Ed Miliband to David: "Please Come Back"

Labour leader wants his brother in his shadow cabinet

With all the bad news piling up for Labour leader Ed Miliband, he could certainly use some good news.

The news he would welcome most is embracing his brother David back into his inner circle.

As Miliband prepares to promote a number of women within his shadow cabinet -- including Yvette Cooper -- what Miliband really covets is the return of his brother.

"David is a massive asset to our politics and our party," the younger Miliband declared. “And I’ve always said I’d be happy to have him back, I want to have him back. But in the end he’s got to decide what’s the right thing for him to do.”

After the 2010 Labour leadership contest, the elder Miliband decided the right thing for him to do was sit on the backbenches. But with Labour struggling in Parliament and suffering in the eyes of Britain's political class, Ed Miliband needds a game-changer.

The addition of David Miliband to his shadow cabinet could be that very game-changer. But it seems tension between the two siblings could be preventing that from happening.

“It was a difficult leadership contest that we had. It was difficult for us. The reason I stood is because I felt I had something distinctive to say and I said it yesterday [in my conference speech]," the younger Miliband explained. "That is was why I ran. That’s what I believe. That’s why I think society needs to change.”

For his own part, David Miliband is focused on grassroots organizing for a Labour Party that has come to tend to neglect that key part of political organizing.

“It is my way of supporting Ed, supporting the party and helping us back into Government," the elder Miliband explained. “He’s been very supportive, the party’s been supportive, which is good."

The problem for David Miliband is that the weak leadership being provided by his brother threatens to undermine any gains he makes through grassroots organizing. Perhaps it isn't merely Ed Miliband who needs his brother in the shadow cabinet. Perhaps David Miliband needs to be there to shore up his own gains.

Either way, the Miliband brothers are better off working together within the shadow cabinet. Even if David doesn't see that, Ed keenly does. How could he not?

Sack Balls, Screw the Unions

Ed Balls helped create British fiscal mess, cannot remain Shadow Chancellor

If Labour leader Ed Miliband has a single, overriding problem, it comes in the embodiment of his Shadow Chancellor of the Excchequer, Ed Balls.

As a former Secretary to the Treasury -- charged with heloing manage Britain's public finances -- Balls had a direct hand in the profligacy that has led to the current state of the UK's finances.

Yet he has the temerity to stand as Shadow Chancellor, even as he continues to avoid admitting his part in the ballooning of Britain's public debt.

Terry Smith, the President of Tullet Prebon, has had enough. He says it's time for Balls to depart from Ed Miliband's shadow caucus.

“He is in total denial about the fact that Labour was running a deficit years before the financial crisis struck and seems to think that we can borrow and spend our way out of a crisis caused by excessive debt,” Smith declared. "There is no avoiding the fact that Labour ran a growing deficit from 2002 as the economic boom was heading towards its peak”.

Smith charges that Balls, as well as Gordon Brown and those others tasked with keeping Britain's finances on the rails, put political expediency far ahead of responsible fiscal management.

“Moreover, the government spending which led to this deficit before the banking crisis struck was wasteful, unproductive and cynically aimed at buying the loyalty of a growing dependent section of the population to the Labour Party,” Smith continued.

Ed Balls wasn't the only thing on Smith's mind. He also declared the pensions owed to public service employees to be unviable, and suggested they should be cut back.

"Unviable because we cannot sustain a system in which people can retire and live for another 20 years at the expense of the state,” he explained. “This was never the intention of the original social security systems and it has been made unviable by improvements in health care and life expectancy.”

Smith has presented Ed Miliband with some difficult choices. Certainly, labour unions will never tolderate a Labour leader who pushes back against their unsustainable pensions. Certainly, the left wing of the Labour Party will bristle at Ed Balls being relieved of his duties.

Smith suggests that Balls should be shuffled to the most junior shadow cabinet post in existence. Ed Miliband would be better off shuffling Ed Balls out of politics altogether.

Balls, and his allegiance to the unions, are relics of an old left-wing politics that has catastrophically failed in Britain. If the Labour Party is to survive -- and its survival is far from guaranteed -- they will need to find a new brand of left-wing politics that can account for and repair the damage done by Ed Balls and his associates.

Ed Miliband and the "New Centre"

Labour leader politely tells Tony Blair to stuff it

In an interview with the BBC, Labour leader Ed Miliband has dismissed concerns voiced by former Prime Minister Tony Blair that settling on the left will doom the Labour Party to a future of electoral defeat. Blair has urged the Labour Party to move closer to the political centre.

Miliband disagress on what the centre is.

"Tony Blair is entitled to his view, I've had conversations in private which have been good conversations with Tony Blair but let me just say this - it all depends on where you think the centre ground is," Miliband said. "I'm absolutely a leader placing my party firmly in the centre ground but there's a new centre ground in our politics."

"The new centre ground, for example, that means you speak out on these issues of press responsibility, a new centre ground that says that responsibility in the banking system - which we didn't talk about enough when we were in government - is relevant, a new centre ground that says people are worried about concentrations of private power in this country when it leads to abuses," Miliband declared. "And that's the new centre ground."

As with so many things, the Labour leader is flat-out wrong. He's wrong in his preoccupation with countering "private power". Abuse of public is the far-greater threat.

Certainly, private power can lead to abuses. But there are already mechanisms within society to handle these abuses: criminal law.

