#election92

Spent most of the morning between Twitter and the BBC Parliament channel re-living the 1992 General election in a twelve-hour, twenty-year anniversary special broadcast of John Major's famous victory.

Besides the strange haircuts and ridiculously over-sized glasses which made '92 one of the worst years for opticians, it was how wrong the left-dominated media were in their disasterous predictions which resonated the loudest. Little change at the BBC and the now CEO of YouGov, Peter Kelner, looking close to tears as political reality became clear with a fourth successive defeat of his beloved Labour party.

I remember the events on that night vividly and have never trusted his predictions - nor those of his polling organisation - since.

Daley's contradictions..

Really sloppy piece from Janet Daley in the Sunday Telegraph highlighting contradictions in Coalition policies. Usually one of the best writers, she argues that Cameron contradicts himself by supporting both gay marriage & ethnic minorities (who are all apparently homophobic and bigoted) and then goes on to suggest that any taxes on high value property would be disastrous for aspiration because people living in these £2m+ homes are cash poor and would have to move. Just like Sunday Telegraph columnist Janet Daley. Personal prosperity (sometimes called “existing wealth”) goes from being a desirable outcome of economic life to a form of original sin to be penalised into extinction she argues. Well despite the sizeable earnings of a Telegraph columnist, she should understand that anyone who owns a property in excess of £2m is wealthy and needs to contribute more than someone living in a property one tenth of that value. That indeed is fairness. Particularly if they are non-doms paying little or no tax from earnings.

I certainly don't think we need a new mansion tax as Vince Cable is advocating. But a complete revaluation of council tax bands with extensions up to and beyond £2m we most certainly do.

Republican dream ticket..

I really havn't been interested in the Republican primaries in the US, but one commentator last week suggested that Mitt Romney appeals to white collar workers, whilst evangelist Ric Santorum to blue collar. The problem for republicans was the lack of candidates that appealed to both. So why not put them together? Sounds like the dream ticket to me...

Why a tax on wealth would be fairer..

At the other end of my street and just around the corner lies a different world. A world of multi-millionaires. We see their spotless Range Rovers whisk demanding children in and out of school. We see houses so huge they need staff to maintain them. We see homes boarded up for more than half the year whilst they 'winter' in the Alps or 'summer' at some other exotic location - as if doing so were as normal as a hairdressing appointment to you and me. We live in a different world.

And among those mansions lies one which, at the moment, is covered in scaffolding. Where once there was a garden, a deep concrete hole with four feet of rain water now stands. The builders tell me it is the foundations for the new swimming pool being built in the basement.

We live in a different world and what makes that world so different, is that we pay taxes. You see, officially, a wife and her daughter live in this house. No husband, because he lives in Monaco. Except at weekends. Then he lives in London with his wife and daughter, flying back to manage a hedge fund for the working week. That way, he pays no income tax in this country. Only council tax and VAT. In fact, his staff will pay more tax than their multi-millionaire employer. Nice that. The tax he should be paying is being spent on a swimmimg pool. Just for him.

And on that council tax - the one tax that they do pay in this country - because the highest band starts at £320,000 (a rather modest price for a house in an inner London borough) and despite the fact that we live in a modest basement flat, we both of us pay the same amount in council tax. How fair is that.

Patients first..

According to PoliticalScrapbook.net even cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood - David Cameron's most senior civil servant - now wants him to scrap the Health Bill. And his reason? This new top-down reorganisation will take away whitehall's (top down) control of the health service. Yep, that's right. The biggest vested interest of them all - the civil service - wants the bill scrapped because it takes away their powers to control the health service and puts it into the hands of those the health service is supposed to serve - patients. You could not make this stuff up. People simply wouldn't believe you.

Patients First...

Writing in the New Statesman blog, Rafael Behr admits the real truth surrounding Labour's unprincipled opposition to the Coalition's NHS reforms in one sentence - Another way of putting this might be that market forces are tolerable when Labour allows them to operate in a carefully controlled environment, but destructive and corrosive when unleashed by Tories and Lib Dems. That sentence sums up the opposition. Its not about patients. Its not even about policy. Just visceral hatred of anything proposed by the Conservatives. But the real shame - and no doubt Ed Miliband calculates these things to carefully advantage his union paymasters - is that once again, Labour is on the side of vested interests, against the interests of patients for whom the health service should be run.

