Labour have duly accepted Red Ed’s invitation to join his wild dream

Labour have done their very best to put a brave face on the result of their leadership race this week, but no matter how much they protest that they all love Ed and he is great, they all know they have made a dreadful mistake.

Ed gave a reasonable speech today in the circumstances. But was this a speech of a future prime minister? Even the most hardened of Labour supporters would have their doubts. Ed lacks gravitas, and while youthful looks can be a good thing, Ed recalls too much of a precocious child who has been promoted through the school years too quickly. In the speech there were some cringe-worthy moments where the conference simply failed to respond. This awkwardness was reminiscent of the Tory conference feigning their support of the ‘quiet man turning up the volume’.

This was certainly not the same feeling when David Cameron made his pulse-racing speech to the Conservative party conference in the Tory leadership race, nor was it the feeling when Tony Blair came on to the scene. Already, both of these men could be seen as future Prime Ministers.

Obviously, many on the left of the media have tried to make the best of Ed’s victory. Indeed, for the idealist left there is no doubt that this is good news. Ed can now truly represent the traditional left that New Labour neglected. This will hopefully mark a welcome return to the old dividing lines of British politics. The Tories were shoved off the middle ground for the best part of the last 15 years of politics by New Labour. Now at last, perhaps the Tories can start talking confidently about genuinely right wing policies without fearing that the electorate will run off to New Labour, who characteristically offered a conservative policy with better packaging (whether they delivered the product is quite another matter). The trouble is, for all its failings New Labour was very successful and appealing to the electorate.

Of course, Labour’s leadership result reflects a split between MPs and members in one camp, and the unions in the other. The difficulty for Ed is leading a party where the majority of his own MPs didn’t want him. Encapsulating his predicament today, he tried to neutralise the unions by denouncing ‘irresponsible strikes’ to which one union member leader shouted ‘rubbish!’. Presumably, he was in favour of strikes whether they are irresponsible or not.

It is widely accepted that this is a good result for Cameron; Matthew d’Ancona even led his Sunday Telegraph column with “Labour has handed David Cameron the next election.” However, this is perhaps a little presumptuous. British politics, compared to a few years ago, is wide open, and as a coalition with the Lib Dems a second time round is unlikely, the Tories still have a lot to do to win a majority. Still, even with all this there is no getting away from the feeling that Ed will not be the man to lead Labour to victory.

In his speech on Saturday evening, Ed said never in his wildest dreams had he imagined being leader of his party. I fear that this is precisely the trouble. He lacks credibility as a leader because he didn’t really believe he was going to be. The sad reality for Labour is that they are now in a wild dream of the idealist left, with no prospect of electability.

After my long journey with Tony Blair, I am left wondering was Tony simply a modern day Machiavelli?

I have finally arrived at the 691st page of Tony Blair’s ‘Journey’. Now the dust has settled on the press’s quick fire review of small snippets, I thought I would make a few comments on the former Prime Minister’s fascinating memoirs.

It is true that at times, Tony comes across as annoyingly arrogant and almost abnormally self-assured, but then is it possible to be as successful as he has been without being so? It is also true that there are some cringe-worthy descriptions where he tries too hard to please, with Charles Moore of the Telegraph commenting on his irritating habit of warning you that he is about to tell you something funny , and thereby taking away from the humour.

There are also many issues which I and Tony will never see eye to eye on. One of which that particularly annoys is his surrender stance on Europe. ‘Live with it’ he says - it is a reality. However, my belief is that it is only a reality if we choose to do nothing about it: Tony, some of us do not want to ‘live with it’!
Yet notwithstanding this, reading the book in the main makes you recall just what a truly incredible operator Tony Blair was. Throughout the book he gives a remarkably persuasive sale of the New Labour project and you are reminded of the genius of the New Labour idea and why it was so appealing.

Not surprisingly, a significant part of the book deals with Iraq. You are reminded of Tony’s training as a barrister when he gives an impassioned defence of his decision to go to war, and I for one can’t help feeling a great deal of sympathy with his argument (although I was somewhat already persuaded on this issue).

