GLC View

Why Labour supporters should examine their consciences

2010-01-14T17:00:00.002Z

I think that many good and worthy people beating the drum for New Labour ahead of the election must be doing so even though their hearts are not in it. Maybe you can forgive and forget about taking the country into Iraq. Maybe you can overlook the insult to our intelligence that was the debate over 42 days and all the other assaults on our civil liberties. Perhaps you can ignore the mismanagement of the economy that left us dangerously exposed to the finance and property sectors and with unsustainable levels of personal debt, with the government all the while drunkenly spending like the rising tax receipts could never go into reverse.

I am not so one-eyed as to suggest there have been no successes: the NHS has certainly come a long way and schools have had a badly needed infusion of cash. These successes have, however, come at a cost, and for each one of those, there are so many more failures that we can point to. Energy? A looming energy gap. Environment? A yawning chasm between Labour’s rhetoric and its achievements. Defence? Characterised by a penny pinching, incompetent bureaucracy. Housing? Continuing chronic under supply of new housing. Immigration? A laissez-faire approach that has led to the build up of social pressures and public resentment. I could go on and on.

Maybe you are able to overlook all of that and focus only on the successes. However, surely the most ardent New Labour supporter' heart must sink when it reads that Britain now educates a smaller proportion of its 15 to 19 year-olds and its 20 to 29 year-olds than it did in 1995, an achievement shared only by one other country (France for the former and Portugal for the latter) among the 30 OECD members.

Perhaps all this proves is that governing is hard. I am sure that if this government could turn back the clocks, they would do things differently in many policy areas. But they cannot. The pact New Labour made with the capitalist devil when they took office has unravelled as the tax receipts have dried up in recession. Faced with the unthinkable prospect of cuts in public spending, their raison d’etre has been taken away and they look and sound defeated. The Conservatives, for their part, having been promising (pre-recession) largely to continue New Labour spending patterns if they won the election, also now sound lost and in search of a convincing narrative.

I’m not going to insult you by saying you should switch allegiance – that would be ridiculous. But do your conscience a favour and don’t go out and campaign for a party that you know you have run out of patience with. When it comes to election time, do the country a favour - stay at home and let the other lot have a go. After all, in all probability they too will foul things up at some point and someone else will take their place at the helm.

Confessions of a Speaker's Wife

2009-12-04T11:30:00.003Z

Some shocking confessions there from a would-be MP…she confesses to being both a member of the Young Conservatives AND an advertising executive. Either one of those should pretty much disqualify her from holding any sort of public office, in my view. At least all the drinking and shagging will mean she will have no trouble fitting in at Westminster, should she make it that far.

Perhaps she will, like her husband, embark on her own political journey, except this time in reverse…from New Labour identikit class war/equality warrior to genteel Lady Bercow of the Shire. Give it time…and a few years ensconced in a grace and favour apartment and, who knows? But let’s not damn her for sins not yet committed...unlike her damning of Cameron for potentially sending his kids to private school, like that is a crime in the first place.

I suppose her noteriety will earn her some votes out of some Jordan-esque misguided sense of feminist solidarity. She will doubtless horrify the Labour Party rank and file...a Jonny come lately urban champagne socialist as far removed from the labour movement as it is possible to be. If Mrs Bercow represents the future of the Labour Party, they have bigger problems than we ever thought.

BBC and the BNP: what were they thinking?

2009-10-24T13:36:00.001+01:00

I have no idea what the makers of Question Time were thinking when they decided to make Nick Griffin the focus of the programme. Forget the nonsense they are bleating about the audience deciding the questions – the programme’s executives decide which questions get asked and which don’t. Are we really expected to believe not a single audience member wanted to ask anything about the economy?

Perhaps they thought that Griffin’s views would not stand up to an hour’s scrutiny from someone as intellectual as David Dimbleby and the assembled political elite. Maybe they expected him to crumble before their brilliance, to roll over and surrender, thus enabling them to lay claim to being the clever sods that slayed the BNP dragon once and for all.

Yes, at times Griffin looked and sounded shaken; yes, at times it was obvious that he does not hold blacks, asians, muslims and jews in high regard, despite his protestations. But he did not crumble or recant. Instead, he is now able to portray himself as a victim, a political outsider campaigning on issues the liberal elite refuse to engage on…which of course plays right into their hands.

Do you really think a BNP supporter in Burnley or Stoke watching Question Time is going to be put off from supporting them in the future? Nothing that Griffin said or had said about him on Thursday night will have come as a surprise. The BNP now have plenty of ammunition to support their contention that Westminster just does not want to discuss the downsides of immigration, refuses to countenance that multiculturalism might not have worked out so well for some and that they have been abandoned and marginalized by mainstream politicians.

One final thought: isn’t it incredibly inconsistent for the BBC to have centred the programme around Griffin? After all, over one million voters decided to support the BNP at the last Euro elections. For good or ill, they exercised their democratic right. Having recognised this fact by inviting Griffin onto Question Time in the first place, they then proceeded to ignore it totally by refusing to run the programme as normal and allow Griffin to air the views that presumably persuaded all those people to vote for him. Inconsistent and patronising. If I was a BNP supporter, I would be feeling mightily pissed off and even more alienated from the mainstream. It is likely that, far from slaying the dragon, the BBC may have made matters considerably worse.

The poor always pay in the end

2009-10-07T10:31:00.007+01:00

There has been an extraordinary amount of gibberish written about David Cameron's speech to the Conservative Conference last week. Perhaps the most common deliberate misconception put about by critics has been that David Cameron believes that the financial crisis was "caused by big government". He in fact said nothing of the sort:

"Why is our economy broken? Not just because Labour wrongly thought they'd abolished boom and bust. But because government got too big, spent too much and doubled the national debt"

To paraphrase, if Labour hadn't spent all the money whilst the economy was booming, we wouldn't be having to deal with such an impossibly large national debt now.

One of the reasons the UK is in such a relatively poor position (compared to, for example, Germany) is the high proportion of government revenues hitherto provided by the hard hit finance and property sectors. Waiting on a resurgence in tax revenues alone to fix the gaping hole in the public finances could prove a long wait indeed.

There is a sense at large in the popular consciousness that the goverment has become bloated, living beyond its means and needs to be reined in. This doesn't just relate to cuts in public expenditure but also means reversing the well meaning but ultimately anti-social upwards march of the state as surrogate parent. The fact is that the national debt is so huge that it would take cuts of humungous proportions to make a difference. It seems unlikely that the British population, whilst in the mood for a bout of belt tightening, would actually countenance the reduction in public services this would entail.

Instead, both the government and the opposition are proposing to snip away at the margins of public expenditure and chase after apocryphal efficiency savings. What else can be done? In a global economy, trying to tax multinational corporations or high net worth individuals will simply result in them departing for friendlier shores. The proposed levy on financial transactions will similarly lead to the exodus from London of hedge funds and investment firms, unless applied uniformly across major markets.

So, as always, the burden will most likely fall on those unable to escape. Consumption taxes (VAT, cigarette, alcohol and fuel etc) will therefore most likely rise once recovery has been secured to try and plug the gap. They are hard to avoid and fairly stable but tend to fall more heavily on the poor than the rich. It may be wealthy bankers and inept politicians that cause the crisis but the clean up is always paid for by the poor in the end.

The return of politics

2009-10-05T18:41:00.003+01:00

Whisper it quietly but politics can, at times, be a little….boring. After 12 long years of a Labour Government, you might forgive politicians and commentators alike of a little fatigue with the daily Westminsters comings and goings. Mix in a little summer sunshine and the intrusion of ‘normal’ life (a bit of work, having a baby) and that explains the long radio silence of this blog.

However, with the conference season in full swing and the starting gun for the general election having sounded, this blog is BACK. And what’s more, I see I have been added to the wonderful and extremely useful House of Twits front bench as a Tory blogger, no less.

That feels slightly odd as I have never viewed myself as a true blue Conservative, finding the party’s traditional patrician and unfeeling character a total turn off. The party’s embrace of David Cameron has, however, allowed me at least temporarily to put aside my habitual dislike of both major parties. What I can say is that as long as the Conservatives stick to their current approach they will have my support; although not necessarily my trust and it absolutely won’t be unswerving devotion to the cause.

I am aware that the threat of the withdrawal of one insignificant blogger’s support will hardly have the Conservative brass quaking in their shoes. That, however, is not the point. For if they lose the support of someone like me then it is a sure sign that will be surrendering the hard won middle ground that Cameron and his cronies have fought so hard to claim.

Anyway, my message to the Conservative conference is this: please, please, please try to act normal and not like a bunch of disgruntled country squires out on a seaside jolly. Hide the old duffers at the back and try to sound firm but fair without being triumphal. Pretend Europe does not exist as far as possible. Then just sit back and soak up the column inches.

Three reasons why the City should fear a Chancellor Balls

2009-06-03T07:51:00.007+01:00

If business and the City think a Chancellor Balls will be good for them, they should think again.

Heady times. Its 2006. The City credit boom is in full swing. Ed Balls is City Minister, winning friends and influencing people by championing the banks and preaching the virtues of his light touch regulatory system. Champagne corks pop and Ed feels like the king of the world. Its no wonder then that the FT reminds us this morning that business and the City have 'fond memories' of Ed's time as City Minister.

The FT and the media in general have decided on the back of this past cosy relationship that business should be pleased if Ed Balls is allowed to fulfil his destiny (in his eyes, anyway) and become Chancellor in the forthcoming Cabinet reshuffle.

In reality, the City should not be so quick to open its arms to Mr Balls, for three reasons. One, obviously, the world is a very different place and, ever the politician, Mr Balls has been quick to lambast his former banking friends for their contribution to the recession. To be fair, he has also sort of acknowledged that his system was at fault (In retrospect we all underestimated the risks and we were nowhere near tough enough...).

The second reason is that since his stint as City Minister, Balls has spent much of the time cosying up to the left wing of the Labour Party. As Minister for Children, Schools and Families he has put into reverse the modernising agenda begun under Tony Blair, ousting Lord Adonis and putting restrictions on new foundation schools. Balls is said to be fond of drawing dividing lines between his agenda and that of his opponents. Having clearly placed himself on the side of a 'statist', interventionist government, it will be all the harder for him to row back from that position if he is made Chancellor.

The third reason is that given the state of the Labour Party in the polls and the proximity of the next election, he (and Gordon) will feel they have little to lose by swinging for the fences. Populist measures will be the order of the day - expect plenty of anti-banker rhetoric, scapegoating, headline-grabbing etc.

So, a Chancellor Balls should give business and the City pause for thought. He is likely to be a very different animal in 2009/10 than he would have been in 2006/7. It is ironic that, just like his master, Balls will be handed the one position he has always coveted at the worst possible time, in the depths of the worst recession in living memory and with mere months to go before his government is ejected from office.

V or U? Brown gambling it all on shape of recovery

2009-05-22T11:14:00.006+01:00

Labour have bet the farm on the recovery being V shaped

There's a tug of war going on at the moment in the markets. Bulls, hoping for a classic V shaped recovery, point to the slowing pace of decline pretty much everywhere as destocking comes to an end and the credit markets begin to thaw. Bears, fearing a U shaped recovery or worse, worry that the rally in evidence since March has been overdone, that recovery is still a long way off and that the expansionary policies put to work to dig the global economy out of its hole will necessarily result in the brakes having to be slammed on hard in due course.

Alistair Darling's Budget in April may have proposed what seemed - at the time - an almost embarrasingly over-optimistic growth set of growth forecasts but now, with the benefit of hindsight, they make more sense. Back in April, we did not have the benefit of all the data evidencing the slowing pace of decline around the world. Whilst the recovery in stockmarkets was underway by then, the doomsayers prophesising another Great Depression were still very much in evidence.

Exactly one month on and the landscape feels quite different. Despite the reality of continuing job losses and weak economic activity, the debate has moved on to discussing when, not if, the upturn will arrive. This suits Labour just fine as it is a necessary precondition for their growth forecasts to prove true...the first part of their forecasts require the economy effectively to begin growing again in Q4 09 and it now looks as though that might well be possible, all be it anaemic growth.

The second part of their growth forecasts (+1.25% in 2010 vs the IMF's -0.4%) corresponds neatly with the debate over the V or U shaped recovery. If it is U shaped, then the Treasury's borrowing forecasts will need to be revised upwards yet again and Brown, Darling et al will be whipped out of Westmister. If it is V shaped, however, cue smugness all round and plenty of humble pie from, well, pretty much everyone except New Labour supporters.

Will a V shaped recovery be enough to win New Labour the General Election? Maybe not, but it may serve to avoid the sorts of apocalyptic drubbing the opinion polls currently envisage. So, Darling and co. had absolutely nothing to lose by being optimistic. Seen in that light, the growth forecasts no longer seem so illogical. Desperate, yes, but illogical, no.

Common sense 1, Government 0

2009-05-18T12:28:00.009+01:00

Under fire and under resourced: fewer soldiers will die, thanks to our tradition of a free and independent judiciary.

[First post for a while...been a bit preoccupied with some work stuff but now have more time on my hands and lots and lots of issues to be cynical about. I know MPs expenses is the issue du jour but, hell, that's being done to death elsewhere...]

Sometimes I wonder why anyone wants to be a soldier. Sent to fight in far off lands for dubious causes by a government that seems only partially interested in their welfare and then largely ignored by the public, save for the odd bit of clapping while they march past or the handful of clowns who shout abuse at them in the name of islam.

The armed forces are, of course, staffed by honourable men and women striving to serve their country and keep the rest of safe to go about our daily lives free from getting shot or having our own limbs blown off by roadside bombs.

So it raised a little cheer this morning when I read that our judiciary was rallying to their cause by ruling that the government did indeed have to apply the Human Rights Act to its soldiers on the battlefield. You can read more about it here but suffice it to say that the government does not come across very well in seeking to block the aims of the families of dead and maimed soldiers bringing the case, namely that our boys and girls fighting over there deserve to have the government legally obliged to do everything they can to stop them getting killed. That means proper kit in sufficient quantities to support the job that the armed forces are being asked to do.

The government (boooo!) will doubtless appeal the case to the House of Lords but, for the moment, its score one for the good guys.

UK bailout: timid Brown didn't go far enough

2008-10-09T14:40:00.003+01:00

The problem with the bailout was that it didn't go far enough. Now we've had a chance to digest the news, it is clear that the plan has generally been well received. Stockmarkets may have continued to gyrate and Libor didn't immediately fall (although the overnight rate did subsequently fall dramatically) but this was as much a reflection of international events as well as a realisation of just how bad things were.

However, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Abbey have already stated that they have no intention of making use of the £50bn lifebelt on offer from the government. Lloyds TSB, Nationwide and Barclays may or may not choose to use it - the vague, threatening noises about limiting dividends and executive pay will no doubt give them pause for thought. These banks continue to be answerable only to their current shareholders who doubtless would prefer their boards to continue searching under every unturned stone in the search for fresh capital before having to turn to the taxpayer.

The government should have been even bolder by announcing that it would take the power to force banks that it (in conjunction with the FSA) considered to be under capitalised to accept the taxpayers' money through the issuance of preference shares. By giving banks the option to use it or not, uncertainty still lingers over the banking sector. The banks should have been told effectively to negotiate the terms of a capital injection with the government now or have terms of the government's choosing forced upon you. That would have drawn a definite line under the issue.

Moreover, it seems strange that the government seems not, after all, to have insisted upon being issued with warrants to accompany its preference shares as without them, there is no way for the taxpayer to share in any upside, if and when it comes.

I am betting that the £50bn capital injection which has dominated the headlines will prove a damp squib, remaining largely untapped. What will have a far greater impact will be the £250bn of underwriting guarantees the government will give to participating banks. This is indeed ground breaking and is more likely to begin to ungum the interbank lending system than any other measure suggested thus far.

It may be nitpicking to suggest Brown and co. should have gone even further but in their timidity they have missed an opportunity. With all the headlines about nationalisation and political failure that resulted anyway, they may as well have been hung for the proverbial sheep as for the lamb. The banks should have been forced to take the taxpayer shilling.

Cameron tactical error in not going for jugular

2008-10-08T15:38:00.002+01:00

David Cameron made a wrong choice in PMQs today in not criticising the government in a time of crisis. We are not in a war and the government is not immune from criticism. The Tories could have lent their support to the bailout plan and still kept Gordon Brown on the hook.

Today's announcement of an injection of up to £50bn in UK banks represents an extraordinary and abject failure of New Labour's management of the economy. It is the job of politicians -at the very least - to create a stable framework for the private sector to do its job of wealth creation.

There is absolutely no point in Gordon Brown to claim this crisis has blown in from abroad when it was they who allowed the culture of debt to develop to such dangerous proportions, when it was they who designed and maintained the regulatory framework that was supposed to ring alarm bells , when it was they who were only to happy to accept the plaudits for the long period of economic growth that the credit bubble brought about, when it was they who accepted the donations and hospitality of the millionaires the system created.

The public want some blood in return for their cash. There is palpable anger on the streets that this situation has been allowed to develop. David Cameron's job as leader of the opposition was first and foremost to express that anger to Brown and his cohorts who were sitting smugly on their benches as if the problems had nothing to do with them. It was as if the partial nationalisation of our banking system was just another policy announcement and not the turning upside down of the economic and financial system that has sustained this country for the last 30 years.

Do they not realise the calamity that this represents for the country? The shame and stigma of being brought so low will remain with us for a very very long time. Our political capital around and influence in far flung corners, where we for so long were considered to punch above our weight, will have been diminished, probably permanently. Cameron could and should have let the PM know that a day of reckoning was coming for him and his party..not to do so was an error of judgement and let Brown off the hook.

£50bn bailout - first step on road to recovery

2008-10-08T15:10:00.004+01:00

I don't know, you turn your back for a couple of weeks and look what happens. The entire world sems to be heading down the financial gurgler and there doesn't seem to be much anyone can do about it.

Or is there? At last, Western governments have moved out of the denial phase and accepted that we are well and truly in it up to our necks. Central bankers and politicians have finally started to think strategically about how to deal with the crisis, ending their previous haphazard firefighting approach which could be likened to trying to kill the mythical monster, the Hydra, which would annoyingly grow back two heads if you ever managed successfully to lop one off.

The US $700 bn bail out and the UK £50 bn bail out, although different approaches, will not of themselves cure what ails the interbank lending market. But they do each represent a necessary prerequisite if the sick patient is to recover. As long as there is a chance that a bank might go bust, no other bank will lend to it. Remove the cause of the lack of confidence by recapitalising (or in the case of the US, by excising the impaired assets) and, in theory, the banks should be happy to start lending to each other again, and at more sensible rates.

Of course, there is no guarantee that banks will avail themselves of the capital that the UK government is making available. The conditions that will be attached to any assistance will undoubtedly cause the bank executives to think twice (not least restrictions on their ability to pay themselves and their emnployees). But at least the assistance is there as a last resort and interbank lenders should know that no counterparty need go bust for want of capital.

In the meantime, of course, the desperate deleveraging by the banking sector has started hitting the wider economy, rippling outwards in a now unstoppable wave. Credit is being tightened and new loans refused which will inevitably lead to companies, personal borrowers and individuals who have been borrowing at the margins of what their revenues and incomes could sustain going into administration and bankruptcy. Unemployment and home repossessions are the inevitable consequence. Sweeping up that mess will be a whole different challenge.

We are moving into the second phase of this crisis - the policies proposed so far may or may not do the trick...but at least they are a step in the right direction.

Credit crunch - the end of the beginning

2008-09-19T10:11:00.003+01:00

So, that's it. After the most extraordinary week that anyone can remember in the financial markets, the US government has finally surrendered. In announcing that they are to try and create a government sponsored entity to take toxic assets off of investors' hands, they are finally admitting that the current system has failed.

Despite trying to do everything to avoid the creation of moral hazard (the encouragement of irresponsible behaviour in market participants by allowing them to perceive that the goverment will always be on hand to bail them out if things get bad enough), this new toxic GSE represents the ultimate bail out.

It was, however, the lesser of two evils and hence the logical thing to do. As Former Fed chief Paul Volcker put it:

"Until there is a new mechanism in place to remove this decaying tissue from the
system, the infection will spread, confidence will deteriorate further, and we
will have to live through the mother of all credit contractions. This
contraction will undercut the financial system, and with it, the broader
economy. It will in the short run require serious money. But a failure to act
boldly would cost the taxpayer and the country far more. The pathology of this
crisis is that unless you get ahead of it and deal with it from strength, it
devours the weakest link in the chain and then moves on to the next link. Crisis
times require stern measures."

It could be argued that this move was inevitable ever since the decision was taken to nationalise Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In taking the decision to cut the shareholders loose, the US government effectively closed the door on troubled institutions raising fresh equity capital in the future. What would be the point for an investor, if the US goverment was just going to step in and expropriate your investment if things didn't go the right way?

The US Treasury should not be criticised for what they did - they needed to make a decision in the heat of the moment and, faced with the systemic collapse that the bankruptcy of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae or AIG might have caused, they did what they thought was best. They then let Lehman Bros go to the wall, showing that when the system was not threatened, there would be no intervention.

