An expensive gimmick

One of Gordon Brown’s earliest acts as Chancellor was the introduction of the 10p tax rate. I thought that it was a bit of a gimmick at the time, but it wasn’t one that was easy to disagree with, since it unquestionably benefited the lowest earners. His supporters, of course, thought that it was a master stroke, and I can see why.

I’m sure that I remember talk of eventually widening the band over time so that it would benefit more people, although my memory may be failing me on that score. The one thing that I’m certain was not said is that it was intended to be only a temporary measure.

And that is part of the problem inherent in New Labour, it seems to me. The target group to which they want to appeal changes over time, so their policies have to change with it. In some aspects of policy, that may be inevitable, but is it really a good idea to be playing with the tax system on such a political basis?

They introduced the 10p band because they wanted to appeal to the lower paid and demonstrate their commitment to fairness; they abolished it in order to be able to appeal to a different group by re-jigging the tax system to give more assistance to the ‘people in the middle’. Re-focussing the appeal is one thing; the real problem was that the change was to be paid for by taking money away from the previous target group. Yesterday’s beneficiary - today’s loser; a neat summary of the results of government by focus group.

The outcry which resulted was surprising only in that it took so long for people to realise the impact of the decision; a climb down of some sort was then inevitable. The problem was in deciding what to do next. Simply taking the cash away from the new beneficiaries to give it back to the old ones would only create more problems for them politically, so they've come up with a very costly fudge.

What is now proposed returns some of the money to some of the losers – and in the process gives even more to most of those who were winners anyway. It looks like a panic measure – and it will cost about four times as much as simply directly compensating the real losers. It leaves a £2.7 billion hole in the budget and the government’s reputation for financial management in tatters. And whilst it may have quietened the revolt on Labour’s back benchers, there’s no real sign that it has undone the wider negative political impact.

Politically, it gave the Tories an open goal, which they cynically (and completely dishonestly, given their refusal to commit to re-introducing the 10p rate) exploited for all it was worth by presenting themselves – incredibly, given their history – as the party of the low paid! How on earth can what the Labour party used to be have got itself into a situation where they make the Tories look like the champions of the poor?

All in all, the 10p tax rate looks like one of the most expensive political gimmicks in history – and the political cost could turn out to be even higher than the financial cost.

Convention Clues

With the recruitment process for the Executive of the Convention now in progress (soporific, claims Ordovicius), we will presumably soon know who the four parties are to appoint as their nominees. For all the talk about involvement and participation, the final decision will be a political one, and these four appointments are critical in determining whether the parties do, or do not, sign up to the inevitable decision to postpone the referendum.

With the obvious splits in their ranks, Labour will do whatever they can to avoid having a referendum in the agreed timescale, so will be looking for a nominee who can make the right noises about wanting to move ahead, but mutter darkly about the timing.

One might naturally expect Plaid to appoint the most bullish member of the Convention, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them appointing someone who will be willing to back-pedal and agree with Labour, for the sake of avoiding any tension in the coalition. Indeed, that’s precisely what I expect to happen.

The Lib Dems’ appointment will be, like his or her party, largely irrelevant to the process.

The Tory appointment will be perhaps the most interesting of all. Freed of any need for democratic input into the appointment, this appointment will be made by Bourne, and Bourne alone. Despite the opposition to devolution from most of his party and all of his MPs, it is not inconceivable that Bourne will sense that Labour and Plaid are ready to renege on their promise and that could allow him to seize the opportunity to appoint the most enthusiastic devolutionist that he can find.

After all, the Tories won’t have to deliver on any commitment to a referendum – the coalition leaders have already decided that it won’t happen. But it would enable Bourne to outflank Plaid on a key issue. And in terms of positioning for the future, disillusioned Plaid voters are exactly what Bourne is looking for.

Death by Autobiography

It has long been a tradition that yesterday's politicians eke out their meagre living in retirement by penning their memoirs. In days gone by these were seldom-read tomes (I’m sad enough to possess a copy of Volume 1 of Richard Crossman’s), of interest only to the academic and the odd political anorak for the occasional insight into life behind the closed doors.

They didn’t make a fortune from them, but it gave them something to do in their dotage, and by the time they appeared, they did little harm to anyone. Harold Wilson famously managed to write his, and still die in what was described at the time as ‘genteel poverty’.

