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Labour is wrong on housing benefit

04/11/2010, 09:00:20 AM

by Peter Watt

The proposed changes to housing benefit have certainly got people fired up. “Rightly so”, you may say. It certainly feeds our preferred narrative: a heartless government unfairly slashing that which benefits the most vulnerable. There is also no doubt that thousands of families will suffer from a loss in income and in some cases even be forced to move. The full scale and impact of the changes is unknown, but Crisis has powerfully set out the full range of the government proposals:

Local housing allowance (LHA) rates to be recalculated meaning 774,970 households will lose on average £468 per year;
25 to 35 year-olds to be moved down to a share room rate from a one bed flat rate affecting 88,000 people;
Cutting housing benefit by 10% after a year on job seekers’ allowance affecting 200,000 people;
Index linking of LHA affecting 939,220 households to the consumer prices index;
LHA caps for 21,060 households will ensure that no one-bedroom property receives more than £250 in LHA, rising to £400 for a four-bedroom property or larger;
Non-dependent deductions will be increased from2011;
Limiting working age housing benefit to reflect household size;
Limiting total benefit claim by household to £500.

A hard hitting and tough list; so it should be an open goal for Her Majesty’s loyal opposition. Same old Tories, supported by their new supplicant mates the Lib Dems, doing what Tories do best – screwing the poor. And we are certainly putting the boot in with gusto. Ed Milliband has led with it at PMQs and the Labour blogs have been full of technically correct and eloquent arguments that the government is wrong. It is so obviously unfair, the Liberals are split on the issue and even Mayor Boris is worried about the impact. We can’t fail to miss. (more…)

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CSR analysis: the government’s green boasts were vain and idle

03/11/2010, 03:00:12 PM

by ffinlo Costain

Announcements leading up to the comprehensive spending review (CSR) and the review itself were the first opportunity to really test the Tory-Lib Dem government’s sincerity about tackling climate change. As the dust settles we can assess the result.

Labour’s warm front scheme, which provided grants for homeowners to insulate their lofts and cavity walls, is to be killed off. Thousands have benefited from reduced insulation costs, with grants worth around £300 delivered at council level. The result was widespread energy savings. The government’s green deal will replace this scheme. Instead of grants, homeowners will be offered loans to buy goods and services from businesses like B&Q and Tesco to make their homes more energy efficient.

But if many of those living in fuel poverty failed to take the opportunity to insulate their houses when most of the cost was paid for, it seems unlikely they’ll chose to insulate when they have to fund the full cost themselves. The measure also fails to help those living in un-insulated short-term rented accommodation. (more…)

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Retired and extremely dangerous

03/11/2010, 11:00:16 AM

by Tom Watson

I WENT to see RED at the cinema the other night. It wasn’t, on this occasion, a fly on the wall documentary about our new leader, though it is only a matter of time before that satire is penned.

It was a rather impressive Hollywood action movie with a comic theme: old people can do stuff that we expect young good-looking heroes to be doing. So Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman beat the bad guys in the CIA to uncover the plot. RED turns out to be a comedy acronym for “retired and extremely dangerous”.

The film gave me comfort. Being a gnarled up, 43 year old twice-ex-minister takes some getting used to, after all. It is hard for the likes of Tom Harris and me to come to terms with having a leader who is younger than us. (more…)

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CSR analysis: cuts and confusion are the reality behind the Tories’ tough talk on defence

02/11/2010, 03:18:56 PM

by Andy Bagnall

The strategic defence and security review was cleverly timed. By publishing it the day before the comprehensive spending review, one day of bad headlines about defence cuts was quickly eclipsed by reports of the wider savagery being unleashed against our public services.

