A little history first. In the 1990-1, we had a recession in the UK. It was pretty bad, and it was the first one to seriously affect white-collar workers and middle management rather than just the manual trades.
The John Major government, through the genius of Norman Lamont had the job of seeing us through this period, and it was from these two giants that the following phrases came:
"If it isn't hurting, it isn't working"
"Unemployment is a price worth paying" (for low inflation)
As a result of their careful stewardship, the 1990s recession took us years to recover from. You can see how compassionate they were about the effects of their policies.
So to today, and have the Conservatives changed? It appears not. While the government is taking action to reduce the threat of recession and to help those affected (rescuing banks, extending lines of credit so that they can lend, reducing VAT, increasing income tax allowances and tax credits, restricting repossessions, assisting small businesses with their tax bills, investing in public services etc etc etc...), all the Conservatives can do is to oppose.
Take our local Tory councillor-blogger Duncan Crow. He's quick to tell us that everything is the fault of Gordon Brown, but a little reticent to actually come up with any concrete proposals. It's easy to sit around pronouncing doom and gloom, and using the benefit of hindsight, but surely our 'natural rulers' have some actual ideas for how to best deal with the current economic situation.
What is it that the Tories would actually be doing now, if they were in power? Doing nothing didn't work very well last time, but I seen very little, other than to say whatever the government does is either bad or would have no effect.
For example, when the government announces a cut in VAT by 2.5%, the Tories tell us that it's insignificant. Yet when they think that VAT may have been going up by 1% it would have been a disaster. Surely it would have less of an effect, being a smaller change, but I don't suppose such logic comes into play when you are on a mission to oppose the government at all costs
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
It's the Economy, Stupid
Is George Osborne an idiot? Or does he just think that the voters are all fools?
Over the last few weeks, the Tories have been demanding tax cuts, saying that they are the best way to release cash into the hands of people and spur consumer spending and company investment to help take us out of recession.
Then at the weekend, Osborne was saying that we can't cut taxes because it would cause a run on the pound (which is is bit odd, because the currency rate is not directly related to the government's finances, it's to do with the value of the overall economy and predicted returns compared to other nations, and is more likely to be related to the interest rate).
It sounds to me like opposition for the sake of it. You can't credibly go around contradicting yourself in the space of a few days and expect people to think that you have a clue about how to run the economy. Of course, if your plan is to attack the government for political gain at a time of national uncertainty, it might just work - as long as people don't have those inconvenient memory things.
Over the last few weeks, the Tories have been demanding tax cuts, saying that they are the best way to release cash into the hands of people and spur consumer spending and company investment to help take us out of recession.
Then at the weekend, Osborne was saying that we can't cut taxes because it would cause a run on the pound (which is is bit odd, because the currency rate is not directly related to the government's finances, it's to do with the value of the overall economy and predicted returns compared to other nations, and is more likely to be related to the interest rate).
It sounds to me like opposition for the sake of it. You can't credibly go around contradicting yourself in the space of a few days and expect people to think that you have a clue about how to run the economy. Of course, if your plan is to attack the government for political gain at a time of national uncertainty, it might just work - as long as people don't have those inconvenient memory things.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Henry Smith and the truth - not easy bedfellows?
I expect that our Henry is up in Brum this week, hoping to bask in the glory of his leader. Maybe he's still down in Sussex, but keeping a bit quiet after being caught not quite giving the correct facts again - 'Cock up' over hospital mortuary - telling people that the mortuary at Crawley Hospital was closing, when it fact it is not.
Gosh, it's not like the Tories are trying to get votes by doom-mongering or anything?
He's been caught uttering mistruths before, by the Police. He's also been noted voting a nice big backdated pay rise for himself last year, while putting our Council Tax up by over 4% again*. Oh, and the 'Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital' is doing so well that it's had to be relaunched by the puppet press this week, despite the fact that two years ago it was supposed to be a concrete plan and was in no way opportunitistic or flimsy (the 'full outline proposals' from December 2006 are still there, with the spelling mistakes and the back-of-a-fag-packet sums)
* Actually WSCC regularly puts up Council Tax by more than CBC does (pretty much every year except for the one in four when the County Elections are about to happen...). How they are going to manage if the Tories get in with their promise to freeze Council Tax? WSCC spending went up from £1.218bn to £1.441bn in the past year, which is an increase of 18%. George Osborne wants to cap councils to only increasing spending by 2.5% a year.
Gosh, it's not like the Tories are trying to get votes by doom-mongering or anything?
He's been caught uttering mistruths before, by the Police. He's also been noted voting a nice big backdated pay rise for himself last year, while putting our Council Tax up by over 4% again*. Oh, and the 'Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital' is doing so well that it's had to be relaunched by the puppet press this week, despite the fact that two years ago it was supposed to be a concrete plan and was in no way opportunitistic or flimsy (the 'full outline proposals' from December 2006 are still there, with the spelling mistakes and the back-of-a-fag-packet sums)
* Actually WSCC regularly puts up Council Tax by more than CBC does (pretty much every year except for the one in four when the County Elections are about to happen...). How they are going to manage if the Tories get in with their promise to freeze Council Tax? WSCC spending went up from £1.218bn to £1.441bn in the past year, which is an increase of 18%. George Osborne wants to cap councils to only increasing spending by 2.5% a year.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Since May...
I've been meaning to get back to posting more regularly for a while, and I notice that back in May, almost 2 months ago, I promised to discuss Crewe & Nantwich.
Of course, since that by-election there's been Henley and Howden & Haltemprice. Before the local elections, and even with them, it could be claimed that Labour was just in the middle of a normal 'mid-term blues' patch.
The local elections in May 2008 were not much different for Labour nationally than the results of the previous year or (perhaps more significantly) 2004 - a year before the last General Election. However, the main difference is that the Tories are now a more credible force and they are able to maintain a sustained lead in opinion polls.
The economic situation is also confused and likely to become harder in some way. The problem is that oil and food prices have risen sharply (the price of oil has a major impact on the price of food, due to increased transportation costs and the surprising amount of energy used to grow food crops and create fertilisers). This is having an inflationary effect, making life harder for people on low and fixed incomes.
At the same time, the US-born credit crunch has combined with the long anticipated peak in the UK property market to start affecting economic growth. I remember way back in 1999 I was a bit worried when I bought my house that prices were unsustainably high. Since then they have more than doubled and every year various 'economic experts' have predicted a 'correction'. Now it's here everyone has suddenly begun to panic a bit.
However, we are not in recession, and even now there is likely to be a small amount of growth in the UK in the next year (technically a recession is two successive quarters of a shrinking economy in GDP terms). Of course, some sectors will be affected more than others. The current strength of the Euro means that the Pound is cheaper, making our exports more competitive - which is good for manufacturing. On the other hand, construction is getting hit hard and retail (having been able to rely on a steady stream of customers on credit) appears to have been doing poorly. Unemployment is going up again, although it's still relatively low for now.
The problem with the combination of low growth and high inflation is that the usual solution is to adjust interest rates, but the direction is different for each. To encourage growth (and counter the credit crunch), lower rates would allow more cash to flow. However, higher interest rates are the usual salve for inflation, the idea being that it restricts cash flow to reduce the demand-led pull on prices.
