James Macintyre's Blog

The cleverness of photo-manipulation

Among the most interesting things that happen on the news-desks of papers are the decisions -- often taken quite high up -- over which photograph to go with a story. Searches will be made to find downcast pictures of politicians having a bad day -- Gordon Brown was a regular recent victim of this -- and often a split-second averting of the eyes to some notes can be made to look like an expression of despair from someone about to throw themselves off a bridge (try putting Brown, or John Major, into Google News for some commonly-used results).

So it was interesting to see this picture the Mail used for a story about disability benefit.

According to my colleague Mehdi Hasan, Iain Dale, during a debate on LBC at the weekend, denied that the media led the way when it comes to demonising benefit claimants, claiming instead that anti-benefits feeling came from the public.

I am sure many people are fed up with claimants (though I find the new consensus that Labour simply spent its time handing out benefits to fakes and the undeserving). But looking at this picture, do you agree that the media do not play a leading role in this?

I particularly like the bit in brackets after the caption:

Feet up: Claimants will lose their disability benefits as the public spending cuts bite (Posed by model)

www.newstatesman.com - Do the media lead the anti-benefits screaming?

By drawing sharp divisions with the coalition while reinstating 4-yr deficit-halving plan, shadow chancellor shows he's the right man for the job.

He may have been largely reading from notes. He may not have delivered the most dramatic or charismatic of speeches, to put it mildly. But Alan Johnson has by all accounts done his homework in the past week, and today showed that he is a competent shadow chancellor as well as attractive politician, one more than capable of walking the tightrope between the positions over the deficit of Alistair Darling and Ed Balls.

He did say that "Ed Miliband and I are clear" that halving the deficit over four years is the correct policy. "Our policy remains to halve the deficit by 2013, '14". But he immediately added that tax must "do more of the work" to balance the budget. He emphasised that "public services matter", calling for an approach that "values public services" not one that "relishes curtailing them". He said the approach must be flexible enough to react to changing circumstances -- reminded his City audience of the Irish reversion into recession. And he highlighted the "biggest difference" between the Labour and Government positions as "the need to return to growth", pointing out that "a rising dole queue means a bigger dole queue".

Johnson produced a number of quotes from senior Liberal Democrats Vince Cable and Chris Huhne attacking "dogmatic" and ideological cuts, and reminded us that the IFS had "blown to pieces" the Government's claim that the cuts are "progressive". And overall, this was a further pitch for the middle classes -- following that made by Ed Miliband at Prime Minister's Questions last week -- families in which, Johnson claimed, are taking the burden instead of the banks doing so.

Johnson was a controversial choice for shadow chancellor. No journalist -- including this one -- had heard it would happen (though I did guess at it in conversation with my colleague Mehdi in the days before the shadow reshuffle). This was as much because of Ed Miliband's desire to keep the rivalrous Balls at arms-length as it was because he has been persuaded by supporters of his brother David over the Darling deficit reduction plan. It was, in other words, a very political decision. There is, however, no denying that Johnson is one of the biggest beasts in the Labour jungle right now. Today he subtly and soberly set out his position. It does indeed look like he will be an effective foil to George Osborne.

www.newstatesman.com - Alan Johnson: there is an alternative

Are there tears emerging in the new "big tent"?

Back in May, many Westminster observers were surprised to see the liberal commentator Will Hutton appointed by the Tory-led coalition to head up a review into public sector pay. Along with the Labour MP Frank Field, who was made "poverty tsar", Hutton was seen as part of a new "big tent" around the Government. From the Guardian:

The appointment places Hutton at the heart of one of the most challenging policy areas for the new coalition.

The move was seen as shrewd by those sympathetic to the coalition and curious to those rather more sympathetic to the unorthodox economic views of Hutton, the author of The State We're In, which argues that fiscal challenges cannot be tackled in isolation from social problems.

So it was perhaps a little shocking if ultimately unsurprising to open the Observer comment pages yesterday and see a pretty major attack on the Government's approach to the much-hyped spending review coming later this week. Under the headline, "History will see these cuts as one of the great acts of political folly -- As America and China square up, the chancellor is ignoring the bigger picture with his ill-advised spending review", Hutton concluded, about the ideological cuts to come:

Unless something changes dramatically, it is hard to see how China and the US can do anything else but remain, at best, deadlocked, at worst, sliding towards economic war.

Britain should be doing all in its power to avoid this disaster and to have a plan B to protect itself if disaster strikes. We should be offering to play our full part in any world deal to buy time for the US and China to change, while making sure we can act fast and flexibly to respond to a climate of beggar-my-neighbour trade and currency policies. The spending review should have been framed to allow Britain to play its part in boosting world demand, help the world arrive at the compromises necessary to sustain economic order and make our recovery more secure. It will not be. The coalition has many admirable aims and that two political parties can work together so effectively is refreshing. But everything is being put at risk by once again kowtowing to the gods of financial orthodoxy. That was always wrong in the past. It is no less wrong today.

