Summer Budget 2015- Summary and Analysis

The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s first fully Conservative budget was a chance for him to play a few political games, to steal some ideas and to revise the approach that he pretended to take in his Autumn Statement 2014, and his final Budget of the last Parliament in March. He had, for example, been expecting to cut hard, and then vastly increasing public spending in 2019/2020 to compensate. The OBR called it “a roller coaster” at the time, and it was suspected that it was a final dig at the Lib Dems and Labour to match the Tories’ fiscal responsibility in the run-up to the General Election. All that being out of the way, we had a first glance at what this Parliament will yield for us all.

Here follows a summary of the announcements and measures introduced in the budget, and what they mean for you.

• Growth in 2014 revised up to 3%, from the 2.6% that was previously forecast
• A well-written budget speech, containing references to Greece, the gift that keeps on giving for the Chancellor. A lot of the PM’s one-nation rhetoric employed, with Osborne calling it a “Big budget for a country with big ambitions”, and chiding Labour by suggesting that “Britain has… Left the age of irresponsibility behind”
• He announced a “Smoother” approach to cuts, and is now planning to end austerity a year later than planned, predicting a surplus by 2019/20 instead of 2018/19.
• He is also proposing to enshrine in law a measure to ensure that Governments always run budget surpluses during times of economic stability. This is a purely political move to draw out Labour and expose them to some ridicule; although they should vote against this restrictive legislation, if they do they will be spun into a corner and look like they are against economic responsibility. The vote is in the autumn so we haven’t heard the last of this one.
• He has committed to fully funding the “Stevens Plan” (a report by the Head of NHS England as to the amount of money they will need in the immediate future), as long as the NHS can find nearly 20bn in “efficiency savings” (i.e Cuts).
• Changes to Non-Dom status mean that it will no longer be a hereditary privilege, and that after 15 years of residence in the UK it is removed. This is a blatant rip-off from Miliband’s Labour election campaign, ruthlessly re-branded as a staple of the Conservative diet.
• Public sector pay rises 1%PA FOR 4years (this doesn’t compensate for the losses these people will feel from changes to tax credits though, low and middle income families WILL be squeezed hard by this budget).
• £7.2Bn predicted to be raised by HMRC tackling tax avoidance, although God knows how they will actually achieve this; Chancellor has promised them nearly £1Bn in extra funding to do so.
• He had a massive, calculated dig at Boris Johnson, offering funding to fix the Battle of Britain HQ in his constituency of Uxbridge whilst mocking him for his floundering campaign to block a third runway at Heathrow airport, saying “let its renovation stand as a monument to… The days when aeroplanes flew freely over the skies of West London”
• Decreasing Bank Levy over next five years is a barely-veiled incentive to keep HSBC’s headquarters in London.
• Student finance- removing cap on student numbers. Maintenance Grant will turn into a loan from 2016/17 and be added to overall debt, increased to £8200 per year available to borrow for maintenance. Student fee cap linked to inflation for “those institutions who can ensure they have a high standard of teaching”, so £9000 is no longer the maximum you can expect to pay per year. (as a footnote, this is what happens when young people don’t vote, and all policy is targeted towards the older generations)
• Cuts to inheritance tax that had the Chancellor proclaiming “The left will never understand this”, funded by pension tax relief cut on those earning over £150,000 per year.
• Corporation tax cut again, from 20% to 18% by 2020, making the UK a magnet for the heavy burden of corporate influence.
• BBC will shoulder the burden of free TV Licences to over-75s (the first in a series of measures expected to “Cut down” the BBC’s link with the taxpayer)
• 18-21s obliged to “Earn or Learn” with a new Youth Obligation
• Abolishing automatic availability of housing benefit for 18-21 year olds.
• WRAG (work related activity group) will no longer be funded (aside from current claimants), and those who would have qualified will receive regular Jobseeker’s Allowance.
• Tax Credits- working age benefits frozen for 4 years. Cuts to working tax credits (the extent of which will be announced later). Child Tax credits capped after the second child from April 2017 (Unless you have twins!)
• “Joint security fund” between Intelligence services and MOD, £1.5Bn to help counter extremism and radicalisation
• The Chancellor finally, after much to-ing and fro-ing within the cabinet, committed to spending 2% of GDP on Defence, in order to meet a NATO target set by Mr Cameron last year. This is doubtless partially in response to the Tunisia attacks last week.
• The Tories have decided to raise the minimum wage for over 25-year olds, and call it a “Living Wage”. It will be compulsory, and should reach £9ph by 2020. This starts in April 2016 at £7.20ph, and is regulated by the low pay commission. The OBR suggest the effect on jobs will not be significant, with 60,000 fewer jobs as a result by 2020 (due to companies simply not being able to pay the wages). Small business national insurance contributions will be cut further to compensate, so that small companies can still compete.

