Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

The Government will offer free personal care in their own homes for those with the “highest needs”. This could benefit up to 350,000 people.

Legislation will be brought in to halve the current deficit and increase financial regulation

Commitment to ensure 0.7% of GDP for International Development

The Government will seek to abolish child poverty by 2020.

There will be a bill to continue the reform of the House of Lords

Other issues include:

Measures to deal with anti-Social behaviour

A Bill to enhance digital communications

A Bill to enshrine education guarantees

An Energy Bill to support carbon capture and storage

High Speed Rail Bill

Flood protection measures

Devolving more power to Wales

Legislation to ban cluster munitions

No real surprises contained in the Speech. More details will be provided on the content of the speech and on the Speech debate in the House of Commons later this afternoon.

As the Queen arrives at Westminster it is worth remembering that the Monarch is not permitted to enter the House of Commons and is only allowed into the Palace of Westminster by invitation. It remains the only royal palace to which the Monarch has no automatic right of entry.

Charles I was the last Monarch to enter the Commons in 1642 when he attempted to arrest John Pym and four other Members of Parliament for treason. The Speaker William Lenthall, when asked to point out the conspirators famously replied:

“May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”

However, the Monarch has been invited today to open Parliament and she has now arrived at the Monarch’s entrance.

Black Rod will approach the House of Commons and the door will be ceremonially slammed in his face. He will ten use his rod to knock the door three times. This is to allow the Commons to confirm that he is not the Monarch and signifies that although the Monarch is on the premises he is merely a messenger delivering her command.

The Yeoman of the Guard (the queen’s bodyguard) have searched the cellars at the Palace of Westminster. A tradition that dates back to 1605 and the gunpowder plot to blow up the Palace of Westminster.

Although the occasion is primarily remembered for Guy (Guido) Fawkes and commemorated on Guy Fawkes’s night on the 5th November each year, the principal conspirator was Robert Catesby

He died in a shoot out with the King’s supporters some days after the discovery of the plot. Now largely forgotten, Catesby was one of the leaders behind the plot while Guy Fawkes was only a minor figure.

In another nice historical touch, Parliament has to send a “Hostage” to Buckingham Palace and (s)he must be in place before the Queen can leave for the State Opening. This is to ensure the safe return of the Monarch - a little dramatic nowadays perhaps but more essential in Britain’s turbulent past.

The 13th Queen’s Speech by a Labour Government (and possibly the last for a while) takes place in the House of Commons today.

The Queen will set out the Government’s policies for the forthcoming few months before the next General Election. In common with the past few years, the content of the Speech has been substantially leaked in advance so there should be no real surprises.

The legislative agenda is likely to include Bills on Education and Families, Crime and Security, Social Care, Energy and Health.

The timings for the Speech are as follows:

Royal Procession to arrive at the Palace of Westminster at 11.15am.

Queen’s Speech will take place at 11.30am (approx) the Queen will read the speech from the throne in the House of Lords

Motion for the Humble Address will commence at 2.30pm in the House of Commons and 3.30pm in the House of Lords

Throughout the day we will keep you updated on the Bills as they are outlined.

The Queen's Speech - far from a royal affair.

On Wednesday this week the Queen will stand before the House of Lords and present the Government’s agenda for the coming year. This is an extremely important event; a chance for the Government to highlight its upcoming priorities and for the opposition parties to take them to task over their proposals and suggest how they would do things differently. With a General Election to be called by June 2010, this is to be the last Queen’s Speech before the election. For this reason I’d like to take a look at the importance of the speech and give some predictions of what to look out for:

Why is the Queen’s Speech important?

I think there are three fundamental reasons that this year’s Queen’s Speech is so critical:

• Policy: In a normal year the Queen’s Speech is important because it sets out the Government’s policy agenda for the coming year and outlines the Bills that will be proposed. As this is an election year the speech is essential as it is one of the Government’s last chances to state publicly and formally their agenda for the coming year and stake a claim to hold onto power come the election. It is also a good opportunity to draw the battle lines with the Conservative Party on key policy issues such as finance, education, crime and health ahead of the General Election. For this reason the opposition parties will be looking to discredit the Government and highlight their own policy priorities
• The Polls: 4 of the last 5 UK polls have put the Conservative Party 14 points ahead of the Labour Government with the Lib Dems trailing 4-10 points behind Labour. Taking the average scores for each party over the last five polls the Conservative Party would have a majority of 58 if these trends were reflected at the next General Election. But just a 2 point drop for the Conservatives and a 2 point rise for the Labour Party would deliver a hung parliament. So for Labour the Queen’s Speech is a chance to showcase a range of policies and hopefully reduce the Conservative Party’s poll lead. For both opposition parties it is a chance to analyse Gordon Brown’s proposals; discredit them and promote their own policies. It is important for the Conservative Party and Lib Dems not to give way significantly to Labour in the polls and it gives the opposition parties a chance to look at some of Labour’s headline policies in detail and criticise them publicly
• Time is running out: With only 70 more sitting days of Parliament until the next election Labour only have three big opportunities to state their case before the election is called: The Queen’s Speech; the Pre-Budget Report and the Budget. Of those three opportunities the Queen’s Speech is most focused on policy direction and prospective bills and sets the policy agenda. Also, it does not have to focus so much on important economic figures such as economic growth and unemployment, which have been sources of distress during the economic downturn. The opposition parties will be keen for the Government not to steal a march in the polls on the back of the Queen’s Speech. They will see it as a small victory if the polls do not radically change on the back of the Queen’s speech as it will mean that Labour are running out of high profile opportunities to change public perception.

What is predicted?

The Speech: It is suggested that Gordon Brown will go for a short sharp Queen’s Speech highlighting headline bills on: fiscal responsibility; social care; energy; policing and crime; health and education. Gordon Brown is clearly gearing these bills up to be the basis for his election manifesto and it is being suggested that the Bills to be proposed are specifically targeted at areas that the Conservatives have opposed, such as targets in the NHS and the DNA database. This is clearly throwing the gauntlet down to the Conservatives Party and defining the political battlegrounds between the two main parties before the election. The Government are looking to take the initiative and outmanoeuvre the Conservative Party in key policy areas.

The Conservative response: The Conservatives are likely to oppose the Speech in two different ways. Firstly, David Cameron will almost certainly criticise Gordon Brown for announcing policies late in the day; not having the time to bring them through before the next General Election and that this is blatant headline chasing, which does not change the fact that Gordon Brown has lost the voters’ trust. Secondly, each Shadow Secretary of State will outline both the principles they disagree with in the Speech and the detail. They will be looking to define their position in opposition to the Government’s proposals. The Conservative Party will face a race against time; they will want to wrest control of the electoral battleground from Labour by defusing any popular Labour announcements made in the Speech and highlighting their counter measures. David Cameron will want to try and focus media attention on Gordon Brown’s weakness and the failings in the Speech rather than allowing the media debate to focus on Brown’s new policy announcements.

The Lib Dem approach: As the third largest party the Lib Dems are in a difficult position. The Leader, Nick Clegg, has come out and called for the Queen’s Speech to be scrapped in favour of an emergency announcement on political reform. Clearly this is not a viable option as the speech is a long-standing tradition, but it has given Nick Clegg front-page media attention before the Speech and gives him a platform from which to discredit the Government’s proposals. For Nick Clegg it is a case of chasing any possible headlines lest the Lib Dems be sidelined in favour of the main battle between the Conservative Party and Labour Government.

These are just predictions of course, so follow Ruder Finn on this blog and on Twitter (@Ruderfinnuk) on Wednesday 18^th of November from 11am for our build up and live minute-by-minute analysis of the Queen’s Speech.

Please leave your own predictions or any insights as I would love to have a flavour of any important issues people are focusing on or awaiting from the speech.

Reports have popped up this morning after the announcement that Downing St is to review its press lobby methods and the rumours are Peter Mandelson may become the second most visible government member behind Gordon Brown, if he wasn’t already, by giving weekly televised press briefings.

Of course, this is tip of the hat to the fact that Brown is not the great communicator that Tony Blair was, but we all knew that. Having Mandy act effectively as Press Secretary, is an extremely clever move.

In place now is the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson (PMOS), Simon Lewis, who previously worked for the Queen as well as the private sector, in particular Vodafone.

But the PMOS’ briefings are daily but don’t necessarily sell Government policy, although naturally it does toe the party line as you would expect. It is more reactive rather than proactive process, fielding questions from the press regarding policies and issues of the day to clarify or confirm, not necessarily sell. The meatier issues are announced at the PM’s monthly press conference or during any ad hoc policy announcements or press conferences.