But there are entirely too few societal mechanisms equipped to deal with abuses of public power. The greatest threat of abuse of public power in Britain has always been the Labour Party.

For evdience of this, one needs look no further than the saga of the Militant Tendency, a group that managed to seize tremendous influence within the Labour Party in the 1970s and 80s. A hardline Marxist group, the Militant Tendency demanded the "nationalization of the commanding heights of the British economy". They even managed to ram a policy resolution through the 1972 Labour Party convention.

It wasn't until former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock recognized the threat the Militant Tendency posed to British civil society that they were expunged from the Labour Party. If not for Kinnock's wisdom, the threat may have never been dealt with.

Some doubt that the modern Labour Party possesses Kinnock's wisdom. Much more recently, Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar and Limehouse, and former Minister of the Environment, has warned that the Labour party has been infiltrated by radical Islamic groups that aim to re-establish Britain as a Muslim theocratic state governed by Shariah law.

Using state power -- also described as public power -- to force Britons to live under the tenets of Shariah law would be the ultimate abuse. Fitzpatrick seems to be convinced that the Labour Party isn't taking this threat seriously.

While Miliband may be more interested in milking the News of the World scandal for all he can get, and pretending that his party's experimentation with "tripartite" economic regulation, which routed Britain's ability to regulate the amount of debt assumed by British finanical instutitons, wasn't partially to blame for the economic meltdown, it's important to remember that it's the Labour Party's flirtations with tyranny that have been most destructive to the British polity.

Ed Miliband would prefer that Britons be concerned with what unethical journalists or reckless financiers are doing than what elements within his own party would do with the public power they so desperately covet. As long as they can describe themselves as "the left", Miliband may be truly blinded to their corrosive influence.

Time For Greece To Put On Its Big Boy Pants

Britain determined to leave Greece to save itself

Even as Greek protesters continue to throw temper tantrums in the streets, objecting to the austerity program that could rescue the country from the fiscal abyss, British officials are treading very carefully in regards to any bail out to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debts and keep it within the Euro.

Britain, however, has no plans to be part of such a bail out.

Certainly, the British economy has some interest in Greece's public debt -- perhaps as much as $13 billion. But with the EU poised to extend a massive bail out package to the Greeks, the emerging consensus in Britain is to stay out of it.

It isn't merely the European economy that's under siege in Greece's fiscal troubles: it's also the Euro itself.

Frequently-outspoken London Mayor Boris Johnson has declared that its time for Greece to either learn to stand on its own fiscal feet, or be allowed to fall. The Euro be damned.

"For years, European governments have been saying that it would be insane and inconceivable for a country to leave the Euro," Johnson remarked. "But this second option is now all but inevitable, and the sooner it happens the better."

In a strange turn of events, the Labour Party's former Foreign Affairs Minister, Jack Straw has voiced criticisms of the Cameron government's response that call on the government to move even further away from the EU.

"What the Government should do, instead of sheltering behind the complacent language, weasel words 'it's not appropriate, we shouldn't speculate', recognise that this eurozone cannot last and it's the responsibility of this British Government to be open with the British people now about the alternative prospects," Straw declared. "If this euro in its current form is going to collapse, is it better not that it happens quickly rather than a slow death?"

Johnson clearly agrees with Straw. He blames the Euro for cultivating complacency among Europe's profilgate states.

"The Euro has exacerbated the financial crisis by encouraging some countries to behave as recklessly as the banks themselves," Johnson said. "As long as there is the fear of default, as long as the uncertainty continues, confidence will not return across the whole of Europe."

It would be ironic if economic confidence were revived by the fiscal collapse of the birthplace of democracy. The protesters raging in the streets of Athens don't yet seem to understand that, no matter what, their party is over.

It's time for Greece to put on its big boy pants before the European will to bail them out goes the way of the British will to bail them out.

Diane Abbott Bloviates on Abortion Policy

Labour MP outraged over inclusion of anti-abortion group in debate

Debate on the topic of abortion is heating up in Britain, as the British pro-abortion lobby is making demands quite familiar to those who follow abortion in the rest of the world.

That demand is rather simple: groups who hold a differing opinion on abortion are to be denied a voice in the discussion.

Labour Shadow Minister of Health Diane Abbott is apparently quite apoplectic about the inclusion of Life, a British anti-abortion group, on a government advisory panel on sexual health.

Abbott is apoplectic that groups such as life, or Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, would be allowed to have a voice on any kind of government panel.

"We cannot allow Nadine Dorries and some of the anti-abortion groups currently advising the government to turn the clock back for millions of women," Abbott declared. "Mainstream medical opinion is united in its agreement that, when carried out in a legal setting where sterile facilities are available, abortion is a safe procedure carrying a low risk of complications."

"And we must not underestimate the chilling news that the government has appointed anti-abortion group Life to their expert advisory group on sexual health," she continued. "This appointment, coupled with the retraction of an invite to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, one of the UK's leading abortion providers, signals a dangerous move."

"Increasingly, people up and down the country are looking to take a stand against what they see as an attempt to chip away at abortion access for women in England, Scotland and Wales," she added. "There is a rising tide of opposition and concern about the agenda being pushed by figures in this Tory-led government, and David Cameron must come clean on where the Tories now stand on a woman's right to choose."

All of this over the inclusion of a few abortion-opposing groups on an advisory panel intended to represent a wide variety of views.

