Image courtesy of the Bank of England

Winston Churchill’s already ubiquitous face will soon fit neatly into our wallets as the Bank of England unveiled its brand new £5 note set to come into circulation in 2016.

The new design, which will replace one featuring Victorian prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, depicts the wartime leader against a backdrop of the Houses of Parliament with the quote ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’.

Although I have no problem with Churchill’s face adorning our currency or his continuing popularity amongst the British people I do think his new elevated status is more a sign of the times.

If it were not for his role in the Second World War, Churchill would have been a very forgettable politician. He crossed the floor twice, going from the Conservative party to the Liberals and back again in the first half of the 20th century and was briefly unseated by the only prohibitionist MP Britain has ever had in 1922. Despite being credited for victory in the forties, he was demoted from his position as First Lord of the Admiralty for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in 1915-6 during the First World War.

He might have been crucial in the Second World War but his record is not spotless. No-one is perfect. Not even Winston Churchill.

It is also never fails to amuse me that he so often depicted as the icon of the anti EU lobby and UKIP’s campaign literature when he is quoted as saying this in Zurich in 1946:

“We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.”

But I digress. The inclusion of Churchill on the most widely distributed banknote in the UK demonstrates the country’s desperate need for a bit of security. Britain’s attachment to its ‘finest hour’ is fading but strong.

Over the course of the many, many snow days we’ve been subjected to this past year, regional- and even national- broadcasts have often resorted to portraying the atmosphere as a ‘blitz spirit’.

Because not being able to get to work is obviously comparable to living through an air raid every night.

With continued austerity, slow growth, bad politicians and terrible weather the British people are longing for a comfortable, face from the past to give them hope.

The rejection of Elizabeth Fry, currently the only woman apart from the Queen to be featured on the notes, is also telling.

She was a social reformer in the early nineteenth century who has been referred to in the past as the ‘angel of prisons’ for efforts to reform the prison system and make them humane. Given the revulsion and horror that convulsed parts of British society at even the idea of prisoners’ voting last year, the public zeitgeist is not really on her side.

But while I don’t object to Churchill being on the £5 notes I do think it is a shame Fry is being removed.

She is currently joined by Charles Darwin on £10 notes, Adam Smith (economist and author of The Wealth of Nations) on the £20 note and James Watt, Matthew Boulton (who invented the modern steam engine) and Sir John Houblon (the first governor on the Bank of England) on the £50 note.

These people are remembered (or not remembered often in the case of Fry and Houblon) for their country to Britain’s social and economic development. Whether or not Churchill ‘saved’ Britain, he did not change the way we think.

And thinking is in far too short supply today.

Fry was one of the very first social reformers in the nineteenth century which paved the way for the Welfare State created in the twentieth.

Darwin was part of the scientific wave which shrugged off religious explanations for the world and without him, we arguable may never have had modern geneticists.

Adam Smith is the so-called ‘Father of Economics’ as his book lay the foundations for laissez-faire economics which the modern subject is still heavily indebted too.

Watt and Boulton’s technical innovation catalysed the Industrial Revolution that made Britain the richest nation in the world for a very long time.

Houblon’s creation a central banking system which financed that Industrial Revolution and allowed it the breathing room to invest and expand.

We may owe Churchill a debt for keeping Britain ‘Great’. But Fry and her fellow socio-economic pioneers are owed it even more for making us ‘Great’ in the first place.

Image courtesy of the Daily Mirror

Oh dear.

Just when Labour thought it was safe to come out from behind the sofa. Just as the coalition’s benefit reform fails to liven up the party mood. Just when they thought they were on the upward swing. Tony Blair happened.

Unlike his successor, the Honourable Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, whose rare appearances in the House have become a Parliamentary Event, he is forever rising from the shadows and scuppering all of Ed Miliband’s plans.

This time, he has been criticising Miliband’s perceived tack to the left in an opinion piece for the New Statesman‘s centenary edition last week.

