The Bewilderness

Help to buy your vote

I hate to find myself agreeing with the sentiments aired by Cable. However, his grasp of policy does place him on the same side as other cautious critics of the coalition's policies. Tinkering with access to credit could stimulate an artificial rise in property prices unreflective of actual demand in the economy. Not that Cable is averse to tinkering in his own way. 

Without interest rate policy, governments have to rely on other methods to pump up a boom in time for the election. It is an irony that Brown did abolish boom by fostering an eternal bust. Now Osborne has reinvented boom and bust: boomtime for your vote and bust a year later, or midterm as the scheme runs out in 2017.

Which wag will call this the 'Help to Buy Your Vote' scheme.

The Brown Bust, 2010 and counting

The money ran out in 2010. So ran a note by a departing Labour Minister: one finale epitaph on that irresponsible administration. Some will call this a lost decade; but better to rename this: Brown's Bust. 

The Guardian sets out a series of welfare changes that come into effect in the next two months. These changes represent a reduction in the amount of benefits received and reduce the scope by which entitlements can be rewarded. This will not reduce the welfare bill; only its rate of increase. The article is entitled by Patrick Wintour, their political editor, as the day that the Coalition changed Britain. 

Rather OTT, as the alternatives are far less palatable. Reduce benefits in Irish or Greek terms and embrace destitution. That day may still come. Have Labour and its slavish press forgotten that the money to pay for their client state must be raised abroad and, if no money is raised, no benefits can be paid.

Labour opened the sluicegates of debt. All else is incidental detail designed to deal with the consequences.   

Deborah Orr's neverendum story

Deborah Orr accuses the Prime Minister of "short-term populism" in his refence to the Scottish neverendum. A pithy line I rather liked and one which seems to have kicked off a debate. But then again Deborah Orr has never seen a Tory she didn't like. #

A wearisome tour of recent political history reveals some odd perspectives. All Prime Ministers go for wars as domestic policy is too distracting, and Libya's no fly zone is equated with the full scale invasion of Iraq. Blameron is damned but Brown is praised as the saviour, if only of banks.

Only when the global financial crisis struck did Brown step on to the international stage and become sure of himself (even if he didn't convince the electorate). Brown went so far, in what was surely a Freudian slip, as to declare that he had "saved the world". He hadn't. He'd just saved the Anglo-American banks.

With this bizarre retelling of recent events, I think that I shall take Orr's 'insights' on Prime Ministers, their motives and their actions, with the same rolled eyes as her recasting of electoral arithmetic giving the SNP a balance of power in Parliament (highly unlikely, that improbable Abyssinian emperor).

Labour: the economic harlots of Britain

The economy grew at 0.2% in the second quarter, a stagnant result and indicative of the huge debt burden spread across the public and private sector. Even worse, the size of the public sector is far vaster than 2005 following uncontrolled expenditure during the Brown administration. Whatever problems faced by Britain were culpably magnified by the members of that government.

Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a member of that government, an unrepentant member. There is an irony in his responses. He accuses the Chancellor of "breathtaking complacency" and being "in denial". Such accusations could have been and were flung at Gordon Brown, with cause. One could ask Balls whether this describes his own accountability for the previous government's actions. The selective choice of memories and facts do little to commend Labour as an alternative. But, at least, Balls is more coherent (if wrong) than his paymasters:

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said: "It's hurting, but it isn't working. Ministers told us that deep rapid cuts would get the economy back on course and leave the private sector room to grow. But the treatment has turned out to be worse than the disease, and with the government borrowing more last month than they did a year ago they are not even tackling the deficit effectively. The detail in the figures is even more worrying. There is no sign of an export-led recovery with productive industries falling by 1.4%. And the cuts are now beginning to bite as the government made no contribution to growth last quarter."

Barber attacks the government strategy on cuts, then acknowledges they have not begun, and eats his own cake with a blindside on not getting the deficit under control. Not a coherent narrative.  

The government should be criticised for its inaction, its failure to commence supply-side reforms and for continuing the burdensome taxes of its predecessors. Tax less, cut harder, deregulate more and free markets. It isn't rocket science. And ignore the harlots of Westminster, who still look back on their red boxes as a time of power without responsibility.

Darling's opt-in

Additional evidence that Labour could not be trusted with the public finances turns up from a freedom of information request. Despite the accusations of the frustrated, Osborne did not support the European Union's bail-out mechanism. A telephone note has surfaced where Darling was urged not to take any decision that could heavily impact the public finances.

So what did he do? He signed us up. The advice given by the civil service was legally correct, but Darling's contempt for consultation with a potential incoming government speaks volumes. Any decision undertaken by labour in those dying days appears to have placed party and spite above the needs of the country.

The Great Ham speaks

Years away from today, when the dust has settled and the final memoirs have all been published, Blair's cri de coeur will still be debated. The one-time Prime Minister has leaked various details from his book in a sledgehammer plea for sympathy. Hindsight is used as justification.

