Return to Strife

When people ask what good the last Labour Government (1997-2010) actually did, the list is embarassingly short. But at the very least one can reach for those unimpeachable few first term measures including the minimum wage and family tax credits.

These policies meant, for the first time, the key constituency of "hard-working families" could guarantee a full week's work would be worth £200. The effect was two-fold; to give people the mimimum standard of living and also to eradicate the "benefit trap" where it was only marginally better to work on low pay than be unemployed.

Not so says the Secretary of State, Iain Duncan Smith who claims tax credits themselves created, "a sorry story of dependency, wasted taxpayers' money and fraud." Smith paints a highly misleading picture of the purpose of the policy as if it were all the money was spent on dossers and couch potatoes. Anyone receiving the benefit will not recognise themsleves as part of the shirkers but the hard workers. And won't be voting Tory neither.

Smith's tirade to the Daily Telegraph appears driven by some bitter Victorian ideal that any financial help creates sloth in the working classes. His rhethoric also chimes with Chancellor Osborne's attempts at social division by implying anyone receiving any benefit is languising in bed with the curtains drawn while the rest of us are out there striving. The Conservatives have also sought to use the same means to justify slashing housing benefit when 90 percent of the recipients are in work simply struggling with exhorbitant rents.

When Tory Chairman, the aggravating Grant Shapps, was asked on Five Live yesterday what we could look forward to from the Coalition in 2013 he actually referred, with all bravery, to IDS's Universal Credit. It is Whitehall's worst kept secret that this rollout is an utter disaster in the making. The briefing by HM Treasury officials has already started. The policy doesn't add up, people can only apply online and the IT doesn't work. As one indicator of the chaos insider IDS's department, the relatively straightforward benefit cap of £26,000 per family has been delayed again, again, Sneaking the news out by written Parliamentary statement four days before Christmas is a sure sign of disharmony and diconnect between Ministers and officials.

So for all IDS's pernicious bluster, he make be due a great fall. He finishes his hateful article by claiming "Labour used spending on tax credits as an attempt to gain short-term popularity. They knew what they were doing – it was a calculated attempt to win votes."

If he is right on that point and is detemined to continue his philosophical opposition to help supporting milllions of already squeezed families then he will have single-handedly cost his party the next election.

Enough Already

You know when you are having a row with your partner or relative and you allow yourself to take the heat of the argument way beyond its origins? All you can then achieve is causing infinitely more aggravation and antipathy out of all proportion to the rights and wrongs of the dispute.

So it is with Andrew Mitchell's bitter confrontation with the Met Police about what was and wasn't said when he lost his temper with Protection Officers outside No.10 gates several weeks ago. It has escalated to the point where the former Secretary of State and short-lived Chief Whip has declared unilaterally and rather pompously, given his status as an ordinary MP, that he has "no confidence" in the head of the Met, Bernard Hogan-Howe.

If he wanted to get himself re-instated to frontbench politics then I would suggest picking a losing battle with the nation's top copper is not the way to go about it. Of course, the latest reports would suggest the 'evidence' around this case has been constructed to put Mitchell in a worse light than was originally merited. The PC who posed as a member of the public and appeared to corroborate the other officers' testimony was mischievous and perhaps motivated by swingeing cuts in police numbers and pension entitlements.

But Mitchell admits he f-worded these officers and so the public are never going to percieve a great injustice has been done. We are like neighbours witnessing a terrible row through a thin separating wall. We do not consider the merits, we just want the cacophony to stop.

Running to Stand Still

David Cameron's deeply embarrassing speech to CBI on Monday showed him to be more of a fawning amateur than a dignified PM.

He constantly brown-nosed the yawning audience of tailor made business suits and put on a pitiful display of frustrated urgency. He is no actor. He lacked confidence in his words and himself as he pretended he was just as ruddy sick as they were about all this blinking bureauracy.

He was so self-conscious of the impression he wanted to give (fast-moving, fast-talking) he looked more like a nervous new junior Minister out of his depth than an international statesman. His role was essentially to suck up to big business and to announce all the usual procedures to be followed when setting up new enterprises can go to hell, as long as new jobs are created.

He kept talking about finding a "spirit" (buccaneering, deal-making, hungry) when such a spirit, is a collective human creation which evolves spontaneously and cannot be expected to appear on demand. Even from such a powerful PM.

He also listed, with faux anger, the numerous barriers to progress which amounted to the minimum safeguards to prevent unfettered business from building roads through national parks and flattening communities to build even more supermarkets.

Dave derided consultations (asking the people affected), impact assessments (measuring what would happen to other businesses) and even audits (ensuring the money is spent correctly). "We don't need all this tick box stuff, " he fulminated. In other words, business interests should supercede the public interest.

He saved a special word for Judicial Reviews - that pesky process, administered by independent judges, which checks whether illegal decisions have been taken. It was Virgin's JR which revealed DoT's severe staff cuts had knobbled their ability to run a fair bidding process for West Coast Mainline.

