Griffin was a mere few thousand votes away from failing to become an MEP in an election he believed he had sewn up. We need to make sure that as anti fascists we are on the doorstep, listening to people's concerns and letting them know that the BNP are not the answer to them. We further make sure that local faith leaders, not for profit organisations and people representing all parts of the community are standing with us. If anti fascism becomes synonymous with the Socialist Workers Party and street violence, only the BNP stand to gain.

I think I'm the only person in the Labour party who loves Daniel Hannan. Instead of trying to masquerade as a socially responsible "progressive" party like Osborne and Cameron do, Hannan is happy to show himself and the rest of his party to be regressive, uncaring and unbelievably right wing. Yes, he insults and lies about NHS staff, but that is much better than the empty praise of George and Dave, who'd be happy to pose next to nurses at a photoshoot one morning, while capping their pay in the afternoon.

Having said that though... I don't think I'd argue with Charlie Brooker's highly academic analysis of Hannan's personality traits.

I love the NHS. In Britain we can be incredibly proud that we have a health service that is free at the point of delivery. But blind praise is not enough. Over the past fortnight almost every cabinet minister has been praising the institution, without recognising that it does indeed have some very real problems.

Even after 12 years of Labour government, healthcare in the UK is underfunded, having real impacts on the quality of care patients receive. We spend 7.5% of our GDP on healthcare and have 2.2 doctors per 1,000 people. This is a big improvement on levels in 1997, but is still comparatively extremely low compared with the rest of the developed world. France, Canada and Germany, Greece and many more countries all spend 2% more than us on healthcare, providing more doctors, bed places and ultimately better outcomes on a range of indicators. When the NHS is criticised for performing poorly on cancer survival rates, hospital infections, prevention of disease and many more, we must be clear that more government involvement and bigger public stake is needed in healthcare, not less. Vast improvements have been made by Labour, but we will not be satisfied with anything less than the world class healthcare promised in 1945. Its not OK that the UK is one of the worst places to contract cancer in Europe and its not OK that life expectancy is two years shorter than in France. To truly defend the NHS from the right, we must do better.