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.

Near apocryphal warnings...

Near apocryphal warnings from two of the wisest seers in this mornings papers - both Janey Daley and Peter Oborne suggest the changes witnessed over the last three years are nothing compared to what is now before us...

Janet Daly on Coalition reforms...

...the only way the Opposition can re-enter the arena as a serious contender is to accept the basic premises of the Right-of-centre prospectus – even if the official Right is busy backing away from them. Among these axioms are: welfare systems which reward people for choosing not to work are socially destructive and morally pernicious; market mechanisms which encourage competition increase the quality and variety of services available to the public; and, arguably most important, tax cuts are the most effective way to stimulate economic growth. Janet Daly on Coalition reforms...

Janet Daly on Coalition reforms & Big Society

Two truly radical initiatives were announced by the Government last week argues Janet Daly in a convincing piece for today's Sunday Telegraph.

The first, an attempt to widen educational excellence - 'best practice' in the jargon - by Michael Gove in allowing poorly performing schools to link with highly rated ones in order to gain Academy status. And the second an announcement by Francis Maude - fast becoming the Coalition's minister for the Big Society - that public sector workers can set up co-operatives (the John Lewis option) to run their own areas of expertise as independent enterprises, giving them a real stake in their own future.

She concludes the article with the words, From its welfare and education reforms to a revolution in the running of public services, the Government has a Big Idea which involves personal freedom within the bounds of community responsibility.

Now the personal freedom part may well be a Big Idea, but the concomitant community responsibility side sounds remarkably like Big Society to me.

PostScript: Gove appearing on Andrew Marr's show this morning, explained that school funds specifically allocated for sport, about which the Guardian (and Ed Balls of course) is predictably outraged, will now no longer be silo'd but available for spending as educationalists want. That's government trusting teachers. What a breathe of fresh air.