Archive for mai, 2020

The faux outrage about Sir Keir Starmer’s wealth strikes a new low in British politics.

vendredi, mai 22nd, 2020

The social media fallout and faux outrage this weekend after the revelation in the Mail on Sunday that the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, owns land valued at around £10million strikes a new low in British politics.

Firstly, it continues to show how low and cheap both the Left and Right in British politics will stoop to score points against each other; but more importantly it demonstrates how the Right, supposedly totally against identity politics, are quite capable of using it when the situation suits them.

The story, in summary, is brief. In 1996 Sir Keir Starmer, whilst working as a human rights lawyer, bought a field behind his parents’ house so that his now late mother could care for rescue donkeys. Once she completely lost her ability to walk she was still able to watch the donkeys from her home. The land is now valued at around £10 million.

The ‘outrage’ generated from this revelation is that supposedly Sir Keir cannot be seen as a man of the people because he has wealth far in excess of the ordinary working person. His London home is also valued at around £1 million.

The British Right have jumped immediately on this bandwagon, trying to show that supposedly the Labour Party has totally lost touch with their original working-class roots; now only standing for the wishes of the middle-class, university educated, Guardian-reading intelligentsia.

All of this, of course, is complete drivel.

It also shows the shortest, most selective memory on record on the Right – that just six short months ago working class people flocked to the ballot boxes in their millions to vote for Eton and Oxford educated, multi-millionaire Boris Johnson.

What this should say to the Right, and Left, is something we have known all along. The British people want to aspire and they want their leaders to harness an environment that will allow them to do that – responsibly, collectively and individually. Margaret Thatcher knew this, as did Tony Blair, as did David Cameron and as does Boris Johnson. Working people do not buy into this grievance led identity politics. It’s distasteful as well as divisive.

The fact that Sir Keir, of humble origins, went to a grammar school; became a Human Rights barrister; the Director of Public Prosecutions; Knighted and now leader of the Labour Party, purchasing land along the way for his disabled mother, is enough to show every person what hard work can achieve in the UK.

What the Right would be better to focus on is what a Sir Keir led Labour Party would do if they were to regain the levers of power. A cursory glance at the pledges he made in the leadership contest show that whilst Sir Keir might identify as ‘soft-left’, the Labour Party clearly is not. As long as this remains the case it would be a catastrophe for the country were they to regain power.

Andrew Crawford.

BCiP Member

“We’ll meet again”: Michael Barker recalls the Victory Parade of 8 June 1946

lundi, mai 11th, 2020

After spending the war with my grandparents in South Wales, we were now based in Sydenham temporarily while my father was building a house in Ashtead in Surrey for his family. He had returned from signals service on the aircraft carrier Indomitable in many oceans around the world. Now resuming his career as a timber broker in the City, he had arranged for my younger brother and me to view the Victory Parade on 8 June 1946 from offices opposite St Paul’s cathedral.

We observed the parade with its cavalcade of the mechanised transport column, smartly marching soldiers and indeed 750 Land Girls.

True, we did not get to join the huge crowds around the Mall, but it was a memorable event nevertheless for a youngster.

Only latterly did I discover that the brave Poles were excluded thanks to a cowardly lefty deference to the Soviets. My RC mother would greet the displaced Poles, unable to return to their homeland, and treat them to tea in John Cobb’s department store.

Also I later discovered, when I led one of my early annual city trips for BCiP to Reims, that it was in Eisenhower’s atmospheric HQ, its walls lined with large scale maps, that he actually received the German surrender on 7 May 1945.

CPF Discussion Brief 2020/3 on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic – BCiP Response 10th May, 2020

lundi, mai 11th, 2020

Click on this link to find the Conservative Policy Forum (CPF) response on behalf of BCiP reported by Paul Thomson.

Labour’s New Leader: Sir Keir Starmer

jeudi, mai 7th, 2020

In the midst of this global covid-19 pandemic it has perhaps slipped under the radar somewhat that the Labour Party, Her Majesty’s official opposition, has finally rid itself of ‘Magic Grandpa’ Jeremy Corbyn – the man responsible for the Labour Party’s worst election performance since 1935 – and elected a new leader: Sir Keir Starmer.

Whilst from a partisan perspective we Conservatives might have enjoyed having Corbyn and his Marxist cronies McDonnell and Abbott sitting on the front row of the Opposition benches for the duration of this parliament and thus continually ruining the Labour Party’s standing as a respectable and electable force; as democrats we know that for the benefit of democracy and holding Her Majesty’s Government to proper account – this change has been long overdue.

Labour’s new leader comes with a glittering CV behind him.