Blair argued despite the public protests, anger and hatred of the current coalition government, it would be dangerous to assume the centre ground of public opinion had shifted to the left.

At the same time, a new poll by Ipsos MORI said one in four respondents did not think Miliband was ‘ready to be Prime Minister’.

For so long it seemed to be going so well. After Miliband’s barnstorming performance at conference last year where he debuted his new ‘One Nation Labour’ rhetoric and reached out to the younger generation. That speech and the quick recovery of their high poll lead during Cameron’s EU referendum announcement gave the Labour camp a great deal of confidence as they fit themselves into the mould of ‘crusaders against the cuts’.

But, as always, with confidence comes complacency. The party’s continued lack of policy is starting to bite despite their protests that it is too early in the election cycle. This, coupled with the death of Margaret Thatcher, has seen Labour’s poll lead halved to 40 per cent against the Conservatives’ 33 per cent.

Simply put, Blair’s intervention could not have come at a worst time. Unlike most former leaders, Tony Blair may have gone down the ‘international statesman’, after dinner speaker route but he has not gone quietly. His previous public statements about wanting to be Prime Minister again and the defence of his record over Iraq.

While Cameron may be able to dine out on the legacy of Thatcherism, Blair will remain a constant thorn in Miliband’s side. He is the constant reminder of Labour’s recent past and Miliband cannot completely reassure the electorate that they are ready to be let loose on Number 10 again while he lurks in the shadows.

Miliband and his closet advisers believe the New Labour project was corrupted by a fear of Thatcherism and too much deference to the super-rich financial elite. Its halfway house between free markets and socialism allowed unscrupulous business practice to flourish as they underwrote rather than eradicated inequality.

Blair would be better off either shutting up or having a quick word with Jon Cruddas. His public interventions, whether well meant or not, only remind the public of Labour’s recent past. The 2010 election was not just lost by Gordon Brown. After 13 years the people had become tired of the ballooning deficit, the wars and the sense that the government which had swept to power so triumphantly to power in 1997 was no longer listening to them.

It is frankly remarkable that Miliband has managed to reinvent the party so quietly and kept the infighting to a minimum. In effect, Labour went through their first ‘years in the wilderness’ while they were still in office under Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. They seemed determined to tear each other apart over their failure before they’d even lost.

The problem is though; Tony Blair is right.

Labour has not been out of office long enough to really re-surge in the style of 1997. But if it is going to manage to hold onto its poll lead and become the majority party in 2015 it needs to get a grip. It cannot keep relying on the unpopularity of the current government and become the party of blind protest.

The coalition government is set to lose the next election but that does not mean Labour will win it. They are currently positioning themselves as the party opposed to everything and for nothing.

To be fair to the Miliband and his advisers the same criticism was leveled at Cameron during his time in opposition to Brown as it is a typical political move.

But these aren’t typical political times.

People are unusually disenfranchised by the ‘politispeak’ of politicians as they still frantically try to appeal to everyone and please no-one. Labour is in danger of listening to what it thinks people are saying like it did in the eighties and could find itself on the wrong of history.

We have been here before. Thatcher’s reforms destroyed communities around the country but it took ten to twenty years for people to truly recognise the effects. These reforms by Cameron will similarly take as long to disseminate.

People are not as opposed to them as you would think. The prevailing attitude of anyone questioned about welfare reform is that ‘genuine’ claimants should not be penalised but the overall system is broken. Yes, immigrants make up a tiny proportion of all claimants. Yes, there is no such thing as a life long benefit claimant.

But in politics truth and reality are powerless against the vagaries of the public’s attention. They are determined to blame immigration, the EU and the bankers for all their woes. No political intrigue will stop that.

Miliband may think he is doing what is right. But principle without power is futile.

Image courtesy of the Falkland government

Never has a referendum been more of a fait accompli.

