Whoops… Gordon Brown meets a pensioner, can’t deal with her questions and ends up calling her a bigot. And she’s a Labour voter – or she was one until earlier today, anyway.
Still, at least we got to hear the authentic comments of the authentic Prime Minister. It may not be very respectful of the voters but what did we expect?
It would be interesting to hear the private comments of the other party leaders when they’ve just met someone who questions their policies and judgment. Would they be any less grumpy?
What we have here is the campaign gaffe everyone has been hoping for. Reporters don’t traipse around after party leaders hoping to catch their pearls of wisdom.
All they want is the rogue voter, the unpredictable John Prescott punch, the gaffe or – and this is gold-dust, the unguarded comment.
If it was going to happen, it had to happen to Mr Bean. It will be played ad nauseam at least until tomorrow night’s election debate.
It may well go down in history as the moment Labour finally lost the election and, in the event of a hung parliament, it will be used as proof that Mr Brown is unfit to be Prime Minister.
Mainly, though, it’s just an amusing insight into the desire of all politicians to stage-manage their public appearances.
Mr Brown’s gripe isn’t really with Gillian Duffy, the pensioner, it’s with his aides for lumbering him with an embarrassing encounter with a real person with genuine concerns who isn’t going to let him have an easy time.
Our leaders detest that sort of thing above all. Which is why Mr Brown complains the encounter was a “disaster”.
It’s only after he’s asked what Mrs Duffy had to say that he complains she was a bigot.
He privately thought their discussion was disastrous… it is now.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Hark! The sharpening of knives
“He may not do a Hague and resign the day after the election but the knives will be out for David Cameron if he doesn’t deliver a victory on May 6.”
That was the considered opinion of a staunch Conservative supporter I spoke to the other day as we discussed the Lib-Dem surge and Cameron’s weak showing in the first TV debate.
Though he improved in the second, it was only to draw level with Nick Clegg. And that’s not good enough to deliver a majority Conservative Government.
Time is running out for a Tory revival. Many Conservatives gritted their teeth and went along with the new model party with its centrally-imposed shortlists, its favoured candidates, its dubious economic policies and its abandonment of grammar schools.
They even swallowed the abandonment of the “cast iron guarantee” of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
They were willing to change and compromise because they felt it was a price worth paying for the promise of a Conservative Government. Half a loaf is better than no bread.
A watered-down, pale-blue, Blairite Conservatism was, in the eyes of most of the party’s long-term supporters, an attractive proposition compared with the alternative of another five years of Old Labour with added Harperson political correctness.
Now there is a serious danger we will be lumbered with the worst of all worlds – Old Labour, Herpersonism and added Lib-Dem lunacy on Europe, nuclear weapons and immigration.
Worse still, a Lib-Lab coalition would undoubtedly press ahead with electoral reform landing Britain with smokeless smoke-filled rooms and horse-trading, unstable Government for ever more.
It’s not too late for the voters to see sense and reject the telegenic Mr Clegg’s blandishments. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
The people who voted for “dancing pig” John Sergeant or the hopeless Jedward twins are not likely to be deterred from enjoying this opportunity to go for the political underdog.
They are especially likely to back the Lib-Dems on the grounds that by doing so they deliver a slap in the face to both the mainstream parties.
Before the TV debates, it seemed disillusion and discontent with the whole political class was only likely to find expression in votes for fringe parties and maverick independents.
It wouldn’t have been a mass movement or made much difference to the outcome of the election.
Now, however, the voters have a focus for all that unhappiness.
Nick Clegg may be a posh public schoolboy whose entire career has been in and around politics. But, for many, he is still the outsider and that, alone, is why they will vote for him. He may be a novelty act with no serious track record – but that’s what David Cameron was relying on to propel him into Number Ten.
Suddenly Cameron is being seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.
He has been badly let down by many of his MPs. The Tories were no worse than Labour in the Great Expenses Scandal except that they chose to claim for more baronial items – duck houses, moat-cleaning, tennis-court maintenance, wisteria-cutting and so on.
There is now a real prospect of the Conservatives losing a fourth General Election in a row. The blame for such a terrible outcome will be spread widely but in the end it comes down to leadership.
If David Cameron does not win, his followers will not only feel he has betrayed them, they will feel they have betrayed themselves and their own political instincts.
Politics may be the art of compromise but all the concessions Cameron has demanded from his loyal party members were part of a deal.
Members reluctantly accepted the abandonment of some of their principles because, they were persuaded, only then could the party win back power.
Now it looks as if Cameron won’t be able to deliver his side of the bargain.
That was the considered opinion of a staunch Conservative supporter I spoke to the other day as we discussed the Lib-Dem surge and Cameron’s weak showing in the first TV debate.
Though he improved in the second, it was only to draw level with Nick Clegg. And that’s not good enough to deliver a majority Conservative Government.
Time is running out for a Tory revival. Many Conservatives gritted their teeth and went along with the new model party with its centrally-imposed shortlists, its favoured candidates, its dubious economic policies and its abandonment of grammar schools.
They even swallowed the abandonment of the “cast iron guarantee” of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
They were willing to change and compromise because they felt it was a price worth paying for the promise of a Conservative Government. Half a loaf is better than no bread.
A watered-down, pale-blue, Blairite Conservatism was, in the eyes of most of the party’s long-term supporters, an attractive proposition compared with the alternative of another five years of Old Labour with added Harperson political correctness.
Now there is a serious danger we will be lumbered with the worst of all worlds – Old Labour, Herpersonism and added Lib-Dem lunacy on Europe, nuclear weapons and immigration.
Worse still, a Lib-Lab coalition would undoubtedly press ahead with electoral reform landing Britain with smokeless smoke-filled rooms and horse-trading, unstable Government for ever more.
It’s not too late for the voters to see sense and reject the telegenic Mr Clegg’s blandishments. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
The people who voted for “dancing pig” John Sergeant or the hopeless Jedward twins are not likely to be deterred from enjoying this opportunity to go for the political underdog.
They are especially likely to back the Lib-Dems on the grounds that by doing so they deliver a slap in the face to both the mainstream parties.
Before the TV debates, it seemed disillusion and discontent with the whole political class was only likely to find expression in votes for fringe parties and maverick independents.
It wouldn’t have been a mass movement or made much difference to the outcome of the election.
Now, however, the voters have a focus for all that unhappiness.
Nick Clegg may be a posh public schoolboy whose entire career has been in and around politics. But, for many, he is still the outsider and that, alone, is why they will vote for him. He may be a novelty act with no serious track record – but that’s what David Cameron was relying on to propel him into Number Ten.
Suddenly Cameron is being seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.
He has been badly let down by many of his MPs. The Tories were no worse than Labour in the Great Expenses Scandal except that they chose to claim for more baronial items – duck houses, moat-cleaning, tennis-court maintenance, wisteria-cutting and so on.
There is now a real prospect of the Conservatives losing a fourth General Election in a row. The blame for such a terrible outcome will be spread widely but in the end it comes down to leadership.
If David Cameron does not win, his followers will not only feel he has betrayed them, they will feel they have betrayed themselves and their own political instincts.
Politics may be the art of compromise but all the concessions Cameron has demanded from his loyal party members were part of a deal.
Members reluctantly accepted the abandonment of some of their principles because, they were persuaded, only then could the party win back power.
Now it looks as if Cameron won’t be able to deliver his side of the bargain.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
God help Harry, England and St George
When Sajid Javid stood for selection as the Conservative candidate for Bromsgrove a few weeks ago, he was asked what legislation he would bring in if he had the chance.Mr Javid, a bus-driver’s son who went on to become a successful banker (should we hold that against him?), announced he would bring in a Bill to make St George’s Day a Bank Holiday.
That went down well with the Tory ladies whose votes would decide who took over from Julie Kirkbride as MP for what is probably even now a safe seat.
This may have been political opportunism on Mr Javid’s part. As a Muslim, he would have known that something patriotically English would help win over any sceptics.
Even so, it is evidence that the desire to celebrate English patriotism is gathering pace. The Welsh, the Irish and the Scots all make a big deal about their patron saints but, until recently, the English have been reluctant to celebrate St George.
That’s partly because the flag of St George is closely associated with football hooligans and right-wing nutters. Yet there is a growing sense that England is losing its unique identity in the multi-cultural melee that is Britain today.
A week after St George’s Day, we get the May Day Bank Holiday. This was introduced by the Labour Government in 1978 to mark International Workers’ Day. In Moscow they still parade tanks and rockets past grey old men in the Kremlin.
Why do we get a day off to celebrate Socialism around the world when poor old St George is almost universally ignored?
Our rulers – civil servants, politicians, the BBC and other members of the New Establishment – hate the very idea that the English should assert their own nationalism or celebrate the glories of our nation.
To them, the words “English” and “racist” are synonymous. Only on the sports-fields of the world is it politically correct to celebrate English patriotism.
Yet there is an overwhelming desire among the people who live in this country to assert our independence and individuality.
A new ICM poll by Power2010 shows growing support for an English parliament and English votes on English laws.
This is especially important if, as now seems highly likely, we end up with a hung parliament after the General Election.
The Scottish and Welsh Nationalists are desperate for such an outcome because they think they can squeeze a cobbled-together Westminster Government into giving even more concessions to their parts of the United Kingdom.
That would further entrench the unfairness and imbalance between England and the other three – much smaller – parts of the UK.
Already the Scots enjoy all sorts of concessions denied to England and yet subsidised by the taxpayers of England – from free prescriptions to free university places for every student in Europe except anyone from England.
If the English were invited to vote on Scottish independence, we might well come down in favour of it.
In the meantime, the least we can expect is that Scottish and Welsh MPs, whose devolved governments make all the decisions in their own countries, must be denied the right to change the laws of England.
And when we finally get our independence, we should celebrate by making St George’s Day a Bank Holiday.
The English may well be a mongrel race but this is a green and pleasant land and, despite all its many drawbacks, we should be free to express our pride and affection for it.
What better than to ditch international socialism and give St George his rightful place in the calendar?
St George is on the march. Across the country, people are organising parades and events in his honour – though last year Sandwell tried to ban theirs on the grounds that it would be taken over by racists.
Actually, it is the critics of “the English” who are the real racists. We are constantly insulted by our near neighbours and we’re expected to endure it in silence.
We must be free to assert our own nationality in our own country, otherwise “God help Harry, England and St George”.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Could Cameron become the new Kinnock?
Nick Clegg is almost as popular as Winston Churchill was in 1945, allegedly. Not much encouragement for the Lib-Dem leader, then.
After all, Churchill lost the General Election that year despite defeating Hitler.
We shouldn’t get too excited about the Lib-Dem surge. Mr Clegg has still got two TV debates to go and suddenly the underdog outsider will be the centre of attention. Can he really maintain his position under intense scrutiny now the novelty is wearing off?
The problem for David Cameron and Gordon Brown is that in the Commons they can ignore the Lib-Dems and encourage their MPs to laugh them off as an irrelevance.
They can’t do that now Mr Clegg has been given equal billing. And if they attack him too vehemently, uncommitted observers may well come to his defence.
The British sense of fair play, which even worked in favour of Nick Griffin when the BNP leader stumbled through “Question Time”, will work in Mr Clegg’s favour if the other leaders gang up on him.
It will, among other things, show that nothing can change. It will suggest we are stuck with a two-party system where the main parties put their own narrow interests ahead of the country’s.
As a result, Mr Clegg may win even if he loses. That’s despite the Lib-Dem’s many mad policies, most notoriously their devotion to the European Union and all its works.
Still, the person who should be most worried is David Cameron. What worked in his favour to get him elected as Tory party leader has backfired spectacularly.