Whether you like some of the measures in this budget or not (and it seems that there is literally something for everyone to love and hate), the Chancellor’s about-turn with regards to the pace of austerity marks an increase in projected spending from the Autumn Statement spending forecast of a cool £83Bn. Smoothing out the roller coaster nature of the plan has vastly changed the outlook for the immediate term.

What is clear, above all, from this budget is that the Tories will continue to heap our country’s woes on the backs of the young, and those who they deem “lazy” or “stagnant”, and continue to ease the burden for those who, in the round, vote Tory. The IFS has said this morning that 13 Million families in the UK will lose an average of £260 a year as a result of the tax credit freeze, and that that may well end up being a disincentive to work. It remains to be seen how many of these policies actually happen, but it is a stark reminder of how an ideological lunge to the right has gripped our politics since the departure of Liberal voices from the cabinet table.

Greece totters on the edge as Tsipras enforces Capital Controls

I had been intending to take a two-week hiatus from politics, and since I took that decision it seems like everything momentous has been happening all at once. Three Daesh-related terrorist attacks in just a few hours rocked the whole world this weekend, with tragic deaths in Kuwait, Tunisia and France constituting the biggest loss of British life in attacks of Terror since the London 7/7 Bombings.

And now, after kicking the can as far down the road as humanly possible, the Greek debt renegotiations are fast disintegrating. A few days ago, with Alexis Tsipras’ government finally putting forward proposals that indicated some compromise, there was hope that a deal would be reached with their Troika of creditors. This situation seems a lifetime away now.

When some reforms had been settled upon and an agreement was in sight, Tsipras played a very political move indeed. Elected on a platform to end austerity policy and stop pursuing economic reform, he would have had a coup on his hands if he had brought back his compromises to Greece. Instead, he called a snap-referendum on the proposals to allow the Greek people to decide what they were and weren’t willing to give to end the deadlock.

The money, however, has now run out. The Referendum is to be the 5th of July, but in the meantime Greece has gone broke. The liquidity lifeline from the Troika (sustaining the country until an agreement could be reached) has now been closed, and so tough measures must follow.

Capital Controls on the economy came into force this morning. Cashpoints are allowed to dispense no more than €60 per day in order to stop the public clearing out the banks, and the branches are all closed until after the vote. 

Foreign transfers to countries outside of Greece are banned (although the rich moved all their money abroad weeks ago), and people have been rushing to stock up on food and petrol to such an extent that Hellenic Petroleum, the main provider in Greece, has called for calm, claiming to have months in reserve. 

The referendum becomes tangibly important as it nears. It is, as the opposition in Greece claim, really a referendum on the country’s membership of the Eurozone, given what will happen if they reject the proposals of the European Commision. Stock markets across the world took a big hit this weekend, opening at around 2-4% down on average, as everybody reacts to try and limit their own losses. 

Some international commentators now predict Greece’s likelihood of ‘accidental’ exit from the EU at 85%. While I myself believe there is a chance that the Greeks (tired of fighting the European Commision) will accept the compromise and retreat to lick their wounds, it is becoming more and more difficult to define the point at which the two sides could meet and yet both proclaim a victory to their own electorate (which is of course the purpose of the talks). But when Tsipras is holding meetings with Putin while his country’s money slips down the drain, and the Troika refuse to at least accommodate Greece’s mandate for change, the result of an exit could be a threat to us all; Russia will happily fund Greece’s debt, but at what cost it remains to be seen.

