Like all other political obsessives, I have my passions,  my causes and my beliefs. I have a vision for what I want from the Labour Party and the next Labour Government. But within that vision, are layers of possibilities. An understanding that my utopia will not be the same as my neighbours (especially as we’re both quite loud, and have very, very different taste in music). I understand the bargaining that an appeal to electability across a mass audience can bring. But even with this understanding, I know that there is and always must be a difference between bargaining and capitulation.

I’m an odd sort of politico at times.

I see too many people on every side of any argument cherry pick evidence to prove not just that a policy will work, but that it will be popular. Clutching at those articles that reinforce your world view, while disregarding anything that challenges it. I think that to be a Socialist, you have to be an optimist. Not necessarily an unrealistic one, but an optimist nonetheless. But to be a strategist, you have to be a pessimist. Not a hopeless one - that’s no good to anyone – but able to see the bumps in the road. Reconciling the need for pessimism in favour of the greater cause of optimism is tough to balance. So it’s not that I am not easily pleased, more that my fear of being too easily pleased will send me too far in the other direction.

I’m an odd sort of politico. For these reasons, when I read something that I find speaks to both my desire for how things are, and my sense of how things could be, my first reaction is not joy, but caution. Like Mulder, I want to believe. Like Scully, I want to see proof.

This is how I felt when I read Andrew Harrop’s excellent and potential strategy changing article on Labour List about “Ed’s Converts”. If this research is robust (and the Fabians are rarely anything but),  then it supports my belief that Labour has a new space arising from the Lib Dems abandoning their left flank to go into coalition. A space to be a more openly Socially Democratic Labour Party and future government. I want this research to be be right so much. So much so that my Spidey-senses are tingling. Do I want it too much? Does the research really support a more left-leaning Labour Party? I want this research to be right and I want it proved right, and as such it will need to be tested almost to destruction. If it can withstand all that might be thrown at it, it could be the basis for a realignment of politics as powerful and successful as New Labour. I hope that the Fabian“Labour’s Next Majority” project will do that testing. I have a few questions that I’d like to offer for their consideration.

The first place I would want that testing to begin is on the idea of the current coalition of interests that make up that group. In Andrew’s piece he speaks of two core groups that make up the group: lower income communities and left liberals. These two groups are not always ones it is easy to produce compatible messages for. On areas like crime for example, they are often diametrically opposed, while both rating their issues highly. For example around surveillance and the role of the state. Would appealing to one group automatically repel the other? How do Labour chart their way through that territory.

Equally, the article states that the worst case scenario with these groups is a hung Parliament with Labour the largest Party. But if their support is as solid as that supposes, would it not be more electorally viable (if not, for me, politically desirable) to tack right and shore up some centrist floating 2010 Tory voters? What would and what wouldn’t put these voters off and how can or should they be slotted into an “Ed’s Converts” based strategy?

Finally – just as part of a starting response – what can and what should we be promising the left in order to keep it united? When does the left’s optimism become the naivete of stereotype? I think we have more scope than some, but we’re not going to be living in or building a brave new world come 2015. Many of the problems that are stymieing Governments of all kinds all over the world will still be ongoing. It will not be simple and it will not be perfect. If this is the framework for a new coalition of the Left, forged under a Labour banner, how do we make sure it doesn’t just win, but lasts?

Those are a few questions I think need to be looked at as an ongoing part of the Fabian’s excellent work. I am incredibly excited by this, and the way you can tell is that I’m questioning it. Strengthening through questioning is – to my mind – the best possible way to support the growth of an idea. I’ll be hoping to contribute further to the Fabian’s ongoing work in this area, and I look forward to more like this.

I want to believe!

This post was originally published here.

No related posts.

Although families may come to the realisation, often after years of hoping, that their loved one is probably dead, without a body it is very difficult to register that person’s death and obtain a death certificate.  This can lead to years of delay in settling a person’s affairs such as dissolving marriages, dealing with mortgages, and administering estates.  In cases where missing people are found, the intervening period can have devastated their bank accounts, homes can have been repossessed, and bills paid for years for services they never used.

Charities such as Missing People have been working for some time to bring forward legislation and had been hopeful that this year’s Queen’s Speech would be the turning point. Their work has been supported by a June 2011 enquiry by the All Party Group for Runaway and Missing Children which recommend that the Ministry of Justice provides a framework for consultation.   The House of Commons Justice Select Committee then threw its weight behind the call in its report this February when they called on the Government to introduce a Presumption of Death Act modelled on the legislation in force in Scotland and Northern Ireland.  They even went further and proposed a system of guardianship orders that would allow a person’s property to be administered in their best interests if they have been missing for three months or more.  This is an excellent idea and could particularly help families where a loved one has goes missing but is found after a few months.