My opinion is that as the inflation is not demand-led but comes from the supply side, increasing interest rates is not likely to have as much of an effect as usual. However, the Bank of England was tasked (by Gordon Brown) with keeping inflation under control, but not explicitly to prioritise the rate of growth of the economy.
Anyway, all of this leads to uncertainty and pessimism. This will naturally reflect on the government whichever party ran it. As Labour has been in power for eleven years, and as Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten of those years before getting his promotion, it becomes even easier see it as down to Gordon and the party. That the credit-crunch was precipitated by the even more loopy borrowing rampant in the USA, and that oil and food price inflation are both global phenomena make little difference to most people.
So, the economy is leading to a wide-scale malaise in Britain, and is also leading to two problems for the government. Firstly, a slowdown in economic growth puts pressure on government spending but inflation leads to higher wage demands from public employees, so we are seeing more complaints and strikes from them. This adds to a picture of a government losing control - and is particularly bad when a Labour government is in open conflict with it's affiliated Trades Unions.
Secondly, the malaise is self-perpetuating. Just as a boom is often fuelled by people being confident and borrowing against a rosy future, a slowdown can be worsened if it becomes the main topic of discussion and people start assuming the worst. It is possible that we could 'talk ourselves' into a recession. At such a time, we would need a very confident leader who could project a more positive image. Gordon Brown, it seems, is not that leader. As much as I was opposed to Blair (and to Blairism) within the party, I did think that Brown would make a decent Prime Minister. A year ago it all looked very positive - even flooding in East Yorkshire seemed not to have a negative effect - and Brown appeared to be a welcome change after the populist and PR-led Brown. But while Brown is good during the good times, and while he was able to react well at first, there have been several areas in which he's been less than impressive and has appeared to be letting things get out of his control.
Last autumn, during the media-frenzy over whether Brown would call an early election or not (I still think he was right not to), there were a couple of wobbles where it seemed that the Tories were pressing the agenda, particularly on Inheritance Tax. However, the real seed of Brown's current unpopularity stems from his last Budget as Chancellor:
Brown did something very silly with Income Tax, using the abolition of the lower rate of 10% to help pay for a cut in the main rate of tax from 22% to 20%. For anyone with an income below £18,000 who was not on tax credits, this meant a loss. This was bad enough, but the worse thing was that Brown denied that anyone would be worse off. Frank Field and other Labour backbenchers had been questioning this for a year, but it was only when it became more immediate and Alistair Darling had missed the chance to deal with it in his first Budget that the media and the Tories started to really press the issue. The 'fix' was to play with Allowances, which did reduce drastically the number of losers among the low-paid but also meant that people on medium earnings got a further reduction in tax. As this 'fix' doesn't actually come into effect until the Autumn and is only really going to be in effect for this tax year unless further changes are made.
What this did was to undermine the claim that Labour was working for it's normal 'core' support, the working classes. Combined with higher prices for basics and greater worries about employment and debt, the last thing that people on low incomes needed was an increase in taxes. Even though that increase was small in cash terms, it was in some cases nearly 4% of total income.
Thing is, changing the Prime Minister (again) won't make a jot of difference. What is needed is what was needed about five years ago - a government that listened to it's own backbenchers and the party that got it into power, rather than being overly concerned with process and the latest polls.
Of course, since that by-election there's been Henley and Howden & Haltemprice. Before the local elections, and even with them, it could be claimed that Labour was just in the middle of a normal 'mid-term blues' patch.
The local elections in May 2008 were not much different for Labour nationally than the results of the previous year or (perhaps more significantly) 2004 - a year before the last General Election. However, the main difference is that the Tories are now a more credible force and they are able to maintain a sustained lead in opinion polls.
The economic situation is also confused and likely to become harder in some way. The problem is that oil and food prices have risen sharply (the price of oil has a major impact on the price of food, due to increased transportation costs and the surprising amount of energy used to grow food crops and create fertilisers). This is having an inflationary effect, making life harder for people on low and fixed incomes.
At the same time, the US-born credit crunch has combined with the long anticipated peak in the UK property market to start affecting economic growth. I remember way back in 1999 I was a bit worried when I bought my house that prices were unsustainably high. Since then they have more than doubled and every year various 'economic experts' have predicted a 'correction'. Now it's here everyone has suddenly begun to panic a bit.
However, we are not in recession, and even now there is likely to be a small amount of growth in the UK in the next year (technically a recession is two successive quarters of a shrinking economy in GDP terms). Of course, some sectors will be affected more than others. The current strength of the Euro means that the Pound is cheaper, making our exports more competitive - which is good for manufacturing. On the other hand, construction is getting hit hard and retail (having been able to rely on a steady stream of customers on credit) appears to have been doing poorly. Unemployment is going up again, although it's still relatively low for now.
The problem with the combination of low growth and high inflation is that the usual solution is to adjust interest rates, but the direction is different for each. To encourage growth (and counter the credit crunch), lower rates would allow more cash to flow. However, higher interest rates are the usual salve for inflation, the idea being that it restricts cash flow to reduce the demand-led pull on prices.
My opinion is that as the inflation is not demand-led but comes from the supply side, increasing interest rates is not likely to have as much of an effect as usual. However, the Bank of England was tasked (by Gordon Brown) with keeping inflation under control, but not explicitly to prioritise the rate of growth of the economy.
Anyway, all of this leads to uncertainty and pessimism. This will naturally reflect on the government whichever party ran it. As Labour has been in power for eleven years, and as Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten of those years before getting his promotion, it becomes even easier see it as down to Gordon and the party. That the credit-crunch was precipitated by the even more loopy borrowing rampant in the USA, and that oil and food price inflation are both global phenomena make little difference to most people.
So, the economy is leading to a wide-scale malaise in Britain, and is also leading to two problems for the government. Firstly, a slowdown in economic growth puts pressure on government spending but inflation leads to higher wage demands from public employees, so we are seeing more complaints and strikes from them. This adds to a picture of a government losing control - and is particularly bad when a Labour government is in open conflict with it's affiliated Trades Unions.
Secondly, the malaise is self-perpetuating. Just as a boom is often fuelled by people being confident and borrowing against a rosy future, a slowdown can be worsened if it becomes the main topic of discussion and people start assuming the worst. It is possible that we could 'talk ourselves' into a recession. At such a time, we would need a very confident leader who could project a more positive image. Gordon Brown, it seems, is not that leader. As much as I was opposed to Blair (and to Blairism) within the party, I did think that Brown would make a decent Prime Minister. A year ago it all looked very positive - even flooding in East Yorkshire seemed not to have a negative effect - and Brown appeared to be a welcome change after the populist and PR-led Brown. But while Brown is good during the good times, and while he was able to react well at first, there have been several areas in which he's been less than impressive and has appeared to be letting things get out of his control.
Last autumn, during the media-frenzy over whether Brown would call an early election or not (I still think he was right not to), there were a couple of wobbles where it seemed that the Tories were pressing the agenda, particularly on Inheritance Tax. However, the real seed of Brown's current unpopularity stems from his last Budget as Chancellor:
Brown did something very silly with Income Tax, using the abolition of the lower rate of 10% to help pay for a cut in the main rate of tax from 22% to 20%. For anyone with an income below £18,000 who was not on tax credits, this meant a loss. This was bad enough, but the worse thing was that Brown denied that anyone would be worse off. Frank Field and other Labour backbenchers had been questioning this for a year, but it was only when it became more immediate and Alistair Darling had missed the chance to deal with it in his first Budget that the media and the Tories started to really press the issue. The 'fix' was to play with Allowances, which did reduce drastically the number of losers among the low-paid but also meant that people on medium earnings got a further reduction in tax. As this 'fix' doesn't actually come into effect until the Autumn and is only really going to be in effect for this tax year unless further changes are made.
