Having been off the airwaves for what seems like an age, a warm welcome back to those readers who have had nothing on the page to read that haven't fled for more fertile pastures. Regrettably the significantly smaller and more rapid-fire interaction available on Twitter has taken up much of my limited spare time whilst some of the rest has been taken on some winter vacations down to parts of the American South West. If 'A week is a long time in politics' is something of a trite expression, then four months seems like an eternity. Indeed last week revealed one of the most inept budgets I can recall in recent times, certainly since the heyday of the 'Iron Fist' or 'Man who saved the World' (sadly not a bastardised David Bowie reference but this man)
The title post refers, as always to a Star Trek episode, which I thought was going to be something of a tricky fit (I'm waiting for a John Redwood related story to try and fit in 'Spock's Brain') when coming up with the concept of posts encompassing all 79 episodes of the series, but the budget appears to me to show a worrying lack of political sense and direction. As Telegraph (!) blogger Iain Martin put it:
'At least Gordon Brown's budgets used to take a day or so to unravel'
This budget basically was two fingers to almost every sector of society, beyond the primarily London-based Super-rich. When even notorious Blairite blogger Dan Hodges wades in to the morass to condemn it and, to my great surprise even praise Ed Miliband, (whose Budget riposte, although perhaps not as much of a tour de force as certain Sino/North Korean collaborators in the Guardian would have liked certainly saw him have much the better of the exchanges.) You've got to know you've badly misjudged the public mood.
Indeed the reaction of the many UKIP and Ultra - Libertarian bloggers on Twitter has been one of almost total disbelief. As one, the irascible @Jim_Watford put it:
'I never thought he (Cameron) could lose to Ed Miliband but that's what's going to happen'
'Fuel Duty being raised again. does anyone in this government have a clue?'
So why does the Budget attract, in my opinion such justified opprobrium? For me, three measures stood out as politically naive or plain idiotic:
1/ Failure to scrap plans to increase the Fuel Duty by 3p a litre. Whilst the Green opposition has actually been relatively neutral on this, it had the effect of seriously annoying The Sun and by extension it's 3 million plus readers, many of whom are converted Conservative voters the party needs to win if it is to have any chance of retaining power after 2014 (although I have to say a 2015 election is looking likely if the current polling trends continue) I can recall (and more on the 'Second Petrol crisis' to follow, time permitting) the 2000 'Fuel protests' which took place when Petrol was hovering around the £1.00 per litre mark. Diesel is already hitting over £1.50 without the tax rises, and for most dwellers outside London, Public transport for grocery shopping simply is not an option. Indeed, Osborne needs to be looking to cut further into the Labour client state with a view to reducing Fuel Duty rather than increasing it!
2/ As both 'Stalinist state' advocate Richard J Murphy quite eloquently and Ken Livingstone, in typically racist fashion, have pointed out, and I have also understood, the threat of people moving from London to Dubai, Singapore or Sitzerland is typically overplayed. Thus at a time when living standards are stagnating, it seems insane to cut the top rate of tax. And even assuming that, as stipulated this was a revenue maximiser, then why cut it only to 45p - The political lack of nous is truly breathtaking. I'd certainly not have advocated cutting the rate to 40p, but at least such a move would have been intellectually coherent.
3/ By 'Freezing' the age-related allowances for pensioners Osborne appears to have reintroduced the famous 'Stealth tax' narrative into British Politics. As the CPS pointed out, even by 2004, Labour had, through this method, introduced 75 Stealth taxes. I, for one, didn't elect a Tory government just to see them do exactly the same as the 'Clunking fist'. Furthermore, the elderly comprise the overwhelming majority of Tory activists and much of their vote. As I have pointed out before, the kind of people who are manning the barricades at 'Right to work' protests, 'Occupying' Private property, or 'Marching for Alternatives' aren't going to vote Conservative no matter how much you try and appease them. Why, thus, put in a measure likely to alienate your base, especially at a time when due to the massive fiscal profligacy of the previous administration, elderly savers have been the victims of an almost ZIRP (Zero Interest rate policy) for nearly two years of this government, and 2 of the previous?
In short, the Budget was almost enough to push me, in Millenarian style, into the Miliband camp, if only to see if following five years of Hard Leftism, something reasonable might arise from the ashes. It seems I'm not alone, and recent polls now put a ten point gap between Miliband and the Tories. The by-election result alluded to in my colleagues earlier post seems, superficially to have been a respite for Cameron, only if we ignore that whilst the Labour vote was badly hit, the Tory vote collapsed to under 3000, losing their candidate her deposit. Thus the Tories face the very real prospect of being the next 'Heath government' with Miliband cast in the role of Harold Wilson - the parallels with the 1970s look more and more apt with each passing day!
Showing posts with label "The Coalition". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "The Coalition". Show all posts
30 March 2012
01 December 2011
The High Ground
Which was the title of Star Trek: The Next Generation's 60th episode, but an appropriate one for the response to prize clown Jeremy Clarkson's highly contentious comments on an early evening chat show yesterday, where he called for the Striking workers to be 'taken out and shot' in front of their families. This has caused the customary furore, no better illustrated than my co-blogger pressing for Clarkson's prosecution for 'Hate Crimes', amongst a variety of 'Twitterati, New Statesman bloggers and Guardian journalists, as well as the Unions behind yesterday's industrial action. In fairness to him, he confesses to 'severe misgivings' over hate crime legislation, and in the wake of UNISON deciding to use its membership fees to press for police action against the presenter, he has ceased the action.
There are, however, strange Double standards at work for the Left here. One of the most prominent Leftist 'Twitterati' member is the New Statesman blogger Sunny Hundal, who in this entry bemoans the fact that the remarks 'weren't comedy' and parrots the line that the BBC 'is overwhelmingly right wing'. Given Star Trek's Liberal use of alternative dimensions and parallel universes you could be forgiven for thinking you've stumbled into one here. Possibly in comparison with the
KCNA website, their output might be characterised as right of centre but otherwise it's certainly well to the Left of any political spectrum bar, perhaps an ILEA one of the mid 1980's wherein Trotskyites were defined as 'the Right'. Perhaps, most telling, is his comment that 'Let's not have Tories complain about 'PC gawn mad' and 'have a sense of humour' when they get so uppity at 'small jokes' themselves'.
This echoed my reaction on this blog to the interview given by mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone to Total Politics magazine where he equated the coming mayoral election with World War Two: (and implicitly, if not directly, Opponent Boris Johnson to Hitler) Strangely Hundal was noticeably silent on that issue. But why stop there? Prior to that point, Livingstone had also compared his rival's chief of staff to Serbian War Criminal Ratko Mladic , and subsequently, he remarked to Hammersmith and Fulham councillors proposing the redevelopment of a Council Estate, that they should be 'burned in hell with their flesh flayed by demons for all eternity', and called for the execution of Chancellor George Osborne. That's the trouble with this kind of thinking, it invariably escalates, and for the Left, the trouble as I tried to point out in my post on the Johnson/Hitler comparison, is that if you take vicarious offence on behalf of every 'minority' and try to censure the terms of the debate, then you'd better be pretty secure on the moral high ground or you'll come tumbling down. As it stands, all they've done, really is to make themselves look both priggish, petty, small-minded , and probably increase sales of 'Top Gear' DVDs by about 100,000 heading into the Xmas period.
It is worth quoting arguably one of the greatest politicians of the last 30 years, Lord Tebbit, who gives a sense of how both sides of the political fence today come across as Latter-day Neros - the fact that Mr.Ed sought to force Cameron to 'disown' the ludicrous Clarkson remarks, is on a par with Hague and Blair in 1998 debating the fate of Soap character Deirdre Rachid.:
'There are plenty of other matters crying out for attention. Despite all the promises and protestations, immigration is unchecked. While the Left wrings its hands at the appalling unemployment figures, it hides its face from the truth. Last year the number of UK nationals in work fell by 280,000. The number of foreigners rose by 147,000.
Perhaps it is time we asked why our own people are not finding work when people from overseas do. Is it our schools that are failing to produce young men and women with the skills, aptitudes and self-discipline needed to find work? Is it that the benefits culture has become so deep-rooted that idleness is the preferred option?
Whatever it is, the cost is appalling and stretches out into the future. Not just the economic and social costs of those unwilling or unsuitable to work, but the huge cost of providing infrastructure to support an ever increasing army of immigrants and their dependents. Schools, hospitals, roads, water and sewage works, power stations – none of which we would need if our own people took the jobs that are there for the taking.
The papers, but not the BBC, report on a daily basis the bizarre decisions of judges who fail to punish criminals with long records of crime, and others who think it is their duty to ignore the interest of we taxpayers who pay them. They’d rather allow foreign criminals to stay here to pursue their lives of crime.
Wherever one looks, be it Parliament, the Civil Service, the judiciary, local government or indeed the top management of public companies, the hired help behaves as though it were the owners, not the servants of the true owners, of the institution that pays their wages.'
In the context of the litany of woe above, a man known as someone 'whom the Hard Left feared'(and I would say, still fear) spells out the real issues facing us. Is it any wonder people like Sunny Hundal would have us worry about trivial, ridiculous comments?
There are, however, strange Double standards at work for the Left here. One of the most prominent Leftist 'Twitterati' member is the New Statesman blogger Sunny Hundal, who in this entry bemoans the fact that the remarks 'weren't comedy' and parrots the line that the BBC 'is overwhelmingly right wing'. Given Star Trek's Liberal use of alternative dimensions and parallel universes you could be forgiven for thinking you've stumbled into one here. Possibly in comparison with the
KCNA website, their output might be characterised as right of centre but otherwise it's certainly well to the Left of any political spectrum bar, perhaps an ILEA one of the mid 1980's wherein Trotskyites were defined as 'the Right'. Perhaps, most telling, is his comment that 'Let's not have Tories complain about 'PC gawn mad' and 'have a sense of humour' when they get so uppity at 'small jokes' themselves'.
This echoed my reaction on this blog to the interview given by mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone to Total Politics magazine where he equated the coming mayoral election with World War Two: (and implicitly, if not directly, Opponent Boris Johnson to Hitler) Strangely Hundal was noticeably silent on that issue. But why stop there? Prior to that point, Livingstone had also compared his rival's chief of staff to Serbian War Criminal Ratko Mladic , and subsequently, he remarked to Hammersmith and Fulham councillors proposing the redevelopment of a Council Estate, that they should be 'burned in hell with their flesh flayed by demons for all eternity', and called for the execution of Chancellor George Osborne. That's the trouble with this kind of thinking, it invariably escalates, and for the Left, the trouble as I tried to point out in my post on the Johnson/Hitler comparison, is that if you take vicarious offence on behalf of every 'minority' and try to censure the terms of the debate, then you'd better be pretty secure on the moral high ground or you'll come tumbling down. As it stands, all they've done, really is to make themselves look both priggish, petty, small-minded , and probably increase sales of 'Top Gear' DVDs by about 100,000 heading into the Xmas period.
