Boris’ speech will not win hearts or minds

Labour Party

They say you should kill them with kindness – and its precisely what Boris Johnson will try to do in his speech today on, ironically, Valentine’s Day when he attempts to win the hearts of pro EU campaigners.

But it will likely fall flat if he insists, as the leaked transcripts suggest, that he “cannot and will not allow Brexit to be reversed.” Just a minor detail but clearly, he didn’t get the memo- it’s not completely within your power to decide this Boris!

Attempting to thwart any mobilisation of opposition Boris will, as Paul Waugh writes, attempt to “love bomb” his critics. But even before his speech, has been made critics have accused him of hypocrisy. He was, after all, central to the Vote Leave campaign which as we all know exploited fears on immigration and on government spending on the EU.

In his attempts to supposedly win over pro EU supporters he will warn that Brexit is not grounds for fear but hope. He can’t possibly be taken seriously- his leading campaign slogan was to promise voters vast sums of money for the NHS post Brexit, and we all know how that turned out.

Not only that but by preaching that he is right and dismissing the prop European campaign he is doing the very thing he claims he isn’t. Typically muddled.

As Chukka Umunna said in an interview with Huff Post: “Boris Johnson is totally unqualified to preach about the perils of fear and betrayal when he engaged in disgraceful scaremongering with his ridiculous assertion that Turkey was on the verge of joining the EU and he has already betrayed millions of people by going back on his pledge to secure £350 million extra per week for the NHS. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.

“He has so far failed to explain why he is campaigning in Cabinet to take the UK out of the Customs Union when there is no other solution to the Irish border issue and it will jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement settlement.

“Boris Johnson needs to come clean and concede that we cannot have our cake and eat it when leaving the EU. His speech is on Valentine’s Day, not April Fool’s Day.”

The Government is deluded if it thinks that, Boris, of all people will be the one to win over the hearts and minds of pro Europeans. He doesn’t know how to reach out to anyone who doesn’t believe in ‘Boris-ology’ or who refuses to be part of the campaign to further his own political career.

The only sensible option is to go back to the electorate and ask them if it is satisfied with the deal the Government negotiates- if it ever manages it.

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-up

Labour Party

“The NHS cannot afford five more years of David Cameron”, the Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, said last week referring to revelations that the Tories had originally planned to CUT the number of nurses working in the NHS. He promised that Labour would fund 20,000 more nurses and 8,000 more GPs.

The Tories original plan for the NHS, Labour revealed, was to cut the number of full-time NHS nurses by 1,966 by 2019, more than 1,500 of them mental health posts.

Further analysis by the independent House of Commons library revealed the numbers were already dwindling. The latest NHS workforce census, which showed the number of nurses per million people in the UK had fallen from 5,324 in 2009 to 5,172 in 2014.

Meanwhile, recognising the very poor press zero hours contracts get, the Tories have decided to re-brand them. But whichever way you cut it-flexible hours, zero hours, or no hours, they are still bad, as Barbara Ellen writes: “Great news: everyone can stop worrying about nasty, unfair zero-hours contracts because Iain Duncan Smith has rebranded them and made them sound nice.

“The Conservative work and pensions secretary thinks that the phrase ‘zero-hours contracts’ is too negative, and wants to replace it with ‘flexible hours’. Did you see what he did there? It’s even better than Esther McVey’s ‘enabling hours’,” Ellen added.

What the Tories don’t understand is that ‘hard working families’, as they are so fond of calling the working population, need job security to enable them to provide a stable environment family environment- something else the Tories think it’s so important for us all to deliver on, only they refuse to give us the means with which to carry this out.

The Tories tell us that they support the family and ‘hard working people’, yet by embracing zero hour contracts they fail to understand that the precarious nature of these contracts is a way to simply re-dress ‘insecurity’ with ‘flexibility’- as Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, innovation and Skills, sagely described it.

You can read Barbara Ellen’s article in full here.

VOTEMATCHING

ELECTION '09, Labour Party
Bet you never thought you’d find me in a photo with ace Tory blogger Iain Dale!  Especially in the light of some of the things I have said about him on this blog.  Well here it is, the two of us in amicable conversation at the launch of votematch, a fun way to get into conversation about politics and may be even into full blown political activity. 

iain Dale at the busy Apple Store which hosted the Votematch event.
Iain Dale at the busy Apple Store which hosted the Votematch event.
With Chuka Umunna, Labour's candidate in Streatham at the next election.
With Chuka Umunna, Labour’s candidate in Streatham at the next election.

Votematch is being promoted by Unlock Democarcy (the old Charter 88) to bring more people into the wider political arena.  Peter Facey, Unlock Democracy’s Director, has done an excellent job.

Votematch is a great idea.  It was good to see so many people at the launch yesterday evening at the Apple store in Regent Street.  It was also heartening to see another Labour face among the throng – Chuka Umunna, PPC in Streatham.

PS  I unfortunately missed Stephen Fry who was due to attend as guest of honour.  Can’t win them all!   

With Peter Facey Director of Unlock Democracy

With Peter Facey Director of Unlock Democracy