Corbyn makes the cut by a whisker

After a nail biting conclusion to the nomination saga, it appears that there will be a left-wing candidate on the ballot paper for the upcoming Labour Leadership election after all. 

Jeremy Corbyn, a seasoned backbencher and left-wing Labour radical, had previously not been supported by enough MPs to achieve a nomination (the required number being 35). However a few hours before the deadline today, he gathered the support of some of Mary Creagh’s former followers, newly liberated since she withdrew her candidacy, and crossed the line with literally minutes to spare.

This puts Corbyn, having spent years as a backbencher, in the race to become the next Labour leader and in a fantastic position from which to plug his own brand of anti-austerity thinking, which at least deserves a voice in the parliamentary Labour Party. He knows that if it were down to the party, he would have no chance whatsoever; most of the Labour MPs in the policy-making circles are sure that they lost the election because they abandoned the centre-ground, and that Britain despises the left. There are those in the party that disagree, but the real decider in this election will be the party membership and union votes from the general public. If Corbyn plays his cards right, he will at least be able to influence the direction of travel of Labour’s comeback, and hopefully convince the party that this country grew weary of Old Labour, and weary of New Labour, and that a far more forward-thinking long-termist policy portfolio will need to be crafted if they have any chance of even regaining their lost ground in 2020.

It is not at all an acceptable state of affairs for the only left-leaning party in the House of Commons to be a nationalist and anti-unionist party that only represents one of the four constituent nations of our country. Labour mustn’t be afraid to take a step out into the darkness, to be bold and pioneering in its politics, and to present a viable economic alternative to the one presented to us in “efficiency savings” and “streamlining” doublespeak by the party of Government. If it does that, then maybe the “Tory-light” mantle will be shaken off, and they can stand up on May 8th 2020 with their heads held high. One could look at it as a roll of the dice, but it seems to me that they have very little left to lose.

“Don’t Mention The War”

David Cameron kicked off the latest leg of his “schmooze offensive” on European leaders yesterday with a meeting of the G7 group of nations in Bavaria, hosted by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The festivities involved beer and bratwurst (Obama was in fact pictured swigging a lager at 11 in the morning on a work day, but we’ll let him off), and some of the high-level tactical discussions that will always take place when you put several powerful and dimetrically opposed politicians in a room.

They decided, thankfully, that they were going to end humanity’s contribution to climate change by 2100 (so we can all rest easy in our beds), by switching to completely sustainable sources of energy and ending reliance on fossil fuels as a priority. They apparently did not discuss Greece to any serious extent, but that is hardly surprising as the Germans seem to be moving nowhere on the issue of their finances and the reforms that must be implemented before it can lend Greece more money, to pay back the money it already owes. 

A thankfully staunchly held position by Merkel was the absence of Russian President Putin at the talks. When asked if Russia will ever rejoin the group, she responded that she thought not. “There are channels available for the G7 to easily communicate and negotiate with Russia”, she said, agreeing with President Obama that Russia have isolated themselves, despite the pleas of the European Union for a cessation of Putin’s empirical aspirations.

The hot topic at the event, and one which will remain on the agenda for some weeks yet, was the package of reforms being sought by the Conservatives before the Referendum in 2017. The PM is looking to end the payments of in-work benefits to EU migrants from poorer countries in the union, and an end to the right to claim out of work benefits, child tax credits etc. upon arrival. The problem with these reforms is that they would be severely discriminatory to immigrants from certain, particularly former Eastern Bloc EU countries like Romania and Poland. The PM requires the agreement of all 28 member states of the EU to pass these reforms, and since the last time Cameron put his foot down in the EU (over the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker) he lost his vote 26 nations to 2, that will be a very hard sell indeed.