I can understand why professional trade unions like the BMA and the royal colleges will always resist change believing, quite wrongly, that they alone know how a health service should be run. They fought every reform through Blair's New Labour years, as well as the original creation of the NHS back in 1947.

But a political party which claims to represent the people? Surely not. Labour is now the only major party clinging desperately to the past. Preferring instead to support the bureaucratic processes and vested interests who want no reform. It is deeply shameful of Ed Miliband - the most left wing leader since Michael Foot - to deny ordinary people a National Health Service driven by patients - their needs, their choices, their health.



 

The Scottish people are too important for this...

It may be protocol to have polite discussions with Alex Salmond on the timing and question for a Scottish referendum, but who are we kidding on this one? The longer things can be stretched out and the more obfuscation by the SNP, the bigger Scotland's would-be Prime Minister looks. Its the sort of game that Salmond plays well. He's been at it for years.

But as soon as you start to examine the implications for an independent Scotland - from bailed out Icelandic Scottish banks to which currency the Scottish people would like to have no control over - it becomes very clear that Salmond does not speak for the Scottish people. 

The reality is that independence would make Alex Salmond, Scotland's first Prime Minister. An ambition he has held for a very long time. And that is what this is all about. This man will sell his own country in order to achieve his personal ambition.

The British government should bring forward this referendum to May 2012 - just three months time - with a simple in/out question and have done with it. Independence is too important an issue for the Scottish people to be sacrificed on the alter of Alex Salmond's ego.

Patients first...

Imagine how our banking system would look if it were run for the customer. Modernist glass and beach wood waiting rooms fitted with plush, comfortable chairs before your Relationship Manager ushers you in to a private room for a consultation where their undivided attention addresses your financial health.

But rather than being paid for selling you more and expensive products, the opposite is true. After several years of in-depth training on the full range of financial products, they have a professional duty to ensure that any advice they give is demonstrably in the interests of the customer. Not the bank. A world where complaints are taken so seriously, that a Relationship Manager could be struck off by their professional body and serious fines imposed on the bank if incompetent practise were found.

Furthermore, that Manager is responsible for reappraising and reviewing any financial commitments at every stage of your life. Indeed, were any new commitment required - a smaller mortgage for instance - your Manager would not only explain and gain your consent, they would negotiate the terms with the lender, set up the contract and once up and running, review the commitment at regular intervals, mindful that better deals may well be switched into at any time. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Well that is exactly what the Coalition's Health and Social Care bill is all about. Putting the patient first. And just like the scene above, when GPs are given commissioning powers, they'll manage the care of their patients, knowing exactly what is best for them, right through to a successful outcome and beyond. How terrifying is that?

Mary Ann Sieghart on the greatest policy blunder of the second half of the 20th century...

The European people have yet to fully understand the real incompetence behind the Euro project. But a good starting point is this excellent piece from Mary Ann Sieghart in the Independent. She concludes with the words, millions of European citizens are now paying (the) price in unemployment, crashing living standards and a desperate future for their children. Someone must be held responsible for the predictable catastrophe caused by this grand idea. Mitterrand is now dead; at the very least, Kohl and his fellow architects should be disgraced.

The Limits of Welfare

'A welfare state that works is one that encourages independence. That was Beveridge's insight and a test that the welfare state now fails' concludes the leader in the Times this morning.

Opponents to Iain Duncan Smith's proposed £26,000 welfare cap (equivalent to a gross salary of around £35,000) 'are simply a plea to retain a welfare system which has long since slipped clear of the intentions of it's founders.'

The opposition of the bishops comes in for particular criticism having 'managed to avoid both economic reality and popular opinion at the same time. At a time of severe pressure on the public finances, the country is not engaged in a morality play but, even if it were, the bishops have got the morality call wrong.' Ouch.

Explaining Labour's 'U-turn'...

Danny Finkelstein points out in today's Times that Ed Miliband's new economic policy is to continue to oppose the cuts as 'too far and too fast', but to accept that Labour will not reverse them. To which many will ask what is the point of opposing the management of the deficit if it cannot offer the alternative? Especially since it has argued and voted against each and every measure to manage the deficit created by Labour?

