Labour's Riots Blame Game Tactic Turns Toxic

Ed Miliband has recently proven he is more wily than he's been given credit for in the past.

His opportunistic harrying of Cameron over Hackgate was politically very effective. He correctly assessed the mood of the public and demanded decisions and action faster than a Prime Minister burdened with actual responsibility could deliver. It made him look like he was leading the debate. He was lucky that the media (most of which backed Labour's politically motivated anti-Murdoch agenda but for commercial reasons) mostly glossed over Miliband's hypocrisy and inconsistency on the subject. He emerged from the Hackgate scandal in a stronger position as Labour leader. It now looks likely he'll not be replaced anytime soon.

But Miliband couldn't play the same game when the riots broke out. There's no doubt he'd loved to have gone with the "PM's on holiday in Tuscany and is out of touch with the suffering of the nation" line but, sadly for him, he was also on holiday. So that line was somewhat muted.

Instead, when he and Harriet Harman returned from holiday early, they decided on a strategy to blame the Tories for the rioting and looting that had, by now, spread around London and into other English cities. But wily Miliband has been careful to leave the explicit statement of this line to his lieutenants. Harman's brazen outburst on Newsnight on Tuesday was the clearest example if it, closely flowed by Diane "private school is ok for my kids but not yours" Abbott, last night.

Miliband was right to test the water via his underlings first. It's gone down like a lead balloon with the public, who want to see a strong and robust response to the criminals who have been perpetrating the vandalism and theft, not weak excuses made for party political gain. The whole tactic is turning toxic for Labour exposing, as it does, their preponderance to see every event as an opportunity to score party political points. That's not to say that there aren't serious political issues to discuss. But the petty accusations that we've heard (such as riots only occur under Tory governments, spending cuts (that haven't happened yet) are to blame and tuition fees (that have yet to increase)) are clearly not intended to help cast light on the real root causes of the trouble but to advance the cause of the Labour party.

Again, today, Miliband has been careful not to make petty party political points in Parliament. Let's hope he now abandons the whole tactic and insists on his troops showing a bit more sensitivity and common sense from now on.

Health Inequality And NHS Funding

Labour claims that a small change in the way Primary Care Trusts are allocated funds is designed to transfer money from "Labour" to "Conservative" areas of the country.

Labour point to a report by Public Health Manchester. Unsurprisingly, Manchester comes out as a victim of this evil Tory conspiracy. Of course, their conclusions are totally unbiased and deserving of the weight Labour have given them. But even if you believe that, and the figures are true, is this method of allocating cash to areas of the country really that sensible?

The change being suggested is to reduce the amount of additional money allocated to areas of considered to suffer from "health depravation". On first look that sounds sensible. They'll have more issues so need more money. This money is intended to be spent in more preventative activities such as encouraging healthier lifestyles and sexual health etc. Again, that sounds like a sensible thing to spend money on in places with such issues. But there is something fundamentally wrong with that approach.

One sign that something is wrong is that the money is always targeted at the same areas. Year in year out. In other words, the money is not buying preventative services that are making any significant difference. No doubt there are the odd examples of success here and there, but no overall relative upward trend in general health in these communities is discernible.

There is no doubt that there is a serious problem with health inequality in Britain. It ends up costing the tax payer more and more as the issues go unaddressed. So there certainly is a case for spending money on it. But what is the best way of allocating funds?

We can easily turn Labour's claims round and point out that they originally ran a system that benefitted Labour areas at the expense of Tory ones. But this shouldn't be a party political issue. Instead we should think about the best way to fund activity that will improve health across the nation.

I would argue that funding for preventative health initiatives should be linked to outcomes. Where one initiative produces success it should be given funds to expand its activities to other areas etc. And it shouldn't matter if the initiative is state run, charity of private. The most successful provider should attract the most investment. But the current system just rewards failure. As long as an area keeps its "deprived" status its PCT can rely on some more money. The money fails to improve anything so they need more next year and such is the story of NHS spending over the decades.

