Latest news with #Bennite
New European
06-05-2025
- Politics
- New European
Labour's lunacy and asylum policy
Promising to end the practice of placing asylum seekers in hotels, exactly the kind of socially conservative policy the government is embracing, is a great example of those unintended consequences. In opposition, the simple answer often works: you are battling for a few seconds of airtime anywhere you can get it, and so the short, sharp, popular answer is the good one. The difference in government is that you can actually make it happen. You also have to deal with the consequences. The problem is Labour didn't seem to think before making this promise, or consider why the last government started using hotels so widely in the first place. A large part of the answer is that many areas of the UK have acute housing shortages. There is no supply of publicly owned accommodation sitting empty, ready and waiting for asylum seekers. And so, the government now rents homes on the private market. In some areas, people trying to rent privately were already competing with their council for homes, which are facing a shortfall. Now, those private renters are having to compete with both their local councils and with the Home Office. Under one scheme introduced under the last Conservative government but extended under Labour, private landlords are offered up to five years' guaranteed rent, with all property management and repairs handled by Serco, with no fees. All of this is compounding the problems of the housing shortage both for councils trying to find homes, and for people trying to rent. This is where the logic of simple answers – especially simple answers to take on Reform on their own turf – leads: at some point soon the Daily Mail will notice this scandal, and it will be front page stuff. The bid for Labour to look like they were taking tough action on the asylum system will be a gift to Reform. In the wake of Labour's performance in the local elections – which was worse than most of the pollsters' worst-case scenarios – many on Labour's right are tempted not just by the simple answer, but by the simple answers that also conveniently vindicate the policies they've wanted to enact all along. Most of the skill of politics is learning how to resist these temptations, but the campaign group Blue Labour has never bothered itself with political skill. Its founder, Lord Glasman – a man who Ed Miliband must surely regret giving a peerage – has a bizarre set of policy prescriptions, including embracing Donald Trump's 'Bennite' tariffs plans. Blue Labour's influence on the government is disputed and Glasman is sufficiently out-there that even the 'post-liberals' and Blue Labour sympathisers tend to push him to the sidelines. But his spiritual successor Jonathan Rutherford is still an enthusiastic promoter of his ideas. Again, though, scrutinising these proposals leads to more questions than answers. Rutherford says Labour should simply tackle the issue of grooming gangs, for example. But this is a scandal largely based on historical activity, when the issue was genuinely barely discussed and the practice widespread. That omertà is gone: Channel 4, hardly a bastion of British Conservatism, did a huge documentary on it recently. The scandal dominates the newspapers (and was largely unearthed by those mainstream papers). The actual issue is whether historical activity is best handled by a further national public inquiry or by local ones. What solution does Rutherford think makes the issue go away? What would stop Reform or others continuing to cynically exploit it? On these questions, he is strangely silent. Rutherford is no better when he's trying to set out a positive policy agenda. He believes universities have expanded too much and wants many of them to close, or else to be 're-founded'. He is, of course, welcome to that belief, but in many towns across the country the university is one of the major employers – and is heavily tied in to other local businesses. The loss of universities would lead to dramatic collapses in local economies for which Labour would be blamed. How this is supposed to lead to a revival of either growth or Labour's political fortunes is anyone's guess. Britain spent 14 years with a government that failed to deliver economic growth, and failed, if anything even more calamitously, at running public services. Nothing works and everything is expensive, and that is why most of us are sick of politics and sick of politicians. As the last government failed to deliver, it got ever-more focused on owning the libs – if it couldn't make anything better, it did at least try to make sure those on the left were unhappiest of all. Labour swept to a landslide majority last year because the public were comprehensively sick of that bullshit. The vote was a resounding 'no' to the Conservative Party more