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March 28, 2010

Win or perish

It is very close now.  The dissolution, then the ecstacy of the campaign itself, and finally the exultation of victory on the one side and exquisite agony of defeat on the other.  Understand your options, Conservatives: victory or extinction.

And for the same reason, you others - you UKIP supporters, you Liberal Democrats, you anti-Brown Socialists - vote other than Conservative understanding what you do.  For, though of course Cameron is not perfectly what you would hope (what is, in practical life?) a vote for other than the Conservatives is a vote for the following scenario:

Continue reading "Win or perish" »

Posted by Melanchthon at 14:41 | | Comments (86)

How to convince undecided voters in target seats on the economy

The election seems likely to be fought - at least on a national level - predominantly on the economy. However, it will be won or lost in the 117 marginal seats we need to win in order to gain an overall majority; and it will be won or lost on the decisions of swing voters in those constituencies.

So we need messages on the economy that will convince such people on the doors to vote Conservative, messages that are personal to voters own immediate circumstances.

To help those trying to win those 117+ seats I’d like to invite readers to make suggestions of simple one-liners that will be meaningful to ordinary people who are as yet undecided voters, many of whom will never have voted Conservative before.

I’ll kick off with two I tried yesterday morning in a Labour held target seat:

 "The first thousand pounds of income tax you pay - just goes to pay the interest on the debt the Labour government have run up."

and

"The entire amount of income tax paid by people earning £11,000 a year or less (such as teaching assistants and care workers) now just goes on paying the interest on the debt the Labour government have run up"

(For the record - interest on government debt is now £43 billion a year - which is more than our total defence spending of £40 billion and nearly twice our transport spending of £22 billion).

Please post your suggestions below - and indicate whether you have actually tried them among swing voters – thanks!

Posted by Martin Parsons at 14:36 | | Comments (29)

David Heathcoat-Amory: My response to Power 2010

HEATHCOAT AMORY DAVID David Heathcoat-Amory, the Conservative MP for Wells, follows Philip Davies and Daniel Kawczynski in responding to the accusation from Power 2010 that he is an MP who is "failing democracy".

Power 2010 alleges that I block democratic reform and attack civil liberties. This is untrue. I have constantly stood for personal freedom, limited government and parliamentary rights against rule from Brussels.

The Power 2010 campaign is exclusively funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, which has given nearly £5 million to the Liberal Democrats, and whose Director is contributing to a book called, Why Vote Liberal Democrat.

This campaign is therefore a front for the Liberal Democrats. If the campaign was really about democracy, it would ask why some MPs and parties broke their clear election promise to support a referendum on the EU Treaty. But of course that would embarrass the Liberal Democrats, so it is not included.

If Power 2010 really wants to reform politics, they could start with themselves, and end these negative, inaccurate and partisan attacks funded by a rich Foundation.

Posted by ConservativeHome at 07:00 | | Comments (13)

March 27, 2010

President Lula: a sorry embarrassment to Brazil

Lula_ahmadinejad As a Brazilian, I raise a wry smile whenever I read the grandiose predictions of many commentators that the country is somehow on the verge of great diplomatic power and influence   This is, as we’d say in Portuguese, a “porcaria”.

The reason is fairly simple: the behaviour and foreign policy of President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva. 

Allow me to share with you some examples of the President's behaviour...

On a recent visit to the Middle East, Lula enraged Israeli government officials by donning a keffiyeh and visting the tomb of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah only hours after refusing to visit the grave of the founder of the Zionist movement Theodore Herzl.  He used the same trip as an opportunity to praise the "courage" and "bravery" of the PLO's leaders.

Last year, the former metal-worker took the time to share with Gordon Brown his theory that the global financial crisis was "fostered and boosted by people that are white, blue-eyed" and boasted of his intention to bring about a "spicy" G20 summit.

In the hours following the ousting of corrupt Honduran President Manuel Zeleya, Lula insisted he be given sanctuary in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa; a move which resulted in widespread violence and worst rioting the country has ever seen.

Having hosted red-carpet banquets at the Palácio do Planalto for the likes of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, Lula has now acquired a new best friend in the form of Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Following a state visit last year in which Lula naively praised Ahmadinejad’s efforts to pursue the “enrichment of uranium to produce nuclear energy”, the President of the world’s fourth largest democracy has now unveiled details of a two-day visit to Tehran to take place in May.  His announcement has already rightly drawn criticism from the United States and many European Union heads of government.

Lula’s 2002 Presidential challenger and incumbent Sao Paulo Governor Jose Serra, commenting on Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brazil, put it right:

"Is this the President of the same country that tried to provide security and comfort to victims of the Holocaust extends honors those who trivialize the absolute evil? I am uncomfortable that Brazil has received the head of a dictatorial and repressive regime.