Generally, the authors had the decency to wait until those for whom they reserved their most toxic venom were safely dead and buried. Only then would they reveal their true feelings about their ‘friends’. Delay also gave a certain perspective to events, of course. And even self-justification can look more reasonable with a little bit of perspective.

That has all changed. Politicians have learned that they can get bigger advances by writing their memoirs early. And if they can make some sensational revelations to boot…. Truth is not a casualty of war alone.

But even against that backdrop, there’s something very new Labour about the way in which so many of them are lining up to line their pockets by revealing what they really think about each other. Levy, Cherie, Prescott… With friends like these, Labour don’t really need enemies any more. And poor old Brown looks like becoming the first serving Prime Minister to suffer a most ignominious fate – death by autobiography.

Can Labour recover in time?

Shortly after Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair, I thought that he would win the next election whenever it was called. Almost a year on, and I’m now convinced that he will lose it whenever it is called.

Last week’s local election results were truly appalling for Labour. In council after council – sometimes even ward by ward – it looks as though voters have carefully thought about who was the strongest challenger to Labour, and then voted for them. The kicking could have happened in last year's Assembly elections, but somehow it didn't. There’s something pretty ironic and inherently unfair about Brown getting the kicking for failing to return to Labour’s roots while the man who turned his back on those roots in the first place somehow got away with it, but such is politics.

There is a crumb of comfort for Labour in that this looks more like an anti-Labour vote than a pro-Tory or pro-Plaid vote. Outside Labour-held wards, there wasn’t that much change, and much of what did occur is down to local circumstances (and there will always be some particular issues in particular areas when it comes to council elections). But it's a pretty small crumb. It really doesn't matter whether people vote for an alternative because they're for that alternative or because they’re just against Labour – the alternative still wins.

The pundits talk about how this would look if translated into the next General Election. I suppose that’s what pundits do – and they even get paid for it – but it's often a dangerous extrapolation. In that the punishment meted out to Labour this time appears to have been for 'national' rather than 'local' sins, perhaps there is some validity, but for me the real significance is less in the numbers than in that it adds to a general mood which makes a Labour recovery harder to see.

So, can they recover? It’s not impossible even now, but there are some real problems.

Firstly, in many areas, the party’s councillors and their families and close friends have effectively been the sum total of the party’s organisation on the ground. It is these people who have delivered the leaflets and knocked the doors. Many of them are no longer young, if I may express it in those terms, and there will be a real question over the extent of their motivation if they no longer have the personal incentive - or, indeed, if they even feel that the party nationally has let them and their communities down.

Secondly, the senior spokespersons seem to be in some sort of state of denial. After ten years or more of spin, where what they say is not what they do, they still expect people to believe what they say. There has been a succession of people saying effectively that "the people are telling us to listen to them". Indeed so - but how about actually listening rather than just telling us you’re going to listen? Without being seen to do anything different, this just looks like more spin – and insincere and superficial to boot.

Does Labour’s collapse matter? I think it does. Even if the most extreme projections are true, and the Tories do better than ever before in Wales at the General Election, they will still not win a majority of Welsh seats or votes; and most of us here in Wales would prefer to have a non-Tory government. A Tory government based on an English majority is something which should concern us greatly here in Wales. I for one am far from convinced that they have really changed, whatever their spokespeople may say.

There are two bold steps which Labour could take now to protect us, or at least mitigate the effects of such a result.

The first is to make sure that we hold and win a referendum on law-making powers for the National Assembly. I believe that this could be won, if there was a serious campaign in favour, even in the current anti-Labour climate.

The second is that Brown could, whilst he still has a large majority in the Commons, introduce STV for parliamentary elections. If people could rank the parties in order of preference, it would reduce the temptation for tactical anti-Labour voting. It would thus mean that the change in the number of seats between the parties would be smaller than the latest opinion polls suggest, if second and third preference votes were taken into effect.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that Brown simply doesn’t do bold.

A little ado about what, exactly?

Yesterday’s Western Mail had a story about Chris Bryant drawing attention to an apparent inconsistency between two senior Plaid Figures. According to the story, Ieuan Wyn Jones welcomed this year's air show at Sophia Gardens, whilst two years ago, Plaid’s Chief Executive, Gwenllian Lansdown condemned a similar event at the same location as being a showcase for arms dealers.

Bryant claimed that this showed a major inconsistency. Ordovicius explained this apparent inconsistency in terms of the elapsed time between the two statements – two years ago, Lansdown was not the party’s Chief Executive, and Jones was not in government.

