David Miliband is said to be odds on favourite to win the Labour Party leadership. That’s assuming, of course, that the AV system of voting doesn’t promote a rank outsider to the job, as it has a tendency to do.

Frankly, Diane Abbott would serve them right.

But let’s take Monsieur Miliband’s chances at face value. He is thought to be smart. At least according to a smitten Hilary Clinton, who took an immediate shine to Senor Miliband on a trip to America. We will investigate his “smartness,” or otherwise, in a moment.

His supporters claim he has “bottom,” that is to say, gravitas, presence and leadership qualities coming out of his … well, you get the picture.

The problem for Herr Miliband is that no-one really knows who he is, or what he stands for, and what kind of leader he would be.

Is he authoritative? A Churchill? Clearly not. A thinker, like Harold Wilson, who had so many thoughts he virtually paralyzed himself? A doer, like Clement Attlee, who built a crypto-communist state in this green and pleasant land?

We simply don’t know and would have to take him on trust, as we did with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. That’s not a reassuring thought.

So let’s look at his alleged smartness. In a speech a few days ago, he produced a kind of personal manifesto that he wants to enact across Britain. He thought Gordon Brown would achieve it first, which is why he supported him as Prime Minister. Brown did precisely the opposite, demonstrating that the new would-be Dave does not have good judgement.

I’ve removed the padding from the following passage, leaving the Miliband concept structure in place:

“… we [need] renewal … greater moral seriousness and less indifference to the excesses of a celebrity drenched culture … greater coherence as a government, particularly in relation to child poverty and equality … party reform and a meaningful internationalism … civic morality to champion civility when confronting a widespread indifference to others … optimism born of clear strategy, bold plans for change and reform, a compelling articulation of aspiration and hope.”

Compelling, isn’t it? (Heavy irony alert). It reads like an assiduous, but vacuous, student’s manifesto, packed with nebulous aspirations, but no hard policies, nor any notion of what paying for these empty dreams will cost the nation. Just imagine him on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den trying to raise funding for his scheme.

“Er, what exactly is your product, Mr Milibond?”
“It’s band actually.”
“It’s a rock group?”
“That’s my name.”
“Rock group?”
“No, you don’t understand …”
“We need to know what you have to sell.”
“I don’t want to sell anything. I want to improve society, Europe and the international community.”
“Through rock music?”
“No, politics!”
“Ah, you’re a think tank?”
“No, a party.”
“So you want to set up a party organizing business for … whom exactly: kiddies’ birthdays?”
“No! For the benefit of the people.”
“Which people? We need to know your market demographics.”
“We’re going for the centre ground, plus any minority grouping we can bri… er, persuade to back us.”
“What do you estimate your profits at for years 1, 2, 3 and 4?”
“We don’t do profits, we have deficits every year, so we beg and borrow the rest, mainly from the trades unions.”
“So you have no intention of making money, just surviving on debt?”
“Like the country.”
“You are not a country, Mr Multibond. You are a non-existent company, with no money, no plans, no product, just idle hopes and dreams that have no relevance to the modern business world.”
“Exactly, it’s called the Labour Party. And the name is Mili not Multi.”
“Mr Mili, you’re fired.”

John Evans

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It was a moment of clarity that has been missing from the discourse of the European Union for years. The Chancellor of Germany, increasingly impressive Angela Merkel, announced in Berlin that the future of her country “in Europe” is now at stake.

It could have been a bluff, of course, designed to frighten member states back into line. But surely events have gone beyond that now? In Athens, the Government is under siege by rioting protesters. Three people are reported dead as I write.

Contagion is not just on the horizon, it’s here now, stalking the streets of Portugal, Spain and Italy. On some measures, Ireland and Britain are in there too.

We are in a situation where most countries are facing fearful debt crises, with public debt rising to 100% of GDP, and well beyond in many cases, Greece being a good example. And yet, the tottering Club O’Med countries are being forced to contribute to the bailout of Greece, as is Britain through the IMF segment of the deal. Can’t you just picture a snake eating its own tail here?

Fantasy economics is at play now. The point about debt is that the money has aready been spent. It can’t be reclaimed from an empty pot. Neither can it be magicked away by a debt amnesty. Someone always loses.

When Gordon Brown makes out that “the recession is over”, he fails to convey the fact that the recovery has been bought with staggeringly unsustainable levels of indebtedness, both public and private.

The real level of Britain’s public debt, which includes off-balance sheet items, such as engorged public-sector pension liabilities, plus PFI projects used to build all those schools and hospitals he boasts about, is now around 2.2 trillion pounds. That’s 157% of GDP.

The notional liabilities of nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland alone is said to be four times UK GDP.

Private indebtedness also exceeds Britain’s annual income, and will have to be paid down or written off at some point.

When Brown makes his spurious and profoundly dishonest claim about the recovery, he fails to mention the costs and liabilities he will leave behind when he vacates his office in 10 Downing Street on Friday, or in the weeks to come.

British voters are not stupid. They know his spending promises are as void as any vacuum, which will be Gordon Brown’s bequest to the nation. Inheritance tax was never his strong point.