"After all, we have a past history of struggle against dictatorship and we enshrined the ideals of democracy and human rights into our 1988 Constitution.  It is one thing to have diplomatic relations with dictatorships but another to invite their leaders to stay in your home.

"Democracy and human rights are indivisible and must be secured everywhere in the world. It is inconsistent to act as if these values lose importance depending on how far away from Brzil the country in question is.  Lula's actions dishonour the memory of those who gave their lives to fight the dictatorship in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and trivialise the sacrifices made by those tortured and condemned to death in Iran. 

"It is 25 years ago this month that we celebrated 25 years since the of the end of dictatorship and the beginning of the new Brazilian Republic.

"Ahmadinejad is known for being a notorious Holocaust denier; an event which brought about the evil extermination of millions of human beings just for being Jewish. Thousands were massacred because they were Gypsies, homosexuals and people with disabilities.

"Brazil is proud to have received many of the survivors of this heinous crime, which cannot be forgotten nor forgiven, much less denied.  The values of democracy, human rights and tolerance are embodied in our Constitution and are the authentic expression of will way of the Brazilian people"

Lula’s behaviour has consistently dishonoured and discredited Brazil’s standing in the international community – from his misguided foreign policy to his personal contributions to the endemic culture of corruption which grips Brazil.

The charge sheet against Lula is long and varied; from the Mensalão scandal in which Congressman were paid bribes of more than US$10,000 per month from the advertising budgets of state-owned companies to support government polices to the US$6,000 fine handed down by the Supreme Court on Friday for misuse of the President’s office for party-political purposes.

Having failed to find support amongst the political establishment for the removal of the country's eight-year Presidential term limit, Lula will finally leave office on January 1st 2011.

Jose Serra will face Lula's Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff in the first round of voting on Sunday 3rd October.

Posted by Daniel Hamilton at 17:32 | | Comments (7)

Europe must feature prominently in the Election campaign

I know the Party hierarchy didn't want it to.  I know they (wrongly) regarded it as a distraction.  I know they hoped to rest on the substance of their excellent European policy, believing (vainly) that the Party would be patient with them and they wouldn't have to deal with the issue for five or ten years.  But now they are out of options and they are out of time.

Europe needs a new mechanism of economic governance.  That was always an inevitable part of the euro project, an inevitable stage in the development of the Single European State.  And that's a good thing, and a necessary thing.  The problems with Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and so on illustrate that the lack of economic governance mechanisms creates perverse incentives for governments and leaves the French and German taxpayer carrying the burden when things go wrong.  The Germans have now recognised and accepted this.  So we shall have a new Treaty.

Continue reading "Europe must feature prominently in the Election campaign" »

Posted by Melanchthon at 09:21 | | Comments (87)

Changing rising hours vs changing the clocks

Tobias Ellwood this morning floats that old chestnut about moving the clocks forward an hour permanently.  It remains as daft an idea as it ever was, for one very simple reason: the time tells us something about the light, and if he wants us all, permanently, to move our days forward an hour, then we should all just get up an hour earlier.

Continue reading "Changing rising hours vs changing the clocks" »

Posted by Melanchthon at 08:43 | | Comments (15)

March 26, 2010

Gizza job!

Geoff Hoon was on the Today programme this morning.  James Naughtie set out the charge list against him:

  • That, as a retiring MP, he knowingly and deliberately spoke to a company that approached him about the possibility of his doing some work for them after the Election. (How awful!)
  • That he contemplated advising a foreign firm on taking over poorly performing European defence firms. (Appalling!)

  • Worse than that, that the firm in question was a US private equity fund! (Wicked!)

  • That he suggested in his job interview that his past experience might leave him well-placed to offer strategic advice concerning which firms might be best to take over and how their business models might be improved. (Incredible!)

  • That he spoke in confident and decisive terms to his interviewers, painting himself and the relevance of his experience in a positive light and suggesting that he would be a committed worker - employing terms such as "[After the Election is called,] I'm yours." (I can barely write, I so shake with anger!)

  • Worst of all, that he didn't seem to have been thinking, in a conversation he thought was private, about the possibility that voters might regard the actions above as reflecting an unacceptable interest in money when he should have been devoting every minute of his day to their needs without thought for his own return.  (<Rendered speechless>)

After such a dastardly set of acts, surely suspension from the Labour Party is far too generous.  Something more drastic might be called for...

Posted by Melanchthon at 20:00 | | Comments (11)

Daniel Kawczynski MP: A response to Power 2010

Daniel Kawczynski Further to Philip Davies' piece this morning, Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski responds to Power 2010's targeting him as an MP who is "failing democracy".