And yet, for all his persuasiveness and appeal, as I winded through Northern Ireland, the war on terror, Gordon Brown and public services reform, and I drew to the journey’s end, I could not help wondering whether Tony Blair was actually a modern day Machiavelli. His advice and candidness on how to conduct negotiations or create policy cannot help but to bring to mind the famous Florentine philosopher, albeit perhaps with not quite the ruthlessness cynicism. As every successful politician must be, Tony shows real pragmatism to policy. But this must always be balanced with a sense of principle, whatever that principle may be, otherwise what is it all for? Although, Tony argues that by the end of his journey all he cares about is doing the right thing, I can’t help feeling that when you strip away the fantastic pragmatic operator there is not much left. In a sense the pragmatism is the guiding principal.

I am sure his supporters (if there are any left) would argue that this is a great injustice to him. If nothing else he is a fascinating and exceptional historical figure who has been at the heart of politics for over a decade, shaping the political landscape which we now inhabit. For that reason alone it is well worth embarking with Tony on this Journey.

Pope’s refreshing message drowns out the hypocrisy of the protestors

Organisers of the ‘Protest the Pope’ event yesterday in London estimated that 20,000 people came out on to the streets of London to protest. 20,000!? You must be joking!? I was in attendance myself in central London yesterday to give the Pontiff a warm welcome and 20,000 to me seems to be a gross over estimation of the actual number. A few thousand perhaps, but no more than that. It is telling that the police did not confirm the protestors’ estimate. The overestimate seems to me to summarise the underwhelming effect of the pope protest.

As I read some of their placards like ‘---- the Pope…but wear a condom’ and listened to the ‘firmly militant atheist’, Richard Dawkins (his own description) telling the crowd that Hitler was actually a Catholic, I was struck by the venom and furiousness with which they were attacking Catholicism. Why did they feel so strongly to protest? If it is for gay rights or the rights of women to choose abortion then it seems to me a rather redundant protest. Were these rights not won in the 1960’s? The Pope is not stopping people carrying out these rights; the Catholic Church simply believes that allowing gay people to marry and women to have abortions is wrong. They may not like these views, indeed they clearly find them abhorrent, but is that something worth protesting against so viciously - attempting to ruin the visit of a leader of a religion that represents one sixth of the planets population?

And why in particular the Pope? Another religion, which is the fastest-growing in the world, and responsible for the brutal treatment of women and gay people throughout the world, seems not to bother these people in the same way. Fundamental Islam seems the abundantly obvious threat to what I assume these protestors hold dear: a tolerant, free and democratic society. Yet, can you imagine Peter Tatchell and co organising a protest in a similar vein against Islam? No of course not. But then we should expect double standards and hypocrisy from this lot. So often they invoke the importance of tolerance. But I fear, the real reason why they protest is not because they feel they are still in the throes of a struggle for the rights of gay people and women (as I said, surely this struggle has already been won in modern western society), but rather they want to stamp out dissenting voices that dare suggest a view of the world that is different from theirs.

As the Pope reminded us, Christianity is under attack from ‘aggressive secularism’. There is nothing tolerant about preventing employees from wearing a crucifix, nor requesting council workers that they should not discuss biblical teachings. It is the height of irony that the same people who protested against the Pope’s visit cry tolerance when all they seem to practice is fierce intolerance.

To many in the modern day world, the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality, marriage, sex and women does seem hopelessly old fashioned and out dated. But wrongly or rightly, the Church does not care about fashion, and nor does it care about the date. It deals in absolutes not relativism. In a way, even though you may not agree with all the Pope has to say (and some of it is very difficult to agree with), in a world that is dominated by moral relativism and popularity, the Pope’s message is refreshing and at the very least thought-provoking. Religion still has a part to play in modern society, and the Pope’s visit managed to remind us of that, while thankfully drowning out the spiteful and hypocritical protestors.

