Posts tagged Politics

If compassion is no longer about how much money governments spend, Labour stops winning elections

Tim Montgomerie:

In wanting to change the measure of poverty IDS, the CSJ, Jill Kirby, Neil O’Brien etc etc aren’t tinkering at the edges of some obscure statistical issue. They are invading intellectual territory of the utmost importance. They are saying that the war on poverty can’t be won by a bigger and bigger welfare state. They are saying - among other things - that poverty has to be fought by early intervention, drug rehabilitation, support for the two parent family and a recognition of the superiority of paid work over benefit dependence. They aren’t just trying to change the terms of the poverty debate but the whole terms of political debate. Labour present themselves as the nice party because they are the high-spending party. But what if the nice party isn’t the party that is always ready to increase benefits but is the party that strengthens the family, improves education and cuts unemployment?

I definitely agree with the need a broader - not just financial - definition of poverty.

"If we can’t change the Beeb, we can’t change the country"

Fascinating rant by Boris Johnson in The Telegraph, arguing that the BBC needs a new Tory director-general if we are going to see our economic situation turn around:

We now have the twin problems of dealing with the debt, and recovering competitiveness – and neither of those is easy when the BBC is the chief mirror in which we view ourselves. If you are funded by the taxpayer, you are more likely to see the taxpayer as the solution to every economic ill.

If you are funded by the taxpayer, you are less likely to understand and sympathise with the difficulties of business; you are less likely to celebrate enterprise. I have sometimes wondered why BBC London never carries stories about dynamic start-ups or amazing London exports – and then concluded gloomily that it just not in the nature of that show. It’s not in their DNA. Fully 75 per cent of the London economy is private sector – and yet it is almost completely ignored by our state broadcaster.

"Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage was all about prising open George Clooney’s wallet"

Tim Stanley, The Telegraph:

Given the impotence of his endorsement, it really comes down to one man sharing his personal opinion about a moral matter with the rest of nation. And then making a lot of money out of it.

The cynical take on Obama’s announcement of support for gay marriage.

Too soon to write the Coalition off

David Laws, writing in the FT:

The coalition still has the potential to be one of the great reforming governments of the postwar era. The changes we are making in education, welfare and pensions are radical and right. The country will judge us over our full term and not on the basis of a turbulent few weeks of “here today, gone tomorrow” headlines. But after five years, we must show we have made the right decisions on the economy and got Britain back on track. That must be the coalition’s overriding obsession in the year ahead.

This whole piece takes a very positive, even bullish stance, on the Coalition government. And Law’s - the Liberal Democrat MP - is right at least about one thing: that it’ll be the whole five years that gets judged come the general election in 2015, not these awful few weeks the Coalition have been having.

It does seem crazy to me that so quickly into a five year plan, it is being decided that its not working. It’s as if people are surprised that making cuts really doesn’t feel good. Of course they don’t! This was always going to be an incredibly tough few years for the UK - regardless of who was in government.

I don’t think the government have been getting all the decisions right, but I do still broadly agree with their overarching plan of reducing public spending and getting control of the deficit. And we do need our public services to be run more efficiently if they’re to be sustainable. That said, the priority has to shift towards getting our economy growing again. The best way to overcome the mess we’re in economically is to have both decreasing costs and increasing growth. If it’s only the former, we’ll never get out of this mess.

The Coalition will be judged come 2015 on how it does on the growth front between now and then. The reduced public spending is known and certain. The growth isn’t. Get the economy growing again and Labour’s lead in the polls will evaporate very quickly whilst ever Ed Miliband is at the helm.

2015 is a long three years away. Whatever we may think of the Coalition, it’s far too early to write it off or think that the plan has failed. For better or worse, they’re going to stick with Plan A (whilst placing renewed emphasis on growth) and hope things turn around before the general election. Anyone who loves the UK will hope for that the plan does work. But, of course, it’s in the Labour Party’s interests that it doesn’t.

Why Francois Hollande's end-to-austerity message is just smoke and mirrors

Dan Hodges, The Telegraph:

The French people have swallowed Francois Hollande’s pledge of a brighter today, and over time they may come to savour it. If he can take the harsh edges off the brutal economic environment facing his country, that may be enough. But on thing is certain; a prolonged period of austerity will be as much a part of Hollande’s France as it was Sarkozy’s. As much, in fact, as it will be part of David Cameron or Ed Miliband’s Britain.

Sounds about right. There can be tweaks of course and the speed of change can be altered, but austerity is not simply a choice governments have made. It’s not a switch that can just be switched off.

Labour on the march, or Tories staying at home?

Gary Gibbon, Channel 4:

In every council I’ve looked at you find that for every 10 people that voted Labour in 2011 council elections, about eight or nine voted Labour yesterday. But for every 10 that voted Tory in 2011 only six did the same thing again yesterday.

This all suggests that Labour isn’t converting ex-Tory voters in great numbers but that 2010 and 2011 Tory voters are staying at home.

Pundits always try to read too much into everything. And Politicians inevitably try and make it seem like the figures suit them. In terms of the next General Election in 2015, I’m really not sure that last night is going to tell us much at all. The combination of a mistrusted Coalition Government and a Labour Party lacking strong, clear leadership makes the winner come 2015 one very big lottery.

