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Labour Election Strategy

Sir - Imagine the scene. You’re in

10 Downing Street

, tasked with devising a new strategy that will deliver Labour an unprecedented fourth election triumph.

Challenges don’t get much tougher. Way behind in the opinion polls, the party has a leader that even a lot of its members want shot of, never mind the country.

Struggling to find effective attack lines, Labour keeps bashing away desperately at the ones it has, hoping if the messages are repeated often enough people will be scared off voting Tory.

Conservative cuts will leave the poor high and dry, Labour ministers cry, while Eton-educated David Cameron’s wealthy pals will get even richer.

Give them a microphone and they will remind you again, again and again of the Tories’ plans to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1m.

Ditto tax breaks for married couples, which they say will unfairly penalise the dumped mother struggling to bring up a child on her own, and be a bad use of public money at a time when big spending cuts will have to be made.

Leave aside the fact the inheritance tax policy will be paid for by levying the super-rich ‘non-doms’, Cameron has been sensitive to the charge that the poor will be worse off if he makes it to No 10, and has had some success in blunting Labour’s attacks.

The Tory leader has promised to divert more NHS and education funding to deprived areas, to restore the link between state pensions and the rise in average earnings, and ensure a right to move for social housing tenants.

On the economy the real choice is how soon and deep the cuts in public spending will be – a gloomy subject for a British public that could do with a little cheering up.

Do you remember the reason Gordon Brown gave for calling off the ‘election that never was’ in 2007? He said it was because he wanted time to implement his ‘vision for change’.

One of my first acts as election supremo would be to ban the prime minister from talking about his ‘vision’ for a ‘fairer, stronger and more prosperous’ society.

His speeches on the subject are usually jargon-filled gobbledygook and either send people to sleep, spell out the blindingly obvious (who wants a weak, unfair society?) or descend into ambiguous nonsense.

Forgive me for stating a simple fact, but what Labour needs is policies that are going to make people vote for it.

If you have been in power for 13 years, a ‘steady as she goes’ approach is not going to win over an electorate sick to bloody death of you.

Labour desperately needs some signature policies that will energise the public. The 64-million-dollar question, of course, is what they should be.

If Brown promised to raise the minimum wage to £7 an hour, it would be a key issue at the election, a potential ‘game-changer’.

There would be an outcry from business leaders and warnings of a huge rise in unemployment at a time when there are already nearly 2.5 million people on the dole queue.

But at least it would be a clear policy to give millions of low-pay workers a reason for voting Labour, unless they calculated that earning a higher wage was not worth the risk of losing their job.

Legalising assisted suicide would be hugely controversial, yet it would concentrate minds at the ballot box, and help reshape the election debate.

A transformation of the tax system, with people at the top paying more to ease the burden for those at the bottom, is a Liberal Democrat proposal that would not look out of place in a Labour manifesto.

I am not arguing that these policies should be adopted, but making the point that capturing the public’s imagination with some radical ideas is the only realistic hope for avoiding election defeat.

If Brown and co can’t think of any, maybe being in opposition is the best place for them after all.

Harri Aston

Living Modernity

Sir - Living in this great metropolis of ours, my thoughts turn continually to the green, green grass of home and my deep sense of hiraeth; which for the English amongst you is something akin to homesickness but a deeper, heartfelt longing for one’s homeland. London is the opposite of my home. Lots of people, pollution and buildings. Everything that is definable as all that is wrong with modernity. Dirty, wasteful, materialistic, polluted and immoral. Yet it is seductive. And what’s more, it is strangely fulfilling to live in this most decadent and divided of cities; this glittering jewel in our crown. Why is this? When you really think about it, modernity IS distasteful, dirty, destructive and unpleasant; but it is better than the alternative, more alluring than the alternative and definitely more fun than the alternative.

While we sit here and criticise our modern time because it’s fashionable to be self hating, we need to sit and think, why have I bought in to it, am I an idiot? Or am I attracted to a better, longer and fuller life? While we sit here in our dilapidated luxury and moan about the evils of the modern world, we should consider whether those people not privileged enough to enjoy our standard of living would wish to trade places. I’m sure they would jump at the chance. But would you, realistically trade with them? I know I wouldn’t.

Modernity has given us the chance to moan about it. Post-Modernity allows us to worry about the environment, human rights and the failings of the world and maybe change it for the better.

So until you want to stop drinking coffee, stop consuming imported anything and stop living in London, spare a thought for modernity, the thing which gives you the ability to winge.

