Wednesday 13 February 2013

Some flesh, please.


If polls are to be believed Ed Miliband will cruise to victory in the general election 2015. The latest Guardian poll has the Conservatives down to  29%(-4), Labour up 41%(+3), Liberal Democrat down 13%(-2) and UKIP up 9%(+3). 

The 12 point lead reflects what other polls are also saying. 

If such a lead was replicated on election day Labour would be returned with a majority of 92 seats. Indeed something for, young Ed to get excited about.
The lead reflects not Ed Milibands outstanding contribution to political debate, but the public giving a massive thumbs down to the current coalition government. The fact is it’s governments that lose elections and oppositions have to do very little to gain the votes. 
Perhaps this is just as well as Ed Miliband has done very little that is positive, except perhaps to emphasise that Labour is for one nation. What that means for Wales and Scotland only he knows. Perhaps at some time he’ll spell it out for us. 

But it wins him votes in middle England so why worry about the sensibilities of Wales or Scotland. After all the voters there will vote for him blindly come hell or high water.
Indeed the failure to reassure that he’ll end Wales’s underfunding  and his glee at supporting cuts to the EU budget at Wales’s expense. Even Carwyn Jones was moved to moan about his stance. Miliband is doing what past Labour leaders have done, take Wales for granted. 

He sees the Welsh voter as nothing more than cannon fodder to Labour’s Westminster ambitions. Treat them like mushrooms. In the dark with copious amounts of muck thrown at them. 
Now Mervyn King has predicted that it’s likely that the economic gloom that is doing so much to harm Cameron’s prospects of winning will continue until the election.
The central bank's 2% target for inflation will remainuntil at least the end of 2015, peaking at 3.2% in the second half of this year, it said. Growth, which is not expected to get above 1% this year, will fail to gain any momentum until 2015 when the economy will regain the size it last achieved in 2007. Not the best of conditions for winning elections. 
After all it’s the economy, stupid. Elections in part are won or lost on the country’s economic future. With official figures showing that low wages and high inflation over recent years have badly hit household incomes. People ain’t going to vote unless they feel a party can offer them hope of change.
Indeed the Office for National Statistics said the real value of average earnings after 30 years of strong growth has fallen back to 2009 levels and the economy is no larger than it was in 2005.
All point to Cameron being a one term prime minister. But we surely need to know what the alternative is. It’s about time Miliband gave us a clue what he wants power for. 
Labour in Westminster has being playing a typical Opposition game, using every opportunity it can to wrong foot the government. Ok, that’s what Oppositions do. But there comes a time when the games have to stop and serious policy alternatives have to be offered. 
Voters need to know that they’re going to get something more than a slightly pinkish version of current policy.  Not much sign of alternatives being offered yet. 
Now is the time when MIliband should be moving away from slogans and offering substance. C’mon Ed what have you got to offer?

2 comments:

  1. Really ONS say that about average earnings? I've seen charts re purchasing power that shows them topping out in the 1970s

    If the next election is run on presidential lines Cameron will walk it. His big problem is that his own activists don't like him that much.

    Can't see anyone making inroads in to the Welsh Labour hegemony, maybe the Tories. Should be Plaid but they don't stand for anything nowadays

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wales is over funded not 'underfunded'. This is the harsh reality that no political party wishes to spout forth on.

    As for Labour remaining in power here in Wales I suspect things are starting to change. Persistent increases in council tax, a declining and woefully inefficient health service and embarrassingly poor educational attainment are just some of Labour's legacies.

    Things can only get worse. And they will do so. It is Labour that bears the brunt of the blame.

    ReplyDelete