Miliband Anti-Politics Attack is Thin Edge of the Disappearing Wedge

So David Miliband thinks in today's Guardian it is anti-political to stand up against the social injustices, the political corruption, stand up for our planet, economy and children. That is in essence what he is saying erroneously "Nick Clegg is only clear what he is against." Anyone who has encountered the Liberal Democrat manifesto and it is clear that David Miliband will know that isn't true.

There are plenty of constructive, progressive policies in there. There is also a big thrust to sort out the regressive nature of things that the Labservatives between them have managed to mess up.

• The reversal since 1997 of the top 20% paying proportionately less of their income in tax than the bottom 20% can only be sorted out with the Liberal Democrats policy of fair taxation, even my SNP opponent agrees with me on that one.
• The many inroads into our civil liberties over the last 13 years of Labour rule are going to be dealt with though a comprehensive Freedom Bill.

However, we have constructive plans for better arrangement for mothers and fathers in caring for their children in the early years. For our young people to get the training, qualifications or apprenticeships that suit them, not aiming merely to get 50% into University. There are plans to make the recovery one powered by greening our production, which also greens our planet and helps combat climate change and meet our progressive energy targets making energy production carbon neutral by 2050.

Heck if Billy Bragg the reddest of Red Wedges from my youth (and the last election I couldn't vote in 1987) is turning to the Lib Dems maybe it'll be up to David Miliband to turn out the lights on the Labour party. Billy Bragg is not someone who is swung by the superficial he is all about substance. You know I think even Bragg is now saying maybe I wanted to change the world, I was looking for a new Britiain, and I've found it now in the Lib Dems, as opposed to his 22 year old self.

Miliband claims that Labour have taken on the "forces of inertia", you know he may be right (in the first couple of years of New Labour) but inertia has not only won, but overcome and is dragging them backwards now.

Was Robin Cook the Candidate I Never Had?

Living in West Lothian I was intrigued by Mark Thompson's article this morning that was hypothesising that Robin Cook may, had he survived, have defected to the Lib Dems. It would have been one photocall that both myself and Charles Dundas, his opponent from 2005, as the prominent faces of West Lothian Liberal Democrats would have been called in for. But would it have actually happened?

Mark bases his premise on the Comment is Free article by John Kampfner in today's Guardian, who describes his political fulcrum as based firmly around Robin Cook's left liberal leanings. Like Cook in the run up to 2005 he was disgruntled with Labour, but while Cook stayed in the party at that time Kampfner supported the Lib Dems. Robin did get on well with both Charles and myself in our dealings with him, and indeed his last letter to me was one of agreement.

But we're five years on and many of the mainstream commentators are saying that the Iraq influence has run its course. Kampfner however, does point out another driving force that progressives who have or had supported Labour may well be thinking of supporting the Lib Dems in 2010. He bases it on "a more fundamental appraisal of Labour's record, together with a positive assessment of the Lib Dems' platform".

"[Liberal Democrat] analysis of the failures of the deregulated market has been consistently, and painfully, accurate. Their tax reform plans, taking 4 million low-paid workers out of tax altogether, are the most redistributive of any party, alongside green taxes, a "mansion tax" on high-value properties anthe closing of tax loopholes (on pensions and capital gains) exploited by the rich. The Lib Dem approach to criminal justice, human rights, foreign and social policy is close to mine."

From my personal experience all of those values would certainly be held with Robin. So is that core of liberal-left looking our way. One wonders what that would mean if 30 years on from the Gang of four they had a leader in Robin Cook who would have supported all of the above, plus other areas in cleaning up politics. Of course it was he that Blair had chosen alongside Bob Maclennan to put Labour's view in the Joint Consultative Committee on Constitutional Reform prior to 1997. So events of the last 12 months and his own parties inaction may have persuaded to join the party offering serious consideration to the issue 12 years on. What if he too had left the Labour movement to find his feet as a true progressive within the Lib Dems?

Locally I think it would have made Livingston an interesting contest. One wonders who would have been the candidate, Devine wouldn't have been elected in September 2005 and wouldn't have been in the mire he is in. Looking at his record I don't think he would have followed Cook to our party. Would Graeme Morrice have managed to take the position of Labour candidate he now holds? One thing is certain I would personally be pounding the streets of Livingston trying to hold the seat for our man, and persuading those who had backed him before that he hadn't changed only the party they supported had. Pretty much the same message that Lib Dems have been putting to or hearing from Labour voters for a while really.

It is an interesting hypothesis of where Cook would stand on a number of key issues since 2005. I would love to stood on the doorstep of Clifton Terrace or at some location in Livingston flanking him and the party leader as we welcomed him into our fold. What I suspect is more likely to have been the outcome though is that even now he would still have been fighting to get Labour unto his course, he may even have been somewhat successful making it harder for the Conservatives to win or the Lib Dems to take Labour gains.

