It's Not An Election

The Tories are tryng to pretend their provincial leadership race is an election. It ain't.

The biggest challenge facing the next premier will be rekindling interest in the Tory party, says a political expert who expects voter turnout to fall well below projections.

"The number of voters will be a lot fewer than candidates estimated back in September," Steve Patten, a University of Alberta political scientist, told the Sun yesterday.

Three months ago, the camps of top Tory leadership candidates Lyle Oberg, Mark Norris, Jim Dinning and Ted Morton all expected to sell upwards of 100,000 party memberships.

"Add up all their claims and we're talking in the neighbourhood of 500,000 memberships sold to people who would be expected to vote for the next premier," Patten said.

"Nothing close to that kind of number has materialized."

Patten said he's interested to see how close voter turnout will be to the 78,000 who cast ballots in 1992, when Ralph Klein won the premiership on a second ballot.

Since 1992 our population has grown to be 3.5 million. And it is still growing.

Edmonton is expected to gain 83,000 residents by 2011

Although many former Saskatchewan residents return home for a visit, there are still far too many heading for black gold in Alberta."Pretty much everyone is moving to Alberta these days," said Fritsche, who thinks Saskatchewan should try and capitalize on the growing population that lies right next door.

So when Klein was elected leader 78,000 PC members voted. Even though more memberships than that were sold.

Today we know that the membership sales will not be reflected in those who vote. For instance business and unions have bought up memerships to hand out to get out the vote for their candidates. The Building Trades unions are supporting Oberg, despite his right wing views, because he is promising them jobs with his position on increasing funding for infrastructure.

The Edmonton Business community has gone all out in buying memberships in bulk to hand out to their employees and friends to support Mark Norris. Its a campaign to get an Edmontonian elected leader. They have abandoned Hancock the other Edmontonian because he is a Red Tory, and Norris has pull because of his political family connections.

So less than .o5% of the population will make the decision on who will lead the party and thus elect the leader of the One Party State in Alberta.

When Klein ran it was against Red Tory Nancy Betkowski. A second ballot was needed because he lost to her by one vote. He had sold more memberships than her but his supporters did not come out on the first ballot. This is the fear the Dinning folks have.

That vote was then spilt between the Calgarian For Leader and the Edmontonian for Leader factions. The Red Tories lined up behind Betkowski, the social conservatives behind Klein for the second ballot.Still in the final tally more memberships were sold than came out to vote.

In this race the front runners are Dinning and Oberg.

But the race is split this way;

Dinning represents the Calgary Establishment, a centerist candidate, a liberal fiscally and politically as was Lougheed who supports him.

Norris represents the fiscal conservatives, social liberals, business establishment of Edmonton. Its the anti-Calgary Tories he represents.

Hancock is a Red Tory to the left of the other candidates. His support is really limited to Edmonton to those not supporting Norris. Whom he throws his support behind on a second ballot will be important.

Oberg, Morton, and Doerkson split the social conservative vote between them.

Oberg relies upon the rural anti-urban anti-Calgary voters, based in Southern and Central Alberta. He also has the support of the traditional Liberal Building Trades unions. Though how many of their members will vote is questionable. As it is boom time and the tradesmen are busy working, working, working. Lots of OT versus taking time to vote.

Morton has organized the grass roots social conservative base, and is getting support from Manning, Harper, Day, Kenney, etc. So he poses a second ballot threat to Oberg. Failing that he and Doerkson could combine to push Oberg past Dinning on the second ballot.

Doerkson is a spoiler, taking votes away from Oberg, but a late comer so his campaign is really about anybody but Lyle. His supporters will go to Morton.

Ed Stelmach, farmer, rural vote, fiscal conservative, in this race a centerist compared to the social conservative gang above. His chances are zip, nada.
Though on the second ballot who he throws his support behind could be telling.

Advance polls opened yesterday. The vote is this weekend. Place your wagers.

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

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All Fizzle No Sizzle

The rightwhing columnists in the media and the blogosphere like to talk about the "usual rent a crowd", when it came to mass demonstrations , and I am talking double digit thousands, against the government.

The term seems apt for the Conservative Party stalwarts that got the pro-war rallies going in Ottawa and now Toronto.

Too bad their Toronto rent a crowd wasn't larger, a handfull of Blogging Tories and other Conservative Party supporters essentially held a rally to support the war on the backs of our troops.


Hundreds gather in TO for 'Red Friday' rally

These rallies which the right has claimed exist to show tropps and their families we support them, have been hijacked by the Pro War Pro Harper crowd not to support our trooops, or they would demand their withdrawl, but to support the war.

Apparently the irony of holding Pro War Rallies on the same day as funerals are held for Canadian KIA, is lost on these guys.

Yesterday's rally was held on the same day as funerals for three Canadian soldiers took place in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

And despite all their so called grassroots organizing , free media exposure generated by rightwhing talkshow hosts on Corus & Global radio networks, they could only pull a few hundred folks out in megatropolis Toronto.

Red Rally support for troops today 680 News

September 29, 2006 - 6:48 am
By: Jaime Pulfer with report by Ashleigh Patterson

Toronto - Dundas Square will be a sea of red today as people participate in the Toronto Red Rally to support for Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

A sea hardly, it was a pond.