It is worth quoting arguably one of the greatest politicians of the last 30 years, Lord Tebbit, who gives a sense of how both sides of the political fence today come across as Latter-day Neros - the fact that Mr.Ed sought to force Cameron to 'disown' the ludicrous Clarkson remarks, is on a par with Hague and Blair in 1998 debating the fate of Soap character Deirdre Rachid.:
'There are plenty of other matters crying out for attention. Despite all the promises and protestations, immigration is unchecked. While the Left wrings its hands at the appalling unemployment figures, it hides its face from the truth. Last year the number of UK nationals in work fell by 280,000. The number of foreigners rose by 147,000.
Perhaps it is time we asked why our own people are not finding work when people from overseas do. Is it our schools that are failing to produce young men and women with the skills, aptitudes and self-discipline needed to find work? Is it that the benefits culture has become so deep-rooted that idleness is the preferred option?
Whatever it is, the cost is appalling and stretches out into the future. Not just the economic and social costs of those unwilling or unsuitable to work, but the huge cost of providing infrastructure to support an ever increasing army of immigrants and their dependents. Schools, hospitals, roads, water and sewage works, power stations – none of which we would need if our own people took the jobs that are there for the taking.
The papers, but not the BBC, report on a daily basis the bizarre decisions of judges who fail to punish criminals with long records of crime, and others who think it is their duty to ignore the interest of we taxpayers who pay them. They’d rather allow foreign criminals to stay here to pursue their lives of crime.
Wherever one looks, be it Parliament, the Civil Service, the judiciary, local government or indeed the top management of public companies, the hired help behaves as though it were the owners, not the servants of the true owners, of the institution that pays their wages.'
In the context of the litany of woe above, a man known as someone 'whom the Hard Left feared'(and I would say, still fear) spells out the real issues facing us. Is it any wonder people like Sunny Hundal would have us worry about trivial, ridiculous comments?
27 September 2011
The same old story... and the same old mistakes
It's part conference season over in the UK, and following the so-called 'Fib Dems' last week, it's the turn of Her Majesty's official opposition, whom following a successful campaign from the last conference to get their stalking horse candidate in, now find themselves fronted by a talking horse.
A post on Miliband has been 'in the works' for several months now, and to Conservatives he remains the coalition's greatest asset, although the redrawing of the electoral landscape under the previous government, due to a huge increase in the Public Sector workforce, unlimited immigration and a significant increase in the number of welfare claimants, means he actually stands with a healthy lead in the polls, as Hal Berstram takes great pleasure in reminding me. More on him later, for sure, but pending the arrival of Compass latest offerings, it's time to examine another blog from the Democratic Left, Left Futures
It's an interesting name, given that for many the Left has no future, but the latest post in response to the Shadow Chancellor's remarks made yesterday, is worth looking at, if only to point out to people opposed to the anticipated 'cuts' in Public expenditure, some of the logistical issues with their preferred solution. The speech by Balls was, it has to be said, something of a tour de force, quite brilliantly summed up by one of the men who is under no illusion about the dangers posed by the Hard Left, Norman Tebbit here. I've never been overly enamoured by Balls ever since he was memorably skewered by then Deputy PM Michael Heseltine, with the memorable line, 'It's not Brown, it's Balls', and even in a political age where Chutzpah is a stock in trade, the speech took some beating. Arguably the most outrageous claim was made when he blames the many issues caused by immigration, which was deliberately encouraged by his government for political purposes (to 'Rub the right's faces in diversity') on one country in particular, Poland.
Now, at this point , I must declare an interest, my previous employer's workforce profile was very much geared to take advantage of the previous government's decision to 'open the borders' in 2004 to the 8 former Warsaw Pact countries which joined the EU in May of that year. I would hazard that around a third of the workforce, even 7 years on, remains Polish, with healthy minorities from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania. I'd probably now number around 40 of those former colleagues as people I would consider reasonably close friends, all from Poland. Having some contact (usually in the form of insults) with the extreme right, I'd hazard Eastern European immigration is somewhat less objectionable than many other types, due to the ethnicity, religion and background of those immigrants. They are primarily White and Christian, but Balls, deeply conscious of previous statements from Conservative Leaders that were described by members of his own Party as 'the road to Auschwitz' and 'having the whiff of the gas chambers about them' chose instead to demonise people from Poland, rather than the somewhat more concerning, from an integration perspective, immigration from the Islamic world. As I said, shameless courting of the lowest common denominator.
Nevertheless, taking that consideration aside, the Left futures blog post posits the issue with Balls' prescription is that it doesn't go far enough! The core 'solution' provided in the blog is not new, but once more the details are wanting. Let's examine the core text.
'The key problem is not indebtedness, it is lack of demand. The Tory government policy of massive cuts in public expenditure and benefits, plus the VAT increase, is drastically worsening the problem of lack of demand without hardly reducing the deficit at all because of falling tax revenues and rising unemployment. The alternative – the only way to get out of slump when the private sector contracts – is a public sector-driven jobs and growth strategy, getting people off the dole and thus hugely reducing the cost of benefits, and into work so that regain their independence as well as then being able to contribute to tax revenues.
Keeping a million people on the dole costs £7bn a year. For the same amount of money 400,000 jobs could be created. And the country gets a double whammy: jobs are created in areas where they’re urgently needed in housebuilding, in improving transport and energy supply, and in creating the new green, digital economy. And the deficit is cut faster as growth slowly but steadily begins to take off again.'
This prescription, as already mentioned is reminiscent of the film Groundhog Day. there's the uncanny feeling we've been here before. Let me just state for the reader's benefit, that my background is in Logistics, which, simply put is the 'art' of ensuring resources are in the correct places. So what logistical difficulties does this plan present?
I agree a demand stimulus would certainly help the economy. As Tebbit posited when commenting on Balls' original speech, had the previous government not created a coterie of 'Non - jobs' for its own placemen, it's arguable that the necessity to cut wouldn't be there. The problem for Balls, and by extension the Labour Party, is that such people are almost to a person Labour voters, so to jeopardise that constituency would almost certainly mean losing the next several general elections. That would be suicidal, so the bloated payrolls of Local authorities (of all hues, incidentally) and his power base in the non-productive Public Sector remain untouched.
Let's now examine the proposal to create 400,000 jobs , which the blogger suggest will be in housebuilding, transport, infrastructure, and creating the new 'green,digital economy'. Let's deal with the last of these first, shall we? The one thing adepts of the Green economy fail to tell me is what this new 'Green,digital' economy will comprise. It's adherents, men like Chris Huhne , and people like Caroline Lucas, specialise in the production of prodigous quantities of hot air so my first thought was that, but in all seriousness, what are these 'creators' doing - if it's simple IT related tasks, then Ok, there might be sufficient unemployed with those skills to simply get them into a job, but I haved some reservations. Being charitable, let's assume its in the role of facilitation, and thus creating perhaps new cabling and broadband infrastructure, a key 'enabler' if britain is to gain widely based prosperity geographically.
The issue I find fault with, and it's not the first time I've pointed it out is that the writer seems to have zero understanding of either the construction industry or the logistical difficulties faced in facilitating this work. A cursory tour of the few remaining building sites in the South East will quickly reveal:
A/ That the job is skilled not unskilled - you can't just shoehorn 400,000 people into jobs as carpenters and bricklayers. The training even to get to a basic standard is at least six months and for more skilled workers like electricians or engineers a good deal longer than that! I believe this wider ignorance about almost any aspect of either Public Sector 'frontline' or Private Sector Production, Distribution and Construction industries is partly a function of the increasingly narrrow field from which many potential political figures come. That's as much true of the Coalition, as it is Labour.
B/ That, in a great irony, it is Poland that provides a huge number of these workers. This is due to a strong traditional work ethic, and also, as many of my colleagues have said, the need to engage upon massive reconstruction after the devastation of the Second World War. Ironically, the legacy of a command economy is that there were significant numbers of skilled workers, a tradition which due to an almost Stakhanovite work ethic seems to have been passed to a younger generation. These workers manage to undercut indigenous Labour and, as many will testify, manage to do the work to a much higher standard. So unless the Labour Party is willing to echo it's former Leaders call for 'British jobs for British workers' , which would be illegal under EU law, the expenditure welcome though it may be, is likely to be dissipated by some of the money being sent in the form of remittances to Szeczin, Rzesow, Wroclaw, etc
Leave aside the merits of the funding in the penultimate paragraph, with the discredited Tobin Tax again posited , and a move to the Dennis Healey levels of taxation circa 1979, we're not left with much of substance. Sadly, reality hurts and I think the road ahead will be long and somewhat painful!
A post on Miliband has been 'in the works' for several months now, and to Conservatives he remains the coalition's greatest asset, although the redrawing of the electoral landscape under the previous government, due to a huge increase in the Public Sector workforce, unlimited immigration and a significant increase in the number of welfare claimants, means he actually stands with a healthy lead in the polls, as Hal Berstram takes great pleasure in reminding me. More on him later, for sure, but pending the arrival of Compass latest offerings, it's time to examine another blog from the Democratic Left, Left Futures
It's an interesting name, given that for many the Left has no future, but the latest post in response to the Shadow Chancellor's remarks made yesterday, is worth looking at, if only to point out to people opposed to the anticipated 'cuts' in Public expenditure, some of the logistical issues with their preferred solution. The speech by Balls was, it has to be said, something of a tour de force, quite brilliantly summed up by one of the men who is under no illusion about the dangers posed by the Hard Left, Norman Tebbit here. I've never been overly enamoured by Balls ever since he was memorably skewered by then Deputy PM Michael Heseltine, with the memorable line, 'It's not Brown, it's Balls', and even in a political age where Chutzpah is a stock in trade, the speech took some beating. Arguably the most outrageous claim was made when he blames the many issues caused by immigration, which was deliberately encouraged by his government for political purposes (to 'Rub the right's faces in diversity') on one country in particular, Poland.
Now, at this point , I must declare an interest, my previous employer's workforce profile was very much geared to take advantage of the previous government's decision to 'open the borders' in 2004 to the 8 former Warsaw Pact countries which joined the EU in May of that year. I would hazard that around a third of the workforce, even 7 years on, remains Polish, with healthy minorities from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania. I'd probably now number around 40 of those former colleagues as people I would consider reasonably close friends, all from Poland. Having some contact (usually in the form of insults) with the extreme right, I'd hazard Eastern European immigration is somewhat less objectionable than many other types, due to the ethnicity, religion and background of those immigrants. They are primarily White and Christian, but Balls, deeply conscious of previous statements from Conservative Leaders that were described by members of his own Party as 'the road to Auschwitz' and 'having the whiff of the gas chambers about them' chose instead to demonise people from Poland, rather than the somewhat more concerning, from an integration perspective, immigration from the Islamic world. As I said, shameless courting of the lowest common denominator.
