arbitrary constant

Recent Entries in Politics

• Man walks into a column, no.18: Royalty

  Ok look, I'm going to blog about the royal wedding. It was, in case you hadn't noticed, a bank holiday at the weekend and I was too busy enjoying beer, flame-grilled food and warmth (when out of the wind, anyway) to get my blog on. And to top it all, my iPhone 4 arrived yesterday. So you get this. I'm a republican, I think. No matter how much I agree with the typically persuasive Rick...

• Man walks into a column, no.16: AV

  A short and simple post this week, because (a) it doesn’t take many words to express what’s on my mind, and (b) I am a simple fellow (emphatically not because my commitment to fulfilling my New Year’s resolution is waning; perish the thought!). To my shame, I’ve only been keeping half an eye on the twittering and blogging about the AV referendum, mainly because I knew from the outset how I was going to vote...

• "Big changes as if under anaesthetic"

  The British have a habit of going into their big changes as if under anaesthetic. —Lord Richard Wilson, former Cabinet Secretary When making this quote, which I discovered whilst reading Peter Hennessey’s latest brilliant offering, The Secret State, Lord Wilson had in mind two major policy decisions of the last 40 years: Britain’s accession to the European Community in 1973 and devolution plus human rights legislation in the 1990s. To this, I think we can...

• Man walks into a column, no.13: Choice

  The always excellent Oliver Burkeman wrote a piece recently about losing weight; this despite the fact he is demonstrably thin. His aim: to zero in on the secrets of success of WeightWatchers which, unfortunately, turns out to be a company with a lot of money staked on keeping its secrets to itself. Thankfully WeightWatchers' key insight is so simple as to be unpatentable, and it is this: human beings cannot succeed unless they feel like...

• Man walks into a column, no.12: Constitution

  Two excellent, thought-provoking openDemocracy pieces caught my eye this week, and made me think about how clarity of expression is crucial if policy-makers are to be held to account and, conversely, how opacity is the despot's dream. First, Charter 88 co-founder Stuart Weir uses this article to systematically excoriate Gus O'Donnell's Cabinet Manual - the guide for ministers and civil servants to help them understand how the different branches of UK government relate to one...

• Quotation of the week, coalition edition

  My apologies for not blogging much over the last few weeks. The most ridiculous combination of events has conspired to prevent much else other than work. There are no signs that this will change soon, but fortunately my esteemed and brilliant fellow blogger Phil is keeping us going. In the meantime, how about this quote from a Lib Dem Minister, when asked what he would do about taking messages he was getting from party members...

• Man walks into a column, no.10: Protest

  One of the distinctions between the protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and the protests at town halls throughout England is that the former had(/and still have) a chance of changing something. The protests in Lambeth, Camden and elsewhere are an expression of anger with little hope of achieving anything. Part of the problem with the recent London protests is their scale: 150 people out of a total population of more than a quarter of...

• Linking rules, IB & ESA and the removal of transitional protection

  It used to be that there were rules called "linking rules" for people in receipt of Incapacity Benefit (IB), which has been updated to become Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Put simply, if someone stopped claiming IB or ESA but found that they needed to start claiming again within a certain period of time, then their "new" benefit would simply be linked back to the "old" benefit they received - they were "linked". If someone...

• Man walks into a column, no.6: Machiavelli

  Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli (sub-titled How To Wield Power In The Modern World) offers fascinating insights into the mind of a once-powerful man, but that man is Powell himself, not Machiavelli. Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, says in the preface that the book ‘is an attempt to test whether Machiavelli’s maxims still hold in the world of modern politics’. But it turns out that this is just a handy excuse (or ‘washing line’,...

• HealthWatch: Good in principle, worrying in practice

  This was posted as a guest blog on the always insightful Health Policy Insight, run by the always amusing (in a good way) @HPIAndyCowper, who has kindly allowed me to re-post it here. Criticisms of the reforms of the health system have focused primarily on shifting £80bn of public expenditure to GP commissioning consortia. Much less attention has been paid to the issue of patient/user voice and representation in the reformed system, something this post...

• Incapacity Benefit linking rules being stopped for disabled people

  Benefits and Work are reporting that the "linking rules" for disabled people, which provides some security for those who take up employment but are unsure what the impact may be on their health/impairment, are being stopped: Linking rules which allow incapacity benefit (IB) claimants to return to their previous rate of benefits if they try work and have to stop again on health grounds are to be scrapped from 31 January. From that date onwards...

• LINks annual reports 2009/10

  The annual reports of Local Involvement Networks (LINks) for 2009/10 makes for interesting reading. This is particularly in light of the fact LINks will become local HealthWatches under the proposed reforms of the government's White Paper, and will be the major vehicle through which patient/user representation will be secured. LINks are membership organisations which empower people in the community to have their say or influence local health and social care services. In 2009/10 there were...

• Man walks into a column, no.3: Freedom

  The links between right-wing rhetoric and the murderous acts of Jared Loughner are tenuous at best. But the hatred that dominates so much of political discourse in the US really does seem different to our own both in its prevalence and its force. Why is this? It's tempting for a Brit, a European, to feel smug about the apparent brutality of life in America at times like these. But acts of political violence and hatred are...

• Reflecting on HealthWatch in the Health White Paper melee (updated)

  Whilst the pandemonium about various changes proposed by the Health White Paper continue (rightly so, by the way), the issue of patient and user voice remains as high up the agenda as it usually does. That is, not at all. I've focused on this area in two previous posts - one on patient voice in the White Paper and another on the question of democratic accountability. I have to confess I've not had chance to...

• One Month Before Heartbreak: please read one story

  Today is the start of One Month Before Heartbreak - a blogswarm to try and raise awareness of the many negative changes that are being made to various disability benefits, particularly Disability Living Allowance. You can find links to everyone who has posted during One Month Before Heartbreak on the website itself plus some on Benefit Scrounging Scum. You can also follow all posts and debate about it using the Twitter hashtag #ombh. I know...

• Access to Work survey - share your experiences

  In the last few days, I've posted some thoughts on Access to Work (see here and links therein), which feels like it is experiencing a cut in practice if not in name. The organisation I work for (ecdp) is undertaking a survey to understand (a) the role and support that Access to Work currently provides for disabled people seeking or in employment; and (b) what the good and not-so-good bits about Access to Work are....

• Access to Work and reasonable adjustments

  I blogged twice last week on the issue of Access to Work. In my post on Access to Work in general, I noted that the DWP has issued unannounced, updated guidance on Access to Work which reduces the amount of support that was previously available to disabled people in securing employment. Furthermore, this has been done before an announced review of Access to Work has been published. In my post on the numbers behind Access...

• Are cuts being made to Access to Work?

  New and unannounced guidance issued at the end of 2010 by the Department for Work in Pensions has subtly changed what can and can't be met by Access to Work. Since Access to Work is a dedicated resource that provides practical advice to overcome issues arising from disability in the workplace, and can pay towards any extra employment costs associated with disability, it is a crucial part of the government's drive to get (disabled) people...

• Andrew Lansley's losing gamble

  I've just caught up with this excellent editorial from the Observer on the government's NHS gamble: David Cameron learned in opposition that voters are not easily persuaded to trust the Conservative party with the NHS. So he came into government with two pledges aimed at allaying suspicion: spending on healthcare would be protected and there would be no scary meddling with the service. He is in danger of failing on both counts. The interesting part...

• ILF announcement couldn't be timed any worse

  (Note: This is a personal post) As an aside to today's announcement that the ILF is to be closed from 2015 onwards, it's worth pointing out the timing couldn't be any worse, because today is the day that the Right to Control is launched in Trailblazers across the country. (It's also the day on which the government has announced that those organisations which will most likely become responsible for ILF users post-2015 - local Councils...

• 

  Independent Living Fund (ILF) to close (updated)

  A Written Ministerial Statement is being published today. It states that the Independent Living Fund (ILF) will be closed in 2015 (link to follow once it's on the Parliament website). This has been coming (and it appears the Sundar Mirror yesterday was right). I blogged back in June that the ILF was essentially closed for business. But that doesn't make today less of a shock. Others will highlight what a disaster this will be for...

• The case for DLA reform is shaky

  Beyond misuse of statistics, sloppy presentation of data and lack of evidence, there are further points to be queried. In a well-argued post on Benefit Scrounging Scum, Rhydian Fôn James has highlighted several major issues with the government's methodology in making the case for DLA reform. It's a great read, and required for anyone who believes in evidence-based policy and disability equality. (For anyone interested in the issues with the case the government has constructed...

• "Dad, who was Nick Clegg?"

  Today's tuition fees vote will make for an interesting bit of history in 20 years' time. Before I say why, here are a few (probably unpopular) thoughts on the issue of tuition fees: I agree in both principle and practice with tuition fees. A university education is a choice, and something to be valued by the individual who makes that choice. Once the principle of fees had been established by the Labour government the politics...

• Andrew Lansley on the value of disability benefits

  People use the attendance allowance and disability living allowance to help them, under their own control, to create a quality of life for themselves that helps them to remain independent. That is precisely in line with the policy we are all trying to pursue. It is clear that if one narrowly focuses only on care needs, we will miss out much that goes to constitute well-being, and there is no health without well-being, and there...

• Full DLA reform consultation document

  Yesterday, I blogged on the government's proposed reforms to Disability Living Allowance. Just in case people haven't seen the consultation document or don't know where to access it, I have uploaded it to Scribd. A copy is embedded below. You can also access the document from the DWP's website. DLA Reform Consultation...

• Previous Tory views on disability benefits

  The government yesterday launched its consultation on reforms to Disability Living Allowance. I blogged extensively on it yesterday. One of the huge - and, as far as I can see, new - announcements was that the government is considering rolling out the cuts to DLA not just to the 1.8m of working age in receipt of DLA, but also those under 16 and those over 65. Given this, I thought it was timely to recall...

• DLA reform consultation: Great Expectations, Worst Apprehensions

  The coalition government today published its consultation on the reform of Disability Living Allowance (DLA). The headline is that DLA is going to be replaced by a "Personal Independence Payment" (PIP) from 2013/14. DLA has been in the news a considerable amount since the emergency budget in June this year, primarily because it has been the main disability-focused benefit the government has looked to cut. I've blogged quite a lot on the topic: see here,...

• Call the press: quangos have functions?!

  Quick! Someone call the press! Ian Magee may have spotted something about quangos: What became clear [is] that the government has found few quango functions that can be abolished outright. You're telling me quangos were actually set up for a reason, and aren't just an elaborate left-wing ruse to waste public sector money, employ the otherwise unemployable, and water down political accountability? Well, I'll be damned....

• Voluntary Sector Datastore - @ncvo and #opendata

  A few weeks ago, I wrote two posts on the topic of Open Data and the voluntary sector: post 1 and post 2. They were a couple of my favourite recent posts, because they were unashamed streams of consciousness, and they gave rise to some really interesting comments and debate from some people's whose thoughts on topics like these I really admire and respect. A couple of those folks happen to work for NCVO, and...

• General McClellan on (in)action

  I'm not sure why, but this quote from General McClellan - a sort of antihero in the American Civil War - stood out for me when I read it a few days ago: It has always been my opinion that the true course in conducting military operations, is to make no movement until the preparations are as complete as circumstances permit, & never to fight a battle without some definite object worth the probable loss....

• The #BigSociety Awards

  News yesterday that the government has launched the Big Society Awards. The Awards are designed to recognise some of the excellent examples of the Big Society in action taking place all around the country. These awards seem peculiar to me for 5 reasons: Why do Big Society-type initiatives need central recognition? Surely the recognition of such things happens in local communities, where the initiatives have their benefit? Awards are usually a means to promote something....

• Cameron's new language #irony highlight

  Oh, Lord Young. One casual slip suggesting we've "never had it so good" and you're gone. There's no messing with that David Cameron, is there? I mean, as he himself has said, he believes, at this difficult time, politicians need to be careful with their choice of words - these words are as offensive as they are inaccurate. It's not the first time David Cameron has suggested politicians be careful with their language; the last...

• Social work practices for adult social care

  Andrew Lansley has announced that social work practices - groups of independent social workers who are contracted to local authorities but independent of them - are to be extended from children and young people's services to adult social care. Such organisations "discharge the statutory duties of the local authority" for their clients. This is potentially of huge significance since it means that local authorities could delegate their two key statutory "touchpoints" - signing off a...

• What's wrong with a Chicken McNudget?

  The Guardian reported that The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease. What's interesting to me is how we find it abhorrent that McDonald's may contribute to public health policy, but think it's fine if Jamie Oliver does. Don't get me wrong: I'm...

• Public's opinion on #DLA reforms

  I blogged yesterday on the public's support for out-of-work benefit reforms. Bizarrely enough the same survey included a question on Disability Living Allowance (DLA), even though DLA isn't an out-of-work benefit. Leaving this point and what it represents to one side (aside from one implication, which I'll highlight below), the results were as follows: 69% of people support more stringent testing for people receiving Disability Living Allowance Broken down by voting intention, 86% of Tories...

• Here comes another winter... but where are the protest singers?

  As recent events herald the opening of a new chapter of protest and public dissent, a chance re-listen to one of my favourite albums caused me to stop and think: who will provide the soundtrack? The artist in question, The The - essentially, at least in terms of artistic vision, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Matt Johnson's one-man-band - and the album, 1986 release Infected. I hope this doesn't appear glib; it shouldn't, for the events of...

• We're not moralising, but it's a sin

  Iain Duncan Smith, launching his welfare reforms on Thursday 11 November 2010: These announcements are an important step towards reform. They aren’t driven by a desire to moralise or lecture. Iain Duncan Smith, speaking about his welfare reforms on Thursday 11 November 2010: [I]t's a sin that people fail to take up work (For more on the government's use of language, start here.)...

• Them and Us: the public supports benefit reforms

  A fascinating survey for Channel 4 notes that the public supports the government's benefit reforms. Topline findings were as follows: 58% of the public think the government should cut benefits more or has the balance about right 73% of the public agree that compulsory volunteering for 4 weeks should be introduced in order to continue receiving benefits 66% of the public thinks it's right to withdraw Jobseekers Allowance if someone turns down a job offer...

• Less knowledge is better politics

  Note: This is an old post I forgot to publish, but I think its main point still holds and so am posting it now. I was delighted to see Alan Johnson appointed as Shadow Chancellor because (a) it was a good choice, and (b) it proved me right. Considering the oddity that was Vince Cable's popularity, partly because he apparently knew what he was talking about when it came to economics, I blogged that It's...

• Isolated people in care homes - government will exacerbate the problem

  The BBC was this morning reporting on the results of a survey by the Residents and Relatives Association. The top finding was that some 40,000 older people in care homes are "socially isolated". We shouldn't be surprised by this, and the aim of any effective social care system should be to keep individuals out of care homes for as long as possible. Not only does this cost the tax payer less money, but it means...

• Involunteering and the #bigsociety

  Matthew Taylor's post on the coalition government's proposals to compel people on out-of-work benefits to do voluntary work - which he names "involunteering" - is excellent. I recommend you read it in full. He highlights what I consider to be the key point: whilst conditionality in welfare is reasonable, compulsion takes it too far. Matthew highlights 4 reasons to be wary of it: It places extra citizenship obligations on people because of their circumstances It...

• Churchill: nuts bad for the brain

  I figure you know the famous stuff well, which is why I'm concentrating on the miscellanea (plus if I wasn't as 'disciplined' as this, I'd be blogging the entire book, page by page). This week, I loved Churchill's verdict on diets, in a letter to the Minister of Food: I am glad you do not set too much store by the reports of the Scientific Committee. Almost all of the food faddists I have ever...

• Voluntary sector budgets: protecting or cutting?

  David Cameron during Prime Minsiter's Questions on 15 September 2010: When it comes to looking at and trimming your budgets, don't do the easy thing, which is to cut money to the voluntary bodies and organisations working in our communities. Look at your core costs. Look at how you can do more for less. Look at the value for money you get from working with the voluntary sector. Nick Hurd launching the Big Society strategy...

• Guardian cuts blog

  I'm not saying this just because I'm a leftie, but the Guardian's coverage of the public sector over the last few months has been particularly good. With the Society supplement every Wednesday it was always pretty good, but in its fair and generally measured coverage and perspectives on both the cuts themselves and the impact they will have - particularly in the areas I know best (disability, social care, health and benefits) - the Gruad...

• The Telegraph's #DLA ignorance

  I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this, in an article titled (without apparent irony) "To cut with principle is the right approach": There will certainly be other cuts to the welfare budget. The guiding principle behind them seems to be the reintroduction of the distinction between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. This is not meant to be an absolute distinction, still less one which damns those on the wrong side of...

• Osborne: Welfare cheats are "like burglars"

  A welfare cheat is like a mugger who robs you on the street That was George Osborne in yesterday's News of the World (behind a paywall) talking about welfare cheats. It's churlish to note the use of his language, though that's not going to stop me, because it was David Cameron who said that We will be challenging lobby groups that are making inflammatory arguments. We will take their claims on. We will highlight when...

• Chancellor Churchill to Chancellor Osborne? Plus ça change...

  As you'd expect, reading books and writing on blogs are usually quite happy bedfellows. The only problem comes when you read a book so good that (a) whenever presented with a leisurely moment you tend to choose to go to its pages rather than the keys of your computer, and (b) the only things you can think to post are based on what you've read therein. You have, in short, become A Lazy Blogger. So...

• Quango merger learning

  We've been interested here for a while in the topic of quango merging, mainly because at least one of us here was quangoed whilst another was involved in evaluating said quango. This interest has given rise to the one good idea I think I've ever had: a quango merger quango, which would be: some form of team or body within central government that can advise or lead the process of mergers within the public sector....

• Next Steps Agencies, quangos and political accountability (#irony alert!)

  Francis Maude was on the Today programme this morning, ahead of the coalition government publishing its plans for merging or closing a large number of quangos. Maude tried to claim that the review of the quangos was in no way informed by the deficit and was instead driven by a need to ensure accountability in the public sector, going further to imply that it was Labour who had overseen the increase in quangos and so...

• Paul Corrigan on the weakness from strength of Lansley's plans*

  Following the Health White Paper in July, Paul Corrigan wrote a fantastic series of posts analysing Andrew Lansley's proposals. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it was the best thing out there on the White Paper - so good that I collected them into a handy series of posts. Well, he's at it again. This time, Paul has looked beyond the current and apparent position of strength Lansley finds himself in (as a...

• Better off people, their fair share and inheritance tax

  A good session of Prime Minister's Questions today, which showed Ed Miliband to have done his homework and David Cameron to have been somewhat blase when he perhaps should have expected a tougher time than he'd apparently anticipated. Anyway, let's note for future reference these two separate quotes from David Cameron today: We do have to ask better off people to bare their share of the burden... What I believe is fair is asking better...

• Brief observations on the Shadow Cabinet

  I know you'll have been waiting for my thoughts on the Shadow Cabinet. Work and real-world stuff have got in the way of this important matter and my treatment of it. Here we are: Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor is a very canny choice. He's a very good communicator, untarnished by any previous strong views on the economy, he provides an excellent antidote to the twerp who is currently Chancellor, and he gets us all...

• Post-bureaucratic age, the #BigSociety and Ace Ventura

  There's a moment in the first Ace Ventura (Pet Detective) film when Jim Carey's character realises that the male sports star he's been searching for is actually the same person as the female police chief he's been battling with. With disbelief, he cries to himself: Ray Finkle is Lois Einhorn. Lois Einhorn is Ray Finkle. Oh my God. The realisation makes him sick. I've just had a similar experience. For reading Ian Birrell's account of...

• Pickles continues the NTDTD approach

  Reader [a frighteningly accurate opening - hi mum!], I have done you a disservice. For I failed to bring you the latest example of the non-top down, top down approach that the coalition government is quickly turning into an art form. That great comedian and part-time politician / policy maker Eric Pickles is kindly contributing another entry to the case study library (see his first entry here), this time through proposals to regulate the content...

• Introducing the #BogSociety

  Whilst writing a presentation yesterday, I accidentally typed "Bog Society" instead of "Big Society". My genius friend and fellow blogger Phil C seized on the opportunity and came up with the idea for a meme, based on willful mispellings. His first offer was WAGsociety: footballers' wives help out in their local community Which, I think you'll agree, is brilliant. As a result, here are various #Bogsociety ideas we game up with (Phil - PC, or...

• On Child Benefit: make it tougher and fairer

  More for my own purpose than anything, I just wanted to get a few thoughts down on the Child Benefit fiasco. I claim no originality at all in what follows. The principle of the move on Child Benefit - that better-off people shouldn't get the same benefit as less well-off people - is the right one, and is one that I agree with. This isn't to say that all universal benefits are wrong. Just this...

• Confessions of a Regenerator

  Hello, my name is Stef_W (well it's not actually but anyway) and I'm addicted to Regeneration. Regeneration is neither Optimus Prime's secret gay transformer lover, the subtitle to a Terminator straight-to-DVD sequel nor the latest 'legal high'. Despite having just completed an MSc in 'Urban Regeneration', I'm still not particularly sure what it is myself but I do have some thoughts...but I've haven't really shared them with AC. It's the classic blog/career conundrum. To date...

• Those inflammatory arguments (again)

  It was David Cameron who said that We will be challenging lobby groups that are making inflammatory arguments. We will take their claims on. We will highlight when it is irresponsible to make statements like that. I'm not sure George Osborne got that memo, if his speech today was anything to go by: Now imagine what would follow: The market turmoil. The flight of investors. The dismay of business. The loss of confidence. The credit...

• Together in the National Interest

  Following the election, I blogged that the "national interest" depends on what you think is in the interest of the nation, noting that politics is that offer of competing visions for achieving what a party thinks is best for the country. The Tory party conference takes as its slogan an extension of the national interest argument: Together in the National Interest I'll merely repeat what I said before: this national interest is one that the...

• Mutuals and mutualism

  When you scythe through the hideous jargon and confusingly loose use of different names for what appear to be basically the same thing, there are actually some genuinely interesting debates to be had around the potential for staff, service users and communities to own public services. I should know: I've had the dubious honour of being excessively deeply acquainted with the arcana of co-ops and mutuals for the past several months (and as you can...

• Social Care Funding Commission - FOI results

  As you will have noted from previous posts (see here, here, here and here), I have a strong interest in the Department of Health’s Commission on the Funding of Care and Support. The Commission was announced by Andrew Lansley on 20 July 2010 and said it would report back within 2 months on the criteria it would use to judge the proposals it develops. That deadline passed 9 days ago, with no criteria published. Indeed,...

• Care Commission - 69 days and counting

  It is now 69 days since the Care Commission was launched by Andrew Lansley. In that time, there have been no updates from the Commission, except for a brief update of the pages on its website. As I mentioned this time last week, Lansley said that the Commission would publish its criteria for judging the proposals it makes two months on from its launch. The deadline for the publication of this criteria passed last Monday,...

• Giving power back to the people

  This from David Cameron in Saturday's Guardian: This is a government that will give power back to the people Sounds good. Which people? One way of doing that is by spreading choice... [T]o give people an even wider choice we will increase competition in public services by inviting new providers in. Ok. Power to individuals and some power to new providers. Who next? Next, we're giving more power to neighbourhoods. Good stuff. Can't go wrong...

• Management caps in GP consortia

  [W]e want to give GPs control of commissioning, creating a direct relationship between the management of care and the management of resources. That was Andrew Lansley to the NHS Confederation conference in June. Sounds like he wants to give control to GPs over commissioning, doesn't it? Stop the top-down nature of health policy and delivery and all that. You'd be quite wrong, of course, because you've obviously underestimated the power and reach of the "non-top...

• Winston Churchill on the challenges facing CLG

  In 1907, when Winston Churchill was considering which to prioritise out of a number of Cabinet posts potentially open to him, he gave this verdict on the turn-of-the-century version of our beloved department for Communities and Local Government (CLG), the Local Government Board, which was in theory one of his options: There is no place in the Government more laborious, more anxious, more thankless, more cloaked with petty and even squalid detail, more full of...

• Compact crap

  I don't know if either of my readers (Hi mum! Hi dad!) are familiar with the Compact - the understanding between government and the voluntary sector about how they work together. To say that the Compact is totally toothless and pretty pointless would be an understatement. Anything that is voluntary, is not legally binding and has content that is not legally enforceable should rightfully be considered rubbish, this indeed nicely describing what the Compact is....

• Social Care Commission - 2 months on (updated)

  [I] have asked them to come back to us within two months with the criteria against which they are going to assess the proposals, the solutions that they come up with. I think it is perfectly reasonable for them to look at that question that you ask in the context of how they are to set their own criteria for judging the proposals that they bring forward. That was Andrew Lansley, speaking to the Health...

• Freedom of Information request - Commission on the Funding of Care and Support

  Below is the text of a FOI request I have submitted to the Department of Health concerning the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support. This is ahead of a key milestone for that Commission, which I'm anticipating they will miss (details here). I don't necessarily like being a pain in the arse, but this topic is too important to have languishing around. Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would be grateful if...

• The Daily Mail's deserving few (scroungers not welcome)

  This post also appears on the excellent Where's the Benefit? blog, which is keeping tracks of the budget cuts and the impact on (disability) benefits I'd love to know what it's like being someone with the mindset of a Daily Mail reader. It must be fascinating to be outraged by something today that is the exact opposite of the thing you were outraged by yesterday. The subject of benefits is ripe ground for this: on...

• Nick "Dickens" Clegg

  More of that, erm, non-inflammatory language from the coalition government today, with this offer from Nick Clegg: Welfare needs to become an engine of mobility, changing people's lives for the better, rather than a giant cheque written by the state to compensate the poor for their predicament. Compensate "the poor" for their "predicament"? It's like living in a Dickens novel....

• 

  Care Commission - deleted? (updated)

  Just yesterday I was noting that not much has happened with the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, set up by Andrew Lansley to look into this vital topic. I visited the site again tonight to see if there had been any updates, to find the site had been, erm, deleted (click thumbnail above for larger version; original screenshot here). It's entirely feasible that a new website is being prepared in time for...

• Government #cuts language: irony alert!

  This from David Cameron: We will be challenging lobby groups that are making inflammatory arguments. We will take their claims on. We will highlight when it is irresponsible to make statements like that. This from the coalition government who gave you: People who think it is a lifestyle to sit on out-of-work benefits... that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end. The money will not be there for that lifestyle choice. (George Osborne)...

• Lansley "acting quickly" on social care

  Andrew Lansley announced the formation of the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support on 20 July. At the time, he said he wanted the Commission to "act quickly" and report back to government within two months on the criteria it intends to use to judge competing proposals for reform. That means we can expect the criteria on Monday. Since the launch - some 57 days ago - the Commission's website has had, erm,...

• Big Society equals organised chaos?

  In his post the other day Rich says there's a danger that Big Society will be allowed to wither on the vine in the places where local politicians and/or officers don't understand it and/or don't feel it's their responsibility to implement it. He mentions this in response to David Wilcox's point that there is not (nor should there be) a 'Big Society plan' or controller (see here), the implication being that the first is a...

• Andrew Lansley: taking us for mugs

  DH statement, 29 August 2010: NHS 111 telephone number will eventually replace NHS Direct when it is rolled out nationally Andrew Lansley letter, 9 September 2010 (copy of letter available here): I have not announced plans to scrap NHS Direct This is sophistry born of arrogance, ignorance and power. Lansley is taking us all for mugs, and we should be absolutely plain that we won't stand for it....

• Big Society - falling through the gaps?

  Part of the point of the Big Society is that no one is really responsible for it - we're all responsible for it. As David Wilcox usefully notes, part of the implication of this is there's no big plan governing how it's rolled out, what its milestones are, how much money is available etc. etc. (for those familiar with Myers-Briggs types, and for those who know themselves to be J-types, I can only guess at...

• Boris: not an administrator

  One significant element of being a good local politician is the ability to administer. On reaching office any politician worth their salt - and particularly local politicians - should define 3 or 4 key things they'll achieve, focus ruthlessly on them and make sure they deliver. On the London cycle hire scheme, Boris has shown himself to be one of the other significant things local politicians need to be - regularly exposed (so to speak)...

