Tweedledum and Tweedledee

 

The credit ratings agency Fitch has put the UK on negative outlook (meaning that a downgrade is likely over the next two years).

Said Fitch:

In light of the considerable uncertainty around the economic and fiscal outlook, including the risks posed to economic recovery by ongoing financial tensions in the eurozone and against the backdrop of a still large structural budget deficit and high and rising government debt, the Negative Outlook indicates a slightly greater than 50% chance of a downgrade over a two-year horizon.

In other words, the British government is spending and borrowing too much, and if the eurozone collapses, we are toast.

Ed Balls, who has spent the last couple of years urging the government to spend even more, is worried:

It shows that there’s a growing worry that our economy’s not growing, that unemployment’s rising, that our borrowing’s not coming down as George Osborne had planned.

Mr Balls has called for Mr Osborne to borrow and spend more. His old Brownian nostrums are becoming more ridiculous by the day.

In truth, Mr Osborne and Mr Balls both have the same prescription to get us out of our problems. That is to extract more tax out of us.

Mr Balls thinks that if the government spends even more, it will “stimulate the economy” and the tax receipts will roll in.

Mr Osborne doesn’t agree. He thinks explicit tax rises are needed, and has indeed enacted them, including that VAT rise.

What they both have in common is that they both think the State is sacrosanct. Mr Osborne wants to protect it by whacking the rest of us with higher taxes. Mr Balls wants to protect it – and indeed increase it – by borrowing even more.

Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats – they all believe in the State as a kind of benevolent Big Brother. They don’t see the State as a provider of vital services that should do it at lowest possible cost. Instead they see the State as the solution, as a player, as the planner that will decide how Britain is to prosper.

In short, they are all what used to be called Social Democrats.

No wonder David Cameron is getting on so well with Barack Obama. They are political soul-mates.

So here we are, with the electoral system rigged in favour of the three old parties, who all agree on almost everything. But there is a wind of change coming. Support for parties outside that cosy threesome has been growing for some years now. Even within the old parties, the MPs and especially the activists are increasingly restless. Mr Cameron should enjoy his time basking in the sun, because it won’t last.

We Know Who is the Heir to Blair – But Who is the Heir to Thatcher?

 

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Margaret Thatcher – Winner of Three Election Victories

Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph was asking a couple of days ago where are the voters who will turn David Cameron into a winner in 2015. He asks:

Where does he find the votes he needs to increase his share of support from the 38 per cent he enjoys now, or even the 36 per cent he scored in 2010, to the 43 per cent he needs to be sure of governing on his own account? Could it be that whatever Mr Osborne says, the politics are not great but terrible for the Tories, and have been for 20 years?

He concludes that

The centre of gravity [in British politics] remains to the Left of the Conservatives.

This seems a common theme in debates among Conservative Party supporters – a view that their Party has lost support since the 1980s because it is seen as “the nasty party” and too right wing to reflect popular opinion.

And yet, as Mr Brogan himself notes:

one thing the polls do show is that on certain issues most closely associated with unmodernised Tory views, the public are on board – the cap on benefits, the clampdown on immigration, the “No” to Europe.

Conservative Party commentators seem still to be bewitched by that “Cameronite” analysis of British politics, in which the aim for the Conservatives must be to appeal to “the centre ground” and be seen as moderate, caring and decent.

That analysis does not bear examination.

Margaret Thatcher (now Lady Thatcher) transformed Britain. (Even her enemies agree that is true. They just don’t like the changes she brought about.)

She transformed Britain by following policies that are commonly identified as “right wing”. She was keen on lower taxes and on reducing public spending, although in reality she only succeeded in cutting the State as a proportion of the economy, and not in absolute terms. During her time in office, huge swathes of British industry were removed from the public sector and “privatised”. It is astonishing now to think that it was controversial at the time to put BP or Pickfords Removals into private hands.

Her government introduced the NHS internal market (scrapped by Tony Blair) and created OFSTED to start holding State schools to account for their performance.

On foreign policy, she was famously Eurosceptic – at least once experience had taught her the dangers to British national independence of the EU.