Yet, the line of revelations does not move a vote for pity. He will do penance for the Iraqi war (but not the others). He was so pressured by the job that he began to rely upon alcohol (but not to such an extent that he ever became alcoholic). He was unnerved and worried by Gordon Brown's suitability, so much so that he could only tell us in great detail after the fiasco.

All Blair's memoirs confirm is his lack of fitness for the role of leading this country. Any doubts on his lack of statesmanship and inability to rise above his own needs are confirmed by the publication on the day that the new leadership ballots are issued. Their votes must be overshadowed by his needs.

Perhaps he feels cheated: but will the words of the Great Ham divide the Labour party. Somehow, one suspects that Blair will have done himself a disservice, and ruined his credibility, putting petulant preening before party.

Who else but Blair could muster a sympathy vote for Brown?

Scapegoating Brown to avoid the mirror

Candidates for the post of Leader of the Opposition may have criticised the Brown premiership before now. Yet, it is only now that David Miliband has set out a series of criticisms in the Keir Hardie lecture: paternal authoritarianism, spin, losing the way, and other rituals of blame the loser.

The long campaign for leader has prevented an inquest on defeat. Moreover, no inquest will be set as the opposition to the Coalition settles on a lazy 'have your cake and eat it'. Oppose for the sake of opposing with an ostrich's obstinacy. Patricia Hodge on "Any Questions" summed up this arrogance tonight with a look at me moment, I am going to criticise the Labour governmen moment.

No inquest increases the power of blaming Brown in lieu of self-knowledge within the Labour movement. David Miliband has sought that path. His record in government leaves him open to the charge of hypocrisy. If Brown was so bad, why did you not challenge? Weren't you part of the authoritarian turn? If it is good to speak up now, then why not speak up then?

Miliband may view this attack on Gordon Brown as a form of catharsis. But if the record of one is up for attack, then so is the record of all members of that Cabinet.

Another six weeks of this shite

The first glimmerings of the budget are beginning to be reported in the newspapers. Like the freezing of parts of the state pension, Labour will proceed to raise tax without provoking headlines. Milton Friedman famously regretted the creation of PAYE tax systems and Labour have exploited that subtle perception of net that downgrades awareness of tax. But the erosion of disposable income in April, caused by a freezing of the tax bracket and a rise in national insurance contributions will be noticed.

Moreover, this will hit the poor. Fiscal drag will bring more into the tax system accompanied by the usual bleats of tax credits. None of this reached left-wing bastions, of course, where Darling's podcast is lauded for telling everyone what a good job they have done and here is some money for a Green Investment Bank.

But let's not mention the debt, the deficit or the recession. I shall expect the markets will demand more than "efficiency savings" or moves towards the top quartile in crap performance. It takes the biscuit when they say they will reduce marketing spend: not much need when the election is out of the way and your agitprop is no longer required.

Even at the last, they just cannot abandon deceit and shite promises that no-one believes.

Unite divides Labour with its Whelan and dealin'

Labour's performance appeared self-assured and sure-footed only days ago. The mines primed to detonate in their path had been swerved with some swagger and to the mounting incredulity of witnesses. Despite the gaps in their presentation, Mandelson and Campbell appeared to have presented Labour as the underdog, humanised Brown, erased a thirteen year record and turned the attention of the media on to Tory policies. However, this elaborate ruse required strong roots if it was to be sustained until election day. It also depended upon continued Tory disarray.

The problem is that Labour can only rely upon presentation as they have run out of time to take the initiative. They are at the mercy of the economic and social forces that they unleashed: an iron pincer tattooed with taxes and cuts. That pincer is closing and no longer can the presentation be sustained without one eye on the markets. Hence Liam Byrne rowing back on his Bush impression of 'no new taxes':

But on Tuesday Mr Byrne attempted to dramatically row back from that position, fearing he had tied the Chancellor's hands just days before the vital pre election Budget is delivered.

When he was asked by the BBC about whether he stood by his comments about ruling out a Vat rise, he said: “No, I mean Chancellors reserve the right to come back to tax matters at every budget.”

U-turns and disarray commit the same sin as the accusations they cast against their opponents. Now the union revenant, Unite, under Charlie Whelan is bringing further discord and division into the arena:

Privately, however, Downing Street acknowledges that the rows, which have erupted in recent weeks over the selection of Labour parliamentary candidates, are evidence of a battle for ascendancy within both the union and the party.

Cashcroft may have provided a soft libel, but Mandelson and Campbell must be hoping things do not get worse.

Long-gone battles replay at one last election

Unite has a divisive name. But, strange that such political operators forgot that one factor that could derail their political fundraising and support: their own members. It is a killer confluence: publicity of Labour's union links and a demonstrable effect upon the Prime Minister's behaviour. There is no evidence, yet, that this has effected poll ratings, but it will reinforce an older prejudice and panders to the belief that the election is an echo of the past: a replay of the final battles from the 1970s and 1980s, recast in the rubble of a new defeat.

Who would have thought that the legacy of Tony Blair would be the unity of the labour movement via the takeover of the political party by the unions. A recipe for flatlining, if thei public sector strongholds are broken.