• Inevitable audit

  I noted some problems with Bob Neill and Eric Pickles's logic when they defended the closure of the Audit Commission and put public audit out to the market. In particular, I observed that to criticise the Audit Commission for acting like a large corporate was an odd thing to do since auditors in the private sector act like, erm, large corporates. Which is all a long way round of saying that we shouldn't be at...

• NTDTD approach applied to street signs

  The pioneering "non-top down, top down" (NTDTD) approach of the coalition government continues apace with this beautiful case study, courtesy once again of our friends at the Department for Communities and Local Government: Councils will today be urged to get rid of unnecessary signs, railings and advertising hoardings in a bid to make streets tidier and less confusing for motorists and pedestrians. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Transport Secretary Philip Hammond are concerned that the...

• Clegg and the World Cup bid

  Is it just me, or does Nick Clegg completely miss the point during his statement to the FIFA inspection team? Apart from the fact he nearly called them the infection team, he spent well over half of his statement talking about himself and the coalition rather than how England is the best country for hosting the 2018 World Cup. And if I was part of FIFA and heard a chap saying that England's World Cup...

• Audit Commission and a seeming lack of logic

  A bit of a spat has developed today, inasmuch as a spat in the quiet world of audit can ever develop. It concerns the decision of Eric Pickles to axe the Audit Commission, partly in response to a "culture of excess" at the spending watchdog. I'll leave to one side the question of whether external judgments about an organisation's spending on specific items as a result of transparency is a judgment easily or fairly reached....

• A winning strategy for Labour

  I read with a chuckle about today's Guardian/ICM poll which suggests that, were an election held tomorrow, Labour would match the Tories on 37 per cent, the first time they've done so in three years. Surely the best evidence yet - as if any further proof were needed - about the effect that Premier Brown had on the Party's chances. And what does it say about (a) the standards of the voting public when it...

• Can the Big Society cope with inequality?

  Cards on the table time: insofar as it exists as a negative agenda - a rejection of the overweening state, and in particular calling time on the idea that the answer to everything is to give someone a meaningless job with a title in the form [Name of Programme] + [Coordinator] - I'm quite a fan of the Big Society idea. Having spent a great deal of my professional life working alongside civil servants, I...

• They're not listening

  Who aren't? The coalition government: The government's first attempt at crowdsourcing its coalition programme has ended without a single government department expressing a willingness to alter any policy... The coalition asked the public to respond to its programme on government websites. It received 9,500 replies online. However, its formal responses, published on each website, shows Whitehall regarded the process largely as an endorsement of what it was already doing. In cases where most of the...

• Revolving doors

  It's an unusual thing, and is normally the result of dodgy motivations, but the Daily Mail is occasionally right in being outraged by something. In this case, it's the dual role held by one of the government's obesity advisers: A senior adviser in the Government’s battle against obesity has been criticised for receiving thousands of pounds from the slimming industry. Of course, the funny thing about this is that it's a perfectly natural extension and...

• "Non-top down, top down" approach reaches acronym status

  It's happening so often, this "Non-top down, top down" approach, that it has now offically qualified for acronym status: NTDTD. Just when we thought we'd had enought case studies of the NTDTD approach with the Cancer Drug Fund, the Council Tax cap, and the not-obese-but-fat examples, but up pops Chris Grayling with his own contribution: A ban on using Job centres to advertise for strippers and lap dancers has been announced. Here's a handy tip...

• Forced to become more useful?

  As regular readers of this blog will know from Rich's excellent posts on the recent health white paper, primary care trusts (PCTs) are set to be scrapped in favour of GPs commissioning health services. On this subject, I was interested to read this today in the Health Service Journal: Primary care trust chief executives have begun planning how they can transform themselves into organisations providing support to GP commissioning consortia. NHS Salford chief executive Mike...

• A non-top down, top down case study

  First the Cancer Drug Fund, then obese, sorry, fat people, and now Council Tax. The coalition government really is serious about this non-top down, top down approach they've developed. Thus: Thursday 21 June: George Osborne to announce Council Tax freeze Friday 30 July: Coalition plan to allow voters to veto excessive Council Tax rises...

• Michael Gove: deja vu all over again

  Thursday: Michael Gove's academy plan under fire as scale of demand emerges: Only 153 schools apply to become academies, despite education secretary's claims that more than 1,000 had done so Sunday: Michael Gove accused of exaggerating interest in free schools: Education secretary under fire after it emerges there have been just 62 applications for free schools, less than a tenth of the number he said had shown interest...

• Paul Corrigan on the Health White Paper

  Paul Corrigan - who, amongst many roles, is best-known for being Tony Blair's senior health policy adviser - has written on his blog an exceptional series on the coalition government's Health White Paper. Here in full are links to the whole series so far. If you have an interest in health and social care these links really are like gold. The NHS White Paper - Overall architecture of the reforms The White Paper - Some...

• #healthwhitepaper posts summary

  For ease of reference, below are links to the series of posts published here on the subject of the Health White Paper, the focus of which on this site has been patient voice and equity. Patient voice in the Health White Paper Where's all the 'equity' when the NHS has been 'liberated'? (a guest post by Christine Burns) The Health White Paper and social care The BMA and the Health White Paper Democratic accountability in...

• Not big-boned, but fat

  Here's another victory for the pioneering "non-top down, top down" approach that Andrew Lansley is championing, this time through his junior Minister, Anne Milton's enthusiastic suggestion that Family doctors and nurses should tell people they are fat rather than obese because such plain speaking would help more to lose weight. This must also be part of Lansley's approach to not, erm, lecturing people. It must be fun having the semblance of consistency....

• The non-top down, top down approach

  Ah, yes. The "Non-top down, top down approach", also known as the "Free from political interference" initiative (Copyright - Andrew Lansley). Andrew Lansley, 2 June 2010 (and many other places besides): What we need to achieve [is] a change from a command-and-control, top-down system of running our schools, hospitals, health care and social care services. Health news announcement, 27 July 2010: Cancer patients denied new treatments because they are too expensive will now be able...

• Democratic accountability in the Health White Paper

  The Department of Health has published a number of accompanying documents to the Health White Paper that was itself published last week. Having written a detailed analysis of patient voice in the Health White Paper, I was thus particularly interested in the "Local democratic legitimacy in health" follow-up paper. Though the paper addresses nowhere near all of the questions I outlined in my previous post, there is some good stuff in this accompanying paper on...

• Eric Pickles: comedian (part 2)

  After part 1 comes part 2 - a speech to the LGA: It was a bit like local government was a fifteen year old girl with really strict parents. They let you go down the dance for the first time. But then totally cramped your style by parking round the corner to watch what you were up to and made you go home at half past nine. Not so much 'total place'. More like 'know...

• Housing benefit cuts

  Let's just remind ourselves, once again, of David Cameron's words on the doorstep of Number 10: I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country. Got that? Now try this: Almost a million of the poorest people in Britain will lose on average £12 a week next year - a drop of up to 17% of their disposable income, according to a government analysis...

• The BMA and the #healthwhitepaper

  Following a whole series of post on the #healathwhitepaper (see "other posts" below), it's interesting to note that the powerful BMA is doing its best to ignore the proposals contained in the White Paper and focused instead on GP contracts: We hope there will be few changes to the GP contract as this is a UK contract and commissioning is an England policy. We know that the government wishes to make a few, very significant,...

• The Health White Paper and social care

  Following up my post on patient voice in the Health White Paper, here's one capturing my confusion over how health relates to social care. It is baffling to me that a White Paper entitled "Liberating the NHS" makes so many references to social care. Indeed, the White Paper may be liberating the NHS, but it feels like it's making a landgrab for social care. The direction of travel all seems to be from social care...

• Nick Clegg: revisionist

  A fascinating interview with Nick Clegg on Channel 4 tonight. Of many interesting things he said, the one I'm not that interested in is his assertion that: This government as a whole doesn't take a view on the legality of it. "It" being the Iraq war. I'm not sure it is actually the case that the British government doesn't take a view on the legality of the Iraq war, even if this government is different...

• Voluntary sector, social care and the Big Society

  After a pleasant 30 minutes reading NCVO's excellent UK Civil Society Almanac 2010, here are some key facts relating to the role of the voluntary sector in adult social care: In 2007/08 local authority expenditure on social care was £20.7bn, of which £15.3bn was for adult social care. Social care workforce in the voluntary sector grew from 19% in 1996/97 (202,000 people) to 26% in 2007/08 (374,000). As a comparison, the voluntary sector as a...

• Abbott's radio silence

  Anne McElvoy asked Diane Abbott a perfectly reasonable question as part of a piece on the Labour leadership contest on the Today programme today (you can hear it here). The question was: You have a son in private education. You said that you are in tune with the Labour membership. A lot of that membership doesn't like or accept private education. Isn't that a bit of a clash? Abbott's response was silence for about 15...

• Not a "Death Tax" but a choice

  Having had a Royal Commission, two Wanless reports, a national debate, a Select Committee Inquiry, a Green Paper and a White Paper, and with a vision paper and a new White Paper on their way, the coalition government today set up it's Commission on the Funding of Care and Support to address the issue of funding adult social care. I don't know about you, but I'm just not sure we've thought about it enough. Anyway,...

• Social care reform: the journey from here (updated)

  The Health White Paper and some recently published documents have given some useful indications as to the timetable for social care reform over the next few months. Here's what I think we can expect: The Commission on the funding of long-term care will being its work in July 2010 and report in July 2011. I don't know why the coalition has called this work on "long-term care" rather than just "social care". I'm assuming it's...

• #irony in today's #bigsociety launch

  Plenty to be said on the formal launch of the Big Society today, which I'll write when I've picked myself up off the floor and stopped laughing. In the meantime, how's this for irony: having noted that the talents and initiative of people had been wasted, claiming that over-centralised government had turned employees into the "weary, disillussioned puppets of central government" David Cameron went on to say that Each of the project areas will be...

• Get Gove off the radio

  Some of the factors that can affect driving are well known: alocohol, drugs, using a mobile phone, even listening to sport. Having listened far too many times than I'd ever want to to Michael Gove being interviewed on the radio - particularly using his favoured technique of criticising the BBC rather than actually answering questions - can I recommend that, in the name of road safety, he is also banned from being on the radio?...

• Where's all the "Equity" when the NHS has been "Liberated"?

  This is a guest post by Christine Burns MBE, an Equality and Diversity consultant currently embedded in the NHS war zone. Since Andrew Lansley’s NHS White Paper was published last week, most of the public commentary has inevitably centred on the alleged savings to be achieved and the open door which the plans will create for privatisation. The White Paper, “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS”, proposes to remove two tiers of regional and local...

• Patient voice in the Health White Paper

  This post also appeared on Stable and Principled The launch of the coalition government's Health White Paper has made for interesting reading this week. Probably the best reaction to the proposals came from Health Policy Insight: The document's flaws are in two main areas: those of Emmentalesque holes; and of biscuit contraception (the bits that are fucking crackers). For reactions and criticisms that capture the key issues of the plan, I would certainly recommend Civitas's...

• Public health

  There's a fabulous leader in the Observer today, detailing all of the major issues, inconsistencies and ideological drivers of the coalition government's approach to health. I urge you to read it: a regressive and potentially harmful new approach to public health being pursued by the coalition government which has much of the medical establishment worried and with good reason... Those who make or sell drink, cigarettes and unhealthy food can scarcely believe their luck. By...

• That pesky local decision making thing

  I'd like to be a fly on the wall when Grant Shapps - he of Councillors should be volunteers fame - meets his Conservative Councillor colleagues from Barnet Council who, in these times of austerity, have awarded themselves allowance increases of between £7,351 to £10,126 a year. Don't forget, folks: we're all in this together....

• "Looking after the poorest": the financial reality

  An excellent survey by Contact A Family has revealed that families with disabled children are struggling with basic household costs and that this has been made worse by the economic downturn. Key findings included: 23% of families had to turn off their heating to save money 14% are going without food 73% said they had to forego leisure activities and days out 68% are not taking any holidays I'm afraid that the situation isn't going...

• Scrapping the Census and voting reform

  So caught out by the ridiculousness and impracticality of scrapping the Census was I last week that I forgot to make my substantive point. The coalition government has made considerable noises about voting reform, in particular making sure every constituency is the same size. The "same" is to be based on populations of approximately 100,000 per constituency. Where, then, are they going to get this data? There had been significant concerns on this question. If...

• "Naivety and arrogance"

  We've been keeping an eye on Andrew Lansley because of his combination of arrogance, ignorance and power (see the Department of You Couldn't Make It Up and Lansley's winning combination). This diary of a senior civil servant seems to suggest that Lansley isn't a one-off; he's perfectly similar to the rest of his Ministerial colleagues: I have noted since the election that Conservative ministers seem very relaxed. I, like many others, interpreted this as confidence...

• Government websites cost gazillions

  I was struck by this comment made by David Cameron during his Skype call with Mark Zuckerberg: Normally if Government wants to engage with people we’d probably spend millions of pounds, even billions, on our own website, and with your help we’re basically getting this public engagement for free. This is revealing in two ways: Making Facebook the government's "primary" communications method for debating with the public is being driven by the fact it's free,...

• Cancer claptrap from the coalition

  The coalition today couldn't confirm or deny that it was going to keep or scrap the two-week cancer guarantee. Some quick observations: It was David Cameron who used cancer statistics comparing Britain to Bulgaria for political gain as part of the general election campaign It was the Tories who complained vigorously about leaflets Labour apparently sent to people with cancer during the same campaign. The leaflets suggested the Tories would scrap a Labour guarantee on...

• "Councillors should be volunteers"

  I think they're doing it just to deliberately annoy people now. Y'know, the coalition government, wilfully mixing up and conflating issues and prescribing completely ridiculous policy solutions to address said issues. Take this from Grant Shapps: Proposed increases to councillor allowances are “unjustifiable” at a time when public sector workers are facing a two-year pay freeze, local government minister Grant Shapps has said. Mr Shapps criticised recommendations from the Local Government Association (LGA) to increase...

• Eric Pickles: comedian

  Did you catch Eric Pickles's speech at the LGA conference last week? I say "speech" when really I mean "comedy routine": You've been a prisoner of regulation, chained to the radiator with red tape, for too long. I want to liberate you... And I can announce today, as I promised to a fringe meeting here two years ago, we're also abolishing the TLA. The three letter abbreviation... If I just wait around, it's a bit...

• Lansley's crusade

  We noted at the end of last week that Andrew Lansley is going to ask companies to pay for advertising campaigns encouraging people not to buy their products. In return, he'll put in place a "non-regulatory approach" to food standards. Taking things to their logical conclusion, there are reports that Lansley is now going to scrap the Food Standards Agency, and with it its responsibilities for nutrition and diet advice. Others have accused Lansley of...

• Heaven Census

  It's being mooted that the Census might face the chop. The reasons? It's expensive, the data is not collected regularly enough, and there could be enough other sources of information available. All crap reasons, of course. Next year's Census is likely to cost in the region of £482m per year. Since this is once every 10 years, that's less than £50m per year (much less, for example, than the government plans to save approximately per...

• Department of You Couldn't Make It Up

  Just the other day we were noting Andrew Lansley's potential for interest because of his combination of arrogance, ignorance and power. I'm pleased to say that in a speech today he hasn't disappointed:Beer companies, confectionary firms and crisp-makers will be asked to fund the government's advertising campaign to persuade people to switch to a healthier lifestyle and, in return, will not face new legislation outlawing excessively fatty, sugary and salty food, the health secretary, Andrew...

• Andrew Lansley's winning combination

  We have a passing interest in Andrew Lansley on this blog: the combination of arrogance, ignorance and power that Lansley represents can only be a winning one that leads to fun and frolics worth keeping an eye on. See already his nonsense about patient readmissions and local decision making. Here are two more examples to add to the list. 1. An Accident & Emergency unit in Newark has been closed. This follows Lansley's opportunistic moratorium...

• Voting reform: the vote is already won

  News this week that there is to be a referendum on voting reform next May. (The move was announced through the media, which I thought was ironic.) The referendum is going to be on whether we should retain the first-past-the-post system or move to an Alternative Vote one. It's therefore useful to note that AV is still a majoritarian system and not a proportional one. Indeed, by dropping the "+" element, which had originally been...

• The great ignored?

  Earlier this week, Iain Duncan Smith gave a key note speech on reforming welfare. This was in light of the Emergency Budget. I think it's worth noting that he doesn't mention disabled people or Disability Living Allowance once. Why should he? It's not like there are any issues arising from the Budget that affect either of these. Apart from this, of course....

• Getting things in perspective

  I heard a talk given by the LSE's Tony Travers last week, in which he presented the latest figures and his own projections about the impact of the spending cuts on local authorities. In amongst the reminders of what we already know - total UK public expenditure is likely to fall by between five and ten per cent in real terms by 2014-15 - there was a point which I hadn't heard before and which...

• Two US perspectives on welfare / workfare

  Lawrence M Mead: In 1986, Mead's big idea was to push welfare recipients into jobs - an approach that came to be known as "workfare". Unlike those on the left who wanted to change capitalism, Mead wanted to change the poor. The academic argued that disorder stemming from the actions of the inner-city poor, rather than a lack of opportunity, lay at the collapse of their communities. What was needed, he argued, was to "enforce...

• Coalition government immigration policy problems

  I've noted before the problems with the Tory position on immigration: [D]oes the Tory cap on immigration admit the possibility that they'll want Britain to leave the EU, on the grounds of immigration? The Financial Times blog also notes an issue the coalition government will have arising from its position on immigration, this time affecting the economy: Cameron’s immigration cap, if successful, will hold-back economic growth....

• The Budget and DLA: initial reactions

  From a disability perspective, the big announcement in today’s Budget was the introduction of medical assessments for all DLA claimants from 2013-14. The relevant paragraph is the following from the Budget document: 1.103 The Government will reform the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to ensure support is targeted on those with the highest medical need. The Government will introduce the use of objective medical assessments for all DLA claimants from 2013-14 to ensure payments are only...

• Freezing the Council Tax

  George Osborne's Budget sop to the public, of freezing Council Tax for a year, is politics at its very worse. It takes the public for fools, in the hope that we'll be so taken by saving £100 a year we'll not notice the ideological cuts happening elsewhere. Beyond the dodgy politics, the Council Tax freeze has a number of serious implications, represented by these questions: What happens when the Council Tax freeze thaws out? What...

• Independent Living Fund essentially closed for business

  The Independent Living Fund (ILF) - which provides financial support to disabled people with high support needs to support the cost of their personal assistance, and is separate to social care funding - is essentially closed for business. It's shut. Due to budget restrictions, the ILF first said that it would only support ILF applications from disabled people working over 16 hours a week. Before this decision, there was no such requirement, which in itself...

• Lib Dems' SpAd flip flop

  Special Advisors will not be paid for by the taxpayer[.] The government currently employs 74 Special Advisers in the central departments, an increase of more than 90% since 1995, at a cost to the taxpayer of £5.9m each year. These are political jobs, and should, therefore, be funded by political parties. That was, erm, Nick Clegg, speaking in September 2009. It is also number 4 on my list of flips that have become flops (here...

• Everyday lives on #DLA

  Following on from my long and detailed analysis of the coalition government's potential position with regard to Disability Living Allowance (DLA), I urge you to read @BendyGirl's post on what DLA means to her. It's an exceptional post, and highlights just one case of thousands relating the difference DLA makes in everyday lives. Here's an excerpt, though I urge you to read the rest: So, as someone who can't even sneeze without dislocating a rib...

• Proper engagement (or "no Bs to P in")

  As so often, a great post from Matthew Taylor with his key points about effective consultation, which I paraphrase as: Public opinion is inconsistent and often contradictory Debates are often dominated by special interest groups, which by definition focus on the area of public spending/cuts that affects them Consultation is very different from engagement or deliberation with the public. Taylor then rightly notes Participatory Budgeting as a good example of policy making, where people have...

• Another switch by the Lib Dems

  It's getting hard to keep up. I noted a few days two examples of the Lib Dems doing something in government that was the opposite of what they campaigned for: the McKinnon extradition case and the Digital Economy Bill/Act. To that list we can now add the like-for-like replacement of Trident, as reported by John Rentoul: Last night, the Liberal Democrats voted in the House of Commons precisely for the “like-for-like” replacement of Trident against...

• Lansley's evidence-based targets

  We've expressed something of an interest before in Andrew Lansley, the coalition government's new Health Secretary. Here I am having a go at him, and here Phil is defending him. And here is Lansley popping up again, this time with a plan to financially penalise hospitals if patients are readmitted for emergency treatment within 30 days of discharge. Sounds good. The only problem being that a significant Department of Health report in 2008 noted there...

• Lib Dems: views in campaigning versus reality in government

  I've noted my own and a good proportion of the public's confusion over the what the Lib Dems stand for. In two concrete cases, the reason for confusion is clear. Case 1: The Digital Economy Bill / Act, as described by Left Foot Forward: As Left Foot Forward has previously highlighted, there is plenty to be worried about in the coming digital economy act. What is perhaps more worrying for progressives is that in...

• EHRC faces budget cuts

  I note this because I used to work there and some ex-colleagues and friends may be affected: The Equality and Human Rights Commission, charged with tackling discrimination and safeguarding human rights, has been ordered to cut 15% from its budget as part of the coalition government's austerity measures, the Guardian has learned. The cuts to the equalities watchdog has forced it to review its staffing, marketing and programme of grants to combat discrimination. Two other...

• SpAds' pay: why become an MP? (updated)

  Two observations on yesterday's publication of Special Adviser salaries: The Prime Minister has 18 (eighteen)* SpAds. The Deputy Prime Minister has 4. If anyone has any comparisons of these numbers with Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in particular, please leave a comment Nearly every SpAd in Pay Band 2 or above earns more than an MP's basic salary. They are also more influential and have more say over policy. As such, why would anyone want...

• What the Lib Dems stand for (redux)

  Just before the election, I asked (with genuine curiosity) what the Lib Dems stand for. Turns out, I'm not the only wondering: a survey for the Independent last week noted that nearly two-thirds of voters say they are not clear what the party stands for since it went into coalition with the Conservatives. If anyone knows what the Lib Dems are after (apart from power, obviously) then let us - and two-thirds of the population...

• Poverty, worklessness... and #DLA?

  The new coalition government published its "State of the Nation" report on "Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependency" last week. This is clearly an important document since it sets out the perspective from which a key department will operate in a vital area over the coming parliament and, as the document itself notes, provides an overview that "will be used to inform policy decisions" (p6). This posts notes some key themes of and issues with the...

• Quotation of the week (cuts edition)

  How we deal with these things will affect our economy, our society - indeed our whole way of life. The decisions we make will effect every single person in our country. And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades to come. — David Cameron. (It is at this point in time that I'd like to point out it's David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg making these decisions that...

• An economist as Chancellor: Kamm's opinion

  Not for the first time, Oliver Kamm has made me feel much better. For in this post he states: It's not necessary - far from it - to have an economic and financial background in order to be an effective Treasury minister. This makes me feel much better because I argued much the same point in a recent post about, amongst others, the hallowed St Vince of Cable. Fortunately, Kamm also backs up the statement...

• Total Place under the Tories

  The Total Place initiative was a significant development in local government policy over the last term of the Labour government. Details about what Total Place is and what it's seeking to achieve are here. I have a professional interest in Total Place because I see the Right to Control - a significant transformation project that aims to bring together several funding streams which provide choice and control for disabled people - as a kind of...

• NDPBMRNDPBGD

  I noted recently the excellent machinery of government publication by the Institute for Government. The report notes the problems that senior civil servants face when changes to government departments are made, including a lack of funding to support the changes and the doubling in workload it often means for such civil servants. It was pleasing to note that one of the proposed solutions to support machinery of government changes was for "new and radically changed...

• Down your local, wherever that is

  Loving a geek fight as much as the next man (well the next geek), I can't but help wade in on the 'feud' that has broken out between Rich and Phil as to whether Andrew Lansley is the root of all evil or a pretty straightforward guy (or words to those effect). Rich has posited that NHS London should be in the driving seat in terms of reorganising the NHS, whilst Phil pointed out...

• On the Big Society

  I only half-joke that the Big Society should be called "BS" for short. Fortunately, Andy Westwood provides a more robust analysis of the Tories' big idea: [T]here’s the massive challenge that the Tories haven’t yet acknowledged: social capital and the Big Society will always be stronger in better off places... Much more important is whether building social capital and/or the Big Society can help to turn more deprived or just less well off communities around....

• Holding back the cheers

  A quick follow-up to Rich's post yesterday about health secretary Andrew Lansley's response to the resignation of the chairman of NHS London, Sir Richard Sykes. Sykes has resigned because he is said to be furious about Lansley's decision to scrap a review of healthcare in London. In his post, Rich takes Lansley to task for saying "...neither the government nor NHS London should dictate the decisions made", and asks who then the minister believes should...

• Lansley: dodging the bullets already

  One of the particularly interesting areas of government over the next few years - in a train wreck sort of way - will be the Department of Health. Andrew Lansley is apparently regarded as someone who knows his stuff when it comes to health, having been Shadow Minister for several years. I'm not so sure. He seems to be in hock to the medical unions and has a dubious record when it comes to social...

• Leaky Bercow

  As Speaker in his first Prime Minister's Question Time, John Bercow made a 3-point statement, the first of which points was that: Ministers make key policy statements to the house [of commons] before releasing them to the media. On this, he manifestly failed, as the leak of a draft of the Queen's Speech to the Sunday newspapers yesterday attests. The question is: what is he going to do about it?...

• The Cabinet Secretary's checklist

  In September 1974, a briefing paper was prepared for the Cabinet Secretary to go over with the Prime Minister on the first day. It sounds like the start of an episode of the A-Team. In a way, I suppose it is, since it is the list of things the Head of the Home Civil Service goes through with a new Prime Minister. I particularly liked the juxtaposition of these two items: Obtain assurance about the...

• 

  Rearranging Whitehall

  For those of us who take a particular interest in this sort of thing, Public Strategist's post on changing Whitehall is fascinating. (The image above is taken from that post, which details all permissions etc.) Their conclusion is excellent: So now we know where we have been and where we are going. Nothing can possibly go wrong. For those who also take an interest in the machinery behind the machinery, the Institute for Government's...

• Disabled people (not) as MPs in Parliament

  Following on from my post on women (not) in Cabinet or Parliament, I've been trying to find the equivalent statistics for disabled people as Members of Parliament following the General Election. I can't find them, and I know my way around that particular shop pretty well. As RADAR noted in its submission to last year's Speakers Conference on Parliamentary Representation: Numbers of disabled MPs are unknown. Numbers of [known] disabled MPs are very low compared...

• Cuts to disability benefits already being planned?

  I have pledged to myself to not comment on any policy-based issue until the Queen's Speech and Budget outlines the coalition government's clear policy programme for the coming year. This is only fair. I have thus adopted the general position of "hmm" over the next few weeks, though am obviously keeping track of policy issues being discussed and debated in the first weeks of the coalition government. To this end, below are extracts from two...

• Women (not) in Parliament / Cabinet

  Here's a great post from Pippa Norris on women in - or rather not in - the Cabinet or Parliament. Key statistics are as follows: Four women sit in the new cabinet (14%)[.] The British cabinet lags far behind many European countries; Spain has 53% women in its Cabinet, while Germany has 37% and France 33% Overall 139 female MPs were elected to Westminster (21.5%) - more than one in five of the total members...

• Does the Civil Service really behave like this?

  Public Strategist rightly noted in their comment on yesterday's post about the Civil Service in a hung parliament that: If the author of that article thought "the blue folder was the only game in town" and that "across Whitehall the yellow folders are being taken out of the bin and carefully read for the first time" he or she should probably not be taken seriously as a guide to what was - and is -...

• Civil service on a hung parliament

  This is a nice article from last weekend's Observer, on how the civil service has been reacting to the hung parliament: One thing is certain. Across Whitehall the yellow folders are being taken out of the bin and carefully read for the first time....

