Labour Conference theme: "Rebuilding Britain"..........

...........a bold proposition festooned around the Manchester conference centre this week.

Putting aside the uneasy feeling that we might hear more about taking Britain apart , especially bankers and  the wealthy who are obviously all evil, don't pay taxes and don't deserve their money unless they won it on a talent show or are footballers, this headline surely invites the retort :"Who wrecked it" in the first place. The stock answer from the main perpetrators will be the usual "Bankers, Lehman Bros " etc but however much they duck or deny the issue the reality is that UK plc was already in dead trouble before the banking crisis simply because since prudence was forsaken in 2000, Brown and Blair, had been on a massive binge for which they and their succesors remain largely unrepentant.

A new opportunity now opens up for the Conservatives to pick up a similar but different ball labelled "Redesign Britain" . Ed Balls' promised root and branch spending review were he to get into power opens the way to this far more than it does to rebuilding something that in many ways wasn't working very well anyway. As  union-entramelled Ed Miliband doesn't look like picking that one up, the way is clear for Cameron & Co to say (silently) "Thanks Ed " and regain the initiative.

Will they? Won't they? Come on Dave. Time to revitalise the troops and lead a new "Get a Grip" version of his party into real thinking.......and action. There is a nation of bored, distrustful (of all politicians) and sceptical voters out there waiting for someone to pick up this sort of ball and run forwards, not backwards as Miliband Minor promises.

Ed Balls grabs the agenda by the...........

With this weekend's Labour Party delegates limbering up for their outing to Manchester, Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Leader of the Opposition (Yes, other Ed there is one ) has decisively laid out his stall.

Far from the Old Labour and unions' desire to pledge to abandon cuts and to return to a life of profligate borrowing and spending , Mr Balls has broken cover and declared that he intends to go into the 2015 election committed to a "ruthless" approach to public spending, to conduct a root and branch review of what is spent and how from the bottom up as opposed to the historic  pruning across across all departments with all apart from a handful of protected ones sharing the pain regardless of their need and effectiveness. He promises that he will "examine every penny" spent and will "face harsh truth" .This is a politically brilliant manoeuvre It heads forms a powerful and attractive agenda and is exactly what the coalition (ie Tories) should have done on day 1 in May 2010. It now heads off any similar initiative by them of at the pass. Mr Balls has got there first and is waiting for them. Across the board cutting has been a feature of both government and private businesses. It is always a mistake as it means that the lean and efficient suffer more than the inefficient and numerically bloated.  Bad behaviours are seen to be rewarded and even prudent in terms of corporate empires. Unimportant activites are treated in the same way as the important or vital . The customer is made to share the pain of the staff , quality is made to take its share of the cuts and so on so that at least all empoyees and the unions can feel that it is "fair". It is actually both stupid and unfair and longer term threatens  to bring down the whole business or government department.

What Mr Balls has recognised,-as intelligent and clear thinking politicians of all parties, civil servants and business people should have done long ago ,-is that a review of  the design and costs of activity is done from the bottom up with a clean sheet of paper there will  be a very different conclusion of what is possible and at what price than if it is doine top down on a  "fair to all" cost reduction/trimming basis. That is why Britain's new car industry, based on Japanese systems and automation ,has succeeded while the old one has died. The same is evident in the success and growth  of low cost airlines against the largely stagnant or declining old fashioned legacy bretheren with all their historic baggage. It's common in a whole range of businesses crying out for reform  and modernisation. A new start is much easier than reshaping an old organisation. The Labour Party itself has recent and ongoing experience of that reality.

Full marks then to the unlikely persona of Mr Balls for saying loud and clear that he would have to continue with the Tory cuts in a post 2015 Labour government and , much more important and revolutionary, will carry out this comprehensive review within a year.(Plse note this Dave, -you have just given your urgent review of just one subject -airport capacity,- THREE years to report back). With this move he is moving out of the minutiae of  piecemeal political wrangling and posturing into big sky thinking.

It's a very clever move. Why? Why now,- just ahead of both the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences?

First the Labour Conference. There it is hoped to begin the party's financial rehabilitation with the voters. Less of these than are given credit for it are actually stupid. Most realise that there have to be cuts, though not of course directly affecting themselves, who and wherever they are. Labour's continuing state of denial or at least delay are not going to get these peoples' votes and Ed Balls is recognising this. He is also recognising this as being a very good moment to start opening a visible gap between himself and the man who has the party leadership role he clearly wants. Ed Miliband owes his successful electoral fratricide to the unions. They are making it clear that they expect their pound or two of flesh. The GMB leadership in a pre Conference statement has said that Labour is out of touch with its historic (old fashioned) working class roots -ie turn away from any remaining New Labour fancy new friends . They are urging  Miliband , who will be in his almost constant mournful sharing everyone's pain mode and using the word "fairness" at ever turn next week. That will give Miliband a huge problem and unless he finds a source of new courage he will end up looking like a defecit denier while Ed Balls walks away with praise for tough love and facing the realities. Balls was always going to start turning the screw sometime before the election and it looks as if he has decided that the time is just about right to start now. If Miliband's ratings don't improve within the next year, there would just be time for a leadership contest and party recovery from that before the May 2015 General Election. Good thinking, strategy and tactics by Mr Balls.

