The Political Year 2007
- 21 Dec 07, 04:46 PM
It happened in Blackpool, around 11am on Monday 1 October - not just the crucial turning point in the politics of 2007, but what could prove to be a decisive moment in the politics of this year, and perhaps this decade.
Until that morning Gordon Brown and Labour were riding high in the polls, with wide expectations that the Prime Minister would call (and win) a snap election in early November.
Indeed, over the summer the Conservatives were in such dire straits, following their spring row over grammar schools, that some people were wondering whether theyâd really made the right choice when David Cameron was elected leader in 2005.
'Things will change'
And it was quite widely suggested that Cameron would have to move Osborne from Shadow Chancellor: Osborne was too lightweight, it was said, and Cameron should do all he could to persuade William Hague to take the job instead. Is there anything we can do to turn things round, Tories would ask me over lunch.
âDonât worry, things will change,â I told them. âThey always do. Brownâs honeymoon canât last for ever.â And now I find myself saying the same sort of thing to Labour MPs.
George Osborneâs that October morning wasnât a great oration in traditional terms - there were no great moments of rhetoric, no memorable lines. But it had an almost immediate effect on the political landscape.
His two proposals - to increase the inheritance tax threshold to ÂŁm, and to reduce stamp duty on house purchases - excited Tories in Blackpool and gave them new hope. More important, his tax plans grabbed the public imagination. Labourâs poll lead suddenly got narrower; Tory spirits rose markedly; and Gordon Brown had to announce there , after all.
Labour has yet to recover from the-election-that-never-was.
A general malaise descended over the party; Labour ministers and backbenchers have spent the autumn in a demoralised daze, despairing about what Brown should do.
Week after week David Cameron trounced Gordon Brown at Prime Ministerâs Questions; big set pieces which were trailed as a chance for Gordon Brown to set out his great âvisionâ fell flat - among them the autumn Queenâs Speech, and the Prime Ministerâs annual Guildhall speech on foreign policy.
In politics, failure tends to breed failure. Where the opposition parties and the media sense that a government is in trouble, then small crises become big ones, and ministers spent the autumn dogged by the woes of Northern Rock, the missing Revenue & Customs discs, and a new party funding scandal.
If George Osborne is a strong contender for politician of the year, heâs not without opposition.
On the government side, my nominee would be Jack Straw, the great survivor, who has sat continuously on the Labour front bench since 1981. Well before Tony Blair finally stood down, Straw took command of Gordon Brownâs leadership campaign, and handled it brilliantly, to the extent that all possible opposition was deterred or barred from standing - including David Miliband and John Reid.
Politician of the year
So ruthless and determined was the Brown camp in collecting nominations that the only other declared contender, John McDonnell, failed to get enough MPs to back him. Indeed, a little known fact was that with nominations from 313 Labour MPs by the end, Gordon Brown could boast that, excluding Irish members and the Speaker and his deputies, he had been backed by a majority of British MPs.
Other contenders for politician of the year must surely include Alex Salmond, for his success in becoming first minister of Scotland; those other great survivors Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, for finally agreeing power-sharing (and working together like life-long chums); and of course, the Lib Dem acting leader (after Ming Campbellâs resignation) Vince Cable, whose line about Gordon Brown turning from was the most memorable Commons quote of the year.
Cable impresses voters with his air of common sense of reasonableness, and in a TV studio has the disarming and attractive tactic of agreeing with about half of what his opponent says, before then gently explaining why the other half is rubbish.
Thereâs clearly a bit of needle in his exchanges with Gordon Brown - perhaps because Cable is a decent economist (who has excelled on Northern Rock). Maybe because the two men used to work together when they were both members of the Labour Party in Scotland in the 1970s, and they both contributed to the Socialist Red Paper on Scotland.
Nick Clegg will have great difficulty matching Cableâs performances in the Commons. The new Liberal Democrat leader launched his leadership campaign in Sheffield by saying his partyâs new leader would need to take risks, but then, as front-runner, ran a campaign which did anything but take risks - nor, does his new front bench team announced just before Christmas suggest the kind of risk-taking he spoke of.