Does Labour accept that it spent too much before the financial crash of 2007? No. Does Labour accept that it spent too much after the crash? No. Does Labour accept that the Coalition's plans to reduce borrowing over the lifetime of this parliament were correct? No. So what exactly is it saying? Two things. Firstly, the Labour party want to increase borrowing in order to cut borrowing. Secondly, they are against the Coalition cuts, but at the same time accept them. Clear? Not really.

So let me explain it to you in a different way.

The Conservative party knows that the Euro is a disaster. They have known this since the Euro's earliest conception, and clearly and repeatedly argued why the Euro was ill-conceived and how it's destruction would come about. The European political class of course, was not listening. They are still not listening. But rather than continue to oppose it with every breathe, Cameron and Osborne have chosen to move on. For the last twenty months they have supported Eurozone members - despite the carping from Sarkozy - by urging them to integrate further and more quickly into one federal country, knowing that only in those circumstances will the Euro as a currency become viable.

The Conservatives fully realise the implications of such a move by the seventeen Eurozone nations, effectively becoming one country. They also know that Britain would never give up its sovereignty in such circumstances. Yet they suggest that the Eurozone do something that they themselves find totally abhorent.

You may call this dishonest, disengenuous or even unprincipled. It is all of these things. And it is exactly what Labour is now attempting in its economic policy.

Referenda questions...

A couple of thoughts on the Scottish referendum.

Firstly, this referendum so changes the game throughout the union that it must be put to every voter no matter where they live. It must be a fully national referendum providing a definitive answer to a profound question.

And secondly the question of Devo-max should be put, but not as an alternative - a stepping stone to independence - as Salmond would wish.

The principal question - independence, yes or no - is the important one. But a choice between devo-max or the current level of devolution should be put to those who vote against independence as a secondary question. That way it is not posed as an alternative to independence, but fully recognised as an important choice of degree to those who support the union.

Same old Fitch

Sarkozy may have been downgraded from triple A on Friday, but one ratings agency, Fitch, was notable by it's absence. Both the wonderfully Dickensian sounding Standard & Poors, and Moody's confirmed France's reduction to AA+ principally, I would venture, because it's banks have lent around €480 billion to southern Europe. The equivalent sum from UK banks being around €80 billion.

These of course are the same ratings agencies which spectacularly failed to signal the worst banking crisis in recent history.

And the reason why Fitch failed to follow suit? No doubt some astute financial analysis the others had missed. Indeed, so enamoured was the company by France, it went on to confirmed that it wouldn't change Sarkozy's triple-A rating, come rain or shine. The reason? It's main shareholder is French.

The Scottish people don't deserve Mr Salmond...

So finally, having firstly accused the British government of interfering in Scottish affairs - as if Scotland were not a part of the United Kingdom - Alex Salmond and the SNP opt for the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn as their chosen date for the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence. No emotion there then. Just hard-headed scottish pragmatism.

The first question he needs to answer is which currency Mr Salmond would choose for Scotland - the pound, the euro or the deep-fried Mars bar. If the answer is the pound, would the English let it keep sterling? What a delicious irony awaits there. And as recent events in euroland have shown, monetary union without political union is a nightmare.

Then there's the question of EU membership. For many years the SNP beguiled the Scottish people with the prospect of joining what Salmond liked to call the 'arc of prosperity' - a string of financially prosperous islands across the Atlantic seaboard of Europe: Iceland, Scotland and Ireland. Oh dear. Only Scotland it would seem survived that illusion. Principally because its banks were bailed out by the British taxpayer - something not available to the other two nations. Because of course, they were independent.

'Independence within Europe' was another of Mr Salmond's worthy slogans. Except that as a new member of the European Union the Scots would have to commit to joining the Euro, even if it were to be some way into the future - the EU does not have euro and non-euro members, just euro and pre-euro. Another interesting position for Mr Salmond to have to justify to the Scottish people. Not to mention Scotland's financial committments to the euro bailout fund which would automatically ensue from their membership. But the other side of the coin would also be true. How warmly do you imagine would Germany welcome into the eurozone another small country which spends considerably more than half its GDP in public spending? And this one doesn't even have the sunshine...