Even less than rallied in Ottawa. But then again the New Government in Ottawa encouraged civil servants and employees to attentd the rally. In Toronto it was a public private partnership Tim Hortons relents, workers join 'Red Friday'

OCAP and the armies of homeless have held larger demos in T.O. And recent Anti-War demos have also been bigger. And that was without Timmies support.

Indeed only a week ago mass rallies were held across Canada, not in two single cities in Ontario, to call for action on Darfur. An issue Harper refuses to discuss.

There were rallies all across Canada last week to stress the importance of responding to Darfur. Helping to lead the world on this issue is important, and completely within Canada's traditions of peace keeping and protecting innocent people. But this government is unable to divide its focus and resources. Afghanistan is the Harper Governement's Sixth Priority

The lesson of this tale is that these Red Fridays have been a one day wonder. They originated in a genuine feeling of folks, especially military families, wanting to show publicly they support the troops. But supporting the troops is not tacit support of the current Afghanistan mission.

It got hijacked by the Military for its own purposes, more fighting assignments more equipment to fight with.

The New Canadian government is using these rallies to show that, despite polls saying otherwise, Canadians back Harpers War.

Forces will listen to Red Rally cheers on radio

Canadian forces are being given a chance in Afghanistan to hear red today -- a rousing wave of support that will rock the downtown in a giant flag-waving rally. The 2,500 Canadian soldiers are being urged by the military brass to tune in the Red Rally cheers and best wishes when hour-long radio broadcasts start at noon from Dundas Square on CFRB and AM-640 Radio.

Well the majority of Canadians do not support the Harper/Hillier war plan, as is shown in polls and in the streets of T.O. on Friday. And make no bones aout it this is not only a New Law & Order State it is a Militarized one as well. Hillier is Harpers kinda guy, so its hands off, and the Military runs its political masters. Does anyone else find this scary? A New Canadian Government with its own Republican Guard.

The only people not getting the message are Mssr. Harper and Hellier as well as the rent a crowd at the Blogging Tories and the right whing talk show hosts in the MSM.

Showing that the BT blosgosphere and even the conservative activists, especially those in the media, carry less poloitical weight then they credit themselves with. They couldn't even organize a 'mass' demonstration of their own core supporters.

Something RightWhingWhiner and Talk Show Host Dave Rutherford found out when he rallied his listners against young offenders only a few thousand showed up, compared to 15,000 that rallied to save the Grey Nuns hospital from Kleins Kuts.

I await their mewling mumbles about the silent majority supporting them.

Support Our Troops is one of those tropes that has two meanings. And as Alice found out from the Red Knight one of those meanings is whatever Harper wants it to be. And in this case it is Bush-like denial of reality. As he did in New York saying Canadians supported the war when the polls said otherwise.

There is no mass support for this war. Conservative calls to unquestioning patriotism fall on deaf ears in Canada. Since most of us realize that Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundral.


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UK

Conservatives, Extremism, and the Ghost of Enoch Powell

Subjecting protestors to greater demonisation through the redefining of ‘extremism’ is just another chapter in the Tories’ painful history of hypocrisy

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If you paid much attention to Rishi Sunak’s speech outside No. 10 on March 1, you would think our country had been overrun by anarchists and fanatics. Extremist groups are ‘trying to tear us apart,’ said the PM, decrying a ‘shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality’ in Britain since October 7. Michael Gove has been at it too. Some pro-Palestinian events have ‘been organised by extremist organisations,’ claimed the Communities Secretary. These are the same protests incidentally that have been acknowledged by the Metropolitan Police as disciplined, orderly, and professionally-managed.

The anarchy-obsessed Conservative government now has Gove announcing a new definition of extremism. As part of Sunak’s drive to crack down on Islamist extremists and far-right groups, the revised definition identifies extremism as an ideology that “undermines the rights or freedoms of others.” It differs from the old definition in that there has been a shift in focus from action to ideology. The previous definition, which was introduced in 2011, said extremism was the “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and belief.”

Critics say the new definition is so broad that it risks exacerbating community tensions. Zara Mohammed, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the definition would lead to the “unfair targeting of Muslim communities.” Others believe it is being used to seek a short-term tactical advantage in the run-up to the general election. A number of senior Tories, including former Home Secretaries Priti Patel, Sajid Javid and Amber Rudd, warned against using extremism to score political points. They believe that the government would be better off dialling down on extremism rhetoric, which they warn is giving Reform UK a boost.

“It completely plays into Reform’s hands. Why aren’t we talking about the Budget?” said one former cabinet minister.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York joined the criticism, warning the government’s response ‘risks vilifying the wrong people’ and threatened freedom of speech and worship.

The same week that Gove announced his controversial new anti-extremism measures, a revelation hit the press that suggested the Tories’ biggest donor is an extremist himself, who upholds the most abhorrent views. Claims were made that Frank Hester, the healthcare technology business magnate who has donated £10m to the Tories in the past year, had said Diane Abbott made people “want to hate all black women” and “should be shot.”

The alleged comments mark a depressing new low for British politics. And the story gets worse. When asked whether the Tories should hand back the £10m donation, energy minister Graham Stuart told reporters that it would be wrong for a businessman to be ‘cancelled’ for his comments, and that the party should ‘welcome’ such donations.

Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride meanwhile told Sky News that everyone needed to “move on” from the comments, and that he didn’t think what Hester was saying was a “gender based or race based comment.”

How on earth anyone could argue that describing the UK’s first black female MP as making people “wanting to hate all black women,” is neither gender nor race based is beyond any reasonable sense or logic.

Conservative Lord Marling meanwhile said that Hestor isn’t racist because “he does a lot of business in Jamaica… and places like that.”

After catastrophically messing up on the Anderson row, Sunak has catastrophically messed up on the Hester row. After initially resisting, a spokesperson for the PM eventually admitted the alleged comments by the Tory donor were ‘racist and wrong.’ Yet Sunak has rejected calls to return the £10m donated to the party by the businessman. “No… I am pleased [Hester] is supporting a party that represents one of the most diverse governments in this country’s history,” he told the Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions.

It’s likely that Sunak doesn’t want to return the money because it has already been spent. And, if he did, it’s likely Hester would defect to Reform UK, like Anderson did this week. Messier than a soup sandwich!

But while especially nasty and shocking, Hestor’s comment and the Tories’ disastrously inadequate response, come as little surprise. The Conservatives, who are now embroiled in yet another civil war over their highly contentious redefinition of extremism, have, along with their media and donor cronies, a long history of flirting with and sometimes embracing racist extremism.

In 1964, what is regarded as Britain’s most racist election campaign ever fought in Britain, took place in the West Midlands constituency of Smethwick when the Conservative Peter Griffiths was elected MP on the slogan, “If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour.” Talking to the Times during his election campaign, Griffiths refused to disown the slogan. “I would not condemn any man who said that. I regard it as a manifestation of popular feeling,” he said.

The racially motivated campaign proved successful, and Smethwick bucked the national swing from the Tories to Labour, and Griffiths won the seat.

And let’s not forget that one of modern British history’s most divisive addresses was made by the Conservative MP Enoch Powell. Powell gained notoriety for his viciously anti-immigration speech in 1968, commonly known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech. It divided the nation with its racist, incendiary rhetoric, and led to the MP being kicked out of the shadow cabinet, effectively ending his political ambitions. Yet 56 years later, Enoch Powell’s name still resonates with many right-wing Tories.

After saying that asylum seekers who did not want to be housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge should “f*** off back to France” in August last year, Lee Anderson, then deputy chair of the Conservative party, was branded a ‘pound shop Enoch Powell’ by Chris McEleny of the Alba Party.

As with the Frank Hestor controversy this week, Anderson’s comments were defended by fellow Tories. Justice secretary Alex Chalk told broadcasters that the MP was expressing “righteous indignation of the British people” with his incendiary comments.

And let’s also not forget that the prime minister refused to address anti-Muslim concerns following Anderson’s more recent comments that ‘Islamists’ had ‘got control of London’ and its mayor, Sadiq Khan. While Anderson might have had the whip removed by the party following the comments, Sunak still claimed that there were no Islamophobia issues in the Conservative party.

 

This is the same party which, in 2019, was criticised for refusing to adopt a recommended definition of Islamophobia produced by an all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims. The definition was produced after six months of consultations. It classified discrimination against Muslims as a form of racism and was described as a necessity to tackle the rise of far-right racism. In refusing to adopt the definition, the Muslim Council of Britain had warned that the Conservative Party was at risk of “placing themselves on the wrong side of the argument.”

Lee Anderson is not the only senior, now ex-Tory to have been likened to Enoch Powell. Suella Braverman was also described as the ‘new Enoch Powell,’ after she described refugees landing in Kent as an “invasion” in November 2022.

“Braverman is a modern-day Enoch Powell,” wrote Sean O’Grady, associate editor of the Independent. “This might be strange and ironic, seeing as Powell was campaigning against the (entirely legal) settlement in the UK of Asians expelled from Kenya and Uganda in the 1960s and 1970s, such as her own family,” he continued.

While the liberal media may provide some critical analysis on the racist tropes used by right-wing ministers, the Tory media often cheerleads the comments.

“Lee Anderson is victim of immoral Tories giving in to Sadiq Khan’s ‘Islamophobe’ smear,’ was an incredulous headline in the Express. “Lee Anderson did not say anything Islamophobic but has suffered because of the Conservative Party’s moral rottenness,” the author argued.

The consequences of the reckless use of inflammatory Enoch Powell-esque rhetoric by ministers and their supporting factions of the media, can be sinister and dangerous. Such perils were brought to light this week. Kingston Crown Court heard how a man who claimed ‘Hitler was right’ visited an immigration lawyer’s office with a knife and handcuffs planning to kill him. The court was told how in an interview with police, the accused had said he had first saw the lawyer’s name in the Daily Mail, and that he brought “foreign invaders” into the country.

As so often with Right-Wing Watch, the discussion takes us to conservative think-tanks, which, as we know, have direct connections to the Conservative Party. The deliberately provocative tactic of labelling principally peaceful campaign groups as ‘extremists’ can be traced to such groups.

Policy Exchange, the government think-tank that claims to be a neutral educational charity but has for years been building a case for curtailing the judiciary, and was relied on heavily by Boris Johnson’s government, referred to Extinction Rebellion (XR) as an ‘extremist group.’ The influence of such think-tanks on national policy was starkly revealed, when, some months later, XR was duly designated an extremist group by counter-terrorist police.