What this did was to undermine the claim that Labour was working for it's normal 'core' support, the working classes. Combined with higher prices for basics and greater worries about employment and debt, the last thing that people on low incomes needed was an increase in taxes. Even though that increase was small in cash terms, it was in some cases nearly 4% of total income.
Thing is, changing the Prime Minister (again) won't make a jot of difference. What is needed is what was needed about five years ago - a government that listened to it's own backbenchers and the party that got it into power, rather than being overly concerned with process and the latest polls.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Is this value for money?
The Crawley News reports that the Tory leader of Crawley Borough Council went on a 3 day training course in South Africa, partly funded out of the Council budget.
Obviously, Lanzer will justify the cost of the trip, as he learnt a lot and was fired up on his return. The CBC payment only amounted to about £675, which is not a huge amount. The rest was from grants, which may or may not be funded by the national taxpayer.
The course involved looking at 'law and order' issues. The thing about this is that the Borough Council doesn't have a great deal of responsiblity for these. The Police Authority is a seperate body, with delegates from local authorities, but from West Sussex, not Crawley. So Bob Lanzer isn't on it. He might be on Police Liaison, but that's not really a 'leadership' position.
Of course, councillors do need to be trained up, and they should be exposed to external practices, otherwise they risk being too ingrained in parochialism. However, it appears that there will be some raised eyebrows at this particular item. Especially as the News has put it on their front page this week.
Obviously, Lanzer will justify the cost of the trip, as he learnt a lot and was fired up on his return. The CBC payment only amounted to about £675, which is not a huge amount. The rest was from grants, which may or may not be funded by the national taxpayer.
The course involved looking at 'law and order' issues. The thing about this is that the Borough Council doesn't have a great deal of responsiblity for these. The Police Authority is a seperate body, with delegates from local authorities, but from West Sussex, not Crawley. So Bob Lanzer isn't on it. He might be on Police Liaison, but that's not really a 'leadership' position.
Of course, councillors do need to be trained up, and they should be exposed to external practices, otherwise they risk being too ingrained in parochialism. However, it appears that there will be some raised eyebrows at this particular item. Especially as the News has put it on their front page this week.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Money and Politics V
To illustrate the perils of believing what you read in the newspapers, Skuds has suggested that the figures quoted in my last post (about how Henry Smith and his chums on West Sussex County Council have had large increases in their allowances despite an independent review concluding that no such increases be given) were incorrect.
Good job too, because it meant that I read the actual reports, and there are some differences.
Firstly, the Special Allowance for the Leader, Henry Smith, has gone up from £26,523 to £29,394, an increase of 10.8% (about the same as the Argus' 11%).
Secondly, the Cabinet members allowance has risen from £15,691 to £18,283, a jump of 16.5% (which is 2.5 percentage points more than reported by the Argus). Eight councillors receive this allowance.
Thirdly, it's not clear what is meant by non-Executive Chairmen, because under the old scheme there were two levels of allowance for committee chairs. For six of the posts, the old allowance was £8,375. For three others, it was £6,582. If the increase applies to all, then they will all now get £8,989. That's 7.3% for the first six, and 36.6% for the other three (The Argus report refers to three chairmen getting 24%, which I can't see from the figures at all).
Fourthly, all of the other Special Responsibility Allowances are increasing as well, by an index-linked figure, which was actually what the panel recommended for all posts. There are 32 councillors who receive these allowances, out of a total of 70. The number affected by the self-determined increases is up to 18.
Fifthly, all of the above will also be getting the standard councillor's allowance that all councillors receive - £10,546 in the 2006/7 year. I believe that this is also index linked.
Links
Money and Politics IV (my previous post on this)
Original Evening Argus article
From WSCC:
The Scheme as it stood before 14 December 2007 (pdf format)
The report of the Independent Review Panel (pdf format)
The Report before WSCC on 14 December with the large increases (pdf format)
Good job too, because it meant that I read the actual reports, and there are some differences.
Firstly, the Special Allowance for the Leader, Henry Smith, has gone up from £26,523 to £29,394, an increase of 10.8% (about the same as the Argus' 11%).
Secondly, the Cabinet members allowance has risen from £15,691 to £18,283, a jump of 16.5% (which is 2.5 percentage points more than reported by the Argus). Eight councillors receive this allowance.
Thirdly, it's not clear what is meant by non-Executive Chairmen, because under the old scheme there were two levels of allowance for committee chairs. For six of the posts, the old allowance was £8,375. For three others, it was £6,582. If the increase applies to all, then they will all now get £8,989. That's 7.3% for the first six, and 36.6% for the other three (The Argus report refers to three chairmen getting 24%, which I can't see from the figures at all).
Fourthly, all of the other Special Responsibility Allowances are increasing as well, by an index-linked figure, which was actually what the panel recommended for all posts. There are 32 councillors who receive these allowances, out of a total of 70. The number affected by the self-determined increases is up to 18.
Fifthly, all of the above will also be getting the standard councillor's allowance that all councillors receive - £10,546 in the 2006/7 year. I believe that this is also index linked.
Links
Money and Politics IV (my previous post on this)
Original Evening Argus article
From WSCC:
The Scheme as it stood before 14 December 2007 (pdf format)
The report of the Independent Review Panel (pdf format)
The Report before WSCC on 14 December with the large increases (pdf format)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Money and Politics IV
Henry Smith was apparently happy to complain about our MP's expenses. Of course, we all know that our Henry would never, ever, put himself in a position where he could be accused of putting his nose into the trough.
Or would he...
According to the Evening Argus, West Sussex Council recently reviewed the councillor's allowances. What happens is that an independent review panel is set up, and they make recommendations. The same happens at Crawley Borough Council, and when I chaired the relevant committee (the excitingly named 'General Purposes Committee'), it was certainly expected that the review body's recommendations would be taken as they stood, and certainly that councillors would be very careful before voting for more cash.
The WSCC review panel recommended a freeze on increases. So what did our elected servants in Chichester do? Did they accept a pay freeze, because as the panel's report said, "Public service, rather than material reward, should be the primary motivation for involvement in local government."
Well, er, no. They instead voted for increases. Three committee chairs will get an increase of 27% (that's about 10 times the rate of inflation). The Cabinet members, such as Lt Col Tex Pemberton, get a 14% increase (a mere five times the rate of inflation).
Henry will have to make to with only an 11% increase (four times the rate of inflation) as Leader.
Now, WSCC will claim that because they didn't spend money on a pension scheme for councillors, they've saved money. However, it's only a matter of time before such a scheme is set up, and of course it will more than likely be a final salary one, so an allowance increase now just makes the scheme more expensive when it does come in. I predict it will arrive some time after the next County elections, or before if they can suddenly pull out one of their rare low tax increase budgets (rare? they happen every four years, by some sheer coincidence).
The allowance increases are apparently backdated to April.
link
Or would he...