Perhaps it's time for Diane Abbott, Ed Miliband and the Labour Party to make something clear: do Britons have the right to have an opinion on abortion that differs from her own? And if they do, do they not have the right to be heard by the government?

Then again, perhaps Abbott has already made herself clear about that.

"The Best Person For the Job"

Chancellor not a booster for Gordon Brown's IMF bid

With former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown seeking to assume the role of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, there may be one key obstacle in his path:

The British government.

In April, Prime Minister David Cameron questioned Brown's suitability for the job.

“If you have someone who didn’t think we had a debt problem [running the IMF] they may not be the best person to decide whether other countries have that problem," Cameron declared.

The decision over whether or not the British government will attempt to block Brown from becoming IMF Managing Director has not been made. For his own part, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne hasn't expressed any great preference regarding Brown and the IMF.

He's calling for the "best person for the job".

"If it comes to a decision about a replacement for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, what I will be motivated by and what the British Government will be motivated by is who is the best person for the job," Osborne declared. "Instead of 'Is it Buggins's turn?' or 'Should it be someone from a particular country or not', let's focus on getting the right person for the right job."

Brown hasn't yet asked Osborne for any kind of endorsement for assuming the role.

"As it happens, Gordon Brown has not asked me directly or indirectly to be considered for the job," Osborne said. "I'm at the moment focused on making sure we get the best person for the job."

So is Gordon Brown the best person for the job?

The Brown government's use of Private Finance Initiatives to conceal billions of Pounds Sterling in public debt has previously been explored here.

What has not been is Brown's "tripartite" system of Financial regulation.

When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown split regulatory powers between the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority, and the Treasury. This led to a breakdown of surveillance powers, leading to a state of affairs where two-thirds of bank lending in Britain was to other financial institutions.

In the opinion of Dr Sushil Wadhwani, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, this led to a situation in which interest rates lagged far behind the rate required to return credit markets to equilibrium.

This led to British credit markets in which the incentives to borrow were overloaded. Eventually, Britain fell into the same credit collapse as the rest of the world.

Given the kind of havoc Gordon Brown wrought with Britain's finances and Britain's economy, the idea of giving him a surplus of power over the global economy should be a sobering thought indeed.

David Cameron is right. Gordon Brown is not the right person for the job.

Ed Miliband & the Wilting Rose of Labour

Labour leader warned of Liberal-esque collapse

After the 2011 federal election, Canadians should be aware of two central facts about the Liberal Party.

The first is that they'll be back. The second is that it will take them some time to get there.

In the wake of local council elections that yielded disappointing returns for Labour -- and surprising wins for the Conservative Party -- the Grits' British counterpart, the Labour Party, are being warned that they may face a similar collapse.

The warnings to Labour leader Ed Miliband come from Ian Lewis, the party's shadow Secretary of Culture, and Labour manifesto co-author Patrick Diamond.

Lewis has warned of regional splits that may deeply damage Labour's prospects of governing again in the future. The party has lost ground in Scotland, and is suffering badly in southern regions of the United Kingdom.

"Today, they see Labour as the party of the North, standing up for the poor, benefit claimants, immigrants and minority groups," Lewis declared. "A party which overspent without delivering sufficient value for money. A party which talks a lot about rights but not enough about responsibility."

Labour won 800 new local council seats on May 5. But the Tories emerged on May 6 with a net gain of council seats, despite having expected to lose at least 1,000 seats.

"On the whole, despite the Government’s too-fast, too-deep cuts, tax increases and trebling of tuition fees, they stuck with the Tories," Lewis said. "A situation which if sustained would mean we will not win the next general election."

Diamond considers Labour's council elections letdowns to be a mere microcosm of a trend that is sweeping not just Britain, but all of Europe.

"Labour's ejection from office mirrors an even starker European trend, as the pendulum has swung aggressively against the left. Local council victories last Thursday cannot disguise the governing crisis which threatens Labour's very survival as a party of power," Diamond wrote in The Guardian.

"There remains little sense of what would be the ideological programme through which the left can govern in a world transformed irrevocably by the global financial crisis," Diamond continued. "The recurring question has been why, in the midst of a crisis whose origins clearly implicate the neoliberal right, it is social democrats who remain battle weary and defensive. The crisis that began with a wave of sub-prime lending in the United States has been hastily redefined as a crisis of public debt and government deficits. It is the state – its size, role, and efficiency – that is now at the centre of political debate, not the inherent instability of markets and free-market ideology."

Yet if Diamond feels that British voters are making their political decisions hinging on public debt and deficits, he must know they need only took to the Labour Party that managed Britain's finances so disastrously.

In fact, the "too-deep, too-fast" cuts and "trebling of tuition" that Lewis complains about can be attributed directly to the Labour Party and its spend thrift nature. Even as the Blair/Brown government emptied public coffers and drove up debt, they evaded accountability by offsettting heaps of debt against future budgets.

Diamond seems to despair at what he considers the looming destruction of the Labour Party. (There is little reason to despair just yet, this page of history is not yet written.)

Lewis, on the other hand, offers some semblence of a solution to Labour's looming troubles, even it seems like mere platitudes.

"It is important we understand the depth of people’s feelings and frustrations if we are to have any chance of reconnecting so they start listening to us again," Lewis concluded. "We have to face up to the fact that there was little sign of those squeezed middle voters in the south east, south west and east of England returning to Labour."