Nevertheless, taking that consideration aside, the Left futures blog post posits the issue with Balls' prescription is that it doesn't go far enough! The core 'solution' provided in the blog is not new, but once more the details are wanting. Let's examine the core text.
'The key problem is not indebtedness, it is lack of demand. The Tory government policy of massive cuts in public expenditure and benefits, plus the VAT increase, is drastically worsening the problem of lack of demand without hardly reducing the deficit at all because of falling tax revenues and rising unemployment. The alternative – the only way to get out of slump when the private sector contracts – is a public sector-driven jobs and growth strategy, getting people off the dole and thus hugely reducing the cost of benefits, and into work so that regain their independence as well as then being able to contribute to tax revenues.
Keeping a million people on the dole costs £7bn a year. For the same amount of money 400,000 jobs could be created. And the country gets a double whammy: jobs are created in areas where they’re urgently needed in housebuilding, in improving transport and energy supply, and in creating the new green, digital economy. And the deficit is cut faster as growth slowly but steadily begins to take off again.'
This prescription, as already mentioned is reminiscent of the film Groundhog Day. there's the uncanny feeling we've been here before. Let me just state for the reader's benefit, that my background is in Logistics, which, simply put is the 'art' of ensuring resources are in the correct places. So what logistical difficulties does this plan present?
I agree a demand stimulus would certainly help the economy. As Tebbit posited when commenting on Balls' original speech, had the previous government not created a coterie of 'Non - jobs' for its own placemen, it's arguable that the necessity to cut wouldn't be there. The problem for Balls, and by extension the Labour Party, is that such people are almost to a person Labour voters, so to jeopardise that constituency would almost certainly mean losing the next several general elections. That would be suicidal, so the bloated payrolls of Local authorities (of all hues, incidentally) and his power base in the non-productive Public Sector remain untouched.
Let's now examine the proposal to create 400,000 jobs , which the blogger suggest will be in housebuilding, transport, infrastructure, and creating the new 'green,digital economy'. Let's deal with the last of these first, shall we? The one thing adepts of the Green economy fail to tell me is what this new 'Green,digital' economy will comprise. It's adherents, men like Chris Huhne , and people like Caroline Lucas, specialise in the production of prodigous quantities of hot air so my first thought was that, but in all seriousness, what are these 'creators' doing - if it's simple IT related tasks, then Ok, there might be sufficient unemployed with those skills to simply get them into a job, but I haved some reservations. Being charitable, let's assume its in the role of facilitation, and thus creating perhaps new cabling and broadband infrastructure, a key 'enabler' if britain is to gain widely based prosperity geographically.
The issue I find fault with, and it's not the first time I've pointed it out is that the writer seems to have zero understanding of either the construction industry or the logistical difficulties faced in facilitating this work. A cursory tour of the few remaining building sites in the South East will quickly reveal:
A/ That the job is skilled not unskilled - you can't just shoehorn 400,000 people into jobs as carpenters and bricklayers. The training even to get to a basic standard is at least six months and for more skilled workers like electricians or engineers a good deal longer than that! I believe this wider ignorance about almost any aspect of either Public Sector 'frontline' or Private Sector Production, Distribution and Construction industries is partly a function of the increasingly narrrow field from which many potential political figures come. That's as much true of the Coalition, as it is Labour.
B/ That, in a great irony, it is Poland that provides a huge number of these workers. This is due to a strong traditional work ethic, and also, as many of my colleagues have said, the need to engage upon massive reconstruction after the devastation of the Second World War. Ironically, the legacy of a command economy is that there were significant numbers of skilled workers, a tradition which due to an almost Stakhanovite work ethic seems to have been passed to a younger generation. These workers manage to undercut indigenous Labour and, as many will testify, manage to do the work to a much higher standard. So unless the Labour Party is willing to echo it's former Leaders call for 'British jobs for British workers' , which would be illegal under EU law, the expenditure welcome though it may be, is likely to be dissipated by some of the money being sent in the form of remittances to Szeczin, Rzesow, Wroclaw, etc
Leave aside the merits of the funding in the penultimate paragraph, with the discredited Tobin Tax again posited , and a move to the Dennis Healey levels of taxation circa 1979, we're not left with much of substance. Sadly, reality hurts and I think the road ahead will be long and somewhat painful!
05 August 2011
The edge of the abyss?
As I write this it appears that Stage two of the Global crisis is already under way, and indeed appears to be gathering pace. The FTSE has been sent tumbling by more than 550 points, it's third worst fall in history. The Dow Jones' slump has been partially arrested by some surprising 'good news' on the jobs front, but it seems highly likely this is a 'dead man's bounce', Hal Berstram is already advising people to stockpile tinned food, and this seems pretty good advice. The trigger for the crisis appears to have been, once again issues with the Eurozone (the subject of several earlier and one stillborn post - the phrase 'Greek tragedy' is just too good to resist)
It appears the contagion evident in Portugal, Ireland, Greece (and also little Cyprus) has now spread to Italy and Spain. The ECB seems unwilling (or perhaps unable to intervene) and it is revealed that the EFSF (European Financial Stability Fund) is expected to be increased to £440 billion to anticipate issues in those much larger economies. In the meantime, hang on to your hats, as the chickens are definitely coming home to roost. More on this later - but in the meantime, invest in John West and Princes, if you want to put your money anywhere!
It appears the contagion evident in Portugal, Ireland, Greece (and also little Cyprus) has now spread to Italy and Spain. The ECB seems unwilling (or perhaps unable to intervene) and it is revealed that the EFSF (European Financial Stability Fund) is expected to be increased to £440 billion to anticipate issues in those much larger economies. In the meantime, hang on to your hats, as the chickens are definitely coming home to roost. More on this later - but in the meantime, invest in John West and Princes, if you want to put your money anywhere!
28 July 2011
Jam today, Jam tomorrow.. (Part one)
Time for a summary of events on what is for me, this side of the Atlantic, but for most readers the other side. At the moment the world is watching as the prospect of the United States defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history next Tuesday (2nd August). As I write this, the two sides are currently engaged in negotiations which seem by turns to break down or involve competing plans all of which seem to be rejected by the hardliners on both sides. As Telegraph business columnist Ambrose Evans- Pritchard puts it:
'I adamantly refuse to take sides in this dispute. Both parties have played their part over the past 50 years in bringing America to this pass. A plague on both their houses'
The sides, such as they are basically comprise President Obama (and the US treasury department), hero of the British Left and the Guardian/BBC/Compass contributors whose influence seems to be at its apogee following the 'phone hacking' scandal and the Republicans in Congress, whose Leader, John Boehner (pronounced Bay - ner rather oddly) is arguably less familiar than the 44th president to British readers, although sufficiently well studied for the co-contributor on this blog to style him and the GOP 'evil and incompetent' on Twitter. Basically the 'News' such as it is stateside, and very much dependent on your perspective (if you watch Fox you won't really get much blame attached to the Republicans - on most of the other networks, the blame is all theirs) consists of attempts at compromise from both sides being pretty much furloughed by extremists, more, I have to say, on the Republican side than the Democratic. Even Boehner's latest plan, hardcore though it is, is being stymied by Tea Party supported Representatives arguing it does not go far enough. Thus the politicians continue to bicker as a potential 'financial armageddon' looms, with surely greater impact for the world beyond the USA.
In a thoughtful article yesterday in the New York Times (The US equivalent to the Guardian) economist/columnist Thomas L. Friedman points out the defects in both sides of the argument, and its this article which has relevance for the UK. As I pointed out, somewhat uncomfortably for supporters of 'UK uncut' and others opposed to the Coalition's plans, Public spending continues to rise under this government although Local authorities are, admittedly choosing to cut items like Libraries and services for the elderly rather than look at the renumeration of Senior executives - in that sense I have some sympathy for the 'anti Cuts' protestors. Thus the UK's own moment of truth cannot long be delayed, especially as this government has continued the baleful legacy of the last one, in refusing to place items such as PFI spending on to the balance sheet. It's worth, therefore looking at the Friedman article, as it's perhaps a more thought-provoking assault on the need for cuts than one from a movement featuring Chinese agent Bob Crow (living in a Council House despite a seven figure income) as a poster boy.
His five prescriptions are summarised in the paragraph below:
'Yes, we have developed such a formula over the course of American history, and it is built on five pillars, educating the workforce up to and beyond whatever technology demands; building the world's best infrastructure of ports, roads and telecommunications; attracting the world's most dynamic and High- IQ immigrants to enrich our universities and start new businesses, putting together the best regulations to incentivise risk-taking while curbing recklessness, and then let American innovators and Venture Capitalists pick off the most promising ideas for new businesses.'
which I would take as good advice for any sovereign nation, including the UK, although I might quibble with some of these suggestions at least in the details, let's look at their prospects under the 'pantomime horse' of the Coalition, or the genuine government by Talking horse should the unthinkable happen and opposition Leader Miliband E prevails in the next election.
1/ 'educating the workforce up to and beyond whatever technology demands'
This would seem, on the face of it to be an unarguable point - we need to better equip the young people of today for a future which is likely to be somewhat technologically different than now. However, before we do that, we have to recognise, I believe that the goal of putting 50% of young people through higher education is, at the minute, unaffordable. Nor have the Willetts reforms on Higher Education had the desired effect. Despite the advantage of having 'Two Brains' these appear to have come from an acephalous being - their net upshot being that such centres of scholarly excellence as Central Lancashire and Leeds Metropolitan University have taken to charging £9000 for some courses. In the meantime, we have a situation where approximately 50% of the workforce in an industry such as construction or 33% in Retail Distribution (in the South East) are imported, primarily from the former COMECON countries. These people (and I speak from personal experience here) are, with some exceptions significantly better educated, more motivated and, crucially able to be paid much less than people from the UK with a similar level of qualification. It is hard to overstate how much London's prosperity has been dependent on this since 2004. In the case of the largest country to join the EC from that region, Poland, the emigration boom has also helped solve some potential social problems
back in that country . Based on my own now fairly numerous Polish friends, whether they will all be content to continue doing relatively low paid work is open to question.