Casual observers might remember little more than the Tory-Lib Dem government’s perverse plans to build new aircraft carriers but retire the Harrier planes that fly from them, ten years before buying replacements. More interested analysts might even have been musing on the last time a Tory government decided to dispense with carrier strike capability, in 1981. (A year later, Argentina invaded the Falklands and the policy evaporated). But then we were deluged with the news of welfare cuts, arts cuts, housing cuts, any-kind-of-cut-you-can-think-of cuts. And the plane-less carriers disappeared from the horizon. (more…)

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Can it be right to have a transparent public sector while private companies grow rich off people’s personal information?

02/11/2010, 12:30:17 PM

by Ian Lucas

ONE of the focuses of civil liberties campaigners in recent years has been on the growth of information held about individuals by the state.

Yet while these concerns have grown, it is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the amounts of data held on individuals by private companies. The area is slowly coming under scrutiny – and is creating a difficult area for the government to regulate.

The pitfalls and problems were laid out in a recent debate in Westminster Hall – notable for several reasons, not least the number of Tory MPs, in a government pledged to cutting red tape, calling for fresh regulation.

In some ways, the shock at recent stories – such as Google’s capturing of personal data from the roadside as its cars compiled pictures for its street view application – is not surprising. One of the side effects of civil liberties campaigns focussing on the role of the state has been, as I said during the debate, that we have paid too little attention to the increase in the collection of information by private organisations.

Some of this information is given by a direct choice – the Facebook status update, the tweet about plans for the evening – even when those using such sites may not have considered all the implications of their actions.

But what happens where information is being gathered in other ways – such as the use of cookies to monitor people’s activities online and target products at them? The passing of internet activity logs by ISPs? Or even those events, such as the street view row, where personal information is taken without consent? These are diverse issues relating to personal; privacy and the real question here for any government is – how do you enforce any system you set up?

Much was made during the debate of a system of self-regulation. I have some concerns about this. Looking at the recent data security issues involving mobile phones and the News of the World, and the response of the press complaints commission, it is clear that some self-regulatory bodies can be less than robust in dealing with complaints. While we should recognise the strengths of self-regulation, such as the possibilities it poses for international agreement, we should also be aware of the dangers a weak system poses.

And I believe there is a wider problem than simply internet regulation which also needs consideration – which is the entire manner in which information about individuals is collected and used by third party organisations.

But how do we tackle this? First, by raising the profile of the issue with the general public. A greater amount of information would help people make an informed decision about their actions. People need to know much more about the scale of the information companies keep, and why it is being kept.

Second, we – in Parliament and in the country at large – need to have a very wide discussion about our next steps. I would be interested to hear people’s views on how we proceed. But I think we must recognise that private organisations should be scrutinised in exactly the same way and to the same extent as governmental organisations.

Can it be right to have a transparent public sector while private companies grow rich off people’s personal information?

Ian Lucas is Labour MP for Wrexham and a shadow business minister.

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Ed Miliband is not Sarah Palin

02/11/2010, 09:00:21 AM

by Dan Hodges

The tea party. Not a party as such, but a movement. A reaction. Forged in response to a seismic defeat.

They look mainly inward. Purists. Believers. Compromise is dangerous. It led to electoral catastrophe. Their politics is confident. Aggressive. Its practitioners alert to betrayal.

They eschew centralisation. They are well organised, yes. But their structures are pluralistic. They believe in grassroots ownership. Distributed leadership.

This creates problems. Indiscipline. Extremists have infiltrated the organisation. Mainstream politicians who do not fully embrace their ideology have been challenged. Members of the same party have, for reasons of personal expediency, turned on their own. The old political hierarchies are unwilling, or unable, to intervene.

They do not have opponents, but enemies, who must be destroyed. Their enemy is not just pursuing a different political agenda. He is laying waste to the country they love. They must rally others to its defence. (more…)

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The loony libertarians in the government are not confined to the Lib Dems

01/11/2010, 11:33:35 AM

By Michael Dugher

Today David Cameron will chair a meeting of the government’s emergency planning committee, Cobra, as calls grow for a full review of airport security, after a bomb was found this weekend on a US-bound cargo plane at East Midlands airport. All of a sudden, what Harold Macmillan called “events, dear boy, events”, have rather inconveniently intruded upon the government’s review of counter-terrorism laws, and the ultra-libertarian muddle that lay behind it.