In other words, Ed Miliband and Labour have some deep soul-searching to do if they want to get the party back on course to govern Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron and the Tories have been making the hard decisions Labour couldn't, and the British public's appreciation seems to be showing in their election returns.

They're not sharing the predicament of the Liberal Party just yet. But if Labour isn't careful, they soon could be.

Nice.

Labour leader preemptively dancing on Margaret Thatcher's grave

Some Nexus readers may recall the days after Ted Kennedy's death, when certain left-wing bloggers declared that right-wing bloggers were "dancing on Kennedy's grave".

The best available evidence was gathered and examined. With the exception of a handful of individuals, it turns out this allegation was untrue. Although the individuals in question refused to accept the evidence regardless of how overwhelming it was, there was no realistic basis for that politicizing Kennedy's passing.

On the left side of the aisle, however, it seems to be a very different story.

With concerns over Margaret Thatcher's health mounting, it seems that some left-wingers -- such as Keir Morrison -- aren't waiting for Thatcher to actually die before the dancing begins.

Morrison, who won election to Nottinghamshire Council last week, was recently spotted wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words "a generation of trade unionists will dance on Thatcher's grave."

If it were merely Morrison, a youthful member of a Morrison family dynasty on Nottinghamshire Council, caught up in this it would be one thing.

But Labour leader Ed Miliband still has yet to offer a reasonable explanation as to why he would willingly be photographed with Morrison; both of them all smiles.

A spokesperson for Miliband's office has claimed that Miliband didn't know the slogan was on Morrison's T-shirt. If anyone, anywhere in the world, believes that, that spokesperson likely also has a slightly-used clocktower to sell them.

Nor this is the first time that someone high up in Labour has embarrassed their party like this. Last year leadership hopeful John McDonnell declared he would have liked to to travel back in time and kill Thatcher while she was still Prime Minister.

He was applauded for the "joke".

It seems that so blatantly wishing ill on Lady Thatcher has become a quite ordinary practice among the British left. Nor does the Canadian left by any means seem immune.

Be aware. It's just how these people operate.

Gordon Brown Seeking Posh New Job

Former UK PM interested in role as top international financier

When Gordon Brown was defeated as Prime Minister, then promptly replaced as leader of the Labour Party, many naturally wondered what would come next.

Now we seem to know. A year after moving out of No 10 Downing Street, Brown is poised to take on an advisory role at the World Economic Forum. Speculation holds that he intends to spin this into leadership of the International Monetary Fund.

At the WEM, Brown would be responsible for overseeing 72 Econcomic Councils. As former Prime Minister of Britain, he is uniquely prepared for such a responsibility.

But he should by no means considered a shoo-in for the job.

After all, some had pegged Tony Blair to be a favourite to assume the office of President of the European Union. Instead, backlash against Blair's involvement in the Iraq War held Blair back.

Brown could face some obstacles of his own. One of them is related to the Iraq War. The other is due to Gordon's handling of Britain's finances as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown has frequently been publicly savaged for his failure to manage the British public debt.

In fact, as it turned out Brown's government excelled at concealing its mounting public debt. Essentially, Brown's government, under Brown's fiscal leadership, ran up billions of Pounds Sterling in deferred debt by financing projects as Private Finance Initiatives.

This allowed the Labour government to spend today, committing each British government for the next 30 years to make fixed payments on these projects.

In essence, the Blair/Brown government uploaded billions of Pounds Sterling in debt to future generations of Britons. It enabled the Blair/Brown government to inflate its short-run political popularity at the long-run expense of the British citizenry.

They did what they wanted to do, and left the hard decisions to future British governments.

It isn't as if Labour only organized one or two projects under the PFI structure. It isn't as if they only organized five or six. They ran 630 projects under this structure. That's the cost of 630 projects spread out over a 30-year period.

It gets even worse when one considers the scope of the cost spread out over that period: 110 billion Pounds Sterling. In Canadian dollars, the PFI debt load added by Brown was $172 billion.

It's difficult to believe that a leader as casual about assuming debt on the behalf of future generations could become the managing director of the IMF. But Brown may have yet one more advantage at his disposal.

In the United States, the Barack Obama administration has shared Brown's irresponsible approach to public debt. Moreover, the Obama administration has some diplomatic bridges to mend with Britain, and may choose to mend them by helping Brown ascend the IMF mountain.

By all rights, Gordon Brown probably shouldn't become the director of the International Monetary Fund. But for good or ill -- very likely for ill -- he just may.

Labour's Immigration Dilemma

Labour Party still self-consciously clueless about immigration policy

It was a defining moment of the 2010 British election: Gordon Brown, after conversing with British everywoman Gillian Duffy, declared her to be "a bigoted woman".

Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, challenged Brown about his ability to tackle the UK's national debt while demand for welfare continued to be driven by immigration.

"We had it drummed in when I was a child … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable," Duffy had declared. "But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it."

"But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more," Brown argued. "If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months…"

"You can't say anything about the immigrants," Duffy complained. "But all these eastern European that are coming in, where are they flocking from?"

Brown replied that while one million immigrants were arriving from Eastern Europe, one million Britons had emmigrated elsewhere.

In frustration, Brown would later declare Duffy to be "a bigoted woman". He was still wearing a Sky News Microphone and had forgotten about it. It was a defining gaffe of the election for Labour.

