Why Labour are doing so badly

Last week’s quarter point cut in Bank of England base rate appears unlikely to filter through to borrowers to any appreciable extent. Only a handful of lenders have passed on the cut through their standard variable rate deals and several, including Nationwide, Alliance & Leicester and Britannia have actually increased the rates they charge borrowers.

Today, Halifax announced that it is increasing one of its two-year fixed mortgage rate deals from 6.09 per cent to 6.59 per cent, adding £46 a month to borrowers' repayments on a £150,000 loan.

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has announced funding for 300 additional police posts to target radicalisation among young Muslims.

The coincidence of the announcement with the local government election campaign has not gone unnoticed. Announcements of this sort ought not to be made during the “purdah” period of three weeks prior to an election. Indeed, it was the “purdah” rule that was cited as the Post Office’s reason for suspending the round of branch closure announcements. Sauce for the goose is apparently not sauce for the gander.

I doubt, however, that Smith’s announcement will do Labour much good. People have become accustomed to their M.O.

I received an e-mail from a constituent today that sets out, more simply and eloquently than I ever could, precisely why Labour, for all their continued spinning, are doing so badly in the polls:

People need to see something being done that has some sort of effect for them. Working class people like us judge the state of the economy on what is in our own pockets. If we have less money, things are bad, if we have more, things are good. It is a simplistic and basic way of assessing and passing judgment on forces which are often beyond our control or understanding.

Crime and anti-social behaviour is no different. It doesn’t matter what the statistics say. It doesn’t matter how many glossy reports we see in the papers promoted by PR departments about multi-agency action days and initiatives. People judge the situation on what they see. If the peaceful enjoyment of their home comes easier, things are good. If the nuisance continues or worsens, things are bad.

It need not be any more complicated.

Nothing to add, really.

Peckham Wry

What is it about Peckham that causes so many problems to Labour MPs?

Yesterday, the area's parliamentary representative, Harriet Harman, decided to go on a walkabout in her constituency. Not only was she accompanied by four strapping police officers, but she was encased in a rather fetching Kevlar™ stab-proof vest.

The suggestion that she had plumped for that particular wardrobe item because Peckham was a dodgy area didn’t go down too well with the locals. Mrs Beatrice Smith, 63, commented:

“The only time we see Harriet Harman is either on voting day or doing some PR stunt. There is a lot of trouble on the estates but we don’t get given stab vests.”

This morning, on the Today programme, a shrilly defensive Ms Harman was given a bit of a roasting by John Humphrys (who could scarcely suppress his delight at her discomfiture). No, she didn’t wear a stab-proof vest to walk about her constituency beacause she didn't feel safe without it, she insisted. Perish the thought. She had simply put the gear on as a "courtesy" to the bobbies who were escorting her.

Digging herself deeper into the hole that was threatening to collapse on top of her, she confided:

"Just as I might wear a hard hat on a building site or an Indian outfit going to meet Indian constituents, it's just about wearing the kit."

Harriet has clearly learned nothing from the experience of her cabinet colleague, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who last January told the Sunday Times that she wouldn’t feel safe walking alone after dark on the streets of Hackney, or even Kensington and Chelsea, but that she had once “bought a kebab in Peckham” at night. It later emerged that she had been accompanied on her intrepid foray by “a man with broad shoulders”. That didn’t go down too well with the locals, either.

Tomorrow, in Gordon’s absence, Harriet will field Prime Minister’s Questions. Something to look forward to, if only to see what “kit” she decides to put on.

Poisoned Chalice

Yet another very serious security lapse, this time in the House of Commons itself. A Brazilian illegal immigrant, who had absconded from Heathrow airport over three years ago, was found to be working as a cleaner in the House, using a security pass belonging to another person. Even worse, the breach, which was apparently detected and reported to the immigration minister, Liam Byrne, as long ago as 31 January, was confirmed only last night, when the Home Office was contacted by the Daily Telegraph, which had received leaked reports of the incident.

Coming so soon after last year’s scandal, when 11,000 illegal immigrants were found to be working in the security industry, this episode is bound to put further pressure on the hapless Jacqui Smith, the latest in a long line of cabinet ministers to regret drinking from the poisoned chalice that is the Home Office.

It is also very likely to provoke accustions of a cover-up. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the memo sent to Liam Byrne on 31 January describes the level of controversy as "high" and advises a "reactive" approach to the media, "given recent coverage of security guards employed illegally at Government offices".