I think this misses the point. The two people seem to have been speaking about two very different events. Jones was welcoming an exhibition promoting the aerospace industry because of the jobs in that industry in Wales. Lansdown, on the other hand, was condemning arms sales. Both positions are entirely consistent with long standing Plaid policies.

The problem is that neither the story nor any of the reaction tell us what sort of event it really is, and without that information, it is impossible to judge which reaction is correct. But if a Plaid leader were truly to be welcoming arms dealers to the Welsh capital, it would be an astonishing betrayal of previous Plaid policy. So - which of the two descriptions of the event is correct?

Let's go fly a kite

One of the joys of childhood is discovering a long forgotten favourite toy at the back of a cupboard. Last week, it was Adam Price who was rummaging in his cupboards, and having come across one of the many kites in his collection, he simply couldn’t resist flying it again.

But in floating, once again, the idea of a deal between Plaid and the Tories, is he speaking for his party or only for himself? My sources tell me that Price is not in the habit of showing his kites to anyone before flying them, so I doubt that this was officially sanctioned, although, not for the first time, it left other Plaid politicians trying to explain and defend what he was saying.

At one level, of course, Plaid would be foolish to rule anything out in advance of any election. Keeping options open is a vital part of any bargaining process. Not unlike the Cold War standoff, the ‘other side’ (in this case, Labour) has to believe that Plaid really would ‘press the button’ in order to maximise the pressure on them to keep their troops in order. And at the same time, the Tories have to believe that there is at least a chance of a deal in order to bolster Bourne’s devolutionist position – if all hope was taken off the table, there would be no conceivable reason for the Tories in the Assembly not to follow their MPs, and revert to their natural hostility to devolution.

But what does Price really want? Is this just a bit of bluster to keep up the pressure on Labour, or is he really trying to prepare his party for a deal with the Tories? Even if his real objective is only to put pressure on Labour, he’ll never own up to that. The parallel with the Cold War applies - even if Plaid would never do such a deal, they could never actually say that.

I suspect that he really does want such a deal. I don’t understand why, and it’s at odds with his apparent left-wing rhetoric, but we should remember that he worked hard to sell the All Wales Accord to his party, describing it at the time as a radical programme. I suspect that the left wing rhetoric is just that – rhetoric. It’s in a similar style to that used many years ago by another apparent firebrand in Plaid - the only member to actually reach the House of Lords, who turned out to be more establishment than the establishment. Is Price destined to follow the same route?

It's not only the fact of his previous form that leads me to this conclusion - it's also his choice of words. Describing Plaid as a 'centre-left' party will come as a surprise to many members, I suspect. They'd be happy to describe the One Wales agreement as a centre left government; but Plaid as a centre left party? This looks like part of the insidious re-positioning of Plaid on the political spectrum which has seemed to have followed their entry into government. I’m far from convinced that Price is as far apart from Ieuan Wyn Jones as they sometimes appear to be.

If one of the joys of childhood is discovering an old toy, one of the problems is a lack of patience; an inability to wait before playing with it. But my guess is that there are many Plaid activists and council candidates the length and breadth of Wales who’ll be wishing that Price had left this particular kite in its cupboard for a week or two longer – until after May 1st in any event.

Detached from Reality

There can, of course, be no excuse for faking e/mails in order to attempt to incriminate an innocent person. Indeed, there's no valid excuse for faking e/mails in order to incriminate a guilty person either.

So I had more than a little sympathy for Peter Hain after the revelations yesterday about some faked emails which attempted to suggest that he had misused facilities at a charity.

He goes too far, however, in claiming that these dirty tricks have cost him his job and his career. These particular 'dirty tricks' have only come to light after he had already been forced to resign for other reasons. His attempt to suggest that these latest e/mails are of a piece with the revelations which led to his downfall is, at best, disingenuous.

There is a world of difference between fake documents attempting to smear someone with false accusations, and genuine leaks which expose wrongdoing. Hain seems not to be able to grasp this vital difference.

Above all, his latest protestations indicate that he still does not accept that failing to disclose £100,000 in donations, in direct contravention of laws which his own government enacted, is in any way ‘wrong-doing’.

He keeps claiming that his experience is surreal. What I find not just surreal, but really rather sad, is his own inability to recognise firstly that he has committed an offence under electoral law, and secondly that there is widespread incredulity at the extent of his spending on an internal party election.