• Despair and the national interest

  The General Election has passed, the waters have closed over, and we have a coalition government. Without wishing to make a habit of it, since it shows a worrying understanding of how the Liberal Democrat mind works, we called the outcome of the Conservative-Lib Dem talks correctly. I have spent much of the week in despair. I’d fully expected Labour to lose the election and had anticipated a Conservative government. That the Tories didn’t win...

• 55 - it's the magic number

  The new proposed 55% rule on dissolving parliament may not be as bad as it first looks but then again it might be.

• Electoral reform: a quick note

  Note: I wrote this post on Sunday. It's obviously out of date now in terms of the deal the Conservatives and Lib Dems have come to. But there's some stuff in here I wanted to get down anyway. I'm sure most people realise this, but it's worth stating just to be sure: electoral reform is not the same as proportional representation. PR is just one option when it comes to electoral reform, and there are...

• Keep well out of it, you fools

  For what it's worth, my opinion is that Labour should know when it's time to admit defeat, and do everything within its power to make a Lib-Lab coalition so impossible for the Lib Dems to accept that the negotiations grind to a halt. I think this for two main reasons: first, this is just about the worse time to form a government, and if they sit this one out they'll be able to duck some...

• The Tory hung parliament video

  Just before the election the Tories published this party election broadcast from the 'Hung Parliament Party'. Just in case it isn't available, according to that video the four key 'pledges' of a Hung Parliament Party were: Behind-closed-doors politics: an end to transparency, under the table deals, party-political wrangling will dominate, and policies will be bickered over by secret committees Indecision and weak government: we will provide indecision, inaction, and half measures Paralyse the UK economy:...

• "Neither did I"

  Catching up with a friend today after the goings on of the last few days, it became clear they were a strong Labour supporter. "I never knew you were so keen on Labour", I said. "Neither did I, until they lost the election", they said. I wonder how many people are feeling the same today?...

• Five Thirty Eight's #ge10 predictions: politics done wrong

  Much was made of FiveThirtyEight (slogan: "Politics Done Right") and their prediction for the UK General Election. As the man who predicted the result between Obama and McCain in 49 out of 50 states, the Guardian (to take just one example breathlessly declared of Nate Silver: The baseball nerd who used his genius for statistics to make startlingly accurate predictions in the 2008 US presidential race has weighed into the British election - and his...

• 

  Baby reacts to Lib-Con coalition

  I asked my nearly-6-month-old what he thought of the prospect of a Liberal Democrat - Conservative coalition. This was his reaction:...

• Tory civil war nothing to be smug about

  There are plenty of people on Twitter this evening being smug about the Tory civil war which appears to be breaking out. I'm not sure there's much to be smug about. As a Labour supporter, I was keen to stress that the Tories didn't represent much hope or change in the election. The Big Society idea was clearly BS from the start. So let's not be pleased when a Tory frontbencher confirms what we already...

• Analysing the Lib Dem position 1

  Before discussing the position of the Liberal Democrats with regard to the complexities of their role as kingmakers, let's consider the positions they find themselves in. In the view of some, they hugely underperformed at the election. I think the distinction to make is that they hugely underperformed against expectations created. For me, it was clear they weren't going to perform well (as per my prediction. The single factor that leads to this is the...

• Revisiting my #ge10 prediction

  Before the election, I gave my detailed prediction for the General Election 2010. Let's see how I did: I think the Tories will be the biggest party and I think they'll have enough for a majority. I've already posted that I think their majority will be between 30-40. This means a vote share of over 41%. Though I probably don't agree with myself now (I think it will be a bit tighter - vote share...

• G.O.D.

  I feel like I'm at political Alton Towers. Everywhere I look there is fun. This is going to be fucking great! While this is the latest quote from Malcolm Tucker (@jessearmstrong1) it could well summon up the feelings of the person pulling the constitutional strings of government as we speak, Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell. The FT notes that he has potentially played a key part in moving us towards a written (or at least better...

• Friday puzzle, no.16 (election edition)

  The regular feature comes back once again, with a particularly topical one for you: You're the leader of a minor political party. In a general election you secured 23% of the national vote, resulting in 57 seats. The two main political parties won 36.1% (306 seats) and 29% (258 seats) respectively. Other parties made up 11.9% (28 seats) of the vote. No one party has an overall majority and, because of the ideologically confused nature...

• I don't know

  In 2000, I stayed up and enjoyed the US Presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Still going at 7.30am in the morning, my then housemates asked me who'd won, to which I replied: I don't know. The same goes for the outcome of yesterday's general election. And after being up for over 26 hours (with a brief nap at 5pm), I'm hitting the sack....

• Game-legged old man and the drunk

  Vote. Obviously. There are lots of other bloggers out there who will tell you who they are voting for and why, so I don't need to add to that. But I will tell you about the 3 main things I'm feeling today. The first is apprehension about the result and what it could mean not for politics in this country, but for people. There are some big choices that will need to be made in...

• Quotation of the week (#ge10 edition)

  If you wanted to talk to the Lib Dems about electoral reform they were absolutely open to the conversation. If you wanted to talk to them about public service reform. If you wanted to talk to them about the hard issues on the economy. If you wanted to talk to them about the difficult questions that government is actually about. They weren't up for it. That was the problem. Electoral reform doesn't change the nature...

• The who knows election

  So: here we are. No-one has the foggiest, of course, and that, coupled with the fact that it feels like something different is happening this time, means a much more exciting election than for some while. Like everyone else I've been trying to get to grips with what a hung parliament scenario might entail for the coming days and (probably) weeks, and was particularly struck by this article on LabourList. If you ignore the flagrantly...

• Right person, wrong subject no.10: Simon Cowell

  Ah, the best has been saved until last. Here's Simon Cowell offering his perspective on the general election. But before he gets going, he offers this: I have always hated celebrities lecturing people on politics. So forgive me. But I am passionate about this country. That's a nice start. He's obviously been following my "right person, wrong subject" series. The Sun picks up the story: Cowell describes Labour's Gordon Brown as a "sincere man" but...

• LRB on general elections past

  I like this: 2005 2001 1997 1992 1987 1983...

• David Cameron not being very Prime Ministerial, part 77

  David Cameron has been out and about over the last 396 hours (#davefact: David Cameron was the inspiration for the Beatles' "8 Days a Week"), of which he has spent 395 hours bemoaning Labour's "negative campaign": [Cameron] launched his most personal attack yet on Gordon Brown, accusing the prime minister of the most "negative campaign anyone has fought in the history of modern British politics" and "making up untruth after untruth". Suggesting Mr Brown had...

• An economist as Chancellor? Bad idea

  The video below shows an economist doing a very good job of being, well, an economist (watch from 2'18"). He [why don't you write his name? - ed] does so well at being an economist - flummoxing even the great Paxman - that you forget he's trying to be a politician. And therein is the crux of Vince Cable. People love Saint Vince, don't they? He's the man who really knows what's going on in...

• Right person, wrong subject no.9: David Gower

  I have to confess: I thought the General Election was going to throw up far more contributions to this series than I’ve spotted so far (aside from the usual celebrity endorsements including, my personal favourite, Daniel Radcliffe endorsing the Liberal Democrats). Michael Caine’s thoughtful contribution was the best so far. Nevertheless, the Telegraph reports on this from David Gower: having heard that he may once have told Andy Burnham (the current Health Secretary) to fuck...

• David Cameron not being very Prime Ministerial, part 76

  If you want to be Prime Minister, you have to act like a Prime Minister. That's the fairly obvious view I take. There are plenty of examples of David Cameron not fulfilling this basic requirement - my last post includes a few of them. But I've only just seen a further example of it via AutismWales on Twitter now (the event actually took place in June 2009) in which he called the BNP: retarded racists....

• Cameron throwing his toys out of the pram

  David Cameron appears to be close to throwing his toys out of the pram. As we approach polling day and the polling data keeps piling up, the possibility of a hung parliament (and all that entails) still looms large. If there is a hung parliament, the basic point remains that Gordon Brown will still be Prime Minister on Friday morning. And David Cameron is none too happy about that, going so far as to say...

• Slate's "Scenes from the British election"

  I'm looking forward to the behind-the-scenes articles and documentaries that will be available after the election. What self-respecting political geek isn't? In the meantime, Slate gives an interesting perspective on the General Election from across the Atlantic. Their 5 dispatches are here: Why does Glenda Jackson sound so defensive? Gordon Brown's class Kinsley gaffe Selling snake oil at the farmers market Nick Clegg's charm wears thin Why is Rory Stewart campaigning in England's far north?...

• The Tories, their immigration cap and leaving the EU?

  The Tories want a cap on immigration. It's a policy I disagree with, but it's a policy nonetheless. The detailed debate has taken place as to where immigrants come from: since Britain is a member of the EU, we're not in a position to stop people from other EU Member States coming to Britain. Thus, the numbers EU-immigrants represent can't count towards any Tory cap. So the Tories are presumably saying they'll cap non-EU immigration...

• My comprehensive General Election 2010 / #ge10 prediction

  I've made a few predictions in various places regarding the General Election. Not wishing to hide behind vagueness and fogginess, I'm capturing all of them here and the reasons for them. If I'm right, then great. If I'm not, I'll at least be able to look back at what I thought would happen and see where I went wrong. Note: these aren't the results I want. They're the results I think we're going to get....

• Prime Ministers as MPs: length of service

  Here's something interesting for you: if David Cameron becomes Prime Minister, he will be the PM with the shortest length of service as MP of any post-war Prime Minister. Being elected in 2001, he will have had 9 years' service as an MP. The past Prime Minister with the shortest service is John Major, who had 11 years as an MP before he became PM. If Nick Clegg becomes Prime Minister, he will have served...

• Jon Stewart on #bigotgate

  Just for posterity, and in the absence of a video I can embed here, I'm noting the link of Jon Stewart being brilliantly funny about #bigotgate and the General Election as a whole here. In the very unlikely circumstance that you haven't already seen it, it's probably the best 7 minutes of video you'll see during the election. (A close runner for second best video is this one by Oliver Burkeman for the Guardian.)...

• "Just look around you" (updated)

  Update: Should have been clear that this was via Left Foot Forward, which should give you a clue about the video's twist about half way through......

• Danny Finkelstein's question for the #libdems

  In an exchange with Julian Astle, Danny Finkelstein nails the difficult politicking question for the Liberal Democrats: If there is a hung Parliament, therefore, I think the issue at stake would be the long term future of the Lib Dems. Should they deal with the Tories, satisfy the change vote, but suffer a setback in their long march against Labour? Or, should they form a progressive coalition, strengthen their party's grip on the left, but...

• Welcoming the BNP's platform

  I'm a near-absolutist on free speech (like Oliver Kamm, who notes the exceptions). In and of itself, this is the right position. But it's also a sensible position because, for those people who say unsavoury things, they so often show themselves to be idiots and not worthy of the hoo-ha they often generate. More seriously, they also inevitably reveal (in the cases where they're trying to hide it) the nature of their values and beliefs....

• A pitiful prime minister

  I’d be interested to hear how others felt about it, but my reaction to the bigotgate affair went from laugh-out-loud to bemusement to embarrassment, ending with a strong undertone of frustration. What annoyed and frustrated me the most, as a Labour supporter, was not that Brown had gaffed; as normblog rightly has it, who amongst us would be willing to claim they’d never conveyed a low opinion of someone without that person knowing? Everyone who’s...

• Debating the debate: responding to my fisking

  The 3 leaders' debates have been and gone. Stef gave me a good fisking after the first debate, based on a post I wrote a few weeks ago. Now taking the long view, I thought I'd respond to each of his points. Note: my original points in italics; Stef's argument in italics below. 1. Debating points and issues in the debates won't really be the aim. Instead, it will be used as an opportunity to...

• The brainy person's guide to a hung parliament

  Just in case our offering on hung parliaments wasn't good enough for you, the Institute for Government has put together its own guide. Heck, they've even got an FAQ on the topic! Thought you'd like to know that. (Not that I think you'll be needing a guide to a hung parliament, as per my general election prediction.)...

• That Tory public sector worker pledge in full

  George Osborne writing under the headline "My pledge to public sector workers: More than a decade of pay rises and funding increases [under Labour]... [W]e need to freeze public sector pay for a year for all but the million lowest-paid workers.. Yep, George. That should do it....

• Debating the Debate

  Were the debates really as rubbish as Rich said they would be? Stef doesn't think so

• A #ge10 bet offer for #libdems

  Following yesterday's leaders' debate, the Guardian is today reporting that Nick Clegg now in contention as potential PM. As I've just tweeted, therefore, I offer the following bet to the first 5 Liberal Democrat supporters to take me up on it: if the Liberal Democrats are the second biggest party (on seats) on 7 May, I shall buy them a pint. What are you waiting for: get in touch!...

• A uniquely insightful piece on the #leadersdebates

  Personally speaking, I don't think there's been enough coverage of the leaders' debates. But that could just be me. Being the good blogger I am, though, here are some observations of last night's debate: I was bemused that the first topic chosen was immigration. Even more bizarre was the fact this was then followed by law and enforcement as the second topic to be chosen. Perhaps the high profile Daily Mail advert just before the...

• This cannot... be a "business as usual" election or Manifesto

  This election is the most important in my life. The outcome really matters because of the state we are in. '97 was the first time I voted in a general election and whilst there may have been a feeling that a change was 'in the air', it felt as if the country at least had a paddle whilst stuck up shit creek. Yes, there was a history of underinvestment in health, education and other key...

• Tonight's leaders' debate: probably rubbish

  The first of the #GE10 leaders' debates - indeed, the first ever leaders' debate - is taking place tonight at 8.30pm on ITV1. I'll be watching. Of course I will. But the debate tonight, as with the next two, will be pointless and hardly worth the time and effort placed on them. I've outlined 9 substantive points as to why this will be the case. I've suggested that the content of the debates being worthless...

• The #leadersdebates: Whose is what and what is whose

  We're all waiting with baited breath for the leaders' debates tonight. I've got a post on the topic ready for later, in which I argue that the debates won't matter. And, y'know, I'm right. How do I know? Well, consider this: The balance of voters wrongly identified which party is promising to reduce the planned increase in National Insurance. That is, the majority of voters couldn't identify which party was offering what position on pretty...

• Just one blog for #GE10

  In truth, there really is only one blog you need to read during the General Election campaign: Events Dear Boy, Events. Here's why: Memo to Mandelson: Monday 12 April (and every other day besides) The first of two crucial days for Gordon Brown How not to 'seal the deal' David Cameron is not listening Brown v Cameron There's plenty more where those posts came from....

• What's unique about #GE10?

  A good question, to which John Lanchester has the answer: What’s unique is that it’s the first time (at least in the last hundred years or so) that both of the main parties are being led by somebody with a first-class degree. Brown got a first in history at Edinburgh, Cameron a first in PPE at Oxford. ‘Thick Nick’ Clegg only has a 2.1 (social anthropology, Cambridge). And there's more: Harold Wilson also had an...

• Labour party manifesto, #ge10

  The Labour Party Manifesto 2010...

• Right person, wrong subject no.8: Michael Caine

  I'm guessing this isn't the last time the General Election will contribute to this recently revived feature here on arbitrary constant. Here, then, is Michael Caine, speaking on, erm, the solution to Broken Britain: You may think what the hell is he doing here? I am here because I am a representative of all those youngsters who have been forgotten in this country. I come from the Elephant and Castle deprived area. I was back...

• What do the Lib Dems stand for?

  I write this post out of genuine curiosity and would love to hear people's views - particularly Lib Dems - on it. (A note: as I've said before, the Lib Dems seem like perfectly nice people. Indeed, some of my best friends are Lib Dems. I thus want to be really clear that this isn't a snide political point-scoring post - it's a genuine enquiry.) It boils down to one question: what do the Liberal...

• Our General Election / #GE10 predictions

  Your three humble resident bloggers got together on Tuesday night for a drink at a fashionable North London pub. For a laugh, we entered the quiz that night under the team name "Vince Cable and Nick Cleggs". Ironically enough, we won. Fresh from our success, we decided it would be a good idea to write down our predictions for the upcoming General Election. These, then, are they. The first is the specific range each of...

• Down with the kids

  Today Michael Caine supported the new tory policy of national citizen service for 16 year olds - will it really help the broken youth of britain?

• Mapping the election maps - an observation

  There's some very nice work by the various newspaper websites to cover the election results in each constituency. I've mapped the maps here. It says a lot that only Sky decided to put a description of how the expenses scandal affected each MP in their description of each constituency on said maps, don't you think?...

• Right person, wrong subject no.7: Ewan McGregor

  Never has there been a more opportune time to resurrect an old feature on arbitrary constant, in which experts or artists in a specific field use the fact of that expertise to make an inappropriate, uninformed or plainly ridiculous statement in a field on which they have no knowledge, most likely politics. You can find links to all of the previous entries in this series here. I'm fully anticipating the General Election will prove excellent...

• Advice for #GE10 candidates

  With the election having started, I admire the vast majority of candidates in both the general and local elections who are putting themselves on the block. Two people who are pretty experienced in this sort of thing, Iain Dale and Luke Akehurst, offer their top 20 tips for candidates. Iain's tips are here and include: 11. If Party HQ offer you the chance of a visit from a politician even you have barely heard of,...

• Mapping the election maps

  The vast amount of coverage, fact, opinion and general splurge that newspapers will publish on their websites will be superfluous at best. But one very useful tool that each has invested some considerable time in is their election mapping graphics. Below are the ones I've found so far, and I'll add to the list as I find them. — The Times: Election'10 — Sky: General Election 2010 — Guardian: election map and swingometer — The...

• Leaders' debates and the media cabal

  I don't hold the upcoming leaders' debates in very high regard. At best I think they'll be a boring and stale debate in which the leaders rehearse focus-group tested lines irrespective of the questions they're asked; at worst, I think they'll be a turgid slanging match in which the 3 leaders trade insults and draw dividing lines, the results of which will be to turn the public off voting at all. But, aside from the...

• "We can succeed, because we must"

• Brown at the Palace

  This may well turn out to be the leakiest election in history. After this earlier transcription of conversations inside number 10, AC can exclusively* reveal the conversations that occurred earlier this morning at the Palace. Sir Philip Farquar Jones Jonestown III (Queen's Private Secretary) - Good Morning Mr Brown, lovely day for it. Gordon Brown - Would have preferred good sturdy old-fashioned pea-souper to suit my mood and that of my party. On the plus...

• Quotation of the week (return of the master)

  [O]n the economy, they seem to be buffeted this way and that, depending less on where they think the country should be, than on where they think public opinion might be. — Tony Blair, speaking on the Tories during a speech he gave in Sedgefield this week. Marbury picked this particular line up, and he's right to emphasize the key distinction between responding to public opinion and shaping it....

• The Tories, Chris Grayling and gay people

  Despite making a huge gaffe when it came to gay rights recently (as covered here), David Cameron has claimed his party now has a good record on gay rights. Well. Step forward Chris Grayling: The Tories were embroiled in a furious row over lesbian and gay rightson Saturday after the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, was secretly taped suggesting that people who ran bed and breakfasts in their homes should "have the right" to turn...

• Nick Clegg: A boring man on a boring background

  I should try to engage with the Liberal Democrats a bit more, but I really can't bring myself to do it. It just doesn't seem worth the effort, even though they're all clearly such nice people (well, apart from Chris Huhne, who seems a bit malevolent). Unusually, my wife has plenty to say about them, the two things she's said so far being Who's that? when Nick Clegg came on the news once and, on...

• The social care bus

  Typical: you wait for one paper to determine the future policy shape of adult social care and three come along at once. First, the King's Fund publish their follow up to the Wanless Review on 2006; then the Health Select Committee publish the findings of its Inquiry into Social Care; and then (the biggie) the government publishes its White Paper on Building the National Care Service. I fully intend to get my thoughts down on...

• Boy George's gamble

  Like he did at the Tory party conference with his inheritance tax pledge, George Osborne has today tried to pull a rabbit out of a hat with his National Insurance cut pledge. It’s very clearly a political ploy, is entirely inconsistent with Tory policy and rhetoric over the last two years and has absolutely nothing to do with sound economics, as the following attests: First, the Guardian: So the credibility of this latest policy should...

• Darling's daring (and the C4 Chancellors' debate)

  Alistair Darling can't rightly be described as 'daring'; even so, it made for a good post title. This is just a short post celebrating the fact that, for once, I was right when I wrote (back in January!) that Darling is key. His solidly boring budget and the finding that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling (33%) are more trusted to run the economy than Cameron and Osborne (27%) all go to further demonstrate the point....

• JRF's two-tier Care Levy

  In their customary thoughtful way, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has proposed a two-track Care Levy which sees each generation pay its own social care costs. (See also the JRF's contribution to the social care debate here). It works on the principle that each generation contributes to the costs of its own care in later life and works like this: part one of the so-called Care Levy recognises that Today's older people have not put aside...

• My #ge2010 majority prediction

  I thought it would be useful to revisit my prediction for the General Election outcome, made here: [M]y prediction is scenario 6b: that the Conservatives will be the largest party with a majority of between 20-40 and Labour dumping Gordon Brown. A David Cameron victory will mainly be fueled by a relatively low turnout because of voters further disenfranchised by the expenses scandals - a low turnout favours the Tories. I'm not saying that's the...

• It's payback time...

  Pre-budget ramble - what should Darling do and will it really matter

• Do lobbying revelations make case for or against higher MP salaries?

  Do the Byers-Hoon-Hewitt lobbying revelations make the case for or against making MPs' salaries higher? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. (Two asides: (1) Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt were such poor Ministers that their effect on policy when they were in office was pretty piss poor, let alone companies hiring them to lobby from outside government. (2) Byers, Hoon and Hewitt. Sound familiar? Of course, they are staunch Blairites....

• Service user voices in social care reform

  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a useful Viewpoint on what some users of social care make of the impending social care reforms. The pamphlet is a useful contribution to the debate (all of my posts on this topic are linked to in this social care summary). It rightly draws attention not only to the issues of process and service delivery, but also the values base on which social care reform is being built. I...

• A perspective on hung parliaments from across the channel

  TIME magazine has an article in the latest issue about tensions at the top of the German coalition government. It made me wonder whether my earlier enthusiasm for a hung parliament, an enthusiasm shared by many people I think, is misplaced, and I'd be interested to hear what others reckon. The article basically says that the German coalition is suffering from the inexperience of its Deputy Chancellor/Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, head of the minority partner...

• Two wrongs don't make a vote

  I've just read the extraordinary news that Lords cannot vote in a General Election. No, really. (What's worse is that they can vote in local elections.) Just because not all Lords are elected doesn't mean that they should have their democratic right as individuals removed, does it? Clearly, two wrongs don't make a vote....

• NDPBMNDPB

  The more I think about it, the less likely I see quangos surviving the impending cull of public spending in the next spending round (2011-2014). It’s a view shared by virtually everyone, of course, but also Nick Huber in today’s Guardian Public: Both Labour and the Conservative parties have announced plans to cut the UK's 750-or-so quangos, which spent £46.5bn in 2008/9. In December, prime minister Gordon Brown announced plans to abolish or merge more...

• General Election 2010 scenario planning

  Gordon Brown today insisted he will stay on as Labour party leader until he has a majority. The polls suggest a hung parliament is a distinct possibility. Ladies and gentlemen: I suggest you book 7 May off work and watch the general election of 2010 turn into a live demonstration of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as applied to politics: as soon as you think you've spotted a definitive gain or loss, the less certain the...

• A jaundiced slug?

  Is this really the Lib Dem logo? I mean, really, this? It looks like a jaundiced slug drawn by a GCSE art student just introduced to Word Clip Art....

• "No budget to spend"

  Where to start with this?: A website manager employed by Portsmouth City Council left after just six months on the job because he was frustrated at a lack of funding. The council spent around £25,000 recruiting and paying the unnamed employee to transform their website, but when he discovered he had no budget to spend on the service he quit. (via Carl Haggerty)...

• Comparing voter turnout

  Voter turnout in the recent Iraqi general election was 62%. Voter turnout in the 2005 UK general election was 61.4%. In 2001, it was 59.4%. Voter turnout in the 2008 US general election was 56.8%. In 2004, it was 55.3%. In one way, this is heartening. In another, it's depressing as hell....

• The BBC as a portent

  An excellent post from Chris Dillow: The BBC’s proposal to cut 6Music and the Asian Network is, I fear, a portent of coming cuts in government spending - because it shows that when a top-down organization makes cuts, it does so on the basis of power, not efficiency....

• Disagreeing with the TPA's budget cut analysis

  I more than disagree with the analysis proffered by the Tax Payers’ Alliance on how to implement budget cuts in the public sector. Stef uses the euphemism ‘thought provoking’ to capture his thoughts on the article; I prefer to call it a load of crap, for the following reasons: 1. Mark Wallace has it precisely the wrong way around: Councillors may be elected, but (in my experience) they are generally poor quality. It’s the managers,...

• Quango merger quango

  The news came last week that the cost of setting up the Equality & Human Rights Commission was £39m. As well as criticising the cost of the creation of the EHRC from the 3 existing equality commissions (disability, gender and race), the Committee of Public Accounts also said that the organisation itself wasn't ready for business with key business areas still needing work. According to the committee, the process for creating the EHRC was 'patently...

• Are people naturally inclined to pay tax?

  An interesting question came up over lunch with some friends: are people naturally inclined to pay tax? The question arose in my mind after hearing about someone who came into a good wadge of cash - around £20,000 - and asked a friend if they knew of any way to invest it to avoid paying tax. This anecdote is on the back of others I know who have taken on lodgers in their house and...

• Pay for less

  Will paying mendacious Council workers to identify savings in budgets lead to a better local government?

• Between the devil and the deep blue Dave

  I've been thinking for a while now that if we do have a Tory majority I'd like it to be a big one. The dangers of a bunch of hamstrung Cameroons are too horrid to imagine.

• Let's all have a heated debate

  The rules for the televised leaders debates have been announced... latest growth figures could bring up a tricky issue for the ONS... dealing with a silent/grown up debate

• "Strangers in their own land" revisited

  My recent post on the large swathes of society marginalised by the political class was, essentially, the same as my post on Evan Davis's excellent documentary, The Day the Immigrants Left. This month's Prospect magazine* folows up their excellent article on the topic last month with some more of the same in the latest edition. For example, the editorial quotes from Sam Knight's excellent Day out with the Thameslink Tories: Indeed, it may be encapsulated...

• "Strangers in their own land"

  I was struck by a conversation with a friend a few days ago when they didn't seem to me to realise that their money concerns were a bit, well, "keeping up with the Jones's", given they (with their partner) are in a £70K household. Indeed, during the conversation, I noted the average wage of this country (£24,908 per annum / £479 per week in 2008) and the fact that you have to earn just £49,244...

• The all unknowing

  To paraphrase the great Richard Mottram; I fuck up, you fuck up, we all fucking fuck up. Yet, the epistemic arrogance of the human species makes it very difficult for us to admit that we fucked up. We always believe we know more than we actually do. To admit, in politics, in business or any other area of our lives that we are wrong, makes us face up to the fact that, with only one,...

• He's not the PM, he's just a very naughty boy

  All bullying should be condemned. Bulling probably goes on, in one form or another, in probably every workplace in the country. The vast majority of people in power, from your local parish council leader to you leisure centre manager, have some megalomaniac tendencies. All bears shit in the woods. Having worked in elected government and watched 'The Thick of It', I know that politics fosters (as with our confrontational political and parliamentary system) quiet...

• The Great Offices of State, BBC4

  For those of us who find the latest Peter Hennessy book a more exciting prospect than the next Harry Potter or Dan Brown release — which is to say, those who are members of the 'political geek' party — the new BBC4 series of programmes The Great Offices of State is the equivalent of Dumbledore dropping round for tea and cakes. Michael Cockerell should be given a knighthood immediately for his portraits of the Home...