But from what I’ve read, televised, weekly press conferences would be designed to explain the Government’s messages and policies in the run up to the next election. This will be especially useful to highlight the budget bonanza that I think we can all expect from the Government, especially if the UK is showing growth as has been predicted.

What is missing from the Labour Government at the moment is a clear and effective messenger. The policies are there, but they are being lost in a sea of errors and poor news cycles, the mums.net biscuit farce and the Gordon Brown condolence letter are perfect examples. A messenger is the key.

It is common knowledge that Mandy is one of the smoothest political operators around. Whether you like him or loathe him, that’s a pretty universally view, especially amongst MPs I’ve spoken to. If you watch him against the hardest journalists like Jeremy Paxman or Andrew Marr, he still somehow charms them.

With Mandy helping to sell the message on a weekly basis, this could maybe get Labour back on message.

Thoughts?

Cross posted with my personal blog.

I love the way new media and digital communications have become intertwined with political discussion. It will hopefully lead to a bright future of government, political debate, public interaction and general engagement. But It is important to remember, just because it is a public conversational tool, doesn’t mean you need to have a public conversation. People who use social media for reasons other than just saying hi to your friends, should be clever about it and aware of potential ramifications, especially people who are in positions of respect and power.

This was what David Cameron meant when earlier in the year he said that twitter could cause problems for MPs because tweets can be taken out of context or the MPs could get involved in conversations that normally they shouldn’t. These conversations are also permanent and can be dug up at any time.

It is with these comments in mind, over the past few days, I have been watching an argument between Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour Twitter Tsar and Shane Greer, the executive editor of Total Politics.  Both of these people are in positions of power and respect. A senior and respected Member of Parliament on one side and a journalist who has a vast number of followers and loyal readers and edits a magazine with no-particular party politic on the other. People follow what both of these individuals say with interest and they, as a people’s representative and as a member of the fourth estate respectively,  are in a position where it is important where they act and carry themselves properly.

But as you can see from this twitter conversation, things have become a bit out of hand. Remember this all started over what music people should like as a display of their political ideals.

I won’t go into detail about what each said, but to be sure, it has clearly been a case of misrepresentation by both parties. Kerry McCarthy is at fault because she took the bait. But what is concerning is she has taken the bait before as you can see from these conversations with Nadine Dorries MP. In this case, as the Labour Twitter Tsar, Kerry should know better.

Shane Greer is at fault because from what I read, he is being antagonistic from the start. Reacting to a reasonably irreverent comment from Kerry, Shane has gone overboard. The tweet that made Shane bite was “@wallaceme @shanegreer To use that well-worn political phrase, I’m not taking any lessons about Northern Ireland from you two. Or music.”

As you can see, Shane went into a diatribe about being from Northern Ireland and his time there which sounds awful. But if Kerry hasn’t met him or heard his accent and she is right, there is no reason for her to research Shane’s birthplace or personal history. She is also right to suggest it is fairly egotistical to suggest she should know his heritage and she is right to not apologise. He then proceeded to blog about it with gusto.

A spat between these two is fine, it happens. But when these two started off at each other, each others followers and supporters joined in and attacked each other. Together they produced this;

• Kerry digs a hole
• The charmingly titled post Kerry is a weapons-grade *&$% end
• Precocious Punk Girl Kerry McCarthy
• Greer’s Law: Kerry McCarthy responsible for Irish Troubles
• As well as a large number of tweets over the matter from everyone’s respective cronies. Here is a sample.

As I said, both of these people are in positions of power and respect. Arguments like this turn people off politics, getting involved at the local level and engaging. As you can see, it is a pack mentality, but that is politics, but sometimes, someone needs to be the adult.

This whole argument won’t have any severe ramifications. It won’t lead to resignations and won’t even make the news. But it turns people off. As I said, it is important that people use social media conversational tools wisely.

What are your thoughts?

Cross posted with my own blog.

As a Public Affairs Consultant it has struck me as very odd that the Copenhagen Conference - set to begin in under a month - has no confirmed attendees. The UN announced over the weekend that they had assurances from 40 heads of state, but formally no-one is set to attend, which is merely fuelling speculation that the event will be a flop. When organising events for clients it is essential to get the messaging right before the event: it is key to have a good bill of attendees lined up and to put time into strategic promotion of the event. If an event is organised with assurances rather than confirmed attendance and there is a raft of negative media coverage then, suffice to say, it is bound to bomb.