A proactive approach, i.e. making a clean breast of the cock-up, would, I suppose, be too much to hope for.

Parliament is full of overseas cleaners; no doubt the Home Office, now the gaff has been blown, will be conducting an urgent audit to confirm their credentials.

Welcoming the Fed

I was delighted to welcome a delegation of North Wales Police Federation members to Parliament this afternoon. Five coachloads of police officers had travelled from North Wales to lobby parliamentarians over the government’s betrayal on police pay.

Over 22,000 serving officers marched past the House – a most impressive sight that will have dismayed Jacqui Smith. At last, Labour seem to have kept their promise to put more police on the streets.

Pick up the phone, Jacqui

Jacqui Smith's admission to the Sunday Times that she wouldn’t feel safe walking alone at night on the streets of Hackney, or even Kensington and Chelsea, is arguably candid but nevertheless deeply worrying. Revealing, too, are the terms of her response, which was: “No. Why would I do that?”

Ms Smith made it clear by the manner in which she framed her answer that she understands only too well that anyone venturing out on the streets of many of our towns and cities after dark is simply asking for trouble. But the point is that, as Home Secretary, it is her job to make those streets safe, which she isn’t achieving.

If she wants to learn why so many of our streets are unsafe, she could do worse than consult His Honour Judge Ian Trigger. Last week, in Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Trigger gave vent to his obvious frustration and despair when passing sentence on a teenager who had beaten an elderly woman about the head with an iron bar. The youth was on bail at the time.

Judge Trigger told the yob (and I make no apology for quoting him at length):

"It is the fault of politicians that bail is so readily granted, rather than judges or magistrates.

"Parliament, and its woeful and indeed dreadful concentration on rights, forgets duties and responsibilities. It has meant people like you have the right to bail in these circumstances.

"We are living in a society which is bedevilled by wild feral youths such as you.

"Before we plunge into even greater violence at the hands of lawless and irresponsible youths it is time for us to address the problem.

"It is time for parents to resume control over their offspring.

"It is time for parents to teach values and respect to their children, value and respect for other people and not allow their offspring to engage in selfish and irresponsible behaviour.

"It is time for the police to be released from administrative tasks and red tape and be once more a visible 24-hour presence on our streets, particularly in our violent hotspots.

"It is time for the public not to criticise the police but support them so that wild youths like you are brought to justice.

"And it is time for Left-wing intellectuals and well-meaning do-gooders to abandon their obsession and concentrate on the obligations and responsibilities which we all owe each other.

"It is time for community and faith leaders to condemn the prevalent violence on our streets rather than excuse or condone it and it is time for sentencers to send a clear warning that violence will not be tolerated."

Ian Trigger knows exactly what is happening in our inner cities. He has what must be the dispiriting task of dealing with the consequences of Labour's failure on violent crime every working day of his life.

So, if Jacqui Smith won't venture out on the streets of London after dark, she could at least pick up the phone and speak to Judge Trigger, to find out from someone experienced and sensible just how bad it is.

Police 2.5

Chief constable Richard Brunstrom has called the Home Office’s handling of the police pay issue “shabby and dishonourable”.

He is entirely right. Over the last few days, I have received dozens of letters and e-mails from serving officers outraged by the decision not to backdate the recently-awarded 2.5 per cent pay increase. This will have the effect of keeping the settlement within the Treasury-imposed limit of 2 per cent for public sector pay reviews. It is a cynical, devious manoeuvre.

The police are now to be balloted by their Federation on whether they want the right to strike. This is an appalling state of affairs, at which we should never have arrived. It is wholly attributable to Jacqui Smith’s bungling incompetence, so amply demonstrated in so many other respects over the last few weeks.

I doubt she will remain in office much longer.

Grumpy Gordon

Gordon Brown’s performances at PMQs get no better. He comes across as bad-tempered and petulant.

Today, he was asked repeatedly by David Cameron to say when he was told by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that thousands of illegal immigrants had been found to have been employed in various sensitive security positions, including guarding the Prime Ministerial car.

Of course, David’s purpose in asking the question was to unearth whether Jacqui had kept the difficulties to herself – showing her to have been unforthcoming toward her own Prime Minister – or whether Gordon had been complicit in her attempt to keep the problems out of the press.

Gordon refused repeatedly to answer the question, despite Tory cries of “when?”, preferring instead to say that Jacqui had been “focused on getting on with the job”.