According to the Evening Argus, West Sussex Council recently reviewed the councillor's allowances. What happens is that an independent review panel is set up, and they make recommendations. The same happens at Crawley Borough Council, and when I chaired the relevant committee (the excitingly named 'General Purposes Committee'), it was certainly expected that the review body's recommendations would be taken as they stood, and certainly that councillors would be very careful before voting for more cash.
The WSCC review panel recommended a freeze on increases. So what did our elected servants in Chichester do? Did they accept a pay freeze, because as the panel's report said, "Public service, rather than material reward, should be the primary motivation for involvement in local government."
Well, er, no. They instead voted for increases. Three committee chairs will get an increase of 27% (that's about 10 times the rate of inflation). The Cabinet members, such as Lt Col Tex Pemberton, get a 14% increase (a mere five times the rate of inflation).
Henry will have to make to with only an 11% increase (four times the rate of inflation) as Leader.
Now, WSCC will claim that because they didn't spend money on a pension scheme for councillors, they've saved money. However, it's only a matter of time before such a scheme is set up, and of course it will more than likely be a final salary one, so an allowance increase now just makes the scheme more expensive when it does come in. I predict it will arrive some time after the next County elections, or before if they can suddenly pull out one of their rare low tax increase budgets (rare? they happen every four years, by some sheer coincidence).
The allowance increases are apparently backdated to April.
link
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
When is rape not rape?
Apparently, according to John Redwood, rape isn't that bad if you know the woman first. Who knew? I'd always thought that 'No' means 'No' was a pretty universal truth, that it's a horrific crime whether the rapist is a total stranger or whether they are someone they though that they could trust.
Here's what he said, on his blog:
When I read that this morning, my immediate thought was what if we replaced the crime of rape with another one. The Provisional BBC beat me to it with murder. You could try it with robbery or with child abuse if you like, just in case the full ridiculousness of the MP for Wokingham's views aren't immediately apparent.
Essentially, Redwood is saying that because it's a bit hard to tell whether an alleged 'date rape' is genuine or just a woman getting revenge, we shouldn't bother to treat in the same way as any other rape.
There is this attitude from the right that certain crimes are not really crimes. Speeding, for example, even when there's pretty clear evidence and any driver ought to know what the limit is. And now it appears that rape can be added to the list of things that 'law abiding' people just happen to do, as if they aren't in control of themselves.
It's total rot, it really is.
In the same article, he argues that corporate manslaughter is being made 'equivalent' to murder (when in fact it isn't, but it is being made equivalent to manslaughter), presumably because corporate negligence that leads to a employee's or customer's death shouldn't be punished in the same way as any other deadly negligence. Under the Human Rights Act, limited companies are considered to have the same rights as people. So, under that basis, they should have the same responsibilities, surely?
Ahh, but of course the Tories don't agree with the Human Rights Act. Despite the fact that all it is incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into our law, so we don't have to keep having cases heard at The Hague, and despite the fact that it is something that their great hero, Sir Winston Churchill, was fully in favour of.
David Cameron is trying hard to convince us that the Tories have changed. Redwood is giving the lie to any such claim.
Here's what he said, on his blog:
They [the Labour government] decided to set date rape alongside stranger rape. Again, none of us want men to rape women, but there is a difference between a man using unreasonable force to assault a woman on the street, and a disagreement between two lovers over whether there was consent on one particular occasion when the two were spending an evening or night together.
Labour's doctrine of equivalence has led to jury scepticism about many rape claims, in situations where it is the man's word against the woman's and where they had agreed to spend the evening or night together. Young men do not want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date.
When I read that this morning, my immediate thought was what if we replaced the crime of rape with another one. The Provisional BBC beat me to it with murder. You could try it with robbery or with child abuse if you like, just in case the full ridiculousness of the MP for Wokingham's views aren't immediately apparent.
Essentially, Redwood is saying that because it's a bit hard to tell whether an alleged 'date rape' is genuine or just a woman getting revenge, we shouldn't bother to treat in the same way as any other rape.
There is this attitude from the right that certain crimes are not really crimes. Speeding, for example, even when there's pretty clear evidence and any driver ought to know what the limit is. And now it appears that rape can be added to the list of things that 'law abiding' people just happen to do, as if they aren't in control of themselves.
It's total rot, it really is.
In the same article, he argues that corporate manslaughter is being made 'equivalent' to murder (when in fact it isn't, but it is being made equivalent to manslaughter), presumably because corporate negligence that leads to a employee's or customer's death shouldn't be punished in the same way as any other deadly negligence. Under the Human Rights Act, limited companies are considered to have the same rights as people. So, under that basis, they should have the same responsibilities, surely?
Ahh, but of course the Tories don't agree with the Human Rights Act. Despite the fact that all it is incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into our law, so we don't have to keep having cases heard at The Hague, and despite the fact that it is something that their great hero, Sir Winston Churchill, was fully in favour of.
David Cameron is trying hard to convince us that the Tories have changed. Redwood is giving the lie to any such claim.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Money and politics I
What can anyone say about the ongoing scandal concerning party funding?
As a member of the Labour Party, I have to say that I'm absolutely hopping mad about the Abrahams 'dodge' of paying through third party's, and utterly disgusted that people at the top of the party organisation knew about it and didn't think it was a problem. I'm no expert on the law, but I think it's pretty obvious that this is a no-no.
Personally, I don't care how high up they are, if people working for the Party knew about this and didn't question it, then they should be sacked.
The problem of how we pay for our political parties will not go away, although I think that stiffer spending caps would be a good way to reduce the pressure and would mean less expensive adverts cluttering up the screens.
The media are loving this, and there's always potential for an error (such as Hain's campaign not fully registering all donations properly) being blown up into part of the mire. It's quite clear that the person who makes an illegal donation is the prime wrongdoer. If due diligence is carried out and a problem is not carried out, then the recipient can't be blamed. However, if they did know that the donation was iffy, then they have acted outside the law. If they didn't check and a such a check can reasonably have been shown to show something up, then they have at least been negligent.
However, it's strange that all this focus is put on to one party. The Lib Dems had a real problem with a major donor who turned out to be ineligible - and quite possibly giving them other people's money. The Tories are being very quiet about Lord Ashcroft (who was ennobled after he started bunging them large amounts, but apparently 'cash for honours isn't an issue for him) who appears to still be a tax exile, despite promising to regularise his affairs with HMRC, and who gives the Party a lot of money through third parties - companies, not individuals - as well as flying the leader and shadow cabinet out on top-class jets all over the world at bargain basement prices.
Of course, Labour would have less of a problem with money if the income from the unions and members wasn't on the slide. My view is that the decline of union participation is not something that the Party has taken seriously enough. For some reason, the unions have been regarded as trouble-makers (when often they have been the stalwart supporters of the leadership against us uppity full members). Party membership has slipped over the past ten years, and I detect that quite a bit of that is down to disappointment with the course of the Government, and with the way that the party changed under the New Labour ethos of centralised control.
The main issue that I have about the centralised control links back to the start of this piece - that they may think that they know what they are doing, but at times the organisation of the party leaves a lot to be desired. The historic problems with membership systems appear to have been solved after many years of complaints, but regional and central offices really are not responsive and as we have seen, have been complacent about something as fundamental as keeping within the law on donations.
Luckily, the party central office have very little to do with the Government. However, with civil servants ignoring the Data Protection Act at the same time...