• Your social care reader (for now)

  The three main protagonists in the social care 'debates' today clashed on the Politics Show. You can see the crux of that discussion here. The key point made was this: Why do we have a debate where we need to rule out options before we get to the table? I have been covering the issue of social care reform on arbitrary constant since the publication of the Social Care Green Paper back in November. Thus,...

• Social care blog round up (updated)

  I'm just catching up on the blog reaction to the social care 'debates' over the last few days (for more from me on this topic, see here: 1, 2, 3, 4). Here's a round up of those reactions from the blogs I follow which covered this vital topic. You'll note primarily focus on the posters rather than, you know, the policy content. Ho hum. — Events, Dear Boy, Events: Oops! Another Cameron fail: The Tory...

• Social care: how would the Conservatives pay for it?

  The very issue I wrote about yesterday was raised as part of the 'debate' at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, and in various exchanges played out in the media. David Cameron asked Gordon Brown to rule out a levy of £20,000 on people to pay for their social care. He also asked the question "Where is the money coming from?" and noted that various people (local Councils of all political persuasions amongst them) had asked questions...

• Social care 'death duty': C4 fact check

  Following on from my post yesterday, Channel 4's Fact Check has picked up on the issue of the social care 'death duty', as mentioned by David Cameron during Prime Minister's Questions. You can read their analysis here, the conclusion of which is in line with my findings yesterday. Fact Check concludes: We'll have to wait for the government white paper to know for certain. But for now, compulsory insurance of some sort remains firmly on...

• The £20K 'death duty'

  I've noted here before that the future of social care is going to be a key election issue. This will be the case both in terms of the debate on the quality and delivery of a national care service and, inevitably, how it is paid for. To recap, the government published a substantial Green Paper in November 2009 on this topic, which started a genuine debate on what social care should look like, particularly the...

• Flee! Attack of the Pointy-heads

  Having recently been made redundant and started, ahem, freelance consulting there is much more time to make cups of tea, eat biscuits and, if time allows, to expand ones mind (see, I thought 'one' was just a number previously). As well as making a big dent in my 'to read' shelf, I've been going to various lectures including Edward De Bono at LSE, as well as a couple of think tank geek-a-longs. So it was...

• Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein

  Proving how I am always ahead of the zeitgeist, anticipating trends before they happen, and living up to my reputation of informing the politics of the future, I have just read Nudge. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two sections, detailing how they do the sociological and psychological research which informs much of behavioural economics. As ever, though, the descriptive parts of a book like this don't translate well into the analytical parts, and Thaler and...

• Leaders' debates (revisited again)

  It is so rare a thing that I am prescient that I am going to make the most out of this. I have noted several times (e.g. 1, 2) that the format of the debates will be a problem, and indeed that holding the debates at all is pointless. The News of the World today reports that the format of the leaders' debates still remains a very difficult thing to sort out in practice. Iain...

• Hay Ho

  I am a great believer in the need for a planning system in this country but I can't help but be mighty impressed by the cunning, ingenuity and determination of Robert Fidler. For the last four years he has hidden the house he (technically illegally) built behind hay bales and tarpaulin. Now the high court has ruled that because he lied to the council planning authority, he must knock it down. Whilst it's probably the...

• Quotation of the week

  [O]f course, I had to take this decision as Prime Minister and it was a huge responsibility then, and there is not a single day that passes by that I don't reflect and think about that responsibility, and so I should. But I genuinely believe that if we had left Saddam in power, even with what we know now, we would still have had to have dealt with him, possibly in circumstances where the threat...

• Yesterday, an apology; today, nonsense

  Yesterday, I welcomed an apology from David Cameron on the topic of the repeal of Section 28. Today, I abhor this from the same person: The moment a burglar steps over your threshold, and invades your property, with all the threat that gives to you, your family and your livelihood, I think they leave their human rights outside. Human rights are about balancing the rights of one person with those of another. Clearly, when a...

• A welcome apology from David Cameron

  I've only just caught up this week with a repeat of David Cameron's apology for voting against the repeal of Section 28. This is a welcome apology from the Conservative leader (though I have concerns about the party he leads, and their views on topics such as their voting record on gay rights). There's another point here, though: I welcome the opportunity for any politician, but particularly a party leader, to note they were wrong...

• Bored by Iraq

  Today, Tony Blair will give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry. We may hear things presented in a slightly different way to the ways we've heard them before, which will show why Tony Blair was as good a Prime Minister as he was, and will feed the feral beast what it wants (see, for example, Blair's recent interview with Fern Britton). But we won't learn anything new. In my view, that's because there isn't anything new....

• 'Should civil servants publish their timesheets online?'

  I've heard some crap before, but this question, posed by the Network for the Post-Bureaucratic Age positively shouts "shite!" at anyone who cares to listen: Given the civil service are paid for by the taxpayer, is it unreasonable that they should have to account for how they spend their time? There [sic] arguments in favour of this radical proposal are strong. If timesheets were published anonymously by depatment [sic], members of the public (and the...

• One for the political geeks... (updated)

  I was this week alerted to the existence of the Institute for Government via the publicity of their Shaping Up (pdf) report. As a result, this week I shall mostly be pretending to work whilst actually reading (all pdf links): Undertaking a fiscal consolidation: A guide to action, Making minority government work, Transitions - preparing for changes to government and Large scale expenditure reduction in Canada: Program Review 1994-99. Why not, eh? Update: Another group...

• Nutt's ego

  At the time of Professor David Nutt's sacking from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, I noted that Alan Johnson was plainly wrong. I've actually come to disagree with my previous view on this: advisers advise, politicians decide. The topic, though it will matter to whoever it matters to, doesn't alter this. It was announced yesterday that Professor Nutt is setting up his own drugs committee. Welcoming the new body, Nutt said: This...

• Bankers' Bonkers Bonus Brouhaha

  Just as inevitable as the melting of the snow was the news that bonuses are back, big time. What was much more surprising was the suggested levy on bonuses by Barak Obama. Where the US leads, others follow? Or will it just trigger a race to the bottom (tax rate) with the Swiss and other less intrusive and less questioning states welcoming the banking pariahs, as Boris suggests. That renowned rag of the revolutionary...

• Warmth, not wealth

  As you'd expect, there was plenty of coverage of David Cameron's speech at Demos on character and parenting. The key line was this: What matters most to a child's life chances is not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting. Matthew Taylor (whose blog really is a must read) has blogged on it, and notes the fundamental conflation: The problem, I think, is that the evidence doesn't quite make the point...

• Luke Akehurst on the class war

  A bit late linking to this, but great stuff on the 'class war' from a highly recommended blog, Luke's blog: It isn't Cameron and Osborne's background per se that is being attacked - it's their lack of empathy for or political prioritisation of the interests of people who aren't as privileged as them. Clement Attlee went to Haileybury, Hugh Dalton went to Eton and was the son of Queen Victoria's Chaplain, Hugh Gaitskell went to...

• All change

  Many are applauding Google's standing up to Chinese censorship as a bold, liberal and democratic move. The more access that Chinese people have to 'western' democratic culture, the more they learn about the truth behind Tiananmen square and the suppression of human rights abuses, the more they learn about the tremendous benefits of a capitalist market economy, the more they will demand a liberal democratic government (of some type). Yet this may well be...

• That Tory marriage policy

  Never mind the flip-flopping, there's one word for the Tory marriage policy: incoherent: Incoherence 1. George Osborne wants to get rid of the family element of the child tax credit - ie the one part of the tax system that is a remnant of the old married man's allowance. In his 2009 Party Conference speech, he said: "We can no longer justify paying means-tested tax credits to families with incomes over £50,000." This passage came...

• Lolcats meet Labour party

  I did enjoy the occasion on which lolcats met the Labour party. Well worth a look (via Liberal Conspiracy), and a nice example of internet culture going mainstream, innit?...

• Brain Drain

  It seems that the universities have decided that the best public spending cut strategy seems to be get in there early and hard, just like the Government. Although the Higher Education sector was subject to £400m of cuts in May 2009 the recent pre-budget report announced a further £400m of cuts. The Russell Group, the 'elite' grouping of the top 20 leading universities, today hit back hard with the statement that "It has taken...

• 6 May

  Having offered one trite observation already this week, I thought I'd get ahead of myself and offer another one: if the General Election is indeed to be on 6 May, as Chris Bryant suggests, it makes perfect sense for three reasons. (1) It falls on the same day as the local elections, meaning people can cast a vote against Labour where they perceive it doesn't matter (locally) but hold their noses nationally; (2) it gives...

• Darling is key

  Just an observation, really: Alistair Darling is the key person in the government just now. He operates, as far as a Chancellor can do, under the radar, and is boring in the most effective way. Today, rightly, he talked realistically about what needs to be done to address the spending deficit. I can't imagine Ed Balls doing the same, and it's better for everyone that Darling was retained during the June Cabinet reshuffle. It was...

• Tories, visas and university finance

  I note in today's Guardian that the Conservatives are going to crackdown on visas for foreign students. One of the practical requirements will be for some students to hand over £2,000 in the form of a bond. It is well-known that foreign students prop up the university sector. The UK Council for International Student Affairs notes that they contribute £4bn a year in fees — more than 8% of UK universities total income (according to...

• White House visitor records (updated)

  Here's what transparency, albeit of a superficial nature, looks like: As part of President Obama's commitment to government transparency, we are providing records of White House visitors on an ongoing basis online. In December 2009, we will begin posting all White House visitor records for the period from September 15th onwards under the terms of our new voluntary disclosure policy. In addition, as part of our new policy, we will post records dating from January...

• Poor Labour email; multiple authors shock

  I think Guido is right to note how poorly pitched the email from Labour central office was today. You can't write to all people on your mailing list with phrases like Earlier today the cabinet met to discuss how we intend to focus laser-like on two fronts: running the country and building the recovery. I mean, laser-like? Notwithstanding the usual tone of emails from any party to its membership, it reads more like something you'd...

• Presidential voices

  The excellent Comment Central has been running a series called "Presidents of the Day", in which they post clips of US presidents speaking. It's of great interest and the whole series is linked to below: — Presidents of the Day, #1 (Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland) — Presidents of the Day, #2 (William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt) — Presidents of the Day, #3 (William Taft, Woodrow Wilson) — Presidents of the Day, #4 (Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge)...

• Today's 'coup'

  I enjoyed Sam Eliot's tweet on the matter of Hoon and Hewitt's attempted leadership coup today: We can't go on together with suspicious minds. #couplyrics Stef's blogging on the matter was also excellent. I know you'll all be waiting for my view on the matter, so here it is: Gordon Brown will not be replaced as leader of the Labour party before the general election. To faff about with silly leadership coups and still have...

• The pain of the long distance election campaign

  Happy New Fucking Year. I add the fucking not for want of idle profanities, but in every way this has the making of big fucking year. Given the early kick off I'm going to be drowned in politics until May(?) at the earliest. At which point World Cup festivities will also commence. Admittedly by the time England get knocked out at the group stages, the year will be screwed with nothing to look forward to...

• United States lifts HIV travel ban

  That's what I'm talking about: Beginning today, the United States' decades-old HIV Travel and Immigration Ban will be a relic of the past, and the stigma and discrimination it has engendered around the world will, with any luck, begin to fade, too. Good word, Obama: The President also announced today the elimination of the HIV entry ban. Since 1987, HIV-positive travelers and immigrants have been banned from entering or traveling through the United States without...

• Conservative's maternity pledge and the Albany midwives

  The general election campaign started today, and bloomin' exciting it was too. I doubt we'll all be saying the same thing in 5 months' time, but it was good fun today. The Conservatives led with their draft health manifesto (you can download a copy here), which included the promise of 'real choice' for women over childbirth: David Cameron has promised "real choice" to women in England over childbirth and unveiled plans for new maternity networks....

• The left and the web (updated)

  Two articles from James Crabtree (of Prospect magazine) on the left, its place on the web, and how this will develop following the likely Tory victory in the general election. The first in the New Statesman: Yet if or when Labour loses the election, the latent left "netroots" will likely surpass their Tory counterparts. The spark will be Budget savings. Team Cameron will look less cuddly when their first emergency Budget is followed by bloody...

• The wonder of history

  I have spent much of the Christmas holiday reading Team of Rivals: The political genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It has been a revelation to me. Like most, I knew a little about Abraham Lincoln, why he is such a revered president and considered a great man; I also knew the bare bones of the American Civil War. But in Kearns Goodwin's book have I been immersed in a quite amazing telling...

• Peer support for parents of disabled children

  This is a welcome announcement: Local authorities are to recruit parents of disabled children to help other mothers and fathers in similar situations under a government scheme to improve access to childcare announced today. Funding of £12.5m will also pay for specialist training for childminders and nursery staff to enable them to work with disabled children. By far the most important element of the announcement is the peer support that parents of disabled children will...

• The leaders debates revisited

  It is hubris to link back to your own posts on a blog. Nevertheless, I'll do so, because I don't have anything to add to my previous thoughts on the matter of the leaders debates: People seem to be happy at [the prospect of leaders debates]; I, for one, am less inclined to think [they're] a good idea, for 9 reasons. One new thought: I can't vote for the Scottish National Party; neither can approximately...

• Public sector pay (in context)

  My colleague Stef W has written a couple of good posts about public sector pay in the round (1, 2). I don't have much more to add apart from the following two points, which I hope provide a little perspective: 1. The Taxpayers' Alliance notes that the average pay of the 806 public sector employees on their Public Sector Rich List is £225,990 per annum, or £181,695,960 (£181.7m) per annum in total. Local authority and...

• PBR 09 - Rock and Roll

  Postscript This is the biggy I missed! - All employer, employee and self-employed rates of National Insurance to rise by a further 0.5pc from April 2011. Gah, that will be difficult to explain away to electors.... 13:22 George quoting lots of big numbers to demonstrate how screwed we are. I'm hungry and have real work to do. Will blog on what George says and reaction later. Ciao. 13:22 Faisal Islam has tweeted - "The killer...

• The deepest cut

  The Government today released details of 'Smarter Government: Putting the frontline first' (can someone tell me exactly where the frontline of public services start and finish? and for that matter who are the Dad's Army of the public services?). The main headlines are swinging cuts to quangos which, although now called 'arms length bodies', will be reduced in number by 123. The only one to be named for humane euthanasia is the '16 regional...

• Money, its a hit don't give me that do goody good bullshit

  The vacuum in which much of the debate about public sector pay has occurred is probably as powerful as and more universe-threatening than the large hadron collider. Harriet Harman last week bleated that "There are many public servants who are paid more than the prime minister – with the pay rate and bonuses – and that is just evidence of how it has got out of hand." Aside from the fact that the Prime...

• Public sector pay

  I was going to blog on the publication of the Tax Payers' Alliance annual public sector Rich List; one of the benefits of being tardy about doing so, though, is that someone else has already done it, and much better than I would have done. I'll thus just link to what Clifford Singer at Liberal Conspiracy wrote: [I]n the small print beneath these statements, the TPA says the real reason for the increases is that...

• Two reactions

  There were two notable reactions to the news (reported here and here) that Southwark Council's adult social services were rated "adequate" with an "uncertain" capacity to improve by the Care Quality Commission. The first was the political reaction, particularly from Labour in the borough, who made the most of the news in order to help inform the tight campaign that is being run in the borough ahead of the local elections next year. They noted...

• Quotation of the week

  Chris Addison on politics and media in his Evening Standard column: When I was growing up in the 1980s one of the national playground pastimes was to approach some innocent and ask, "Are you a bummer tied to a tree?" On receiving the inevitable answer "No," you would then career round the playground, yelling "Bummer on the loose!" This is what I’m reminded of most of the time when I watch televised political interviews.

• Head in the Sand?

  I've been fascinated this week, in that increasingly familiar car-crash-rubber-necking-schadenfreude-inducing-revolutionary-zeal-promoting kinda way, with the events in Dubai. Despite the Canute-like madness of trying to build an oasis in the friggin desert on the back of not even oil but debt, investors, tourists and markets seemed to lap it up. I haven't been to Dubai (nor the wider region shamefully) but from the outside it certainly seems to personify the worst excesses of the particular...

• Hung parliaments, poor politics

  Roy Hattersley writes an excellent column on the horrors of a hung parliament: David Steel, the Liberal leader in 1976, genuinely believed that a general election was not in the national interest, so he asked for very little. But 30 years ago Liberals were less cocksure than they are today and therefore less demanding than their modern successors are likely to be. We were only debilitated by the constant fear that the Downing Street rug...

• Obama heading to Copenhagen...

  ... This time, to help out with the climate change summit. Let's just hope he has a more positive effect than he had last time he was there......

• On a hung parliament in the UK

  There has been plenty of talk of a hung parliament at the general election next year (see, for example, Steve Richards, Daniel Finkelstein and the flip-flopping Michael White). Two excellent papers from within parliament itself shed light on this fascinating topic. The first is from the Hansard Society, called The impact of a hung parliament on British politics, which is a summary of the findings of its recent publication, No Overall Control?. The second is...

• "Artfully conflating"

  David Brindle expands on the political point scoring I was lamenting (1, 2) with regard to the funding of adult social care: The downside of adult social care becoming a first-rank political issue is that the facts are apt to get distorted. Thus the Conservatives have artfully conflated the government's plan to waive the means test for people in England needing home care for high-level support, and the quite separate, longer-term idea of abolishing attendance...

• Quotation of the week

  I forsook the company and the dinner-parties, the port-wine and champagne of the middle classes, and devoted my leisure-hours almost exclusively to intercourse with plain working men. — Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England...

• British Names for British Representatives?

  A local Councillor seems to have a bit of a problem with non-British sounding names for potential parliamentary candidates: I have been contacted by a Mr Dilon Gumraj and a Zerha Zaidi and others who are all on the approved Conservative Parliamentary Candidates list. Not one of them has a 'normal' English name. They want to be the PPCs for Orpington and asked me for my personal advice on how they would be the best...

• You've been Quango'd

  The ever-sensible, non-shrill, never swivel-eyed Daniel Hannan MEP (I do love the Telegraph politics tweets, so bad, yet so good) jumped on to the growing bandwagon of quango-bashing with this article. In this instance the quango in question is the Metropolitan Police and the Chief Constable's seemingly sensible wish not to be a a political football. Leaving aside the merits or otherwise of elected sheriffs (I support but only if I get Hunter S...

• Adult social care: at least politics means focus

  I recently expressed some concern that politics had entered the difficult world of the future of adult social care. Fortunately, there are other, eminently more qualified people than me who are more positive about the political focus: — Jenny Owen, President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services: [N]obody should be too surprised that the social care content of the Queen’s Speech this week gave rise to mutual recriminations from all the leading...

• Barnet: more than an easyCouncil?

  Matthew Taylor turns his not inconsiderable thoughts to the London Borough of Barnet: The overall aims of the Barnet strategy are to move from a responsive to a preventive approach (a principle which underlies the restructuring of the council's strategic capacity around multi-disciplinary project teams), to empower citizens and last, but not least, to save money while improving outcomes. Barnet has been reported on as becoming an 'easyCouncil'. This is undoubtedly flippant and doesn't really...

• The Tory's bombshell (updated)

  Jonathan Friedland recentlywrote that it's possible the Tories won't win the next general election. That happens to be a view I share, but one thought lingers at the back of my mind: much has been made of the Tory commitment to inheritance tax and what it represents concerning who the Tories really look out for. But what if, 6 weeks before the election, they suddenly abandon the pledge George Osborne made at last year's conference...

• Sovereignty mix up

  Nice point from Peter Facey of Unlock Democracy in the Gruad recently: David Cameron has pledged to pass a law to ensure that "ultimate authority stays in this country, in our parliament" (which of course could be repealed like any other law). At the same time, he has pledged to bypass parliamentary sovereignty by holding a referendum on all future EU treaties. In reality he can't have it both ways, but such is the beauty...

• Adult social care: politics makes its entrance (updated)

  As I hoped it wouldn't, politics has entered the future of adult social care. I'm not talking politics in terms of compromise, reasoned debate and the idea that someone's values and ideology can inform a principled policy position. I'm talking politics in terms of he-said, she-said. And that's what we got today: first, the Conservatives claimed 2 million people would be worse off as a result of the government's social care plans. In this case,...

• Who was listening to the Queen's Speech?

  A point well made by the excellent UK Polling Report blog: Not many events in the political calendar really get noticed by by the wider public. The exceptions are probably the conference season (most people don't watch the actual conferences of course, but some of the saturation coverages gets through), and the budget, which people pay attention to it because it directly affects their wallet....

• Adult social care: Queen's speech, people's futures

  I wrote recently about the options available for the future funding of social care. Today's Queen's Speech contained one important legislative priority: the funding of care for older and disabled people, as follows: Around 280,000 of the neediest people in England will get free personal care in their own homes, as Gordon Brown announced at the Labour party conference in September. That will cover basic, everyday living tasks such as getting up, dressing, washing and...

• Empowering citizens and communities:

  A Government Bill to empower citizens and communities, giving them new tools to become active citizens who can be involved in the design and delivery of local public services? A requirement for local authorities to promote democratic understanding, so that citizens get involved and understand how to influence decisions? A duty that ensures local authorities have to respond to petitions? Folks, I give you the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill. More from the...

• Spending cuts aimed at 'easy' targets

  Via the excellent lilwatchergirl came the news today that the Freedom Pass — which enables older and disabled people who live in London to travel free on London's public transport network. — may have its central government funding pulled: The future of the Freedom Pass was plunged into doubt this week after the government suggested it may slash funding for the free travel scheme enjoyed by tens of thousands of elderly and disabled Londoners. Minister...

• No, really, no

  Well, they say that when Kissenger got the peace prize irony died (or something). This may top it. News comes in that Mandy, or Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, Lord President of the Council, First Secretary of State, and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, to give him his current title, is tipped as information minister. The other information minister that...

• Paradoxes at the heart of the Tory health policy

  That's a catchy blogpost title, isn't it? Thing is, I know I'm not that great at writing blogpost titles, but I hope the content is good enough to make up for it. In a previous post, I was slightly flippant — facetious, even — about the Conservative's plans to change the name of the Department of Health to the 'Department of Public Health'. But that's because their actual plans, y'know, the content, is a bit...

• Apologies... from me at least

  Save the late night presidential blogging a year ago (god was is it already a year) I have disgracefully not graced this esteemed blog since May 2007, FFS. Thankfully redundancy has allowed me a bit more time. I make no excuses, other than complete uselessness. It seems, however, that every other useless fucker is pathologically unable to say sorry, or even admit they are in the wrong. I'm sure I will continue to reflect over...

• Quotation of the week

  I can't help thinking that, while the problem of Mr Brown for Labour is his apparent unelectability, the problem for the country is that the party likely to form the next government is not being subject to the scrutiny from which both it and we would benefit. — Matthew Taylor on his RSA blog...

• X Factor twins and voting systems

  What might the continuing presence of the twins John and Edward mean for voting systems in democratic elections? Daniel Finkelstein, Chris Dillow and Sunder Katwala all offer their thoughts: — Daniel Finkelstein: The question is whether, as other candidates are eliminated, John and Edward's proportion of the vote has the capacity to rise much. And I am pretty sure it doesn't. They are the Marmite candidates. — Chris Dillow: Jedward raise an important point about...

• What's in a name?

  I note that David Cameron wishes to rename the 'Department of Health' to be the 'Department of Public Health' (emphasis added). To this end, here are some other government department name changes I thought Cameron might wish to consider, just to make sure everyone's, you know, clear on what the departments are there for. New bits are in italics. Attorney General's Office (to do with law) Department for Children, Schools and Hard-Working Families Department for...

• Boris loses another adviser

  To lose one is forgivable. To lose two careless. Three, a serious issue. To lose six key advisers, however — as Boris Johnson has done — belies fundamental and serious issues with the way he runs his administration. The latest adviser to go is from the London Development Agency, for using the n-word in a meeting. As if this wasn't bad enough, the adviser, Nick Hoare, defended himself saying: My boss, Sarah Ebanja, she is...

• The end of entitlement (for poor people)

  A lot of people on the right, such as the Spectator, were excited by Reform's report "The end of entitlement" (pdf) which identifies the costs of 'middle class benefits' to be £31bn and suggests their abolition, providing savings/cuts of £14bn. The benefits include Child Benefit, Child and Working Tax Credits, Retirement Pension, the Winter Fuel Allowance and Statutory Maternity Pay. Reform also goes further to suggest benefit rules and operations should be outsourced to social...

• Double standards

  Nice to see consistency within a local council: Tory Councillor Stephen MacLoughlin was found with pr0n on his laptop and his colleagues did, erm, nothing apart from slap his wrists and remind him about the council's computer policy. But staff at the same local authority circulate joke emails about Viagra and are, erm, suspended. Nice. Nothing like double standards....

• Dave's progression shows his party's regression

  I was pleased to see David Cameron support all-women shortlists. It's a progressive action which is a proportionate action to address the institutional under-representation of women in Parliament. (In fairness, the Tories have to do something about their record on this: only 18 of their 193 Tory MPs are women. Only 28% of all their candidates are women.) But the general reaction of his party was what made me really pleased. This from John Strafford,...

• Engaging properly with the British National Party

  Yesterday was a bad example of how to engage with the British National Party. To claim that that particular party cannot use an image of a Spitfire in any of their published materials, because it offends some sense of Britishness, is silly. As with Nick Griffin's appearance on BBC Question Time*, what motivates the reaction against the BNP's various moves is the fact that no one — rightly, I should add — can stomach what...

• Leader debates 'chaos'

  It should come as no surprise that the plans for televised election debates between all party leaders ahead of the general election are deteriorating into chaos, as reported by the Telegraph: One broadcaster involved in the negotiations described the situation as "madness". "The detail is bringing it down. The danger is it will continue getting bogged down and at this rate may never happen." The insider said the situation was so bad that at least...

• Wikipedia and politics

  It appears that some Conservatives may have edited Wikipedia pages to remove "politically embarrassing information" about the Polish politician who leads the Tories in the European parliament. If this sounds familiar, it's because the Tories have done this before, albeit on the more trivial issue of at what age the artist Titian died. Though this behaviour isn't limited to just Tories (see here, though Tories do seem to specialise in it), the wider point here...

• Yes. No. Erm, maybe.

  Very interestingly, the PM programme is hoping to get some MPs along in order to get them to answer either 'Yes' or 'No' to a series of questions (this after a suggestion from a reader). Good idea. Do I think it will work? Erm, well......

• Legg it

  So far as I can see, the only thing that has distracted newspaper editors and subs from the content of the story regarding Sir Thomas Legg's recommendations on MPs' expenses has been the potential for puns arising from the retired civil servant involved. My own poor and totally unrelated attempt is given above. Why not? The rest of the story is a joke. For the last 20 months, I have been claiming £22.50 for half...

• Equality issues in important matters

  You wouldn't think there'd be much that links the X Factor with the governance of the country, but there is. When Dannii Minogue uses someone's sexuality as the basis of her feedback, as she did to Danyl during Saturday's live show, she was making the same mistake as those people who used the results of Gordon Brown's recent eye test as an opportunity to suggest he is unfit to be Prime Minister: she used something...

• The frozen making cuts?

  I've made this point before, but it's worth repeating: There have been reports that the Conservative party want to cut the number of local authority officers who earn over £100,000. If this is true, they are sending out mixed messages: you can't devolve responsibility away from the 'levers' of Central Government, as the Tories want to do, and not pay appropriately the people you devolve the responsibility to. Yesterday's speech by George Osborne actually takes...

• Funding social care for the future

  The future funding of social care will become a key political issue in the next few months. Although I am glad that social care funding will have a tremendous amount of focus on it, I'm unhappy it will become a political issue: it's far too important for that. Let's go through the current situation. There are two, linked drivers for the reform of social care funding: the first is the expected costs of care funding,...

• Investment vs cuts: a concrete example

  Day one of the Tory conference has already given us a good example of what a Conservative government would introduce: they would 'shake up' the welfare state to 'get the jobless and those on incapacity benefit into work.' As ever, it would be the usual raid on the idle and the indolent, who the Tories assume are too lazy to work, rather than considering the actual issues those on incapacity or disability benefits, for example,...