One can’t blame Gordon for not wanting to answer the question (although his refusal did make him look shifty), but one can fault him for his grumpy, humourless demeanour. He really has to learn to live with his new role and try to adopt some of Tony Blair’s better attributes, most notably his coolness under fire. At this rate, he won’t last the course.

No Time for Spin

Jacqui Smith's career as Home Secretary got off to a promising start. I was present in the House when she made her statement on the Glasgow airport terrorist attack; she came across as calm and self-assured. I was reasonably impressed.

Her handling of the understandable public anxiety in the wake of the shooting of Rhys Jones, however, has been considerably less impressive. A Labour friend chided me gently last week for my criticism of her as “another talking head”; he said that she was still clearly shocked on Thursday morning by what had happened in Liverpool the previous day.

Well, that is true, and in fact I gave her credit for that. However, Jacqui Smith is also our Home Secretary and we are entitled to look to her for leadership at such a time.

Since Thursday, Ms Smith's performance has not, in all frankness, improved. She still talks, feebly and inappropriately, about “acceptable behaviour contracts”, which seems rather like applying a sticking plaster to the stump of an amputated limb.

More seriously, however, she continues to push the line that "statistics aren't a help but gun crime is down". Now, that is plain wrong, as Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has pointed out. Today's Sunday Times reports that Davis has written to Ms Smith drawing her attention to Home Office statistics revealing that “gun-related killings and injuries (excluding air weapons) have increased over fourfold since 1998”.

Quite properly, Davis has warned the Home Secretary not to repeat the mistake, made by most of her predecessors, of preferring spin over substance. Ms Smith would do well to heed the warning. David Davis is a formidable opponent whose intervention has resulted in the premature termination of more than one ministerial career.

Our Problem

Everyone this morning will be appalled by the news of the fatal shooting yesterday of an 11 year-old boy, Rhys Jones, in the car park of a pub in Croxteth, Liverpool. According to early reports, the killer was another boy, said to be no more 12, who rode up to Rhys on a BMX bike and shot him three times.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was interviewed about the killing on this morning’s BBC Breakfast programme. Whilst giving her credit for no doubt being shocked, she nevertheless came over pretty poorly, talking about the need for more “unacceptable behaviour contracts”, and so on. She was just another talking head.

When a sub-teenage boy is shot in the streets of one of our great cities in broad daylight by another boy of similar age, something pretty dreadful is wrong. And the truth is that there is something wrong with us, as a country. We all have experience of gangs of what are now inevitably called “feral youths” hanging around bus stops, late into the night. Mostly, they are no more than a nuisance, but sometimes they are worse. For the most part, we do little or nothing about them; we pass by on the other side.

Police can be given more powers (and I am sure that they will) and unacceptable behaviour contracts and ASBOs can be doled out, but until we address the structural problems within our society, I remain doubtful whether things will improve.

We are now experiencing the latest phase in the process of the disintegration of social cohesion that has been going on in this country, under governments of both stripes, since at least the last war. We have to recognise the process first, and then do something about it. Government can facilitate the healing process (which will in any event take many years) but all of us must play our own part.

In Liverpool, that means that someone who knows, or suspects he knows, Rhys’s killer should immediately tell the police.

Silly Season

Leading this morning’s Today programme was the news that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith smoked cannabis when at university. I immediately said to Sara, “I bet I get a call today asking if I did, too.”

Bang on cue, just before noon, I was telephoned by a BBC Wales researcher, telling me that he was doing a survey of all Welsh MPs, asking if they had ever smoked cannabis. Had I?

No, I assured him; I had never smoked cannabis, nor, indeed, had I ever consumed any illegal substance. He seemed disappointed.

Silly season is almost upon us.

Common Cause

Attended the chamber, where the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, made a statement on last week’s terrorist attacks.

As was the case after the 7 July bombings two years ago, the mood of the House was one of unity and defiance, summed up by the veteran Labour MP, Bob Wareing, who recalled the spirit of the British people at the time of the Blitz. Party divisions were put aside; the shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, offered the support the Government the Opposition’s full support and co-operation in addressing the terrorist issue.

I asked the Home Secretary if she would be willing to listen to representations from police forces to ensure that sufficient funding was made available for security policing at ports. I am pleased to say that she confirmed that she would do so.

It is perhaps sad, but true, that adversity and a common enemy brings out the best in the House of Commons, just as it does in our country at large. We realise at such times that there is more that unites than divides us.