However, even assuming the desirability of the goal, whether the British education system is capable of equipping the workforce to meet the challenges of the 21st century is open to serious question. I recalled it will be August in less than a week so shortly we will be subject to the ritual pantomime, played out annually wherein the publication both of GCSE and 'A' Level results will show an inexorable rise in the number of Top Grades handed out. This has become as intrinsic a part of the British summer as 'The Last night of the proms'. On both sides of the divide, Educationalists will point to superior teaching, whilst columinsts such as Melanie Phillips and rentaquote Max Hastings (to use only two examples), neither of whom have been to a classroom in the better part of several decades will point to the 'exams getting easier', and declining standards'. Both are wrong or oversimplifying the issue.
The truth is exams now cover a much narrower frame of reference, with the result that students perform better in tests but their breadth of knowledge is much less. This is attributed to the dominance of the annual League tables, which is again true but only tells half the story. League tables were introduced to try and subvert the Hard Left Teaching Unions who were using education as a 'political football'. These people, sadly , haven't gone away and are normally seen at the annual Teachers conferences prading their idiocy to general applause. I have never understood why a teacher is legally barred from being a member of a far-right group such as the BNP and EDL yet is able to act as effectively an 'unconscious fifth columnist' through membership of such groups as the Revolutionary Communist Party or Socialist Worker's Party, all of which had links with the USSR and are believed to have current links, even if only as 'Useful Idiots' with both the PR China and in some cases the DPR Korea. Surely neither is an especially desirable association?
Thus we have the quandary, a number of elements within the teaching profession (and I speak here again from personal experience) have no interest in improving the educational standards of poorer children. the reason behind this is two fold - firstly, to Educate such people might 'deprive the proletariat of Leaders in the coming class struggle' - this from people whose own offpsring I might add, are usuaally educated in the finest state schools or privately (Diane Abbott, Harriet Harperson, Anthony Blair esq) and secondly the entire raison d'etre of Compass/ Labour is the profusion of ever greater state largesse, which requires a continuing stream of state supplicants, else the entire apparatus of the welfare state has no justification beyond providing continuing employment for its workforce. Hence if you educate poorer people, the odds are they may start their own business or at the very least be able to see the desirability, from a social perspective of paid employment rather than subsistence on welfare. this would pull the rug from under the Labour party's base, and can on no account be allowed to happen.
So, either way, the education system seems likely to be churning out a workforce that is, oddly , significantly inferior to those of even the Korea DPR in terms of literacy and numeracy, let alone the PR China. Again, why these countries should have so much less trouble in their schools is perhaps explained by a more authoritarian tradition, but nevertheless, the argument that cuts need to be avoided for fear of jeopardising our ability to educate the future workforce is somewhat blunted by the evidence that ever increasing expenditure on education in the UK has had a deleterious effect on standards, at least according to surveys conducted amongst business Leaders from the CBI and FSB.
2/ 'building the world's best infrastructure of ports, roads and telecommunications'
Again this would seem an unarguable goal - and indeed is central to the 'Anti Cuts' lobby's message - that to reverse the growing possibility of a 'Double Dip recession' we need to invest in infrastructure, specifically relating to transport, although encompassing wider fields of housing and public services. I would again argue that this might be useful, if we had the necessary workforce. As already mentioned, much of the Labour involved in construction has to be imported from abroad, due to school Leavers being unable to hold down even Labouring jobs due to poor attitude and attendance. Again I speak as someone with experience ( mostly lacking from Labour supporters I find!) of environments in the Construction, Retail and Production industries. Jobs in such spheres, whilst not especially intellectual do require a level of discipline and a willingness to endure sometimes less than ideal conditions which is beyond the remit, in many cases, of products of the English state education, especially those with lower qualifications.
Thus we are again facing the issue of how we obtain the workforce for these projects. Also, (and more on this later in Part 2 of the post) even were we to put these projects into place, much current expenditure would be on such frivolities as 'Climate Change co-ordinators' , 'LBGT strategy directors', 'Lesbian outreach Equality workers' and suchlike - I doubt these people are likely to be putting scaffolding up or laying bricks, even had they the skills to do so. Moreover, Labour's policies of encouraging unlimited immigration for political reasons (to 'rub the right's nose in diversity') has meant the south East is now the most densely populated area in Europe. Whilst I, like many other commuters, present or former, bemoan the length of time taken on roadworks or the issues caused by Overground maintenance or works on the Tube, I have some sympathy for the Project Directors of such maintenance. Because of the volume of passengers (check out the Eastern end of the JLE or Southern end of the Northern line for a graphic illustration) any work has to be carred out in a two day weekend window. (thus putting Labour costs up by 50% immediately)Furthermore, the sheer density of the housing means you struggle to work overnight due to potential disturbance to the number of residents nearby! (this even on the M25!) The coalition's failure to repeal the Human Rights Act and put limits on immigration as a matter of some urgency have not helped stem the flow in. Furthermore, 2012 sees the ghastly spectre of the most evil man in British Politics, Ken Livingstone (Hal Berstram's favourite - don't notice you keen on moving back to London, though, Hal) coming back from the political dead like some scene from a Hammer horror movie - last time he called for 2 million more people in the city. Who knows what four years out of office have done to this most devious of minds? Given his relations with Network Rail and London Underground in his previous adminstrations, getting increased spending on infrastructure to actually yield anything other than cost overruns is likely to be tricky.
In short, though I would not question that expenditure on infrastructure is desirable, I would question the current administration's ability to deliver it, let alone Miliband E's. Also, it in no way precludes an examination of significant amount of current expenditure, especially relating to fields of political correctness.
I had originally intended a much shorter post - but this is now becoming so long, I'll need to return to it later......
'I adamantly refuse to take sides in this dispute. Both parties have played their part over the past 50 years in bringing America to this pass. A plague on both their houses'
The sides, such as they are basically comprise President Obama (and the US treasury department), hero of the British Left and the Guardian/BBC/Compass contributors whose influence seems to be at its apogee following the 'phone hacking' scandal and the Republicans in Congress, whose Leader, John Boehner (pronounced Bay - ner rather oddly) is arguably less familiar than the 44th president to British readers, although sufficiently well studied for the co-contributor on this blog to style him and the GOP 'evil and incompetent' on Twitter. Basically the 'News' such as it is stateside, and very much dependent on your perspective (if you watch Fox you won't really get much blame attached to the Republicans - on most of the other networks, the blame is all theirs) consists of attempts at compromise from both sides being pretty much furloughed by extremists, more, I have to say, on the Republican side than the Democratic. Even Boehner's latest plan, hardcore though it is, is being stymied by Tea Party supported Representatives arguing it does not go far enough. Thus the politicians continue to bicker as a potential 'financial armageddon' looms, with surely greater impact for the world beyond the USA.
In a thoughtful article yesterday in the New York Times (The US equivalent to the Guardian) economist/columnist Thomas L. Friedman points out the defects in both sides of the argument, and its this article which has relevance for the UK. As I pointed out, somewhat uncomfortably for supporters of 'UK uncut' and others opposed to the Coalition's plans, Public spending continues to rise under this government although Local authorities are, admittedly choosing to cut items like Libraries and services for the elderly rather than look at the renumeration of Senior executives - in that sense I have some sympathy for the 'anti Cuts' protestors. Thus the UK's own moment of truth cannot long be delayed, especially as this government has continued the baleful legacy of the last one, in refusing to place items such as PFI spending on to the balance sheet. It's worth, therefore looking at the Friedman article, as it's perhaps a more thought-provoking assault on the need for cuts than one from a movement featuring Chinese agent Bob Crow (living in a Council House despite a seven figure income) as a poster boy.
His five prescriptions are summarised in the paragraph below:
'Yes, we have developed such a formula over the course of American history, and it is built on five pillars, educating the workforce up to and beyond whatever technology demands; building the world's best infrastructure of ports, roads and telecommunications; attracting the world's most dynamic and High- IQ immigrants to enrich our universities and start new businesses, putting together the best regulations to incentivise risk-taking while curbing recklessness, and then let American innovators and Venture Capitalists pick off the most promising ideas for new businesses.'
which I would take as good advice for any sovereign nation, including the UK, although I might quibble with some of these suggestions at least in the details, let's look at their prospects under the 'pantomime horse' of the Coalition, or the genuine government by Talking horse should the unthinkable happen and opposition Leader Miliband E prevails in the next election.
1/ 'educating the workforce up to and beyond whatever technology demands'
This would seem, on the face of it to be an unarguable point - we need to better equip the young people of today for a future which is likely to be somewhat technologically different than now. However, before we do that, we have to recognise, I believe that the goal of putting 50% of young people through higher education is, at the minute, unaffordable. Nor have the Willetts reforms on Higher Education had the desired effect. Despite the advantage of having 'Two Brains' these appear to have come from an acephalous being - their net upshot being that such centres of scholarly excellence as Central Lancashire and Leeds Metropolitan University have taken to charging £9000 for some courses. In the meantime, we have a situation where approximately 50% of the workforce in an industry such as construction or 33% in Retail Distribution (in the South East) are imported, primarily from the former COMECON countries. These people (and I speak from personal experience here) are, with some exceptions significantly better educated, more motivated and, crucially able to be paid much less than people from the UK with a similar level of qualification. It is hard to overstate how much London's prosperity has been dependent on this since 2004. In the case of the largest country to join the EC from that region, Poland, the emigration boom has also helped solve some potential social problems
back in that country . Based on my own now fairly numerous Polish friends, whether they will all be content to continue doing relatively low paid work is open to question.
However, even assuming the desirability of the goal, whether the British education system is capable of equipping the workforce to meet the challenges of the 21st century is open to serious question. I recalled it will be August in less than a week so shortly we will be subject to the ritual pantomime, played out annually wherein the publication both of GCSE and 'A' Level results will show an inexorable rise in the number of Top Grades handed out. This has become as intrinsic a part of the British summer as 'The Last night of the proms'. On both sides of the divide, Educationalists will point to superior teaching, whilst columinsts such as Melanie Phillips and rentaquote Max Hastings (to use only two examples), neither of whom have been to a classroom in the better part of several decades will point to the 'exams getting easier', and declining standards'. Both are wrong or oversimplifying the issue.
The truth is exams now cover a much narrower frame of reference, with the result that students perform better in tests but their breadth of knowledge is much less. This is attributed to the dominance of the annual League tables, which is again true but only tells half the story. League tables were introduced to try and subvert the Hard Left Teaching Unions who were using education as a 'political football'. These people, sadly , haven't gone away and are normally seen at the annual Teachers conferences prading their idiocy to general applause. I have never understood why a teacher is legally barred from being a member of a far-right group such as the BNP and EDL yet is able to act as effectively an 'unconscious fifth columnist' through membership of such groups as the Revolutionary Communist Party or Socialist Worker's Party, all of which had links with the USSR and are believed to have current links, even if only as 'Useful Idiots' with both the PR China and in some cases the DPR Korea. Surely neither is an especially desirable association?