One of the most important advantages of elections is that they regularly stimulate debate, offering people the opportunity to learn more about issues which will affect them and their families.  Given the dreadful effects of Gordon Brown's recession, most people I meet on the doorstep are talking about jobs, training, education and their overall financial security, particularly in old age.  But other issues should not be neglected, which is why I welcome the interest an organisation called Power 2010 has shown in this constituency and my own views on three issues important to them: our electoral system, the House of Lords and trust in politics.

While a "WANTED" poster featuring my picture may not fully set out their views on these subjects, I thought it would be helpful to share my views on each of them more fully. Their campaign has heartened me greatly as we have had so many calls from constituents rallying to our cause as a result of seeing their negative campaign. I don’t think that Power 2010 have realised that people are sick and tiered of negative campaigning but instead want to hear positive debating about what people believe in without attacking others for their views. This organisation is funded by Lib Dem activists in London and as we all know Lib Dems are not always the most honourable of opponents.

Power 2010 have not singled me out to campaign against after evaluating my local hard work for constituents or the hundreds of different causes I have promoted in Parliament over the last five years on behalf of my constituents. Instead, this London-based lobby group want local voters to throw me out because I am against an elected House of Lords and I am Chairman of the All Party group for the promotion of First Past the Post.

Continue reading "Daniel Kawczynski MP: A response to Power 2010" »

Posted by ConservativeHome at 19:57 | | Comments (18)

More for less in the NHS

By Thomas Cawston, Researcher, Reform

With perfect timing, the British Medical Journal devoted this week’s issue to ideas on how to cut the NHS budget.  Clinicians, managers and patients put forward ideas to save money at the same time as improving patient care.  The best ideas were:

  • Keep patients out of hospitals, as a new report from Reform argued last week.  The poor management of patient referrals and slow discharge can keep patients in hospitals for weeks more than necessary.  This is expensive and bad for patients.  Professor Adam Timmis, a consultant cardiologist at Barts and the London Hospital argues that rather than keeping a patient in bed for four weeks waiting for a consultation from a social worker, the patient could receive the consultation at home: “every day spent in hospital is a disaster as patients lose their independence and are at risk of hospital acquired infections."  And according to Carl Heneghan of Oxford University “40 per cent of walk-in patients to accident and emergency could be seen and managed by GPs”
  • Help patients help themselves.  Graham Rich, former Chief Executive of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust,  argues that the NHS still makes patients dependent on doctors and hospitals. Greater focus on self care and patient networks is vital, especially for people with long term conditions such as diabetes: “A lot of people with chronic conditions, who are the heaviest users of the NHS, benefit from practical and emotional support from others about how to cope and live with their conditions.”
  • Make clinicians accountable. Both Graham Rich and Jonathan Fielden, an intensive care consultant, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, make the case for service line management, where clinicians are organised into self governing units. This makes gives doctors autonomy to deliver improvements in quality care and make spending decisions transparent. Service line management can “improve consistency of care, decrease unnecessary treatments, and investigations and bring better value for money.”
  • Cut the payroll.  As Phil Leonard, a Senior Manager at Ernst & Young,  recognises, the inescapable truth is that “the greatest cost in NHS organisations is people, and reducing the payroll has to be part of the response”. He goes on to argue: “Perhaps predictably in a large system like the NHS, the productivity of employees, including clinicians, varies widely. Many doctors, nurses, and other professionals work extremely hard; however, others do not. Almost every hospital at which I have worked has used internal benchmarks to analyse the work of professional staff. Without exception, they show differences in performance. A combination of pay related to performance, more reporting transparency, and focused training programmes should be used to ensure that the NHS, in paying staff more money, receives the benefits of a consistently high rate of output.”

Giving evidence to the Health Select Committee yesterday, Andrew Haldenby argued that the cost-cutting ideas are well understood in the NHS (which is why managers are confused by the Conservative pledge to ring fence the services’ funding).  He argued that what is left is to make managers properly accountable for performance and value for money (particularly managers in Primary Care Trusts who control most of the resources of the services) so that they actually implement those ideas.

He proposed giving patients choice of PCT as a basic step.  That would encourage managers to deliver on their responsibility for changing NHS services in the interests of patients instead of sticking with the status quo as politicians often urge them to do.

Posted by Reform at 15:39 | | Comments (9)

How much would cancelling the NIC rise cost?