The cargo bomb story has understandably dominated the news since last Friday, but its impact is likely to be more enduring. Norman Smith, the BBC Radio 4’s respected chief political correspondent, concludes that two things are now clear. First, that there will be no relaxation in existing passenger security measures – despite last week’s call from the chairman of British Airways, Martin Broughton, to scrap some “completely redundant” security checks and the attack on so-called ‘securocrats’ this morning from the CEO of Ryan Air, Michael Leary. Second, the possibility of any easing in the government’s anti-terror legislation looks increasingly remote, “regardless of the pressure from Liberal Democrats”. (more…)

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Cameron’s European spin too far

01/11/2010, 09:00:15 AM

by Denis MacShane

Having lived through years of European councils, I am not surprised that David Cameron, like his predecessors, is obsessed with the need of all EU leaders to spin their way to “victory” headlines for domestic consumption. Instead of a common news conference where EU leaders would have to declare in front of each other what they had done or decided, each national press corps meets with its national leader to be fed the line.

David Cameron is no different. He went into his own news conference after the EU council with clear objectives.

First, to underline that the European Parliament’s overblown ambition for a six per cent increase in the EU budget was trimmed back.

Second, to throw up as big a smoke-screen as possible about the need for an EU treaty change which, under Cameron’s previous pledges and rhetoric, would require a referendum. Every EU treaty alters the balance of power between national control and an enhanced role for the EU. If that were not the case, there would be no point writing new treaty language. (more…)

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The loan sharks are circling, and the government doesn’t care

30/10/2010, 10:30:25 AM

by Stella Creasy MP

Some facts are already depressingly familiar: the spending review will put half a million public sector workers out of a job; another half a million people in the private sector are expected to be fired as the economy slows. Measures which support family incomes – whether tax credits, child benefit or the child trust fund and the savings gateway – are being stripped away. It is the perfect storm that occurs when liberal and conservative dogma are combined: a government imposing draconian cuts with one hand and taking away mechanisms to help people stay afloat with the other.

Here’s a consequence of the budget less widely publicised: the (loan) sharks are now circling Britain’s poorest families, watching them struggle financially and sensing a business opportunity. Indeed, the dishonestly named Peter Crook, chief executive of Provident, is delighted with the turn in events. It is no coincidence that following the comprehensive spending review his company’s share price rocketed by 5%. Provident offers short-term credit with a typical APR of 272% to those for whom banks and credit cards are out of reach – mainly women, the low paid and those with poor credit histories. It is a company that makes money by locking people into cycles of debt, interest on debt, late payment charges and interest on late payment charges. (more…)

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Negative campaigning: it’s not very nice, but it works

29/10/2010, 03:07:46 PM

by Jessica Asato

Does negative campaigning work and how should Labour people feel about it in the ‘new generation’ era?

I asked myself this question last night while watching the Kentish Town council by-election result in London flash up on Twitter. Labour’s Jenny Headlam-Wells trashed the Lib Dems, who held all three seats in the ward just six months ago. Having spent a few hours coaxing people out of their warm homes to the polling station, I was of course delighted. There are few more satisfying activities than participating in a successful Labour election, particularly when the government is taking us back to the 80s. But something was niggling me.

During the election, the Liberal Democrats accused Labour of underhand tactics for distributing this leaflet. Printed in blue, without a Labour logo, it could be easily mistaken by a voter for Conservative literature. Richard Osley, North London political blogger extraordinaire, called it a “feast of negative campaigning”. My first reaction was that Labour would have failed in its political duty if it had not brought the Lib Dems’ broken promises on tuition fees, VAT, cuts and child benefit to the attention of Kentish Town residents. The fluffy community campaigners cannot hide from the fact they form a government presiding over public sector cuts three times the scale of Thatcher’s. (more…)