Thus we have the quandary, a number of elements within the teaching profession (and I speak here again from personal experience) have no interest in improving the educational standards of poorer children. the reason behind this is two fold - firstly, to Educate such people might 'deprive the proletariat of Leaders in the coming class struggle' - this from people whose own offpsring I might add, are usuaally educated in the finest state schools or privately (Diane Abbott, Harriet Harperson, Anthony Blair esq) and secondly the entire raison d'etre of Compass/ Labour is the profusion of ever greater state largesse, which requires a continuing stream of state supplicants, else the entire apparatus of the welfare state has no justification beyond providing continuing employment for its workforce. Hence if you educate poorer people, the odds are they may start their own business or at the very least be able to see the desirability, from a social perspective of paid employment rather than subsistence on welfare. this would pull the rug from under the Labour party's base, and can on no account be allowed to happen.
So, either way, the education system seems likely to be churning out a workforce that is, oddly , significantly inferior to those of even the Korea DPR in terms of literacy and numeracy, let alone the PR China. Again, why these countries should have so much less trouble in their schools is perhaps explained by a more authoritarian tradition, but nevertheless, the argument that cuts need to be avoided for fear of jeopardising our ability to educate the future workforce is somewhat blunted by the evidence that ever increasing expenditure on education in the UK has had a deleterious effect on standards, at least according to surveys conducted amongst business Leaders from the CBI and FSB.
2/ 'building the world's best infrastructure of ports, roads and telecommunications'
Again this would seem an unarguable goal - and indeed is central to the 'Anti Cuts' lobby's message - that to reverse the growing possibility of a 'Double Dip recession' we need to invest in infrastructure, specifically relating to transport, although encompassing wider fields of housing and public services. I would again argue that this might be useful, if we had the necessary workforce. As already mentioned, much of the Labour involved in construction has to be imported from abroad, due to school Leavers being unable to hold down even Labouring jobs due to poor attitude and attendance. Again I speak as someone with experience ( mostly lacking from Labour supporters I find!) of environments in the Construction, Retail and Production industries. Jobs in such spheres, whilst not especially intellectual do require a level of discipline and a willingness to endure sometimes less than ideal conditions which is beyond the remit, in many cases, of products of the English state education, especially those with lower qualifications.
Thus we are again facing the issue of how we obtain the workforce for these projects. Also, (and more on this later in Part 2 of the post) even were we to put these projects into place, much current expenditure would be on such frivolities as 'Climate Change co-ordinators' , 'LBGT strategy directors', 'Lesbian outreach Equality workers' and suchlike - I doubt these people are likely to be putting scaffolding up or laying bricks, even had they the skills to do so. Moreover, Labour's policies of encouraging unlimited immigration for political reasons (to 'rub the right's nose in diversity') has meant the south East is now the most densely populated area in Europe. Whilst I, like many other commuters, present or former, bemoan the length of time taken on roadworks or the issues caused by Overground maintenance or works on the Tube, I have some sympathy for the Project Directors of such maintenance. Because of the volume of passengers (check out the Eastern end of the JLE or Southern end of the Northern line for a graphic illustration) any work has to be carred out in a two day weekend window. (thus putting Labour costs up by 50% immediately)Furthermore, the sheer density of the housing means you struggle to work overnight due to potential disturbance to the number of residents nearby! (this even on the M25!) The coalition's failure to repeal the Human Rights Act and put limits on immigration as a matter of some urgency have not helped stem the flow in. Furthermore, 2012 sees the ghastly spectre of the most evil man in British Politics, Ken Livingstone (Hal Berstram's favourite - don't notice you keen on moving back to London, though, Hal) coming back from the political dead like some scene from a Hammer horror movie - last time he called for 2 million more people in the city. Who knows what four years out of office have done to this most devious of minds? Given his relations with Network Rail and London Underground in his previous adminstrations, getting increased spending on infrastructure to actually yield anything other than cost overruns is likely to be tricky.
In short, though I would not question that expenditure on infrastructure is desirable, I would question the current administration's ability to deliver it, let alone Miliband E's. Also, it in no way precludes an examination of significant amount of current expenditure, especially relating to fields of political correctness.
I had originally intended a much shorter post - but this is now becoming so long, I'll need to return to it later......
18 July 2011
Stop bugging me man - I'll kick your F**%ing teeth in...
Or so said the character Nick Curran (played by Michael Douglas) in the Paul Verhoeven film from 1992, Basic Instinct. Thus bugging or hacking into phones for the purposes of providing journalistic exposes has become one of the most momentous (to paraphrase Hal Berstram) events in the country's recent political history. The rapid collapse and closure of the country's largest selling newspaper, the News of the World in a desperate attempt to forestall further fallout was truly stunning. Indeed it appears that the scandal continues to claim victims, with Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson following News International Senior executive Rebekah Brooks in resigning.
Over at 'Comment is free' they appear, to paraphrase Agent Albert Rosenfield from Twin Peaks:
'to have been snacking for too long on the local mushrooms'
and we see the frenzy in full force. What does it portend for the future of British democracy? A trip through the Guardian's comment pages appears to be reminscent of a trip through one of Star Trek's parallel universes. David Cameron's political obituaries have been written by various ex-Soviet sympathisers and veteran fellow travellers, and opposition Leader 'Miliband E' or 'Mr Ed' (named after a 60's American show involving a talking horse) is suddenly touted as a 'man of courage' for his sudden conversion (after being part of two administrations who shamelessly courted News International for the previous three elections) to greater transparency on media ownership. Prize chameleon Nick Clegg adds to his reputation for principle and veracity by shamelessly exploiting the scandal to try and shore up his collapsing vote. All we need now is something from Chris Huhne and the confusion will be complete.
So, is the Coalition finished and more importantly, is the phone hacking affair the figurative 'end' for Cameron? I think not but would agree that I had reservations about using as tarnished a figure as Andy Coulson in any kind of advisory capacity, especially given that the phone hacking scandal has been running in 'Private Eye' for at least the past eight years. Whilst I wouldn't want to see public policy dictated by Ian Heslop and co (they probably would be less than enthusiastic than I am) even a cursory glance at this journal would have raised (or should have raised) serious question marks about his suitability. Nevertheless, Coulson is no longer in position. The question becomes whether Cameron knew that he was involved in phone hacking when he hired him - at the moment that doesn't seem the case and I do not see how the pro Sino Guardian can have any indication otherwise.
The alleged phone hacking incidents took place during the period between 2004 and 2008, which unless I am very much mistaken, saw a Labour government in power. (and one of the worst ever seen in the country's history, of which 'Mr.Ed' was a key part) Thus the nauseous eruptions from Mr G.Brown esquire, returning to the Commons after a year's sabbatical rank as some of the most hypocritical ever put on the record in Hansard, as in deference to the Guardian's staff some of them have recognised.
Is the scandal damaging to Cameron, and by extension, the coalition? for sure, but a quick read through 'Comment is free' or indeed the BBC website will reveal the real significance of the scandal. Neither the Guardian nor the BBC have ever been enamoured of the greater circulation and currency of the News International publications. This is seen as an ideal opportunity to circumscribe the debate and significantly narrow the range of right wing viewpoints available to people. In a wider context, I'd argue the significance is in fact far greater, potentially in the US, where the New York Times (which I read most days over here)and, by extension the Obama White House, are sharpening the knives for Murdoch's Fox News channel. If, as has been speculated, there was hacking of 9/11 victims, then the consequences could be even more far -reaching than they currently are. However, in a UK context, let us not delude ourselves this is more than an aberration, and not an opportunity to limit political discourse to amicable discussion between acolytes of the Guardian and BBC.
Over at 'Comment is free' they appear, to paraphrase Agent Albert Rosenfield from Twin Peaks:
'to have been snacking for too long on the local mushrooms'
and we see the frenzy in full force. What does it portend for the future of British democracy? A trip through the Guardian's comment pages appears to be reminscent of a trip through one of Star Trek's parallel universes. David Cameron's political obituaries have been written by various ex-Soviet sympathisers and veteran fellow travellers, and opposition Leader 'Miliband E' or 'Mr Ed' (named after a 60's American show involving a talking horse) is suddenly touted as a 'man of courage' for his sudden conversion (after being part of two administrations who shamelessly courted News International for the previous three elections) to greater transparency on media ownership. Prize chameleon Nick Clegg adds to his reputation for principle and veracity by shamelessly exploiting the scandal to try and shore up his collapsing vote. All we need now is something from Chris Huhne and the confusion will be complete.
So, is the Coalition finished and more importantly, is the phone hacking affair the figurative 'end' for Cameron? I think not but would agree that I had reservations about using as tarnished a figure as Andy Coulson in any kind of advisory capacity, especially given that the phone hacking scandal has been running in 'Private Eye' for at least the past eight years. Whilst I wouldn't want to see public policy dictated by Ian Heslop and co (they probably would be less than enthusiastic than I am) even a cursory glance at this journal would have raised (or should have raised) serious question marks about his suitability. Nevertheless, Coulson is no longer in position. The question becomes whether Cameron knew that he was involved in phone hacking when he hired him - at the moment that doesn't seem the case and I do not see how the pro Sino Guardian can have any indication otherwise.
The alleged phone hacking incidents took place during the period between 2004 and 2008, which unless I am very much mistaken, saw a Labour government in power. (and one of the worst ever seen in the country's history, of which 'Mr.Ed' was a key part) Thus the nauseous eruptions from Mr G.Brown esquire, returning to the Commons after a year's sabbatical rank as some of the most hypocritical ever put on the record in Hansard, as in deference to the Guardian's staff some of them have recognised.
Is the scandal damaging to Cameron, and by extension, the coalition? for sure, but a quick read through 'Comment is free' or indeed the BBC website will reveal the real significance of the scandal. Neither the Guardian nor the BBC have ever been enamoured of the greater circulation and currency of the News International publications. This is seen as an ideal opportunity to circumscribe the debate and significantly narrow the range of right wing viewpoints available to people. In a wider context, I'd argue the significance is in fact far greater, potentially in the US, where the New York Times (which I read most days over here)and, by extension the Obama White House, are sharpening the knives for Murdoch's Fox News channel. If, as has been speculated, there was hacking of 9/11 victims, then the consequences could be even more far -reaching than they currently are. However, in a UK context, let us not delude ourselves this is more than an aberration, and not an opportunity to limit political discourse to amicable discussion between acolytes of the Guardian and BBC.
15 July 2011
There is no F**king coke......