The young, telegenic, charismatic leader has been up-staged by someone who is, in effect, a newcomer on the national stage. Mr Cameron suddenly looks tired and old-fashioned.
The real disaster for the Conservatives is that they are not already well in the lead. Tony Blair walked into the 1997 election a good 20 points ahead in the polls.
The best Mr Cameron can claim was a ten point lead. And for all his talk of “change”, nobody is convinced that anything very much would change under a Tory Government.
For all the dancing on pin-heads involved in the argument about the economy, there is fundamentally no difference between Labour and the Conservatives on the central issue of the election – the public sector deficit.
Whoever wins on May 6 will be forced to impose swingeing cuts. No department will escape – not even the NHS where Labour are already working through some pretty significant reductions.
There is no way Mr Cameron would reverse those, so even his pledge to protect the health service counts for nothing.
The real tragedy for the Tories is that they did not have a coherent economic policy before the recession started.
They pledged to “share the proceeds of growth”. This was, on the one hand, an attempt to appease Conservatives who instinctively want less public spending and smaller government and, on the other, a bid to attract wavering Labour voters scared by the Tories’ (undeserved, alas) reputation as the party of cuts and savings.
If – before the recession – the Cameroons had made a principled case for lower taxes, less State interference and less Government waste, what they said now on the economy would command some credibility.
Instead, they aped Gordon Brown so much they are now tarred with the same brush. His failure is theirs as well because they never offered an alternative – until it was too late.
This abandonment of traditional Conservative values was aimed at winning over voters in the middle ground who were disillusioned with Labour but didn’t trust the Tories.
That’s why the party has spent the past four years desperately sucking up to every special-interest group and minority it can find. Mr Cameron wanted to prove he had changed his party.
He certainly has managed to select a new range of candidates which conforms less to the upper-middle class, white, heterosexual male stereotype he and most of his Shadow Cabinet embody.
But it has forced the party to pussyfoot around without any clear messages. The fear of alienating any small group in Mr Cameron’s Blair-like “big tent” means the Conservatives are an anaemic, bloodless version of their former selves.
By trying to be all things to all people, Mr Cameron has made the party blurry and indistinct. The only change he offers is the change of not being Gordon Brown.
His big idea of the “Big Society” doesn’t resonate with most people. The idea that armies of old folk and school leavers will suddenly get out there and become volunteer social workers may sound quite nice. It may be laudable and right.
But it won’t swing an election where the voters are disillusioned with all politicians, dismayed at the state of the economy and desperate for something to change for the better.
I have an axe to grind. I was blackballed by Mr Cameron and his cronies because I wrote that Enoch Powell was right to warn that uncontrolled immigration would change the country dramatically.
I’m sorry, I have always been sorry, if anyone regarded that as racist. It’s not about racism. It’s about the capacity of this country to accommodate millions more people.
Next to the economy, this is the biggest issue facing Britain today. Notably, it was the first question in the first TV debate between the leaders.
Nobody was listening to what they said, though, because we were all too busy taking in the novelty of the situation. In reality, though, there is little to choose between the three parties.
The tragedy for the Conservatives is that a party which should be marching towards a straightforward election victory is sliding away in the polls.
If Mr Cameron can’t deliver an outright victory at a time when the present Government should be utterly discredited then he will go down in history as the Conservative Party’s answer to Neil Kinnock.
Kinnock, you will remember, spectacularly threw away the 1992 General Election when he had everything going for him.
Until now, I have been pretty sure Mr Cameron would get in with a majority of about 30. Not that I’ve been looking forward to such a victory but because it seemed to me this was an election no half-way competent Tory leader could possibly lose.
Now, I am not so sure. I do not believe the polls will stay as they are. Mr Clegg won’t be the shiny new golden boy by polling day. He and his policies will be exposed and largely discredited.
He won’t be telling his members to go back to their constituencies and prepare for Government but some of his popularity will stick.
The blame for this rests squarely on David Cameron. He failed to set out a radical and real alternative to the present Government when he had the chance.
He talks of hope but his leadership has been marked all along by fear – fear of alienating any possible voter other than the traditional old-fashioned Tory who, he believes, has nowhere else to go.
And, of course, it was Mr Cameron who had most to lose by agreeing to the TV debates in the first place.
Presumably he thought the charm and charisma which worked on the Conservatives five years ago would be equally effective on the nation as a whole.
It has even been claimed by his cheerleaders that Mr Cameron’s lacklustre performance was the result of Old Etonian politeness. It’s hard to believe.
Unless he can muster up a bit of passion and some raw conviction, instead of big-tent platitudes, he really does risk blowing the election.
Still, democracy is a wonderful thing and it may be that a hung parliament is actually what most people want.
After all, Churchill lost the General Election that year despite defeating Hitler.
We shouldn’t get too excited about the Lib-Dem surge. Mr Clegg has still got two TV debates to go and suddenly the underdog outsider will be the centre of attention. Can he really maintain his position under intense scrutiny now the novelty is wearing off?
The problem for David Cameron and Gordon Brown is that in the Commons they can ignore the Lib-Dems and encourage their MPs to laugh them off as an irrelevance.
They can’t do that now Mr Clegg has been given equal billing. And if they attack him too vehemently, uncommitted observers may well come to his defence.
The British sense of fair play, which even worked in favour of Nick Griffin when the BNP leader stumbled through “Question Time”, will work in Mr Clegg’s favour if the other leaders gang up on him.
It will, among other things, show that nothing can change. It will suggest we are stuck with a two-party system where the main parties put their own narrow interests ahead of the country’s.
As a result, Mr Clegg may win even if he loses. That’s despite the Lib-Dem’s many mad policies, most notoriously their devotion to the European Union and all its works.
Still, the person who should be most worried is David Cameron. What worked in his favour to get him elected as Tory party leader has backfired spectacularly.
The young, telegenic, charismatic leader has been up-staged by someone who is, in effect, a newcomer on the national stage. Mr Cameron suddenly looks tired and old-fashioned.
The real disaster for the Conservatives is that they are not already well in the lead. Tony Blair walked into the 1997 election a good 20 points ahead in the polls.
The best Mr Cameron can claim was a ten point lead. And for all his talk of “change”, nobody is convinced that anything very much would change under a Tory Government.
For all the dancing on pin-heads involved in the argument about the economy, there is fundamentally no difference between Labour and the Conservatives on the central issue of the election – the public sector deficit.
Whoever wins on May 6 will be forced to impose swingeing cuts. No department will escape – not even the NHS where Labour are already working through some pretty significant reductions.
There is no way Mr Cameron would reverse those, so even his pledge to protect the health service counts for nothing.
The real tragedy for the Tories is that they did not have a coherent economic policy before the recession started.
They pledged to “share the proceeds of growth”. This was, on the one hand, an attempt to appease Conservatives who instinctively want less public spending and smaller government and, on the other, a bid to attract wavering Labour voters scared by the Tories’ (undeserved, alas) reputation as the party of cuts and savings.
If – before the recession – the Cameroons had made a principled case for lower taxes, less State interference and less Government waste, what they said now on the economy would command some credibility.
Instead, they aped Gordon Brown so much they are now tarred with the same brush. His failure is theirs as well because they never offered an alternative – until it was too late.
This abandonment of traditional Conservative values was aimed at winning over voters in the middle ground who were disillusioned with Labour but didn’t trust the Tories.
That’s why the party has spent the past four years desperately sucking up to every special-interest group and minority it can find. Mr Cameron wanted to prove he had changed his party.
He certainly has managed to select a new range of candidates which conforms less to the upper-middle class, white, heterosexual male stereotype he and most of his Shadow Cabinet embody.
But it has forced the party to pussyfoot around without any clear messages. The fear of alienating any small group in Mr Cameron’s Blair-like “big tent” means the Conservatives are an anaemic, bloodless version of their former selves.
By trying to be all things to all people, Mr Cameron has made the party blurry and indistinct. The only change he offers is the change of not being Gordon Brown.
His big idea of the “Big Society” doesn’t resonate with most people. The idea that armies of old folk and school leavers will suddenly get out there and become volunteer social workers may sound quite nice. It may be laudable and right.
But it won’t swing an election where the voters are disillusioned with all politicians, dismayed at the state of the economy and desperate for something to change for the better.
I have an axe to grind. I was blackballed by Mr Cameron and his cronies because I wrote that Enoch Powell was right to warn that uncontrolled immigration would change the country dramatically.
I’m sorry, I have always been sorry, if anyone regarded that as racist. It’s not about racism. It’s about the capacity of this country to accommodate millions more people.
Next to the economy, this is the biggest issue facing Britain today. Notably, it was the first question in the first TV debate between the leaders.
Nobody was listening to what they said, though, because we were all too busy taking in the novelty of the situation. In reality, though, there is little to choose between the three parties.
The tragedy for the Conservatives is that a party which should be marching towards a straightforward election victory is sliding away in the polls.
If Mr Cameron can’t deliver an outright victory at a time when the present Government should be utterly discredited then he will go down in history as the Conservative Party’s answer to Neil Kinnock.
Kinnock, you will remember, spectacularly threw away the 1992 General Election when he had everything going for him.
Until now, I have been pretty sure Mr Cameron would get in with a majority of about 30. Not that I’ve been looking forward to such a victory but because it seemed to me this was an election no half-way competent Tory leader could possibly lose.
Now, I am not so sure. I do not believe the polls will stay as they are. Mr Clegg won’t be the shiny new golden boy by polling day. He and his policies will be exposed and largely discredited.
He won’t be telling his members to go back to their constituencies and prepare for Government but some of his popularity will stick.
The blame for this rests squarely on David Cameron. He failed to set out a radical and real alternative to the present Government when he had the chance.
He talks of hope but his leadership has been marked all along by fear – fear of alienating any possible voter other than the traditional old-fashioned Tory who, he believes, has nowhere else to go.
And, of course, it was Mr Cameron who had most to lose by agreeing to the TV debates in the first place.
Presumably he thought the charm and charisma which worked on the Conservatives five years ago would be equally effective on the nation as a whole.
It has even been claimed by his cheerleaders that Mr Cameron’s lacklustre performance was the result of Old Etonian politeness. It’s hard to believe.
Unless he can muster up a bit of passion and some raw conviction, instead of big-tent platitudes, he really does risk blowing the election.
Still, democracy is a wonderful thing and it may be that a hung parliament is actually what most people want.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Tongue-lashing for Cameron
Nick Clegg may have been the winner but in my view Gordon Brown wasn’t the big loser, David Cameron was.
Clegg sounded normal; Cameron’s dry-throated tenor, permanent frown and chubby pink face did him no favours.
But, above all, his spin doctors should tell him to stop pursing his upper lip and sticking his tongue out.
Clegg sounded normal; Cameron’s dry-throated tenor, permanent frown and chubby pink face did him no favours.
But, above all, his spin doctors should tell him to stop pursing his upper lip and sticking his tongue out.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Spot the flying pig
David Cameron is obviously not a Pink Floyd fan. If he was, he'd know that Battersea Power Station is the venue for the cover of their "Animals" album which features a famously flying pig.
The pig still flies - went to a Roger Waters concert two or three years ago where it hovered over the audience as he sang:
Big man, pig man, ha ha charade you are.
You well heeled big wheel, ha ha charade you are.
And when your hand is on your heart,
You're nearly a good laugh,
Almost a joker,
As they say, "The end of another day. All objectives met. All quotas achieved. All reports in. All customers happy and satisfied. All staff eager and enthusiastic. All pigs fed and ready to fly."
Monday, April 12, 2010
YouGov if you want to
A disconcerting e-mail reaches me about the selection of Nadhim Zahawi as the Conservative candidate for Stratford on Avon.