Born in Southwark, London, 57 year-old Starmer studied at Leeds University and then St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduated in 1986 as a Bachelor of Civil Law and became a barrister in 1987. In November 2008 he became Head of the Crown Prosecution Service and Director of Public Prosecutions, leaving in November 2013.

In December 2014 Sir Keir was selected to be the Labour Party representative for the safe seat of Holborn and St Pancras for the 2015 election, going on to win with a majority of more than 17,000.

After the Conservative’s gaining a surprise outright majority at the same election, leader Ed Milliband resigned as Labour leader. After Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in the leadership contest, Starmer was appointed Shadow Minister of State for Immigration. He resigned from this post in 2016 in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party.

Oridinarily that would have ensured a lengthy spell on the back benches, but following Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election as Leader of the Labour Party and Britain’s decision to vote to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum, Sir Keir became the Shadow Brexit Secretary. He was to stay in this post until after the 2019 general election which saw Boris Johnson swept back to power with a majority of 80 seats thus forcing Jeremy Corbyn to finally call it a day, knowing the game was up.

Sir Keir has a lot of internal party politics to firstly sort out. The Labour Party’s reputation was heavily damaged through the Corbyn years, with multiple claims of antisemitism throughout the party membership and through the extra grass roots support of Momentum. This has left a bitter taste with the electorate more broadly and will take a while for them to build trust up again.

Apart from this, what does Sir Keir stand for?

He describes himself as ‘soft left,’ however given that the grass roots of the Labour Party has fundamentally changed since the days of Tony Blair, he has had to swing further to the left to win the leadership election. Here is a snapshot of his pledges:

  • Increase top rate of income tax by 5%.
  • Reverse the corporation tax cuts introduced by the Conservatives.
  • Abolish Universal Credit.
  • Shift towards preventative healthcare.
  • Abolish student tuition fees.
  • Invest in lifelong learning.
  • Put Green New Deal at heart of all policy.
  • A clean air act and demand international action on climate rights.
  • Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act.
  • Renationalise: Rail, Mail, Energy and Water.
  • Give full voting rights to EU citizens and defend freedom of movement.
  • Immigration system based on compassion and dignity.
  • Repeal the Trade Union Act.
  • Introduce a federal system to devolve powers.
  • Abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber of regions and nations.

This is quite a substantive list of pledges. It is indeed difficult to see where they differs from those made by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Nevertheless, Sir Keir is a very polished media performer and may be able to articulate his positions in a more convincing manner than his predecessor was able to. It’s also important to recall that opinion polls do point towards many elements of the Labour Party’s 2017 election manifesto as popular with the wider public. That election, of course, cost previous Prime Minister Theresa May her majority.

However, Sir Keir was also responsible for the Labour Party’s rather incoherent policy on Brexit, as it tried to put a square peg in a round hole by pleasing its Party membership (pro EU and pro 2nd referendum) and its broader electorate (pro Brexit.)

In the end, it’s policy was widely ridiculed. How can a government in waiting promise to deliver on the referendum result by negotiating a withdrawal agreement with the EU, then present that agreement to the public in a referendum of Remain vs Agreement and not be prepared to stand by and support its own agreement in the referendum?

It shows to the wider public a government engaged in a process that they don’t believe in and have perhaps deliberately sabotaged. It shows a lack of leadership and contempt for voters.

This is partly where Labour fell to pieces in the 2019 election and the responsibility for it lies mostly with the architect of that policy – Sir Keir.

It’s also easy to see that the list of pledges will be rather pricy for the tax payer to fulfill. Given that the current government has had to seriously splash cash around to support the wider economy during the covid-19 pandemic, it is hard to foresee at this stage what the wider economic outlook will be in almost 5 years time when the next election is due. Money being available to finance Sir Keir’s projects may not be in existence.

However, his first performances at Prime Minister’s Questions have received ample praise from those that would naturally be sympathetic supporters but who had turned their back on Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. So it looks like the opposition is back!

Still, let’s not underestimate the Prime Minister’s own charm and vision for the future of the United Kingdom. However much elements of the British press try to paint Mr Johnson as a right-wing populist, nothing could be further from the truth.

As a student of Winston Churchill, who in turn was greatly influenced by his father Lord Randolph and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Mr Johnson remains a One Nation Conservative. This does not mean the dismantling of the welfare state, the NHS and enhancing crony capitalism; but indeed believing in the Union of our four nations as one, with social and economic programs that benefit the ordinary person. It was this vision after all, not just Brexit, that won him such a huge majority last Christmas.

The next 4 and a half years are going to be interesting.

Andrew Crawford.