"These are not how we became one of the most powerful, prosperous nations on earth." Well, no and I would suggest Victorian managerial style is not something we would all want to return to. In those good old days, corporate takeovers typically required sending platoons of troops on gunboats and availing ourselves of poorer nations' natural resources. That ship has sailed.

Cameron had already turned his urgency counter up to 11 but then went even higher by declaring Britain at war (economically) so it was completely justified to rip up the rule book just like we did when the Luftwaffe's planes were raging overhead.

All speechwriters should realise when they have to invoke Adolf Hitler then they have gone too far. PMs should also be more assured than raising panic when simply stronger leadership is required.

Knife at a Gunfight

When you are called to appear before a Congressional hearing or Parliamentary Committee what is the worst accusation you can face? That you were obstructive, wilfully ignorant? No, worse, by far, is to be deemed, “not serious”.


And so it was with Andrew Cecil, Public Policy Director for Amazon Europe when he was summoned before the Public Accounts Committee in Westminster to explain why his company pays next to no corporation tax in the UK.

His brief from his Amazonian masters was quite clear: maintain the line that the UK is simply one element of a European wide business based in Luxembourg. But his preparation clearly did not include identifying the ‘elephant traps’ which the committee, chaired by the formidable Margaret Hodge, may have sought to lure him into. Cecil clambered out of one and immediately fell into another in quite simply the most embarrassing, shambling performance I have ever seen in committee.

Business leaders often come ill-prepared to select committees and the assumption is that private industry only engages with Parliamentary scrutiny begrudgingly. It is as if the mere act of questioning their actions affords them a sense of superiority by dint of their role as “wealth creators” over these grubby public servants. The transparency of that business operation and its responsibility to pay its due to its ‘host’ nation were the points under examination here. How annoying then, for these pesky democratic representatives to be asking such damn impertinent questions.

In fact, the questions which were, on the face of it, the most straightforward seemed to the hardest for the hapless, bewildered Cecil to answer. Of the 9Bn Euro turnover in the European operations what was the sales volume for the UK? First, Cecil said he didn’t know then that it was not usual to disclose those confidential figures. He would have to check back. So who exactly was the holding company for Amazon Europe? No, didn’t know that. What, really? What’s your job title again? This incredible assertion was understandably followed by much spluttering and exclamations, “ridiculous...pathetic.”

Ms Hodge, was clearly losing her cool and when he asked to “check back” on the next six or seven questions she just flipped, “You come to us with absolutely no information…pretend ignorance…I don’t know what you take us for.” After that kind of lambasting, you don’t seek solace in strong drink: you find the closest bridge and throw yourself off.

What is so deeply dispiriting is that these tax arrangements similar to Google, Starbucks and most recently some UK water utilities were exposed by newspaper reports. The Government is always crowing about how it is cracking down on tax avoidance despite laying off thousands of tax inspectors. These are just weasel words: the truth is that officials inside Her Majesty’s Treasury know full well what level of tax these huge companies are paying yet there appears no urgency to seek to upset the status quo.

As if we needed reminding, the nation’s lower and middle classes are groaning under wage freezes, wholesale slashing of public services and support benefits. To see millionaires and multi-nationals blithely refuse to face the same rule book and neither are they compelled to do so, is a rank injustice.

Successive Governments in the UK and many other countries have allowed the creation of an effective “accountocracy” where the creation of favourable jurisdictions mean multinationals can rely on the benefits of a nation’s infrastructure and skills of its workforce and then suck up all the profits for its owners.

Besides calling the more “credible” senior executives from the tax haven of Luxembourg, the Public Accounts Committee must next call in the finance ministers and ask what they intend to do about it.

I fear the answer will be the familiar lament: all bluster and do bugger all.



Failure to Comunicate

Mitt Romney, for all his serial gaucheness, did not forget to be gracious in defeat.

But that may be one of the last moments of dignity for a while for the GOP who are a wasted party with high ambition but low prospect of gaining executive power.

The previous victory for President Obama prompted a tsunami of hysterical drivel from the right merely entrenching themselves in their own bitterness and winning over no independents.

For example, there was Glenn Beck calling Obama a racist and organising a huge march on Washington on the anniversary of Dr King's great speech. This time around there was Donald Trump calling for "revolution" against the "tyrany" when he couldn't do the math and thought Obama had lost the popular vote like Bush did in 2000.

But aside from the blind anger there was an explicit strategy. Minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (pictured), was honest enough to admit his sole aim was not to pass laws for the good of the country but to make Obama a "one term President." Guess that didn't go so well Mitch, eh.

The Republicans have a severe dependency on white, male, Christian, middle and upper income voters and it is a dwindling constituency. President Obama won hands down with women and latinos as well black, Asian, Jewish and gay voters. The latino caucus incapsulates the GOP's dilemma perfectly: a group who would be natural Republicans but who are turned away by demonising immigration policy such as the series of semi racist measures carried out by Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona and Congress's stonewall blocking of a pathway to citizenship for millions.