Among the claims it makes is that conservativehome, the party grass-roots website, is refusing to post, let alone answer, any questions relating to its links with the polling company YouGov “because of their financial interest in YouGov”.
Can this be true?
Jonathan Isaby, the web-site's Co-editor, says: "We regularly publish comments that are critical of YouGov on the site, and furthermore we regularly declare that Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov has a stake in ConHome.
"In respect of any specific allegations about individuals, we naturally have to be careful when difficult-to-prove allegations about someone's personal financial dealings are made, as would any reputable publication."
Among the claims it makes is that conservativehome, the party grass-roots website, is refusing to post, let alone answer, any questions relating to its links with the polling company YouGov “because of their financial interest in YouGov”.
Can this be true?
Jonathan Isaby, the web-site's Co-editor, says: "We regularly publish comments that are critical of YouGov on the site, and furthermore we regularly declare that Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov has a stake in ConHome.
"In respect of any specific allegations about individuals, we naturally have to be careful when difficult-to-prove allegations about someone's personal financial dealings are made, as would any reputable publication."
Friday, April 09, 2010
Round the bend
“Tory win best for economy say top bankers” declares the “Daily Telegraph”. Bad news for Cameron.
An endorsement from the most reviled people in the world is not calculated to set people’s minds at rest.
Meanwhile, Mr Cameron told the “Today” programme he was in favour of tolls on new roads “to begin with”.
In other words, a Conservative Government will almost certainly start imposing tolls on existing roads. It’s a nice little earner and can be explained away as good for the environment.
With petrol prices roaring ahead and the £6 gallon on the way, that’s not exactly reassuring for the millions of people for whom the car is still the only way of getting about in this country.
An endorsement from the most reviled people in the world is not calculated to set people’s minds at rest.
Meanwhile, Mr Cameron told the “Today” programme he was in favour of tolls on new roads “to begin with”.
In other words, a Conservative Government will almost certainly start imposing tolls on existing roads. It’s a nice little earner and can be explained away as good for the environment.
With petrol prices roaring ahead and the £6 gallon on the way, that’s not exactly reassuring for the millions of people for whom the car is still the only way of getting about in this country.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
These pigs will fly
David Cameron and Gordon Brown clashed over the rise in the cost of National Insurance again today at the last Prime Minister’s Question Time of this Parliament.
Dave says it’s a tax on jobs which puts economic recovery at risk. Gordon says it’s either that or put schools, hospitals and the police at risk by losing the revenue and being forced to make spending cuts.
They’re both right, of course. The only question is which one is more right than the other.
It’s true the nation’s business leaders have come out against the NI increase. They rightly say it is yet another burden on the creation of wealth and jobs.
The snag is that if the Tories cut NI, where will they find the money to balance the nation’s books?
Either they will have to cut public spending even more drastically than either party would have to do anyway (Brown’s schools, hospitals and police) or they will have to raise the money some other way.
The Conservatives’ sums don’t add up. Neither do Labour’s but you wouldn’t expect them to.
George Osborne pulls tax cuts out of his hat and everybody sits up to applaud. He’ll do it again with allowances for married couples.
We should be a low-tax economy and our Government should use the tax system to encourage what is best for society.
But we have to reduce the State’s dependence on the taxpayer first. That must mean drastic spending cuts – even in the NHS.
There is no credibility in the Tories’ ideas for the economy if they insist on protecting the Government’s biggest-spending department, waffle on about efficiency savings and deny they will raise VAT to 20 per cent.
This is a pig-in-a-poke election. I looked up the origins of the phrase and found the cartoon above and this:
John Heywood included this in Proverbes and Epigrammes, 1555-60:
I will neuer bye the pyg in the poke:
Thers many a foule pyg in a feyre cloke.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Banana republic
The campaign has only just started but don’t you feel you’ve heard it all before? Worse still, do we seriously think we’ll discover anything new over the next four weeks?
There’s nothing to choose between the Tories and Labour on economic policy or anything else for that matter.
The small parties, the fringe groups and even the independents will do well. So will the “None Of The Above” party.
But they won’t get any MPs and in the end it’s still a two-horse race with only one winner.
David Cameron can’t possibly lose this election. He will get a majority of 25 to 30.
It would be a catastrophe for him personally, and for his party, if he achieved anything less than that given the incompetence of the Government he will be replacing.
There won’t be a hung parliament – that’s just some false hope for the Liberal Democrats, constitutional experts and reporters to get excited about.
Talk about hung parliaments takes place in a vain bid to interest us in this dismal democratic process and to pretend the Lib Dems have some sort of serious role in all of this.
Mind you, they’re a bigger threat to the Tories than Labour in the sense that they will probably hang on to most of the seats they’ve already got (barring Solihull, which will almost certainly revert to type).
They might, if they’re really lucky, pick up a seat or two from Labour. That would be a novel experience for them.
But in the end they will stay more or less where they are now, or lose a few seats to the Conservatives.
There is a bit of excitement about the possibility of mavericks, marginal parties and independents winning the odd seat or two. That is possible.
It would be entertaining to see Nigel Farage get rid of John Bercow, for instance. But by and large the odds are stacked against anyone outside the mainstream. There won’t be a powerful wedge of men in white suits after the next election, no matter how excited people get at the prospect.
It’s doubtful if even the three head-to-head-to-head TV debates will make any difference. They’ll only be watched by the committed.
And the committed won’t alter their view no matter what their chosen leader may say or do.
The undecided will stay undecided. They may conclude the best thing is simply not to vote. So while there is still supposedly “everything to play for”, there isn’t really.
The floating voters will float on past the polling stations on May 6 or cancel each other out if they do bother to turn up.
And who can blame them? Our would-be leaders will tell us this is the chance in a generation to change Britain (or keep Britain from changing for the worse). That’s nonsense, of course.
It’s simply yet another opportunity for the farce of democratic accountability to be played out in front of a paying audience whose views will not, in the end, make a blind bit of difference.
We won’t get asked what we think about the EU, for instance, or wars in various far-flung places. We won’t get immigration controls. We will still get Big Government and State interference in every aspect of our lives.
The policies of the last lot will be taken up by the next lot with scarcely a pause. Everything from the massively expensive waste that is the 2012 Olympics to the entirely unnecessary High Speed Rail Link will continue to absorb unprecedented billions.
We will still have an unhealthy health service, under-educated school leavers, cheated graduates, armies of people dependent on the state from cradle to grave.
We will carry on exporting jobs, ingenuity and hope. We’ll carry on bunging bankers big bonuses and sending our soldiers into battle without adequate equipment.
David Cameron may be urging us to vote for change and it’s almost certain that we will buy into that. There will be change – there will be new faces in Government, new faces on the back benches, new faces in Opposition as well.
In 1997 lots of people felt a new wave of optimism when Tony Blair led Labour to their triumph. Many people felt things really could only get better.
There is none of that optimism now. We all know things are bound to get worse whoever is in Downing Street, in office but not in power.
A Cameron victory will be welcomed by many people. But they won’t be putting out more flags and dancing in the streets.
There will be change but no difference. We are like the people of a banana republic gazing on resentfully as the limousines of the rich and powerful sweep past in the days following the latest coup d’etat.
At this election, we will get a change of Government but the more it changes, the more it stays the same. The words “deckchairs” and “Titanic” spring to mind.
There’s nothing to choose between the Tories and Labour on economic policy or anything else for that matter.
The small parties, the fringe groups and even the independents will do well. So will the “None Of The Above” party.
But they won’t get any MPs and in the end it’s still a two-horse race with only one winner.
David Cameron can’t possibly lose this election. He will get a majority of 25 to 30.
It would be a catastrophe for him personally, and for his party, if he achieved anything less than that given the incompetence of the Government he will be replacing.
There won’t be a hung parliament – that’s just some false hope for the Liberal Democrats, constitutional experts and reporters to get excited about.
Talk about hung parliaments takes place in a vain bid to interest us in this dismal democratic process and to pretend the Lib Dems have some sort of serious role in all of this.
Mind you, they’re a bigger threat to the Tories than Labour in the sense that they will probably hang on to most of the seats they’ve already got (barring Solihull, which will almost certainly revert to type).
They might, if they’re really lucky, pick up a seat or two from Labour. That would be a novel experience for them.
But in the end they will stay more or less where they are now, or lose a few seats to the Conservatives.
There is a bit of excitement about the possibility of mavericks, marginal parties and independents winning the odd seat or two. That is possible.
It would be entertaining to see Nigel Farage get rid of John Bercow, for instance. But by and large the odds are stacked against anyone outside the mainstream. There won’t be a powerful wedge of men in white suits after the next election, no matter how excited people get at the prospect.
It’s doubtful if even the three head-to-head-to-head TV debates will make any difference. They’ll only be watched by the committed.
And the committed won’t alter their view no matter what their chosen leader may say or do.
The undecided will stay undecided. They may conclude the best thing is simply not to vote. So while there is still supposedly “everything to play for”, there isn’t really.
The floating voters will float on past the polling stations on May 6 or cancel each other out if they do bother to turn up.
And who can blame them? Our would-be leaders will tell us this is the chance in a generation to change Britain (or keep Britain from changing for the worse). That’s nonsense, of course.
It’s simply yet another opportunity for the farce of democratic accountability to be played out in front of a paying audience whose views will not, in the end, make a blind bit of difference.
We won’t get asked what we think about the EU, for instance, or wars in various far-flung places. We won’t get immigration controls. We will still get Big Government and State interference in every aspect of our lives.
The policies of the last lot will be taken up by the next lot with scarcely a pause. Everything from the massively expensive waste that is the 2012 Olympics to the entirely unnecessary High Speed Rail Link will continue to absorb unprecedented billions.
We will still have an unhealthy health service, under-educated school leavers, cheated graduates, armies of people dependent on the state from cradle to grave.
We will carry on exporting jobs, ingenuity and hope. We’ll carry on bunging bankers big bonuses and sending our soldiers into battle without adequate equipment.
David Cameron may be urging us to vote for change and it’s almost certain that we will buy into that. There will be change – there will be new faces in Government, new faces on the back benches, new faces in Opposition as well.
In 1997 lots of people felt a new wave of optimism when Tony Blair led Labour to their triumph. Many people felt things really could only get better.
There is none of that optimism now. We all know things are bound to get worse whoever is in Downing Street, in office but not in power.
A Cameron victory will be welcomed by many people. But they won’t be putting out more flags and dancing in the streets.
There will be change but no difference. We are like the people of a banana republic gazing on resentfully as the limousines of the rich and powerful sweep past in the days following the latest coup d’etat.
At this election, we will get a change of Government but the more it changes, the more it stays the same. The words “deckchairs” and “Titanic” spring to mind.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Why the election will take us back to the 70s
The writing was on the wall for Labour when Prime Minister “sunny” Jim Callaghan flew home from the Caribbean in the depths of the “Winter of Discontent”.
He was so laid-back about the chaos in the country he provoked the headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”
The unions were running wild, with strikes everywhere. Rubbish piled up in the streets. The dead went unburied. Hospitals treated emergencies only.
In the winter of 1978-9, punk was taking over. Bands like the Stranglers spat at their audiences in much the same way as the union leaders were spitting at the people of Britain.
Labour lost the 1979 General Election to Margaret Thatcher. Callaghan had bottled the chance to hold an earlier election which he might have won. Some things never change.
QWe've had an Easter of unrest, a Prime Minister who chickened out of an earlier election, financial chaos and strikes coming thick and fast.
Chancellor Alistair Darling even had to brave a gauntlet of pickets on his way to the Commons to deliver his damp-squib Budget.