than it was a 'yes' to Labour – but it was a vote for growth, for fixing public services, and for making politics normal again. Instead, Labour has been captured by a faction that seems determined to deliver the Conservative agenda, framed as a tactical approach to stop Reform. None of the strategists behind this approach seem to notice that it's what the Conservatives were doing in power, nor that it's what Labour has done for much of its first year. Instead, they rail against an imaginary Labour agenda that doesn't exist. Ed Miliband is mostly pushing for the government to boost investment in energy and jobs – yes, they happen to be green, but so is most new technology. This should be the easiest thing for them to embrace, but because they're so ingrained in the culture wars they've decided it is their enemy. Labour's attempt to find a simple answer to asylum hotels is almost inevitably going to blow up in its face, to Reform's benefit. Its efforts to take on Reform dead-on will do the same, alienating the party from its real 21st-century voting base all the while – and wedding it to a tired Blue Labour faction that is more a rag-tag collection of grievances than a coherent ideology. Voters did not reject the Conservative Party to replace it with a tribute act. They will similarly not abandon Reform for Reform-lite. Labour needs to find its own tune and start dancing to that, and fast.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Let British Steel deliver the final blow to Red Ed
During the debate on Scunthorpe steel, Ed Miliband tweeted: 'Very proud to be in the House today to see my colleagues… standing up for British steelworkers.' Now that is some Trump-level trolling. Ed's net-zero fanaticism isn't what de-industralised Britain, but it makes it a billion times harder to reverse the trend – presenting Keir Starmer with a tricky a choice. Does he want to be green or to grow? Put another way: is it time to decommission Ed Miliband? I have history with Scunthorpe. Back in 2010, I still harboured the hopeless dream of becoming a Labour MP. In a last roll of the dice, I submitted my name for the Scunthorpe nomination. Why that seat? Steel. I might've been moving to the Right on immigration, but I remained a Bennite on economics (friends say: 'nothing's changed') – so I wrote a letter to constituents laying out a detailed case for tariffs. The selection meeting did not go well ('Ooo are ya?' they asked. 'I'm sorry, I can't understand the accent,' I replied), but the letter got rave reviews. In retrospect, I was ahead of my time. I could see that manufacturing was getting screwed by both Right and Left. The Tories let it die in deference to the economic laws of nature. They asked: why should we make stuff we can import cheaper? Because British steel has never competed in a truly free market. Because even if we don't have an industrial policy, other countries do. Our competitors protect, subsidise and dump their products on us; and there's a suspicion in Westminster that the Chinese bought Scunthorpe with the deliberate intention of running it down. Workers even blocked access to the site lest their owners try to sabotage it. Right-wing globalisation went hand-in-glove with Left-wing greenery, allowing politicians to impoverish their countries while feeling good about it. Fly to an anti-carbon summit! Be serenaded by grateful Polynesians! Meanwhile, Britain's energy costs went up-and-up – a killer for steel, which is highly-productive (potentially profitable) but also energy-intensive. Green policy and taxes played a key role in that price hike, and when Labour came into power last year, it also vetoed a new Cumbrian mine that could've supplied coking coal to Scunthorpe. Net zero is utterly surreal. To avoid pollution at home, we import it from abroad, stretching supply lines now threatened by global conflict. Enter Ed Miliband, whose answer to such problems is to go greener, faster: end reliance on expensive fossil fuels, corner a new market first. But to decarbonise and grow is often contradictory. The entire ethical basis for environmentalism is to conserve by reducing outputs – and the effect of any technological revolution is to reduce inputs by increasing efficiency. Were the Government to save Scunthorpe, the assumption is that the old furnace would be replaced with an electric version that requires less manpower, and fewer jobs. This transition might be necessary, but it will also be painful, and the insistence that we can all get richer by becoming greener increasingly sounds as unrealistic as 'diversity is our strength.' Milibandism is antithetical to the instincts and experience of working-class voters, who usually come off worse from change. It's also increasingly antithetical to a Treasury desperate to kickstart growth. Hence Ed has been embarrassed three times since the new