By Dr Patrick Nolan, Chief Economist, Reform

Earlier today Jonathan Isaby posted on the cost of cancelling the rise in national insurance contributions (NICs). This follows news that the Conservative party may pledge to halt on the 1 per cent rise in NICs. Halting the rise in these taxes is a policy that Reform has previously supported; indeed we have proposed going further and cutting these taxes through eliminating the exemptions in the VAT base. As we noted in Reality check the NICs increase will be a job killer and this approach of raising taxes on jobs is astonishing given a rise in unemployment of 22 per cent in the last year.

Reform has estimated the cost of cancelling the NIC rise and these follow (the estimates below are static only, so do not account for behavioural changes, and are thus likely to overstate the costs of halting this increase). These estimates are based on the Reform tax calculator which, unlike the Treasury’s ready reckoner, allows the revenue effect of changes to both rates and thresholds to be calculated. This is important as the government’s proposals are to both:

  • Increase the employee primary rates (of 11% and 1%) and the employers’ primary rate (of 12.8%) by 1%; and
  • Increase the primary threshold (currently £110 per week) to around £135. PBR 2008 proposed increasing this threshold to around £125 per week (equivalent to the level of the personal allowance) and this was taken further in PBR 2009 to help offset the increase in national insurance contribution rates for lower income workers.

Taken together these proposals are estimated to increase tax revenue by around £6.7 billion, not the £10 billion noted by some.

Thus, any proposals to halt the increase in national insurance contribution rates also need to consider whether to change the primary threshold (the income at which these contributions start being paid). Keeping the primary threshold at the current level of £110 would mean that halting the increase in the contribution rates would be more affordable, but would also mean that some lower income workers would face a higher overall national insurance bill than under current government plans.

This discussion highlights that governments have choices when it comes to setting different tax rates and thresholds – and when evaluating these choices it is important to see how the system as a whole impacts on families and government finances. Using the Reform tax calculator you can develop your own plans for reforming the income tax and national insurance system – so, if you think that taxes on jobs should be lower, how would you approach this reform?

Posted by Reform at 14:39 | | Comments (12)

Broken Records

BBW 300dpi Big Brother Watch has released new research today which shows that that there are at least 101,272 non-medical personnel with access to confidential medical records in 140 NHS Acute Trusts in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Fifty-four Trusts (predominantly the larger ones) failed to provide an answer to our Freedom of Information request, suggesting that the final figure could be as high as 140,000 NHS workers who are able to access records but are not directly involved in patient care.

I accept that some of these people will sometimes need access to some of our records, and that some loss of privacy is innate to the medical process. But those responsible for our health also have a responsibility for the protection of the private information accrued during that provision. The Department of Health (rightly) states that only those directly providing patient care should have access to that information - the Trusts are interpreting that widely enough to give access (without reference to the patient or doctor) to admin staff, porters, IT staff, receptionists and secretaries.

Everyone knows that the NHS wants to introduce the "Summary Care Record" which would make access to our files easier to people with an NHS pass across the nation. Figures like those we've revealed today will hardly fill people with confidence about that.

Their administrative convenience must not be allowed to trump our privacy.

Posted by Alex Deane at 09:36 | | Comments (24)

March 25, 2010

TPA Post-Budget briefing and book launch

William This morning, we held our first Post-Budget Briefing and the launch for our new book How to Cut Public Spending (and Still Win an Election).  The presentation and a brief guide to what all the eight speakers had to say is available over at the TPA website.

The big picture is that the Government have utterly failed to set out a credible plan to deal with the crisis in the public finances.  If you want to find out more about how politicians can cut spending and deal with the deficit, then put down the Budget report and read our book.  You can download the Powerpoint on our site, with plenty of interesting graphs to get your teeth into.  Here are just a few of the interesting findings:

Breaking down the Operational Efficiencies Programme

William Norton's analysis shows that the areas making the biggest savings are the Department of Heath and the NHS, local government and education.  So much for the idea that you can't cut spending on schools and hospitals.  But, despite all the material out yesterday, he also finds that more than half of the mooted £11 billion savings still aren't identified:

Continue reading "TPA Post-Budget briefing and book launch" »

Posted by Matthew Sinclair at 16:24 | | Comments (13)

Lebedev buys The Independent - will he make Greg Dyke editor?

Picture 11 It has been confirmed this afternoon that Russian billionnaire Alexander Lebedev has bought The Independent and Independent on Sunday to add to the Evening Standard, which he purchased last year.

It was rumoured several weeks ago and I am hearing the suggestion as loudly this afternoon as then from Fleet Street sources, that the new owner wants to install Greg Dyke as editor of the paper, which would raise potentially interesting questions over the paper's editorial line.

Dyke did of course publicly join the Lib Dems in the afternath of the Iraq war, having been a Labour GLC candidate in the 1970s and donor to Labour in the 1990s, before he joined the BBC as director-general.