Civil servants walked out again. British Airways is in chaos. We still face rail and gas strikes. Even university professors are threatening to down quills.
Is this just a terrible coincidence or a co-ordinated effort by the unions?
Many people thought Mrs Thatcher killed off the last of those dinosaurs in the 1980s but it looks as if they’re coming back to life like some monster from beyond the grave.
As we all know very well following the BA trolley-dollies’ strike, the Unite union has given Labour £11 million since Gordon Brown became leader.
Unite is Labour’s Lord Ashcroft pumping money into Labour seats and running the party’s campaign in marginal constituencies.
You’d have thought the unions – which, in effect, own the Labour Party – would not want to bring down this Government.
They way they are behaving suggests they’d like to see Labour kicked out in much the same way that Jim Callaghan’s lot were ousted in 1979.
It looks as if pre-election strikes are part of a long-term plot to gain control over Labour when it’s in Opposition and turn it into the left-wing Socialist party the unions have always yearned for.
Leaked e-mails from union barons show they are determined to get more value for their money.
One of them promises: “In the past unions had large parliamentary groups but few MPs actually bothered to take account of our policies. This will change!”
The unions may be flexing their muscles as a warning to the Conservatives – and, possibly, the voters – that there is much worse to come under a David Cameron Government.
Mr Darling’s Budget skirted round the terrible black hole in the Government’s finances. After the election, someone must start filling it in.
That means higher taxes and public spending cuts. Look what’s happening in France. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to cut public spending have led to humbling defeat in local elections and nationwide strikes.
Of course, it could be our union barons are simply the dumb, pig-headed bullies they always were.
They certainly have no concern for the best interests of the people who pay to keep their members in jobs.
But it is baffling to watch them hammer the final nail into the coffin of this Labour Government.
Gordon Brown doesn’t really need their help to lose the election – he’s got taxi-for-hire Stephen Byers, Geoff “Buff” Hoon and Patricia Hewitt to secure defeat for him.
Even so, if the unions own Labour and they want to use their power, you’d think it was in their interests to get Mr Brown re-elected rather than see the Conservatives take over.
Yet every strike or dispute so close to the election is another good reason for people to vote Conservative.
Without the help of the unions, Mrs Thatcher would not have won in 1979. They convinced voters that the country was in a hole and it was time to stop digging.
History is repeating itself though, now we don’t have any heavy industry, the unions’ shock troops are air stewardesses and railway signalmen rather than miners and car-workers.
Labour Governments traditionally collapse amid economic chaos, industrial unrest and allegations of sleaze and graft.
This time, the unions appear to think that a few years of a Tory Government with a small majority is a price worth paying if they can seize control of Labour when it’s in Opposition.
For that plot to work, they must assume Labour could win the election after next and Britain would welcome into power a party led by someone like Ed Balls.
Chillingly, they may only be warming up for battles to come. There is a real risk they will confront a new Conservative Prime Minister just as the unions took on Mrs Thatcher in the early 1980s.
There will be riots on the streets before the year is out.
Only then will we find out if David Cameron is just “the heir to Blair” or whether he’s got some of the Iron Lady in his soul. For the sake of Britain, let’s hope he’s a Thatcherite after all.
Friday, March 26, 2010
We're all better off grounded
The British Airways cabin crew trying to disrupt people’s flights over the coming days and weeks are just another nail in the coffin of the aviation industry.
If you aren’t caught by a strike at home, there’s every chance you’ll be hit by an air traffic controllers’ dispute in France or a baggage-handlers’ go-slow in Spain.
And you can pretty much guarantee your plane won’t take off or arrive anywhere close to the scheduled times.
While we protest mightily if a train is half an hour late, we sit in stunned acquiescence as airlines fail to tell us what’s going on for hours on end and dump us at our destinations at midnight rather than mid-day.
That’s always assuming they actually take us to the place we want to go.
It’s quite normal to expect to return to Birmingham Airport but actually land at Luton or for the flight to Madeira to be diverted to Tenerife where there is no-one to find you accommodation let alone tell you how they intend to get you to your destination.
Air travel is an abomination.
Last time I went through airport security I was frisked, quizzed, humiliated and hounded no fewer than eight times by “security”.
Every time I fly, I swear it’s the very last time. The whole process is a slow, painful, dreary exercise which makes travelling abroad the last resort.
From the moment you arrive at an airport and try to park the car on some grossly over-priced wasteland before breaking your arms manhandling your cases onto a random “shuttle bus”, you enter the 24 circles of Hell.
You are ordered to arrive two or even three hours before the departure time. That’s so you can queue.
First off it’s the check-in desk – or, in some places, the first security scanning desk – where you hang around for hours while officious little girls who speak little English ask inane questions like “Did you pack your own baggage?”
What would they say if I said, “No, my wife packed it”? Would they rip it apart in search of bombs? Would they take me to one side and strip-search me? Would they ban me altogether from the flight? Obviously I wouldn’t dare risk a joke with these harridans.
I once resisted a surcharge imposed because my single case was too heavy though, as it contained clothes for two people, it was way below our combined allowance.
After being threatened with arrest I was forced to go and buy a new case, rearrange the luggage, and go to the back of the queue. It might have been cheaper to cough up in the first place.
Then there’s security, immigration and passport control. They are often quite pleasant people who are only doing their job. We all want safe flights. But it’s more queues.
You have to remove most of your clothes – including your shoes, which means remembering to put on socks without holes.
They rifle through your hand luggage throwing out any bottled water you may have because the airport wants to sell its their own at excessive prices once you’ve made it into the shopping mall known as the departure lounge.
Here, you while away the hours waiting for your flight to be called. There’s nowhere comfortable to sit unless you go to one of the many food and drink outlets and blow the holiday money on a couple of cappuccinos and a croissant.
Finally you get to departure gate 273 by traipsing down endless corridors where the travelators don’t work. And you sit. Usually on the floor because the 100 seats available for the 350 passengers are all taken.
At this point you might pluck up the courage to ask one of the BA staff why the flight is two hours late so far and when they think they might deign to take off.
They order you, in not very polite terms, to go away and mind your own business. As soon as they have some information to impart, they will let you know.
Finally you queue again to have your boarding card and ticket checked. At length, you’re allowed onto the plane.
The cabin crew look on disdainfully as you turn right into the cheap seats and struggle to squeeze yourself in beside the fat bloke in the aisle seat who is your companion for the next four hours.
You can’t sleep because the seats are too uncomfortable so you let yourself graze on the disgusting food all the time knowing the plastic trays themselves would be more nutritious.
And all of this takes place as you check out your fellow passengers to identify the terrorist and remember those stories, real and fictional, about planes plunging from the skies.
A strike is the best service BA could offer its customers. That way, we can book to go somewhere exotic and enjoy a fantasy holiday without enduring the grim reality of having to go through with it.
Robert Louis Stevenson once said “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”. Obviously he’d never flown.
If you aren’t caught by a strike at home, there’s every chance you’ll be hit by an air traffic controllers’ dispute in France or a baggage-handlers’ go-slow in Spain.
And you can pretty much guarantee your plane won’t take off or arrive anywhere close to the scheduled times.
While we protest mightily if a train is half an hour late, we sit in stunned acquiescence as airlines fail to tell us what’s going on for hours on end and dump us at our destinations at midnight rather than mid-day.
That’s always assuming they actually take us to the place we want to go.
It’s quite normal to expect to return to Birmingham Airport but actually land at Luton or for the flight to Madeira to be diverted to Tenerife where there is no-one to find you accommodation let alone tell you how they intend to get you to your destination.
Air travel is an abomination.
Last time I went through airport security I was frisked, quizzed, humiliated and hounded no fewer than eight times by “security”.
Every time I fly, I swear it’s the very last time. The whole process is a slow, painful, dreary exercise which makes travelling abroad the last resort.
From the moment you arrive at an airport and try to park the car on some grossly over-priced wasteland before breaking your arms manhandling your cases onto a random “shuttle bus”, you enter the 24 circles of Hell.
You are ordered to arrive two or even three hours before the departure time. That’s so you can queue.
First off it’s the check-in desk – or, in some places, the first security scanning desk – where you hang around for hours while officious little girls who speak little English ask inane questions like “Did you pack your own baggage?”
What would they say if I said, “No, my wife packed it”? Would they rip it apart in search of bombs? Would they take me to one side and strip-search me? Would they ban me altogether from the flight? Obviously I wouldn’t dare risk a joke with these harridans.
I once resisted a surcharge imposed because my single case was too heavy though, as it contained clothes for two people, it was way below our combined allowance.
After being threatened with arrest I was forced to go and buy a new case, rearrange the luggage, and go to the back of the queue. It might have been cheaper to cough up in the first place.
Then there’s security, immigration and passport control. They are often quite pleasant people who are only doing their job. We all want safe flights. But it’s more queues.
You have to remove most of your clothes – including your shoes, which means remembering to put on socks without holes.
They rifle through your hand luggage throwing out any bottled water you may have because the airport wants to sell its their own at excessive prices once you’ve made it into the shopping mall known as the departure lounge.
Here, you while away the hours waiting for your flight to be called. There’s nowhere comfortable to sit unless you go to one of the many food and drink outlets and blow the holiday money on a couple of cappuccinos and a croissant.
Finally you get to departure gate 273 by traipsing down endless corridors where the travelators don’t work. And you sit. Usually on the floor because the 100 seats available for the 350 passengers are all taken.
At this point you might pluck up the courage to ask one of the BA staff why the flight is two hours late so far and when they think they might deign to take off.
They order you, in not very polite terms, to go away and mind your own business. As soon as they have some information to impart, they will let you know.
Finally you queue again to have your boarding card and ticket checked. At length, you’re allowed onto the plane.
The cabin crew look on disdainfully as you turn right into the cheap seats and struggle to squeeze yourself in beside the fat bloke in the aisle seat who is your companion for the next four hours.
You can’t sleep because the seats are too uncomfortable so you let yourself graze on the disgusting food all the time knowing the plastic trays themselves would be more nutritious.
And all of this takes place as you check out your fellow passengers to identify the terrorist and remember those stories, real and fictional, about planes plunging from the skies.
A strike is the best service BA could offer its customers. That way, we can book to go somewhere exotic and enjoy a fantasy holiday without enduring the grim reality of having to go through with it.
Robert Louis Stevenson once said “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”. Obviously he’d never flown.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Cash for contacts - it's a Byers market
Either Stephen Byers is greedy and boastful and his eyes lit up at the prospect of easy money or he was telling the truth in his interview with Channel 4's “Dispatches” programme.
He can’t, surely, get away with claiming he was merely full of hyperbole and actually he has never influenced anything.
But of course Byers and his fellow ex-Cabinet Ministers Patricia Hewitt and Buff Hoon are not alone in seeking to turn their contacts into cash.
Dozens of MPs of all persuasions will be on the jobs market on May 7 and many of them will be casting around for a way to replace their expenses with as little inconvenience as possible.
The price a commercial company might have to pay to change the law is probably small in comparison with the costs they might face if the Government is not talked out of whatever mad ruse or regulation it has got in mind.
A tame MP on the payroll is almost certainly money well spent.
The scandal here is as much about the idiocy of Government – and that means any Government of whatever party – as it is about the venality of our MPs.
Whitehall rarely considers the commercial consequences of its legislation or, if it does, it assumes that big business can somehow shoulder the financial burden without any consequences for the economy.
This is nonsense, of course. Every new law and regulation has a price. It makes this country less attractive and exports jobs, expertise and, in the long run, diminishes our shrinking economy still further.
There should be no need for lobbyists like Byers, Hoon, Hewitt and the dozens of others we don’t know about.
But “influence” is a valuable commodity in a corrupt political system where the simple expedient of asking our Parliamentary democracy to make the decisions has been abandoned.