Regardless of whether he gets what he wants or not, you can be sure that Mr Cameron will step down from an aircraft in a few weeks time, returning from Europe waving a list of his achievements like Chamberlain, and claiming “peace in our time”; he wants to back the In campaign, and although half his party would happily leave Europe today I cannot see him changing his position. 

The current polls suggest that the UK is around 2:1 in favour of staying in the EU in the referendum, with 70% of people saying that they could still be persuaded either way. This battle will be long and hard, but make no mistake, it can be won if the campaign is fought positively. Let us fervently hope that whoever is running the Yes campaign will be thorough, charismatic and engaging, rather than dry, uninteresting and Conservative.

A Tribute to the late Charles Kennedy

Yesterday (June 2nd 2015) the world of Westminster was rocked by the sudden and tragic death of the ex-MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber Charles Kennedy. He was elected to represent the consituency in 1983, and at that point he was the youngest MP in the House of Commons at the age of just 23. Kennedy spent the entirety of his Parliamentary career in opposition, until the 2010 general election and the signing of the coalition agreement. He was the only Lib Dem to abstain from the vote that put them into the coalition, stating that it was “against everything he stood for”; he did not however make any attempt to sabotage the coalition or to bring down the Government, respecting the choice made by his party in spite of his own beliefs.

In terms of consituency MPs he was unparalleled. He grew up as the son of a croft farmer (in the highland tradition), and went on to represent the place in which he had been born and raised. Having entered politics as a member of the Social Democratic Party, he was a pivotal part of the conjunction with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats as we now know them.

When Paddy Ashdown stood down as Leader of the party in 1999, Kennedy was the obvious choice to replace him. This period of his career was perhaps his most celebrated and most infamous simultaneously; he led the party to its best election result in living memory with 62 MPs off the back of an anti-war message in the maelstrom that led up to our involvement in Iraq. He also at this time faced several public embarrassments and claims that he was struggling with a drink problem, and over a period of just a few months he was dislodged from his position and replaced by Sir Menzies Campbell, but this still remains the most politically influential period of his career.

He stayed on in the party as a figure of great respect and gravitas over the ensuing years, whilst struggling with his addiction, his divorce, and the illness of his father. The election came and, despite his own misgivings, Nick Clegg’s coalition agreement brought the whole party crashing down around their ears. Charles lost his seat on the 7th May 2015 (a few weeks after the death of his father), and since then had not been heard from in the media; indeed it was expected that he would be made a peer in the near future and serve a long career in the Lords. 

He was found dead at his home in Fort William, Scotland, in hitherto unknown circumstances on the morning of the 2nd of June, leaving behind a ten-year old son, Donald. Tributes have flooded social media and the news organisations, and the party is currently compiling a book of condolences for the family. The world is mourning the loss of a great hero of the liberal tradition, a loving family man and a great wit too. It’ll be a long time indeed before the likes of Charles Kennedy grace the halls of Parliament again.

Abolish the Human Rights Act: A Red Herring

Since the election there has been much confusion and concern from the public, particularly on social media, regarding the scrapping of the Human Rights Act of the Blair years. The pledge was in the Tory manifesto, the public voted for it, and now it’ll probably happen. But are they really planning on making up their own human rights, ignoring Geneva and plunging us into an INGSOC-style dystopia? Funnily enough, they aren’t.

To say that you are going to “abolish the Human Rights Act” does sound fairly inflammatory, and it is easy to see where people would get the idea that their freedoms will be reduced. The act, however, only serves to enshrine in British Law the judgements and precedents of the European court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, and this does seem a tiny bit mad when we spend public money paying our own Supreme Court to make judgements, that can then be second-guessed and changed by an external third party. 

The next thing you must take into account is the reasoning behind the decision. It is in almost direct response to the attempted extradition of Abu Qatada, the hate preacher and Islamic extremist who is wanted in Jordan on terror offences. 