There is also a matter of party discipline which feels very laissez faire. Certainly any major party in Britain who had a candidate who would put the words "rape" and "legitimate" together would be sacked in minutes. But in Missouri Todd Akin actually stood as did Indiana's Richard Mourdock who thinks sexual violence is part of some divine plan. A bit of centralisation and muscle to control the party's image from these whack jobs would be one positive step forward for the Republicans.

But fundamantal reforms do not seem likely yet. The party has been rushing headlong to the right for over ten years and don't appear to have a rear view mirror on history. They are like the crash victims still stumbling silently from the car wreck.

Dispassionate Conservatism

If your doctor's response to your medical complaint was tell you to just "pull yourself together" you would be likely to lose trust in their prowess as a physician.
And so it is also with Prime Minister David Cameron whose message to Britain at this year's Conservative Party conference was, "sink or swim".
It conjours up an unedifying image of us all up to our necks in icy water, watching the good ship Great Britain slip beneath the waves. Note to Cameron's speech writers - remember a PM should show leadership.
This lack of a credible plan, to rescue prosperity from austerity, was a theme which ran through the week. The mantra was simply cut, cut, cut and lower the budget deficit. The Chancellor, George Osborne's dreadfully bleak and tedious speech did not actually include the key word 'growth'.
The British Conservative Party has essentially the same presentational problem as the Republican's: they favour a laissez faire economic approach with tax cuts restricted to the wealthy. The image of self-interest and privilege has solidified around their respective shoulders.
Cameron in opposition had followed President George W. Bush's example of promoting a 'Compassionate Conservatism'. It is the kind of balanced political ticket which appeals strongly to the electorate - promoting competitive business while ensuring no-one gets left behind.
But Dave's old liberal policies, such as environment protection and extending gay rights, are now a distant memory. In office, Cameron has been forced to throw plenty of red meat at the rabid end of is party to quell the voices of rebellion. Hence lower tax rates for the top earners, a second round of huge welfare cuts, a possible vote on leaving the EU and mass deportation of foreign students.
His drift to the right will not help him electorally: his party is already about 10-15 points behind Labour who are determined to move into the recently vacated centre ground.
Cameron is an affable fellow, no doubt, as he showed on his Letterman performance. But unlike Margaret Thatcher he appears less of a Prime Minuster over time.
His economic plan, such as it is, has proved so severe that tax revenues have plummeted and the deficit has actually risen. It all looks ultimately self-defeating. Cameron's Government is in danger of saving the disease and killing the patient.

Hoping for the Best, Time and Time Again

I can't be the only one to notice the strong parallels between the posts of Deputy Prime Minister of Britain and Vice President of the US.
For most of the time, they are both considered a political joke whose daily attempt to restore some credibility ends in inevitable futility. When it is convenient to the boss, they perform their dutiful role as the leader's human shield. They are also expected to be the one who greets the Presidents of Botswana and Fiji when they come to visit.
Nick Clegg, as leader of the Liberal Democrat party and DPM, will always be, at best, the head of the third force of British politics. Given his catastrophic leadership since the 2010 election, he actually risks making his party less popular than the minor one issue party for UK Independence.
Clegg's speech this week to the party's annual yawnathon/conference was a pitiful display of a politician trying to carve out his relevance to the voting public. He continually shouted "be in no doubt!" referring to several dubious assertions on education and the environment where his party have been utterly dominated by their Tory overlords. He tried to portray himself as the linch-pin of the Coalition Government when his party just make up the numbers in Parliament, constantly voting against their longstanding Liberal principles and simultaneously embracing electoral oblivion.
The Liberal Democrats' unholy political pact with Cameron's Conservatives hardly helped him on the day and in two and a half years, has decimated his standing in the country. He has to simultaneously appear independent from and supportive of an administration which has made deeply painful cuts for the poorest while dropping tax for the top earners by 5p in the pound.
The policy decision he made which has damaged him most severely was to make a swift 180 on hiking tuition fees for students immediately after getting three quarters of them to vote for him on that singular promise. Clegg's acute and apparently growing political naivety was exposed cruelly when he decided to make a Youtube apology which was immediately lampooned in song.
It is a very long time since I heard such 'brass neck' statements in a speech - it was simply the most sensational nonsense. Apparently, only his party, "could be trusted on the economy and to deliver a fairer society." On the economy, UK is in its third quarter of a double-dip recession and the last two years have seem the most regressive policies on the poor since 1920s. To gauge how hard-hearted the Government is, it was only last week they showed their soft side by not removing benefits for those under going radio and chemotherapy for cancer.
Clegg's crowd were thoroughly polite in the face of this relentless barage of empty rhetoric, even making laughing sounds at Clegg's dismal attempts at humour. Clegg knows, we all know, that his party faces political wipeout at the 2015 election. His own leadership is utterly doomed - the speech sounded like he was reading his own obituary. Even one of his colleagues, Lord Smith, described Clegg as, "a cork bobbing in the waves."
Overall it must be better to be Veep than DPM. At least Joe Biden will get to keep his moniker of 'Mr Vice President' to allow him the semblance of respect after his days in office. Clegg will be no more than a footnote in one chapter of political handbook of how the desire for power destroys the weak.