As is clear from the above, Labour is making some progress but it doesn’t seem to be at the expense of the Tories who, as is fairly typical at mid-term elections for the party in power, simply stayed at home—something they won’t do in 2015.

Low turnout in local elections: time for electronic voting

It is looking like the turnout for yesterdays elections was around just thirty percent. Considering what people have sacrificed in the past to ensure we all get the opportunity to vote and be part of a democracy, that’s pretty terrible.

The easy route to take is that of assuming it’s because people don’t care about politics. And there’s no doubt that that’s part of the equation. But I really don’t think it’s only that.

For me, the low turnout issues we’re facing can be addressed to a large extent by making the most of the technology we have. It seems crazy to me that in 2012, we are still having to walk to our nearest polling station to place a vote.

Millions of us are voting for our favourite singers on shows like X Factor and The Voice via text and the red button and yet we’re not able to vote for our local representatives via the same means.

I know that some will say adding easier voting options to vote is pandering to the popular culture, but shouldn’t politics be deeply connected to where popular culture is? I really think it is time to embrace technology and let people vote via every possible means.

Some people worry about security, but this has moved on so much now and it needn’t be a reason for holding back at all. In fact, the technology will open the door for greater security. When I went to vote yesterday, I wasn’t asked for any ID of any kind. I could have walked into multiple polling stations around Sheffield and voted numerous times. How secure is that?

I think that adding new means of voting that fit with the technology we all have nowadays will get a lot more people voting. I’m pretty convinced that turnout would probably have doubled if it was easier for people to vote.

It’s time.

"There was a time when poor Africans flocked to southern Europe to better their lives; the opposite is now happening"

Allister Heath, CityAM:

There was a time when poor Africans flocked to southern Europe to better their lives; the opposite is now happening. Five hundred years after Vasco de Gama first landed in Mozambique, impoverished Portuguese are turning up in droves, begging for work permits. Six years ago, Angola issued 156 visas to Portuguese migrants. In the most recent year for which data is available, that number had exploded to 23,787; 100,000 Portuguese have moved to Angola, four times more than the traffic in the opposite direction. Other studies have shown a brain drain of Portuguese to Brazil and of Spanish youngsters – especially skilled graduates – to Latin America.

Portuguese workers in Angola now send home more cash to their families than Portuguese workers based in London. For millions of young people, Europe appears in terminal decline, while parts of Africa have emerged as a new Eldorado. The Eurozealots thought the single currency would turn old Europe into a new superpower; instead, it has catastrophically impoverished tens of millions of ordinary folk.

Whilst Heath’s angle with this article is that of blaming the single currency, it is the above that is most interesting to me. How things change. After everyone flocking to Europe to find success and prosperity, the reverse is now happening. The state of Greece and Spain in particular is horrific, and with little sign of a turnaround coming any time soon. Regardless of whether the single currency is to blame for the woes, it is tragic that youth unemployment is now over 50% in both those countries.

It also highlights how, in the grand scheme of things, Britain has been hit pretty lightly when compared to the plights of others in the eurozone.

The Guardian review of 'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt

Ian Birrell:

Drawing on everything from advertising to anthropology, he argues that liberals are driven by a morality based on compassion, the desire to fight oppression and, to some degree, fairness. Conservatives have a broader set of six “moral tastes”, sharing such concerns but balanced by the binding foundations of loyalty, authority and sanctity.

It is, he says, as if the left has three taste buds but the right has six. While the right can “taste” issues such as compassion and fairness, the left struggles to embrace patriotism or religion, seeing traditional institutions and hierarchies as obstacles to their fight for liberty and equality. Haidt calls this “the conservative advantage”.

Indeed, he goes further, saying that western progressives seeking a secular, rational society are out of step with the vast majority of people on the planet.

I started reading this book earlier this week and am thoroughly enjoying it. In many ways it feels like a passionate plea for people to take the time to understand each other and with that open up channels of respect and tolerance.

Unemployment down by 35,000, Employment up by 53,000

Office for National Statistics:

The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 70.4 per cent, up 0.1 on the quarter. There were 29.17 million people in employment aged 16 and over, up 53,000 on the quarter.

The unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent of the economically active population, down 0.1 on the quarter. There were 2.65 million unemployed people, down 35,000 on the quarter. This is the first quarterly fall in unemployment since the three months to May 2011.

The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 23.1 per cent, down 0.1 on the quarter. There were 9.27 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 25,000 on the quarter.

Some good news at last. And better figures than were expected.

On charity George Osborne must stand up to the self-interested super-rich

Polly Toynbee:

From the outcry of the big donors, you might think they were being banned from giving. Not at all. They are only being told to pay their taxes like everyone else and then donate out of their taxed income, just like every basic-rate taxpayer. Paying your taxes is the most communitarian thing we do, signing up to society and the democratic choices it makes about taxing and spending. Voters decide. Giving to charity may be altruistic or self-interested, may or may not do good – but the present system draws in taxpayers’ money with no such accountability. Osborne is right to ask why anyone should get tax relief.