When yesterday's firebreak (the $180 billion liquidity injection) failed to narrow the interbank lending spreads sufficiently and fears started to multiply over the previously rock solid money market funds, they realised what they had to do.

The creation of the "toxic GSE" is, in effect, the pushing of the big red button on the corner of the desk. It will push all the poisoned assets held across the spectrum onto the US national debt, left for future generations of US taxpayers to foot the bill. Fortunately, even the estimated $1 trillion of additional debt that this will entail will only push the US ratio of debt to GDP up by approximately 10%, to 55% - still lower than that of Germany, France, Italy or Japan.

Nobody should doubt, however, that this represents the US government running up the white flag with the biggest bail out of all time. As long as it actually gets approved (no mean feat so close to an election), we will never know how bad things would have got without it - but let's just be grateful that we may never have to find out.

Why do Spurs never learn?

2008-09-15T21:56:00.006+01:00

I have held off commenting, so far, on the lamentable start to the season made by my football team, Tottenham Hotspur. Tonight's loss at home to Aston Villa, however, presents undeniable proof that Spurs have gone backwards since last season.

Juande Ramos seems a manager well suited for the famous Tottenham tradition of looking attractive going forward but lacking spine and bite at the back. Only a fool would pretend that the summer's transfer dealings had left the team looking a stronger side, with the sale of our two most skillful attacking players, Berbatov and Keane, looking especially suspect.

Oh, but their sale was an excellent bit of business, I have heard more than one fan say. Maybe individually each deal made financial sense for the club's shareholders, but collectively they represented a colossal failure of nerve by the board. In deciding to take the money, they have shown up their lack of ambition and the late, panicky buy of the unproven (in Premiership terms) Roman Pavluychenko does nothing to dispel that feeling. Spurs came across having no proper planning in place and amateurish.

Yes, they have spent big in the close season but which player, other than Luka Modric, really has that feeling of Champions League quality about him? With Ledley King sadly only to be relied upon for a game now and then, where were the central defensive reinforcements that were so badly needed? The fact is, with so many players once again coming in and going out, it will be all but impossible for this new team to begin to gel any time soon. Aston Villa look a far better bet to make the Big Four into the Big Five...the reason? Consistency. Martin O'Neill has now been in the job for 3 years, fashioning a young, dynamic team and sticking with it. We Spurs fans can only dream of such luxuries.

Another "transitional" season beckons for Tottenham.

Post Office hell

2008-09-08T16:18:00.002+01:00

A funny thought ocurred to me as I queued out the door and down the street at one of my now not-so-local post offices, in Hampstead. I thought that maybe, just maybe, closing down local post offices wasn't actually such a good idea?

15 minutes later as I spy the front of the queue a mere 4 people ahead of me I have lost the will to live. When I eventually get to the front, I am grumpy with the poor unfortunate that has to serve me and came out thinking how awful the whole process was and cursing this government.

The Royal Mail may have saved themselves a bit of cash but they have lost whatever goodwill people still felt towards them. Next the posties will be going on strike again. Surely some enterprising private company can come up with an alternative business model that can fill the yawning service gap left by our public postal service?

Harman's at it again

2008-09-05T10:13:00.004+01:00

Her surprise election as Deputy Labour leader must have given Harriet Harman a shot of confidence. In the last few months we have seen a steady output of what can only be politely described as 'old fashioned' feminist legislative proposals from her department.

Now she has revived her plan to criminalise prostitution, using a highly questionable survey to boost her case. Apparently, a government-commissioned poll (I wonder who commissioned it?) by Ipsos-Mori revealed that 58 per cent of people said they would support legislation making it illegal to pay for sex if it helped stop the trafficking of women and children into the UK. Harman has today pounced on this as evidence that the public backs her campaign.

This is disingenuous. Does she think we are idiots? The key is the "if". "If" it could be shown that wearing lime green underpants would stop global warming, I would bet that a fair few people could be persuaded to don them. The trouble is, there is no evidence that making prostitution would do anything to stop sex trafficking. In fact, there is a case for saying that it would make the situation worse, by driving prostitution and the trafficking that feeds it even deeper underground, thus making women more vulnerable to violence.

Harriet certainly has been busy lately. First there was the Equalities Bill in June of this year that forced public sector employers to publish their so-called 'gender pay gap' and allowed firms to discriminate in favour of women when making employment decisions.

In July she proposed that women who kill abusive partners could escape a life sentence if they could show that they were responding only to a “fear of serious violence”, while men would no longer be able to claim “provocation” from sexual jealousy or nagging, as a defence.

In August she said plans were 'well under way' to force all companies that bid for government contracts (30% of companies in the UK) to disclose their gender pay gap and to allow selection decisions to be based upon the figure where other factors are equal.

Also in August she came out in favour of plans to double the length of time (to one year) employers must keep open a job for a woman on maternity leave. Currently they have only to offer an equivalent position if the original one is no longer available.

Palin's speech was good but Republicans should still worry

2008-09-04T14:02:00.006+01:00

You couldn't help but be impressed with Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican convention last night. The speech was generally witty and effective, with plenty of well aimed barbs at Barack Obama. According to The Times, the liberal media is terrified whilst the conservative media is swooning. Amidst the euphoria, however, Republican supporters may yet have cause to pause and think. Here are 3 reasons:

1. The Republican campaign pre-Palin focused on making the election a referendum on Obama - his character, his experience and his suitability for the Presidency. That seemed to meet with some success. By choosing as a running mate someone with their own colourful back story and similar level of experience, the Republicans will find it much harder to fight the election on those grounds of their own choosing and will increasingly find themselves dragged into a discussion on policy and the performance of their party under George W Bush.

2. Palin's selection has been widely touted as a gamble, due to her relative inexperience. However, the real selection gamble is nothing to do with experience. For McCain to win the election, he has to do well in a relatively small number (10-12) of important swing states. The voters he has to target there are ordinary Joes - middle of the road, blue collar types - who are unlikely to share Palin's hardcore conservative views. So the gamble is that the choice of Palin may help to energise and get out the base Republican vote (for whom McCain has never been one of their own) but it may equally turn off the crucial swing voters that McCain will need to seal the deal.

3. There is an obvious danger that Palin herself will trip up. I thought she came across as a little shrill last night and, by all accounts, she is headstrong and shoots first, asks questions later. This tendency, together with her lack of experience in national policy, may be her downfall when it comes to the televised debates. Then there is always the possibility of fresh revelations about her past.

I was previously (that is, before this Presidential campaign) a fan of McCain. I liked his maverick status, his willingness to take on vested interests, to stand up to his party. I increasingly feel that he has decided to make a deal with the devil to try and secure the top spot as all his moves since he secured the nomination have been towards the right. The appointment of Palin in a cynical move to appease the Republican base have left me even more firmly rooting for Obama, I wonder how many US voters feel the same?

Sir Ian Blair - could he be more pompous?

2008-09-04T13:26:00.004+01:00

What kind of a pompous windbag feels the need to make a televised statement to the press in repsonse to a press rumour that he might lose his job? Sir Ian Blair has shown himself to be totally unsuited to his role...vain, self-regarding and unable to recognise any of his own faults. He quoted Mark Twain, for heaven's sake. Doesn't he see that it is totally meaningless (and possibly self-defeating) for him to be the person denying the rumour? For if the rumour is true, he is hardly likely to be in the loop, is he?

I, like the rest of the public, lost confidence in Sir Ian the day he went on television and incorrectly stated that his police force had shot dead a terrorist at Brixton. Whether he knew this not to the case or not does not matter, he is either a lier or allowed a seriously disfunctional system to develop. He should have carried the can. His continued presence at the head of the Met undermines public confidence in the police and contibutes to the generally low opinion that the public hold the police in. How many crimes have gone unreported as a result? How many decent officers attacked?

For one so caught up in politics, Ian Blair also showed a remarkable lack of awareness in rounding off his statement with a flourish: "I've a job to do and I'm getting on with it." Sound familiar?

Am I being conned by Cameron?

2008-09-03T09:47:00.008+01:00

I had a dreadful thought this morning. There have been some signs of late that David Cameron's Tories are not all that I thought them to be. I am as fed up with New Labour as the next man - sick of the sight of them, in fact. I know that they mean well, with their initiatives and targets, trying to help us and keep us on the right track. Its just that they have gone too far, with petty restrictions on everyday life and layer upon layer of additional red tape. They have also splurged on public services and welfare to the point that we have now run out of money just when we need it most.

I actually voted for Michael Howard's Tories at the last election...but I felt quite dirty doing it. That was the first time for me, having previously felt that both mainstream choices did not actively deserve my vote, for varying reasons. Getting out of bed to vote for a third party seemed to represent just a waste of valuable sleeping time. I told my other half that I was voting Conservative to 'give Tony Blair a bloody nose' after his insistence on going to war in Iraq but, secretly, it gave me a little tingle. Hmm, I thought, it feels vaguely satisfying to express my democratic right in entirely a selfish manner (being one of the fortunates with more to lose than to gain from income redistribution).

Now the Tories have David Cameron at the helm, I have no such qualms. He allows me to express the same democratic right but without the same 'conscience deficit' that I suffered last time around. With his concern for social breakdown, love of green causes and general all round reasonableness, how could someone like me (middle class, mid-30's) not like him? I even thought about donating some cash.

Lately, however, I've begun to have my doubts...what if I am being conned? Labour supporters keep banging on about how the Tory leopard hasn't changed its spots and, if they are let back into power, all the old tendencies will re-emerge. Sleazy, braying, uncaring posh white blokes all saying 'do as I say, not as I do' will come leaping out of the closet to take charge. I can't see that happening but there have been a few pointers that the Tories might not be sticking to the script.

An alarm bell started to ring faintly when Michael Gove started getting all preachy about absent fathers (and, bizarrely, lads mags). Then they seemingly abdicated responsibility for dealing with the nation's obesity problem to our not-at-all conflicted food manufacturers and supermarkets. Then there is the fact that their spokespeople all still seem to be very white, very male and very posh. They didn't help themselves by replacing the populist David Davis with Dominic Grieve with another very posh sounding white guy. I don't have a problem with that (best person for the job and all that), as long as they are saying sensible, inclusive things. But when the doubts begin to surface, this aspect immediately seems to become a liability again.

The latest shock to my system - and the thing that prompted me to write this - is the weird way in which some otherwise sensible sounding commentators seem to have come out in defence of the Republican Party in general and, in particular, their appointment of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate. I am thinking, in particular, of Iain Dale (here) and Melanie Philips, who I read here this morning. Now, they may desire to live in a country run by creationist, anti-abortion, tax-breaks-for-the-rich-loving, shoot first ask questions later politicians, but I certainly don't. Obama may not be perfect but come on...the Republicans?

All this taken individually might be seen as inconsequential but, taken together, could be construed as a pattern. And its a pattern I don't like. Is David Cameron just a beard for a still frothing at the mouth, red in tooth and claw Tory party? Antipathy for New Labour is running so deep that it looks like they will get their hands on the levers of power come what may. But the selection of John McCain and his overturning of a seemingly impregnable lead for the Democrats should serve to put them on notice not to get complacent. Meanwhile, I'd like some reassurance please.

You can't blame the Government for trying

2008-09-02T11:03:00.004+01:00

To be fair to Gordon Brown, he was going to be criticised whatever he did. If he had waited until the housing market bottomed out at a new equilibrium point he would have been damned for sitting on his hands. Now that he has scraped around and found a bit of new cash, he is being roundly criticised anyway. Some are accusing him of not going far enough, pointing out that the £600m cost of the stamp duty measure is only a small fraction of the annual stamp duty take of £13 - 14 billion.

Others are saying that it makes no sense to try and prop up falling prices or encourage those at the marginal end of affordable borrowing to get on the housing ladder. Economically this is hard to argue against but it is the Government's job to help people, after all. Yes they may be misguided in this attempt but at least they are trying to do something. The raft of measures introduced do at least look as if someone, somewhere, has been thinking hard about the problems.

When the dust settles, however, I think the most telling criticism might compare the cost of government action to support the housing markets in the US and the UK (in proportion to GDP) and conclude that it is precisely because the UK has so little fiscal room for manoeuvre that our Government has had to try and be so innovative.

US GDP: $14,312.5 bn-----Housing help: $300 bn = 2%
UK GDP: £1,410 bn------- Housing help: £1.6 bn = 0.1%

N.B. this is being kind as I am including the estimated £1bn of UK help that represents existing spending plans brought forward. Excluding this the UK figure is 0.04% of GDP.

Hey teacher! Leave those kids alone.

2008-09-01T16:53:00.005+01:00

Ed Balls speaking today at the launch of the abominable Early Years Foundation Stage, seemingly launched despite the protestations of practically every leading childcare expert in the UK:

"I can't think of any more important job I could have than making sure that the children in our country are equipped to learn going into primary school and can get the qualifications they need to be happy, to have fun and to do well in life."

Look, we know you mean well and have thought deeply about it, but this just isn't the way to go about it. If you want them to be happy and have fun, try leaving them the @#@# alone and not setting them 69 different targets to be achieved by the age of 5. Whatever happened to the light touch, hey?

It is Brown & co that sleepwalked into UK energy crisis

2008-08-31T12:35:00.009+01:00

'No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe,' says Gordon Brown in today's Observer. Urgent action is promised to prevent Britain 'sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners'.

I'm not sure where Gordon's been for the last 11 years but in case he hadn't noticed, his Government has presided over the development of exactly the situation he is now promising to prevent. Where has he been? For years now the Government has been warned that the rapid decline in North Sea oil production would leave the UK dangerously exposed to the vagaries of the international energy market. The North Sea currently produces sufficient oil and gas to supply two-thirds of the UK's needs but this output will decline so rapidly that by only 2010 this proportion will have declined to roughly half.

Worse, UK energy supply is controlled ultimately by French and German-owned entities (E.on, Npower, EDF) whose resistance to liberalising their own markets is likely lead to them hoarding energy supplies to protect their own countries from the impact of a cold winter. You may recall that when this last happened, in 2005, energy prices spiked and the UK shivered.

France and Germany have been steadfast in their following of their own national interests when it comes to energy. The aforementioned energy companies control both the supply and distribution in their own countries, limiting competition and keeping prices ultimately higher than they need be.

Moreover, France and Germany have merrily undermined their EU partners by striking bilateral deals with Russia to try and secure their own energy supply. Too late they may have realised post-Georgia that by acceding to Russia's divide and conquer tactics they have decreased their long term prospects for energy security. Love or hate the EU, it can hardly be denied that the UK and its European partners stand a better chance of negotiating successfully with Russia (and other suppliers) if they stand together.

So Gordon Brown can shake his fist at Russia all he wants. He might serve the UK's interests a little better if he were to turn his ire on Sarkozy and Merkel. Our present situation also makes the Government's dragging of feet over the issue of new nuclear power stations all the more inexcusable. Its no good promising to prevent us sleepwalking into energy dependence...its already happened.

How well should a Presidential candidate know his VP?

2008-08-31T10:21:00.003+01:00

Everyone has been shocked at John McCain's pick for VP. Call it a cynical move if you want (because it is) but it shows the Republican candidate still deserves his reputation as a maverick.

On the plus side, Palin's conservative credentials will go down well with Republican voters and go some way to shore up McCain's perceived lukewarm anti-abortion stance. Her plucky backstory of mother of five's meteoric rise to the top may attract some voters who otherwise would have gone for Hilary Clinton. On the downside, her inexperience and the tokenism of her selection may repel as many swing voters as it does attract.

The most amazing revelation to me though is that McCain has only met his running mate once, and that six months ago. Does it matter that he hardly knows her? I suppose his team will have briefed him but that cannot make up for getting to know a potential candidate personally. Palin's selection is truly a gamble but does at least keeps the Democrats guessing and hence on their toes.

Would you microchip your child if you could?

2008-08-30T14:31:00.003+01:00

If you could have your child implanted with a tracking device no bigger than a grain of rice, would you? With violence and kidnappings in Mexico rising to endemic levels, an enterprising company called Xega has launched a tracking device "no bigger than a kernel of rice", according to its marketing, that can be injected into the arm and forgotten about.

They are being a little disingenuous because, the technology still being limited, the user also has to carry a slightly larger GPS transmitter on their person. As a parent of young child myself, I have (with the Maddie Mcann case fresh in our minds) frequently wondered whether it would be ethical and/or sensible to use a microchip implant to try and prevent a calamity if the worse should happen.

Its all very well to sit and tut at the invasion of the child's privacy, the unwarranted worrying of the parents and the loss of trust in people that such a course of action implies. But I will bet that every single parent of a taken child would have turned back the clock and utilised one of these devices if they had the option. I think, on balance, were the technology discrete enough and suitably practicable, I would opt to use it.

Given this, maybe I shouldn't complain so much at the ever increasing surveillance and monitoring of our daily lives by the state, given a further boost today by the revelation that local councils have started to advertise for 'Environment Volunteers' to report on "waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles". Its OK when I'm the one doing the watching, I guess, rather than the one being watched.

How can the NHS have a £1.75 billion surplus?

2008-08-29T15:51:00.003+01:00

The NHS is a monster. It has so many moving parts that I defy you to find anyone who truly understand how it all works. As a test, see if you can square these three data points:

1. Despite 11 years of Labour pumping money into the NHS, we now have the largest gap in life expectancy between rich and poor since Victorian times, comparing unfavourably with some parts of the developing world.

2. NICE are making allocation decisions about the finite pot of NHS money and, as a result, are not sanctioning the prescription of some new drugs on the grounds that they do not meet their cost effectiveness test for each additional 'quality adjusted life year' for patients.

3. The NHS is this year forecast to make a £1.75 billion surplus in the current financial year, i.e. it will not spend all the money allocated to it.

Common sense tells you that if we have such intractable public health issues and only a certain amount of money, we should not be left with vast unspent sums, equivalent this year to 2% of the total NHS budget. Why is David Flory, director general of NHS finance, performance and operations, saying:

"This is an excellent start to the year for the NHS. A strong financial position backed by good progress on delivery will continue to ensure high quality services for patients."

How it is "excellent" that money that should be spent on patient care is not being spent? Is it too much to ask that each Primary Care Trust be given its budget at the start of each year and instructed to spend it? There should be a system of checks and balances to ensure that they do not overspend and run out of money before the year is out and any underspend should be recycled to areas of the country where it is needed.

Maybe I am being naive, I don't know. But whilst there is plenty of micropolicy coming from the politicians on the detail of healthcare, I cannot see anyone saying how they will deal with what seems to be such a fundamental flaw in the system.

The Tories can't nudge obesity crisis away

2008-08-28T11:17:00.005+01:00

Where should the line be drawn between state management of our lives and personal responsibility? This is the question I am asking myself this morning after digesting the news that the Conservatives have signalled they are against further legislation on tackling obesity and alcohol problems in favour of a voluntary code drawn up in partnership with industry.

Broadly speaking, I am in favour of reducing red tape and government interference in individual's lives. New Labour has been far too quick to enact legislation to tackle perceived problems. Viewed individually, some or indeed many of these restrictions and obligations make sense but when taken together they add up to an intolerable burden on our daily existence. A lighter touch is required and it is hoped and expected that a Conservative government would provide it.

On the face of it then, we should welcome what the Tories are saying on tackling food and drink problems. However, a light touch does not always make sense. There are some problems that are so pressing that the 'right' course of action cannot be left to dawn gradually on individuals and the Government simply has to take action. Climate change is certainly one of these. I would also argue that the future problems of obesity and care for the elderly also fall into this category.

The Conservatives are telling us that the obesity issue is an area ripe for being solved by 'nudging' people in the right direction and that they don't want to nanny people by telling them what they should and shouldn't eat. But stopping food manufacturers putting addictive levels of salt or sugar into their foods or advertising unhealthy foods to children or exercising undue influence over government decisions has nothing to do with nannying individuals. It is about stopping corporations exploiting people by knowingly selling them addictive products that directly lead them to having poor health.

It is the poorest people in society who have the least choice about what they eat and they deserve greater protection from the predatory behaviour of food manufacturers now that we understand the link between unhealthy foods and poor health. We should start with heavily restricting advertising targeted at children and banning unhealthy food and drink from schools as once the food companies have their hooks into the kids, it is extremely hard for them to break free and get into healthier habits later on.

Nudging people towards taking better decisions about their lives has a place. This is just not one of them. It is very rare that I find myself agreeing with the Government but when Ann Keen, the health minister, said "The Tories are using individual responsibility as an excuse for their lack of effective policies in this area.", I think she is right.

Treading the line between state action and individual responsibility is a difficult balancing act. The Conservatives have been bending over backwards to persuade people they are serious about tackling social problems but they will fail if they persist with pushing the line that these things can be 'nudged' out of existence. People will simply start to perceive this as an excuse for leaving business free to do what they want and that the Tories remain their old lupine selves wrapped in sheep's clothing. They need to have a re-think.