She was robust on immigration, talking about indigenous people feeling “swamped” when immigration rates were high.

On issue after issue, she took a robust, populist stance. As a result, she won three general elections, each time receiving more than 40% of the vote and a big overall majority.

Who made up her votes then? Certainly, a part was made up of the Conservative “core vote” – people with whom David Cameron and the Tory High Command feel comfortable. As Mr Cameron is finding, though, that core vote is not enough to win.

Any Tory leader who wants an overall majority must build a coalition. He needs more than that core vote. David Cameron (and it seems Benedict Brogan) believe that those extra votes will be found in the centre. But that is a poor seam of votes to mine, not least because the territory is already occupied by the Liberal Democrats.

Lady Thatcher’s electoral success came from building a coalition, not with the centre, but with that often-overlooked part of the British electorate – what the Telegraph at the time christened “Mondeo man”. People like small builders, electricians and plumbers. Daily Mail readers. People who lived in council houses, and grabbed the opportunity to buy them and thus own a stake in the country that they had previously believed they would never have.

People who work hard, support their families, and are upset at the poor quality of their children’s schools – but can’t afford to send them to private schools.

Hard-working people who are hardest hit by paying taxes. The rich – or indeed, Ed Miliband’s “squeezed middle” – are not hurt as hard by those taxes. They can afford to pay them. Mondeo man – Thatcher’s constituency – can’t afford it. They aren’t hurt by rubbish State schools, because their children go to private schools. Mondeo man – Thatcher’s constituency – is patronised and ignored when he complains about lack of discipline. They aren’t hurt when the NHS lets them down, because BUPA looks after their medical care. Mondeo man – Thatcher’s constituency – has to wait for weeks to find out whether he has cancer.

Those people – what she used to call the “lower middle class” – were Thatcher’s people. She instinctively identified with them. And the Tory Party hierarchy despised her for it. Her opponents in the party – people exactly like David Cameron – thought her a mean-minded little fishwife for it. They eventually pushed her out of the party leadership in no small part because of it. But she it was who won those three elections outright, and it was her people who gave her the votes to do so.

So here, I believe, is the reason for David Cameron’s miserable lack of electoral success. (He won hardly any more votes in 2010 than the Tories got under Michael Howard in 2005.) His analysis of British politics is dead wrong.

David Cameron memorably called himself “the heir to Blair”, and acts as such, thinking that he can win votes in the centre by doing so. In the process, he alienates Mondeo man. In contrast, Margaret Thatcher offered him the chance to buy his council house, and the hope of lower taxes. She offered support for people working hard to support their families and praised them for doing so. She offered them lower taxes and a spirited economy in which getting ahead was respected not spat upon.

I don’t believe British politics has changed all that much. I don’t share Benedict Brogan’s analysis that the country has somehow magically swung to the Left in the last 20 years, and now wants a nanny state to look after it.

David Cameron talks of austerity in terms of how much people are hurt by public spending cuts. But Mondeo man wants the cuts – bring them on! – if they mean the taxman can get off his back a bit.

So where does Mondeo man turn? His response so far has been to turn his back on politics, because no politicians offer anything for him. Except that one party does offer him everything he wants – UKIP. In practically every policy area, UKIP is aligned with his ideas. They have failed to get that message across to him, and right now he believes UKIP only cares about the EU. Sure, he agrees with UKIP about that – but what about his taxes?

Thus if UKIP reach out to him, there is a rich seam of votes to be had. UKIP will not win its first MPs by proclaiming that Britain should leave the EU (though of course it should). They will win them with that much simpler and more fundamental message: LOW TAXES AND SMALL GOVERNMENT.

That section of the electorate to whom Lady Thatcher reached out, and whom she took away from the Labour Party, would like a bit of that, please.

David Cameron is the heir to Blair, and has therefore made the Conservative Party unelectable in its own right.

Image by European Parliament via Flickr

Nigel Farage is the heir to Thatcher. He has been reluctant to claim that mantle so far. He should have the courage to do so. There are millions of votes for his party in reaching out to that disenfranchised group in British politics who carried Lady Thatcher on her way.

Tax-and-Spend Osborne Rules Out Cutting Back the State

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The UK has run out of money.