The original idea behind setting up the NHS was a (typically deluded central planner's) view that it would cost less and less as the health of the nation improved. Instead we've spent more and more of our national income on it and have barely kept up with our international competitors in terms of overall national health. In some cases outcomes are woefully behind.

The NHS reforms go some way to at least lay the foundations for more effective funding of health care in Britain. But they have been watered down too much and much more is needed to transform the attitudes of NHS staff and users so that they are less resistant to change.

But a good first step would be to show real progress in addressing health inequalities by rewarding success in this area rather than failure and ignoring politicians who want "their" people funded more than the "other's".

Minor Mistakes and Little White Lies

So, the News International flagellation continues unabated. There's no sign that their competitors or politicians want to focus on other media organisations that we know have been at least equally guilty of using dubious information gathering methods, so it's not going to move on any time soon. But I note that the anti-News International lobby have a new bit of spin.

It's a cunning line, based on the reported words of Rupert Murdoch in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. Murdoch, referring to News Corp's handling of the crisis since it broke, said they'd handled it well with only and few "minor mistakes". I've now seen this has been reinterpreted by some (BBC reporters and Labour politicians, including John Prescott, so far) as meaning the accusations against the News of the World (such as the accessing of Milly Downler's voicemails) were minor mistakes. Clever. There will be many that may disagree that News Corp have handled the crisis well with only a few minor mistakes, but no one would agree that the accusations regarding the accessing of innocent private individuals' voicemails, including victims of crime, are minor mistakes. Indeed, it's a line that, had he actually said it, would add to the public outrage and focus it more sharply on Rupert Murdoch himself. Which is, of course, their agenda.

After Gordon Brown's dodgy claims regarding The Sun this week we can see that the, mostly politically motivated, anti-News International campaign is resorting to lies and smears to progress it's agenda. It may seem like natural justice for the press, and I wouldn't be too bothered, if it wasn't for the fact that all this energy is being focused on one organisation, mostly because it upset a political party when it turned it's back on them. The worry is the wider problem in the press generally won't be addressed. What we need is the same tenacious focus on The Mirror, People, Mail etc. No one seriously suggests they've not been using similar methods as the News of the World. It will be interesting to see if Labour MPs maintain the same level of passion and indignation and the BBC continue wall to wall news coverage, when the story moves on to the non-News International papers and, God forbid, Labour papers like the Mirror and People.

They're All At It!

When the serious allegations regarding the News of the World phone hacking scandal emerged last week it was clear that this "scandal" had finally produced some real substance. Previously, the faux outrage being exhibited by left leaning papers, politicians and celebs was transparently in their own self-interest. Bitter at News International for turning their back on Labour after so long, their hatred had undermined the case that was being made against the press, mainly because they sought to focus on the one organisation. But now we hear the extent of the use of phone hacking went beyond those in public life to include innocent private individuals, even victims of crime. The worst accusation involves PI Glen Mulcaire, apparently in the pay of The News of The World, listening into voice mail messages of Milly Dowler when she was still missing. This is an appalling revelation and all the outrage and indignation was well justified.

News International has moved decisively and ruthlessly to cut out the cancer in its midst by closing down the title in the frame for this disgusting behaviour. It seems massively unfair to the many staff and journalists, not to mention millions of readers, who have not done anything wrong. But such was the damage to the paper's brand and the potential for that damage to seep into other News International titles that Murdoch clearly felt the action was necessary. However, more and more revelations are emerging that could yet threaten his other titles. Ironically, it is this threat that would do more damage to media plurality that any BSkyB takeover would.

What is sickening is seeing Ed Miliband attempts to be seen, all of a sudden, as a leader of the campaign against The News of the World and now News International. This is a man who employs a News International ex-journalist as a press secretary who was, just a day before the story broke, following his advice to lay off the topic. Miliband even undertook a complete about turn over night by saying the BSkyB/News International deal was not affected by the revelations one day, and then calling for the deal to be reassessed the next, when he had to appear in Prime Minister's question time... on the telly.