In fact, the legislative crackdown on protest in Britain by the then home secretary Priti Patel, which could lead to groups like XR being branded ‘extremists,’ was found to have roots with Policy Exchange. An investigation by openDemocracy found that a 2019 report by Policy Exchange called for protest laws to be “urgently reformed in order to strengthen the ability of police to place restrictions on planned protest and deal more effectively with mass law-breaking tactics.” The report even explicitly said the government should pass legislation to target XR.

William Allchorn, associate director at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR), argues that instead of perusing new definitions of the word ‘extremism,’ an ‘inclusionary turn’ is needed when dealing with any hue of ‘extremist’ protest. In his book, Anti-Islamic Protest in the UK Policy Responses to the Far Right, Allchorn subscribes to the notion that better cross-community contact, grassroots educational initiatives against prejudice and a re-engagement between politicians and disaffected constituencies are all important preventative methods when dealing with political extremism.

Subjecting protestors to greater demonisation through the redefining of ‘extremism’ is just another chapter in the Tories’ painful history of hypocrisy. Posturing as freedom champions while slowly chipping away at civil liberties through draconian legislation, ‘extremism,’ the very thing they are going after, has been historically fuelled in Conservative political and media circles. If Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak really wanted to weed out the real threats to Britain, perhaps they should convince their own party to look in the mirror?

And perhaps in this week of all weeks we should leave the last word to Diane Abbott. Writing in the Guardian, she points to the way in which in an election year, the Tories have blown their reputation for sound economic management and low taxation, meaning they will play the race card and ruthlessly. And Diane Abbott should know having watched the Tories close up for longer than most of us.

Right-Wing Media Watch – Boris-worshipping Express pines for ‘Big Dog’s’ return

What could possibly save Rishi Sunak from what looks like uncertain political obliteration in the general election? Boris Johnson, of course! And, specifically, Boris Johnson trumpeting Brexit freedoms. At least, that is what the Boris-worshiping Daily Express is championing for.

In a series of articles this week, the newspaper showed no shame in its tireless devotion to the disgraced former PM, claiming he is set for a ‘big general election’ comeback in a ‘bid to rescue the Tories.’

“The larger-than-life former premier will reportedly campaign for the Conservatives in the Red Wall,” claimed the newspaper.

In a front page ‘exclusive’ on March 13, the Express salivated over the former PM’s return to the campaign trail to protect the ‘hard won and great’ Brexit freedoms he secured with his election victory.

According to allies cited in the report, Johnson is a Tory “through and through” (sub-text -Sunak isn’t?) and is happy to put his skills to “good use.”

The following day, the same newspaper launched a ‘Should Boris Johnson help Tories campaign at next general election’ poll. Trying to coax readers into voting ‘yes’ with about as much subtlety as a flying brick, the article claims that the former PM’s “I’ll be back” comment when he quit Parliament last year, following what they call a “witch hunt” probe into Partygate, was a direct message to Daily Express readers.

The Times was at it too. ‘Boris Johnson to make a general election comeback for the Tories,’ the national splashed on March 12.
Wishful claims of a Big Dog comeback haven’t exactly been verified yet. In fact, Johnson’s biggest ally Nadine Dorries has categorically unverified them. On a post on X, she wrote:

“This story has been panic placed by No 10 – probably by Issac Levido [the Australian political strategist credited with coining election-winning slogans for Boris Johnson] in a desperate attempt to halt any further defections to Reform.

“There’s no thawing of relations, no plans to campaign. Sunak not spoken to Johnson for over a year.”

But you have to give the aforementioned media some credit. The Tories are likely to need some kind of miracle if they are to avoid electoral wipeout whenever the next general election might be. But having presided over some of the biggest scandals to have engulfed modern British politics, including breaking the rules his own government set, the return of Big Dog is surely not the answer.

Smear of the Week – Tories’ smear campaign against Angela Rayner spectacularly backfires as cops veto charges

The Conservatives and their client media’s smear campaign against the Labour deputy leader has spectacularly backfired. Despite their best efforts to embroil Rayner in controversy involving a council house she once owned and sold, a line has been drawn under a scandal that didn’t even really exist, by the police.

The story originally surfaced in the Daily Mail after the newspaper had seen extracts of an unauthorised biography on Rayner by Lord Ashcroft. The former Conservative Party deputy chairman (responsible for the fake ‘Piggate’ story in an unauthorised biography about David Cameron) Ashcroft accused Rayner of hypocrisy, claiming that she had used Margaret Thatcher’s flagship discounted home ownership policy to buy her own home but now wants to reform the policy.

In a further twist to the tale, James Daly, Tory MP for Bury North, a neighbouring constituency of Rayner’s, asked Greater Manchester Police to investigate whether Rayner had given false information on official documents and had broken electoral rules in relation to where she was registered as living after her marriage in 2010.

Despite the Labour MP repeatedly denying any wrongdoing, the right-wing press gushed all over the story.

‘Angela Rayner could face a police probe into ‘false claims over addresses’ before she sold her council home,’ splashed the Daily Mail in February.

This week, the police announced that they have found no evidence that any offence had been committed and that the Labour deputy will not face a political investigation over the claims.

