Why I Can't Wait for the Labour Leadership Result

This afternoon we will have new leader of the opposition and frankly I can't wait. The party will most likely remain fractioned whoever wins and with both the Conservatives and Lib Dems in power, Labour will struggle to present any viable alternative. Ok, Tory economic policy is hardly the height of popularity but it sure beats the recklessness of previous administration. No one wants to go back to that.

The main reason I'm looking forward to the result though is that on twitter so many Labour supporters have really pushed the boat out in support of their favoured candidate. When some influential tweeters tried to make Oona King the Labour candidate to stand against Boris Johnson in the forthcoming London Mayoral election we recently witnessed a dramatic climb down when left-wing stalwart Ken Livingstone was (obviously) elected instead (will they ever learn?).

I look forward to later retweeting some of the propaganda that supporters of the losing candidates have put up in the past week or so. The authoritarian left tend to like a battle, even with each other, and some quotes could soon come back to really bite supporters and candidates alike hard on the arse.

Andy Burnham comes to Rugby

I am pleased to say that Andy Burnham came to visit Rugby this evening to open a new Fabian Society for Warwickshire. He came across very well and it was intersting to hear him speak on a range of issues. In fact, he was only supposed to stay until nine but continued to take questions from the floor for an extra half an hour.

Of course in a room full of Labour supporters the man from Aintree was hardly challenged and without wanting to flatter myself too much; I think I posed the biggest threat. Nevertheless Burnham covered a range of topics and whilst his approach to healthcare is sorely misguided (a 10% care levy will not provide peace of mind for those who struggle to pay it), his dedication to the issue is admirable. He will be hoping to make the most of Andrew Lansley's decision to scrap NHS Direct after this evening, already saying the health secretary is "is on a vindictive mission to break up the NHS."

Arguably this makes him something of a one issue candidate and his leaflets were plastered with the phrase 'Defending the NHS' which also appears on the side of the 'Burnham Battle Bus'. This is not to say that the former health secretary is actually a one trick pony and he has some nice ideas on other issues such as housing but he needs to show this if he is to become more than 'the other guy'.

I, for example, was more interested in the Land Valuation Tax (LVT) which he set out in an article in the Guardian the other day. My question was that: "Surely such a tax, particularly if it is too onerous, would discourage people from moving up the property ladder and act as a hindrance to first time buyers?"

Andy pointed out in response that the tax would help first-time buyers who would be beneficiaries of the system by virtue of the fact that it removes stamp duty. He then conceded that the tax would act as a disincentive to move up the property ladder but encourages "efficiency in land use" so that big companies cannot just sit on an important piece of land and not use it for anything (a 'land bank'). I'm not quite convinced and the fact that he admits to this disincentive also means less fluidity in the property market therefore higher prices. Then higher prices means higher LVT and people begin to feel the pinch year after year possibly having to then downsize into a house which is too small. There are also other concerns regarding registered land and how the valuation can be done cost-effectively and fairly but I saved those points.

Burnham will struggle to defend his quite radical policies in the face of opposition and whilst he is a nice guy, I feel that a vote for him would signal a return for the Labour Party to the wilderness of the 1980s. Not that Labour should worry as he is the rank outsider and after the leadership contest will most likely make an ignominious return to the back benches.

Chuka Umunna passive-aggressive note to George Osborne

Steatham has got a new Labour MP and don't we know it. Taking over from the spineless Keith Hill who voted in the way his taskmaster told him, Chuka Umunna seems an apt replacement. Loved by the Guardian and the New Statesman (who describe him as the British Barak Obama), his latest piece is little more than a regurgitation of the same Labour policies that the electorate rejected. A sure way to gain publicity but the argument remains stale.

The passive-aggressive tone overrides the piece like someone scraping their nails down a blackboard and everyone who reads it knows Osborne will most likely never have to set his eyes upon it.

The actual content is also weak. Umunna accuses the budget of not being progressive before going on to list policies which he knows damn well will slow the UK's recovery from recession by hampering the financial service industry (one of the best in the world) by taxing it and thereby making it less competitive. If we were to have a progressive budget which will once again stimulate growth in the economy then surely this key aspect of the UK's GDP must be preserved?

A nice career move by Umunna then which will win him many more friends on the left but this poorly dressed-up sabotage attempt on the recovery and George Osborne hardly stimulates debate and ought to be ridiculed.

Labour attacks UK Charities

You know that a government is desperate once it starts to attack the most vulnerable in society and this is exactly what Labour seems to be doing as they seek to remove the exemption that charities currently enjoy from music royalties. Despite being in force since 1988, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act will be amended so that all charities must, from April 2010, obtain a license from Phonographic Performance Ltd if they wish to play copyrighted music to the public. Clearly this covers nearly every charity that seeks to advertise on either the radio or on television and some smaller charities may fail to notice that the law has even changed. Will we therefore possibly see a legal case where a music producer takes a charity to court?! Simon Cowell v. NSPCC could create a few headlines in itself!