The message -- which is still causing deep anxieties within Labour ranks -- was very simple: Britons were not yet prepared to accept multiculturalism as inevitable; at least not with what they had already seen.

As it pertains to multiculturalism, many countries have experienced some growing pains. But it seems that Britain has had it far worse than some other countries.

Britain is one of the only countries in the western world where Sharia courts were actually allowed to take root. The rot has penetrated so deeply that even the Archbishop of Canterbury has described the implementation of Sharia law as "inevitable".

It's on this general note that social patterns such as the troubling upswing in support for organizations like the British National Party have emerged. Many Britons, it seems, no longer recognize their own country when radical Islamists so frequently take to the streets to declare their intentions to bring the totality of British society under their extreme political ideology, which masquerades as Islam.

This is not a challenge that the British government will be able to tackle easily. Before the Labour Party will be ready to return to government, it will need to conquer its Gillian Duffy-related demons, and prepare a vigorous response to the troubled state of British multiculturalism.

The Uncomfortable Truth of Class War & Tax Evasion

David Miliband finds clever way to avoid paying tax he helped implement

Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has some 'splainin' to do.

In the year since Miliband's Labour party lost an election to David Cameron's Conservative Party of Britain he has moved from being a high-paid member of Britain's cabinet to finding clever ways to avoid paying the 50% top tax rate that the government he was a member of implemented.

As one of the fortunate strata of British society who earns more than 150,000 Pounds Sterling, Miliband would be paying a snowballing tax rate, wherein anyone earnign this amount has to pay an additional 50% of the 40% of their earnings they already pay in taxes.

However, it turns out that he doesn't.

Rather, Miliband has set up a company named "The Office of David Miliband Limited", which manages income that he earns through his work outside of Parliament. Instead of paying the 40% tax rate that he would otherwise pay on these funds (as well as the additional 50% of that figure), Miliband will instead pay a corporate tax rate of 20%.

This underscores a rather startling fact of life about many high-taxing politicians: they're more than willing to levy high taxes against other people, but they're frequently reluctant to pay.

It's true that corporations have many tricks to avoid paying taxes that private citizens often do not have at their disposal. As York University's Dr Neil Brooks explains, many corporations do this through shell companies established in the Cayman Islands.

While Miliband has stopped far short of setting up his shell company in the Cayman Islands, The Office of David Miliband Ltd, at least on its face, very much looks like a shell company.

Dr Brooks points out the costs to government of chasing down revenue otherwise lost through these shell companies, regardless of where they are registered. These costs should be on the minds of Canadians as they compare electoral platforms during the ongoing election.

After all, it isn't merely in Britain where politicians avoid paying taxes. In Canada, Michael Ignatieff's Liberal Party is campaigning on rescinding a promised corporate tax cut, even while former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin operates a steamship line which operates out of the aforementioned Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying the full share of taxes it would pay if it ran all of its operations in Canada.

That's the uncomrotable truth about class warfare and tax evasion: often those who push for the wealthy to pay the highest taxes are the first to look for ways to skip out on their own cheque when they join the wealthy elite they so eagerly attack.

Ed Miliband Swearing Off Class Warfare?

Labour leader reaffirms commitment to universality

When it became evident that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown stood little chance of winning the 2010 election (well beforehand), he resorted to what some would consider to be a fairly typical Labour Party tactic:

He picked on British Conservative Party leader (and now Prime Minister) David Cameron's Eton Hall education.

Needless to say, it didn't work. David Cameron and the Tories marched onto victory in the 2010 election and partnered with the Nick Clegg-led Liberal Democratic Party to form a government.

Brown's successor, Ed Miliband has eschewed class warfare by addressing one of the core principles of the welfare state: that of universality. Under universality, social programs are expected to pay out to all citizens, even those who are much, much more well off than their fellows.

Including millionaires, who Miliband insists would continue to receive child benefits under a Labour government.

"I'm in favour of that yes, and I'm in favour of it because it's a cornerstone of our system to have universal benefits, and frankly there aren't that many millionaires in this country," Miliband explained, although he doesn't deny that the benefit is primarily meant for the poor.

"Families on £45,000 need child benefit in my view and it's a way that society recognises the costs of having kids," he continued.

And though he plans to ensure that even the wealthiest would keep such benefits under a Labour government, he isn't planning to take his foot off the taxation pedal. Rather, he plans to levy higher taxes on banks and raise additional revenues by pursuing tax evaders (although the latter will itself require a generous investment of resources into investigative agencies).

One presumes that Miliband's imagined bank tax hike will be in addition to the global bank tax accepted by Prime Minister Cameron. So even as Miliband promises not to tax the wealthy while denying them benefit, he clearly still plans to squeeze them for as much tax revenue as he can imagine; this to avoid programming cuts.

While Ed Miliband clearly wants to avoid publicly declaring war on the wealthy, he isn't shying away from calling on them to fund programs that will offer them comparatively meagre benefits.

Is it class warfare of another variety? It will be up to Britons to decide.

Should Diane Abbott Make the Cut?

Abbott wants to be Municipal secretary in shadow cabinet

With the Labour leadership campaign finally behind him, Labour leader Ed Miliband now needs to look to establishing his Shadow Cabinet.

It's only natural that the other leadership contenders would line up to be considered for roles. Diane Abbott is clearly no different.

