If charity begins at home and Britain faces cuts running into billions of pounds, why are we planning to increase spending on international aid to China?
Why, for that matter, are we planning to spend more money in India, which has one of the few booming economies left in the world?
Or Zimbabwe, which is run by Robert Mugabe, a dictator every bit as unpleasant as Saddam Hussein ever was?
Or the Pitcairn Islands, for that matter?
The coalition Government is adopting a slash and burn approach to public spending.
Thousands of jobs will go as Ministers struggle to bring down Britain’s massive debt from £163 billion.
We had a small taste of it this week when Chancellor George Osborne detailed how he would save a modest £6.2 billion this year.
Even that provoked howls of anguish – imagine how much more unpleasant things will get when Mr Osborne has had time to go through the books in more detail.
Yet international aid is safe. Actually not just safe – the Government plans to spend more money on it than ever before.
This year we are spending £9.1 billion. Ministers may think that’s a small price to pay for keeping Bono and Bob Geldof off their backs.
And of course vast swathes of the world are impoverished. People are dying of disease and starvation. Everybody should do what they can to help.
Except that large sums of aid end up in the hands of corrupt dictators and murderous warlords.
If we can’t afford to spend as much on welfare and schools at home, surely we should spend less abroad as well.
Yet in the Queen’s Speech the Government promised spending on international aid would carry on growing.
The speech declared piously: “We won’t balance the budget on the back of the world’s poorest people.”
This self-righteousness “will place Britain in a position of clear international leadership, encourage other countries to live up to their commitments and generate momentum ahead of September’s UN summit on the Millennium Development Goals”.
That’s all very nice and fluffy and will help International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, MP for Sutton Coldfield, sleep soundly in his bed at night.
But why protect international aid? Why, for example, are we spending £40.2 million in China?
China overtook Britain as an economic superpower in 2006 and will be second only to the USA by the end of this year.
It may be an undemocratic, dangerously unstable abuser of human rights but a few million quid from little Britain won’t change it.
Especially when some of the money we spend in China goes on teaching children to campaign against climate change.
Britain’s biggest financial commitment goes to India, which gets over half a billion pounds.
We’ve all seen “Slumdog Millionaire”. We know the divide between India’s rich and poor is enormous.
But India is already the world’s 12th largest economy and will, according to experts, overtake Britain within the next five years.
India is so rich its top industrialists come over to here to buy up what’s left of our manufacturing industry. To them, we’re the Third World, not the other way round.
Naturally, we spend hundreds of millions in Pakistan but we can’t even get them to promise not to torture people.
We’re spending £79 million teaching conservation farming techniques in Zimbabwe – a country which bans the BBC because its dictator wants to hide how he is destroying it.
Aid for Zimbabwe farmers wouldn’t be needed at all if Mr Mugabe hadn’t allowed the farms to be over-run and destroyed by machete-wielding thugs. Our money is keeping him in power.
Then there’s the Pitcairn Islands (pop 50), in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, home to descendants of the mutineers who kicked Captain Bligh off his ship, HMS Bounty.
Our £2 million pays for a prison to house six men jailed for sex abuse.
True, we give money to deserving causes as well. Places such as Hungary and Croatia, even Saudi Arabia have all been beneficiaries of our generosity.
It may be there was a time when we were so rich we could afford to spread our money around like a drinker at the Last Chance Saloon. You’d have thought those days were over.
The Government is using foreign aid as a reasonably cheap way of extending its appeal to bleeding-heart Liberals. Britain is now world leader in giving away taxpayers’ money to undeserving causes around the world.
Even when it goes to countries in desperate need, there’s every chance it will only make matters worse.
International aid worth billions has poured into Sudan yet the country is starving. Civil war in Darfur has left two million people homeless and killed maybe 200,000. It’s home to Al Qaeda’s terrorists.
Britain spent £54 million on Sudan’s elections earlier this year – and they were even less free and fair than our own.
Spending cuts may be necessary but they will be hard and unpleasant. Ministers need to think again about those parts of the world where they want to lavish even more of our money. Call it mutiny on the bounty.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Prescott gets his just desserts
Good to see John Prescott joining the upper toffs after all these years. Give a class warrior a sniff of ermine and suddenly the workers can look after themselves. Champagne, comrade?
If the coalition isn't split it should be
Vince Cable claims the coalition is not split over plans to raise capital gains tax to 50 per cent – to which the only answer is that it should be.
What are the Cameroon Liberals playing at? A young entrepreneur told me today: “I feel very strongly about this.
“Eight years ago, I took a risk. I was offered a good, safe, extremely well-paid job but I set up my own business.
“If this tax rise goes through, even if my business goes as planned, I would have been better off taking the safe job – and I wouldn’t have had to spend the last ten years worrying about money and where the next contract is coming from.”
