Who will lead Basildon Labour?

Some time before the local elections, Nigel Smith stepped down as the leader of the Labour group on Basildon Council. That was a bit odd, as a leader resigning when a ballot is imminent doesn't really help on polling day. Anyway, the elections are done, Labour was squeezed again, and their remaining Councillors need a new boss. Who will it be? There are a couple of people who could actually do the job, but it will be interesting to see if the winner is the one individual who is hotly tipped, but who would almost certainly be a disaster. Whoever it is, they have a number of challenges, not least to come up with a decent narrative for the Labour Party in Basildon District. I cannot figure out what they are actually for, and if I can't then I suspect much of the electorate has the same problem.

At the recent elections Labour scored 21% of the vote in Basildon, which underperforms the national share by 3 points. That is pretty bad, and does not augur at all well for the General Election and Angela Smith's seat. In fact, based on the Electoral Calculus prediction, Basildon and East Thurrock is heading Tory on an 8% swing from 2005. Two years to go though...

Brown does the TV Newsrooms

Gordon Brown was out and about today trying to put a brave face on disaster. Now I find it hard to be objective but, frankly, I found him a bit weird. As quoted on Sky News he said things like:

I want to show people that, everyday, I'm dealing with the challenges they face.

and

I've got to show people that I'm trying to solve the problems and understand the problems they face.

Note the language, it's like he is talking to himself about what he needs to do. Maybe he's repeating what his spin doctor advised him this morning or from some self-improvement tape where you repeat the mantras to become a better person, I don't know. What he wasn't doing was connecting with anyone. The contrast with Tony Blair, or most normal humans for that matter, was stark. I am beginning to see what Alastair Campbell meant when he described Brown as 'psychologically flawed'.

Heffer's not bitter

Simon Heffer's triumphal political analysis continues with a column entitled 'Gordon Brown must go to save Labour necks'. So far, so insightful, until you remember what he was saying on September 5th 2007:

Mr Brown is doing so well not because he has better policies than his rivals (insofar as his rivals have any), but because he is a better politician than any of them.

It is possible that the great intellect is simply parroting the received wisdom of the day? Yesterday the collective wisdom was that Brown was a genius so he wrote that. Today Brown is perceived to be a dithering incompetent so he writes that. Nice work if you can get it.

Simon, has not, however, wavered one iota from his dislike of David Cameron and so attempts to trash Conservative successes on the May 1st elections. His supposedly killer point is this:

The real significance of this election is the 65 per cent who didn't bother to vote. This is a time of economic difficulty and there is deep concern about the record of the Government: yet most people simply couldn't be fagged to take a view.

An opposition that wants to become a government needs to tap into, and mobilise, that vast disconnected group. For all the rejoicing in Tory central office, they shouldn't kid themselves that they have remotely done that yet.

Er...right. The turnout at these elections was pretty much the turnout that you expect for local elections. It was certainly consistent with the turnouts of the mid-90s that were a pretty accurate barometer of the eventual fate of the Major government. Criticising the Conservatives on the basis that they haven't managed to increase turnout at the election is the act of a man desperate to cling to a position that David Cameron would do better by running the sort of narrow right-wing agenda that actually only appeals to a very small fraction of the population. Face it Simon, the man has ignored your advice and he thrashed Labour by 20 points. You either have to admit that you were hopelessly wrong or try and pretend that the Conservatives have somehow still managed to fail. A bigger man might have gone for the first option.

May First in Pictures

This rather handy diagram came from Politics Home and was published before the May first elections as a way to gauge the relative success or failure of the three main parties:









In order to read it accurately you have to remember that the Conservatives gained 256 Councillors, Labour lost 331 and the Liberal Democrats gained 34.

Updated: The latest numbers are Conservatives gained 300 and Labour lost 434(!). Given these seats were last fought at the height of the Iraq debacle then this is extraordinary. The language in the Sundays will be interesting.

Basildon Votes Tory

The Conservatives took control of Basildon in 2003 and we have increased our representation in the years since. Last night was no exception as we held all of our seats and took yet another from Labour, giving us 29 Conservative Councillors against 10 Labour and 3 Liberal Democrats. Our continued electoral success is all the more heartening because the Conservative administration is committed to a programme of change for the District, some of which has proved quite controversial. It is also heartening because our victor in Vange ward, which has historically been a Labour seat, is only 21. Well done Luke Mackenzie, who has stuck to his task despite losing narrowly last year and being attacked by a national newspaper. In politics the people who matter are the voters, not journalists spinning on behalf of the Labour party.

The only bad thing about yesterday was that I have got Chickenpox, which has meant I wasn't there for election night. Perils of having a new immune system and having to rebuild childhood resistance to disease. Still, it did mean that I could savour the media coverage of what was a fantastic night for the Party. As I write Hazel Blears is spinning away that these elections will mean greater scrutiny on Conservative policies, which she thinks will be found wanting. Absolutely moronic. She can't really believe that more media coverage for the Conservatives would be bad for them, and if she thinks that the Shadow team are incapable of coping with more exposure then she is deluded. If this is all Labour could think of to say after what may be their worst night since the War then the sheer political incapacity of this government is clear.