Windfall tax - the ends don't justify the means

2008-08-27T16:40:00.005+01:00

Its pretty easy to poke holes in the argument for a windfall tax on energy companies. It doesn't sound logical to react to a problem of low supply of and high demand for energy by disincentivising the companies that dig the stuff out of the ground and get it to where we need it. If the oil and gas companies are lucky enough to be in a market where demand for their product has pushed its price to record levels then that is great for them. Theory tells us we should leave them to enjoy it as, eventually, new entrants to the market, attracted by the excess profits, will arrive to bump up the supply and push prices back down again. Right?

Wrong. What we are dealing with here is a cartel. In any normal competitive market, a spiralling supply price should have lead to a price war between distributors, each of whom would have fought to stop passing on price rises to their customers to the point where their margins would be eroded to the bone. Some distributors would merge and some would go out of business, leaving the remainder with increased purchasing power to reduce the margins of the suppliers. What we have here is not a price war between distributors but, rather, record profit margins. This implies they have passed on all the supply price rises to the consumer and then some.

Why have they been able to do this? Because the suppliers and distributors are one and the same company. The European Commission has long argued that the two parts of the industry should be unbundled so that transparent pricing can be achieved but this has so far been resisted by the companies (obviously) and also by the French and German governments who - surprise surprise - play host to EdF and Eon, two of Europe's biggest power companies.

A windfall tax, then, is economically illiterate and will provide a short term fillip to those blighted by fuel poverty at the cost of a longer term solution to the supply/demand imbalance. It will also, incidentally, undermine the Government's green credentials by hampering the drive towards renewables through the artificial lowering of the cost of oil and gas. What campaigners should really be focusing their ire on is the lack of progress to energy unbundling and the naked self-interest shown by our European cousins when it suits them. If the energy companies are found to have colluded on pricing at the expense of consumers then they should face massive fines and the proceeds passed back to consumers. Just don't call it a windfall tax.

Russia crisis - someone should put a leash on Miliband

2008-08-27T10:48:00.009+01:00

What is going on at the Foreign Office? The Government seems to be getting its response to the Georgian crisis (rapidly becoming the Russian crisis) all wrong. Initially, the UK was invisible, allowing the publicity hungry Sarkozy to make the running for an EU diplomatic initiative. Our main contribution was a meaningless meeting between a holidaying David Cameron and the Georgian President.

Then, No. 10 and the Foreign Office seemed to contradict each other with David Miliband suggesting that the West should accept Georgia into NATO (if it continues on its path of democratic and economic reforms) only for Nick Brown, one of the PM's closest confidants, to say that 'he doesn't know anyone' who favours bringing Ukraine into NATO.

Now, Miliband has headed off to what is likely to be the next flashpoint in Ukraine (or should that be "the Ukraine"? I never know). Tensions are running high in Ukraine, with the Pro-Western President, Yushchenko, doing everything he can to bind his country to the West. If things with Russia do erupt, they are likely to be focused around the Russian naval base at Sebastopol in Ukraine, on which Russia has a lease until 2017. Yushchenko has made noises about renegotiating this lease and made masochistic threats, later rescinded, about not letting Russian ships that had participated in the Georgian mission back into port. Now he is talking about increasing the rent that Ukraine charges Russia.

Our intrepid Foreign Secretary has flown into this bubbling cauldron and instead of following a cautious line and attempting to defuse the situation, as might be expected, he seems to be following a policy intended deliberately to inflame the Russians, calling for a "coalition against Russian aggression". This (deliberately?) echoes the discredited "Coalition of the Willing" assembled by Bush and Blair that will always be associated with the mistakes of Iraq.

Pulling back from the inflamed tensions between Russia and the West will take time and a lot of careful diplomacy. It will undoubtedly be punctured by frequent outbursts from politicians on both sides seeking to reassure their domestic audiences. In flying into the white hot heart of the argument, however, to deliver such an inflammatory message, Miliband is not helping matters. He is far too keen on grandstanding and is seeming less than convincing as Foreign Secretary.

With everything that's gone on in the UK about his leadership ambitions, you've got to think he has one eye all the time on his domestic audience. In times of crisis, we need a Foreign Secretary who can see the big picture and not let ego cloud their judgement. Is Miliband that man and, if not, what does that say about his suitability for the top job?

Toynbee, Aaronovitch and Kaletsky: the 3 wise monkeys

2008-08-26T16:21:00.006+01:00

Polly Toynbee is a favourite punchbag of bloggers like me. Every week she complains about the vulgar ostentation of the super-rich, makes a plea for income redistribution and moans about how New Labour have betrayed the poor. This week she has decided to lecture us on tax by, as usual, putting up her strawmen of evil energy companies and wicked tax evaders in order to argue that we don't, contrary to all our instincts, live in a high tax economy. In fact, we should stop moaning about it, pay more tax and be happy about it in the knowledge that our taxes are going to such good use.

David Aaronovitch is a diehard New Labour apologist who just can't help himself for getting it wrong. Today he has written a quite ridiculous piece in The Times. It goes along the lines of: we can't have a broken society in Britain because things aren't as bad as in the 70's and 80's, stabbings and shootings don't exclusively happen in the UK, lots of people are keeping fit (seriously), and we did better than expected at the Olympics. I'm not kidding...have a read.

Bringing up the rear is Anatole Kaletsky, an economist whose rose-tinted spectacles needed to be surgically removed from his face before he would say anything negative about the state of the economy under New Labour. Today he lends support to Gordon Brown's denial of the poor health of the UK economy by stating that the consumer (whose spending has held up surprisingly well) and the manufacturer (whose production, although down, has not yet fallen off a cliff) know something that the stockmarket (which is predicting a severe downturn) does not.

Even if the economy does get as bad as feared, according to Kaletsky, we won't become the 'sick man of Europe' again because, with our base rate currently being higher than elsewhere, the Bank of England has more scope to cut rates than in the Eurozone. In case he hadn't noticed, we are all caught in the same bind with slowing growth and a persistent inflation problem - does he really think the Bank wouldn't cut if it was able? The fact that our rates are higher than elsewhere is a cause for worry, not relaxation.

When the arguments being put forward by the main media apologists for the Government are so weak, we can conclude that they are running out of energy as fast as they are running out of ideas.

New Labour & business: they just don't get it

2008-08-26T12:20:00.008+01:00

Last year, when they proposed charging owners of commercial buildings that had lain empty for more than 3 months a full business rate rather than the previous 50%, the Government was warned by business that this was a bad idea.

Nonsense, said the Government, we just want to "encourage" (read: coerce) landlords with empty properties to get them let and hence bring them back into productive use. They didn't need to say, of course, that the change would be a handy revenue raiser. The result? Landlords are now knocking down their empty buildings if they have stood empty for 3 months rather than pay the additional tax. This has left city landscapes, according to one of the Government's own advisers talking in this article in today's Guardian, looking like "rows of broken teeth".

Of course, the Government could not have foreseen the viciousness of the sudden economic downturn that has led to a glut of office property. Still, their refusal to listen to what business was telling them is indicative of their "we know best" attitude. As in their desire to speed up the housebuying process through the introduction of Home Information Packs, their intentions are good but the outcomes are the opposite of what they intended. Sometimes its just better not to meddle.

Vanilla Ice lookalike in plot to kill Obama

2008-08-26T08:42:00.005+01:00

Has anyone else noticed the striking similarity between Tharin Gartrell, one of the men picked up in an alleged plot to kill Barack Obama, and Vanilla Ice, sometime 1980s rapper and most recently famous in the UK for appearing in celebrity 'reality' show "The Farm". Have they ever been seen in the same room together? I think we should be told.

New Labour VIP lane proposals defy logic

2008-08-24T10:11:00.006+01:00

News this morning of another staggeringly stupid transport proposal from New Labour. The Times reports on plans to introduce a single toll lane on motorways, purportedly to ease congestion. The idea is that if you can afford and wish to pay the toll, you can whizz past the stationary traffic that either can't afford and/or is unwilling to pay. Not surprisingly, The Times has dubbed them 'VIP lanes'.

Despite the almost universal unpopularity of road pricing in the UK, the government and local authorities seem determined to press ahead with it. This, apparently, is all down to the "success" of the London congestion charge, which has reduced the number of vehicles entering the London zone but not congestion, as Transport for London itself admits. The planners who implemented the charge could not stop themselves from further meddling and their accompanying traffic calming schemes and traffic light phasing has reversed the gains that the reduced vehicles should have brought.

If the London scheme, then, has established the logic of hitting all drivers in the pocket to influence their decision to travel, how does the Government possibly follow that logic to conclude that introducing a single toll lane on a motorway will do the same job? If you want to cut congestion on a motorway through road pricing, then surely you have to make all prospective drivers pay the same charge? Adding an extra lane that is toll only will do nothing to change the situation and hence behaviour of drivers who do not use it. They will be faced with exactly the same number of lanes as before and no reduction in their incentive to drive from A to B. In fact, they may have more incentive to drive as they will perceive that some cars may opt to pay to use the toll lane, hence reducing traffic in the 'free' lanes and speeding up their journey.

So where is the logic? How will this reduce congestion? All this will do is antagonise already cash strapped motorists who cannot afford the daily charge on their commute and have to sit there and watch as others who can afford it drive past them, probably with a smug smile on their face. The Government is worried that schemes such as this will just be viewed as another attempt to tax the motorist and with such ill thought through proposals as this, their worries are well founded.

Darling eats his words as economy stutters

2008-08-23T10:10:00.010+01:00

When Alistair Darling rose to deliver the Budget to the House of Commons on 12 March 2008, I think he truly believed that the UK was

"better placed than other economies to withstand the slowdown in the global economy".

Unfortunately for Darling, the deterioration in the UK economy that was apparent even then has got worse. This week official figures showed that the UK's GDP was at a standstill, worse than expected by economists and the Treasury. So what did Darling mean when he said we were 'better placed'? The proposition can be better tested by asking the following question: how resilient will our economy prove to be in terms of growth, jobs and income compared to others? In turn, this then means comparing the ability of different economies to react to the crisis by a combination of lowering interest rates, reducing taxes, increasing government spending and redirecting jobs towards less affected sectors.

So, has GDP growth held up well compared to elsewhere? Although we now know it has slowed to a standstill, it has not at least yet gone into reverse as in the Eurozone, but has not held up as well as the US. The relative depth and length of the slowdown is not yet known but the UK will not be helped by its relatively high interest rates (3m LIBOR 5.7% compared to 5.0% in Eurozone and 2.0% in the US) and an inability, admittedly shared with others, to cut them for fear of stoking inflation further.

In addition, the UK's budget deficit is relatively high at 3.8% (US 2.4%, Eurozone 0.9%), implying that the Government has less wiggle room to bail out the economy, via tax cuts or increased spending, than elsewhere. So it looks as if the UK will not escape a recession and may suffer from a deeper and longer one if one compares the tools with which a recession might be alleviated.

The UK's labour market is probably second only to the USA in terms of flexibility but then it is more exposed to the worse affected sectors (finance and construction) than the rest of the Eurozone - so it will need that flexibility. The number of people unemployed rose by 60,000 in the three months to June, taking the total to 1.67 million. The number of people claiming jobless benefits in July rose by 20,100 to 864,700, the sixth consecutive rise in the claimant count and the biggest jump since 1992. Eurozone unemployment was, by comparison, flat in Q2 (US unemployment rose at the fastest pace for six years).

UK consumer debt as a proportion of GDP (just over 100%) is greater than the US and almost double than the rest of Europe (according to Sir Howard Davies, writing in The Times). This suggests that UK consumer spending will be hit harder in a downturn than elsewhere as a greater proportion of household spending is taken up with interest bills. Expect more personal insolvencies and house reposessions.

I would not conclude from the above, then, that the UK is 'better placed' than elsewhere to ride out the downturn. Far from it. More jobs will be lost and more homes will be repossessed than our competitors, apart from the US which will bounce back faster. Gordon Brown stands alone, Canute like, in his rosy predictions of how the economy will shortly bounce back from its woes. His own Treasury is busily rewriting its forecasts to show the economy heading into recession. Alistair Darling's words have truly come back to haunt him.

What is football doing in the Olympics?

2008-08-23T09:10:00.004+01:00

Hands up if you can find a single person, fan or not, who is in favour of professional footballers playing at the Olympics. What are they doing there? Football already has a massive global event that takes place every four years in the World Cup and no real football fans give a toss who wins the Olympic gold (apart from the winners, of course).

If ever there was a sport whose participants displayed the complete opposite of what the (admittedly tarnished) Olympic ideal is supposed to be all about, it has to be football. Overpaid, strutting, petulant and puffed up on their own self-importance...no, not the IOC, the footballers. I guess when the powerful lobby force that represents football decided it couldn't miss out on the global coverage the Olympics brings, its inclusion was inevitable.

Ditto tennis. A good test for inclusion could be whether or not the Olympics would represent the absolute pinnacle, the crowning glory, of every participating athlete's sporting career. For tennis players, they care far more about the annual US Open starting immediately the Olympics nds than the once every four years event. I dare say Andy Murray wasn't that upset that his early and undignified exit from the Olympics gave him some extra preparation time for Flushing Meadow.

Seeing as professional athletes are allowed in pretty much every sporting discipline in the Olympics, why aren't they allowed in boxing? We would get the deciphering of the alphabet soup of champions from different sanctioning bodies, no more contenders ducking each other for a big money pay day down the line...just the best against the best in a 2 week winner takes all contest for nothing more valuable than a gold medal (OK... maybe a bit of sponsorship afterwards). That would be worth watching.

The flaws in New Labour education policy

2008-08-22T16:41:00.006+01:00

I have been stewing over Lord Adonis’s article yesterday in The Times in which he came out strongly against critics of the Government’s schools policy. Below are my observations on what he had to say:

“When the GCSE results are released today there will be the usual “dumbing down” claims about the number gaining A and A* grades and taking vocational subjects. It is of a piece with those criticising Team GB's “inadequate” Olympic success because state schools should be providing more Olympians.”

No, the two criticisms are unrelated. The former are concerned with the slipping of standards generally. The latter are concerned at the relative failure of the public sector to produce high standards.

“But a different sort of elitism lurks behind much of this carping. It is the class-based elitism that instinctively wants to ration success and cap the aspirations of the less advantaged. The underlying premise is that there is a fixed pool of talent in society.”

There is a fixed pool! Logic dictates that there are only so many pupils capable of achieving the highest standards, be they from the public or private sector. Not all pupils are born with equal intelligence. One part of the challenge is to remove the hurdles preventing the bright pupils born into poorer households from achieving the high standards they are capable of. A second and separate part is how to raise the standards of those children and schools at the bottom of the performance pile. The failure to distinguish between these two issues is the root cause of the failure of New Labour's education policy.

“So every August we are told that increased success rates demonstrate declining standards in state schools (increased success in private schools, by contrast, is usually put down to hard work and good teaching).”

The Adonis formula, as per his article? Recruit better teachers through better pay. Make it easier and faster for suitably qualified graduates to enter teaching. Improve the standards of leadership by giving suitable training to head teachers. Increase the numbers of trust schools and academies to raise standards. All obvious points that are uncontroversial (although teachers might disagree with Adonis’s point that their pay is now at the right level to achieve the recruitment goal).

It is Adonis’s last suggestion that is most telling, however:

“Thirdly, we need a modern curriculum that provides high-quality vocational qualifications beyond 14. For too long the curriculum beyond the age of 14 has been restricted to academic subjects; and too many students with different aptitudes and interests have left - usually at 16 - with few, if any, qualifications. This has to change, so we are introducing a wider range of vocational diplomas and from 2015 raising the education and training participation age to 18.”

Adonis is implicitly saying here (and explicitly elsewhere) that vocational courses are of equal worth to the individual and society (further education, employers etc.) as academic qualifications. He has gone as far elsewhere as to level snide accusations of “intellectual snobbery” at those that disagree. Academic learning is about attaining a set of skills (e.g. the ability to digest information, communicate it, make analytical decisions, perform under pressure etc) that are crucial to making a success of life.

Some children will naturally do better at this than others. Some other children might have achieved success but have been denied the tools to achieve those qualifications. For some children, who do not stand a realistic chance of academic achievement, it is right to substitute the academic qualifications for vocational ones. But please do not pretend that they are of equivalent value because they just aren’t. If they are easier to learn and pass, they are of lesser value. Not of no value, just lesser.

To claim otherwise is a betrayal of the children who undertake vocational qualifications and wilful self-delusion by defenders of the Government policy such as Lord Adonis. The ultimate goal is laudable, to raise up the educational standards of those pupils and schools at the bottom of the pile nearer to those of the top. Unfortunately, like most things the dead hand of the state gets involved with, all they achieve through their top down, one size fits all approach is to ensure those at the bottom stay there and condemn those who could better themselves to a life of potential unfulfilled.

p.s. see the comment from the Construction Industry Training Board at the bottom of this Anastasia De Waal article in today’s Guardian for a succint summation of the value of vocational qualifications.

Democrats realise they are in a dogfight

2008-08-22T09:10:00.004+01:00

If the Democrats didn't realise they were in a dogfight, they do now. Much gnashing of teeth in the US media at John McCain's apparent catching and, according to one poll, overhauling Barack Obama. I said back in June that the Republicans should not be counted out and so it has proved.

McCain and his team have succeeded, so far, in making the election less of a poll on the state of the USA and more of a referendum on his opponent. If the Republicans are able to maintain that line of attack, they stand a chance of sneaking back in come November. For the Democrats, they have to try and move the focus of the fight back onto the economy whilst simultaneously reassuring undecided voters that Obama will not try and turn the US into a socialist utopia or lean over backwards to appease the likes of Russia and Iran.

The race, according to the polls, has never been anything other than tight and, as I wrote the other day, will be decided on the outcomes in a small number of swing states, as usual. Obama's success in persuading the classic 'Clinton' blue-collar Democrat supporter to vote for him will be important. The key, however, will be the turnout: the ability of each side to mobilise their core vote on the day.

Here, the Democrats have an advantage as Obama has done an incredible job of enthusing a vast swathe of people, especially young people. There is a questionmark over John McCain's ability similarly to enthuse the Republican base of evangelical Christians who were so influential in getting George Bush to the White House.

The Democrats seem to have now woken up and realised they are in a scrap, releasing a series of targeted attack ads in crucial states. With the announcement of Vice-Presidential running mates imminent and the conventions just around the corner, things are hotting up.

Tory 'fairness' claim puts Labour on back foot

2008-08-20T11:40:00.007+01:00

The Tories have gone on the attack. By laying claim to be the new party of fairness, Osborne and Cameron are taking the fight to New Labour on their territory. This is a tactically astute move.

George Osborne's article in today's Guardian follows up on the Conservatives' recent attempt to reposition themselves as the only party capable of healing the country's social rifts. This ideological land grab would have had Labour supporters choking over their cornflakes this morning with what they would see as a cheeky attempt to colonise further their core values.

Whether or not the attempt by the Tories is successful, it is certainly tactically astute. At a time when the country eagerly awaits Gordon Brown's much heralded Autumn fightback, the last thing the Government wants is to have to expend valuable political capital in defending its own territory. It wants to do the opposite - take the fight to the Tories, questioning their policies and forcing them on to the back foot.

Does George Osborne's claim stand up to scrutiny? I suppose it depends on what your definition of fairness is. Osborne cites the benchmarks of life expectancy, inequality and social mobility (child poverty is another but the Conservatives are on shakier ground there). I am yet to hear a reasoned defence by a New Labour advocate as to why, on their watch, they have allowed (a) the gap between rich and poor to grow wider than ever before and (b) it to get harder than ever for people to climb the ladder.

The Tories may not yet convince that their number one priority is to help those at the bottom of the pile and to bridge the gap between rich and poor. But that they are even able to take aim at the topic shows just how much New Labour has failed in living up to its fundamental principles.

Labour quick to jump on Olympics bandwagon

2008-08-19T17:42:00.004+01:00

In a post over on Labourhome, Richard Caborn, the Sports Minister, is already crowing about how our national success in Beijing is all down to a far sighted Labour Government and its investment in sport.

What an absolute @rse...Christine Ohuruogu's tears have hardly dried on her cheeks and New Labour are already spinning us a line. "We have put ‘great’ back into Great Britain this weekend.", claims Caborn, when we all know that it was John Major's decision to pay over lottery money towards UK sport that have indirectly led to this success. Lottery money that New Labour have consistently staged smash and grab raids on to fund their other spending priorities.

Right now, politicians of all hues should be getting behind the team, thanking them for their efforts and basking in their reflected glow. To try and play party politics (albeit poorly) is just going to backfire. Bad judgement from Richard Caborn.

Lessons for politicians from GB Olympic success

2008-08-19T13:05:00.001+01:00

More sport/politics comparisons while we wait for Westminster pantomime to take the relay baton from the Beijing circus. Picking up on themes elsewhere today, Steve Richards has written a lazy article in The Independent today looking at the positive link between increased lottery funding for sports and the record gold medal haul in the Olympics for ‘Team GB’ (where did that come from by the way?) and concluding that the answer to all society’s ills is to spend more money on them.