As soon as we play at the enemy’s game of mindless intolerance we have lost the battle

Belgium has already banned it and France is looking to follow suit. Last week banning the burka was even proposed in Britain. I watched the MP, Philip Hollobone trying to defend his motion on the Daily Politics the other day. I afraid to say his defence was pathetic. The crucial moment was when he started ‘we in Britain don’t cover our faces’. At this statement he lost the argument. The point is we in Britain can do whatever we like, as long as it is not a crime and is not inciting others to commit crimes. Usually crimes are defined by the harm they cause to others and hence why the justification for the laws' intervention.

If we are seriously arguing that we want the law to intervene and make a crime of wearing a particular piece of clothing, we wholly turn our back on our sacred liberal, tolerant and free society that we hold dear in Britain. In Britain this has only been achieved through the cost of many lives whose sacrifice was made so that we can enjoy a free society. Indeed, it is those values of freedom and tolerance that we should use to guide us in trying to defend against the culture that the burka originates, in general terms: Islamic fundamentalism. An ideology that does not believe in freedom and tolerance, an ideology that in its darkest and evident form, is so intolerant that it murders innocent lives on a mass scale simply because society does not accept its view of the world.

Islamic fundamentalism is a very real and tangible threat to our society and way of life. We must take our responsibility to fight it very seriously. Once we try to defeat it with intolerance and at the cost of our values, then we forget the reason why we are fighting in the first place. We may as well be two sides fighting for equally meaningless causes.

My personal view of the burka is that I am not particularly keen on it, in fact if I am honest I find it rather sinister. I also believe that it provides a powerful image of Islamic fundamentalism’s inequality in respect of its treatment of women, and I struggle to understand why any women would like to wear one. But that is simply my view. A view, which I am sure some may find offensive, but that is not the point and nor is it that some people find the wearing of the burka offensive. In Britain that it is my right to state my view and it is the Islamic woman's right to wear the burka.

So please Hollobone and co, stop speaking nonsense! Banning the burka is an embarrassingly self-defeating idea. As soon as we play at the enemy’s game of mindless intolerance we have lost the battle.

Apologies to readers for lack of posts over the last couple of weeks, I have been away on holiday. A new post on a non-political subject to appear soon.

Capello should have gone for proving the fallacy that football is a business

In a departure from this blog’s normal focus of arena, perhaps to show I am not only a political geek, I will devote this weeks post to a subject while not political in nature has dominated the news over the last couple of weeks following England’s exit from the World Cup.

The FA in a typical wait-and-see rather than decisive action have belatedly decided that the grossly over paid England manager Fabio Capello shall remain in his post despite England’s under whelming performance at the World Cup. Many football fans I have spoken to have found this a disappointing decision. They wanted Capello to take responsibility for what was a disastrous campaign. However, I think this analysis misses the point. Is Capello the reason for the poor performance of England at the World Cup? The answer is that he is probably partly responsible and as manager it is difficult to see how he in not in part some way culpable. However, the crucial question is to what extent? Let us not forget Capello has one of the best managerial records in the game and the media has been telling us for the last couple of years that he is the man who has master-minded England’s rejuvenation in qualifying for the World Cup including two impressive wins over Croatia. To use a favorite football phrase – you do not become a bad manager over night. Before Capello, we had McLaren. While, he did not have the glittering managerial CV that Capello has, he has since gone on to win the league in the Netherlands. Before that we had Eriksson, another who’s managerial CV is the envy of most top flight managers. All have been and gone, taking the buck for under performance. But what is the common denominator here? Surely, it is the players not the managers.