Was Byers offering to take money for nothing or did he actually have valuable influence and contacts which could help companies buy their way to a better future? Was he being "economical with the truth" to the TV or is he being "economical with the truth" now?
Do we really think ex-Cabinet Ministers have no power to influence decisions in Whitehall? And do we really think they are not prepared to sell that influence to the highest bidder?
Lots of departing Tory MPs will be licking their lips at the prospect of a Cameron Government. Suddenly all those years in opposition will not have been wasted.
It’s significant that retiring Bromsgrove MP Julie Kirkbride, the expenses queen, was approached by “Dispatches” but turned down their offer.
She said she did not regard the approach as credible and duly alerted her Tory colleagues to the threat of a sting. Very clever, Julie, at least that’s one scandal you’ve managed to avoid.
She did not say she would have refused the work if it had been genuine. If the “Dispatches” reporter had been a bit more credible, would she have been so honourable? I wonder.
He can’t, surely, get away with claiming he was merely full of hyperbole and actually he has never influenced anything.
But of course Byers and his fellow ex-Cabinet Ministers Patricia Hewitt and Buff Hoon are not alone in seeking to turn their contacts into cash.
Dozens of MPs of all persuasions will be on the jobs market on May 7 and many of them will be casting around for a way to replace their expenses with as little inconvenience as possible.
The price a commercial company might have to pay to change the law is probably small in comparison with the costs they might face if the Government is not talked out of whatever mad ruse or regulation it has got in mind.
A tame MP on the payroll is almost certainly money well spent.
The scandal here is as much about the idiocy of Government – and that means any Government of whatever party – as it is about the venality of our MPs.
Whitehall rarely considers the commercial consequences of its legislation or, if it does, it assumes that big business can somehow shoulder the financial burden without any consequences for the economy.
This is nonsense, of course. Every new law and regulation has a price. It makes this country less attractive and exports jobs, expertise and, in the long run, diminishes our shrinking economy still further.
There should be no need for lobbyists like Byers, Hoon, Hewitt and the dozens of others we don’t know about.
But “influence” is a valuable commodity in a corrupt political system where the simple expedient of asking our Parliamentary democracy to make the decisions has been abandoned.
Was Byers offering to take money for nothing or did he actually have valuable influence and contacts which could help companies buy their way to a better future? Was he being "economical with the truth" to the TV or is he being "economical with the truth" now?
Do we really think ex-Cabinet Ministers have no power to influence decisions in Whitehall? And do we really think they are not prepared to sell that influence to the highest bidder?
Lots of departing Tory MPs will be licking their lips at the prospect of a Cameron Government. Suddenly all those years in opposition will not have been wasted.
It’s significant that retiring Bromsgrove MP Julie Kirkbride, the expenses queen, was approached by “Dispatches” but turned down their offer.
She said she did not regard the approach as credible and duly alerted her Tory colleagues to the threat of a sting. Very clever, Julie, at least that’s one scandal you’ve managed to avoid.
She did not say she would have refused the work if it had been genuine. If the “Dispatches” reporter had been a bit more credible, would she have been so honourable? I wonder.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
MPs are a striking example
Thousands of civil servants went on strike last week. Nobody noticed.
It’s a shame, really, for the 200,000 people who withdrew their labour.
After all, if you go on strike and lose two days’ pay, you like to think you’ll have some impact otherwise what’s the point?
You’d hope your bosses and your customers might be at least a little inconvenienced.
Instead, life carried on pretty much as usual though they did manage to close the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament.
Most people would regard that as a valuable contribution to the nation’s well-being. Pity they didn’t shut down the Houses of Parliament as well.
Otherwise, it was business as usual.
The Department for Work and Pensions told those staff still in the office to pretend they were answerphones, tell callers to ring back later and hang up.
But as that’s what normally happens if you try to phone any Government department that supposedly deals with the public, callers wouldn’t realise anything had changed.
Our public servants are complaining about attempts to reduce the amount of redundancy money they’re entitled to if their jobs are axed.
It’s understandable they’d be worried – especially as whoever wins the General Election will have no choice but to start chopping away pretty drastically.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) claims civil servants are low-paid, under-valued, unsung heroes who keep the country running.
It’s true we do need people to collect our taxes, sit at immigration booths looking bored, man Jobcentres and risk their lives supervising driving tests.
They’re not badly paid and enjoy good pensions. The strike is about plans to cut their redundancy pay from three years’ salary to two.
Thousands of people who have lost their jobs can only dream of getting a pay-off worth two years’ pay let alone three.
The union complains that, at the moment, someone aged 41 who earns £24,000 and has 20 years’ service, would be entitled to redundancy pay of £72,000. Under the new plans, that would be £60,000.
How many private-sector taxpayers could hope for anything approaching such munificence?
What would someone get who was also 41, earned the same salary, and had worked for the same employer for 20 years but was not paid by the taxpayer?
The Government’s own web-site gives us the answer. A private-sector employee would be legally entitled to 19.5 weeks’ pay at a maximum rate of £380 per week. That’s £7,410.
It’s awful for anybody to lose their job. If you get booted out by the Government, it’s just as painful as if you’re the victim of a small business closing or an American-owned processed cheese-maker shutting a chocolate factory.
But even under the Government’s new plans, our “typical” civil servant will get sixty grand to cushion the blow – compared with maybe as little as £7,410 in the private sector.
It’s not the civil servants who should be going on strike over their unfair treatment, it’s the rest of us.
Bizarrely, by going on strike, the unions are biting the hand that feeds them.
This Government has been lavishly generous towards public sector employees not just because they’re heavily unionised but because Gordon Brown thinks the State knows best how to run our lives.
After the election, life will get tough for civil servants. It’s not a threat; just a fact of life. The country is broke, the recession will drag on for years, the private sector is limping along, ordinary taxpayers are becoming poorer.
A new government, even led by Mr Brown, will have to reduce public spending drastically. It will have to face down much tougher unions than the PCS.
It will even have to take on the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, which one health professional told me is as militant and inflexible as Red Robbo was at British Leyland in the 1970s.
The unions know the score, which is why they’re trying to defend their redundancy payments.
If I were in some cushy publicly-funded little number with a nice, fat, index-linked pension to look forward to, I’d be indignant as well at the Government’s attempts to curb my redundancy money.
But our civil servants clearly don’t realise how featherbedded they really are. Haven’t they seen what’s been going on over the past 18 months? Surely those working in Jobcentres must realise we’re up the creek.
Even our Prime Minister admits we’re not out of recession. His pay freeze for top people – NHS managers, judges, generals, consultants and so on – is beside the point. Most of them should have pay cuts.
Yet he still plans to give increases to the majority of civil servants and, even if it’s just one per cent or so. When thousands take pay cuts rather than lose their jobs, even this is a bit rich.
That may be because our MPs have just awarded themselves a 1.5 per cent pay rise – which, of course, will boost their pensions when many of them lose their seats in a few weeks’ time.
With leadership like that, no wonder civil servants have a sense of entitlement you don’t find in the real world.
It’s a shame, really, for the 200,000 people who withdrew their labour.
After all, if you go on strike and lose two days’ pay, you like to think you’ll have some impact otherwise what’s the point?
You’d hope your bosses and your customers might be at least a little inconvenienced.
Instead, life carried on pretty much as usual though they did manage to close the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament.
Most people would regard that as a valuable contribution to the nation’s well-being. Pity they didn’t shut down the Houses of Parliament as well.
Otherwise, it was business as usual.
The Department for Work and Pensions told those staff still in the office to pretend they were answerphones, tell callers to ring back later and hang up.
But as that’s what normally happens if you try to phone any Government department that supposedly deals with the public, callers wouldn’t realise anything had changed.
Our public servants are complaining about attempts to reduce the amount of redundancy money they’re entitled to if their jobs are axed.
It’s understandable they’d be worried – especially as whoever wins the General Election will have no choice but to start chopping away pretty drastically.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) claims civil servants are low-paid, under-valued, unsung heroes who keep the country running.
It’s true we do need people to collect our taxes, sit at immigration booths looking bored, man Jobcentres and risk their lives supervising driving tests.
They’re not badly paid and enjoy good pensions. The strike is about plans to cut their redundancy pay from three years’ salary to two.
Thousands of people who have lost their jobs can only dream of getting a pay-off worth two years’ pay let alone three.
The union complains that, at the moment, someone aged 41 who earns £24,000 and has 20 years’ service, would be entitled to redundancy pay of £72,000. Under the new plans, that would be £60,000.
How many private-sector taxpayers could hope for anything approaching such munificence?
What would someone get who was also 41, earned the same salary, and had worked for the same employer for 20 years but was not paid by the taxpayer?
The Government’s own web-site gives us the answer. A private-sector employee would be legally entitled to 19.5 weeks’ pay at a maximum rate of £380 per week. That’s £7,410.
It’s awful for anybody to lose their job. If you get booted out by the Government, it’s just as painful as if you’re the victim of a small business closing or an American-owned processed cheese-maker shutting a chocolate factory.
But even under the Government’s new plans, our “typical” civil servant will get sixty grand to cushion the blow – compared with maybe as little as £7,410 in the private sector.
It’s not the civil servants who should be going on strike over their unfair treatment, it’s the rest of us.
Bizarrely, by going on strike, the unions are biting the hand that feeds them.
This Government has been lavishly generous towards public sector employees not just because they’re heavily unionised but because Gordon Brown thinks the State knows best how to run our lives.
After the election, life will get tough for civil servants. It’s not a threat; just a fact of life. The country is broke, the recession will drag on for years, the private sector is limping along, ordinary taxpayers are becoming poorer.
A new government, even led by Mr Brown, will have to reduce public spending drastically. It will have to face down much tougher unions than the PCS.
It will even have to take on the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, which one health professional told me is as militant and inflexible as Red Robbo was at British Leyland in the 1970s.
The unions know the score, which is why they’re trying to defend their redundancy payments.
If I were in some cushy publicly-funded little number with a nice, fat, index-linked pension to look forward to, I’d be indignant as well at the Government’s attempts to curb my redundancy money.
But our civil servants clearly don’t realise how featherbedded they really are. Haven’t they seen what’s been going on over the past 18 months? Surely those working in Jobcentres must realise we’re up the creek.
Even our Prime Minister admits we’re not out of recession. His pay freeze for top people – NHS managers, judges, generals, consultants and so on – is beside the point. Most of them should have pay cuts.
Yet he still plans to give increases to the majority of civil servants and, even if it’s just one per cent or so. When thousands take pay cuts rather than lose their jobs, even this is a bit rich.
That may be because our MPs have just awarded themselves a 1.5 per cent pay rise – which, of course, will boost their pensions when many of them lose their seats in a few weeks’ time.
With leadership like that, no wonder civil servants have a sense of entitlement you don’t find in the real world.
Double dip before the election?
The taxman has thousands of businesses in a vice-like grip and may yet squeeze the life out them.
They are all in deep debt to the inland revenue – and a lot of them can’t pay.
Gordon Brown doesn’t want his own Government to march into companies large and small and close them down just before the election.
But he does need to raise as much as he possibly can in tax. Which leaves his money-gatherers in an impossible position.
It seems Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is wrestling with a massive dilemma – close down up to 12,000 West Midland companies or wait, perhaps for ever, to be repaid over £200 million they owe between them.
A year ago, on Government orders, HMRC offered its “customers” a break from paying tax and National Insurance.
For some months, all a company had to do was phone their friendly local taxman to be given a tax “holiday”.
This worked wonderfully until late last year when the Government noticed it was owed billions of pounds by businesses large and small.