As my friend points out, using CGT to hammer people with second homes and a few shares will only leave them worse off and more likely to become dependent on the taxpayer in their old age.
Meanwhile the major buy-to-let landlords can afford clever advice to make sure they get registered abroad and probably don’t need to worry about tax at all.
There is a terrible irony here. It was a Labour Government which cut capital gains tax to 18 per cent only to discover the reduction was being abused by the very rich, who converted income to capital.
But it was still a good idea. It may need reform to prevent abuse – such as the re-introduction of a taper so you can’t cash in on short-term investments.
The point has to be, though, that long-term investment and entrepreneurial risk-taking must be encouraged by the tax system – not punished.
And if the Conservatives in Cameron’s coalition don’t understand that then we might just as well have voted Liberal in the first place.
Much as I loathe Alastair Campbell, it was pathetic of Cameron's "communications team" to refuse to put a Cabinet Minister on BBC's Question Time programme just because the former Labour spin-freak was on it.
Is there nobody in the Cabinet capable of taking him on? Is there nobody willing to defend the Government's first week of work just because there isn't a Shadow Cabinet Minister in attendance?
Much as I loathe the BBC, the corporation was quite right to refuse to be dictated to.
What are the Cameroon Liberals playing at? A young entrepreneur told me today: “I feel very strongly about this.
“Eight years ago, I took a risk. I was offered a good, safe, extremely well-paid job but I set up my own business.
“If this tax rise goes through, even if my business goes as planned, I would have been better off taking the safe job – and I wouldn’t have had to spend the last ten years worrying about money and where the next contract is coming from.”
As my friend points out, using CGT to hammer people with second homes and a few shares will only leave them worse off and more likely to become dependent on the taxpayer in their old age.
Meanwhile the major buy-to-let landlords can afford clever advice to make sure they get registered abroad and probably don’t need to worry about tax at all.
There is a terrible irony here. It was a Labour Government which cut capital gains tax to 18 per cent only to discover the reduction was being abused by the very rich, who converted income to capital.
But it was still a good idea. It may need reform to prevent abuse – such as the re-introduction of a taper so you can’t cash in on short-term investments.
The point has to be, though, that long-term investment and entrepreneurial risk-taking must be encouraged by the tax system – not punished.
And if the Conservatives in Cameron’s coalition don’t understand that then we might just as well have voted Liberal in the first place.
Much as I loathe Alastair Campbell, it was pathetic of Cameron's "communications team" to refuse to put a Cabinet Minister on BBC's Question Time programme just because the former Labour spin-freak was on it.
Is there nobody in the Cabinet capable of taking him on? Is there nobody willing to defend the Government's first week of work just because there isn't a Shadow Cabinet Minister in attendance?
Much as I loathe the BBC, the corporation was quite right to refuse to be dictated to.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Stitched up like a Ukipper
In all the euphoria over the new civil partnership between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, we seem to have forgotten that the Conservatives should be running the country on their own.
Mr Cameron had an open goal and he shot wide. He missed out on a majority in parliament and now he has sold his party to the Liberal Democrats.
Why did the Tory leader blow it so spectacularly? Why, when he was opposing the most unpopular Government, with the most inept leader, during the worst recession for decades?
How could Mr Cameron have missed?
One answer is that in his desperate desire to cosy up to the Liberals even before the election was called, he betrayed his own natural supporters.
And it’s all because he refused to honour his own “cast iron guarantee” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The treaty, you will recall, is now signed, sealed and delivered.
Among other things it gives us the very first President of Europe, Hermann van Rompuy, and “the most powerful woman in Europe”, an obscure Labour peer called Baroness Ashton of Upholland, who has never been elected to anything.
The Treaty is the latest and biggest step down the road to a European superstate.
Given half a chance, the people of Britain would vote against it. For a few months, it looked as if a new Conservative Government led by Mr Cameron might actually offer that rare opportunity.
Then the treaty was ratified by all the other countries of the EU and Mr Cameron surrendered without a shot being fired.
He thought it would all get too messy if Britain withdrew from the agreement after it was in place.
Instead, he’s promised he won’t agree to any further attempts at “Eurocreep” – but it’s too late for that because no further treaties are necessary.
Ardent Conservatives are purple with apoplexy when they look at the election results, demanding to know why anyone in their right mind would vote for the UK Independence Party.
UKIP – dismissed by Mr Cameron as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly” – polled more than 900,000 votes at the General Election.
It didn’t do them any good. They didn’t win a single seat.
Even Nigel Farage, who thought he could oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, came down to earth with a bump.
But UKIP did achieve its main aim. That was to deprive the Tories of seats they might have won without the Eurosceptic party’s intervention.