year: on airport expansion, a softened transition to electric vehicles and, now, the robust defence of an industry that depends on coal – but then Labour cannot alienate voters ahead of the local elections. According to the polls, its position resembles an upturned iceberg: a vast parliamentary majority above water, a slither of popular support underneath. And like the real icebergs, it is melting. Starmer's instinct is to detach himself from all pre-election commitments and float free – as if he, alone among the world's statesmen, is dictating policy without ideology and solely in the 'national interest'. By that logic, No 10 must be considering sacking Miliband. Downing Street denies it; Ed's people laugh off talk of resignation. But the fact that the press keeps asking indicates a direction of travel. The Government cannot trot out its mindless slogan 'backing the builders, not the blockers' while continuing to employ a man who can't pass a bulldozer without the temptation to lie down in front of it. Miliband appears to be wildly popular with the membership, being a rare minister with personality and a sense of mission. But though Ed's enthusiasm is charming to true believers, many voters feel – as they did when they read his disingenuous tweet from the Commons – as if someone is having a laugh. Every video he puts out of him singing a love song to a turbine, or blowing kisses a solar panel, suggests he's enjoying his job a bit too much – that it's not Britain's project so much as Ed's project, that we're spending vast sums of money so that he can feel he's accomplishing something. Miliband has come to resemble one of those ancient nationalised industries the state once bankrolled because it couldn't face the political costs of shutting it down. Ed is a white elephant; the human equivalent of British Rail. And he's a recruiting sergeant for the opposition. Reform has spotted an opportunity, a party staffed by free market liberals quickly rebranding itself as pro-nationalisation – plus anti-net zero, making it the natural go-to for the disaffected working-class. Never mind the English locals, all eyes are on the Welsh Assembly elections next year, where the southern part of the country might be facing its 2019 Red Wall moment. Reform and Plaid Cymru are both asking why, when 2,800 jobs were at risk in Port Talbot, Starmer didn't consider nationalisation, yet for Scunthorpe, anything is suddenly possible? With the SNP making similar noises about the future of Grangemouth in Scotland, it's striking that the most compelling threat to Labour comes from competing forms of nationalism. Progressive with Plaid and the SNP, conservative with Reform; in all cases, anti-globalisation. It's taken 15 years, but the country has basically come around to my position – too late, alas, for me to enter Parliament in 2010. My only other application for a seat that year was to Barrow-in-Furness, which I tried to impress with a letter about the benefits of nuclear disarmament. That's how I learnt, the hard way, that Barrow is where they make the submarines. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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Telegraph
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Let British Steel deliver the final blow to Red Ed
During the debate on Scunthorpe steel, Ed Miliband tweeted: 'Very proud to be in the House today to see my colleagues… standing up for British steelworkers.' Now that is some Trump-level trolling. Ed's net-zero fanaticism isn't what de-industralised Britain, but it makes it a billion times harder to reverse the trend – presenting Keir Starmer with a tricky a choice. Does he want to be green or to grow? Put another way: is it time to decommission Ed Miliband? I have history with Scunthorpe. Back in 2010, I still harboured the hopeless dream of becoming a Labour MP. In a last roll of the dice, I submitted my name for the Scunthorpe nomination. Why that seat? Steel. I might've been moving to the Right on immigration, but I remained a Bennite on economics (friends say: 'nothing's changed') – so I wrote a letter to constituents laying out a detailed case for tariffs. The selection meeting did not go well ('Ooo are ya?' they asked. 