• The leaders debates (updated)

  Gordon Brown has agreed to take part in a leaders debate with David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the run up and as part of the general election. People seem to be happy at this prospect and think it's a good idea; I, for one, am less inclined to think it's a good idea, for 9 reasons. 1. Debating points and issues in the debates won't really be the aim. Instead, it will be used...

• Quotation of the week

  Frankly, the idea that such an investigation could be conducted without doing damage to our relationship is from cloud cuckoo land — which is, after all, the natural habitat of the Liberal Democrats. Tony Blair, 13 June 2007 (Hansard entry)...

• How PM-bashing works

  For those who prefer their politics a little more futile and superficial, here's a nice example: take one at-best tentative element that has very little to do with anything (e.g. the increase in number of followers of 10 Downing Street on Twitter the day of the PM's speech to Labour conference, which was 0) and then try to draw some wider conclusion that inevitably confirms the malaise brought on by Gordon Brown as Prime Minister....

• Yes we can (but we probably won't)

  Voters vote for a different government because they want change, right? This, even though voters may not know what the reality of change might be like. Fortunately, academics are there to put us right and Chris Dillow has dug out the finding from some academics looking precisely at the topic of change in governments: We find no evidence that a change in government leader results in a larger change in the composition of government expenditure...

• "Better to remain silent..."

  Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. So suggested Abraham Lincoln. But the application of Lincoln's phrase to modern politics has a mixed success rate. Take, for example, Gordon Brown, who has been criticised at least twice of late for not saying anything on (1) the Lockerbie bomber release and (2) Baroness Scotland's dodgy employment practices. The truth is that most think Brown a liability...

• Lib Dems: "What's the point?"

  With the end of the Liberal Democrat conference firmly and thankfully upon us, it's time to revisit one of my favourite spoof posts from which the following is taken: The Liberal Democrat conference has stunned political observers with a brutally honest assessment of their own electoral chances that left them voting to 'go home and not bother any more.' Britain's third party has traditionally had a reputation for integrity and avoiding spin, and many delegates...

• In the money

  In the money: who is? Why, the British government: Already, the Government is marginally in the money on the £37bn it invested in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group shares. The Treasury ought, eventually, to be able to realise at least two or three times that amount. That's from Jeremy Warner, in the Telegraph. There were some who thought this wouldn't work out. I wonder what they have to say now?...

• William Hague: putting taxpayers first?

  On Channel 4 news recently, William Hague said that the "debt crisis" would be solved by ministers putting taxpayers' interests first. In other news, William Hague has been putting taxpayers' interests first as follows: — Hague's six-figure earnings shown (2005) — William Hague doubles salary by earning at least £65,000 in just two months from public speaking (2009) If you're interested in exploring how William Hague has been putting taxpayers' interests first, have a look...

• Primary academies

  The Conservatives have suggested that Academy status should be extended to primary schools, and not just secondary. They're right, though aren't applying the principle to the correct schools: it should be weaker primary schools that can move to Academy status, not ones that are good already. Unfortunately, Labour has opposed this. Conor Ryan points out the problem: A clever Labour response would have welcomed the Tory embrace of Labour academies, but argued that part of...

• Quotation of the week

  Boris doesn't despise Dave, but it is true the two men find each other baffling: Boris can't work out why an intellectual lightweight has got to the top ahead of him, while the control freak in Dave cannot fathom why people fall for the incontinent shambles that is Boris. — Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph...

• MPs' expenses: difficult to solve by definition

  It's not surprising that the issue of MPs' expenses rumbles on. The two main reasons are that the issue is one (a) easily understood by most, and (b) that (seemingly) has an obvious answer / outcome. But that caveat — 'seemingly' — is a vital one, as Iain Dale unwittingly reveals in his post on Gordon Brown's suggested measures. For in Fisking Brown's (admittedly poor) proposals, he asks exactly the sorts of questions which, in...

• Scrap one database, create another

  The Tories are getting a bit mixed up. Bless them. PoliticsHome reported David Cameron's speech to the Tory spring conference as follows: "Every item of government spending over £25,000, nationally and locally, will have to be published online," he [Cameron] said. "We will publish online all public sector salaries over £150,000." This database of local and national government spending over £25K beautifully demonstrates how the Tories will de-centralise and remove all the overly-bureaucratic, centralising tendencies...

• Circular policy

  From Iain Dale: [T]he LibDem position is that savings achieved in reducing the numbers at university will be used to fund another Lib Dem policy, endorsed last month at their recent Spring conference, of scrapping tuition fees. As I say, Lib Dem policies are like Now Show jokes, but that aren't intended to be funny. (As an aside, the link to Iain Dale above is to a post entitled: "Why Does the Media Give Vince...

• On special advisers

  From the excellent Conor's Commentary, written by Conor Ryan, former adviser on education to Tony Blair and David Blunkett: Instead the role was a combination of policy development - there is too little external expertise in Whitehall - and ensuring that policies were followed through (the latter being the more difficult in a civil service that had traditionally assumed a passive role in that regard). I was also one of the few advisers who spoke...

• "Dan Hannan can sod off"

  I recently suggested that: Dan Hannan can sod off. By now, you've probably forgotten who Dan Hannan is, which is understandable. He's the Euro MP who used the platform of an institution he doesn't want to be a part of to slag off Gordon Brown. Since then, he used his new-found fame to say that the NHS has been a mistake for the last 60 years (report here, on which Oliver Kamm comments here). It's...

• Hugh Dalton, November 1947

  No more on tobacco; a penny on beer; something on dogs and [football] pools but not on horses; increase in purchase tax, but only on articles now taxable; profits tax doubled. This may seem innocuous, and something typical of a pre-budget leak. But it was from a different time and led to the resignation of a Chancellor — Hugh Dalton — in November 1947. From Roy Jenkins's Chancellors (pp.456-457): This indiscretion, at once wild yet...

• Obama's 'Special Olympics' comment

  Not good: irrespective of the calls of political correctness gone mad etc., it's not good for Barack Obama to refer to the Special Olympics in a disparaging way. Here's the coverage of the Independent and The Times. John Rentoul highlights the political consequences for smart arses, whilst Norman Geras notes that Obama hasn't specifically said sorry, when he should do. As I say, not good....

• Classic Liberal Democrat policy

  Vince Cable has suggested that the bonus culture within Whitehall and its civil servants is as bad as that culture found within, erm, banks. This is a classic Lib Dem approach to policy: take something that people roughly agree with and extend it beyond the realms of reality so that, in practice, no one but the most deluded or misguided could possibly support it. I like to think of the Lib Dems as a sort...

• Smear-gate: Viagra for political geeks

  Bad language, political skullduggery and generally morally questionable conduct at the heart of government? It was inevitable that my esteemed colleague and occasional contributor Stef Webb was going to get excited by the McBride affair. Within political and political blogging circles, everyone is struggling to control their metaphorical hard ons. Myself and Stef are essentially still reeling from the Viagra that McBride / Guido Fawkes has illicitly dealt us. Outside of politics, though, I suspect...

• Tory change on inheritance tax (updated)

  First the Conservatives do a u-turn on the top rate of tax for high earners by saying they'll introduce a 45p rate for those earning over £150k per annum. Now they're going back on the policy that most agree was the issue that made Gordon Brown pull back from an election in 2007: inheritance tax. In the same way the Tories have accused Labour of creating policies on the hoof to try and address the...

• 45p tax rate

  The Tories have said they will raise the top rate of tax to 45p for people who earn more than £150k per year. This has generated a lot of coverage, primarily within the Tory press, based around the idea that this has fallen into a trap Gordon Brown set a while ago. There's more coverage in several places (see below), but this has all the makings of an issue over which the Tories might have...

• A "genuinely disgraceful" action

  What was? This, according to David Mitchell: In a small way, that action is genuinely disgraceful. The Conservatives were happy to misinform the world in order to back up their boss's quip - to damage a charity that gives knowledge free to billions, for trivial political gain. It's the act of someone who'd forge a disabled parking badge, a tiny unit of pure, sociopathic evil. Even politicians should be ashamed that they're harbouring anyone like...

• Leila Deen and the 'police state'

  Where is the Convention on Modern Liberty when you need it? Yesterday we saw how the NuLiebour police state cynically crushed the right to freedom of expression of Leila Deen, who had no choice but to throw green custard over Peter Mandelson, and who was roughly arrested, denied the right to speak to a lawyer and detained indefinitely for ... Oh. ... who was allowed to walk away from the scene of her crime and...

• Cameron's "pretending"

  What is David Cameron pretending to be? Don't ask me, ask Politics Home: [A]ccording to the Phi100 panel of political experts and insiders, we should be wary of concluding too much about Cameron’s views from this event. In their view, the Tory leader has a habit of pretending to be more progressive than he really is....

• Good at maths = good maths teacher?

  Rather than bashing on about the financial crisis, Gordon Brown has spent some time talking about public sector reform. That the suggested reforms include giving people the ability to feed back their thoughts on public services via websites, and so are rubbish — going to the doctor or the service you receive from social services to meet your social care needs is not the same as choosing a washing up liquid or buying a book...

• The financial crisis: other consequences II

  I noted in a previous post that this month's Prospect magazine highlights a couple of other consequences of the financial crisis, relating mainly to equality. The first was for women and the fact that the recession is likely to have much longer-lasting impact on them than it will for women. The second, which is potentially more positive, is on developing countries: Yet the economic news for the bottom billion is not as dire as might...

• The financial crisis: other consequences I

  The consequences of the financial crisis reach everywhere; there is seemingly no limit. This month's Prospect magazine, though, highlights a couple of other consequences, relating mainly to equality. The first is for women: This, then, creates the possibility of hysteresis for women [when a recession can have long-lasting effects and not just be cyclical]. Both men and women will lose their jobs in the downturn—and it is too early to be clear on the proportions....

• Protectionism isn't always bad

  There's plenty of criticism following people around who advocate a protectionist policy to help revive national economies, represented by an anti-protectionism push (as advocated by, for example, Gordon Brown). But is protectionism de facto bad? Well, no, not in all cases, as Ha-Joon Chang notes: When big adjustments are needed, temporary protectionism helps to create the breathing space for companies and workers to reinvent themselves... Such mild protectionism can be explicitly time limited. Indeed, evidence...

• "No ill will towards Germany"

  The excellent John Rentoul has a blog. I can't recommend it highly enough. Rentoul points out the views of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, ahead of the first visit of a German foreign minister to his country in 22 years: In an interview published in a German tabloid newspaper on Tuesday, Mr Maliki said Iraq bore Germany no ill will for opposing the removal by force of Saddam Hussein’s government. "We want to build...

• Who should regulate?

  I'm a little bit late on this one, and the point has probably already been made, but I'd like to get it down anyway. Last week, James Crosby resigned from his post has Deputy Chair of the Financial Services Authority, the City regulator. The basic problem was that Crosby had been chief executive of HBOS until 2006 and that his approach to risk was so worrying to some so as to make them whistleblowers and...

• Congressmans' second house

  Kottke highlights an interesting article on the second houses of US Congressmen. The original article is from the New York Times here: Think MTV’s “Real World” with a slovenly cast of Democratic power brokers. While Washington may have more than its share of crash pads for policy-debating workaholics, few, if any, have sheltered a quorum as powerful as this one. About a quarter-mile southeast of the Capitol, the inelegantly decorated two-bedroom house has become an...

• Government intervention

  Iain Dale has this one about right: clean up your own pavements. This is part of a wider point: there's loads of snow, and everyone looks to local government to get it sorted. The banks are buggered, and everyone looks to government to get it sorted. The government says how it would like to get everything sorted, and are accused of being a nanny state. Heh....

• Political quizzes

  All well worth a go. Here are the links, and my results: Political Compass: My Political ViewsI am a left moderate social libertarianLeft: 3.14, Libertarian: 2.3Political Spectrum Quiz My Foreign Policy ViewsScore: 0.57Political Spectrum Quiz My Culture War StanceScore: -7.34Political Spectrum Quiz...

• Another Tory double standard

  There have been two recent examples of Tory double standards (local responsibility being one; race being the other). Here's a third one to add to the list: — Tories warn of social work recruitment crisis — Tories defy Balls on child abuse reports [to] publish for the first time a serious case review into the death of a child under social services care. Tim Loughton is behind both clearly contradictory Tory approaches. Of course, Tim,...

• Politicians swearing? Surely not

  Turns out, politicians swear! Who'd have thought it? Erm, arbitrary constant would: we've covered the topic in some detail before (1, 2). On a related note, this: THE official slogan for the 2012 Olympics will be 'London, City of Fucking Sport and Shit', mayor Boris Johnson has confirmed. Mr Johnson insisted the foul-mouthed slogan not only encapsulated London's status as one of the world's great cities but emphasised that it would 'host the fuck out...

• The Taxpayers' Alliance calls for more bureaucracy

  The Taxpayers' Alliance has issued calls for more bureaucracy? Surely shome mishtake? Erm, no. A long, long time ago, when it was still quite unlikely that the Conservatives would form the next government, George Osborne made a promise that, at the time, I thought he'd come to regret. He said a Tory administration would publish online every item of government expenditure over £25,000 - an idea from the Taxpayers' Alliance. Even they, I suspect, couldn't...

• Quotation of the week

  I think it is very wrong that, in recent times, people have been comparing politicians to bananas by saying that they start out green, soon go yellow and that most of them are bent. This calumny must be stopped forthwith. — The gist of a recent letter to the Independent...

• The effect of migrant workers

  Who else to turn to on the question of migrant workers but Chris Dillow? So let's be clear. On average migrant workers do not jeopardize British jobs or wages. Shouldn't politicians and trades unionists be saying this more loudly and clearly? Please, please: read it all....

• Carol Vorderman: One from the bottom (updated)

  As a school governor with Link governor responsibilities for numeracy, I was interested to read today that Carol Vorderman — whose knowledge of maths extends to the numbers round of Countdown, fronting maths textbooks that are written by someone else, publishing sudoku books and, erm, endorsing a debt consolidation company — will chair a Conservative party taskforce developing policies to improve the teaching of maths. None from the top and one from the bottom, eh,...

• A sensible transport plan

  Not Heathrow, but motorways: Plans to widen more than 220 miles of Britain's overcrowded motorways have been abandoned by ministers in a £5bn cost-cutting exercise that will mean lower speed limits and increased use of the hard shoulder. In a major shift of policy, Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary, has scrapped proposals to widen large parts of the network to four or more lanes - including long sections of the M6, the M1, the M62...

• MP claims dyslexia doesn't exist

  I recently wrote that politicians don't sufficiently understand what goes on in schools. One MP is not particularly helping the contrary case, by suggesting that dyslexia doesn't actually exist and that it is a useful cover up for poor teaching. Graham Stringer MP said: The education establishment, rather than admit that their eclectic and incomplete methods for instruction are at fault, have invented a brain disorder called dyslexia[.] To label children as dyslexic because they're...

• Failing schools, but in what context?

  For me, politics is the fundamental part of building a successful and cohesive society. Furthermore, education is one of, if not the key building block of a successful society, clearly requiring politics to build and maintain a top-class education system. I have fully supported most of the government's education policies over the last 11 years, including league tables and academies and, broadly speaking, think the government has their education policy right (though see here my...

• Tories to devolve responsibility or not?

  There have been reports that the Conservative party want to cut the number of local authority officers who earn over £100,000. If this is true, they are sending out mixed messages: you can't devolve responsibility away from the 'levers' of Central Government, as the Tories want to do, and not pay appropriately the people you devolve the responsibility to. So which way do the Tories want it?...

• Politicians, huh?

  Not long ago, I posed the question: "Politics: not why, but why not?" Reading the front page of the BBC's politics news section, I found at least 4 possible answers as to why, two of which included problems arising from senior politicians being unable to follow a clear process for registering donations, and one on the much more accessible issue of MP expenses. Despite the bureaucracy, administration and cost of accessing and auditing MP expenses,...

• Obam-Uh

  You noticed, too? So did Letterman (via Comment Central)....

• Bush: a good president(?)

  Of course, there have been lots of these sorts of videos floating around the internet (via Wrighty). That's because (a) Bush is an easy target, and (b) not many people, particularly those of the left, like him that much. But what about the possibility that he has been a good president? (Via normblog) (As an aside, I like the question posed by the potential interviewer to the potential interviewee: "[W]e want to know from your...

• George W. Bush: the well-read president?

  I've heard this before: George W. Bush is well read. Come 20 January, he'll have much more time for reading....

• Tory race double standard?

  Yes. Compare and contrast: We should not tolerate racism in the army or in any walk of life. Patrick Mercer is no longer a shadow minister. — David Cameron, 8 March 2007 It is obviously a completely unacceptable thing to say, and it's right that he's [Prince Harry] apologised [...] In the great institutions, whether it's the Army or political parties, we have had to root out attitudes - and that has to go right...

• Following through

  One thing I learned fairly early in the world of work is that, if you say you're going to do something, you should do it. I was to see this in action a while later, when someone threatened to hand in their notice if something didn't go the way they wanted it to. It didn't go the way they wanted it to, and they, well, didn't hand in their notice. Essentially, their bluff had been...

• Quotation of the week

  It is true that we had 10 years of record growth when I was Prime Minister. I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck. — Tony Blair. See my last post for a related question: "Does Brown believe in God?". This is quite an amazing quote, and obviously does Gordon Brown no favours. However, David Cameron and the Conservatives still need to turn the quotation, and the prevailing economic conditions, so that...

• "Does Brown believe in God?"

  That's the question, as posed by Benedict Brogan: So surely 'tis the season to complete the hat trick: Dave says he does, Nick Clegg says he doesn't. Does Gordon Brown believe in God? A bigwig in the CofE told me the other day he reckons not: "The Prime Minister's Christianity is cultural, and all about social capital. But does he believe? I don't think so." Others have suggested the same to me in recent months....

• Manifesto backtracking

  The next mayor of London must show leadership if we are to end this crime... Quite simply, I believe that it is more important to fund rape crisis centres than press officers. That was Boris Johnson on the campaigning trail. Quite simply, he is only going to commit £233,000 to this pledge and not the £744,000 he said he would in his campaign. Small, yes, against the budgetary constraints of gla, but indicative nonetheless. (This...

• Bikes in London: not Boris's idea

  I don't want to be churlish about it, but having bikes to hire around London was not, as this article suggests, Boris Johnson's idea. For a start, Ken Livingstone, when he was Mayor, announced the same thing on 11 February 2008 (see press release here). And, of course, the whole thing is based on the successful scheme in Paris. What makes the bicycle preening worse is that, a few days later, Johnson announced funding of...

• Cameron's solutions to the financial crisis

  Earlier this week, David Cameron made a widely-reported speech on the financial crisis. The bit that was reported the most was the following: So to send out the right message about our country's values to help stop this crisis from happening again and to help restore the City of London's reputation I believe it is now vital that investigations are vigorously pursued to their appropriate conclusion. And the fact that the Prime Minister has not...

• Shoes thrown; world over-reacts; comedy potential mainly realised

  The world is rightly awash with news that a man hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush whilst he was on a surprise trip to Iraq (Bush, that is, not the man. I'd be amazed if a surprise trip to anywhere caused someone to spontaneously throw their shoes at people). Whilst most people concentrated on the powerful symbolism of the shoe, the president remained unaffected, saying: I didn't feel the least bit threatened by...

• Obama: "Cameron's a lightweight"

  According to the New Statesmen, that's what the president-elect said: Instead, I have been told, Obama exclaimed of Cameron after their meeting: "What a lightweight!" He apparently also asked officials about Tory Euroscepticism. Soon, word about the rather awkward encounter between the two self-professed candidates of change made its way quietly round the upper echelons of Whitehall. (As an aside, are you supposed to capitalise P/president-E/elect? All and any thoughts on this tricky issue welcome.)...

• Politics: not why, but why not?

  Before I began a career in politics (on the administrative side, not the political side), a close family friend asked: why? My response erred on the 'why not?' side, but has since become furnished with other elements familiar to many who enjoy every aspect of politics and that I won't recount here. (I think it was David Miliband who asked the rhetorical question, which I paraphrase here: "Politics is it. If you take away politics,...

• Blogging the presidential election (V)

  (See the intro to tonight's blogging extravaganza here. Part I is here; Part II is here; Part III is here, Part IV is here) Some time later... — Well, the inevitable happened and (1) we fell asleep, and (2) Obama won. I woke up halfway through Obama's victory speech, which I think was around 5am or so, though couldn't tell you for sure. On top of this, the laptop we were blogging on finally gave...

• Blogging the presidential election (IV)

  (See the intro to tonight's blogging extravaganza here. Part I is here; Part II is here; Part III is here) 02:00 — Stef takes over from Rich who is in need of a powernap There's another BBC reporter abroad, and another ex-newsround bod, this time in Colorado. 02:02 — More calls coming in but nothing interesting. Wisconsin, like who gives a fig anyway. 02:04 — Fox calls Ohio for Obama. If so, that's it. Come...

• Blogging the presidential election (III)

  (See the intro to tonight's blogging extravaganza here. Part I is here; Part II is here) 01:02 — Rich picks the baton up for the next lap... and it starts with Pennsylvania and New Hampshire going for Obama. It looks like that early night is a reasonable prospect. 01:06 — Massachusetts goes to Obama, too. Of more interest, though, is the emergence of a noise on the Beeb that wouldn't be out of place in...

• Blogging the presidential election (II)

  (See the intro to tonight's blogging extravaganza here. Part I is here.) 00:02 — Stef seamlessly takes baton New snazzy and meaningless graphics alert - Jeremy Vine supposedly has a "touchscreen" where he can bring up state by state demographic info. It's clearly just a bluescreen feed. To be honest it all this news-graphic wank was too presciently foreseen by 'The Day Today'. Either way it all feels a bit dirty without John Snow. 00:03...

• Blogging the presidential election (I)

  (See the intro to tonight's blogging extravaganza here) 22:48 — The night starts here. Newsnight is on and doing its best to pass the time until David Dimbleby takes over on BBC1 and does his best to pass the time until the results come in. The excitement is palpable, though that could just me anticipating the takeaway Chinese I've ordered. 22:55 — Paxman admits it will be some time before we know what the result...

• Blogging the presidential election (intro)

  Because coverage of the presidential election has been a bit light on the ground, and because there's evidently not enough amateur input and opinion on this most important of topics, we've decided to blog the presidential election. I say "we", because my esteemed colleague Stef has joined me to watch the election throughout the night. Thus, at various points, we'll update arbitrary constant with our thoughts on how things are going. We'll probably also consider...

• PM makes fundamental error, and admits obvious truth

  Geez: Gordon Brown must be feeling good about his political future: he's just admitted that government ministers may not be able to always guarantee the security of sensitive data (this after an employee of a contractor left a memory stick in a car park in Cannock). I've pointed this out before: data management is an operational matter; therefore, civil servants and managers are operationally responsible for it. Government ministers might be politically accountable, which essentially...

• Quotation of the week

  The problem isn't that [Gordon] Brown is bonkers. It's that our political system not only expects its politicians to be always in control, but thinks it normal when they appear to be. — Chris Dillow, at Stumbling and Mumbling...

• Prospect analysis of the presidential debates

  Now that the presidential debates are complete (full debates here: 1, 2, 3), the focus is on the last two weeks of campaigning. Before thinking ahead to 4 November, though, it is well worth reading Prospect's analysis of the presidential debates. Links and key quotes below: — The First Obama-McCain debate: [W]hat is most striking and most significant about the evening is the way independent voters rated the two candidates in the immediate aftermath of...

• You've gotta fight...

  Just got back from a long weekend in Berlin, partly geeky work-based planning and architecture stuff, partly partying. The one thing that always strikes me about Berlin (I think this is my fourth visit) is the level of engagement by your everyday Joe/Wolfgang. There seems to be much more local activism going on, including diverse groups of people coming together to build their own house, strong tenants associations, a collective who created a beach on...

• The real point of presidential debates

  I've just watched the last presidential debate. Throughout all 3, I've enjoyed the politics of the debates — that is, the process of debating, the cut and thrust and the presentation of personality — whereas the content has been, well, lacking. This, though, is the point: the debates, as most things of their type, are just an opportunity for people to trade blows, pretty much irrespective of the content of those blows. The worry about...

• Andrew Adonis: shuffled

  Belated, but still worth commenting on: Andrew Adonis — the driving force behind Tony Blair's education policies over the last 15 years — was shuffled out of his post in Education and moved on to Transport. One question suggests itself: why? Several implications follow, the worst of which is that education policy and thinking, without Adonis essentially at the helm, will be the worse for wear. Here are some reactions from elsewhere: — End of...

• Depression Reshuffle

  It's probably best that I don't comment on Mandelson for fear of my blood boiling. What's most amusing is the creation of the Department of Food...given the current economic climate, expect a national poster campaign "Dig for survival" I still don't see what Benn has done or not done to deserve a demotion mind......

• Cameron's foreign policy

  I note that David Cameron used his visit to Pakistan this week to criticise US foreign policy, and specifically the 'neo-con' desire to impose democracy 'at the barrel of a gun', rather than through the use of 'soft power'. This is all very well, but it doesn't seem particularly consistent with his rush to Tbilisi to support embattled Georgia against Russia, where he was by his very presence making himself an advocate for US foreign...

• Gershon's ghost

  I enjoyed watching the first US presidential debate. Most have it down as a draw, though I personally felt McCain came out on top overall. There's a sense that many wished an Obama victory rather than saw one, which is, on the evidence available (i.e. the debate) an accurate assessment in my view. Prospect calls it right. An interesting theme in the debate was efficiency savings and controlling government spending, a theme which crops up...

• Travolta Micawber strategy

  Namely: [S]taying alive and hoping that something will turn up. The serious point of the Times leader in which this strategy is noted is that Labour, in the form of its next generation, and even in light of the relatively successful party conference last week, needs to do something now to ensure it is not faced with 18 years of opposition. It is a call to fight that I would be willing to answer, but...

• Dissecting Labour

  Given the chance, what policies should Labour not continue with? Chris Dillow has some suggestions: targets, private finance initiative, a low top tax rate, and tax credits. I agree with 3 of these. On targets, and as Dillow highlights, Julian Le Grand has shown that they work well in the short term but not the long term. Nevertheless, some key targets would act as useful markers for government (as they do business) on an ongoing...

• Sporting targets

  I'm not talking archery, but the government's pre-Olympic target of 41 medals. Norm isn't impressed with a specified target having to be achieved. That is fair. I think, though, there are two parts to the story from the government's point of view. The first is intention: money is invested in a given sport so that improvements can be made and achievements realised. This doesn't strike me as being different to, say, Sir Alex Ferguson investing...

• The reality of Obama

  After the round-up of Obama-related news, here's the money quote, from John Rentoul: There was a moment last month – it was when Susan Sarandon, the actress, said she might emigrate to Italy or Canada if McCain won – when it seemed essential to the sanity of America that Obama should lose. But, no, it is more important that the daydream should be broken. The idea that there is some kind of clean, different, painless,...

• Barack Obama roundup

  — Obama has chosen Joe Biden to be his Vice Presidential nominee. That man himself had this to say about whether he would want to be VP: I am not running for vice president, I would not accept it if anyone offered it to me. The fact of the matter is I'd rather stay as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee than be vice president. At least those are his own words — Biden is...

• Tories: we believe in individual libertarianism, except when we don't

  The Tories are all for individual libertarianism, i.e. government doesn't need to tell people how to behave because they'll make the right choices themselves. So how do they square that belief with the circle of this comment? Councils should consider using their powers to impose a 15 certificate on the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, the Conservatives said today. The Tories seem to be suggesting that parents aren't responsible enough to decide if the...

• The war on terror: a success?

  London has been subject to only one successful attack while America has faced no further bombing since 9/11. Indeed, understandable predictions following 9/11 that things could only get worse have not proven to be correct. That's from the Centre for Policy Studies. It makes a good point, as does this longer article in this month's Prospect, which wonders whether history will judge George W. Bush favourably in the long term (like Truman following the Korean...