Secondly why not kill two birds with one stone? By pinching what should be a Tory agenda just before the Tory Conference in ten days time, Mr Balls has walked off with what should be their ball. If they then promise to do something similar they will appear to be adopting a Labour initiative and Labour will capitalise on that by asking where the ideas of their own are. The Shadow Chancellor has caught the Conservative Party strategists (where are they?) have been caught very flat footed here and to be sure he is not one to resist all oportunities to rub their faces in it over the next two years.

Finally, while the other Ed yesterday again dived into the cornflakes, and surfaced with trademark miserabalist hangdog expression having found a new adversary in the (private)  pension funds and come up promising to share our pain and fight them to the etc etc......,Mr Balls has avoided such graunchy, heard-it-all-before negative stuff and gone for the big issue, another marker of clear blue water between the two men.

Good stuffing all round by Mr Balls. Game on.



   

Twerpspeak and Fudgespeak of the day. Stand up Andrew Mitchell and David Cameron.

How could a 21st century politician say it?  Probably one didn't,- it was a man of the 20th century and one from pretty early on  in it to boot.

Andrew Mitchell, new Government Chief Whip, is alleged to have called a policeman acting in the course of duty a "pleb" and according to one newspaper have advised him that he needed to "learn his f------ place".
If he did indeed say that firstly he is labelling himself as the ultimate vision of a Tory out of touch twerp, something which will delight the Labour Party always on the lookout for anything about class to exploit, and secondly it is a piece of advice he should address to himself,- and do something about it.

David Cameron's initial teflonesque comments that such an utterance was "wrong" started off on the right track and then dived into the awful all purpose hand wringing  fudgespeak of "appropriateness" by adding that it was "not appropriate". Maybe Eton's English department needs a bit of help in clarity and brevity from Lord Sugar. "You're fired " would have been much more appropriate. It would also demonstrated  firm,swift and unswerving resolve, three things the party greatly needs at this moment.

Mr Cameron could also do with a bit of that ancient piece tough love public school advice: "Get a grip man" and then do the necessary........ " Mitchell, you're fired".

Yuckspeak of the day... from Apple.

An Apple spokeswoman, talking about the serious defects in its new map service , is reported to have said:

"We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better".
= We know you have all been saying our map service is crap and we are trying to fix it".

Why must the customer always be having an experience? Even if they were, many would rather not.

A change of Season,- Olympic "Yes we can" to political "No you cant",- and other things around the world.

The calendar was right. The Paralympic closing ceremony and its inspirational sequel the following day just over a week ago when most of the British Olympic and Paralympic teams paraded through London marked the end to the country's truly remarkable summer. It has been memorable for its upbeat flavours, athletic, organisational and individual achievements in cheerfully delivering the Royal Jubilee, the Olympics and Paralympics. The role of the 70,000 volunteers who gave their time for free was truly amazing. They worked in scores of different activities, some requiring trained professionals and others enthusiatic amateurs ,all demonstrating what unstinting teamwork can achieve,- and without money having to be the motivator. The athletes gave wonderful performances, the choreography, electronic miracles of the ceremonies and the unseen strategic and on the day planning and operation superb. Above all it was a summer of good humour and positivism.

Happily the media attention given to all these things largely blanked out the contrasting  annual gathering in Brighton of the TUC brothers and sisters . For them all those people happily working for no money must have been hard for to bear. No claims of exploitation, demarcation disputes, squabbles over overtime, rest day working , "breaks" and suchlike must have been dreadful. Positivism, enthusiasm, going the extra mile.  Dreadful concepts for the gathered miserabalists. No wonder that they booed even Ed Balls for surprisingly telling them the horrible truth that money doesn't grow on trees and that they voted not for offering to help design new ways ahead but  instead to rush back to old ways backward . Strikes, a General Strike and even civil disobedience (aka riots ) , all hostile to those who prefer a normal life or need state run services ,are the delight of these throwbacks to the past . The union leaders and officials don't of course pay for "days of action" . Those who strike do but they are only the poor bloody infantry, the cannon fodder. Beware then, this miserable activists are back on the prowl again. Their agenda is simple. They don't like the current democratically elected government. They will not therefore do anything that could in any way make it-or the British economy,- successful. The interests of their members are not the drivers. Their ambitions to dictate political power are.

On the economic and political philosophy front, in a show of probably faux unity, the two Eds unveiled their latest fair society concept. In a breakaway from re-distribution of wealth idea the new idea hits your pockets even earlier,-before it's even got into them in fact. In the impact of squibs ratings this one didn't even hit "Damp" . It went straight into the "Soggy" or even "Dud" boxes.  The "policy" is called pre-distribution of wealth. Maybe it's a trial run for their Party Conference piece. If so they should reconsider the two man horse costume for bigger impact. It's there somewhere in the old dressing up box.