When the polls close shortly, the 1,672 Falkland islanders will have dutifully filed to their few polling stations to affirm whether they want to remain a British overseas territory. When the result is published in the morning it is widely predicted to be a majority which would make David Cameron weep in jealousy in favour of remaining British

Of course, the purpose of this referendum was not to give the islanders a say in their future, it was merely to shut Argentina up. It is unlikely to succeed. Argentina has condemned the referendum saying it is a ‘meaningless publicity stunt‘.

The saga of ‘Las Malvinas’ has been building since last year, the thirtieth anniversary of the Argentinian military junta’s disastrous attempt to reclaim the islands, as an attempt to unleash a wave of patriotic fervour which will make them forget their ongoing financial crisis and the subsequent sky rocketing of inflation.

Despite their rather dubious claim to the territory, Argentina are unlikely to give up the fight. Much like the Falklands War in 1982, a patriotic crusade always comes in handy when you are facing popular opposition to your rule.

So Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is unlikely to let up on the publicity stunts and British newspapers should expect more open letters to British Prime Ministers in future.

Now here is where I’m going to get mildly controversial. Personally, I don’t have any particularly provocative opinion on the Falklands issue itself as I broadly believe it should remain British. It cannot be independent and self sustaining, it has an overwhelmingly (and somewhat frightening) British character, it was British/French/Spanish much longer than its ever been Argentinian and of course, possession is nine tenths of the law.

But beyond that I could not care less and wish the British media would stop pretending like it’s the dominant international issue facing Britain today.

I understand that British men were killed in the 1982 and this is a re-inflammation of old wounds. But isn’t the point of remembering one war to learn from its mistakes? Falling for the same rhetorical traps is a step in the wrong direction. Argentina isn’t stupid enough to attack again so its time for Britain to be the bigger man.

So instead of rising to it, maybe next time she writes an editorial for a left leaning paper or forbids the sale of British eggs or something, perhaps we should just ignore it?

Nothing irritates me more than jingoism. When Kirchner’s letter appeared in January there was a flurry of angry tirades across Twitter, the blogosphere and even creeping into comment sections of national newspapers.  Why get so worked up over a domestic distraction technique in South America after all this time?

According to a Sky News poll released at the weekend, approximately one per cent of the British people think the Falkland question is the most important foreign issue facing the country. But from the way some British papers go on you’d expect the Argentinians to be threatening to march on London and ritualistically murder all our first born children.

I still think patriotism is stupid. But this is taking it to a whole new level.

The flagrantly hostile, childish insults and taunts thrown at the Argentinians make the British media look more like a hysterical toddler shrieking over the loss of a toy they never play with than the world power they are supposed to be.

We won. The Falkland Islands will remain ours. It’s time to move on. Enough with the pointless geopolitical dick swinging.

And what a couple of weeks it’s been to celebrate such a milestone with the Liberal Democrats facing what is easily their worse crisis of recent memory.

During the dark days of the first tuition fees protests, it seemed the Liberal Democrats could sink no lower. And yet, they have managed it.

The Lord Rennard scandal and the Chris Huhne perversion of justice sentence that proceeded it have made the Liberal Democrats seem like everything they had despise in previous Labour and Tory governments.

Lying, sexism, even criminality were perceived as acts of politicians corrupted by power they, as the perennial opposition, were supposedly above. They were supposed to be the voice of level headed reason and human decency. They were the people who entered politics out of a sense of duty, not a megalomaniacal or narcissistic desire for power and influence.

Lord Rennard is hardly the first politician to become embroiled in sexual impropriety claims, Westminster is after all notoriously sexist. His fellow Lib Dem, Mike Hancock is currently being sued by a constituent over claims of sexual impropriety. The stories of sexual harassment floating around Westminster are legend and I can definitely think of a few ‘honourable’ members from other parties guilty of similar crimes.