It is difficult to pin point exactly the reason for such under performance from England. As mentioned, Capello is to blame to some extent, but to a greater extent, it must be other reasons, perhaps England’s innate style of play which continually gets found wanting at internationally level, perhaps player fatigue, perhaps hyper-pressure (as was so apparent by the stage fright performance against Algeria), perhaps it will remain a mystery why this current crop of players, a so called ‘golden generation’ has under performed. At least at the next World Cup, when most of these set would have retired, we can stop wondering why they do not achieve the sum of their parts. And yet it is that mystery which provides for such wonder which must be investigated if we are to ever to learn the lessons of failure. Any such lessons would have been swept under the carpet if the FA had chosen to sack Capello.

A successful businessman and keen football fan argued to me the other evening that he has to hit certain targets in his job and if missed them by a long way then he would have to resign and if he would not resign then he would face the sack anyway. On this basis Capello must go, he continued. This gets to the heart of the problem in football and the mistakes that the FA have made through recent decades. Football cannot be fairly compared to the business world and yet in a way this analysis is absolutely correct. Of course, football is a business in many respects, but in many others it is not a business. Football’s forgetfulness of this most imperative principle has lead to much of its ruin over recent years. Ironically, rather than any other reason, this is why I think Capello should have been sacked. The FA took Capello on, in fantasy- based business terms. He was paid an incredibly inflated salary in the aftermath of the McLaren embarrassment. (No other salary in international management comes anywhere close to that of Capello’s). The FA thought that Capello would buy them success. Capello should have been sacked to prove the fallacy that football is a business and success can be brought effortlessly with simply a big contract.

Why was he not sacked? The real reason is because someone had released a break clause in his contract before the World Cup meaning to sack him now would cost a fortune which the FA did not have. The FA, continue in their long line of form of derogation of duty to protect the game (the two towers of which are their 1983 decision to allow Tottenham Hotspur to float on the stock exchange and their 1992 decision to allow the creation of the Premiership), which confirms that disappointment for England fans will continue for some time to come yet. Politics to return next week…

Flying your flag is not racist, it is a celebration of nationhood

I showed a photo to a few of my friends the other day, which pictured a giant red ribbon crossed over a white garage at the front of somebody’s house, completing a delightful St George’s flag (above). The reaction to this picture was immediately a chorus of shock and horror, with half jest, half-serious suggestions that the owners must be paid up members of the BNP. This is a typical response of the leftist, self-righteous, usually middling-class who consider such expressions of patriotism to be tantamount to racism.

They often squirm at the idea that these flags might be flying in a neighbour’s home- the idea that this would bring shame on the neighbourhood. The reaction seems to be embarrassment about waving a flag; almost apologetic for being English. Of course, in true leftist double standards, the flag-flying of other nations in England is to be praised as sign of the success of multiculturalism. It seems it is only their own flag that they have an issue with.

I have always argued that there was something reassuring about England’s lack of expressiveness of its nationality (exemplified by our almost unmarked passing of St George’s Day). I had always thought that we did not need to fly our flag from every building or go crazy on our national day, like the French, Irish or Americans, as we did not feel insecure about our nationality. Unlike the aforementioned countries, our ‘independence’ has been assured for nearly 1000 years (although the EU project threatens like never before) and we need not over-celebrate what is not under threat. I still like this argument, but I fear the reality is our mooted celebration of nationality is linked to the left’s apologetic embarrassment about expressive patriotism. Indeed, there have been a few cases of the dark side of political correctness where England flags have been removed for fear of offence. Offence!? To who!?

In fairness, the whole issue has not been helped by the far-right’s hi-jacking of the St George’s flag which has unfortunately resulted in unwelcome connotations for the flag.

But I say, don’t let the far-right, or the left, or the snooty middle-class worried about the look of the neighbourhood, put you off. Fly the flag! Flags are a wonderful symbol of the individual characters of nations; their enchanting designs are often sub-consciously embedded in our perceptions with that particular country. The wonderful selection of flags currently adorning public houses up and down the land are a colourful, celebratory symbol of a tournament- the World Cup- who’s very existence underlines the success, not of racism or nationalism, but of a world of distinctive and patriotic nation states. Be not ashamed or apologetic. Fly the flag for England and celebrate nationhood!