Or so says the character Dean Keaton in the Bryan Singer film ,'the Usual Suspects' played by Gabriel Byrne. Whenever I see someone from UK uncut on the TV, I feel like saying:
'There are - NO f***ing cuts'
As the excellent Christopher Booker points out:
in fact public expenditure has risen, continues to rise and this despite it having increased by more than 100% since 1997. Nevertheless, as Giroscoper suggests, David Cameron is facing an uphill struggle in convincing the electorate that his government is heading for anything other than being ignominiously turned out of office, despite the almost laughably inept Labour leader, Microblair II's attempts to alienate floating middle class voters by accompanying recent rioting protesters attacking BHS and Santander stores in Central London.
Perhaps the key to understanding why this is to reflect on the profound changes which have taken place in society and in electoral terms since 1997. For starters, since then nearly 1.2 million people have come into the country from across the globe, a policy deliberately encouraged by the previous administration for the express purpose of 'engineering a multicultural society' and 'rubbing the Right's nose in diversity', at least according to Speech Writer Andrew Neather. As a rule, immigrants are more likely to vote for Labour (although there are exceptions - the Ugandan Asians who fled Idi Amin in the 1970's tended to have seen real socialism in action, and didn't much like it)
Secondly, the constituencies were redrawn to give Labour a significant electoral advantage. Both Wales and Scotland, despite diminishing populations retained their representations, and as a rule smaller Northern constituencies were retained and the South East's got much bigger.
Thirdly, the public sector expanded by over a million people, providing Labour with a client state from which to draw support and which would also reward Loyal Labour supporters with salaries and pensions out of the reach of many working in the non-financial part of the private sector.
Postal voting was also made simpler, and with it resultant fraud has increased significantly. Two enormous scams were uncovered in the West Midlands. the judge commenting said that the practises were what might be 'expected in a banana republic'
All in all, it amounted to a significant uphill struggle for Cameron. The BBC (funded by a stipend from every TV watching household in the country) poured out incessant vitriol against the Conservatives and their supporters practically daily from May 2nd 1997. Even the Tories heavy defeats in 1997 and 2001 did little to stop the scorn. Of course hard left controlled state educators also clung to a narrowly left wing view of the world and woe betide anyone who challenged it. (I speak here from personal experience) In short, a number of commentators wondered if the Conservatives could ever win again. That Cameron managed to achieve the results he did last time round deserves some credit. Had David Davis won the race for the Leadership back in 2005 (and I backed him) it remains questionable if they would have been able to achieve even 307 seats.
Yet, as Giroscoper posits, the coalition seems to have hit the buffers, and is under fire both from the Left, and the right of the Tory party. What then, can he do?
1/ I'd abandon the attempts to reform the voting system to AV. Whilst as a UKIP supporter, the AV system would arguably benefit my party the most, what we need to look at is Franchise reform. Arguably not really tackled in over 65 years, what we need to look at is a way of ensuring that the left is never able to again build a coalition of government paid supporters to engineer a permanantly left wing regime again. Thus, we need to go back to potentially plural votes for those in the Private sector. They create the wealth, and thus should not be able to have an admittedly brilliantly created coalition of state supplicants deprive them of it. There would of course be exceptions for front line workers, but for the most part this would go a long way to stifling Labour's base.
2/ Cameron needs to take a harder line with the EU, and in this regard would have enormous support. It is telling that the next Treaty is unlikely to have even a single country put it to a referendum. Ireland having been told in no uncertain terms that for the next Treaty, the EC cannot risk having to rerun yet another referendum. UKIP seems certain to top the poll at the 2014 Euro elections, especially in the wake of UK funding for bailouts in Greece, and, as seems likely Portugal
3/ Cameron needs to address, as a matter of some urgency, the continuing anomalies of the 'West Lothian' question whereby, Scotland (and to a lesser degree Wales) continue to act as de facto independent states whilst continuing to provide nearly 40% of Labour manpower within the Commons. Recent revelations that Per Capita income in The north of Scoltand was below Slovenia and in West Wales, below Tianjin, arguably due to more than 60% of employment/income in both areas being dependent on the state makes this and Point 1/ even more pressing. In short, we have to consider whether the UK, and in particular the South West and South East of the country can continue to keep funding the less productive regions.
'There are - NO f***ing cuts'
As the excellent Christopher Booker points out:
in fact public expenditure has risen, continues to rise and this despite it having increased by more than 100% since 1997. Nevertheless, as Giroscoper suggests, David Cameron is facing an uphill struggle in convincing the electorate that his government is heading for anything other than being ignominiously turned out of office, despite the almost laughably inept Labour leader, Microblair II's attempts to alienate floating middle class voters by accompanying recent rioting protesters attacking BHS and Santander stores in Central London.
Perhaps the key to understanding why this is to reflect on the profound changes which have taken place in society and in electoral terms since 1997. For starters, since then nearly 1.2 million people have come into the country from across the globe, a policy deliberately encouraged by the previous administration for the express purpose of 'engineering a multicultural society' and 'rubbing the Right's nose in diversity', at least according to Speech Writer Andrew Neather. As a rule, immigrants are more likely to vote for Labour (although there are exceptions - the Ugandan Asians who fled Idi Amin in the 1970's tended to have seen real socialism in action, and didn't much like it)
Secondly, the constituencies were redrawn to give Labour a significant electoral advantage. Both Wales and Scotland, despite diminishing populations retained their representations, and as a rule smaller Northern constituencies were retained and the South East's got much bigger.
Thirdly, the public sector expanded by over a million people, providing Labour with a client state from which to draw support and which would also reward Loyal Labour supporters with salaries and pensions out of the reach of many working in the non-financial part of the private sector.
Postal voting was also made simpler, and with it resultant fraud has increased significantly. Two enormous scams were uncovered in the West Midlands. the judge commenting said that the practises were what might be 'expected in a banana republic'
All in all, it amounted to a significant uphill struggle for Cameron. The BBC (funded by a stipend from every TV watching household in the country) poured out incessant vitriol against the Conservatives and their supporters practically daily from May 2nd 1997. Even the Tories heavy defeats in 1997 and 2001 did little to stop the scorn. Of course hard left controlled state educators also clung to a narrowly left wing view of the world and woe betide anyone who challenged it. (I speak here from personal experience) In short, a number of commentators wondered if the Conservatives could ever win again. That Cameron managed to achieve the results he did last time round deserves some credit. Had David Davis won the race for the Leadership back in 2005 (and I backed him) it remains questionable if they would have been able to achieve even 307 seats.
Yet, as Giroscoper posits, the coalition seems to have hit the buffers, and is under fire both from the Left, and the right of the Tory party. What then, can he do?
1/ I'd abandon the attempts to reform the voting system to AV. Whilst as a UKIP supporter, the AV system would arguably benefit my party the most, what we need to look at is Franchise reform. Arguably not really tackled in over 65 years, what we need to look at is a way of ensuring that the left is never able to again build a coalition of government paid supporters to engineer a permanantly left wing regime again. Thus, we need to go back to potentially plural votes for those in the Private sector. They create the wealth, and thus should not be able to have an admittedly brilliantly created coalition of state supplicants deprive them of it. There would of course be exceptions for front line workers, but for the most part this would go a long way to stifling Labour's base.
2/ Cameron needs to take a harder line with the EU, and in this regard would have enormous support. It is telling that the next Treaty is unlikely to have even a single country put it to a referendum. Ireland having been told in no uncertain terms that for the next Treaty, the EC cannot risk having to rerun yet another referendum. UKIP seems certain to top the poll at the 2014 Euro elections, especially in the wake of UK funding for bailouts in Greece, and, as seems likely Portugal
3/ Cameron needs to address, as a matter of some urgency, the continuing anomalies of the 'West Lothian' question whereby, Scotland (and to a lesser degree Wales) continue to act as de facto independent states whilst continuing to provide nearly 40% of Labour manpower within the Commons. Recent revelations that Per Capita income in The north of Scoltand was below Slovenia and in West Wales, below Tianjin, arguably due to more than 60% of employment/income in both areas being dependent on the state makes this and Point 1/ even more pressing. In short, we have to consider whether the UK, and in particular the South West and South East of the country can continue to keep funding the less productive regions.
4/ Stop attempting to curry favour with the likes of Polly Toynbee, Gary Younge or other attendees of 'Compass' (sadly not the catering company - thos people I might cultivate!) conferences. These people despise the Conservative (nearly always renamed Tory in their writings) Party and everything it stands for. you aren't going to get them reconciled with your viewpoint, so your best bet is to ignore them, and if they go on the rampage, clamp down hard. It worked for Lady Thatcher in the 1980's.
P.S This post was originally written in April of this year, and as part of a 'house clearing exercise concomitant with sorting out my new abode on the other side of the Atlantic, I decided given the amount of original text already in the post it probably merited publication. A slightly more nuanced post on postulating why the apparent disjunction between, on the one hand 'savage cuts in public expenditure' and an ever increasing overall bill for public expenditure will await completion of my 'backlog' of posts
04 June 2011
A bit of June Christmas cheer for Private business!
One of my correspondents has sent me arguably the best news since the start of the coalition government. It is reported by the BBC that the EHRC is going on strike . This is arguably proof that the coalition strategy is working. Let's hope many more of such agencies follow their example. The only noticeable impact of this collection of ne'er do wells, many of whom had significant and documented links with the USSR and its satellites has been to load up costs on the people that in the long run pay their wages. In the absence of the Soviets, Islamic extremists like Iran have picked up the slack in terms of funding their , in many cases fairly lavish lifestyles. Seriously, this piece has made my day. Osborne should say: 'Frankly, a permanent strike would be absolutely fine' - this strike is a catastrophe for the 'anti cuts lobby'. At a stroke it will reveal how much fat can be taken out of the system with absolutely no impact on the ordinary citizen. The only issue would seem to be whether Champagne producers can cope with the demand from every single private sector organisation that has had the misfortune to encounter this body! As the Pointer Sisters famously said - 'I'm so excited'!I'm also reminded of a quote from the now sadly departed 'X Files':
'You shouldn't play poker when you aren't holding any cards!'
'You shouldn't play poker when you aren't holding any cards!'
07 May 2011
Rights and wrongs - could he be right?
In common with the originator of the blog, I've not always had a significant amount of time for the current Prime Minister, and whilst thoroughly enjoying the ridiculous overreaction from various humourless feminist prigs to his put down of the appalling Angela Eagle, his performances in the Commons have generally been well below that of even William Hague in the first post landslide Parliament of 1997 to 2001. That combined with his concessions to leftist opinion, attempting to woo the likes of Polly Toynbee had many of us concerned that he wasn't really a Conservative at all. Indeed very few UKIP supporters who have defected from the Tories since 2006 or ex Tories who were eligible then, of my acquaintance didn't vote for David Davis in the Leadership election that brought Cameron to prominence. Nevertheless, despite what appeared to be a disappointing performance in last year's General election, where faced with the worst government in recorded history possibly anywhere in the world, he failed to deliver an overall majority, being forced into a coalition with political opportunists par excellence the Liberal Democrats perhaps it will be the man from the Bullingdon club who has the last laugh. Although with serious misgivings in the end I think most reasonable people probably gave some thanks for his ending 13 years of quite literal hurt at the hands of the Blair/Brown administrations and reinstating a government which comprised at least a majority of Conservative MPs.