Then there is the small matter of the Royal Bank of Scotland which managed to go bust in the most spectacular way through its irresponsible lending policies and inept management. Either Mr Salmond could take responsibility for repaying the £40 billion that mostly English taxpayers have put into it or it could remain the property of the British taxpayer.

There is also of course, the national debt. The Institute of Economic Affairs has calculated that if an independent Scotland assumed its share of national debt dictated by its proportion of public spending then it would start life £110 billion in the red. The question which follows is, would Scotland then still have a triple A rating in the financial markets? Not likely.

Of course, according to the SNP there is £1 trillion in black gold beneath the waters of the North Sea. But UK oil revenues are highly volatile - last year they were £6.5 billion, this year £13 billion. And with the ending of the Barnett Formula, through which Scotland receives a £10 billion annual subsidy from English taxpayers - and which funds many of Mr Salmond's most popular programs, from free university education to free care for the elderly - it will need to make up the shortfall.

All that is quite an ask of any politician. But I am constantly assured by the media that Mr Salmond's judgement and ability is up to it. I just wonder, given the extraordinarily inept judgement that he has shown in the past, whether the Scottish people deserve such folly.

Peter Kellner calls for an EU Referendum...

Peter Kellner, President of YouGov polling and spouse of Baroness Ashton, calls on Clegg to demand an in/out referendum on our EU membership in an open letter today. His logic? That with all major parties behind the Yes campaign - Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Greens, Plaid & even the SNP - it couldn't fail.

Given how wrong our political class has been at almost every stage of our Euro-nightmare, it sounds pretty stupid to me.  

Peter Watts on Margaret Thatcher...

To read some of the Thatcher hating twitter and blog posts about at the moment and you’d think that Labour had spent all of the 1980’s and early 90’s winning the argument.  You’d think that Margaret Thatcher was hated by everyone when she kept winning.  You’d think that she was despised by people now – when polls say that is far from being the case.  If we are to win again anytime soon then we must not rewrite history.  We need to remember that from 1979 – 1997 we were in opposition because we kept losing.  And we kept losing because more people voted for Margaret Thatcher (and John Major) than voted Labour... Peter Watts, former General Secretary of the Labour Party, writing on Margaret Thatcher.

Allister Heath on city pay...

I recommend five simple reforms (in boardroom pay).

1   Annual, binding shareholder votes on board pay.
2   Pay would be radically simplified, with a single figure used for total compensation.
3   Pay would be linked very closely to shareholder value and would go down as well as up; fixed base pay would be kept to a minimum.
4   We need simple contracts that allow CEOs to be fired for breaching performance targets without a pay-off.
5   Remuneration committees should have to explain to shareholders once a year how they are getting value for money from executives – their incentive should be to try and reduce pay to save shareholders’ money, not the other way around.

Rewards for failure must be rooted out, owners of companies empowered and boards made to represent shareholder interests. It’s radical stuff – but not to be confused with waging war on genuine success.

Allister Heath writing in City AM

The Coalition and women...

Women make up the majority of public sector workers. They are also the largest recipients of welfare and represent the main users of public services in this country. And yes, there is certainly a glass ceiling evident in the upper echelons of big business. But Labour supporters suggesting that Coalition cuts are aimed specifically at women is not only disingenuous, but actually offensive.

Because more than 50% of public sector workers are women - where government spending cuts occur - we are told that the Coalition is specifically targeting women. What rubbish. Everyone knows that whoever was in power, the government would be making savings in the public sector. It can hardly cut the private sector. Womens jobs will therefore be hit disproportionately as a result.

This whole narrative about how the government is being anti-women is a Labour-led theme that is deeply dishonest. Child benefit for instance should be a gender non-specific issue. The truth is that family's are suffering with the cuts forced on us by Labour's overspending, and will continue to do so until public spending once again returns to a manageable 41% of GDP in three years time. A level at which it was maintained by governments of all political persuasions throughout the 80's, 90's and naughties. Sure Start - another 'female issue' according to Labour, as if children and their fathers do not belong together - are also being cut by the Coalition we are told. This is not true. It depends on local authorities as to how they spend their money. Conservative Nottingham county council for instance, have actually increased the number of Sure Start centres in their area.