There is a world of difference in the effectiveness of chucking money at a problem when the state sector gets involved (as Guido Fawkes has pointed out) but Steve Richards has also missed the crucial fact that our Olympic success has come not just from lavishing money on sports in general but from controversially targeting the increased funding only at those sports that have been successful. So cycling, rowing and sailing (all successful areas in the past) have all seen big dollops of money lavished on them in recent years. Unsuccessful sports like athletics and judo have seen and will see their grants cut.

Could this approach be successfully translated to the arena of public services? I am not suggesting that a failing school, for example, is dealt with just by cutting its budget but the use of financial incentives for individuals can be highly effective. Rewarding success and penalising failure offers an incentive for people who want to achieve better and a route out of mediocrity. Poor standards should not be tolerated and we must have the ability to replace underperforming staff, wherever they are found.

This does present something of a ‘chicken and the egg’ conundrum for the less successful (be they a school, hospital or a sport) that can only look on enviously at the level of spending elsewhere. How you deal with a poorly performing area that wants to improve but cannot is tricky. I would suggest that poor performers be taken over by the better performers in order to spread proven best practice. In reality this means good schools taking over bad schools and successful sports taking under their umbrella the running of less successful ones.

Politically difficult this may be but it must stand a better chance of success in raising standards than the blunderbuss approach that New Labour have taken to improving public services over the last decade. Perhaps the politicians can take away a valuable lesson from Team GB’s Beijing success after all.

Is that the best you can do Yvette?

2008-08-18T13:45:00.004+01:00

Yvette Cooper has launched the first broadside in New Labour's much heralded Autumn fightback with an article in today's Guardian (where else?). She has responded to the call from David Miliband to 'take the fight to the Tories' by laying into what she sees as "the risks and contradictions at the heart of Cameronomics".

What is the evidence for her claim? The Tories, apparently, have not put forward a position on various things like Northern Rock, the 10p tax issue, nuclear power and global commodity prices. Even if this were true, not setting out a policy (particularly on cleaning up cockups caused by the Government) is hardly a risk or a contradiction.

What else? Yvette doesn't like the fact that David Cameron has come out against a new runway at Heathrow, seeing that as running counter to the Conservatives' promise to concentrate on improving infrastructure when in power. Well, in principle, yes it does but, in practice, there is no logic to blindly throwing money at the UKs infrastructure problems without coldly assessing whether or not that money is being sensibly spent.

Cooper's main point though is that the Conservatives are promising lots of juicy unfunded spending promises and tax cuts. This is a tired old line that Osborne and co. are well practised in defending themselves from. The Tories have, in fact, been extremely careful not to leave themselves open to this charge, being very clear that tax cuts will only come as when the economy can afford it. Spending pledges? Well, this won't be the first time that an opposition has pledged to spend money on popular issues but the Tories have thus made only vague suggestions that may or may not be adhered to depending on the state of the economy when they take power.

My view is that the strategy of attacking the Conservatives, which we will see more and more of over the next few months, actually plays into the David Cameron's hands. This is because (a) the Conservatives are well prepared to repel the assault and (b) it serves only to highlight the emptiness that lies at the heart of New Labour. What the public want to hear is what the Government is proposing to do to get the UK out of its current predicament, not to hear them constantly sniping at what the opposition may or may not do in a couple of years time.

Cooper's approach only reinforces the impression that New Labour have simply run out of ideas of their own and have to resort to taking digs at their opponents. James Purnell's pronouncements on welfare reform, which at least suggested the government was thinking about ways to cut its expenditure, was a good start and should have provided a blueprint for how New Labour should relaunch itself. If the Government relies on the same old lines of attack a la Cooper, all they will get is the same old result at the polls.

Musharraf resignation: good or bad for Pakistan?

2008-08-18T09:49:00.004+01:00

President Musharraf has this morning announced his resignation as President of Pakistan in order to avoid being impeached. Like him or loathe him, he has dominated Pakistani politics since seizing power in a coup in 1999. Co-opted as an ally into the war on terror, his closeness to, and reliance on aid from, the West sat uneasily with a population with a fierce Islamic streak and only partial control over much of its terrain.

One school of thought suggests that the departure of Musharraf from front line politics will be a good thing for Pakistan, as it will remove what has proved a massive distraction for the political elite. Pakistan is a country riven with problems, from its rebellious provinces to its stuttering economy and entrenched poverty. PPP’s Asif Zardari and the PML (N)’s Nawaz Sharif can now stop playing power politics and get on with solving some of these issues.

On the other hand, it could be argued that the removal of President Musharraf from the scene could present Pakistan with another, perhaps unexpected, problem. The country's politicians focusing on Musharraf has given them an issue upon which they are very much agreed. It has given them a point around which their flaky coalition can coalesce and solidify. The danger is that without this issue to unite them, their differences will once again emerge and their coalition break apart. The old adage of being careful what you wish for may prove true for the long suffering people of Pakistan.

Jobsworth alert

2008-08-15T09:02:00.003+01:00

Two excellent examples today of absolutely moronic officialdom:

1. This bus driver in Darlington, who ordered a 13 year old girl off a bus (forcing her to walk 2 miles home in the dark on her own) because her pass expired at 9pm. The time? 9.01. Nice work, bus driver!

2. These nameless officials at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency who have carpeted lifeguards in Hope Cove, South Devon, for using a boat, recently repaired but awaiting a seaworthiness certificate, to rescue a drowning 13 year old girl. The lifeguards (volunteers) have all been threatened with disciplinary action and the boat has been locked up. Nice work, Maritime and Coastguard Agency!

I'd like to blame New Labour somehow for this but I think there is just a streak of moron that runs through all petty officials in the UK that surfaces from time to time.

FIFA Mutu decision perverse and immoral

2008-08-14T18:17:00.004+01:00

FIFA's decision to back Chelsea in their claim against their former player Adrian Mutu is wrong, wrong, wrong. I thought that when the original verdict was announced and now that they have perversely increased the fine and I have a blog, I am writing it too.

Adrian Mutu had a cocaine addiction when he played for Chelsea. They found out and decided to terminate his contract, leaving him free to play elsewhere and the club with a Mutu-sized hole in its accounts. How can it be right that the club can now pursue him for the amount it cost them to buy him?

If you own a business and buy another company, you do your due diligence. You check out the company, do your research and ask questions. You may even ask the sellers to guarantee certain things about the company and what they tell you about it, on pain of financial penalty. Chelsea bought an asset in Mutu that was flawed. That was unfortunate for them but what is the difference in that and buying a company only to find that there is a black hole in the accounts? In those circumstances a buyer would pursue the sellers for their loss.

Mutu is not a business, however (and Chelsea themselves would be far from a going concern without Abramovitch). But did Chelsea not still have a duty to mitigate their loss? The club did have a choice - they did not have to terminate Mutu's contract. They could have sold him on as soon as he failed his drug test, when he still would have commanded a significant, albeit reduced transfer fee. Witness Joey Barton's transfer from Manchester City to Newcastle after having been arrested for violently assaulting teammate Ousmane Dabo.

Chelsea could also have responded by treating Mutu with sympathy, recognising perhaps that his positive test for cocaine was as a result of an addiction with which they could help him. There is no obligation upon an employer to do this but an enlightened one might still choose to do so, particularly if the drug use was outside of work (which it was in Mutu's case) and did not actually affect their work (presumably it didn't for Mutu but we can never know).

Top flight football brings with it its own set of pressures for young men thrust into the public eye and rewarded with ridiculous amounts of money. Instead of doing harm to Chelsea's reputation, as they claimed, their reputation might actualy have been enhanced had they opted to forgive Mutu, help him through a drug treatment programme and then use him as an example to their young fans as a path they should not follow.

I don't know what was in the fine print of Mutu's contract...maybe it did state that he had to repay his transfer fee if he failed a drug test and thus breached his contract. But I doubt it. The original decision by FIFA was perverse and immoral. In now raising the amount Mutu is required to pay to Chelsea, they are now adding insult to injury and showing themselves (not for the first time) to have a total lack of good sense.

As for Chelsea, they show themselves to be both vindictive and bullying. Having made the stupid decision to sack Mutu in the first place, they have now managed to get their mates over at FIFA to gang up with them to try and destroy Mutu's career and his life. The next time you hear Kenyon and co. talk about what a bad example Mutu set or the damage done to Chelsea's reputation, please think about whether their acceptance of the on field antics of their players - intimidating referees, turning their backs when being booked, generally moaning and diving - show the club in a better or worse light than Mutu's lapse of judgement. Chelsea fans should feel ashamed of their club and I sincerely hope that Mutu emerges from this battle as the victor.

Michael Phelps, Milton Friedman and A Level results

2008-08-14T09:40:00.004+01:00

How do you measure greatness? If you are an Olympian, one way would be to count your medals. Michael Phelps, the freakish half-man, half-fish, is being touted as the greatest Olympian ever due to his winning a record eleventh career gold medal yesterday.

Matthew Syed in The Times today has argued that Phelps cannot be considered the greatest because swimming is...well...boring. Essentially, swimming's different events are just variations on a theme and it hands out medals like confetti. In this regard, says Syed, swimming should take note of Milton Friedman who pointed out that if you print more banknotes than an economy needs you will not make it wealthier but poorer, as inflation will debase the value of its assets. That is to say, you can't increase the greatness of a winning athlete by simply issuing him or her with more medals.

What's my point? The point is that perhaps those in charge of setting the educational standards for A Levels should take note. Annual results were released today and (guess what?) the overall pass rate has risen to beyond 97 per cent for the first time - the 28th straight increase. A Levels are becoming increasingly impossible to fail, rendering them less and less usefull as indicators of academic achievement.

The Government, naturally, fiercely denies this as to do so would give the lie to their claim to have improved academic standards over the last 11 years. Why then are they simultaneously proposing changes (the introduction of an elite A* grade, harder essay-style questions and a dissertation) to make them harder? This is a tacit admission that A-level quality has deteriorated in recent years.

The Government has added to the problem by introducing a new qualification, the Diploma, to eventually replace the A Level but not, apparently, intended to undermine it. Make sense of that if you can. Meanwhile, the better schools are abandoning the A Level for the International Baccalaureate or supplementing it with the new Pre-U exam introduced by Cambridge (harking back to the old tradition of the S-Level in my day).

Grade inflation has eaten away at the value of exam results over time, reducing their worth to the economy and hoodwinking students each year into thinking they are the cleverest, brightest students this country has ever produced. This is a sad betrayal of their naive trust in the education system to do its job.

Olympics a boon to the lazy

2008-08-13T17:35:00.002+01:00

If, like me, you do not have to leave the house each day to go to work, the Olympics are a real boon. I cannot tell you how great it is to wake up each day to Olympic Breakfast on BBC1, catching up on all my new favourite sports. For the inveterate timewaster, being able to lose yourself in the intricacies of rowing, archery or weightlifting is a blessing indeed.

Of course I console myself with the thought that I am at least reading the news or writing this blog whilst I am watching but...come on...who am I kidding? Anyone for beach volleyball?

Russia: realpolitik is not a dirty word

2008-08-13T15:20:00.002+01:00

Realpolitik is not a dirty word, it is the basis upon which the real world is governed. This truth has been laid bare by the Georgian-Russian conflict. In the real world, powerful nations reach an accommodation with one another based upon their relative influence in the world and their national self-interest. Supranational bodies such as the UN and the EU have proven themselves to be little more than window-dressing, talking shops that allow politicians to make impassioned but futile pleas for action, usually more for the benefit of their domestic audiences.

Liberal interventionism (an oxymoron if ever there was one) has been shown to be a sham, a figleaf that strangely is only called upon when large and powerful countries in the West want to assert their interests over smaller and weaker countries. The winning of the Cold War removed the counterweight to the US and has led to it foolishly believing its own rhetoric. If you are going to talk the talk, you’ve got to be able to walk the walk and the West has had its bluff called and been too selective in its interventions, too many times.

Georgia, in over reaching itself in South Ossetia, has foolishly tweaked the tail of the Russian tiger and has paid the price. But the West has been tweaking the Russian tail with its meddling in the Caucuses, its bullheaded insistence on its missile defence system in Eastern Europe and its lecturing on democracy and human rights. Russia has been itching to slap down its southern neighbour and remind the world that it will not be pushed around.

There has been much angst about who fired the first shot but, in truth, the answer to that question does not matter a jot. Bleating about right and wrong will not change the situation on the ground. We can fulminate at the bullying belligerence of Russia, throw it out of the G8 and cancel joint military manouevres but in the end we have no choice but to find a way to get along with Russia. We are today intertwined in a global system of finance and commerce, not to mention facing the shared threat of climate change, which means we have no other choice. We may have to hold our noses but realpolitik is the only policy that gets results.

All fathers-to-be to undergo criminal records check

2008-08-12T15:53:00.005+01:00

"The Department For Schools, Children and Families have announced that their guidelines that call for anyone coming into contact with children to undergo a criminal records check will extend to fathers-to-be. Any man whose wife or partner is pregnant will from now on have to be vetted by the CRB."

The above is not true. Yet. However, this is the headline that you can soon expect to see if this all controlling, interfering government gets its way. Not content with sticking their noses into the practice of parents lending a hand in driving the school minibus or even taking their own kid to school, the Government has now decided that any firm wishing to offer kids some work experience must get all their staff vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau.

This is getting beyond a joke. Taking kids on work experience is always a bit of a chore for companies but they do it because (a) they are probably doing a favour for a friend or relative and (b) they know how helpful it can be for children to get some exposure to the world of work early on (I know it was invaluable for me). If, as a business owner, you had to get all your staff checked by the CRB in order to take work placement kids that you were reluctant to take in the first place, tell me, would you bother?

Look, nobody wants paedophiles driving their kids to football practice but we have to draw get a sense of proportion. This relentless drive to check people, even in innocuous situations, is fostering an atmosphere of mistrust and is deterring honest, law abiding citizens from doing volunteer work with children, making the children's lives worse off as a result.

Read this article in today's Independent for a good discussion of the subject.

Not busy Gordon? Why don't you write a book?

2008-08-12T14:24:00.009+01:00

You are the Prime Minister of the UK. Things have not been going that well for you lately. The economy is slowing, threatening to put people out of work. People are unhappy at rising bills and expect you to do something about it. Crisis has overtaken the banking and finance sector, ripping the heart of the UK housing market. Russia is flexing its muscles in Georgia, setting back the cause of global peace. Your colleagues are muttering darkly about your performance and thinking about knifing you between the shoulder blades. All this must be dealt with alongside the normal course of everyday government business.

Your supporters are desperate for you to take a lead, to show some of the vision you promised the country when you took office. In these troubled times, Britain needs a Prime Minister ready to roll up his sleeves, lead from the front and work tirelessly, night and day, to come up with the solutions to the country's ailments. You are, in short, quite busy.

So, why the @#@# is Gordon Brown wasting his precious Prime Ministerial time writing another sodding book??!! Not content with wantonly destroying a whole bunch of precious trees with his last mind numbing tome on "Courage", this time he is boring everyone into submission with a book on "Britishness". Why is it that just because a person is good at one thing (in Brown's case, let's be generous and say its climbing the greasy pole), that they automatically think they will be a good writer and that people will want to read what they write (ahem)?

When asked how he finds the time to write, Brown said "I get up early and write first thing in the morning." What? If you 'get up early', why don't you read some bloody briefings or think about how to get the country out of the hole its in? Don't waste your and our time writing a bloody book! How unbelievably vain and self-indulgent of him.

Olympics & drugs: not clean just undetected

2008-08-08T16:52:00.004+01:00

Ask yourself: what will be going through your mind as the men line up for the 100m final in two weeks time? As the cameras flash, there will be a sense of excitement at the sheer occasion, the spectacle of the flagship event. But there will also be a nagging sense of doubt as we wonder not if, but how many of the finalists have managed to evade the testers and run with the benefit of performance enhancing drugs.

Simon Barnes has written a thoughtful article in The Times today promoting the idea that we just stop testing for drugs and let the athletes get on with it. He wonders why it is that we are opposed to the idea of drugs in sport in the first place and it is worth stopping and asking yourself the same question. Barnes posits the following suggestions: that we are just squeamish about the thought of injecting drugs into our bodies; that drugs are dangerous; they they are immoral; that a user is putting their own interests ahead of their nation or some other higher ideal.

I would say that it is all of these things and more. Gaining an advantage via the administering of non-natural substances goes against our innate sense of fairness. We want our sporting contests to be on a level playing field and if someone tilts the balance they are labelled cheats and pilloried as a result.

But who decides what is acceptable and what is not? Is it OK, for example, to train at high altitude? Is it OK to shave your head to be more streamlined in the pool? To wear performance enhancing kit like Speedo's new Lazer swimsuit? Get corrective laser eye surgery to improve your natural vision?

Perhaps we will look back one day and laugh, as Simon Barnes suggests, at today's objection to performance enhancing drugs as quaint. The advent of unidentifiable genetic tampering in sport may make these kind of ethical choices redundant fairly soon anyway, if it has not already begun. This will force us to consider wider questions such as why might it be OK to tamper with genes to eradicate certain hereditary illnesses but not to select the sex of a child?

So, I for one will be watching these Olympics through cynical eyes. One by one, the main sports, athletics, swimming, cycling and others, have fallen under the siren call of doping, their records discredited and champions cast into the sporting wilderness. The 100m final may be clean of drugs this year but, to my mind, that is just the same as being undetected.

Younoodle - the return of dotcom tomfoolery

2008-08-08T12:30:00.007+01:00

It seemed like the heady days of Spring 2000 had returned yesterday with the launch of a new website, Younoodle, about which there is apparently a lot of 'buzz'.

During the dotcom boom, it seemed like anyone with a bright idea could turn it into an online business plan and investors would queue up to throw money at it. My friend, Erik Portanger, wrote the quintessential account of a dotcom in "Boo Hoo - A Dot Com Story", which details the mind-boggling rise and fall of Boo.com, the online fashion/sports retailer.

Younoodle has announced its presence to the wider world via the launch of its "Startup Predictor", an online tool that it claims will accurately predict the success or otherwise of your startup business and what it will be worth in a few years time. The tool, Younoodle says, uses algorithms developed by them to analyse factors such as the founder's education, previous salary, location and business description to come up with a figure. Otherwise sensible journalists have commented how useful such a tool might be for potential investors.

This is ridiculous. To demonstrate this fact, I have faithfully entered the details of this blog into the Startup Predictor. I am a reasonably well educated person who previously enjoyed a high salary and described my startup thus: 'GLC provides original analysis of UK and international current affairs'. Investment thus far is £0, the only employee is me and I opened for business in June 2008. According to the predictor, this startup will be worth $24.2 million by June 2011. Great! [see the "certificate" issued by Younoodle above]

Valuing a startup is a tricky business and an investor must rely on experience and gut instinct as well as a healthy dose of luck. For every one investment that does well, an investor should expect to have another ten amount to nothing. A computer program that purports to replicate this will never be anything more than an amusing sideshow for investors and a vehicle for daydreaming by would-be entrepreneurs.

I'm not sure if the over-excited employees at Younoodle really believe in their predictor but it certainly has succeeded in generating some decent press coverage for themselves, albeit in a quiet week for business news. I suspect that is the real point behind this. Looking at their website, the predictor seems incidental to their main function as a more mundane social networking site bringing startups and investors together.

When they crunched their own details into the predictor, it came up with a figure of $96 million by 2010 (wizard!). Using my own predictive tool with bespoke algorithms (my brain), I predict not such a bright future for them. Besides, if the tool really is that good, why don't they just keep quiet about it, launch their own fund and make millions that way?

Darling stands up to batty Hattie

2008-08-08T09:25:00.005+01:00

Alistair Darling has copped his fair share of abuse since accepting the poisoned chalice of the Treasury. It seems has done nothing but apologise, make excuses and backtrack since he took office. So when he actually does something worth applauding, he should be given his due recognition for it.

The FT today carries a story about how the Treasury has objected to Harriet Harman's lunatic plans to make all companies that do business with the government (30% of all UK businesses) submit a report on their "gender pay gap" and how many disabled people and people from ethnic minorities they employ. This information is to be used as a tiebreaker if two or more companies are otherwise equal on value for money offered to the taxpayer.

As someone who used to run a medium sized company, I can tell you that government imposed red tape is choking businesses in the UK. There isn't a corner left that the government has not imposed some sort of regulation, restriction or burden on. I am sure that the regulations were for the most part drafted with good intentions but, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with such things.

The Treasury has sensibly pointed out that the government has a stated aim (sadly unfulfilled and now we can see why) of cutting red tape for business in this country, not increasing it. Red tape is beaurocratic, fiddly, time consuming and expensive. It disproportionately disadvantages small businesses who have to comply in equal measures as large businesses. This measure will therefore discourage small businesses from applying for goverment contracts, again running counter to one of the government's other stated aims.

Ominously, Harriet Harman is already threatening to try and overrule Alistair Darling, stressing that the requirements were already being developed: “This does not need to wait for specific legislation.”, she said.