It’s not often I agree with Polly, but on this I do.

Labour voters leave Ken red-faced by supporting Boris’s re-election

Stephan Shakespeare, chief executive of YouGov:

[Johnson’s] winning edge comes courtesy of Labour voters. In 2008, with the Johnson-Livingstone lead exactly the same, the vote for the assembly also had the Conservatives ahead, by 1 per cent more. Now, Labour is in front by 10 per cent. That’s an 8 per cent swing from Conservatives to Labour, but the Livingstone vote hasn’t moved an inch. There’s a big lump of Labour voters who are sticking with the Tory.

Interesting article suggesting that, though a win for Boris now looks more than likely, he can’t be complacent as a big chunk of his support is coming from Labour voters - and they could still swing in the last couple of weeks of campaigning. But it is interesting to see how many Labour voters are prepared to back Boris over Ken.

Buying Influence

I’m somewhat late to the party with commenting on the ‘cash for access’ saga, but I thought I’d share a few thoughts. (If you’ve been living in a hole, it was triggered by revelations that large Conservative Party doners were getting private dinners with David Cameron thanks to their donations.)

Here’s the thing though. Whilst everyone is in uproar and the media are making as big a deal of it as they possibly can, nobody is really that surprised. And that’s because our whole system when it comes to political donations is seriously screwed up.

The solution to things like this is actually really simple: ban any donation - whether by an individual, a business, or a trade union - from being more than, say, £10,000. I hate the fact that the Tories can inevitibly be influenced by major donations from wealthy indiviudals and big businesses. And I equally hate the fact that Labour - in just the same way - are influenced by the financial support they receive from the trade unions. It’s seriously messed up.

The problem is that both the Tories and Labour’s vested interests are too high for either of them to do anything more than make noises about change. They’ll each kick up a storm when the other crosses boundaries when it comes to donations, but neither will commit to truly reforming the system.

And so we will keep having incidents like what emerged over the weekend again and again.

Which is sad.

Thoughts on the Budget

Following politics can be really frustrating. Sure, it’s fascinating and intriging - but it can also be deeply frustrating.

Take yesterday’s Budget. George Osborne made his announcements and then, immediately afterwards, listening to Ed Miliband’s response, I was left wondering if he’d even listened to any of the announcements Osborne had just made. Miliband had clearly decided on his narrative in advance and chose to ignore the inconsistencies that didn’t fit within this narrative.

And no sooner had Osborne’s speech and Miliband’s response finished, it all spilt out of the House of Commons into the media and social networks. The interpretations were so polaraised. Osborne had - in an announcement that probably took up 1/500th of his speech - said that the highest rate of tax would drop from 50p to 45p. Going onto the BBC News site later, this part of the Budget was their headline. Apparently, this was the main and most important part of the Budget. It wasn’t.

Labour chose to interpret the Budget as being all about making things easier for the rich and harder for the poor. Whether this was factually acurate was, of course, irrelevant. It was about political point scoring. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people were brought out of paying tax at all was totally ignored. This is something that you’d of thought Labour would support. And, in reality, they do. But can they say this? No. It wouldn’t fit with their narrative on this whole Budget being about tax cuts for the rich. Politics!

There are two announcements that Osborne made yesterday that have stuck and made all the headlines: First, the drop from 50p to 45p for the highest rate earners (those who earn over £150,000). And, second, the so called ‘Granny tax’. These have been used to shape a narrative that says that the coalition (and in particular the Tories) are grabbing from the poor to support the rich.

And you know what, this is great for newspaper sales and website pageviews! But I hope the more discerning citizens will see beyond the media hype and political point scoring and realise that these changes are not nearly as dramatic as they are being made out to be.

How much will dropping the 50p top rate cost us? Next to nothing. There’s even a chance it might save money. Which raises the question of whether people’s wanting the 50p rate has anything at all about national interest, or if it’s simply a hating of anyone rich. Whilst some highest rate tax payers may end up better off, overall the wealthiest people in our nation (via various other means) are going to end up (as a whole, if not individually) contributing a greater amount to our economy than before.

And then there’s the Granny tax. Taking from pensioners seems to be a total no go for politicians. Why? Because pensioners vote. Keeping pensioners happy is often key to political success. But should pensioners be free from suffering from any of the cuts most of the rest of us have been facing?

I know it’s not popular, but I don’t believe in universal benefits. What’s the point in rich pensioners having free bus passes and help to pay their heating bills? It’s nothing but a waste of money. And this new Granny tax isn’t on all pensioners; it’s on the wealthier pensioners. (Note: pensioner doesn’t automatically equal poor.) As the IFS has now said, ‘this looks like a relatively modest tax increase on a group hitherto well sheltered’. And, in real terms, this will mean a loss of equivalent to just 0.25 per cent of income.

So, in essense, the two main stories from yesterday’s Budget are really non-stories. They are both pretty neutral changes that in the grand scheme of things aren’t that big a deal. Unless you’re only interested in a particular political narritive that doesn’t depend on factual accuracy!

UPDATE:

This article isn’t written to suggest that I support everything in the Budget. It is simply to make the point that the people have jumped on two issues that are not actually that big a deal.