Adam Benson-Davies

The Politicians we Deserve

Sir - Glasgow North East may be, geographically, next door to Glasgow East, the constituency in which Alex Salmond with typical bombast, proclaimed to be the site of a political earthquake, but there the similarities end. It’s fair to say that that the assorted boffins at the Geological Survey were probably not having a sleepless night at the prospect of a Glasgow by-election worrying the Richter scale again.

Blink and you might have missed it. The campaign was spectacularly unspectacular, and Labour cantered to victory with a margin of comfort that must remind them of how it was to be popular.

Lets not sugar-coat things; Glasgow North East is not in a good way. It has huge social problems, terrible housing, and little or no employment. It is a place devoid of aspiration, hope or prospects. The forgotten residents of Glasgow North East will die years earlier, after enduring a much unhealthier life than the average person.

In other words, it is like any number of desolate urban communities across the UK that are home to the British political underclass. Would-be politicians will shower them with platitudes, with talk of ‘partnership’, and what ‘we’ will do. But bear in mind their last MP, the former Speaker Michael Martin, didn’t even have an office in the constituency, never mind live there.

And yet, these people have returned another Labour MP, like they have every time since George Hardie, brother of the esteemed Keir Hardie, held the seat 74 years ago. 74 years, the last 40 of which can be characterised by steep decline, followed by social stagnation; and yet the people have voted for the status quo.

Why? Why are people in the UK so wedded to one political party? People still proclaim with great working class pride that they are a ‘loyal labour voter’, yet it is coming on fifteen years since Labour ceased to be a socialist party. Does the Labour voter of Glasgow North East really believe that the front bench of Labour, made up of the Oxbridge educated middle classes from the home-counties could even find Glasgow North East on a map? And if they did, I can tell you right now they wouldn’t want to be there for long.

This misplaced loyalty is actually counter-productive to all sides. It encourages political parties to slip into complacency, to take the people for granted and to use safe seats to place rising stars and give them an easy ride into parliament. It means voters are selling themselves short by returning those parties which have a record of spectacular failure, like in Glasgow North East. And it inflicts on us all governments who pander to their swing voters, and take their core vote for granted.

They say that people get the politicians they deserve; I don’t know if that is true or not. But when we reward failure out of misplaced loyalty, perhaps we do deserve to be treated with contempt. The people of Glasgow North East have rejected change, by overwhelmingly returning the party that has represented them as they have slipped to the bottom of almost every social, health and wealth indicator.

Why should people expect change to happen, if they are not prepared to vote for it?

Keith James

A Parallel Universe
Sir - A glimpse into an alternative world, a parallel universe, another you. Is this a good thing? Do you want to see the ways in which your life would have been different if you had taken a different choice? To use a matrix analogy so beloved of one of my former lecturers when discussing post-modernism, do you really want to know what your life would have been like if you had chosen the blue pill? 
 
I don’t have any social networking sites myself, but in the odd moment of weakness, I have looked at profiles via friends’ sites; I was struck by a strange feeling, a feeling that is halfway between nostalgia and melancholy. 
 
You realise how old you are, when you see ex-school friends with whom you have long since dropped any pretence to ‘stay in touch’ posing in their profile photos with children, or in their wedding outfits. Female school friends have unfamiliar surnames. Everybody looks almost the same, but never quite; you think about how you must look. Do you have less hair? More chins? 
 
Then there is the fact that your imagination immediately starts placing these photos in the most fantastic (and I’m sure, the most incorrect) context. People have all become social marketers; obviously you don’t put any old photo on your profile, you put the one taken in as exotic a location as possible, or with the most interesting background, to solicit the exact response which I am trying to describe; is he on holiday, or does he actually live in a penthouse apartment… 
 
Then are the relationships that never were; sweethearts from childhood who are now married, connections that were almost made but never quite. How different would you life have been? You can rediscover old affections, or feel acrimony rising from old wounds that you had long since forgotten about. 
 
Is there such a thing as an ex-friend? Or are there just active and inactive friends? You can see a picture of someone that you were close with, and lost touch for no good reason; laziness, selfishness? It is a strange phenomenon. 
 
The lyrics of Dougie MacLean’s Caledonia spring to mind…. “lost the friends that needed losing…”. Did you need to lose all of these people? This is the melancholy. 
 
Because when you see the name or photo of somebody to whom you are indifferent, you may feel mild curiosity, amusement, or just ambivalence. But when the name of someone with whom you were really close pops up, someone you might genuinely miss, you are overcome with nostalgia and sadness; the melancholy. 
 
