The Demolition Coalition

There is a huge democratic deficit at the heart of British politics today. The May 2010 General Election resulted in the LibCon Coalition of the Conservative Party who didn’t win the election and the Liberal Democrats who most definitely lost the election and whose promise of changing the “Face of British Politics” turned out to be a busted flush. Since then the public has been treated to a drip, drip, drip of spending cuts and tax raises based on slash and burn policies which were never put to the electorate. It is now clear that under the guise of “fiscal responsibility” what is happening is an ideologically driven attack on State services and the whole concept of “Society.” For David Cameron’s Big Society read Bogus Society.

Since the election the LibCon Coalition has announced so many cuts that it has been renamed the Demolition Coalition – no evidence they can (or want) to build anything but plenty of evidence they are happy to tear the house down. Non-protected departmental Budgets, everything apart from health and International Aid, are going to be cut by 25 percent on average. But Chancellor George Osborne told the House he would hope that the cuts to defence and education would be significantly less than that. The unspoken part of that is that the cuts to some other Budgets will have to be significantly bigger than that. Even then, Britain faces further tax rises even after the Coalition Government imposes deep cuts in public spending, according to a two-year study. An all-party commission has warned that taxes will have to rise to cope with the financial pressures caused by an ageing population; an increase in chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity; combating climate change; closing the gap between rich and poor; abolishing child poverty and improving skills levels in the workforce.



The coalition government's spending cuts to reduce deficit will see unemployment in the UK rise to almost 3 million over the next five years, according to a revised forecast by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). There was no prospect of real wage growth until at least 2015, and the public sector faced sharp pay cuts and job losses, which could total 725,000 by that year. The CIPD warned of a "bleak" outlook for "those individuals and communities already suffering the greatest hardship in society".

So it is not just the raving loonies that warn that the Demolition Coalition have got it wrong. That natural home of extremism, The Association of Police Superintendents has warned that the proposed cuts will lead to civil anarchy. The OECD is worrying that cuts will choke off recovery and the IMF is saying the UK has room for fiscal manoeuvre, so the Demolition Coalition’s arguments looks weaker every day.




Portcullis House

So I was very heartened last night to be in the Macmillan Room at Portcullis House in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster to meet the acting Labour Party Leader Harriet Harman and South East Labour Mp’s, Alan Whitehead, MP and John Denham, MP who represent Southampton, Andrew Smith MP for Oxford East, Fiona McTaggart MP for Slough. There is a real sense that the Labour Leadership campaign is leading to a real debate and renewal which will strengthen the Party. Over 32,000 people have joined the party since the election and disenchantment is rife among former Lib Dem supporters who voted for no VAT rise and against spending reductions.

It was good to see the inside of Portcullis House, a building which went significantly over budget and which has as its foundations, Westminster Tube Station. Portcullis House is built above the dramatic Westminster Tube Station on top of the “Box”, a vast 39m (127ft) void which was excavated underneath the old station to house the escalators, lifts and stairs to the deep-level Jubilee Line platforms, the deepest ever excavation in central London. One of the most difficult problems the engineers faced was to construct the station around the Circle and District line tracks, which continued in service throughout its construction. The tracks had to be lowered by 300mm (1 foot), an operation achieved a few millimetres at a time during the few hours each night that the system was closed. The station was by far the most complex in terms of engineering of any of those on the Jubilee line and it was the last to open, just before Christmas 1999. Nothing of the old station remains. The “box” gives you the impression you are in an Escher engraving and the spray concrete used in the “Austrian Tunnelling Method” is deliberately left exposed to demonstrate how it was constructed.






Westminster Station "The Box" under Portcullis House

The station's cavernous design, by Michael Hopkins & Partners, won it a 2001 Royal Institute of British Architects Award and earned it a place on the shortlist for the RIBA's prestigious Stirling Prize. The architects, Michael Hopkins and Partners, published their design for Portcullis House in 1993 and the existing buildings on the site were demolished in 1994. At the same time, London Underground was building the Jubilee Line Extension, including a new interchange station at Westminster tube station which occupies the same area; the two were thus designed and built as a single unit.



Inside with its dramatic atrium and its separation into Parlimentary and public areas (necessary for security reasons) Portcullis House reeks of long lasting quality and is hugely impressive. But what really impressed me was the fighting spirit of the Labour Party activists, MP’s and acting Leader Harriet Harman. With the Demolition Coalition greatly afraid of the electorates reaction to its slash and burn policies they are trying to Gerrymander the Electoral and Parliamentary systems, pushing through legislation to give Parliament a fixed five year term, postpone the Queen’s Speech (which sets out the Government’s legislative programme) and change the majority needed for a Vote of Confidence. As Harriet Harman pointed out the Labour Party is very much alive and kicking and holding the Demolition Coalition to account and the May Local elections next year will be a real moment of truth.


Acting Labour Leader Harriet Harman, a scion of the Anglo-Irish Harman-King family

One amazing feature of the Demolition Coalition so far is the compliant press coverage from the Murdoch and Tory Press. When you consider the acerbic and highly personalised disinformation campaign against Labour and its entire works before the May Election the docility of the right wing press in the face of, say swingeing Defence cuts is both incredible and hypocritical. The Demolition Coalition and the Labour Leadership Campaign has made the UK electorate realise why Labour is different. With its roots in the struggles for ordinary people’s rights by the Trade Union Movement and mutual self help by the Co-Operative Society it is set apart from the shallow opportunism of other parties and is the only political movement which can bring fairness and growth to Britain. As the outcome of the last election and the destructive experimentation of the Demolition Coalition has shown the Lib Dems were not an alternative to the overweening selfishness of the Tories.


Aaaahhhhhh ........ Nick, The Downing Street Baby