However, his anti-Conservative feeling should not be under-estimated: he lives in Vince Cable's constituency of Twickenham in south west London and told me before he joined the Lib Dems that he had been voting for them for years as he was voting tactically against the Conservatives in a seat where Labour had no chance of winning...

> Earlier in the month Tim wondered whether The Indepenski would give the Tories a fairer deal

Posted by Jonathan Isaby at 15:24 | | Comments (8)

Alistair Darling on reducing the deficit

On 29 July 1997, Alistair Darling said: “The Government have also introduced measures to begin a programme to reduce the deficit—the massive debt—that we inherited because of the outgoing Conservative Government's mismanagement of the economy. It is necessary to reduce debt if we are to secure the stable platform that the country needs to build for the future.”

How wrong he was back then on reducing the deficit and how times change. As David Cameron made clear yesterday – in 1997, debt was £350 billion – now it is getting on for £860 billion. In 1997 Labour inherited a £6 billion deficit – today it is £167 billion. In 1997 we were ranked seventh in the world for competitiveness – now we are 13th. Gordon Brown once said he’d abolished boom and bust, but has actually given us the longest and deepest recession since records began. This Budget was a nonsense.

Posted by Jim McConalogue at 14:11 | | Comments (11)

Body scanners are not a panacea for airport security

The Commons Home Affairs Select Committee has just issued a report lambasting the government for its timid stance on airport body scanners, which the committee says are essential to fighting the threat of terrorism. The report accused ministers of taking a laissez-faire attitude to security and 'waiting for terrorists to demonstrate their new capabilities before implementing improved security measures.'

The danger of terrorist attacks against commercial airliners is omnipresent. This was demonstrated again last Christmas when a Nigerian extremist tried to blow up a flight from Europe to America. The urgency – some would even call it hysteria – that surrounds the debate about keeping us safe in the air have further fuelled calls for body scanners to be used at airport security. However, I'm not convinced that they are the panacea that many claim them to be.

At the moment there are two types of body scanners available for walk-through in airports: the millimetre wave scanner that uses terahertz radiation and the backscatter system that uses X-rays.

As a former NHS doctor I am well aware of the risks of regular exposure to X-rays – particularly for pregnant women and children – and I cannot see how such scanners comply with the public authorities' duty to avoid causing harm to people. I also believe such scanners may violate EU law under the Euratom treaty, which forbids the use of compulsory ionising radiation for non-medical purposes on humans. Certainly the European Parliament has rightly resisted attempts to introduce body scanners on an EU-wide basis.

Meanwhile, the effects of terahertz radiation, although non-ionising, are less well-known but potentially no less damaging. These scanners create a full image of the naked body, thereby potentially violating a citizen's right to privacy under EU law. On the same day that the select committee's report was published, newspapers reported that an airport worker had received a police warning and faced disciplinary action for ogling a female colleague as she passed through a body scanner.

Moreover, scientific experts have expressed concerns that repeated exposure to terahertz radiation may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication. You don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner to understand how serious that could be when an entire population is being exposed.

Personally I believe that airport body scanners should not be introduced until more research has been done on their safety. We should also wait until scanners become available that do not use electromagnetic radiation but instead rely on much safer ultrasound technology. Body scanners remain potentially an important tool in the fight against terrorism, and no-one more than me wants to see that fight succeed. But it's unlikely that terrorism will ever be completely defeated, and we know how resourceful these fanatics can be. They will start to ingest or insert explosives in their back passages!

One particularly alarming development I read about was the case of a Saudi prince who narrowly escaped being blown up by an al-Qaeda terrorist who had swallowed a tiny amount of explosive and was able to detonate it with a mobile phone. This demonstrates the chilling reality of terrorism, whose proponents will always find new ways of killing. How long before their cunning renders body scanners obsolete?

To my mind, the safest way of checking an airline passenger at security remains an individual full body search (i.e. more than a pat-down if necessary) by a security officer. When I say I think it's the safest way, I mean that it's the safest way for the passenger and also the most likely way in which anomalies can be discovered and acted upon.

Body scanners, if proven to be safe and legal, could be a voluntary option alongside the alternative of personal body searches. Perhaps passengers could be processed through security more rapidly if they voluntarily opt for a body scan rather than a personal body search. But we should always have the option of whether to enter a body scanner: they should never be compulsory. Passengers should be informed of the theoretical small risks associated with body scanning. The government's outrageous no-fly policy for those who refuse a scan should be categorically rejected.

The Conservative Party in recent years has sought to position itself as the party that defends civil liberties. Personally speaking, I hope that if we return to government at the forthcoming election we will manage to retain a sense of proportion about body scanners, and that we can hold up this issue to scrutiny from perspectives other than that adopted by the select committee.