• Important carer legal case

  This happened a while ago, but there was an important judgement in the European Court of Justice, in which the mother (and carer) of a young disabled boy was found to be discriminated against because of her association with her son. This judgement has huge implications for the scope of disability discrimination law in the United Kingdom, and was a very welcome result....

• Quotation of the week

  There is a fundamental economic illiteracy about British politics that contradicts the idea that Lady Thatcher brought about a revolution in attitudes in this country. Profit is still too often a dirty word. Just as it is still almost universally expected of politicians that they should provide "affordable housing". Yet when the market suddenly provides lower house prices, the cry goes up for politicians to make housing less affordable again. — John Rentoul, as picked...

• Data loss: operational responsibility versus political accountability

  Although this blog has been quiet over the summer holiday, some things remain the same: when personal data is lost by the government (or a consultancy contracted by the government) the usual suspects cry government incompetence. Actually, data management is basically an operational matter. In the great debate between operational responsibility and public accountability, Michael Howard [1] — in the Derek Lewis affair — won. And that means that all politicians hence have won. And...

• Equality and fairness

  Three very welcome announcements recently regarding equality and fairness in the UK: — Extended maternity leave for women embeds discrimination. Nicola Brewer, Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (ehrc) [1], rightly highlights that generous maternity benefits had entrenched the assumption that only mothers brought up children and failed to hasten a social revolution where both parents were equally responsible for caring for their family. — Welfare reform that creates a simplified system...

• Evidence-based policy, at the peril of values (updated)

  There is a thought-provoking post at Stumbling and Mumbling on what role should empirical evidence play in policy making. Chris Dillow's suggested answer is very little, and he makes a strong case for it. By and large, I'm swayed by it, on the basis of the argument made: if the public want one thing but the evidence says another, which should politicians go with? What if the evidence doesn't exist or is too short term...

• The long goodbye

  Nearly two months after winning the Mayoral election, Boris Johnson has already lost two of his advisers to resignations following unsalutary accusations and allegations. This, on the back of at least 3 major gaffes, one of which includes claiming an important document relating to the London Olympics doesn't likely exist when, in fact, it was on a government website. The Guardian has a good summary. In my analysis of the local elections I highlighted that...

• Something about the night (updated)

  One for the political geeks out there: on a train to Leeds on Tuesday, I was sitting near Michael Howard, one time Tory leader and well-known politician. Obviously, his being a Tory, I wasn't that bothered by him. Nevertheless, my political-geek side nearly came to the fore as I considered discussing political accountability versus operational responsibility with him, especially in the context of his experience of the Derek Lewis affair (and for which Jeremy Paxman...

• Schools: improve or close

  This is the message being sent by the government to schools: if you don't improve, then you must close. This is a tough issue, because there are a large number of factors well outside the control of schools that affect their achievements. There's also a problem with what the government values from a school — concentrating on 5 "good" GSCEs is to focus too narrowly on what schools do for their pupils and the communities...

• A further step to equality in NI

  The always excellent John Rentoul on the Independent's Open House blog: The age of consent for gay men in Northern Ireland is to be made the same as for heterosexuals at 16... I mark this a significant gain in the plus column of Labour achievements....

• Other things the Tories want

  After yesterday, when we showed that Tories want Facts (note capital) in schools, here are two other things they want: — The need for a father in a family, thereby discriminating against gay women / lesbians (in line with voting against the repeal of Section 28, that one) — A change in the abortion limit that would (1) break the link between scientific evidence and viability; and (2) significantly impact on the rights of women...

• Facts!

  The Conservative shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, has recently said that a Tory government would reinstate traditional styles of fact-based lessons. Condemning pupil-centred learning, Gove said: This misplaced ideology has let down generations of children[.] It is an approach to education that has been called progressive, but in fact is anything but. It privileges temporary relevance over a permanent body of knowledge which should be passed on from generation to generation ... We need to...

• The Economist on Gordon Brown

  The perceptive leader in this week's Economist, on Gordon Brown (via the Spectator blog): Britain is not being overtly misgoverned, and nobody else in Labour is promising anything radically different. And Mr Brown may yet improve. To do so, he needs to articulate his basic political creed — essentially a meritocracy leavened with egalitarianism — better than he has managed to do so far. And, from [the Economist's] point of view, he needs to commit...

• "Networked from birth"

  Stephen Carter, Gordon Brown's chief strategist, might think it is deeply unacceptable to talk about the Torys' pedigree; I happen to think that their unrelenting toffness is unacceptable. Read this and see if you disagree with me: Still, the bare facts are there, for those who wish to make something of them. While in the UK only 7.3% of the population go to private schools, 59% of Conservative MPs were privately educated. Of the 27...

• Local elections 2008: analysis (updated)

  By now, everyone knows what the headline figures are from this year's local elections: Labour lost 331 seats, the Tories gained 256. As a share of the vote, this was the result of 24% and 44% respectively. Three-party politics is a non-starter: with Brian Paddick in London and Nick Clegg, notwithstanding the Sheffield result (a direct result of this being Clegg's constituency), the Liberal Democrats are an irrelevance. Their only hope lies in a coalition...

• Cripes!

  I am away for parts of the Bank Holiday weekend, but will get my thoughts down on the local elections, including the bloody Mayor, by Monday. Have a great weekend....

• The London mayoral election: voting for Ken

  The London mayoral election is on Thursday. Having thought long and hard about this, and actually against my better judgement (and what I've written here before), I will vote for Ken Livingstone. What has led to this conclusion? Here are the considerations: — The reality of waking up to Boris as mayor. I don't think I could live with that — If London vote Conservative, what are the prospects for Labour in a general election,...

• The GLA: pretty pointless

  I highlighted an article in Prospect recently which showed the reality that will face the new US president in January. In a way, the converse is true for whoever becomes Mayor of London, as a recent report from the New Local Government Network (nlgn) shows: The gla does not provide effective scrutiny of the London Mayor and should be scrapped according to a research paper from NLGN. The pamphlet argues that scrutinising the work of...

• Funding the plan

  Following on from the previous post outlining Tory duplicity and their plans for the funding of childcare, quite aside from the effect these plans would have on poorer people is the issue of where the money would come from. The Guardian rightly points out: The biggest question, however, is financial. Even if the losers got no relief, the plan would carry a price tag of £4bn - a large sum for any party, but especially...

• The London mayoral election voting system

  Voting systems are usually the preserve of psephologists and constitutional anoraks. I'm no psephologist, but I wouldn't argue against anyone that called me the latter. Britain has, to many a person's chagrin, a first-past-the-post voting system. This means the person who gets the most number of votes — be that 1 more or 100,000 more — is the winner. For those that voted for the loser this can feel particularly harsh, especially if there are...

• Conservative duplicity

  David Cameron vowed he would stop the government pushing through the abolition of the 10p rate of tax, and: would fight in Parliament for compensation for those affected by the "disgraceful" move. Remember, the most affected are those on low wages. On the very same day, Cameron's party welcomed a report from Policy Exchange which has suggested the overhaul of early-years care, so that there is a flat rate of £55 parental care allowance for...

• Sympathy? Not much

  The National Union of Teachers strike today hasn't paid off. And it isn't surprising, given the climate of public pay deals and the generous pay increases the government has put in the direction of teachers over the last 10 years: Teachers’ pay has increased by 19 per cent in real terms since 1997, and this is without the salary increases that teachers receive as they work their way up the pay scales. With normal salary...

• Defects on the left (updated)

  In Saturday's Guardian, there was a lengthy article on defectors from the left. There have been two significant responses, and all three articles are worth a read. — With friends like these... David Edgar on a new generation of rightwing rebels — Defective logic (Andrew Anthony) — Seven types of defection (normblog) Update: the article in the Guardian also prompted some letters to the paper, too: — Defects in the defection narrative...

• Racism in Parliament: a Tory issue

  They're letting anybody in nowadays. That's a Conservative Member of Parliament (David Heathcote-Amory) to Dawn Butler, one of two black women MPs (as reported by the Observer). Aside from the fact that being democratically elected is hardly being "let in", it shows that your traditional Conservative will never really understand or promote equality and rights. As if to reinforce this, Heathcote-Amory, in his defence, went on to say the following: The trouble is that feminism...

• Impending food crisis: GM a solution

  The Observer reports on the food crisis: In less than a year, the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, soya by 87 per cent and rice by 74 per cent. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, there are only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks in the world, while grain supplies are at their lowest since the 1980s. It's a pressing issue, and one more immediate than climate change (though...

• The London mayoral election

  Living in London, I shall be going to the polls on 1 May to vote for the next London mayor. I find myself in the unusual position of being a floating voter: at this point, I have no idea who I will vote for. What I do know, though, is that I will not be voting for either Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson; in this case, there is no lesser of two evils. In the...

• Sorting the signal from the noise

  All Prime Ministers make miscalculations and are hit by mishaps. There's never been one who hasn't been buffeted by events and beset by rebellions. Every government suffers from spats and splits. The leaders who survive and prosper are those who rise above the daily frenzy of politics because they display purpose and momentum. That's Andrew Rawnsley, writing in the Observer. And he's right. Any manager knows that you have to sort the signal from the...

• London decides

  I've just watched the BBC London Mayor special, London Decides (opens video), in which Andrew Neil compered a head-to-head battle between the 3 main mayoral candidates. The programme was a joke. There was very little policy discussion (I'm none the wiser on any of the positions the candidates are taking) and it seemed like a bizarre, expensive version of Have I Got News For You. Unfortunately, the governance of London is not a joke; it's...

• Development: a grand theory?

  For once, the majority of articles in this month's Prospect haven't quite caught my fancy. One, though, that did is Puzzles of Development (subscription required), which reviews Dani Rodrik's recent book about globalisation. Rodrik argues that what makes for successful development is how individual countries manage themselves, given their own particular situations, and the paths they take to achieving growth. It's a familiar argument (though one ignored primarily by the imf), but the Prospect review...

• School admissions: an issue of fairness

  Jonathan Freedland has it exactly right in the Guardian, following the recent report concerning school admissions procedures in the light of the new schools admissions code: The only issue is fairness. On this simple point, the Tory chorus of denunciation has no response. They cannot defend the unfairness of putting kids whose grandpa was an old boy at the head of the queue, because they know that's a covert way of ensuring a once-white school...

• Positive and practical

  That's the announcement that "some of the poorest households in Britain will receive help with their fuel bills" from energy companies. This will have a great effect on child poverty, since it will precisely help those families who otherwise might not be able to pay for clothes, food etc., and shows that simple, practical government can often be the most effective....

• Potatoes and equality

  The Adam Smith Institute is having a bit of a moan about government quangos, how many there are, and how much money they cost the tax payer. They suggest the British Potato Council is a good proxy for the apparent waste of money. Which is fine: I don't know what the British Potato Council does and its title does sound superfluous. But to use that to suggest that all quangos are a waste of money...

• The streets of Peckham

  Reader, I'm sorry to have worried you. You are sure to have known that I live in south east London (occasionally known as "the enclave", though more commonly known as "Peckham") and would therefore, if that area's parliamentary representative is to be believed, have worried about the lack of posts on arbitrary constant and the implications for my safety. Fear not, though, for the 343 bus route is both safe and reliable, and the need...

• Total Politics: politically neutral?

  I don't read his blog that much, but Iain Dale could hardly be called "politically neutral". He's about as rabid a Tory as you get. This might not matter, though, for he is starting a "politically neutral" magazine, entitled Total Politics. As that Guardian story shows, the magazine is to be (part) funded by Lord Ashcroft, the, erm, Conservative party deputy chairman. According to Dale, this won't be a problem for the magazine's neutrality: The...

• School admissions: lotteries needed

  School admissions has interested arbitrary constant for some time. In particular, it has been noted that admissions procedures involve both overt and covert selection and that this is to the detriment of those towards the lower ends of the socio-economic scale, and (of particular interest to me) pupils with Special Educational Needs. Yesterday's late announcement that: "significant" numbers of schools are flouting admissions laws ... should not come as a surprise. That faith and foundation...

• Trevor Phillips on Barack Obama

  An article by Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, on Barack Obama in this month's Prospect magazine has caused quite a kerfuffle. Here is that kerfuffle in a few, short links: — Healing postponed. The original Trevor Phillips article. — Trevor Phillips: why I'm not backing Obama. Supplementary post at the Prospect First Drafts blog. — Britain's equality chief: Obama will only prolong America's racial divide. The Independent weighs in with...

• Stop encouraging him (updated)

  Who? Him. How? By doing things like this [1]. [1] — Yes, I've just linked to his blog. Twice. And, yes, I'm therefore propagating exactly the thing I'm suggesting others don't, but this sort of thing can't go unsaid [2]. [2] — Neither can putting two unnecessary footnotes in a short post be left without a comment, though I'll do just that by merely noting that it has been noted. Update: the Guardian's Backbencher enters...

• Tories on Facebook: not cool

  I enjoyed this: Social networking is as much about who isn't on the site as who is - when Tory MPs and major corporations start profiles on Facebook, its brand is devalued, driving its core user base into the arms of newer and more credible alternatives[.] Which is much the same as arbitrary constant has said before, and why it hopes it is one of the credible alternatives suggested above!...

• The reality of change

  [The] myth of the all-powerful president persists. The electorate believes that the president can alone right all the wrongs that afflict the nation... Yet the fact is that no one can live up to these expectations. Both the candidates and the electorate are guilty of a loss of constitutional perspective. In reality, the president of the US has a distinctly constrained constitutional authority. He cannot make laws, at least not in the all-encompassing way that...

• Agile? Let's start with good!

  As I wrote the post on party funding late last year, it occurred to me that, though agile government is no bad thing, it would be good if we could just start with good government! At the very least, the recent events show how Politics — and not just politics — can get in the way of the greater good. Let's hope Gordon Brown's evident intent is a sign of surer things to come....

• Politics and money (updated)

  There can't be any doubt on the relationship between politics and money. It is there, it exists and, well, no — it doesn't actually matter that much. (At least, not in this country. One of the interesting things from the New Hampshire primary result in the United States [aside from the result — ed] is that Hillary Clinton spent $31 per vote, John Edwards $32 per vote, and Barack Obama $40 per vote. Mick Romney,...

• Dickens on America

  Whilst we're on American politics (and, let's face it, we're going to be on American politics until at least November), Charles Dickens's observations of America on his trip there in 1842 is well worth a look. American Notes for General Circulation (available online here, though the Penguin Classics edition is excellent) is a tour mainly around the east coast of America, and Dickens doesn't hold back with what he finds — both good and bad....

• 2008: same quality of predictions (updated)

  The quality of my predictions may well be recalled by readers of arbitrary constant. For those that don't know just how bad I am at predicting things, take a look at the links here. Nevertheless, this won't stop me in 2008. Indeed, I have already spent a good few days confidently predicting that Hillary Clinton will overcome the difficulties of Iowa (see report here) and will sweep all before her from New Hampshire onwards, and...

• Knee-jerk reaction

  I've covered party funding recently, and found against the Conservative party and their political machinations. If you now look at what Gordon Brown is doing, in order to paper over the cracks of his premiership, you can probably guess what I think about it. Just in case you can't, it's not good. Jerking the knee to solve political problems is not the method of good government....

• What are human rights?

  Some recent survey evidence showed that the understanding of human rights in Great Britain is poor. The survey, by GfK NOP (only privately available at the moment) showed that, although some 97% of respondents had heard the phrase "human rights", some 36% had no knowledge of what human rights are enshrined in UK law. Furthermore, 7% or less mentioned any human rights other than freedom of speech and freedom of worship / religion. These results...

• Good enough?

  I suspect [Gordon Brown] will be a historically insignificant premier, comparable to the Canadian Liberal Paul Martin, another long-serving finance minister who waited years to assume the leadership he coveted. That's Oliver Kamm on Gordon Brown, and I'm afraid that he might be right. Watching today's Prime Minister's Question Time, Brown's performance was one that felt like treading water rather than taking the fight to the Conseratives. At the same time, Cameron's questions were so...

• Informed debate, not campaigning zeal

  Concerning issues such as the identity card and associated national id database, and the extension of the pre-charge detention period, my natural inclination had always been to trust the government of the day. Thus, I was willing to accept a curtailment of civil liberties in order to meet the need for the government's ability to provide increased security to Great Britain. In time, my position on these issues has changed, and especially so with regard...

• Extending an invitation (updated)

  The Oxford Union Debating Society is to host Nick Griffin, the leader of the bnp, and David Irving, the Holocaust denier. Though I resolutely support the principle of free speech, I have to say that I would do my best never to extend an invitation to people who hold views like Griffin's and Irving's to speak on any platform over which I had control. (See here for a related recent story.) Update: the event wasn't...

• Remember the original

  There has been a bit of talk this week that the Northern Rock incident is Labour's very own Black Wednesday. Jack Straw has rightly said that this is "utter nonsense", but it's worth highlighting the differences nonetheless. First, Northern Rock: essentially, the global credit crunch meant that Northern Rock had to borrow money from the (independent) Bank of England. Worried customers withdrawing their savings etc. caused a further rush on the mortgage lender, so the...

• Just the one, not a series

  On October 18, a junior civil servant at the child benefit offices in Tyne and Wear set in train a series of events which put 25 million people at risk of fraud, forced the resignation of the government's most senior tax collector, put in doubt the future of the government's ID card scheme, and reinforced doubts as to the competence Gordon Brown's administration. Discgate. Series of events? I'm not sure about that. The poor junior...

• Stay, Darling

  At the risk of sounding like an ignoramous, I'm 100% sure that Alistair Darling will not resign over the loss of child benefit records. As I've written before, rarely do politicians resign when they have done something wrong; instead, they resign when they have lost the support of their party. Darling clearly hasn't (done anything wrong or lost the support of his party), and so he won't (resign). As immutable as that law is, so...

• "The thick of it"

  Bush had phoned Blair two days earlier to tell him that Britain could stand aside if it meant saving Blair's premiership. "I said rather than lose your Government," Bush told me, "be passive, you know we'll go without you if need be." Blair refused. I asked him why. His answer was impassioned. "Because I think this is the most fundamental struggle of our time and there is only one place to be which is in...

• Oliver Kamm on Trident

  My apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of days. Normal service will now resume, and what better way to start than with pointers to Oliver Kamm's excellent posts concerning Britain's nuclear deterrent, and why we should keep it. — It's not time to ban the bomb: Britain still needs its nuclear deterrent. — Trident missiles: just say yes. — We still need our nuclear badge. — Trident again. The posts span...

• Cameron: the Tories have crap ideas

  The always excellent Andrew Rawnsley highlights in today's Observer that David Cameron is trying to have it both ways: You could see the confusion this [the relative consensus on Britain under New Labour] creates for the Tories in their contradictory responses to the Queen's Speech. One Tory attack was to say that it contained nothing fresh. Another Tory assault was to say that the ideas had been stolen from them. Uncertain which of these lines...

• Quotation of the week

  In Hollywood, all these people use the Emmys and the Oscars as platforms for politics. I don't think the guy who's working 50 hours a week really wants to hear someone who's making millions of dollars tell them what's wrong with the world. — Kid Rock proves to be just the opposite of others highlighted before at arbitrary constant....

• The Conservatives and party funding (updated)

  When the Conservatives come out and say something as ridiculous as Labour plan on election funds is blatant gerrymandering, you know they are trying to deflect attention from something going on in their own back yard. Some brief background: all political parties are currently trying to agree on what the party funding arrangements should be from now on. All was going well until (1) the Conservatives wanted to cap donations from collectives (such as trade...

• Round numbers only?

  There's a peculiar bit of logic in this month's Public magazine: Performance indicators [in local government] will be cut from 1,200 to just 198. Why 198 and not 200 is unclear, but according to the communities and local government [department], this will free councils to spend £5bn of previously ringfenced grants[.] Why not 198? Surely this is better than 200, even though it isn't a round number? Strange logic....

• Thinkspeak

  I'm fully signed-up to the importance of think tanks in Britain's (and the world's) political sphere. Every once in a while, though, you do remember why they are think tanks. Here's a good example from the generally excellent ippr: Contrary to popular opinion around continental Europe, Britain under Gordon Brown will not be approaching these subjects from a neo-liberal standpoint; the UK today would be better described as "Anglo-Social". In these post-Thatcherite days, Britain's economic...

• The London Mayoral elections

  The London Mayoral election is shaping up to be a good one. I'm not particularly fond of either of the main candidates — Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson — though I will be voting for Ken for a third term (and not even with a caveat about the ridiculous fireworks he keeps providing for London at New Year). Mr Livingstone is rightly pleased with the Crossrail announcement of earlier this month. In an email to...

• The European Treaty: a question of politics

  The European Union once again looms large in British politics, with the Conservatives seeking to eek as much political capital out of the new eu Treaty as it can. To which I respond: bring it on. What informs all of Cameron's wishes for a referendum is not the question of Europe itself, but a desire to score political points over Gordon Brown. This differs from others who want a referendum, because they genuinely want to...

• Double devolution and back again

  The increasing and future importance of the voluntary and community sector is encapsulated within the phrase "double devolution". This essentially involves central government giving more power to local government and local government giving power to local people, the latter often brought together into some sort of collective or voluntary organisation. Voluntary organisations are often able to be incredibly innovative in the work that they do because, although funding is often tight, they provide a service...

• "Taxing the naturally successful"

  I was just thinking. Can I claim sex discrimination against a company, because I don't get maternity pay because I'm a male. No? This doesn't sound any different to saying that a woman can claim discrimination because she's more junior than the men because of time she took off for children. Why don't we just admit that almost noone [sic] these days is racist or sexist, and admit that the combined equality organisation is just...

• Inheritance tax: not just about money

  Britain could soon become one of the few civilisations in history with no effective taxation on inherited wealth, with incalculable effects on opportunity, social mobility and fairness. Will Hutton, writing in the Observer. For more on the inheritance tax (i.e. the other side of the argument) see the FT. Don't see the Daily Mail and the comments of its readers, unless you fancy a depressingly familiar story....

• Public services at the crossroads

  Decentralisation can only happen if local government and the public service workforce take on the challenge of becoming more ambitious, more accountable and more responsive to their users and their local public. Meanwhile, we also need to engender new behaviours and attitudes on the part of citizens and service users themselves. As well as being equipped with the information, capabilities and support necessary to navigate and govern their services, the public should also be encouraged...

• You give me fever (updated)

  Although I'd dearly love to stick one up the Conservative party at the earliest opportunity, and although this election fever is quite exciting, I don't think Gordon Brown should call a general election for November this year or May next year. This is despite the fact that a 4% lead for Labour over the Conservatives would translate into a majority of around 100, and that the Conservatives would need to be ahead in the polls...

• Which country?

  David Cameron in his closing speech at the Conservative party conference: ... if we get out of Afghanistan, the Taleban come back into Afghanistan and al-Qaeda will set up in Afghanistan and that will mean danger and terrorism on British streets again. What difference could it make if you replace Afghanistan with Iraq in that quote? None. So who is doing the "political opportunism" now?...

• Judge for yourself

  Let them [the British people] judge who can actually deliver an alternative. That was David Cameron on the bbc on Sunday. I agree. Do you want someone who said this... The tax system encourages people to split apart. ... running the country? Just so you know, that was David Cameron in the same interview, trying to push his tax relief for married couples. That's not the sort of alternative I want....

• "Peerless record of feckless underachievements"

  Can you guess who Oliver Kamm is talking about here? To have served in two governments and almost been elected Deputy Leader of his party despite manifest incompetence in public affairs is unquestionably an achievement of sorts. His principal actions in government were to ensure the continuation of Concorde - a plaything for wealthy industrialists and film stars, subsidised by the taxpayer - and to waste much government time and some public money on ill-conceived...

• Standing for what?

  I was quite amused by this spoof article that followed the Liberal Democrats' recent party conference in Brighton: The Liberal Democrat conference has stunned political observers with a brutally honest assessment of their own electoral chances that left them voting to 'go home and not bother any more.' Britain's third party has traditionally had a reputation for integrity and avoiding spin, and many delegates had apparently felt uncomfortable about continually pretending they were going to...

• Creating responsive public services

  Public service reform is near constant and an important part of the political sphere of British life. The difference between the politics of reform and what happens on the ground — your and my interactions with the local council, schools or hospital, for example, — is often marked: the two feel divorced from each other. What is more, the distance between law as stated in the legislation, which enacts policy, and public services on the...

• Swimming lessons: a matter for the government?

  A tragic case is reported today, in which a 10-year-old boy drowned, despite the efforts of many to save him. The case is being covered because two pcsos stood by instead of jumping in to help the young boy, and radioed "trained" officers for help instead (who were on the scene in 5 minutes). Some people involved in the attempted rescue said of the pcsos' actions: I don't know why they didn't go in. I...

• TUC members on Gordon Brown

  It's the tuc's annual conference this week, with all the usual fun, games and politician baiting. There was a fair bit of reaction to Gordon Brown's first speech to the tuc, including feedback from some delegates (as reported on the BBC). Whilst most concentrated on the usual topics — public sector pay and blah blah blah — I did find Lorene Fabian's comments quite funny: The prime minister could have said more about public sector...

• "I only hear what I want to"

  It was Lisa Loeb who sang I only hear what I want to. The reaction to General Petraeus's report on the surge in Iraq yesterday shows that this phenomenon isn't limited only to Ms Loeb. General Petraeus said: The military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met... I believe we will be able to reduce our forces to pre-surge level by next summer without jeopardising the security gains. This sounds fairly positive...

• Germany as an adjunct

  As an adjunct to the questions posed here, I offer the following: does the recent terror plot in Germany support the case of those people who suggest that it is only the United States and Britain that are the targets of terrorists?...

• The downsides of Amazon

  Having added an Amazon link to arbitrary constant, I do, of course, have to take the rough with the smooth. So whilst I would whole-heartedly recommend your viewing Goodbye Lenin, for example (review here), I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend your reading or watching John Pilger, Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky, all of whom have appeared in the Amazon links. You have to take the rough with the smooth, I guess, and that particular triumvirate is...

• Spacebook

  Facebookers! Are you interested in any of the following: ending the early release scheme for prisoners, tougher sentencing, streaming by ability in schools, a tax cut 'for families', additional taxes on polluters, emergency pension funds, or having more police on the beat. What's that? No, you're not? You're just interested in poking your friends, writing on their wall and giving each other free cyber-gifts? Oh, well, erm, right then. This being the case, perhaps David...

• UNSCR 1723

  A letter published today from Gordon Brown to Menzies Campbell highlights: We [i.e. British troops] are there [Iraq] at the express invitation of the Iraqi Government, implementing a UN mandate renewed last November in UNSCR 1723. This United Nations Security Council Resolution 1723 (which can be accessed here) serves the following purpose of: [continuing] the details set out in UNSCR 1546 and re-affirmed in 1637. It states that the UN should continue to play a...

• The Conservatives: cynical and abhorrent

  I mentioned it only as an aside in my post about the Lawrence–Chindamo issue, but the Conservative use of this case has been nothing short of breathtakingly cynical. David Cameron used the case to say: It [the Human Rights Act] has to go. Abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which sets out rights and responsibilities. The fact that the murderer of Philip Lawrence cannot be deported flies...

• A question of human rights or mending wrongs?

  The recent decision not to report Learco Chindamo — the man that stabbed and killed headteacher Philip Lawrence — has been divisive. There are those who claim he should be deported on his release, and those that claim he shouldn't. It's an emotive case, but I can't rightly see what the purpose of deporting Chindamo would be. The Home Office, according to today's Guardian report, claimed he would be a "genuine and present high level...

• "Our policy challenge"

  A lot has been said of the Conservative party's various policy review groups, or whatever they are called. Although the Conservative leadership isn't necessarily going to take on any ideas the groups come up with, the groups are important in the sense that they are outlining options and, erm, well, I'm not sure what else. I suppose they get the Conservatives in the news every once in a while. I haven't got a clue how...

