Posted in Constitution

Tory jobs claims take a hammering

The jobcentreThe Tories’ biggest economic claims (there are only two of them) are that they generated a recovery (after 18 months it’s already fading) and that they created a million private sector jobs. The latter claim is now under fire from all sides.

First, it has just been reported by the thinktank Centre for Cities that 11 of every 12 jobs created have been in southern England and only 1 in the rest of the country. This gap between the best and worst pedrforming towns and cities has now widened so far that it has created a 2-tier economy of dynamism and decline. Continue reading →

A Con-Lab coalition would be the nuclear option – mutually assured destruction

mushroom cloudWith the polls bouncing all over the place and only a few daft enough to make predictions about the general election, there’s a lot of coalition talk doing the rounds. The SNP and Greens – wisely – have ruled out any arrangement with the Conservatives. And Farage has ruled out a deal with Labour (thanks for that, Nige: it makes it that bit easier for us to paint your lot as a Tory home from home). Dave hasn’t said no to a kiss-in with UKIP, and Ed has said nothing at all. With a majority for either of the two main parties looking a big ask, the manoeuvrings between the major and the minor parties is set to be the stuff of soap operas. A dull and uninspired story line, yes, but the personal relationships between leading figures are about to be pored over like never before. Continue reading →

Tories buy election

10 Downing StreetDemocracy is a great system, except that those in power do their uttermost to subvert it, circumvent it, and twist it to their own ends, and quite often succeed. Take the current state of play between the parties in Britain. In March this year the Electoral Commission recommended there should be no increase in spending limits for candidates between now and the general election on 7 May. It also proposed that there should be only an increase in spending of £2.9m for the ‘short’ 3-week campaign leading up to the election. So what did the Tories do? Ignoring the official recommendations of the Electoral Commission, they pushed through increases in permitted spending twice those proposed by the Commission. This works hugely well for them because they have amassed an electoral war chest vastly greater than Labour’s, and will now be able to turn most of it to their own unilateral advantage. Continue reading →

Recall of MPs bill is a farce

cash envelopeZac Goldsmith MP deserves credit for sponsoring a bill to introduce a mechanism for the recall of MPs and to ensure that it was effective. He won a vote in the Commons in support of the principle of his bill, but the government ignored it, as they have done in about 20 instances in this Parliament since 2010 on the strongly disputed grounds that they are not bound by any vote on a matter which is not business introduced by the government.

The government didn’t like Goldsmith’s bill, and we now see why. The government’s own Recall of MPs bill which has just been unveiled after the Queen’s Speech yesterday is a complete stitch-up. It allows 10% of voters (roughly 8,000 per constituency) to trigger a by-election if an MP has been given a jail sentence (as over the expenses scandal) and has not been automatically expelled, or if Parliament agrees a recall petition is appropriate. Continue reading →

What is the difference between Tory and Labour policy on the deficit?

Osborne has made clear he intends to enforce further enormous cuts in public expenditure (£25bn for starters in the next Parliament) in order to achieve a budget surplus by 2018-9. Previously Labour had been committed by Ed Balls to match Tory spending plans only to 2015-6. But now in his speech to the Fabians on Saturday he has gone much further and committed the party to public expenditure cuts all the way to a budget surplus in 2019-20. What’s now the difference between Labour and Tory austerity plans except that Labour will supposedly take one more year to get there?

Apart from bandying around figures and timescales, the crucial question is how these further colossal cuts will be made since the deficit last year was still £111bn? If Osborne is expecting an upsurge in economic growth to pay for a significant proportion of this deficit through much increased tax receipts, he is skating on very thin ice when none of the conditions of solid, sustainable growth are yet there at all. As for Labour, Balls has left open the option of extra infrastructure investment and particularly a large additional house-building programme, but it still isn’t clear how much of the deficit he plans to clear through public investment and how much via similar spending cuts which match the Tories. Continue reading →