As a member of the Labour Party, I have to say that I'm absolutely hopping mad about the Abrahams 'dodge' of paying through third party's, and utterly disgusted that people at the top of the party organisation knew about it and didn't think it was a problem. I'm no expert on the law, but I think it's pretty obvious that this is a no-no.
Personally, I don't care how high up they are, if people working for the Party knew about this and didn't question it, then they should be sacked.
The problem of how we pay for our political parties will not go away, although I think that stiffer spending caps would be a good way to reduce the pressure and would mean less expensive adverts cluttering up the screens.
The media are loving this, and there's always potential for an error (such as Hain's campaign not fully registering all donations properly) being blown up into part of the mire. It's quite clear that the person who makes an illegal donation is the prime wrongdoer. If due diligence is carried out and a problem is not carried out, then the recipient can't be blamed. However, if they did know that the donation was iffy, then they have acted outside the law. If they didn't check and a such a check can reasonably have been shown to show something up, then they have at least been negligent.
However, it's strange that all this focus is put on to one party. The Lib Dems had a real problem with a major donor who turned out to be ineligible - and quite possibly giving them other people's money. The Tories are being very quiet about Lord Ashcroft (who was ennobled after he started bunging them large amounts, but apparently 'cash for honours isn't an issue for him) who appears to still be a tax exile, despite promising to regularise his affairs with HMRC, and who gives the Party a lot of money through third parties - companies, not individuals - as well as flying the leader and shadow cabinet out on top-class jets all over the world at bargain basement prices.
Of course, Labour would have less of a problem with money if the income from the unions and members wasn't on the slide. My view is that the decline of union participation is not something that the Party has taken seriously enough. For some reason, the unions have been regarded as trouble-makers (when often they have been the stalwart supporters of the leadership against us uppity full members). Party membership has slipped over the past ten years, and I detect that quite a bit of that is down to disappointment with the course of the Government, and with the way that the party changed under the New Labour ethos of centralised control.
The main issue that I have about the centralised control links back to the start of this piece - that they may think that they know what they are doing, but at times the organisation of the party leaves a lot to be desired. The historic problems with membership systems appear to have been solved after many years of complaints, but regional and central offices really are not responsive and as we have seen, have been complacent about something as fundamental as keeping within the law on donations.
Luckily, the party central office have very little to do with the Government. However, with civil servants ignoring the Data Protection Act at the same time...
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Can Tories add up?
Got Henry Smith's new leaflet through my door. It's very nice, a shiny full-colour A3 folded jobby (must have cost Lord Ashcroft a few quid for all of them across town).
There are lots of pictures in it. Lots of them. And in most of them Henry is grinning at me. Great, we know he can smile at a camera. But what else can he do?
Well, adding up and sums might be a bit of a problem for someone.
Taxing sums
There's a bit on the front page slagging off the tax credits scheme, claiming that 'fraud and error' have cost the taxpayer £5bn. However, checking the latest National Audit Office report, I can see that the outstanding debt from overpayments from 2003 (when the scheme was introduced) to 2007 was less than that - £3.9bn, of which only about £0.7bn has been written off. A further £1.6bn has been allocated to underwrite the possibility that not all of the remainder can be collected. That's a total of £2.3bn on the worst case. Half of Henry's figure. Not that I'm saying that it's a good thing, but the Tories are inflating the effect, and have come up with a nice round number to scare us poor taxpayers.
He also claims that the money could build 150 hospitals. Hmm. That works out at less than £35M per hospital. If we look at the figures used by Henry's Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital, we see that the hospital he's telling us he can get built would cost £168M, about five times as much. And to run it for one year would cost nearly £100M. So, assuming that you want to run a hospital for some time after you build it, £5bn would pay for more like 20 hospitals.
The article ends with a Henry quote:
Umm, we have one hospital. I thought we needed a better hospital, but maybe Henry's less ambitious for us than he'd like to think.
Swings and roundabouts
Also on the front page it says that Henry
Yes, Henry did get one of the largest swings, but not the largest. On it's own a small inaccuracy, but given that he can't work out how much a hospital costs, or count how many we have, perhaps there's a pattern emerging...
Costs of investments may rise as well as fall
Page 2 now. It's welcome that West Sussex County Council has invested money into new schools. The figure quoted is £80 million. However, according to a press release from 2003, it was a £54 million PFI project. The remainder of the money was found by selling off land (largely school playing fields), and the PFI part of the deal will still have to be paid off over the next 30 years. Some of the capital will have come from government grants anyway, and WSCC could not have done all of that work without help from the Labour government. Besides, I remember the pain we had to go through in Southgate when involved in the scheme were plans to close one of the local primary schools. Thanks to local opposition (and I like to think I helped the parents out there) we retained both primary schools.
Also, we are getting a 'state of the art' library. Wonderful though I expect it to be, the Tories and County Hall have been promising us a new library for over 15 years. I know it's that long, because I was working in Crawley Library on Saturdays in 1992. And it was considered to be long overdue then. So thanks, Henry, for finally coming through, but let's hope it doesn't take 15 years for anything else to happen.
Of course, one local invesment that Henry's leaflet completely misses out is also one of the most well known: Fastway. Why could it be that a West Sussex County Council led project, investing millions of pounds into local transport infrastructure, is not worth shouting about? The plans were launched by Cllr David Dewdney, the Tory councillor from Pound Hill, and were set to cost £30 million.
Perhaps Henry doesn't want to be associated with Fastway. Maybe it's related to the events of spring 2005, when the County Council found that it had gone over budget by £6 million. It was known at Easter that year, but apparently Henry, then the leader of West Sussex County Council, was totally unaware of the overspend until after May. Coincidentally, he was at the very same time standing as the Conservative candidate for Crawley in the General Election. As far as I can see, he either did know but decided it was a bit embarrassing, or he really didn't know, which begs the question as to whether someone who can avoid knowing about a £6 million snafu is really in touch with what's going on under their own noses.
Blimey, numbers and money really are not Mr Smith's strong points, are they? I've only got to the first column on page two, and my confidence in the guy is shot to pieces...
There are lots of pictures in it. Lots of them. And in most of them Henry is grinning at me. Great, we know he can smile at a camera. But what else can he do?
Well, adding up and sums might be a bit of a problem for someone.
Taxing sums
There's a bit on the front page slagging off the tax credits scheme, claiming that 'fraud and error' have cost the taxpayer £5bn. However, checking the latest National Audit Office report, I can see that the outstanding debt from overpayments from 2003 (when the scheme was introduced) to 2007 was less than that - £3.9bn, of which only about £0.7bn has been written off. A further £1.6bn has been allocated to underwrite the possibility that not all of the remainder can be collected. That's a total of £2.3bn on the worst case. Half of Henry's figure. Not that I'm saying that it's a good thing, but the Tories are inflating the effect, and have come up with a nice round number to scare us poor taxpayers.
He also claims that the money could build 150 hospitals. Hmm. That works out at less than £35M per hospital. If we look at the figures used by Henry's Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital, we see that the hospital he's telling us he can get built would cost £168M, about five times as much. And to run it for one year would cost nearly £100M. So, assuming that you want to run a hospital for some time after you build it, £5bn would pay for more like 20 hospitals.
The article ends with a Henry quote:
the sick irony is that Crawley only needs one hospital
Umm, we have one hospital. I thought we needed a better hospital, but maybe Henry's less ambitious for us than he'd like to think.
