18 April 2017: message from CLPD Secretary and Labour NEC member Peter Willsman about Theresa May's call for a snap General Election on 8 June 2017
The Tories are playing political games and breaking their word and the purpose of the five year old rule they brought in! They are running for cover because they know the Brexit negotiations will be a disaster. The Tories are also running scared because the police are after them for dodgy expenses claims at the last General Election. A large number of cases are likely to end up in court. May is desperate to avoid the scandal. There is a strong case for saying that our Party should not go along with their pathetic games. Nevertheless, whenever the election takes place, the voters will not be fooled and our party, the largest in Western Europe, will confound the doom mongers and naysayers and all our implacable enemies in the press and media. Jeremy personifies integrity and principle. We can look forward to a Labour Government that will permanently change the UK for the better. If we are united and work flat out, our Government will even better our Party's achievements in 1945-51!
Thanks to Ben Goldacre for this graph of NHS spending.
General Election points worth noting
- Lord O'Neill, former Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs and former Tory Treasury Minister, "wants a ban on zero-hours contracts". He also wants a raising of the minimum wage - Sunday Times, 4 June 2017.
- Research by University of Greenwich suggests that households in England would pay £2.3bn less each year for their water and sewage bills if the industry was still State run - Financial Times 7 June 2017.
- "Extra NHS spending is running at no more than 1% a year in real terms, whereas merely to avoid going backwards the NHS needs an annual real-terms increase of 4%" - William Keegan, Observer 4 June 2017.
- "Theresa May and her team have insulted our intelligence with their silly slogans" - former Tory MP Matthew Parris, Times 3 June 2017.
- "As of 2016, the British Welfare State (measured by public social spending) was, at 21.5% of GDP, barely three-quarters of welfare spending in comparably rich countries in Europe... A lot of welfare spending is investment that pays back through increased productivity in the future... taxes are not a 'burden' because in return you get an array of public services" - Ha-Joon Chang, Cambridge University, Guardian 2 June 2017.
- Super-rich evade 30% of taxes on average - academic study cited in the Guardian, 2 June 2017.
- Polls latest, 1 June: ICM has Labour ahead (for first time in campaign) among 'unskilled working class' by 43% to 36%, and among 25 to 34 year olds by 43% to 34%. Survation has Tory lead down to just 6 points, also that some 82% of 18 to 24 year olds are certain to vote. You Gov has calculated that a 30% increase in turnout by under 25s could well mean Labour triumphs. This is achievable. In Oxford three weeks ago, turnout in a seat with lots of students increased some 100%, with a 14% swing to Labour.
- David Owen,one of the 'Gang of Four', has just made a generous donation to our General Election campaign - Guardian 30 May 2017 and other sources.
- "Over £5 trillion is owned by the top 10%; by comparison the entire national debt is just £1.7 trillion. Labour is proposing to raise £48.6 billion in new taxes... This is peanuts compared to the actual level of weath" - Professor Greg Philo, Glasgow University, Guardian 30 May 2017.
- "The point that Jeremy Corbyn is making is that... military interventions have led to the creation of 'huge ungoverned spaces' within which which Isis has been able to establish itself and spread its poison to potential supporters" - Kevin McGrath, Guardian, 29 May 2017.
- UK high earners on £100,000 see less of their income taken in tax than almost anywhere else in Europe - see comparative analysis in the Guardian, 27 May 2017.
- "Mrs May has been rumbled as not very good... The calculation behind holding a snap early election was to win a sweeping victory before the truth got out" - Philip Collins, The Times, 26 May 2017.
- The Mirror has exposed the extent to which Boris Johnson is Donald Trump's doppleganger. Boris Johnson rejected Jeremy Corbyn's statement that military action, e.g. in Iraq, begets more tragedy, as "monstrous". The Mirror has now published past statements by Boris Johnson making the same point as Jeremy Corbyn. Perhaps Trump secretly went to Eton. That would explain a lot.
- "If planned in Libya, an attack such as that in Manchester would signal to the world - and also its keenest rival, a resurgent al-Qaeda - that Isis in Libya lives on" - Alia Brahimi, Guardian, 26 May 2017.
- Under 50s voting intentions - Labour 44% Tories 31% Libs 10% UKIP 5% Other 9% (YouGov). In Wales latest poll gives Labour 44% Tories 34% PC 9% Libs 6% UKIP 5%.
- "The incantation among 'pundits' and the majority of the PLP has been that under Jeremy Corbyn Labour offers no opposition to the Tories, and he will eventually destroy the Party. Increasingly,though, it seems Jeremy Corbyn could be the Party's best hope... A recent GfK poll showed that more people would consider voting Labour under Jeremy Corbyn than they would if the Party were led by Ed Miliband, Sadiq Khan, Tony Blair or Yvette Cooper" - Gary Younge, Guardian, 22 May 2017.