Basildon Council talks about Bus Stations

It was Full Council last Thursday, that is a meeting with every Basildon Councillor theoretically present, and the Labour Party put up a motion:

This Council disagrees with Councillor Horgan’s view that there is no need for the bus station in Basildon Town Centre. The Council recognises the widespread public concern and support for the bus station. Therefore the Council will work with any future development partner to ensure the continued provision of the bus station.

Except, of course Councillor Horgan never said and does not agree that 'there is no need for the bus station in Basildon Town Centre'. Of course the Labour Party knows that, and they know that the Conservative Administration's plans for Bus Travel in the redeveloped Basildon Town Centre have been public for years in terms of the published Development Framework. This specifies an improved bus/rail interchange and additional bus stops besides and it was extensively consulted on, so it's not as if we have put it in the bottom drawer of a locked filing cabinet and told no-one about it. What happened was that an extraordinarily poor piece of journalism by the Evening Echo, suggested that to all and sundry that we pretty much wanted to do away with bus travel in Basildon. They didn't bother with the tedious business of research, or even accuracy and the Labour Party seized on the coverage knowing full well that it was nonsense. Or maybe they didn't know, it's actually hard to tell sometimes, and they were certainly quoting lines from the Echo at the meeting as if they were something from a peer-reviewed academic journal. Anyway, we amended the motion into something sane, which Labour promptly voted against, neatly putting themselves opposed t0 the concept of better bus travel for Basildon. Sometimes the election material just writes itself.

Of the opposition speakers we had a reasonable effort from Alan Davies, Labour deputy leader, but very one-dimensional efforts from the rest of the opposition. Words to the wise: sarcasm does work in a speech but not for an entire speech, every speech. Ranting just sounds like ranting and an entire speech on, well, what's wrong with me, rather misses the point of debating issues of importance to the people of Basildon. Of course, the elephant in the room was the impending Local Elections and the fact that with Labour firmly on the back foot in the national polls and having shafted their own core support by putting up their taxes, things do not look good for the people's party. Roll on May 1st.

Brown, beginning of the end?

Absolutely terrible newspaper coverage for Brown this weekend. There have been pieces in the Guardian, Mail and Times the gist of which is that Brown is facing widespread disloyalty and speculation about his leadership from within the parliamentary Labour party and the government itself. The Sunday Times goes with the imminence of a backbench revolt on the 42-day detention issue, and the likelihood that Brown would lose a vote of confidence linked to the issue, requoting a poll from Saturday's Telegraph that puts the Conservatives 16 points ahead of Labour. It also suggests that Brown has lost confidence in his leadership in the biggest swing against a Prime Minister ever, and that includes Chamberlain in 1940 just before he was forced to step down and hand the country over to Churchill.

In a local context, the last time we had local elections in Basildon with the national polls in this state, the Conservatives won every seat that was being contested, including some seats that had never previously been held by the Conservatives. Now, I am not suggesting that this could happen this time, but even half of that would mean a catastrophic set of results for Labour locally, and by extrapolation nationally. If that happened and if Boris took London what would that mean for Brown? Nothing good I suspect.

Labour leader trashes ex-Labour Councillor

Jane Dyer, an sitting Councillor, has ditched Basildon Labour and re-badged herself as an Independent. Labour leader, Nigel Smith, has reacted with uncharacteristic bile and labelled her a 'dead loss', amongst other things. His point appears to be that Cllr. Dyer was not as active at the Council as he would have liked. Well, I must admit that I haven't had much to do with her over the four years of her term, but my experience is that Councillors can often be valuable community representatives without a great deal of speechmaking. I suspect that Nigel's irritation is less that she didn't pull her weight and more that she has baled on the increasingly riven local Labour party. This year's local elections have already seen a well-respected Labour Councillor deselected and spun off to an unwinnable seat. Now they have managed to lose a Councillor altogether. One wonders what is going on?

Poll puts Conservatives 11 points ahead

The latest ICM poll in the Telegraph puts the Conservatives on an election-winning 43%. Details here.

Brown heads of tax rebellion - by lying

Labour MPs have finally woken up to the fact that the abolition of the 10% starting rate for income tax in the last budget under Chancellor Gordon Brown kicks the poorest people in the land. So, a group of them tabled a fairly strongly worded motion in the House of Commons criticising the government on the subject. This was then withdrawn following a promise to look at the matter. That promise has now been withdrawn, leaving Labour backbenchers looking like dupes and the government looking duplicitous. Now, the changes to the tax regime were quite complex; a mix of rates and thresholds, allowances, National Insurance and a dash of Tax Credits. A precise calculation of who is better or worse off depends on individual circumstances, but there is as emerging consensus that quite a few of the poorest will see their incomes decline. Worse than that the emphasis shifts from getting money through working to getting money as a state hand-out for many who will not actually be worse off, provided that they fill in those forms properly of course.

You can tell when the government knows it has got it wrong: when it starts rabbiting on about 'since 1997...' on any given subject. This is exactly what they are doing here, tacitly admitting that the current changes are a balls-up but claiming that taken together with their past actions things are still on the plus side. It seems that some Labour backbenchers at least are concerned that ordinary voters might not see it that way. How those same backbenchers feel right now, having been shafted right along with the low-paid can only be imagined.