Finally, notwithstanding concerns about civil liberties, we should be prepared to adopt a more realistic and less absolutist approach to the idea of intelligent profiling and full risk assessment of passengers. This rigorous method has been proved to be effective and is employed by El Al, which, despite being a major target for terrorists has managed to avoid an attack for several decades. A Conservative government might wish to reconsider this option.

Posted by Charles Tannock MEP at 12:14 | | Comments (20)

Ed Vaizey MP: Another Budget U-turn you may have missed shows again how Labour are following the Conservative lead on arts and the creative industries

VAIZEY ED Ed Vaizey is Conservative MP for Wantage and shadow arts minister in Jeremy Hunt's DCMS team.

Labour's last Budget contained an intriguing announcement - a tax credit for the video games industry, along the lines of the film tax credit, which already exists.  As recently as December, Labour had ruled this out.  So this is a significant U-turn. Although, as is typical with this Budget, the policy has only been put forward to win votes, because Labour will have no time to implement it.

For years, our video games industry has been losing talent abroad, notably to Canada which has huge tax incentives in place.  Labour has done nothing to help.  They spent years claiming that the World Trade Organisation would sort out the problem with Canada, until we exposed the claim as false.  By contrast, the Conservatives have been saying consistently that we would look at ways of helping the industry against this competition from abroad, most notably by looking at whether we should extend the film tax credit to video games.

This U-turn is symptomatic of the lack of leadership at DCMS, where Labour continually follows the Conservatives.  In the three years that Jeremy Hunt has been in post he has seen four secretaries of state - Jowell, Purnell, Burnham and Bradshaw; and five culture and creative industries ministers - Woodward, Follett, Simon, Carter and Hodge. When Sion Simon resigned in February, Labour couldn't even be bothered to replace him and simply handed his responsibilites to Hodge. And Hodge is retiring at the election.  The creative industries and culture are not taken seriously by Labour.

The tax credit is one of a long line of U-turns prompted by Conservative campaigns.  Replacing the BBC Trust, product placement, top-slicing the licence fee to fund Channel 4: on all of these issues, Labour has reversed its position to follow the Conservative lead.  Their plans for state-funded regional news look similarly dodgy with the news that ITV will not, after all, abandon regional news as it has threatened to.  In other areas, Labour continue to follow our line, whether it is leadership for libraries, superfast broadband or deregulating ITV..

Whenever Ben Bradshaw attacks Jeremy about the Conservatives' plans for the arts, Jeremy has a simple response.  We have a policy, what's yours?  So an analysis of just one Department shows the difference between Labour and the Conservatives.  All the ideas are coming from our side.  Labour is directionless, and simply follows where it can.  Whether or not you agree with our positions, it can't be denied that we have taken a clear view and Labour has been forced to catch up.  This is just one example of why we can't go on like this, and why we need a new, Conservative, Government.

Posted by ConservativeHome at 11:26 | | Comments (8)

Betting the mortgage

The political is particularly personal at the moment. We need to decide what we think the election result will be, what decisions the next government will make, and what the impact will be on mortgage rates. Not want we want to happen, but what we think will happen.

Our mortgage had been on a fixed term, which expired last year. Since then we have kept our mortgage on the tracker rate. But what will be the impact of the next government? Should we stay with the tracker, or opt for a 2-year or 5-year fixed rate? Should we decide now or wait until after the election?

We are pretty sure we know the answer. But I would be really interested to know what you think. And also to know how many other familes are making the same caluculation. And how many voters are making a direct connection between the decisions made by an incoming government following the election, and the impact on their personal finances? Do enough voters think the choice is real, and the outcome really matters?

FYI, Natwest rates today:

  • Tracker: 2.89%
  • 2-year fixed term: 3.79%
  • 5-year fixed term: 5.49%

Posted by Simon Chapman at 09:56 | | Comments (14)

We're going to win this election. And I can't wait

Ok, let's talk about it: that YouGov poll last night wasn't too brilliant, was it? A two percent lead? Not very encouraging, right? OK, so it might be about the 400th poll in a row to show Labour behind the Tories, but of late we've been spoiled. We want bigger leads. We're not content to go from having fewer MPs than Michael Foot did at his nadir against Thatcher to turfing Labour out of government; no, we want one of the biggest turnarounds in modern electoral history. And with David Cameron and the rest of our leadership, poll numbers have led us to expect it.

But as I said in my last blog, now is the time for a bit of guts. For some self-belief. For some passion for what we are doing and what we stand for. For some fire to change this country, and, frankly, and I don't think this is an exaggeration, to rescue it.