The opposition to this policy is almost entirely rooted in the rhetoric surrounding it, and even a left-leaning commentator such as myself can see that the Tories, or at least the majority of them, are not trying to be evil here. They are trying to repatriate powers that should, in all honesty, reside in our own judicial system. We can still be signatories of the European Convention of Human Rights, without treating the judgements of that court as more important than those of our own. It is not Euroscepticism, it’s common sense.

Now there are some Tories (unsurprisingly on the right of the party) who want to withdraw from the convention altogether. This sets a dangerous precedent; the only two countries in Europe who have not ratified the ECHR are Kazakhstan and Belarus, both of which have serious histories of human rights abuses. This is not a club we should be aspiring to join, and in a climate in which Cameron is cozying up to every European leader for separate concessions, it is clear that to isolate ourselves in this respect would be detrimental to our bargaining position in the EU. 

The rest of Europe certainly does not want us to leave, and so Cameron must be perceived to have got what he wanted from each of them. There will be no treaty change, that’s for sure. There is much more for us to be worried about over the next five years than the abolition of the Human Rights Act, as long as it is replaced by a British Bill of Rights that enshrines all of the freedoms we enjoy in British law.

Queen’s Speech 2015: Breakdown and Analysis

Yesterday (26th May 2015) featured the Queen’s opening of Parliament, and the Speech in which she set out the Conservative party’s policy agenda for the next five years. The speech is obviously written for her by David Cameron, as it would be highly inappropriate for her to have any actually influence on the running of the country, but it gives us a flavour of what the next five years will feel like. What follows is a breakdown of the key policies announced, and an analysis of the what they could mean for you.

• Ban on Income tax, VAT and National Insurance rises for a five-year period (a result of an electoral gimmick by Cameron that now must be enforced)
• 30 Hours of free child are per week for 3 and 4 year olds, a significant increase from the current figure which will give support to families with children of those ages. It won’t come in until 2017 though, so if your children are 3 or 4 now, hard cheese.
• Working age, tax credit and child benefit freeze until the end of 2017, so no extra help for the disabled, the elderly or the victims of crime regardless of the state of the economy
• A household benefit cap of £23,000 per year, making sure that benefit-reliant families are receiving only the minimum wage.
• “Devo max” for Scotland, and more powers for the Welsh and Irish National Assemblies. Scotland wants full fiscal autonomy (the power to set income tax and control their own finances), but they don’t want it yet, because it would leave them with a £7.5Bn funding gap (IFS), so this is a bit of a shot in the foot for the SNP.
• A ban on legal highs, which is incredibly difficult to legislate for; the current supposed wording is “any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect” which obviously would also ban Alcohol, Tobacco and Coffee, so this will be a difficult area.
• A so-called “English votes for English Laws” bill, which would give English MPs the power to veto decisions which only affect England. This will, again, greatly distress the SNP.
• 500 new free schools and more conversions to academies for failing secondary schools.
• A seven-day NHS by 2020
• A referendum on EU membership by December 2017. This is the big one, folks. It will dominate your TV screens for many months to come; in fact their are many rumours that Mr Cameron will attempt to pull it forward to May 2016, in line with the London Mayoral elections.

With all this and more to look forward to over the next five years, and an opposition that can barely hold itself together, the future looks bleak for the left. All we can do, for now, is make damn sure that we stay in the EU, and attempt to rebuild from there. On the plus side, there is very little left to be lost.

There will be a post at some point in the next few weeks finally detailing the pros and cons of the EU referendum, so if the subject interests you watch this space.

Burnham’s Burning Bridges

As the list of candidates for the Labour leadership begins to solidify, three main contenders have moved themselves into position. Chuka Umunna dropped out last week, and has since backed the underdog, Liz Kendall, in her attempt at the job. Tristram Hunt failed to get the support that he needed to get his name on the ballot paper, and as such has accepted defeat.

One of the main reasons for this (following Ed Miliband’s reforms to the way the party elects its leadership) is that a party candidate needs 35MPs to back their leadership bid as undersignatories. They can then secure a place on the ballot paper, and begin campaigning for the union vote, the votes of Labour MPs and peers, and those of party members in the general public. With over 200 parliamentary representatives, you would think that anyone would be able to find 35 people willing to allow them a shot at the top job, but the other candidates (Burnham in particular) are playing a rather mean trick.