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

  I've not read it, but there's something remarkably apt about the fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is one of the 3 books Liberal Democrat MPs are likely to take on holiday with them this year. Ming as Dumbledore? Lembit Opik as Harry? The Liberal Democracts as a force for good in this world, traversing hell and high water to battle evil and ensure good reigns supreme for eternity? I think not....

• Busy first day

  I wasn't planning to post this weekend, but wanted to quickly highlight this. On their first full day respectively as Prime Mininster and Home Secretary, Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith had to deal with a near-terrorist bomb in central London. That's some "baptism of fire", as the Times put it. On my first day at work, I had a tour of the office, had a cup of tea made for me and did a bit...

• Historic week

  I have spent much of this week in a state of near bliss, wetting myself on some occasions and essentially delighting in the glories of history unfolding before my very eyes. Tony Blair was Prime Minister for 10 years — a period which includes my personal political development. This, therefore, was the first PM transition that I actually knew anything about or had some clue as to what was going on! And how exciting it...

• A further thought on the academic boycott

  Further to the post on the planned academic boycott of Israel (see here) comes this thought: critics of the war in Iraq asked why western countries weren't consistent and targeted other regimes, such as North Korea and Zimbabwe, for pre-emptive force. Assuming there to be a large crossover between those who support the academic boycott of Israel and the self-same critics above (which I believe to be a fair assumption), it can't help but be...

• Liberal Democrats in the Cabinet?

  It was with horror I saw the headline of yesterday's Guardian: Revealed: secret talks over Lib Dems in Brown cabinet After the initial shock, my mind turned to who, if the worst came to the worst, would be the least of all (Liberal Democrat) evils. The answer, obviously, was Paddy Ashdown (1997, anyone?). Fortunately, though, Paddy is too savvy to consider it, so the Liberal Democrats can safely continue in their rightful place in British...

• Quotation of the week

  The "quotation of the week" has lapsed on arbitrary constant. This post aims to re-introduce it with the following long quotation from Raymond Chandler's The Long Good-bye: There's a peculiar thing about money[.] In large quantities it tends to have a life of its own, even a conscience of its own. The power of money becomes very difficult to control. Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge costs of...

• Conflated thinking (updated)

  Would you be saying this, Mr Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq? That's the headline of yesterday's Independent, after Tony Blair singled out the newspaper for the way in which opinion and fact are mingled in its reporting and in the reportage of the media as a whole. What's ironic about the editor of the Indie's response is that, in making his argument, he shows some evidence of exactly the criticisms Tony Blair...

• "Intellectually shoddy and politically biased"

  That is the opinion of President Lee C. Bollinger of Columbia University on the University and College Union's attempt in the UK to advance a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. I have to say I agree with him. There's plenty been said by people much more qualified and respected than me to do so about the planned boycott and similar attempts at boycotts before it. I direct you, therefore, to both Norman Geras (with further...

• New power? Nah, we want the Queen!

  To be filed under "annoying things the bbc does", here's a headline from yesterday: Queen opens stronger new assembly The Queen really wasn't the story yesterday, for the "new assembly" in question was the National Assembly in Wales and the changes made to it by the Government of Wales Act (2006). Instead, then, of bashing on about what the Queen said at the opening for half of the article, and then covering the Prince of...

• Disabled parking in Totnes

  Whilst the grammar school row rumbles on (see here and here), a Conservative MP is doing his bit to ensure the Tory's so far laudable efforts concerning disability are being undone. After receiving two tickets for parking in a disabled parking space at his local train station, Anthony Sheen, MP for Totnes, said: The number of disabled bays is disproportionate to the number of handicapped people living in the area... I support making the life...

• Tories and grammar schools — an update

  I won't go into this in detail, but I think it is right the press is concentrating in detail on the Tory disarray brought on by their grammar schools policy. The Telegraph highlighted the continuing difficulties faced by the top of the Tory party last week whilst today's Observer show Cameron will be trying to get tough in the face of one-third of all Tory constituency party chairmen opposing the policy. My initial thoughts on...

• Blairism goes out with a pop

  So I was looking round thinking I've read shed loads of books since I last significantly posted (Dawkins - The God Delusion, Stiglitz - Making Globalisation Work, De Botton - The Architecture of Happiness, Various - Speeches that Changed the World, since you ask), Facebook has happened since I last posted, there has been a new Prime Minister since I last posted, friend's marriages and babies have triggered an early mid-life crises since I last...

• F-ing Blair

  I have been known, on very, very, very rare occasions to make use of the odd expletive. So it is with some shock I see that Alaistair Campbell's pension/diaries have been censored to keep the image of Rich's Dear Leader as, ahem, saintly as we all know he is. Quite why Blair would be 'horrified' that his rude tounge would be exposed to the public is beyond me. What with his "yer know" and other...

• Non-political expediency

  Would you believe me if I said the following text comes from a piece of news from an organisation that calls itself a "non-political body" that seeks to contribute to debate through "factual information and reasoned argument"? If it had been accepted, this amendment would have outlawed academic selection from 2010 (apart from 'fair banding' arrangements) thereby destroying all the remaining 164 grammar schools in England and the 69 in Northern Ireland. Fortunately, [the] amendment...

• Carter overtaking last position

  I was recently reminded of this cryptic question and answer: Q: You are in a race. If you overtake the last person, then you are... ? A: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are wrong. How can you overtake the last person? There's something of a resemblance to the question / answer above to ex-President Jimmy Carter's criticisms of George W. Bush's presidency as the worst in history: by coming...

• Conservative abolition of grammar schools (updated)

  Earlier this week, David Willetts (the Shadow Education Secretary) announced that the Conservatives would abandon their commitment to grammar schools and selection on the basis of academic ability. This is an excellent policy and one that I unreservedly agree with, for two reasons. First, and as argued at the end of this very long post, one of the best ways of ensuring the choosing of which school educates their child by parents doesn't have a...

• Sic

  At times of desperation, there's always the bbc's Have Your Say. Here is the great British public (or at least the bits of it that Have Their Say) with its views on John Reid's announced departure. My favourite is this one: Nine job's in ten years - say's it all really. Phil, Wiltshire I dunno, Phil: I think your punctuation says a lot as well....

• A thought on the local election results

  What is the point of local elections? It's not as easy a question to answer as may be thought. Thinking very simply, local government can be thought of as another agency of central government, ensuring the delivery of services (street cleaning, benefits, housing etc.). Similarly, local government can be thought of as playing an important role in the democracy of the United Kingdom, providing people with local representatives who deal with local problems and represent...

• Covering all bases

  That's the Guardian's local election analysis — covering all bases: 'Labour has avoided a meltdown, but they're down to bedrock'... Bad as this is for Labour, says Martin Kettle, the Lib Dems will be the most disappointed. Tories in high spirits as Labour hits bedrock: Despite failing in Manchester and Liverpool, the Tories claimed a breakthrough in the north - while Labour may have hit the bottom of the pit, says Will Woodward. Things can...

• Lessons in accountability

  There have been numerous interesting examples of accountability in the press over the last few weeks. The first concerns Des Browne and the decision of the Ministry of Defence to let captured British sailors to sell their stories to the press. Browne admitted he'd got things wrong, Tony Blair admitted Browne had got things wrong, and then everyone went on their way — no sackings required. And rightly so. Even if it had have been...

• Olympian defeatism

  The Olympic budget was set at £9.3bn today. But let's deconstruct this a bit: There is a contingency of £2.7bn – try prising that from Gordon's sweaty mits... There is a £840m tax bill for the Olympic Delivery Authority that the government will pay. Quite why they could not waive it in the first place, I do not know, probably some EU bobbins... £600m extra security. Well, if we will make ourselves a target... £1.7bn...

• Oh Lordy (cont'd)

  So shock, horror, the Turkeys did not vote for Christmas. The key question will be, has Gordon got the balls to go all the way (and I would be content, if not happy, with 80% elected). I have posted here a number of times before on my hopes for a radical (in terms of democracy at least) Brown premiership. This will be a, ahem, nice and easy early task for Brown to attend to....

• Oh Lordy

  I've been snowboarding for the last week (and a useless drunk the two weeks before that, sorry Rich) and I have missed all the developments with Lords reform, something I am surprised Rich has not posted on. Once I've had a chance to digest it all (massive victory or massive con), I'm sure I'll have a post or two, as well as a bit on my holiday reading (The God Delusion)....

• Choice, schools and a lottery

  Please see the introductory post for background to this very long post. As both concepts exist within the current UK education system, this post will argue that, though exit has helped to make the schooling system more efficient and responsive to the choices of parents, neither exit nor voice is an effective means of achieving or securing equitable ends in education. Despite evidence which contends that exit has been part of a package of reforms...

• Choice, schools and a lottery — introduction

  As promised, I'll be posting an essay on Brighton's recent decision to introduce a lottery for schools admissions within its area. The post is quite long, so this brief introduction — in much the same as two other essays — highlights that all references have been removed, but that a full copy of the essay is available if you'd like it. The essay is here....

• Right person, wrong subject no.6: Richard Wilson

  Believe it you should: the "right person, wrong subject" series is back and its subject today is Richard "One Foot in the Grave" Wilson. Wilson has been a long-time supporter of the Labour party, so his recent comments can only be attributed to (a) alcohol or (b) publicity. Given we live in a world in which you can now buy Britney Spears's hair, I'm plumping for the latter. Anyway, this is what he has said:...

• Paddy Ashdown: correct

  I urge you to read a timely and excellent article by Paddy Ashdown in today's Observer: Despite, Iraq, we must still be ready to intervene. The key quote is this: [I]t would be a tragedy if the response to failure in Iraq were to be not 'How do we do it better?' but 'We must never do it again'. Please, read it all and, for those that can make it, I'm sure it will be...

• University fees revisited

  The issue of university fees and university funding is in the news again. You will remember, of course, that there was a great outcry in 2004 as the present government introduced top-up fees, partly in order to address the dire funding situation faced by all universities, and especially the good ones. This was an admirable and correct policy, seeking as it did to provide universities with the opportunity to increase the amount of money they...

• One year of civil war?

  The Guardian appears to take as fact that the situation in Iraq, specifically since the bombing of theAskariya shrine, is a "civil war". For reasons I have discussed before, this is not the case. Briefly, though, here are the relevant reasons: [T]he Sunnis and the Shias are fighting against circumstances, but not against themselves and not for ultimate power. There are no battles and there is little military involved. Not wishing to scale down what...

• Fudgeonomics

  With democracy pissing down the walls of this country, forming a stale, wretched scum, with parliament stuck on deciding how to vote on how to vote about changing something a little, I give you our government, who have decided that what we need to revive democracy at the local level is a commission to support and encourage more people from a wider range of background to be Local Councillors. Fuckwittery of the highest order....

• Quotation of the week

  Or, Prospect update 3 (following, as three tends to do, 1 and 2): The idea that dramatically reducing emissions entails huge economic costs is a delusion propagated by business lobbyists defending vested interests, and by radical environmentalists who want climate change responsibility to mean the rejection of capitalism. Adair Turner in Change of climate, a robust, economic defence of cutting carbon emissions. Turner further says: Economic analysis and modelling alone cannot define an optimal climate...

• Reasons for disengagement?

  I posted yesterday about disengagement in politics / democracy in the UK. I've just been reading something which appears both apt and interesting (interestingly apt, perhaps? or aptly interesting?), to the point where I thought I'd best share it. It's a simple point: Geographical exit intentions reduce the probability of voting; social capital increases the probability of voting. That is, you are less likely to vote if you are thinking of moving house and /...

• Prospect update 2 — disengaged democracy?

  A second excellent recent article in Prospect was Paul Skidmore's disengaged democracy (subscription required). In it, Skidmore plumps for a solution to the "democratic deficit" problem that I'm not very keen on — namely, focusing attention on the 1% of individuals who are already heavily involved in campaigning or issues groups (see Stef's thoughts for more on why this doesn't really help). However, Skidmore does have some worthwhile criticisms of the Power Inquiry and its...

• Prospect update 1 — what is civil war?

  I am a big fan of Prospect magazine and have held a subscription for a year now and which I shall be renewing. For those interested in informed and interesting debate, I'd recommend a subscription. The only problem with the magazine is that there is so much to get through each month, a great swathe of which leads to further reading and comment. Since I've been making my way through the last 3 months of...

• Charideee mate

  The intrepid libertarian Guido Fawkes has been very busy, very busy indeed, some might say (although not I) pervertedly so. His target has been the Smith Institute, a supposedly "non-political", "public education charity", which receives tax subsidies accordingly. I know the type of reports and research that the Smith Institute publishes; these are pretty clearly political. This type of public subsidy, for this type of political organisation is clearly wrong (although obviously a rethink of...

• The right(s) decision

  I had deliberately remained quiet on the issue of churches and gay adoption because I wanted to believe that personal beliefs at the level of government would not interfere in enforcing absolutely crucial legislation. For a while, the outcome didn't seem to be certain, but I am pleased to read in today's press that the collective government has stood firm, even though individual members of that government might have significant difficulties in accepting gay rights...

• Cost control consultants

  There is something quite funny about this, isn't there? It [the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee] will point out that the cost of employing consultants CLM to control costs and project manage the array of 2012 building schemes rose from £100m to £400m in three months. That is, the cost of employing the consultants whose job it is to control costs went up by 300%. So, is it the case that...

• Religious hypocrisy

  The extension of legislation to cover the rights of gay people to expect equal access to goods and services has been known as a subject here on arbitrary constant before. If I may, then, I will point readers in the direction of Harry's Place and an excellent post on this very item and how relgious groups, having seen the legislation extended to benefit them, are seeking to ensure that extension doesn't go to gay people:...

• Right person, wrong subject no.5: Robert Redford

  Occasional, this series, but deadly. Sort of. Not the sort of thing Robert Redford might ask for an apology over, though you never know. Take, for example, his thoughts on what the leading leaders of the war in Iraq owe "us": We put all our concerns on hold to let the leaders lead. I think we're owed a big, massive apology. Of course, that assumes the leaders were wrong, which, on some things associated with...

• Lifestyle choices 3

  Following David Milliband and Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly didn't actually say anything when the "furore" surrounding her decision to send one of her children to a private school hit the newspapers. David Aaronovitch was on the money with his article on "Dyslexogate" with the following suggestion: [R]arely was there a better demonstration of the idea of the unreliable narrator than The Ruth Kelly Affair, in which we learnt nothing about Ms Kelly herself but a...

• An English parliament?

  A bbc poll has recently found that 'Most' support [an] English parliament. I have written about this point of "English votes for English laws" before and found highly unfavourably for it on both occasions — the posts are available here and here. To save you some time, though, here are the releveant concluding points from both: To suggest, as the current Conservative party leadership is doing, that "English votes for English laws" is an answer...

• Lifestyle choices 2

  Following David Milliband's common-sense comments concerning organic food, Tony Blair has also recently made some fairly realistic statements concerning personal air travel. The key comment from Blair were as follows: I personally think these things [reducing carbon footprints by abandoning long-haul flights] are a bit impractical actually to expect people to do that. So we've got to be realistic about how much obligation we've got to put on ourselves. The danger, for example, if you...

• Quotation of the week

  Seriously, I know I should stop reading the BBC's Have Your Say, but I just can't help it. At the very least, it helps explain to me why the Daily Mail and Sunday Express continue to exist. Take, for example, this wondrous effort following the Bank of England's decision to raise interest rates to 5.25%: You're born, drag yourself through underfunded state schooling, go to University and graduate with £15k worth of debt, find a...

• Oops Minister

  The current fiasco at the Home Office ably demonstrates the problem with Ministerial accountability — a topic that both Rich and I have banged on about somewhat. So some three months ago, the Home Secretary declares his department 'unfit for purpose' on the basis of a foreign prisoner scandle. A few months down the line and someone notices some unopened boxes, which contain another foreign prisoner scandle. Home Secretary again blames his civil servants —...

• Throw bodies at the situation

  So the Bush adminstration is certainly in its death throwes now. Tonight GWB will announce that a further 21,500 troop will be deployed in Iraq. No foul mouthed tirades from me. The utter tragedy of it all has taken it out of me. Although an implacable opponent of the war in Iraq, at least if you are going to do a dirty job, plan for it and do it properly in the first place —...

• Frost/Nixon

  Two fading stars, one desperate for valediction the other for rejuvenation battle it out on the screen. This excellent production, now at the Gielgud after a run at the dominian theatre, is an enticing dialogue on power and legacy (when will we get the Blair/Marr interviews!). The play catalogues the events immediately leading up to the famous Nixon interviews. Frost, previously a bright young thing, needing to re-establish his serious credentials; Nixon looking to establish...

• Lifestyle choice

  What might David Miliband be talking about so "dismissively" here? It's a lifestyle choice. Nope, he's not a swinger. Instead, Miliband reckons — and I reckon he reckons rightly — that organic food is a lifestyle choice. His excellent reasoning being that, healthwise: there isn't any evidence either way that's conclusive. Indeed not. From a money perspective, organic food is great, if you're in the business of making money, that is. Otherwise, I'm with Miliband...

• Clear Red (or is it Brown?) water

  Brown says that Iraq policy is 'in a rut', Reid says that the government must stay New Labour. Irresistible force......

• Things that make you go Boom

  In Nick Robinson's latest blog yesterday he talked about a Radio 4 programme, that I unfortunately missed , where various former foreign policy figures discussed what is likely to be the big issue of 2007, Iran. Robinson states that Some weeks ago "prepare to deploy" orders were issued to the US navy ships who would be needed to blockade Iranian ports. Robinson also says that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Israel would like to get the first nuclear...

• Saddam's hanging

  Justifiably, there has been a lot of coverage of Saddam's hanging. Though I do not resile from anything I have said before on this, I do think that there was something of an underestimation of what the literal process of hanging would entail — namely jeering and people being glad Saddam was to die — that has led to something of an over-reaction to the mobile phone video footage that has been released on the...

• Right person, wrong subject no.5: Girls Aloud

  In the fifth instalment of this ever-popular series, pop sensations Girls Aloud have turned up (1 free hit) in the New Statesman with some choice words about politics and politicians. Their thoughts are so remarkable as to (1) break the promised silence on arbitrary constant and (2) be reported nearly in full. Do note, though, that the "Girls" have complained that no one has asked them what they think about politics. Bear this in mind...

• Notional Identity

  This genius bit of song and animation perfectly illustrates the folly of ID cards (hat tip Recess Monkey). Yet another issue where government tells us that "there are threats you don't know or understand and we need to protect you from them" (Iraq, Terrow Laws, Trident...) To me the slow creep of illiberal policies and legislation that this government has spewed out over recent years is frightening. The trouble is the creep has gone almost...

• Out of the Cabinet (part 2)

  The Independent has picked up on a split between Peter Hain and Ruth Kelly over the extension of gay rights (for the access to goods and services) to the whole of the UK and not just Northern Ireland. In a previous post, I argued that If Kelly and Blair can make their case for not giving gay people the same access rights as heterosexual people on some basis other than their faith, then the policy...

• The state we could be in

  I've pointed out the need for serious reform of the state and its institutions for some time. Brown seems to be taking this quite seriously too. Despite his iron control of the Treasury, braking up the DTI and reforming the Treasury will be some task. The intertia of Whitehall and the brute intellectual strength of the Treasury are rocks that even Brown's clunking fists would have trouble moving. Few have tried before, all have failed...

• Rise of the extreme right

  There has been quite a bit of coverage concerning the far right in Europe, and the UK in particular, of late. Some time ago I wrote an essay on what has caused this recent "wave" of extremism in Europe, which is reproduced below. It's a bit dry but will, it is hoped, be of interest. There are a range of established theories that seek to explain the recent "fairly strong wave of right-wing extremism washing...

• The most important thing

  As I occasionally do when I'm feeling scandalous, I pop by webcameron and see what the leader of the Conservative party has to say on the topics of the day. Don't worry — I am seeking treatment. There's a remarkable amount of repetition in Cameron's videos, including a bit of humour, some self-effacing comments and some sort of reference to how revitalised and un-Conservative the Conservative party has become. There's also a lot of pleasing...

• On the Road to Kandahar by Jason Burke

  This book chronicles the many journeys and experiences of Observer journalist Jason Burke through the 'Islamic world' since 1991. The beginning the book is quite run of the mill, chronicling Burke's initial experiences of Iraq as firstly a student and wannabe journalist, the cumulative impact of the authors many different and varied experiences is very thought provoking and informing. Burke holds a consistent line throughout that will challenges both the pro and anti-war movements. His...

• Sleepwalking

  So the police want to fingerprint us by the roadside. I used to think Henry Porter and other civil libertarians are a bit OTT at times (although I rarely see Guido, the libertarian, adding his bit to these debates). Yet I think I am slowly waking up. I could never really see the point of ID cards, other than providing another opportunity for a government IT cock-up. But the cumulative impact of all these new...

• Public sector rich list

  More out of interest than for any other reason (and certainly not in support of the Taxpayer's Alliance), I'd like to point you in the direction of the public sector rich list (in .pdf if you prefer). There's a remarkable amount of fun information included within the list, not least of which relates to the remarkable salaries that most top bbc executives earn, as well as the pretty decent salaries a number of Permanent Secretaries...

• Public management reform and accountability

  Following on from Stef's post, it just so happens I've recently written an essay on accountability, concentrating mainly on how executive agencies have affected the accountability of ministers. The essay is reproduced below and, though a bit formal, will hopefully be of interest (it is also not that good, but never mind). Essentially, I argue that management reform has not affected accountability, since ministers have never really been accountable. I don't really agree with Stef...

• White-huh?-all

  I've just finished reading this by ippr about the failures of Whitehall. Nothing that hasn't been said before by Hennessey and many others but I always find it shocking what an unthinking organisation the civil service is. There is much to be proud of in the civil service, including its public service ethic and brute intellectual capacity but the structural faliures are so severe, it's a surprise that we they manage to accomplish anything. Pretty...

• HIV and death

  It is perhaps not wise to post a reaction to a news item so quickly, but I'm going to do so anyway. The late night news on the bbc has just run an item on the government's sexual health campaign. The campaign is welcome, not least of all because it helps to ensure the issue of sexual health is a well-known one and that the issues associated with sexual health are better understood. One young...

• Red and white poppies

  As I sit and type this, I am wearing a red poppy. It didn't take much for me to buy it, but the reason for wearing it is in part gratitude but mostly as a symbol of respect. Respect, however, or at least my respect, cannot be held for people that eschew views such as these: The poppy is the symbol of the millions of people who died in the First World War. People wear...

• Palatable democracy

  Democracy is so much more palatable when the result is "right", isn't it? At least, that's the impression you get when comparing reaction to the 2004 US presidential election and the recent mid-terms. For example, from the former we have: How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb? and from the latter: Thank you, America. That shows remarkable arrogance, don't you think? (It hasn't passed me by that some quarters displayed a similar kind of arrogance...

• Death penalty

  I don't agree with the death penalty in the United States. Nor do I agree with it in China. Nor Egypt, Libya, India, Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, Japan etc. etc. I don't agree with the death penalty. Full stop. So, whilst I support the judgement offered on Saddam Hussein i.e. that he his guilty, I do not agree with, nor do I condone, his sentence. Update: this particular issue, of the death penalty, seems to be...

• Neo-err...

  From Richard Perle, arch neo-con: I think if I had been a delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?', I think now I would have probably said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists'. Funny how many non-delphics said this at the time and were pilliored by Mr...

• In time

  The judgement offered on Saddam Hussein today is welcome. Whether it is enough for the people of Iraq and beyond is not for me to say. A parliamentary debate into the conduct of war, reconstruction and democratisation is not what a parliamentary inquiry would set out to achieve. An inquiry would pass judgement as to whether that conduct was adequately performed. If it were the case that an inquiry looked to see what lessons can...

• Intelligent defenders

  I don't agree with Stef that another inquiry into Iraq would be indicative of a strong and functioning democracy. The other point of view — that an inquiry would be undemocratic — is put forcably by Oliver Kamm, and is the position with which I agree: I would see no case for a parliamentary inquiry into the reasons for our participating in it [the war in Iiraq]. Those reasons were rehearsed and voted on in...

• Intelligence offenders

  Excuse the lateness of this comment (far too much work/pub) but is it only me that is perplexed by the governments' reasoning behind not allowing a full parliamentary debate on Iraq? From the Guardian The prime minister's official spokesman said that it would undermine British troops and send a signal of weakness to militants So I assume that troops aren't currently being undermined by lack of equipment and having the national mood conveyed to them...

• The Country Set

  I met someone the other day who works for Demos. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any decent dirt on Bunting leaving. However my wonk contact did say that, firstly, everyone had the same reaction as me("so give me the dirt on that cow Bunting then") and also that she was trying to get Demos to focus on that cutting edge policy subject, the countryside....

• More lack of...

  Sorry Rich, but I am in no way placated by Blair's admission today that he will not use the parliament act to force through Lords reform. Hell, if there was ever a case for using the Parliament Act, it is for abolishing, no assasinating, the insane dribbling old knob jockeys in the Lords....

• Bullspeak

  I really can't be arsed commenting on the pathetic local government White Paper, although the Government saw fit to justify its lack of... lack of any fucking gumption, with 2 volumes and 200 pages of utter vacuous shit. What has really got my goat today is the way in which the "Working Class Blair" AKA Mr Johnstone, dealt with a significant change of policy on the faith schools issue. As part of the path of...

• Keep it local

  So tomorrow the Government will publish the latest local government White Paper and with it will pass yet another opportunity to reshape, radically or otherwise, the way in which we do politics in this country. Of all the promises made, or at least alluded to, in 1997 the prospect of a new kind of politics was the one that most attracted me to New Labour. There has been the half arsed reform of the House...

• Ludicrous

  I've highlighted before the peculiar habit of ukip to criticise the government for not abiding by eu law. It's peculiar because ukip, the neo-liberal, non-racist party seeking Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (according to its website), appears to be employing European Law to question British law. Well, today, they are at it again! Claims their new leader, Nigel Farage mep (in itself worthy of a "!"): The Home Office proposal to give ID cards...

• Demonstrable

  I think I hear my name. Bunting leaving Demos was quite fun. Four weeks or whatever it was. Thank god she will be going back to being a "writer" — aren't we all lucky? It will be interesting to hear the backstory and I get a feeling that she'll put her ersion of events forward quite quickly. Essentially for me it always seemed a bit strange having someone who was something in awe of religion,...

• They took a Bunt...

  ... but it didn't work. I read it on Guido yesterday but awaited confirmation. Alas, it is true: Madeleine Bunting has resigned as Director of Demos after, well, four weeks in the job. Says Demos: [I]t has emerged that her vision for Demos is incompatible with that of the trustees. Says everyone else: "We could have told you that." I'm sure, and hope, that Stef will have something to say about this....

• Israeli boycott of Palestinian students

  I recently mentioned the boycott of Israeli universities by academics in the uk and hinted that this boycott was indefensible. In much the same way, the boycott imposed by Israeli universities on Palestinian students "for security reasons" is also indefensible and one that I oppose without reservation. I fully concur with the letter written by Shalom Lappin to the Israeli Higher Education Minister, from which this quote is taken: To the extent that these reports...

• Out of the Cabinet

  No sooner did arbitrary constant argue that religious belief should not be used to make the case for public policy than Ruth Kelly and Tony Blair appear to be dividing the Cabinet on its policies towards the access to goods and services of gay people on the basis of their religious beliefs. Public policy and the business of governing should not be informed solely by an individual's religious belief. If Kelly and Blair can make...

• The Establishment

  Good to see that my predicition that the political blogosphere will eventually intertwine with the traditional westminster village has come true. Guido has applied to to join the lobby. Unfortunately its a win-win situation for him. If they decline, he can act all offended and liberterian. If he gets it, he can tell us all how establishment and compromised the journlists are...like him. Stef...

• Is there an echo in here?

  A few days ago, I resolved not to be so biased, as a member of the Labour party, in my coverage of the Conservative party and in particular its leader, David "Dave" Cameron. My reasoning was that it was not constructive to be dismissive of the Conservatives — there is a policy debate to be had and I should be confident enough in both the Labour party's and my ability to win this debate. I'm...