Although it probably won't, Abbott's status as the token female candidate of the campaign should probably cast some doubt on whether or not she'll receive any such role. After all, Abbott couldn't even convince electors within her own riding that she would make a good leader. Support for her leadership was scarcely more than 20% in her own riding.

But Abbott clearly seems to think of herself as a contender for Shadow Cabinet. She's even picked a portfolio out for herself -- she wants to be the Communities and Local Government Secretary.

"London and the inner cities do not get enough representation and I’d like to see that change," she announced. "Multiculturalism, gang crime and housing look very different in London than the rest of the country."

But given the level of support for Abbott within her own riding, and the anemic level of support for her leadership in general, it may be far to speculate if she would have made the cut for the Shadow Cabinet under Labour's customary rules.

Prior to Tony Blair's tenure as Labour leader, members of the Shadow Cabinet used to be chosen by the party's Parliamentary caucus. The leader would assign portfolios once the Shadow Cabinet was chosen.

Tony Blair discontinued this practice.

If Ed Miliband were to reinstate this practice, it's fair to speculate if Abbott, who unequivocally was not a serious contender for the leadership, would make the cut.

Judging from the support she received in the leadership campaign, the available evidence seems to suggest "probably not".

David Miliband Retreats to the Backbenches

Aims to give younger brother space as Labour leader

For David Miliband, being defeated for the Labour leadership -- the leadership he was considered the odds-on favourite to win -- to his younger brother must have been a truly humbling experience.

The general consensus within his party seems to be that he has embraced that humility in withdrawing from frontline politics, and resigning himself to a more humble role as a backbench opposition MP.

"The party needs a fresh start from its new leader, and I think that is more likely to be achieved if I make a fresh start," the elder Miliband announced. "Having thought it through, and discussed it with family and friends I am absolutely confident it is the right decision for Ed, for the party, and for me and my family."

"This is now Ed’s party to lead and he must be able to do so as free as possible from distraction," he continued. "This is because of the simple fact that Ed is my brother, who has just defeated me for the party leadership."

David seemed to believe -- at least so far as his statements have been concerned -- that resigning to the backbench was the best way to promote an image of unity amongst Labour.

"I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where none exists, and splits where they don’t exist, all to the detriment of the party," he concluded.

"Two adults who happen to be brothers who have different views about the party. It's important to have magnanimity in defeat... It didn't become the bloodbath a lot of people predicted. I'm not dead, I'm still here," he explained. "It's important I don't get in the way of that if Ed wants to make plans to reform, that's his own choice. He must have an open field to lead as he sees fit."

For his own part, the younger Miliband -- and new Labour party leader, Ed Miliband -- seemed accepting of his brother's decision, if not slightly disappointed.

After all, the younger Miliband had previously announced he planned to offer his older brother the role of Shadow Chancellor. That role will now fall to Yvette Cooper.

"He is my brother and I am very clear that, as leader of this party, my door is always open for him to serve in the future, either in opposition or back in government," the younger Miliband announced. "I am obviously delighted to be leader of this party but I am obviously disappointed for him. That is the paradox."

Of course, there is another aspect to the elder Miliband's departure that no one in the party seems eager to talk about: the attempt to erase any trace of Tony Blair and New Labour from the party moving forward.

The elder Miliband isn't the only New Labour stalwart to move to the backbenches. Nick Brown, Labour's chief whip since Blair led the party to government in 1997, was asked for his resignation. He complied.

Certainly no one in the Labour Party -- especially not the younger Miliband himself -- would admit that the ender Miliband was directly asked (or even subtlely encouraged) to step aside. Yet it certainly doesn't seem unfair to ask the question.

The extent to which Ed Miliband could address such a query may also be in question. He's been dressing up his thoughts on the matter in the language of brotherly love.

"The biggest obstacle for me standing in this contest was the relationship with David, because I thought long and hard about it," the younger Miliband said. "But in the end I concluded that if I had something to say which was distinctive, if I felt I would be the best leader of this party, for me not to stand in those circumstances would actually be an abdication of my responsibility, my responsibility to this party, my responsibility to this country and that is why I stood."

"My love for David is very deep, and his for me is too," he concluded. "It has been a difficult time, obviously, but it will withstand this."

That should be enough to keep any uncomfortable questions at bay -- except from the most daring of questioners.

The Self-Defeat of Political Tokenism

Diane Abbott must face serious questions about the seriousness of her candidacy

At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, it must be noted that defeated Labour Party leadership candidate Diane Abbott was a token candidate.

Not a token black candidate (although she was keen to invoke race when she declared Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy PM Nick Clegg to be "posh white boys"). Rather, she was a token female candidate.

Looking back on the Labour leadership campaign, it's hard to view her otherwise. She was never a serious contender. She very seldom brought anything of interest to the table.

In fact, the only attention-worthy statements from Abbott during the entire campaign were far-from-Earth-shattering speculation on the role of major donors on the leadership campaign, and questions about the legality of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In other words, Abbott strove to be little more than a standard left-wing candidate.

There seemed to be little compelling reason for her candidacy. Her campaign's sole boost came when disgraced candidate John McDonnell -- who obliterated his own slender chances at the leadership by musing about a desire to assassinate Margaret Thatcher while she was Prime Minister of Britain -- withdrew from the contest and threw his support behind her.

His reasoning? The Labour leadership contest needed a female candidate.