Under this heading the Telegraph reports George Osborne saying:

“The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years,” the Chancellor said. “The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

On the face of it, this sounds so responsible. But delve a bit deeper, and it is symptomatic of the malaise afflicting our politics.

“The British Government has run out of money”. Well, how much did the British Government have in the first place? The answer, of course, is “none”. Every penny that the Government spends ultimately comes from taxpayers. Remember them?

“All the money was spent in the good years”. All what money? All the money the Government could extract from taxpayers? All the money the markets would let it borrow?

“The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector”. Like all the money the Government ever spends? Government spending takes money and investment and therefore jobs out of the private sector. All Government spending does that. Taxes are the flip side of Government spending.

This whole quote from Mr Osborne is just so revealing about the frame of mind of the tax-and-spend political class, including Mr Osborne. For him, the only reason to stop spending is because “the money has run out” – in other words, he can’t squeeze any more out of taxpayers or money markets. For him, the objective is to spend to the max. And he is now saying we have reached the max.

So we have. But only a socialist thinks the objective was to get there in the first place.

And here is Mr Osborne talking to Sky News:

“Any tax cut would have to be paid for,” Mr Osborne told Sky News. “In other words there would have to be a tax rise somewhere else or a spending reduction. In other words what we are not going to do in this Budget is borrow more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.”

A spending reduction! Goodness me, just imagine it. Unthinkable. The only way to cut taxes would be to borrow, and Mr Osborne is much too responsible for that.

Lest you should think it is just politicians trapped in this socialist mindset, the Telegraph follows that up in the piece with a reader poll:

What should George Osborne do to provide a tax cut?

• Tax the rich more to allow the income tax rate to be lifted to £10,000
• Borrow more and worry about reducing national debt in future years
• We can’t afford any tax cuts

As many reader comments on the piece point out, there is an alternative missing from here, to cut spending. It just isn’t on the agenda of our political class, or indeed of our media – even the supposedly Right-leaning Telegraph.

Mr Osborne won’t cut taxes, because he is unable or unwilling to cut spending. It’s as simple as that.

If You’re a Liberal Democrat, Bus Lanes take Priority Over Schools

 

Image by samsaundersleeds via Flickr

 

Bristol City Council is proposing a new tax on workplace car parking spaces.

The new tax is designed to raise £27 million towards a new scheme for bus routes into the city. There will be three “bus only” routes built, separate from normal traffic.

Obviously everyone is making a massive fuss – quite rightly – about this new local tax in Bristol. The AA, for example, is pretty angry:

These schemes are pure anti-motoring opportunism by a minority of local authorities desperate for funds keen to exploit 12 year old legislation. Once again drivers and business are easy targets yet it is they that keep local economies going.

Well quite. But in fact it is not only local motorists who are getting mugged to pay for this nutcase scheme from the Bristol Liberal Democrats.

First, the total cost of the scheme is not £27 million, but £194 million. The Telegraph says that the government will pick up most of the bill, with the council finding £15 million “itself”.

Wow. The government is finding £152 million “itself” and Bristol Council is finding £15 million “itself”. Obviously the money grew on trees and the government and the council just picked it.

Well really, of course, we are talking about taxpayers generally, and taxpayers in Bristol, picking up these bills. And what do we get for OUR money? Three new roads in Bristol, that can’t be used by cars and therefore won’t do anything to resolve congestion.

To put all this in perspective, £194 million is enough to build a hundred primary schools, or twenty brand new secondary schools. Or, indeed, to build perhaps 4,000 new council houses to alleviate homelessness in Bristol.

Bristol City Council is run by a minority Liberal Democrat administration, after they lost control of the council last May, losing five seats. The result then was:

Liberal Democrats – 33 seats
Labour – 21 seats
Conservatives – 14 seats
Greens – 2 seats.

Bristol Liberal Democrats lost a further seat in a by-election in September, going from first to third place. What this means is that even with the Greens presumably supporting the bus routes scheme, they will need the support of either Labour or the Tories to get it though.

It looks like they won’t get it.