Various experts estimate the Tories were, as a direct result of this, deprived of 19 or 20 seats at the General Election.
Another 20 seats would have seen Mr Cameron over the line into an outright Commons majority.
If he had simply honoured his original “cast iron guarantee” of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, most UKIP support would have melted away.
The Tories would be home and dry and Nick Clegg would be yet another also-ran leader of the Liberal party.
The terrible irony is that in the nauseating Parliamentary love-in we have witnessed this week, Mr Cameron has clambered into bed with the most committed Europhile party in British politics.
The Lib Dems positively want a European superstate. They would sign up to the Euro tomorrow. They would willingly surrender British sovereignty to Brussels.
One sceptic MP has warned: “Europe is developing into an empire, not a military or hereditary one, but an empire run in the interest of a narrow elite.
“Anyone familiar with the Austro-Hungarian Empire will recognize the characteristics and that in attempting to hold itself together this latter day empire became more and more repressive.”
These are the words of Gisela Stuart, the German-born Labour MP who was the British representative on the committee which drew up the European Convention.
Ms Stuart saw what was happening at close quarters and recoiled in horror. No wonder she managed to cling onto her Birmingham Edgbaston seat when all around her Labour MPs were falling like nine-pins.
If the Conservatives had adopted Ms Stuart’s tone in their approach to the EU then there would be no need for UKIP and no need for coalition politics.
The irony is this was not only the Tories best chance for years to win an outright majority in a General Election but possibly their last chance ever.
Now they have copped off with Mr Clegg, a former Eurocrat and Euro-MP, we may lose our first-past-the-post electoral system and get proportional representation instead.
That means hung parliaments for ever, with the Lib Dems permanently holding the balance of power.
Instead of the promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Cameron will be offering us a referendum on electoral reform.
With luck, we will reject the idea of constant compromise, back-stairs deals and cobbled-together coalitions. But we might not.
All this means the people who voted UKIP have actually got the very opposite of what they were hoping for.
By depriving the Conservatives of an outright majority, they may have lumbered Britain with a permanent Lib Dem dictatorship.
The blame rests firmly with Nick Clegg’s new best friend.
Mr Cameron had an open goal and he shot wide. He missed out on a majority in parliament and now he has sold his party to the Liberal Democrats.
Why did the Tory leader blow it so spectacularly? Why, when he was opposing the most unpopular Government, with the most inept leader, during the worst recession for decades?
How could Mr Cameron have missed?
One answer is that in his desperate desire to cosy up to the Liberals even before the election was called, he betrayed his own natural supporters.
And it’s all because he refused to honour his own “cast iron guarantee” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The treaty, you will recall, is now signed, sealed and delivered.
Among other things it gives us the very first President of Europe, Hermann van Rompuy, and “the most powerful woman in Europe”, an obscure Labour peer called Baroness Ashton of Upholland, who has never been elected to anything.
The Treaty is the latest and biggest step down the road to a European superstate.
Given half a chance, the people of Britain would vote against it. For a few months, it looked as if a new Conservative Government led by Mr Cameron might actually offer that rare opportunity.
Then the treaty was ratified by all the other countries of the EU and Mr Cameron surrendered without a shot being fired.
He thought it would all get too messy if Britain withdrew from the agreement after it was in place.
Instead, he’s promised he won’t agree to any further attempts at “Eurocreep” – but it’s too late for that because no further treaties are necessary.
Ardent Conservatives are purple with apoplexy when they look at the election results, demanding to know why anyone in their right mind would vote for the UK Independence Party.
UKIP – dismissed by Mr Cameron as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly” – polled more than 900,000 votes at the General Election.
It didn’t do them any good. They didn’t win a single seat.
Even Nigel Farage, who thought he could oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, came down to earth with a bump.
But UKIP did achieve its main aim. That was to deprive the Tories of seats they might have won without the Eurosceptic party’s intervention.
Various experts estimate the Tories were, as a direct result of this, deprived of 19 or 20 seats at the General Election.
Another 20 seats would have seen Mr Cameron over the line into an outright Commons majority.
If he had simply honoured his original “cast iron guarantee” of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, most UKIP support would have melted away.
The Tories would be home and dry and Nick Clegg would be yet another also-ran leader of the Liberal party.
The terrible irony is that in the nauseating Parliamentary love-in we have witnessed this week, Mr Cameron has clambered into bed with the most committed Europhile party in British politics.
The Lib Dems positively want a European superstate. They would sign up to the Euro tomorrow. They would willingly surrender British sovereignty to Brussels.
One sceptic MP has warned: “Europe is developing into an empire, not a military or hereditary one, but an empire run in the interest of a narrow elite.