If Abbott being a woman was truly the only reason why electors in the campaign -- consisting of Labour Party members, Labour MPs and members of affiliated groups -- would want to vote for her, Abbot's candidacy was in trouble from the very get-go.

This shouldn't be mistaken for a suggestion that women shouldn't run for the leadership of political parties.

In fact, strong female candidates speak volumes about the strength of a particular political party. That Labour couldn't produce a strong female candidate for leadership does precisely that.

Even Abbott's own constituents declined to support her. Of the electors within her riding of Hackney North-Stoke Newton only 20.55% cast their votes in her favour.

While her candidacy may have been based on the best of intentions -- providing demographic diversity in the Labour leadership contest -- it certainly hasn't met those intentions.

In fact, Abbott's candidacy could be considered to have done a disservice to women in the Labour Party. If Abbott's candidacy -- a waste of time and resources by any account -- is the best the women of the Labour Party could produce, the role of women within the party should be very much a matter of question.

This is how political tokenism -- in the name of feminism, race, or anything else -- defeats itself. The next token candidate should leave such matters to serious contenders.

What Is the Future of Labour's Finances?

Debt-riddled Labour Party refudiates former Deputy Prime Minister

With the British Labour Party's treasury swimming up to its gills in debt, tbe party has made the peculiar move of rejecting a former Deputy Prime Minister.

In doing so, the party also put some distance between itself and the spectre of New Labour.

Lord John Prescott, former Deputy PM under Tony Blair, was defeated for the office of party treasurer by Diana Holland, an official with Britain's Unite union.

Holland seems to share Prescott's dismal view of the party's finances, even if she doesn't phrase it in the same apocalyptic language as Prescott.

Her plan is to right the party's finances on the strength of small donors.

"I will work hard to build a stronger party in all respects, not just financial, and I will make putting us on a sound footing to win the next election my top priority," Holland announced. "I will make recruiting and involving new members a real priority, helping to build a mass membership movement and also helping to secure our finances by maximising small donations from ordinary members and supporters."

Holland was able to defeat Prescott on the strength of the votes coming from affiliated labour unions. Prescott received 60% of the votes from the party members, but only 0.14% of the vote from affiliated unions.

In other words, Holland received nearly 100% of union votes in the race, in addition to 40% of the votes from party members.

Even with the ballot favourably weighted toward party members, the math seems to add up to a near-overwhelming defeat.

Even with Holland's promises to correct the disastrous state of Labour's finances, the question remains as to what the future of Labour's finances will be.

Given the role the union vote played in her election, Diana Holland may have some favours to repay. Whatever effect that will have on Labour's finances remains to be seen.

Ed Miliband Wins By a Hair

Younger Miliband top second choice on Labour ballot

After months of underwhelming campaigning, the British Labour Party has finally named its successor to Gordon Brown.

Ed Miliband accumulated enough second-choice votes on the preferential ballot to edge out his older brother David by less than 1%.

In a rather unambitious victory speech, Miliband pledged to lead his party back to power.

"My aim is to return our party to power," he announced. "This is a tough challenge. It is a long journey. But our party has made the first step in electing a leader from a new generation."

But instead of merely offering knee-jerk reaction to the coalition government of the Tories and Liberal Democrats, Miliband has promised a comparatively collaborative approach to government.

"As well as setting out an alternative when the government gets it wrong, we will support it when it is right," he continued.

Yet at the conclusion of a leadership campaign in which moving beyond Tony Blair's famed New Labour was often a central theme, Miliband more or less promised to re-deliver the magic that created New Labour.

"We have a lot of ground to make up if we are to rebuild the broad coalition of support that swept us to power in 1997," he announced. "We must never again lose touch with the mainstream of our country."

Of course, claiming an eventual margin of victory of scarcely more than 1%, Ed Miliband can hardly claim to represent the mainstream of his own party, let alone of Britain.

However Ed Miliband chooses to approach this detail, he may want to send a thank-you card to Ed Balls.

The ballot-by-ballot breakdown of the preferential vote shows that, until Ed Balls was eliminated, the younger Miliband trailed his older brother David by what eventually turned out to be the margin of victory.

It wasn't until the final ballot that the vote shifted in favour of the younger Miliband.

The intrigue of the preferential ballot is that it allows a candidate to effectively play the role of kingmaker without having to directly endorse another candidate.

Ed Miliband has already offered his brother David the key role of shadow Chancellor. It's certainly fair at this point to wonder what Miliband is prepared to offer Balls.

In the meantime, Britain -- and the rest of the world -- will wait to see what Ed Miliband has in store for his party.

Tony Blair's Deferred War on the Working Class

Labour knew they were spending, borrowing too much

As Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham and Ed Balls battle over whether or not the Labour party would have embarked on a program of cuts similar to that of the current Tory/Liberal Democrat government, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former head of the British Civil Service, has dropped a bombshell on the debate:

The Labour party was spending too much, and knew it was spending too much. And it knew in 2005.

Lord Turnbull suggests that it was political pressure that convinced Tony Blair and his government to continue spending at a manifestly undisciplined rate, even after it became evident that there was a problem.

"It kind of crept up on us in 2005, 2006, 2007, and we were still expanding public spending at 4.5 per cent a year," he explained. "You might have thought that we should have been giving priority to getting borrowing under better control, putting money aside in the good years - and it didn't happen."