Between Mr Burnham and Yvette Cooper, they have supposedly massed the support of around 130 Labour MPs. They obviously both reached the 35, but they didn’t stop there. In order to reduce the number of candidates and give themselves a better chance (while simultaneously limiting the choice available to the party and the public; both are Blairites in all but name) they have been squeezing the potential vote available to other candidates. This race started with 7 possibles, and it has already been reduced to 3 by their underhanded tactics. There is nothing illegal or unparliamentary about the practice, but it is clearly highly immoral, especially at a time when Labour needs all the choice and variety it can get its hands on. It is also worth noting that in the last contest, in which Ed Miliband famously beat his brother, David reached the 35 some months before, and told all his other supporters to back other candidates, so as to maximise the depth of choice available to the party. You don’t get chivalry like that anymore.

As a final footnote, Burnham has also been the victim of an interesting exposé in the last few days; his housing situation has come under serious scrutiny, and rightly so. It seems that for the last 5 years he has been claiming rent on his London home (used during the week whilst he is at parliament) to the tune of £17,000 a year. There is nothing shocking about this, until you learn that he owns another flat in London, which he rents out to a tenant for roughly the same value. Rather than using his own London house and saving the taxpayer thousands of pounds, he continues to earn a private income, whilst allowing the state to pay for him to live elsewhere. This, surely, must at least tickle his conscience. It’s another The Thick of It prophecy fulfilled, another legal but immoral choice to turn some more people off politics.

I will be backing Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, although my prediction remains that Burnham will win it. What we really need in this country is a Labour with new ideas and new philosophies, for a modern world that exists far removed from politics. What can you expect from Burnham or Cooper? Morally blank, financially dubious, and self-interested policy from a group who think a New New Labour might win again. Labour will not survive on more of the same.

5 Cabinet Appointments to make your teeth curl

Mr Cameron has performed the customary reshuffle that follows an election success, supposedly with both hands tied behind his back; barely anybody has moved from the senior positions, with Home Secretary and Chancellor going to their previous incumbents. It’s fair to say he’s hardly rocked the boat.

The absence of the Lib Dems in government does give him a lot of middle and low ranking positions to dish out to both his friends and enemies within the party, however, and even Boris managed to wheedle his way into the political cabinet (presumably to gain a ministerial role after his term as Mayor of London is over). There are several cabinet appointments that should be treated with great caution, however, and some unstable people in unsuitable roles could give us some serious headaches over the next five years.

The first one to watch is John Whittingdale, the new Culture Secretary. The man is an outspoken critic of the BBC, and the continuation of the licence fee. Now this is a contentious issue, but my own belief is that the BBC is one of the most important state assets we have left. Thatcher sold the railways, Cameron sold Royal Mail, and now it seems he is “declaring war on the BBC”. Before we know it we’ll be watching McDonalds adverts on the last bastion of non-commercial broadcasting. There have been rumours that the Tories were intimidating BBC presenters and producers during the election, and threatening them with the end of the licence fee, so expect to hear more on the issue in the upcoming years.

The second appointment to keep an eye out for is the new Equalities Minister, Caroline Dinenage. Now I’ve always been a lover of irony, but to put a woman who voted against gay marriage in the last parliament in charge of equality in this country seems slightly too much. It’s like he’s daring us to argue. This will surely not be the last skeleton in the new Minister’s closet, so watch this space.

Michael Gove, infamous scourge of the education department and bogeyman to teachers across the country, has been sent to Justice, where Cameron has tasked him with scrapping the 1997 Human Rights Bill, and renegotiating a new arrangement with the EU Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This means we will no longer be required to follow the Geneva convention on human rights, and Cameron’s eventual hope is that we will be able to treat rulings by the court in Strasbourg as advisory, rather than legally binding. That means one rule for us, and another for everybody else in Europe, and indeed the civilised world.