Many of us have written off the EU in the past, but it’s hard to see how it can survive if its strongest member decides that further participation could bring down its own hard won economic position in the world. As one of the few surplus states it has great strength. But, like China it’s being constantly assailed by debtor nations.

I sense the coming of a new hard core of European states, led by Germany and France on terms that will not attract a Tory Government in Britain.

Glorious isolation is preferable to bedding down with the quarrelsome gang on the Continent.

Whatever results from all this, it’s going to be a turbulent journey.

John Evans

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The Labour Party’s election slogan is typically Gordon Brown, although some say John Prescott “composed” it years ago. Could anything be worse?

The LibDem effort is scarcely better, something about change that works for you. Useless beyond words.

So the Conservative masterpiece needs to be just that. Here are some parameters:

1. Looks to the future without using the word “future”.
2. Condemns the past 13 years without seeming to do so.
3. Totally positive.
4. Simple and snappy.
5. Stays in the memory.
6. Taken in at a glance.
7. An implied invitation to participate.

Surely an impossible task?

As a public service, Syntagma has reached deep into the little grey cellbox to produce this:

I was once a professional copywriter in the City, and wrote that famous slogan for BT’s Telex:

It was just unfortunate that telex was replaced a few months later by the fax machine. Ah, well, you can’t win them all.

Harriet Harman must be pleased. Her Equality Bill appears to be having a profound effect on David Cameron — if not the Pope.

Cameron’s apparent loss of strength in recent weeks, his dithering and wobbling on major issues, is creating a level playing field at the top of British politics.

None of us knows what will happen on polling day. My best guess is that the current closeness in the numbers — pointing to a hung Parliament — is wrong for one simple reason. On the day, many supporters of other parties, don’t-knows and stay-at-homes, will swing behind the Conservatives just to get Gordon Brown out.

I may be wrong, but I have a strong hunch it will happen. Of course, the effect may not be enough, especially if Cameron goes into the campaign proper looking like a frightened fawn in a car’s headlights.

People vote for strong leaders, more so in times of acute stress. Watching clips of Tony Blair in recent weeks reminds us that, although he is a fluffier and weaker character than Cameron, he was relentlessly emphatic in his declarations. Despite the chaos and turmoil in Number 10 during his premiership, he always looked in charge front-of-house.

Cameron needs to show just that now. Take the recent shimmy backwards over deficit cuts: “There will be no swingeing cuts at first.” Weakness personified, and possibly his biggest mistake so far.

He might have said: “You can be sure we will deal firmly with the deficit, but until we’ve seen the state of the books in office, and made an assessment of the economy as a whole at that time, we can’t begin writing a detailed Budget.”

Voters do understand honesty and plain common sense. Brown would jeer from the sidelines, but the message will have got through.

David Cameron’s unredeemed “cast-iron guarantee” over the Lisbon Treaty has also inflicted enormous damage on the Tory leader. As Syntagma has written many times, a simple pledge to negotiate a trade-only agreement with Brussels would cauterize that wound and bring over many UKIP votes at the election.

At present in Parliament, Douglas Carswell MP is moving a Bill for a referendum on quitting the EU. He should be supported by his colleagues. Best get it over now or this subject will haunt the leadership after a year or two of government. Some people don’t go into politics to watch the handover of their country to a foreign power.

Such a move would also be in the best interests of the country and make deep cuts in public spending without impacting on services in the UK. It’s a win-win decision and would confer on Cameron a sense of strength and purpose.

As for the rest, a careful building of the manifesto will suffice. He only needs one big symbolic policy, that neither Brown nor Clegg can match, to lift his profile far above theirs.

I once watched an adobe house being built in a day. It had one central support, a giant tree trunk planted firmly in the ground. Around it were attached supporting poles producing a kind of grand tepee. Wattle was intertwined into the supports, followed by dollops of adobe, or mud. It looked quite grand when it was finished and was, I’m told, very cosy in winter, and cool in summer.

It could be a template for the Conservative election campaign. At present, there’s lots of wattle and small sticks around, a few supporting lathes have crept in, together with a pile of mud. No central trunk is yet visible. This house does not look viable as it stands.

Time is getting short. David Cameron needs to play his big card before he loses any more impetus. The more the polls narrow, the more confident Labour looks and the less Prime Ministerial the Tory leader.

The trunk I’m suggesting is unanswerable by the other parties, so can safely be launched early. It would transform the election overnight. The numbers would swing back towards the Conservatives, and the more criticism Cameron was subjected to, the more it would play into his hands.

More than that, the declaration would confer strength and much-needed trustworthiness on the Tory leader. I know from talking to people that his abandonment of the pledge to take the question of Europe to the country has shattered his credibility in many of the minds he will need to win.

This is an election winner, especially with the eurozone splitting into two warring camps as we speak. Every mention of this policy would bolster support for the party.

We keep our promises, he could rightfully chant throughout the election campaign. Brown would be on the back foot all the way to ignominious defeat.

John Evans

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