Swings and roundabouts
Also on the front page it says that Henry
achieved the highest national swing from Labour to Conservative (over 8.5%)but he didn't (assuming that what they actually mean is 'highest swing from Labour to the Conservatives in the country'). David Burrows had a higher swing (8.7%) to win in Enfield Southgate. Sir Patrick Cormack had a higher swing (9.1%) when he held South Staffs.
Yes, Henry did get one of the largest swings, but not the largest. On it's own a small inaccuracy, but given that he can't work out how much a hospital costs, or count how many we have, perhaps there's a pattern emerging...
Costs of investments may rise as well as fall
Page 2 now. It's welcome that West Sussex County Council has invested money into new schools. The figure quoted is £80 million. However, according to a press release from 2003, it was a £54 million PFI project. The remainder of the money was found by selling off land (largely school playing fields), and the PFI part of the deal will still have to be paid off over the next 30 years. Some of the capital will have come from government grants anyway, and WSCC could not have done all of that work without help from the Labour government. Besides, I remember the pain we had to go through in Southgate when involved in the scheme were plans to close one of the local primary schools. Thanks to local opposition (and I like to think I helped the parents out there) we retained both primary schools.
Also, we are getting a 'state of the art' library. Wonderful though I expect it to be, the Tories and County Hall have been promising us a new library for over 15 years. I know it's that long, because I was working in Crawley Library on Saturdays in 1992. And it was considered to be long overdue then. So thanks, Henry, for finally coming through, but let's hope it doesn't take 15 years for anything else to happen.
Of course, one local invesment that Henry's leaflet completely misses out is also one of the most well known: Fastway. Why could it be that a West Sussex County Council led project, investing millions of pounds into local transport infrastructure, is not worth shouting about? The plans were launched by Cllr David Dewdney, the Tory councillor from Pound Hill, and were set to cost £30 million.
Perhaps Henry doesn't want to be associated with Fastway. Maybe it's related to the events of spring 2005, when the County Council found that it had gone over budget by £6 million. It was known at Easter that year, but apparently Henry, then the leader of West Sussex County Council, was totally unaware of the overspend until after May. Coincidentally, he was at the very same time standing as the Conservative candidate for Crawley in the General Election. As far as I can see, he either did know but decided it was a bit embarrassing, or he really didn't know, which begs the question as to whether someone who can avoid knowing about a £6 million snafu is really in touch with what's going on under their own noses.
Blimey, numbers and money really are not Mr Smith's strong points, are they? I've only got to the first column on page two, and my confidence in the guy is shot to pieces...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Inheriting the wind
Inheritance tax. Apparently, it's a bigger issue for voters than any other political subject.
Why would this be? After all, currently less than 10% of estates are liable to the tax. When it comes to tax, it's far less widely felt than VAT, National Insurance, Income Tax, or duties on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes. Of course, everybody who owns a newspaper is likely to be affected. Many of the senior journalists on national newspapers and on the TV could potentially be. I'd be surprised if most of the Tory front bench are not likely to need to pay some death duties.
However, the vast majority of people will be totally unaffected by increases to thresholds for Inheritance Tax. So why are people so worked up? Of course, everybody hopes (can I use the Brownite word 'aspires') to be rich enough by the time they die to leave a substantial amount. More to the point, everybody secretly hopes that aunty Mabel is sitting on a pile of cash and that she's put it aside for us. However, the reality is that the average person is unlikely to be so fortunate. Even if you are lucky enough to inherit, say, a 1 million pound estate, the current taxes would still leave you with over £700,000. If aunty Mabel was only worth half a million, you'd get 84% of the value.
The Tories may have wanted to get rid of it completely, but have come up with a new threshold of £1 million. Given that it's the super-rich who are likely to be able to spend a bit of time and money on tax planning away much of their obligations, and they'd be getting a cut of £280,000 anyway, this would be a long way towards removing the tax completely. Given that the Tories are not telling us that we can cut overall taxes, that means that billions would have to be found somehow.
Alistair Darling has announced changes, which effectively mean that the £300,000 allowance is transferred to a widow(er). As no inheritance tax is liable on estates passed between husband and wife (or, I believe, civil partners), it means that when the remaining partner dies, the estate gets an allowance of £600,000. Fine if you're married, a but annoying if you aren't.
Skuds has an idea - rather than tax the estate, why not tax each inheritor according to how much they get? Lateral thinking there.
My feeling is that Inheritance Tax is fair - it's no more unfair than any other taxation at least - although the quick increase in property values has caused people to worry that the middle classes might come under the cosh (and we can't have that now, can we?). I think that it would make sense for either the main home to be exempt, or for the average house price to be a factor in determining the allowance (I quite like the idea of a formula rather than the Treasury every now and again picking an arbitrary number for allowances on tax).
Mind you, on a related note, it's quite odd to hear the Tories complain about their policies being stolen. They nicked the idea of a flat rate for non-domiciles from the Lib Dems (and they attacked it as unworkable at the time).
Why would this be? After all, currently less than 10% of estates are liable to the tax. When it comes to tax, it's far less widely felt than VAT, National Insurance, Income Tax, or duties on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes. Of course, everybody who owns a newspaper is likely to be affected. Many of the senior journalists on national newspapers and on the TV could potentially be. I'd be surprised if most of the Tory front bench are not likely to need to pay some death duties.
However, the vast majority of people will be totally unaffected by increases to thresholds for Inheritance Tax. So why are people so worked up? Of course, everybody hopes (can I use the Brownite word 'aspires') to be rich enough by the time they die to leave a substantial amount. More to the point, everybody secretly hopes that aunty Mabel is sitting on a pile of cash and that she's put it aside for us. However, the reality is that the average person is unlikely to be so fortunate. Even if you are lucky enough to inherit, say, a 1 million pound estate, the current taxes would still leave you with over £700,000. If aunty Mabel was only worth half a million, you'd get 84% of the value.
The Tories may have wanted to get rid of it completely, but have come up with a new threshold of £1 million. Given that it's the super-rich who are likely to be able to spend a bit of time and money on tax planning away much of their obligations, and they'd be getting a cut of £280,000 anyway, this would be a long way towards removing the tax completely. Given that the Tories are not telling us that we can cut overall taxes, that means that billions would have to be found somehow.
Alistair Darling has announced changes, which effectively mean that the £300,000 allowance is transferred to a widow(er). As no inheritance tax is liable on estates passed between husband and wife (or, I believe, civil partners), it means that when the remaining partner dies, the estate gets an allowance of £600,000. Fine if you're married, a but annoying if you aren't.
Skuds has an idea - rather than tax the estate, why not tax each inheritor according to how much they get? Lateral thinking there.
My feeling is that Inheritance Tax is fair - it's no more unfair than any other taxation at least - although the quick increase in property values has caused people to worry that the middle classes might come under the cosh (and we can't have that now, can we?). I think that it would make sense for either the main home to be exempt, or for the average house price to be a factor in determining the allowance (I quite like the idea of a formula rather than the Treasury every now and again picking an arbitrary number for allowances on tax).
Mind you, on a related note, it's quite odd to hear the Tories complain about their policies being stolen. They nicked the idea of a flat rate for non-domiciles from the Lib Dems (and they attacked it as unworkable at the time).