Somebody's got to say it, so I will: YouGov's numbers are wrong. They are just simply flat-out wrong. They do not pass the smell test. According to YouGov, in a period that has been wall-to-wall bad news for Labour - from the Unite BA strikes to Stephen "Buyers" eight grand a day taxi - Labour have gone up and the Tories have gone down. Ah, sure, ok there guys. Now, I do not allege any nonsense about bias from Peter Kellner. That is just pathetic and unworthy of any serious discussion. Where was the bias when YouGov correctly (under its old methodology) predicted the London Mayoralty? Nowhere.

But why fix what's not broken? The firm's new methods are coming up with some very weird numbers, often big outliers versus other polls. Crowdsourcers over at political betting have run YouGov's unweighted numbers for the prior 4% lead poll. According to them, those numbers were Con 42, Lab 28. Any weighting system that takes a 14% lead and magics it into a 4% lead, is for want of a better word, dodgy.

YouGov is not only outlying versus other firms, but even itself. Its recent poll for London showed the Tories a huge 9% ahead in London (where Labour traditionally have the advantage). That is simply incompatible with a 2 or even 4% national lead. The polls must have had different weightings. Mike Smithson, magisterial editor of political betting, has promised a thread on this later and i will be intrigued to see what he says. 

By reason of their frequency, YG polls drive the debate sometimes. Recent polls by other firms have had us at 9%, 11%, 8%, 7%, etc. They are literally all over the place. We have to ignore the disparity and we have to get on with it.

Continue reading "We're going to win this election. And I can't wait" »

Posted by Louise Bagshawe at 08:52 | | Comments (73)

March 24, 2010

Scandal of freezing the Income Tax allowance at £6,475

One of the most disgraceful aspects of our tax system is that someone earning more than just £6,475 starts paying tax. That is a key component of the dependency culture. By freezing that already miserable allowance for 2010/11 the Government make the situation worse in real terms. By refusing to increase it even in line with inflation they are particularly punishing low earners.

I've written about the Budget for the Daily Mail online and have highlighted various failings. But having had a chance to look at the Budget papers it is Labour's stealth attack on the low paid that makes me most angry.

Posted by Harry Phibbs at 17:18 | | Comments (14)

The next phase of the fiscal debate begins now

By Neil O'Brien

We just missed the last chance to have a sensible election debate about public spending.  The Government could have finally told us where the axe is going to fall, and challenged the opposition parties to say how they would have done things differently.

Instead, the Government will now go into the election simply refusing to tell the electorate which items of spending they would cut, or which taxes they will raise. We will be asked to sign a blank cheque.

Today’s Budget doesn’t really deserve a response.  It contains endless micro-policies and political wheezes: all intended to distract from the fact that it does nothing to staunch our ever rising debts.

The budget gives away £1.5 billion now, and says that it will be taken back again after the election. To put things in context, that's just one in every 500 pounds the Government spends.

You can get a sense of how little difference any of this makes from the chart below.  It shows how much debt the government is running up for every family of four people.  In just a few years it will have spiralled from £40,000 to safely over £100,000 a family.  And even that is based on wildly optimistic assumptions about growth - which are not shared by independent forecasters.


National-debt

Continue reading "The next phase of the fiscal debate begins now" »

Posted by Policy Exchange at 16:56 | | Comments (10)

A worker at Heathrow abuses body scanner technology. Who'dathunkit?

Body scan You may recall that Big Brother Watch has raised various objections to body scanners. Prime amongst them privacy concerns and the potential abuse of the images generated by these machines.

Don't worry, we were told. These are in the hand of serious, trained professionals, we were told.

"I told you so" is such an ugly phrase. So let's use the charming words of the Heathrow worker looking at his colleague in the scanner, instead:

"I love those gigantic t*ts."

He's still in post, by the way.

Posted by Alex Deane at 13:51 | | Comments (16)

March 23, 2010

Speedboat attacks on British ports: we need a new paradigm for counter terrorism

Security minister Lord West has announced that he is concerned that al-Qaeda terrorists could launch a radiological dirty bomb on London.

This announcement is not in itself new. As I observed on Centre Right last November, one of the major justifications for our current military engagement in Afghanistan is that there is clear evidence that the Taliban have already obtained nuclear materials and hence have the potential to create a radiological ‘dirty bomb’.

However, Lord West went further by highlighting the possibility of a radiological or Mumbai style attack launched either against London or another UK port from speedboats. He observed that hundreds of thousands of small boats arrived in Britain unchecked every year and that the agencies responsible for guarding the coastline did not know “with any clarity what is going on around our coasts”.