'I'm sorry, I can't understand the accent,' I replied), but the letter got rave reviews. In retrospect, I was ahead of my time. I could see that manufacturing was getting screwed by both Right and Left. The Tories let it die in deference to the economic laws of nature. They asked: why should we make stuff we can import cheaper? Because British steel has never competed in a truly free market. Because even if we don't have an industrial policy, other countries do. Our competitors protect, subsidise and dump their products on us; and there's a suspicion in Westminster that the Chinese bought Scunthorpe with the deliberate intention of running it down. Workers even blocked access to the site lest their owners try to sabotage it. Right-wing globalisation went hand-in-glove with Left-wing greenery, allowing politicians to impoverish their countries while feeling good about it. Fly to an anti-carbon summit! Be serenaded by grateful Polynesians! Meanwhile, Britain's energy costs went up-and-up – a killer for steel, which is highly-productive (potentially profitable) but also energy-intensive. Green policy and taxes played a key role in that price hike, and when Labour came into power last year, it also vetoed a new Cumbrian mine that could've supplied coking coal to Scunthorpe. Net zero is utterly surreal. To avoid pollution at home, we import it from abroad, stretching supply lines now threatened by global conflict. Enter Ed Miliband, whose answer to such problems is to go greener, faster: end reliance on expensive fossil fuels, corner a new market first. But to decarbonise and grow is often contradictory. The entire ethical basis for environmentalism is to conserve by reducing outputs – and the effect of any technological revolution is to reduce inputs by increasing efficiency. Were the Government to save Scunthorpe, the assumption is that the old furnace would be replaced with an electric version that requires less manpower, and fewer jobs. This transition might be necessary, but it will also be painful, and the insistence that we can all get richer by becoming greener increasingly sounds as unrealistic as 'diversity is our strength.' Milibandism is antithetical to the instincts and experience of working-class voters, who usually come off worse from change. It's also increasingly antithetical to a Treasury desperate to kickstart growth. Hence Ed has been embarrassed three times since the new year: on airport expansion, a softened transition to electric vehicles and, now, the robust defence of an industry that depends on coal – but then Labour cannot alienate voters ahead of the local elections. According to the polls, its position resembles an upturned iceberg: a vast parliamentary majority above water, a slither of popular support underneath. And like the real icebergs, it is melting. Starmer's instinct is to detach himself from all pre-election commitments and float free – as if he, alone among the world's statesmen, is dictating policy without ideology and solely in the 'national interest'. By that logic, No 10 must be considering sacking Miliband. Downing Street denies it; Ed's people laugh off talk of resignation. But the fact that the press keeps asking indicates a direction of travel. The Government cannot trot out its mindless slogan 'backing the builders, not the blockers' while continuing to employ a man who can't pass a bulldozer without the temptation to lie down in front of it. Miliband appears to be wildly popular with the membership, being a rare minister with personality and a sense of mission. But though Ed's enthusiasm is charming to true believers, many voters feel – as they did when they read his disingenuous tweet from the Commons – as if someone is having a laugh. Every video he puts out of him singing a love song to a turbine, or blowing kisses a solar panel, suggests he's enjoying his job a bit too much – that it's not Britain's project so much as Ed's project, that we're spending vast sums of money so that he can feel he's accomplishing something. Miliband has come to resemble one of those ancient nationalised industries the state once bankrolled because it couldn't face the political costs of shutting it down. Ed is a white elephant; the human equivalent of British Rail. And he's a recruiting sergeant for the opposition. Reform has spotted an opportunity, a party staffed by free market liberals quickly rebranding itself as pro-nationalisation – plus anti-net zero, making it the natural go-to for the disaffected working-class. Never mind the English locals, all eyes are on the Welsh Assembly elections next year, where the southern part of the country might be facing its 2019 Red Wall moment. Reform and Plaid Cymru are both asking why, when 2,800 jobs were at risk in Port Talbot, Starmer didn't consider nationalisation, yet for Scunthorpe, anything is suddenly possible? With the SNP making similar noises about the future of Grangemouth in Scotland, it's striking that the most compelling threat to Labour comes from competing forms of nationalism. Progressive with Plaid and the SNP, conservative with Reform; in all cases, anti-globalisation. It's taken 15 years, but the country has basically come around to my position – too late, alas, for me to enter Parliament in 2010. My only other application for a seat that year was to Barrow-in-Furness, which I tried to impress with a letter about the benefits of nuclear disarmament. That's how I learnt, the hard way, that Barrow is where they make the submarines.