“Anyone familiar with the Austro-Hungarian Empire will recognize the characteristics and that in attempting to hold itself together this latter day empire became more and more repressive.”
These are the words of Gisela Stuart, the German-born Labour MP who was the British representative on the committee which drew up the European Convention.
Ms Stuart saw what was happening at close quarters and recoiled in horror. No wonder she managed to cling onto her Birmingham Edgbaston seat when all around her Labour MPs were falling like nine-pins.
If the Conservatives had adopted Ms Stuart’s tone in their approach to the EU then there would be no need for UKIP and no need for coalition politics.
The irony is this was not only the Tories best chance for years to win an outright majority in a General Election but possibly their last chance ever.
Now they have copped off with Mr Clegg, a former Eurocrat and Euro-MP, we may lose our first-past-the-post electoral system and get proportional representation instead.
That means hung parliaments for ever, with the Lib Dems permanently holding the balance of power.
Instead of the promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Cameron will be offering us a referendum on electoral reform.
With luck, we will reject the idea of constant compromise, back-stairs deals and cobbled-together coalitions. But we might not.
All this means the people who voted UKIP have actually got the very opposite of what they were hoping for.
By depriving the Conservatives of an outright majority, they may have lumbered Britain with a permanent Lib Dem dictatorship.
The blame rests firmly with Nick Clegg’s new best friend.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Cabinet Ministers are not taking a pay cut
Ministers, we are delightedly assured, are taking a five per cent pay cut.
That is not true. All that’s happening is backbench MPs who have been jolted into the Cabinet are getting a massive pay rise – just not as massive as it would have been if they were in a Labour Government.
A pay cut is when your salary goes down. What we are seeing is a reduction in the rate of pay for the job. That’s a very different thing.
Employers in the private sector do it all the time when a long-standing employee leaves and they recruit a replacement.
Let’s not be fooled by talk of pay cuts any more than we should be taken in by the idea that when a majority of the Commons opposes the Government the Government doesn’t have to resign.
If our MPs accept the 55 per cent-against proposal, they will have proved themselves even more supine than previous Parliaments and dealt yet another blow to the fiction of Parliamentary sovereignty.
Compromises are all very well but we’re supposed to be in a new era of democratic accountability – yet the first thing our new masters do is stitch up a special deal to guard their backs and protect themselves against the day they fall out of love again.
That is not true. All that’s happening is backbench MPs who have been jolted into the Cabinet are getting a massive pay rise – just not as massive as it would have been if they were in a Labour Government.
A pay cut is when your salary goes down. What we are seeing is a reduction in the rate of pay for the job. That’s a very different thing.
Employers in the private sector do it all the time when a long-standing employee leaves and they recruit a replacement.
Let’s not be fooled by talk of pay cuts any more than we should be taken in by the idea that when a majority of the Commons opposes the Government the Government doesn’t have to resign.
If our MPs accept the 55 per cent-against proposal, they will have proved themselves even more supine than previous Parliaments and dealt yet another blow to the fiction of Parliamentary sovereignty.
Compromises are all very well but we’re supposed to be in a new era of democratic accountability – yet the first thing our new masters do is stitch up a special deal to guard their backs and protect themselves against the day they fall out of love again.
Marry in haste....
It’s a marriage made in hell. Surely it can’t last.
Over optimistically, the first stitch-up of the new coalition is fixed-term five-year Parliaments which means the next election is in 2015.
It’s hard to believe David Cameron and Nick Clegg seriously think their new found love-in will last the course. They have bound themselves together for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for half a decade.
Yet, like cynics at a shotgun wedding, everyone’s wondering if it will last a matter of months never mind years.
On the very eve of the wedding day, Nick couldn’t resist one last flirtation with a Labour Party willing to dump Gordon Brown to make itself more attractive to the Mr Darcy of British politics.
If was a flop. But the attraction remains. There are thousands of Lib-Dems who would like nothing better than a quick romp with a Socialist.
Some of them are positively repelled by the idea that they have been forced to sell themselves to the Tories. And the feeling is mutual.
For Conservatives who do not suffer from a lust for power at any price, the idea of getting into bed with the Lib-Dems is about as appealing as a night on the town with Harriet Harman.
For many Tories, it is a duty to oppose the Labour Party but a positive pleasure to loathe the Liberals.
In many parts of the country, the Lib Dems are the real opposition to the Conservatives. Worse still, the Lib Dems have a well-deserved reputation for fighting dirty. No blow is too low for them.
Now we have the spectacle of the two parties plighting their troth to one another in a ceremony as bizarre as anything Las Vegas could conjure up.
Dave was not up to it on his own; Nick was pregnant with votes. This is a forced marriage. We’re assured it’s the new way of doing things.
