BY BRAD JAMES
Yesterday was mother’s Sunday. A day to celebrate one’s mother, a holiday falling on the fourth Sunday of Lent and practiced in many parts of Europe. It’s a day to celebrate life, caring, nurturing, protection, fertility, femininity and all things maternal. What better way to celebrate fecundity at the resurgence of Spring than a healthy bloom of rhetoric and policy from the opposition this weekend?
Although let us not also forget that yesterday also marked the Ides of March too. A day that ranks among the highest echelons of infamy historically. A day when, 2,059 years ago, the Consul/Dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar, was planning to declare himself Emperor before the gathered Senate meeting on the Ides of March, 44 B.C.E. The Senators put paid to his ambition by the vicarious sharpness of multiple blades, each striking a blow to seal their multiple culpability and so not one would stand out as culprit for his murder. Perhaps apt then that this weekend has marked a vigorous insertion from the Labour Party into the political foray, entering the cut and thrust of election early by nailing – or knifing – their policies to the national mast and hijacking members of the government.
Yesterday, Ed Miliband released five key pledges for Labour’s Election Campaign at a pre-election rally in Birmingham. He spoke to 1,500 party activists, promising to replace a tired, failed government and to represent all the people of Britain. Arguing that a country which entitles only the richest in society is a failure.
The five pledges promised by a potential Labour Government would include:
· A strong economic foundation.
· Higher living standards for working families.
· An NHS with the time to care.
· Controls on immigration.
· A country where the next generation can do better than the last.
All of the following standards are admirable, save for the last one. The neo-liberal ethos of unhindered, perpetual growth is nonsensical. We live on a planet with finite resources, eternally inflating year-on-year proves to be a direct contradiction to this. The full statement of Ed Miliband’s intentions can be found here: http://press.labour.org.uk/
Yesterday, on the Idea of March, Labour sharpened their tools and committed to fervent thrust and parry of political discourse. The blade of choice was the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, intercepting the Chancellor George Osborne on today’s Andrew Marr Show on BBC One. Ed Balls forced the Chancellor into a live TV debate, live on air. Osborne immediately attempted to avoid the issue and offered his deputy, Lib Dem’s Danny Alexander up as a substitute for him. Yet being pressed by his red antithesis, Osborne responded: “Well, I’d be happy to meet you for a debate.” Going for a U-turn straightaway:
“Ed, I’m not going to … We’re going to see who else wants to be part of that. I’ve got a very effective chief secretary who I think would also want to be part of that.”
Ed Balls managed to prompt a handshake from the Chancellor, promising to meet for a debate. Though later, in an interview with John Pienaar on Radio Five Live, said:
“He [Osborne] started shaking hands and he was agreeing to a head-to-head debate with me. By the end of the handshake it sounded like he wanted to bring along his deputy, Danny Alexander.
“It was clear and then it was unclear. I thought George Osborne was going to do what David Cameron has ducked for weeks and weeks. He started the handshake doing it – by the end, constructive ambiguity I think.”
Those on the left and those contemptuous of the Tories have been waiting anxiously for a serious effort of policy when it comes to the Labour election pledge. Is it too little, too late? Perhaps not. Though what it does signify is a clear call to arms, a coherent broadcast of what they stand for, because not only does the nation need to know it, so do potential allies come the growing inevitability of a Hung Parliament. Hung Parliaments have existed in the days when the political tropes of ministers have fashioned a noose out of the hot air they spout, which the public tire of. Though we don’t need a Westminster that apes a gibbet, in actual fact one that is a salubrious representation of a vibrant nation we all know exists. Labour’s pledges vow to accentuate such vibrancy, yet we must wait and see if it rungs true…