The danger is that the politically motivated johnny-come-lately opposition politicians and original protagonists in this saga will, in their attempts to maintain focus on Andy Coulson because of his 4 year stint in the employ of David Cameron and News International generally, distract attention from the broader issue of how the press conducts itself. So desperate are they to implicate Cameron in the scandal and destroy Murdoch's company, they may deny this country a real opportunity to reset the values and moral compass of our tabloid media, or at least deny them easy access to ill-gotten information without a true public interest justification. By public interest I don't mean "interesting to the public", of course!

It is this last point that I think everyone who used to buy the News of the World or any other tabloid such as the Mirror, Sun, Mail... should ponder. What motivated these journalists to go to such lengths to get info on people? It was the fight of readership. You get what you deserve in the real world, not necessarily what is good for you. We have the press and politicians we deserve. The truth is salacious stories about celebrities (or anyone who finds themselves in the public eye) sold newspapers. The News of the World was the top selling Sunday newspaper for a reason. It did sex and scandal better than its rivals. And we lapped it up. Despite what the anti-Cameron/News International brigade want you to believe, the NotW's competitors are just as deeply immersed in the mire of dark arts in the search for a juicy story. As the What Price Privacy Now report found, there exists a market in confidential personal data, often provided by private investigators (like Glen Mulcaire), grubbing around in bins, blagging confidential information, accessing personal voice mail messages and exploiting contacts with the police etc, to get information on anyone they think the tabloids would be interested in. And if you thought it was only the News International titles making use of these dodgy services, think on...

So, it's great that we have a public enquiry into the activities of the press. I hope it exposes their practices which, for decades, have been hardly questioned because of the assumption that anything was justifiable in the name of a free press; the myth that such practices were ultimately in the public interest. In reality they were mostly pandering to the salacious interests of the public and didn't care who they hurt or destroyed along the way. It wasn't just the News of the World, or the Sun or the Mail (the papers most of those on the left want attention focused on). It was all papers, including left leaning ones like the Mirror, the Observer and the People. Yes, the Observer. It's not even limited to tabloids! The whole industry needs to be looked at. Party politics has no place in these deliberations. It is shameful that there are those that wish to make it about Cameron or the "right wing press". I think Miliband and others will come out of this looking very shabby indeed.

But once the enquiries report and we understand the full picture, lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The MPs expenses scandal required the receipt of stolen goods to be overlooked as the story was clearly in the public's interest. Phone hacking is similarly perfectly justifiable if it is in the search for information that could lead to similarly important story being broken. The public needs to understand how journalists get their information and be reassured that, should they use illegal methods without a real public interest case, they will be prosecuted and their paper will bear a heavy cost for overstepping the mark. For that to happen we need to:

• Have a clearer definition of "public interest" - this isn't as easy as it sounds. A real public debate is required to sort the answer out. But the real penalties that will make Newspaper's think twice before using intrusive measures to dig up information.
• That there isn't a corrupting relationship between the police and media that could be exempting journalists from their legal responsibilities (hence Cameron's second enquiry into the police's role in this scandal)
• Politicians that are not frightened to hold media organisation to account. Something all party leaders have only now, belatedly and only after all media proprietors are running scared, started to do.
• A newspaper buying public that doesn't reward papers that publish the most base, sensationalist and scandalous stories. This final requirement will be the hardest to achieve. Impossible in fact, unless the nation changes its tastes all of a sudden!

I'm the Trouble Starter, Pumpkin Instigator

This, from Guido Fawkes' blog, made me giggle...



Of course Little Ed couldn't have known the violence would kick off at the same time as his speech (although he must have known violence was inevitable that day). And of course, given his lack of oratory skills, he is as likely to rouse such passion in people as he is to win brother of the year. But that's what makes Guido's video even funnier.

On another note. I've never quite been able to make out one of the words in the first line.

I'm the trouble starter, ?punkin? instigator.
I'm the fear addicted, danger illustrated.

Sounds like punking to me. I looked up the lyrics using the InterSuperWeb but it has not been much help. Most sites seem to think it's "Fuckin" instead of punkin. I find that hard to believe as the single only came out in one version with no bad language warning and the album version sounds exactly the same as the single.