Why is it then that the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference has fallen down this route? It may be that negotiations over what the conference will actually achieve are still ongoing. But even taking this into account there has been a severe lack of strategic organisation around the attendee list. Surely the UN still desperately wants world leaders to meet at Copenhagen, even if proposals are weaker than hoped for.

Firstly, organisers should have invited delegates months ago, the formal invitations should have gone out in the summer and the haggling over attendance should have taken place several months ago. Having left this element to the 11^th hour, there is a chance that at the last minute all goes to plan; but the conference has been tarnished by two months of speculation about the attendees. Still no formal invitations have been sent and so the press have no stories to run except intrigue about who might not attend and how the conference is breaking down.

Secondly, why is it that there has been such a breakdown between Barack Obama and the organisers? There have been rumours swirling for weeks that he may not attend. He has not come out and dispelled this myth and nor have any officials from the conference. Surely both Obama and the conference organisers realise how damaging this has been for the conference. Since September the image of the conference has changed from a landmark event to solve the biggest problem facing the planet to just another global conference, already destined to fail. Why have Obama’s spokespeople and the conference spokespeople not put up a united front in their messaging? Instead there has been division, which has made Obama, who has put tackling climate change at the centre of his promises, seem hypocritical and has made the conference seem impotent.

It is a tragic failure that a fantastic event such as the Copenhagen conference seems to have fallen because of communications failings. Even though there may still be successful resolutions coming out of Copenhagen, I think the negotiations will be all the harder with such an intense media glare waiting for the conference to fail. In fact this negative pre-conference atmosphere might scupper this magnificent opportunity for global dialogue on climate change and cast Copenhagen into the vast pile of what if? moments in history.

Let me know what you think. Should the UN have tried harder to commit world leaders to attend Copenhagen?

The Internet has been changing every facet of modern life, even the mother of parliaments (at least to a certain extent anyway). An exact state of affairs at parliament would be tricky to gauge, as innovation seems to be happening in different places.

Examples include the recent guide to Twitter, published by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which outlined how the micro-blogging service could be used to share policy information and engage the general public around issues of interest.

The main political parties have shown enthusiasm in adopting social media as well, although this hasn’t necessarily translated across to their respective Parliamentary Members where there is the more familiar range of adoption patterns from early adopters to laggards to complete technophobes. Pretty much every Member of Parliament and election candidate not contesting a safe seat has a web presence of some sort, whether that is through a party backed website, or through extensive social media branding. Most of these are run through constituency or Westminster offices however, there are few MPs who are leading the way in the digital space.

Amongst the social media front-runners are:

• Tom Watson. The Labour Party MP for West Bromwich East is known for being the first blogging MP and lists the digital world and social media as being keen personal interests
• Kerry McCarthy has been made Labour’s Twitter Tsar, managing social media engagement in the lead up to the next General Election, as well as being an active tweeter and blogger
• Jo Swinson. The Lib Dem MP for East Dunbartonshire has 1.901 followers on twitter and may have been the first MP to tweet from the House of Commons Chamber and was definetly the first MP to mention Twitter in a Parliamentary Debate
• Tom Harris. Tom Harris, the Labour MP for Glasgow South, was recent voted the best MP, Scottish and Left-of-Centre blog by readers of Total Politics
• John Redwood MP. The Conservative MP for Wokingham was recently voted the second best MP blog by Total Politics readers, losing his number one position last year to the aforementioned Tom Harris

Apart from the lack of uptake of social media tools across the Parliament as a whole, the biggest area where there seems to be a lack of understanding about social media is that it is a conversation. Although Twitter lends itself nicely to sound bites there doesn’t seem to be that much political engagement going on. There also doesn’t seem to be that much awareness about the impact of what they can be talking about. For instance, one MP recently complained about the workload required to deal with constituents. In another case, an automatic news feed on Peter Hain’s Facebook page prominently displayed an embarrassing piece of coverage.

