Conservative conference - Manchester

After the Labour Party's successful conference, the onus has been for the conservatives to achieve similar success. 

There conference has certainly started  with a bang and a string of policy announcements. First big policy announcement was the married tax allowance and this new initiative was to help married couples on a low income. 

However the Labour Party have said that this allowance will help about 15% of married couples and believes that this tax discriminates against single people. 

I would agree with this sentiment as whether a person is married or single they are working hard to pay their bills and put food on the table. To me everyone should be equally rewarded and not the select few.

Today the Chancellor George Osborne also announced there would be a crack down on long term welfare claimants. 

Which means  getting claimants to work for their dole money or making them attend the job centre every day. 

The Home Secretary Teresa May also announced that some illegal immigrants would be deported before they where allowed to appeal. She added that the Human Rights Act would be abolished in 2015. 

The Conservative have now  clearly lurched to the right wing of their party and this partly due to the growing popularity of UKIP. 

A lot of UKIP's members where dissatisfied Tory voters, so the Tories are hoping that a further crackdown on benefit claimants and illegal immigrants will encourage these dissatisfied Tory voters back. 

I think this will either go really well for the Tories or very badly now that they have  completely left the middle ground. 

It will be interesting to find out in the coming days whether they have taken the British people with them or not as the case maybe.  

Labour Party Conference - Ed Milliband's speech

The day had finally arrived! and Ed Milliband his took place in front of the faithful party delegates.

From a presentational point of view the Labour Party and Ed did great job. Ed made sure that his key demographic where right behind him. 

From a speaking  point of view Ed explained is policy initiatives incredibly well. 

He laid out substantive policy plans like the energy policy. He discussed freezing energy prices if he becomes the next Prime Minister.

Ed came across as authoritative and well meaning. What was most impressive was that he did not need any notes or autocue. 

However this is where real work starts as now he needs to prepare himself for the right wing media onslaught. 

As Ed knows himself he needs to convince the British people that he has credible leadership qualities. 

If he can  do that then it will increase his personal standing in the opinion polls.

Then ultimately become the next Prime Minister of the UK.

Labour Party Conference

Day one of the Labour Party autumn conference and it is clear that the Tories and their right wing media friends are trying to influence the narrative.

They are now taking Ed Miliband serious and by doing so are trying to link him to the negative side of Gordon Brown's time in office. 

They are being aided and abetted by Gordon Brown 's former Special Adviser Damian McBride. Who has recently written a book describing his time as a Special Adviser.

This book has been perfectly timed to be serialised in the Daily Mail and make the Labour Party  look like a party that were not united. 

The media attacks on Ed Miliband has included the left wing paper The Guardian. Who are constantly trying to build a particular negative narrative about Ed Miliband. 

It remains to be seen in two years time whether these attacks will have any impact on voters. 

In the meantime Ed Miliband and the Labour Party need to convince floating voters in those marginal seats that they are a credible alternative. 

The fight to save Lewisham Hospital

The coalition  government has spent thousand of tax payers pounds trying to close down Lewisham hospital. 

 

But what has made this task difficult is the resilience of the local community to fight back. As a former resident of Lewisham I could not be prouder of them.

The Lewisham council and various support groups recently took the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to court. The High  Court ruled in Lewisham council  and the support groups favour. 

But Mr Hunt was given leave to appeal so the fight to save Lewisham hospital could go on for another two years or so.

But win or lose I hope that the fight to save Lewisham hospital has inspired a generation of children not to give up on a cause that they believe in.

USA and the gun culture

Another mass shooting took place in US this week and tragically twelve Americans  lost their lives. 

This shooting took in the capital of Washington DC in the Navy Yard by a man called Aaron Alexis. 

As someone who lives in the UK with very stringent gun laws. It is not easy to understand the fascination of wanting own a gun. 

Sadly the guns in the USA are now getting into the wrong hands. As to my knowledge there are little background checks done on purchasers of guns. 

Aaron Alexis had some mental health issues. It has been reported that a few days before committing this mass murder, he called police to the hotel he was staying at saying he could hear voices. 

As the inquiry is ongoing we do not as yet know what the police did with that information. We know that Aaron went to kill twelve people in cold blood.

I find it incomprehensible that a man with mental health issues can legally buy a gun. This was the case with Aaron Alexis he purchased his gun legally and the gun seller probably no idea abut his mental health issues.

From a political point of view there is not much President Obama can do. He did try to bring in some backgrounds checks but the powerful gun lobbying  group called the NRA made it impossible for this to happen.

So at this stage the mass killings will continue by unstable men who are able purchase guns. Unless the American public overcome the gun lobbyist and say enough is enough. 

 

Prime Ministers Question-11/09/2013

Yesterday Prime Minister's Questions raised number of important issues.

Ed Milliband focused his questions on the fall in living standards. Ed especially highlighted Michael Gove's comments on food banks.

Michael stated that people who use food banks may  not  have managed their finances properly.

Ed Milliband said that Michael Gove was a disgrace for making such a comment. Although David Cameron didn't back Michael Gove he didn't condem the comments either.

I think Ed gets better every week at PMQ's and a sign Ed Milliband is doing well is when David Cameron resorts to cheap insults.

It was certainly a very lively PMQ's with Tory MP's asking questions ranging from abortion to Syria.Labour MP's asking questions about living standards. 

David Cameron did not perform particularly well this week and I think that it is going to get tougher.

 Especially as David Cameron has claimed that the recession is now over and the economy is slowly growing. 

If this assertion is not backed with data in the next few months then he could find himself having real political problems.

Ed Milliband has different set of  problems. He has to be able to convince the electorate that he is ready to be Prime Minister. 

He has about eighteen months to prove this and I for one am confident that Ed Milliband will be successful at the ballot box.

Prime Minister's Questions 04/09/13

Okay I have to admit that I expected real fireworks in today's PMQ's. However I appreciated both David Cameron and Ed Miliband's statesman like approach to PMQ's.

Both Ed Milliband and David Cameron restated their desire of a peaceful intervention with David Cameron restating that Britain would not be involved in any military action. 

I think this could become a real problem for David Cameron because already German intelligence, has confirmed that President Assad did use chemical weapons on the rebels. 

If the UN ultimately does back military intervention then it could make David Cameron and Britain appear as bystanders on an international stage. 

On domestic questions Labour MP's asked David Cameron about his view on the mansion tax versus  bedroom tax and he replied asking the Labour leadership if they where going to reverse the bedroom tax.

Another Labour MP's asked about food banks and David Cameron responded that least his government informing people at the job centre about the existence of food banks. 

David Cameron main problem came from  his back benchers who posed somewhat uncomfortable questions to him about Syria and  the NHS. In particularly the NHS question  from Jesse Norman an MP that David Cameron sacked as an adviser today!

So although PMQ's was more subdued than I had anticipated, today's questions could have a future significance.