It's about time the debate over how the public spending cuts forced on us by Labour's overspending took place at an honest level.

Boris Johnson on the Euro...

We are using fiscal bullying to try to turn the Greeks and Italians into Germans writes Boris Johnson in today's Telegraph. The whole European enterprise is now devoted to keeping the euro alive on the utterly specious grounds that the currency is synonymous with “Europe”. We are nailing shut the exits of William Hague’s famous burning building. British taxpayers going to be shelling out ever more in bail-out dosh, much of which will ultimately go to banks and bankers’ bonuses. And all the while the southern EU members will be put on ever tougher austerity regimes that frankly don’t suit their needs. No matter how hard I diet, I won’t look like a championship athlete. The Greeks can’t become Germans, and it is brutal to force them to try.

The EU's democratic deficit...

I find it incredible that Europeans appear to shrug their shoulders without care as the Euro continues relentlessly to consign millions to the waste of mass-unemployment, trash billions of hard-earned retirement savings and remorselessly replace democratically elected leaders with EU-approved, unelected technocrats. And so far, what has been the EU's answer to the greatest financial crisis of the modern era? More EU, deeper integration, and no democracy.

None of us can believe that Merkel, Sarkosy or the EU technocracy are in any way inspired by the rise of National Socialism that so consumed Europe in the 1930's - destroying participatory democracy and ending in the deaths of millions of ordinary Europeans who did not submit to the will of a small unelected, ideologically-driven elite, who believed they knew better than the people they ruled.

But we do remember.

Re-writing history...

Perhaps a revision (of Gordon Brown's time as Prime Minister) is in order, writes Jonathan Freedland in today's Comment is Free. He concludes with the words, Labour, whose future prospects partly depend on knowing what to say about its recent past, should do it sooner... And therein lies the point. Gordon Brown was the worst Prime Minister in British history - Freedland's piece makes that quite clear if you read between the lines. The real agenda here is not about putting right the catastrophic mistakes which we are still desperately trying to overcome, but the fact that Labour is unelectable until either the popular conscience has forgotten about Labour's disasterous economic mismanagement or the history of that dark period is re-written. With the chilling words Labour... should do it sooner, Freedland begins the process. 

Goodnight democracy...

You would think that including a democratically legitimate basis on which the Greek bailout terms could be ratified, would be a smart move for any politician pushing through not just difficult, but unpalatable reforms that will effect ordinary Greek citizens for the next generation.

Prime Minister Papandreou's decision to put the bailout terms to a popular referendum looked not just brave, but absolutely essential, given the nature and extent of cuts now being imposed upon Greek public spending. At a stroke, the Greek people would be bound tightly into the process, giving it the ultimate legitimacy, and the weight that only democratic participation can incur. Remember, we're talking about the cradle of democracy here. Greece invented a political process that millions throughout modern history have fought and died for - as more than 4000 Syrians in the last few months add testimony to.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It now seems that Papandreou will be forced to resign for involving democracy in the political process. There is talk of a nationalist Coalition being formed after his departure in order that the question will not require a referendum - on the pretext that a Coalition will involve all major parties, so there's no need to ask the people for a democratic mandate.

It certainly looks like the EU will do almost anything to avoid democratic accountability...

EU Referendum...

When we last voted on European membership, 35 years ago, it was called the Common Market. In Parliament today, a debate has been scheduled on whether we should hold another referendum on that membership. It has been granted because 100,000 voters signed a petition on a government web site designed to promote democratic debate.

We are told by every government spokes-person that this is not the time for such a debate. That a referendum in 2013 or 2014, would be a damaging and irrelevant action. That despite 38 years of membership of this European venture, now is not the right time to come to a decision as to whether we want to remain members; that the economic crisis caused by sovereign debt across Europe - deeply exacerbated by the failing Euro - and which is now causing mass unemployment across not just the Eurozone, but throughout Europe, means that this is not the right time to have such a debate.

