Guardian fantasy land

Iain Dale points out that the US state now employs more people than manufacturing.

Meanwhile, over at the Graun, Jonathan Freedland gushes in the general direction of Barack Obama and welcomes the end of what he calls the 30-year grip of the notion of limited government.

It seems clear then that Freedland is living in la-la land, like so many of his colleagues. Is there actually anyone at the Guardian with even the slightest idea of what happens in the real world?

Reforming the public services

I have a new post up at Labour Home. (Yup, you read that right).

Five Labour administrations, five devaluations

James Bartholemew asks a very pertinent question: why is there always a run on the pound when Labour is in power?

Thought for the day

And a happy thought at that: if Labour can't hold onto Glasgow East, is there a possibility that they might not even be the official opposition next time round?

Gordon says we're all lazy

The Times:

More people need to adopt the work ethic and aim high in life, Gordon Brown will say today in a keynote speech on social mobility.

In other words, work harder you lazy peasants, I need the tax revenues.

Can Labour afford to run against DD?

Interesting theory doing the rounds about the upshot of the Davis resignation - Labour are bust already - they just can't afford to fight another major by-election campaign.

So come on MPs, start following Davis's example! 

Government attitudes to the rest of us

Two recent articles have summed up pretty nicely the government's attitude to the rest of us.

Adair Turner, Labour peer, quangocrat supreme and soon to be head of the Financial Services Authority told the FT that high energy prices were a legitimate way to cut greenhouse emissions. So if your granny freezes to death this winter,  you have Mr Turner's word that what the government is going is entirely valid. This will probably make you feel better if you are of a green persuasion. You should probably be grateful, in fact.

Meanwhile your government tried to suppress a report which showed that fortnightly rubbish collections posed a health risk. This is because you are a bunch of ungrateful proles and are largely expendable.

Still, if they carry on like this, Labour might not even be the official opposition next time round (if they haven't gone bankrupt in the meantime), so all this pain might in fact be worth it. 

Desperation sets in

The Labour party is seriously worried. How else to explain Dennis MacShane's article in the Telegraph today calling for lower taxes and a smaller state.

A government should be no different. Labour should not be frightened of being a party that leaves more money in the pockets of hard-working individuals, starting with those at the lower end of the income scale. A Labour government that got serious about weaning its bureaucracy and clients off dependency on the citizen's money would find itself popular again.

This is about as convincing as a turkey suddenly declaring that it was in favour of Christmas all along and could someone pass the cranberry jelly. 

Outed!

It's happened. I've been outed. The awful truth has finally seen the light of day.

Yes, it's true. I'm a LABOUR supporter.

Or at least according to Labour councillor for Lambeth, Christopher Wellbelove, I am. According to his dinky "Inside Social Media and Search" site, I am one of the "Labour supporters who blog". Where on earth did he get that idea from?

Christopher apparently works in search engine optimisation at BT.  I hope he didn't use any of his patent search techniques in researching my political persuasion.   

Will Labour do something stupid?

The news that the Tories are now enjoying a 26% poll lead over the government has got them rattled over at Labour Home. There is still not the slightest sign that anyone among the readership has the slightest idea about why people have turned against them. (Hint: it's the economy, stupid.)

The latest lot of solutions from the red corner are no better than the last lot either. A core vote strategy is today's bright idea with radical redistribution mooted by one commenter on the thread. 

The issue of having "tax and spend" as your solution to all known problems can be tricky when you are in a tight corner caused by too much taxing and too much spending.  Unfortunately, I don't think anyone in the Labour party has the sharpness of mind to work out how to solve this conundrum.

They really don't get it

A few days ago I wondered about whether the Labour party understood why they were so unpopular and made light of some of the Fabians' ideas for putting things right.

Now, there's a new set of ideas being bandied about over at Liberal Conspiracy, which are, to say the least, no improvement on the last lot.

When your job, household income, housing costs are inherently unstable you then need active and interventionist government to counter-balance wider and unpredictable economic forces.

Richards argued the fact that Northern Rock has been nationalised without obvious political cost demonstrates how the mood has changed. He’s right and there is a discussion to be had about the appropriate level of regulation of financial markets and the need for consideration of how we can create more proactive financial watchmen.

As someone pointed out in the comments, the three hundred-odd councillors the Labour party lost the other day suggest strongly that there was, in fact, a ginormous political price paid for the Northern Rock fiasco. And more regulation? Get real man! How many major multinationals have hinted that they're going to leave the country in the last couple of weeks?

Aberdeen Asset Management, WPP, United Business Media, Shire?

You can lead a horse to water, and all that...     

Political dynasties

Is it just me, or are Labour starting to make a habit of forming political dynasties?

GWYNETH Dunwoody's daughter, Tamsin, has been chosen by the Labour Party as its candidate to be Crewe and Nantwich's next MP.

She will now fight the May 22 by-election to try and take the seat her mother held for the last 34 years.

An intensive two-day selection process ended with Tamsin Dunwoody being chosen by the local Labour group at Pebble Brook School tonight.

About 60 applications were made for the candidacy and they were then narrowed down to a manageable shortlist of five with Tamsin Dunwoody emerging as a comfortable winner.

More detail comes from Adam Boulton's blog:

Both Gwyneth's grandmothers were suffragettes. Her father, Morgan Phillips, was Labour Party general secretary (in the days before people turned the job down, Gordon). And her mother was a Government minister in the House of Lords.

So the Dunwoody dynasty looks as though it's as old as the Labour movement itself, and is set to continue for at least another generation. 

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I'd be inclined to believe that this was all a coincidence if it wasn't for the equal longevity of the Benn dynasty - Wedgie's granddaughter could be set to follow his son Hilary into parliament, having been chosen to stand at PPC in Worthing at the tender age of seventeen. If successful, she would be the fifth generation of her family to sit at Westminster.

I'm sure Tamsin Dunwoody and Emily Benn are outstanding individuals who would shine in any assembly that would have them, but are we really to believe that the five generations of Benns and four of Dunwoodys all got (or will get) to Parliament on merit? Statistically speaking, I would have thought that the possibility of this happening by chance was fleetingly small.

Update:

Iain Dale notices that the citizens of Crewe are not amused. 

Why did Labour lose?

So, Labour lost big time and the Tories won. But as Glenn Reynolds says, it's hard to see how much actual change the Tories will bring about. If the party won't let you know what their policies are then how can you?

Meanwhile, Labour are wondering what went wrong and the Tories are wondering what they got right. The feeling in the pub last night was that this was a vote against Labour far more than it was a vote for the Tories, so the Labour post-mortem is rather more interesting. Sunder Katwala, who, if memory serves me correctly runs the Fabian Society, sets out all the things that he thinks are going to win voters back in an article on LabourHome.

"Then make a fairer Britain the defining mission: take risks for the cause of child poverty; make clear what climate change demands of us all; go for electoral reform and a written constitution. If not now, when?"

This is, not to put to fine a point on it, bizarre. Other-worldly. Does he really think that people voted Tory because he though that Labour had done badly on child poverty? That they want to pay more carbon taxes? That they are, in fact, aching for electoral reform, and were raging all the way to the ballot box to express their fervent love of written constitutions?

Some people in the Labour party think so.   

Ronald Reagan on big government

If it moves, tax it.......

2001: Banks threatened with windfall tax 

If it keeps moving, regulate it.

2007: The system of bank regulation introduced by Gordon Brown was yesterday branded an “invitation to disaster” even before the run on Northern Rock.

And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

2008: Government plans to help UK banks 

Olympic detachment

Gordon Brown will not be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olmpics, according to the BBC.

Why not? Does he expect to be kicked out that quickly?