What that means – and this is a benefit of coalition – is that the more outlandish, mad and extreme policies of the two parties will be abandoned.
The Tories have dumped their promise to cut inheritance tax for the very rich; the Lib Dems have dropped their plans for a mansion tax on their homes.
The Lib Dems have decided a replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent is OK after all and they’ve ditched the notion of an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
But the great Cameron give-away includes a pledge to abolish taxes for anyone earning less than £10,000 a year and a new holidays tax.
Worse than that, he’s showered Mr Clegg with wedding presents – fixed-term parliaments, State funding for political parties and a referendum on “unfair voting” via a form of proportional representation.
It’s no wonder the Lib Dem leader was seduced by the Tories. He was offered a pre-nuptial agreement most minor parties would die for.
With a bouquet of Ministerial jobs to go with all of this, the honeymoon between the two parties should be happy and fulfilling.
But like all hasty marriages, once the first fling is over and reality dawns, the chances of the couple living happily ever after will disappear rapidly.
The rot sets in when they start to bicker about money.
The Conservatives are determined to get on with the job of taking the axe to public spending. They don’t really have any choice because the markets will force it on them whether they like it or not.
This will be painful and deeply unpopular. Mr Cameron may think he’s done himself a favour by tying the Lib Dems into this.
But when Mr Clegg’s colleagues discover just how drastic and painful the cuts must be, there will be rows, tantrums and tears.
For decades, Lib Dems have enjoyed the luxury of being able to promise the earth, safe in the knowledge they would never have to deliver anything.
Suddenly, they’re in the spotlight and they won’t like it when their party is accused of conniving with the Conservatives to cripple the public sector.
Usually, the Lib Dems get by on extravagant spending promises. Today they have bound themselves to the very opposite.
In time they will complain they’re being taken for granted.
As the euphoria of the wedding breakfast and the heady days of the honeymoon become distant memories and they deal with the daily drudgery of trying to dredge the economy out of the depths of despair, the Lib Dems will question why they got into this in the first place.
By then, they will have committed themselves to a full five years in an unhappy relationship.
A newly revived Labour Party under a new leader will present itself as “the other party”.
The Lib Dems will be casting longing glances in the direction of the Labour Party even while they are stuck in this relationship with the Tories.
Mr Clegg may even start talking about divorce and throw himself at Labour. It probably won’t do him any good, though – hell hath no fury like a Labour Party scorned.
This coalition is a marriage of convenience. It will end in bitter divorce.
Over optimistically, the first stitch-up of the new coalition is fixed-term five-year Parliaments which means the next election is in 2015.
It’s hard to believe David Cameron and Nick Clegg seriously think their new found love-in will last the course. They have bound themselves together for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for half a decade.
Yet, like cynics at a shotgun wedding, everyone’s wondering if it will last a matter of months never mind years.
On the very eve of the wedding day, Nick couldn’t resist one last flirtation with a Labour Party willing to dump Gordon Brown to make itself more attractive to the Mr Darcy of British politics.
If was a flop. But the attraction remains. There are thousands of Lib-Dems who would like nothing better than a quick romp with a Socialist.
Some of them are positively repelled by the idea that they have been forced to sell themselves to the Tories. And the feeling is mutual.
For Conservatives who do not suffer from a lust for power at any price, the idea of getting into bed with the Lib-Dems is about as appealing as a night on the town with Harriet Harman.
For many Tories, it is a duty to oppose the Labour Party but a positive pleasure to loathe the Liberals.
In many parts of the country, the Lib Dems are the real opposition to the Conservatives. Worse still, the Lib Dems have a well-deserved reputation for fighting dirty. No blow is too low for them.
Now we have the spectacle of the two parties plighting their troth to one another in a ceremony as bizarre as anything Las Vegas could conjure up.
Dave was not up to it on his own; Nick was pregnant with votes. This is a forced marriage. We’re assured it’s the new way of doing things.
What that means – and this is a benefit of coalition – is that the more outlandish, mad and extreme policies of the two parties will be abandoned.
The Tories have dumped their promise to cut inheritance tax for the very rich; the Lib Dems have dropped their plans for a mansion tax on their homes.
The Lib Dems have decided a replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent is OK after all and they’ve ditched the notion of an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
But the great Cameron give-away includes a pledge to abolish taxes for anyone earning less than £10,000 a year and a new holidays tax.
Worse than that, he’s showered Mr Clegg with wedding presents – fixed-term parliaments, State funding for political parties and a referendum on “unfair voting” via a form of proportional representation.
It’s no wonder the Lib Dem leader was seduced by the Tories. He was offered a pre-nuptial agreement most minor parties would die for.
With a bouquet of Ministerial jobs to go with all of this, the honeymoon between the two parties should be happy and fulfilling.
