What
Labour can learn from my victory: we can’t ignore what voters want
The
party only wins when it faces outwards – and tackles the issues concerning all
sections of society
The Guardian 7 May 2016
Labour
has won
control of City Hall in London for the first time in eight years – the
first major electoral success for our party in England in over a decade.
I
am deeply humbled by the hope and trust that Londoners have placed in me. I
grew up on a council estate just a few miles from City Hall and I never
imagined that Londoners would one day elect someone like me to lead our great
capital city.
My
promise now is to govern in the interests of all Londoners as a strong,
pragmatic
and
independent-minded leader of our city. In planning my programme for the next
four years, I have one burning ambition for London that will guide every
decision I make – ensuring that all Londoners can have the same opportunities
to get on in life that London gave
me. Everyone – regardless of their background, wealth, race, faith, gender,
sexual orientation or age – should be able to fulfil their potential and
succeed.
Labour
was founded to make the lives of working people better and to create more
opportunities for everyone. Whether it’s aspiring to work as a nurse in a
hospital, or setting up and running your own business, Labour should be
about ensuring fairness, so that everyone has the same chance in life to reach
their goals.
I
learnt a great deal during the campaign – about myself, London and the
importance of reaching out to all sections of society. But there are two
lessons in particular: first, Labour only wins when we face outwards and focus
on the issues that people care about; second, we will never be trusted to
govern unless we reach out and engage with all voters – regardless of their
background, where they live or where they work.
Squabbles
over internal structures might be important for some in the party, but it is
clear they mean little or nothing to the huge majority of voters. As tempting
as it might be, we must always resist focusing in on ourselves and ignoring
what people really want.
2. Trump’s triumph
The Economist May 7,
2016
During
its 160-year history, the Republican Party has abolished slavery, provided the
votes in Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act and helped bring the cold war to
a close. The next six months will not be
so glorious. After Indiana’s primary, it
is now clear that Republicans will be led into the presidential election by a
candidate who said he would kill the families of terrorists, has encouraged
violence by his supporters, has a weakness for wild conspiracy theories and
subscribes to a set of protectionist and economically illiterate policies that
are by turns fantastical and self-harming.
The
result could be disastrous for the Republican Party and, more important, for
America. Even if this is as far as he
goes, Mr. Trump has already done real damage and will do more in the coming
months. Worse, in a two-horse race his
chances of winning the presidency are well above zero.
It
is possible that, with the nomination secured, Mr. Trump will now change his
tone. The crassness of his insults may
well be muted as he tries to win over at least some of the voters, particularly
women, who now abhor him. His demeanour may become more presidential (though
there was little sign of that in this week’s bizarre and baseless
pronouncements that the father of Ted Cruz, his erstwhile rival, had been
around Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F. Kennedy). What he will almost
certainly not do is change political course.
For it is increasingly clear that Mr. Trump has elements of a world view
from which he does not waver. These
beliefs lack coherence or much attachment to reality. They are woven together by a peculiarly 21st-century
mastery of political communication, with a delight in conflict and disregard
for facts, which his career in reality television has honed. But they are firm beliefs and long-held.
That
world view was born, in part, on his father’s construction sites in New York in
the 1960s. Mr. Trump likes to explain
that he once spent his summers working in such places alongside carpenters,
plumbers and men carrying heavy scaffolding poles. That experience, he claims, gave him an
understanding of the concerns of the hard-working blue-collar men whom American
politics has left behind. It explains
his deep-rooted economic nationalism.
Mr.
Trump has railed against trade deals for decades. He was arguing against NAFTA in the early
1990s. He now calls it the worst trade
deal in the history of the world.
Similarly, he has always viewed America’s trade deficit evidence of foul
play or poor negotiating skills. For a
man with such convictions, it is plain that more such trade deals would be a
disaster and that American companies
should move production back home or face tariffs. Mr. Trump might be willing to bargain over
the penalties they should pay, but the underlying instincts are deeply
held. He is a conviction protectionist,
not an opportunistic one. And, judging by the results of the Republican
primaries, at least 10m voters agree with him.
3.
Turkey’s prime minister
No room for
moderates
Ahmet
Davutoglu, architect of the EU-Turkey migrant deal, is forced out
The
Economist May 7th 2016
FOR Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, May 4th began on a
good note. In the morning the European Commission, the European Union’s
executive arm, endorsed a proposal to lift visa restrictions for Turks
travelling to the bloc’s Schengen zone as of June. For Mr Davutoglu, who had
made visa-free travel a key condition for enlisting Turkish help in stemming
illegal migration to Europe, the relief was short-lived. By the evening, it was
clear the prime minister was out of a job.
The man who pulled the carpet from
under his feet was the same one who appointed him less than two years ago:
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Tensions between the increasingly
authoritarian Mr. Erdogan and his prime minister have simmered for months. The
two disagreed over the future of peace talks with Kurdish insurgents, and over
Mr. Erdogan’s plans to change the constitution to give the presidency executive
powers, cementing his grip on government and his own Justice and Development
(AK) party.
