Latvia, Leeds and Labour

'On immigration and Labour's trade union link, Ed Miliband's leadership actually represented a shift to the right from the Blair years,' wrote Owen Jones in the Guardian last week.

Certainly as far as immigration goes, he's perfectly correct. But then, in purely political terms, perhaps Miliband was right to move the party's position.

In 2004 eight East European countries (plus Malta and Cyprus) joined the European Union, the largest enlargement the organisation has ever experienced. This was the occasion when the likes of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined, and the occasion that sparked a steep rise in immigration into the UK from European countries.

The then prime minister, Tony Blair, was enthusiastic about the arrival of the new member states. This was, he declared: 'A good day not just for Poland, Latvia and Cyprus, but also for Peterborough, Leeds and Carlisle.'

So how did that work out politically? Well, the good news is that Labour still holds four of the five parliamentary constituencies in Leeds. But the fifth - Leeds North West - fell to the Liberal Democrats in 2005, and has been retained by them ever since.

Meanwhile both Peterborough and Carlisle, which were held by Labour at the time of Blair's comments, have fallen to the Conservative Party, in 2005 and 2010 respectively.

From a Labour Party perspective, that seems to be the problem with the public - they don't appreciate what's good for them.

Millionaires - an endangered species

A report from the Daily Express in 1954:

'There are now only 36 people left in the millionaire class of taxpayers in Britain. A year ago there were 60. And in 1939 the number was 1,024.

'Yesterday Inland Revenue figures for the year ended March 31 1953 showed that only 36 people had incomes of more than £6,000 a year after tax. A tax official said: "To be left with £6,000 means you must earn at least £56,000 or have a million pounds invested at about five per cent."

'The report covers the first full year's drive against savers who had escaped tax on interest on savings in Post Office and other banks - and showed that more than £16,000,000 had been raked in.'

Will no one rid us of this tedious pundit?

'The Tories who witnessed the Major years still bear some scar tissue,' writes Simon Heffer in the New Statesman, as he commences his analysis of the new government's position.

Well, yes, and much of it was inflicted by him and others in the supposedly loyal Tory press, still worshipping at the shrine of the fallen idol, having never got over the emotional shock of witnessing her departure from Downing Street. When John Major was told during the 1992 election campaign that the Conservative Party was six points behind Labour in the opinion polls, he replied: 'Of those six points, three are the fault of Simon Heffer and the other three are Frank Johnson's fault.'

Heffer was then the deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph and the relentless sniping from that newspaper and from the Daily Mail did a huge amount of damage to Major's government. It'll be interesting to see how much they've learned from the experience.

Meanwhile, though, I do wonder why any publication continues to pay Heffer money for his views, given how ludicrously inept his assessments are. I know most commentators, having spent far too long reading opinion polls, called the recent election wrong, but Heffer is way beyond that. He is willfully blind to reality, his perception distorted by dogma in a way that would have caused embarrassment to a member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party in the days of Gerry Healy.

In May last year, following the European elections, Heffer wrote about the urgent need for the Tories to form an electoral pact with Ukip. In constituencies such as Nigel Farage's promised land of Thanet South, he said, 'there is nothing to be gained by putting up a novice candidate against him'. Foolishly, the Conservative party ignored his wise advice, fielded their own candidate and, er, won the seat.

Heffer's article concluded: 'If the Tories have any sense, they will start talking about such an arrangement now. For if, next week, Ukip wins the Newark by-election and the Tories descend into panic, David Cameron might find himself with no other option.' Needless to say, the Conservative Party won the Newark by-election, with a handsome 7,400 majority. In the general election, they increased that to 18,500, with Ukip beaten into third place by Labour.

But the great sage was undeterred. He still knew better, and mere facts weren't going to get in his way. This is him in August last year. 'Although they [the Tories] have doggedly refused to entertain the idea, they will have to consider an electoral pact with Ukip, or face at least five years out of government.' Consequently, 'the party's grandees will, I am convinced, make a humiliating U-turn.'

If David Cameron would only reach out to Ukip, 'he wouldn't just keep himself in Downing Street, but would reunite a conservative coalition - which, I am sure, is really what the country wants.'

All that certainty, all that absolute self-confidence, all that nonsense.

But then this is the man who backed John Redwood's bid for the Conservative leadership in 1995. He has been consistently wrong for over twenty years now. Why is he still considered employable?

Yesterday's News Today: Fascist leader arrested

This is the front page of the Daily Sketch from 24 May 1940, seventy-five years ago today:

There is something rather impressive about the fact that it took the authorities quite so long to arrest Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. This was, after all, nearly nine months after the declaration of war, which says something for the much vaunted British sense of tolerance.

The mystery of the three million

One of the central concerns about Britain leaving the European Union is that it will put British jobs at risk. How many jobs, precisely? Or, if not precisely, then at least roughly?

For clarification on this burning issue of our time, naturally I turned to the acknowledged expert on economics in modern politics, the man who spent ten years as chancellor of the exchequer before becoming prime minister.