But like all hasty marriages, once the first fling is over and reality dawns, the chances of the couple living happily ever after will disappear rapidly.
The rot sets in when they start to bicker about money.
The Conservatives are determined to get on with the job of taking the axe to public spending. They don’t really have any choice because the markets will force it on them whether they like it or not.
This will be painful and deeply unpopular. Mr Cameron may think he’s done himself a favour by tying the Lib Dems into this.
But when Mr Clegg’s colleagues discover just how drastic and painful the cuts must be, there will be rows, tantrums and tears.
For decades, Lib Dems have enjoyed the luxury of being able to promise the earth, safe in the knowledge they would never have to deliver anything.
Suddenly, they’re in the spotlight and they won’t like it when their party is accused of conniving with the Conservatives to cripple the public sector.
Usually, the Lib Dems get by on extravagant spending promises. Today they have bound themselves to the very opposite.
In time they will complain they’re being taken for granted.
As the euphoria of the wedding breakfast and the heady days of the honeymoon become distant memories and they deal with the daily drudgery of trying to dredge the economy out of the depths of despair, the Lib Dems will question why they got into this in the first place.
By then, they will have committed themselves to a full five years in an unhappy relationship.
A newly revived Labour Party under a new leader will present itself as “the other party”.
The Lib Dems will be casting longing glances in the direction of the Labour Party even while they are stuck in this relationship with the Tories.
Mr Clegg may even start talking about divorce and throw himself at Labour. It probably won’t do him any good, though – hell hath no fury like a Labour Party scorned.
This coalition is a marriage of convenience. It will end in bitter divorce.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
We just got fooled again
What a far-sighted political genius David Cameron is. First he becomes the “heir to Blair” then he turns the Conservatives into the Liberal Party then he absorbs them into a coalition Government.
Was this the outcome he was hoping for all along? Is that why he did so well in blowing his party’s best chance of winning outright victory at the General Election since 1979 (John Major didn’t have such a good chance but he won anyway)?
All we need now is a stitch up over proportional representation and the Tory party might as well cease to exist for all the good it will ever do.
I tip my hat to the new constitution,
Take a bow to the new revolution...
The parting on the left is now parting on the right....
Was this the outcome he was hoping for all along? Is that why he did so well in blowing his party’s best chance of winning outright victory at the General Election since 1979 (John Major didn’t have such a good chance but he won anyway)?
All we need now is a stitch up over proportional representation and the Tory party might as well cease to exist for all the good it will ever do.
I tip my hat to the new constitution,
Take a bow to the new revolution...
The parting on the left is now parting on the right....
Friday, May 07, 2010
Let down, hanging around
David Cameron has let down his party. He was elected leader on the promise that his new, smiley, PC-friendly Conservatism would deliver election victory. It didn’t.
He may be the next Prime Minister but he has achieved a watered-down version of power only if he can win over the Liberal Democrats and keep them on board.
His failure is staggering. A year ago, he was favourite to walk it. He was competing against the most unpopular Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain and in the midst of the worst economic crisis since, well, Neville Chamberlain.
Yet his “heir to Blair” project came off the rails. The voters turned their backs on the A-list “Dave’s doxies” and UKIP’s 900,000 votes could have delivered dozens of more seats for the Tories, had they chosen to promise a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Nick Clegg did worse than expected. Gordon Brown did badly, as expected. David Cameron was the biggest failure of the election and yet he is about to negotiate himself into Downing Street.
Lucky him. Unlucky Britain.
He may be the next Prime Minister but he has achieved a watered-down version of power only if he can win over the Liberal Democrats and keep them on board.
His failure is staggering. A year ago, he was favourite to walk it. He was competing against the most unpopular Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain and in the midst of the worst economic crisis since, well, Neville Chamberlain.
Yet his “heir to Blair” project came off the rails. The voters turned their backs on the A-list “Dave’s doxies” and UKIP’s 900,000 votes could have delivered dozens of more seats for the Tories, had they chosen to promise a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Nick Clegg did worse than expected. Gordon Brown did badly, as expected. David Cameron was the biggest failure of the election and yet he is about to negotiate himself into Downing Street.
Lucky him. Unlucky Britain.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Looks like we'll hang 'em high
I have no idea what the outcome of the election might be. The polls are all over the place.
One puts the Tories on 37 per cent of the vote, another on 32 per cent. One has the Lib-Dems in the lead on 33 per cent and another puts them on a mere 23 per cent.
Nobody’s got a clue who will win which is why it’s all such fun (If you’re not participating and if, like me, you think the outcome won’t make much difference because we all know the next Government has only one task and that’s a nasty one).
Before the campaign started I expected a Conservative majority of 30. That looks a bit unlikely now, though it still wouldn't surprise me.