Ian Duncan Smith returns as Work and Pensions secretary, so expect a benefit cap of £21,000, £12bn of welfare cuts included child benefit capped after the second child, and the complete rolling out of the heavily criticised Universal Credit. We’ll hear a lot more about job creation and a lot less about social inequality, food poverty, and working people in poverty. This ideological shrinking of the state, far more than is necessary, will make thousands of lives in this country that much harder.

Theresa May, our newly re-appointed Home Secretary, is also driven a little too far towards the INGSOC side of politics. The so-called snooper’s charter (Draft Communications Data Bill) will give security services the power to get the names and IP addresses of anyone who has accessed a particular site, and it allows them to access the metadata for certain online methods of communication which had previously been unavailable to them. The expansion of state surveillance, regardless of whether the aim is to prevent terrorist attacks and the like, is a dangerous thing indeed; London already has the most extensive CCTV network in the world, and there is no evidence to suggest that, for example, the Charlie Hebdo massacres could have been avoided if these powers had been available to the French.

There are threats to our society and our liberty approaching from all sides, and many more will rear their ugly heads over the next five years than those detailed above. We haven’t even touched, for example, on the question of an EU Referendum. An argument for another day, perhaps.

Loves Labour’s Lost

On the morning of writing, the list of candidates for the Labour leadership has narrowed to 5 names, each with a minimum of 35 MPs behind them. In the scramble to work out what went wrong for the party in the election, two camps have now emerged, and it is from those camps that these new figures draw their potential support. 
The first school of thought suggests that Labour made a mistake ever shifting to the left. The old Blairites, including Mandelson and Alistair Darling, have suggested that the next leader must moderate his message, court business and the banking sector, and move the party into a position from which they can “straddle the centre ground”. Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s former shadow health secretary and rising star in the party, holds this belief. He has now decided that Labour should endorse a quick EU referendum, and that the language of “predators and producers” in business favoured by Ed Miliband must stop.

Burnham is shoe-in for the leadership, having both the highest levels of support from the party so far, and also the endorsement of Len McClusky of the Unite Union, but he is not the only person with his eye on the top job. The former Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has also announced her candidacy, although since then she has not appeared anywhere; perhaps consoling her husband Mr Balls (still bawling of the loss of his constituency) is taking up the majority of her time. 

Mary Creigh, Tristram Hunt, Liz Kendall and, until yesterday when he dropped out due to press pressure, former shadow business secretary Chukka Ummuna had all announced that they would stand. These candidates have not yet made clear in which camp they lie when it comes to the future of the party, but they most likely all disagree with Burnham to a greater or lesser extent.

The other half of the parliamentary party, decimated after the election, seems to think the opposite; Labour lost fourty-odd MPs on election night to a party parading itself as more left-wing, so surely moving too far from the centre was only a small part of Labour’s problem in England. These people proclaim that the loss was down to a lack of narrative from the party, conflicting strategists whispering in Miliband’s ear, and the influence of Americanisation in our politics (based more on personality and less on policy). They won’t tell you what the story should have been, but they will assure you that Labour failed to tell it correctly. Maybe this is true, but if so it is the overarching collective description of hundreds of tiny but noticeable errors in Labour’s public image since 2010.

They allowed the Tories, after the 2008 crash, to sow the venemous line that Labour had ruined the economy. They may have not been running a surplus when times were good, but the people solely responsible for that Great Recession were the bankers and their hyperbolic greed, and to blame the politicians for not noticing how greedy they were becoming is a fatuous argument. The Tories supported deregulation of the banking sector, and actually pushed Labour to go further, such was their passion for the free market. It’s funny how much five years can change things.

Labour has a chance (admittedly small) to recover by the next election. It is my fervent hope that whoever succeeds Ed Miliband will not move the party back to Blair’s New Labour ideology, but whether that happens or not, what the party really needs is a strong leader to strengthen their base and reach out to new voters. Any of the potential candidates could deliver this, but only one of them will get the chance to try.