And, with the Government’s own cash-flow looking dodgy, the taxman was told to tighten things up again.
Between November 2007 and December last year, the revenue approved more than 249,700 time-to-pay arrangements, worth a total of £4.37 billion.
But if you try to get more time to pay your tax bills now, you face a Spanish Inquisition from a taxman who has reverted to type and cares only about getting his hands on your money.
This is understandable. After all, as long as taxes exist, someone has to collect them so the Government can spend money on schools, hospitals, wars and repaying its own debts.
The snag is hundreds of companies are now being told that they won’t get any extra time to pay their new debts.
And companies which have already been given a tax break are being told to start repaying their old debts and keep up payments on their new ones as well.
If business has picked up and cash-flow is looking good, this shouldn’t be a problem. But for hundreds of Black Country businesses it hasn’t picked up and there isn’t enough money to repay the revenue.
So whose problem does this become – the business’s or the taxman’s?
If the revenue insist on getting all the money owing to them as soon as possible, and the businesses haven’t got it, there’s only one result – the company goes bust.
When that happens, people lose their jobs. The Government has to pay their benefits and loses the income it gets from their taxes.
At the same time, the bankrupt business has no chance of ever repaying its debts to the Government.
The taxman doesn’t get any of the repayments he’s demanding and he certainly won’t get any revenue from the company in the future because the company hasn’t got a future.
Yet the Government is owed the money and it would be wrong for HMRC simply to write off the debt. Apart from anything else, that would be unfair on other businesses which were paying their taxes.
Sadly, the revenue is like the big banks at the time of the credit crunch. As an expert in these things told me: “HMRC is now one of Britain’s biggest sub-prime lenders.”
You will remember it was “sub-prime lending” that did for the banks when they offered loans to people who never had a chance of repaying the money.
As things stand, the taxman has lent people money – by giving them a payment holiday – without checking on their ability repay it.
At the last count, I am told, there were no fewer than 12,000 companies in the West Midlands which have taken advantage of this temporary tax relief.
They only owe an average of £18,000 each, which means they’re mostly small firms with only a few employees. But it all adds up. Collectively, they owe an estimated £216 million.
Sadly, many just don’t have the money to repay the revenue.
Can HMRC really scour the region shutting down companies? It’s already responsible for half of all company bankruptcies.
Could it simply to write off the debts altogether? It would be a huge loss of revenue but it could allow the business to survive, employ people and pay taxes in the future.
That’s highly unlikely to because HMRC’s job is to gather taxes. It doesn’t have to worry about unemployment and public spending increases caused whenever people are thrown onto the dole queue.
But with so many thousands of companies in hock to the taxman, the fear now is that a new wave of bankruptcies is on the way.
The last thing Gordon Brown wants is a dip back into recession on the eve of a General Election. But unless he tells the taxman to go easy on small businesses, that’s what he might get.
They are all in deep debt to the inland revenue – and a lot of them can’t pay.
Gordon Brown doesn’t want his own Government to march into companies large and small and close them down just before the election.
But he does need to raise as much as he possibly can in tax. Which leaves his money-gatherers in an impossible position.
It seems Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is wrestling with a massive dilemma – close down up to 12,000 West Midland companies or wait, perhaps for ever, to be repaid over £200 million they owe between them.
A year ago, on Government orders, HMRC offered its “customers” a break from paying tax and National Insurance.
For some months, all a company had to do was phone their friendly local taxman to be given a tax “holiday”.
This worked wonderfully until late last year when the Government noticed it was owed billions of pounds by businesses large and small.
And, with the Government’s own cash-flow looking dodgy, the taxman was told to tighten things up again.
Between November 2007 and December last year, the revenue approved more than 249,700 time-to-pay arrangements, worth a total of £4.37 billion.
But if you try to get more time to pay your tax bills now, you face a Spanish Inquisition from a taxman who has reverted to type and cares only about getting his hands on your money.
This is understandable. After all, as long as taxes exist, someone has to collect them so the Government can spend money on schools, hospitals, wars and repaying its own debts.
The snag is hundreds of companies are now being told that they won’t get any extra time to pay their new debts.
And companies which have already been given a tax break are being told to start repaying their old debts and keep up payments on their new ones as well.
If business has picked up and cash-flow is looking good, this shouldn’t be a problem. But for hundreds of Black Country businesses it hasn’t picked up and there isn’t enough money to repay the revenue.
So whose problem does this become – the business’s or the taxman’s?
If the revenue insist on getting all the money owing to them as soon as possible, and the businesses haven’t got it, there’s only one result – the company goes bust.
When that happens, people lose their jobs. The Government has to pay their benefits and loses the income it gets from their taxes.
At the same time, the bankrupt business has no chance of ever repaying its debts to the Government.
The taxman doesn’t get any of the repayments he’s demanding and he certainly won’t get any revenue from the company in the future because the company hasn’t got a future.
Yet the Government is owed the money and it would be wrong for HMRC simply to write off the debt. Apart from anything else, that would be unfair on other businesses which were paying their taxes.
Sadly, the revenue is like the big banks at the time of the credit crunch. As an expert in these things told me: “HMRC is now one of Britain’s biggest sub-prime lenders.”
You will remember it was “sub-prime lending” that did for the banks when they offered loans to people who never had a chance of repaying the money.
As things stand, the taxman has lent people money – by giving them a payment holiday – without checking on their ability repay it.
At the last count, I am told, there were no fewer than 12,000 companies in the West Midlands which have taken advantage of this temporary tax relief.
They only owe an average of £18,000 each, which means they’re mostly small firms with only a few employees. But it all adds up. Collectively, they owe an estimated £216 million.
Sadly, many just don’t have the money to repay the revenue.
Can HMRC really scour the region shutting down companies? It’s already responsible for half of all company bankruptcies.
Could it simply to write off the debts altogether? It would be a huge loss of revenue but it could allow the business to survive, employ people and pay taxes in the future.
That’s highly unlikely to because HMRC’s job is to gather taxes. It doesn’t have to worry about unemployment and public spending increases caused whenever people are thrown onto the dole queue.
But with so many thousands of companies in hock to the taxman, the fear now is that a new wave of bankruptcies is on the way.
The last thing Gordon Brown wants is a dip back into recession on the eve of a General Election. But unless he tells the taxman to go easy on small businesses, that’s what he might get.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
High speed off the rails
It would be lovely to be whisked through the countryside from Birmingham to London so fast the whole journey would take only 46 minutes.
But will it ever happen and can we afford it?
Now the Government has published the route for HS2, the high-speed railway line intended to make Britain compete with other European economies, everyone is drooling over how marvellous it will be.
We’re the only major country in Europe without such 21st century infrastructure, we are repeatedly told by the scheme’s many supporters.
How much, though, are we willing to pay to reduce the journey time between Birmingham and London by half an hour?
The price tag for this little scheme is a cool £34 billion. And we can be certain that will have doubled by the time it’s finished.
The development process will take years. If you live in the leafy Chilterns, you will not want the quiet of your countryside disturbed by some silver bullet train flashing by at 225 mph.
So there will be NIMBY protesters all down the line demanding that the line does not run through their back gardens.
And who can blame them? Few people would relish their peace being disturbed by half-a-mile long express trains rocketing past.
It will take millions of pounds just to get planning permission to build this route and the delaying tactics of expert lawyers will ensure the process drags on for years.
Meanwhile, any simpler, cheaper, quicker transport developments will be put on hold because the high-speed rail link will dominate the planners’ thinking for years to come.
It is claimed the development has the overwhelming support of the West Midlands business community. This is simply not true.
While many business people would be happy to see the route developed and would enjoy the speed and style of the new trains, they don’t all think it is worth the time, trouble and expense involved in getting there.
They are split over whether there should be two Birmingham stations – one in the city centre and another at the National Exhibition Centre – or one and, if it’s only one, where that should go.
And many of them really do not think the time saving of a new line would be worth all the expense.
The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce claims the new route would stimulate the West Midlands economy to the tune of £2.24 billion. That’s a lot of money.
But the Chamber admits this increase would come over a period of 60 years. It works out at just £370 million a year.
How can a business organisation seriously expect to support a scheme which brings in £2.24 billion over 60 years in exchange for investment of £34 billion cost. If the Chamber's members conducted their own businesses this way, they'd all be bust by now. Why should we expect the taxpayer to shoulder such a burden?
It would no doubt be fantastic to see sleek new high-speed trains dashing through England at breathtaking speeds. No doubt they would be comfortable, safe, reliable and the last word in 21st century chic (unless it snows and the trains get stuck in a tunnel as they do en route to Paris).
Sadly, we do not have the time to indulge in these fantasies. And we certainly do not have the money. This is the high-speed train to nowhere.
But will it ever happen and can we afford it?
Now the Government has published the route for HS2, the high-speed railway line intended to make Britain compete with other European economies, everyone is drooling over how marvellous it will be.
We’re the only major country in Europe without such 21st century infrastructure, we are repeatedly told by the scheme’s many supporters.
How much, though, are we willing to pay to reduce the journey time between Birmingham and London by half an hour?
The price tag for this little scheme is a cool £34 billion. And we can be certain that will have doubled by the time it’s finished.
The development process will take years. If you live in the leafy Chilterns, you will not want the quiet of your countryside disturbed by some silver bullet train flashing by at 225 mph.
So there will be NIMBY protesters all down the line demanding that the line does not run through their back gardens.
And who can blame them? Few people would relish their peace being disturbed by half-a-mile long express trains rocketing past.
It will take millions of pounds just to get planning permission to build this route and the delaying tactics of expert lawyers will ensure the process drags on for years.
Meanwhile, any simpler, cheaper, quicker transport developments will be put on hold because the high-speed rail link will dominate the planners’ thinking for years to come.
It is claimed the development has the overwhelming support of the West Midlands business community. This is simply not true.
While many business people would be happy to see the route developed and would enjoy the speed and style of the new trains, they don’t all think it is worth the time, trouble and expense involved in getting there.
They are split over whether there should be two Birmingham stations – one in the city centre and another at the National Exhibition Centre – or one and, if it’s only one, where that should go.
And many of them really do not think the time saving of a new line would be worth all the expense.
The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce claims the new route would stimulate the West Midlands economy to the tune of £2.24 billion. That’s a lot of money.
But the Chamber admits this increase would come over a period of 60 years. It works out at just £370 million a year.
How can a business organisation seriously expect to support a scheme which brings in £2.24 billion over 60 years in exchange for investment of £34 billion cost. If the Chamber's members conducted their own businesses this way, they'd all be bust by now. Why should we expect the taxpayer to shoulder such a burden?
It would no doubt be fantastic to see sleek new high-speed trains dashing through England at breathtaking speeds. No doubt they would be comfortable, safe, reliable and the last word in 21st century chic (unless it snows and the trains get stuck in a tunnel as they do en route to Paris).
Sadly, we do not have the time to indulge in these fantasies. And we certainly do not have the money. This is the high-speed train to nowhere.
Welcome to the national lottery
If schools are so vital to the future of our children and our nation, it’s about time parents were given more say over where their kids are educated.
At the moment, thousands of places are doled out on an almost random basis because all the best schools are full.
But as the ridiculous annual fiasco of allocating school places took place again this week and the results dribbled in, it was clear up to half the applicants have lost out.
About 200,000 kids won’t be going to the secondary school of their choice next September.
We are constantly assured that parents have real choice in where their children are educated.
Unless you can afford the fees to go private, your options are severely limited. And few people can afford such fees.
Eton costs £28,851 a year. (The fees are advertised as £9,617 per half, which might lead you to think it’s under £20,000 a year until you discover that a “half” is actually a term and there are three terms in a year. So for the very rich, a half equals a third.)