Risk-takers
Unless Clegg does shake up his party in quite a radical way, at the cost of annoying a few Lib Dems, then heâll find it hard to win back voters at a time when the centre ground of British politics has become exceedingly crowded. One such risk (though hardly a great vote-winner) could be to drop âLiberal Democratâ in favour of plain Liberal - the term he frequently he used during his leadership challenge, not, it seems, by accident.
George Osborne and David Cameron could tell Nick Clegg a thing or two about taking risks. Iâm told there was quite a debate within the Tory high command over whether Osborne should actually announce his tax measures in Blackpool.
The risk-takers argued that the Tories had to do something to win back ground ahead of a likely election. More cautious heads argued that cutting inheritance tax might backfire, and that tax cuts were no longer a great vote-winner.
Ultimately the risk-takers prevailed, Osborne made his speech, and the story of 2007 took us in a very new direction.
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Vince Cable has indeed been a sure-footed acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats; but the politician of the year has undoubtedly been - as you suggest - Alex Salmond. What the two men have in common of course is not just experience of politics in both Scotland and Westminster (Cable was a Labour councillor in Glasgow after a spell as an ODI Fellow in Kenya's
Treasury)but also that both are real economists (as opposed to pretendy economic journalists like Balls or historians like Gordon Brown)- and both have worked in both public &
private sectors. Alex Salmond was a Scottish Office economist working on agriculture and fisheries before he moved to The Royal Bank of Scotland as an oil economist. Vince Cable was also an economist with Commonwealth Secretariat before moving to Shell.
But both men also have hinterlands:
Cable is a ballroom dance teacher - and Salmond a horse racing tipster: so neither man is ever likely to be lost for conversation when they're
up at eg Balmoral with HM The Queen or stuck in a raillway carriage with normal members of the voting public.
This is perhaps why Britain has taken both of them to its heart
and it poses a huge problem for
cardboard cutout apparatchniks
in the other political parties.
They also both have the ability to listen and to think strategically,
even though Salmond is also very
skilled at short term tactics and
the killer soundbites that media
driven politics now demands. But
last night STV in Scotland gave
over an hour to broadcasting a
major speech Salmond made to the
Gaelic College in Skye which was
one of the most thoughtful speeches I have ever heard about the links
between Gaelic culture and revival
of the economy of the Highlands and Islands in the 21st century that we have had the privilege to hear from any Scottish political leader. The delivery was, admittedly, a bit low key - a torrid and exhausting week of Liberal democrat harrying over the Trump planning application had I guess left the First Minister a bit
worn out - but curiously that also made the Gaelic speech sound that bit more reflective ..... watch it
online and judge for yourselves. I think Margo Macdonald was right to observe last week that - love him
or loathe him (and she is not his greatest fan!) - the victory of Salmond's SNP in Scotland which is then followed by power-sharing in Belfast and a Labour/Plaid Cymry
coalition in Wales is still the biggest story in UK politics and
as Margo says 'it has only just begun: it has a lot further to go'.
And Paxo's documentary on Wilfred Owen will also run David Baddiel's
fascinating film on restitution of
Nazi expropriation close, I suspect, when the next Baftas are dished out!
It has been an interesting year ...
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Isn't 'independent parties' the oxymoron to end all oxymorons? Once a budding politician has sold out by joining a political party, is there anything left to do but compromise on every principle?
The Damnation of Faust is a fictional work based on life. Before signing up for a life of political obsolecence, every prospective candidate should examine their own motivation before proceeding.
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"Until that morning Gordon Brown and Labour were riding high in the polls, with wide expectations that the Prime Minister would call (and win) a snap election in early November."
Is that irony Michael? It's all relative isn't it? Large parts of the country can't stand ANY of these parties. Certainly most of the people I encounter don't trust any of them.
