Impressive Ed

Ok, alright, I admit it. Ed Miliband has impressed me.

The election of the Shadow Cabinet was always going to be heavily scrutinised to see how much of a break with the past Labour MPs were willing to stomach in the face of such a forthright speech from their new Leader.

It's a curious situation to have to be in - wanting to take your Party forward, and to stamp your authority on your appointments, but still being hamstrung by Labour's rather torturous election regulations. Full credit, then, to Miliband Jnr. for acting to ensure that Nick Brown, one of the archetypal links to Gordon Brown, will not be contesting the Chief Whip position.

There were those that said that in electing Ed, rather than David Miliband, Labour were lumbering themselves with the more ineffective brother. This kind of ruthlessness, however, is hardly the mark of an ineffective leader. Instead, it is reminiscent of the swift changes David Cameron made to change the focus of the Conservative Party after he came to power in 2005. After a slightly lukewarm Conference speech, it seems the Leader of the Opposition is finding his feet. Interesting...

Council Houses - It's good to talk...

Seems I picked a good time to upgrade my Twitter to Journotwit! Being able to organize searches more effectively by subject has allowed me to enjoy a veritable torrent of ‘nasty’, ‘Thatcherite’, and ‘back to the 80s’ tweets today. It seems that David Cameron’s comments on council housing at a Cameron Direct meeting yesterday have whipped up a particularly virulent storm with the left-wing Tweeters. Reading some of the comments, you’d be mistaken for thinking that the Cabinet are spending their recess running up and down the country, busting in the doors and kicking out the disadvantaged. Oh please…

I fully understand that the concept of a ‘home’ can be a very emotive one, and Government comment on it raises the same hackles as, say, over the BBC or NHS. However, when we find ourselves in a situation where there is not enough affordable housing in this country, but where the economy does not allow us to build more, surely it is a bit much to greet the mention of a potential policy with quite such a howl of horror?

The idea that someone can be granted a Council house ‘for life’ is problematic. Surely it is better to take a look at how an individual’s personal circumstances change over time, and then assess whether they still require the same level of assistance? This is, after all, what happens in terms of employment, incapacity and other housing benefits. Why should council housing be treated any differently?

The Guardian has a story which takes Cameron’s comments in the context of plans for a national house-swap scheme outlined by Housing Minister Grant Shapps today. There are currently 250,000 people in this country living in houses that are too small for their families, and 400,000 living in houses that are too big. This is not good enough, and the Government is failing the quarter of a million people who do not have sufficient room to live.

According to Paul Waugh, sources say that Cameron’s answer was merely an answer to an ‘emotive’ question at the Cameron Direct event; a comment on the benefits of such an idea rather than ‘a set-in-stone policy’. Personally, I hope that this mean that we can finally have a reasoned debate about the state of Council housing in this country and, even better, find a sensible way to move forward with managing it better.

PMQs - a flat affair

One thing was clear from today's Prime Minister's Questions. Labour backbenchers must be counting down the days until they have a new Leader. Not that I'm casting aspersions at Harriet Harman. Quite the reverse, I regularly stick up for her and I admire her tenacity in pushing forward issues she feels are important.

Rather it's the fact that PMQs under her leadership have become curiously flat affairs. For all her good points, Harman doesn't have the fleetest of feet when it comes to the back and forth that the occasion demands, and as a result often launches into sentences which seem to have no end. This uneven performance is often met by a strange half-silence from the benches behind her. It's as if the Labour MPs want something to cheer, but they don't get it.

It could be, of course, that Members are simply paying attention to the Leader of the House's pleas that PMQs becomes a more decorous affair, but personally I feel it's more likely that they don't really feel they have much to shout about under Harriet's stewardship. You can say what you like about Ed Balls, but he certainly gets the noise levels up.

In other news, after a couple of good weeks, I'm detecting a worrying slide by David Cameron into his predecessors' penchant for 'not really asking the question'. By all means dodge the partisan nonsense, but when backbenchers are asking reasonable questions on behalf of their constituencies, let's have an answer or offer of a written answer please.

Leaders' Debates - they work!

In between all the coverage, the spinning, the 'who beat who and who was paying' of the 12hrs or so since the first Leaders' Debate, one thing has really struck me. The Debates work. They really work.

Yesterday my non-political friends would normally shudder, sleep, or hide (or all three) whenever I tried to talk to them about the election. This morning, quite the reverse - there is huge debate about the political Parties and their policies. One colleague who admitted she couldn't pick Nick Clegg out of a line-up before last night is now considering voting for him. There's a discussion in our kitchen as to why David Cameron slightly dodged an answer on police spending; was it that he didn't have enough time to get into the detail, or is there something wrong there? Our team meeting this morning kicked off with a chat about whether Gordon Brown is simply unable to get his personality across or whether, god forbid, he has and that's actually it!

Put simply, there's a buzz about the whole election in a way that I haven't seen for some time. People are interested; they're re-engaging with politics. Could the debates be the catalyst that finally allows people to forget about the excesses of politicians, or at least allows them to separate politicians from politics and policy?

Brown Bashing

One name was on everyone’s lips this weekend...No, not David Cameron...No, not even George Osborne...William Hague?...Of course not. No, the name that appeared at least once in every speech at this year’s Conference was Gordon Brown. It seems the electoral ploy this time around is to ignore the Labour Party, or the Cabinet, and place every failure of the last few years solely at the door of a so-called weak, dithering, bullying Prime Minister.

I can understand the reasoning. Public opinion definitely supports the idea that Gordon Brown is an unpopular leader, and when voters cast their votes on May 6 (or whenever polling day is) the thought of five more years with him at the helm will sway a good number of undecideds. I'm not sure, however, that they need it rammed down their throats with quite so much force.

The danger with all of this Brown bashing is that the Conservatives slip back into the being seen as the ‘nasty party’ and play to fears of the more right-wing, strident Conservativism of the past. Modernising and softening the Tory message has always been the hardest part of ‘Project Cameron’, but it has been achieved with some success. The challenge is now to enlighten an electorate who still aren’t quite sure what his Party now stands for, and at the same time to allay those ‘same old Tory’ fears. To lead with personal attacks on the Prime Minister won't help achieve this aim, particularly if we are truly to sell the Conservatives as the party to mend the country’s ‘Broken Politics’ in the coming election.

Talking about Gordon Brown might stop people marking an ‘X’ next to Labour at the election, but will it make them want to put it next to the Conservative tree? This is the second half of the equation we need to solve come May. I would argue that driving home attractive policy messages with a decent level of detail is the way to do it.

Marketeers and head-hunters alike always talk about push and pull factors. It’s all very good pushing voters away from Brown and the Labour party, but without a matching pull to the Conservatives we’ll never get the election result we want, and the country needs.