But the ongoing abuse of power in the party exposed this week is particularly damaging to the Liberal Democrats because it is the final nail in the coffin for the idea they’ve been above it all for the past 25 years.

Examples like the nasty, homophobic by-election campaign of Simon Hughes in Bermondsey in 1983 back when they were still the Liberals, Mark Oaten’s fondness for rent boys back in 2006 and the ongoing saga of Chris Huhne’s legal troubles show they’ve never been perfect.But this scandal is in a different league as it shows the failing are institutional rather than a few bad apples.

And let’s face it, back when they were the third party no-one really noticed what they got up to, now they’re in government they need to get their act together.

But this scandal goes all the way up to top and it is hard to see how Nick Clegg is going to wriggle out of this one. For all his brief popularity during the last election Clegg has proven he isn’t capable of wiping off the misdeeds of his party as previous ‘Teflon’ leaders like Blair and Cameron have done.

The drip drip revelation of Clegg’s part in brushing the outrageous abuse of power by Lord Rennard under the carpet have shown that however personally progressive his values are, he is either unable or unwilling to tackle the caveman style mistreatment of women in his party.

A leader with such a loose grip on power (or indeed the plot) is dangerous with only two years to go to what may be the toughest general election they will ever face.

In spite of all this Clegg will still probably get a stay of execution until after 6th May 2015. Now his main rival has been defeated and the Eastleigh by-election was won with the smart decision to field an unassuming, local candidate who is unlikely to say anything stupid, no-one will want to rock the boat too much.

No-one wants to become the captain of a sinking ship but with his authority compromised Clegg will only just be able to keep his party together in the run up to the election. Not unlike Gordon Brown’s fate after the snap election that wasn’t in 2007. Most of the Liberal Democrats I seem to talk to, appear to be looking forward to escaping government and reclaiming their comfortable seat on the backbenches where they feel they belong.

Rachel Sylvester wrote in the Times this week (£) the Liberal Democrats weren’t ready for government. She said they had spent so long in opposition being ignored they cannot face up to the scrutiny and disappointment of government. Back in 2009 when Rennard was quietly moved on it seemed like the most practical way to avoid a scandal but in the days of new government accountability, people are angry enough to see yellow heads roll.

The Liberal Democrats have made it to their Silver Jubilee but if they seriously want to make to their Golden one they need to get to grips with the nature of power.

They need to learn they can’t act like progressive champions of women’s rights and let ”octopus” tentacles slither up their female members’ legs. They need to learn how to fight a by-election as simultaneously the party of local people and the party of government. They need to learn when to make tactical withdrawals and become a party which can take a firm stance on issues without making promises it can’t keep.

Most of all they just need to learn to act like a modern, dynamic socially progressive of the twentieth first century not the hypocritical, middle class guilt party of the twentieth.

Image courtesy of the Spectator

A tense dance is underway in Italy this week as the political right and left make moves towards populist leader Beppe Grillo while he skips out of their grasp and jangles the keys to the kingdom over their heads.

The result of Sunday’s election was a predictably muddled affair. Although Pier Luigi Bersani’s left wing challenger Democratic Party (PD) won control of the lower house, its failure to secure the Senate has forced it to grovel at the feet of Grillo’s Five Star Movement which won an amazing 25 per cent of the vote despite only forming three and a half years ago.

The movement prides itself on its anti-establishment mishmash of policies, which include include anti austerity measures, a free internet and mild Euroskepticism. It has refused to negotiate with any of the major parties, predicting fresh elections within the year.

This election has widely been treated as a victory for the little man and protest fringe parties across Europe like UKIP are taking note. But what has Grillo really achieved by bringing Italy to a standstill?

The bizarre populist glee of the Five Star Movement doesn’t seem to account for the stress it puts on the lives of ordinary people. The ‘that’ll learn attitude’ to the news Italy’s position in world markets stuttering and making it harder to get cheap credit doesn’t seem to recognise it has a knock on effect down the chain.