It appears, then, that Hutton's influence within the coalition is limited, not unlike that of the Liberal Democrats, also sucked into the new "big tent". There may be a story behind this; Hutton may yet speak out further. But for now his comments show that -- in advance of George Osborne's heavily-leaked announcements on Wednesday -- all may not be quite as happy as it looks on the good ship coalition.

www.newstatesman.com - Will Hutton's attack on Osborne's "ill-advised spending review"

The party will be poorer without him

If, as seems likely, David Miliband steps down from front-bench politics this afternoon, it will be a tragedy for the Labour party if an entirely understandable thing to do. He has conceded that he arrived in Manchester "planning a slightly different week" to the one he had to endure, and yet his speech to the conference paying tribute to Ed shows what a giant man as well as politician he is.

His alleged comment to Harriet Harman, too, about clapping Ed over Iraq having voted for the invasion shows, at least, consistency and conviction. It also shows why, perhaps, he would be right to step down.

But that does not take away from the fact that doing so brings a rather dark side to this leadership contest. It feels a wrong and premature ending to his British political career. There is no doubt that it would have been better if, somehow, we could have had both Milibands on the front bench rather than one.

www.newstatesman.com - David Miliband: Labour giant

This is a man with the clarity of vision to win

He got his biggest cheer when he addressed his critics -- internal and external -- head on: "Red Ed -- come off it.". And today Ed Miliband did defy those critics, with one of the best speeches to a Labour conference in recent history.

Yes, he paid extensive tribute to New Labour's record, to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But boy did he turn the page, ushering in the age of a new generation with these words: "How did a party with such a record lose 5 million votes between 1997 and 2010?"

His is a party that "takes on established thinking; doesn't succumb to it", and, to the visible annoyance of some, Ed Miliband disowned the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, the fatefully relaxed approach to regulation and the erosion of civil liberties that all happened under a Labour government.

The speech was nuanced: he said no to strikes despite the gravity of the Tory cuts to come; the union leaders did not clap. But he made it clear that Labour should always be progressive: no other candidate would have said what he said about refusing to condemn Ken Clarke as "soft on crime". And he got another huge cheer when he pointed out that "a banker can earn in a day what a carer earns in a year -- it's wrong conference".

Some inside Labour -- as well as in the Tory-dominated media -- will doubt that Ed Miliband has what it takes to be prime minister; they will say he is too left wing. But it is through the sheer force of his values that this man can show he can win. Today he was fully unleashed. And the likelihood is that the country will learn to love him just as the Labour movement and its affiliates did. The smart money is on Ed Miliband as the next prime minister.

www.newstatesman.com - Ed Miliband: next prime minister

David concedes with great dignity.

Despite predicting in the New Statesman in December 2008 that Ed Miliband would succeed Gordon Brown, I am still stunned by what we have just seen in the conference hall in Manchester today.

There is no point in pretending Ed's defeat of David isn't one of the most dramatic stories in modern British political history. This is a tale of ruthless and focused determination, based on what Ed regarded as an importantly different set of policies. The result is t...

David concedes with great dignity.

Despite predicting in the New Statesman in December 2008 that Ed Miliband would succeed Gordon Brown, I am still stunned by what we have just seen in the conference hall in Manchester today.

There is no point in pretending Ed's defeat of David isn't one of the most dramatic stories in modern British political history. This is a tale of ruthless and focused determination, based on what Ed regarded as an importantly different set of politics. The result is t...

He's back. And they love him.

I am writing this from a dark corner behind the stage at the Labour Party conference where Gordon Brown, unnoticed to passing delegates, can be spotted through a tiny window animatedly practising the speech he is about to deliver to the party faithful and media gathered here for the leadership announcement shortly.

Labour loves its past leaders, and Brown will no doubt go down well here. Certainly delegates he passed on his way here leapt to their feet to...

His cherished salary is just what is wrong with the BBC

For years, since I was exposed to BBC Radio 1 by cooler fellow students, I have thought that Chris Moyles is exactly the sort of supposed "talent" that the misguided, extravagant and bloated BBC is so wrong to bankroll. His entirely forgettable, amoral ramblings are not just pointless but mean that there is so much less music on the station when he is in behind the microphone. He is the wannabe trendy BBC at its worst, and I prefer...

A tricky balancing act

There are reports today that should Ed Miliband win the Labour leadership on Saturday he would make his elder brother David shadow chancellor. There is obvious logic to this -- David would need a very senior post indeed -- but somehow it doesn't feel quite right. Some would argue it would look dynastic, though that should be dismissed on the grounds that -- regardless of their blood relationship -- the Miliband brothers were the two front-runners in this contest...