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Local lad still doing well
I wonder if he knows it, but Iain Dale and his contributing baying Tory commenters have put our Skuds in the top 100 'left of centre blogs' for the second year in a row.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Talking about suppression...
Here's a place where they do it properly - Burma (or as the military junta would have it, 'Myanmar').
I've been keeping a little eye out on the growing opposition demonstrations there in the last few weeks, starting with protests over escalating fuel costs, and this week seeing the Buddhist monks marching through Rangoon ('Yangon') and other cities.
Yesterday there was the bizarre sight of a military chappy kneeling in a temple, imploring the senior monks not to go out again today. It would seem that the Burmese hold monks in very high esteem, but this display was sinister because the leaders were really saying "Please don't do it because we might have to send the army in".
The monks went out again today, and as the Guardian newsblog updates showed, there are a lot of rumours and whispers about hospitals being cleared and riot police moving in. However, no actual reports of a crackdown, although apparently Aung San Suu Kyi was moved from house arrest to prison this afternoon.
The odious regime really ought to fall, to be replaced with democracy, but they have largely been allowed to get away with oppressing their own people for decades, with China helping them out and no-one else wanting to intervene in a liberal-humanitarian stylee in case it causes ructions.
President Bush has announced extended sanctions (good move, but years late) and the rest of the world is trying to convince the Burmese government not to use violence to restore 'order'.
However, a curfew has been declared, and gatherings of more than 5 people have been banned. I have a bad feeling about tomorrow.
I've been keeping a little eye out on the growing opposition demonstrations there in the last few weeks, starting with protests over escalating fuel costs, and this week seeing the Buddhist monks marching through Rangoon ('Yangon') and other cities.
Yesterday there was the bizarre sight of a military chappy kneeling in a temple, imploring the senior monks not to go out again today. It would seem that the Burmese hold monks in very high esteem, but this display was sinister because the leaders were really saying "Please don't do it because we might have to send the army in".
The monks went out again today, and as the Guardian newsblog updates showed, there are a lot of rumours and whispers about hospitals being cleared and riot police moving in. However, no actual reports of a crackdown, although apparently Aung San Suu Kyi was moved from house arrest to prison this afternoon.
The odious regime really ought to fall, to be replaced with democracy, but they have largely been allowed to get away with oppressing their own people for decades, with China helping them out and no-one else wanting to intervene in a liberal-humanitarian stylee in case it causes ructions.
President Bush has announced extended sanctions (good move, but years late) and the rest of the world is trying to convince the Burmese government not to use violence to restore 'order'.
However, a curfew has been declared, and gatherings of more than 5 people have been banned. I have a bad feeling about tomorrow.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Tory communalism again
Skuds has highlighted the odd case of Cllr Carol Eade, who manages to do the same job twice for two different places, by being a Borough Councillor for Furnace Green in Crawley and a District Councillor for Eastbrook in Adur at the same time.
Like Skuds did, I looked at her page on the Adur council website here, and found a few odd things in her profile.
What most intrigued me was the idea that she had been approached because of her religion and gender. As 'pre-requisites'. Obviously more important than use of the English language (of course, we all make typos). So why did she have to be a 'Christian'? I didn't realise that the Tories, least of all the modern Cameroony fluffy ones of today, were specifically a Christian party. I wonder if that will come as a surprise to the recent Sikh recruits to the Tory banner in Ealing & Southall, or those who fought for seats alongside Cllr Eade here in Crawley this year. One of those, Jarnail Singh, now represents Southgate, my own neighbourhood, and was backed by the local Gurdwara.
Are the Tories exploiting religion for electoral gain? Will this backfire on them at some point? Events in the Ealing and Southall by-election suggest that it already is.
Like Skuds did, I looked at her page on the Adur council website here, and found a few odd things in her profile.
My interests / hobbies :Umm, surely you mean 'fourth', 'Christian' and 'do not allow', Carol?I am now entering my forth year as a Councillor and have enjoyed being involved in many of the duties. I still read Chistian books but time and circumstances does not allowed long walks anymore.
Clearly her term still ends in 2008, and there is no mention of the fact that she's also a councillor in Crawley on her profile (I wonder what the people of Eastbrook think of that?).
When and why I have become a councillor :
One day, after a service at the Southwick Methodist Church, I was approached by a Conservative Member who asked me to become a Councillor. The pre-requisites were a female Christian. I said that I would think about it and two weeks later the same person addressed me with the same question and also asked my husband to become a Councillor. My husband and I went along to a Committee meeting at the Civic Centre to see how things were done. We made several enquiries and spoke with other Councillors before coming to the final decision of accepting the request. We both went for interviews and were accepted to stand for election. We were both elected in 2003 for one year and again in 2004 for a term of four years.
What most intrigued me was the idea that she had been approached because of her religion and gender. As 'pre-requisites'. Obviously more important than use of the English language (of course, we all make typos). So why did she have to be a 'Christian'? I didn't realise that the Tories, least of all the modern Cameroony fluffy ones of today, were specifically a Christian party. I wonder if that will come as a surprise to the recent Sikh recruits to the Tory banner in Ealing & Southall, or those who fought for seats alongside Cllr Eade here in Crawley this year. One of those, Jarnail Singh, now represents Southgate, my own neighbourhood, and was backed by the local Gurdwara.
Are the Tories exploiting religion for electoral gain? Will this backfire on them at some point? Events in the Ealing and Southall by-election suggest that it already is.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
A question answered.
Earlier in the year, I asked, Does the South East have a Fascist MEP?
Well, one thing I wasn't aware of at the time was that the grouping set up in January to represent the far right in the European Parliament is essentially made up of two groups. On the one hand there is 'Euronat', which is made up of parties like the French Front National and the Flemish Belgian Vlaams Blok. On the other hand is Ashley Mote and two others from Bulgaria and Romania as independents (although Mote was elected as a UKIP candidate).
Thing is, when I speculated that the 'Identity, Sovereignty, Tradition' group would be the natural home of the BNP, I didn't know that indeed, the BNP are the British affiliates to the 'Euronat' group.
So yes, Mote is effectively allied with the BNP. I hope that any people in the South East who voted UKIP realise what they have done.
Well, one thing I wasn't aware of at the time was that the grouping set up in January to represent the far right in the European Parliament is essentially made up of two groups. On the one hand there is 'Euronat', which is made up of parties like the French Front National and the Flemish Belgian Vlaams Blok. On the other hand is Ashley Mote and two others from Bulgaria and Romania as independents (although Mote was elected as a UKIP candidate).
Thing is, when I speculated that the 'Identity, Sovereignty, Tradition' group would be the natural home of the BNP, I didn't know that indeed, the BNP are the British affiliates to the 'Euronat' group.
So yes, Mote is effectively allied with the BNP. I hope that any people in the South East who voted UKIP realise what they have done.
More bad news for the Crawley Tories
Back in January, the Conservatives had to admit defeat on their badly thought through and costed plans to transfer Crawley's Council Housing stock.
Essentially, all of the bodies that had to approve their proposals refused to do so, mainly on the basis that the projected £60M costs were inflated. The Audit Commission, the local tenant's panel, the 'shadow board' (the group set up to create the new entity which would take over the housing) and the Government office of the South East are difficult to argue with. Until then, it had only been the Labour councillors who had opposed putting the flawed plan to the vote of tenants. The Lib Dems appeared to prefer to tinker with the edges, and it was only when they gained a Tory defector and the true extent of the debace was apparent that they came to a definite position.