Local Tories “object most strongly” to the scheme. They want to spend our money on new railways in Bristol instead, they say.

Local Labour say the plans are “potentially toxic to Bristol’s economic health”. A bit like Gordon Brown’s government, I guess.

The future of the scheme will therefore depend on the results of the local elections in May. If the Liberal Democrats, as expected, lose a large number of seats, the scheme is dead.

Regardless of their opposition to this particular scheme, however, the others cannot escape their share of responsibility.

Labour haven’t been averse to smash and grab raids on motorists. The Labour government invented the whole idea of workplace parking levies in the first place. It is laws passed by the last Labour government that are being used by Bristol Liberal Democrats to propose this scheme.

And what about the Tories? The Coalition government promised in 2010 to make it harder for councils to introduce such levies. The Telegraph reported then:

Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, is planning new rules which would make it harder for councils to impose a new stealth tax on motorists and businesses without full consultation.

Obviously he didn’t made it hard enough. Not only are the Transport Department not stopping this scheme, but they are themselves providing £152 million of our money towards it.

In short, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives and Labour all share some responsibility for this proposed smash and grab raid on taxpayers. But it is the Bristol Liberal Democrats who will bear the brunt of the anger about it. After all, this immediate scheme is their proposal, even if it is to be financially supported by the Conservative-led government. They will be lucky if they do not emerge from the local elections in May as the smallest of the three parties on Bristol Council.

Right across Britain, in fact, the Liberal Democrats are facing electoral meltdown, with their opinion poll ratings languishing well below 10% (compared with 23% at the general election). The elections in May will be interesting.

Immigration Figures are a Two-Party Failure

 

The government have published the latest migration figures.

Despite Conservative promises to cap migration being a feature of the general election campaign, net migration is up slightly. More people are coming to Britain, and fewer leaving.

The difference is small though. Generally, the figures for immigration have been bubbling around 500,000 per year and are showing no signs of any significant change.

The BBC report the figures as “remaining steady” and note that the Conservatives “promised to cut net migration by 2015″.

In fact, they promised to cut net migration to “tens of thousands” by 2015. The current figure is around 250,000, so they have a long way to go.

The Telegraph quotes Chris Bryant, for Labour:

We need honesty and competence from this government on immigration, instead we get tough rhetoric not matched by the reality on the ground. The country deserves better than that.

Fair enough – except that some honesty from Mr Bryant wouldn’t go amiss either. The high level of immigration can be traced back to the last Labour government.

Most of the media seem to have the figures for only the last decade, in a graph taken from the Office for National Statistics press release. Go back further, and you can see when the problem set in:

UK Immigration - Figures from the Office for National Statistics

 

Immigration was bubbling around 300,000 per year until around 1997, when Tony Blair’s government took power. The figures then took off, reaching 500,000 by 2003. They have remained there ever since.

The dangers arising from this two-party failure are well known. Immigration figures that are too high fuel racial tension, put pressure on housing and services and encourage political extremism.

This is not the fault of the migrants, of course. They are simply taking an opportunity they have been offered – and one has to admire them for that. The fault lies with our political class, who have pretended the issue does not exist for decades, and even now, are loath to do anything serious to tackle it.

Labour caused the problem, and the Tories haven’t solved it. They have three more years of course, before 2015. Don’t hold your breath.

More Socialism from David Cameron

 

The Coalition are embroiled in a row over University Admissions.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has appointed Professor Les Ebdon of the “University of Bedfordshire” (sic) to be the new head of the “Office for Fair Access”. (OFFA is the quango that was set up by the Labour Government to ensure fair access to Universities for students from poorer families.)

Professor Ebdon is expected to be tough on elite Universities, especially the Russell Group of Britain’s 20 best Universities. He wants Universities to meet admissions targets for students from poorer backgrounds.

The Russell Group greeted Professor Ebdon’s appointment by attacking the concept of admissions targets.

The Daily Telegraph is presenting the appointment of Professor Ebden as the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary defying his Tory critics. And indeed the Fair Access to University Group of Tory MPs criticised Government plans over University access as “social engineering”. David Cameron has apparently “expressed doubts” about Professor Ebdon.