What is needed in the face of such threats is a paradigm change in the way we approach counter terrorism. Lord West’s comments illustrate the failure of our present approach. He is rightly concerned that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) simply do not know about every small vessel entering British waters or heading for UK ports. However, as I revealed on Conservative Home recently, the MCA are at present considering closing one of only two main coastguard cordination centres on the East Coast of England...

Continue reading "Speedboat attacks on British ports: we need a new paradigm for counter terrorism" »

Posted by Martin Parsons at 22:13 | | Comments (22)

How to cut public spending (and still win an election)

Bookandmark Today I had an article in the Telegraph and Tasha Kheiriddin had an article in City AM.  They are both based on the soon to be released book How to cut public spending (and still win an election).  Copies reached the TPA office today and it is available to preorder now.  Here are a few of the questions that the book should help ConservativeHome readers answer:

How big is the challenge over the next decade?

The TPA is working on a big new project to remind everyone just how big the national debt has got, and how fast it is growing.  But an important point, to remind anyone who argues against public spending cuts of, is that everyone is planning them now.  In their Budget 2010 Briefing Note, Reform point out that all the major parties are planning significant cuts in spending.  Policy changes to reduce Total Managed Expenditure, from planned levels, by between £57.8 billion (Labour) and £67.8 billion (Liberal Democrats) between 2010-11 and 2013-14.  Reform, to their credit, go further than the parties to keep down tax rises.

All of the debates about cutting in 2010-11 or 2011-12 are important, and as I've written on the TPA blog there is a strong economic case not to delay, but they will quickly be in the past.  Sooner rather than later even the most ardent of Keynesians will have to admit the need for a big fiscal adjustment.  Another way of understanding the scale of adjustment needed is to use the Government's plans as a baseline and look at the cumulative amount of money being taken out of people's pockets over the next ten years.  Since Budget 2008, the Government have announced £341 billion in reduced spending and increased taxes between 2011-12 and 2017-18.  Add the investment needed to connect people up to high-speed Internet, upgrade the water network, keep the lights on and meet climate change targets and you're talking a grand total of nearly £23,000 per family over the next ten years.  Managing that without placing an intolerable burden on families, crashing the economy or creating a political crisis will be the big challenge facing policymakers.

Continue reading "How to cut public spending (and still win an election)" »

Posted by Matthew Sinclair at 17:28 | | Comments (8)

No Poofs

A warm & friendly welcome awaits all guests at Susanne Wilkinson's Swiss Bed & Breakfast in the idyllic village of Cookham, near Maidenhead in Berkshire.

Unless you're gay, of course, as Michael Black and John Morgan found out when they attempted to check-in to Ms Wilkinson's 'warm & friendly' guest house, ahead of a night out at the theatre with friends. As is now well known, Ms Wilkinson's 'warm & friendly' welcome extended to refusing to let them check in, giving them their booking fee back, and turfing them orf her land.

Coincidentally, as Alex Deane pointed out in his superb post yesterday, it is now illegal to incite hatred against gay people. I'm not sure that refusing to let you stay in a guest house would count as inciting hatred, but a professor of law has helpfully contacted Mr Black and Mr Morgan, to suggest that Ms Wilkinson's actions may already be a contravention of the 2006 Equality Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on grounds of their sexual orientation. I'm not a lawyer, but humiliating a guest from whom you'd accepted a booking, on the grounds of the chromosomal disposition of the person they turn up with, is probably ipso facto a case of discrimination. It's certainly not what I'd call 'warm & friendly', so maybe the advertising standards authority should contact Ms Wilkinson to discuss her website.

Continue reading "No Poofs" »

Posted by Graeme Archer at 10:51 | | Comments (113)

Banking on confusion

What do we want of our banks? In particular, what do we want of those banks in receipt of taxpayer funding? Should they be making a profit? Yes of course, so that they can be sold off and the tax payer reimbursed as soon as possible. Will the threat of punitive taxation make them more or less likely to be profitable? err, can we get back to you on that one... What about Alistair Darling's leaked Budget proposal to force banks to provide accounts for the homeless and 'financially excluded'?  Socially just perhaps - but good for the balance sheet? Weren't there some state-owned US mortgage lenders just a year or so ago who were instructed to be more financially inclusive...? And today we learn that the Government is so unhappy with the banks' failure to make enough loans to business that it has set higher targets - notwithstanding reports of low demand for lending due to lack of business confidence.

I guess the banks could achieve their new targets by lending to higher risk customers on lower security and easier terms... if the loans go bad, well they can always repackage them and sell them on.... hang on a minute....haven't we been here before?

Posted by Jill Kirby at 10:37 | | Comments (16)

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