The amendment to the law will simplify the framework within which charges are applied and the payment is only £81 annually, but this is £81 that could otherwise be better spent, particularly in the case of non-profit organisations and such an amount could be a significant dent in the finances of some smaller charities. The government’s apparent justification for the amendment is that it is necessary remove the exemption to achieve a proper balance between owners of the rights to the music and the users in accordance with EC and international law. Such a claim seems, in reality, hard to substantiate. For example, use of music for weddings, hospital wards and medical therapy are still exempt; is there no balance to be redressed here?

Overall the advantages of the amendment are hard to find with regard to charities. The overall system may be simplified but it was probably a whole lot simpler when they paid nothing at all.

Somebody Tell Teacher!

I've always like Twitter. I feel it's a brilliant means for discussion across a range of topics and the public element to it makes it better than either MySpace or Facebook. In particular political discussion can not only be edifying but also a great source of entertainment.

Not last night though as the whole political twitterverse seemed to descend into a splurge of name-calling and tattle-telling with the main culprits, embarrassingly, being on my own side of the debate.

One of the Conservative's most prolific bloggers, Tory Bear, has chosen to lambast Labour supporter and active campaigner Bevanite Ellie over a joke which was not even her own. Rather the joke was originally 'tweeted' by a Labour councillor but TB has gone after the messenger instead.

To be honest the joke wasn't particularly controversial and typical of Labour's black humour towards Margaret Thatcher. However, TB jumped on this opportunity like a rapist and started demanding an apology like the whining kid who sits at the front of the class.

This then seemed to start a whole war over twitter of general poor quality barraging. If you're going to insult the other side at least try and be witty, yeah?

Much as I dislike Labour this seems to me like another Sun episode where the demand for an apology for the soldier's mispelt name actually engendered sympathy for the party. I sense jealousy over Ellie's success emanating from Mr. Bear and he will do well in future to keep this in check.

A Good Week for Labour After a Bad 12 years

Gordon Brown must have something of a smile on his face this week after things have started to look up a bit for the Labour party, we can only hope for the sake of those of a nervous disposition that this smile isn't photographed.

First, what looked like it might be a stinging attack by the Sun newspaper has backfired and ended up with many showing sympathy for Brown, this was followed on Wednesday afternoon by a powerful performance by the PM on PMQs and in the early hours of this morning it was confirmed that Labour candidate, Willie Bain, won the Glasgow North East by-election.

This good week cannot be overplayed though. The Sun has ended up with egg on it's face but nothing more than that, many would agree that PMQs was a bit dull and Labour was always going to win Glasgow North East, the most telling fact probably being that turnout was so low.

Nevertheless Labour will feel the need to get carried away by all this but I somehow doubt that one week of minor political victories at a time when we are remembering our war dead is going to detract from the failings that this Labour government has ladled upon the country for the last 12 years.

BNP win is proof of democracy working

As people woke up this morning to find that the BNP had gained more seats than any other party in the European elections they were rightly disgusted that the UK is, for the first time, returning a fascist to Strasbourg. Interestingly the blog world has also become obsessed with this story and I would suggest this is more to do with the failure of their own party than anything else. One LibDem blogger suggests that proportional representation is not to blame but let us remember that they gained one seat despite losing 1.2% of their total vote share from last time. Meanwhile a Tory blogger goes so far as to suggest that the BNP are on the far-left of the political spectrum! This politically naive argument only detracts from the Conservative party gaining a paltry 1% of the popular vote when the governing national party is in disarray.

Without a shadow of a doubt it is the BNP who have been the most successful in these elections. Although the Green party went up by 2.4% in terms of the total vote share compared to the BNP's 1.3%, the Green's did not gain any extra seats whilst Nick Griffin squeezed into the North-West of England by around 1,200 votes and Andrew Brons earned more than 120,000 votes to secure a seat in Yorkshire and the Humber.

There are many reasons which can be attributed to the BNP winning nearly 1 million votes. Firstly the electoral system has to take some of the blame. Proportional representation (PR) is often banded around as being more fair and democratic but the truth of the matter is that it allows fringe parties not only to get their hands on power but to be a controlling influence as a coalition partner. The good news from this is that a chance of BNP success in a general election is slim.

Going back to the Euro election results though the online world seems almost apologetic for letting the BNP represent the UK but the far-right have had a lot of success across Europe in countries such as Austria, Denmark, Slovakia, Hungary and especially the Netherlands where Geert Wilders' PVV party picked up 17% of the popular vote along with four seats, in the end finishing up in second place overall.

The current economic climate could have left the gate open to parties on the left of the political spectrum who would offer both greater control of the economy but also greater redistribution of wealth. However the far-left only made a small gain in Denmark and none whatsoever in either France or Germany where they were expected to do well. Instead it seems to be the authoritarian right which is doing best across Europe. The UK is a good microcosm of this fact and not just in relation to the BNP. The Conservatives won the election and now seek to form a new anti-federalist alliance with other winners in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) also had success in beating the Labour party to second place, showing that their performance in 2004 was by no means a fluke.

In my opinion, if you do not vote then you accept the results of the election and continuing with this logic, 68% of the total electorate accept the BNP as our representatives in Europe. With poor turnout and PR contributing to the result we still have to say that democracy is working, but as the old cliche goes: 'you get what you vote for'.