Not enough doubts to actually intervene however. David Willetts, the Conservative Universities Minister

said Professor Ebdon’s appointment would help the government’s drive to improve access to degree courses to students from all backgrounds.

All this phoney row within the Coalition is missing the point really. The issue is not whether Dr Cable has picked the right person to lead OFFA. The issue is that OFFA exists at all. Taxpayers’ money is being spent by this Conservative-led Government, on this useless and dangerous quango that was the invention of Tony Blair’s government. A real Conservative Government would have scrapped it long ago.

The real problem here is not biassed entry requirements. The real problem is that the State schooling system is failing to educate pupils sufficiently to make them ready for serious Universities. The Government are continuing Labour’s policy of covering up for their own failures on education by trashing real Universities.

The Tories once used to believe in sorting out Britain’s schools. They don’t any more. Like the Lib Dems and Labour (and unlike UKIP by the way) they are now against grammar schools. It continues to be illegal to open new grammar schools, and the policy of the Conservative-led Government is to leave it that way. Parents are in despair up and down Britain, as they scramble to try and find places for their kids at the few good State schools that are available. (Unless of course, like most of our leading politicians, they have enough money to send their children to private schools.)

This is the poison of Socialism, being continued by David Cameron and his Liberal Democrat friends. This is David Cameron’s “modern” Conservative Party in its true colours.

The only mystery for me, is how the decent Tories who are still supporting Mr Cameron and his bastardised “Conservative” Party can live with themselves.

Why Isn’t George’s Plan Working?

Image by Downing Street via Flickr

Ed Balls – Discredited

Ed Balls has been telling us that the austerity isn’t working.

“Even though it is clear in Greece, in Ireland, in other countries, in Britain too (that) this austerity isn’t working, the message is ‘Plough on, dig a deeper hole, carry on with an austerity that is failing’”

Mr Balls was a member of the government that caused the problem, so we have to take his pronouncements with a pinch of salt.

But doesn’t he have a point? Here we are, with the credit rating agencies threatening to downgrade Britain’s credit rating.

The government have in fact managed to get Britain’s deficit down. The national debt is going up a little more slowly than it was under Mr Balls and his friends.

But they have achieved this simply by raising more in tax. Government spending is up. And Mr Balls thinks they have cut too far!

They haven’t cut at all yet. Of course the plan isn’t really working. The government haven’t really tackled the issue yet.

Mr Balls’ is a siren voice. While the government are navigating around in circles, with no clear idea where they are going, Mr Balls is pointing to the rocks and urging full steam ahead towards them.

So you can have Tory incompetence or Labour malice. No wonder the electorate are disillusioned.

We need a new politics in this country, with both those old discredited parties swept aside. They have both failed us dismally, and they deserve no part in our future.

Government Admits It Is Spending Unsustainably

 

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The Chancellor, George Osborne – Unsustainable Spending

The national debt has now officially passed £1 trillion. (There is room for debate around exactly when that happened, but the official figures say it is now.)

A Treasury spokesman said:

That our national debt has reached more than £1 trillion simply shows the unsustainable level of spending this country built up over the past few years, and shows why it is critical for our nation’s future that we deal decisively with the deficit.

So far spending under the current Tory government is UP. So if Labour’s spending was unsustainable, what can you say about the Tories’ spending?

Remember, you or your children are paying.

The Tories Still Opposing Grammar Schools

 

Queen Mary’s Grammar School, Walsall - Only UKIP Want More Schools Like This

The Coalition Government is still dead set against grammar schools.

Labour have been claiming that the Tories want to expand grammar school provision.

Did the Government reply, “Yes, indeed. Grammar schools are the most excellent part of our education system and we want to expand them”?

No, they did not. They “reassured” their socialist friends that the Tory Government too is opposed to grammar schools.

The education department also restated that new grammar schools could not be opened.

“It remains illegal for any new grammar or partially selective schools to open. Admission by ability cannot be extended outside the tiny number of existing selective schools.”

Polls generally show huge support for grammar schools. But only UKIP want to expand them beyond the current 164.  (There are 3,300 Secondary Schools in England.)