The legislation in Scotland has worked well and in the 34 years since it was enacted only one missing person is reported to have come forward, and of course that can’t be considered negative in any way.  If we compare the situation in Scotland or Northern Ireland to England and Wales, however, we soon see just how difficult it is for families whose loved one has gone missing.  Families can wait for seven years and then approach the courts, and I mean courts plural, because an order for one purpose does not cover all.  Oddly one court could rule on a presumption of death whereas another court on the same evidence could deny such an order.  All of this of course on top of the burden that the loss of a loved one brings with it.  Under the Non-Contentious Probate Rules a family could move slightly more swiftly but this is not a presumption of death, it only allows a family to administer the missing person’s affairs and the round of court applications is still needed to deal with marriages etc.

it is more than disappointing that the Ministry of Justice has not brought forward any proposed legislation in this area and it has fallen to Baroness Kramer to bring forward a private Bill in the House of Lords.  This is an unsatisfactory way for a government not exactly groaning under the weight of draft Bills to behave.   The Labour Party will continue to press the current government to resolve this issue at the earliest opportunity.

Rob Flello is a Shadow Justice Minister

Related posts:

1. Miliband and Balls unveil alternative Queens’ Speech
2. Why people are still talking about Ed’s conference speech in Liverpool
3. Blue Labour – New Labour’s missing ingredient
4. Tuition fees – what we’re missing
5. Missing: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Related posts:

1. Abolishing an elected European Parliament is no way forward – a response to Jack Straw
2. Jack Straw on the battle to lower the age of consent
3. Jack Straw should apologise
4. Jack Straw backs David Miliband: 8 in the morning, August 12th
5. Jack Straw says British involvement in Iraq was never informed by a desire for regime change

Related posts:

1. Eric Joyce resigns from Labour front bench
2. Labour’s New Generation on the front bench
3. Junior front bench roles
4. The Co-operative Party in Westminster: Who we are, and what we do
5. A future fair for all: Labour launches new website front page

Even just a few weeks ago, when Miliband’s performances at the dispatch box were improving markedly week on week, there was always a fear that Cameron could go up a gear and speed past his opponent. If he could keep his cool, attack Ed at the right times, shop up Labour’s ample rhetorical weaknesses, mention David Miliband a few times and talk about tackling the deficit, then he’d be home and dry.

That doesn’t cut it any more.

Ed Miliband today appraoched PMQs with a completely different demeanour. Not a swagger as such. The very idea of Ed Miliband swaggering is enough to coax guffaws of laughter out of the most ardest Milibandista. But he looks and sounds confident. He smiles when he’s trying to be funny (although, I’d still prefer it if he binned the gags), the heckles which once led to him repeating Mr Speaker now see him fighting back and landing jabs on the opposition benches, he’s no longer blown away by the noise, the drama or the attention. He looks like he belongs there, rather than someone who is filling in.

You can, dare I say it, imagine him standing at the other since of the despatch box – answering the questions.

That’s not to say that Labour should be complacent about PMQs. Anything but. It would only take a few weeks of good news coverage (however unlikely that might sound now) to put the fire back in Cameron’s belly. And he’s still a top performer in this format. But his mojo has gone, and the Mili-mojo is getting its first real outing.

I used to fear PMQs, watching them through my fingers and desperately counting down the minutes until they’d ended. Even when Ed was winning it was like watching your team defend a 1-0 lead in the cup final - simultaneously pleased but expecting disaster.

Now I look forward to them. And I bet there are plenty of Tories who now felt like I did a few months ago.

I could get used to this.

No related posts.

No related posts.

But the emerging physical similarities are where comparisons between Brown and Osborne end. Unlike most of his predecessors, Gordon managed to seamlessly move from Number 11 to Number 10. Osborne, exposed as less fleet of foot in recent times, looks increasingly like he will be forced from office amid the utter collapse of his economic policy as we sink back into recession.

All of which presents an interesting dilemma for the government. In order to restore their credentials on the economy when ‘Osbornomics’ becomes so discredited that even Michael Fallon refuses to take to the airwaves to defend it, the government will need a new salesman to flog its new economic direction.