One of the things that was highlighted back in November was that the council had spent £30K on a DVD which had been rendered incorrect even before it was sent out. The Tory leadership had included a reference to the possibility of charging more for the vital Lifeline service (which provides a direct link between vulnerable elderly and ill tenants and the emergency/health services). However, this was defeated by Labour, Lib Dem and dissident Tory votes, but it was too late to remove this 'threat' from the DVD.
Turns out that this was not the only problem with it, or with other advertising sent out by the Council around the time to promote the idea of transfer. Today the Advertising Standards Authority said that Crawley Borough Council had potentially misled tenants and upheld two complaints:
So did they lie, or can't they add up? And the people of Crawley elected more of these muppets to run the town in May.
Essentially, all of the bodies that had to approve their proposals refused to do so, mainly on the basis that the projected £60M costs were inflated. The Audit Commission, the local tenant's panel, the 'shadow board' (the group set up to create the new entity which would take over the housing) and the Government office of the South East are difficult to argue with. Until then, it had only been the Labour councillors who had opposed putting the flawed plan to the vote of tenants. The Lib Dems appeared to prefer to tinker with the edges, and it was only when they gained a Tory defector and the true extent of the debace was apparent that they came to a definite position.
One of the things that was highlighted back in November was that the council had spent £30K on a DVD which had been rendered incorrect even before it was sent out. The Tory leadership had included a reference to the possibility of charging more for the vital Lifeline service (which provides a direct link between vulnerable elderly and ill tenants and the emergency/health services). However, this was defeated by Labour, Lib Dem and dissident Tory votes, but it was too late to remove this 'threat' from the DVD.
Turns out that this was not the only problem with it, or with other advertising sent out by the Council around the time to promote the idea of transfer. Today the Advertising Standards Authority said that Crawley Borough Council had potentially misled tenants and upheld two complaints:
So, the DVD also attacked the Defend Council Housing group. But the more important thing is that the ASA have also picked up on the Tory claims of a £12M shortfall in funding due to a need to spend £60M in three years. Even after the Audit Commission and others had pointed out that the £60M figure was too high, or referred to a much longer period of time, the Tory councillors were still sticking to the £12M funding gap. It doesn't exist! And yet again, the Council are finding that an august body has called them on the claims.A newsletter headlined "Council faces £12m shortfall to reach Decent Homes Standard (DHS)" said the Crawley authority would not be able to meet a £60m figure which it claimed was the minimum spend required on housing stock by 2010.
But the ASA upheld a complaint that this figure was misleading, because it included future maintenance costs beyond DHS guidance.
A second point of complaint concerned a promotional DVD which questioned the reliability of other information being disseminated at the time by the Defend Council Housing group.
The ASA concluded the material "unfairly denigrated" the aims of the group, which campaigned against the housing transfer.
Crawley council said: "We're baffled because everything was checked and approved by the relevant parties in line with government guidelines."I'm 'baffled' because the Labour councillors, Defend Council Housing and others had been asking them to clarify their figures for months before they were ignominiously dropped. The fact that they did not, and still have not, suggests that either they didn't know what the basis for the £60M really was (and how it compared to the actual spend to meet the Decent Homes Standard), or they did but didn't want to admit that it was incorrect.
So did they lie, or can't they add up? And the people of Crawley elected more of these muppets to run the town in May.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
The perils of appointing from 'all the talents'
In the past few days, the idea of bringing in new blood to the main parties' front benches has been sorely tested.
In all three cases, there is the potential for major clashes with the rest of their new colleagues (perhaps Dame Neville-Jones will fit in pretty well though with the Tories). I know that we need to bring in views from outside the political ghetto, but I think that in these cases the approach will backfire.
- When Gordon Brown put Sir Digby Jones into the new DBERR (which is the new name for the DTI), a lot of Labour people were a bit sniffy. It is now clear that while the soon-to-be-ennobled knight and ex-CBI leader will accept the government whip in the Lords, he will not join the Labour Party itself. I was under the mistaken impression that this was against our own Party rules (but I'm sure that they will be changed / ignored if it is).
- As I noted earlier here the Tories are about to bring in Sayeeda Warsi to cover 'community cohesion', but she's got form. As usual, my comment is massively put to shame by Unity, who has comprehensively gone into her history and since brought up some recent developments
- If you followed the first link in the previous point, you'll see that Unity has also dug into the past of Dame Pauline Neville-Jones (link repeated here). Seems like the time she spent as Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee was a total of 5 weeks, but it's the time after that which is of interest - pushing for appeasement of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia at Dayton followed by a lucrative time working with Lord Hurd at NatWest brokering major deals with, umm, Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia until the downfall of the warmongering nationalist president put an end to the give-aways. Apparently the US diplomats nicknamed her 'Dame Neville-Chaimberlain' in 1996.
In all three cases, there is the potential for major clashes with the rest of their new colleagues (perhaps Dame Neville-Jones will fit in pretty well though with the Tories). I know that we need to bring in views from outside the political ghetto, but I think that in these cases the approach will backfire.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
People will insist that this doesn't happen
MCB condemns terrorism & calls for people to help the policeSecretary General Muhammad Abdul Bari said:
Can't argue with that, can we. However, I bet you that I read in the next few days several people saying things like "so where are all the 'moderate' muslims who are publicly disassociating themselves from terrorists" or even "with the silence from the muslim community, are all of them in sympathy with the bombers?".
"Those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of us all. There is no cause whatsoever that could possibly justify such barbarity."
Can't argue with that, can we. However, I bet you that I read in the next few days several people saying things like "so where are all the 'moderate' muslims who are publicly disassociating themselves from terrorists" or even "with the silence from the muslim community, are all of them in sympathy with the bombers?".
Monday, July 02, 2007
Tories just like the SWP?
Cosying up with moralistic muslims, I mean. New Gold Dream looks into the past of new 'Community Cohesion' Shadow Cabinet member Sayeeda Warsi. She likes Tory policy because of the homophobia and uptightness about sex education. She's also been quoted in the Times making numbers up concerning detention of terrorist suspects and stirring up tensions in Yorkshire:
So, she may spout rubbish, and it may upset community relations, but she believes in the essential truth of it. I wonder how much 'truth' she will speak in her new role?
Still she was on the Cameron A-list for Commons seats, but the latest elevation will mean she gets a peerage instead. So yet another person will get a seat in the House of Lords and to serve on a front bench without ever having been democratically elected (yes, I know that the same is true of government ministers, and I'm no happier about that)
[hat tip: transpero.net]
She had believed that her detention statistics were correct at the time she wrote the Awaaz article, she said, adding: “I don’t believe that I have to justify everything I write, line by line and word by word.
“It may offend people sometimes but I will speak from the heart and speak the truth. And if speaking the truth is upsetting community relations, then I hold my hands up to that."
So, she may spout rubbish, and it may upset community relations, but she believes in the essential truth of it. I wonder how much 'truth' she will speak in her new role?
Still she was on the Cameron A-list for Commons seats, but the latest elevation will mean she gets a peerage instead. So yet another person will get a seat in the House of Lords and to serve on a front bench without ever having been democratically elected (yes, I know that the same is true of government ministers, and I'm no happier about that)
[hat tip: transpero.net]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