As usual, it is the people – and UKIP – against the Establishment Lib-Lab-Con.

The Liberal Democrats’ Lack of Relevance and the Tory Lack of Vision

 

Image by Cabinet Office via Flick

One Lacking in Vision, the Other Irrelevant – take Your Pick

Nick Clegg is upset that Britain will not sign the new EU Treaty:

The Deputy Prime Minister said he was “bitterly disappointed” that David Cameron has vetoed European treaty changes.

Mr Clegg said any further withdrawal from Europe could make Britain “a pygmy in the world”.

Mr Clegg does not support the decision to veto the Treaty:

Asked what his reaction had been, the Lib Dem leader said: “I said this was bad for Britain.

“I made it clear that it was untenable for me to welcome it.”

But last Friday Mr Clegg’s office was claiming he was fully involved:

On Friday, a spokesman for Mr Clegg said he had been “consulted throughout” the 10 hours of unsuccessful negotiations in Brussels.

The truth is that Mr Clegg does not support the decision to veto the Treaty – but does not want it to appear that his views are irrelevant in the Coalition.

They are irrelevant. The Liberal Democrats are now languishing in opinion polls with less than half of the support they got at the general election. UKIP are snapping at their heels to become Britain’s third party.

The Liberal Democrats have no cards to play – except the nuclear option of walking out of the Coalition, with every prospect that the Liberal Democrats could be wiped out in the ensuing general election.

Let’s just remind ourselves that the Liberal Democrats believe in full European federalism, including British membership of the Euro. Their vision for Britain’s future has completely unravelled over the last few months.

Meanwhile, Vince Cable is living in a dreamland in which the public are yearning for his party’s policies:

What the public want and the business community wants is confidence that we’re fully part of the EU on which millions of jobs depend.

Wrong in two counts, Vince. (Which is pretty good going for a single sentence!)

First, opinion polls in fact show that the majority of the public want Britain to leave the EU completely.

Second, millions of jobs do not depend on our membership of the EU. Those jobs actually depend on our trade with the EU – a very different thing. We run a persistent and large trade deficit with the EU. Therefore it is almost certain that if Britain left the EU, we would be able to negotiate a free trade agreement with it, meaning no jobs would go at all. For millions of jobs to be lost, our trade with the EU would need to cease altogether – even “Uncle Vince” surely doesn’t think that would happen.

In truth, the EU is destroying jobs in Britain. Even our net contribution to the EU budget is £17 billion a year – enough to pay for 340,000 employees at £50,000 a year each. And the job-destroying impact of EU regulations is much more.

The future is now truly bleak for the Liberal Democrats. Their defining vision, of Britain part of a United States of Europe, is now untenable. The true weakness of their position in the Coalition has been laid bare.

The Tory position is not much better though. Mr Cameron may have vetoed the new Treaty – but he has failed to outline any alternative vision for Britain’s future. He has been reduced to squabbling over whether the “Eurozone Plus” countries (i.e. the EU apart from Britain) should be allowed to use buildings that belong to the EU.

Yes, it really has come down to that. The extent of their vision is to demand that the EU finds some new offices to meet in because Britain does not want to take part.

David Cameron seems to believe that in vetoing the Treaty, he has somehow left Britain the option of carrying on as if nothing has happened. He has not. The EU (excluding Britain) will now simply press on with ever closer union. If the government fails to pursue the logic of this and take Britain out completely, then we will be left with all the disadvantages of EU membership with none of the advantages.

As many have pointed out, we will be left subject to EU rules, but with no say in the development of those rules.

Meanwhile, Labour are left mouthing platitudes about Mr Cameron’s failure to keep Britain at the European table.

There is a viable future for Britain, of course: to leave the EU completely, and open our minds and our markets to the wider world; to build our prosperity by trading freely with the EU, with the USA, with India, with all the Commonwealth countries, even with Russia and many others. That is a real vision for Britain’s place in a globalised world.

It is a vision for a prosperous and free future, and it is UKIP’s vision.

Mr Cameron would rather squabble over office space.

Like George Bush Senior before him in the USA, Mr Cameron will find that “the vision thing” really is rather important for a national leader.