They also clashed over the
management of the economy, and Mr. Erdogan’s crackdown on critics. (Its latest
victims, two journalists, were sentenced to two years in jail last week for
republishing a drawing from Charlie Hebdo, a French weekly,
featuring a weeping Prophet Muhammad.) Mr. Erdogan has accused his prime minister
of stealing the spotlight. “During my time as prime minister it was announced
that Schengen travel would come into force in October 2016,” he said recently,
referring to the visa talks. “I cannot understand why bringing it forward by
four months is presented as a triumph.”
Signs that Mr. Davutoglu was
fighting for his political life emerged last Friday when AK’s executive body
stripped him of the right to appoint provincial party officials. Over the
weekend, an anonymous blogger believed to be a member of Mr. Erdogan’s inner
circle suggested that the prime minister had reached his expiry date. Mr.
Davutoglu, the blogger alleged on a website named “The Pelican Brief”, had
crossed his boss by criticising the arrests of academics and journalists and by
declining to drum up support for Mr. Erdogan’s executive presidency—and by
giving an interview to The Economist last year.
On May 5th, a day after the two men
met in Mr. Erdogan’s 1,100-room palace, AK’s executive council gathered to
settle the prime minister’s fate. It was not clear at press time whether he
would resign immediately. But in the coming weeks, AK is expected to hold an
extraordinary congress to elect Mr. Davutoglu’s successor as party leader.
Likely candidates include Binali Yildirim, the transport minister, and Berat
Albayrak, the energy minister (who also happens to be Mr. Erdogan’s
son-in-law).
The bookish Mr. Davutoglu, a former
foreign minister, may have quietly sparred with Mr. Erdogan on occasion, but
generally tried to play down divisions. His ouster suggests there is no
tolerance left for opposition to the president inside his party. It also
reveals the price that Mr. Erdogan is willing to pay to pursue his agenda.
Within hours of his meeting with the prime minister, the Turkish lira plummeted
by almost 4% against the dollar, the biggest such drop since 2008. Fears spread
that the EU, which had found in Mr. Davutoglu a sensible interlocutor and a
channel to bypass his abrasive boss, would lose its appetite for engaging with
Turkey.
Mr. Erdogan appears not to care. No
groundwork has been laid for Mr. Davutoglu’s departure. To many AK supporters,
who saw their prime minister propel the party to a thumping win in elections
last autumn, his abrupt ouster seems puzzling. Ozer Sencar, the chairman of
Metropoll, a polling company, said it shows Mr. Erdogan wants a referendum on
his executive presidency this year: “(Mr. Davutoglu) presented an obstacle. He
had to go.”
4. DPP to decide on WHA meet invite: Premier
China Post May 8, 2016,
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Premier Simon
Chang said Saturday an invitation to attend the World Health Assembly (WHA) has
already been passed on to the incoming government.
Chang said it is up to the incoming
government to decide how it will answer the invitation, which came Friday from
the World Health Organization (WHO), for Taiwan to attend the WHA's annual meet
in Switzerland on May 23.
The invitation is addressed to
incumbent Health Minister Chiang Bing-huang, asking him to lead a delegation to
the WHA meet as observers.
But Chang will step down along with
other Cabinet members on May 20 when President-elect Tsai Ing-wen of the
Democratic Progressive Party takes office and forms a new government.
Media reports have indicated that
the invitation this year differs from previous ones in that it cites the United
Nation's Resolution 2758 concerning the "one China" principle.
Chang said the DPP administration
may have to clarify the meaning of "one China" in its response to the
invitation, to point out that for Taiwan it means "Republic of
China."
The outgoing premier said it was the
new government's call whether such a clarification is necessary, but it would
become an even "bigger problem" if the DPP did not support the idea
that "one China" refers to "Republic of China."
Chang said he knew the DPP was
holding a meeting on Saturday to discuss the WHA invitation, and he hoped it
would come up with a "wise" decision.
Taiwan Will
Take Part with Dignity: DPP
Meanwhile, Tsai declined to answer
reporters' questions about the WHA invitation when attending a public event.
But Tung Chen-yuan, the
spokesman-designate for the DPP administration, said the incoming government
had yet to see the invitation and could not confirm it.
Tung reiterated that it is the DPP
government's aim to have Taiwan play active roles in international
organizations and activities.
He said the DPP government would
express its stern protest over any form of political intervention into Taiwan's
participation in WHA or any other international organizations.
He said Taiwan's participation in
WHO activities is not only about the health of the people of Taiwan, but also
about its medical contribution to the rest of the world. He stressed Taiwan is
a crucial part of the world's disease control efforts.
Tung said the DPP believes that
Taiwan's participation in international organizations, including the WHO, has
to be "meaningful, comprehensive and with dignity."
He said the Taiwan's people rights
to health and participation in the international community cannot be denied.
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