With his dilettantism, Osborne is the wrong man to convince the public that the government is doing everything it can to protect jobs and resuscitate the economy. A fact brought home in this week’s YouGov poll which shows Labour and the Tories now level-pegging on economic competence.

He is too busy plotting and scheming in David Cameron’s outer office. Hence the disastrous fall-out from his budget, which has littered the political battlefield with pieces of unexploded ordinance in the shape of weird and wonderful new taxes on everything from grannies to pasties while the super-rich get a free ride.

The furore will not destroy him – mostly the reaction has been mocking – but his political reputation, not least in his own party, now has an ugly piece of shrapnel sticking out if it. He should, literally, have stuck to the day job.

A new chancellor is needed; one who combines a carefully-calibrated optimism about the future with a sense of diligence, application and quiet authority. In short, everything Osborne does not. What the government needs, in effect, is a Tory version of Alistair Darling. Someone unexciting, unflappable, dependable and straight.

Darling’s very unfashionableness is, in these straitened times, curiously fashionable.  And politically necessary too as the Tories continue to slither down the polls and need to show that a grown-up is in charge.

But where to look? The least dramatic move would see William Hague and Osborne switch jobs. Hague is a familiar face and certainly smart enough, but his very familiarity is a drawback. The government needs a ‘clean skin’. Someone newish, not too political and not hopelessly associated with the past.

The smart choice would be Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond. As shadow chief secretary to the Treasury in the run-up to the last election he always outshone his boss. He knows his stuff and his measured tone exudes competence and assurance. Was he out on manoeuvres the other day when he drifted well off his brief to duff up “whinging” captains of industry who should be investing in productive capacity rather than hoarding cash?

A more leftfield option would be Transport Secretary Justine Greening. She is becoming quietly effective as a pourer of oil on troubled waters and a general purveyor of common sense. Her Rotherham background makes her an effective antidote to the government’s posh, southern, male cabal. Relatively speaking, she’s more working men’s club than Bullingdon club. And as a former Treasury minister with a professional background in finance, she has the grounding.

What the government does next on the economy will set the seal on this parliament. Simply hoping things eventually get better risks a backlash by voters who see “posh boys” (C. Nadine Dorries MP) unmoved by their plight. Ministers must show, as Gordon Brown did during 2008, that they are stretching every sinew to boost growth.

And Mr. Osborne would do well to remember his predecessor’s Golden Rule. No not that one; his other one – his prescient half-jest that there are only two kinds of Chancellor of the Exchequer: those who fail in office and those who get out in time.

Jump soon George, your house of cards is tumbling down.

No related posts.

The reshuffle is done and dusted then, for the time being at least. It won’t be long before the rumours start up again, reaching a crescendo (with reports that shadow cabinet member are “fighting for their lives”) around conference season, before the inevitable full reshuffle in October. So far yesterday’s changes have been talked down – not least by he party. It was briefed as small, and the response of the press and many activists was “is that it?”.

But although limited, this reshuffle is actually very significant, largely because it heralds the return of one of Labour’s prodigal sons (though not the prodigal brother, yet) to a major role in the party. It’s wrong to say that Jon Cruddas is “back” – he’s never been in a senior party role after all – but he’s now properly re-engaged, a testament perhaps to how Miliband the younger has won over many of his fiercest critics in the PLP.

So who is Jon Cruddas? Is he the radical left winger who the Daily Mail believe represents a lurch to the left? Of course not. That’s laughable. Cruddas is a man who refuses to be pigeonholed, and with each passing year makes it harder and harder to do so.

Is he a Blairite? The flexible use of that term these days would suggest he could qualify, having worked for Blair, and backed David Miliband for the leadership two years ago.

Is he a left winger? That term too is pretty vague now, and having been the darling of Compass and the most left of the candidates for the Deputy Leadership in 2007, maybe he also qualifies for that label.

But can you be both? Is Jon Cruddas a left wing Blairite? Perhaps, and perhaps not. No labels. Please. We’ll be here all day…

What he is though is a big thinker – the media have that one right at least. Sometimes that can tend towards abstraction (something Ed Miliband himself is prone to), but often it can lead to him raise issues which the political class has ignored – housing being perhaps the best example.

Ideologically, if you’ll permit me to use such a loaded term, Cruddas ties together many of the seemingly disparate strands of what may eventually become known as Milibandism. The politics of community organisation and engagement, winning back disillusioned working class voters, a “fair deal” on jobs and houses for working people, dealing with societal inequality, but also looking at social as well as financial inequality.

Not so much Blue Labour, more like Blue Collar Labour. Made in Dagenham.