• Vacuous

  Last night, the bbc showed a program in which a likeable individual leads a political party with absolutely no policies whatsoever — but with a pretty good publicity machine behind them — and which organises itself to challenge for the privelege of becoming a political party of which others should be wary. It was a pretty vacuous exhibition of the state of politics in particular elements of the political spectrum and made for quite depressing...

• Image

  I've just had chance to watch in full Tony Blair's speech at the Labour party conference earlier this week. Two lines in particular jumped out at me, the first as follows: If we can't take this lot [i.e. the Conservatives] apart in the next few years, we shouldn't be in the business of politics at all. Over the next few years, you can be assured that arbitrary constant will be doing its bit. The second...

• "Dave" likes Spooks

  To fill the gap between all the coverage of Labour over the last few days and the upcoming Conservative party conference, David "Dave" Cameron has been putting himself about a bit. In doing so, he's showing himself to be a bit of an arse. Exhibit A: Staying with popular culture, Mr Cameron told XFM presenter Richard Bacon he was "a big fan" of TV spy thriller Spooks and Napoleonic wartime drama Sharpe. arbitrary constant is...

• How do you solve a problem like Tony's leaving?

  Tony Blair has given his final speech to the Labour conference as leader of the party, and it's fair to say that it was a heck of a speech. For many — myself included — it demonstrates what an excellent Labour leader he has been, as well as being one of the best Prime Ministers this country has ever had (arguably the best post-war pm, though that discussion is for another day). What yesterday's speech...

• Soul man

  We must have a soul. That's Gordon Brown — real name James Brown (no, honestly) — on what the Labour party must have beyond policies and programmes. I like Gordon Brown and think (and hope) he will be the next Prime Minister of the UK. I've got some thoughts on Stef's post concerning the leadership business of the last few weeks and will post those when there is some distance between the conference this week....

• BBC entertainment: spooked

  It was my misfortune to catch the last 10 minutes of the first episode of the new series of Spooks last night. I say "misfortune" because, once again, the bbc showed that its default setting where the present government is concerned, and in particular with reference to the war on terror (and the war in Iraq), is "biased". In private I have noted time and time again how comedy on BBC Radio 4 makes regular...

• Like I give a ...

  So I've finished reading the Demos pamphlet by Douglas Alexander regarding the role of political parties in today's Britain. Given the hard ride that the Power Inquiry got at the pamphlet launch, I was expecting great things. The pamphlet's narrow focus on the role of political parties means little or no attention is given to wider systemic problems. In fact, when questioned, Alexander insisted that the problem of disengagement is cultural not structural. The pamphlet...

• Ostriches and bad haircuts

  So, I attended the Demos event on Tuesday. I was seemingly in quite eclectic company and definitely have a good face for the web — eeirly similar to Mr Fawkes himself. I'll get to the substance of the speech and pamphlet in another post. However, what struck me most was the vehemence with which both Douglas Alexander and Jackie Ashley attacked the conclusion of the Power Inquiry. They characterised its conclusions as saying that politicians...

• I've got the power...

  Der di di di, der der der di di di — still class. I've been reading the report of the Power Inquiry in advance of attending an event tomorrow on the role of political parties in today's Britain. I was slightly surprised with how little they commented on political blogs or at least the democratic possibilities afforded by the Internet. Being pretty new to the political blogosphere, I decided to start with some blogs I...

• Calm down, calm down

  The pressure is starting to tell on all, although there is a history. A "Blairite Minister" told the BBC's Nick Robinson yesterday: It would be an absolute fucking disaster if Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and I will do everything in my power to fucking stop him. Putting aside the fact that anyone deluded enough to still call themselves a "Blairite Minister" now has fuck-all power, it seems to show exactly the same disregard for...

• Nation trashing

  Yesterday the international policy think tank (is the dictionary definition for a think tank "stating the bleedin' obvious with long words"?) the Senlis Council, reporting on the five years since the fall of the Taliban, stated that Poppy cultivation is a food survival strategy for millions of Afghans, and the United States' and the United Kingdom's poppy eradication policies are fuelling violence and insecurity. One wonders if the hearts and minds strategy, much trumpeted by...

• Common sense alert

  Hello, it is I, Stef. Keeping in tone with the usual arbitrary constant right-of-left-of-centre position, which, as you will find out, is highly unlike me, I'll kick off with a midly pro-Blair position on the leadership debate (sic). Finally someone has come out and said what everyone knows. David Miliband said this morning on the Today programme that The conventional wisdom is that the prime minister sees himself carrying on for about another 12 months....

• Fit for purpose

  Fit for purpose — that's Caroline Flint, the government minister today given the responsibility for, erm, fitness. That's joined-up government!...

• Allege this

  I wrote earlier this week that there was a nasty implication in much of the reporting of the terror plots in the UK over the last two weeks that suggested a terrorist plot doesn't and didn't exist. I wonder whether this will change anyone's minds? Police probing an alleged plot to bring down flights have found a suitcase containing items which could be used to construct a bomb... A police source told the BBC the...

• "Alleged"

  I had held back on posting the sentiments that follow about the terrorist threat to Britain's airports last week, because I wasn't sure if it was just me reading into things too much or whether what I had identified was actually true. However, with the publication of this article from Craig Murray in the Guardian, I can see that my inclination — insofar as it exists in the people I had identified and suspected it...

• You say it best when you say nothing at all

  I've had the misfortune to have enough time to read through David "Policy-Lite" Cameron's attempt to put a bit more meat on the Tory bone, with his launch of Built to Last (.pdf) — a 7-page clarification of what the Conservative party (now) stands for. Tom Freeman has done a very good job of assessing those new Tory "aims and values" in full, by noting some of the ingredients it uses as follows: The nudge-nudge-wink-wink-we're-still-Tories...

• Cowboys

  The bbc carries the story this morning of John Prescott's denying he called President George W. Bush a cowboy with his Stetson on. The implication here, of course, is that Prescott was making a negative remark about the President. But what short memories journalists have: just two weeks ago John Prescott was being lambasted by, erm, the press, for enjoying the hospitality of an American millionaire at his ranch. As a result of this, journalists...

• Follow through

  I'm currently driving to work every morning, which provides me with the opportunity to listen to the Today programme on Radio 4 (exhibit A, m'lord). This morning was a particularly fun edition of the programme, for none other than David "Policy-Lite" Cameron said — without a hint of irony or humour — that it's no good for the government to come up with all these policies: they have to "follow through" on them. There are...

• A matter of timing

  The threat from indiscriminate terrorist murderers pre-dates Britian's involvement in the war in Iraq. That was Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, on the Today programme yesterday morning, defending the government's foreign policy and its supposed link to the increased radicalisation of Muslim communities. On the question of Iraq, I don't think it's improved our national security, but I don't think that Iraq has had any impact one way or the other on Sunni-inspired terrorist operations......

• Radical syllogisms

  A syllogism is defined as a formal deductive argument made up of a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion which follows the two. For example: All men are mortal [the major premise] and Socrates is a man [minor premise]. Therefore Socrates is mortal [the conclusion]. Common mistakes can occur with syllogisms — mistakes that are created by introducing indefinite or arguable terms ("some", "should" etc.). For example: Some cats are black [major] and...

• Political Compass

  I was reminded recently of The Political Compass, which is essentially a useful tool for indicating where on the traditional economic and social scales you sit. Having taken the test, it did not surprise me to find out I was/am a left-libertarian, meaning I am roughly diametrically opposite to Tony Blair (the leader of the political party I support) and of roughly similar bent to the Dalai Lama. I'd like to add, though, that my...

• On compulsory turnout

  The institute for public policy research (ippr) recently released a paper entitled "A Citizen's Duty: voter inequality and the case for compulsory turnout" [1], which makes the case for compulsory turnout in the face of decreasing election turnout and voter inequality. Although the arguments made in the paper would be effective in increasing turnout, this post will argue that compulsory turnout (even with the chance to purposely abstain from voting) is an artificial measure that...

• Leadership difficulties

  I'm almost embarassed to mention it, so trifling are the trials and tribulations of the smaller parties of the UK's political scene. But whilst there are continuing rumblings of what Tony Blair might do once he leaves office, I thought it might be worth mentioning that both the Liberal Democrats and ukip are talking about their leaders too. The Lib Dems are merely realising that there's little difference in the effectiveness of an old aged...

• Quotation of the week

  Conventional military operations against states cannot remove the threat of further attacks by networks that no state controls. — John Gray (in False Dawn: the delusions of global capitalism)...

• MPs with musical taste

  By lots of mps naming their favourite album of all time to be Led Zepellin's II, politicians have shown themselves to be an astute lot, for II is an excellent album. Without wishing to read too much into the musical tastes of politicians as an indicator of either their ideology or personality (though that is a reasonable thing to do), three choices of favourite album stand out. First, George Galloway choosing Dylan's Blood On The...

• Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz

  There are three reasons why policy — that is, the course of action undertaken by a government or organisation to achieve a given aim — fails: bad policy, bad implementation and bad luck. In the case of the International Monetary Fund (imf) and its "rescue" programmes for the developing world, Stiglitz argues its continued failure to support developing countries as they face economic and financial crises, or make the transition from an authoritarian regime to...

• President in swearing shock

  No stranger to mangling his words, George W. Bush shocked the world yesterday by making a statement many thought was to the point and without obfuscation: The irony is, what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over. When asked why he thought it necessary to swear, Mr Bush probably would have replied: "Hey, I'm not the only one"....

• On Hugo Chavez

  On Saturday, I visited the Rise: London United festival, put on by the Mayor of London to celebrate London's diversity and oppose racism. Whilst there, I was partly surprised by the swell of favourable opinion for Hugo Chavez and his administration in Venezuala. Far from not (apparently) enjoying Ken Livingstone's political comments (scroll down to end of third paragraph) the crowd seemed especially enamoured with Chavez and were generally happy to cheer whenever they heard...

• "Beautiful values of sport"

  I would like to express all the respect that I have for a man who represents at the same time all the most beautiful values of sport, the greatest human qualities one can imagine, and who has honoured French sport and, simply, France.That's Jacques Chirac, somewhat bizarrely, on Zinedine Zidane. I'm not convinced the "most beautiful values of sport" or "greatest human qualities" include headbutting someone, which must mean that Chirac is the only person...

• Overstating their case

  On the subject of what is effectively the West Lothian Question, Channel 4's FactCheck has produced a useful briefing on the following ridiculous claim from Alan Duncan, the shadow Trade Secretary: We, the Conservatives, have a majority in England. We have MPs from Scotland essentially telling England what to do when they are doing the opposite in Scotland, have no control over what they are doing in their own constituencies in Scotland and are not...

• Thom Yorke: all messed up

  The boundary between rock stardom and political activism, to my mind, should be heavily guarded so that no one may move between the two. To watch Bono (of U2) and, to a lesser extent, Chris Martin (of Coldplay) implore people to support causes that they support — as multi-millionaire rockstars — has on occasion made me feel very uncomfortable and wont to use the word "hypocrite" easily. For a long time, Thom Yorke of Radiohead...

• Another inherited Tory policy: the West Lothian question

  The bbc wrote at the weekend that David "Dave" Cameron is planning to change the voting practises of Parliament so that Scottish mps would be banned from voting of matters relating only to England and that only English mps can vote on English legislation. This policy is in answer to the infamous "West Lothian Question" that has consistently reared its head where discussions of devolution are concerned. In this post, I will explore why such...

• No question of impropriety

  Apart from those times when it finds itself agreeing with Tony Blair, arbitrary constant rarely agrees with a Tory. However, in the case of Bob Neill, it is willing to make an exception. For Mr Neill, who was elected on Thursday as mp for Bromley and Chislehurst, had the following to say about the way the Liberal Democrats had conducted their by-election campaign for his seat:If you [i.e. the Liberal Democrats] sometimes wonder why it...

• Stick this in your pipe

  There were many that thought — and maintain — that the war in Iraq was about oil, which makes the following fact from June's issue of Prospect all the more interesting:Britain is the world's 15th biggest oil producer; Iraq the 16th.Surprising as it may seem, the uk produces an estimated 2.393m barrels of oil per day whereas Iraq produces 2.093m barrels per day. The United States, on the other hand, produces 7.61m barrels per day....

• Fcuk

  arbitrary constant does not condone the use of bad language in respectable society, but politics has never been respectable. Which is why Margaret Beckett's reaction to being told she was to be made the Foreign Secretary:Fuck. is highly commendable. As the Observer blog points out, however, Mrs Beckett isn't the only high-level politican to be caught using such language. John Reid, on being told he was to become Health Secretary, said:Fuck no, not health.His reaction...

• Offsetting credit where it is due

  Whereas David "Dave" Cameron hasn't got any identifiable policies to call his own, his predecessor is busy taking credit for a scheme that has been in existence for a great deal of time. Michael Howard, for it is he, wantsa scheme created under which British holidaymakers would pay a "tree tax" to compensate for the damage done to the environment by their flights abroad.Although the bbc claims that the "ingenious proposal" was dreamt up by...

• On Noam Chomsky

  I have long harboured an irrational loathing of Noam Chomsky, the linguist and political activist. For a long time, this was mainly based on his ridiculous book titles (Keeping the Rabble in Line; Secrets, Lies and Democracy; and most recently Failed State: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy) and the even more ridiculous nature of the following (and followers) these books engendered. This irrational loathing has over time become a rational abhorrence...

• Lib Dems — eh?

  In other news — for anything the Liberal Democrats does doesn't really count as proper news — the political party everyone loves to keep from any sort of power have proved why voters are keen to, erm, keep them from any sort of power:Sir Menzies Campbell has unveiled a radical shift in the Lib Dems' approach to tax with a 2p cut in the basic rate. The £20bn cost of the cut would be partially...

• On the Deputy Prime Minister

  Or rather, Jean-Jacques Rousseau on having deputies in charge:[I]t is difficult for a large state to be well governed, it is still more difficult for it to be well governed by a single man; and everyone knows what happens when a king rules through deputies.I dunno: Jack Straw probably wouldn't be that bad....

• Communist jokes

  Relatively recently, I reviewed Goodbye, Lenin! — a German film that looks at life in East Germany at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more widely, Communism. The film was noted for its light-hearted style and quirky bits of humour — indeed, it was very entertaining. An article in this past month’s Prospect magazine looks more closely at Communist humour, on the back of Ben Lewis's new film on the same...

• Right person, wrong subject no. 2: Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff

  This post is the second in an occasional series that celebrates experts or artists in a specific field using the fact of that expertise to make an inappropriate, uninformed or plainly ridiculous statement in a field on which they have no knowledge. The first expert was pop crooner Will Young. Today's is the normally majestic Andrew Flintoff — the wondrous current captain of the England cricket team but not-so-wondrous political commentator, as demonstrated by the...

• Local elections: polling day

  My sincere apologies for the silence on arbitrary constant over the last few days. I'd like to say that it has been in anticipation for today's local elections, but it wasn't really. Oliver Kamm recently highlighted the voting preferences of his blog as follows:[F]irst, tactical voting to defeat the combined racist vote of the BNP and Respect; secondly, tactical voting to defeat the Liberal Democrats; and thirdly, support for Labour.I'm fortunate that there are no...

• So long then, Brigadier

  Note: this is a guest post by Paul Canning Rich has mentioned the plans to re-organise Local Government a few times on this site and this is also something that I have an interest in. To the bemusement of those around me, I found myself ecstatically happy when I found out that the government plans to dispose of two-tier government in England. In three years time, district and borough councils will be no more. The...

• The Jevons paradox

  Note: this is a guest post by Paul Canning In my last entry, I shared with you some of my thoughts on car sharing and how it could be used to make more efficient use of private cars. With much in the news about the need to reduce greenhouse emissions, the government is pinning a big portion of its strategy on the idea that we can reduce energy demand by improving energy efficiency. Unfortunately, history...

• Worse than Hitler?

  Note: this is a guest post by Paul Canning Many thanks to Rich for his bravery in turning over the shop keys to myself and Paul whilst he suns himself in Egypt. Hopefully we can maintain his usual high standards. I thought that car sharing might be a fair topic to kick off with. There's been quite a lot in the UK press recently about car sharing and the first British car share lane to...

• Switching sides

  I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks so this will be my last post for a while. arbitrary constant will continue, however, with guest posts from my two good friends whom I shall now call "The Two Pauls" — Messrs Wright and Canning (and hey! I'm in good company having guest bloggers around here). Anyway, now for the serious stuff. Johann Hari, a well-known journalist in the UK and previous supporter of...

• UKIP hypocrisy: a reply

  I recently highlighted an article in a local newspaper in which UKIP — the neo-liberal, non-racist party seeking Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (according to its website) — was employing European Law to question British law! I wrote a letter to the Deputy Leader of UKIP and transport spokesman (for this was a question concerning transport), Mr Mike Nattrass, to see if he could explain the contradiction of UKIP's position on this matter, a...

• You do not have to say anything...

  Sir Ian Blair must have known he was really in trouble when Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, said that he was both angry and disappointed that the police chief had secretly taped a conversation between the two. In my experience, most people tended only to be disappointed when I'd done something wrong ("… and worst of all, you've let yourself down"), so for anger to be brought into the equation really highlights the police chief's...

• Too old to lead?

  Sir Menzies "Ming" Campbell has just been unveiled as the new leader of the Liberal Democrat party. Fair enough — I hope I'll be able to work well into my retirement when I'm older, too. Let us, for a second, consider this:I'm 63 years old. At the time of the next election in four or five years' time I'll be 67 or 68 and I believe that's simply too old to lead a party into...

• Unitary power

  I've linked to a lot of articles recently in the column to the right on the government's current thinking concerning Local Government. Briefly, the government is considering a "double devolution" of power, so-called because it involves giving more power to local authorities in the UK and then from the local authorities to the voluntary and community sector. The question is why I've given so much attention to an issue that many probably think isn't relevant...

• Cameron's green agenda

  Opportunism is a feature of opposition government. It's easy to say what you would do if you were in power if there's not much chance of you getting in. This is something that the Liberal Democrats have tried to perfect over the two elections in which Charles Kennedy was in charge. Unfortunately, they are so incompetent that they couldn't even manage to be opportunistic properly. David "Dave" Cameron, however, appears to be a bit better...

• Separation of state and religion

  What's your theme song, and why? The hymn 'Father, I place into your hands the things I cannot do', because I believe I need God to help guide me when making decisions. So answers Councillor Godfrey Allanson, a Conservative member of Scarborough Borough Council, in an interview for first magazine — the publication of the Local Government Association. I just wonder whether such sentiments should have been allowed to pass through the editorial board of...

• Day-time politics

  I was going to let this drop but it's much too much fun to do so. George Galloway once chastised Tony Blair for his "excruciating excursion" on the Richard and Judy show, in which the Prime Minister appeared on "You Say We Pay". As this week's Private Eye exquisitely points out, not only did Egregious George do the exact same thing whilst participating in Celebrity Big Brother but he highlighted his "defining moment" of that...

• Cumbernauld Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East

  The recent set of voting revolts in Parliament reminded me of a favourite politics website of mine: Revolts. It's a site set up by some political scientists in Nottingham that provides "[t]he definitive source for academic analysis of backbench behaviour in Britain." It's a bit geeky, but I like it. Catching up on some of the Revolts team's recent briefing papers I saw this excellent one, simply called "A Town", in which the authors assess...

• Freedom versus religious extremism

  The controversy concerning the publication of the Danish cartoons is rightly identified by Andrew Sullivan as a key illustration of a "core issue of our time": Islamists in Gaza threaten the lives of European civilians if their governments don't apologize for supporting freedom of the press. The courageous editor of France-Soir has been fired. It would be hard to illustrate the core issue of our time more vividly: freedom versus religious extremism. From the threat...

• Further comments on the religious hatred bill

  norm picks up on Polly Toynbee's thoughts on the religious hatred bill. The full text of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill can be found on the United Kingdom Parliament website. If you prefer, a direct link to a .pdf version of the Bill is here and to a .html version here....

• That Luvvie on freedom of speech

  Which Luvvie? Why, Rowan Atkinson:All religions deserve equal freedom of worship and practice but none deserve the right to freedom from criticism... It is absolutely right and reasonable that religions should be protected from threatening language, behaviour and written material but I support the amendment to retain the right to abuse and insult, because of the essentially irrational nature of religious beliefs. That is not to dismiss them: indeed, I'm a great believer that the...

• George's excuses

  Harry picks up on George Galloway trying to explain his meetings with mass murderer and rapist Uday Hussain:[Galloway] said: "I take the view that it was better to talk to the Iraqi leadership than go to war. I was surprised that people found it so contentious. I didn't think much of him when I met him, he's dead now, so I don't know why it's bothering everyone so much."He might not have thought much of...

• Optimism in Iraq

  There has been a lot of coverage of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum recently. An example just today is of Jack Straw's comments on pursuing conciliation with Iran at a WEF seminar. There is an annual WEF survey known as Voice of the People, which is carried out by Gallup on behalf of the WEF. The survey "interviews citizens all around the world and will help [people] to understand the opinion of...

• UKIP — taking a stand

  There's a great story in the Dartford Times today, the Dartford Times being the local newspaper if you happen to live in or around Dartford:Tolls at the Dartford River Crossing could be SCRAPPED if a bid to prove they are illegal is successful.Who might be trying to prove that they are illegal and by what mechanism?Members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) want to prove that charging heavy goods vehicles more during peak times is...

• Right person, wrong subject no.1: Will Young

  This is the first in an occasional series that will come to be known as Right person, wrong subject. This will be a celebration of experts or artists in a specific field using the fact of that expertise to make an inappropriate, uninformed or plainly ridiculous statement in a field on which they have no knowledge. First to appear in the series is Will Young – the pop idol of 2002 – and his 60-second...

• High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina

  Almost a week after losing his job, Charles Kennedy is probably wondering what to do next. Chat Show Charlie will not struggle to find something to fill up the time, though: he's popular on Have I Got News For You and not the sort to demonstrate a dereliction of his duties (he is, after all, still an MP). What of Kennedy’s predecessor, Paddy Ashdown? Of all things, he is the High Representative for Bosnia and...

• Galloway's charity connections

  It had escaped my notice that George Galloway is going to donate - as are the other celebrities - a percentage of the Big Brother voting profits to charity. The gorgeous one's chosen charity is Interpal - an organisation described by the US Treasury department in 2003 as a "Hamas-related charity" and which was designated by the US Treasury as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist". An article in the Telegraph helpfully explains:Hamas raises funds through...

• Placards at Galloway's possible eviction

  George Galloway - the "MP" for Bow & Bethnal Green - faces eviction from the house tonight. Of course, that's not the House of Commons where he should be, but the Celebrity Big Brother house where he is currently residing and thus neglecting his Parliamentary duties. (I should note that he hardly carries out his parliamentary duties when he's not in the Big Brother house anyway.) If you're not a Galloway fan, you may do...

• Post-democracy — LRB (7) vol. 26

  The London Review of Books has been outspoken in its opposition to the war in Iraq and has provided plenty of space between its covers for authors who share a similar opinion. The year is always summised by Alan Bennett, an opportunity the playwright has used on the last two occasions to vent his fury and disappointment at the present government's approach to Iraq. Noticeably, the LRB's contributors don't have any recommendations of their own...

• Liberal Democrats spouting off as per

  Delivered in the latest issue of the Liberal Democrats, one size fits all eNews mailshot comes this gem of information:British universities are facing financial meltdown.Prey, what is the source of this financial meltdown? Is it, perhaps, the result of a chronic lack of funding since the late 1970s which left universities to fend for themselves and hence find alternative ways to generate money in order to educate their students? Erm, no. According to Liberal Democrat...

• Wrong end of stick for the Greens

  From the Green Party's mailing list:VIOLENCE in Iraq is being driven by the plunder of Iraq’s economic resources and continued attempts to subject the country to the forces of economic globalisation, a British Euro-MP has warned.The resistance to ongoing occupation is fuelled by opposition to economic as well as political and military factors, according to veteran peace campaigner Caroline Lucas.Attacks on Iraqi and US security forces will continue as long as attempts to prise open...

• Ferret arse

  Concerning everyone's favourite politician, Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk. Not only has he seemingly named "his" party after the rear end of a furry animal, but it seems he is not even the leader of the party anyway:Having left UKIP after a very public falling-out when they refused to appoint him leader, the former daytime TV presenter yesterday launched a new party... [b]ut bizarrely, according to the Electoral Commission, he in fact holds no official office within...

• Sloganeering

  Using information provided in The Political Animal: An Anatomy by Jeremy Paxman (p.91), a suggestion that Labour's current General Election slogan:Britain is working. Don't let the Tories wreck it again.may actually be taken from the Conservative Party. During Harold MacMillan's premiership, the Tories released posters which advocated the sweet life with a family car and television prominently placed, with the caption reading:Life's better under the Conservatives. Don't let Labour ruin it.As to the possible success...

• Bob's your uncle

  The origin of this curious phrase is to be found in turn of the 20th century politics (taken from The Political Animal: An Anatomy by Jeremy Paxman (p.26):[O]ne-tenth of cabinet ministers between 1868 and 1955 were themselves the sons of ministers. The administration put together by Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil) after the 1900 General Election contained so many members of his family that it was known as the 'Hotel Cecil': the career of...

• Contribution to the fox-hunting debate

  Taken from The Political Animal: An Anatomy by Jeremy Paxman (p.72):Few could nowadays expect to get away with the reply William Anstruther-Gray gave to his election committee when asked ['will you live in your constituency']?. 'I will hunt over it,' he said.Still, it could have been Katie Price a.k.a. Jordan that could have been asked the question — she stood as an independent candidate in Manchester in the 2001 General Election (p.86) with the sloganFor...

• Respect the rumours

  A welcome visit home has allowed me to catch up on the politics of the Sunday Express, my parents' preferred paper of choice (bless them - I think they take it for Robert Kilroy-Silk's articles). The main highlight of the political coverage would have to be a note in the "Cross Bencher", as follows:RUMOUR has it that one of Britain's newest MPs, Lib Dem Parmjit Singh Gill, who overturned a 13,000 Labour majortiy to win...

• Tony Blair's holiday

  You can't help but feel sorry for Tony Blair. Well, some people can probably be everything but sorry for Tony Blair, but I can't help but feel sorry for Tony Blair. Not all of the time, you will understand, but just when the British public - or more the British press - aren't sure what they expect of him. Take the reaction to his not cutting short his Egyptian holiday. The Guardian has been worryingly...

• Ignorant voters don't deserve the vote

  Polly Toynbee, a writer that folks seem not to be able to make their mind up about, has written quite a stern defence for politicians in the face of voter’s ignorance and their disregard for the business of politics:[W]hen you go out there on the street to watch democracy in action, the nobility of "the people" is a lot less striking than the patience and tolerance of their servants, the politicians. It is salutary to...

• Voters

  An interesting article in the Guardian today talks of the legacy Tony Blair could leave behind if had the courage of his convictions concerning Europe. This quote stood out:There is a vast informal alliance of Blair-haters in the country, from tax-revolting Middle Englanders to the anti-war movement. A referendum on Europe has a high "come on then, punch me if you dare" component. And Tony, they dare.Actually, the tax-revolting middle-Englanders are the same people who...

• Consistency

  Only for the lack of an appropriate category do I include anything to do with the National Union of Students (NUS) in the politics category. To my mild surprise, however, I find myself defending the otherwise useless student representative organisation. The NUS supports the Association of University Teacher's strike action and as a result has seen students' unions across the country pledge to hold referendums on their membership of the NUS. Let us recall a...

• Does this benefit us?

  Matthew Parris's article on the Times website today (via Harry's place) reminds me why I simply do not identify with the Conservative ideology, despite the progression of history aligning the political spectrum in such a way that politics deals - for the main part - only with the details.What has happened to the Tory insistence on putting the national interest first? At the end of all discussion of the ethical dimension of foreign policy, the...