Lord Turnbull's comments reveal Keynesian economics for precisely what they became under Tony Blair: an excuse to spend, even at the expense of the government's ability to battle a recession by expending savings accumulated during strong economic periods.

Lord Turnbull explained it very simply: "Public spending got too big relative to the productive resources of the economy."

"The politics was that we had put an end to boom and bust," he said. But it didn't work that way. The government overspent even during the time of boom, and now succeeding governments have to fix the problem.

All of this complicates matters intensely for the current crop of Labour leadership candidates, looking to replace Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.

Andy Burnham has been tremendously candid about the necessity of cuts under a Labour government.

"Let's get some honesty in this debate," Burnham said. "There would have been significant spending cuts under Labour and there would have been job losses under Labour."

For his own part, Ed Balls seems to think that things would have been magically different under a Labour government.

"I think Labour would have been creating jobs this year," Balls insisted. "At a time when the economy is slowing down, we should be building houses, not cutting them, building schools, not cutting them."

This of course begs the question of where the money would have come from. But Balls seems to think that he has the answer... or at least something he can easily pass off as the answer.

"The banks should be paying the price of the crisis, not people up and down this country," Balls insisted.

Of course, it shouldn't be the banks that pay the price for the excessively poor fiscal policy of the Blair and Brown governments. One way or the other, under one government or another, the British government will have to pay the price for that.

Unfortunately, it's inevitable that when the government pays, the citizens will pay as well.

Many among Britain's left have gleefully seized upon the looming cuts by the David Cameron government of waging class warfare against the middle and working classes.

But even as Tony Blair spent the government of Great Britain deeper and deeper into debt, he had to have known that a fiscal day of recknoning was coming. Tony Blair had to have known that the middle and working classes would be hit hardest by that reckoning than anyone else -- including himself.

If class warfare is being waged against the working and middle classes at all, it's Tony Blair's defferred class warfare.

Labour Party Needs Its Civil Society Fix

Labour Party addicted to big government

As British Prime Minsiter David Cameron continues to slowly roll out his Big Society policy package, the Labour Party has evidently found itself at odds with the new government's views on civil society.

Following a party audit of the to-date relesed or promised Big Society policies, the Labour party claims the policy is undermining civil society in Britain.

Labour has identified what they believe are core policy areas for the Big Society, and have pointed out that the Tories have cut 6% of the funding to these areas. Among these cuts are:

-370 million Pounds for the Future Jobs program, which had pledged to create 200,000 jobs, including 120,000 job grants for civil society organizations.
-95 million Pounds from affordable housing.
-14 million Pounds from the Youth Commnity Action programme.
-7 million Pounds from the Prevent programme -- designed to combat violent political extremism.
-4 million Pounds from the Cohesion programme -- a program to do pretty much the same thing as Prevent.

"What people want is not the vacuous promise of a big society but a good society where everybody does their bit and is helped to do so to improve their community and create benefits for everyone," said Tessa Jowell, Labour's shadow Cabinet Office minister insisted. "But a big society that cuts people loose, leaving them to stand on their own, will never work."

The detail that Labour lost the 2010 election, and so can hardly claim to know what Britons want, is one thing.

Labour's clear big government vision of civil society is entirely another.

Each of Labour's criticisms can easily be answered in kind:

-First off, a civil society organization that is funded by the government is not really a civil society organization: it's a QUANGO.
-Many communities, such as Crosby Ravensowrth, are funding their own affordable housing projects.
-The Prevent Programme was a particularly troubled one that had been caught spying within the communities in which it was active.
-The Cohesion Programme seems to have been a duplication in efforts from the Prevent Programme.

The Labour party has made its view on civil society quite clear: it prefers a big government approach so thorough that arms of its so-called civil society policy can even justify espionage against the communities in which they operate.

If Prime Minister Cameron were to embrace that particular vision, it would ultimately be self-defeating toward the goals of the Big Society programme.

Fortunately, David Cameron doesn't seem to share Labour's addiction to big government.

Hard Labour Ahead for Labour's Finances

Labour party 20 million Pounds in debt

The Labour party leadership won't be the only office the Labour Party will need to fill this year.

A far-more-quiet campaign has been ongoing to choose a new Treasurer for the party.

Lord John Prescott is running for that job, and he's dropped a bombshell: the Labour Party is at risk of going broke.

Prescott notes that Labour's 2010 election campaign was funded largely by a single billionaire donor, and that the party's finances have been degraded by a double squeeze on party finances.

One such squeeze is a declining party membership. The other squeeze is spendthrift party leadership.

"The treasurer has got to say to the central body, you cannot keep on spending, we haven't got it," Prescott insisted.

Moreover, Prescott has said that a strong leadership drive will be key to helping the party manage and retire its 20 million Pound debt.

"We want a strong treasurer who's involved in the membership drive, putting a proper financial account into the party," Prescott announced.

Moreover, Prescott noted the Labour party has frequently abandoned the organizational end of the party in favour of the political pursuit of power.

"The politics of organisation are equally as important as the politics of ideas," he added. "We forgot about the organization bit."

Prescott is promising to make badly-needed changes to the manner in which the party is funded and organized.

"You can go on if you like and just have somebody doing what's always been the way," he told the Labour party membership. "Well, we cannot continue to finance a political party in that way."

Nor can the Labour party afford to continue relying on a billionaire to finance their campaigns -- especially if some of its candidates intend to continue to relying on rich-versus-poor class warfare as part of their politics.