His appointment received broad support – as befits someone who has flirted with both the left and right within the movement. Indeed his support is so broad that you might almost think he had designs on the big job one day, if he hadn’t already let his best chance pass him by. In 2010 his campaign was ready to go. He was told he had a good chance of winning, and that by 2015 he could be PM. He baulked at the idea.

He doesn’t want to be in charge, but he does want to change the country. If he and Miliband can rein each other in, rather than doubling down on abstraction, then they both might just make the kind of changes that they – and we – are all in this for. Building a better, fairer, more equal and just Britain.

Let the work of change begin….

No related posts.

If there are more sub cabinet roles reshuffled, we’ll start another liveblog to catalogue them. Lucky you.

16.54 – So Cruddas is now Labour’s full-time in-house policy thinker. Liam Byrne remains in the DWP brief (albeit after a great deal of speculation that has weakened his position). Owen Smith joins the Shadow Cabinet. And Lord Adonis will be taking on an industrial Strategy role. And last, but very much not least, Angela Eagle will Chair the NPF.

Full analysis coming up – but thanks for sticking with us through this (admittedly long) reshuffle liveblog.

16.45 – Reshuffle in full. The Party have just announced:

Jon Cruddas is to become Coordinator of the Labour Party Policy Review.

Ed Miliband will recommend to the National Policy Forum that Angela Eagle becomes its new chair.

Owen Smith is to replace Peter Hain as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales.

Andrew Adonis will advise the Policy Review on areas of Labour’s industrial strategy.

16.30 – Amber Elliot from Total Politics suggests that Lord Adonis was considered for the policy review role (he was a former head of the No 10 policy unit) but Cruddas pipped him to the role.

16.18 – So if Owen Smith is promoted, the Treasury team will need a new face. And no word on Liam Byrne’s DWP role yet. Looks like he’s gone from the policy review – but since there’s no chatter about DWP, is he still in the shadow cabinet?

16.15 – James has also heard Angela Eagle will chair the NPF. Would make sense if true, she’s widely respected across the party, smart and won’t ruffle too many feathers.

16.12 – According to James Lyons of the Mirror – Jon Cruddas has got the policy review. We said yesterday he was interested in making a return.

16.02 – Tom Harris will be back on the frontbench I’m told – going to be part of the shadow DEFRA team.

15.58 – We expect the full result in an hour, but Owen Smith looks almost certain to be shadow Welsh secretary.

14.56 – The BBC have made their own list of MPs who might replace Peter Hain. Alongside the names we’ve already mentioned, they’ve included Wayne David, Huw Irranca-Davies and Nia Griffith – all of whom would be in with a shout.

14.02 – Not much happening on the reshuffle yet. Or as one hack said to me this afternoon – this is putting the shuffle in reshuffle. Groan.

13.39 – Plenty of people contacting me since in mentioned Owen Smith. He’s clearly a man with fans. Keep an eye on him.

12.22 – A few people have asked in the last 24 hours why I didn’t have Owen Smith down as one of the favourites to replace Hain as Shadow Welsh Secretary. He’s a big talent, and someone I expect to become a big player in the future, but right now he’s at the heart of the action in the shadow Treasury team. I’d be surprised to see him moved from there.

11.15 – Quick round up of the ShadCab reshuffle news in today’s papers before we move on. The Times (£) has urged Ed M to bring back his brother (unlikely, as I said yesterday) alongside Andrew Adonis and Alistair Darling. The FT have talked about Ed Miliband now being more secure than he was before, yet seemingly before he was like a man walking across a ship with a Ming vase. Faint praise then. The FT also suggest that David Miliband was offered the Shadow Chancellor job back in January 2011 (post Alan Johnson). That’s something that has been whispered around Westminster before – but I’m not sure anyone had ever gone to press with it before.

Meanwhile in the Indy, the briefing has begun from the friends of Liam Byrne warning Miliband that removing him would be a return to factionalism. That’s one reason why I’d be surprised to see Byrne leave unless he were replaced by someone from the same wing of the party. A promotion for Liz Kendall perhaps?

11.02 – Morning everyone. Ed Miliband is speaking to the Royal College of Nursing this morning, and we’re expecting that the reshuffle will be finalised and confirmed (in an orderly fashion) this afternoon (or tomorrow morning at the latest). Some within the party are beginning to worry that this reshuffle is “dragging on” and that the sword of Damocles can only hang over the heads of certain individuals for so long before they take matters into their own hands. Yet Ed’s team have learned the lessons of last time, and are trying to avoid the drip drip drip of information about the reshuffle leaking out. More’s the pity. I’ll still be bringing you everything I hear though – both confirmed, and unconfirmed.