Meanwhile over in Conservative Party HQ there is a clear sense of dynamism , urgency and energy to  tackle the problem of Heathrow airport, currently the world's number one aviation hub, being fresh out of capacity. Clearly "something must be done" and a grip got on the situation FAST. The bold, courageous answer is to set up another Commission of Enquiry on the subject. Previous ones, all vetoed by a lethal mix of various party interests and sheer inaction lie somewhere on parliamentary shelves. Try reading the Roskill version of 1971 for an example. Again this time all possibilities will be considered ,-except the obvious, quickest and cheapest one delivered by private rather than public funds and requiring no big additional infrastructure. That's Heathrow's new third runway of course. To further demonstrate the government's resolve and determination to get to the answer and start building , the timescale requires an interim report on quick fixes by the end of next year , 2013, and the final report in as breathtakingly short timescale as 2015.  Given a task of this urgency any business would put together a group of top quality people, aided by consultants if necessary, and give them six months max,- or be fired.

One must not overlook the LibDems in this roundup of miscreants. Thanks to their petulant response to the ditching of their less- than- high- priority- in-the-scale-of- things  reform of the House of Lords , they have said they won't now stick with their previous agreement to support constituency reductions, boundary changes, and equalisation of voter numbers in time for the 2015 election. A highly undemocratic and illiberal cartwheel from folk who call themselves liberal , but did we really expect anything different, forward thinking and long term sensible?

Have we really got the politicians we deserve? Are we that bad?

Things haven't been too good in some other places either. Parts of the Arab world ( not all, BBC,not all) have seen riots and murders in response to an undoubtedly evilly intentioned video produced in the USA. While the video has been the catalyst, a whole host of issues are behind the anger both real and manufactured by antagonists to the west and to the USA in particular. Some of these antagonists are people to whom peace and stability , however much desired by the people ,are not useful .A highly unstable position has developed and been sharply demonstrated in Egypt, Libya and Yemen in particular. Syria was in turmoil  already so didn't need any additional fuel on the various flames. More fundamental  is that in this era of instant global communications there is a clash between those who believe in the rights of individuals to say, write, film ,publish or even think more or less anything they want and those who believe that there are substantial no-go areas. The test of "Does it give offence?" doesn't work. There are things in much of what is said and done in the world , or even next door, which can be interpreted this way by someone. The human race is going to have to either accept that and develop a thicker skin or turn the other cheek on occasions or accept very serious limitations on its freedoms.

South Africa is going through a bad patch too. The country needs inward investment, confidence in its ability to deliver and future political stability. A bitter inter-union dispute is being ruthlessly exploited by some politicians and used to urge workers into violence and making the mines, -for which you can read the country- "unmanageable. That isn't to say there aren't some real issues here but they are not political. Some are about wages which are undeniably low for what is an unpleasant and fundamentally dangerous job but most are about the failure of the government , the mining companies , business and industry to sweep away the deplorable , crowded , often violent and lawless living conditions in the mining and munciple townships. Tarmac roads, properly built houses, mains water and sewerage , electricity and community facilites are the basics . They are essential to head off a potential wave of future anger-driven mayhem. These things may be hugely expensive but the alternative is a national explosion and disaster somewhere down the line.

Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement took a bit of an unexpected bath in the former colony's part-way to- full- democracy elections. Overall it still commands the power to veto legislation but it was not a strong showing. Some of its problems are a lack of cohesion and strong popular leadership in its ranks and it will have to address these well before the next election in four years time. One nut to crack is the number of  very conservative less well educated ,poorer and old people who do not feel part of 21st century, fast moving, dealing and money making Hong Kong and whose natural habitat is therefore the pro-Beijing and mainland grouping. There are more of them than many might think. There are also a lot more greater China or at least keep-Beijing happy enthusiasts in all walks of life than make themselves known or are visible on the surface. The same was true in colonial days when there was a lot of unspoken pro-Beijing and anti-British sentiment amongst the general population than was generally acknowledged.

Both of the former "big powers" also seem to be having democracy problems. In the USA the Republican Mitt Romney struggles through a mouthful of feet to gain credibility and traction. He plays well to many in America,- notably the religious right though even they are a bit confused as to where his particular brand of Godliness fits with others,- but he does not look inspiring abroad. Neither does a simple, comforting, "safe pair of hands" come readily to mind as a description of his reliabilty with nuclear buttons . His understanding of the world, its complexities, histories and cultures doesn't look impressive either. That's putting it mildly. Americans though don't seem to feel that overall they've got it too bad and especially to the inland majority what the rest of the world thinks, and even where it is, is not of great interest or concern.  Many Russians on the other hand ,with Putin well dug in at the helm,  probably do. think life could be a lot better. Certainly any of them not prepared to buckle under , tow the line, or work within the system must feel a deep sense of insecurity. Anyone who dares to conspicuously challenge the way things are knows they are in a high risk zone.

"No to no 3rd Heathrow runway or I quit"-Zac Goldsmith.

Zac Goldsmith , the Conservative MP for Richmond has promised  (strangely he calls it threatened) not to stand for the party if their 2015 election manifesto does not specifically rule out a 3rd runway at Heathrow.

Excellent.

Goodbye Zac.