However, as some Leftist bloggers pointed out yesterday, he may have played the proverbial blinder, and it would appear to be his critics on the right who have misjudged both him and the public mood. Consider that even with a 400,000 strong march against the cuts(before they diverted to bash in the Local Santander), huge swathes of the populace dependent on state aid (either directly or indirectly), and a massively hostile media (at least the portion of it being funded by a £170 stipend on every household in the land) Cameron's vote has held steady. With the economic clouds worsening, he looks to have come in with 37 per cent of the vote. Given the state of the Tory Party even after Michael Howard's sterling efforts in 2005, this is no mean achievement, and even the most churlish naysayer has to acknowledge that the party probably wouldn't be here with Howard, Duncan Smith or Davis at the helm.
So, the question is, has Cameron's lurch to the left actually been a masterpiece of strategy? By inviting the Liberal Democrats into government he has enasured that they have acted as a lightning rod for much of the criticism from the usual suspects on the hard left. If I had one comment on the wisdom of his strategy, it was that he has spent far too much time trying (at least whilst in opposition) cosying up to the likes of Polly Toynbee and indeed the entire 'democratic left'. As Thatcher learned, basically trying to appease these people from a conservative standpoint is frankly as fruitless as trying to placate a crocodile by offering it your hand. The organisers of the so-called 'march for the alternative' would have us believe that a small group of malcontents were responsible for the violence that seems to accompany every such march in London. However, I think anyone studying Marxism or indeed Leninism as a historical philosophy will know that the use of criminal elements to undermine the existing system is a key aspect of Hard leftist philosophy, especially if the forces opposing the violence are 'reactionary elements'
Anyhow, Ed Miliband's dismal performance in Scotland gives Cameron an opportunity to press ahead with urgent redrawing of the constituencies maps to redress the balance which was skewed massively in favour of Labour over the past 13 years. One of the ironies of the left's portrayal of this government as extreme right is it suggests they see politics through the prism of the 1980 Inner London Education Authority, an organisation so barking that Trotskyites were considered 'the right'. If Cameron looks carefully at trying to limit the franchise, and adopts a more cautious policy towards Europe bringing disaffected UKIP supporters into the fold he might well be able to break the 40% mark, and as the aforementioned Miss Toynbee suggests:'A long period of Conservative hegemony' . One can only hope that this might indeed be the case and that Cameron continues to confound his right wing critics by delivering electoral success in spite of my significant misgivings. With any luck, it could lead Toynbee, the appalling Brian Reade and other members of the 'democratic left' to more amenable shores, perhaps even here if they're feeling the need for some comfort from 'ideological brothers in arms' .
However, as some Leftist bloggers pointed out yesterday, he may have played the proverbial blinder, and it would appear to be his critics on the right who have misjudged both him and the public mood. Consider that even with a 400,000 strong march against the cuts(before they diverted to bash in the Local Santander), huge swathes of the populace dependent on state aid (either directly or indirectly), and a massively hostile media (at least the portion of it being funded by a £170 stipend on every household in the land) Cameron's vote has held steady. With the economic clouds worsening, he looks to have come in with 37 per cent of the vote. Given the state of the Tory Party even after Michael Howard's sterling efforts in 2005, this is no mean achievement, and even the most churlish naysayer has to acknowledge that the party probably wouldn't be here with Howard, Duncan Smith or Davis at the helm.
So, the question is, has Cameron's lurch to the left actually been a masterpiece of strategy? By inviting the Liberal Democrats into government he has enasured that they have acted as a lightning rod for much of the criticism from the usual suspects on the hard left. If I had one comment on the wisdom of his strategy, it was that he has spent far too much time trying (at least whilst in opposition) cosying up to the likes of Polly Toynbee and indeed the entire 'democratic left'. As Thatcher learned, basically trying to appease these people from a conservative standpoint is frankly as fruitless as trying to placate a crocodile by offering it your hand. The organisers of the so-called 'march for the alternative' would have us believe that a small group of malcontents were responsible for the violence that seems to accompany every such march in London. However, I think anyone studying Marxism or indeed Leninism as a historical philosophy will know that the use of criminal elements to undermine the existing system is a key aspect of Hard leftist philosophy, especially if the forces opposing the violence are 'reactionary elements'
Anyhow, Ed Miliband's dismal performance in Scotland gives Cameron an opportunity to press ahead with urgent redrawing of the constituencies maps to redress the balance which was skewed massively in favour of Labour over the past 13 years. One of the ironies of the left's portrayal of this government as extreme right is it suggests they see politics through the prism of the 1980 Inner London Education Authority, an organisation so barking that Trotskyites were considered 'the right'. If Cameron looks carefully at trying to limit the franchise, and adopts a more cautious policy towards Europe bringing disaffected UKIP supporters into the fold he might well be able to break the 40% mark, and as the aforementioned Miss Toynbee suggests:'A long period of Conservative hegemony' . One can only hope that this might indeed be the case and that Cameron continues to confound his right wing critics by delivering electoral success in spite of my significant misgivings. With any luck, it could lead Toynbee, the appalling Brian Reade and other members of the 'democratic left' to more amenable shores, perhaps even here if they're feeling the need for some comfort from 'ideological brothers in arms' .
13 October 2010
How is Ed Miliband doing?
Well it's been a couple of weeks now since Ed Miliband's spectacular come-from-behind win in the Labour leadership contest. After a few days of consternation, David's gone quiet, and Ed's been allowed to get on with the job. So how is he doing?
At this early stage I'd say: pretty well. I thought he gave a fairly good conference speech - although next year's will no doubt be a lot better - and most of the shadow cabinet appointments look pretty sensible. (In passing: I don't agree with Peter Mandelson much, but I do agree that shadow cabinet elections are a bit daft. If the Labour Party leader was just elected by the PLP - the pre-1981 system - it would make more sense. But this system runs the risk that a leader with relatively little support in the PLP suddenly gets a load of frontbenchers who don't really agree with him. Ed's shuffled the cards a bit to try to ensure unity, and it's not too bad in general, but I still think it'd be better if he had a free hand to pick people as he sees fit.)
Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor is a bold move - the contrast with Osborne couldn't be greater, and I think that's quite deliberate. Personally I'd have been happiest with Ed Balls given his depth of economic expertise but I can see where Ed M was coming from - he doesn't want a repeat of Blair/Brown wars. Commentators who have claimed Johnson is unsuitable because of lack of knowledge of economics underestimate the guy - he is extremely bright and will be up to speed on the brief v quickly (just as well, with a week to go to the spending review, although of course the full implications of the spending cuts won't unfold for another year or two, so in fact there is plenty of time to build a campaign around opposition to the cuts).
With Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper I'd probably have swapped them round - put Ed in the Shadow Foreign slot but with additional responsibility for international economic policy - banking regulation and the response to currency wars, etc. - leaving Alan to concentrate on the response to the spending review. My worry with Ed B at the Home Office is that he doesn't seem to be particularly liberal and it'll be sickening to watch Labour attacking the ConDems from the right on issues like migration and civil liberties. So there is potential for a Balls-up there. Meanwhile, Shadow Foreign Sec looks a bit like a waste of Yvette Cooper's talents.
Looking down the list of other Shadows, the key departments at the moment seem to me to be Health (John Healey), Education (Andy Burnham), Work and Pensions (Douglas Alexander), CLG (Caroline Flint) and Culture, Media and Sport (Ivan Lewis). This coalition govt is unique in living memory for attempting huge, and generally ill-considered, reforms in a large number of departments (including all of the above) simultaneously (and you'll see, not coincidentally, that all the Secretaries of State in those five departments are Tories - which gives you some clue as to the real ideological centre of gravity in this administration.)
Just look at what we've got: in Health, Andrew Lansley's plans to break up the NHS, unmentioned at the election. In Education, Micky Gove using the academy blueprint set up by Labour to create a two-tier state school system, deliberately increasing inequalities so that working class kids should "know their place". At Work and Pensions, IDS - perhaps well-intentioned, but about to preside over a car-crash of reforms. At Communities and Local Govt, the truly abominable Eric Pickles trying to destroy any semblance of local democracy we have left while encouraging local councils to be run like Ryanair. And at CMS, Jeremy Hunt trying to destroy the BBC while creating a UK version of Fox News.
Is Labour's shadow team up to the job in these five key areas? Healey - probably. Burnham - yes. Douglas Alexander - probably. With Caroline Flint and Ivan Lewis I just don't know enough to say. I hope Ed Miliband does because this is make-or-break stuff: I can't emphasise enough how important it is that Labour wins the next election. Because it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder to reverse the huge damage that the ConDems are doing to Britain in 2020 than it is in 2015. No-one should be under any illusions about this.
More on those five key areas as the current parliamentary session unfolds.
At this early stage I'd say: pretty well. I thought he gave a fairly good conference speech - although next year's will no doubt be a lot better - and most of the shadow cabinet appointments look pretty sensible. (In passing: I don't agree with Peter Mandelson much, but I do agree that shadow cabinet elections are a bit daft. If the Labour Party leader was just elected by the PLP - the pre-1981 system - it would make more sense. But this system runs the risk that a leader with relatively little support in the PLP suddenly gets a load of frontbenchers who don't really agree with him. Ed's shuffled the cards a bit to try to ensure unity, and it's not too bad in general, but I still think it'd be better if he had a free hand to pick people as he sees fit.)
Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor is a bold move - the contrast with Osborne couldn't be greater, and I think that's quite deliberate. Personally I'd have been happiest with Ed Balls given his depth of economic expertise but I can see where Ed M was coming from - he doesn't want a repeat of Blair/Brown wars. Commentators who have claimed Johnson is unsuitable because of lack of knowledge of economics underestimate the guy - he is extremely bright and will be up to speed on the brief v quickly (just as well, with a week to go to the spending review, although of course the full implications of the spending cuts won't unfold for another year or two, so in fact there is plenty of time to build a campaign around opposition to the cuts).
With Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper I'd probably have swapped them round - put Ed in the Shadow Foreign slot but with additional responsibility for international economic policy - banking regulation and the response to currency wars, etc. - leaving Alan to concentrate on the response to the spending review. My worry with Ed B at the Home Office is that he doesn't seem to be particularly liberal and it'll be sickening to watch Labour attacking the ConDems from the right on issues like migration and civil liberties. So there is potential for a Balls-up there. Meanwhile, Shadow Foreign Sec looks a bit like a waste of Yvette Cooper's talents.