So why all the Newsnight hyperbole? The reality, I bet, is that most of your audience is jaded, disaffected, i.e. fed up with the lot of them. What they want is radical change which sweeps away this inane bunch of windbags. They all seem to believe in LESS government, which basically means giving away the state to the Private and Third Sectors. That seems to be their conception of democracy, i.e. 'power to the people' as more NGOs, more 'think tanks' (like Policy Exchange etc), or more opportunities for poorly regulated foreign state run enterprises, all serving up 'permanent revolution'.
Voting really does just encourage all these hyper-active 'wreckers'.
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William Hague is probably the politican of the year. He has resurrected his politcal career, and now appears likeable, intelligent and a potential future PM. Whilst Cameron did a great speech, few will doubt that the now relaxed Hague is a leader in waiting. If there was an Unpolitician of the year, Mr Brown would walk away with it. And talking leaders, who is this new Lib Dem leader, and why does it matter? Kennedy or even Lord Ashdown should have been drafted back to capitalize on the collapse of New Labour.
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Turkey of the year? Tracy Emin and The British Council-run Pavilion at
the Venice Biennale. As Ekow Eshun
says that summed up Brit Art - but
hopefully for the last time ever! I am off to see the Scottish artists
who were also exhibiting in Venice
but are now back for a 'return home'
exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery
which runs on till 27 January 2008.
And I think I also noticed that k.d.
lang is at Celtic Connections over
in Glasgow as part of an extended
Scottish Winter Festival up here?!
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BRAVO David Nettleton and Adrienne.
May I repeat (ad nauseam) that I stood in Newbury (2005) with the battle cry: âSPOIL PARTY GAMESâ. 86 good Newbury folk voted for me. Subtract the kind and the friendly and you have the number who âgot itâ with enough energy to vote. The depth of our malaise is there â writ large.
Democracy: â the word where the mocked and the crass come together.
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BRAVO David Nettleton and Adrienne.
May I repeat (ad nauseam) that I stood in Newbury (2005) with the battle cry: âSPOIL PARTY GAMESâ. 86 good Newbury folk voted for me. Subtract the kind and the friendly and you have the number who âgot itâ with enough energy to vote. The depth of our malaise is there â writ large.
Democracy: â the word where the mocked and the crass come together.
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Add my name as a seconder for Wee Eck! (Alex Salmond)
Anyone who doubts the value of moving towards proportional representation should have a look at how it has re-invigorated Scottish Politics.
I hope I never see another majority or 'cobbled-together-coalition' in my lifetime! Long live issue-by-issue government.
Now if we can just slap a draconian upper limit on Party expenditure, there'll be little need for either dodgy donors nor (God forbid!) State funding. The advertising and helicopter-hire industries will have to look elsewhere for their obscene profits, and perhaps the Upper House can gradually fill with folk with other worthiness than cash.
Season's greetings to one and all
ed
In praise of Loose Cannons:
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Happy Solstice!
For Adrienne (& all), some excellent verbal virtuosity and a little alchemy to add to the glister of Commercemas:
Also available (if Murdoch has gotten round to taking it off "Suscribers only" status) here:
Slainte!
ed
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can someone upload the latest ed of NR. Last weeks review is still on the link.
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Sir, Politician of the year surely has to be Vince Cable, the guy who stood in should have been the guy who stayed in. He really should be in the cabinet doing the job Darling is messing up, he has history with Gordon going way back as they used to work together, he would provide much needed gravitas and sanity to a department rapidly going out of control. Brown is getting flak over Northern Rock but this is a private bank and he is protecting the punters and we should all own it as nobody else wants to touch it with a bargepole. Buy it for us, Gord.
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still got last weeks review up.
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"More important, his tax plans..."
Not to trivialise an excellent piece but it always delights me to come across someone who does not misuse the ubiquitous, illiterate "more importantly" out of all context.
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Should the documentary of Wilfred Owen receive a BAFTA award given the circumstances of the World War - the fact that the whole earth was and is a theatre of war does not make it theatre
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Just posting this to see if my posts are being accepted.
