Woolas bites the dust: Surprise as Labour finally punished for breaking electoral law

For those who thought it would never happen, it is wonderful to see a Labour campaign being punished for breaking electoral law. I have crossed swords with the Labour Party a number of times, and never once did one of those campaigns go by without suspicion of dodgy dealings or a phonecall to the police.

Now it could be paranoia, but there’s been enough smoke that I always assumed someone would find the fire, thankfully Phil Woolas has provided. Woolas, who until he was kicked out of his parliamentary seat for breaking the law was a part of Red Ed’s front bench team, has been caught deliberately lying to the electorate.

Almost as worrying as this is that a former Immigration Minister was responsible for distribution campaign literature that could quite easily be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to promote racial tensions for political gain.

It is pleasing to see a Labour MP being punished for breaking electoral law, but it is astonishing that this is such a rare occurrence.

We need to see light at the end of the tunnel

Times are hard, the Coalition is absolutely correct in the action they are taking to reduce the deficit, and they are right not to make light of how serious this situation is. Labour crashed the economy and effectively bankrupted the state, the cuts need to hard and the British people need to adopt a Dunkirk spirit to get through.

However, we need hope. Not fluffy optimism or talk of green shoots, the British people need something tangible, a vision of the future that will help sweeten the pill of the present. Deficit reduction, efficiency savings, welfare reform – all important, but too dry to inspire the masses.

We need projects and plans for when the recovery has been realised, even if they won’t start in this Parliament, people need to believe in the purpose of what we are doing now. We need to sell the vision of what a streamlined, dynamic, competitive, ambitious Britain can achieve. This must include a number of ‘prestige projects’ like the Channel Tunnel or Concorde – achievements that show the world that Britain is open for business and leading the way, not an inefficient socialist quagmire. More importantly, the British people need faith in our collective abilities and a sense of pride that has been sadly lacking for many years.

We need to believe that Britain can be Great again, or it will continue to fade.

Defence cuts: What is Britain’s future in the world?

“Zeal does not rest” is the motto of the HMS Ark Royal, yet as of today it will be rested, permanently.

The flag ship of the Royal Navy, and one of only two operational Invincible Class aircraft carriers in the nations possession, is a high-profile example of the cuts. The Royal Navy is in despair at such a loss, but is it mostly symbolic, or has Britain awoken today a far weakened force?

The problem lies not in the scrapping of the Ark Royal, veteran of the Bosnian conflict and first Gulf, but with the retirement of the Harrier jump-jet and revised plans for the first of the two new aircraft carriers. The first of the new generation carriers will never carry fighter jets, instead it will be helicopter only – providing barely any protection to a fleet.

HMS Illustrious is also due to be scaled back to a glorified heli-pad and retired in 2014.

This first new carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, will only last until the second (HMS Prince of Wales) is introduced to service, which will carry the Joint-Strike Fighter, due in 2020. Until then however, we will have to loan or borrow American or French fighters.

It is an embarrassment and has dealt a fierce blow to the pride of an armed forces already struggling for morale.  More importantly though, it leaves the Royal Navy hugely weakened and British interests vulnerable and strikes of terrible naivety and short-sightedness.

We could not fight the Falklands War again and win under these circumstances, if the Argentinians were inclined to renew their interest in the islands (and the oil). Lets not forget, it was cuts to the Royal Navy at the time that tempted Galtieri to attack. Furthermore, the contribution we could make to any further conflict in the middle east or our ability to intervene in North Korea would be greatly reduced and would require us to rely on other Navy’s for protection.

The baffling part is that the Conservatives remain committed to Trident, a weapon we can never use. They are taking a real loss over a symbolic one. We retain our most impractical weapon, and lose one of the most effective ways to assert British power.

Any country that is developing nuclear weapons will be stopped by force, but by conventional warfare, as we saw in Iraq. A lot can change in 10 years, but I will bet the next decade will leave us wanting for an aircraft carrier, whilst Trident sits redundant.

The Lib-Lab progressive alliance? No thanks, not now, not ever.

There is no doubting that New Labour had a way with words. They used spin and the media with masterful precision during their 13 years in office, as well as employing every dirty trick in the book during elections. Why deliver results when you can come up with a catch-phrase, why campaign on issues when you can scare voters with tales of dastardly Tories.

We all remember ‘education, education, education’, it genuinely gave the impression they had something up their sleeve. Yet education standards in Britain have fallen. Instead of leading the world we are falling back in science, literacy and mathematics. And let us not forget that they ended boom and bust. It is astonishing that it took the British people 13 years to realise that they were surrounded by smoke and mirrors.

Now we have talk of who is and isn’t ‘progressive’. Labour has sought to monopolise this tag, and by refusing an unworkable rainbow coalition we have somehow turned our back on progressive politics. There are those in the media, particularly the BBC, who have once again abandoned impartiality. They are reinforcing Labour’s spin that the Lib Dems ‘betrayed their voters’, well they did not betray me.

Let us make one thing clear – a union with Labour would have done more damage. Labour are a spent force, rejected by the British people. Did we really want to return Gordon Brown to power? No, we supported the party that won the popular vote and had the greatest mandate. This has clearly upset a small pocket on the left wing of the party, many of whom were Labour voters wooed to the party by Charles Kennedy after the invasion of Iraq. If they wish to return, they are free to do so.

But for those who lament for the lost ‘progressive alliance’, they should think of actions rather than soundbites. There is nothing progressive about shredding our civil liberties, there is nothing progressive about illegal warfare, there is nothing progressive about an increased gap between rich and poor. There is nothing progressive about Labour.

We have the most democratic parliament in my life-time with 59% of British voters represented, far more so than by Blair in 97. It is a triumph for democracy and, once we have repaired what Labour has broken, we will prove that you don’t have to be perched on the left-leaning moral high ground to bring about progressive politics. We will make Britain better because we have to, for the Liberal Democrats failure is not an option.