You think that the story would have been laid to rest at that point but no, James Daly will not let it lie.

Following the police’s decision not to pursue the investigation after finding no evidence of wrongdoing, Daly blamed Rayner’s ‘refusal’ to answer ‘basic questions’ about where she used to live, and claimed the case had not been given the attention it deserves.

‘I’m very concerned that in a year in which we will have both a general election and local elections this matter is not being given the attention it surely warrants.

‘She is steadfastly refusing to answer the extremely basic questions. It’s a far cry from the standards she demands of others,” the MP told the Mail, which naturally seized the chance to keep the smear alive.

In what could be considered as a big dose of karma, Daly has been accused of wasting police time. “Tory MPs shouldn’t be wasting police time, they should be concentrating on governing,” a Labour source told the Mail.

Honestly, you’d think they would have learned by the ridiculous ‘Beergate’ story, which the Mail ran for weeks, despite Keir Starmer being cleared over the allegations he had broken lockdown rules.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

RED TORIES

Labour to water-down manifesto in attempt to shrink target of Tories attacks at general election

Labour are planning a no-risk manifesto they seek to dull Conservative attacks and deliver the party to power for the first time in 14 years. Picture: Getty

By Chay Quinn

 3 February 2024

Labour are planning a no-risk manifesto they seek to dull Conservative attacks and deliver the party to power for the first time in 14 years.

Shadow cabinet ministers have until February 8 to submit policy to the manifesto, as Sir Keir Starmer gears up for an election expected to take place in the second half of this year.

Key pledges such as House of Lords reforms and social care policy are expected to be watered down as Sir Keir attempts to make his manifesto "bombproof".

Read More: Labour’s Peter Kyle set for AI talks with tech giants during Washington visit

The backing off comes after reports that the party has ditched its £28 billion pledge to fund climate infrastructure.

Labour Unveil Its City Policy At Business Conference. Picture: Getty

The scrapping of social care reforms has irked union backers of the party, with Unison’s general secretary, Christina McAnea, telling the Observer: “Care is in crisis and the need for a national service has never been greater. But the sector is complex and, with many thousands of care employers, creating a new system isn’t a five-minute job.

“In stark contrast to the litany of broken promises from this government, Labour is committed to reforming care. Under the proposed fair pay agreement, wages will rise and care workers earn the same no matter where they work in England.

“Care jobs will immediately become more attractive, and the sector be able to start filling the huge hole in its workforce. That will boost support to everyone needing care and begin to lift the pressure on the NHS.”

Labour will water-down its proposal to reform the House of Lords. Picture: Getty

Despite the cautious approach, Starmer's party will back a pledge to build 300,000 homes in Britain each year - a pledge previously made by Tories, but has yet to be fulfilled.

Labour currently enjoy a large polling lead over the Tories, and are widely expected to win the next general election by a landslide.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for RED TORY 

UK

LONDON

Bidding war for Labour insiders as City prepares for red shift RED TORIES

Melissa Lawford

TORY TELEGRAPH 

LOVES CONSERVATIVE LABOUR LEADER SIR KEIR
Sun, 20 August 2023 

Labour’s lead over the Tories has prompted a scramble among companies to hire those in the know - Leon Neal/Getty Images Europe

After 13 years of Tory government, business leaders are facing up to the fact that a new party may be in Downing Street next year – one that many have no experience of working with.

With Labour enjoying a 17-point lead over the Tories, Sir Keir Starmer looks increasingly likely to sweep to power. That prospect is sparking a scramble to figure out how to deal with the government in waiting.

“Public affairs and comms consultancies are getting CEOs asking them what are we doing in preparation for this potential change, do we have the right contacts and connections?” says Lucy Cairncross, managing director at VMA Group, a recruiter that specialises in public affairs.


“We didn’t hear those kinds of conversations happening in 2019. It wasn’t high up on their agenda because they would have thought it’s not going to happen. This time, clearly, there is a shift.”

PR firms and City advisors are rushing to hire current or former Labour insiders who know how the party works and can help get things done.

“We made a conscious decision at the start of the year to hire senior people with a background in centre-Left politics. The value of their stock is currently climbing,” Nick Faith, director of WPI Strategy, says.

“We work with organisations from pretty much every sector of the economy and they are all gearing up for the possibility of a potential change of government.”

City firms are rapidly undergoing a facelift – and they are trying to look like Keir Starmer.

Perhaps the clearest example of the shift is Hanbury Strategy.

The London-based lobbying and communications company has close ties to the Tory party and was set up by a former close ally of Dominic Cummings, Paul Stephenson, who ran PR for the Vote Leave campaign. However, Chris Ward, Sir Keir’s former deputy chief of staff, joined Hanbury last year and launched a new Labour Unit in September.

“Every business and every trade body in the country is making a contingency plan at the moment for a Labour government,” says Alec Zetter, a public affairs headhunter at recruiter Ellwood Atfield.

It is an increasingly expensive procedure: there is a shortage of talent, meaning companies must pay a premium to attract those with real insight.

Labour has been out of power for more than a decade, and many of those who worked under the party’s last leader have been written off.

“There aren’t that many credible people from the Corbyn period because so many of them were avowedly anti-business and of course it’s a long time since Labour were in government, so there aren’t that many Labour advisers who also have government experience,” says Nick King, managing director of Henham Strategy.