What will happen if the two companies offering identical value for money are also equal in their gender pay and employment quotas? Is there to be some qualitative assessment of the number of black people or one-legged dwarves employed? 10 points for a lesbian, 15 points for a blind person...that sort of thing? Madness.

Jacqui Smith - this is why we don't intervene

2008-08-07T09:06:00.008+01:00

Linda Buchanan, a 48 year old commuter, was lucky not be killed yesterday when a couple of yobs pushed her onto a railway line, just because she asked them to stop smoking. I wonder if she had been listening to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, who last week exhorted citizens to intervene if they observed anti-social behaviour?

"I would never say 'Don't get involved'. .....I hope that we don't live – and I don't believe incidentally that we do live – in a country where people aren't willing to stand up for others."

If you try and intervene, you risk getting spat on, punched, knifed or thrown onto a live railway line. The odds are not in your favour because if someone is committing a crime or otherwise being anti-social, then they are more likely to be the type of person that won't think twice about doing you over.

If New Labour hadn't set about skewing the criminal justice system in favour of understanding and rehabilitation of criminals instead of deterrent, then perhaps society wouldn't be in a position where we fear even to stand up for ourselves.

Good news and bad news for Obama

2008-08-06T14:28:00.007+01:00

Focus in the US Presidential election lately has been on John McCain's new rabbit punching, eye gouging persona and the apparent boost in the polls that has given him. Depending on which national poll you look at, Obama is still out in front or McCain's strategy has worked and the candidates are now too close to call or McCain has even taken a slight lead (albeit briefly).

This is bad news for Obamafans, used to double digit poll leads. National polls, however, are irrelevant as the election will be decided on a small number of swing states. It should be remembered that only 3 states, all small, switched sides between 2000 and 2004 (Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico). When the latest polling in the 10 most important swing states is analysed, you can see that Obama supporters have no room for complacency, with only Ohio, Virginia and Colorado predicted to switch sides this time:

California (55 electoral votes): 15.3% lead for Obama
Florida (27): 1.6% for McCain
Pennsylvania (21): 7.4% for Obama
Ohio (20): 0.5% for Obama
Michigan (17): 4.3% for Obama
N Carolina (15): 3.7% for McCain
Virginia (13): 1.0% for Obama
Missouri (11): 2.0% for McCain
Minnesota (10): 5.3% for Obama
Colorado (9): 1.7% for Obama

[source: RealClearPolitics]

There is good news and bad news for Obama in this. The good: California looks in the bag (it probably always was but Hispanic voters coming out for Obama has sealed it). The gap has narrowed in Florida to the point where this vital state could go either way (again). Pennsylvania, an absolute must hold, looks solid. Ohio, Republican last time (just) is up for grabs.

The bad news is that John McCain has narrowed the gap almost across the board over the last couple of months. Obama has his nose in front where it matters but it really is very close in all but a few swing states. Obama's deeper pockets will help him sustain the fight in what is a large number of states that could potentially swing this time or, at least, force the Republicans to spend time and money defending supposedly safe seats. Vice-presidential candidates will be announced soon - expect the candidates to pick the running mates that can help them most in the marginal states. McCain, as expected, is making a fight of it - this is going to be another tight race.

New Labour misses opportunity of lifetime

2008-08-06T11:53:00.008+01:00

New Labour are missing a once in a generation opportunity to portray themselves as the party that tamed Mammon. This thought struck me this morning as I was reading this well written article over on LabourHome on why New Labour should get behind Gordon Brown. I don't agree with everything Free Radical has written (particularly the part about Gordon Brown being a "brilliant" Chancellor) but a lot of it rings true. The paragraph that caught my attention was this one:

"Moreover, since Brown is currently being attacked primarily by the far right of our Party he will become rather more dependent upon the centre-left and the Trade Unions, and the repulsing of such an attack means that social democracy has some hope of being back upon the political agenda (strengthened by a crisis of capitalism) for the first time in perhaps thirty years."

I have made the point elsewhere that the crisis that has engulfed global finance will inevitably lead to a prolonged period of tighter regulation and stricter capital requirements by governments and regulators. There is near universal agreement that there should be no repeat of the lax oversight of credit provision and its accompanying exploitation that has led us into the current mess.

This systemic failure has provided New Labour with a window of opportunity to reassert their social democratic credentials. Any move to limit the market's ability to repeat its excesses would find favour, at least temporarily, with an electorate that is currently disgusted and disappointed in the failure of global finance to keep its house in order.

Having been in thrall to the markets for all these years thanks to the Blair/Brown Faustian bargain struck in 1997, New Labour finally has a chance to reconnect with its roots and do something to back up its claim to be the party of social justice and fairness it so desperately wants to be. Instead, it has succumbed to finger pointing and infighting as they argue about who gets to captain the sinking ship.

The debate is not about big vs small government or even libertarianism vs authoritarianism. Increased regulation of finance and banking is coming and will be here in double quick time if the Democrats retain or increase their hold on Congress and Obama takes the Presidency. The only question for the UK is whether it will be New Labour or the Conservatives that get to implement it. It is ironic that its implosion means New Labour will miss its once in a generation opportunity. Unless it can pull its head out of the sand, it probably won't even realise.

The FA's "Respect" agenda is a joke

2008-08-06T09:24:00.006+01:00

There is much that is wrong with football in England. The boring dominance by the same teams year after year. The cynical treatment of fans. The wrist slitting inability to qualify for major championships. Perhaps the worst thing, though, is the behaviour of the elite players.

Globalisation of the game over a decade of prosperity has seen the players' rewards rise to eye wateringly high levels. They rule the roost over their clubs, strut and preen off the field like movie stars and get up everybody's noses. It is on the field, however, that their actions are really offensive: diving, spitting, wagging fingers, waving imaginary cards, crowding around referees and generally behaving like petulant children. It is no wonder then that kids (and their parents)are copying their idols, abusing and intimidating referees and becoming increasingly aggressive on the field.

Everyone says that something needs to be done and yet, each year, nothing happens. This season, the FA has come up with the wizard idea of the "Respect" agenda, which is apparently going to deal with the problem by having the captain meet with the referee prior to kick off and making the players all shake hands before the kick off. As far as I can tell, the only new instruction is for referees to "stand their ground" when players swarm around them to protest a decision (instead of legging it for the corner flag as they now do).

We have long accepted that the FA is a toothless waste of space. If they really think they can wish this problem away with meetings and handshakes, they are more clueless than we thought. If there really is a consensus within the game to take action - and I suspect the consensus may not include the most important constituent - i.e. the players - then this represents a massive missed opportunity.

A zero tolerance approach to dissent is the only way to drive this scourge out of the game. Tellingly, the FA ran a pilot scheme in the amateur leagues whereby only captains were permitted to speak with referees - surely a simple and effective step - but they have chosen not to implement this generally because referees apparently weren't "comfortable" with it. This is nonsense - it works brilliantly in rugby and should be implemented without delay.

Another innovation that should be brought over from rugby is sin-binning for yellow cards. A 10 minute spell in the bin acts as a significant deterrent to cynical play and the threat would surely cut down on dissent. Arming refs with a stronger sanction than the current system of bookings, will also put a stop to otherwise competitive games being spoiled by early or unnecessary red cards. Bringing in a television referee to give limited help to the ref on the pitch is also good sense and would take the heat out of contentious decisions - but as it has been much debated elsewhere I won't go into it here.

As usual, these new rules or new emphasis on existing rules (whatever you want to call them) will be ignored by October and forgotten by Christmas. Expect a continuation of players intimidating referees, spitting at each other and generally setting a bad example. I guarantee we'll be having the same debate come the off season next year.

Why suspending stamp duty won't work

2008-08-05T16:24:00.003+01:00

Alistair Darling has today floated the idea of temporarily suspending stamp duty on house purchases to kickstart the housing market. This will, if enacted, presumably be part of the economic package to be announced after the Summer recess - part of Gordon's big fightback. This presents a number of problems:

1. Floating the idea ahead of implementation will be counter-productive. If you are contemplating a house purchase in the next few months, would you a. go ahead anyway and pay the extra tax to the government or b. defer the purchase until the temporary suspension kicks in?

2. The temporary nature of the suspension will lead to a reversal of the above situation as the end of the suspension approaches. This will lead to a rush of buyers seeking to complete ahead the deadline, creating a further market distortion.

3. The goal of a suspension would be to make houses affordable for those who, were it not for the extra tax, would otherwise be able to do so. However, this would only serve to counteract what is already going on in the housing market, which will keep falling until it finds its point of equilibrium, i.e. the point where buyers and sellers naturally want (and are able) to transact again. The suspension of stamp duty will put an artificial floor under house prices by temporarily boosting the buying power of purchasers, instead of letting house prices continue to fall until the purchasers can afford them without such help. The effect will be to put taxpayers' money - the tax the government would have received - into the pockets of sellers.

The proposal would do nothing to deal with the real issue - the gumming up of the mortgage market. If it cannot be ungummed then house prices will just need to keep falling to the point where first time buyers can meet the lenders' new, stricter criteria.

Now, if the Chancellor proposed permanently scrapping stamp duty, that would be a welcome fillip and worthy of support. But as the tax brings in £6.5 billion a year for the Treasury and the Government is not exactly flush with cash, that doesn't seem likely. If, as has also been suggested, purchasers will simply be allowed to defer the payment of stamp duty for a period rather than avoid it altogether, then, as this would have zero effect on the market, it should be ignored as a serious proposition. Either way, Labour should think twice before trailing ill thought out proposals that, by their very trailing, might distort the market.

Preaching Gove reveals Tory weakness

2008-08-04T13:02:00.005+01:00

It is clear the Conservatives have been doing a lot of thinking of late. There have been plenty of announcements and speeches, brimming with ideas, as they seek to fill the policy void left by New Labour. However, they need to be very careful not to overreach themselves - as Michael Gove may have done this morning in exhorting publishers to tone down lads' mags such as Nuts and Zoo in order to stop "encouraging selfish irresponsibility among young men".

This was a mistake for two reasons. Firstly, it leaves them open to the Labour line of attack of being light on serious policy, when in fact the rest of Gove's speech revealed much that was of interest on Tory thinking about communities, families and education. The Tories may have calculated that the column inches that result from populist headlines were worth the collateral damage from such attacks... but the approach is a risky one.

Secondly, to an electorate already fed up with New Labour's nanny state approach, such talk sounds preachy and patronising. The Tory approach straddles two seemingly opposing ideas. On the one hand, they want to stand for 'smaller government', abandoning the all-encompassing, centrist approach to problem solving and rolling back the New Labour nanny state. On the other hand, they also want individuals to be held accountable for their actions, be it knife-wielding youths, absentee fathers or the publishers of lads' mags, implying more state action to counteract problem behaviour.

Add in the fact that global banking and finance sector is moving inevitably in the direction of greater regulation and government interference (post credit crunch), and it becomes apparent how difficult it will be for the Tories to satisfy both urges. This could be a fruitful point of attack for New Labour, if they ever get their house in order. The Conservatives need to be more careful.

Gordon Brown's Amazing Travelling Circus

2008-08-04T12:21:00.004+01:00

With his back to the wall and perhaps one last chance to save his career, the PM has decided that the thing to do is hold a Cabinet meeting outside of London. Pat on the back for whichever bright spark in the marketing department thought of that one. Perhaps they were inspired by Sven Goran Eriksson taking his England football team for a trot around the country during the Wembley stadium refurbishment? And we all know how that turned out for Sven.

With his party crying out for him to pull a policy rabbit out of the hat, he and his team have reverted to the most transparent kind of gimmick politics. Dressed up as 're-connecting with the people' or some other kind of drivel, this type of announcement plays right into the Tories' hands. If this is the best they can come up with, there really will be no end to their bottoming out.

John McCain gets desperate

2008-08-02T10:28:00.004+01:00

John McCain's Presidential campaign did not get off to the best of starts. The foreign affairs expert made some odd gaffes, repeatedly referring to Czechoslavakia (a country that hasn't existed for 15 years), claiming Iran is supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq (it isn't) and worrying about the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border (there isn't one).

He has surprisingly shifted to the right on some policies, backing off shore oil drilling and promising to make George Bush's tax cuts permanent. This is surprising as it is customary for a candidate to shore up the base vote, on either the right or left, during the primaries before tacking towards the centre come election time.

His campaign at times has seemed disorganised and incoherent compared to the slickness of Barack Obama's operation. His promise to balance the budget through a mix of tax cuts and unidentified cost savings has not been received well. To be fair, his is the much harder task - trying to get elected in the teeth of an economic slowdown and on the back of a universally disliked Republican incumbent.

He has responded by shaking up his team, appointing a man known as "The Bullet" to take charge. The Bullett is Steve Schmidt, a disciple of Karl Rove, who is overseeing a much more aggressive strategy towards Obama. The new approach seeks to portray Obama is little more than a celebrity who, by implication, lacks substance (see http://www.whosaiditcelebrity.com/ and the Republican video that places Obama alongside Britney Spears and Paris Hilton...rightly derided by Danny Finkelstein here).

True, this approach has put Obama onto the back foot, at least temporarily. His lead on Mr McCain is down to an average of 2.9 per cent, from 4.7 per cent just a week ago. However, McCain's strategy carries a lot of risk. Personal, negative campaigning is just what he said he wouldn't do during the Primaries and risks alienating the undecided. It also risks putting too much of the focus on to his opponent, making it a referendum on his suitability. That may be exactly what he is trying to do, but if so, it is as good as admitting that he is losing the argument over policy. Going negative so early in the campaign smacks of desperation.

Where is Alan Johnson?

2008-07-31T17:25:00.004+01:00

Alan Johnson is a top contender for the post of next Labour leader and, possibly PM, depending on how things pan out. A plain speaker and the only would-be leader the Conservatives are said to really fear, he has at least the possibility of acting as the vital bridge between the core Labour vote, the trade unions and the middle classes.

We have heard from a few ministers since the Glasgow East debacle and the Miliband leadership explosion. Jack Straw, Jacqui Smith, Hattie Harman, Alistair Darling have at least gone through the motions of expressing support for their under fire boss. I could be wrong but I can't recall so much as a peep coming from Johnson.

As the febrile mood intensifies over the Miliband furore, speculation will undoubtedly turn to Alan Johnson as MPs will want to know where he stands. Anything less from Johnson than an unequivocal backing of Gordon Brown will reallly light the touchpaper under the now inevitable battle for the top Labour job. Come out, come out, wherever you are.....

Why don't we lower the voting age to 16?

2008-07-31T15:18:00.009+01:00

David Cameron is a great campaigner, as pointed out in this article today in the Coffee House (Spectator). I have only just got around to watching the round table discussion that Cameron held with a group of people aged under 30 that aired on Newsnight last night (I know, haven't I got anything better to do with my time?).

Cameron did really well, I thought but, so far, politicians have been able to do nothing about counteracting the more general malaise of youth disaffection and alienation. Teenagers complain that their voices are ignored and that they have nothing to do other than hang around town centres with all the problems that brings.

There is no quick fix for the problems of underage drinking, drugs, pregnancies and teen on teen violence. Here is one suggestion from left field, however, that could, at a stroke, do something useful. Let us accept that the age of responsibility has been steadily lowering over recent decades and lower the voting age to 16.

Kids today just grow up faster - that may be a shame (loss of innocence and all that) but it is the truth. It is anomalous that we allow 16 year olds to marry, enter the workforce and fight for Queen and country but not vote. The average 16 year old today is already well acquainted with real life, be it crime, drugs, alcohol, sex or money. Respect them by giving them a say and they will automatically become more engaged politically.

You may think that it is not sensible for someone of my centre-right persuasion to suggest the addition to the electoral roll of what would seem to be millions of natural Labour voters. You would be jumping to conclusions, however. A recent poll of UK students (published on June 26th by Opinionpanel, a research outfit that specialises in polling students and reported in The Economist here), traditionally attracted to the politics of the Left and/or the Lib Dems, showed that a staggering 45% were now declared for the Conservatives.

David Cameron may not be cool, but he has nonetheless succeeded in attracting a new generation to his cause. He has, of course, been helped by the fact that it is Labour who are now viewed as the establishment party by the young. 16 -17 year olds may vote differently to their slightly older peers but I would suggest that their votes are definitely up for grabs.

What do you think?

p.s. this is an edited version of an article I wrote yesterday that nobody read, maybe because it was way too long or boring (or both). I'm trying to keep things shorter from now on.

Can politics in the UK ever be cool? 3 suggestions...

2008-07-30T08:35:00.007+01:00

Barack Obama is not cool. I'm sorry, he's just not. He is famously rubbish at ten pin bowling and was President of the Harvard Law Review, not exactly a hip publication. He is running for President of the US, a position that hasn't been associated with cool since JFK. He is, however, young (relatively), black and a gifted orator. Ally that to a message of change, offering people hope in difficult times, and you have a powerful political force. Even if he ends up losing, Obama has succeeded in making politics in the US seem exciting again, awakening a feeling of civic duty inside a whole generation of young people, the likes of which has not been seen since the 1960's.

This article will analyse why caring about politics in the UK lacks street cred and suggest three things - one obvious, one less obvious and one radical - that can be done about it.

The leadership in the UK's main political parties can be accused of many things but being cool certainly isn't one of them. David Cameron, whose rise to power in the Conservative party has done much to attract a new, more youthful audience, tries extremely hard to appear cool (to wit, his all too obvious gift to Obama on his recent visit of his favourite CDs: The Smiths, Radiohead, Gorillaz and Lily Allen), despite his obvious poshness, but as we all know, trying too hard is just not....cool.

The problem can be partially explained by the dash for the centre ground by Labour and the Conservatives since the 1990s. As policies have coalesced around the middle of the road, so people have been left feeling as if they have no real choice and, hence, disenfranchised. At the same time, a combination of self-inflicted wounds at Westminster including scandals over MPs expenses, cash for honours, seedy office flings and juvenile behaviour have served to reinforce a feeling that MPs have become too cosy. People have been turned off in droves. This is especially true for the iPod generation, used to the instant gratification and transparency of YouTube, facebook et al. Is there a way to attract this generation back to the mainstream of politics in the way that Obama has done in the US?

The iPod generation, unscarred by experience, has the luxury of falling back into the arms of radicalism, futile causes and obscure ideologies. They like nothing better than a 'cause', be it saving the whale, defending human rights or climate change. All worthy causes but amongst them you will find nothing as mundane as spiralling gas bills or getting your kid into the school of your choice. The young, by definition, reject the mainstream, preferring thinktanks to political parties and blogs to newspapers...why, after all, should they be expected to support things that their Dads like?

The parties make things worse by co-opting the very causes that the iPod generation support, like climate change and Make Poverty History, thereby sucking the cool out of them. Then, by a combination of prevarication, backtracking and compromise, the mainstream ends up junking or sitting on a cause, leaving the faithful feeling disappointed and even more disenfranchised than before.

So, what can be done about it? Can politics, absent a British Barack Obama (sorry Dave), be made to seem cool again?

Well, there are perhaps a few things that can be tried. Here are my three suggestions:

The obvious: clean up Westminster. Institute a new, transparent remuneration and expenses structure for MPs; beef up the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to root out mercilessly sleaze, dishonesty and unacceptable conflicts of interest; reduce the influence of the invisible hand of lobbyists and unelected quangos; and reach agreement on party funding (without resorting to the taxpayer).

The not so obvious: introduce the US concept of ballot initiatives for local issues. The idea is simple – as long as sufficient local signatures can be collected, the matter can be put to the local electorate for them to vote on, the result then being binding on the local authority. There could be two thresholds…a lower one would see an issue included the next time local elections were scheduled to be held and a higher one would see a mid-term special ballot called. Only matters that do not conflict with national government policy and are left to local authorities would be capable of consideration; e.g. how often your bins are collected or your local schools admissions policy etc.

The radical: let us accept that the age of responsibility has been steadily lowering over recent decades and lower the voting age to 16. This may sound controversial but when you hold it up to the light, it isn’t, really. It is anomalous that we allow 16 year olds to marry, enter the workforce and fight for Queen and country but not vote. The average 16 year old today is already well acquainted with real life, be it crime, drugs, alcohol, sex or money. Kids today just grow up faster - that may be a shame but it is the truth. Respect them by giving them a say and they will automatically become more engaged politically.

You may think that it is madness for a blogger of the centre-right to suggest the addition to the electoral roll of what would seem to be millions of natural Labour sympathisers. You would be jumping to conclusions, however. A recent poll of UK students (published on June 26th by Opinionpanel, a research outfit that specialises in polling students and reported in The Economist here), traditionally attracted to the politics of the Left and/or the Lib Dems, showed that a staggering 45% were now declared for the Conservatives.

David Cameron may not be cool, but he has nonetheless succeeded in attracting a new generation to his cause. He has, of course, been helped by the fact that it is Labour who are now viewed as the establishment party by the young. Those starting courses this autumn were just seven when Labour came to power. 16 – 18 year olds may vote differently to their slightly older peers but I would suggest that their votes would be anything but in the bag for Labour. Were Labour to promote an equally youthful politician such as David Miliband - with his climate change cred - to the leadership, then the battle for the youth vote would well and truly be joined.