During the 1997 election campaign, Gordon Brown warned that divisions and uncertainty in the Conservative Party threatened 'the three-and-a-half million jobs that relied on Europe'. But that seems to have been an over-estimate, because four years later he was arguing that 'over three quarters of a million UK companies trade with the rest of the European Union - half our total trade - with three million jobs affected'.

So it's three million? Yes, that must be right. Because that was the figure Brown was still citing in 2005, and then again in the 2010 election campaign: 'Three million jobs depend on our membership of the European Union.'

And in March this year, Brown made the same point: 'We must tell the truth about the three million jobs, 25,000 companies, £200 billion of annual exports and the £450 billion of inward investment linked to Europe.'

(Incidentally, that '25,000 companies' is a bit worrying, don't you think? In 2001 it was 'over three quarters of a million companies'. What on earth has happened to our economy?)

Coming back to those three million jobs, though. It's not just Gordon Brown who quotes this figure. It's bandied around all the time by those who support British membership of the EU. It was quoted, for example, by Tim Farron on Question Time last night.

But I'm no economist, and there's something I don't fully understand. We had, we were told, the longest period of uninterrupted growth in our history, followed by the worst recession in living memory, and then a recovery that's either the envy of the developed world or a fragile property-fuelled bubble (depending on taste).

Things have changed so much. Back in 1997 we had around 26 million people employed in Britain. Now it's over 30 million.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, the number of jobs dependent on the EU doesn't seem to have moved an inch in all that time. It didn't go up in the good times; it hasn't come down with all the problems in the Euro-zone.

It just sits there, unchanging and - perhaps more to the point - unchallenged. Puzzling, isn't it?

Careful with that axe, Kenneth

I think I may have found the first public appearance of a British politician bearing a guitar. This is a notice from the Manchester Guardian in May 1956:

A new era in British politics has arrived. The Labour Party, reading the portents of thin election meetings and fat queues at the music hall, has taken to the guitar. Last night Mr Kenneth Younger, a former minister of state, sweetened his party's political broadcast on the eve of the municipal elections with a parody of 'Oh dear, what can the matter be?' sung in a pleasant tenor voice and accompanied by himself on a guitar.

It is apparent that Labour, whose broadcasts in previous elections were accused of having lost the Battle of Slickness to the Conservatives, has decided to temper the earnestness of politics with the juke box.

Although I've never seen this broadcast, it all sounds quite harmless, even endearing. Until you realise that venturing onto this slippery slope would one day plunge us into the world of the (self-proclaimed) first rock 'n' roll prime minister...

Black Sash: heroines of the anti-apartheid struggle

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of Black Sash, one of the most inspiring campaign groups in modern history.

Back in 1955, the National Party government of South Africa was extending the implementation of apartheid, and Black Sash was formed to resist constitutional changes that were intended to entrench white rule; hence its original name of the Women's Defence of the Constitution League.

The women who became involved over the ensuing decades were predominantly white, middle-class and English-speaking. Therein lies part of the reason why they're so inspiring. From a position of privilege, they had everything to lose. There was personal risk for them in attracting the attentions of the police and the authorities, and no material benefit in the change for which they campaigned.

But mostly Black Sash are so impressive because of the tactics they adopted. Initially their impact came in the silent witness they bore, as seen in the photograph above, haunting the public appearances of politicians, their black sashes a symbol of dissent, their silence the sound of defiance.

Their campaign attracted international attention almost from the outset. Here's an early account from the Manchester Guardian sixty years ago:

Their technique is to stand solemnly and silently at any gateway through which a minister has to pass. They bow their heads. They wear a black sash across their body. Everything about them is sombre and cheerless. Then when the minister arrives they still do nothing. But they do it more emphatically. Consequently their dour appearance tends to introduce a mournful gloom into whatever is going on. 

Later, placards were carried, still in silence, as the women drew attention to specific cases of abuse and protested against the evils of apartheid more generally. Most powerfully these demonstrations were staged outside courtrooms, insisting that justice be seen to be done.

Meanwhile a network of offices was being built across the country, providing support and advice for those suffering under apartheid, as the government's attempts to suppress freedom grew ever more violent. Political witness was augmented by practical assistance.

Black Sash was also, for many both inside and outside South Africa, one of the few sources of reliable information about the realities of what was happening in the country. Its testimony was sufficiently powerful and authoritative that eventually the government banned newspapers like the Sowetan and the Weekly Mail from even quoting the organisation.

As the struggle intensified in the last desperate years of National Party rule, so the group's work became ever more vital. In the words of one activist: 'It's inspiring and it's heartbreaking. We're living history every day.'

In the post-apartheid era, Black Sash continues to campaign for human rights and for progress. Because the struggle is not yet over. As their website explains: 'South Africa cannot be free as long as the majority of its people continue to live under conditions of deprivation and injustice.'

Nelson Mandela called them 'the conscience of white South Africa', which is a pretty fine compliment. Even so, I hesitated before quoting it, because - in Britain at least - the fight against apartheid has been so personalised that it sometimes feels as though Mandela were solely responsible for the overthrow of the system.

In the process, the contributions made by others - and by organisations other than the ANC - are all too often overlooked. To help rectify that, might I suggest a visit to the Black Sash website?