One senior public affairs figure says: “Clients are more and more likely to want a Labour offering, and in a classic case of supply and demand, given there is not a lot of supply, Labour people are definitely attracting higher salaries now.”

Many of those who served under the Labour Party’s last leader, Jeremy Corbyn, have been written off - Eddie Mulholland

Former MPs are in particular demand. Luciana Berger, who quit Labour in protest in 2019 before later rejoining briefly, joined iNHouse Communications last year and became a senior adviser this summer.

Anna Turley, who served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, has joined Arden Strategies, as has the party’s former head of business relations, Ellie Miller.

Instinctif, the City advisor to several FTSE companies, took on former Labour shadow minister Tom Harris in July 2023 to expand its Navigating Labour Unit.

Former shadow deputy leader of the House of Commons Melanie Onn, who left the Commons in 2019, has joined Blakeney Communications.

“For good people who are able to do the role really well and have really good contacts, there is always going to be a bit of a war for that talent,” says Cairncross.

If it becomes even more clear that Labour could win the next general election, there could be a “tipping point of going hell for leather” in throwing money at Labour-connected people, she adds.

Consultancies that have sold themselves for years on having expertise dealing with the Conservative Party know that their currency will slide fast if Labour win the next election.

A current Labour source says: “I get some kind of call probably once a month. It started last year when the Tories properly began to implode.”

Those who have worked with Starmer, the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves or the shadow business secretary John Reynolds are most in demand.

Firms are seeking people who have worked with key figures in the shadow cabinet such as Rachel Reeves - Eddie Mulholland

However, many of those working for Labour now won’t consider a move because they know they may get their first opportunity to work within government, says Faith.

The public affairs sector is also losing staff to Labour, as people return to the party ahead of the election. “I know loads of people seconding jobs into Labour from business,” says Ward.

Demand for Labour expertise is strongest in finance, tech and net zero adjacent industries.

“Any industry that is under particular pressure from a net zero agenda, for example, they are absolutely trying to talk to what they perceive will be the next government around what their responsibilities and contributions will be,” says Zetter.

Ward adds: “Then you also get very large employers who are asking: what is Labour going to do on employment rights and taxation for large companies?”

Labour are happy to answer these questions. When Starmer launched his “Prawn Cocktail Offensive 2.0” last autumn, it marked the second phase of a long push to try and woo businesses to the Left.

“The first phase was basically decontamination – basically trying to convince people that the party is no longer Jeremy Corbyn,” says Ward. “The second phase is carpet bombing – meeting every business or anyone who will meet you. That is what they are doing now and have been for the last year or so.”

The third phase will be a calculated, targeted programme of engagement with a much smaller group of businesses that Labour can trust, he says.

As the circle gets smaller and the election draws nearer, the value of insiders will only go up.

Left, Right and Liberty

My old pal from our Canadian University Press (CUP) days; Terry Glavin in his latest blog entry criticizes what he sees as the libertarian/anarchist underpinings of the new left, the anti-war and the anti-globalization movement.

And Glavin believes they are dangerous, American ideas influencing our glorious Canadian Social Democratic politics.

Glavin first quotes from Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, in Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t be Jammed (Harper Perennial, 2000)

Unfortunately, the idea of counterculture has become so deeply embedded in our understanding of society that it influences every aspect of social and political life. Most importantly, it has become the conceptual template for all contemporary leftist politics. Counterculture has almost completely replaced socialism as the basis of radical political thought. So if counterculture is a myth, then it is one that has misled an enormous number of people, with untold political consequences.”

The counterculture of music, smoke ins, Adbuster magazine, G@P anarchist hip clothing chic is recuperated by capitalism, thus it is not socialism it is protest chic. Well congratulations on discovering that the counter culture is a consumer form of capitalism which it always was anyways. 'Hip capitalism', as we called it in the seventies and eighties was a kinder groovier kind of capitalism. See my Hypocrisy of Hip Capitalism

It's an old debate in the Anarchist movement as well, lifestyle reformism versus social revolution. Today the debate over counter culture is exemplified by Murray Bookchin with his Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism and Richard Day with his new book Gramsci is Dead.

Do we create alternative drop out cultures that ignore the state (Day) or do we actively mobilize to create a social revolution based on class struggle (Bookchin). This debate is now occuring again in the anti-war/anti-globalization movement which I think is the point that Glavin is trying to make. I think, because it is far from clear, that he is identifying libertarian/anarchist politics with drop out politics of the old counterculutre.

But then he goes and says this.

Ron Dart is a Red Tory philosopher, a devout Anglican, an NDP supporter (at least for now), an authority on the beat poets and the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton, and the author more than a dozen books, including The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient Roots, New Routes. In conversation with Ron the other day, I heard more than just a faint echo of the Heath/Potter thesis.

Beware the “antistate” left, he said. It may be Harper’s loudest and most vociferous opposition, but listen carefully. It speaks the same language that Harper does. It cleaves to “liberal” ideas, but in the American meaning of the word. It is a “subtler imperialism” that threatens to render Canada incapable of articulating an effective, homegrown defence against neoconservatism.