Wolverhampton Grammar School will set you back £7,939 a year assuming your kids are clever enough to win a place.
There are state-funded grammar schools, of course. And very good they are too. That’s why most parents make them first choice if their children have any chance of scraping through the 11-plus.
But there aren’t nearly enough grammar schools and, scandalously, there won’t be any more under a Labour – or a Tory – Government.
So, for about 600,000 parents a year, school places are allocated according to some impenetrable criteria set by their local authority.
There are ways round the system. Favourite is, of course, buying a house in the catchment area of the school of your choice.
This won’t guarantee you a place but it helps. It means house prices can be excessively high in the vicinity of good schools, even in these hard times.
It means posh areas have posh schools and places are won according to the wealth of the pupils’ parents.
As a form of selection, it’s a lot more secure than having little Johnny try his hand at the 11-plus.
It’s been going on for years and is even more popular than grammar schools. But it leaves most parents scratching around looking for the second or third best options.
If you want a place at a faith school, you have to start going to church. I know a number of agnostic parents who go to church religiously so they can secure a coveted place at a successful, over-subscribed school.
You could try lying to win a place for your child, of course. It’s illegal but lots of parents get away with it.
The Government thinks about 3,500 parents cheat though only 1,100 get caught.
Scams include claiming to live at a relative’s house in a the catchment area of a good school or briefly renting a flat nearby.
Some parents will use the address of an empty property, a bogus post-code or an invented street name.
Couples even claim they’re getting divorced and one of them will move alone into the catchment area for a few weeks, just to win a place.
In theory, parents can be prosecuted for fraud. In reality they get away with it.
The demand for secondary school places is entirely predictable because local authorities know well in advance how many 11-year-olds they will have to cater for.
Yet every spring, they sift through their applications and announce to thousands of parents and children that they won’t be going to their choice school.
In Brighton, the places are allocated at random because the council thinks its fairer that way. But it’s a lottery everywhere.
Schools are allowed to be selective. They’re just not allowed to select on the ability of the pupils.
It’s ridiculous that schools which specialise in science or languages, say, are not allowed to recruit kids who are good at those subjects.
The inner cities would be much improved if there were specialist sports academies which were free to choose kids who were good at sport. That’s not allowed.
Instead, parents are subjected to a bureaucratic and patently unfair system for allocating places.
Successful schools are told how many places they can have. Poor, failing schools are given every help to fill places even though nobody wants to go there.
Why shouldn’t good schools be allowed to expand? Why not introduce real competition for pupils, allowing parents to shop around rather than make do with whatever they can get?
The Tories once proposed a voucher system which would allow parents to buy a place at the school of their choice.
Instead of being told where to go, parents would control the funding and that would give them the power. Overnight, schools would focus on the consumers –parents and children – rather than council bureaucrats.
Why not revive the idea?
Good schools would get a chance to earn more money and expand to meet demand. And if that meant poor schools closing down completely, so much the better.
At the moment, thousands of places are doled out on an almost random basis because all the best schools are full.
But as the ridiculous annual fiasco of allocating school places took place again this week and the results dribbled in, it was clear up to half the applicants have lost out.
About 200,000 kids won’t be going to the secondary school of their choice next September.
We are constantly assured that parents have real choice in where their children are educated.
Unless you can afford the fees to go private, your options are severely limited. And few people can afford such fees.
Eton costs £28,851 a year. (The fees are advertised as £9,617 per half, which might lead you to think it’s under £20,000 a year until you discover that a “half” is actually a term and there are three terms in a year. So for the very rich, a half equals a third.)
Wolverhampton Grammar School will set you back £7,939 a year assuming your kids are clever enough to win a place.
There are state-funded grammar schools, of course. And very good they are too. That’s why most parents make them first choice if their children have any chance of scraping through the 11-plus.
But there aren’t nearly enough grammar schools and, scandalously, there won’t be any more under a Labour – or a Tory – Government.
So, for about 600,000 parents a year, school places are allocated according to some impenetrable criteria set by their local authority.
There are ways round the system. Favourite is, of course, buying a house in the catchment area of the school of your choice.
This won’t guarantee you a place but it helps. It means house prices can be excessively high in the vicinity of good schools, even in these hard times.
It means posh areas have posh schools and places are won according to the wealth of the pupils’ parents.
As a form of selection, it’s a lot more secure than having little Johnny try his hand at the 11-plus.
It’s been going on for years and is even more popular than grammar schools. But it leaves most parents scratching around looking for the second or third best options.
If you want a place at a faith school, you have to start going to church. I know a number of agnostic parents who go to church religiously so they can secure a coveted place at a successful, over-subscribed school.
You could try lying to win a place for your child, of course. It’s illegal but lots of parents get away with it.
The Government thinks about 3,500 parents cheat though only 1,100 get caught.
Scams include claiming to live at a relative’s house in a the catchment area of a good school or briefly renting a flat nearby.
Some parents will use the address of an empty property, a bogus post-code or an invented street name.
Couples even claim they’re getting divorced and one of them will move alone into the catchment area for a few weeks, just to win a place.
In theory, parents can be prosecuted for fraud. In reality they get away with it.
The demand for secondary school places is entirely predictable because local authorities know well in advance how many 11-year-olds they will have to cater for.
Yet every spring, they sift through their applications and announce to thousands of parents and children that they won’t be going to their choice school.
In Brighton, the places are allocated at random because the council thinks its fairer that way. But it’s a lottery everywhere.
Schools are allowed to be selective. They’re just not allowed to select on the ability of the pupils.
It’s ridiculous that schools which specialise in science or languages, say, are not allowed to recruit kids who are good at those subjects.
The inner cities would be much improved if there were specialist sports academies which were free to choose kids who were good at sport. That’s not allowed.
Instead, parents are subjected to a bureaucratic and patently unfair system for allocating places.
Successful schools are told how many places they can have. Poor, failing schools are given every help to fill places even though nobody wants to go there.
Why shouldn’t good schools be allowed to expand? Why not introduce real competition for pupils, allowing parents to shop around rather than make do with whatever they can get?
The Tories once proposed a voucher system which would allow parents to buy a place at the school of their choice.
Instead of being told where to go, parents would control the funding and that would give them the power. Overnight, schools would focus on the consumers –parents and children – rather than council bureaucrats.
Why not revive the idea?
Good schools would get a chance to earn more money and expand to meet demand. And if that meant poor schools closing down completely, so much the better.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Tax is for little people
There is something disgusting about the fact that people who avoid paying tax in this country can bung their ill-gotten gains at a political party – and enjoy a peerage to boot.
Never mind the cash-for-peerages scandal, the truth has always been that rich men can buy themselves a seat at the top table.
It's a whole lot easier to be rich and buy yourself power and influence if you don't pay high taxes in the country where you flash your cash. You’ve got so much more to spare.
What's so offensive is not so much that rich people can buy themselves power and privilege – 'twas ever thus.
What's sickening is that they can do so at our expense. We, the little people, pay our taxes out of our hard-earned pittances.
Yet if you're mega-rich, you can avoid most taxes in this country and, as a result, have so much un-taxed money you can afford to funnel millions into the political party of your choice.
The other night, Michael Gove tried to intimidate the BBC as it was reporting on Lord Ashcroft's tax status by warning that the way it treated the other political parties, which also accept massive donations from rich "non-doms", would be monitored by the Conservatives.
Fair enough. But the veiled threat implied in his smug, self-satisfied grin was a worry. Two wrongs don’t make a right, Mr Gove, and while the BBC is politically biased against the Tories, you still need to be careful in choosing the ground you fight on.
Furthermore, it is unbelievable that William Hague and David Cameron did not know the details of Lord Ashcroft’s tax status.
The peer has more or less bought their party lock, stock and barrel.
We are assured the Conservatives will win the next election because they have done so much groundwork in the marginal constituencies that they will buck any national trend.
If that is so, they have Lord Ashcroft’s millions to thank.
The millions he has pumped into marginal constituencies – a good £25,000 a year for about 100 seats over three years which I make £7.5 million – that give him his own office, personal staff and private command centre at CCHQ.
If the party’s leaders truly didn’t know the details of Lord Ashcroft’s tax status, it is because they didn’t want to know. They were willing to turn a blind eye in exchange for his largesse.
If they did know, then it’s no surprise they wanted to keep quiet about it.
Either way, if political parties and seats in the British Parliament can be bought and sold by people who are, to all intents and purposes, foreigners, then we are nothing but a corrupt banana republic.
We have no right to complain about the way elections are bought and sold elsewhere in the world.
And yet again our political masters prove the truth of the hideous boast that “tax is for little people”.
Never mind the cash-for-peerages scandal, the truth has always been that rich men can buy themselves a seat at the top table.
It's a whole lot easier to be rich and buy yourself power and influence if you don't pay high taxes in the country where you flash your cash. You’ve got so much more to spare.
What's so offensive is not so much that rich people can buy themselves power and privilege – 'twas ever thus.
What's sickening is that they can do so at our expense. We, the little people, pay our taxes out of our hard-earned pittances.
Yet if you're mega-rich, you can avoid most taxes in this country and, as a result, have so much un-taxed money you can afford to funnel millions into the political party of your choice.
The other night, Michael Gove tried to intimidate the BBC as it was reporting on Lord Ashcroft's tax status by warning that the way it treated the other political parties, which also accept massive donations from rich "non-doms", would be monitored by the Conservatives.
Fair enough. But the veiled threat implied in his smug, self-satisfied grin was a worry. Two wrongs don’t make a right, Mr Gove, and while the BBC is politically biased against the Tories, you still need to be careful in choosing the ground you fight on.
Furthermore, it is unbelievable that William Hague and David Cameron did not know the details of Lord Ashcroft’s tax status.
The peer has more or less bought their party lock, stock and barrel.
We are assured the Conservatives will win the next election because they have done so much groundwork in the marginal constituencies that they will buck any national trend.
If that is so, they have Lord Ashcroft’s millions to thank.
The millions he has pumped into marginal constituencies – a good £25,000 a year for about 100 seats over three years which I make £7.5 million – that give him his own office, personal staff and private command centre at CCHQ.
If the party’s leaders truly didn’t know the details of Lord Ashcroft’s tax status, it is because they didn’t want to know. They were willing to turn a blind eye in exchange for his largesse.
If they did know, then it’s no surprise they wanted to keep quiet about it.
Either way, if political parties and seats in the British Parliament can be bought and sold by people who are, to all intents and purposes, foreigners, then we are nothing but a corrupt banana republic.
We have no right to complain about the way elections are bought and sold elsewhere in the world.
And yet again our political masters prove the truth of the hideous boast that “tax is for little people”.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
It's the economy, stupid
Ten reasons why the Tories are not 27 points ahead in the polls (as Labour were for months before the 1997 General Election):
1.The vacuousness of the policy of “sharing the proceeds of growth” was exposed by the banking crash of 2008.
2.It left the Conservatives’ economic policy in tatters and indistinguishable from Labour’s.
3.Having abandoned the idea that tax cuts were, in principle, a good thing, the Cameroons have been flailing around ever since looking for a policy which saves money and maintains spending.
4.They can’t find such a policy because it doesn’t exist.
5.If they had a principled belief in lower taxes, and had been making the argument for them during the fat years, they would have greater credibility in the lean years.
6.That is why posters promising to cut the deficit not the NHS have no credibility and should be airbrushed out of the election campaign pronto.
7.The Tories have no answer to the righteous indignation of the ordinary taxpayer over the scandal of bankers’ bonuses.
8.Everyone knows cuts are on the way but the Conservatives are terrified of spelling this out so they are no more trusted than the Labour Party.