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Protests against the British Council libraries closure programme in India
have now been picked up by CNN. See:
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The indifference to politics by the people as a whole reflects the lack of choice offered. There is effectively no difference between the parties. Anthony Wedgewood Benn railed against what he described as the disenfranchisement of the people because of the unanimity - even at that time - of the parties. Who do you choose ?. Even Adrienne's succinct summing up offered no pointers. Perhaps - and here I offer no partisan politics - those of a socialist persuasion should consider the Co-operative Party whilst Labour's supporters should continue to follow Thatcherite tendencies.
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Could you pls help me?
this Political Year 2007 is the topic of friday nights show, or is it just a summary?
if its a summary then what was newsnight about on 21 Dec?
thanks in advance
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i see world service have outwitted the bbc blog software by going to worldpress.
Newsnight should follow.
/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/
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John Braddock said there is no choice today in politics but I think there are. New England Party, Green's, Socialist Party etc.
They just are too narrow in their arguements so don't get funding or votes but they are still out there.
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Acerbic year-end financial observations Up and Down Wall Street:
"Truth is, the one legit lament you might have had about the past 12 months was the lack of even the most fleeting opportunity to savor that very special contemplative serenity that comes with peace and quiet. And the answer to that is: Hey, get with the program -- serenity and contemplation don't cut it in the 21st century. They're strictly relics of times long past, indulged in these days, and even then only sparingly, by the creaky rocking-chair brigade.
"In any case, peace and quiet didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell in 2007 against that howling pack of snaggletoothed, feral politicos in mad pursuit of the yummiest biscuit of them all -- a shot at becoming top dog of the whole wide world (a.k.a., president of these United States). No hamlet was too sleepy or remote, no city too pullulating with hurrying and unheeding humanity to be spared their cacophonous spew......"
-- Alan Abelson
"Happy New Year, anyway!"
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
Namaste -ed
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Perhaps the reason why Gordon Brown is floundering in the opinion polls is that he has turned out to be a mirror / mirror image of Tony Blair. He is blindly following the most unpopular policies like ID cards and " spy in the sky " congestion charging, both equally unnecessary and expensive to implement in first cost. Perhaps the only reason such policies remain is that the stock market parasites want the false economic growth they will produce. Now Brown is talking about a compulsory second private pension, a new private tax paid to provide a virtual welfare state for the stock market parasites. All this at a time when the people's welfare state is under threat, no wonder Labour are hemorrhaging core support.
It is interesting to note that Cameron has not commented on the subject of pensions, perhaps he is awaiting directions from his stock market masters, at the moment he has a cut in stamp duty on share trading to appease them, and now he is against nationalizing Northern Rock. Various ministers have squeaked opposition to " spy in the sky " and ID cards but only on the basis that the government cannot be trusted with the data. Perhaps many people believe that a Cameron led government could change things for the better, but many could soon realize that what is on offer is yet another mirror / mirror image of Thatcherism.
Despite the valiant attempt to break trough into the mainstream of British politics by Vince Cable, Nick Clegg runs the risk of disappearing from the picture. The Tories are now gaining strength in rural areas, so all they can hope for is to hang onto a few urban seats with good quality sitting MPs when people rumble their " green " taxation formula.
All we can hope for during 2008 is that some prominent politician will come out and openly suggest raising the top rate of income tax thus getting it firmly into manifestos for the next general election.
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SALAMI-ANARCHO-CAPITALIST/BOLSHEVISM/TROTSKYISM
What's the point of voting these days? The agenda has been the same since the early 80s:
1) turn old 'Stalinist' government departments into 'executive agencies'/QUANGOs;
2) then market test these so they can be dispensed with in favour of the private or 'voluntary (aka Third) sector' (See Job Centre, Probation for current examples).
This cuts costs (especially pensions), and removes 'Vogons' (civil servants) with their annoying honour codes, commitment to truth, integrity etc. NGO 'think tanks' are much easier to corrupt/politicise, and there are so many to choose from.
How did the UK electorate ever think they were voting in 'Stalinist' Labour...(it would never be allowed).
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