Beware of the Anti-State Left. As if Anarchism and Libertarian ideas are somehow foreign to the Canadian Left, an American influence on good old Canadian Methodist Social Democracy. In a further leap of logic Glavin then tells us what kind of an outcome will happen if these dangerous libertarian, anti-state ideas influence the Canadian Left.

"And it comes with a warning Canadians should heed: Beware, else we end up with our own versions of Fox News shouting matches, and our own Al Frankens pitted against their Bill O’Reillys in the same degenerate American arguments, carried on in the same American language, and the same hoarse and hate-filled stalemate that has so horribly paralyzed and disfigured American politics."

I know Glavin has gone native, and lives in the heart of the counter culture beast on the Left Coast of Vancouver Island but really where has he been for the last thirty years since we both left university?

We already have those voices on the right, the Ezra Levants, the Fraser Institute, the Byfields, the Alberta/B.C./Western Report, etc etc. They have been around for ages. The right specializes in generalizations and outrageous statements, the social democratic left as I have complained before have been far too polite and nice in debates allowing these screaming ranting right wingers to brow beat them in media debates. Glavin appears to think that some how polite English school boy debate, tea and crumpets, good show ol boy, is the Canadian way.

But back to my main point Anarchism and the Libertarian Left are as Canadian as any other aspect of the New Left or the Old Left. Emma Goldman the famous anarchist agitator traveled across Canada and eventually died in Toronto in exile from the United States. The Revolutionary union, the IWW was active in Canada at the turn of last century and the radicals which formed it went on to form the One Big Union, the OBU. It was reviewed in Canada in the seventies by those of us young anarchists including some of us in CUP. And is is going strong again now.

George Woodcock the famous English professor from UBC and anarchist biographer and historian was one of the earliest promoters of anarchism in Canada in the sixties. By the late sixties the New Left in Canada had a strong anarchist compenent in it based on Our Generation, a magazine out of Quebec which represented what the editors broadly called the Extra Parlimentary Opposition in Canada, that is the New Left.

By the seventies we had Yippies and anarchist collectives in every city in Canada.
And Vancouver, Glavins home town was no exception. It was chock full of anarchists especially around the magazine the Open Road. Which is well documented in Alan Antliffs book Only A Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology

Besides the Social Democratic Left which would influence the Liberals and Progressives alike in the Forties, we had a tradition of both radical Communists and Anarchists in Canada.

Way before Stephen Harper and the neo-cons recuperated the term libertarian it was used by members of the new left. And as I have taken pains to show here on numerous occasions those on the right who call themselves libertarians are merely Lazzie-faire capitalists, not real libertarians.

And one of the major Libertarian theorists in the U.S. was Canadian Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3) who moved to LA from Edmonton. That is truly a 'subtle imperialism'. True SEK3 was a student of Murray Rothbard, the economic historian, who did much to promote the Libertarian ideology that so upsets Glavin and his Red Tory friend. A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION

But Red Tories are really classic liberals, fiscal conservatives and socially liberal. Not unlike Tommy Douglas and the old CCF. In fact that is the history of liberalism, it went from a radical idea to becoming the defender of the status quo. In fact old fashioned political conservatism in Canada is liberal. The success of the Manning Reform party, and indeed the so called libertarianism of Stephen Harper are not based on libertarianism at all but on populism, economic liberalism and American Republican conservatism.

Here is what Murray Rothbard has to say about liberalism the ideology of the Red Tories and the Social Democrats that Glavin claims are as Canadian as maple syrup and beaver pelts.

In England, the classical liberals began their shift from radicalism to quasi-conservatism in the early nineteenth century; a touchstone of this shift was the general British liberal attitude toward the national liberation struggle in Ireland. This struggle was twofold: against British political imperialism, and against feudal landlordism which had been imposed by that imperialism. By their Tory blindness toward the Irish drive for national independence, and especially for peasant property against feudal oppression, the British liberals (including Spencer) symbolized their effective abandonment of genuine Liberalism, which had been virtually born in a struggle against the feudal land system. Only in the United States, the great home of radical liberalism (where feudalism had never been able to take root outside the South), did natural rights and higher law theory, and consequent radical liberal movements, continue in prominence until the mid-nineteenth century. In their different ways, the Jacksonian and Abolitionist movements were the last powerful radical libertarian movements in American life.

Thus, with Liberalism abandoned from within, there was no longer a party of Hope in the Western world, no longer a "Left" movement to lead a struggle against the State and against the unbreached remainder of the Old Order. Into this gap, into this void created by the drying up of radical liberalism, there stepped a new movement: Socialism. Libertarians of the present day are accustomed to think of socialism as the polar opposite of the libertarian creed. But this is a grave mistake, responsible for a severe ideological disorientation of libertarians in the present world. As we have seen, Conservatism was the polar opposite of liberty; and socialism, while to the "left" of conservatism, was essentially a confused, middle-of-the road movement. It was, and still is, middle-of-the road because it tries to achieve Liberal ends by the use of Conservative means.

In other words the anarchist critique of socialism (being the left wing of the socialist movement), has been that its reliance on parilmentary politics and the idea of the seizure of state power by either elections or by revolution is flawed.