Think of the nights out you had, the laughs, the sitting around playing Mario Karts, the shared experiences; first time you got drunk, first time you pulled. Why did you lose touch again….? 
 
Before you know it your mind is racing over all manner of things; perceived slights, fall-outs, fights, choices that you made, choices that they made. In a matter of seconds you have run-through years of history and remade every decision that led you to the point you’re at now, from where you peer into this static time machine. 
 
I have to admit, I have thought quite seriously about setting up a site. In a moment of genuine excitement, I thought about contacting so many old friends. But it passed. The reality is that it’s all history, trying to snatch back a few stolen moments from my past. Times I enjoyed yes, but that are past, gone, forgotten? 
 
What could I possibly say to them? That old social chestnut, “what’ve you been up to?” How do you even begin to answer that question about ten of the most formative years of your life? And would I even care about the answer? Does it all just go back to us being social marketers, looking to ‘benchmark’ our progress against our ‘competitors’? 
 
I think I must have come to the conclusion that it is, because I never did sign-up. 
Is being able to nose about somebody’s profile, to voyeuristically look at their photos, to judge their life and yours really worth it? 
 
Maybe there was a reason we lost touch, maybe we are just different? Does reducing the last umpteen years of life to a few flippant paragraphs really constitute a conversation? Is swapping some mindless chat and making some quick comparisons going to rekindle a great friendship after not speaking for years? Of course not. But it will give you another ‘friend’ for your profile… 
  
Keith James

The Times, They Are A-Changing.

Sir - A cheque-shirted hick, playing the banjo whilst holding a bottle of bourbon? Then heading on down to the recording studio in a pick up truck, but not before having an argument with their partner, with whom they are, somehow related? If your immediate thought is country music, then I suspect you are not alone.

I admit I’m being a little over-zealous.

When the genre first came to be a truly commercial vehicle in the late 1920’s, the likes of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers were established as the founders of Country music; the former seen as the “First Family” and latter regarded as the “Father of Country Music”. The quality of material they produced is still influencing musicians and being re-recorded to this day. Theirs was a sound with which families could identify during the Great Depression. “In The Jailhouse Now” or “Can the Circle be Unbroken”; both tell of stories that the average American might have experienced during the time of the Depression.

The emergence of one Hank Williams and his band “The Drifting Cowboys” in 1947 has often been cited as a milestone, one that saw the evolution of the genre, from the parochial to the populist. Hank, nearly an illiterate, but with eleven number one records, wrote songs about the everyday man and the troubles that his audience - and in fact himself, experienced. He and wife Audrey were known not to get on, often fighting about Hank’s occasional drinking binges. On many occasions, Hank even found himself locked out of his home.

Indeed, this tragic figure eventually fell victim to such binges; he was controversially found dead in the back of a limousine courtesy of a drugs overdose on the 1^st January 1951. Despite his demise at the relatively young age of 29, his recording career, lasting barely a decade, has influenced many since. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Jimmy Buffett are just a few of the many to list Williams as the artist that most influenced them and their down-to-earth, home-grown tunes, which sold by the million.

In 1999, a song recorded by contemporary stalwarts George Strait and Alan Jackson was released. Titled “Down on Music Row” it criticised country music for favouring pop instruments, such as the drum, over instruments which are traditionally associated with the genre, such as the banjo or fiddle. Country Music Radio was not spared either, saying that the past-greats of country music, such as Hank Williams, wouldn’t be given the same opportunities in the modern era.

The 2000 film, “O Brother Where Art Thou?”, a Coen Brothers film, had a soundtrack that included artists deemed to produce offerings that were true to the heritage of country music. Alison Krauss, the darling of the bluegrass movement, who recently co-released “Raising Sand” with former Led Zeppelin star Robert Plant and The Whites added to the album’s credibility. Even a version of Jimmie Rodgers’ “In the Jailhouse Now” was included. The landmark album won a Grammy Award after selling more than seven million copies and suggested the possibility of a renaissance for country music.

Seven years later, that promise has yet to manifest. Over the summer, the only albums in the country charts are from acts that are well-established. Taylor Swift’s last two albums have maintained their top ten status for a total of 169 weeks – over three years. Lady Antebellum has seen 61 weeks in the top ten. It must be recognised that popular names will always be at the forefront of any genre of music and will remain in the charts for some time; yet such examples illustrate that in country music at least, the current crop of commercially successful artists and bands offer little hope for the future of the genre.

Russell Hill

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