Still, for what it’s worth, based on a cursory study of the conflicting polls and assuming they have some veracity, here’s a prediction: Conservatives 303 seats, Labour 242, Lib-Dems 76, others 29. That would leave David Cameron with the largest party.
He would have to form a minority Government and dare the Lib-Dems to bring him down. It might last 18 months or more.
One puts the Tories on 37 per cent of the vote, another on 32 per cent. One has the Lib-Dems in the lead on 33 per cent and another puts them on a mere 23 per cent.
Nobody’s got a clue who will win which is why it’s all such fun (If you’re not participating and if, like me, you think the outcome won’t make much difference because we all know the next Government has only one task and that’s a nasty one).
Before the campaign started I expected a Conservative majority of 30. That looks a bit unlikely now, though it still wouldn't surprise me.
Still, for what it’s worth, based on a cursory study of the conflicting polls and assuming they have some veracity, here’s a prediction: Conservatives 303 seats, Labour 242, Lib-Dems 76, others 29. That would leave David Cameron with the largest party.
He would have to form a minority Government and dare the Lib-Dems to bring him down. It might last 18 months or more.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Friday's on my mind
It’s the elephant in the room. The huge monstrous object in the corner everyone knows about and no-one wants to discuss.
It’s the Government’s massive debt. On May 7, no matter who wins the election, the elephant will lumber onto centre stage.
It’s a terrifying prospect because – despite endless manifestos, never-ending discussions and four and a half hours of leaders’ debates on TV – we still don’t know how it’s going to be dealt with.
We borrowed £163.4 billion in the last 12 months. We owe £890 billion in total. By the end of this year, it’ll be a trillion pounds.
A trillion is the sort of sum few of us can really get our heads round. It’s a very big elephant in a very small room.
Actually, if you include the money the Government has spent on building new schools and hospitals and managed to hide, thanks to the Private Finance Initiative, we already owe £1.34 trillion.
The next Government, whether it’s red, blue, yellow or a combination of these, has no option. It will have to start paying off the debt.
At the moment, the interest on our loans comes to £35 billion a year – that’s more than we spend on defence, transport or law and order.
We can’t go on like this. As every bankrupt knows, there’s a price to pay for a mindless spending spree.
Just ask the Greeks – their day of reckoning has arrived and the country is in turmoil. Their debt has been downgraded to junk making the home of democracy Europe’s first sub-prime borrower.
Public sector workers are taking big pay cuts – 30 per cent in some cases – taxes are rising and jobs are disappearing. Protesters are taking to the streets.
We’re not as badly off as Greece mainly because we aren’t in the euro (one of the decisions Gordon Brown got right was to resist Tony Blair’s desperate desire to sign up to the straightjacket currency).
But our debts have to be tackled and, when we go to the polls next Thursday, we really won’t have a clue what our politicians will do.
Worse than that, it doesn’t really make much difference who we elect. The crisis will be the same and the cuts will be similar.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons there are massive black holes in each party’s plans.
The Conservatives, according to the IFS, can’t account for £59.4 billion of cuts and tax increases. Labour can’t account for £47 billion. The Lib-Dems are £42.7 billion short.
Whoever wins, according to the experts, we face the biggest public spending cuts for decades. That’s on top of tax increases which will come to £15.8 billion under Labour, £10.1 billion under the Tories and £19.7 billion under the Lib-Dems.
Call me a bigot but I’d say the truly bizarre aspect of this election campaign has been the refusal of the parties to address these issues openly and honestly.
Cast your mind back to the days before Cleggmania swept everything before it and you will find Labour and the Tories arguing earnestly over a £6 billion increase in National Insurance.
“A tax on jobs,” they said, claiming to have identified ways of saving enough money to reverse the increase.
But it’s a sideshow. They’re squabbling about £6 billion. They should be debating how to fill a gaping hole worth maybe ten times that much.
It’s partly our fault the parties have carefully skirted round the subject. When the Tories warned we were facing “an age of austerity” their poll ratings fell and they’ve never really recovered.
We are as bad as our political leaders. We don’t want to know. We can’t really face the consequences and we’re likely to vote against anyone who puts it to us straight.
You can’t put all the blame on the parties. They’re fighting an election. They all want to win.
Like the Marxist-style cover to the Labour manifesto, with its happy family looking over the green countryside to the new dawn, they want us to believe things can only get better.
It won’t be like that. Cuts will be drastic. A hit-list from the Taxpayers’ Alliance gives us some idea of what we’re facing.
They say child benefit and free bus passes for pensioners should be abolished. Some public-sector workers should have a 15 per cent pay cut, the rest should have a pay freeze and their pension contributions should rise 30 per cent.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance wants state pensions frozen, ten per cent of public sector jobs to go and the interest subsidy on student loans abolished.