The anarchist or libertarian critique has been that social democracy, which is not socialism any more than Bolshevism is communism, is State Socialism, in other words Bismarkian socialism and thus a defense of the status quo. It is reformism an attempt to ameliorate the worst conditions of capitalism. European Social democracy died with WWI when it aided and abetted that war.

In Canada social democracy arose with the coming of the second wave immigrations of Central and Eastern Europeans who brought with them their growing revolutionary aspirations towards socialism and democracy that they lacked in the old country.They came to a Canada dominated by the English ruling classes and a French comprador class in Quebec.Canada's First Internment Camps

After WWI Canada saw the rise of a broad based immigrant workers and farmers movement. And again in the midst of the depression socialist ideas gained hold in the workers movement. After the second World War, the Progressives merged with the Conservatives, the CCF held power over a Liberal minority government, and Canada's war time state capitalist economy under C.D. Howe the Minister of Everything (and a darling of the neo-con right wing today ironically) easily shifted to welfare state capitalism of Keynesian model.

So Glavin and Dart are right in saying Canada's uniqueness in relationship to the U.S. is our social democratic values as a nation. I have said that here many times. That being said the libertarian spirit of Canadians also exists and is expressed on the left as well as the right. In particular in both Quebec and the Prairies where we have struggled against the English colonial mercantilist establishment of Ontario.Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

What Glavin and Dart are attempting to do is identify social democracy with nationalism, with a unique Canadian identity of state capitalism. This is the same ideology of classic liberal nationalists like Mel Hurtig and Maude Barlow who run the amorphous mass organization the Council of Canadians. And while Hurtig is from Edmonton as a capitalist he always aspired, much like Peter Lougheed, to see the West as a real partner in late twentieth century Canadian Politics.

All Canadian nationalism is Ontario centric. It is based on the politics of Ontario's identity in relationship to the Americans and Quebec. Once upon a time Canadian Nationalism was the Ontario English ruling class identity, formed by its special relationship to the British Crown. Later as Canada became ten provinces, Ontario allowed the West to join in 'its' confederation not as a partner but as chattel colony for the mercantilist interests of its ruling class. Rebel Yell

Today Nationalism in Canada reflects the interests of Ontario, not the West or the Maritimes or Quebec. Today's social democrats be they Red Tories, New Democrats or Liberals, still cannot concieve of Canada as a different kind of federation. A more decentralized one, a real partnership, a renewed democracy with greater individual and community control and representation. The Bankruptcy of Liberal Federalism

In fact Toronto has become such a megacity it has veiewed itself as seperate from Ontario for many decades now, which is why Torontonians refer to Toronto, Canada. The base of Canadian nationalism is here in the heart of the beast. All the left has their base in Ontario, their national headquarters are either in Ottawa or Toronto. While capitalism has moved west.

Calgary is the new centre of Capitalism in Canada. Not Bay Street. Winnipeg was once what Calgary is today, the centre of rail, grain, furs and other real exports. Ontario was the industrial heartland where Winnipeg shipped goods to for processing. Winnipeg shared with Chicago the Grain Exchange and the Commodity exchange. Bay Street was le petit Wall Street. Real capitalism in Canada in the 20th Century has been a movement westward.

Toronto and Ontario cling to a rustbelt future, an old conservative elite whose time once was. Today the leaders of the liberal values of the status quo are interchangeable.

We have Bob Rae former NDP leader touted as a potential leadership candidate for the Federal Liberals. His brother already is.

We have the McQuinty brothers representing both the provincial and federal Liberals.

We have Jack Layton a former Toronto city counselor as federal NDP leader now joined in Parliment by his wife, Oliva Chow another former Toronto city conselor.

We have Belinda Stronach, millionaress, business scion of the new capitalism of post-fordism. She went from being a Conservative Leadership contender and MP to being a Liberal Cabinet minister and now MP and potential Liberal leadership candidate.

And we have Buzz Hargrove with his social democratic strategic voting in the last election endorsing the Liberals. While Ford and GM care not a wit who he votes for and still slash Canadian autoworkers jobs.

The political reality of Canada is that the base of social democratic power remains identified with the status quo, with its Nationalism and with its base in Ontario. This can be clearly seen from the last election. Where really nothing changed. The social democratic left is still stronger than the social conservatives who are now the government. But its base is the status quo, not radical change. Voting for Capitalism On January 23

On the other hand the election shows that libertarian/populist radical politics comes from the West and Quebec. Rather than embracing the staus quo as Glavin and Dart suggest, in order to revive a failed dream of a Federal NDP government, the left in Canada needs a good dose of libertarianism to thwart the right. Without it the contradictions of the Harper Conservatives will never be confronted their psuedo-libertarianism never exposed for the Republicanism it is. Whigs and Tory's

Glavin and Dart suggest we maintain the status quo, that the Left subsume itself into parlimentary politics, and existing trade union politics by extension. But the left has been doing that for fifty years and it has gotten us nowhere. It is the politics of the stationary bicycle. The libertarian left wants to put wheels on the bicycle and go somewhere.

See:

The Neo Liberal Canadian State

Historical Memory on the Eve of the Election

LABOUR HISTORY

The Edmonton General Strike Of 1919

Also references in the article: A greater union,

Calgary 1919-The Birth Of The OBU And The General Strike

The CCF:The Original Reform Movement

The Edmonton District Labour Council and Municipal Politics 1903-1906

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