So, there are three suggestions for trying to breathe life back into politics for the young and the disaffected. Whether they add up, however, to a recipe for making politics cool is unfortunately unlikely, given the inherent elusive nature of cool itself. In the end, if we can just get young people to care more and start engaging with the political process, that could be counted as success.

The Doha Round collapses whilst in Haiti they are eating mudcakes

2008-07-29T20:47:00.007+01:00

Two stories to compare and contrast in today's press. On the one hand, The Guardian is reporting on approaching famine in Haiti that is forcing residents to eat mudcakes just to stave off the feeling of hunger. On the other hand, you have the collapse, possibly never to be restarted, of the Doha round of talks on international trade liberalisation, ongoing since 2001 and aimed at reducing tariffs.

The reduction of tariffs in the developing world has sometimes led to a flood of cheap food imports that can undermine domestic production. This is what happened in Haiti in the 1990s, according to The Guardian. Trade liberalisation, then, has its many victims. However, it is all too easy to overlook the incredible increase in the total sum of human happiness that free trade has brought about since the 1800s with hundreds of millions lifted out of the misery of subsistence farming into comfortable prosperity.

It is sometimes difficult to reconcile these two opposing forces and I cannot pretend to totally understand it. It is frustrating that, despite all our ingenuity and the gains that have been made in the last decade of global growth, hunger and poverty remain such intractable and deadly foes. Keeping tariffs higher than they might be, all at a cost to the consumer which has been estimated at $125 billion, does not seem to be the right way to go at a time when prices are rising so rapidly and economies are deteriorating anyway.

We are sleepwalking into another 9-11

2008-07-29T13:03:00.004+01:00

Much has been done to stem the tide of Islamic terrorism. Al Qaeda has largely lost its power base in Iraq and has been beaten back elsewhere by a combination of enhanced cooperation between intelligence agencies, a backlash against its excess brutality in the Muslim world and a renewed emphasis on combating the violent jihadist ideology by more moderate Islamic theologians. Saudi Arabia, significantly, has made great strides in overcoming the threat to it from radicals in its midst.

The battle, however, is by no means over or even nearly over. Al Qaeda is still very active. There are pockets of instability right across the developing world, from Somalia to the Philippines to Algeria, that Al Qaeda is seeking to establish itself in. The gravest danger to the West comes from the ungovernable tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda and the Taliban may have been driven from power in Afghanistan but they have found another safe haven amongst the Pushtun tribes that inhabit this area and answer to no central government.

Fiercely anti-West, violent and fundamentalist, they have allowed the Taliban to regroup and launch their attacks on the Western troops seeking to stabilise Afghanistan. Here, amongst the impenetrable mountains, it is likely that the Al Qaeda leadership is busy plotting its next spectacular attack on the West, free from interference.

This cannot be allowed to go on. The West feels it cannot put further pressure on an already fractured and weak Pakistan government. The Pakistan army has already suffered morale-sapping losses in its attempts to quell the area and does not seem to have the stomach to go back for another try. The political leadership has found it expedient to make a truce with the tribal leaders, getting them off their backs but leaving them free to help their Taliban brothers. President Musharraf, on whom the West has bet much, is weak and unpopular.

If Pakistan does not have the stomach for the fight, then the Western troops fighting in Afghanistan must take the fight to our enemies for them. We simply cannot allow Al Qaeda the room to breathe as they will use it to murder thousands of Western civilians. Yes, this may undermine Pakistani sovereignty, destabilise Pakistani politics and turn otherwise sympathetic Pakistanis against the West. However, according to The Pew Research Centre's annual survey of global opinion of America, only 15% of Pakistanis have a favourable view of America anyway (from The Economist, here), so can it get any worse?

The alternative to taking action, with or without the support of the Pakistan government, is unacceptable. If we wait for the Pakistan leadership to cooperate more fully (as Barack Obama recently suggested he would), we could find ourselves waiting in vain. The safe haven being provided to Al Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan represents a clear and present danger and unless we stop treading on eggshells around Pakistan's sensibilities we will end up sleepwalking into another 9-11.

New Labour should have taken a leaf out of Madonna's book

2008-07-28T13:33:00.008+01:00

Nobody likes to see 50 year old ladies writhing around in their leotard but somehow Madonna gets away with it. The reason? She has constantly reinvented herself and made herself seem fresh to each new generation of pop culture consumers. Madonna's experience holds a lesson for New Labour - their failure to renew themselves explains how they find themselves in such a hole.

As the twin hurricanes of globalisation and Thatcherism changed the UK landscape irreversibly in the 1980's, the Labour Party (with Blair and Brown in the vanguard) gradually realised and came to accept that the old Labour vision of state socialism was dead. New Labour was born, twinning a pared down version of social democracy (the idea that governments can control economic and social change and thus harness capitalism for a greater good) with an embrace of the free market. In so doing, Blair and Brown had correctly taken the pulse of a population that was ready for a greater emphasis on public services, paid for through taxation, and a tired Conservative administration was shown the door.

As New Labour has now found out, when you climb onto a bucking bronco, it can be extremely hard to tame and you suffer a high risk of being thrown off. This is what the free market has done to Gordon Brown. The New Labour leadership failed to apply, via state imposed regulation, their own social democratic principles sufficiently to the free market and this has led directly to the personal debt crisis and housing bubble that the UK now finds itself in.

Governing could be said to be about finding a healthy balance between three things: the power of free markets to increase incomes, regulation to rein in the excesses of the free market and a good safety net to catch people when the market fails them. Easy to say but less easy to put into practice. Part of that balancing act involves calibrating levels of taxation and expenditure over an economic cycle, always leaving a sufficient margin of error to allow for the unavoidable shortcomings of economic forecasting.

The architects of New Labour have made three fundamental mistakes. Firstly, they have allowed a perception to fester that the welfare state safety net is over generous. We Brits obsess about fairness and if the system (which our taxes pay for) is being abused or is viewed as unfair then disillusionment is inevitable. Combine that with the belt tightening that accompanies an economic downturn and you have a toxic mix.

Secondly, New Labour has allowed itself no margin for error in its sums. Caught out by a deteriorating economy, government borrowing is already too high at the same time as its receipts are falling. Thirdly, and most importantly, Blair, Brown et al failed to understand that the balance between the three pillars of good governance - free markets, regulation and a safety net - needs to be re-assessed and renewed, not constantly, but from time to time.

Gordon Brown is right to say that is the job of government and its leaders to take difficult decisions that are in the long term interests of the country. The implicit adjunct to this statement is that sometimes those long term decisions are unpopular with a general public necessarily more focused on the short term. Just as Blair and Brown successfully took the pulse of the nation when they created the New Labour project, so Brown - now shorn of his colleague who was so adept at it - has failed to judge how far the popular mood has swung away from the same project.

The idea that a state, using the principles of social democracy, has the tools to cure all the ills that might befall a society, has been taken too far, to the point where the public has become alienated from it. New Labour has run on merrily ahead whilst the general population has has been left behind, preoccupied with fuel and grocery bills. The gap between the two has grown too large to be bridged and, as a consequence, the public have ceased to listen to or even care what ministers are saying.

David Cameron and his colleagues have recognised this and are seeking to fill that gap with their own brand of "Compassionate Conservatism". Whether they fare any better at finding the right balance, over the long term, between the state and the free market, only time will tell.

Didn't you know? People actually ring Gordon for advice

2008-07-27T18:02:00.006+01:00

With all the swirling rumours of plots, denials and statements of support there have been some great quotes on the airwaves today. We had Caroline Flint tying herself in knots and virtually begging Adam Boulton to help her out. We have seen John Prescott popping up and castigating the entire Cabinet as not having "anywhere near the ability or the experience" to take the PM's place. Nice vote of confidence from Prezza in his former colleagues.

Backbencher Geraldine Smith showed herself not be in her right mind by first denying that there was any plotting going on at all and then simultaneously contradicting her own denial by attacking those responsible as "spineless individuals" who should be sacked.

My favourite quote of the day, however, came from Harriet Harman, on Sky News, who tried her best to convince us that "we are very fortunate to have someone" like Gordon Brown to lead us and then, with her voice rising in incredulity at our idiocy for even doubting him, she exclaimed that "You know, people ring up Gordon Brown to get advice from all around the world on economic circumstances!" Makes a change at least from Gordon Brown ringing up random voters and putting them off their breakfast.

What "getting on with the job" actually means

2008-07-27T11:34:00.004+01:00

All the focus in this weekend's papers has, of course, been on Gordon Brown's chances of survival and the numerous accounts of unnamed Labour sources variously whinging, collecting names or generally scheming as to the best way to knife the beleaguered PM in the back. He is just "getting on with the job".

In the meantime, further evidence has emerged of the government's scary level of incompetence in its handling of our data. Stories leak out about hundreds of MoD laptops or millions of bank account details going walkabout with such depressing regularity that Government ministers seem to have become blase about it and we have become inured to it.

Whenever Gordon Brown is asked a question, he has a famous tendency to reel off a list of supposed Labour achievements in office. Guaranteed to be amongst them is his pet project of working tax credits. The Sunday Times today reports (here) that there continue to be severe problems in the administering of the tax credit system, with 2 million people per year wrongly being given overpayments, which now add up to a staggering £8 billion.

HMRC takes the line that any beneficiary of an overpayment has either deliberately understated their family income to boost their tax credit, inadvertently entered the wrong numbers into the myriad forms or, at the very least, should take responsibility for spotting a mistake even if it is HMRC that has made the error. HMRC zealots threaten court action, without any avenue for complaint, from their hard-pressed victims who might not be in a position to repay money they received in good faith. They are currently pursuing 1.5 million families.

The HMRC is institutionally incapable of handling such a labyrinthine project as the working tax credit system. Evidence obtained under the Data Protection Act by claimants reveals that data entry errors are usually the cause of problems, rather than the actions of the claimants themselves. An HMRC whistleblower gave the following wonderful explanation of what has gone on:

"We put duplicate files into the system because the software could not calculate the payments on original files that were inputted incorrectly. We were never able to erase those files and they have always been there in the background causing a lot of the errors." Got that? The fact that the Parliamentary Ombudsman, a pursued claimant's only source of redress, upheld 74% of the cases she investigated on behalf of claimants, tells us all we need to know.

Personally, I could never quite get my head around a system that takes income tax from working people with one hand and then gives it back to them in the form of working tax credits with the other hand. Why not just simplify the system and net the two things off? I know that would entail an awful lot of work and upheaval for HMRC but, let's face it, if ever there was a public body that was crying out for reform, the HMRC must be near the top of the list.

How these lemmings miss Tony Blair

2008-07-25T09:50:00.009+01:00

Fraser Nelson, on Sky News this morning, aptly described Gordon Brown as a lightning rod for the UK's worries about the economy and forecast that as long as he remains in place there would be no let up in the government's deep unpopularity.

Gordon Brown has been undeniably unlucky. Viewed through the prism of today's weakening economy and rising prices, Gordon Brown's record as Chancellor looks decidedly worse than it might have done. If mortgage brokers in the US had not got greedy and mis-sold mortgages to sub-prime borrowers, it is likely that the UK electorate would not have given a fig about Brown's dour, humourless persona. But, of course, they did and they do.

Listening to Tony McNulty, an effective defender of the New Labour cause if ever there was one, this afternoon, it seems clear that the Labour leadership is marching, lemming-like, straight towards the cliff edge. They are clinging to the hope that, when held up to the light during the General Election campaign, the public will somehow see through the 'shallow flim-flam' rhetoric (in McNulty's words) of David Cameron and come to see the PM for what he really is, a stoic defender of fairness and all that is good in the world.

It is said that Labour "don't do regicide" and hence we should not expect the pretenders to the crown to step forward and knife their leader in the back. This is nonsense. Milliband (carefully shunted off the Foreign Office where he stands less chance of being tainted) and Purnell are calculating, ambitious and have their eyes on the prize. The truth is much simpler - Labour are just not capable of admitting they are wrong about anything.

Time after time, they promise to "listen" to the message the voters are sending them but still they stick to the same course. To change course, to admit they are wrong about the direction they have been taking the country, is just not in their make up.

It is only now, as time has passed, can we fully realise just how vital to the whole New Labour project Tony Blair was. With each new disaster that befalls Brown and co., that fact becomes more and more painfully obvious. He was the glue, the sticking plaster, that held it all together. With a grin, a shrug and a joke, he could make us forgive the Government anything. Tuition fees? Oh go on then. Cash for honours? Not me, guv. Iraq War? OK, maybe not the Iraq War.

It was New Labour's tremendous fortune that a politician of Tony Blair's oratorical and crowd-pleasing skills happened along at just the right time. No other person could have pulled in the middle class votes that Labour needed to push them over the finish line in 1997, convincing them that his vision of public sector reform and "fairness" (whatever that meant) was just what they wanted. Like all good salesmen, the trick is to convince your customers that it is they who decided that what they really, really needed was just what the salesman happened to be selling.

With Blair history and the successful UK economy, the one thing that Brown could lay claim to, in freefall, it was only a matter of time until the wheels fell off.

Radovan Karadzic was a lying, paranoid, drunken madman - Sir Michael Rose interview

2008-07-24T08:17:00.005+01:00

With all the headlines focusing on the bizarre appearance and new life Radovan Karadzic had made for himself, it is worth remembering some of the madness that accompanied the horrors of the Bosnian conflict.

The Daily Mail yesterday carried a fascinating interview with Sir Michael Rose, head of the UN peacekeeping forces in 1994, about his numerous encounters with Karadzic. He comes across as a lying, paranoid drunk who would not move without speaking to his military commander, Ratko Mladic, who, Rose reports, he was probably afraid of. Its well worth a read and can be found here.

Trade unions fire first shot in brazen call for Hutton's head

2008-07-23T08:51:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I wrote about how we could expect a battle royal over the coming months between New Labour and its trade union paymasters. Casualties are expected on both sides and it seems that the unions have a high profile target in their sights already.

The Times is reporting here that the unions are demanding that the head of John Hutton, the Business Secretary, be served up before the Warwick negotiations even begin. Hutton stands accused of cosying up too much to the business lobby. The unions, says The Times, "are furious with Mr Hutton after he said in May that the Labour Government had reached “the end of the era” on considering sweeping new regulations as the best way to improve standards". Sounds pretty innocuous to me.

Relations between the likeable Hutton and the trade union representatives have broken down so much that they cannot even stand to be in the same room together. A Government "source" stated that it was "inconceivable that Mr Brown would bow to such a brazen demand". The call for Hutton's head should be seen as a warning shot across the bows rather than a red line issue as the unions test Gordon Brown's resolve. That they should be aiming so high, so early is a sign of their confidence - the battle lines are drawn.

New Labour complete journey to become centre-right party

2008-07-22T12:27:00.014+01:00

There is an irreconcilable conflict tearing at the heart of the Labour Party and it can no longer be truthfully said that New Labour is the party of the Left. Bit by bit, New Labour has chipped away at its traditional leftist policies on education, health, civil liberties, wealth redistribution and law and order until very little remains.

Yesterday, one of the last bastions of the Left fell. James Purnell's Green Paper on welfare reform went further even than the Conservative government in the 1980's would have dared. At long last, there is to be a concerted effort to do something about the scandalously high number of incapacity benefit claimants (2.5 million) and to tackle the problem of those in society who would prefer to claim the dole rather than accept available work. With this announcement, it can be said that the Conservatives - in Westminster, at least - have won the ideological argument. Certainly, James Purnell is being hugged by centre-right commentators as one of their own.

The battle, however, is not yet done. For the unions, who find themselves for the first time in a long tim holding the whip-hand over the Labour Party, this latest lurch to the right must have been a slap in the face. The welfare of workers, the unemployed and the incapacitated goes to the heart of the very meaning of the labour movement.

The unions and the Labour Party will sit down for their well-publicised pow-wow next week to discuss future policy, where the unions are, apparently, to present a list of 130 policy changes that they would like to see implemented. They have not spelled out their implicit threat to withdraw funding from the Labour Party if their "requests" are not met simply because they have not needed to.

The dispute between the unions and the Labour Government is likely to be a slow-burner at first as the arguments are played out behind closed doors and is only likely to spill over into the public domain come the Autumn. Neither side will be willing to back down but one must ultimately prevail. The result will be a choice between financial or electoral meltdown as the Government is acutely aware that any union dictated leftwards turn is likely to prove a disaster with those voters that New Labour need to retain most.

The debate will be a vicious one as the two sides fight for the soul of the Labour Party. There are likely to be casualties on both sides before the dust clears and the battle is done. David Cameron must be rubbing his hands at the prospect.

Gor-Don Quixote-Brown is at it again - this time its the Middle East

2008-07-21T09:58:00.006+01:00

Not content with single handedly solving the global oil crisis the other week, our glorious leader has now turned his hand to sorting out the Middle East.

Despite being unable to rustle up any extra money to honour his promises to the police or to pay for proper equipment for our troops in Afghanistan, Labour have managed to dig around and find an extra $60 million to hand over to the Palestinian National Authority. This brings the total amount of UK taxpayers' money donated to the Palestinians to $175 million this year.

Without any trace of irony, the PM also proffered his advice on how the Palestinians could get access to "cheap mortgages" to kickstart their housing market. I'm sure Mahmoud Abbas is very grateful.

Brown has also laid down the law to Iran on its nuclear programme, giving them 2 weeks to suspend their enrichment programme or else. Or else what? With Russia increasingly saying "Nyet" to any request for action in the UN Security Council, it is very unclear whether the threat of tighter sanctions can be brought to bear by the West. Iran has shown absolutely no sign of stopping its enrichment and probably will continue to stall at least until the results of the US Presidential election are known. So Gordon Brown's threats are empty ones.

As a useful diversion from his domestic woes, these overseas trips are useful for Brown. But if he put half as much thought and energy into solving the UK's problems, he might just get somewhere.

The General Election phoney war has begun

2008-07-18T08:29:00.007+01:00

These are interesting times at Westminster. With a likely 20 months still to go, the parties have started jockeying for their starting positions at the next General Election.

Alistair Darling and the Labour Party are squirming, caught like worms on a hook. With government receipts plunging along with the worsening outlook for the UK economy, they have very few palatable options available. Labour can't or won't cut spending on public services as that would run counter to all that New Labour stands for, as well as lead to anarchy on the Labour backbenches. Darling admitted in an interview in the Times today that he cannot raise taxes any further - to do so would be to sign their own electoral death warrant. His only option, then, is to relax the fiscal rules which formed the bedrock upon which Gordon Brown's reputation for economic competence was built and borrow more money.

There is nothing theoretically wrong for a government to borrow money to provide a fiscal stimulus to a faltering economy. The problem for Labour is that the increased borrowing is needed just to plug the deficit and fulfil current spending plans, not to provide a fiscal stimulus. There is also nothing magical about the self-imposed figure of 40% [of government borrowing as a percentage of GDP]. The point is that, having made the rule, its abandonment leaves Labour open to its traditional criticism, i.e. that it is a "tax and spend" party.

Labour governments always run out of money, as the old Tory saying goes. The undermining of the government's economic credibility will have a real cost when it somes to raising finance through future gilt issuance as buyers of government debt will extract enhanced terms in return for the perceived increased risk inherent in UK plc.

Darling defended the relaxation of the rule by pointing out that the US, France, Germany and Italy currently have higher deficits as a proportion of GDP. That may be true of today, of course, but with the impact of the downturn on the government's finances likely to be far worse than it and analysts have predicted (it always is), that is not likely to hold true for very long.

Labour's virtual only remaining claim to economic fame is that employment levels remain high. It is true to say that people generally are not yet worried about their jobs (unless they happen to work in the not insignificant housebuilding or financial sectors) and unemployment levels are not high. Leaving aside the hidden unemployed bloating the benefit rolls, the numbers are, however, worsening rapidly.

So, the issues of government taxation and expenditure have come to the fore. The Lib Dems have taken the tactical decision to colonise the ground normally reserved for the Conservatives - i.e. opportunistic and unrealistic tax-cutters. The Conservatives themselves are manfully sticking to their promise to abide by Labour's spending plans but are bound to be watching the shifting sands very closely.

All the talk at present is of Labour's "scorched earth" policy....the deliberate wreckage of the public finances in order to sabotage the Conservative's first term in office. That view is over-cynical but it does seem as if the starting gun for the next General Election has been fired....the phoney war has begun.

Dwain Chambers should be allowed to run

2008-07-17T18:13:00.003+01:00

The great and the good of UK athletics have lined up over the last few days to condemn Dwain Chambers and emplore the court not to overturn his Olympic ban. This is self-righteous, self-serving, inconsistent claptrap. The rules are the rules, they say. It wasn't quite like that for Christine Ohuruogu, was it?

Ohuruogu had her Olympic ban overturned on appeal, even though the "rules" were just as clear for her as they are for Dwain Chambers. Ohuruogu earned her ban for missing 3 drugs tests, a clear breach that gave her an easy opportunity to cover up the administering of an banned substance. But, hey, she said she was innocent and she's a nice girl, if a bit dizzy, so we'll let her off. She even went on to be nominated for Sports Personality of the Year (after an eyebrow raising victory in the World Championships in only her fifth race back after her ban).