Mr Cameron, 100,000 people demanded this debate precisely because the European Union and its Euro currency has been such a truly terrible disaster for our people. They believe that the hubris and incompetence of the political class in allowing this to happen should now be stopped - that a line should be drawn, and a referendum take place in which the people can give their politicians an answer on European membership.

This is democracy in its purest and most simple form which will allow you and your colleagues to make the argument for or against the proposal. Saying that now is not the time is the excuse of despots and dictators throughout history - their deceitful calls for 'stability' are always used to stifle change...

Jeremy Warner on the economic crisis...

To act as Labour urges and abandon the cornerstone of the Coalition’s economic strategy, namely getting the public finances back under control, would be to risk another catastrophe in the banking system – and, by raising interest rates, a similarly destructive meltdown in household and corporate finances. That is no kind of alternative strategy. Writes Jeremy Warner.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is abundantly clear how the mess we are in came about. For many years now, a number of advanced economies – including Britain’s – have been living in a kind of fool’s paradise. The balance of economic and productive advantage moved decisively from West to East, yet apparently limitless credit allowed living standards to continue rising, even as competitiveness was being eroded. There’s now been a rude awakening – and the adjustment, which is responsible for most of the stresses in the world economy today, is proving long and painful. Debtors are still not properly reconciled to having to live within their means, while creditors won’t accept the inevitability of writedowns. The result is a stand-off that is causing economic activity to seize up.

Repeated bail-outs are as repugnant to the eurozone’s surplus nations – such as Slovakia or Germany – as externally imposed austerity is to its debtors. The Slovak government has already fallen; on the other side of the fence, endless rounds of austerity look as if they might bring the Italian government down as well. In attempting to make the euro work, politicians are riding roughshod over their own electorates. It is as unsustainable as it is insulting to the principle of democracy.

With public sector demand shrinking almost everywhere, governments need the private sector to step up to the plate and provide the jobs and growth they can no longer deliver. For that to happen, a strong financial sector is required, one ready and willing to meet the economy’s credit needs. Yet instead, the reverse is happening. Ever more stringent capital and liquidity requirements, designed to make banks safer, are causing further balance sheet contraction and adding to the atmosphere of extreme risk aversion. As long as banks and businesses remain stuck in this mindset, there will be no sustainable return to growth.

The only way is out...

The UK has been requested by the EU Commission to pay welfare to all EU nationals, which could cost us up to £2.5bn. So much for the Coalition’s welfare reforms: as our elected government squeezes British nationals and forces the indolent into work, our unelected government obliges us to fork out for ‘benefit tourists’, who will readily find British benefits to be vastly more beneficial than those of Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary... writes Cranmer over an extraordinary directive from the EU.

He points out that the Coalition's record on Europe is not encouraging... So, before you get caught up in revived hopes of the rise of Conservative Euroscepticism, please remember that we’re in a coalition with the most rabidly Europhile party in Britain, and that it has to last until 2015. Please remember that last year, a European Court judgement forced David Cameron to agree to allow prisoners to vote. Please remember that there has been no promised examination of the Working Time Directive, despite its disruptive effects on the NHS. Please remember that despite promises to decimate (at least) red tape, EU regulations keep pouring in, strangling British businesses. Please remember that the Prime Minister agreed to a 2.9 per cent increase in our EU contributions, despite promising to Parliament and the Country that there would be none. Please remember that one of his first acts was to opt in to the ‘European Investigation Order’ which obliges British police forces to act on the orders of other EU police forces, with or without primary evidence, and even for actions which are not a criminal act in the UK. Ouch.

I listened to Tim Farron, President of the Liberal Democrats, on QuestionTime last night being asked why we should remain part of the EU. He answered that next week, 26 delegates from all the different EU countries will sit round a table to discuss sheep-tagging. 30 years ago, those same people would be pointing nuclear weapons at each other.

Mr Farron should read Fukuyama. It is Liberal Democracy that has ended not just wars, but the ideological pre-cursors - fascism, communism and dictatorships - that first divided, then murdered and finally enslaved countless millions of Europeans in the twentieth century.

The EU meanwhile, pays 26 men more than £100,000 a year each to sit around a table, in a glass palace in Brussels, to decide what an entire continent should do on sheep-tagging. Important work? Democratic? No Mr Farron. It is not even necessary.

The only way is out.