- "Electing a Labour Government is not only possible, it is vital... We must not fall victim to the tyranny of limited aspirations for our Party" - Dave Prentis, Observer, 21 May 2017. Dave was also scathing of senior Party "figures" who feed the media negative and damaging comments, for their narrow "factional advancement". (PS: See the "Quotes of the Month", in the left hand column, for examples of these "senior Party figures").
- Click here to read Huffington Post report: "Newspaper Hostility To Jeremy Corbyn Exposed In Audit Of Election Reporting".
- Click here to read Huffington Post report: "Former BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons Says Broadcaster Is Biased Against Jeremy Corbyn".
- "Polling agencies ICM and ComRes weight responses by demographic variables, such as age and class... Your opinion as a young or working-class person merits less weight, even if you tell the Polling Agency you intend to vote". Dr J Birch, LSE, Guardian, 17 May 2017.
- "People like me are supposed to look at Labour's wish list and conclude that the country would be better off with sensible Tory policies.But the contrast is less stark than you might think" - David Smith, Sunday Times in-house Economist, Sunday Times, 21 May 2017.
- "More than one million disabled people are now living without the social care they need... Disability benefit cuts along are collectively removing £28 billion from disabled people over five years... Theresa May leads a party into this election that is overseeing devastating attacks on disability services" - Frances Ryan, Guardian, 16 May 2017.
- "The reason Glasgow Shettleston elected a Tory councillor is proportional representation (STV). The Tory only got 18% of first preferences. It took until Stage 11 to get the Tory elected" - D McCrone, University of Edinburgh, Guardian, 16 May 2017.
- "What is the real fantasy? Labour's idea that income, wealth, and power should be a bit more evenly distributed, or the idea that the current state of affairs can be sustained for very much longer?" - Larry Elliott, Guardian, 15 May 2017.
- Two new polls put Labour at 32% - at the 2015 General Election we only achieved 31.2% - The Independent website, 14 May 2017.
- "Close allies of Tony Blair have drawn up plans to create a new political party... Some would like to see David Miliband become leader of the moderates... Miliband reportedly sounded out veteran MPs about them making way for him, but did not find any takers" - Sunday Times Political Editor, 14 May 2017.
- "Theresa May wants the election to be about a single issue - 'standing up to foreigners'... May seeks a free hand to do as her party wants" - Gordon Brown, Guardian, 13 May 2017.
- "Despite a 35% rise in prices this decade, child benefit will have risen by only 2%. Housing benefit no longer covers the rent, heating allowances fail to cover the cost of fuel... Two-thirds of the children now in poverty are from families where someone is working... A Labour vote is essential to waging a war against poverty" - Gordon Brown, Guardian, 13 May 2017.
- "The Guardian continues to buy into a dominant press narrative that is so ingratiating of an incumbent leader, as to be the envy of dictators around the world" - Dr J Schlosberg, Director of Journalism Studies, Birkbeck College, Guardian, 12 May 2017.
- "Thatcher raised (regressive) VAT from 8% to 15%, only weeks after denying during the 1979 General Election campaign that there were any plans to do so. Osborne raised it from 17.5% to 20% following similar denials in 2010... May has now promised not to increase VAT" - Guardian, 9 May 2017.
- CLPD congratulates Dan Scouser Carden for having the privilege of carrying the Red Flag in Walton CLP. Dan follows another awesome Scouser and, until now, was working for yet another awesome Scouser. Dan is exactly what we want a lot more of - unflinching working- class locals, with a long history of standing up to rapacious bosses. Dan's dad was a Liverpool docker, sacked for not crossing a picket line.
- Caroline Lucas has admitted the Greens were offered £250,000 by a donor not to stand in the Richmond Park by-election. Lucas told the BBC she had "forgotten the donor's name" - Guardian, 11 May 2017.
- "The Tory Government... gives about £27 billion a year to landlords, rather than imposing rent controls or building more homes" - Guardian, 11 May 2017.
- An opinion poll for The Independent among all voters has Tony Blair as unpopular with 72% of voters. Only 21% were more positive. Among those who voted Labour in 2015, Tony Blair's unpopularity rating was 56%.
- "I let the press know what you all know - I don't do downhearted" - Jeremy Corbyn's comment to CLPD, during a discussion about strategy. After the launch of the manifesto on 15 May, our feet should all go down even further on the accelerator pedals.
- "From 2008 to 2015, using data from the OECD... UK real wages fell by 1% a year on average... Britain ranked 103rd out of 112 countries for which data was available" (according to a TUC analysis) - Larry Elliott¸ Guardian, 8 May 2017.
- "The Conservative Party has taken our agenda... May is using exactly the same words and phrases that I've been using for 20 years" - Nigel Farage, Guardian, 8 May 2017.
- In April "leading election experts" Rallings and Thrasher confidently expected a big win for the Lib-Dems in the May local elections. They predicted about a 100 seat overall gain for the Lib-Dems (Sunday Times, 2 April 2017). Result: Lib-Dems had overall loss of 42 seats. So much for "leading electìon experts".