But the demise of progressive Labour politics is clearly made by the party's slogan for this election. They're saying "A Future Fair for All" not "Fairness We've Delivered".

Nick Points Out What Progressive is, Not What it Sounds Like

How progressive are the Labour and Conservative parties?

Listening to David Cameron brandy the word about, or Gordon Brown you'd think they are at the cutting edge. However, speaking on the BBC's Hard Talk programme Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg pointed out some of the areas they have blocked progressive ideas.

"David Cameron talks about change, but none of the Conservative MPs who avoided capital gains tax or made huge profits flipping their homes were forced to resign. He promised to give people the right to sack corrupt MPs but then the Conservatives voted against a law that would do just that. They have made it clear they will block attempts to make the voting system fair. They walked out on cross-party talks on party funding and refused to cap donations.

"Labour promised to clean up politics and make it fair but they failed. They wouldn't even push through reform after the expenses scandal. They went back on their promise to change the voting system.

"They failed to make the House of Lords elected and accountable to voters. They failed to clean up party funding because they rely on the unions. And they blocked attempts to give people the right to sack corrupt MPs. Labour will never change the political system."

They are talking about change, but have especially in the last few months had a chance to do something about it, bring about real change and restore faith in our politicians. So they talking about change yet again, change that will affect us, where is the evidence from their past that anything will change.

In Scotland of course the evidence that the Lib Dems can bring about change is there to be seen. Many of the policies in the first eight years of the Scottish Parliament that bring about major difference from England and to an extent Wales were a result of Lib Dem influence. We have made a fairer voting system for local councils, we have free personal care for the elderly, not the £8,000 insurance scheme on retirement that David Cameron is promising, we have made scrapped top up fees for students, a pledge we are keeping at a UK wide level. To name but a few.

The Liberal Moment

"Nick Clegg’s suggesting that his party can lead the Left seems presumptuous. Yet his is right to make it and has made it in the right way."

So says the lead editorial comment in this morning’s Times. It comes on the day that Nick launches his pamphlet The Liberal Moment with Demos as well as writing an article in the Times outlying his themes.

It opens with the questions:

"Are you one of the millions who turned to new Labour in 1997? Were you excited by the progressive promise? Did you believe that the ideals of fairness, social mobility, sustainability, civil rights and internationalism would finally have their day?"

Going on to say then:

"If so, you face a real dilemma. The choice between a fading exhausted Labour Government and the ideologically barred Conservatives."

The pamphlet and the article both look at the shifting sands of progressive politics. It was about a century ago that the Liberal party started to lose that all out progressive nature of British politics. The outcome was the emergence of the current Labour vs. Conservative struggle in the intervening years. Nick acknowledges that our predecessors then deserved to lose but then looks at the current situation.

The progressive party of the last 100 years, because no matter what the Tories try to paint over their past , progressive and conservative do not sit side by side in the same phrase, have been Labour. Yet look at them now.

"Labour's basic reflexes — central state activism, hoarding power at the centre, top-down government — are the wrong tools to meet the challenges of the modern world. We live in a society where people are no longer rigidly defined by class or place, no longer trapped by a culture of hierarchy….

"Labour have never fully reconciled itself to how power now flows down to individuals and communities that no longer accept a relationship of obeisance to central government. From frenzied target-setting in public service to the demolition of civil liberties, Labour has misread the demand for individual and grassroots empowerment in contemporary Britain."

Just as in the later part of the 19th and early 20th century the ideology battles for progressivism were battles being fought by Labour, long before they won the political battle, so now Nick thinks the battle to be the progressive party in thinking is ours. The battles on thinking are being won on the economy, environment, civil liberties, Iraq, Ghurkhas, and other issues we led the ideological crusade and others are latching on. The war to become the progressive force in politics in the country may take longer, but its day too may be coming.

Nick says:

"So the real choice at the next election is not the old red-blue/ blue-red pendulum of British politics. It is between yellow and blue. A choice between a liberal movement — led by the Liberal Democrats — that is attracting disaffected progressive voters from a Labour Party which will take years to recover, if at all; and a Conservative Party that parrots the language of change to maintain the status quo. In short, an opportunity for progressives to do something different, and finally change things for good."

So with that message ringing in my ears and Nicks vision set out before me, I'm really excited about heading off to Bournemouth for conference. Maybe the old adage is true. Maybe life truly does begin at 101000*.

*As Mark so kindly suggested this blog is now looking at using binary in light of my Total Politics rankings.