9.Can the Tories be trusted not to raise taxes as well as cut spending? Few people think so.
10.Then there’s:
•The meltdown of Cameron’s “cast iron pledge” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty;
•The abandonment of grammar schools even though the Tories continue their bleeding-heart policy of claiming to care about society’s inequalities;
•The high-handed approach to the party’s own members by the fat cats at party headquarters;
•The lack of credibility this gives to claims the party would devolve power;
•The party is bankrolled by someone who doesn’t even pay tax in this country;
•It’s Shadow Cabinet is anonymous except for a few characters who really should be (see Michael Gove’s cringe-making performance on “Newsnight”);
•The perplexity over whether or not the party is in favour of tax breaks for married couples;
•The terrible blunder over how many unmarried mothers there are on sink estates. The fact that nobody questioned the misplaced decimal point (it is actually 5.4 per cent of girls in poorer areas who have had a pregnancy by the age of 18, not 54 per cent) exposes the party’s prejudices, unreliability and de haut en bas patrician attitude to the British people.
•An MP who can’t stand travelling steerage on the train because of the class of person one encounters.
Oh and we haven’t even looked at immigration.
I still think the Conservatives will win with a majority of about 30 because the incompetence and mendacity of the Labour Government is even worse than that of the Cameroons.
But it’s difficult to imagine that it will make a fat lot of difference to the state we’re in.
No wonder the big winner at the election will be None Of The Above.
1.The vacuousness of the policy of “sharing the proceeds of growth” was exposed by the banking crash of 2008.
2.It left the Conservatives’ economic policy in tatters and indistinguishable from Labour’s.
3.Having abandoned the idea that tax cuts were, in principle, a good thing, the Cameroons have been flailing around ever since looking for a policy which saves money and maintains spending.
4.They can’t find such a policy because it doesn’t exist.
5.If they had a principled belief in lower taxes, and had been making the argument for them during the fat years, they would have greater credibility in the lean years.
6.That is why posters promising to cut the deficit not the NHS have no credibility and should be airbrushed out of the election campaign pronto.
7.The Tories have no answer to the righteous indignation of the ordinary taxpayer over the scandal of bankers’ bonuses.
8.Everyone knows cuts are on the way but the Conservatives are terrified of spelling this out so they are no more trusted than the Labour Party.
9.Can the Tories be trusted not to raise taxes as well as cut spending? Few people think so.
10.Then there’s:
•The meltdown of Cameron’s “cast iron pledge” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty;
•The abandonment of grammar schools even though the Tories continue their bleeding-heart policy of claiming to care about society’s inequalities;
•The high-handed approach to the party’s own members by the fat cats at party headquarters;
•The lack of credibility this gives to claims the party would devolve power;
•The party is bankrolled by someone who doesn’t even pay tax in this country;
•It’s Shadow Cabinet is anonymous except for a few characters who really should be (see Michael Gove’s cringe-making performance on “Newsnight”);
•The perplexity over whether or not the party is in favour of tax breaks for married couples;
•The terrible blunder over how many unmarried mothers there are on sink estates. The fact that nobody questioned the misplaced decimal point (it is actually 5.4 per cent of girls in poorer areas who have had a pregnancy by the age of 18, not 54 per cent) exposes the party’s prejudices, unreliability and de haut en bas patrician attitude to the British people.
•An MP who can’t stand travelling steerage on the train because of the class of person one encounters.
Oh and we haven’t even looked at immigration.
I still think the Conservatives will win with a majority of about 30 because the incompetence and mendacity of the Labour Government is even worse than that of the Cameroons.
But it’s difficult to imagine that it will make a fat lot of difference to the state we’re in.
No wonder the big winner at the election will be None Of The Above.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Why does everyone pretend the NHS is fit and well?
Why are Cameron's Conservatives a mere two points ahead in the polls? Policy-lite politics is the answer. Consider the following:
Health Secretary Andy Burnham claims the scandal surrounding Stafford Hospital is a local issue. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
The terrible truth is that the NHS cannot be trusted with our lives. The unnecessary deaths in Stafford – anywhere between 400 and 1,200 of them in three years – are not unique.
Our health service is an antiquated, bureaucratic, self-serving edifice with rotten foundations and is crumbling just about everywhere.
It’s only when, as at Stafford, the facts start to leak out as the death toll rises, that we get a glimpse into the real life of an average hospital.
Actually, it’s supposedly above average – at the height of the scandal, the hospital sought and won the coveted Trust status which supposedly marked it out as a caring and effective institution.
It’s no wonder the bereaved families of the poor people who suffered and died in Stafford think even this week’s behind-closed-doors inquiry isn’t good enough.
Stafford is not the only hospital stricken by a fatal dose of obsession with budgets and targets.
It’s not alone in spending £628,000 on spin doctors or getting one in four of its prescriptions wrong.
Managers are partly to blame but where were the doctors and nurses when their patients were neglected, suffering and dying?
Why weren’t they caring properly for their patients?
They can’t hide behind “budget cuts” and “bureaucracy” all the time. They are highly-paid “professionals” – why did they let down so many people so badly?
Don’t they even notice when their patients are left sobbing in their beds as a result of sheer neglect? Obviously not.
What has happened to the massive sums of money poured into the health service in the past 11 years?
Spending has soared from £39.9 billion to £102 billion yet researchers Policy Exchange reckon our hospitals needlessly kill 78,400 patients a year.
These death are caused by “adverse events”, which means accidents, the wrong medication or the wrong treatment.
If you are unlucky enough to fall into the clutches of the health service, you will know some treatment is superb. Some wards are clean, some nurses are kindly and caring, some doctors are wonderful.
You will also know some conditions are Third World, some staff couldn’t care less, some doctors are rude and arrogant and some “service” comes on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
It’s easy to blame NHS managers and staff shortages for the tragedy that is our modern health service. But it would be wrong to do so.
The infection has spread far and wide and, rather like MRSA and other killer bugs caught in hospital these days, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.
Yet none of our political parties is willing to look at the NHS and even consider that it might be a suitable case for treatment.
Nobody bothers to ask whether this is the best way to provide health care to an expanding and ageing population?
Everyone knows the NHS is Labour’s secret weapon. Despite the evidence, voters apparently think it’s safe in their hands.
The staff may be but Stafford Hospital proves the patients certainly aren’t. That’s why Mr Burnham wants to keep the scandal confined to one maverick hospital. He daren’t admit there are wider problems.
Yet the Conservatives are so terrified of being thought anti-NHS they have no serious alternatives to offer. They won’t even look at whether the taxpayer gets good value for all the money we pour into it.
We should note the struggle Barack Obama is having to introduce universal health care in the United States.
Over there, people are terrified of a Socialist solution to health care. They mistrust it because they are certain it will lead to lower standards and less chance of getting the treatment they need when they need it.
They’re afraid if the Government is in charge of health care, their chances of survival will fall.
Our experience proves they’re right. Yet we delude ourselves into thinking we have the best health service in the world.
Just because it’s free when you need it doesn’t mean it’s good.
A public inquiry into the Stafford scandal would not just reveal the depths to which that hospital has sunk but show us how the NHS is really run – for the benefit of the staff, the functionaries, the contractors and politicians, not patients or their families.
Then, maybe, we will see the service as it really is – deeply flawed and tragically out-dated – rather than as we like to think of it.
No other organisation would be allowed to survive after absorbing so much money for so little effect.
Yes, the NHS still saves lives. And, when it does, it enjoys the abject gratitude of its patients, their family and friends.
The overwhelming relief that they aren’t dead blinds many people to the grim realities of life in the NHS.
It is run along the lines prescribed by 19th century Socialists (only without the carbolic soap). We need a 21st century remedy for the plague of incompetence and indifference now sweeping the service.
But the political spin doctors are all off playing golf with their chums the hospital consultants.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham claims the scandal surrounding Stafford Hospital is a local issue. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
The terrible truth is that the NHS cannot be trusted with our lives. The unnecessary deaths in Stafford – anywhere between 400 and 1,200 of them in three years – are not unique.
Our health service is an antiquated, bureaucratic, self-serving edifice with rotten foundations and is crumbling just about everywhere.
It’s only when, as at Stafford, the facts start to leak out as the death toll rises, that we get a glimpse into the real life of an average hospital.
Actually, it’s supposedly above average – at the height of the scandal, the hospital sought and won the coveted Trust status which supposedly marked it out as a caring and effective institution.
It’s no wonder the bereaved families of the poor people who suffered and died in Stafford think even this week’s behind-closed-doors inquiry isn’t good enough.
Stafford is not the only hospital stricken by a fatal dose of obsession with budgets and targets.
It’s not alone in spending £628,000 on spin doctors or getting one in four of its prescriptions wrong.
Managers are partly to blame but where were the doctors and nurses when their patients were neglected, suffering and dying?
Why weren’t they caring properly for their patients?
They can’t hide behind “budget cuts” and “bureaucracy” all the time. They are highly-paid “professionals” – why did they let down so many people so badly?
Don’t they even notice when their patients are left sobbing in their beds as a result of sheer neglect? Obviously not.
What has happened to the massive sums of money poured into the health service in the past 11 years?
Spending has soared from £39.9 billion to £102 billion yet researchers Policy Exchange reckon our hospitals needlessly kill 78,400 patients a year.
These death are caused by “adverse events”, which means accidents, the wrong medication or the wrong treatment.
If you are unlucky enough to fall into the clutches of the health service, you will know some treatment is superb. Some wards are clean, some nurses are kindly and caring, some doctors are wonderful.
You will also know some conditions are Third World, some staff couldn’t care less, some doctors are rude and arrogant and some “service” comes on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
It’s easy to blame NHS managers and staff shortages for the tragedy that is our modern health service. But it would be wrong to do so.
The infection has spread far and wide and, rather like MRSA and other killer bugs caught in hospital these days, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.
Yet none of our political parties is willing to look at the NHS and even consider that it might be a suitable case for treatment.
Nobody bothers to ask whether this is the best way to provide health care to an expanding and ageing population?
Everyone knows the NHS is Labour’s secret weapon. Despite the evidence, voters apparently think it’s safe in their hands.
The staff may be but Stafford Hospital proves the patients certainly aren’t. That’s why Mr Burnham wants to keep the scandal confined to one maverick hospital. He daren’t admit there are wider problems.
Yet the Conservatives are so terrified of being thought anti-NHS they have no serious alternatives to offer. They won’t even look at whether the taxpayer gets good value for all the money we pour into it.
We should note the struggle Barack Obama is having to introduce universal health care in the United States.
Over there, people are terrified of a Socialist solution to health care. They mistrust it because they are certain it will lead to lower standards and less chance of getting the treatment they need when they need it.
They’re afraid if the Government is in charge of health care, their chances of survival will fall.
Our experience proves they’re right. Yet we delude ourselves into thinking we have the best health service in the world.
Just because it’s free when you need it doesn’t mean it’s good.
A public inquiry into the Stafford scandal would not just reveal the depths to which that hospital has sunk but show us how the NHS is really run – for the benefit of the staff, the functionaries, the contractors and politicians, not patients or their families.
Then, maybe, we will see the service as it really is – deeply flawed and tragically out-dated – rather than as we like to think of it.
No other organisation would be allowed to survive after absorbing so much money for so little effect.
Yes, the NHS still saves lives. And, when it does, it enjoys the abject gratitude of its patients, their family and friends.
The overwhelming relief that they aren’t dead blinds many people to the grim realities of life in the NHS.
It is run along the lines prescribed by 19th century Socialists (only without the carbolic soap). We need a 21st century remedy for the plague of incompetence and indifference now sweeping the service.
But the political spin doctors are all off playing golf with their chums the hospital consultants.
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