Looking down the list of other Shadows, the key departments at the moment seem to me to be Health (John Healey), Education (Andy Burnham), Work and Pensions (Douglas Alexander), CLG (Caroline Flint) and Culture, Media and Sport (Ivan Lewis). This coalition govt is unique in living memory for attempting huge, and generally ill-considered, reforms in a large number of departments (including all of the above) simultaneously (and you'll see, not coincidentally, that all the Secretaries of State in those five departments are Tories - which gives you some clue as to the real ideological centre of gravity in this administration.)
Just look at what we've got: in Health, Andrew Lansley's plans to break up the NHS, unmentioned at the election. In Education, Micky Gove using the academy blueprint set up by Labour to create a two-tier state school system, deliberately increasing inequalities so that working class kids should "know their place". At Work and Pensions, IDS - perhaps well-intentioned, but about to preside over a car-crash of reforms. At Communities and Local Govt, the truly abominable Eric Pickles trying to destroy any semblance of local democracy we have left while encouraging local councils to be run like Ryanair. And at CMS, Jeremy Hunt trying to destroy the BBC while creating a UK version of Fox News.
Is Labour's shadow team up to the job in these five key areas? Healey - probably. Burnham - yes. Douglas Alexander - probably. With Caroline Flint and Ivan Lewis I just don't know enough to say. I hope Ed Miliband does because this is make-or-break stuff: I can't emphasise enough how important it is that Labour wins the next election. Because it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder to reverse the huge damage that the ConDems are doing to Britain in 2020 than it is in 2015. No-one should be under any illusions about this.
More on those five key areas as the current parliamentary session unfolds.
31 May 2010
I am the Laws
And so David Laws wins the prize for shortest ministerial career to date (although he'll probably be back at some point if this coalition holds up.
While the manner of his departure - feeling unable to come out because of possible prejudice - is unfortunate, the media reaction - that the Coalition has been deprived of some sort of star performer - is ludicrous. Laws's main attributes seemed to be a hard-right approach to economic policy and a wish to cut public expenditure as much as possible. What's so great about that? He was the Judge Dredd of the coalition administration. A Tory by any other name.
Similarly, fears that Laws's replacement, Danny Alexander, will be somehow not up to the job, are equally laughable. In one of my previous jobs I spent some time talking to Danny Alexander for a project I was doing on welfare policy and found him to be very on-the-ball. I have little idea what his general political stance is, but the idea that he's out of his depth is frankly ludicrous. I don't know how the newspapers get away with writing crap like that.
While the manner of his departure - feeling unable to come out because of possible prejudice - is unfortunate, the media reaction - that the Coalition has been deprived of some sort of star performer - is ludicrous. Laws's main attributes seemed to be a hard-right approach to economic policy and a wish to cut public expenditure as much as possible. What's so great about that? He was the Judge Dredd of the coalition administration. A Tory by any other name.
Similarly, fears that Laws's replacement, Danny Alexander, will be somehow not up to the job, are equally laughable. In one of my previous jobs I spent some time talking to Danny Alexander for a project I was doing on welfare policy and found him to be very on-the-ball. I have little idea what his general political stance is, but the idea that he's out of his depth is frankly ludicrous. I don't know how the newspapers get away with writing crap like that.
26 May 2010
Moving so far to the right you won't recognise them
While yesterday's Queen speech (useful details of the 23 bills included here) contained some good stuff, notably on civil liberties (scrapping ID cards, reduction in surveillance and CCTV, more rights to protest) it was, particularly on economic policy and public services, largely a right-wing Tory effort.
The biggest example of this is the complete change in priorities for academy schools. Previously used as an attempt to boost performance of badly-performing schools in deprived areas, they are now going to be used as a kind of surrogate grammar school or GMS programme - the best performing schools will be allowed to opt out of LEA control and will get more resources to do so. Huge educational inequalities already exist in the state system, but one could at least argue that Labour's academy program was an attempt to bring the worst performers up to closer to the average (even if the mechanism for doing so was questionable). Whereas this is a recipe to exacerbate educational inequality and pave the way for the wholesale privatisation of the system a few years down the line.
The biggest example of this is the complete change in priorities for academy schools. Previously used as an attempt to boost performance of badly-performing schools in deprived areas, they are now going to be used as a kind of surrogate grammar school or GMS programme - the best performing schools will be allowed to opt out of LEA control and will get more resources to do so. Huge educational inequalities already exist in the state system, but one could at least argue that Labour's academy program was an attempt to bring the worst performers up to closer to the average (even if the mechanism for doing so was questionable). Whereas this is a recipe to exacerbate educational inequality and pave the way for the wholesale privatisation of the system a few years down the line.
Welfare reform is another area where the Coalition is moving to the extreme right. While the idea of conditionality in the benefit system (i.e. where you have to undertake job search as a condition of receiving benefit, if you are fit to seek work) is reasonable enough, the amounts of benefit currently being offered to unemployed people are so inadequate that there is no way the system can function properly to facilitate job search. Iain Duncan Smith's solution? Pay people even less and make the sanctions positively draconian. It seems likely this will just produce thousands of people dying on the streets, or a new criminal underclass. Which is of course the idea, as the coalition will then be able to implement harder sentences and be "tough on crime". It's like Tony Blair x 1000%.
So some real sicko bills here, giving the lie to the idea that this is some centrist coalition. That certainly doesn't mean that the left should oppose every single thing the coalition's doing. But it does mean that on several key policy issues the agenda seems to be a lot of Tory and not very much Lib Dem.
14 May 2010
The strange death of the Lib Dems?
The Labour Party is currently reporting a surge in new members since the coalition was formed - including a large number of disaffected Lib Dems. Interestingly, the Lib Dems are also reporting some (net) increase in numbers. So there could be a lot of people out there who like the idea of the coalition and want to do something to help. Or, these could be entryists of some kind wanting to wreck it. At this stage it's impossible to say.
If this coalition arrangement does work out - and that's a big if - one thing we might see is a Tory/Lib Dem merger down the line. Which would be a huge coup for Cameron, as he would have succeeded in moving the membership power base away from the extreme right with lots of new socially and economically liberal types - the sort of people the Guardian's Julian Glover likes to eulogise - brought in.
More accurately it'd probably be half a merger because the other half would have upped and joined Labour or the Greens some time before then. Leaving - what exactly, in the middle of British politics?
Maybe nothing at all. That's right kids, we could be back to 2-party politics, last seen in its purest form in the UK around 1970 or thereabouts. If that happens, a 2015 election where both Labour and the Tories get over 40% of the vote each - again, last seen in 1970 - could be on the cards.
My guess is that a rump Liberal Democrat party - the true believers in Third Force Politics - will persist even if the party does disintegrate along the lines I suggest. Does anyone remember the "Old Liberals" or "splinter Liberals", otherwise known as The Liberal Party? These guys are fantastic. Their logo is straight out of a Co-op supermarket ad from 1973 or so. They had a party political broadcast a few years back (may have been 1997 or 2001) which consisted of a couple of guys sitting at a trestle table telling it like it is. Old Skool! We need more of this in British politics.
As parties split, merge and shift over the years, they do seem to leave a snakeskin train of detritus behind them. As my mate Clarkey pointed out to me there is also a splinter SDP complete with the original 1981 logo. Their main policy commitment seems to be to leave the EU - ironic, given that one of the reasons the SDP was formed was that Labour wanted to leave the EU in the early 1980s. What goes around comes around.
Extraordinarily, Veritas, whom I last blogged about in the 2005 election, still seem to be going in some shape or form. I didn't even know Kilroy was still alive...
13 May 2010
Going all gooey-eyed over the coalition - lame punks and journalists who should know better
Gawd, there was some right awful nonsense being written about the Coalition on yesterday's Guardian website. The normally pretty good Jonathan Freedland, who 24 hours before had been claiming (sensibly) that Cameron "limped across the finishing line, clinging to the shoulder of the Lib Dems", now suggests that this is "David Cameron's clause IV moment - a bid to seize the centre ground permanently". What, with Iain Duncan Smith at DWP, William Hague as the most anti-EU Foreign Secretary since records began, neo-con Micky Gove in charge of schools, and George Osborne at HMT? This isn't "seizing the centre ground" - it's the more ambitious neo-Thatcherite project of attempting to shift the centre ground so that You Are It.
Freedland even goes so far as to suggest that needing a coalition with the Lib Dems was the result he wanted to give his "modernisation project" more weight and legitimacy. Well, if this govt manages to develop something genuinely new on the centre-right rather than swallowing up the right wing of the Lib Dems on the way to a hard-right destination, he will have been proved right. But I'd argue it's a stretch, and I think Lib Dem activists (those that haven't left already) are going to have a tough job selling this to voters who mainly (not exclusively) voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out.
Freedland at least attempts to get to grips with the real issues even if it's from a different perspective each time out. I can live with that as an intellectual exercise. What I can't live with is the odious Julian Glover, the Guardian's head leader writer and a man who is seemingly on a mission to turn it into a clone of the Telegraph. His is a political sabotage mission of the most audacious kind. In his article yesterday Glover suggests that: "the unifying idea [behind the coalition] is liberal... [which] implies a strong respect of the primacy of the individual over the state - a distrust of arbitrary authority and interference that is part of the Conservative philosophical inheritance".
There is so much wrong with this sentence that I don't know where to begin. Firstly, Glover's described a libertarian - not a 'liberal' - philosophy. I don't use "liberal" myself to refer to any kind of political discourse as the word's become so confused (partly because in the US it was used from the 1930s onwards as a more palatable synonym for "social democratic") that it's lost all meaning, in the same way that "progressive" will be doing soon...
Secondly, the Tories are almost never about the primacy of the individual over the state. They are about the primacy of (very rich) individuals over other (poor) individuals with support from the full apparatus of the state - and institutions who owe their legal existence to the state, such as corporations - where necessary. People on benefits who think that the Coalition prioritises their interests over the state will get a pretty fucking rude awakening when their benefit cheque gets cut. And the Tories are never afraid of using the most extreme police state measures against their own citizens to preserve the 'natural order of things' - police hit squads in the miners' strike of 1984, anybody? (To be fair, Labour shares this obsession with the creeping police state).
A real liberal govt (in the Glover terminology) would take on multinational corporate power, enact land reform and land taxation on a massive scale, and effect the kind of fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families that this country really needs. A British political party did once promise to do that in its manifesto, but it wasn't either of these lame coalition partners. The party was Labour. And the year was 1974.
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