————

18.38 – A few Shadow Cabinet members we can confirm already (from the Lords). Jan Royall, Steve Bassam and Phil Hunt remain Opposition Leader, Opposition Chief Whip and Opposition Deputy Leader respectively in the Lords. Both Royall and Bassam sit in the shadow cabinet – and their positions were confirmed (as was Hunt’s) when they were re-elected unopposed by Labour Peers today.That support is in no small part down to the battles they’ve led in the Lords through the first two years of the Coalition, especially in the past six months with the welfare, legal aid and health bills.

It’s also believed that Hunt will replace Glenys Thornton as Labour’s Health Spokesperson in the Lords.

16.16 – More on that Lords reshuffle (09.12). We understand Glenys Thornton will be moving from Health to the equalities brief.

12.13 – We’ll be continuing with the liveblog as long as it takes, but don’t expect any announcements today. Ed Miliband is addressing the Royal College of Nursing tomorrow. We understand there’ll be no reshuffle news under after that – so Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning it is…

11.41 – It was confirmed this morning (and fired the starting pistol on the reshuffle) that Peter Hain is stepping down. He has been a loyal and trusted ally of Ed Miliband since the earliest days of his leadership, and has done some heavy lifting that others weren’t keen on doing (Refounding Labour anyone?). Ed Miliband has paid tribute to him, and quite right, Hain has had a remarkable career.

11.27 – This is the first reshuffle in years that hasn’t featured speculation about Jon Cruddas heading onto the front bench. Let me rectify that oversight – and the Dagenham MP might now be coming around to the idea. We know he’d consider a tilt at London Mayor – but could the front bench also be in his sights? Maybe not this time, but his reservations about Ed M have subsided in recent months – so perhaps next time?

11.00 – Every reshuffle that comes around inevitably brings around the rumour that Tessa Jowell will be leaving the shadow cabinet. Let’s knock this one on the head. The Olympics are just a few months away. Jowell is the Shadow Olympics Minister and played a big role in securing the London Games. She’s not going anywhere.

09.12 – As well as a reshuffle in the commons, expect to see some rotating of roles amongst Labour’s front bench in the Lords today too. Willy Bach looks set to step down from his justice role (with an impressive 14 Tory defeats to his name) and will be replaced by Jeremy Beecham.

08.35 – So who will replace Hain in the Shadow Wales portfolio? The two most widely tipped so far are the witty Kevin Brennan and the phone hacking veteran Chris Bryant. Both good parliamentary performers – both sound potential promotions.

08.10 – One or two papers over the weekend even tried to suggest that a return for David Miliband was in the offing. Although I wish that were true, it seems highly unlikely, considering just six days he wrote an article for the Mirror on why he was spending his time “on the front line not the front bench”. Not even Cameron makes u-turns that quickly.

08.05 – The other major rumour being kicked about revolves around Liam Byrne. Could he lose his policy brief, his shadow DWP brief, or even his position in the shadow cabinet altogether? I’ve already looked at this in more detail.

08.00 – Today looks likely to be the day when reshuffle speculation reaches a crescendo, so welcome to our latest shadow cabinet reshuffle liveblog, where we’ll be bringing you all of the rumours about changes in the top team – before separating fact from fiction.

The one change we are absolutely certain will take place is Peter Hain leaving the shadow cabinet as Shadow Welsh Secretary. Hain confirmed this on BBC Wales this morning, but we can also confirm that Hain will be stepping down as Chair of Labour’s National Policy Forum.

No related posts.

“I am delighted to welcome the new members of our team.

“Jon Cruddas is already known as one of the most radical and deepest thinkers in the party. As the policy review enters its next phase, I look forward to him bringing his energy and new ideas.

“I am also delighted he will be working with Angela Eagle, in her proposed role as chair of the national policy forum, combined with Shadow Leader of the House. She brings great policy and political acumen to the role.

“Owen Smith has shown himself to be a real talent and I welcome him to the post of Shadow Welsh Secretary.

“I am also pleased Andrew Adonis will be working on areas of industrial strategy, bringing his experience of government and fresh thinking to the role.

“I want to thank Liam for his excellent work in kick starting the ideas that Labour will need to win in 2015, and for working so hard to make sure our agenda is rooted firmly in the issues that matter to hardworking people in Britain.”

No related posts.