However, my favourite suggestion came from this site...

I'm the trouble starter, pumpkin instigator.
I'm the fear addicted, danger illustrated.

I can envisage Ed Miliband singing this version into his under utilised hair brush as he watched the footage of the trouble unfolding on his television in his bedroom that night.

If he had any honesty in him, which seems unlikely, he'd adjust one of the other verses a tad...

I'm Balls bitch you hated, tax infatuated - yeeeaaaah
I'm the cash we wasted, felt intoxicated

Ed's Spin Is Taking Off But In The Wrong Direction

Back on 19th December, The Observer reported that Ed Miliband had instructed his shady, sorry, shadow cabinet not to refer to the government as a coalition but as "Conservative-led". The idea is that left leaning LibDems would hear this description and immediately believe their party had no influence on government policy and that they were merely being used by the evil Tories to cling unto power while they implement terrible right wing policies that would make Maggie Thatcher vomit.

The enormous din caused by the whining and gnashing of teeth by a growing number of actual right wing Tory backbench MPs wouldn't be enough to jolt these gullible liberals back to reality, Labour's spin Meisters calculated, and the poor deluded souls would rush into Little Ed's arms gratefully; forgetting how he had absolutely no interest in them during the LD/Labour talks following the General Election hung result, just a few months ago. Recent polls a the Old & Sad by-election suggest this may well have worked, for now anyway.

It seems Ed's little sound bite is catching on. I'm see "Conservative-led" popping up all over the place. And not just in/on the slavish followers of Labour's communication machine that you'd normally expect, like The Guardian, Mirror or BBC; but also in the Telegraph, Mail and Times recently. I suspect each journalist has his or her own reason for adopting the term - Labour supporters wanting to turn LibDems, right wingers wanting to bring down the coalition or reduce the influence of the LibDems, etc... But whoever uses it is likely to have the objective of weakening the coalition in one way or another. So, watch out for who's using the term as it's a useful (if not quite 100% accurate) method of spotting an underlying political motive behind a reporters/experts view that may be presented as independent or unbiased.

To be honest, I'm not convinced left leaning LibDems needed this kind of sub-concious Derren Brownesque trick to be convinced that they'd be happier with Labour. Many were disaffected Labour supporters or even old SDP (i.e. like David Owen - disaffected Foot-era Labour) supporters. They believe that there is a left wing majority out there in the electorate and this deal with the Tories is an anathema to them. They really have nowhere else to go other than to Labour. Sadly, for them, their left wing majority theory is proving hard to prove, if the polls are to be believed. Labour still can't achieve anywhere near 50%, despite being the only choice for the left now. And this despite the incredibly unpopular decisions this government has had to take.Things will get worse for the government in the next couple of years, but Labour really should be doing better now if the majority of Britain's are natural leftists. The coalition partners will hope that support will return in the final year or so of the parliament. If things are brighter economically then than now, that's not a bad bet.

We are seeing a realignment of party politics in this country. This is something the media is missing, in its keenness to report the demise (as they see it) of Clegg's leadership. And it's a realignment that is alienating as many right wing Tories and left wing LibDems. The realignment will only be successful if the coalition is successful. That is why there is such an unholy alliance forming around Ed's little "Conservative-led" sound bite.

Miliband's Labour and right wing Conservatives want to go back to the certainties of party politics before the General Election. Cameron and Clegg want to forge a new right of centre consensus. They calculate that, in fact, that is where the majority of votes are - not on the left but the right. I think Tony Blair and Peter Mandleson understood that too, even if they didn't fully understand right of centre politics and how to implement it effectively, they knew that was where the action is and they emulated it, to great electoral success.

So, for all Ed Miliband's sound bites and mind games, he is following a losing long term strategy by positioning Labour as the only home for the left. But in the short term, it could win out, but only if the coalition fails to survive until better economic times. If they falter, Labour would benefit by accident and the whole experiment would be lost, probably never to be attempted again. I, for one, think that would be a shame.