- In the local elections Labour won a seat off UKIP in Margate in deep blue Kent. And in deep blue Oxfordshire, Labour in Oxford went up a further two County Council seats (at the expense of the Greens - all those who left us over Iraq are returning to the fold). Within the wide boundaries of Oxford the Tories have no local authority seats whatsoever - and this has been the case for many a year. David Cameron, when prime minister, did venture into Oxford's 18th century Covered Market, only to be jovially accosted by CLPD's secretary.
- "I know Theresa talks about strong and stable leadership, but I only heard the first part about getting a strong stable" - David Cameron, speaking at an Oval dinner about his new £25,000 garden shed.
- "I carried out my own unscientific opinion poll in Thanet South and Hartlepool... There is a chance May may end up not that much better off than she is now" - Rod Liddle, Sunday Times, 7 May 2017.
- "The failed coup by Labour MPs was an act of serious self-harm" - Professor James Curran, University of London, Guardian website, 7 May 2017.
- The Guardian website also points out that the Dutch Labour Party has plummeted to a mere 5.7%, and in France the governing [until 14 May 2017] Socialist Party is down to a minuscule 6.4%. And, of course, they plumbed those depths even without the antics of a relentless bunch of internal wreckers.
- "The Tories' performance in the council elections did not match the expectations raised by recent opinion polls... May's majority would leave her government vulnerable to rebellions by hardline Eurosceptic backbenchers... She may have to call another General Electìon in 2019" - Adam Boulton, Sunday Times, 7 May 2017.
- The Lib-Dems could win less than their current nine seats at the Gen.Election, given the switch of UKIP to the Tories (the Lib-Dem MPs will be able to all get into a taxi, rather than a people-carrier). The UKIP ex-Labour people will return to Labour quite quickly and won't stay with the Tories - see convincing analysis by Rob Ford of Manchester University, Observer, 7 May 2017.
- Under Universal Credit, lone parent families will be £2,380 a year worse off; a disabled person living alone can expect to be £3.500 a year worse off - Child Poverty Action Group.
- "Several Guardian and Observer 'commentators' have been continually spewing out such hostile bilge that I now realise what they are really up to. These writers are secret Jeremy Corbyn fans.Their plan is to anger their readers to such an extent that the readers rush out to help Labour. Very clever. And there was me thinking they are an insult to journalism" - Pete Willsman, CLPD secretary, 7 May 2017.
- "Some 30% of children - that's 4 million - are growing up in poverty. Prior to 2010, thanks to targeted policies, child poverty in Britain was being reduced... If the Tories win, we will be consigning an entire new generation of children to the stigma of poverty" - Mary O'Hara, social affairs writer, Guardian 3 May 2017.
- Under Universal Credit, lone-parent families will be £2,380 a year worse off; a disabled person living alone can expect to be £3,500 a year worse off - Child Poverty Action Group.
- "Progressive Alliance"? - not as long as the Lib-Dems prefer the Tories! In York the LibDems are in coalition with the Tories, keeping out Labour as the biggest party.
- As usual, our Party's hard right are more concerned with inner-party positioning than with fighting the Tories, not to mention giving no support to Jeremy Corbyn whatsoever, in fact, quite the contrary. Having backed Ed Miliband's changes to the procedures for electing our Leader, they now want to scrap them and return to the arrangements that Ed Miliband and the so-called "party grandees" dismissed as 'undemocratic" - see story leaked by the hard right to the Sunday Times, 30 April 2017.
- What May says: "I believe in campaigns where politicians actually get out and about and meet the voters". What May does - holds an election rally in a Leeds workplace, but only after all the workers had gone home, to be replaced by bussed-in Tory cheerleaders.
- "Councils have had to spend more than £3.5 billion on temporary accommodation for homeless families in the past five years. The cost has increased by 43% annually" - Frances Ryan, Guardian, 28 April 2017.
- YouGov polling, 2-20 April: Among 18-24 year olds, Labour is 19 points ahead. Among women under 40, 42% say Labour and 27% Tory. Among men under 40, 32% say Labour and 31% Tory.
- Tory promises are worthless. Their 2015 manifesto pledged: "We will cap charges for residential social care from April 2016".
- "The homeless are what you step over when you come out of the opera" - Sir George Young, former Tory Minister of State for Housing, speaking when he actually held that position.
- "Food banks handed out a record number of meals last year, after the [government's] chaotic introduction of Universal Credit" - Guardian, 25 April 2017.
- "By 2019-20 per-pupil funding is set to decline by 8% in real terms, with some of the biggest reductions hitting schools in the poorest areas" - Sunday Times, 23 April 2017.
Theresa May and her "British values"
"Trust and cooperation is made harder, not easier, when the government casts a wide net of suspicion over the entire Muslim community" - Myriam François, Guardian, 5 June 2017.