Yes, a fat cat will suffer a fall in his stock but a small business owner will find it harder to invest or even maintain the investments he already has.

Politicians across the world are awful. They are corrupt (especially in Italy), nepotistic, distant and far too concerned with their image than their voters. But protest voting won’t help.

The rise of movements like UKIP and the Five Star Movement demonstrate how politics now exists in a warped reality where people don’t understand the unavoidable unfairness of power. People think they are sending a message but all they are doing is perpetuating the Daily Mail politics which have got the modern political establishment in such a muddle in the first place.

UKIP and the Five Star Movement tell people what they want to hear, they create crowd pleasing policies that appeal to emotion rather than reason. At least the major parties make a stab at both even if they are mostly unsuccessful.

Have you ever read a UKIP manifesto? Its nonsensical. They promote conflicting policies and campaign on a social issues platform that went out of fashion twenty years ago. When challenged on this points they resort to bluster or blaming the EU.

For instance, in leaflets distributed by UKIP candidate for the Eastleigh byelection, Dianne James claimed four million Bulgarians planned to come to the UK in January 2014. In the Channel 4 hustings for the election, Kristan Guru Murphy pointed out there are only seven and half million Bulgarians in Bulgaria.

If UKIP really thought they had a ‘realistic chance of winning’, they would have put Farage in the hot seat.

Similarly, visit the comment pages of the Times, the Telegraph and Conservative Home, they seize even the flimsiest excuse to play the ‘Emperor’s New Followers’, pretending they are the voice of the majority when they just shout the loudest.

Or maybe they represent the majority of people with nothing better to do than spend all day online making snarky comments on the internet.

There is one fundamental rule of the internet, Godwin’s law; the longer an internet conservation goes on the probability of someone mentioning the Nazis reaches one.

Maybe its time that rule was amended so the probability of someone mentioning the EU becomes one. We could call it ‘Farage’s law’.

And whoever says ‘Vote UKIP’ immediately loses the argument. Especially if they do it in ALL CAPS.

They lie as much as any other politicians. The only reason they look humbler than any other political party is because they have less money and less political skill. Incompetence and bluster do not good rulers make.

Neither does a one line economic policy. Economics is a broad church; there are so many differing opinions out there all worshiping at the altars of Hayek, Keynes, Freedman, Marx etc. Modern, high profile and highly respected economists tend to pick sides. Some support Labour, some support the Conservatives, some advocate EU withdrawal, some do not.

But name me one high profile economist who agrees with UKIP. You can’t. Even if any existed, they would not dare admit it for fear of being laughed out of their departments.

Economics is an ugly, finicky, complicated business much like politics and there are no right answers or simple solutions. UKIP are not representing the people properly, they are probably disrespecting the electorate more than anyone else with their callous treatment of reason.

UKIP policy is an assault on reason. There is nothing wrong with ordinary people entering parliament, in fact it should be encouraged, but not because their overwhelming quality is their ordinariness. UKIP suffers from an inverted snobbery which pushes their candidates to the opposite end of the spectrum than the current roster of the three main parties.

Debate is binary, decisions are knee jerk, solutions are simplistic. They do not understand the unfair nature of political power is eternal and the problems of representation will probably never be solved, especially not by stamping your feet.

Their interpretation of ‘rule by the people’ is to sneer at intellectuals for being out of touch as if the lifetime long study of market forces is less of a qualifier to decide fiscal policy than ‘man down the pub’ logic.

Intellectualism is not any more of a disqualification for rule than ordinariness. UKIP criticise politicians for telling people to think in a certain way then tell them to think in a different way.

Whatever happen to thinking for yourself? It’s these different ideas and a place for everyone to share them is what we need. Not a new party line to follow.

They attack, they don’t challenge. They whine, they don’t debate. They are more interested in what people want to be the right answer, not what it actually is.

The rise of UKIP has exposed the holes in the modern political system. But they do not provide the solution.