Taxes will rise – everyone thinks VAT will hit 20 per cent yet no politician is prepared to admit it – and we may well dip back into recession.
I am absolutely convinced the next Government faces widespread civil unrest – strikes, protests, riots – as reality bites.
This is not an elephant in the room, it’s a stampeding herd of elephants charging towards us while our leaders point in the opposite direction and pretend everything’s OK.
We won’t know what hit us when, after the election, we all get trampled under foot.
• It probably took about three minutes to read this article. In that time, the national debt increased by £930,636.
It’s the Government’s massive debt. On May 7, no matter who wins the election, the elephant will lumber onto centre stage.
It’s a terrifying prospect because – despite endless manifestos, never-ending discussions and four and a half hours of leaders’ debates on TV – we still don’t know how it’s going to be dealt with.
We borrowed £163.4 billion in the last 12 months. We owe £890 billion in total. By the end of this year, it’ll be a trillion pounds.
A trillion is the sort of sum few of us can really get our heads round. It’s a very big elephant in a very small room.
Actually, if you include the money the Government has spent on building new schools and hospitals and managed to hide, thanks to the Private Finance Initiative, we already owe £1.34 trillion.
The next Government, whether it’s red, blue, yellow or a combination of these, has no option. It will have to start paying off the debt.
At the moment, the interest on our loans comes to £35 billion a year – that’s more than we spend on defence, transport or law and order.
We can’t go on like this. As every bankrupt knows, there’s a price to pay for a mindless spending spree.
Just ask the Greeks – their day of reckoning has arrived and the country is in turmoil. Their debt has been downgraded to junk making the home of democracy Europe’s first sub-prime borrower.
Public sector workers are taking big pay cuts – 30 per cent in some cases – taxes are rising and jobs are disappearing. Protesters are taking to the streets.
We’re not as badly off as Greece mainly because we aren’t in the euro (one of the decisions Gordon Brown got right was to resist Tony Blair’s desperate desire to sign up to the straightjacket currency).
But our debts have to be tackled and, when we go to the polls next Thursday, we really won’t have a clue what our politicians will do.
Worse than that, it doesn’t really make much difference who we elect. The crisis will be the same and the cuts will be similar.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons there are massive black holes in each party’s plans.
The Conservatives, according to the IFS, can’t account for £59.4 billion of cuts and tax increases. Labour can’t account for £47 billion. The Lib-Dems are £42.7 billion short.
Whoever wins, according to the experts, we face the biggest public spending cuts for decades. That’s on top of tax increases which will come to £15.8 billion under Labour, £10.1 billion under the Tories and £19.7 billion under the Lib-Dems.
Call me a bigot but I’d say the truly bizarre aspect of this election campaign has been the refusal of the parties to address these issues openly and honestly.
Cast your mind back to the days before Cleggmania swept everything before it and you will find Labour and the Tories arguing earnestly over a £6 billion increase in National Insurance.
“A tax on jobs,” they said, claiming to have identified ways of saving enough money to reverse the increase.
But it’s a sideshow. They’re squabbling about £6 billion. They should be debating how to fill a gaping hole worth maybe ten times that much.
It’s partly our fault the parties have carefully skirted round the subject. When the Tories warned we were facing “an age of austerity” their poll ratings fell and they’ve never really recovered.
We are as bad as our political leaders. We don’t want to know. We can’t really face the consequences and we’re likely to vote against anyone who puts it to us straight.
You can’t put all the blame on the parties. They’re fighting an election. They all want to win.
Like the Marxist-style cover to the Labour manifesto, with its happy family looking over the green countryside to the new dawn, they want us to believe things can only get better.
It won’t be like that. Cuts will be drastic. A hit-list from the Taxpayers’ Alliance gives us some idea of what we’re facing.
They say child benefit and free bus passes for pensioners should be abolished. Some public-sector workers should have a 15 per cent pay cut, the rest should have a pay freeze and their pension contributions should rise 30 per cent.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance wants state pensions frozen, ten per cent of public sector jobs to go and the interest subsidy on student loans abolished.
Taxes will rise – everyone thinks VAT will hit 20 per cent yet no politician is prepared to admit it – and we may well dip back into recession.
I am absolutely convinced the next Government faces widespread civil unrest – strikes, protests, riots – as reality bites.
This is not an elephant in the room, it’s a stampeding herd of elephants charging towards us while our leaders point in the opposite direction and pretend everything’s OK.
We won’t know what hit us when, after the election, we all get trampled under foot.
• It probably took about three minutes to read this article. In that time, the national debt increased by £930,636.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
They think it's all over for Gordon... It is now
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.
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.
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.
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