Thoughts from the North - Politics of course!

Sunday, 28 May 2017

Hi Michael,

I expect that you’ve been keeping up to date with the latest from Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. 
With the most recent polls showing a greatly reduced lead for the Tories I feel that my blogpiece,  written last Monday, is at least partially supported by the current direction of opinion.

I’m concerned that Theresa May, as well as being weaker than she makes out, is scared of the Daily Mail, and the Tory right wing, and will tend to follow right wing ideology. If she does get elected, with a bigger majority, then a strong opposition is essential to call her to account!

So far at least, Jeremy Corbyn has had a good run in this campaign and seems to be better prepared than the Tories. Sometimes his arguments verge on being too subtle for the knockabout, sound-bite, Post-Truth, politics of today, but on the whole he’s doing quite well. I particularly like the fact that he’s not pre-announcing an immigration cap without relation to the needs of the economy. 

It’s very different from when he first took office as leader of the Labour Party and I wonder whether he’s found an appetite for the job and is learning how to lead.  I really begin to think that he would deliver a more pragmatic Brexit than the Tories, more in line with what I‘m hoping for than the hard brexit that we appear to be heading towards under Theresa May.  

As I’ve said before in an earlier blog, compared to the rest of the EU, the UK is in a weak negotiating position, and should be seeking to build co-operative relationships with other European leaders. So far all May’s achieved is various provocations guaranteed to get their backs up against the UK.

Your thoughts from the North will, as always, be greatly appreciated.

John

Mon, 29 May 2017

Hi John,

Yes, I am keeping fully up to date with the election campaign.

Theresa May has been disappointing recently on a number of fronts:

Nick Timothy

Fiona Hill

The dementia tax was an unnecessary own-goal, a direct result of her secretive style. If the press is to be believed (!) the dementia tax was put into the manifesto at the last minute by Nick Timothy with little if any external scrutiny. Both Lynton Crosby and Fiona Hill were against it. The sad thing is that Theresa May is at least trying to get a grip of a massive future problem, but got the detail wrong. It didn't need any detail at this point, just a

Lynton Crosby

commitment to a green paper based on Dilnot. Everyone would have been happy. She presumably felt unassailable and wanted to get a mandate for fundamental change to make things easier down the line.

Andrew Dilnot

Theresa May was then between a rock and a hard place when the cap was mentioned. Do a U-turn and include a cap in the green paper but risk being called weak and wobbly? Or stick to her guns and risk losing core voters in the south?  However, at the moment I think we have the right policy position.

The dementia tax issue suggests a complete lack of cabinet involvement and therefore accountability. A very high risk management style as we have just seen. This could be a disaster in the context of the Brexit negotiations. Hopefully she will realise that things will have to change.

Theresa May then denied that anything had changed after the cap was introduced. In a way it hasn't, as currently there is no specified level for the cap. But it has been seen as a massive U-turn, which must have the EU guys rubbing their hands and thinking that she will crumble under pressure. Because of her denial she has also been seen to be dishonest, I think.

I have watched Theresa May in a number of interviews and so far she has been probably the most evasive politician I can remember. I know it's part of the job, though. I also know that she has been trying to preserve secrecy on the Brexit stuff as far as possible, and you can't really blame her for that at this point.   

However, only time will tell what she is really like if she gets back into No10 with her own mandate. She may or may not be a true Red or Erdington Tory, as I hoped last summer (though at that time I didn't know those terms), and the cap, like the cap on immigration, may just be pragmatism to get in.  Once in power she may put some sensible red tory policies into practice. 

 

It's looking as if I may vote Lib Dem but I will see how the TV debates this week turn out. So far Theresa May has been a disappointment, as I say, and has a lot of work to do. She may be a great politician, just not very good at projecting a politician's persona. I think confronted by a TV audience she may get a lot of boos if she doesn't come clean on things!   

 

Then you think about Jeremy Corbyn. In spite of his age he hasn't even had a government job of any sort as far as I know. Would you get any ordinary job with that level of inexperience?

A là prochaine

M

Tue 30/05/2017

Hi Michael,

We agree about Theresa May. Your emphasized words in red say it all!  Theresa May is not only secretive but also seems to lack the sensitive antennae that one needs as a politician. If you don’t have them yourself, and you don’t consult your colleagues or advisers, you will run into trouble.  I think her secretiveness comes from a desire to be in total control and not delegate. A control freak in fact! I’ve always hated that type of personality! When you say “lack of cabinet involvement and therefore accountability” are you implying that if she takes some important decision herself without consultation she may have a revolt on her hands. Half the cabinet resigning or something like that! 

I’m concerned that Theresa May will take us down the hard brexit route because she’s scared of her vocal right wing and there’s no-one who dares to push back on behalf of the 48% remainers and those leavers who didn’t want to leave the single market. It all revolves around the question of immigration. The Tories make dishonest statements about limiting net immigration to tens of thousands when that would damage the NHS along with several labour intensive sectors like construction, agriculture, catering and care providers. At the same time it would reduce growth in the economy and the number of economically active tax payers who contribute to my pension. Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto is realistic on immigration and if he isn’t capable of selling the fact that an artificial limit, not related to the country’s needs, is bad news for everyone then that’s a pity.

Erdington Tory? Does that mean a socialist brummie dressed in blue! So far if you discount what Theresa May says in the campaign and examine the policies that she has promoted before the election was announced I think she’s very right wing! Here is a detailed list comparing UKIP’s policy pronouncements with the actions or policies adopted by Theresa May’s government, the agreement is astonishing!

I’ve already voted Lib Dem by post; would your Lib Dem vote have any chance of success in your constituency?

I agree that Jeremy Corbyn has not impressed so far with his ability to get his party behind him and this may partly be due to lack of experience. When you’ve been an idealistic left winger all your life, remote from government, you can stick to your principles without risk of being called to account. He’s now going through that process, with his past statements and pacifism being scrutinized. So far he seems to be doing better than everyone expected.

As I’ve said before, I don’t agree with some of the dogmatic left wing stuff in the manifesto, but he won’t be able to pay for the industries that he has threatened to re-nationalize, so if he became Prime Minister that policy would have to be shelved. I do think, however, that he would make a better job of negotiating Brexit because he owes nothing to the Daily Mail or the UKIP wing of the Tory Party.  

I don’t worry at all about immigration, I am after all an immigrant myself.  So as I said before, it all comes down to immigration. If as a voter you really believe that the UK would be better off without migrant labour, then you should vote for Theresa May because she’s borrowed UKIP’s policies. Personally I think that the fear of immigration is artificially whipped up by the tabloids and has a whiff of racialism about it. Any argument implying that the pressure on schools and the NHS is due to  immigrants and not years of Tory austerity cuts is ill-founded. 

I thoroughly applaud Jeremy Corbyn’s resistance to setting an artificial cap on numbers just to get a few more votes.

A bientôt

John