She's not the only one. The triathlete, Tim Don, and judo athlete, Peter Cousins, both won an Olympic reprieve from the BOA after serving a suspension for missing 3 tests. Mark Lewis-Francis was let off his Olympic ban after serving a suspension for having cannabis in his system. So the BOA 'rule' can be ignored when it suits the BOA.

Chambers may be an admitted drugs cheat but he has, at least, served his sentence, apologised and come clean about what he did. Not only that, he has put in the hard graft to get back to a level of serious competitiveness. What does the BOA's refusal to give him a second chance say about the Olympic ideal?

Its not as if drugs have not been rife throughout athletics over the years, is it? So many athletes have been outed as drug cheats, its probably safer to assume an athlete is competing on drugs rather than vice versa. The only difference with Dwain Chambers is that he got caught. So, let him run. He might even win us a medal.

What are the Lib Dems for?

2008-07-17T14:43:00.003+01:00

Nick Clegg has today set out a new direction of travel for the Lib Dems as a party of tax cutters. This is in stark contrast with their previous position as a tax and spend party. Of course, they have had to cut their cloth to suit the political climate...any party commiting to tax increases in our already over-taxed country would be laughed out the door come General Election time.

The Lib Dems' problem is that they know they risk getting squeezed by the resurgent Conservatives. By promising tax cuts, Clegg is seeking to shore up his party's position, particularly across the South. In doing so, however, he is putting himself increasingly at odds with his party's grass roots, already smarting from the dropping of the 50% top rate of tax.

He will also, of course, simultaneously jeopardise his party's chances of attracting disenchanted Labour voters who cannot bring themselves to cross the Rubicon and vote Tory. Clegg has realised that there is no mileage in being a party out on a limb (on the left or right) and that he has to keep moving his party towards the centre ground. On taxes, he has now leapfrogged the Conservatives on the political spectrum - a brave move.

He has left himself open to two charges. One - that he is now leading a party that will cut public services - already proven to be a big no-no for the electorate. Two - that he is just blowing with the political wind in opting to cut taxes only because it suits his party electorally to do so.

Moreover, he is taking a gamble on choosing to compete head on with the Conservatives. There is a need for a political party that will defend individual liberty, maintain and improve public services, reduce the size of government, decrease the long term tax burden and seek to heal rifts in our society. The trouble for Nick Clegg is that we already have a party seeking to do all that: the Conservatives. So why exactly do we need the Lib Dems?

Samir Kuntar may be free but he is no hero

2008-07-17T11:18:00.006+01:00

It made sick to the very pit of my stomach yesterday to watch the pictures of Samir Kuntar being welcomed home a hero. There could not have been a starker contrast between the sombre mood on the Israeli side of the border, with grief-stricken families welcoming home the two coffins of the dead Israeli soldiers, and the wild celebrations on the Lebanese side.

The sickening act of terror perpetrated by Kuntar should never be forgotten. In 1979, Kuntar and 3 accomplices made ashore in a rubber dinghy in northern Israel. After shooting dead a policeman that stumbled across their path, he and his three accomplices burst into the home of the unfortunate Naran family and frogmarched the father, Danny, and his 4 year old daughter, Einat, down to the beach. Meanwhile, Einat's mother was hiding in a crawlspace with her 2 year old daughter, Yael. Tragically, although they were not discovered, the mother accidentally suffocated Yael as she tried to stop her crying out.

On the beach, Kuntar shot Danny in the back, in front of Einat, before finishing him off by drowning him in the sea. He then turned to Einat and knocked her down with his rifle butt before proceeding to smash her skull against the rocks until she was dead. A 4 year old girl.

Kuntar received an official welcome at Beirut airport from President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and members of all the major political factions - including Hizbullah's rivals. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also sent a message of congratulations to Kuntar's family.

Kuntar may be a free man but he is a psycopath and a murderer, not a hero. His release by Israel, painful as it is, should never have happened.

Kids and knives: why Polly Toynbee has her head in the sand

2008-07-15T11:33:00.007+01:00

It must be quite difficult being Polly Toynbee in today's Britain. In Polly's world, the poor are always deserving and criminals are never responsible for their actions. There is no problem in society that government cannot come up with a solution to. It must be extremely painful for Polly to see the increase in the prison population from 60,000 to 80,000 that has taken place on New Labour's watch.

Today, Polly has weighed in with her views on knife crime. Much has been written and spoken about on knife crime in the last few days, most of it rubbish. The fact is, no-one knows why things have got worse over the last couple of years and, as a consequence, no-one knows how to fix it. Instead, we get kneejerk suggestions and a lot of hand-wringing.

Polly, surprise surprise, is not in favour of harsher penalties for those using and carrying knives. She lectures us that we should not be overly concerned as “all through history there have been waves of youth violence” and uses statistics selectively to demonstrate her case that things have not got worse recently. Apparently, reports Polly, only 15% of knife-carriers “intend to take part in crime or gang activity”. I’d love to know how that particular survey was carried out.

As Polly reminds us, violent crime numbers are down dramatically since 1997, according to the British Crime Survey. There are fewer murders today and Britain is not particularly murderous when compared with the EU average (although it is a bit high for western Europe). Since 2000, the number of people killed by knives has been fairly constant (258 people in 2007) and deaths inflicted by knives as a proportion of overall murders are also stable.

So, if murders are no more frequent and the use of knives to commit them no more prevalent, what exactly is going on and why do we feel less safe? If we look beyond murders, at the number of threats and assaults committed (as measured by the International Crime Victims Survey) we can begin to understand the picture. In 1988 Britain placed eighth in Europe and below the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand out of all the 28 rich countries surveyed. Today Britain comes second overall (behind Iceland).

Violent crime may be down overall but this is only because of a halving in domestic violence and fighting between friends. The fall masks an increase in violence at the hands of strangers, which has risen by 14% since 1997. Those unlucky enough to be on the receiving end are coming off worse too: a doubling (from 8%) in victims needing to see a doctor between 2002 and 2005.

These are worrying trends and give the lie to the government’s claims about crime and safety. What is even more worrying is the dramatic change in the age profile of murderers and their victims. The overall number of murders may be coming down but this hides the fact that the over 35s are murdering each other less and teenagers (according to a recent study by King’s College London) are taking up the slack with gusto, murdering each other far more. This bears out our gut feeling from recent headlines that youth on youth murder is becoming a major problem for British society. From 2000 to 2006, between 15 and 19 teenagers were killed in the capital each year. In 2007, 26 were killed; half way through 2008, 19 have died already.

So, when Ms Toynbee says “This is not a "broken society" at all, but a time of falling crime.”, we know that she is being misleading. She castigates David Cameron for saying society is broken as, for her, the problem is restricted to a relatively small section of society:

“For a long time now it's been clear a relatively small number of families - Brown said 110,000 - cause most crime and violence, sometimes for generations.”

For Polly, the answer is identification of, and early intervention in, those families….training, courses, “special units for intensive parenting support”. No blame to be attached to the perpetrators and certainly no more prison. The Government can fix what ails you.

A brief look at the statistics above, however, confirms what our eyes and ears are telling us. Polly is wrong, so wrong. For far too long, we have allowed the likes of her to set the agenda on youth justice. By all means let us try and coax problem kids and their parents to mend their ways through training and courses. We have to admit, however, that this soft approach on its own has failed.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick” was how Teddy Roosevelt described the ideal US foreign policy. The government would do well to take heed. No more ‘blame free’ justice. No more youth offenders laughing their way through their sentence, as the killers of Damilola Taylor were recently photographed doing (above). Actions must have consequences.

Cameron has it spot on and the likes of Toynbee have their heads firmly in the sand. The roots of the problem go deep and have many causes. Poor quality state education, lack of opportunities and family breakdown all play a part. These may be problems that take a generation to solve and government may not even be in posession of the tools to fix them. However, Toynbee’s refusal to even admit that there is a wider problem, as she naïvely clings to her outdated social policy beliefs, is only making the situation worse. Shame on her.

GLC is on holiday, wondering why we have to pay extra for internet access in hotels

2008-07-06T05:23:00.004+01:00

I am on my travels at present, in Bali for a wedding, as it happens. Internet access is intermittent so normal service will be resumed next week. Whilst briefly online I thought I would share my latest bugbear: the policy hotels seem to have universally adopted on internet access...why oh why do they charge extra for it? Isn't providing internet access to guests now just like every other utility? Smells decidedly fishy to me....

The place I'm currently in charges US$25 per day to get online (or US$6 per hour) which seems outrageous to me. They're not charging me extra to watch the TV or flush the loo so why do I have to pay more to use the internet? I know times are tough (well, maybe not in Bali) but surely the hotel industry's business model can bear the cost of providing free access in exchange for the goodwill of their guests. Maybe I should start a campaign. Or something.

Zimbabwe - not even the worst of Africa's problems

2008-06-29T15:28:00.009+01:00

Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission has today announced that Robert Mugabe has won the Presidential run-off with 85.5% of the vote. The pantomime villainy of this charade would be amusing, if it had not been accompanied by the murder of dozens of innocent people and the terror-inducing beating and intimidation of countless other men, women and children.

The failure of Thabo Mbeki to speak out against Mugabe is something that is hard for us to comprehend. What it reminds us is that Africa largely remains under the governance of a club of unaccountable, self-interested and pompous leaders who are more interested in protecting each other's legacies and lining their own pockets than in raising their citizens out of penury.

The Zimbabwean tragedy commands our attention for a number of reasons: the blatant denial of the popular will; the economy's frighteningly quick fall from grace; our shared history; Mugabe's shameless blaming of the UK. However, whilst we should not, by any means, underplay the awfulness of the Zimbabwean situation, the sad truth is that Zimbabwe is just one of a multitude of other tragedies of equal or worse proportions that are befalling the African continent.

Sudan remains a festering wound. The number of deaths and displaced people in Darfur is so staggering that we barely comprehend it any more. With a promised referendum on sovereignty looking in doubt, the North-South Sudan political settlement is also creaking, threatening further bloodshed. The crisis has also ensnared its neighbour, Chad, swamped by refugees and now seriously threatened by its own rebels.

Famine is once again stalking Ethiopia, its people failed by their government's mismanagement of the economy. Decades-old conflicts linger on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country almost the size of Western Europe, as militias roam the eastern border with Uganda and Rwanda, murdering at will and inflicting unspeakable atrocities upon the blighted locals. Somalia has slipped back into the status of a failed state where death, either violent or by starvation, is an everyday part of life.

Corruption is endemic. AIDS hangs like a spectre across the continent. Repression of political dissent is the norm. We should not forget that South Africa, the supposed shining beacon, itself has been, to all intents and purposes, a one party state since the end of apartheid. Ethiopia, that friend of the West, has imprisoned, murdered and terrified those who have dared to oppose its leaders. Zimbabwe's problems, in this context, are not even nearly the worst of it.

All is not lost, however. The areas blighted by violence are pockets in a sea of African normality, all be it an impoverished one. Over the coming decades, Africa's abundant natural resources will prove increasingly irresistible to the global economy as its developing nations in Asia continue their voracious march. That, and cheap labour in a global market, will attract inwards investment and a chance for African nations to do what Asian nations are currently doing (global warming allowing). The people of Africa deserve better leaders than the old boy's club of Mugabe, Mbeki and co. If they can find them and put them into positions of power, Africa stands a chance of a better future.

Gordon Brown in Saudi Arabia - naive, foolish or visionary?

2008-06-23T17:14:00.012+01:00

Gordon Brown is a sincere man. He really does care about fighting inequality, injustice and poverty. But if he really thought that he could have any impact on the price of oil, either today or at any time in the future, by his call to action at the OPEC meeting in Jeddah last Sunday, he was deluding himself. No, he and his advisers knew only too well that his plea to the oil producing nations of the world would achieve little to nothing, except to enable him to talk to his domestic audience about how he is ‘taking action’ over high fuel prices.

The oil price is high because global supply of the ‘right’ type of light crude oil, the sort refiners like for making into diesel and petrol, is tight at present. At the same time, global demand has risen ahead of expectations as the economies of the developing world have expanded at a rapid pace.

OPEC (responsible for about 50% of global production) and the other oil exporters have been raking in the profits at current price levels. Asking them, as Gordon Brown did, to turn on the oil supply taps whilst investing in a new, clean energy future to help wean the global economy off its addiction to oil, seems like the equivalent of asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. Gordon Brown’s request for this “new deal” on energy sounded like begging, and he has been ridiculed as not understanding global markets by his detractors.

However, if you cut through the hot air about the Saudis investing in UK windfarms and the publicity seeking, self-serving nature of Gordon Brown’s dash to Jeddah (he was the only head of state to attend), there is actually an interesting point to be extracted from all this.

Why, if the oil exporters are so happy about the current oil price, did Saudi Arabia call the emergency summit in the first place? Why also have they already promised to up their production output by 200,000 barrels per day? The answer is not because of any altruistic desire to share in Gordon Brown’s vision for an oil free future but rather due to a hard headed understanding of the long term impact of high oil prices on the global economy.

The Saudis, in particular, have long memories and have only to think back to the 1970s to see the potential downside of painfully high oil prices. OPEC’s decision to cut supply to the West was self-defeating as global demand for oil slumped, sharply reducing oil exporter’s revenues for many years and stimulating an efficiency drive and search for alternative fuels that continues today.

Any repeat of that today would have the added downside of reducing the value of the vast foreign currency reserves accumulated by Saudi Arabia during the boom years. That is why the Saudis now speak of the oil price as being unsustainably high and are breaking ranks with its OPEC partners, let alone the non-OPEC producers, to boost supply and talk down the oil price. That such a policy would also clip the wings of its Shia rival, Iran, would be a desirable side effect for the Saudis.

The currents underlying the global oil market run deep - Gordon Brown’s intentions may have been sincere but he was, unfortunately, way out of his depth.

The NHS is back as a political hot potato

2008-06-22T12:56:00.003+01:00

The NHS has not featured much on the political battleground of late, with neither of the main parties, aware of how emotive an issue the NHS has proved in past elections, wanting to leave themselves open to accusation by the other of betraying NHS principles. Things may now be about to change, however, with the NHS making a return to the front line over the issue of co-payments.

The guiding principle underpinning the NHS has always been that it should offer equal access to care, free at the point of use, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. This dogmatic approach has, however, taken the health service into some morally difficult territory of late.

Numerous patients (mostly female and suffering from cancer) have recently come forward to describe their having been denied NHS care. This is because they had used private funds to purchase drugs that are not currently made available on the NHS (often on the advice of NHS doctors). NHS policy is such that once a patient has opted to pay for any treatment themselves, they have effectively “gone private” and further care is therefore denied.

As recently as last December, the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, said that allowing patients to top up with co-payments would “make nonsense” of the founding principles of the NHS. Now, with the government desperate to avoid negative headlines and a queue of healthcare professionals lining up to support co-payments, it seems that they have realised they are on the wrong side of the argument. Not helping their case is the fact that, after over a decade of Labour government, cancer survival rates remain amongst the worst in western Europe. Johnson recently announced a four-month review of the issue which is expected to lead to approval.

This could potentially place the government at odds with its core vote who support, at all costs, the “free for all, regardless of ability to pay” approach. Amongst these will be a large swathe of NHS workers and their unions who, already restless over pay awards, could make a lot of trouble for Labour over the issue. Unison, the biggest health union, has already come out and stated that the review “must not be the prelude to a system of top-up or co-payments across the NHS”. The policy change will also doubtless dismay a large number of Labour MPs.

Not so fast. Lord Ali Darzai, the Labour peer and leading surgeon who is leading the government’s review of the NHS, was recently interviewed ahead of the release of his report. He was at pains to re-state that there would be no breach of the NHS founding principles.

So what is going on? It is likely that the government is preparing one of its classic fudges. Watch out for an exemption to be given only to specific cancer drugs as Labour try, with a straight face, to maintain that it is not breaching the principle of free care for all. The resulting policy would be a muddle. Once the principle is breached it will very difficult to deny other patients treatment for non-cancer related illness in similar circumstances. Such a policy may also be subject to challenge in the courts.

What of the Conservatives? David Cameron has been very careful not to put up a straw man for the government by coming down on one side of the argument or the other, only saying that he is “tempted” to back co-payments in principle. The Conservatives can see the potential minefield ahead for the government and do not want to do anything that might pre-empt the resulting explosion. The issue of polyclinics, being forced through against the wishes of healthcare professionals, will only add to this combustible mix.

None of us who are outside the system properly understand how the NHS works, with its plethora of local health boards, NHS Trusts, Foundation Hospitals, Health Commissioners and assorted other quangos. But we do understand fairness when we see it. Over this issue, the government is in the unfortunate position, as happens so often, of being damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.

Such is the life of a governing party. Introduce the policy and it risks further alienating its core support. Reject it and it stands accused of putting principles ahead of patient care. A fudged outcome will leave them open to attack from all sides and accused of dithering. Prepare for the NHS to re-take centre stage in political debate.

Lisbon Treaty embarrassment for Brown

2008-06-20T15:18:00.006+01:00

Oh dear. That wasn’t in the script, was it? Only 24 hours ago, Gordon Brown was having his bruised ego stroked by his fellow European leaders for managing to steamroller the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty through the British people. As they toasted him with champagne and patted him on the back, they must have been of the view that, as far as Britain was concerned, the matter was done and dusted.

With the will of the British people, notoriously amongst the most sceptical in Europe, thus neatly sidestepped, the gathering could turn to how to get around the thorny little problem of the rejection of the treaty by the Irish. The crestfallen Irish PM was instructed to return before them in October with his thoughts on how to get a second referendum vote through his people (“or else”, they hardly needed to add). Meanwhile, Gordon was the star of the show, all memories of his notorious no-show at the Treaty signing ceremony banished.

How embarrassing for Gordon Brown it must be this afternoon, then, to have his wings clipped by Lord Justice Richards in the High Court. You may be aware that a leading Tory donor, Stuart Wheeler, has been mounting a one man campaign to force the government to stand by its pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution. That battle today reached the High Court, where Lord Justice Richards said:

"The court is very surprised that the government apparently proposes to ratify while the claimant's challenge to the decision not to hold a referendum on ratification is before the court. The court expects judgement to be handed down next week. The defendants are invited to stay their hand voluntarily until judgement."

The Treaty actually finished its passage through the House of Lords last night, apparently completing the UK’s ratification process. Or so everybody thought. Apparently, the process is not actually completed until the UK’s “instruments of ratification” are lodged in Rome (an obscure a bit of Euro politico-trivia as you are likely to hear) and, lo and behold, the papers had not actually been dispatched.

Moreover, the judge warned that if the government did not “stay their hand voluntarily”, Mr Wheeler would be invited to seek an injunction to stop the ratification going ahead. And so it must have been through gritted teeth this afternoon that Gordon Brown told journalists on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels "Ratification will not take place of course until we have had the judgement from the judge". Of course.

It must have been tempting for the Government to declare that the ratification process could not now be stopped and to defy the will of the court. After all, the more its authority has weakened in the last year, the more brazen it has been in its desire to push through its policies. Wisely, however, they have decided not to pick a fight with the judiciary even though the cost of this is to make Brown look ridiculous in the eyes of his European peers. He will have some explaining to do to his European counterparts who had only the night before toasted his success.

The government is probably confident that Mr Wheeler’s bid to force a referendum will ultimately fail. Either way, the episode has been an embarrassment for the Prime Minister.

The BBC and the battle for the centre ground in UK politics

2008-06-18T18:29:00.012+01:00

Danny Finkelstein has today written a great piece in Comment Central in The Times, here , on the battle to claim the political centre ground in UK politics. Nick Robinson over on the BBC has taken this and twisted it for his own use; unfairly, in my view.

That David Cameron’s strategy to retake the middle ground from New Labour has been successful is hard to argue against, given their lead in the opinion polls. In so doing, he has cut the feet out from under New Labour and presented his party as an acceptable alternative. It is thus the Conservatives that now hold the high ground and it is Labour who find themselves boxed in. They are almost in exactly the same position that the Conservatives found themselves in 1997, when Tony Blair shifted his party from its unelectable position, too far left of centre, towards the middle.

Gordon Brown now has the option, as Danny Finkelstein points out, of either doing nothing and hoping events rescue him somehow, or trying to demarcate some points of difference by shifting the Labour Party either back to the left or to the right. All options seem unpalatable and fraught with risk.

Nick Robinson, here, on his BBC blog, has taken this particular point and given it a different slant, using it to get in some sly digs at the Tories. He opines that the Conservatives have taken a tactical decision to de-prioritise attacks on Labour’s economic record in favour of pushing a social agenda.

“Mending broken Britain”, as Cameron calls it, is hard to argue against. The theory is that by tackling the underlying social ills that have befallen the UK (family breakdown, youth crime etc), a government not only achieves a morally satisfying outcome but will also save an awful lot of money that would otherwise need to be spent on fixing the resulting symptoms. Attractive in theory, of course, but hard to achieve in practice.