Peter Hain's Facebook Feed

Despite the high profile digital campaign of Barack Obama, the US generally isn’t anywhere near the level of near universal digital and social media adoption that one would expect. For example only 29.5 per cent of US Congress members and Senators are on Twitter – 123 House members and 35 Senators out of a possible total of 535. .

But the fact is, the next election is going to be a hard fought campaign and this is likely to have a transformative effect on digital politics as a new generation of politicians come through.

So where is the opportunity in digital for parliamentary and public affairs campaigns?

The most obvious use of social media is for campaigning as it is easy to demonstrate support for a cause, through re-tweets or number of members in a Facebook group. Social media both facilitates and reveals groundswells of popular support. Nixon’s famous silent majority, are no longer silent or invisible to politicians.

For electoral candidates, Obama’s secret was always to tweet asks and Calls-to-Action and this should be harnessed by MPs or PPCs. There is no particular need for an MP to tweet about what they are having for breakfast, although the ‘inane’ tweets do personalise the tweeter so they can be beneficial.

But the key is, actively engage and converse with users online by asking supporters, party members and voters to do something. Come to my rally, get one friend to help deliver leaflets, donate £5 to the party, come knock on doors with me. Tweets like these that actively call for support and include the public are far more likely to help the candidate get elected.

This method of personalised engagement and Calls-to-Action can also be harnessed for out and out public affairs campaigns. It isn’t something that will transfer well to asking for support for a bank’s or defence company’s campaign, because the public will always be wary of sinister motives. But it will transfer brilliantly to campaigns surrounding NGOs, charities, patient groups, green and sustainability projects, local engagement and welfare organisations due to the need to rally support through calls-to-action.

A second and underrated factor is providing content for researchers. Like the rest of the UK, parliamentary researchers will often hit Google as their first point of call when finding out about a new subject and developing a point-of-view for their MP. Providing the freshest, most relevant content around a particular area, particularly if it has an industry rather than a specific corporate slant is one of the best ways to influence from a digital point-of-view.

There has been an increasing level of political social media analysis in the recent months. Tweetminister essentially aggregates tweets by Members of Parliament, as well as blogs on interesting issues surrounding communication and an open Parliament while the Hansard Society has recently published a report into the use of Facebook by MPs.

We would love to hear your views on the matter, so please feel free to leave comments.

Cross posted with my personal blog

The Lib Dem’s seaside conference

The Lib Dem Conference this year seems to have been more exciting than usual. I am afraid to say that too often I have dismissed it as a warm up for the main two conferences. But this year it has delivered a punch.

Whether you love Nick Clegg or you see him as a David Cameron downgrade, this year he has brought greater presence and press coverage to the conference than before. The newspapers have followed what, in particular, Clegg and Cable have had to say.

The two dominating policy announcements for me have been the ‘Mansion Tax’ - Vince Cable’s announcement that people with houses over £1 million would be charged a tax at 0.5% on the value of a house above this amount and Nick Clegg’s announcement of ’savage’ cuts.

These two issues gained great coverage. Cable’s was seen as wooing the left whilst Clegg’s was an admission that the Recession would lead to inevitable funding squeezes and the Lib Dems admitting that the way ahead would be difficult. With both of these two policy announcements the Lib Dems got the communications right, but the process and messaging wrong.

With the ‘Mansion Tax’ Vince Cable received great coverage and it has been debated widely in the press and on news channels. In fact people have been scrutinising it as if it could be introduced by a Government. This shows that the Lib Dems have been taken more seriously at this conference.

But equally that is why it has received so much criticism. Vince Cable was opposed by many colleagues on the issue, consulted thinly with MPs and has now admitted that he may need to consult more on the idea before updating the terms of it. In fact the initial big splash it gained has now been tarnished by the in-fighting that has followed. It has been a case of big splash with poor messaging.

Similarly Nick Clegg’s announcement of ’savage’ cuts was a strong call that gained a great deal of coverage, but again the messaging and PR behind the announcement was extremely poor. Nick Clegg has not thought through the messaging because ’savage’ cuts, as opposed to just ‘cuts’, suggests that frontline services will suffer. Again it is a case of Lib Dems making a great deal of noise and being scrutinised seriously and being found wanting on their messaging.

Overall the Lib Dems seemed to make progress this conference, being taken seriously. But their messaging has been found wanting. They need to now work out their proposals tightly and sell them with the right language that says they are a party that can govern not just a third option.