Nick Robinson states, more or less, that Cameron is focusing on social breakdown not because it would of itself produce a tangible good but because it allows him to avoid focusing on the economy. Why? In his words: “The Tories fear being seen as too different to Labour.” That is, the Conservatives don’t want to talk about the economy because to do so would necessitate setting out how their economic policies differentiate them from Labour and, in particular, what their tax policies would be.

The not so subtle subtext of Robinson’s article, then, is that the Tories are deliberately concealing their true colours as imprudent tax cutters and that, only if they had the courage, they would come out and say so. If they do not, presumably, we are meant to interpret this as devious and cowardly.

He is being a little unfair on Cameron and the Conservatives. Cameron seems, I think, sincere in his desire to tackle the country’s persistent social problems….whether he could make a dent in them and what he would do with the resulting savings, if successful, is another matter.

Robinson is also taking a few liberties in using Danny Finkelstein’s piece as part of his case for the prosecution. Even if he were correct in his analysis of the Conservatives’ not-so-secret “tackle social problems to fund tax-cutting agenda”, that would not necessarily mean that they were ceding the centre ground position to Labour.

At the end of his blog, Nick cannot resist having a go at George Osborne: “The question is, how much thinking is going on behind the scenes, not about what George Osborne the shadow chancellor says, but what he'd actually do as chancellor? For all our sakes, I hope it's a lot.” Poor George, he’s not only distracting the electorate from his tax-cutting plan by focusing on social problems, he in fact isn’t even bothering to think up any policies in the first place! With that comment, Nick Robinson might have laid bare a little more of his true feelings towards the subject than he intended.

Stagflation: are we going back to the 1970s?

2008-06-17T13:38:00.006+01:00

Flares. Disco. Cliff Richard. There are many reasons for not wishing for a return to the dark days of the 1970s. If we are to believe some commentators, then we are about to re-visit the stagflation hell that that decade inflicted upon the world. There are some similarities: the oil price is eye-wateringly high, growth is slowing (at least in the developed world) and the inflation genie has been released from its bottle and is on the march.

The severe bout of indigestion that has befallen the global credit markets has presented a unique challenge for central banks and treasuries. Never before have the gears and levers of finance seized up in such a manner. Although the banking sector has, like an alcoholic at his first AA meeting, begun the recovery process by coming clean about the extent of its losses and partially recapitalising, there remains much to do to re-establish trust within the marketplace.

That there is work to do does not mean, however, that all is doom and gloom. There are a number of key differences between today’s problems and those of the 1970s. For one, we have the benefit of experience –we now have a greater understanding of the causes of inflation and an improved toolbox for dealing with it. Moreover, the level of control that politicians, too easily swayed by public opinion, are able to assert over interest rate setting has reduced, as central banks have gained their independence.

The global economy was tipped over the edge in October 1973 by OPEC’s decision to restrict supplies to the West. In contrast to that one-off shock, the global economy today has witnessed a slower and steady rise in the oil price, allowing at least a degree of planning and adjustment. In addition, economies today are far more flexible when compared to the 1970s, with labour markets deregulated, union power curtailed and public sector monoliths dismantled. Whether or not you think that this process has gone too far, economies will, as a result, be more resilient than in the 1970s.

The question, then, is what can be done to deal with today’s crisis? It is enlightening to contrast the differing approaches taken in the two countries most affected by the credit crunch: the US and the UK. In the US, the Fed responded to the risk of a recession by cutting interest rates, ably supported by the Treasury with a $100 billion tax rebate. Whilst it is still early days, the result of that largesse seems to be that consumer confidence has been maintained, allowing a breathing space for the problem areas of the economy (finance and housing) to recover – a recession may yet be avoided.

In the UK, however, the government has no such room to manoeuvre. Having raised taxes and borrowing in recent years to fund its expenditure programme in education, health and elsewhere, the Treasury is bumping up against its own borrowing limits and cannot afford to cut taxes, as in the US. They have, in short, run out of money just when they need it most and for Labour politicians to suggest that the UK economy is better placed than elsewhere to withstand its problems is an insult to the intelligence of voters.

The UK’s rate setting body, the Monetary Policy Committee, now has an unenviable task. UK inflation data is ugly: Mervyn King today warned that consumer inflation could top 4% by the end of the year and there is a danger that a new self-fulfilling inflationary wage spiral could take hold. If this looks possible then rate rises could be expected sooner rather than later. GDP growth is sluggish, however, and there remains a real risk that a rate rise could tip the economy over into recession (which itself will of course be deflationary). The MPC must tread a fine line.

I’m sorry….he’s done what? David Davis, 42 days and political vanity

2008-06-12T15:53:00.005+01:00

David Davis has resigned over the 42 days issue but it is the figure of 919 days that is more pertinent. That is how long has passed since David Davis lost the leadership election in December 2005 to his younger, slicker, rival. That he had never quite got over that defeat was apparent to all but he had, at least until today, managed to keep his bitterness in check, subservient to the greater needs of the Conservative Party.

How hard it must have been for him to balance his delight at the resurgence of his party at the polls with his frustration at seeing David Cameron take all the credit. Now that frustration has boiled over and, in the most extraordinary, spectacular fashion, been exposed for all to see.

David Davis is no doubt a man of principle and he has clearly worked himself up to a point of righteous indignation about the creeping march towards a police state currently underway in the UK. He is to be partly admired for his bravery in taking such a stand.

It is, however, an extraordinary act of political vanity to thrust himself centrestage in this manner. We generally like our custodians of public probity to be self-effacing (witness Martin Bell) – a desire for limelight seems somehow to sit awry with the requisite halo that comes with the position. That David Davis should propel himself forward as the self-appointed Guardian of the Nation’s Liberty is, well, so un-British.

And what of David Cameron? His initial reaction must have been anger of Krakatoan proportions. How dare David Davis jeopardise all that the Conservatives have achieved in the last 12 months? Party unity has been the priority in the face of the collapse in Labour support under Gordon Brown…he knows that a straight bat is, more or less, all that is required to see the party returned to power. David Davis’s move has revealed a fissure at the heart of the party and as such has left them vulnerable to attack.

The government has not been slow to accept the opportunity and have accused the Tories of “being in disarray over national security”. David Cameron will have some work to do to repair the damage but, ever the canny operator, he will perhaps see the silver lining in this particular cloud.

For David Davis’s outburst has presented Cameron with an opportunity to tie up a loose end and replace his former rival. David Davis had often gone beyond the agreed party line when pronouncing on domestic policy issues, flexing his muscles in the knowledge that he commanded too much authority in the shires for Cameron to ever be able to do anything about it.

It is not the shires, however, that the Conservatives need to conquer if they are to take power come the next election. It is the young, suburban, middle class professional and white collar workers that previously formed part of Tony Blair’s coalition that need to be brought back into the Tory fold. Replacing David Davis, who turns 60 this December, with the younger, very smart (if somewhat anodyne) Dominic Grieve may well help achieve that goal.

Finally, perhaps the best tactic for the Labour Party may be to choose not to field a candidate at the by-election forced by David Davis’s resignation. That will see his guns well and truly spiked and will leave him looking a little pompous and, even, ridiculous. When he eventually returns to Westminster, having been victorious in an unnecessary battle, he may well find that the debate, and the Tory Party, has moved on without him.

Lisbon Treaty: The Sheer Gaul of it

2008-06-11T11:07:00.007+01:00

It is highly ironic that, of all EU nations, it is the Republic of Ireland that may strike down the Lisbon Treaty in its referendum taking place tomorrow. Ironic, of course, because Ireland has been one of the biggest gainers from its membership. In the 10 years to 2006, Ireland received a net c. E17 billion (although it is now poised to become a net contributor).GDP per head in Ireland, once considered one of the poorest countries in the EU, was 137% of the EU average in 2005, compared to only 70% 10 years previously. The UK, for comparison, had a GDP per head in 2005 of 117%.

If there is any justice in this world the good citizens of Ireland will vote down the Treaty. Not because of the contents of the Treaty itself – some of the bits about making the now enlarged EU machine work more efficiently, I’m sure, make perfect sense. Not because the Treaty will lead to the creation of a foreign policy figurehead – he or she will remain just that, a figurehead. Not even because this is the latest instalment in what has been a gradual chipping away at UK sovereignty.

No, the reason that the Treaty should be dismissed to whence it came is for the sheer cynicism with which the EU remade the rejected Constitution and foisted it on a weary populace. The votes against the Constitution in France and the Netherlands should have been treated with a little more respect. The self-appointed EU guardians decided to “re-interpret” those results as temporary, local protest votes and the Lisbon Treaty was the outcome. This was a bad, elitist decision that reflects poorly on the EU project and its masters.

If it is allowed to stand unchecked and the Treaty forced through, somehow, even despite a No vote in Ireland then the EU will be the loser in the long run. Voter disenchantment will be increased. Those that would deny any benefits of the EU will be given a boost. Democracy will be the loser. Ireland should vote No to send a message to the Euro-elites that we will not stand for broken promises.

42 days: 75% of you are wrong

2008-06-10T17:19:00.004+01:00

According to a Populus poll for The Times, published this morning, a full three-quarters of respondents said that they backed the government's proposals for 42 day detention without charge.

The general public will often err on the side of caution when asked questions on law and order, showing themselves to be firmly to the right of legislators and commentators. "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide" is the usual refrain and, mostly speaking, they are right. For most of us, we cannot imagine that anyone we know or, indeed, have ever met will be touched by the 42 day law. I have some sympathy with the government case; that is, we have already bumped up uncomfortably against the current 28 day limit and we don't want to wait, thanks very much, for more innocents to be blown to pieces on the Tube or the buses before we enact stiffer legislation.

Leaving aside the debate about when and why a government chooses to follow, rather than lead, public opinion, there are some very good reasons why MPs should vote down the 42 day proposal:

1. Lives cannot be put at greater risk if the limit is kept at 28 days. Why? Imagine the scenario: a complicated plot is discovered, plotters are arrested and the clock starts ticking. We reach the 28 day limit and the police, whilst believing they have a case, run out of preparation time. What is then going to happen? Are the plotters going to be free to resume their plans? Are thye going to just be sent on their way with a "Sorry gents" and some compensation from the taxpayer for their wrongful incarceration? No, of course not. The plot, by definition, has been disrupted. No-one imagines that a freed would-be terrorist, under these circumstances, would just be let loose again into society to wreak further havoc.

2. This law is part of a slow creep towards authoritarianism. A connecting line can be drawn from this proposal to blanket CCTV coverage (complete with creepy faceless commands) to our details being stored (and lost) on centralized government databases to the banning of protests around Parliament (I know this has been reinstated but this wasn’t on any grand point of principle) to ID cards etc etc. The loss of liberty that we have suffered over recent times has been gradual and steady and so has not been painful or even noticeable to most of us. A line must be drawn somewhere or before we know it we will all be dobbing in our neighbours and burning books.

3. These powers will be abused. Anyone who believes the government when they say the new powers will only be invoked in the event of "a grave exceptional terrorist threat" is naive. Witness poor old Walter Wolfgang, the 82-year-old man ejected from the Labour Party Conference and refused re-entry by police using powers under the Terrorism Act. Witness also the routine use by local authorities of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) - originally designed to target terrorists and serious criminals - to tap our phones and read our emails. If we allow those in authority to grant themselves the power to do these things, then they will use them wherever and whenever they are able.

4. Experts are against it. Some very eminent and knowledgeable people, Labour supporters, have come out against the Bill (Lords Goldsmith and Falconer being two). You and I are not experts on terrorism or CPS case preparation or police questioning procedures. They are.

5. Labour is playing party politics. Yes, there may be a genuine debate to be had about the balance of civil liberties and state powers but Gordon Brown and co are using the opportunity to position themselves in the eyes of voters as “tough on terror”. Safe in the knowledge that the public will generally come down on the side of tougher powers in these cases, the government is thus free to propose almost whatever they like, leaving it to the opposition to mount the case against and hence be characterised as “weak” on terror. This is a cynical ploy and should be exposed for what it is. When you have an unholy alliance between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems on matters such as this then you know something is wrong with the proposal.

So, let us hope that come Wednesday night, when the votes are tallied, enough brave Labour MPs will have defied the party whip and voted with their conscience. Just because a majority of poll respondents want it, doesn’t make it right. Otherwise MPS may as well all give up and we can govern via referendum.

US Election: Put your money on red as the form book goes out the window

2008-06-08T21:42:00.007+01:00

Something strange is in the US electoral air this year. The race for the Presidency has taken several unexpected twists and turns that few would have predicted a year ago. In any normal election year, this race would be virtually impossible for the Democrats to lose, given their double digit starting lead in the polls. The US electorate should just be waiting to deliver a kick to the backside of the Republican Party as payback for the numerous ills unleashed on its watch: the loss of standing in the eyes of the world, the carnage in Iraq, the sub-prime debacle, a spluttering economy and the polarisation between rich and poor, to name but a few.

And yet....and yet. Unprecedented events are occuring. The US has just witnessed the most extraordinary race for the Democratic nomination, the likes of which has not been seen before. A black man versus a woman. A vicious mud-slinging campaign. A race that just would not end. The defeat of the previously unstoppable Clinton political machine.

The race has, however, now ended and the Democrats have themselves an inspirational orator standing on a platform for “change”. A charismatic, youthful politician promising a break with the past and to heal the divisions in American society. Senator Obama, young and black though he is, should be declared the next President of the United States come November. He is a nearly 2 to 1 odds on favourite at the bookies.

Whomever the Republicans chose as their nominee would have had it all to do. Senator McCain, however, is no ordinary Republican. A war hero and straight talker, he made his name as a maverick Congressman prepared to challenge his own party over such matters as campaign finance and pork barrel spending (the practice of tacking on to legislation additional unrelated federal expenditure for local projects in order to secure congressional support for the legislation....google the infamous ‘Alaskan bridge to nowhere’ as an example).

He possesses genuine cross-party appeal, being estranged from the evangelist wing of the Republican Party’s traditional support base, is experienced and comes across well with blue collar, industrial America. He is anti-abortion but is pro-same sex marriage and stem cell funding - his voting record is conservative with a small “c”.

He does have a mountain to climb. But in this strange electoral year, who knows how the election might play out? The voters should not be willing to re-elect a Republican but are they really ready to send a black man into the White House for the first time? The smart money remains on Obama and I, for one, would like to see him win for the message it sends out to the world, amongst other reasons.

However, Senator McCain is a solid candidate who can, uniquely, portray himself as a Republican rebel and, as such, a break from the Bush-dominated Republican Party of old. If he can sell that story to the American public and simultaneously tar Obama as a liberal, elitist, inexperienced ingénue then who knows what further twists this election year may hold. At odds of 2/1 in a 2 horse race in a year when it seems anything can happen....the betting man should put his money on McCain.

What are they on?

2008-06-06T09:35:00.004+01:00

One of the more hilarious things I heard on the news yesterday concerned the legalisation of drugs. There was a widely carried report on the Conservative's plan to classify Qat as an illegal substance, given the alleged similarity of its physical effects to coke. Qat, for the unitiated is a herb that you chew and is popular amongst the men of the UK ex-pat Somali community.

There were some amusing interviews conducted with some bewildered Qat-chewers, clearly high on....erm..life and reporters bravely ventured into shops to see if they could purchase some of the subversive substance, feigning surprise at being shown the stuff on top of the shop counter, in broad daylight.

The story then cut to a government spokesman who proceeded to decry the need for Qat to be classified on the odd grounds that to do so would merely send it underground, where it could fall prey to all sorts of nefarious criminal types who would then mercilessly exploit the poor users (presumably the users themselves would then need to be re-classified as "addicts" but that's another story).

This, as far as I could tell, was the government's only grounds for objecting to the Conservative proposal. But hang on a minute....isn't this precisely the same justification for the legalisation of some currently illegal substances,like cannabis, being made in reverse? That is, if the government want to keep Qat legal so as not to push users into the arms of drug-dealers, then surely it makes equal sense to legalise cannabis etc so as to take dope-smokers out of the arms of drug-dealers?

Of course if you classify Qat as illegal then you can no longer tax it.... but I'm sure the goverment would never put its need for tax receipts ahead of principles, would it?

Gordon Brown swinging in the wind

2008-06-04T17:30:00.007+01:00

Was it just me or did David Cameron give Gordon Brown a royal beasting in this Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions? For those of you that missed it (what were you doing?) the Conservative leader was, as usual, leaping around the PM, poking him with his stick and attempting to goad him into another shouty, hand-trembling incident, this time over the proposed Vehicle Excise Duty increases for older cars. Brown has of course been heroically resisting the temptation to reach across the ballot box and throttle his adversary, aware of (or, at least, having been told) how poorly his loss of control reflects upon him. Cameron partially succeeded in this goal as the PM ended the exchange in a fit of visible anger.

Why was this significant? The exchange reflected a wider battle underway between Labour and the Conservatives. The poor PM is dangling in the wind at present, scrabbling for any sort of toe-hold, as he seeks to re-establish his authority in the wake of his various recent mishaps. After the local election debacle he informed the nation that he intended “to listen and to lead”. Well, those two things are very different.

The former implies the adoption of more populist, vote-winning decisions (compensation of the losers from the 10p tax scrapping, upping the limit for pre-charge detention to 42 days, potentially scrapping the VED rise for used vehicles etc etc). The latter implies taking decisions that are for the long term good of the nation but that might not be especially popular today (voting through the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, closing unprofitable Post Office branches and ….errrr….keeping the VED rise for used vehicles?). Of course, the trick is to dress up the former as the latter, which is a great trick if you can pull it off.

Which brings us back to PMQs today. We had heard the mutterings from the justice secretary, Jack Straw, and the business secretary, John Hutton, that the government may be prepared to make concessions on some of the vehicle and/or fuel tax budget proposals. "We are listening to public concerns about this" Mr Straw said. Sensing another u-turn in the offing, David Cameron wanted to ensure that the PM would not be able to wriggle off the hook. In making the proposed retrospective VED increase for older cars his main issue, he put himself into a no lose situation.

If Brown now does indeed stick with the unpopular policy, he will be further characterized as a vote-loser for the Labour Party and out of touch with the voters. If he offers it up as a concession, he will be accused of yet another u-turn and characterized as acceding to populism at the expense of sound long term policy. The PM is still dangling in the wind and being buffeted from all sides, with no end in sight.

New Labour distinctly off message

2008-05-23T17:39:00.001+01:00

Be on message. Get your message across. Modern politics has long been about messages. We imagine that spin doctors lurk at every turn in the corridors of power, whispering their counsel into the eager ears of their politician charges. Hence we all knew exactly what the Government was going to say when their long anticipated by-election defeat in Crewe and Nantwich finally arrived last night. One by one, New Labour politicians were wheeled out in front of the cameras to bleat the same mantra about the electorate “sending them a message”. Gordon Brown went on TV and said the message was “clear and unequivocal”.

Mid-term protest vote. Uncertain economic times. Voters feeling the pinch. Watching the words fall out of the mouths of the likes of Harriet Harman and Hazel Blears one cannot help but be struck by a scary fact. That is, that Brown and his senior cabal actually believe what they are saying. They actually believe that the public’s “message” to Labour is not just a simple “push off” but that the public actually want the Government to take ‘action’ to do ‘something’ about the economic straits the country now finds itself in.

Moreover, they believe that all their travails since last Autumn have been blown in from abroad on the back of the credit crunch. That once the economic weather improves the public will rediscover their faith in the New Labour project. All they have to do is ride out the storm.

There is no doubt that part of the Government’s problems can be traced back to the seizing up of the global credit markets and the knock on effect of the contraction of the mortgage offering. It is a fact that stubbornly high commodity prices have hit the family budget at the supermarket and at the petrol pump. However, this is a simplified misreading (some might say a willful misreading by the Government) of the troubles that have befallen the Government.

What the electorate has realized is that the nation has generally prospered over the last decade not because of the policies introduced by New Labour but in spite of them. That is, now that the advantageous economic conditions have evaporated, people generally do not like what has been left behind. It is now obvious to all that the UK has a painfully high tax burden and that the Government has reached the limits of what it can borrow.

It is not that nothing has been achieved during New Labour’s period in power. The improvements in healthcare and education provision are tangible and recognized by most of us. Whilst the economy was growing and the population was getting richer we were happy to stomach the increase in public spending that those improvements required. To paraphrase Warren Buffett, now the economic tide has gone out, we can see that it is Gordon Brown that has been left swimming naked.

Over the coming months it is likely that the Government will thrash around trying to find a sense of direction whilst desperately hoping that the credit crunch comes to an end and the oil price eases. They may yet recover from the seemingly mortal wounds that they have suffered over the last few months but it will take some serious soul searching about what New Labour is for, given the economy’s current constraints. If they cannot do it, and it seems like an increasingly impossible task, they will find themselves cast out into the electoral wilderness. And that is a message that the vast swathe of Labour MPs whose jobs are now at risk will find hard to stomach.